The Power of the 10-Minute Timer

I don't know why I started doing this, but recently I've been setting a timer for ten minutes and doing as much of a task as I can in those ten minutes. When the timer goes off, I'm allowed to stop and check "do some of X" off my to-do list.

I'm not so much a procrastinator as I am an avoider. Those feel like different things in my mind. Sometimes I will know that something won't take very long and I'll actively want to do it, but it's like I'm scared of it. It's that quality of being stuck in Flight mode all the time.

Other times I'll know that something will, in fact, take a very long time—more than one day's worth of time and effort—but I know that I need to do some of it today, and I just...can't. It's that fear/Flight mode.

But the ten-minute timer has solved this problem about 95% of the time. In fact, this post has been rattling around in my brain for about a week and I've been putting off writing it. However, I said to myself, "Just write what you can in ten minutes," so here I am, with 1:24 minutes to go. (Yes, it has taken me over eight minutes just to write four paragraphs.)

And here's the thing: In 50 seconds, the timer on my phone will go off, and I'll hit "Repeat" and keep writing. Because that's the thing:

Starting a task is BY FAR the hardest part. Like it's actually unbelievable how hard it is to begin a task compared with how hard it is to keep going. It's like the human mind is a giant dresser that needs to be slid across the room, and once you get a little momentum, it's possible just to keep pushing it until it's in place.

This is old news to some of you. I'm sure there's psychology about this, but I don't know what it is. It probably has to do with depression and dopamine. I just know that if I give myself permission to do a task for only ten minutes, more often than not I put in a legitimate amount of time and effort, and it's not that bad.

Sometimes I do stop after the timer goes off, and that's always acceptable too. I'm not lying to myself that I only have to do ten minutes while secretly having an agenda to do it longer (although that is totally something I would do). The deal is that I only have to do ten minutes, and if I want to keep going after that, of course that's allowed too.

For me, this has worked with cleaning the apartment, tackling big work projects, going to the gym, and more. I don't know if it'll work for everyone, but I think it's worth a shot.

Set a ten-minute timer and see what happens.

~Stephanie

New Year, New Me—for Real This Time?

I'd been meaning to blog ever since we got back from Nebraska, but now I'm glad I didn't. I want to say something different than what I would've said a week ago.

A week ago, I planned to blog about the epidemic of loneliness that has been exacerbated by social media and Covid, and maybe I will eventually. There are some discouraging stats out there about the state of friendships or lack thereof. I've been sort of filled with resentment lately, feeling lonely and powerless.

But last night and this morning, things have felt different. Actually, let me be more accurate: *I* have felt different.

For a long time, New Year's Eve was my second favorite holiday, but I think it's moved into first place. I am a sucker for fresh starts: blank journals, Mondays, hair wash days. I LOVE making lists and setting goals and getting "streaks." January's fresh, clean, blue vibe is one of the best parts of winter.

I've always been big into making New Year's resolutions too. When I was younger, it didn't bother me if I didn't achieve my goals; it was fun to forecast the year and dream. But as I've gotten older, my goals have started to feel more like tests to pass than personas to try on. I've started to feel like a failure when I don't achieve my goals year after year. I've started to feel like my life isn't real if I don't check certain boxes, like Gabe and I are in the waiting room of life.

Every once in a while, I'll get hit with the realization (accompanied by the Switchfoot song) that no, this is my life. There's no waiting. There's no "until." This is IT. We can't live like this isn't it. We can't just WAIT.

And that'll buck me up for about twelve hours or so, but then I start to melt into the Slough of Social Media and the worthy task of pretending to watch TV while scrolling on my phone.

This year, I didn't make traditional New Year's resolutions. I do have some specific, measurable goals divided into six categories (personal development, relationships, finances, career, attitude, and health), but here's the thing:

THEY'RE ALL THINGS *I* CAN ACTUALLY DO.

I'm going into this year with a completely different mindset than I've ever had before—and I didn't even realize I had my old mindset until today.

Until today, I've thought of each new year as a sentient creature with agency who could grant goals and bestow gifts on me. I would look out over the new year and wonder what it was going to do for me, bring to me. I didn't know the future; the future was in the hands of the year.

This year, it's like the blah blah blah my therapist has been telling me about "control" finally clicked.

Twenty twenty-four isn't going to DO anything. It's not a creature. It's not conscious. It's just a unit of time. There's nothing special.

Terrible things might happen in 2024. Amazing things might happen in 2024. There are things I can control, and things I can't.

