There are always snacks at my women’s Bible study group, and even though I’ve always eaten dinner before I come, I always eat the snacks. Sometimes, I try to plan my dinner accordingly, knowing that I will nibble on something. But at our last meeting, there was a bowl of caramel popcorn that I could not. Stop. Eating. If you asked me objectively if I liked caramel popcorn, I would say no. If you handed me a menu of desserts and caramel popcorn was one of the options, it’s never the one I would pick. Yet I couldn’t keep my hand out of that bowl. I even told myself at one point, “Okay, you’re done. You can stop now.” And then I went back for more. I’m sure there are worse things than caramel popcorn, but I felt low. I felt like I ought to be able to control when I stopped eating. I felt like I ought to be able to say no.

Enter the Whole 30.

I’ve heard about this plan for awhile. I like that it doesn’t bill itself as a “diet.” Instead, its creators really want to help you change your mindset about food, and I think I’m ready for that. The caramel popcorn incident sent me over the edge.

The gist of the Whole 30 is that you eat whole foods for 30 days. It cuts out some elements that I’ve always thought were “healthy,” like all legumes and dairy, but it also cuts out the usual suspects: all added sugar and “sugar,” alcohol, grains, white potatoes. The authors say, “Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re totally natural and unprocessed.”

I eat pretty healthy, and I am pretty active, but I think it’s easy to use moderation as a crutch. You know, a lot of times magazines and whatnot give the advice to “just take the stairs” and it’ll make a difference, but Jillian Michaels, fitness guru extraordinaire, says “That is a false method of lethargy that isn’t doing you any favors. You ARE capable of working out. You’re capable of working out HARD.” I’m sort of feeling that about my diet lately.

I also listened to a podcast recently featuring Stanford professor BJ Fogg and his premise that in order to enact personal change, you need to make the change so small that it doesn’t take any willpower. For example, he started doing one pushup every time he went to the bathroom. And eventually, he started doing more. And then pushups weren’t hard anymore, so he started doing them other times as well. He’s currently working on putting his socks on inside out, just as a means of being in control of his behaviors. And something about that appealed to me: being so conscious of yourself that you’re trying to change a random behavior just because you can.

So given all of that, it’s a perfect storm that’s making me want to try to Whole 30. I want to see what I feel like if I’m eating that way, and I want to change my behaviors just as an experiment.

I’m sort of dithering, which is exactly what the authors say not to do, but I’m planning to start at the beginning of a month, because for my obsessive compulsive self that just seems right. (Plus, I want to read the book ahead of time and really give the psychological side its due weight.) However, I realized there was no reason I couldn’t start making some of the suggested changes in the meantime! Two areas where I’m trying to break my patterns of thinking are in what constitutes a “meal” and in what a snack looks like. Somehow I’ve gotten it in my head that a meal includes a meat, a starch, and a veggie. (I also cook a fair amount of casseroles, but that’s a whole other post…) But who’s to say you can’t have 2 veggies instead of the starch?! And as far as snacks go, I often envision pretzels or a granola bar. But why can’t my snack be a hard-boiled egg?! So I’m playing with these mental shifts even though I haven’t fully dived into the Whole 30.

I’m trying in the build up to put more “whole food” recipe blogs in my line of vision. I don’t keep potato chips in the house and I mostly don’t miss them, so I’m applying a similar principle to what I consume on the internet. I’ll probably be excited about whatever is in front of me, so I can let it be caramel popcorn or I can try and let it be healthier fare. Most of the recipes I’ve looked at so far have looked delicious and honestly no more difficult than what I currently cook, and the array of snacks I can think about having on hand is exciting! I think that cheese will be the hardest for me to give up, because I’ve always thought of it as a pretty healthy, proteinatious snack option.

I’ve never done any sort of diet in my life EVER, so this feels like a really big deal to me. But I’m trying to be really careful not to think of it as a weight-loss strategy. I really want to change how I think about food. I get a little panicky thinking that I might love it and I might never eat a chocolate bar again, but I will just have to cross that bridge if I come to it. I’ll keep you posted once I get started as I find recipes I like, and I’ll report back about how I’m feeling.

Do you have a favorite diet plan or approach to food? Have you ever tackled a big behavorial change like this?

When I wear my favorite shoes on a Tuesday, that regular Tuesday is better. Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines

I have my grandmother’s pearls.

I grew up in the South with non-Southern parents, but a lot of Southern girl mannerisms made their way into my psyche regardless, and when I was in high school I decided I needed a strand of pearls. I didn’t get them for high school graduation as I had hoped, but one of the last times I visited my grandmother in college, she told us each we could begin picking things of hers that we wanted. And in what I had always thought of as her treasure trove of jewelry, we found a hopelessly tangled strand of pearls, and I laid claim to them. Southern pearls from my Yankee grandmother.

My mom took them and had a jeweler untangle and re-string them, but for whatever reason, my grandmother was adamant that I not have them before my college graduation. She made it to my wedding but not my commencement a month later, and it felt like a great ceremony when I got to put on her pearls that morning.

