Tomorrow I turn 30. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I am turning THIRTY on Thanksgiving day this

year. Did you know that the first nationally proclaimed day of thanksgiving towards the end of the

Revolutionary War was also on November 28? The original intent was a day designed to offer thanks

to God and praise Him for His goodness.  I am certainly not a history buff but I love how facts like

this are woven into our own stories.

Birthdays are the perfect time to reflect on the past and help us be thankful for where we are in life

even if you do not have the pleasure of celebrating your birthday on thanksgiving like I do. I’m going

to be real with you for a sec, I haven’t been super thankful for my circumstances these past few

months. You may think, Theresa, you are getting to live in GERMANY- how could you possibly be

negative, but hear me out. There are glass half-full and glass half-empty types of people in the world

and I am the one who sees the glass and says it’s completely empty. Though it can be difficult to

see the positive as a true pessimist, I cannot and should not use that as an excuse. I have left a lot

to move to Germany with my husband. I’ve left my career, my friends, my family, and almost all

sense of normalcy. It is very easy for me right now to focus on what I am not doing as I turn 30.

Without ever intending to, I’ve set these goals and time frames in regards to the accomplishments of

my life as if any of it is truly in my control. Instead of looking at everything I have achieved, I am

looking at the current circumstances of my life and felt sorry that I am currently unemployed with no

real purpose to get up in the morning.  

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am taking a look at the highlights of the last decade of my life

(note I included 2009 because it was such an amazing year and skipped 2010 because it was a dud

year). I highly recommend you do this regardless of your age. Thinking through the past decade of

my life had me pretty astounded at my life. Even though I’m not breaking records in my career or

working any career for that matter, I am pretty proud of the last 10 years. 

2009: Studied abroad in Israel and had my first experience in traveling the world. Traveled all over Europe, fell in love with Istanbul, experienced the pyramids in Egypt (and picked up a lovely stomach bug that affected the way I pooped for half of the decade),and saw the ruins in Petra.

2011: Committed my life to God and started a personal relationship with Him. Graduated from Boston University with a Biomedical Engineering Degree. Spent the summer in Istanbul.

2012: Volunteered in college ministry, worked my first cold calling sales job, got engaged to my favorite person, bought my dream wedding dress, and went on a missions trip to Haiti. 

2013: Married my best friend. Started a new sales job. 

2014: Had a killer year in corporate sales, found a yoga studio that I loved, and became a stylist with Stella & Dot.

2015: Moved to Louisiana, bought our first home, joined a new church, and met incredible new friends.

2016: Started MBA school traveling back and forth to Boston, went on a bucket list trip to Australia and swam in the Great Barrier Reef. 

2017: Achieved Star stylist with Stella & Dot. Went to Mexico for the first time and then went back again in the same month for a missions trip.

2018: Graduated MBA school. Promoted to Sales Manager managing a team of 20. Celebrated5 years of marriage, watched my baby sister get married, traveled to Thailand and swam with elephants.

2019: Traveled to Tanzania and experienced a lion’s roar and a cheetah hunting for her cubs. Moved to Germany! 

I’ve seen my best friends get married, buy homes, and have babies. I’ve made new friendships and deepened others. I’ve bought a house and sold a house. I’ve started jobs and left them. Here’s the thing, I’ve also seen a lot of loss in those years. I’ve seen dreams crushed, broken relationships, and circumstances I never ever wanted in my life. I’ve shed a lot of tears, but I’ve learned that focusing on the positive does not negate the negative. 

It’s simple to take a snapshot of yourself at one age and make judgements about how much farther

you should be. Having thankfulness, removes us from staring down the bad circumstances of our life
and experiences true joy through sorrow. I prefer to take God’s perspective of my life. He has
blessed me in far more ways than are written on this list and for this birthday I chose to be thankful
for all of those things. I encourage you to write down a list of your own over the last 10 years of all the
things you can give thanks for. Happy Thanksgiving friends!

Xo, TSE

Is Blogging Dead? What am I doing here?

In the 1960s, young adults were searching to find the meaning of life and in the 2000s young adults

are searching for careers that will make them the most money (while trying to work the least amount

of hours- I can say this because I’m a millennial). Why am I telling you this, you may wonder? While I

find it fascinating what motivates mankind, I also think we have lost the focus of what we are all

running this rat race for. 

The bones of this blog started forming in the fall of 2018. I had a template and I thought it was the

perfect time to start. I had even shot some pictures to announce it on Instagram. But starting

something new is way harder than throwing a few ideas together and celebrating with confetti

poppers. To give you some context, I had just finished business school with a focus on

entrepreneurship and I wanted to do BIG things. Thoughts and dreams were swirling in my mind and

I honestly had no idea where to go next. I wanted to start a blog to compile all of the things I had

been working on over at my full time hobby, Instagram. I bought a template, domain name, and

signed on to Blogger to give it a go. Then I hit my first roadblock. What’s a widget? And my second.

How do I get things to format on this thing? And my third. Why won’t my domain name that I pay

$12/year for work? I am TERRIBLE at all things tech. I always have been. I cried every day of my

mandatory freshman programming class. So, instead of doing some research and digging in to

figure out all of these mystical blog terms, I left the tabs open on my computer for months and then

when my computer closed everything during a software update, never opened them again. 

Fast forward to over a year later. A lot has changed in a year. I found out that the military was

moving us to Germany and we have since arrived! The job search is going pretty slowly and so what

better way to fill my time, than with writing. My last google search before writing this post was, “Is

blogging dead in 2019?”. I found that it completely depends on your end goal. Do you want to

become blogger famous? It won’t happen this year. Or maybe next year, or the year after that. Or

maybe ever. Do you want free stuff? You will have to work for it. Do you think what you are writing is

valuable even if no one reads it? This is the yes, that invigorated me to fumble through the tech

enough to publish post #1. 

My hopes for this space is for me to share some of the ways I’ve tackled travel planning in Europe,

to show you my style hacks, tips, and tricks, and to be real with you guys. I am living on a real

person’s budget friends!!! I follow FAR too many people on social media that are living a luxury

brand life and I want you to know that you can have a KILLER, Instagram worthy vacation without

losing your life savings to do it. I am spending hours and hours planning trips, where to stay, what to

eat, and how to get around, so, I want you to benefit from that on your next trip. If I liked something I

did, I want to make sure you know about it so planning is if nothing else a little bit easier for you. If I

find the booties that are cute AND don’t leave blisters, I want you to know about them. And if I’m

lonely, I know there are other women out there feeling the same way as me, so I want this to a space

to combat that and WIN, instead of growing bitter and ultimately more isolated.

I have almost nothing figured out. How often will I post? I have A LOT of ideas so I'm hoping for at

least once a week, maybe two! So, stay tuned and if you've made it this far, thank you for reading

my first post <3