I can't control how other people drive. But I can control if they make me impatient or grumpy.

I can't control the housing market. But I can save money and talk to Katie Little.

I can't control how close I feel to God*. But I can read the Bible and pray every day.

I can't control the prices at Walmart. But I can choose gratitude that we have enough to buy what we need.

I can't control the weather. But I can turn the damn thermostat to a comfortable temperature and eat the 12 cents.

I can't control my acne. But I can eat well and change my pillowcase more often.

I can't make the world quit social media. But I can show up in person the best I can every time.

I can't understand why people act the way they do, but I can choose to believe they're doing the best they can.

I can choose what books to read, what shows to watch, what podcasts to listen to, what music to listen to, what events to attend, what events to plan, what breakfast to cook, what journal to buy, what blogs to post, what trips to take, what foods to eat, what tone to use, what approach to take...

I don't think I'm doing this mental shift justice. It's the paradoxical, oxymoronic realization that there are both so many things I can control and so many things I can't.

When I woke up this morning, I just felt this explosion of contentment regarding the things within my control. I felt happy. I felt like God was showing me how to do what is mine to do, and how to let go of the things that are His to do.

Whether I achieve my New Year's resolutions or not is...

Honestly? It's irrelevant. That's the best word I have right now. I feel like life isn't a list of goals, it's just a bunch of time filled with habits and hobbies and conversations and choices that lead...somewhere. We don't really know where. Some people seem to do everything right and none of their dreams come true. Some people seem to do everything wrong and yet life hands them victories hand over fist.

In a weird way, I feel like God is calling me to be shorter-sighted this year. I am so future oriented that I will start getting sad that something is over before it has even begun. I feel God calling me to put my attention 1) on the things I can control, and 2) on the things now. How can I respond now? How can I pray now? What should I eat now? Who should I text now?

Goals are big and far away. I have the sense that, for me, it would be better this year if I just forget about them and focus instead on being present and doing the work, being happy in the moment.

So, to sum up:
The New Year does not itself have agency.
There's a lot I cannot control.
There's a lot I can control.
I like making goals.
Maybe I should forget about goals.
Goals are achievable.
Goals may or may not be achievable; we'll just have to see.
Social media is the worst.

I hope this helps.

~Stephanie

* I'm sure some would disagree. Maybe we could talk about it in person sometime :)

Lists with Asterisks: Lent Life So Far

I'm not sure if this post belongs on Becoming Me or Reason in the Rhyme.

It's about lifestyle changes, which puts it here, but it's also about wrestling with what I think, which would put it over there. Maybe I'll post it in both places.

It is Day 9 of Lent. It is also Day 19 of an unrelated health "challenge" I made up for myself. Present Me is now suffering at the hands of overachieving, all-or-nothing Past Me. I'm beginning to be slightly miserable. I will either break soon, or have a breakthrough soon. Here's what's going on.

What I Gave Up for My Own Eight-Week Challenge:
- "white" grain
- candy
- dessert
- unnecessary/excessive processed food
- eating directly from containers

Now, true to my tattoo, this challenge is riddled with asterisks. These are general principles I'm sticking to as much as I can. Will I have an Appalachian Cookie Company cookie when Gabe and I go to Boone for the weekend? Absolutely. Have I been eating white rice? Yes. These are "more like guidelines than actual rules," but I've been sticking to them very well on the whole and I'm proud of myself. It is getting easier and easier.

What I've Given Up for Lent:
- Facebook
- Instagram
- YouTube
- non-Christian music
- non-Christian podcasts
- solo Netflixing
- Poshmark/Mercari

The big asterisk to this list is different: In no way do I think these things are "bad" or "wrong" or "sinful." I don't intend to give these things up for life, and I don't think that I should. I have just been feeling called for a long time to strip my life of distractions so that I can get my focus back on my relationship with God.

I am one of the most distracted people I know. The mental habit of being distracted has started to feel almost like an addiction. I can't stop being distracted. If I'm watching TV, I'm also on Facebook. If I'm making dinner, I'm also listening to a podcast. If I'm having my quiet time, I'm also making a to-do list on my phone. If I'm in a meeting, I'm also sending an email.

It's not just that I like to multitask. I do, but lately the feeling has been more akin to an addiction, a compulsion. I can't just do one thing at time. It makes me restless. My mind cannot settle.

When that started to happen in my quiet time and I could not make it stop, I knew I needed some kind of mental reset. I decided to strip my life down to the basics and then add in only the things I intentionally wanted to keep. I ended up with a list of ten things that I then ranked/prioritized. If #7 is going to prevent me from being able to do #5, I try not to do it.

