Saturday, March 31, 2012

"The Days are Long, but the Years are Short"

I've been reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin for a few weeks now (usually it takes me a day or two to get through a book but being in school it takes me months, so sad) and it's really helping me to see and appreciate the things in my life. I just read her few pages on gratitude and how having gratitude eliminates envy for other people's life because you are grateful for your own. Don't get me wrong, I love my life and know that I am so lucky to have what I have. But it is really easy to look at someone else's life, which looks amazing from the outside, and wish I had that too. I've been experiencing this a lot lately because many people I went to high school with, even one of my close friends, are getting married and having babies. And while I'm so envious and wish I was in that position at the same time I'm like, "WAIT! SLOW DOWN! I'M NOT READY YET!" I tend to forget that I have a lot to be grateful for and I want to be selfish and have what everyone else has. I have high expectations. So as per Gretchen Rubin, I am going to start trying to think of a few things (3?) every day to be grateful for and try to write them on here. I'm not saying that I will write every day but every time I post I will include things I'm grateful for. Join me?



1. I know this is cliche but I am so grateful every single day for my mister. He is the single ray of happiness in my otherwise bleak and dismal days. He always is there to pick me up and encourage me and be by my side through anything. I really honestly lucked out with this guy. He does anything and everything for me without me even having to ask.


2. I literally have the best mom in the world. I know everyone thinks they do, but I do. I come home every weekend because I love to see her and hang out with her. She takes me shopping and never complains about buying me anything. I can tell her anything and she is just so cool. I hope she never moves away from me or I'll have to kidnap her and force her to live with me FOREVER.

Unfortunately I've been in a rut so that's about all I've been grateful for. I'm having some trouble with havin g and keeping close friends and it has kind of brought me down. Hence, this gratitude project!

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Coach to 5k Week One

Completed! It got a little hard because I developed some pretty gnarly shin splits but I've been icing them and I'm hoping the more I run the less they'll hurt. I'm going to try to run in the pool this weekend or next, apparently it's really good for you? Except I am not looking forward to week two since it gets harder. I think I can do it though, I'm pretty motivated.

I also went to/helped throw a bachelorette party for a friend of mine since freshman year of high school. I had a lot of fun and I really honestly hope everyone else did to. It was thrown together kind of last minute since she's getting married next week (but she's going to have a ceremony/reception in the summer for family) and we wanted to just do something small and meaningful before she leaves next week. I'm sure we'll plan something else that's bigger but we just wanted to make sure she had a good time the weekend before she left. So I hope she did! Here are the pictures:


All this stuff makes me so excited for my own wedding one day. I know I'll have the most amazing group of girls around me to plan all these fun nights and surprises for me and I cannot wait to have those memories for the rest of my life.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Last Day of Freedom

Maybe I'm being a tad bit overdramatic but today is my last day of Spring Break. Tomorrow it's back to school and nonstop work/class/lab/homework and I am dreading every last second of it. Although I'm trying real hard to be more positive in my life (currently, reading The Happiness Project and trying to apply it to my life). Today to celebrate the last day I've watched Supernatural, read countless blog posts chatted with friends, and laid out in the sunshine with my beautiful baby, Stanley. Later I'll be organizing my brand new bookshelf and packing up for tomorrow .. sigh.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Couch to 5K

I've decided - since I've done horribly at exercising and motivating myself and my only motivation is to run one mile in under 15 minutes that I'm going to be starting the Cough to 5k program. It has free podcasts you listen to each week that will, at the end of 9 (I think?) weeks you will be able to run a 5k straight through. So each week is broken down into intervals of walking and running until you are able to just run completely. I feel like having that goal will motivate me unlike just running around aimlessly with no end in sight except to lose weight. I am hoping this will motivate me and who knows, maybe my ultimate goal will be to run a 5k for real instead of to lose 20 pounds. I feel like that seems more ... logical? We will see. I'm starting this program Monday when I go back to school since I'll have a treadmill. It's getting really hot again in Florida so I don't really want to run outside!

Friday, March 16, 2012

Spring Break 2012

I have to say my Spring Break was not entirely exciting. A lot of laying around in my bed, catching up on shows and reading books, napping, lounging with my boyfriend, watching movies, and not much else. All of my friends had their Spring Break the week before so no one was in town. However I did get to see them last Friday (although unfortunately no pictures were taken). Other than the above mentioned things, Mister and I helped some friends of ours move and made them dinner the night before. And we went to the beach! Btw, I use picasa to edit my photos and they just updated and got some awesome new edits!


I fell in love the way you fall asleep; slowly, and then all at once.
John Green


Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Travel Plans

I decided in order to remember where I want to travel when I finally earn more than minimum wage I've decided to blog it and hopefully get any and all ideas/suggestions/advice. I've never planned a "real" vacation before, just road trips to visit family in different states. My DREAM is to travel the world with my Mister, hopefully before we have kids (I plan on having four!) so we can relax and enjoy our love and time together. However it seems a bit daunting and impossible to plan long enough trips when we have to work and only get certain amounts of time off. People do it though, right?

