I tend to be blunt, and largely anticipate the same thing in return. That said, knowing the truth, hearing criticism, being corrected and listening doesn’t mean it’s fun to hear. There’s still emotional responses, feelings, and arguments to account for. Some people give me the impression that hearing a correction should be easy to take or that I should even have a positive response to it outside of a polite “thank you for letting me know your thoughts” in various cases. But just because something is good advice or I get to learn the truth doesn’t mean that I’ll enjoy hearing/learning it. That said it doesn’t make their opinion less…

when you feel old think about your good experiences (and sometimes the bad) and how they’ve made you the person you are today, and how you can improve your future based on that knowledge when you feel old know there are people looking to you for advice and to learn from you whether you think they are or not when you feel old know that you can age gracefully knowing that you are probably where you’re meant to be if you’re following Christ when you feel old know that so many don’t make it as far as you have. whether in age, or accomplishments or otherwise when you feel old…

I love organizing. At every temp job I took out of college I asked about organizing the desk I worked at, and in most cases, the supervisor said “YES PLEASE!” No other temp had cared, and I always told them what I was planning to do, whether it was just asking for a clorox wipe, and the chance to rearrange the items to make more sense, or maybe going as far as clearing away candy bowls, throwing out dead plants and putting away office supplies that had been left by other colleauges. Now, also enjoy keeping my home nicely organized, I try to have a spot for everything and everything…

I hate page fillers. Maybe it comes from writing for page counts in school and being told to add it and thinking that was stupid. Maybe it’s because I hate reading it from others. Maybe it’s that and/or other things. No matter. I hate it. That said I try to avoid it in my own work, my last podast episode was short – not because I was feeling lazy, but because I had nothing left to say at the time for that episode and I realized anything I added at the time would become largely “fluff”. What is fluff? you may ask, it’s adding sentences reexplainig an idea or adding…

Hello Family and friends, I thought I’d do a 2nd annual Christmas card on my blog here, enjoy! It’s been a year, quite a year – but you already knew that so I’ll just start telling you what that meant for me! January started off pretty normal, I was back to my sales job in the first week. I went to some youth group events. But then I went on a date with this guy names Nicholas (he’ll come up a few times in this letter 🙂 ). We would go on later that week to go to our first swing dance together. Later in the month I went to…

Communication You have to be careful with it, and it might be a combination of quite a few other love languages but I see it as a valuable and overlooked one. Just look up any “best advice this married couple of 50 + years had for others” (obviously not a direct link or quote) and one of the first things that comes up is communication, there’s a lot of love and vulnerability in sharing thoughts with one another whether it’s verbal or written or in the unspoken, or as I like to call “shared wavelength moments”* *makes wave motion with hand*. Communication is about information exchange as paraphrased from Merriam-Webster,…

My favorite part of the shoot this photo is from was that my friend Brandon (the photographer, @engelkiss) encouraged me to be more “out there” with how I presented myself on camera, from more jewelry to fresh, and fun makeup, to fun backdrops that he wanted to try. I really enjoy taking photos with friends, I think it’s a fun memory maker, as well as a chance to be creative and adventurous. Not to sound too cheesy. Even before that, he taught me some photo editing techniques, and I got to teach him some swing dance! I think skill swaps are a great idea, not for just friends, but also…