The Time Has Come

Hello Everyone.

Most of you know that this blog has been around for some time (roughly 3 years.) I learned so much about blogging through this endeavor and curated quite the loyal following. I’ll be forever grateful for that. This blog was here when my life was uncertain and as I found my path in life. It’s seen ups and downs, highs and lows.

Today I say goodbye.

I’m not leaving the blogging world. That’s not it at all. For well over a year I’ve been running an English/Education blog which you can find at englishnook.wordpress.com

I’m also planning on launching a new blog which you can find at projectsunshineblog.wordpress.com

But the time has come to say goodbye to this blog. It holds quite the jumble of thoughts, and I want my blogging endeavors to be more focused from here on out. I want to know why I’m running a blog and what I want to be saying.

This blog will always hold a special place in my heart, and I hope that you’ll consider coming with my on my new endeavors. But the time has come for me to write my last post here, and this is it.

Thank you for everything.

BrittanyM

The Planning Notebook

It’s no secret that I’ve been at this whole blogging thing for a while. There have been good months and bad months and a lot of learning.

A couple of things I’ve learned:

• I need to schedule posts in advance because sometimes life gets in the way.
• I need to have a plan for my posts or I go totally blank.

Having learned these things about myself and my blogging process, I now have a blog notebook. That sounds weird because a blog is, by definition, online. But I have a notebook where I gather ideas and brainstorm and plan out posts for the month.

It’s a slow process because it’s an evolution. I’m working on being better about blogging, and I’m working on planning it all out. At this point I could have walked away from the blog, but something keeps pulling me back. There is a part of my that loves this blog deeply and wants it to succeed. So I’m gonna stick with it.

BrittanyM

Two of My Favorite Things

Anyone who knows me knows that I like notebooks. A lot of people who know me know that I like quotes. And when these two things come together I am a very happy camper.

Mara-Mi makes amazing stationery. Typically I  buy it at Marshalls or at TJ Maxx because those are the only stores near me that sell them. I bought one of their notebooks once because I liked the quote on the cover. (It was a Steve Job’s quote about loving your job.) And then I could never find the notebooks again. I hadn’t bought more when I bought the first one because I wasn’t sure what I would use the notebook for and didn’t want to have too many laying around. Once I started using the notebook for my work journal I couldn’t believe I hadn’t bought more, and I wasn’t sure what to do now that I couldn’t find them.

And then on one of several recent shopping adventures, there were the notebooks. And they kept appearing at TJ Maxx and Marshalls again and again and again. And I kept buying them. (I now own somewhere between eight and ten.) In fact, the only reason I stopped buying them is because my mom asked me “please no more notebooks.”

I love these notebooks. I love the size. I love the covers. I love the paper. I love using them as my work journals. And someday, I’ll pick up some more.

BrittanyM

Creativity

I’ve always been a creative person. When I was little I loved coloring and drawing, doing arts and crafts, writing. Even now that I’ve reached “grown up” status, that hasn’t changed. Some things I’ve been more consistent with than others – writing and coloring for example – but I haven’t given up any of the creative things I loved when I was little.

Lately I’ve rediscovered how much I like to draw. I’m not necessarily creative enough to come up with my own ideas to draw. But if I find an image that I like I can recreate in in my sketchbook (if it’s simple enough). A long time ago I took oil painting lessons, and when we go on vacations to Disney we often go to the animation studios to draw the characters.

I’ve been having a lot of fun drawing, and I can’t wait to see where this adventure takes me. I’m hoping to share some of this adventure with you. I’ll keep you posted.

BrittanyM

New Focus

This year. I’ve determined, is my year to work on being my best self. That means a lot of different things to me. More exercise. Blogging more regularly. Doing what makes me happy. Having fewer regrets. Being of the best mindset that I can.

That’s what I want to talk about today. My brain is a super energetic place. My thoughts are always bouncing around. There are to do lists in my head. There are things I want to do on the blog and pieces of stories and books I want to read and a million other things. I don’t have a quiet mind. I have a loud noisy mind that’s always going. But sometimes one just needs some peace and quiet.

