Life is Bananas (aka life of z)

Hey friend,
About a few weeks ago I started a little experiment of my life in a week where I wanted to capture my daily life through a series of photos. Whether it was random things I saw or things that inspired me. And honestly, it didn’t work for me. I always forgot to take photos and I felt more inspired through my words rather than through an image. As we know, it’s quite difficult to capture stories through a lens. Or simply, I don’t have an eye for it.

However, I felt like I am more of a story teller through my writings. Ironically, I am awful at updating my blog with stories… Anyway, the point is that life is always changing and so are people.

When you try something out and it doesn’t work for you it’s okay to change your mind about it. Life isn’t perfect. Life is always unstable and unexpected. It will take you through places you don’t want to be. Bearable or unbearable, life will put you through the best and worst situations and it is up to us to make the best out of it.

i am a writer

I will never not love to write. I shall proclaim, I am a writer!

I write for myself and for those who stumble upon my work and can relate to my stories. My work isn’t professional, it’s personal as all things should be. Getting to know people and such… I enjoy a nice long chat with people, connecting and learning their stories. Seeing people for who they are and what they yearn for.

Life is bananas, I have so many interests and am always trying to take up new hobbies. But that’s life. If we didn’t do anything what is the point of it? There is so much to try and so much to learn. Why sit around doing nothing all day?

(okay, you can totally binge watch your favorite shows!)

Anyway, this blog. is a mess, an actual representation of my brain. One day I’m all about cooking, the next it’s about the beauty of painting, coloring, reading, knitting, etc… I will never not just write about one thing because there is SO MUCH TO WRITE ABOUT!

LIFE. IS. SHORT. LET’S. GO.

see you next time, thank you for reading. love you…

XOXO,
z

Life of Z: Week 1

Hey there!
I hope you are doing well! You could call me the queen of procrastination because I never write, or put it aside… haha well. I just keep getting caught up in my life. My anxiety and always making excuses for myself. Like I just want to live and enjoy.

The other day I posted a photo of myself for World Mental Health Day, because I know there are a lot of people out there who suffer. Quietly, too. I am for sure one of those people. In this photo I captured myself feeling happy. And I try to look at it when I am feeling all anxious and unhappy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3cR9dgBDt-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

So I wanted to try something new. I am the type of person to try many things in hopes of finding peace with my anxiety and hoping to find happiness along the way. I want to capture my everyday life with a photo. Whether it is of myself or something that makes me smile. I want to be more proactive for myself, to remind myself to be happy and enjoy life.

So here’s my first week, with just few photos.

**Michelle being all cute at the pumpkin patch!**

I look forward to doing this!
Take care, XOXO

October 2019

Hello friends,
I hope you are doing well. I’m actually doing great, September was brutal and such an emotional month. So, I am glad that October is here. The season changed a week ago and I truly believe we were lucky enough to experience the climate change with it. Early mornings and evenings are nice and chilly, and the air feels so fresh out.

I tend to feel more inspired through out Fall / Winter seasons, could be because I love the cold or that the sweat from the summer isn’t irritating me so maybe I can think clearer. Whatever it is, I am glad that October is here.

Here at my house we like to kick off the new month with spooky vibes and spirit. For instance, I decided that I bake cupcakes. Nothing truly fancy, but I did add one of those Brach’s candied pumpkins.

Honestly though, my house has been decked out on Autumn decor since September 1st. No shame, no regrets lol. And ever since then I have been writing little notes on how autumn arrived. Always started little blog updates and never went on with them.

I know my blog is allover the place, and I unfortunately keep making excuses for myself to not just write. Will I ever change? Who knows… I do love this though, having my space to write my thoughts and hopefully somehow impact someone out there. I know it feels like I’m putting myself out there into the nothingness, but there are people out there!!!

If you’re out there…. HELLO! Do you celebrate holidays? Can you please share with me what they are? And, if you ever have any questions… PLEASE ask me!!!

Anyway, I’ll have more soon…

XOXO,
Z

Friday the 13th

Hello friend,
I’m still here. I hope you are well.
It’s always busy for me, the days go by so fast even though the new weeks feel so far away.
I’m anxious though, usually when life goes by so fast I don’t get a chance to think about the things that go on around me. I usually take the day as it comes and always make the best out of it. I’m just sharing my feelings today, nothing exciting.

