Oh hey Friday! You snuck up on me there. Recovering after our week long road trip to North Carolina and back has taken a lot longer than I anticipated. This week officially beat me.

I have been very MIA from the online world the past few weeks. I am not sure why, but I had an unintentional digital detox, meaning I’ve been taking steps back from social media and the mindless scrolling. I didn’t realize what I was doing until this week when Facebook and Instagram stopped loading photos and everyone was freaking out a little bit. I didn’t even know something was wrong until later that night…once everything was already fixed!

take back summer

Emily Ley had posted about “taking back your summer” and I entered this season fully intending to do so. But life got busy!!

Not the typical type of busy, but like completely drowning me wave after wave busy. I was feeling behind on absolutely everything. But having Emily’s words in the back of my mind, I decided that the best way for me to “take back summer” when things were so chaotic was to focus on the things that mattered most. In doing so, I found that my phone and social media came very last on the priority list. You know what came first?

1. Family
2. Self-care
3. Business
4. Spiritual growth (Attitude of Gratitude)
5. Long periods sitting on the patio
6. House cleaning
7. Working in the garden
8. Long morning walks

I will tell you, the more I focused on those types of things and less on the endless scrolling, my heart (and mind) started feeling lighter and a bit clearer. Gaining clarity is a huge benefit for Mamas that are juggling a lot.

time for a full cleanse

Now that I’ve realized I’ve naturally been weaning myself back on social media, I was pondering the idea of doing a complete cleanse: one full week without social media! 😱Am I the only one that panics a bit at that thought?

I will be traveling to Chicago next week for work and play, so I feel like I need some connect-ability. I will be home the third week of July and am thinking of doing a social media free week then, if anyone wants to join in!

our anniversary trip

Last week was a bit of a whirlwind for me, as the schedule got very tight!

Friday 6/21 Sioux City Wedding

Saturday 6/22 Remsen Wedding

Sunday 6/23-Monday 6/24 Driving to North Carolina (the long way)

Tuesday 6/25 – Thursday 6/27 Creative @ Heart Conference

Friday 6/28 Driving home (the quickest way)

Saturday 6/29 Marcus Wedding

It was tough on me and I have felt exhausted most of this week, but it was so worth it! Jason and I spent so much quality time together for our anniversary and we knocked 7 new states off our list! We even listened to the Where The Crawdads Sing audio book together and loved it! I will do an in-depth blog about the actual conference later (the goal is next week 🤞🏻), but for this week’s Dear Friday, I just wanted to share some photos of the trip in general!

This is the first trip I’ve taken my Instax camera along and I will say it was humbling! I consider myself a pretty strong photographer, but the idea of a lower quality Polaroid baffled me!! I have a lot to learn about the flash, exposure and general Polaroid composition.

We drove all of Sunday and all of Monday. I will admit I spent most of my “pit stop time” shopping because I was stressing over what to wear for our anniversary photoshoot. This is probably my only regret with the trip. I would have rathered spend more focused time with Jason or enjoyed the sights more in Nashville instead of shopping.

the anniversary photos

The photo session was with the fabulous Hope Taylor Photography and it was amazing! Jason dressed up and I ordered a gorgeous bouquet. We went all out and had a blast!

Thanks for stopping by for the “Dear Friday” series. If you liked this post, you may like these others as well:

Unbreakable, Rachel Hollis, and New Pens

Old Town Road, Summer Mantra, and New Luggage