Small Life Update

Hello everyone,

This week I have noticed how much of my time seems to be slipping away from me as of late. My ability to reference how much time has passed, how long ago I did something, and what all I did (say yesterday, for example) is not the greatest, so I may not be as accurate as I would like to be.

Last weekend, I drove across Texas to my hometown of Houston, which was a rather long and boring drive. My husband was supposed to go with me since he had a long weekend, but they decided to put him on call so he couldn't leave the area. The drive would have gone way faster had he been able to go, but that's always the case with road trips. Thankfully, I was able to see not only my family, but his family (even if only for a little bit). I'm so grateful to have a good relationship with my in-laws since apparently that's one of the top issues that arises within marriages. Maybe that's a good blog post topic for another day.

Back to the story: My main reason for visiting my in-laws was to pick up the newest member of our family, Kruella, which I decided to shorten to Ella for obvious reasons.

Now that I have had her for a week now (Mike has been out in the field doing army stuff), I have a better feel for her than I did at my in-laws house. She also did really well on the drive and spent most of the time staring out of the window. The getting out of the car for gas and bathroom breaks was a completely different story.

We will definitely have to work on her barking at new people, other dogs, walking on a leash without pulling the whole time, and listening (this she has gotten a whole lot better at thankfully). Overall I'm glad to have her, even if she can't bear to be apart from anyone for very long.

The Love of My Life

While I have not been taking photos for the 2017 Tiny Moments February challenge, I do try to take photos of moments like these that make me smile or laugh. I love running across old photos and remembering the moment. I did say I wouldn't post this photo on Facebook, I never said I wouldn't write a mushy blog post about him on my blog that no one reads :) Look at how cute they are all snuggled up and fast asleep. 

Today is Valentines Day and even though it's a made up holiday to get lovers to appreciate each other and unnecessarily spend money on flowers and chocolate, it's nice to have an excuse to celebrate. He's not really one to buy me flowers, but that makes it more meaningful to me when he does. Its rather funny that I caught wind of the surprise flower delivery via an email from UPS though. I never thought I was a big flower person, but in reality I love getting a bouquet of flowers, especially stargazer lilies, sunflowers, and roses. 

Neither Mike nor I are perfect, but I'm glad we have made our relationship work. It definitely helps that we have similar values, have overlapping senses of humor, can compromise, and both make a consistent effort to tell and show the other person that they are loved and appreciated. We fight just like everyone else, but we learn about each other from them. Mike has added so much to my life and I'm so grateful that I can be myself around him. There are moments where we will leave from being around other couples who do things differently, our eyes will meet, and we will sigh or crack up. Never forget to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you, show them that you appreciate them, and do stuff together. Meaningful relationships, romantic or not, are so important. 

Enjoying Your Morning Coffee

When I was in high school and college, I envied my mom for having the time to sit and enjoy her morning coffee. She would set up the coffee pot the night before so that all she would have to do is push the one and only on-button the following morning. Once I had convinced her that cats are a necessary part of life, she added feeding them some canned food to this morning routine. Mom would then take her mug to the couch where she would turn on Good Morning America to see what is going on in the world. As someone who could never get myself up early enough to do anything but the basics, I could not comprehend how she managed to get up around 6AM every single day. In middle school and high school, when I was a bit self-conscious about my wavy hair because silky, straight flat ironed hair was the trend, I would force myself to get up super early (AKA 6:00AM) and straighten my hair. Once I was in high school, that concern eventually fell away. There wasn’t a good enough reason to waste my precious sleeping time to have straight hair like every one else. I actually got compliments on my natural hair and found out that a beautiful, curly-haired college friend of mine had a very similar experience. As I matured and got older, I still could not find the time to actually use a coffee mug for its intended purpose unless I made hot tea. In case you are gripping your seats in curiosity, it was usually chai tea. Maybe it’s because one of my majors was East Asian Studies, but I started drinking a whole heck of a lot of tea on a daily basis. I actually figured out that people started associating my huge Tervis cup with sunflowers on it with me when someone would call and ask if they had found my cup after I had left it somewhere on campus.

            It was not until I started writing and blogging for the fun of it that I ever got up early. It definitely helped that my husband needed a ride to work at 5:30AM since our roommate totaled his car, that we eventually adopted a dog who needs to pee at 8:00AM sharp, and that I had fallen off the morning yoga in my bedroom bandwagon and taken to watching TED Talks to start the day instead. After taking Mike, my husband, to work that morning I would come home and sit down at our off kilter, round kitchen table and open up my laptop. At first when this habit continued into the weekend, I lied to Mike about what I was doing and said I was doing the online class I’m definitely still supposed to be working on. As I write the first draft of this section, I still have yet to tell him that I started a blog. The secrecy seems to make it kind of fun for the time being. Creative writing was never something that I had much of an opportunity in school to cultivate since I avoided English classes if I could, but I also felt like I had nothing to really contribute to the written world and so I avoided it into college as well. The funny thing is that as I read more blogs and listened to TED Talks and YouTubers, that self-doubt was essentially erased. If they could do it, then I could too. One quote that resonated with me was to “write what you want to read.” If I re-find this quote, I will make note of it and give credit where credit is due. I really would like to thank this person for inspiring me. This quote was so simple that it hit me like a ton of bricks. It really made me sit and think about whether or not I could actually be a writer like some of the TED Talk presenters that I had really enjoyed, like Elizabeth Gilbert, who is most famous for writing Eat, Pray, Love, Committed, and Big Magic. Both of these books are currently on my To Read List, but hearing her TED Talk made me want to read her work more so than I had before when I did not have a face and voice to put with the name.