The things that didn't make it onto the priorities list—because they didn't come to mind when I put on the lens of "basics + things I definitely want to keep"—are the things I'm giving up for Lent.

(I modified the music and podcasts thing. I didn't think to put "music" or "podcasts" on the list of priorities at all because those aren't things I sit down and do for their own sake; they're things I do while doing other things. Since Lent is supposed to be about refocusing on God, I added Christian music and podcasts back in.)

The results have not been what I expected.

Since I'd have no other options, I expected to gladly fill the voids with prayer, reading the Bible, and journaling.

Looking back, I don't know why I expected this. Humans have never been ones to think, "Hey, you know what, let's do something hard instead of something mindless."

My quiet times have not deepened or lengthened. I do not know that I pray a ton more than I did. I do think that listening to Christian music has done a lot for my mood and mindset; that one has actually worked the way I'd hoped it would.

I dunno. It's kind of what Pastor Matthew talked about a few months ago: It's not enough to uproot your weeds; you have to plant Jesus in their place, otherwise 1) the soil erodes, or 2) more weeds grow.

For some reason—some weird form of stubbornness—I have so far chosen to uproot the weeds in my life, but refused to plant Jesus in their place. The result has been voids of bad attitude, boredom, and real sin that happens to fall technically in the realm of fair game during Lent.

I've been told that my Lent list is too extreme, like an overly restrictive diet doomed to fail. I get that. Maybe that's true. I just have trouble seeing how there is a bad way to replace things with Jesus. I have trouble seeing how any amount of sacrifice is too much when Jesus literally gave it all.

My thought process is not holier-than-thou. I wish you could hear my head-tone. It's just simple, sarcastic math in my head. There is nothing I could do that would be more than God deserves. (Again, I want to stress that I don't think it's sinful to have "non-Christian" hobbies or elements in your life. This is something that has been on my heart and that I'm doing for a season to try to rewire my chronically distracted brain.)

Even as I wrap up this post, I don't know what I'm going to do afterwards. I would like to do something healthy like pray, journal, read the Bible, read books, go for a walk. But what I really want to do is goof around on my phone in the ways I still can, like sifting through photos, reading through Notes, checking email, etc.

I honestly don't know what I'll do.

~Stephanie

Bettering, Backsliding, Becoming

Ugh, it's happening again. I'm feeling Changes.

However, it's almost more like a return, a reversion.

For a few months there, I was feeling kind of serene and mature. I was using reusable bags, keeping my apartment clean, and stretching before bed.

I'm still doing those things, but they no longer feel like A Big Deal or something I really care to blog about. If more, similar self-improvements descend upon me, I'm sure I'll post about them, but right now my mind is in a more...sarcastic? dark? edgy? place. It's not my FAVORITE version of myself (I really liked feeling serene and mature), but it is—at least historically—more ME, and that is what this blog is supposed to be about: becoming me, whoever that turns out to be.

It might've started with reading Mistborn, getting back into the Fire Fairy Story, and now doing NaNoWriMo.

Pretty soon after those things, my friend Aaron-in-Texas (as he's known to my family) reminded me that Breaking Benjamin exists. Right away I created a Spotify playlist called "Highschool" and filled it with Breaking Ben, Evanescence, Linkin Park, As I Lay Dying, Shinedown, Flyleaf, Skillet, and some random outlier songs like Natalia Kills's "Zombie," Adam Lambert's "Whataya Want from Me" (which is murder to try to spell for Spotify), and a few Globus songs. (Thank you, I did have eclectic taste.)

Then, I injured my right shoulder somehow. I can't do bicep curls, lat pulldowns, or anything shoulder-y. Despite still being able to do cardio, legs, abs, and left arm exercises, this injury has utterly shot my gym motivation. I went from going 4–5 times a week to going 2–3 times. I was supposed to lift legs today [Tuesday, November 5], but it's 5:30pm as I type this and I know full well I'm not going to. I'm still macro counting, but my MyFitnessPal pie chart looks ridiculous because I'm barely trying to stick to my goals.

[Okay, NOW, it's Friday, November 8, and with the help of Gabe, I've been to the gym three days in a row and am starting to feel better about this aspect of my current self. It is amazing how much exercise can affect your mood and mental health. It's so easy (at least for me) to "fall off the wagon" and then just kind of lay there, unable to get up without a lot of help/external motivation.]

