This Is What Matters.

Last night, I was suffering from a bit of insomnia (welcome to my life), so I headed out to the living room, turned on some recorded Jimmy Fallon, and (of course) opened my computer to catch up on all things creative. Unfortunately, I fell into the same routine that I have done one too many times these last few years--I began comparing myself. To other women, to other blogs, to other mothers, friends, Etsy shops, designers, decorators, cooks, homemakers...you name it, I envied it. Soon enough, the same thoughts began to run through my head, from "Why isn't my blog as popular as hers?", to, "If we only had another bedroom, THEN I could make an office just like that one", and, "I wish we had more money, THEN we could redo the kitchen backsplash." I quickly became unsatisfied with my life. Jealous.

But then, a sound pulled me from my disgruntled-ness. Parker had woken up and started to fuss--something he usually does at around 3am--so I did what I usually do and went back in to our room to stick his paci in and wait for him to go back to sleep. As I rested my hand on his little cheek, his breathing immediately slowed, his arms stilled, and (sure enough) he fell asleep. He was so happy, so content, to have his momma there. Just me. That's when it hit: None of that--those things that I worry about and compare myself to, really matter. At all. Sure, I love blogging, I LOVE the women I have met through blogging, I love Etsy, I love decorating and fashion, but in the end... I am here to be a good wife, a good mother, and a good (and genuine) friend.

My little boy loves me for me. He could care less that his mother made X amount of Etsy sales last month, or has X amount of followers, or turned such-and-such room into the best "Before and After" on the planet. All he needs to be happy are his mommy and daddy. If there is one thing I have learned from being a mother, it is how crucial it is to learn how our children perceive the world--and then live that way.

I don't exactly know why I'm sharing something so personal--I guess it was just heavy on my heart this morning. I am SO happy to be back to blogging, back to Etsy, and back to gaining inspiration in this hugely creative online world, but I am going to do my best to take it all in with a grain of salt--something that I know will be hard in this "Pinterest perfect" world. I hope that you all know that whatever you see here on my blog is just a teeny-tiny sliver of my real life. Like one percent. No, half a percent. The pretty parts, if you get my drift. ;) The other 99.5% is a completely awkward, hectic, but beautiful mess.

  I need to stop myself before I ramble anymore... I am so happy that each of you read and hope I didn't offend anyone with this post. I am so thankful to my sweet Parker for teaching me more than I have ever learned about life in these last (almost) three months. Let's all enjoy the messy and imperfect, eh? (Apparently I am Canadian now.)

Have a great day!

The New Blog

I hope everyone is having a great Sunday! We are trying to soak it up before the work week begins. Bryan is out playing golf with a friend from church and I am sitting here on the couch, watching "Waiting" (which is even funnier since I've worked in the restaurant industry), and am about to share all of my new blog updates. Lucky you.

First things first:

You may not have noticed, but the web address has changed from bryanandkaty.blogspot.com to twentythreeohone.com. I am SUPER excited about this. Like, I keep typing it in to my web browser just to prove that it's real. We have our very own domain, people.

You also may have seen the changes to the sidebar. At the top of the page, there are links to my "About Me" page, as well as a direct link to email me (thanks for the emails and questions, by the way!), and links to my Pinterest and Etsy pages. While there isn't anything currently listed on my Etsy Shop page, the goal is to change that in the near future. I'm planning to have new stationery designs up in the next month. AND I will be selling them completely printed and packaged, with envelopes (hopefully). If you are interested in seeing some of my work, click here.

Below our picture, you can find links to a few brand new galleries. I put these up so that you can see all of the recipes, tutorials, and outfits that you see here on the blog. These are currently blank pages, but should be up by the end of the week at the rate I'm working on them.

Below the Followers section, you will find links to all of my post categories. I originally had a huge category "cloud" with about 100 categories that my blog posts had been about. I've decided to simplify this with the hopes of keeping my blogging topics consistent and to make searching for posts easier for you all. From now on, all of my posts will fall into one of these categories: "Life" (which is basically any personal posts that I do), "Home" (includes all home decor and renovation projects, as well as cleaning and organizing), "Create" (DIY, craft, recipes, and tutorial posts), "Style" (all of my outfit posts and fashion obsessions), "Inspire" (all inspiration posts),  "Shop" (which links to all posts about my Etsy shop), and "Challenge". This last category is something new that I'm very happy to begin, but I will explain more of that tomorrow :).

The last bit of newness (yes, I just made up that word) on the blog is the addition of linky buttons to the link parties I participate in, the websites that I've been featured on, and all of the blogs that I read everyday. I'm still not completely done with this section, but I thought you should know just the same.

So, that's basically it! I'm pretty sure anything else that's new on the blog is pretty self explanatory. 

This week is looking like a great one for the blog. Tomorrow, I'll be sharing my first day of the 30 For 30 Challenge.  See you then!

A Little Change in Decor...

Happy Friday, everyone. We have made it to the weekend at last. May you all have an exciting and eventful one!

I'm just stopping by to note the very random changes that you've probably noticed on the blog. Excuse the mess, broken links, and clashing colors...I am currently in the process of redesigning this thing myself. Yes, I said myself. I can't even believe I've gotten this far, and I've still got a very long ways to go. I even created the background! Holla. I swear, one can discover hidden skills about themselves every day.

I have lots of plans for this little blog....some are pretty big changes that I'm very excited about. I really want to take this to the next level, and I'm hoping you'll be along for the ride. Be prepared for more consistent posts, regular topics, an easier to navigate website, and (gasp!) my own domain. Ahhhhh so excited to make this thing legit.