Lately, though, I have been feeling extremely anxious. Could it be that spooky unlucky Friday the 13th kind of ordeal? I’m superstitious, though, I think this one is on me.

I write because it calms me and I become inspired so I wanted to tackle that spooky feeling off of me. Anxiety is spooky and really unhelpful if it falls on this day. I guess I may be unlucky? haha.

In all seriousness, I am anxious and it has been building up lately in my life. I’m anxious because I feel like I am trapped in my current state of life. Even though I work hard to move up in life I see no change. They say work hard and success follows. Never give up on yourself. Try harder. Be persistent. Push. And that is what I always do.

Except today, anxiety got the better of me and I let it consume me whole. And it is hard when you are fighting it daily, but I let it take me to a place I hate to be. I become physically exhausted for no apparent reason except because I allow worry to be only on my mind.

What am I worried about?

I am worried about not being in the place I want to be. Not having a better job, more opportunity, and not having the ability to provide for my family. And I cannot control life. My path is going somewhere I just have to remind myself to be patient and believe in myself.

Worrying about what I cannot control is useless.

The reality is that anxiety sucks and when you get sucked into it, it’s hard to get out sometimes. I wish I had the answers for getting rid of anxiety, but sometimes its best to just get up and go for a walk.

Just know, if you read this far, you’re not alone. Just because you feel like your life isn’t going anywhere doesn’t mean you are the only one. There are so many people who feel like you do and it’s okay to be a little sad, just try to remind yourself to not let it get the best of you. Tomorrow will be a better day, but you have the power to make that happen.

Drowning in our sorrows sucks the beauty of life. It’s not easy, but please a reminder you are not alone.

-Z

June 2019

HELLO JUNE!!!
How are you friends? Are you still there? It’s been a hot minute since I last wrote about something or have made something to share with the web. I’ve been a been under the weather. I was going through some crazy health issues and was really in a place that I hate to be in.

I relapsed. I let myself fall into that dark place. I let all the bad consume me whole. All of light turned grey and all of joy was lost. I started to feel the comfort behind it. I suddenly became a passenger to my anxiety, letting it take control of what I would do and how I would feel. Like an addict I didn’t feel life. I didn’t allow myself to live as I try to do.

But, I’m here, I’m back. I’m feeling better and I want to get to work on the things I love the most. I want to write. I want to inspire. And I want to cook all the food I can.

Hello Summer

I’m so glad that summer is arriving, while I don’t love the heat I do enjoy spending the day out, going on mini trips, having BBQ’s, and spend the time with my friends and family. While my budget is limited, I do want to have fun with my daughter. And most of all, I want to enjoy LIFE.

My June intentions are:

Exercise & EAT
Enjoy the outdoors [WALK, RUN, JUMP, BREATHE, GO TO THE BEACH]
Most of all LIVE, don’t allow anxiety to take over.
Take Lots of pictures!!!

And if you’ve read this far, you enjoy all of this too. I will write to you soon!!

XOXO
Zayra (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)

November Notes

Hello,

I hope your Thanksgiving was well spent with good company and good vibes. Mine was quiet and relaxing, I spent my morning with my daughter and her father. We went on a nice afternoon walk to the park and we played hide-and-seek and tag. While we spent the afternoon in the park, I took the time to appreciate life and my surroundings. The wind, ocean, trees, and human interaction was astounding.

The atmosphere during the holidays is special because you get to see all the people coming together and interacting. It was all perfect in its own way. Well, perfect for me…

Dinner was also quiet and delicious. I cooked a ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread stuffing, Mac and cheese. I couldn’t have asked for more of the day.

If you read my November Intentions post I gave myself a few tasks to complete for the month. 1. was to be more present while spending time with my family (no screen time). 2. Give me some time to be creative. 3. Express gratefulness towards something daily and try to create a habit of it.

As I am wrapping up the month I’d like to say that I pretty much did as I hoped. When I quit Facebook and other social media platforms I found myself not spending as much time on my phone. Sure, I’d go on to check my Instagram account, however, it wasn’t the first thing I woke up to do. I really emphasized to myself to wake up and set the tone of the day by doing something else. Since then, I have found myself to be more creative and picking up my old reading habits. I’ve been writing a lot of short stories or just anything in my journals and I end up feeling very well.

