Tag Archives: changes

life, lifestyle, Motherhood, New Year

Hello 2025

It is that time of year again where I write my blog post about all of my New Year’s goals and acknowledge that it has been forever since I have been on here and blah blah blah.

Well, it is a new year, it has been a long time since I have written, and it is okay. I am actually proud that last year I wrote six blogs, it was definitely an improvement from the year prior. Of course I have a goal to post more this year, I want to publish a blog once a month (at the very least). I think that is doable. The hold back I have had with posting I think, is that my content is changing so much. I have been in a shift, really for the last few years, where my blog and I are evolving. We started off silly and tragic, then shifted fully into style and fashion, now… we have been trying to figure it out. So much has happened over the last four and a half years, both good and bad, but priorities and just life itself has changed. I met the love of my life, married him, and had the best baby boy ever (who is now a one year old toddler and is absolutely everywhere).

I still love style and fashion, but to be honest, I have let it slide… A LOT. It is something I want to get back into this year, mostly for the reason that I want to feel good about myself. I have written time and time again, that feeling good in an outfit gives you such a sense of confidence, and I want that back. I need that back. So I am making changes this year.

The last two years I have had the same New Year’s resolution: Change My Entire Outlook On Life (see the 2023 post here and the 2024 post here). How naive of me to think my entire life could change in a year, and even after adding a bonus second year. My sister and I talked IN DEPTH about changing our entire lives, and we still discuss it today. We came to the conclusion that year one was a “prep” year. Although things did not LOOK different with us, we felt different, our minds were different and changing. Year two was when I thought it would all be put into action, but I am still not there yet. You always hear change doesn’t happen over night. I KNOW this, but here we are on year three and still working towards our goal.

I think part of the delay (for lack of a better word) is that along my way on this journey, I am figuring out exactly what my goal(s) in life is and fine tuning it. It is funny how one of my goals last year, and is again this year, is to slow down, and then realizing all of this change is SLOW. I guess it all goes together and is a lesson to be learned.

This past year, and mostly the last few months, I have been able to envision CLEARLY what I want for my life and my family’s lives, and it makes me so excited. I day dream about it all the time and it is like watching a preview to a movie I really want to see. My husband and I want to move. We do not want to stay in California. He never has (and has left once before), I don’t know if I ever cared too much about moving. I think I thought about it more when my sister moved out of state, but even then I had no plans. But when I met my husband for the first time in Montana, my eyes were opened. I still don’t think I have ever seen a more beautiful place. A place that just gives you feelings. I just felt such a sense of peace out in the open land, away from a big city, with fresh air and mountains. I want that. I want to feel like that every day. It took me a while to admit that. I thought about it A LOT to myself, but was afraid what it would mean to say it out loud. What actions it would spark. I have never moved away like that. The farthest I have lived is Orange County. But I am ready, and not just ready, EXCITED and CRAVING. I want it. I want the change. I want a new place for my son to explore (not that he has explored a lot here, he has only been walking since November, but I want him to grow up somewhere else).

So what do my husband and I envision for us? We want land, we want to build a house and a shop (maybe even together), and we want simple. I want our dogs to have room to run, I want goats and chickens, he wants horses and cows, I am determined to add in a donkey and alpaca somehow 😆. I just want the simple, slow life where we spend our days and nights together and exploring. I want my son and future children to play outside and not care about screens. I want to have to drag them inside when it is time for dinner. I want summer dinners outside under beautiful sunsets, and family time around a fire pit under the stars. I want a cozy house when it is winter, with a wood burning fire place and piles of warm blankets. I want both of our families to come camp on our property and just let the cousins run wild and all be together. I dream of all of this. I yearn for it. The want is clawing at me in a motivating way.

I know there is a trend of this lifestyle. It can be seen all over social media. But I have made it a point to start following all of those accounts that have the lifestyle I dream about, and I watch their posts and stories not in comparison, but as inspiration. It is like a live vision board that constantly gets updated with new things.

What are my goals for this year then?