On the whole I'm feeling more familiar to myself these days, and I cannot figure out how to put that into words. I'm feeling darker, but not heavier; sharper, but not meaner. I'm feeling more like my "high school self," but minus the angst and drama (I mean, if there IS any high school self left after those are subtracted).

I'm feeling more this,

and less this:

More this,

and less this:

I'm not complaining and I'm not concerned. I'm not looking for reassurance that "it's ALL me, just different parts of me." I know that. I guess I'm just fascinated by the phases. Maybe I'll always be this way, vacillating between new and old, light and dark, peaceful and sarcastic. I recognize that both versions are me, it's just going to be interesting to watch the Old/Dark/Sarcastic I feel returning try to coexist with the New/Light/Peaceful I've been cultivating.

~Stephanie

Stretching Before Bed

Remember when I talked about Balance Athletica's Elevate U Challenge and said that "two of the habits I found surprisingly pleasant and beneficial"? One of them was the morning routine, and the other is "10 minutes of stretching before bed."

At first, this was the habit I completely forgot about or ignored, for a few reasons.

1) My entire nighttime routine didn't take 10 whole minutes; no way was I adding in something that long.

2) I didn't think stretching cold muscles could possibly have any effect.

3) 10 minutes sounded so long and boring.

But one night I decided to try it.

I started with my neck and shoulders, moved to arms, to lotsssss of legs and hips, then back up through everything, ending with neck and shoulders.

The first three minutes felt like an eternity. The last seven went by surprisingly quickly. I found that if I took my time, breathed deeply, and stretch thoroughly, I could easily use up 10 minutes.

I felt fresh and relaxed when I laid down and went to sleep. I might've slept better.

I discovered that 10 minutes of stretching didn't feel like "too long" at all. I liked the way it centered me. And then one day, I discovered a shocking change:

I'm getting more flexible.

To be honest, I'd assumed that I had maxed out my flexibility. As a dancer, I'd always been flexible, and I'd kept that by teaching dance and stretching after workouts. I wasn't trying to get any more flexible.

But one night, I breathed in, breathed out, and reached...and kept reaching...and was shocked at how comfortable I felt in the position I landed in.

Now, I don't stretch every night. For whatever reason it stopped relaxing me the way it did in the beginning, and in an effort to be kind, I don't force myself to keep up a nightly stretching streak. I still do it often though, and am so interested and encouraged by the increasing flexibility.

If you have trouble relaxing, want to grow in flexibility, or have joint pain/tightness, try stretching for 10 minutes before bed. It took me a couple of weeks to feel a difference, but I think it was a worthy experiment :)

~Stephanie

Meat Rationing

Gabe and I are good at a lot of things. Consistently eating leftovers is not one of them.

When we first got married, we didn't have a regular grocery shopping day.

Today, that thought blows my mind. Did we just wait until we had no food in the apartment, and sometimes that happened on a Thursday, sometimes a Monday?

I also remember not planning meals ahead of time, which—again—blows my mind now. I would buy general ingredients, and then decide what to cook on a daily basis. In addition to causing me stress when I had to meal plan every twenty-four hours, this caused us to waste a lot of food. Veggies would wilt before we used them; we'd have too much chicken left over and end up throwing it away.

Now, Tuesday is grocery day and I go to the store knowing what I'm going to cook every night so that we buy only what we need. But those changes have been in effect for years. I want to talk about the latest evolution in money-saving meal planning.

(This isn't even a tip for people—just a step in my Becoming journey—because I'm fairly sure I'm the last person on earth to have this revelation XD)

Only cook the meat you need, and freeze the rest.

For some people, this might not work the best because they will actually eat leftovers or do meal prep. However for us, it has been a game changer.

We rotate through several different proteins: chicken, ground beef, ham, ground turkey, eggs, sausage. I used to cook a whole pound of ground beef if the two of us were having tacos. We would never eat all the meat, and would rarely remember to go back and eat the random serving of taco meat left over. I used to cook the whole half ham thing when we had ham. Same deal.

Lately, I've experimented with just about halving the amount of meat I cook per meal. Somehow—maybe it's a loaves and fishes thing because God knows we're poor again—we feel no less full, and our meat budget goes twice as far.

Doing this, I rarely have to buy more than one or two types of protein a week, and yet we still eat four or five types throughout that week. This change, along with other similar food prep changes (using what we need, freezing the rest), have cut our grocery bill by about 15%.

I know this is a small thing, but it makes me feel strangely empowered when I save us money and keep our lifestyle good. It makes me feel like a Proverbs 31 woman.

