Saintly St. Ana

Welcome to the new year! I've been slacking with blogging (like months of absence) but I'm back at it. If nothing else the new year at least motivates me to do things. It just feels like a good time to get shit done. New year, new bed. Lots has happened since the last time I posted. 1. Got not one, but TWO, new jobs. My "day" job is at NMSU working for a department called Media Productions. We're stationed within the college of agriculture and I work as a graphic designer for print and digital media. Basically I make logos and promotional media for different groups associated with the college of ag. The agriculture department is one of the biggest on campus and has programs all over the state so I'm getting to do work for a variety of different clients. I made a joke with an old colleague that I'd be editing pics of horses all day but that has yet to happen. The main program I'm working with focuses on nutrition and cooking for those on S...

In an attempt to be more responsible with my spending/shopping I've started using some new (to me) methods when it comes to purchases. I've unintentionally started following a couple of minimalist bloggers and I've come to notice that their intentional shopping and lifestyle in general is pretty inspiring. Do I think I could ever be a minimalist? Hell to the no. I like my stuff. I'm the kind of person who attaches meaning to objects which makes it hard for me to get rid of things. But the idea of simplifying at least some parts of my life is really appealing to me. I think the main area of my life that I'd like to simplify is my closet. As you may or may not know, I've been working on downsizing my wardrobe for a while. I've been selling and donating clothes on a pretty regular basis for about 6-8 months now and I'm seeing the results. But somehow I still have way too many clothes. While I've been able to part with a good chunk of clothing I st...

The past couple of weeks have been kind of cray to say the least. My grandpa was dealing with some serious health issues that essentially turned everything upside down. He's now (thankfully) back home and starting on a long journey of recovery. Now that everything is relatively settled down again I've had a chance to process how and why his health issues escalated so quickly. I've now realized that a lot of what happened to him could have been prevented through proper diet. This was a real wake up call. These health issues aren't only his; they run in my family and have the ability to trickle down and affect me as well. This illustrates my new found love for citrus on the Whole30. Previous to one of the major events of my grandpa's stay in the hospital I had made the commitment to go through another round of Whole30 . Having had success previously with this "nutritional reset program," I knew how many benefits I could get from changing my diet alon...

We are living in a material world and I am a material girl. Madonna knows what I'm talking about. I don't really consider myself materialistic. I like to think that I value real interactions with people and life experiences more than I do objects. But at the same time I'm pretty sentimental and that makes it easy to attach emotions to objects, therefore making it harder to get rid of them. I believe this started early in my life so I'm gonna tell a little story. If you don't wanna stick around for story time feel free to skip ahead! I was always the kind of kid that tried to keep everything. My poor mom had to sneak into my closet when I wasn't around and try and throw out little bits of junk at a time so I wouldn't notice. Like literally junk. I used to collect the cardboard centers of toilet paper and paper towel rolls (I have no idea why). I also had several pencil boxes full of pens and pencils I thought were cool, but were usually broken. There wa...

Another one of my friends has moved away. Cue F.R.I.E.N.D.S. theme song. I'm not trying to be dramatic but sometimes I feel like everyone around me is moving forward with their lives and I'm stuck in the same place. I couldn't be happier for my gal pal- she's moving to Boulder, CO (!) with her gal pal and they're gonna have a blast being Colorado gals. She's going back to school in an awesome city and I know she's going to do awesome things. Having another friend move away obviously bums me out, but it also reminds me that I'm not moving forward as fast as they are or even as quickly as I had planned. My friend Annabelle and I at her going away party. #dirtymirror Lately I've found myself being more anti-social and in turn having a hard time making new friends/meeting new people. I've also been dealing with an increased level of social anxiety, so that always helps. Not that I'm unhappy with my circle of friends at the moment, b...

A.k.a. The story of my life I've done this thing, ever since I was in elementary school, where I never show up on time. And I mean NEVER . Anyone who knows me personally is probably like no shit. My boyfriend did this thing for a while where he would tell me an event started 15-20 minutes earlier than it actually was scheduled just so I would show up kind of on time. I'm late for work, late for meals, late for dates (sorry, boo!), late for movies, late to parties, I go to sleep late, and of course I always, always, always wake up late. Me and my Ma at my 1st birthday party. We probably showed up late. I think this all started back in elementary school. I lived out of district so my mom had to drive me there every morning. When I say we lived out of district, I mean we lived practically on the other side of town. We were late to school every damn day. The lady in the office would ask me why I was late so she could write me a tardy slip. Most of time I made things up,...