Vulnerability

I've never been considered someone who was thin. I was by no means an overweight child, but I've definitely had wide hips and large thighs since puberty. As an adolescent, I was constantly comparing myself to my skinny friends, and would mentally beat myself up thinking I was "huge". I was always athletic, playing one sport or another year round and staying in good shape. But if I compared my actual weight or my jean size with my friends, I was always bigger... I'm not kidding about the muscular thighs and big hips thing. So I decided that I couldn't focus on a number on a scale. As long as I stayed active and ate my normal diet, I maintained a healthy weight for my body type and felt good about myself.

[Growing up: A girl with her yo-yo // Looking super cool on Christmas with my new coat, new rollerblades, and new Walkmen... maybe 3rd grade? // Boy band pose with my brother in 5th grade // Beach in summer after 8th grade // Senior pics]

Once I went to college, my normal routine dramatically shifted, and I started to gain weight. I went from all those years of playing a sport (soccer, intramural volleyball, track & field, or even taking dance classes) year round, to playing on a men's soccer team at my tiny Penn State branch campus that had no women's team. I lasted one semester at that campus before transferring to a campus a little closer to home and closer to Matt (my then boyfriend, now husband). I briefly looked into trying out for the women's soccer team there, but they had a really good reputation and I knew it would be a tough tryout, and I was intimidated. So I just stopped playing altogether.

Cue weight gain.

[Cruise in '08, Thanksgiving '09, Wedding in '10, Trip West in '12, Half Marathon in '14]

I've always considered myself a fairly healthy eater. I actually enjoy salads and generally eat a ton of fruit and vegetables. But I never in my life had to actually monitor what I was eating or how much I was eating, because I was always out-exercising my eating habits. Now I had basically stopped exercising, but continued to eat whatever I wanted. The number on the scale started to creep up and up.

This fall, it will be ten years since I went away to college. (Can I just take a moment and say how in the world has it been TEN YEARS?!) In the past decade, my weight has constantly fluctuated up and down. I go in cycles where I don't exercise at all and overeat, then join Weight Watchers and lose some of the weight, then start training for and run a half marathon and find myself in the best physical condition since I was high school, then gain all the weight back.

It's a constant battle for me.

But through it all, I maintained my stance that I couldn't just focus on a number on a scale and instead tried to focus on how my clothes fit, what I look like in the mirror, and how I felt.

Well, last summer, I started realizing I felt pretty damn bad. I was stressed and overwhelmed - we had picked up our life in Indiana and moved back to PA, and I was struggling with a deeply personal issue (more on that at a later date). I started to pack on some extra weight. Before I knew it, I was up almost 40 lbs, and was absolutely shocked when I finally stepped on the scale and saw that number.

I never in my life thought I would reach that weight. Not a great feeling.

I started to realize I didn't recognize the person I had become. Over the years I've perfected the way I position my body while looking at myself in the mirror or when posing for photos, but every once in a while I would catch a glimpse of myself in a candid photo, a dressing room mirror, or worse yet, a video taken by a friend or family member, and couldn't believe how far I had let myself go.

It was finally time to do something.

Two weeks ago, I decided I wanted to start running again. I've always liked running, and I'm fairly decent at it. I can go months without running at all, and then pick back up and go a few miles, no matter where I'm at physically. It's become my favorite form of exercise over the years, especially once I started training for a half marathon and running longer distances. I set a goal to run every day for ten days. My only rules were that I couldn't walk and that I had to do a minimum of two miles. It was tough at first, and I was painfully slow. But after a few days, I started to feel like my old self. The runs got easier, and my times improved. I went ten days and decided I would aim for two straight weeks of my daily runs. However, shin splints got the best of me. The night of my twelfth run, I lay in bed crying while Matt rubbed ice on my shins. It wasn't pretty. So I decided I needed a rest, so that's what I've been doing for the last three days. However, I'm proud of myself for making it twelve days, and know it's a step in the right direction. I needed something to get myself outside, shake off the winter blues, and start focusing on myself again.

[My twelve days of running.]

[Hahah... I need this shirt, stat.]

I recently read Shonda Rhimes' book, Year of Yes. It's a fantastic book, and in it she talks about her dramatic 100 lb + weight loss. One quote of hers that really hit me was this: "Spend your valuable years on this planet thinking about something other than your weight". I realized I have been focused on my weight and my body image for the majority of my life. How many hours had I wasted beating myself up over this? Countless. It was a freeing thought to think that I didn't have to waste anymore time on it. I can't totally let myself go and one day wake up at 700 lbs, but I needed a change in mindset. I know this whole issue with weight is something I'll have to work on for the rest of my life, but I think I'm finally at peace with it.

