Author Archives: 365 days of marriage

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About 365 days of marriage

I started this blog in April of 2011. At the time, Bret and I were wedding photographers and it was a way to share how marriage is more about the day to day and so much more than the wedding day itself. For about 5 years, I blogged about the joys and sorrows of the Christian walk, marriage, work, family and friends. I’ve blogged every day since a few weeks after I started. In May of 2015, we photographed our last wedding. Now, I have become passionate about simplicity, particularly in marriage, Christianity, business, travel and life. For a number of reasons, we have become minimalists. I’ve found that having simplicity makes life so much deeper, refreshing and joyful. I hope that this blog will help others see the benefits of living simply.

Day 2591 – To Be Read Tag

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I read about the To Be Read Tag on Words Read & Written. I liked the questions, so I thought I would fill it out!

How do you keep track of your TBR pile?
It’s a hodge podge approach. If I’m bored at the library, I might go through my Goodreads list and see what’s there. Or I might want to read a different type of book.

Is your TBR mostly print or ebook?
100% print.

How do you determine which book from your TBR to read next?
All about my mood. Sometimes it has to do with what I just read. Right now, I’m on a big dystopian, end of the world, survival kick, so a lot of my next TBR books fall into that category.

A Book That’s Been On Your TBR List The Longest
The Lovely Bones

A Book You Recently Added To Your TBR
Confessions of a Tax Collector: One Man’s Tour of Duty Inside the IRS by Rick Yancey (who also wrote The 5th Wave)

A Book In Your TBR Strictly Because Of Its Beautiful Cover
Maybe Before The Fall by Noah Hawley? It’s one that keeps popping up on friends’ Goodread feeds and blogs I follow.

An Unpublished Book On Your TBR That You’re Excited For
Heart of the Storm by Michael Buckley. I absolutely love the Undertow series and can’t wait for February 7th when this book comes out!

A Book On Your TBR That Everyone Recommends To You
1984

A Book On Your TBR That You’re Dying To Read
Armada by Ernest Cline

How many books are on your Goodreads TBR shelf?
213! Oy!

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Day 2590 – How My To Do List Horribly Fails Living A Minimalist Life

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I absolutely love living a minimalist life. I love that it takes minutes to clean our home. I love that everything has it’s spot, thus making cleaning super easy. I love the little tweaks we’ve made to make things even smoother and easier (praise the Lord for not matching Bret’s socks anymore!)

But I am utterly, completely and wholly failing in the area of to do lists.

I have 4, plus little guys here and there. Yes, FOUR to do lists! But I am making strides to change this and narrow things down. I do need 3, 1 for each of my clients and 1 for myself. I was trying to use three different methods for each list. Kind of a mental thing – this method means I’m working on my stuff, this one means one client and another client. I adore Asana. I was introduced to it by one of my clients. It works exactly like my mind works. Creating lists, the ability to add attachments, sub tasks and due dates…be still my heart! So, there was a part of me that thought, awww man, I really wish there was something I could do for all of my lists! And then it hit me, oh, yea, duh, I can create three Asana accounts! Which I did. And it has been a really great move. I think there is a part of me that will also need a physical to do list. There is nothing in the OCD world of office nerds that rivals the feeling of finishing a task and crossing it off with a pen. Though, the little flying unicorns that soar across my screen when I check off a task in Asana isn’t too far off.

I think the main point of failure is letting things back up. If I would just put my to do’s and ideas right into Asana and not on a post it note, I would be a much happier person and have a much more minimalist to do list.

What about you? Have you tamed the to do list beast? What’s your method?

(Note, this particular set of to do lists did not include ANY of my clients work! Just prepping for our cross country trip!

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Day 2589 – When A Lama Is Your Spirit Animal – Or – Review Of Virginia Safari Park

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Last summer, we visited the Virginia Safari Park in Natural Bridge, Virginia. It’s funny, whenever I’m struggling to think of what to blog about, I almost always stop at the pictures from the park. Specifically these photos.

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I just love the colors and how it shows how much fun we had. Being able to feed the birds was such a great additional interactive thing.

So what is a drive-thru safari? Well, it’s pretty much what you’d think of if you went on an African safari, driving past wildlife in their environment….but you drive your OWN car through! We got to see so many different types of animals on our trip through. We got two buckets of feed and thanks to a friend’s recommendation, we held onto the buckets TIGHT! If you don’t, you’ll lose it. I did really well until near the end. Yep, they took it right out of my hands.

This is a great place to take kids of all ages, but make sure you keep the windows up if your kids get scared or don’t understand that animals can bite. I would say, near the end, we opted to keep our windows up most of the time because the animals got a little greedy.

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The price is about $20 per person but there is SO much included with that. Not only do you have 180 acres of drive-thru wildlife to see, there is a petting zoo and a whole host of animals in cages to see. Another bonus is you can go through as many times as you want that day.

And as I mentioned, this lama is my spirit animal. Seriously, it’s like he stole my face.

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Have you gone to Virginia Safari Park? Did you love it? Have you been to other drive-thru safaris like this?