And who wouldn't want that?!

~Stephanie

Qutting the Pill: Update

WARNING: This post contains detail about girl bodies and cycles. If you're a guy, the post may be irrelevant, unhelpful, and/or uncomfortable, but you're welcome to soldier on.

Saturday, September 7

"Should've" taken the pill and didn't.

Sunday, September 8

Experienced near-migraine-level headaches for a few minutes at a time sporadically throughout the day.

Monday, September 9

Woke up at 2:30am in the fetal position, holding my splitting head. Tried to wait it out, but needed to get to sleep because I was directing Challenge B the next day. Took naproxen sodium.

Exactly eight hours later, when the medicine wore off, the headache came back a little, but I was able to resist taking more pain medicine.

Tuesday, September 10

More sporadic, painful headaches.

My mind feels slightly thinner, like something thick and clunky has been discarded. I feel good, more "myself." Not sure if it was just a good mood or something legitimately hormonal.

Wednesday, September 11–current (Wednesday, October 2)

No headaches! They have not returned since this. I'll never know if it was the birth control "withdrawal" or not, but I think it probably was.

Tuesday, September 17–Friday, September 27

Starting to experience some breast and nipple soreness. Doing jumpy exercises is uncomfortable.

Tuesday, September 17

Had some weird discharge. "Weird" because I forgot I used to get that before the pill. Definitely did not miss that these past three years.

Feeling more in touch with my sexuality. Hadn't been in a particularly sexy place for a while, but...feeling it.

Wednesday, September 18

Discharge continues.

Skin isn't looking great. A few small pimples pop up in places that I usually have trouble. Liberally apply The Body Shop's good ol' tea tree target gel.

Continuing to feel, as Rachel Green would say, "erotically charged."

Thursday, September 19

Still charged.

Do some research about discharge, find out 1) I'm probably ovulating for the first time in three years (yay, the pill didn't break me!), and 2) women typically feel more "in the mood" while they're ovulating, so that explains that as well.

Friday, September 20–Saturday, September 21

Nothing to report.

Sunday, September 22

Feel really bloated. Jeans I bought a few weeks ago don't fit the way they did when I bought them?

Monday, September 23

Still bloated.

Mellow Mushroom pizza tastes horrible one bite, delicious the next. Start to be paranoid about being pregnant.

Tuesday, September 24–Wednesday, September 25

Skin is looking mostly normal. Pimples may not have had anything to do with coming off the pill.

Still bloated.

Thursday, September 26

Still bloated. Entertaining the possibility that my summer diet is just catching up with me.

Take a pregnancy test to put my mind at ease about the bloating and breast soreness and changing food preferences.

Not pregnant.

Friday, September 27
Consider washing my hair a day early because it's greasier than usual. Realize that it would actually be TWO days earlier. Wonder if going off the pill is causing that?

Saturday, September 28
Some cramping.

End up not starting my period.

Sunday, September 29–Tuesday, October 1
Text Gabe from the bathroom: "'I'm not pregnant!' *said from the fetal position*"

Looks like the pill didn't break me and I could bounce back right away if I needed/wanted to, so that's good to know should we decide that period suck more than we're willing to put up with until we're ready to start trying, because...

Forgot how much real periods SUCK. Won't go into detail here, but girls who aren't on the pill know what I'm talking about. Alllllllll the wonderful stuff I'm talking about.

Wednesday, October 2
Period ends. Not sure if all of them will be this short—they were five or six days before taking the pill—but certainly wouldn't mind if they are.

Summary So Far:

Quitting the pill has affected me very little. While I think the headaches, breast tenderness, and ovulation are related to stopping, the other things may very well be normal and I'm just paying extra close attention to everything.

Not having to do something at 9:00 every single night is nice.

Periods suck so much. The pain and inconvenience had really faded in my mind after having super light, 2-day periods for three years. Reality hurts.

~Stephanie

A Morning Routine

For a hot minute in August, I decided to do Balance Athletica's "Elevate U Challenge," where you commit to six life-changing daily habits for six weeks:

1) Get 7–8 hours of sleep.
2) Drink a gallon of water.
3) Stick to your nutrition goals.
4) Develop a morning routine.
5) Stretch for 10 minutes before bed.
6) Get one hour of movement.

However, you know how I feel about streaks and how I might suffer from mild OCD, so sometimes the kindest thing I can do for myself is not put myself in a position to form a streak that I will then be a slave to. Elevate U quickly revealed itself to be something I would be wise NOT to commit to officially.

