Cleanse

    Lately, I have been doing some reevaluations in my life. I am very overwhelmed about everything that will be happening this year. This year I wanted to start fresh and be more aware of my surroundings and enjoy all of the good things that come my way. I'm not going to lie, but I spend a lot of time on the computer. It distracts me a lot from my work and i definitely plan on spending a lot less time online in the months to come. I also decided to delete my facebook for various reasons. It's not like I hate people, it's that some people who i was "friends" with on facebook were not my actual friends. I want people to put in effort into wanting to see me or do things. I feel that personal contact in my life has diminished a lot and I'm trying to change that. I'm also trying to get people out of my life who either don't appreciate me or take advantage of me. I'm cleansing my life. 
     I have, within the past two years, changed more dramatically than I could have ever expected. I had been looking through old photos of me and my friends from high school and literally did not recognize the person there with my face. I dont even know how to say all this without being completely straight forward. I've changed inside and out. I lost (roughly) 70 pounds from the time I started college until now. I hadn't been checking my weight frequently, but i decided to last week for the hell of it. I have not been this small since I was about 14, and even then, the jeans i wore at that age are now loose on me. I don't want to be completely overjoyed by this because I still want to be at a healthier weight, but god damn, when you get to the point where you can actually see a change it feels amazing. And I've noticed since I became a vegetarian at the beginning of this year, I feel ten times better. I didn't just stop eating meat, I picked up eating healthier foods. I haven't eaten anything processed in a month and have been eating mostly fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and trying out new recipes and discovering new foods I never even knew existed. 
    And I'm finally living my biggest dream to live in France and travel around Europe this May. I'm going to be an au pair and live with a family for around 3 months and then start classes at the Université de Lyon. There's a handful of people who have been extremely supportive and inspired me and I just want to give them all big hugs and tell them how much they mean to me, but I'm going to give myself some more time because I want to do something nice for each of them. Well, if you read this or follow my blog at all (looking at my follower count it doesn't seem like too many), thank you and I hope you stick around for all of the adventures that are coming my way.