You know that saying?… “The Best Laid Plans,” well I happened to have experienced that over the last few weeks.  With issues galore (ie, lack of WiFi), the posts that were supposed to go live and make the blog look beautiful while I was gone, never quite made it up!  So instead, it’s the last week of January and I’m just now getting around to finishing up my favorite posts from 2015!  Better late than never amiright?!

When this post goes live, I will have already been traveling for 13+ hours with another 7 to go.  What I’ve learned from being reliant solely on WiFi (that we’ve already covered had a lot of problems while I was gone) is that I don’t really need internet or to be connected social media, though sometimes I think that I do.  Instead, if I had been able to be consumed by my phone on this New Zealand & Australia adventure, like I’m so guilty of being when I’m at home, I would have missed out on a lot of moments and conversations to just be present in.  There are incredible things awaiting us in this world, and I know that sometimes I miss out on them because I’m too busy scrolling through my feeds.  I miss out on conversations, sight-seeing, all for the purpose of what? A bigger following?  I think as you’ll see over the next couple of weeks as I get the privilege of sharing these two beautiful countries with you, that there wasn’t a second that wasn’t worth taking in.  There wasn’t a conversation with these dear friends that I wanted to miss.  I’m just fortunate to have had the opportunity to be quite literally forced into realizing it.

So now before I go on a larger tangent that I could happily go down, I want to challenge you to something today.  Don’t let yourself fall victim to the very thing that keeps us “so connected to other people.”  Force yourself to be truly present in conversation and experiences.  And for Pete’s Sake! put the phone down, y’all!  Happy Monday, and I’m so glad to be back!

P. S.  This beauty was taken for the incredible Cottage Hill Magazine.  The full feature is up on their blog, and you can check it out here!  It was such an honor to work with such sweet vendors and for it to have ended up on a blog I love so much!