I honestly couldn’t get home fast enough to put my thoughts to paper today (or perhaps I should say computer screen). It has been almost 10 days since my last post and that has not sat very well with me. I miss you!!!! ( I am speaking to my computer, my blog, this world, and YOU the reader!) My my my, it has been a busy few days/weeks. The time has just run away with itself, and it’s already the third week of November. For me- this means that school is over in less than a month (my schooling as a Holistic Nutritionist) and a new page will be turned, completely, very soon (it has been turning for the past year, patiently- or I guess you could say that a whole new book has been in the process of being written and it is finally going to be done, final draft)!

I have a confession to make. In the past, I have read many blogs and read posts where the author says “I’m so sorry I’ve been so busy and haven’t had time to post but I have been cooking, and a lot of cooking!” I’ve read these posts and always catch myself thinking “yea right, like you had no time to post”. This is a slight indicator of what my mind can be like at times and how hard I can be on myself, and others! Well, humility is a quality I am trying to incorporate into my life more and really live with. This is one of those moments- I am going to admit it. There were many times where I could’ve sat down and written a quick post (or posted a quick recipe) but something was stopping me. Perfectionism? Procrastination? Distractions? You name it. There are lots of different answers and reasons. At the end of the day it was me stopping myself.

I was recently reminded of the word “priorities”. This word reeks of adulthood. I recollect hearing an adult preach to me about priorities when I was asking to go play outside for the 5th time that day, or watch one last show on TV before doing my homework. It’s different when you don’t have someone telling you what your priorities are and when to do them. All these things we have to learn to do, on our own. I was sitting in class today wildly jotting my To Do list (I have found myself doing this a lot lately and am continually reminded that it’s time to buy myself a new, functional planner that I actually use), trying to number them according to priorities. It’s tough. You want to do everything at once. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could complete a task just by writing it down and checking it off? I don’t know about you, but that is like music to my ears right now.

Speaking of priorities- I have a ton of stuff to do right now, however- I ran home and am writing a blog post. It’s about what is important to you and what speaks to you. When you’re a child that generally is difficult to figure out because you are still figuring out who you are and are distracted by the easy and fun things in life. Nowadays, I’m generally pretty good at listing out my priorities and knowing what comes first, but once your list starts over flowing and you can’t remember which way is up- that’s when a planner may come in handy;)

I am going to try something out this week- or these next posts that I will do this week. I am going to keep the thoughts/stream of consciousness for the blog section and the recipes will be their own posts. This is plainly so that you don’t have to scroll forever, through my thoughts and writing- in order to reach the recipe and instructions. I am very open to criticism though and would love to hear what you think of this new change. As I’ve said in the past, Chloe’s Countertop is still very new, amateur- and has a lot of tweaking and changes to undergo. So, please. Don’t hesitate to comment or let me know how this works for you!

Quickly, before I leave- I wanted to share something that I did last week that I think is very therapeutic and inspiring and motivational! I made a vision board! This was actually for a class that I am taking right now, however- as I was doing it over the weekend, I kept thinking how I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of really doing it before. I used to love making scrap books and photo albums when I was in middle school. I would go through all of our family photos and take millions of photos of friends in school- just so I could go home and create scrap books. I had one for each grade (6-10). Wow, I just sounded like a huge nerd. It’s true though. Humility, remember! The vision board for me was wonderful because I was able to tie some ideas together that I didn’t realize fit together, so well. There’s been a lot of goal work and dream work going on in my head and in my life in the past month. I’ve been reminded by a few people how important it is to dream big and to not give up on your dreams. These may be things that sound really cheesy or obvious, but they aren’t to me. I am so much better at telling myself that I can’t do it, rather than admitting that maybe underneath all of this modesty (and really, self-doubt) I may actually think that I can do it. So, I urge you to try creating a vision board. You don’t need to spend a ton of money, or a lot of time or effort- it can be what you want it to be. I really enjoyed it!