I’m Hannah. *wave* Welcome to my blog.

I make mistakes. All the time.

I trip, fall, knock into things, and accidentally push things off my desk all the time. I usually always have bruises I’ve gained from who knows what.

But I keep moving forward.

By the Grace of God, I’m here to continue moving forward even though I always make mistakes. 

Who needs to be perfect? Surely, not me. I’m a mess. Literally and figuratively. But I try my best to make things work.

I’m starting this blog, The Grace of Living, to share that I, along with you, the reader, need to give ourselves a little more grace to not be perfect. Most projects are not going to turn out exactly the way we want them on the first try, and if it does, you’ve hit the jackpot. Things are probably going to be a little off.

• The cookies you make won’t always have the right shape.
• Maybe you forgot to add the sugar to the cookie batter. (Been there, done that.)
• The run you went on just wasn’t what you hoped it would be.
• The home project you’re working on keeps spiraling into different projects. 
• You somehow missed a whole section of your hair when curling it and didn’t realize it until later.

Everything is okay. So we make some mistakes. I’ve done all of these things and can laugh about them. Giving myself the grace not to be perfect has lead me to try some pretty awesome things. 

This blog is going to incorporate a little bit of everything. 

I’m constantly searching for real life people talking about these things. These are the things I like to talk and learn about.

• I’m a total Harry Potter nerd who will talk to you for hours about anything and everything about it. Just don’t try to get me to believe Snape is a good guy. He’s a villain forever in my mind. But Harry Potter just started my journey into reading. I’ll read pretty much everything. Some genres just take me longer to get through.

• My family has pretty much always made everything from scratch when we bake. Boxed cake mixes are something I’ve only recently started using. My favorite thing to bake are cinnamon rolls. And if I like you enough, I’ll bake some for you.

• If someone I know and trust gives me a recommendation for a product, there is a HIGHLY good chance that I’ll go out and buy it. Especially if it’s for a problem I’ve been having. A real review on a product I’ve been eyeing goes further than the reviews on the website selling the product for me.

• A few years ago, I bought a condo. And while there’s not a whole lot of work needed on it, I recently just remodeled one of the bathrooms. My kitchen cabinets need painting. And I’m constantly in need of organizing/decluttering. I’ve been wanting to rearrange my main living area too. After my Christmas decorations come down might be just the right time for it. Home projects might not always be super exciting, but they are necessary.

• Because I bought a condo and moved out of my parents’ house, I had to learn to cook more for myself. I’m not a huge fan of cooking, and especially not for just me. Anyone else with me on that? I hope to share some good tips for meal planning and how to cook for one. I’m learning how to do this all the time. One of my go to meals is cheese and crackers… soo… yeah… that’s my adulthood for you. 

• I like to think of myself as fairly crafty, but I’ve fallen into the niche of pretty much strictly crocheting in the last few years. With so many friends getting married and having babies, I’ve made a lot of full size afghans and baby blankets. I do love to be creative in other ways too. I just don’t always have the right materials on hand. I make a lot of trips to Joann Fabrics or Hobby Lobby. 

• Health and Fitness – things I have a love/hate relationship with. I hate diets but love sweets. So you can probably imagine that I’ve always had a few extra pounds more than I would like. I do like to be active. Although, I’m for sure not as active as I should be. I sweat easily, and I sweat a lot, so a quick 15-30 minute workout on my lunch break or before meeting up with people doesn’t work for me if I can’t take a shower. The exercises I know I love are cycling and dance cardio. I have a love/hate relationship with running. I’ve somehow managed to complete 4 half marathons. More on that another day.

• Living a faithful life. This is something that’ll probably just come out in my writing or in other recommendations. I’m a faithful Catholic from birth, but in no way am I saying I’m a perfect one. I definitely don’t get to confession nearly as much as I need it in my life. But I try. Trying to get myself and others to heaven.

My hope is to give others an example of leaning into those imperfections life gives us.