3 easy ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle happy sunday i know.. i missed last week, i’m sorry! this week im bringing you 3 easy ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle. i know it’s march and if you promised yourself a new and healthy lifestyle for 2018, you may find yourself struggling. i know i am. i always find january and half of february to be super motivating and i’m on top of my workouts and diet, but that starts to fade the closer we get to march and april. being healthy really is a lifestyle! you have to change the way you sleep, eat, breathe (lol) completely. it’s not about avoiding junk food and working out every single day – it’s about making better choices each day. if i think of it that way, in terms of making better choices, i don’t put as much pressure on myself. ok, let’s just get into it! here are 3 super easy ways to stick with a healthier lifestyle. more water, less sugar i probably started doing this like 8 years ago, BUT whenever i go to a restaurant or fast food or whatever, i always always always order water. no more juices and no more sodas. if i do decide to get a cider or juice or something, i always make sure to order at last one water to drink with it. this means less sugar and more hydration! i find myself reaching for water more when i’m at home because of this as well. don’t get me wrong, i love a good apple juice or what have you here and there, but by replacing most of your beverages with water, you’re decreasing your sugar intake by sooooo much. better snacks i know sometimes it can be super easy to grab a bag of chips or cookies for a little snack throughout the day or at night, but i have replaced all of my snacks with either fruits or veggies. instead of grabbing pretzels or crackers in the middle of the day, i make sure to have an apple or carrots or an orange, etc. i find it super hard to incorporate fruits and veggies into to my meals, which is so annoying, i know. but by replacing all of my snacks with them, it ensures that i get my servings in. every now and again i’ll have some oreos or…

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my blogging journey boy oh boy have i come a long way since i posted my first blog post on june 16, 2014. the reason i started my blog is pretty simple: i needed a creative outlet to help sort out what was going on inside my brain. i didn’t want to limit myself to only talking about certain subjects and i also didn’t want to make money. i loved writing and taking photos and sharing things that made me happy. blogging can be quite complex when you really build an audience and start making a living from it, but that was never a goal of mine. my first posts as i read through my very first blog post >>> see here <<< it brings me right back to being 22 years old sat in bed, late at night, sorting all of it out. sometimes i’m so nostalgic for the days when i didn’t have a blogging schedule, or following, or anything at all. heck, i probably wrote for a good few months before anyone even knew i had a blog at all. when i first started blogging, it was 90% poems and words and 10% photos. if you’ve been following along since the beginning, you may remember when i posted mostly just poems. those are still my favorites. i also used to have “words of the day”. haha how fun am i!? the first blog post i ever even shared photos on was a happy birthday post to my pet snake. haha you can see that >>> here <<< most of my old posts are still private, because they aren’t very good, but i love looking at them because i’ve come such a long way. i’ve gone from posting poems here and there, to starting my very own book. which, if you haven’t seen my preview of click here to do so. i didn’t start actually adding photos to my posts until 2015 – and even then, the photos were basically taken with my iphone. which is totally fine! but the quality of my photos has improved so much. below are a few posts from way back when – with those not so good photos – throwback thursday traveling to brighten moving to grand rapids and exploring down town  taking blogging seriously once 2016 came – thats when i really started making blog posts that others might find interesting…

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happy valentine’s day so jaci marie did this post with her husband and i thought in the celebration of valentine’s day it would be fun! i sent these questions to dominic and we both filled them out separately without discussing them. enjoy! xo Do you remember the first thing you said to one another? c: not exactly, BUT our first conversation was at a house party and we briefly talked about how we were both fans of macklemore. his first album had just come out and we were both obsessed! d: Courtney telling me how much she liked the music I played at a party What is your favorite quality about each other? c: whenever we are walking down town or just around in general and there’s someone playing music or even homeless people that strike up a conversation with him, he legit ALWAYS gives them a few bucks (if he has it). he’s still in school and only working part time, so he isn’t exactly in a place to give people money necessarily, but he always does. it’s pretty selfless! he just has a really big heart and feels when others are hurting or in need. d: she doesn’t care what other people think and she’s always up for a spontaneous adventure! Who said I love you first? c: he def did, but i was waiting for it hahaha. i knew he wanted to say it first. d: me! Who is the messiest? c: HIM 100%. but it’s not really fair because i am super ocd and a clean freak. on the other hand though, he legit puts his dirty clothes next to the hamper or randomly around the apartment and i just don’t understand howwwww lol d: Also me, definitely me.. Courtney is a neat freak What is something people don’t know about your spouse? c: i think what i said before about how selfless and caring he can be. he puts on a good act of being “tough” but he really does have a big heart. also, he’s super obsessed with dogs. like, 50% of the accounts (or more) on instagram that he follows are of dogs. totally fine with me though! because i want like 7 dogs some day. d: Her middle name is Sue and she hates it when I call her Courtney Sue! *he is really lucky i didn’t delete his answer and am letting it slide because…

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