Life Chats

This is my first Life Chats of the year! I figured the best way to start it off is by sharing the good, the bad and the struggles so far in 2016.  So let's get started, shall we? 
On Tuesday January 12th at 8:07a.m. my beautiful niece was born!  Her name is Mia Angel.  My sister gave her the same middle name as our father and since he is our Guardian Angel, it has two special meanings for Mia.  I know she's only been in this world for a few days, but I am already so completely in love with her.  She's seriously like this perfect little peanut and I am so proud and happy to be her Auntie Naty.  I know she is not my daughter, but at least for now, she will be the closest thing that I have ever had to it.  It's been so surreal this week.  I still can't believe that she is finally here.  When I first held her in my arms I just wanted to give her the whole world.  I can't even imagine what my sister is feeling.  I know that she is going to be such an amazing mother to Mia.  The most special moment for me was when she was crying in my arms and I sang to her for the first time.  She stopped crying and stared at me.  It melted my heart. I am going to sing to her every time that I see her and it will be our own special bonding time.  The day after she was born, someone at the hospital did her very first newborn photo shoot.  It was the cutest thing!  If my sister lets me, I will share some of those photos, but for now I posted two precious pics of my little niece on instagram.  She is the biggest blessing for my family and I am going to enjoy every moment with her. <3 
Last week I officially started my online class for my TEFL certification and boy do I have a long road ahead.  It has seriously been way too long since I have had to study or do anything school related.  A fun fact about me is that I was a bit of a nerd in college.  High school on the other hand was a different story.  I took college very seriously though so this brought back so many memories for me.  I was very happy that I got an A on the first section's test, but once I got to the second section and saw how much more difficult it's going to be I got a bit discouraged.  I know that I can do it though and thankfully I have plenty of time to refresh and learn new things.  When I first enrolled in this course I honestly had no set future plans for when I would actually use this certificate.  I just wanted to know that I had it and could use it any time.  It's somewhat of a back-up plan for me.  The more I think about it though, the more I know that I am going to want to use it sooner than later.  In two years I am going to see where I am at in my life and if I still have no strings attached, then it will be time for me to move to another country temporarily.  I don't ever want to look back and regret not doing things when I had the chance.  I want to do all that I can to create new opportunities for myself. 

I realized when I was in Ireland that I am the happiest when I travel and I need to find that same amount of happiness when I am home and in the same place.  I have an amazing family and friends and I love what I do, but it just always feels like something is missing here. When I am away I feel free and when I am here I get stuck in ruts.  I notice that I start caring about things that I should not be stressing about.  I know that's normal though and it happens to us all.  Each of us has so many different things that we are dealing with on a day-to-day basis and sometimes it sucks us in.  I call it the black hole.  I tend to get this way especially at the beginning of each year.  I think that mentally I am always all over the place thinking of where I am, where I still want to be and what I need to do to get there.  When I say, "Where I want to be" I don't even mean a specific place, I just mean in my life in general.  
Truthfully, the blogging industry messes with my head sometimes.  I know that I have talked about this openly before in previous Life Chats.  It's still unfortunately something that I continue to struggle with from time to time. There are moments when I feel like no matter what I do, it doesn't seem to matter.  I've noticed that my growth has been a bit stagnant lately and I admit it's frustrating.  It's not so much about the numbers; it's just about continuously moving in a forward direction.  I just don't want to be standing still.  I try so hard to consistently create new content that will be both appealing to others while still remaining true to who I am.  I've thought a lot about changing my blog's name and redesigning this site once again.  Someone told me once that if things aren't working to change them. Change is good.  I think it's necessary.  Right now I am just at this transitional phase with the blog again and the direction that I want to go in.  Whatever I decide though, I promise you will all be the first to know! 
It's only been two weeks of the year, but this is pretty much where I'm at right now.  As always, thanks so much for stopping by to read this post and I hope that you were able to take something away from it.  Happy weekend. <3