However, two of the habits I found surprisingly pleasant and beneficial, one of which is the morning routine.

Honestly, my mornings were already fairly routine, but I added a tiny, specific routine that I try to do "first" ("first" in quotation marks because, again, I need to leave flexibility so as not to lose my mind XD).

I get out my journal and I write down three things:

1) A person I'm going to pray for throughout the day
2) A "theme" word to guide me
3) A concrete, measurable goal

Then I say the Lord's Prayer, trying to pay attention to every word, and end with a quick prayer for whomever I decided to pray for that day.

(NOTE: This sounds weirdly Holier Than Thou when I write about it, but it's really not. I started saying the Lord's Prayer because I wanted something that would center me on God, but not require a lot of me right away. How's that for not particularly holy at all?)

This whole "routine" takes about two minutes, and I like the way it sets up my day.

A Person to Pray For
I started this hoping that God would lay someone clearly on my heart each day to pray for, but he usually doesn't. I usually just search around in my mind and pick someone. I pray for the person every time I think about it during the day. Some days it's many times, some days it's not, but it's more than it would be if I hadn't intentionally picked someone.

A "Theme" Word
I started with a daily fruit of the spirit, and then started on Aristotle's virtues, but the latter did absolutely nothing for me. I could never remember what virtue I was supposed to be focusing on, and it just didn't feel right. So I went back to the fruits of the spirit.

As I'm writing this, my theme word for the day is Joy. Joy is my favorite day. I always get that childhood song stuck in my head: "I've got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. I've got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart to stay.*" Somehow, it's not annoying. It actually brings me Joy.

A Goal
I usually pick a work-related goal because I find that's the area in which I get the most lost or discouraged. It's very easy for me to end the day having not completely checked off a single item on my work to-do list.

I make this goal incredibly attainable; it is never a "stretch goal." If I reach this goal, it always inspires me to work better afterwards. It not only increases my productivity, it makes me feel happy and accomplished, which colors everything.

This is one personal change that I would recommend others try. Find something tiny (five minutes or less) that sets your day up the way you like it, and do that. You'll start the day feeling like you did it on purpose, on your own terms.

~Stephanie

* I thought the last two syllables were "to-day" until I just Googled them. Apparently I've been singing it all wrong XD Either way, I like it.

Quitting the Pill

Before anyone gets excited, Gabe and I are not "trying," and we have no definite plans for when we will start.

But I think I'm on my last pack of birth control pills.*

There's a lot of information out there about birth control. Many people condemn it as harmful or immoral, saying that it can leave you infertile or with a host of hormonal problems. Many people swear it's completely safe and has zero long-term effects.

I will be the first to tell you that I hate doing scientific research (exception: psychology). (That is one thing about myself that I have not even begun to tackle.) I'm not good at it and I find it really boring. Is birth control an assault on your body, or a perfectly healthy tool? Like every other scientific topic (creation, global warning, keto diet, ET CETERA), it depends on who you listen to. But here's what I've decided:

It can't possibly be BETTER to manipulate your hormones than not to. And if I'm going to deal with any sort of "withdrawal" symptoms, I'd rather just get them over with.

Doctors insist that birth control taken for a long period of time (like, 10+ years) does not adversely affect your chances of conceiving. Doctors insist that birth control does not "take a while to leave your system." However, countless regular people report otherwise, on both counts. If it's going to take me a while to get my cycle back, I don't want to find that out mid-trying. How sad and frustrating would that be?

If my skin is going to go crazy, let's work that out ASAP.

If I'm going to get withdrawal migraines, let's let that run its course ASAP.

If I'm going to gain a bunch of weight, let's develop a solution to that ASAP.

If I'm going to have crazy cramping at first, let's get that over with ASAP.

If my moods are going to be all over the place, let's deffffffffffinitely figure that out before I attempt to have a child.

I may have zero symptoms from going off birth control. (I had pretty much zero symptoms from going on it.) But, like I said, manipulating your hormones just can't be better than NOT manipulating them.

I think I'm kind of excited to let my body get back to doing its own thing. I'm definitely worried about all of the above possibilities, but I'm not going to take birth control forever; I have to stop sometime.

I'm making all these other changes. Why not quit the pill too? I've always been an all-or-nothing person, and lately it seems to be all.

~Stephanie

* I drafted this post mid-August. As you can see, it is now end-September. I've been off the pill this whole month. Maybe I'll do an update post soon?

