Kristen Howells

No Quick Fixes

August 14, 2020

Like anything in life you have to work hard for what you want.

Yup, this is something we all already know, but guess what, we don’t all always follow through with this.

If your new here you may not know that my husband and I have been on a health journey for like a decade. We have tried everything under the sun. We have done the “quick” fixes and I am here to tell you THEY DO NOT WORK. It does not matter what magical beans or motivational slogan someone is telling you, they are selling you crap, no nice way around it, it is crap and it will only make you think that it is “liquid gold” or whatever the latest gimmick is these days.

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Choo, Choo!

August 6, 2020

By my calculation, and the number of dishes daily, it has now been almost a year since we began our huge endeavor of living and working together 24/7. Well, he does the work I just have to now put up with him in my space during the day. I really thought we would have more ups and downs as we drastically changed our day to day but as the title suggests we are just chugging along.

I will say this about our situation if you have the ability to be with your spouse daily, do it. I have actually seen my anxiety go down by him being home and he is much happier. Not to say he wasn’t happy in what he was doing before he became his own boss full time, but it was a lot of work to juggle so many projects at once while also working for a large company. If you work in an office you will know that you have a lot of meetings to discuss what you need to do in a different meeting. It takes up a lot of “working” time and you can sometimes feel you are not productive.

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Current Season of Life

August 3, 2020

This season of life. The new normal. This crazy adventure. The unknown.

These are all terms that have been used in our household over the last six months. My intentions with Married to SEO was to take everyone along on our journey, well, that journey made a very sudden stop on March 6, 2020. That was the final day that I was outside of our home without anxiety, without a mask, and enjoying a date day with my husband that wasn’t in our home or back patio.

I never intended to take a break from blogging, when this current season of life began for us in March I really felt I would write more to keep my mind clear but instead I found other outlets that allowed me to step away fully from the internet and the constant rabbit holes you inevitably go down, especially when it comes to COVID-19.

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Happy Holidays!

December 13, 2019

With Christmas right around the corner, I realized that I just don’t have the time to put out a holiday card. I had intentions, I began early this year, knew exactly what I wanted to do but life has a way of changing plans on us when we least expect it.

2020 will mark the end of our first decade of being married so I wanted to go all out with The Howells’ Top Ten of the last decade.

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Business & Marriage 24/7

October 25, 2019

Can a marriage really survive leaving corporate America to be fully self-employed and home 24/7? It can if you just go back to the old idea that you have to continually grow with your partner.

Many times when I have seen marriages around us fall apart it comes back to the simple idea that neither partner was willing to change and grow together. The marriage you had in year one will never be the same marriage that you have in year ten. If you say it will, that is the first mistake you will make in being together 24/7. We as human beings are not the same people from year to year. You are not who you were at 15 or who you were at 30. Humans have always had a basic need for evolution in all aspects of our lives and marriage is no different, you and your marriage have to continually be evolving.

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Plus One, Conference Edition

October 8, 2019

I am not new to the conference life by any means. When I worked in higher education conferences were a regular thing that I would attend, but I would attend them with my work colleagues and my husband would attend his industry conferences with his colleagues, we never crossed the aisle and that worked really well, aside from those few pesky years when we were never together for our wedding anniversary – thanks, Moz.

Fast forward to this last year and my realization that in order for me to be a full supporter of Ian and his business I had to be all in, and that means traveling with him to conferences. I have officially become the plus one on all events, and I don’t mind it – that much.

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