what I’ve been lookin’ for

1 Comment

If my 2017 resolution was to never start off blog posts with “so I was on Pinterest…” I would be off to one heck of a rough start. Because, as usual, I was on Pinterest, when I found a quote that I really resonated with in terms of my goal for myself this year.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for in 2017”

Quite honestly, sometimes I think we can be constantly running around searching high and low and draining ourselves of energy trying to figure out what the heck we want out of life. At least for myself, I know sometimes I constantly think I need to be doing something more. I need to be involved in more, I need to go out more, I need to work more, I need to study more. However, when all I do is constantly worry about what comes next and what I am NOT doing, I lose focus of all the things in life that I AM doing and all that I am accomplishing while constantly searching for a bigger purpose.

*taking a brief pause from all of the serious lecture preaching for this picture because while typing this I keep giggling and thinking of Ryan’s jazz squares during “What I’ve Been Looking For” from HSM hehe…also…not AGAINST Sharpay’s outfit quite frankly…*

5294f91626ebc7281f5d75b1_e595d0c6.jpeg

Alrighty, singing siblings aside, what are you looking for this year? We are only a week into the new year and these past 7 days have been so fuzzy for me. I have been trying to figure out what I want from myself without asking myself. Which is pretty darn hard to do let me tell ya. I finished this past semester a lot stronger academically than I had anticipated (yay for overstudying geography!!!) and so I am really excited for this next semester’s new classes that I am much more interested in (a course literally called “life planning and decision making”????? count me in!!!!) and having a whole new fresh start without the big jumping change of college really has me excited yet overplanning how I expect this semester to go. Not even college speaking (for a change, lol), I’ve been going through the motions of going to work, seeing old friends, being home with family, cleaning my room at home, going to work, seeing friends, etc etc etc this entire break which don’t get me wrong has all been FANTASTIC but today I sat down and realized I have been so focused on DOING all of it, that I haven’t really been LIVING it. As another Pinterest quote reminds me often, you can’t live the same day 365 times and call it a year, and live that same year over and call it a life.

I need to stop looking and start living. Stop trying to find this perfect reality, perfect study plan, perfect day to day plan, and just start being myself and seeing where that takes me. And for someone whose agenda is their Bible even on winter break and who has reminders on their phone to CHECK THEIR AGENDA, trust me, this isn’t gonna be easy. It is so much harder than we anticipate sometimes to just breathe. To just sit back, and ASK YOURSELF: who are you? what do you believe in? what are you goals? what do you need to do to achieve  them? are you okay? are you happy? what makes you happy? Ask the hard stuff. Ask the stuff we normally push to the side because it IS the hard stuff! Get to know yourself. Find out who you are. Because the moment you do, you’ll understand what you’re looking for.

So what has 2017 brought me so far? Myself. I am piece by piece finding out who I am. I am learning to be proud of who that is and to embrace it because the world only gets one of me and what a waste that would be not to give it to them for who I am! Do the same. Be genuine. Find out something new about yourself? Does it terrify you? Good. Find out the hard stuff and start living a life full of discovery. We’re all pretty boring on the surface. Just a bunch of human beans doin’ their thing. But the world gets a trillion times more magical when you find out a persons favorite cereal or their first dog’s name. So let’s get to know the world. let’s make it more fun.

Below are some pictures I found of times and people that make me who I am. I dare you to find these experiences. Find the places and the events and the people that make you say “this is who I want to be. this is me at my best.” and stick with those. Make those into your every day routine and slowly you’ll add up these experiences and friends and have a life of your own that you created and that you love. how neato is that?

Processed with VSCO with hb2 preset
Processed with VSCO with x1 preset
Processed with VSCO with c1 preset
Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

SO! Moral of this little rant: be curious. get to know who you are. find the parts of yourself you didn’t know existed. love them. embrace them. take each single day for what it is. use life’s twists and turns for the better and use your reactions to find out who you are and what you want to be to this world. after all, you’re the only thing in life you can control. use that power wisely my wizards!

until next time, xoxo, Ally

akn.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

happy + healthy in 2017

Leave a comment


First off let me say how stinkin’ proud I am of myself for finally figuring out how to put categories in my menu bar!!!! (Real proud. The wonders of HTML YouTube tutorials, man.) While deciding names for all my types of posts, I typed and backspaced “fitness” real quickly. I won’t go as far as to say I’m not athletic. I was your typical oldest child who paid her fair share to every sport in grade school (soccer, basketball, softball, a very short lived attempt at swim team…etc.) and this is my first year since age 2 that I haven’t been consistently dancing (& boy do I miss it.)