Short Hair

For Halloween 2018, Gabe and I dressed up as Anthony and Cleopatra. For Halloween 2017, we had gone as Ron Stoppable and Kim Possible, and Gabe had actually bleached his hair to look the part. Last year I decided it was my turn to show that kind of commitment, so I chopped my hair off to go with the Cleopatra look.

It was a pretty big adjustment. I'd been getting into the high ponytail thing, and that was no longer an option. I had mixed feelings for a while, but then I started to like it. I've kept it at a touching-my-shoulders length ever since.

But no one else mentioned the haircut.

Then, around Christmas, I got a sudden wave of compliments. And that has continued through my writing this, on September 10, almost a year after the haircut.

People I see relatively regularly (or at least have seen in the last twelve months) will say, "Oh wow, did you get a haircut? I love it!" and I don't know what to say! XD It doesn't bother me in the slightest (who wouldn't want to spread out the kind compliments?!), but I wonder how/why it's happening?

I got a similar haircut—just touching the shoulders, slight layers—the day before my sixteenth birthday and I HATED it. It made me look like I was ten years old. It threatened to ruin my sweet sixteen (but then an ice storm knocked out the power for four days [as if I needed more reasons to switch my birthday] and my haircut suddenly seemed less devastating).

I had anticipated the same sinking regret in October of last year, but it just never came. I don't know if I should be happy or concerned that I now look old enough to have this haircut. Ha!

Anyway, while the haircut started as part of a costume, it has become part of the Me I am now. I know it's silly, but it feels right that a "big" style/look change sort of coincided with a wave of other lifestyle changes. I didn't do it on purpose, but I'm keeping it on purpose.

Or MAYBE the haircut triggered all other changes, the way Abigail's visit flipped the Tidy Switch? ;)

~Stephanie

Fitness Journey: From Aesthetics to Kindness

When I started my fitness journey in August of 2017 I had two goals: 1) to lose weight, and 2) to grow my glutes. Today, I continue my fitness journey for one reason: I love it.

While I've never been overweight (I think I was slightly in college, but more in a "skinny-fat" way), my fitness goals until recently have been completely aesthetically motivated.

In August of 2017, I finally got an Instagram and began following fitness influencers like Emily Skye, Anna Victoria, Meggan Grubb, and Whitney Simmons. Obviously you have to be careful of who you follow, but Instagram has actually served as a surprisingly healthy source of inspiration and motivation for me.

I began doing workouts that influencers posted, gradually learning more about physical health, from BCAAs to progressive overload to macro counting.

For almost two years, this is the zone I lived in, very happily. My body made awesome changes that still make me happy when I see them. I'll never forget the look of shock on Gabe's face when I flexed a bicep one day and said, "Hey, look at this!" I'll never forget how shocked I was when I moved an amount of weight I thought would be utterly immovable for me. I eat 500–700 more calories a day now than I did a few years ago, and I'm not looking any heavier. Weight lifting is AWESOME on every level.

But eventually, I noticed that while my body had definitely changed, it hadn't changed enough to sustain my motivation/dedication. I worked really hard to be fit. I worked out, I ate intentionally. With the amount of effort I put in, shouldn't I look...better?

But then, both gradually and all of a sudden, I didn't care anymore. I think it was a slow-sudden culmination of growing in Christ, and—I'm serious—paying more attention to mentally/spiritually/physically healthy Instagram influencers.

I began to rest in the fact that my body is strong and healthy, and I actually really like working out. My motivation can simply be that I enjoy it.

I also started thinking about what Mik Zazon says: "What is the kindest thing I can do for my body right now?"

Sometimes, the honest answer is to eat some spinach and do a HIIT workout.

But sometimes, the honest answer is to watch Netflix and eat a candy bar.

Thinking about how to be kind to myself has radically changed the way I make choices about my body. I never realized it before, but sometimes I had sort of a creepy mindset where I would think things like, "You're disgusting. That's right, eat ten cookies, because you're already gross."

Whereas if I think about being kind to myself, I think things like, "You have a great body. Let's be respectful and not feed it trash."

Being kind to your body means you don't do things to it out of spite, whether that's eat spinach or cookies.

Letting go of my aesthetic goals has meant incorporating different kinds of exercise to see what I enjoy and what makes me feel good. I don't have to resign myself to heavy hip thrusts because they're the best booty-builders; I can do a HIIT session instead because the endorphins are insane. I can go for a walk.

Will I ever stop weight lifting? I don't think so, but not because I'm afraid of getting fat. Because I want to be kind to myself.