At school some of the teachers I work with use a mindful meditation app with their students. I was certainly skeptical when I first learned this, I’ve never been big on meditation. Remember, I have the noisy brain. But after I experienced using the app a couple of times I came to really love it. It helped me to quiet my brain and focus on being in the moment.

So I downloaded the app for myself (StopBreatheThink) for those of you who are wondering, and I’ve used it every day since February 1. Most of the time I use it right before I go to bed which is nice. It’s a good way to end my day, and it helps to quiet my brain at a time when it tends to get really noisy.

I don’t believe that meditation is for everyone, and the type of meditation that works for me might not work for you. If you haven’t tried meditation, try this app. It’s free. It’s been a great thing in my life. I’d love to hear what your experience with it is.

BrittanyM

Three Years Experience and an Update

It’s been a long long time since I posted anything; essentially February became a lost month. It’s also been almost three years since I started this blog. I never imagined how much evolving would happen in that time – of me, of the blog, and of everything in-between. When I started the blog I was very adrift in the world. I had been rejected from the school of education at UConn, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. The blog was a way of getting my voice into the world in case I decided to pursue writing as a career. Fast forward three years. I’m still here – in the field of education like I had originally planned – and the blog is still here, joined by another blog that focuses on English and teaching and books exclusively. I never imagined that I would have one blog, let alone two, or that I would be so passionate about them.

This blog has gone through several evolutions since I started it. The first summer I blogged about my internship and what I was doing and just little random happy things. Then I blogged about school and my journalism classes and grad school. And in the grad school stage I got lost in the muck and couldn’t find my way out. I didn’t know why I was continuing with the blog or what direction and purpose I wanted it to have.

Maybe for some people this wouldn’t be a big deal. But I found it increasingly difficult to blog when I had no direction. I didn’t know what I was writing about. I didn’t know what to write about. So February became a lost month.

I couldn’t allow that to continue, not when I knew deep down that I wanted to keep the blog alive and operating. So I brainstormed mood words (empowerment, encouragement, inspiration, kindness, love), and I brainstormed the types of things I wanted to be sharing (quotes, things I love, books, Gilmore Girls, etc.). I feel like there’s a plan and a vision now; I feel like I can successfully move forward with the blog without losing focus or direction. And that’s good, and I’m happy.

I’m really looking forward to this next chapter of the blog, and I hope all of you are too. I’m really excited to see where it takes me.

BrittanyM

Five Things

I wanted to do something different for this post. Normally I write about one thing that I really love, but I thought it would be fun to share five things that I really love as the last Friday post of the month.

1. Reading. It’s no secret that I love reading, and that I’m always looking for new books to read. Not everything is my cup of tea, but I am willing to give anything a fair try. If you have book recommendations, feel free to share them with me!
2. Coloring. I just wrote a post about coloring a couple of weeks ago. It’s something that I love to do, and I love to unwind by coloring after a long day. It’s a great way to calm my brain down at the end of the day and not worry about everything.
3. Weekend Adventures. Weekend adventures are one of my favorite things ever. I love going out with my family or my friends and going shopping or finding a new place to eat or just finding a fun place to be.
4. Writing. I love writing. Writing helps me shut my brain down. It lets me create entire worlds on paper. It lets me explore my thoughts and my ideas.
5. Blogging. This blog will be 3 years old in May. I haven’t missed a month since I started, and this month has been an especially good month for posting regularly. I love sitting down and deciding what I’m going to share with you and everything else that goes along with it.

BrittanyM

Journaling

One of my goals for this year was to get back to journaling every day. It’s a habit that I’ve had for a long time, but when I was student teaching it just felt like too much of a struggle, so I stopped writing every day. And then I realized that I’m the type of person who likes to write in their journal every day. It’s actually really important to me.

The other part of my journaling goal was to be more honest in my journaling. I was good about writing every day, but I wasn’t good at actually saying anything. I’d write something about my day, what I did, and that was it. I wasn’t talking about anything in depth. I wasn’t talking about the things that made my heart sing or the things that were stressing me out. And I knew that needed to stop. If I was going to write in my journal every day, I was really going to need to write.

