Here I Go Again On My Own

It has been a weird year.

It kicked off with an ended engagement and me moving back to Minnesota to live in my parents' basement. A month later my younger sister announced she was getting married...in a month...in Minnesota...even though she lives in England (Air Force). Right after my sister's wedding, my dad announced he no longer needed his depression medication and he spiraled into months of depression and eventually discovered he has a severe case of bipolar. He was critically manic and hospitalized twice, the cops were called twice, and my mom and I did our best to stay sane. This storyline continues to unfold but I recently moved into my own apartment, which has helped my stress level drastically.

I've also been balancing four jobs in order to get to a better place financially - entry level marketing & inside sales full time, babysitting, dog sitting, and I started my own business, Katie Pelton Resumes. Although I have a mountain of student loan debt (roughly $60,000!), I was able to pay off my credit card and my smallest student loan by living at home and working as much as I could. Now that I'm back to life on my own, it's a little harder but I'm still making a dent as quickly as I can.

This same year, I tried to switch to self-hosting for both my blog and my business website. It was a total nightmare and money suck and I realized I'm happiest with the basics of Blogger. While that was happening, I also learned that someone was using my blog pictures to create fake social media and dating profiles. It's not entirely identity theft but still, I'd rather not give people that opportunity anymore.

So here I am. Fresh new blog - More to Life. There won't be a lot of pictures, at least of me and my loved ones. I'll write about getting out of debt and living on an extremely tight budget. I'll also write about learning to live a healthier and more active lifestyle. However, there's more to life than finances and fitness, so this space will remain a variety of whatever I feel like.

I've learned that no matter what comes your way, there's more to life. Life is all about experiences and no matter the good or bad, there's more to the big picture than what is happening in our small worlds. We might have a terrible experiences and feel like our whole world came crashing down, but really, just go find all the other aspects of your life that you can make great (or that already are).

There's more to life than work and goals. There's more to life than complaining or being bored. Go soak it up, whatever it may be! Go do, see, be! Follow your arrow, chase your dreams, go make shit happen. There is always more life to live and you get to choose how your story goes. This is where I'll write about mine.