I know it’s been a minute. I swear I’ve started posts and just haven’t been able to finish them. I’m in a cocoon stage right now now. I am the caterpillar. I’m working on myself. I’ve been going to the gym, eating healthy, getting good sleep. This past year I really suffered from burnout. I’ve spent more than the last decade updating the world and the internet with my life and tbh, I’m tired. I need to find myself again.
I’m excited about the winter incubation to stay home, work on myself, and emerge in the spring a strong, beautiful butterfly. Looking into 2020, I want to start the year feeling refreshed.
2020 is going to be the year of ME.
Thank you Indigo for these cute snaps from their holiday preview today. There were so many nice things I’ll be ordering a few online (with Rakuten of course!). A couple of people asked about my hat this morning and it was a total STEAL from Amazon, buy it here.
In other news, I have a great post coming with my fav books I’ve read this year (there are a lot!). AND another post with the new Roomba we got for the office, it CLEANS THE FLOOR.
Hope your week is off to a great start. Sending love across the internet to your screen, from mine.
Last weekend Cory and I went on a BFF adventure to take photos at some walls we’d had our eyes on. This might seem weird to you but if you live that ‘blog life’ sometimes you need to shoot stuff and create content.
Our main goal was to this up this rainbow wall on Orfus road so we packed a bunch of clothes and set out on a nice sunny day. When we arrived, much to our surprise, there was a HUGE pink wall painted with a massive red heard. Very on-brand for me! It was perfect. I highly recommend it for fun photos, kids, family, or capturing content.
As we were leaving, I noticed the wall was one side of the YM Inc. building and I was flooded with flashbacks. My first job after university was at YM Inc., I was Assistant to the Purchasing Director. One winter when my boss went to Florida for a month, I decided to start a blog. It was on blogger, I could write text using a WYSIWYG Editor, upload photos, and share links. I posted mostly CGI photos I drew on the computer, told stories, posted really short thoughts and ideas. The first few years hardly anyone read it. There was no Twitter, Instagram wasn’t invented, YouTube only just launched.
At that time I had no idea where I was going with this blog thing but I liked it. It made me feel relaxed to write things down and document my life.
Almost 15 years later, I still feel this way about writing my blog.
I found something I loved and I did it every day. Eventually, it became the ‘thing’ that I did and it opened up career opportunities and so many more things I could only dream of at the time. Don’t give up.
If you’ve found something you love to do, stick at it. Go confidently in that direction. Do it every single day. With some consistency, confidence, and determination, you can make anything your reality.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, a woman is diagnosed EVERY 15 SECONDS. Multiple women will be diagnosed by the time you read this post.
I was asked to be part of Estee Lauder’s 2019 Breast CancerCampaign with a goal to raise $9M for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. By joining the campaign, I’m here to raise awareness and money to help fund more research so we can *hopefully* beat breast cancer. It breaks my heart hearing stories about how many people die from it and also talking with friends & family about our own personal connections to breast cancer. It can affect anyone.
This year, an estimated 268,600 women in the United States will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and 62,930 women will be diagnosed with in situ breast cancer. An estimated 2,670 men in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer.
25 years ago, Evelyn H. Lauder created the Cancer Campaign and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (#BCRF) and since have raised millions to find research, education, and services. All Estee Lauder companies participate in donating the BCRF and you can shop their pink ribbon products here.
It really is something that can never be done by any one person; it has to be done by a group.
You only live each day once, tomorrow is a new day. How are you spending your time?
A few months ago I was feeling really burnt out and over everything. I had no energy to go out, write, do anything creative. May was a really stressful month and by the time June/July rolled around I was stressed TF out. All I wanted to do was stay home, watch Netflix, my room was a mess, I’d piled up boxes and paper that needed to be processed. I didn’t have the energy to do it.
So I rested. I took time to chill. I’m grateful for the privilege to mostly work from home, to work on myself, and to breathe. I started spending a bit less time on asocial, taking breaks. I began to really love seeing the + beside my name on IG Stories, showing I hadn’t posted anything in 24 hours. That felt like a win with me. I’ve been updating the internet for 15+ years about my life and what I’m doing, burnout is real and it’s ok to take a break. I thought about what I wanted (even though I’m constantly trying to figure out exactly what that looks like!) and I focussed on it.
Made some other changes too. I got serious about drinking less and explored being sober curious. I even spoke at an event where I shared some stuff I’ve never talked about. I was hesitant at first but I figure, if I can make this change in my life, it might be helpful to someone else going through the same things. It was the first TIFF in 10 years where I didn’t get drunk, I didn’t even drink at parties. And y’ know what? IT WAS AWESOME AND I STILL HAD FUN.
I started intermittent fasting and stopped the late-night snacks. I’d been stress eating at all hours but the night munchies before bed were making me slow and tired during the day. I started going to bed earlier. Drinking more water, eating more plant-based meals. I cook on weekends. It’s been a gradual life change vs a diet or restrictions. I want to live happier and healthier. Today I fit into a pair of Ted Baker pants that have been in my closet for years, they’re a size 2!
So, here I am three months later and I can say, I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER! Over the next few months, I’m planning to up my exercise to combat the winter SAD. Sean has been running every day and it’s really inspiring.
I guess my message is you can make a change any single day, you don’t have to wait for a new year, new month, new moon. September always feels like a new start for me. I like to make a plan to work on over the winter so I have things to look forward to in the spring. Change is good, baby.
On a side note, I ordered these glasses from smartbuyglasses.ca and was telling one of my BFFs that I got them. I’d been looking at them for a while but she didn’t know that. She had recently just purchased a pair of Chloe glasses in Germany (that I hadn’t seen) and guess what, they were the SAME ONES! Ha! She’s the kind of friend where we are always doing the same things without knowing. Little things like this give me so much joy. 😁
I shot this in an alley with my tripod (aka Julia), notice how one photo doesn’t even have a doorknob or leaves. Wtf? I feel into the damn IG trap! I edited my photo for Instagram to take out imperfections but like why?
Can you spot all the differences???
It’s easy to get looped into thinking you need to edit to make things seem more perfect for the gram but it’s really not necessary. What is perfect anyways?Perfect is honest, authentic, being true to yourself.
I love posting Stories bc they’re real and raw. Sharing that side of my life and being real has been my MO for the past 15 years of my internet life and it’s worked out a-ok.
Don’t feel you need to put internet gloss over those human parts of your life, people want to see THE REAL YOU.
Today we’re going to the cottage for 5 days. I can’t wait to make a fire, read my book, make elaborate meals, and sous vide some weed to make cannabis oil. 😁✌🏼🍃 There’s also a full moon on Sunday! 💎🌚 See here for some rituals I like to do.