            Whether or not I’m qualified as a life coach or some guru, I want to keep writing about my life, the things I have learned, even the smallest experiences that made a difference to me, and my thoughts on something. I don’t care if only my parents read this. At this moment in my life, I want to write for me and for the sake of writing. I have always loved the process of creation and that is why I identify as an artist. I’m an artist with no true medium. In my opinion, half of the fun is trying a medium that is new to me to see what I can create. Developing that process further is another awesome step on that creative journey. I have to say that the time I spend in front of my laptop at my kitchen table with a hot mug of coffee is precious to me. I wish I would have found the value in it earlier in my life, but maybe if I had then I would not appreciate it as much as I do in the present. Enjoying my morning coffee is akin to taking the time to do my skin care routine and enjoying a relaxing face mask for a whole uninterrupted fifteen minutes. We should all be doing the little things that makes us smile, makes us feel relaxed, and makes us feel inspired.

Every day is a fresh start and a great day to have a great day.

If You Could Open Any Business, What Would It Be?

Good morning,

A friend asked me this very question the other day and it made me think. First, what sparked this question in the first place. Second, my knee-jerk thought was maybe a spa with a salon inside. Third, is my idea worth while? My thoughts raced around my head, but knowing my friend I know he was just asking out of curiosity and would explain his idea once I came up with my own. Going into real estate would be cool too though.

I Wish Someone Would Make This

Good morning!

While scrolling through Facebook, I came across a short clip of someone filming the view off the side of their boat while sailing through the neon blue waters of Greece. My knee-jerk reaction was to smile and my eyes watered with u she'd happy tears. To me, Greece is the land of my ancestors and a happy memory of going on a cruise with my grandma and aunt's family. Here's a photo I took off the boat from our trip in 2013.

Grandma's grandfather, who we refer to as Papu, is the closest known relative to have made the journey across the Atlantic to make a better life for himself. Papu's story is our emigration story. Grandma is the most Greek looking of all of us, mainly since her children inherited her previous husband's fair skin which we attribute to his Scottish ancestry. She has the most beautiful olive skin tone and I used to envy her as a kid before I embraced my own fair skin.

My emotional reaction to a simple video sparked a happy memory of traveling to the land of our family with one of the he only family members to have real memories of Papu. She used to go visit her grandparents who lived across the street to play checkers with Papu. Going on this trip with my grandma was such a life changing blessing and I feel as though we grew closer because of our adventures together.

I had an idea. What if there was a book, movie, or documentary where they took Americans from the United States, let's call them "Usians" as in "you-zee-ans" as in what one of my favorite professors would call Americans, and let's take them on a fantastic trip to the country that their family left behind. I may justill put this concept in my book idea that I've been churning on for the last couple weeks. I would not be unhappy if this became a documentary though.

Have am awesome day!

Get Off Your Butt and Go Walk the Dog

I can't be the only one that struggles to motivate myself to do some things, regardless if I enjoy them or not. We are supposed to eat right, exercise, take time for yourself, and such, but how often do we think about our own role in the lives or others? That is something I know I need to work on doing more often.

Our new dog Dexter has been with us for about a week now and I'm still not quite used to it. As a cat person, it all seems like new territory to me. On my days off all he wants to do is hang out right next to me or will climb onto my lap and ask for attention. Lately I have been pushing him off a lot, mostly because he keeps sneezing on me and my laptop and because I'm doing something else at that moment. Sometimes he reminds me how I'm not quite ready for kids, not that I don't want them in a couple years, because of the massive time commitment and complete lifestyle shift.

My husband told me that dogs have a weird perception of time. As I sat at my kitchen table typing on my computer (hypocritically)and not spending time with Dexter, I had an epiphany that he probably has no idea how short or long this period of time that I'm not focusing on him is. I feel silly for sitting here and pondering my life, when we could be outside on a walk doing the same thing together. I want me-time and that takes away from us-time. Striking a balance is always a challenge. I guess it's time to get off my butt and give Dexter the love and attention he deserves.

1 Hour Later...

We just got back from a walk around the neighborhood. He does surprisingly well on a leash and has only gotten better each time we go. I think I have walked him the most, my husband has walked him once or twice, and we have gone together once. Hopefully the three of us can go more often.


I didn't think about life as much as I thought I would and instead focused completely on enjoying the moment and nice weather with Dexter. It was really calming to let go of everything for a bit.

From my fur-babies and I,
Have an awesome day!

Tiny Pleasures Day#2 - A Cup of Coffee

Good morning!

I'm so excited that there are only six more days until my twenty third birthday! My husband and I will probably go out to dinner, but we haven't decided where we will go. I'm grateful that we have enough financial stability to do so. 

While I haven't been doing my morning yoga as of late, I have been watching TED talks on YouTube and drinking my morning coffee. They are always interesting topics and I love the ones that make you think or force you to look at something else or yourself from another perspective.

On a related note, I wish Folgers would go ahead and finally make a bulk size of their Hazelnut flavored coffee grounds. It's so yummy. My favorite thing to add is a dash of cinnamon with the creamer and sugar before pouring in the actual coffee.

I hope your day went well and that you were able to drink your whole cup of coffee before it got cold.

Tiny Pleasures Day#1 - Your Morning View

RowdyKittens had a post from 2013 talking about how she started a photography project called my Morning View as a way to get out of the house in the mornings and take photo walks. Now in 2017, its a full book which you purchase online here. For Day #1 of her February 2017 Tiny Pleasures photo challenge, the theme of the day is "My Morning View."

If you are interested in joining, just remember that this challenge is an invitation to practice gratitude and self-care by savoring tiny pleasures each and every day.

My morning consisted of coffee, TEDx Talks, and spending time with my fur-babies. Luckily, I go into work a bit later than usual today so I really get to just enjoy it.

Have an awesome day!