4 Small Changes You Can Make To Improve YOUR Daily Life
Plus, announcing this month's book club selection!
ANNOUNCING: This Month’s Book Club Selection
I’m so excited to announce this month’s book club selection! This month we are reading fiction (we switch up month-to-month) and the book we will be reading is…A Gentleman in Moscow! I have heard amazing things about this book, so I’m really looking forward to reading it with you all.
What You Might Have Missed At Classically Abby…
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Quote of the Week:
"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else." – Booker T. Washington
Classic Style Inspo
You know what’s great? A dress that lasts you YEARS. I bought this dress for auditions probably about seven years ago, and I still pull it out for speeches all the time. It’s perfect for traveling because it doesn’t wrinkle and it fits my baby bump perfectly because it’s stretchy. If you can find a dress like this - hold onto it!
Things I’ve Been Loving: Blanket Ladder
We have had a blanket ladder for a couple of years now, and I just enjoy it so much! It’s a great way to display and store your blankets, and it adds such a nice touch to any home. We got ours at HomeGoods, but I found a similar one on Amazon.
Welcome to Classically Abby!
I'm a wife, mama, opera singer, entrepreneur, YouTuber, and your guide to becoming the classic woman you've always wanted to be! Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter to see how! And together, let's be classic.
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4 Small Changes You Can Make To Improve YOUR Daily Life
Hello lovely friends! How are you all doing? I can’t believe it’s already AUGUST! This year is just flying by. Jacob is actually out of town this week for work, which means I am doing most of my work in the evenings. Actually, I’ve noticed something interesting in this time. When you’re on your own, it’s easy to be more productive. I’m able to clean, work on my own schedule, get things done when I want to. But I’m alone. I don’t have anyone to spend time with in the evenings, and so I’m working. My husband brings a much needed balance to my life - there may be times where the kitchen isn’t as clean when he’s here, but I also get to chat or watch a movie with the person I love most in the world. I am so grateful that I have him to remind me what’s really important for orderliness is completely secondary to sharing our life each day.
Last week was crazy, too! I flew to Washington, D.C. to speak for another YAF conference. The plan was to fly out on Wednesday night and fly back early Thursday afternoon because I only wanted to miss one bedtime with my son. Unfortunately, JetBlue had different plans. I arrived in D.C. with no problems and actually got to meet up with a friend of mine, James Lindsey, the night before my speech. I interviewed him for my channel a few years ago, so you can check that out here. We had never met in person before, so it was great to make that connection. The next morning, I woke up, got ready, and gave my speech which was a blast. It was awesome to speak to such an amazing group of young conservatives, and I loved every minute. But then came the travesty that was my travel day…
I arrived at the airport at 1:00 PM, ready for my 3:00 PM flight. That was followed by a 3 hour delay, meaning we didn’t leave the airport until 6:00 PM. Once we landed, we were left on the plane for another hour because we didn’t have a gate. So what was supposed to be a quick trip back to Florida turned into a 10-hour trial for this pregnant mama who just wanted to be home with her kiddo. I felt even worse for the family behind me with a small baby screaming in the back of the plane.
And next week we are traveling again! So I’ll be ready for a little break by the time the middle of August rolls around, but I’m so grateful that all of our travel has been for good reasons and any stressors have been, for the most part, positive.
Today, I want to share five small changes I’ve made that have really improved my daily life. I love lists like this that I can take inspiration from and that I can implement into my own life, so I thought I’d share mine with you. If you have any changes that you’ve been trying to incorporate, share it down below! So let’s get into it.
Clean up my house each evening. Throughout my time as a mom, I’ve shifted on whether or not I prefer to clean the house in the morning or take care of it in the evening. I think I’ve finally realized that I enjoy waking up to a clean home, even if that means cleaning the house when all I’d like to do is sit down and rest. First of all, the task of cleaning the house is small and finite and gives me a sense of accomplishment each day when I look at my home and can take credit for keeping it organized for everyone’s benefit. Second, giving myself the opportunity to clean and tidy each evening means that I can be a little more flexible with mess during the day. I’ve been pretty good at keeping up with the messes that occur naturally while having a toddler, but at the end of the day, there’s always going to be a dirty high chair, a sticky floor, and a few toys strewn about. Taking the time to organize and clean each evening has given me a clearer schedule and a clearer head as I approach the day the following morning.
Prioritize things that are good for your mental health. Going back to number one, I used to let cleanliness slide if it meant I could spend more time with my husband. Now, I’m always for putting quality time first. But I realized recently that by not allotting myself even 15 minutes to tidy my home, I was putting my mental health a little too far down the list of priorities. My home is my office, in the sense that as a stay-at-home mom, the place where my “work” takes place is my house. If I don’t keep it clean, I can feel myself starting to get anxious because I’m trying to function in an malfunctioning space. Once I realized that it wasn’t selfish for me to take a few minutes to clean up even if it meant a little less quality time, it meant that I could feel good tackling each day. And the truth is, our quality time has barely diminished at all.
Exercise, but don’t make yourself crazy about it. Exercise is really important. Fitting in walks, weightlifting, yoga, pilates, or whatever else it may be is good for your body and important to keep up with. But I used to get down on myself if I didn’t fit a workout in. I try to work out three times a week, for example, but the last few weeks have been really hard timewise, and I haven’t always been able to make it work. Instead of driving myself crazy about it, blaming myself or feeling guilty, I’ve realized that I can do my best to fit in a workout session without going overboard emotionally if I miss one. It’s all about balance. Yes, make fitness an important part of your life. Prioritize it as much as you can. And then, let it go. If you can’t find a time in your schedule one week because motherhood was just too hectic, that’s okay! One missed work won’t ruin your life. It’s all about doing our best and trying to be healthy. That’s what it’s about - not guilt trips.
Intersperse heavy reading with light reading. The past few years, I’ve taken it upon myself to read more non-fiction and educate myself on the big ideas I believe in. It’s been incredibly valuable and I’ve loved it…but I found that as I was reading these impressive tomes, I was also starting to dread reading just a little bit. Because some of these concepts are hard to understand and/or take a while to move through, the idea of picking up a book just because I enjoyed the act of reading was diminishing. Instead, it felt like if I picked up a book, it could only be when I had mentally prepared myself for the project I needed to work on. So I decided that I wanted to mix in silly, easy books with the more intense books I had on my reading list. It has revivified my love of reading, and it’s made me more amenable to picking up the harder reads, as well. It’s good to mix it up and read things simply for your own enjoyment while also reading books meant to improve your mind. Try it yourself!
So those are the four small changes that I’ve been implementing lately, and I’ve been loving it! Would you try any of these? Let me know in the comments below!