Welcome to the Clean Side
Me, Myself, and Hindsight…
Hey y’all, I’m Lacie. Wife to my high school sweetheart, mom to three amazing kids, owner/designer of Wisteria Way Designs, and Editorial Content Creator for The Southern Atelier. You will learn a lot about me on this blog, but my goal is for you to learn a lot about yourself. My hope is that you will read the information, take the parts that apply to your life and improve it, and maybe even find a little laughter along the way.
The beauty of this blog is that you can experience hindsight with me. How often have we caught ourselves saying, “if I only knew then, what I know now…?” Well, follow along with me as I go back through the most awkward stages of life with the knowledge and beauty of hindsight.
OK, Here’s What I Mean…
Reality: getting your period for the first time, running to mom in a mass panic thinking you are bleeding out only to come to the horrifying realization that you are entering “diaper week” because giant pads are your only option. Confined to the couch with a heating pad and cringing when your dad walks in and asks whats wrong.
Advantage of hindsight: getting your period being fully equipped with information, mom handing you a pair of period panties and your very first period cup or disk. Celebrating with a cupcake and living life normally.
Reality is what most of us remember our first period being like (or heard it was like, or saw on TV, or what have you.) But with hindsight, that is what our daughters could have if we just equip ourselves with the knowledge and skills now, before they need it. I want to be fully equipped and ready so that my daughters don’t have to go through my reality scenario. But that means I need to equip myself with the knowledge first to be fully prepared.
Lucky for you, I will be trying it all, not just period products! I want to be able to give my kids the best start possible, a clean start. So I will be trying clean products and all the new gadgets that have been invented since tomogachi was a thing. I want you to come along for the journey. Together we can give the next generation a clean start, and maybe make ourselves a little healthier in the process.
Let’s Get Real For A Moment…
I know you are here to read about this amazing clean adventure I am taking, welcome, but I realized after starting that I couldn’t just tell one part of this story, couldn’t just give you product reviews that you could get anywhere, without also including the powerful personal journey that led to all of the this.
So here is the deal, bear with me through the not so comfortable parts and I will make sure that the reviews are honest and worth your time. Who knows, you may even learn something about yourself. Let me also say that this is not an advice blog. I have made it a rule to only ever give advice if a direct question is asked of me. And my advice is always the same.
My TED Talk…A Universal Truth
If I ever did a TED talk it would be about this, and I have found it to be universally true. It applies to me, you, everyone in every situation. NO MATTER WHAT! Ready?
You make time for what is important to you.
I will repeat it for those in the back…
YOU. MAKE. TIME. FOR. WHAT. IS. IMPORTANT. TO. YOU.
This is really the only piece of advice you need to govern yourself or to understand anyone else for that matter. There is no excuse or explanation that will render this statement invalid. It is absolute. And, as humans, we love our absolutes. We seek them out in every aspect of our lives. Even down to our favorite color (blue, for anyone curious.) We look for them in relationships, in our finances, in our jobs. So rest easy knowing that the above statement is both a rule and an undeniable absolute.
You can try to disprove it, in fact, I would encourage you to. But what you will find is that the only arguments you can come up with are emotional ones and, as most know, emotions are not always the best rulers of judgment (here’s to you backseat babies, Vegas annulments, and anyone sporting a belly button tattoo.)
See that’s how this whole journey really began. With one simple realization: I was not important to myself. I realized that I put myself last, neglected my body, my emotional needs, and wrote myself as a supporting role in my own life. I went from just floating through life, wondering when it would start, to realizing that it had started the day I was born and I needed to get going on what I would do with it. It took me out of the emotional spiral I was stuck in and slapped me in the face with facts. Now, this journey is in no way a straight line, more of a staircase that I am still climbing.
Through this blog series I will take you through some of the steps where this rule really set me free or helped me figure out some truths in my life. I will be consciously prioritizing my health starting with self care and exploring from there other aspects. Because after all, things will stay the same unless we change them.
So Why Make a Change to Begin With?
What could possibly make me pause my life to come up with this philosophy, and then put it into practice and change everything? My kids, of course. I saw the way I was living and realized that my children, especially my daughters, would be looking to me to guide them. Just like my mother shaped me.
And like any parent, I want to give my children the best chance at life. So, starting with me, I am cleaning up my life. With the rule, I can take care of the emotional clutter. With the current advances, I can take care of the toxic clutter. And with your help, we can start the next generation out a little better than ours did. If the saying goes, “like mother, like daughter,” then the change I want to see, needs to start with me.
Putting “me” in the “moment,”
Lacie
