Intentional Living

Happiness is different for everyone. But universally, it takes living with intention to achieve your happiness. These are articles that will help you identify what lights you up and fuels your happiness, and how to live intentionally and with purpose to achieve that happiness consistently. Because happiness shouldn’t be hoped for around the edges of all of the “have to do’s” of life. Happiness should be within all of our reach.

How to Make Family Meals Important, Even When you Don’t Have Time!

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Research tells us having family meals is one of the best things families can do together. They serve as a great way to strengthen bonds. The family dinner table is a place to come together and discuss ideas, talk about our day, open up to find support, and laugh. These days, however, family meals have become more rare and less the norm. With busy kids and parents working late, it can be difficult to get everyone together at the same time, in the same place. Even when it is possible, it’s often rushed so we can move on to the next important thing. What we fail to realize is we’re moving on from the important thing. These are the things … More…

Struggling to stop a bad habit? You might be making this mistake.

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I can’t eat a few bites of ice cream and be done. I’ll also never be the person to take a handful of chips and be satisfied. But it’s not because I have no willpower. It’s because I’ve made the mistake of assuming I can stop a bad habit through sheer force of will and nothing more. I now realize I need to take into account a specific quality of my personality. Who eats four potato chips? When I was in college, I lived with a group of friends. The first time I saw one of them, a tiny, petite girl, take a bag of chips to the living room and then proceed to eat four chips and return the … More…

It’s Okay to Say No: Guard Your Family Time!

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If you’re like me, most days you feel like you’re being pulled in ten different directions. I am constantly having to decide what to do and when (which is why I love my planner). There are so many things that need my attention! From household chores, to work, to family time, to maintaining this blog…there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all. That’s why it’s really important if this is what your life feels like, that you guard your family time. Guard your family time with one magic word. In my house, family time is number one. If I don’t make a conscious effort to protect it, it could easily be consumed by everything else. That’s … More…

How to Declutter Kids Toys (and Why You Should!)

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No matter how many kids you have or how old they are, one problem all parents have to deal with at some point is the overabundance of toys. Every birthday and Christmas the toys pile up. In our family, there are even toys added on for holidays like Easter and Valentine’s Day! It’s never-ending. That’s why it’s important to declutter kids toys on a regular basis. The importance of decluttering kids toys There are so many reasons it’s important to declutter kids toys. Your own sanity not being the least of them. When kids have fewer toys, a few amazing things happen that you wouldn’t expect. The most counterintuitive is that they will actually play with them more! Zach had … More…

3 Awesome Chapter Book Series to Read to Preschoolers

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Do you have a preschooler that you love to read to? We do! Reading has always been a part of the bedtime routine in our house, since before Zach understood what the heck we were saying. Now, he loves reading time so much that I went on the hunt for some chapter books to read to preschoolers that he might like. This post contains affiliate links. Making a purchase through one of these links will provide me with a small commission at no additional cost to you. Your support helps me run this blog and I thank you! They aren’t super easy to find, if you can believe it. It seems authors and publishing companies think that if kids aren’t … More…

Confession: 5 Reasons I Don’t Wear Makeup (and you shouldn’t either)

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Confession time. Some of you who know me in real life already know this, but I don’t wear makeup. Like, any. That’s not to say I don’t mind having fun with it for super special occasions, like my wedding. But otherwise, I wear chapstick at the most. (And that’s only because winters in Wisconsin are miserably dry.) I don’t even wear blush or lipgloss. I can’t remember the last time I did. In fact, I should probably quickly go throw out the few things I do have as they’re probably all bad by now. This blog is dedicated to helping moms like you be more yourself, and in line with who you are and what you want your life to … More…

Why you need to find a cause to focus on this year

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We all have things we care about. Causes that we want to help, or spread awareness of to make a difference in our world. But how often do we actively pursue those causes? For most of us, the answer is “as often as I can, but not as much as I’d like to.” That’s why this year, I’m going to find a cause I’m passionate about and focus on only that one, 100%! Why focusing on one cause matters I don’t know about you, but my vein for wanting to help my world runs pretty deep. I care about everything. Which is great, because we certainly do need people who care and are compelled to act on those feelings to … More…