This is by no means going to become a blog about weight loss. I may write about my journey from time to time as a means of holding myself accountable and documenting my progress, but I'm so far from an expert that it's laughable. I just hope I can keep heading in the right direction, and by putting myself out there maybe open up the dialog and start a conversation about something that I (and so many other people) have struggled with for years. 

I think I'm finally ready for a change.

If you read this entire post, bless you. But even if you didn't, it feels good to finally get it out.

Love,

Steph

Current Faves

Here are a few of my current favorite things:

1.) Spring.

I love all the seasons. Each has it's own charm - the long days of summer, with vacations and trips to the beach and cookouts and outdoor concerts. The brisk days of fall, when the trees burst with color, it turns to sweatshirt & jean weather, and football begins. The cold days of winter, when we celebrate Christmas and the world gets coated with a beautiful blanket of snow. (Yes, I'm one of those people who absolutely loves snow.) But after a long winter, who doesn't love when the days start getting longer, the weather starts warming up, and flowers begin to bloom? It feels so good to just get outside and be able to enjoy the sunlight a little longer each night.

2.) These Modern Easter Eggs.

How amazing are these simple Easter eggs? Just using a white paint pen on brown eggs or a black sharpie on white eggs can really make a bold statement. Perfect if you need a last minute (and easy!) idea for Easter this weekend.

3.) Lukas Graham. So I'm assuming that at this point, everyone has heard the song, "7 Years"?! I still can't get over it, and if you haven't heard it, immediately check it out. Also loving his other songs, "Happy Home" & "Mama Said". I mean, those vocals, the lyrics... Amazing. We're going to see him live in NYC in May, the week of my birthday, and I can. not. wait.

4.) This Bedding.

I've been on the hunt for new bedding to spruce up our room. We currently have a beautiful quilt that Matt's grandmother made for us for our wedding - It's not totally my style, but I love it because I know how much work and care she put into making it for us. However, our dogs sleep with us, so I feel like I am constantly washing it, and some of the hand quilting is starting to show the wear and tear of all those washes. I've always loved the simplicity of white bed linens, and the picture above just speaks my love language. I'm thinking I'll go with this coverlet and go from there.

5.) Honey Vanilla Chamomile Tea.

Matt's cousin, Traci, got me hooked on this, and I just can't stop drinking it. I don't drink coffee, so I love starting off or ending my day with a cup of tea. Aside from my classic Earl Grey with a splash of vanilla creamer and a little sugar (try it and thank me later), this is my new favorite.

What are some things that you're currently loving?

Steph

Trip To Indiana

Last week, we took a trip out to Columbus, Indiana to visit family. My husband and I are both from Pennsylvania (I’m from Lancaster, and my husband’s from the Poconos, where we live now), but before moving to our current house, we lived out in Indiana for two years. My husband’s degree is in Elementary Education, and after several years of not being able to find a full time teaching job down in Lancaster, where we were living at the time, we decided to take a leap and move out to Indiana, where he was offered a third grade teaching job at a great school. 

We had talked about moving out of state or to a different part of a country for a couple years leading up to that move. We both love Lancaster, and knew we wanted to end up there to raise our family, but thought we should get away and experience another area before doing that. We toyed around with the ideas of Oregon (ultimately too far away), Colorado (also too far, and not close enough to an ocean for me), New Hampshire, North Carolina, and others. 

Never in my life did I think we’d end up living in the midwest.

But that’s where we found ourselves, and we fell in love with it. Matt’s cousin, her husband, and their three kids live in Columbus, and are the reason we moved to that town. We absolutely loved living closer to them, seeing the kids grow up and spending a ton of time with them, and the hardest part about moving back to PA was definitely leaving them. But there were other things we loved about the town, too - we both had wonderful jobs and loved our coworkers, we found a great church and a became a part of a supportive small group, we joined various intramural sports leagues and made friends there, and the little town itself was great. We were close to Indianapolis and Louisville, KY, and had the opportunities to explore a whole new part of the country. It was great.

Last spring, when Matt applied for his current job, back in PA, it was an unexpected opportunity that we never dreamed he’d actually be able to do. We both grew up going to camp here, it’s where we met back in high school, and we both spent three (me) to four (him) summers during college on summer staff. This place holds a big part of our hearts. Matt’s always fantasized about working here full time, and now it looked like he actually would have the opportunity. It didn’t take a whole lot of debating - we were in. As much as we loved our home and our community in Indiana, we missed our friends and family from back in Pennsylvania. We made the nine hour drive back to Lancaster many times in the two years we lived there, and it was getting a little old. So we jumped at the opportunity, and in June of 2015, we sold our house, packed everything up, and headed back east after some tearful goodbyes.