Another thing I was working on was practicing gratitude/thankfulness for something daily. To be honest, I tried to not be repetitive to myself, but man! I’m truly blessed with everything I have. I mean we all are. For the simple things to exist and all is simply a major thing to be grateful for.

Grateful for everything; feelings of joy and happiness.

November was truly good to me and I’m so happy to share these words with you. I can’t wait for what December has in store! We are going to end the last month of the year with a BANG!!!!!

Until then, I’m sending you much love!

-Zayra XOXO

Creativity

Hello, my friends,

I hope you’re doing well! I definitely have been caught up with life and getting sidetracked from creativity.

In my last post, I told you my intentions for the month of November and I have been challenging myself to keep myself working on them. It has been a challenging task to get myself to do the assignments that I make for myself… Let me tell you why though.

During the month of October, I was struck with an opportunity to write. This opportunity arrived when I was struck by creativity. You know that imagination, ideas or whatever you want. The ideas for writing purposely arrived in me. And I had to catch them. I envision this moment as I am writing on paper like a butterfly catcher with a net. Except. I was catching words onto my notebook. They were words for my blog and words for my idea book. I felt like I was on fire and I needed to catch them all. I needed to write word for word onto my notebook. And the ideas and creativity would not stop for one moment. I would find myself in the shower and BOOM… Creativity was right there.

Here is the thing about creativity though, it simply does not wait around for you to decide when it is the best time to welcome it. It comes and then it goes.

As Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic, “If inspiration is allowed to unexpectedly enter you, it is also allowed to unexpectedly exit you.”

That is what happened. I was riding creativity like a horse sprinting through a meadow and then we were abruptly stopped when we lost a sense of direction. And ever since then, we have been lost. We are lost, but not in a bad way.

Today, however, I ran into creativity and inspiration. Which guided me through writing these words. Because I want them to keep coming to me so that I have wonderful stories to tell and that I could share the things I love to do with you.

When I started this blog I had the intention to share the good, bad, and in between. I want to always be candid and real because all we ever do on social media is pretend we are someone we are not.

If you have been following me for a while you know that my blog is always changing and that is because of myself. I am always changing, always trying to be a better person, always trying to learn something new, trying to find my own happiness and grow.

So if you are ever confused about what my blog is about it is of all the things I love, my stories, my life. Me.

Please, I hope you enjoy my stories and continue coming back to me. I have so much to share.

Love,

Zayra

XOXO

November Intentions

Hello,

And I hope you are doing well today! Can you believe another month has passed us and we are much closer to the end of the year!

YIKES!!!

Last month I shared with you my first few intentions I wanted to do for myself and boy was that a journey! First off, I want to say that breaking bad habits are not easy and they can take months to get over! Getting off Facebook was such a challenge and accepting living in the now was really great! Last month I was able to spend time with my family and really be there presently.

As part of my monthly intentions, I wanted to try a new recipe! I baked over 3 dozen Pumpkin Snickerdoodles with my daughter lol! I don’t know why, but I did it and they were absolutely delicious. I used the recipe from the Domestic Rebel: https://thedomesticrebel.com/2016/08/17/the-best-soft-chewy-pumpkin-snickerdoodles/

I urge you to try them!

And finally, my last October Intention was to visit a Halloween Attraction! And guess where we went!? Dun… dun… dun… We went to the Pumpkin Patch! ha. However, most of the time was spent trying to convince Michelle to ride the pony, get down the slide, and other things. She did not want to do anything. Ultimately, the visit was brief.

NOVEMBER

November brings a sense of gratitude for my loved ones and things I have. This month I believe that we (humans) like to remind ourselves to be grateful for the people around us and for what we have. While it is the month to give thanks I also have that same feeling during Valentine’s day when we “share love,” with others.

So why not make it a habit to be grateful all day every day!!

Now this month should be a great place to start because of all the feelings we get during the holidays! You know those warm thankful feelings… Right!?

My November Intentions:

Try to make it a habit to be grateful for one thing every day this month. Write it down and look over them at the end of the month!
Set some free time for me to work and express myself creatively.
Spend family time without any screens!

If you are reading this I challenge you to try my 1st intention! If you want to share them with me you can send me a photo through Instagram or Twitter DM. Or, you can post them in the comments below!

As always!

