There’s nothing quite better than a day curled up on the couch with a warm pair of reading socks, a mug of coffee and a good book! I’m excited to bring you a giveaway today to win a few of my favorite things. Plus, several of my blogging friends are giving away some of THEIR favorite things! Check out all the great giveaways below!…

Read More

The post 2019 Favorite Things Giveaway appeared first on Dine and Dish.

Wow, things are a bit stressful lately, aren’t they? It’s hard to focus on the positive, to not have anxiety and to have faith in everything that’s going to go down tomorrow and the next few years. Tensions seem extra high and damaging invisible walls between fellow Americans seem to be forming. It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of joy in the world right now, does there?

Well, I’ve got just the cure. Everyone…yes you, you and you too…needs to go see Trolls (the movie), stat. I took my girls and some of Kelly’s friends to see it on Friday night for her birthday and we had the most positive movie experience, ever. I downloaded the soundtrack before the movie was even over, everyone leaving the theatre was happy and joyful, and my group was inspired to carry on the “happiness is within you” message to everyone we encountered….

Read More

The post The Trolls Within Us appeared first on Dine and Dish.

As someone who has been blogging for ten years, I’ve seen the ebb and flow of how blogging has changed over time. Ten years ago there was a small handful of us, supporting and reading and loving each other the best we knew how. As the industry grew, so did our support network, our friends and our responsibilities. What once was simply writing whatever we felt like, cooking, photography and occasional back end website coding turned into a machine of social media, photo props galore, SEO, sharing groups and more. Along with that came an industry we built from the ground up, where bloggers could now earn a generous living working with brands, displaying advertising, traveling, freelancing, etc. The changes in blogging have been good…the opportunity to create a career out of something you’re passionate about is a dream so many people have. I’ve been blessed to do such that.

Along with the growth of blogging as a career has also come some stress and burnout. I have been on the receiving end of multiple conversations over the past with bloggers who are stretched thin, trying to do it all. Their days of working on their passions are being buried under a need to try to keep up with the ever increasing demands of owning their own businesses. Virtual assistants are being hired to help alleviate some of the pressure, but even with that, we’re a motivated bunch who seem to not be able to let things go. We pile on more and more and more until finally, we’re so buried under the responsibilities of running a business that we not longer love what we do….

Read More

The post The Resurgence of the Slow Blogging Movement appeared first on Dine and Dish.

Exactly one year ago May 1st, I started a journey of a lifetime. Yes, I got my very first tattoo, but more importantly I started my own 1 Second Everyday Video project.

My friend Cheryl was into her second year of capturing 1 second of video memories everyday. I fell in love with her very first 365 day compilation and decided I wanted to give this kind of video project a try as well. I am so very glad I did. Doing a 1 Second Everyday video project has probably been one of the most fun and meaningful projects I’ve ever embarked on. …

Read More

The post Our 1 Second Everyday Video Project appeared first on Dine and Dish.

Like many of you, I have spent much of the past year following the KonMari Method of decluttering my home. What I learned from reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up has been a constant theme in my life. “Does this item spark joy?” is a question repeating over and over again as I’ve been faced with the decision to declutter something or even bring something new into my home. It’s a method that has worked wonders in my life…until Christmas.

As I look at the giant stack of boxes that keep coming into my house for Christmas presents, I wonder where I went so wrong. How did I once again get caught up in the value of “things” over “joy”? Simply seeing these boxes and knowing the impact the clutter inside will have on our house makes me anxious. In fact, many of the things I’ve “KonMari’d” from this past year were Christmas presents from past years. Why did I allow myself to get caught up in shopping, shopping, shopping, yet again?

I’ve already made the mistakes I’ve made this year, but I vow right here and now that next holiday season will be different. Instead of choosing things, our family is going to choose experiences. It’s the experiences we share together… from big to small… that brings happiness to our lives. By not allowing more clutter into our house and by bringing more experiences to our life, we will be released from the stress of being suffocated by a house full of things.

As I think to next year, some ideas I have for experience gifts for my family are:…

Read More

The post The Joy of Choosing Experience Gifts Over Things appeared first on Dine and Dish.

Christmas music is playing, my daughters have been busy in the kitchen making our favorite cutout Christmas cookies (recipe here…you’ve gotta make these) and I feel like I’m wrapped in a blanket of holiday bliss. It’s been a low key kind of Sunday, just what we’ve needed amidst the hustle of the last few weeks. I thought it’d be a great time to write a happiness report and share what’s been making me happy lately!

Last week on my daily “Coffee Talk” on Snapchat (I’d love to snap with you – I’m dineanddish there), I shared that I’d been taking an amino acid vitamin supplement for the past month and I truly believe it’s really, really working. So many of you snapped me back asking for more information! I’m not involved with Happy Calm Focused in any way… I have just been really pleased with the product and wanted to share.

Happy Calm Focused was my last resort before I headed to the doctor to see if I had ADD or something. For the past year I have felt so incredibly unfocused, tired and irritable. Overall, I felt like an absolute scatter brain and it was driving me crazy. I’m normally a very organized, on the ball person, but something was happening and I had changed. I felt like my brain was constantly going in a million different directions, I couldn’t focus or remember ANYTHING, and I was really tired, despite getting a good nights rest. Every day required an afternoon nap for me to get through the day. I assumed it was hormones, ADD or something, but wasn’t sure….

Read More

The post The Happiness Report #38 (Happy Calm Focused Edition) appeared first on Dine and Dish.

An alternate title for this post could easily be “I Hated Mornings But Now I Love Them”.

I love mornings… in fact, the early morning hours are easily my favorite time of day. It didn’t used to be this way…even as a child I never really slept in, but I was definitely not a rise and shine and have a smile on my face kind of kid. As an adult I would get up when my alarm went off, but grumble through my morning routine, wishing I could just crawl back under the covers.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m still not a happy, cheerful morning person (I prefer to speak to no one during the first couple hours of the day) but I love the quiet and stillness of the morning so much, it is worth it to me to get up and get my day started.

Have you wished you were a morning person? Here are 3 key things I’ve done to become a morning person… maybe they’ll help you too!…

Read More

The post So, You Want to Be a Morning Person? 3 Ways I Make Mornings Rock appeared first on Dine and Dish.

Our summer is officially over and the kids have been in school now for a whole week. It was so hard for me to let summer go this year because it was one of our best, yet. I intentionally didn’t do my typical Summer Bucket List, but instead deemed the summer of 2015 “The Summer of Yes”.

I vowed that this summer, I was going to say yes as much as I could. If the kids asked to do something or had an idea, even a far out there idea, I said yes (naturally within reason). We had so much fun!

It was the summer of lots of swimming, beaches, pink hair, reading, ice cream for breakfast, sno cones for lunch, sleeping in, staying up late, friends, family, baseball, bike rides, travel and more. I loved absolutely every last second of our summer! (Well I could have done without my mom being so sick and hospitalized for most of it, but even that brought some fun adventures for our family). …

Read More

The post The Summer of Yes {In 1 Second Everyday} appeared first on Dine and Dish.