If you’re subscribed to the newsletter I mentioned yesterday that a lot has been going on. In debriefing with my girlfriends last night it was even more apparent that more has happened than I can even remember.

It’s been a loooong time since I’ve done one of these “Life Lately’s”, but with how crazy life has been lately it was the only post that has been easy to write. Truth be told, I haven’t had a single second to sit down and even think about writing or working late night. We’ve been on the go for something like 8+ weeks/weekends now and I can hardly believe it’s already the end of October. How did that happen?!

I haven’t really been able to share as much as usual lately (and I’ll try to explain why), but I’ve been making a point to actually be present and enjoy what’s going on and put my phone down. The real story is that life > blogging lately and more than ever I’ve had a refreshed perspective on my time management. Since moving at the end of the summer, things have been a whirlwind but so much fun. Between decorating our new place, tons of weddings, trips to new places, and having visitors in town I’ve just been doing my best to soak it all up. At the end of the day, all of these things are the things that bring me the most joy in life and I really needed to take a step back and make sure that was my priority.

After blogging for 6 years now, I’ve spent plenty of time putting in the effort and fully understand what it takes to make life look like one beautiful feed or for some, a never-ending vacation. We all know it’s absolutely not. It takes a lot of time and effort to make one photo look on point and not to mention curating a social presence and feed and additional content outside of that. Don’t be fooled – for most people there is nothing instant about Instagram anymore (which is great for people who use it for business!). Blogging takes 20-25 hours a week at minimum and the reason why so many have turned it into their full time jobs is because it wasn’t doable anymore to do both.

So I made a conscious decision to put my phone down, hug my nephew extra tight on our family trip, smile and laugh with our friends, spend more time in the pool and on the beach, and wear my clothes without feeling like I absolutely needed to get someone to take a picture of it. If I’m being totally honest, outside of feeling bad that I knew I wasn’t posting as much it was pretty refreshing. It also was a nice reminder for me that I blog because I enjoy it and creating the content that I share. But when you’re exhausted and run down there’s no inspiration behind that content, and I just couldn’t bring myself to post things just for the sake of doing it.

The good news is that the past few weeks have been an amazing refresher in that our travel is done for now and I’m getting back into a routine.

So, what has been going on lately? Let’s see…

We’re getting settled

Our apartment is slowly but surely coming along! We have a handful of things arriving in the next week and our nightstand just arrived this past week. It’s so nice to have one again – neither of us had anywhere to set things in our places because they were so tiny so this feels extra luxurious. Now just for a rug and our bedroom is almost complete.

Learning to cook

We’re also getting into the cooking game and are definitely on the hunt for quick and easy recipes. So far we’re mastering our favorites, but I’m excited to start branching out and possibly getting a slow cooker. Do any of you guys have one and what are your thoughts?

Done traveling for now

After Martha’s Vineyard, Dallas with my co-workers, Disney World with my family, and Cabo San Lucas for a wedding, we’re taking a little pause on going anywhere. I have to say though, every single trip was so memorable and I feel so lucky that I was able to make all of them happen. There’s nothing like flying straight from Martha’s Vineyard to Orlando and getting to see your nephew meet Mickey Mouse!

New restaurants

More recently we’ve been to a few new spots that I’ve really enjoyed. I hadn’t been to Barbuto yet and we went last weekend when my bestie from home was in town (it was delish) and we’re headed back to Speedy Romeo for pizza tonight. We also went to Barraca when my Chicago girls were in town and absolutely loved it for tapas. A great spot for sharing!

It’s Halloween

I always get really excited in the weeks leading up to Halloween and then never follow through on my ideas. This year I ended up being a pineapple at work (which was super easy and actually turned out pretty cute), a very last minute decision that worked out. I’m not huge on costumes anymore but was so blown away by everyone’s creativity! If you follow Poppin on Instagram, check out our Instagram story to see everyone’s costumes at our party last night!

That’s all for now, I’m hoping to keep up with shorter updates more frequently and looking forward to a few exciting posts in the upcoming weeks!