This past week was the first time we were able to go back to Indiana together to visit (I actually flew in last August for a few days after we had taken a trip down south, but Matt had been unable to get the additional days off work). It was so nice to exit the interstate and drive the familiar roads back to Columbus. We stayed with family, visited co-workers, caught up with friends, went to our old church, took a walk around downtown, drove through our old neighborhood, and of course stalked our old home.

Side note: Aside from leaving Matt’s family, I’d say leaving this house was the hardest part about leaving Columbus. Is that weird? I loved this house. LOVED it. If I could have picked it up and moved it with us back to PA, I would have. Perfect layout, nicely updated to our tastes, cute little yard. It was just perfect.

Life may not have worked out how I planned. I’ll probably never get the chance to live in Oregon or New Hampshire, but that’s okay. I never in my life thought I’d call Indiana home, but for two brief years, we did. And it was a great experience. We will be forever grateful for the connections and the friendships we made there, and we’re so grateful to still have family in the area to give us an excuse to get back out there and visit. 

Until next time, Indiana.

Love,

Steph

Cleaning Schedule

I’m admittedly a bit of a clean freak.

Maybe that’s an understatement - I’m a total clean freak. In addition to being totally neurotic about organization (see my last post), cleanliness is a big thing for me. If our home is out of order or unclean, it drives me a little nuts. Like all of a sudden mopping my kitchen floors at midnight because I just can’t sleep until it’s done nuts. 

It’s a little exhausting.

But it’s my reality. So instead of continually driving myself crazy over it, I went on a mission to find some tips to make keeping a clean house a little more manageable.

While researching various cleaning/organizational “tips”, “tricks” or “programs”, I came across various schools of thought. The first one I tried back when we were newlyweds living in our first house stated you should clean one room or one type of room each night. For example, Monday you’d clean the living room, Tuesday you’d clean the bathrooms, Wednesday you’d clean the master bedroom, etc. I tried this for a while, but eventually it started to drive me insane because you’d have to get all the cleaning products every single day. Too much of a hassle. So I transitioned to another idea I read that said you should do one type of cleaning each night. For example, clean all wood on Monday, do all vacuuming on Tuesday, etc. Ding ding ding, we have a winner. Instead of getting all of my cleaning supplies out every single night, I just grab the one thing I need for that day, and take 15-20 minutes to go around the house and complete the task. This method works for our household, and it’s what we try to stick to. Obviously, it’s not always perfect. If we have commitments in the evenings, there are nights when nothing gets done. Or if we’re having company, we may have to jump ahead of the schedule and do extra before our guests come. Some weeks nothing gets done, and that’s okay. We’ve found that we can definitely just do our full cleaning routine every other week and still maintain a clean home.

So here’s the schedule that we’ve adopted. By posting this, I hope that I can inspire at least one person to include maybe one or two of these ideas into their daily or weekly routine. Life is busy, our calendars are full, and things get missed. That’s okay, but don’t you think you deserve for your home to be a retreat for you to come home to at the end of a long day? Our homes are our biggest investments and where we spend so much of our time, so they should bring us happiness, not stress. I promise that one or two simple changes will make a big difference.

Here’s our cleaning schedule:

In addition to the cleaning “task” of the day, there are a handful of normal daily routines that I complete just to keep everything looking good on a day-to-day basis and help keep our life a little more manageable. Here there are:

I promise that if you at least adopt at least one or two of these daily tasks into your everyday routine, you'll notice a big difference in your home. 

Do you have a specific cleaning routine or method of staying on top of housework? I’d love to hear it!

Happy cleaning!

Steph

I Really Am The Organized Hot Mess

Some may wonder where I got the name for my blog, The Organized Hot Mess. After debating over it for a while (more like 45 minutes on the day I created this blog, because despite knowing that I wanted to use my name for the URL address, I didn't really think about the fact that I needed an actual blog "title" until it asked me for one when I was signing up), I figured it describes me just about perfectly. I often describe myself as a hot mess. I'm emotional, I'm always in the middle of approximately twenty-seven projects, I'm always late, and I'm usually running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. I don't get a lot of sleep. (But I can sleep in like a boss on my days off.) Despite all of this, I'm insanely organized. I might not be able to remember what I had for breakfast, but you better believe my closet is organized in rainbow order, everything in my craft room is labeled, and that I can tell you exactly where my yearbook from third grade would be found. Everything in my home has a spot, and I like it that way. It keeps me sane. I'm Type A to the core, and some my describe my tendencies as a fairly straight forward case of OCD. I like being organized, to say the least.

One of my goals on this blog is to share organization tips with you, my reader. In this age of excess that we're living in, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. We have more "stuff" than any other generation, and before we know it, our homes are filled to the brim with things we don't necessarily need. It's easy to feel overwhelmed.

