Hi, I'm Stef! — Life of Stef

I already have a blog. It’s a food and travel blog where my boyfriend and I share our travels, the food we eat and a little bit about our lives. But. I’m a big writer. I love to write. I want to write a book. And I also want to write about more than food and travel. Although I love them both, I decided to make a little online journal. Basically taking blogging back to where it originated. Before Google Ads and affiliate links. Before every blog post had to serve a purpose or answer a question for a reader. I’m taking it back to good ol fashioned sharing my life and my thoughts and my interests.

The other day I shared a “thought of the day” on my Instagram stories, and I felt like a straight psycho. My ramblings on the workings of traffic and wishing to have control for one day was not well received by my Insta followers. My Insta followers are mostly a combination of people I knew in high school (the two I went to), people I met in college (only a few of whom I care about), and the few select people I have met in my adult life. (Making friends as an adult is such an ordeal). And then more really random people or deleted accounts which Instagram hasn’t cleared out. They didn’t care about my traffic theories, and anyone who may read this probably doesn’t either, but this is my long winded way of saying I want a place to freely share my thoughts of the day without having to show my face on Insta stories!

A little about me.

I love food.

My hobbies include reading, taking photos of my food, scouring Facebook marketplace for a gem, and hanging out with my dog cat and boyfriend.

I overthink everything. Got a finance degree to put that to some sort of productive use.

I had a full time job. I quit the full time job and lived in an Airstream traveling for 10 months. And now I have a full time job again, settled in Nashville for the foreseeable future.

Before I lived in an Airstream, I was living in Fayetteville, AR. You may love Fayetteville, but I had felt trapped in that city for at least 5 years. I graduated from college there. Got a job there. Got another job there, and felt like I could never find a natural progression out of the place I really didn’t want to be. I would apply to jobs within my companies, apply for jobs outside of my companies, and even look into going back to school all in the name of leaving AR. None of it panned out. I felt like the world was trying to force me to stay there.

But then, I realized no one was standing in front of me forcing me to stay. Just because I couldn’t leave in the natural progression that everyone else did, didn’t mean I was stuck. Hello! We have free will and the choice to change our lives. So, that’s when we bought an Airstream. I quit my job. And we left. We just left. I can’t tell you how freeing that was. To drive out of AR knowing that I had done it. I had found a way out, and it was my own doing. And don’t let me fool you. It wasn’t an easy decision to quit my solid salary, benefits and all that jazz. I have been trained my whole life to get hired and stay hired. I had anxiety through the roof, shook like a leaf for days leading up to quitting, and cried obviously. BUT IT WAS ALL WORTH IT.

I had a life changing experience traveling the country and seeing the beauty that most people don’t even know about. And then we ended up in a city of our choosing. A place we chose to be. A place we love. And a place that sparks joy and inspiration, and gives us a daily feeling of “Oh shit we live in Nashville and we love it!”

So, if you’re reading this, I hope you viciously pursue all things that spark joy for you. Inspire you. Give you the life you want for yourself. Because I know from experience that chasing what you want is worth it. And if it doesn’t turn out being what you want, having tried is still worth it!

Cheers to pursuing this little piece of the internet in hopes that it’s an outlet that I want, that sparks joy, that inspires me, and maybe even inspires a few of you!