In My Bag

Bag- Thrifted vintage Dooney & Burke
Wallet- Hustle and Hide Co.

I'm always interested in what my friends keep in their bags. Mostly because I love discovering different products and my friends opinions are usually more helpful than customer reviews. So I decided to share my own in my bag post. I've been striving to live a more intentional life. Part of this is eliminating excess stuff. I used to be that girl with the huge bag that had everything I owned in it. Part of that was being a nanny and needing more stuff. But being honest most of that stuff was completely useless. Think receipts, gum wrappers, a mountain of change and an insane amount of pens. Recently I have limited myself to a smaller bag (and wallet) and I try to only carry around items that I actually use and need on a day to day basis. This is definitely a work in progress. And I still have to declutter my bag every few days to make sure I'm not carrying around unnecessary items.  

My secret to an organized purse? Pouches. I'm always on the lookout for good sized cute pouches. My bag is so much cleaner and stays organized way longer. Think of pouches like a good drawer organizer. Everything has it's own place. Instead of everything just being thrown together I can just grab the pouch I need. 

Head phones are a must for me. I never go anywhere with out them. I'm always in need of quarters for parking, vending machines, and thrift shopping. I used to have a coin purse with just loose change but I found I never used anything but the quarters. My change now goes into a jar at the end of the day and the quarters stay in my bag. I also keep dog bags in my purse. They would always unravel and turn into a huge mess until I realized this Clinique lipstick pouch perfectly fit a roll of bags.

These are just some basic necessities that I always have with me. Notebook, pens, hand sanitizer, Shout wipes, Arnica, Advil, cough drops and a drink packet. This pouch is my problem child. It tends to be the catch all for anything that accumulates in my bag so I'm constantly cleaning it up and starting over. 

As someone who does not wear a lot of make up I don't generally have very much with me. I do however love a good lipstick.  A little mirror that I use most often to touch up my lips. And I try to keep a couple of hair ties and bobby pins.

What are your must haves that you carry around everyday? And what kind of bag do you rock? Big carry all or simple shoulder? I'd love to hear what you keep in your bag! 

XO Sam

Week Notes / 8

wildflowers on our morning walk

Big news over here for the Swopes. I've officially left my job running the backroom at a big box retailer for a wonderful opportunity in an office. My old job was such a valuable experience for me. Personally I grew in so many ways and I am very thankful for the lessons I learned in the last two years. Of course I will absolutely miss some of the people on my team and that makes this transition bittersweet. However I will not miss the long crazy hours (think 3am shifts, overnights, and 15 hour days) or intense stress levels. Joey and I are looking forward to my new schedule and getting back to our old date night and morning routines. He is such a trooper for supporting me and putting up with my crazy job!

Inspired By- Podcasts, My last two weeks at work just happened to be overnights. Which happen to be my least favorite thing. I like being up early. But staying up late is a real struggle. Overnights are my own personal hell. Usually I put head phones in and jam out to my favorite girl anthems all night. But  a coworker recommended podcasts as a better way to pass the time. And i'm hooked! I don't have any favorites yet and I would love some recommendations! Whose podcast is your favorite?

The Best- Morning cuddles with my husband and dogs. I love waking up to my sweet little family and sleepy eyes. Plus breakfast food. I had forgotten how much I love breakfast!

The Worst- Overnights. Just no. The only thing getting me through is the reminder that I will never under any circumstances be doing this again.

Listening To- Drag / Day Wave, I actually heard this song on a friends snapchat. We've been having lots of stormy days and this vibe is perfect with open windows and rain.

Verse- Philippians 4:6 / Don't worry about anything. Instead pray about everything.

Links-
Overcoming a shopping addiction
Too bad I saw this pin AFTER I got back from vacation
Indoor outdoor kitchen.
What is a minimal wardrobe?
For my fellow Star Wars junkies.
26 things to do for you.
Clean house without trying? GOALS

xo Sam

Word / 4

source

Since moving to Flagstaff J and I have struggled with finding a church and letting go of our seriously awesome church in San Clemente. We've tried all the different nondenominational churches in town and we've basically settled on our best option. Does it fell like the one? No. Not even close. But it does feel like our best option. Now our old church had a pretty rad small group set up that allowed us to have a guided Bible study every week. I absolutely loved it. We did a young marrieds group and met the sweetest couples. My best friend and her husband were in the group too and it was a high light of my week. Our new church doesn't really have the same type of set up. Which has seriously bummed me out. Like a lot. Lately i've been thinking that maybe this challenge is really a good thing. For the first time i'm forced to do some Bible studies solo. I decided to start from the beginning of the Bible and just go book by book. Which is super exciting. I haven't read the Bible cover to cover since I was 16.

