a short, sweet note and how it got me to [finally] blog again

Hello and happy 2016! 

I woke up this morning and promised myself I wouldn't end the day without getting a blog post up. It's been nearly three months and while I've missed this space, I haven't even considered making an attempt at coming back until today and I have Lauren at Lot 48 to thank for getting me here today. See, I don't have a huge following on here and that's never bothered me much. I've always promised myself that I would write as long as it meant something to me and if other people enjoy it, well, that's just a bonus. This isn't the first time I've gone MIA from this space and I always know I'll make it back eventually. 

Yesterday, though, I received a comment from Lauren on a recent Instagram post telling me she missed my reading my blog and hopes I write again soon. This meant so much to me. While I will always come back and write because it's what I enjoy doing, there is a lot to be said for writing in a way that engages others, that connects you with people you don't know, that other people can relate to and when you don't have hundreds of people following and commenting on your posts, you can't help but wonder if anyone is out there at all. Over the last few months I've had so much to share and so many things to say but couldn't motivate myself to actually do anything about it. Lauren's encouraging comment gave me that extra little push I needed to show up here today and I'm super grateful. 

Moral of the story: if you have anything nice to say to anyone -- anything at all, say it. It could be exactly what they needed to hear. 

I'm going to leave it at that for now, but I'll be back tomorrow basically cramming the last almost 3 months into a blog post. Spoiler alert: expect lots of puppy photos.

I hope you had a happy holiday season and that 2016 is off to a fabulous start for all of you!

Recap: Random Acts of Kindness for my 28th Birthday

Happy Monday! I can't say I'm thrilled to see the weekend come to an end, but alas, here we are so we should just go ahead and make the best of it.

As promised, I want to recap my birthday week challenge of performing 28 Random Acts of Kindness today. I'm a little disappointed to say that while I'm really happy with what I did do, I didn't even make it close to reaching my goal. I'm going to focus on the positive though, and share with you the few things I did throughout the week:

1. Used a gift card to buy a coffee at Starbucks and gave it to the person behind me in line

2. Donated my old glasses at Lenscrafters when I picked up my new pair

3. Made an extra effort to compliment coworkers

4. Donated $1 to the American Cancer Society at Walgreens

5. Spent time commenting on blog posts I normally wouldn't take the time to comment on. Everyone loves blog comments!

6. After doing some shopping, I taped a $10 gift card to a cart at Target to help with someone's shopping

7. Baked a batch of Snickerdoodle cookies and delivered them to the local police station with a note thanking the officers for what they do

While I didn't make it anywhere near my goal of 28 RAKs this week, I'm still feeling pretty satisfied! These few simple acts felt really good and it reminded me how much more satisfied I am when I am making a conscious effort to bring joy to others. I may not have made it to 28 in a week, but I'm feeling more motivated than ever to seek out opportunities for RAKs on a daily basis.

I know it would take a lot more than a few simple things like this to change the world, but knowing I can spread joy through a simple act of kindness makes me feel better about what I'm putting out into the world. I may not have reached my goal for the week, but I'm certainly going to make an effort to keep this up!

Cheers to 28 Years! Annual Blog Birthday List

Hello and happy Monday! Today is my 28th birthday and I'm feeling quite content after a wonderful weekend with my love. We spent the weekend in St. Augustine and I'll absolutely be filling you in our trip a little later in the week. In the meantime, it's time to celebrate my birthday in blog style, which means I'm sharing my annual blog birthday list with you all today.

Since I started blogging 3+ years ago, each year I’ve come up with a new theme for a blog birthday list. For example, last year I wrote a list of 27 things I still didn’t know how to do yet. I’ve also done a birthday bucket list of 26 things I wanted to do on my birthday and for my 25th birthday, I wrote a list of things I’d learned in my 25 years.

This year, I wasn’t sure what to do but I wanted to switch it up again. Jonathan took me away for the weekend and I thought it would be fun to come up with a list of 28 random acts of kindness for us to perform throughout the weekend. His response? “Only you would give yourself work on your birthday.” He loved the idea of trying to perform RAKs throughout the weekend, but he didn’t loooove giving ourselves a list and focusing on checking things off that list instead of relaxing and enjoying our time together. He makes a good point. I tend to get a little ahead of myself and I can imagine I would have ended up stressing about the list instead of enjoying every moment with my love.

Don’t you worry though, I think I came up with a plan that still accomplishes what I want to do without taking over our weekend away together. I’m doing a reversed birthday list of sorts this year. Instead of writing a list of RAKs to perform in advance, I’m challenging myself to perform 28 of them throughout my birthday week and share them with you all once it’s over! It'll be fun to keep an eye out for opportunities throughout the day where I can do something small for someone else, rather than coming up with my list of things to do in advance. Needless to say, I'm excited to kick off my 28th year this way.

After spending a relaxing weekend in St. Augustine with Jonathan, I'm feeling so at peace and so grateful for this time in my life. My 27th year was full of joy and so many reasons to be thankful...I can only imagine the blessings 28 will bring. Cheers!

If you have any suggestions for Random Acts of Kindness I can perform this week, I'd love to hear your ideas! Share them in the comments or tweet them to me @AmandaLSnyder13 on Twitter!