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Changes....

If you have been keeping track of me on Facebook, you have seen some changes lately. And I apologize for how long this is going to be. It's been over a month since I've posted so there's a lot to type. :)

First, I chopped a ton of my hair off and donated it to a great organization! This is something that I try to do every couple of years and something I have been talking about doing for months. The stars aligned when my husband had a random day of work and I had a coupon for a free haircut at a local salon school (don't worry I tipped the student very well to help her pay her tuition). I may even be going back for some fun color soon...

And I've been working on changing up my wardrobe. If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE jeans and t-shirts. And while I'm super comfortable in them, I realized a couple months ago that I really wanted to make my closet a little more sophisticated/put together. I've actually been talking about doing this for years, but have always had an excuse of why I couldn't do it. So this year, when that tax money hit the account, I decided to give myself a budget to get some new stuff. I couldn't make it super easy on myself, though, because that wouldn't be me at all, right?

I have been drawn to having a more ethical closet/lifestyle for a couple years as well, but it can get expensive. I've read up on so many companies and read so many blog posts about making more ethical choices that my head was swimming with information. Finally, I came across a few blogs (I would link them, but I read them late at night and didn't save them....sorry) about how you can start to have a more ethical lifestyle just by purchasing items second hand. And something clicked with me! I can still have an amazing wardrobe and still be shopping ethically. I just don't need to go run and grab stuff off the clothing racks and some of my favorite stores.  Again the stars aligned because as soon as this clicked, a local resale shop was having a 30% off sale. So I texted a good friend to see if she wanted to go with me and we went to town, even if she made me stay far away from the t-shirt section. I actually walked out of the store with 14 items for less than $100. Plus, whoever turned those clothes in made a little money off turning them in and kept those clothes from being thrown away. So win, win, win. :)

So my wardrobe will be a work in progress for a while since I'm not just running to the store and grabbing what I need off the rack (or the clearance rack because that's my go to spot). And I love that people keep sharing posts with me about what I should have in my closet, capsule wardrobes, etc. so keep sharing them. I know that it may seem like I don't like those posts, but I really do; I just can't make myself go out and buy everything brand new right now.

When we left Bahrain almost 5 years ago, I had decided that we were going to live an "all natural" life. This meant all homemade/natural cleaners, organic food, etc. Well, life has a funny way of making you forget all those goals, right? When we moved into our first home in the States, I was more worried about just surviving motherhood than I was about all that stuff so I let a lot of stuff slide by me. And it has continued to happen. Slowly, but surely I have been replacing some of the chemicals in our house, but it has been a process (mostly because I'm cheap and things cost money). I decided that this year, I would make a larger effort to really making our life more "natural." So a lot of cleaning products have been replaced with Norwex cleaning cloths, we will be trying out their laundry detergent soon, which I'm really excited about. I've even been cleaning my face with JUST their body cloths and have seen amazing changes in my skin. If you haven't tried Norwex, find a local consultant (or ask me for my consultant's info) so you can try out some of these items for yourself because you will be amazed!

And I've made a bigger effort to make sure I know that I am putting good stuff on/in my body. Right now, we still don't eat a ton of organic food (because my child eats for like 5 people and I'm not a millionaire), but I am going to start switching things over little by little. I also have a huge goal of finding a local butcher to get all our meat from. I also want to start hitting up the local farmer's market now that we won't be spending most Saturday mornings getting ready for or at hockey practices. As far as outside my body, I'm switching to a lot more natural products and researching tons of ingredients. If you want to start looking at what you are putting on your body, I highly encourage you to take a look at the Environmental Working Group website. You can search for products by name or can break it all down and search by their ingredients. I have found some interesting ingredients in products that we were using. By the way, if you have some great natural products you love, let me know so I can check them out. I still have many things I am looking for.

I'm going to go ahead and wrap this post up by saying this: I apologize now if I start oversharing about everything on social media/here on this blog. This time of my life is very exciting to me because I am really taking the time to discover things I love and get rid of things I can live without. I also don't want anyone to think that I only think the products/the way I shop are the way to go. For me, these things are important. If they aren't important for you, I hope that you focus on what is important to you. We are all on our own journeys and I love that we can each be ourselves.

And there will be some changes to this blog coming up, but that's a whole new post for a new day (hopefully tomorrow) since this post is already so long. ;)

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