Day 15

Day #15: A Day in the Life [PHOTOS!]

Officially will be half way through this 30 Day Blogging Challenge by the end of this post! I realized sometime last week that it was valuable in the mornings to look at what my blog topic was for the day so that I could be thinking about what to write as the day progressed. That definitely came in handy today since the topic was a Day in the Life with the suggestion of taking a photo an hour. The photos from today were definitely not taken every hour exactly or anything BUT throughout the day I tried to at least snap photos consistently.

Soap box moment: Today's topic challenge/prompt has been a blessing to me. Flashing back to my first post of this challenge I shared that I was feeling like I had lost some of the joy of blogging. In that same post, I also reflected on the idea that since I would be fairly lazy about when I would/would not blog it seemed like a lot more pressure to post and "catch up" on life when I would get around to it. SO, back to today's challenge being a blessing to me because:

1. Thinking about capturing moments from today throughout the day gave me a new perspective on how the day's events were unfolding. Anything that was part of the day was automatically worthwhile & valuable just because it happened today and that was the intended theme of this post
2. Whenever I would remember to take a picture of something going on today, I would get so excited about the part the picture would play in sharing today with you [anyone graciously reading this] AKA I have been excited about writing this post ALL day today - for anyone that knows me personally, when I get really excited about something, it kind of consumes me. :)
3. Today is also a post that makes me feel like I am starting to understand the blessing of this challenge in general, reminding myself that while a blog is great for reflection & life sharing, it can't just become about sharing all the over-the-top life moments that happen...but instead a blog can be a more beautiful & honest space when it is defined by being transparent about all the in between/normal/boring/frustrating/sad/average things that happen all the time in the course of any given day - and those moments should be valued, shared, and reflected on just as consistently

So here we are then, moments from a Day in My Life. Special blessing to share today [and this whole weekend] with my friend Paige who very patiently and willingly participated in my photo marathon all day. And for those of you who have read this far or followed any of this blogging challenge, thanks for coming along on this journey with me.

Beginning of the day, trying out a free yoga class under the Arch downtown St. Louis, we followed the girls on the path in this picture out of the parking garage since they looked like they knew where they were going. [They did]

Our view during class.

Pumped for free yoga + that we both owned the same headband, classic.

My yoga spot.

Post free yoga. Do we look balanced + centered? :)

Our yoga spot. Also, we drove around randomly a lot today.

Post yoga, we walked around downtown [cool architecture details like this photo everywhere] for a while, main goal was Starbucks.

Found Starbucks, weird customer service experience, but we accomplished getting food + coffee.

Starbucks finished, we wandered into Macy's to check out their sale. Found this...

And then we turned the corner and it got better...

Macy's life.

Can't even tell what is real & fake in this picture right?

More Macy's life.

Yup, we were those people.

Productive bonus of Macy's trip, I found the perfect final accessory for my wedding look :)

Left Macy's and went to check out a cool bookstore we parked next too. Bathroom first, this was a bar connected to the bookstore + where the bathroom was located. Very unique looking.

Bookstore! I have been wanting to go here since I moved to St. Louis. Downstairs: New books. Upstairs: Used books.

One of the many reading nooks in the store.

Best. Thing. Ever.

LOVE this place, probably better that I only just now went inside with only a month left to live in St. Louis...otherwise my personal book collection may have gotten out of hand.

BOOKS! Spent $8 on 4 hardcover books. They also each came with a bookmark from the store. Score!

Paige asked about Goodwill's and I have 2 close-ish to my apartment, from that moment our day took a thrifting turn. Goodwill #1.

More of Goodwill #1.

After Goodwill #1, we headed back towards my apartment for lunch, stopped by the Kirkwood YMCA to pick up our rack packets for a 5K we spontaneously signed up to do tomorrow. Paige is PUMPED for her FIRST 5K :)

What up 5K?!

A nice lady offered to take this picture for us. I look like I am giving a weird blessing, don't know what I was thinking ha.

Race bibs for tomorrow!

My car post all of our adventure from the first half of the morning.

After a lunch stop at my apartment, Goodwill #2. A sampling of the goods from one shelf  area alone that we could have come home with.

This was my prize find of the day. $0.50. Awesome.

Goodwill #2 led to a trip to Home Goods. We kind of hit a tired wall here, found this sweet couch, sat on it for around 45 minutes and had a serious/deep life talk. [Used the self timer on my camera to document our little oasis]

This was our view for 45 minutes of our day, seriously :)

Too bad this was $1800.00 - not really in the young adult budget.

Home Goods led to a Target trip [they are next door to each other] to pick up some food things for dinner, it started raining at this point in the day.

Target for dinner supplies, then to Redbox to get a movie for our evening.

Redbox to home for showers [finally] we didn't shower for yoga + hadn't totally expected to end up spending the whole day out and about, needless to say SO refreshing to be clean!!!

Post shower, cleaned out my sink [should have taken a before, sorry!]

Time to make dinner.

Dinner.

More dinner.

Pumped to eat finally.

Ate outside, enjoyed rain/thunder while we ate.

Dinner life.

Last but not least, have been working on this post since we finished dinner and now I am done, so our last thing today is finally watching the movie we picked out from Redbox, then it will be bedtime, the end! 

Thanks for sharing in my day today. :)