So moving around isn’t new to me by any means. However, being in college and on my own schedule and not having forced acvitity such as dance team or gym class has definitely brought up new ways of having to fit in athleticism into my life as well as simply keeping my body healthy while living in a dorm full of college gals. (Trust me, the “Corbin cough”, named after my residence hall, is an actual term around campus that you absolutely can’t escape for at least one point in the year!)

I have been wanting to put more “fitness” related posts up on the blog for quite some time now, but I’m mot expert by any extent. However I took a little of my own inspiration from my “fitness” esque Pinterest board to figure out how I wanted to encompass these types of posts. So for all the posts to come, make sure to check out the “happy + healthy” tab in the menu bar. I chose this name for simply what it states. Less focus on being “fit” and more focus on tying happiness and health hand in hand. Because let’s be real, name a time where you’ve had the flu and been at your full happiness level, or as my actual spirit animal Elle Woods states, “endorphins make you happy!” And no one gets to disagree with Elle.

As I said, being in college has really pushed the envelope in terms of health and has allowed me to figure things out on my own. I guess that’s a small tiny form of adulting, if you will. From knowing when to go to the health center and stay home from class. (I did in fact text my mom and make sure I was “allowed” to stay home when I got sick…#guiltproblem) To understanding that dining hall food is what you make of it, being healthy on your own is something that takes time to understand what works for YOU and YOUR body. But here are a few things that I want to continue to implement within my daily life in 2017 to keep with my happy + healthy mantra:

Drink more water: ask my parents, or any of my friends: I drink an excessive amount of water as it is. I don’t like pop (I thank my tastebuds for this constantly), and minus a morning cup of coffee (okay, or an afternoon one too), water is honestly my go-to drink. But, I’m not upset about it! Water is SO GOOD FOR YOU! Literally, the best thing you can put into your body. It clears up toxins in your skin, helps aid kidney strength, busts fatigue, cures cramps and pain, helps with digestion, boots your brain activity, and that’s just the obvious stuff!! I carry a water bottle around with me on campus, and TRY to drink a cup from my Brita filter BEFORE I make my coffee for the day, but this year I really wanna start adding lemon to my water just for all the extra citrusy benefits!

Get more sleep: being in college means no real “bedtime” and I have admittedly found myself losing track of time when in my dorm. Whether it be actually getting schoolwork done, or just chatting with my pals, I’ve glanced at the time to see it past midnight more times than I’d like to own up to! Young adults my age need more sleep than newborn babies in order for everything to function properly! Also a big lesson I’ve learned: your brain shuts off at a certain point in terms of actually learning instead of short term memorizing. Learn when that time is and work with it! For me, studying past 10 is pointless, I need to get it done right when I get done with class and NEVER pull all-nighters. Your brain soaks up all that information while you sleep, and you’ll be surprised how much you’ll remember in the morning. Glancing over your notes for 15 minutes right before you fall asleep allows your noggin to get it all memorized and ready to process when the sun comes up!

Take more vitamins: less is more when it comes to these, but taking even simple multi-vitamins can add so much to your body that you may not receive in your every day diet!

Get creative with workouts: I am fully aware the main reasoning I don’t like a work out is because I have an awful attention span and for lack of a better word: I get bored. Repetition of things does nothing but make me wonder why I’m doing it and don’t even get me STARTED on how dreadfully awful I think of the treadmill. However, my mother will never believe me, but I LOVE jogs outside. My campus is gorgeous and in the fall, running around the small lake filled with trees was my favorite afternoon endorphin fill. The first semester I focused a bunch on school and getting settled, but this next semester I can’t wait to take on more classes at the rec that are actually exciting and upbeat. Aka cycling classes here I come!!!

Mindfulness: this one is so simple but SO hard to get into a habit of. Be still with yourself when you first wake up and dirt go to bed. Take time to reflect on your day and how you feel. Rushing through life and your emotions can honestly be draining and if you don’t take the time to be quiet and LISTEN to yourself, it’s way to let everything build up! There are so many apps and YouTube videos out there if you need a boost to get started, otherwise it’s as simple as closing your eyes and taking some breaths!

So that’s my gameplan, with many updates to come. Let’s make this the year of being happy AND healthy friends. How are YOU gonna do it? Shoot me an email @ xoxoallisonnicole@gmail.come if you’d love to chat!

Until next time, xoxo, Ally

2016 going on ’17

Leave a comment

all1.jpg

This is me admitting I have been putting off writing this post for a few days now. My past two years of NYE posts are my two top viewed posts, and two of the posts I am most proud of quite frankly. (2014) + (2015) …In both posts I slightly mention how I am not the biggest supporter of “new year’s resolutions” solely because I don’t think we should aim for the “new year new me” mentality of changing ourselves, but rather look on improving aspects of our lives and daily actions without changing who we are. I also don’t think that waiting for a special day to start acting upon having better intentions for yourself is something worth waiting for; if you have a good intention…why wait???? SO  yeah, those posts were full with the good stuff and I was all full of wisdom. However this past year I have grown so much and learned so many things and my brain is fuzzy of what to spill to you all. Anyways, while I am typing this, we are about 21 hours into 2017 and while I was reflecting over the past year and on what I wanted to make this post about, I was constantly drawn to the areas of the past year that weren’t the best and realized one thing that constantly was a key factor in these areas: myself.