Okinawa, Japan + all of its surrounding islands:

Greece: Santorini, Crete, Naxos, Mykonos, and Corfu (definitely Santorini and Crete, the others just look pretty online!)

Italy: Amalfi Coast, Naples, Tuscany, Florence, Rome, Venice, Italian Lakes (I've been once before on a cruise and was only able to see a couple of these places for less than a day. I wish I could spend my whole life here, I would DEFINITELY consider moving but life just doesn't seem to have that in the cards for me).

I'd also love to go to Spain, England, Scotland, Ireland, Fiji or Tahiti, Switzerland, Sweden, Paris France, Germany, Amsterdam, EVERYWHERE really. And there's also plenty of places I want to see in the U.S but the world is just so big to stay in one place.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

One More Day 'til Spring Break

Tomorrow at 11:30 my Spring Break officially begins! I'm so excited to have a week off to be home and have no obligations and do whatever I want to whenever I want to. My mister also has three days off so we might take a trip to the beach or just hang around town and see everyone. Sadly, two of my best friends had Spring Break this past week so I won't be able to see them at all except for tomorrow. Three of them are coming over for dinner/dessert/wine and a sleepover and I wish I could fast forward time because I CANNOT CANNOT CANNOT wait to see them all at the same time all together.

Also I succeeded in my goal of running three miles in the four days I was at school. I ran one mile a day for three days and took today off. Tomorrow I'm going to try to be motivated to do a butt/arm work out and keep up my streak of exercising. I'm really proud of myself, even if I don't see a difference I feel more confident.

And to end, here are some pictures of last years glorious Spring Break:

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Goal Fail

To be honest, I don't think I lost a pound this week. I think I actually gained. I weighed myself today just because I felt like it and it said 163 :( This is kind of disheartening. I went to the gym three times this week and did a lot of work outs so maybe it's just a little building of muscle. I'll say anything to convince myself it's not my fault. I really tried to eat healthy as well. This week my goal is again to lose at least one pound, eat only fruits, veggies, and proteins and to run three miles total (or more) while I'm at school before I come home for Spring Break.

In other news, my hair is getting really long and I've started to enjoy it. I usually hate my hair because it's so straight and super thin and annoying. But I'm going to color it this weekend and trim it and lately it's been looking lovely.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Busy Life

I meant to post on here at least once a day if I was able to but it's been 4 days and I have just now gotten around to it. My weeks at school are always insanely busy. I barely have anytime to myself to just sit and relax. I'm either out at school, work, research labs, or home attempting my piles and piles of homework. I cannot wait to be out of school (I know, I know, I'll wish to be back someday but I will not miss the incredible amounts of work). So just for any curious readers, here is my weekly schedule:

  • Monday: Wake up at home and pack my stuff, drive back to school around 12:30 to go to my third research assistant position training. At this lab I'm learning to read and interpret and code facial expressions for an experiment being done in Hungary. It's really interesting just time consuming and annoying at times because it's a bit difficult. After that I sometimes go to the lab meeting where we discuss journal articles and other stuff. I go home after that and make dinner and do as much homework as I can for the week ahead of time.
  • Tuesday: Wake up at 9 (which is okay because I normally go to sleep before 11, aahha), get ready, go to both of my classes from 11 to 1:45 and then immediately go right to work. I'm scheduled to work until 7:30 but I don't normally stay that long unless we have an assessment. Either way it's about 15 minutes away on a major interstate which always makes me nervous. After work I go home and again, make dinner or sometimes go out, then do homework again until it's time to pass out. By the way, my job would be my second research assistant position but luckily I get paid for it.
  • Wednesday: Wake up at 8 and work from 10 to 3 then go right back to school for my first research assistant position where I normally just sit around and either do nothing or homework for three hours. Then I go home and feel relieved because the extremely busy two days of my week are finally done.
  • Thursday: Wake up at 9 and get ready for both of my classes. After class I go right to my first research position again and hang out there for about an hour and a half. Then I go home and do all my homework for my Friday class since I procrastinate for that until the last possible moment. My mister normally goes home on Thursday's so I'm all by myself for the evening and for dinner. So I sit around and eat leftovers and catch up on television shows he hates to watch. 
  • Friday: I get up at 7:30 and pack up all my stuff to go home for the weekend. I then go to my 9 a.m class and sit there for three hours listening to people argue about who has the right or wrong opinions. Then I go to my third research position to do my "homework" for training as fast as possible and then drive the hour back home. 
I literally live for the moment on Friday when I know I get to go home and lay around for two whole days until the whole crazy week starts again. Luckily this week coming up is my last week until Spring Break so I hope it goes by really fast because I have so much reading to catch up on during Spring Break and I CANNOT wait.


And here's a picture of me and my beautiful cat, Stanley, for everyone to enjoy! See you Monday for the weigh-in!