Coming Back.... with Two Goals for this Blog

Well friends I am back. It has been 4 1/2 years since I last sat down to write a blog post. On one hand it seems like just yesterday and on the other it feels like a lifetime! A lot of life has happened over the last few years. I began working with a new company, I somehow have 2 kids in high school, we had some fun travel adventures, navigated through Covid and had a pretty significant health scare with Paul that rocked us.

While a lot of life happened, the core of me and my little family is the same. I'm still juggling corporate life, being a wife & mom and still love finding myself in the kitchen.

The last post that I shared a family picture, we looked something like this. Ella had braces, the dog still looked like a puppy and Paul and I were the two tallest members of our family.

Fast forward 4 1/2 years and this is us now. Paul, the dog & I have a little more gray, Ella lost her braces, Luke gained them and the kids have a lot more height!

I have been thinking about returning to this blog world for a while now. When I think about where I was when I started this in 2016 I feel like I was an OG influencer- sharing life and fun fashion finds. At times I wonder if I had stayed along with it, what would it be today? But that's not how it went, so we will start back with today. As I have journaled out my thoughts and dreams on what I want from this blog world, there are 2 goals that I have. One is really just about me, to "fill my creativity cup". I enjoy what I do in the corporate space, but I have a creative side to me whether it's around food, decorating, parties (I love a good theme!) or clothing. And I have missed this outlet to share some of that.

My second goal is a bit bigger. I hope to inspire people that follow along to make simple changes in their lives so they can be the healthiest and best versions of themselves. Why? Well as I mentioned earlier in this post, Paul had a pretty significant health scare last Summer. My husband, a pretty healthy guy had a heart attack at age 51, an artery that was 100% blocked and had a stent put in. Fast forward to today, nearly 6 months later and he is feeling much better and has an amazing cardiology team that has him on a good path to a long & healthy life.

More to come on how that all played out in a future post. But things like that sure put life in perspective. After we digested what happened, Paul and I have dug right in to learning all we can about our health and making sure we are doing the right things everyday, so we can be here in a healthy space for another 50 years. One of the most shocking things to me is that heart disease is the number one cause of death in women in the US.

Number One.

More than any other disease or cancer out there. This was a wow moment for me. For me, I have heard so much about breast cancer or that smoking is bad, but not nearly as much about heart disease. And it's killing more women than anything else. When I tell you I was shook- I think I still am.

Now, I am not a doctor or a health professional. You should partner with your own doctors on your health. But I have read a lot about some of the best practices to put in place to feel and live your best life, and I want to sprinkle that into my blog. If I can help one person think differently about how their lifestyle affects their heart health then I found success.

So those are my goals. Have a creative outlet to share food, family, clothes and fun stuff and to try to help make more women & men aware of their heart health. It just so happens that as I was writing out thoughts to share around that second topic here, I heard a news story reminding me that February Women's Heart Health month. I mean what better timing to launch this into the blogworld, with February just a few days away? That feels like a God wink that this is the right path.