Where Bloggers Live: Best of 2025

Y’all, we’ve made it. This is the final Where Bloggers Live post of 2025. This has been such an incredible year for me, professionally. It started with my chancellor and vice chancellor inviting me to represent our college at Leadership Cenla. Leadership Cenla is a year-long program hosted by one of our local colleges with the goal of creating community leaders and ambassadors. Each month had a theme with a lecture, a field trip, and a project attached to it. Yeah, I’m a terrible blogger because I didn’t blog this at all. And I hate that because I know I’m going to lose the visual memories, even though the emotional memories and physical connections will stay with me forever.

I’ll share a few of the more memorable events from my time with Leadership Cenla:

• April – Fort Johnson {Fort Polk} Box Tour: The Box Tour gives family, friends, and community members a tour and demonstration of advanced combat training that takes place on post. As part of the tour, our group was able to sit in on a mission briefing with post leadership, where they gave us a history of the post and an outline of the mission for the day. As part of the tour, our bus was kidnapped by the “enemy” and we were held in a holding area until the military was able to come and save us. We saw explosions, vehicle maneuvers, parachutists, etc. The Hubs and I were stationed at Fort Polk many years ago, in fact, that’s where we met and married. People thought because I’d served there that I’d be unimpressed, quite the contrary. I never knew how connected our military installation is to the local communities, I mean, my job was confined to the post. And, while I knew what we did at Fort Polk, I didn’t understand the skill required because it was just something that we were trained to do. Seeing our soldiers through civilian eyes gave me a deep appreciation for our military and for their families.
• May – Alexandria Museum of Art: Representatives from the Chamber of Commerce and Louisiana Central met with us to share new initiatives that they’re working on to increase tourism to the community. They also talked about ways we can help support small businesses in our area and serve as community ambassadors. I do believe this may have been what led to me being asked to share what I love about Cenla in this interview.
• August – Volunteer Opportunities: We were divided into groups and assigned different volunteer opportunities. I volunteered at the Central Louisiana Food Bank; this was quite possibly one of the most humbling experiences. I didn’t realize there are so many families in our community who need the food bank. The line extended, I don’t know, maybe two blocks… My group didn’t hand out food, we packed the bags, which consisted of canned beans, seeds for gardens, protein bars, cereal, and a few other random food stuffs. I have one plea: if you donate food, please don’t give stuff you don’t want to eat, give things you and your family would enjoy. Oh, and make sure it’s a pop lid that little kids can open.

My biggest takeaway from this program is that we’re all connected and it us – the people, the educational sites, the businesses – that make this community. We can’t complain that it’s not what we want it to be and then sit at home and do nothing. We have an obligation to each other and ourselves to make our neighborhoods what we want them to be.

I’ve also determined that my leadership goal is to lead with kindness. This means that I want to lead from a place of compassion and understanding for those who report to me and work with me. I want to treat everyone with respect and give them the space to grow and develop, to find ways to use their talents and interests to support the mission of whatever business we’re in. I don’t want to be “nice”, being nice not allow room for growth, because the concern is about being liked, my concern is with creating an environment where people feel valued and trusted. My goal for 2026 is to read more about this leadership style and become more fully connected to my community.

This picture is from our graduation, which happened last week. It was such an incredible opportunity and I highly recommend it to anyone who’s interested in learning more about their community and how they can contribute to their community being a safe and inviting place to live, play, and work.

THE PROMPT: Best of 2025

Whew, that was a lot, but the program was so worth it. Anyway, to the prompt for this month…

We’re sharing our favorite | most popular posts from 2025, here they are:

• Where Bloggers Live: My Favorite Thanksgiving Side – True story: When The Hubs and I first got married, I could not cook. In my defense, I didn’t have to cook. My daughter was an infant and not eating solid food and I was perfectly content eating Popeye’s two-piece spicy chicken with red beans and rice and a biscuit. Skip ahead about a year and I decided that my first real meal was going to be a Thanksgiving dinner. Yes. Really. I’m nothing, if not ambitious. And confident. Click here to read how our dinner turned out.
• Where Bloggers Live: 10 Things I Can’t Live Without – Let’s just say that my faith and family {this includes the furry members} are a given when it comes to things I can’s live without. I think, for most people, we love those things unconditionally and cannot imagine how differently our lives would be without them.  Click here to read what keeps me going.
• Where Bloggers Live: My New Year’s Resolutions – I’m not a resolutions kind of person. I always end up failing at them within the first three weeks and then I get frustrated. Rather than do that to myself, I stopped setting myself up for failure. Then I tried the vision board trend and discovered that didn’t work for me either. I had a hard time finding images that I thought reflected me. I also had a difficult time figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I stopped. But I did do something else… Click here to read what I did do.
• What I Wore: My DIY Patch Denim Jacket – I’ve seen these patch jackets all over the socials, and I knew I wanted one, but I didn’t want one that looked like everyone else’s. I wanted something as unique as I am. And I wanted something that my kids would look at and laugh at the memories. Click here to see my jacket.

ABOUT WHERE BLOGGERS LIVE

Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Over the next few months, we’ll share about our work spaces, home towns, and more!

I should note – because this is super important – the creative brain behind this project is Bettye at Fashion Schlub! Love her!

The Celebrity Bloggers

Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Dog Hair
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Sally at Within a World of My Own

Make sure you visit everyone to see where the magic happens!

IT’S YOUR TURN

What was your 2025 win?

THANK YOU

Thank you for stopping by my blog. I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new. If you like what you read, please consider sharing this post on Facebook or Pinterest. While I pay for many of the items I share on this blog out of my own pocket, some items are gifted to me {I always disclose those items}. If you’d like to connect on a more regular basis, I’m on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Come back soon,

 

 

 

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AFFILIATE INFORMATION

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