  • Work towards our family vision, which is definitely a work in progress and will take some time
  • I want to continue to slow down. I have learned it is a practice, you cannot just decide to slow down, especially when you have been a go-go-go girl all of your life like me
    • Not only do I want to slow down for myself, but I want to slow down for my son. I do not want him to have a rushed and stressed mentality like I have and grew up with
  • Along with slowing down, I want to be more intentional with my time. This has a lot of factors:
    • I don’t want to waste my time on useless things, like scrolling social media endlessly. I want to scroll with a purpose, or give myself an allotted time and stick with it
    • I try really hard to be intentional with my son, but there is always room for improvement
    • I need more intentional time with my husband
    • I don’t want to waste my time on drama, or complaining, or gossiping. I have much better uses for it
    • Lastly, I don’t want to give my time to people who do not deserve it or do not respect it
  • As always, I want to read and write more
  • I want to make more homemade food (my husband is the chef, but I have had such a spark to expand my cooking skills and make more things from scratch)
  • I want to get healthy
  • My last goal, which is a new one for me… I want to be more adventurous this year. This doesn’t mean crazy things. One idea I have already is to kayak. We live on a lake. My husband and our roommate have kayaks that they never take out. I want to get my own kayak and have family outings on the lake. I want to go camp more places. I want to do more hikes or explore more places nearby or close enough to be a day trip
    • I can be such a homebody, which is fine, but I need to push myself to get out there. I know once I finally get out there, it is so worth it. I think my struggle is that our family is so busy already, adding in new things can feel exhausting. There needs to be a balance of activities and recoup weekends at home.

Of course I have more small goals within all of these goals, but this is the general idea. I am excited for this year. I really feel deep down that this is going to be a year of significant changes in myself. I am pointed in the direction I want, and I am going to keep working and building until I get to where I want, giving myself grace where I need it. Change is slow, and slow is okay. Slow is what we want. Cheers to 2025 ✨

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lifestyle, the.B.Law

5 Recent Things – 6/19/22

I have been trying to make super small changes lately, and I am pleased. Here are 5 things I have done over the last couple weeks and small as they may be, have made a difference:

  1. Picked out my outfit every night for the next day
  2. Packed my protein shakes and greens and all the healthy things I am trying to drink the night before
  3. Worked out (almost) every day, no matter how small the workout (I think I have missed one day)
  4. Read – actually finished my book
  5. Talked writing with my sister and it is motivating me

I want to keep going with these changes and adding more. Not huge, huge can feel daunting and then I feel I tend to put them off. Little changes will add up to big ones. Something I want to add this week is write. Even if it is a little something. A small blog like this, a poem, a few sentences. Just something to get me started.

Here is to small changes and growing big goals. xoxo

Happy Father’s Day to tall the dads out there!

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lifestyle, the.B.Law

Life Changes and Heartbreak

I think it is time to get a little real, okay a lot real. I think I am ready. The last four months have been nothing less than a roller coaster. Instagram as everyone knows, or should know, is not real life. It is real and the pictures and moments we share are real, but the good cannot exist in this life without the bad, and naturally we only choose to share the good. The past four months I have worked hard to keep up “good” and “fine” appearances on social media, but I was not fine. From a few subtle Instagram stories I shared, some may have noticed that I moved, but you may not know why.

Since I have moved out of my parents house four years ago, I have moved four times and I HATE MOVING. First I moved in with one of my best friends (you all know her, it was Heather!), the next year I moved in with my boyfriend, the next year he and I moved into a new apartment (hang on, let me rephrase that, I MOVED us to a new apartment while he was away at basic training), and a year and a half later, I just moved in with my sister and her family, without him.

About four months shy of four years and he ended it. This was exactly four months ago today. Even four months later I still can’t believe it sometimes. I understand why, but I don’t understand why. Why after almost four years can you not know if you EVER want to get married? How can you start a relationship so perfectly and as the years go on, lose how to be a boyfriend? Lose affection? Why couldn’t you try? Why didn’t you want to try? Why are you so convinced you cannot change?

So things ended and we lived together. Our lease doesn’t end until October and there is no way out unless he gets military orders. We were stuck. I had to come home and see the man who broke me every night. Eventually he started staying at a friends during the week and I would come home to sit in our apartment alone. I left almost every weekend for a distraction and so he could actually come home. Finally after a month, he offered to take over the lease and my sister and brother-in-law offered to let me move in. That was the hardest move I have ever done. How was I supposed to pack up my things and leave his behind? To remove any trace of me out of that apartment that we made our home? It took a lot to get the motivation to even start. I would go through waves of emotions while packing, devastation, frustration, anger, sobbing. Mostly I just packed through constant silent tears. I got it all done and started officially living with my sister in March. Driving away after giving him the keys made it real, I would not be seeing him again. It felt like a month long breakup, the slowest band aid in the world.

