Life lately has been sorta kinda totally and insanely nuts.

This week alone, I arrived back home after a bachelorette party weekend away in sunny California, got food poisoning, had four final projects due for school + two freelance deadlines—not including another two I am late on. I don't tell you all this to brag about my busyness, because in the midst of all that, I still rationalized binge watching six episodes of The Newsroom in one night because I was "cleaning my apartment" at the same time. I do tell you this because I am really telling myself that I need to slow the eff down. This girl is burnt out.

Life doesn't always allow us restful periods to pause in gratitude of the miraculous fact we are—indeed!—alive. But I know that within the busyness—the traveling to Colorado to see your sissy graduate, end-of-semester school projects, work that pays the rent + inevitable fuck-ups of work that cause even more work—I still need to find restful pauses to reflect on the awesomeness of life. That's been my goal as of late. To just stop what I'm doing every once in awhile, take a big, lung-busting breath, and say thank you. It's the attitude of gratitude. And it works.

Because all my hard work is paying off! And working this hard only confirms that I don't want to work this hard the rest of my life. That's made me a whole lot smarter financial-wise ( who da thunk? ), more appreciative of the fact I don't have kids ( mothers, I don't know how you do it ), and incredibly excited to see where life takes me when I graduate in December.

Yeah, so life may be nuts...but it's oh so good.