I hope to share tips and tricks in the coming weeks that have helped me, things that you can implement in your own home and into your daily routines. For now, I'll leave you with a few of my favorite organization "essentials", and I'll work on showing you how I utilize them in my home in upcoming posts.

1- Wire Basket // 2 - Cart from Ikea // 3 - Glass Canister // 4 - Hanging Shoe Organizer - I use this for organizing cleaning products in my laundry room! // 5 - Notepads & To Do Lists from Rifle Paper Company // 6 - Mason Jars // 7 - Notebooks from Rifle Paper Company // 8 - Label Maker // 9 - Planner from OneCanoeTwo // 10 - Canvas Pouch from Sugarboo Designs

Happy organizing!
Steph

Open Windows

Is there anything better than the first few days of pure spring weather? Those early days in March where you can open all the windows, air out the house, and just let in the sunshine?

Today was one of those days, and I loved every moment.

Really I shouldn't say anything, because I'm probably just jinxing us. It's almost guaranteed that now that I've said that, we'll end up getting a blizzard next week. 

But for now I'm just going to soak it in.

Steph

DIY Wreath Inspiration

With spring right around the corner, I'm definitely getting the itch to do some spring cleaning and switch out some of our decor for a lighter, happier, spring-inspired look. I'm always pinning great DIY projects on Pinterest (you can check out all of my boards here), but rarely take the time to actually sit down and make any of them. I've collected a board of beautiful DIY wreaths, and I think this would be the perfect thing to add some style and maybe a punch of color to our front door for spring.

Here are a few of my favorites:

[Wood & Burlap]

I'm in love with this one. I know it looks a little more like fall as opposed to spring, but I think we can definitely pull it off since we live in the middle of the woods :)

[Yarn & Felt Flowers]

I've had this one pinned for years, and I absolutely adore it. I have no experience making felt flowers,  which I think is what keeps me from actually ever making this one, but the blogger who made this said they were much easier than she expected. She linked a helpful tutorial for how to make the flowers in her post.

[Book Pages]

What can I say - as an avid reader and lover of books, this one just speaks to me. Love! Not sure if I would use this as the main wreath on our front door, but I think it would look great somewhere inside the home.

[Simple Grapevine]

Not in love with the color combo of this one, but I love the concept - Simply spray painting a grapevine wreath an unexpected color and adoring it with fabric flowers and a monogram can make a fun, stylish statement. 

So my goal for the next few weeks is to actually sit down and take the time to make one of these fun wreaths. I'll post back with the finished product :) Anyone else want to commit with me to checking something off of their crafty to do list?

Happy crafting!

Steph

One.

So I started a blog.

I guess I'm a little late to the party. Is starting a blog still a cool thing to do in 2016?

Who knows.

All I know is that I've been having a lot of thoughts lately. A lot of inspiration running though my head, and I need to get it out. Share it with others. My iPhone keeps telling me that I'm almost out of storage, and since I'm totally anal about clearing photos off my phone and organizing them on my computer, and don't keep a lot of music on my phone, the main culprit is most likely my "Notes". I write more lists in that app than anyone I know, more than is probably healthy. Some examples would be:

+ To Do Lists

+ Things To Buy

+ Books I Want to Read

+ Books I've Read

+ Movies To Watch

+ Music To Download

+ Crafts To Complete

+ Places I Want to Travel

+ Small Business Ideas

+ "Journal" Entries From Trips And/Or Day To Day Life

+ Various Goals

+ Name Ideas For Future Children

... and so many others. You name it, I've written a list about it. I guess you could say I'm a little list obsessed, but I'm a firm believer in writing things down and having goals and checklists... It's the only way I get anything done. While I prefer traditional pen and paper, my iPhone is always with me, and the Notes app has become my bff.

Recently, in addition to the above lists I mentioned, I started writing out blog ideas. I have no idea why... Things just kept popping into my head that I thought would make good blog topics, and I just kept jotting them down. This usually occurred around 3am, when I was lying in bed, unable to sleep because my mind way just too full of ideas. I finally decided to do something about it (and hopefully clear off some valuable iPhone space while I'm at it), so here we are.

I find a lot of inspiration in various blogs. Whether it's something I found through Pinterest, a link posted by someone I love following on Instagram, the personal blog of a friend or family member, or a few of the lifestyle blogs I've followed for years (Little Baby Garvin, Natalie Creates, and Simple At That are a few of my favorites), I love hearing people's stories. I love seeing bits of people's lives, whether that's through beautiful home decor, smart organizational tips, tasty new recipes, various crafts, travels to exotic places, or gorgeous photography...

I love it all.

And that's what I hope to bring to this space. To my little corner of the Internet.

Things to hopefully inspire others as others have inspired me.

Please come along and join me as I start this new journey!

Love,

Steph