I wasn’t sure how that would go in the beginning. I’ve always had a bad habit of self-censoring because a lot of the time I don’t want to deal with things. I don’t want to talk about it so I don’t, but that isn’t always the best choice. I really believe that if one is going to keep a journal they should be honest in it, really honest. So I resolved to do just that.

And it’s been going really well. I don’t think when I sit down to journal. I come up with a place to start and then I just write. I write about whatever comes into my head, until it makes sense to stop. It feels great to be so free in my journal and say whatever is on my mind.

Open journaling is really something I recommend.

BrittanyM

Coloring

It’s been a while since I’ve written about something fun, something I just really love doing. I’ve shared quotes, and I’ve written Sweet Sunday posts, but I haven’t just talked about something that I love.

And I love coloring.

Seriously. I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember, and I don’t plan on ever not loving it. I have an array of coloring books. I have simple ones and holiday ones and Disney ones – lost of Disney ones. I also have “grown up” coloring books, which just means that the pictures are more intricate and require more thought.

My favorite “grown up” coloring books are Johanna Basford’s. She has 3 out currently, and I own all of them. I love them. I love the detail that goes into them. I love the pictures. I love figuring out what colors go together and what colors will make the pictures come to life. Coloring in these books is a great way to unwind and decompress after a long day.

What about you? Are you someone who colors? What are you coloring? If you aren’t someone who colors, how do you unwind after a long day?

BrittanyM

Welcome to 2016

Hello World!

Yesterday I posted about goals and resolutions I have for 2016, and today 2016 is here. I have to admit that I’m off to a slow start with those goals. I didn’t meet my active minutes goal for the day. I haven’t really come close to beginning to meet any of my goals. I did however start a new book which means I’m working towards my goal of reading at least 3 books a month.

The point of this post isn’t to reflect on the barely there progress I’ve made on my goals, especially since the year has barely started. What I wanted to talk about was how people feel about New Year’s and goal setting at this time of year in general.

I am a firm believer in setting New Year’s goals. I am not always able to follow through on them. Sometimes my goals are too lofty. Sometimes I’m just unmotivated. This year I came up with a number of goals that I would like to follow through on, and the ones I thought I would struggle with more I tried to set under reasonable terms (healthy lunches vs healthy meals period, exercise 3 times a week instead of every day.)

So that’s me. Then yesterday I read a lot of HelloGiggles articles. This is nothing new. I generally read at least a couple a day. The ones I read yesterday talked about New Years and resolutions. They were interesting. They stuck with me. And if you aren’t reading HelloGiggles articles I highly recommend them. I learn things. I think about things. They make me smile. They are a bright spot in my daily internet usage.

The first article I read talked about Elizabeth Gilbert and her New Year’s ritual. She writes down everything she wants to leave behind in the old year and welcome into her life in the new year, and then she burns the paper and scatters the ashes in the nearest body of water.

I thought that this was a really interesting tradition and a great way to ring in the new year. I am all about bringing great things into the new year with me and leaving the old behind. I think everyone should have that mindset and implement it however they see best. (I’m klutzy so generally I don’t do things that involve fire. Maybe there can be a ceremonial shredding or sending things off into the world with balloons instead.)

The other article I read talked about why the author doesn’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. She compares it to going on a journey, and how you’re walking on a flat road all year. Then comes January 1 and you decide to tackle a giant hill. Only you aren’t prepared. She argues that it’s better to be on a gentle incline all the time, with smaller highs and lows, than to try to climb this big mountain.

This was a mindset that made a lot of sense to me. I am a firm believer in setting goals come January first, but I also set goals for August. Or November. Or for next week. I look for clean slates to set goals all the time, and I think everyone should. Goals can be set all the time, and people should embrace setting them whenever the time seems right. There is no right or wrong time to set goals, only what’s right for you.

What are your thoughts on resolutions and New Year’s? Let me know in the comments!

BrittanyM