Spring Break is finishing up. Just wanted to round up a list of things I’ve been up to lately. In no particular order…

1. We’re homeowners!

Hayden and I officially bought our first home. After searching for almost a year, we found a house that fit nearly every criteria. We’re excited to move in, renovate, and make it our own. My favorite thing about it is the view, which supposedly is the best view our agent has ever sold in Utah County. I’ll post more about the house once we’re actually moved in.

2. Day Trip to Moab

Even in the midst of packing and buying a house, I convinced Hayden to take a day trip to Arches National Park. We ended up buying the annual parks pass because we have so many parks nearby in the state of Utah, and it makes for a cheap and fulfilling vacation. (My dad would be so proud.) More pictures to come.

3. How to Keep Going

I subscribe to the Austin Kleon newsletter, and he sent out a link to this article about artists and their day jobs. It gives me a little hope because I don’t care for my day job right now, but if it helps keep art tantalizing and fun for me, then I suppose it’s worth keeping for right now. It was a good read.

He also posted a talk that he gave about how to keep going, which was inspiring too. He’s in process of writing a book on this topic, so I’m looking forward for that to come out.

4. Wandering Aimfully

Caroline Zook is another person from whom I get weekly emails. She and her husband recently started a new business called Wandering Aimfully. What’s intriguing about this is that they are showing you all the behind-the-scenes of launching an online business from scratch as they go. I feel they’re being a little pretentious because they claim they’re starting this business “from scratch,” yet they both already have a fairly large following and tons of online business experience. But despite my reservations, their content is very good and very helpful for one who is looking to figure out how to run an online business.

5. Home Inspiration

I’ve been pinning like crazy all my home decor and renovation ideas that I want to incorporate into our new home. My brain is spinning just thinking about everything from indoor plants, to flooring, to furniture, and ceiling lights. I can’t get enough of the pretty home photos and can’t wait to transform my home over time. Here’s a picture of the end table I want to build. Check out my other pins here.

6. Magic of Tidying

In addition to planning improvements and decor, I have also been dreaming about tidying my home and going Marie Kondo on all our possessions. I purged my belongings a couple years ago when I first read her book, but now that I am finally going to be living in my own space, I feel like I can really embrace the magic of tidying (goodbye 6 years of roommate/apartment living). I re-read the book again this week, so I’m ready for the challenge.

7. YNAB

While I’m obsessing over home decor, Hayden is obsessing over our finances (which is why we can afford a home in the first place). These past several months, we haven’t really needed a budget because we have been living in his parent’s basement and have been putting most of our money into savings. But now that we are going to be on our own, we have been working on setting up our budget and making more goals about what we want our money to do for us. We have been using a free trial of YNAB, which stands for You Need a Budget. We just finished reading the book that the YNAB founder wrote to explain his philosophy on money and budgeting. I would recommend it if you don’t know how to budget or want more perspectives on what to do with your money.

8. General Conference

General Conference happened to fall at the beginning of my spring break. This event is always motivating and faith-building for me. It reminds me that no matter how much advice and information I can find on the internet, nothing competes with the scriptures and words of our living prophets.

This is just one quote I read this morning that added a little hope into my day:

“Brothers and sisters, life can be filled with faith, joy, happiness, hope, and love when we exercise the smallest amount of real faith in Christ—even a mustard seed of faith.”

-Elder M. Russell Ballard

9. Meditating

I started meditating this past year and it has been essential in helping me fall asleep when my mind won’t stop racing. My favorite app has been Simple Habit. I like it because it has enough free sessions to be useful. It’s not like other meditation apps where you only get a 7 day trial or there are only a handful of free recordings. I also recently started using our Amazon Echo Dot to play Guided Meditations. I don’t like the meditations as much, but the advantage is that it is voice-activated and automatically stops when it is over.

10. Coming Up

Even though I’m still dreading going back to work, this time off has been rejuvenating and I have some things to look forward to. Besides moving, I’m also stoked to meet a baby niece who will enter this world any day now. Plus I’m dreaming up creative projects and things to keep me busy during the summer (8 more weeks. So close, yet so far…).

I hope you’ve enjoyed this smorgasbord of a post and keep visiting because there’s going to be some photo dumping happening very soon (house, Arches, newborn baby niece, etc.). Until next time!