Ramblings of a Thirty-Something

Many thoughts are rattling around in my head as I sit down to write this blog post. Thoughts about people and human nature and why we do and say the things we do. I've come to the conclusion that people are messy, and we can never, ever understand other people in totality. Definitely doing some overthinking here. Which is a great segue into my topic for today! I am not a self-help book reader, usually. Many of the books I have read that fall into this category have been specifically for teachers or through a book club at school, and none have really done what I needed them to do for me. And then Anne Bogel wrote Don't Overthink It. First, let me just say that I love her website. I meant to link it last week in the post, but I didn't, because I'm a failure as a blogger. So here is a link to Modern Mrs. Darcy . And here also is a link to Barnes and Noble and Amazon's page for this book, in case you want to get one for yourself. You should do that. Don't ov...

Here we go, time for some more WISE WORDS!  Or, as I call it in my head "Vital Information for your Everyday Life!" {Anybody else remember that All That! sketch? Classic Nickelodeon, where did you go?} Anywho, my Wise Words today come from one of my all-time favorite ladies. You know her, you love her {at least I'm assuming you do}, and here she is today...Miss Jane Austen! {And the crowd goes wild...wait, that's only in my head? Moving on...}  Now Jane comes to use today through the words of one of her most famous characters, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of Pride and Prejudice , and the Austen lady we'd all like to be best friends with. {At this point, you can just insert "I" for "we"...I just want you all to feel included}. These wise words come from near the end of Pride and Prejudice.  Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, aka Sexy McSexerton, have just professed that they now both love each other. Previously, Mr. D loved Lizzie, but L...

Confession:  I am wholly and completely disappointed in myself. Why? Well, if you happen to recall back in January, I posted about my New Year's Resolution. The only resolution I was making:  to live my life intentionally. It sounds easy. It isn't. I have been doing a rather awful job of it all. Oh, like all resolutions, I started out strong. I made time to read every day. I thought hard about my blog posts and really tried to dig deeper than the fluff I sometimes post {although I love the fluff, don't get me wrong}. I tried to stay in good contact with my friends.  But then, only about a week ago {exactly a week--it was on our snow day last Wednesday}, I was forced into a realization:  I haven't been intentional at all as of late. I haven't written anything of consequence {again, fluff with no substance}. I haven't been very dedicated to posting here. I haven't been good about maintaining my friendships and other relationships. The entire point o...

It's January 7th. One week into our new year. How are you doing with your resolutions? C'mon, you can be honest. This is a safe space. They say it takes 21 days to make something a habit, so we're a third of the way there! This year, I decided not to make any official resolutions. I didn't make a list saying that I wanted to work out three times a week, write 1000 words a day (which is not really as much as it seems...actually, it's about the length of your average blog post, or a page and a half on a Google Doc). I've done that a lot of years, and that just never works for me. As you might have read (or might not have read) in my first post of the year, I wrote about living intentionally. That is my resolution, essentially, for the year. And one of my Christmas gifts is helping me to do that. Friends, family, if you are on Pinterest, I highly recommend that you make a board for yourself of gift ideas. It's an easy way to bring things to people's a...

There's been a long thought process a-runnin' through my brain as I thought up and prepared to write this blog post. It started with one awful night of sleep, continued with a revelation, and ended with a song. But I think I'm going to tell the story out of order because that's what will make the most sense to me. And sometimes I just want to be selfish, so here goes. When I was in middle school, my dad discovered how to download music from the internet, and the song in the above video is one of the songs he downloaded. He's a child of the 60s, and even though he's the least hippie-like person I know, I grew up listening to all that psychedelic music from his youth. This song by Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas took on special meaning for me when I was an awkward, gawky teenager. The lyrics are beautiful and really spoke to me. As every middle schooler knows, you never really feel like you fit in--ever. I think that's something everyone can identify ...

I love quotes. I love applying quotes to my everyday life and being inspired by them. I love reading the wise words people have put down, and I love dreaming that someday, my wise words will end up on one of those quote sites (although I might have to do something amazing first). Anyway, I found this quote online while researching some different ideas for blog posts. I really like the idea of analyzing quotes, so I'm going to make this a regular-ish column here. I've decided on a name, too. The basic premise is I'll ramble about nothing, then give the quote, and then ramble on about the quote. It'll be a fun time, I promise. So here we go... Wise Words  "Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else´s life." --Steve Jobs There are so many variations on this idea--the idea of being oneself rather than someone else. But I really love the way Mr. Jobs phrased it. Our time is limited. On average, we are given eighty-five years on this planet...