I don't know what's up with my language today. I think it's the lack of sleep.

How do ya'll feel about pink and coral? Good? Sucks?

Also, can anyone tell me how to format a sidebar and category bar below my header? Those are my current issues...

Blogging

(Um, get ready for a long post.)

I am a paranoid person by nature. When I first started blogging, I was always extremely worried of what people would think about what I wrote. I thought (and sometimes still do), "Do people make fun of me for this?", "Is what I'm saying even worth reading?" But then I realized that really, I don't care what other people think, because I don't do this for them, I do this for me. Let me take a moment to explain why.

I remember a couple of years ago, a few of my friends were poking fun at people who blogged. I did too, mostly because I didn't understand the point of it or why people would actually think that others would want to read their random thoughts and life happenings. But those opinions have definitely changed for me now. Over the past eight months, this blog has become a creative outlet for me (just in case you haven't noticed haha). I don't do this thinking and hoping that other people will care enough to read (although that is nice too), I blog mostly because it feels good to be able to get out all of the crazy thoughts and ideas that are bouncing around in my head. The fact that people are nice enough to read, comment, and follow along is just an added perk that has turned into something I really appreciate.

More importantly, I have found that blogging is a huge motivation for me to actually live the life that I want to live, and make our house into the home I know it can be. I probably get one or two real-life comments a week about how much we do with our house, or how busy we seem, and I have to say that honestly a lot of that is because of "the blog".  When I started this whole thing last July, I talked a lot about what I wanted to do, and what I wanted our house to be like, but never actually did anything about it. We spent most of our time sitting around, not doing anything to our house, not spending time with our friends, and basically not enjoying this little chapter of our life that will be nothing but a memory in a few short years.

Now however, things have definitely changed, and this blog has become something like an accountability buddy to me. We complete projects because I know that I need something to post about during the week (yes, I'm being serious). I post pictures of our life and the things that we do with our friends and family because I know that I'll regret it years from now if we never did anything but sit a home alone watching TV. I talk about my random thoughts and the little moments in life, because doing that forces me to "be present" and appreciate the life that I have right now. All of these factors have made both Bryan and I much happier, and much more productive people. No, my writing is not the best (in fact, I write just like I talk in case your wondering), and I don't really post any profound thoughts or events. In fact, everything I post on here is really only about 1/8 of what goes on in our lives, but still, it has more than helped the kind of lives we lead.

We are living the life that we want to live, and I'm sure we'll keep doing that. And our little blog will be along for the ride. And you will too, if you want. When we move to a new city, move into a new house, change jobs, have a baby, have another baby, so on and so forth, this blog will still serve as my main outlet for everything going on in our sweet, usually happy, busy little life.

So....explaining why I blog...check.

And since posts are always better with pictures, here is one of a graduation announcement I just made for my friend Jessica Studer. I am loving the flowers!

I also wanted to say Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet mother-in-law!!! I know you're moving into your new home and probably won't get a chance to read this, but Bryan and I both love you so much and really appreciate the person that you are. You are such a big role model for me, and I am so grateful for that! We hope that you have a wonderful year!

Whew. If you made it through ALL of that you get an A+ for the day. Good job.

Have a great Wednesday!

LOVE This Blog

A couple of days ago, I came across a link to this blog on Facebook. I started reading and immediately fell in love with this family and their story. Everytime I read it, it forces me to think about what's really important in life. The author, Kelle, is the mother of two very cute daughters, Lainey and Nella. Nella has Down Syndrome and will be celebrating her first birthday in a couple of weeks. In honor of this, Kelle has begun a fundraiser to support others who have been affected by Down Syndrome. She asked all of her followers to spread the word, so I am! You can visit their blog by clicking HERE. Even if you don't donate, please start reading it!! It is SO good!!

P.S. Click HERE if you want to read the post that got me hooked....and grab some kleenex. :)

Family and Floors

Hi everyone! Things have been crazy ever since we got back from Colorado Tuesday, so I'm just now getting a chance to post.

First off, we had a GREAT rest of our week with the Roberts family, but packed up on Tuesday morning to head home and spend some time with my wonderful, crazy family. They arrived about an hour after we did, and after a quick trip to Lujan's (our favorite mexican place), my dad and Bryan got to work on the floors! While they spent the trip covered in dust and glue, my mom, sisters and I shopped till we dropped. We also made it to round 3 of Harry Potter (last time...promise) before we headed home to my very messy house where we had our belated Christmas!

Weird.

Yes, it seriously looks like a bomb exploded in our bedroom (which is currently being treated like a dorm room....paper plates, granola bars, and cleaning supplies are all stuffed under our bed at the moment...yessssss). We just don't have enough space to put all of our presents (I know, how horrible! Too many presents!)! The good thing is that Bryan and my dad got a lot of work done with the floors and we (I mean Bryan) will hopefully be done with them by the end of the week, which means that I will hopefully have a clean room soon.

Here are a few pictures of the floor progress (yesterday):

Today:

They look great, right?!

It was really nice getting to see everyone and I am SO sad that our family time is over...but I guess we all have to return to reality sometime.

I've also been working on a little project for my mom. She has been wanting to start her own landscaping/staging business for a while and decided to kick the whole thing off with a gardening blog...so, I made her one! I also made her a logo that will hopefully be used when her actual business gets up and going.

You can go to her blog (make sure to follow her!) by clicking HERE. She doesn't have anything posted yet, but she will soon!

That's pretty much it for now. I will hopefully be posting pictures of the FINISHED floors next time so stay tuned!