FIVE YEARS!!!

So….we are just a few days away from March and I realized that this is only my second post for the YEAR! Can you believe it? I am sucking at this whole blogging regularly thing lately.

I have been blogging for 5 years now and what started as a nearly daily occurrence has dwindled to a once a month thing, sometimes even less frequently. That’s just life I guess. When I first started out (FIVE YEARS AGO- seriously cannot believe that!) I had a lot more focus and my writing had purpose- to keep me accountable. Now, I am much more set in my ways. My lifestyle is just that, it is ingrained into me. Yeah, some days (weeks) are better than others but even at my worst I am far better off than I was five years ago. My friends call it ‘health conscious’ and I love that term. Even my ‘junk food’ or ‘off days’ look nothing like the crap I used to put in my body on the regular before I knew better.

I can say without a doubt that blogging has changed my life for the better. Because of it I found my support group, the world’s best cheerleaders, and some of the most amazing friends. My community, both online and in real life, is amazing. It has allowed me to open up and connect with others that share my interests and struggles that I otherwise would have never met. That right there is priceless.

I lost weight, yes, but it was so much more than that. I gained my health back. I added years to my life. I ADDED LIFE TO MY YEARS! I stopped being so fucking afraid of everything. I stopped hating myself. I stopped feeling ashamed and embarrassed of how I looked or how I thought others perceived me. I found acceptance, self-love and I did so without having to lose weight first. I fell in love with me at one of my heaviest weights and was able to continue that through my lowest weight and every weight in between.

The adventures….oh there have been so many! Fitbloggin’, weekend trips, hiking with friends, slow rides, running races (still can’t get over this) including and most special to my heart – the Ragnar Relay in Cape Cod. Heck- I was even in a magazine!!! (And a book). Me. The girl that wasn’t sure she could do much of anything has ended up doing more than she could have imagined.

When I started writing five years ago I doubt this is what I had pictured for my future self. I am not even sure I believed that was capable of changing my life but I knew I had to try. My life literally depended on it.  And I knew that I needed to ask for help, I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own. And that is what I did. I asked you to help me, to support me, to listen, to lend me advice and input and you did. And for that I am eternally grateful.

It has been five years.

Five amazingly wonderful, empowering, heartbreaking, humbling, fan-fucking-tastic years. It’s been everything I had hoped for and more. I feel like I have learned more about myself and about life over these past five years than I had in the 33 previous. There is so much growth that happens through openness. I can only hope that these next five years bring me as much love and happiness as the last.

Again, thank you for your love and support and for coming here and reading. It means more than you will ever know.

Love and hugs,

Dacia

xoxoxox

The Friday Five

Happy New Year! 

I've missed you!

How have you been? I hope you are all happy and well! :)

I think this is my first post of 2016 which is kind of crazy since February is just a few days away.

Let me catch you up...

#1. Life is chaotic….more so than the usual chaos. Or maybe not, maybe it’s just January. I feel like I have been behind the 8 ball all month. School is crazy this semester- my schedule is so arduous that on a weekend trip home I had to write a paper from the backseat of my parents car as we drove north to my grandparents and then go to McDonald’s to ‘borrow’ some wifi to submit it. It’s been like that all month. Work, school, life…all of it. Busy, busy, busy. I am soooooo thankful I am finally taking a semester off this summer. It will be the first since I started working on my doctorate in 2013 and it will probably be my last break before I finish it in [hopefully] 2018 or 2019. Damn, that sounds sooooo far away.

#2. We are adopting!!!! Ok, that probably sounds misleading….we are adopting a dog! We have been going through the process of adopting a dog from a rescue organization and we were approved earlier this week. Next weekend we get to bring her home. She is a puppy mill rescue so the only name she has ever known is the one that was given by the rescue- Honey. We are going to change it to Bailey hopefully. Bailey- not after the Irish cream but instead after George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life. I also thought maybe to name her Zuzu (after Zuzu Bailey) but we liked Bailey better. I am super excited to add to our family, stay tuned for pictures J

#3. One of the goals E and I had for 2016 was to start to get the house in order. We had a ton of things we had bought or had been gifted to us that needed a home or to be hung or even just put away. Last week we started in our main living area and hung up a bunch of things on the walls, like our wedding guest book. I would say it’s bad we waited three months to put that up but I had a gift I got from E Christmas of 2014 (yes, 2014!) that was hidden away because we just kept forgetting to buy some wire to hang it. We are the worst at that stuff. But we are trying harder to get the house together and make it more us and less single E- he bought it 13 years ago so it definitely felt like his place. This weekend we are painting our bedroom and assembling all of the new furniture we bought to go in it. Our bedroom is getting a complete overhaul and I am thrilled about this. It will definitely feel more like home after we have all of these updates finished….and we bring Bailey home to join us.

Don't worry, Bailey will get her own shrine too ;)

#4. I realized the other night what the best job in the world would be- being the person who gets to name paint colors! Have you looked at paint samples lately? Those paints have the coolest names. We wanted to paint our room a pale green, paler than mint, and we narrowed it down to two colors to test out- tranquility and lazy days. I don’t know about you but both of those colors really describe a bedroom to me. We ended up picking ‘Lazy Days’. Painting begins tonight. Wish us luck. Here’s hoping for many lazy mornings in bed together J

#5. LuLaRoe – does this mean anything to you? If you know of it, you probably are addicted like me. Maybe not as bad but still, it’s super awesome and I don’t know a woman yet that hasn’t fallen in love. If you don’t know, well maybe that’s a good thing ;) LLR makes clothes for women (and kids too) and the materials they use are super soft, comfy and somehow look good on every shape and size. They range from XXS to 3XL which is awesome. And of course- LEGGINGS! Need I say more? Anywho, they are an online operation, direct sales only. That kind of drives me crazy- that aspect of their business model. Finding consultants, clicking through photos, racing to be the first to claim an item. Some groups have thousands of people in them and although those consultants tend to have the largest selection of inventory, it is pretty much madness trying to buy things. BUT, I do love their clothes and if you follow me on social media then by now you probably already know that. I ‘roe’ almost every day. I even bought a pair of leggings for my niece for Valentine’s Day. Not sure why I decided to share that…maybe just so I can post some fun pics of me and my crazy pants J Side note: I randomly found a LLR consultant named Dacia- I feel like she and I should be best friends.

Just thought I would throw in a picture (of a picture) from our amazing honeymoon!

Do you roe? What would be your dream job?

Love and hugs,

Dacia
xoxoxoxo