I love writing things on paper and could definitely not function with just an electronic calendar--I live and die by my planner. Similarly, I've never been able to get into e-books or reading any sort of book on an iPad or Nook. I need to be able to underline.

I have two tattoos and am planning my third.

When we were in Miami for a few days I was able to start putting my thoughts together in Spanish and it really made me want to start practicing again, but I almost don't even know where to start. I have good reading and comprehension but my speaking skills are so rusty that I don't feel confident in Spanish conversation at all. I know it won't get better until I start using it, though.

Sometimes I'm in the mood to cry so I'll play the song "If I Die Young" by The Band Perry. It devastates me every time.

I was starting to think that maybe I didn't have a gluten intolerance after all but on Saturday I ate three pieces of bread and a slice of pizza and ended up puking my guts out for an hour, so I think I'm going to cool it for a while. This isn't the first time, and I always feel kind of foolish for putting my body through the things I sometimes do to it. But, I mean...bread.

I have a phobia of big character body suits, like the Chick-Fil-A cow or any sports team mascot. I don't like clowns either and I think they all feel the same to me in some way.

What are some things people don't know about you?

Photo by Virginia Ashley Photography.

This post is sponsored by Ace Hardware.

Just over a year ago, in an effort to make our new apartment feel a bit more like home, I got some new pillow covers for our sofa and artwork to hang in the living room. It certainly did the trick, but lately I've been feeling frustrated about our furniture--I like every piece on its own, but thrown together in one room it feels kind of disjointed.

Everything in our living room is either black, white, or grey, so I thought we'd have a nice neutral vibe going on, but there was still something missing. We put our dinner table in storage because we never used it and I moved a light blue vintage chair into that corner and hung some more art, which helped, but it still wasn't finished.

So when Ace Hardware asked me to participate in their 31 Days of Color campaign like I did last year, I jumped at the opportunity and started looking through all of the colors. I thought a grey statement wall behind the couch (where I hung that print last year--Untitled 2 by Jamie Derringer at Minted) would be the final piece that would make the living room feel complete. And it was! On Saturday night Rob and I played a few episodes of our favorite shows in the background and painted our wall with Valspar's Tabby Cat Gray, which is pretty much the perfect color--neutral, cool, and not too dark while still contrasting the white of the other walls.

We spend a ton of time in our living room, so it's nice to feel proud of it. It's finally cozy!

I'm often overwhelmed with the task of making our apartment feel "homey," and I always forget both how easy it is to paint a wall and what a huge difference it can make. It's cheap and relatively fast and really brings a space to life.

Keep up with all the colors in Ace's 31 Days of Color calendar and enter the sweepstakes for a chance to win a $10,000 paint makeover and daily gift cards!

Another day, another color to inspire your home projects. Every day in March, Ace is unveiling a featured color and giving you a chance to win a $10,000 room makeover! To learn more visit thepaintstudio.com.

No purchase or payment necessary to enter or win. Open to legal US residents residing in the contiguous United States and the District of Columbia who are at least twenty-one (21) years of age and who are homeowners. Sweepstakes will run from 3/1/16-3/31/16. Full rules located here: http://www.thepaintstudio.com/31daysofcolor/pdf/2016AceHardware31DaysofColorSweepstakesRules.pdf

For as long as I can remember, I've worked out because I wanted to look better. For our wedding and the honeymoon. For college theme parties and the tiny costumes I wore to them. And before that, I trained for cross country and swimming because I wanted to win. They were self-centered reasons, but at least they kept me in shape. The only problem was that they never stuck around longer than the photo or the party or the race.

The past year and a half or two have been hard on me emotionally, and they've taken a physical toll as well. I started going to barre last March and stuck with it for about nine months, but I was eating a lot of crap (and like I mentioned in this post, I never felt like barre on its own was enough of a workout for me). When my mom had her double mastectomy in September, I used it as license to eat whatever I wanted, especially because our sweet neighbors were bringing over so much food so that my brother and I wouldn't have to cook while we helped her recover.

I'll never forget the day of her first surgery--after they wheeled her back to the operating room, Sean and I rushed to the market building in downtown Roanoke and nervously ate two of the biggest plates of Chinese food you can imagine. We were anxious and scared but also felt relief that our mom was making the best choices possible for her health and would hopefully soon be on the road to recovery. Another thing I'll never forget is how impressed her surgeons were with her chest muscles--my mom has always been a badass and CrossFit definitely set her up for some successful surgeries.

For months I've been telling myself that I need to eat better and to get back in the gym, but I couldn't seem to find the motivation. My Pure Barre membership was really expensive so I ended up not going back. Back in the fall, my neighbor and I both bought these Groupons for a 30-day membership to a cool gym in our neighborhood, so finally in February we started going. They have some really intense classes like TRX, kettle bell circuits, tabata workouts, and rowing; which is my new favorite. My body was sore for the first time in months and I was loving it. 

All of this fitness inspiration coincided with my first biopsy last month, and as I took a few days off to recover, I realized that I had found my lifetime motivation. Not a dress or a bikini, but a true and important reason to physically care for my body. Here's a thing I've thought about a lot lately but haven't actually written: I want to have a few babies and a double mastectomy within the next six years. 

It's an aggressive plan and if God/the Universe has taught me anything these past few years it's to not get too attached to your plans, but I have found so much peace in working my body for nothing more than the sake of becoming as strong as possible this year. So I joined the gym, and I've gotten back into more intense, CrossFit-style workouts. I lift heavy things and I jump and do lots of body-weight exercises, and twice a week I get my ass handed to me by a rowing workout.

I want to have fit pregnancies, and I want to go into that operating room in the best shape possible. I've always been pretty thin, but I haven't always been pretty strong. I want to leave cancer in the dust as I run and jump and swim and hike and play with my young, healthy family.

I'd say that's a pretty good reason. And I think it's finally going to stick.