Happy Monday, friends! Spring is here, maybe more officially on the calendar than it reflects outside, but nonetheless it is here. There is something about just knowing that it is spring that makes me much more productive. It's still like 30 degrees here in the midwest, but the birds are out and the sun is shining and that makes sitting at my computer all day far less dreadful.

Since the new year, Josiah and I have been attempting to integrate healthy habits into our life. As most years, it started off super rough and the commitment was pretty nonexistent. We basically tried and failed at every habit we attempted. I think we lasted for 5 days on Whole 30 which, if you can't tell by the title, is 25 days less than the program call for. (I just love carbs too much.) We also tried to get into a workout routine again, but failed again. March rolled around and we still hadn't really kicked any of our old habits or committed to new, healthy ones.

I was starting to think that Josiah and I were doomed and incapable of change. At this point we decided that instead of doing a bunch of things at once, we would just integrate one healthy habit a week and see how thing went from there. We also gave ourselves a break and only committed to the new habit Monday-Friday at first. That allowed us mentally to plow through the hard days knowing it wouldn't be forever. The first week we cut out sugar. Yeah, it sucked. The only thing I could think about that week was the ice cream we had planned for Saturday night, but something crazy happened at the end of that week when I finally sat down to eat the so dreamed of dessert. I took a bite and it didn't taste as good as I remembered. It wasn't bad by any means, but it wasn't worth dreaming about all week. Sunday, when we would technically still have been allowed (by our rules) to indulge in something sweet, we didn't want to. Josiah and I were both completely shocked at how quickly we had locked into this healthy habit (even on our "off" days) and we were eager for more. The next week we added in working out in the morning and the week after that we stopped eating after dinner. It's only been three weeks since this healthy habit thing started, but I think we are onto something. Baby steps.

More to come on our new healthy habit journey, but for now enjoy this salad that represents our journey towards both health and minimalist. Keep it simple people.

Let's Monday!