Now I know, I just said I am not a supporter of changing who you are, I am a firm believer that everyone is who they are for a good reason and God made them with personality quirks and all for very specific purposes in this universe, so I promise what I have to say isn’t about changing who you are. (trust me, this is coming from someone who in the past year has learned that she is  t e r r i f i e d  of change, so I wouldn’t throw that at ya.)

A whole bunch of crazy cool and big things happened in my life in 2016! I graduated high school! I moved to Kansas! I started college! I met new friends! I missed old ones! I joined a sorority! I doubted myself in so many areas I thought I was confident in! I found new things I am super great at because I went out on a limb! As I said, I am not super fond of change. I am an oldest child messily “Type A” who is used to pretty much having the things in her life under her own control. So as exciting and big as all of the change in my life was, it is pretty safe to say I am a lot bigger fan of the period of time a few months AFTER the big changes. Needless to say, 2016 definitely had some trying moments for myself, but nothing that didn’t end up working out for the better. As I mentioned, in the end, everyone is who they are and everything happens how it does for a reason (thanks God!!!!!)

Back to what I was saying about finding myself in the midst of all of the times of the past year weren’t the best. Every time when I was feeling lost, when I was feeling scared, when I was feeling like I wasn’t performing to my full potential or that I wasn’t being the best friend/sister/daughter that I could be: all tied back to times where I wasn’t taking care of myself. Now I am speaking from personal experience, but I am positive that we have all had times similar to this in our lives. It is not in any way a bad thing. For most of the time, we forget to care for ourselves when we are too busy caring about others. For example, instead of trying to commit time to each of my friends, I would get so worried that each of my friends was feeling loved or was doing okay that I would get so caught up in them that I forgot one of my favorite focuses: you can’t fill others’ cups when your own has yet to be filled. The same concept goes for so many different aspects of life and can even be applied to things like my academics. When I zoom out and stress too much about the bigger picture and how much work has to eventually be done (which I admit to doing far too often) instead of taking my classes one at a time and doing each assignment to the best of my ability as they come…I end up giving less attention to my studies than I should. Heck! It can even be applied to simple things like when we worry too much about eating healthy, staying in shape, being in a good mental state; we can freak ourselves out about how little progress we are making! However if we just take each step at a time: get a decent amount of sleep each night, carry around a water bottle and stay hydrated, take some extra time to walk to your classes, that huge daunting task of “healthy” seems so much simpler.

So more simply put: learn how to love yourself in order to love others. be selfish in the most selfless way. Quite honestly in order to be fully selfLESS, one must learn to be selfish. There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make other’s lives better, but make sure to include yourself in that. Do you find yourself asking others how they are often? If they’re okay/happy? How their day is? ASK YOURSELF! It is kind of like the golden rule of treating others the way you’d wanna be treated, except reversed and inside out: treat yourself how you treat others and then treat others how you treat yourself. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to take care of others. However if you choose to be selfish for small and purposefully good intentions, the outcome of how you treat others will show tremendously better.

So what is my 2017 “resolution”, if you will? To love myself and to grow. I triple dog dare you all to do the same. As always, never change, but learn to grow. Learn to accept the big changes in your life for what they are, and decide how you’re gonna see the good side of them. Understand that the big leaps usually mean rough patches which sometimes mean bad days and the hardest part about all of that is understanding that all of it is totally, completely, 100% normal, and you’re gonna turn out just fine. Have a rough week? get some good sleep and work ahead. Not feeling yourself? Surround yourself with friends that make you smile and love ya lots. Miss your mom? Call your mom. (slowly learning there are some things ONLY moms can fix.) (And sometimes you have to FaceTime them at 6am from your dorm bed to show them your bronchitis infected throat. and they’re okay with it. because they’re moms and super-humans.) Do things that make your heart sing and find more things that make your heart sing and do those things too. Pet dogs occasionally if you can too, unless you’re allergic, then that is so so sad but there are cute pictures and videos of dogs ALL over the inter web to make your heart smile as well. Change your sheets, brush your hair, hug your best friends, hug yourself. Let’s all do some stuff to make ourselves happy, and then do some stuff to make our people happy. Because imagine if we all did that. That would be one gosh dang happy world, and one gosh dang happy year.

Here’s to 2017, may it be the happiest + most selfishly selfless one yet.

Love + hugs, xoxo, Ally

akn.png