I was unfortunately never very close to my grandmother, who also happens to be my namesake. She lived in Connecticut and I in Mississippi, and there’s only so much of a childhood you can share that way. I always liked her, but she wasn’t a part of my daily life as so many of my friends’ grandmothers were. I was always sort of jealous of that. But I have my grandmother’s pearls, and that feels monumental to me. I think of her when I wear them, the things I never knew about her. Now that I’m an adult, I think I would have gotten to know her better. I would have enjoyed asking questions about her life and her experiences. She was a pretty cool lady, from what I gather. But instead I have her pearls.

I bought a t-shirt that has irregular cream-colored polka dots on it, and one day I felt inspired to wear my pearls with it. I had on jeans and flip flops and my grandmother’s pearls, and my coworker expressed that she should wear her pearls more often. You should, too. Because when you wear your grandmother’s pearls on a regular Tuesday, that regular Tuesday is better.

I posted a couple of weeks ago about purging my closet in order to revamp my wardrobe, and then I left you hanging! Trust me, I’ve left myself hanging, too. I get sort of tunnel vision about a project, so I’ve been thinking about clothes a LOT since I wrote that post. I just haven’t had the time to go shopping!

Here’s what I’m looking to add to my wardrobe:

• flare/bootcut jeans for everyday wear with sneakers
• straight, slim jeans to wear with flats
• slim black pants to wear with flats
• grey dress pants to wear with heels

• lace top
• top with fun sleeves
• sailor shirt with button details
• wrap or faux-wrap top
• white t-shirt(s), white camisoles

• black cotton cardigan
• grey cotton cardigan
• flowy grey open cardigan
• bright long cardigan with pockets

• grey sheath dress
• navy blousy dress with polka dots

• flowy skirt with high, wide waistband
• black skirt
• grey skirt

It looks like a lot when I type it all out! (I’ll likely ending up getting rid of a few more things as I purchase new stuff–some of my less favorite pairs of jeans, for example.) But what I’ve been gleaning from Audrey at Putting MeTogether is that you want to have options so that your wardrobe is “remixable.” That’s where I’m really struggling. I have a pretty good sense of what I like, what I feel comfortable in, and what works well on my body, but I’m not good at putting together “outfits.” So I’m hoping if I have some versatile pieces I’ll be able to begin playing with that.

My list is also sort of all over the place. Some of the items are really specific, and I can almost picture them in my head (which will likely make them impossible to shop for), while others are much more vague. A “lace top” could be just about anything. I also struggled with nailing down a color palette (though I lean toward the blue/green side of the spectrum for sure). I really find I just like all the colors! I am drawn to brights and it’s hard for me to envision turning down a shirt I love just because it’s not in my color scheme. So I’m not sure if I’ll stick to one or not. I did pick black and grey as my neutrals, though, which was mostly pragmatic. Audrey encourages branching out as far as what you consider a neutral, but honestly most of my nice shoes are black and just about all of my jackets, so I didn’t want to completely start over with that. I’ll likely throw some tans and nudes in the mix as well. I guess once I got down to it I was much more noncommittal than I initially intended to be! The main thing I’m trying to keep in mind is my goal of looking more polished. I think as long as that inspires my pieces I’ll be good to go.

I’m having a hard time envisioning shoes, as well. It seems like every time I picture an outfit I’m also picturing a specific style of shoe with it, but it’s just not practical to have that many pairs of shoes! Comfort is really important to me shoe-wise, so I’m a bit picky. I haven’t figured out yet how to address this situation.

I’ve tried to look online for some of these things to at least have inspiration pictures, but I honestly don’t seem to have an eye for that. If you have any suggestions based on my list I’d love to see them! And I’ll definitely try to report back with pictures as I purchase items.

Where are your favorite places to shop for good quality, versatile clothing items? Do you put much thought into what you wear?

Last night, I went to sleep.

That shouldn’t be an inherently revolutionary statement, but for the last few weeks my body has been rebelling against me. Every night I would look forward to that delicious moment when my head hit the pillow. I would ease under the covers and sigh a little sigh as I relaxed. And then, the laying there would begin.

I always start out trying to sleep on my right side, my left arm hugging a pillow and my right hand tucked under my face. I’ve slept the same way since I was a baby; there are pictures of me in my crib lying just like that, though the pillow was replaced with a bright pink cloth doll (who, by the way, is now rather gray, but still lives in my bedroom, along with her similarly-gray sister doll, not to be confused with a sister wife). I’m rather skilled at scrunching the pillow into just the right position to support my neck, except on the nights I am not, which recently has been every night. My neck and shoulders get tense.

So I flop over onto my left side, but I can never seem to figure out what to do with my right arm when it’s not the one supporting my head. So I flop onto my back, scrunch the pillow up and tuck another one under my knees, which they say you’re supposed to do to support your lower back. I feel like I am dozing off until all of a sudden, I am not. I get up and go to the bathroom. I come back and start the charade over on my right side again. An hour has passed.

