Practice Makes "Perfect"

It went almost three weeks between my last blog posts, and as I realized this over the weekend, I looked back, wondering where those few weeks went. They were full of celebrations, good food, and not enough sleep or exercise. They were crazy busy, per usual, but also contained a bit too much anxiety for my own good. And with my head in a stressed out scary place, and overwhelming feelings taking over, I found myself avoiding writing, because I was "too busy," unable to even think of where to start, what to write about. There were too many words, and no sentences were forming out of them. 

But in the end, that just added to my ever-growing list of concerns and if I had just taken the time, an hour even, to sit down and devote a little energy to this little site of mine, I might have felt a bit better. I might have turned the worry roller-coaster around. 

How can I expect myself to become a better writer if I don't write? If this is something that I want to focus on for myself and my future, I need to make it more of a priority; I need to be a bit more selfish and give in to my own wants. 

I process feelings and thoughts through my writing, from emails to list making to blog posts, and that alone, makes the act of writing essential to me. And so I refuse to let my insanely scheduled summer steal me away from the act; I'm making writing a daily habit, sitting down and putting pen to paper (or typing fingers to keys) and writing and posting at least four days a week, no less is allowed. 

And while I don't believe in perfection, practice, simply, will make me better. And when I actually do just that, make time to practice what I really enjoy, writing and pushing my creativity, it feels pretty darn great. 

photo via Pinterest

Essentials

Podcasts save me from driving off the road on my daily commute into the city. 

Since discovering Joy the Baker's podcast last summer, I have listened to all of the past episodes and look forward to downloading a new one each week. 
But there are 5 days in my work week and so there are 5 days in which I curse the traffic gods and go numb from listening to the same few songs over and over and over.

So I decided to give another show in the Homefries Podcast family a try (I've already listened to all of the We're About To Be Friends episodes)....and so that is how I found myself, a 27 year old young professional who thinks about bikinis and bellinis not babies, listening to The Simple Mom podcast the other morning.

And guess what? I'm quickly getting addicted. 

Sure, I don't really connect with a portion of the conversations, but there is plenty that I do connect with, children at home or not (do cats count?) Organizing my time and my home? Healthy cooking ideas? Finding time to relax? Bring on the advice.

And so, I've started downloading past episodes to fill my morning hours and today, when listening to the first episode of The Simple Mom, led by a lovely lady by the name of Tsh, she discussed the question "What is essential?" and the habit of asking yourself this when deciding what to do, or how to proceed. Not in some larger context of what is essential to your life and long term, but more so, what is essential now, today, at this moment. Sometimes it is cooking a healthy dinner for your family, sometimes that may be going for a run for yourself, sometimes it is just paying the bills right then and now. 

And sometimes it is dropping everything and collapsing on the couch with the remote and watching ridiculously silly, mind-numbing television.

I like this theory, I like this question.

And so, for right now, tonight at 11:15 pm, what is essential for me, is to finally close this computer after a long day of staring at the screen, and taking some deep breaths as I let this day slip on by, slide into bed to read one of my magazines. 

I'll keep you posted on my new mom-focused material in the mornings. Who knows what this never-a-nanny individual might learn.