I understand why. You don’t know if you ever want to get married or have a family, but you know I do, and you don’t want to waste anymore of my time. I get it. I also get that I didn’t give you that feeling that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. You didn’t love me like I loved you. These last four months have been the hardest for me. I have to drive by our old apartment twice a day and every time I am looking for your truck both terrified and longing to be even next to you on the freeway. I have never experienced such emptiness, brokenness, anxiety, and suffocation all at the same time. It was like someone was sitting on my chest and it was hard to breathe, and for hours every day I have to sit in my car with no one but my thoughts of you and how you don’t want me anymore. I think of how I wanted to be the one who changed you, to make you want to be better. But I guess you really can’t change people, only God can, and I still continue to pray for you every day. I still feel weird without you, like I am not quite myself. Sometimes I feel like I do not know how to carry on a conversation anymore because every story I want to tell has you in it. How am I just supposed to take you out of my life when I wanted you in it forever? How am I supposed to be normal at a family function when everyone is with their significant other and they all know mine left me? What do you say when all your friends say “the right guy will come,” and you just want to scream because you feel like the right guy just didn’t want you? Deep down you pray they are right, but you don’t even want to pray for the right guy because it feels wrong and you just want the old guy back. How am I supposed to breakup with your family that has become my family? I feel like I am the one that failed sometimes.

For the first time in a long time I feel like I have no control because my future is unknown, and it is an unsettling feeling that I hope turns to excitement eventually. It is often hard for me to let go, and when I say often I mean always. Life feels like it has completely turned upside down. I am so thankful to my sister and brother-in-law for letting me move in, but it is their home and not mine. I am a long term guest and I try so hard to not be in the way. For the first time I don’t feel like I have a real home, a place I can truly call mine. My days are spent in my car commuting and at work, if I am lucky I have 3 hours to do anything. My commute tripled and I now drive 46 miles one way. In order to get to work early enough to leave early enough to avoid as much traffic as I can, I have to leave for work by 5:15am and leave for home by 3:30pm. The drive in still takes at best an hour and ten minutes and the drive home averages an hour and a half to two. If I go to the gym I am not home until after 7 or 8pm. Trying to go to bed early has been a joke and waking up at 4:15am is next to impossible most days. Weeks of averaging five hours of sleep a night doesn’t work for me very well and doesn’t do any good for outrageous emotions.

Two weeks ago he picked up his dirt bike from my dad’s. That was the last lingering piece of him. I noticed after it was gone I felt a little lighter. Maybe I was anticipating him going to pick it up because I wanted to know what he would say to my dad and how he would act. It was like I was going to live vicariously through my dad to have one last connection with him. Now there is nothing left and I felt okay. I actually noticed I have been significantly better until I sat down to write this blog. You would think you only had so many tears to spare for one person, but no they come yet again. I do not regret our four years together despite everyone telling me they wished he hadn’t have wasted so much of my time. I was still in love, even if looking back now it may have been more one sided than I chose to believe. I know now I deserve better. I want someone that will hold my hand in private and in public, someone who will hug me every day like they mean it and will give me a good morning kiss, hello I am home from work kiss, I will be right back kiss, a good night kiss, and any other kiss in between. I want someone who will say I love you first and not just say it in response with no emotion. I want someone who isn’t afraid to post a picture with me and show everyone he knows that I am his. I want someone who isn’t afraid to pray and love God.

Every day I get stronger, and still some days seem like a step back. I can’t see a black Ford F150 without my heart fluttering, but last week I drove by the apartments and didn’t notice until I passed them. One day at a time, that is all I can give myself. I thank God every day for all of the friends and family He has put in my life to help get me through this. For the ones who know I don’t like to talk about these things but want me to know they are still thinking of me and praying for me even if they aren’t asking about it. I pray for him too, that God will change his heart and that one day he will find true happiness. One day at a time and eventually I will be there.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23

xoxo- B

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