Much love,

Zayra 🙂

Strength & Growth

Hello,

It’s been a while since I last posted and I shared a little update on my Instagram page. If you’ve been following me now for a while and read my posts you know that I’ve been trying to find the balance and ways to work on myself to be better. By “better,” I mean for myself and my daughter. And by that, I mean, breaking bad habits, finding anxiety relief, and just trying to find myself.

It’s been a daunting process and really it hasn’t been easy. It’s been a difficult road to self-discovery, self-love, and self-care. Finding myself true to my roots, without lying to myself about things. It really is something that is both exciting and frightening.

I’ve been becoming vocal about my needs for myself, and vocal about anything.

In the road to discovery, I have come across many difficult situations and decisions about where my life is and where my life is headed. It’s very easy to imagine yourself where you want to be at any given time of life. And if you’re like myself and don’t know this I am very much a planner for my life. (Side note: I’m a planner, but a very disorganized one). By all means, I play to the terms of life because I cannot control where my life is headed, but I like to think that my life is headed in a particular direction.

I like to always have a backup plan to literally anything that could go wrong and will go wrong. However, behind that mentality there I found one of my biggest anxiety triggers. Control. Not being to dictate where and what to do and when things went unplanned I found myself very anxious and frustrated by things not going as planned. Honestly, that there alone is my biggest most overwhelming bad habit. So, what should one do to get over that you ask? I don’t have the biggest reveal or shocking discovery in terms of discovering on how to break that habit other than… You guessed it! Changing your mentality on things like that. I was so busy at the moment when things didn’t go as planned that I didn’t know how to be literally there. I wasn’t enjoying the time I was living and just frustrated at things that are seemingly pointless.

Why focus on things that don’t matter and waste your time?

Okay, now let me share another thing I’ve been working on. If you’re friends with me on social media you’ll notice that I no longer am on Facebook!

Yes!!

Victory, here’s why…

I found myself every single day spending a lot of my time on Facebook, sometimes there wasn’t anything new so I would just keep refreshing my timeline looking for something new to pop-up. I would find every excuse to not delete it or deactivate it such as all my friends are on there, the only way I keep in touch with my family, sharing my photos, my old post memories, etc…

Can you believe it? I was holding onto memories from my virtual past. Things that I couldn’t physically touch, feel, hear, or smell. I didn’t think twice about it. At first, I was going to just deactivate it for a few weeks and I realized. Well, I don’t really need to because when I go back I’ll just fall into the bad habit of spending all my time on there for no reason.

Finally!

I’m here now. Writing. And guess what!? I have the most creative stories to tell. My mind feels less burdened with the need to be spending so much time on social media as I used too. And while it may seem very contradictive that I’m writing to you on the internet I want to say that. No, the internet is not a bad thing. For it has brought a lot of knowledge to many of us. Showed us many new things, and keeps us all connected through the words and stories we share.

However, the darker side to it is that if you’re like me. You just spend too much time not doing anything productive some days and I just wanted to get out of that bad habit. To actually do something productive and be able to share the things I do love with others. I hope you find my words both encouraging and entertaining because writing is what I love to do best and it has taken me so long to finally feel like I can write to share a story rather than to write and bullshit you about things I don’t really care about other than for the minute. So please! If you haven’t already! Follow me for more exciting stories or words from myself. I want to share so much more!

Now! Tell me what habits are you trying to break?

Much love.

Zayra 😊

October Intentions

Hello, my friends,

Happy October!!

I hope you’re doing well and enjoying the last bits of summer wherever you are. Here in California summer officially came to an end on September 22 and we welcomed Autumn. I was stoked to welcome the season for many different reasons. Of course, my number one reason is the chilly weather. Although we don’t often get rain in California I very much enjoy the gloomy cold misty days.

Anywho, I wanted to try something different this month and that is 3. Intentions for the month of October. These intentions could be a variety of things baking, cleaning, going someplace, etc… Then I’d like to revisit them at the end of the month and see if I completed them!

October Intentions:

Bake pumpkin spice snickerdoodles
Visit a Halloween Attraction
Practice breaking a bad habit

Now I challenge you to write down at least one intention for the month of October and do it! I’d also like for you to reflect on it and ask yourself if you would have done it if you haven’t urged yourself to do it.

Have a happy day and I’ll keep you guys updated! 😊

-ZAYRA XOXO 🎃