what I would tell my 18 year old self

Dear 18 year old me,

First and foremost, learn to love yourself. You are beautiful inside and out. Just stop worrying so much about your weight and be healthy. STOP throwing up everything you consider "bad" after you eat it. You have one body to live in. Cherish it. Appreciate it for all of the things it does for you every day. Stop wishing you were smaller. Stop thinking guys will like you more if you're skinny. It's not true.

Don't bother trying to transfer schools. You love Southern Miss and will make the best friends you could ever imagine. Don't study abroad in Jamaica, though. Go to London or France instead.

Don't rekindle that friendship. She doesn't stick around very long this time anyway, and it only hurts you again in the end.

You are so much better than that awful, abusive relationship with you-know-who, but you will learn so much from your year long struggle. You will learn how to respect yourself, how to stand up for yourself, and what you're worth. You learn that romantic relationships will not bring you validation and that your voice deserves to be heard. I'd say don't even date him, but you need to learn these lessons. You will appreciate your amazing husband so much more after you learn them.

Continue to love every minute of life. It becomes so much more than you ever dreamed it would be. It's not always easy. You're going to go through rough times, but keep Christ first in your life. He will always see you through with the utmost grace.

Keep your free spirit, positive attitude, and drive to succeed. Be proud of who you are and the things you stand for. Always help those in need. Be the first to smile when you pass a stranger, and love with reckless abandon.

With so much love,

Chelsea

| Images by: Judy Kellar of Killer Shots Photography |

november goals

*Save $$$ (aka stop buying clothes I don't need)
*Finish at least half of my Christmas shopping.
*Clean up my diet. (Exercise has been on point...eating...not so much.)
*Blog more consistently. (I'm aiming for every week day!)
*Do more freelance writing.

I'm all about goal setting and list making and planner keeping. Kinda weird for someone who is usually just flying by the seat of her pants. What can I say? I'm a plethora of oxymorons. I have to have everything written down. I'll more than likely forget it if I don't. I'll probably forget it even if I do, though.

Anyone else the same? Just me? Ok. Cool. Untreated ADD! Woo!

Ok. I'm done.

Anyway, I have some really cool content planned for the next few months that I really think y'all will enjoy. But, I'd love to hear from you! What do you want to read? What are your goals for November?

/// Chelsea

+Tag me on Insta, Twitter, or FB #MississippiHippy

+Follow me, too! Instagram (@ChelseaEli), Facebook, Twitter (@ChelseaTThomas), or send me a SnapChat @chelseaeli.

weekly window: halloween hangover

I'm that girl. I'm the one who likes to skip right over the Thanksgiving stuff and go straight to Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I love celebrating Thanksgiving. Having an excuse to eat all the food and love on family for a while is literally the best thing ever, but lets get real. Christmas decorations and music are far superior to Thanksgiving decorations.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween, though. Thursday night, I ran the Rankin County Chamber of Commerce Glow Run 5k with these pretty ladies. Except it was more like 3.5 miles than 3.1...

We spent Halloween with the family giving out candy to the little trick or treaters and stuffing our faces. I've felt like death all day. I think I have a Halloween hangover. My body is detoxing all the junk. Yet, I just ate some Reese's Pieces. Crap.

Excuse me while I drink a gallon of water, get back to boot camp, and die tomorrow.

So how do you feel about premature Christmas decorating? For it? Against it? Indifferent? Let me know! I'll just be over here humming Christmas tunes and taking down the Halloween stuff.

/// Chelsea

+Tag me on Insta, Twitter, or FB #MississippiHippy

+Follow me  Instagram (@ChelseaEli), Facebook, Twitter (@ChelseaTThomas), or send me a SnapChat @chelseaeli.

what's in a name?

Growing up smack dab in the middle of Mississippi, being called a "hippy" wasn't always a good thing. It's usually aimed at labeling someone as a "liberal" or "left-wing." I'll leave politics out of it, but I wanted to take a little time to explain to you where the name Mississippi Hippy came from.

The summer after my freshman year of college, Jason Aldean came out with a song called She's Country. The song talks about girls from various states in the south and picks a little adjective that basically rhymes with their state or something from their state. Mississippi's line says, "getcha flipping kinda trippy like a Mississippi hippy." I loved it.

My whole life, people have referred to me as a "hippy." I've always liked it. Granted, it hasn't always been a compliment. Most of the time, though, it was in reference to my free spirit, love for music, and tendency to like flowy clothes and flowers in my hair. Oh, and the fact that I'm obsessed with hippy culture. I left my wedding in a VW Bus for goodness sake.

Anyway...

When I decide to start a blog way back in 2012, it seemed like a perfect name. A lot of people think of Mississippians as back woods rednecks, and that couldn't be farther from the reality of most of its residents and myself. The definition of a hippy is a young person who rejects established social customs and advocates a nonviolent ethic.

Well...that's me!

I reject the established social custom of self hate and being violent towards oneself or others. I believe in choosing love over fear. I believe in loving yourself exactly as you are because you are already perfect. You get my drift here, right?

So there ya have it! That's where the name Mississippi Hippy came from, and the rest is history!...kinda.

///

Tag me on Instagram (@ChelseaEli), Facebook, Twitter (@ChelseaTThomas), or send me a SnapChat @chelseaeli! I want to see your self-love! You can even add #MississippiHippy so I can see!

Image by Sully Clemmer

Feelin' My Selfie

Why do we have such a problem with selfies?

In a world full of women who do not feel like they live up to the standards that society has set for them, why do we hate to see a picture of someone who likes the way they look?

Why does it bother us that someone else is happy with themselves?

I'd so much rather see a Facebook feed full of selfies of women who know their beauty and worth than one full of celebrity gossip and "I had a turkey sandwich for lunch today" statuses. Selfies do not depict a conceited person or a mental disorder. Selfies show confidence, happiness, and courage. They are empowering.

So what if a group of girls spent a large amount of time taking pictures of themselves instead watching a baseball game? We should be applauding the fact that they are comfortable enough with themselves to take a selfie. Saying that selfies are self-serving and conceited is telling someone that it's not okay for them to like themselves. That is the problem here.

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather see a world full of people who love themselves enough to post a selfie over a world full of people trying to live up to the impossible standards the media sets. By bashing the "selfie generation," we are, once again, perpetuating the belief that women shouldn't be comfortable with their natural selves.

STOP IT.

I want my children to grow up in a world full of love for themselves and love for others, don't you?

Selfie bashing moves us closer to neither of these things. Think about it.

///

Tag me in your selfies on Instagram (@ChelseaEli), Facebook, Twitter (@ChelseaTThomas), or send me a SnapChat @chelseaeli! I want to see your self-love! You can even add #MississippiHippy so I can see.