startoverdarling

  Anyone else feel like they are struggling to get through each and every day?  You may be familiar with burn out spreading through your workplace like a wildfire.  Everyone looks like they are having an out of body experience from the level of stress they are experiencing, right? I know one of the biggest questions running through my mind right now is, what should I do to balance my life in the midst of the chaos. Todays answer: declutter my closet and donate 5 full trash bags of clothes (amongst other items).  For some reason, cleaning either my closet or car makes me feel like my life is semi together. The feeling never lasts, but it is a good short term stress relieving solution.  I thought in this blog I could make a list of things that I do to balance my life, in hopes that it may help someone that is starting over or looking for alternative ideas for handling stress.  Organizing/Donating - This topic I know I just mentioned. However, I want to emphasize how important it is to j

  When I finally hit a breaking point in my marriage in 2022, I realized I had to separate from my husband.  My mental health was crashing and I didn't know who I was anymore. The only thing that I had an answer too was that it was over. The impact of that decision was exhausting, stressful, and defeating. There had been no plan set in place to protect or guide me through the process of completely starting over. Thankfully, I was born incredibly loud and stubborn. Little did I know, this would be my most valuable resource in times of completely restructuring my life.  Could there have been a plan? Or, a large savings account awaiting my departure? Absolutely. But there wasn't. I'm a believer that it is impossible to prepare for everything.  Especially, extremely painful moments & choices. I do not discredit the importance of planning. If I could go back and talk to my younger self, I would have planned around a lot of the experiences I ended up going through. We can on

  I hear all too often that people are searching for themselves. The ultimate question is, who am I? What defines me? Which things make me happy? It’s as if we are on this continuous journey of self discovery throughout our lives. Being in my 30’s, I have to admit that I do not know if there is ever an end to this process. The more I go through, the more I grow through.  With that being said, I think it’s important to know what you love. These things will bring you peace in darkness, help you self soothe during grief, and bring sunshine into your day. If you have lost site of what you love or are truly not sure, that is absolutely okay. Do not panic! Most of us have been there.  Things I would recommend to discover what you love:  Pinterest   Look through millions of pictures to find styles, photographs, recipes, etc that look appealing! Save them into files that you can return to later for inspiration. Vision Board   Get a canvas from a thrift store & some Mod Podge from Walmart o

Yesterday, I quit one of my jobs. Do you ever feel like your life is going up in flames? Literally? I took on two jobs, recently working six days a week, to "change my life." What ultimately happened was that I was so burned out from the stress that I didn't have time to enjoy life. In general. Time is our greatest commodity. I've found that I have gifted countless minutes to businesses that over work and underpay. This has caused me to sacrifice so many moments where I could have been reading in the sun, painting shells, listening to self help vlogs, walking in nature, and just remembering the importance of laughter.      Well, since I no longer have that job, today I remembered to be myself. I walked in the sunshine, mailed packages out, got a over sized Starbucks iced Vanilla Latte, found a stretched glass decor piece at a thrift store for $4.99, got a cord from Best Buy that hopefully will upload my photos for this blog, and put away laundry that was hidden behind