Some nights I go out to the couch, and miraculously I am almost always able to fall asleep. Something about being squished against the straight back of the couch makes me feel comfortable enough to finally drop off. Many nights I wake back up in the early hours of the morning and try to go back to bed, but Andy has (understandably) moved to the middle, so I resign myself back to the couch. The alarm goes off and I groggily stumble into the shower. Or I make it through the night in my own bed, with hopes of getting up to go to the gym, but the alarm goes off and I can barely move.

I’ve been off my routine, and I am a creature of habit who needs her routine. Not being able to sleep is so dreadfully frustrating to me. One night in my insomniacial stupor I laid on the couch and cried. Other nights I punch the pillow. “I just want to sleep,” I shriek in my head. Every night, I would think, “This is the night. This is the night that I’ll fall right asleep and sleep well.” I never fell into the trap of worrying about not being able to sleep and thus not being able to sleep. In fact, I felt like I did everything right. I didn’t drink caffeine after lunch time. I started winding down well before I wanted to go to sleep, and if I read, I read in the dark with only a book light. I don’t watch TV too close to bedtime, and I rarely take my phone or computer into the bedroom. I took melatonin an hour or so before I wanted to drift off (or I took it at 1 in the morning after unsuccessfully trying to sleep for 2 hours). And yet, every night, the rotisserie of trying to get comfortable in my own bed, the bed for which I yearn when I am on vacation, the pillow that called to me as I wearily stumbled through my days, usurped my hope.

I had a phase like this in college as well and even went to the doctor about it. She, probably rightfully, was wary of prescribing me a sleeping pill. Normally when I can’t sleep, though, I can pinpoint something that is stressing me out. In fact, insomnia is usually my first sign that I’m under duress, my body cluing me into what my mind has not even figured out yet. But the most frustrating lately has been that I really don’t think I’ve been stressed, at least not for as long as the sleeplessness has been plaguing me.

So I caved last week and bought a supplement that a friend recommended. It has like every herb and hormone that I’ve ever heard of that promotes sleep, all wrapped up in one little pellet. And it was beautiful. It was worth every penny. I slept! I even made it to the gym one morning! And last night, sans pill, I fell asleep. And I got up this morning to go to the gym for the first time in quite awhile (I’ve been forced to transition to going in the afternoon, when I’ve gone at all, because of my lack of sleep). I have plenty of pills left, but my hope in buying them was just to break the cycle: to sleep normally enough a few nights that my body remembered how blissful it feels, how productive I can be when I’m rested. I’ll knock on wood as I type this, but for now I think it’s worked. Because last night, I went to sleep.

Do you struggle to sleep? How do you deal with insomnia?

In the past month, I’ve read two books with firefly in the title! The one I most recently finished was a review book from Bethany House called Firefly Island by Lisa Wingate.

A common theme I’m finding with Bethany House books is that they all have beautiful covers: striking photographs, a silky-smooth feel, and a satisfying shape and weight. I know I’m not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but a nice cover sure does enhance my reading experience!

The book centers on Mallory, a successful and upwardly ambitious Congressional staffer who’s living up the single life in D.C. until she’s swept off her feet by a striking stranger. They enter into a whirlwind relationship and when he’s offered a seemingly top-notch job with an eccentric, wealthy researcher in Texas, she takes the plunge and marries him, becoming a step-mom to his toddler son and finding herself at loose ends getting used to small town life.

From the description on the back of the book, I expected this to be a pretty straightforward sweet romance, with some cutesy Southernisms thrown in as she acclimated to Texas. I somehow didn’t catch onto the fact that it was a mystery and somewhat of a page-turner!

Since I knew it was going to be a romance, I was okay with accepting the speedy transition from single girl to wife and mother. Daniel, the husband, was not a fully fleshed out character, but he was appealing enough to make the romance believable. I couldn’t quite believe his son Nick, though, and was really bothered by the way the author chose to transcribe his “kid speak.” It was distracting and not even that realistic to me. Other than that, their family unit was sweet and satisfying to follow.

It was fun to “get to know” the characters who inhabited Mallory’s small-town Texas, but I ended up feeling like I’d been left hanging by the way the conclusion came together. I’ll try not to give anything away, but it seemed to me like Wingate abandoned the mystery right at its climax and switched to explanatory prose in an epilogue, rather than continuing to let the reader follow along with the action. That was annoying to me. I felt like there was history with Mallory’s family and some of the other characters that was similarly brushed aside in favor of wrapping up the story, but I’m sure there’s a fine line between writing a book that reads well and writing a thousand page tome that no one will buy.

Another fun element was that Mallory becomes a blogger as she’s trying to find ways to fill her time. While her astronomical overnight success felt a bit unrealistic to me as a fellow blogger, I guess it could happen, and I was a little jealous of it!

While this was an enjoyable enough read, I found some of the plot structures to be a bit tenuous. It was as if Wingate wanted to write a book about legislation and so she had to find ways to fit that in, and it didn’t necessarily work for me. I can’t say that this book will have any sort of lasting impact on me.