building a habit

If you had asked me a month ago, the topic of working out could have brought me to tears. I knew I needed the exercise as a stress reliever, but my stressful schedule meant no time to work out. And the vicious cycle continued...

Until one day, my dear pal Carol Anne told me that she considers work outs to be appointments...with herself. Meaning when she's asked if she can stay late at work, she simply says, "I have an appointment." I took this revolutionary way of thinking and ran with it. Literally.

Once the time is penciled into my planner there is no turning back. After a recent trip to the doctor for a routine check up, I was reminded of my concerning cholesterol (thank you genetics!) so it's back to the work out grind for me. Building the time into my schedule so that I go to the gym out of habit is never easy at the start, but it's slowly starting to feel like the norm. And it helps when you have this kind of eye candy working out next to you:

I hope everyone is having victories in their new year's resolutions so far!

P.S. If anyone in the Athens area is looking for a great gym, I highly recommend checking out Tribe. Taylor works there so I might be biased, but overall the have a nice facility with helpful employees that care about their job.

pleasant purchases

For the past month I have been restraining from shopping for a few reasons. First, because I wanted to refocus my heart on being content in all circumstances and secondly, because Taylor and I were trying to be wise with our money.

By making the conscious decision that I was not going to buy anything new for a month I couldn't excuse away any purchases. Of course it wasn't easy walking through Target. Or when my friend Carol texted me about an amazing sale at a boutique downtown...needless to say it's been refreshing!

Surprisingly (and generously!), Taylor asked me if I would like to go on a little spree this past weekend. Naturally, I said YES!!! So here are a few things that found their way home with me:

A yellow dress for Jessica's wedding! Y'all I'm not gonna lie...I don't own a single piece of yellow clothing (besides a mustard sweater), so I was a little fearful as to how this would look on my transparent skin. With a decent spray tan I might look halfway decent.

I picked up these $20 rocker boots at Fab'rik and with a 20% off coupon they came out to $17. Candice had to coerce me a little, but you just can't beat that price tag even if Georgia won't stay chilly for long.

And I am probably light years late on this trend, but I finally bought an Emi-Jay hair tie. I like the fact that when it's not keeping my wild mane away from my face it can double time as a bracelet :)

Have you had any exciting bargain buys recently?

protecting your joy

I would like to kick off this week with a little mental inspiration. And to begin this tradition I thought we should talk about one of the biggest battles we face as women: comparing ourselves to others. Working in the event planning industry and saturating my brain with blogs and Pinterest has definitely led to some "I want her life!" moments.

In such a visually stimulated world it's easy to make simple assumptions based on what someone looks like and judging someone's life based on a blog post is probably not very accurate. Naturally, when I lose my sense of personal joy I go to a place of jealousy and bitterness. The truth is there is so much to be joyful for - life, health, family, friends and purpose (just to name a few). If I can cling to those truths this week I know I won't feel the need to compare myself to anything or anyone.

Where do you find your joy and how do you protect it?

"Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days."

Psalm 90:14

// Photo via Pinterest //

have a rockstar weekend

Hip hip hooray for the weekend! Tonight our church is hosting an all-night prayer as a way to break our 21 day fast (which means this time tomorrow I will be blasting music in the car while eating donuts, on my way to a shopping spree...I'll explain later). Taylor and I will probably take it easy this weekend and try to catch up on cleaning around the house or spending time with friends. I hope everyone stays warm this weekend!

A quote to push me through feelings of doubt or worry

Our house needs a map of North America

Natalia shares her girl crush. Mine is here :)

I love a rustic bench

Time to break out the cast iron skillet for this recipe

Emily knocks it out of the park with this neutral look

xoxo

// Photo via bippity boppity boo //