~Stephanie

The Tidy Switch

It baffled me.

Parents didn't take off their clothes at the end of the day and throw them on the floor. Grandparents didn't leave dirty dishes on the coffee table and just go about their days.

But we did.

On any given day, the living room had piles of discarded clothing lying around, dishes from several lunches sitting out, and activities like books and notebooks and video game controllers strewn about. It would get worse and worse until there were just a few areas of clear floor and Gabe and I would, in unison, realize that it had gotten too far and we'd clean up together.

How did real adults do it? And why weren't we there? We'd been raised to put things away and clean up after ourselves, but now that we lived on our own, we just didn't. We both agreed that we preferred a clean, tidy space. It compounded our stress levels when the house was messy. But somehow...we just didn't change.

This went on for the first two and a half years of marriage, not causing a lot of arguments or problems (we teamed up well and cleaned for company), but hovering over me and in the back of my mind as something I didn't like about ourselves and didn't know how to fix.

Unfortunately, I still don't know how to fix it. But somehow, it's been fixed.

Unlike my general realization that "I'm changing," I do know exactly when the Tidy Switch was flipped. It was March 13, 2019. My sister-in-law Abigail was coming to visit, and we did our customary cleaning for company: straighten up everywhere, clean the kitchen and bathroom, dust, vacuum, etc. Abigail visited for three or four days, and we kept the apartment pretty tidy, as we always would when we had people over. She eventually left.

But I kept things tidy.

Just as an experiment, I decided to see how long I could keep things nice. I stopped throwing my clothes on the floor when I changed into pajamas. If things were dirty, I put them in the hamper; things I'd barely worn I would fold and put away or hang up. After every meal, the first thing I did after standing up from the table was put the dishes in the dishwasher, food back where it belonged. When I was done reading or writing, I put my book or journal in a designated spot. When I came inside, I took my shoes off and lined them up in their place rather than kick them in the right general direction.

I'm a biiiiiiiiig fan of "streaks" (currently have a MyFitnessPal streak of 447 days), so when I realized that I'd been staying tidy for a few days, I kept it up. I didn't want to break that streak.

(Let me also say that in the midst of all this, the old adage "If you do a little every day, it doesn't take so long!" still felt like a BOLD-FACED LIE. Y'all it takes WAY more time to fold and put away clothes than it does to drop them on the floor. Don't believe those lies. It IS gonna take more time, and it's gonna feel like a LOT more time at first. Going from .5 seconds to three minutes is like, what, a 500% increase? Yeah. And it feels like it.)

At that point in the tidiness journey I began to feel fairly frustrated with Gabe because the Switch had not flipped in his mind when it did in mine. If I wanted the apartment to stay neat, I had to address 100% of my personal mess and about 85% of Gabe's as well. It was wearing real thin.

But a few verses in Proverbs 31 (I did a post on that experience) compounded with a bunch of other sources about respecting your husband, leading by example etc., and I ended up deciding that I needed to make one of two changes for my own happiness and holiness:

1) I could stop picking up after Gabe and accept that the apartment was just going to be messier than it "should" be.

2) I could let go of my bitterness and expectations and do it all because it's important to me and I love Gabe.

Well, the first one wasn't an option because 1) streak, and 2) I had decided I really liked a clean space. So Change #2 it was.

I have to imagine that this was what God wanted me to do all along, because I'm not kidding: within a couple of weeks (if not DAYS), the Switch magically (supernaturally?) flipped in Gabe's head too. He started putting his dishes away, and now if he doesn't, I don't mind doing it because it's the exception (and, ya know, letting go of bitterness and expectations). He stopped leaving clothes in the living room, and now I can handle the occasional bedside laundry pile because #Progress.

The apartment still gets messy, but for like a few hours at a time. Before I go to bed, I tidy up. When I go to bed, I put all my clothes away. When I wake up, I'll straighten up anything I've missed. We can always see all of the floor now. We barely have anything to do, clutter-wise, when people come over.

Doing this still takes a lot more time than not doing it. It takes just as much time as did in the beginning, but now I'm used to the amount of time it takes, and I've decided that it's worth it to me. It's all (FINALLY) become a habit to the point where even when I'm exhausted, I'll find myself putting my clothes away before I go to bed, without thinking about it.

I don't know how exactly the Tidy Switch got flipped for me. I guess my best advice is either to be patient and hope that one day it'll flip for you, or to get started and then cling to that "streak" mentality.

Or maybe have Abigail over. Maybe the secret was her all along XD

~Stephanie