I’ve toyed around with the idea of blogging for a few years now, but I kept putting off starting a blog because I was paralyzed by perfectionism. I turned 30 a few weeks ago, and I’ve decided that this decade is going to be about present over perfect, and I hope to use this blog to keep myself accountable for my new mindset.

The last few months have been a trying time for me, mostly because of my job. It’s my eighth year of teaching high school, and this semester was the most difficult of my career. I turned to the Bible for support and quickly realized that I had no idea how to read the Bible because I’ve only ever read books start to finish, which, of course, you can do with the Bible, but at the time all of that “so-and-so begat so-and-so” was not really the kind of support I was looking for (no offense, Genesis 5. You know I love you). I’d heard about She Reads Truth and started their study on Daniel with the YouVersion iPhone app.

Around the same time, I discovered the blog A Place to Dwell and read every page of it. Then I downloaded Katie’s ebook, An Inspired Life, and read it three times in a row. (Okay, five times in a row, but who’s counting?) I was inspired beyond measure, enough to break free from the perfectionism that had been paralyzing me and to allow myself to create without fear.

I enjoy cooking, traveling, simplifying, and reading (especially Jane Austen, as you may have guessed). I hope to write about my experiences here to help me cultivate gratitude for the little things and the present over perfect philosophy I crave.

Thanks for reading. I hope that we can shake off what’s holding us back and spend 2014 creating. I’m looking forward to it.