Now after deciding to give this bible study by book thing I went straight to pinterest and looked it up. And there are NO blog posts that has a list of all of these. Which is crazy to me! So I'm going to start from scratch and make my own!

Do you have any book specific Bible studies that you absolutely love? I'm going to take the next week researching Genesis Bible studies. Fingers crossed I find a good one!

xo Sam

Rainy Day

Beanie/Urban Outfitters, Moto Jacket/H&M, Necklace/Forever21, Bag/Hustle & Hide Co, Dress/Old Navy, Socks/Target, Shoes/Vans

Recently I've read a few blog posts where the blogger allowed their significant other to pick out their outfit for a whole week. This post on pop sugar is one of my favorites. And this crazy experiment inspired me to jump on the bandwagon and try the same thing. Except instead of having J dress me for a whole week I had him choose my outfit for a date day we had planned. To be honest we're both too busy with work/school/life to pause and have him pick out my clothes everyday. Not to mention that my work uniform is very specific so he wouldn't be able to truly pick out my outfit on work days. I was pretty intrigued by the idea though and J was totally on board.
We learned quite a bit from the experiment. J was intimidated by all of the options. Dress? Pants? Sweater? Crop top? He quickly discovered that picking out my outfit was going to be way more complicated than he had anticipated. He started off by considering the rainy weather and our plan to go to Bearizona (which is super rad) and explore Williams. I was concerned when he went straight to my dress and romper closet. It was COLD and he was going to put me in a romper... After digging through my probably excessive collection of dresses and rompers he had me try on 3. Decided on a black short sleeve thin dress. Uh oh.. Then he went into my dresser and dug out my once again black over the knee cable knit socks. Which he then paired with a black beanie, Aztec black and cream sweater and my shrunken vegan leather moto jacket. It was similar to an outfit I would put together myself so I was pretty impressed with him at that point. Then he started in on jewelry and shoes. He picked out a super big necklace. Which is something I usually reserve for fancy occasions. Then he had me try on 6 of my largest rings which he luckily had me put back in favor of my usual rings and leather bracelet. Going straight to my black wedges. Which I vetoed due to the fact that it was raining. I suggested my black booties but he went for my high-top vans. This is the first thing that I would not have put together. I mean knee high socks with a dress and vans? But I was pleasantly surprised by the way they made the whole outfit more appropriate for our date.

Now I was surprised he put me in all neutral tones. However I really shouldn't have been shocked considering J is super colorblind. He chooses black, grey, or white for himself 90 percent of the time as well. And it took a lot longer than expected. The whole experiment took him about 45 minutes. Which is definitely longer than it normally takes me to get dressed. Now he knows why some days I opt for a simple t shirt and jeans. It's good to know that he would put me similar outfits that I choose for myself. We really had fun with the whole thing and I definitely plan on repeating the idea on a warmer day. Now I pick J's clothes out for him pretty often so I think what he most enjoyed was having the tables turn and getting to control my clothes for a day.

What do you think? Would you let your significant other choose your outfit? How do you think they'd do?

xo Sam

Word / 3

Sometimes with my prayer journal I just pick a verse and doodle. And as I color and draw in the verse I really meditate on its meaning or what it means to me in that moment. That has been one of the most wonderful parts of having a prayer journal for me, just simply being able to focus on what I'm going through at different points in my life. It's less confining than a traditional devotional. And personally I find it more rewarding.

Recently I've been struggling with so many things in life. From the loss of a loved one to job changes and car frustrations it's been a totally shitty year. In this difficult season I've found myself questioning my faith over and over again. Which is frankly just plain uncomfortable. This week I was not feeling like doing my journal at all. For inspiration I opened up my pinterest Jesus board and just picked one that spoke to me. After reading the verse and doodling I went into my bible app and read the chapter. And afterwards I felt as though it was the perfect chapter for me to read. For weeks I had been questioning why for so many different things. This verse reminds me that I just don't need to know the whys of everything at the exact moment that I want to know them. That's the purpose of faith and trusting in God. And instead of letting go of control and trusting in my faith I was holding hard onto the control I thought I had. I don't know why I have such a need to control my life and environment. Unfortunately that need is my biggest challenge in my walk with Jesus. This week was such a good reminder in the power of prayer and the importance of spending a little bit of time everyday digging into my bible and getting closer to God.  After praying about my seriously wounded heart I feel slightly better. I'm not going to lie and say I prayed and now everything is perfect. Prayer doesn't do that. But I do feel more at peace with the loss of my dear Papa and more grounded in terms of all the other craziness going on in my life right now. Hopefully I wont need a reminder again anytime soon. 

Jesus replied, "you don't understand what I'm doing now, but someday you will."  -John 13:7 

xo Sam