The Old Layout is Back

July 10, 2013August 25, 2016Leave a comment

Happy Wednesday everyone,

I’m here to give everyone an update for this blog. I’m happy to say that According to Andrea is here to stay, BUT the old layout is back. I’m still new at this whole blogging thing, and I’m really trying to find a look and feel for this site that I truly love. I adore this theme, but I do not adore that it doesn’t have a sidebar on the main page. If you’ve visited in the past week, you might have noticed there was a new theme with a sidebar. The key word there is was. However, apparently I wasn’t the only one to find that particular theme lovely. I’ve visited at least 4 blogs today alone that had that same exact theme which in all honesty bothered me because I felt as though my blog didn’t stand out. I realize others are going to use free themes on WordPress.com. They don’t really have much of a choice when it comes to themes, and I know people do use this theme too, but I don’t see as many so I don’t get so bothered. In time, I plan to migrate over to WordPress.org and actually get myself a custom theme. Then I’ll truly have a one of a kind theme, but until then, I’ve decided to merge some of the styling from my old theme AND this theme, and so far I like it. I hope you do as well.

Have a wonderful day, and I’ll be back with something interesting soon.

Keeping Up with the Internet

July 6, 2013August 25, 2016Leave a comment

I have a confession to make. I’m an information junkie. {I even took a personality quiz from a local newspaper that said it!} I love reading about new products, fun ideas, and just about anything else you can think of. I subscribe to over 145 RSS feeds, at least 38 YouTube channels, and of course whatever else I happen to stumble upon during the day. Media overload is a normal thing for me, so I have to have some elaborate organization to keep up with everything. Now I had been planning to do this post since I started by blog, so with the recent death of Google Reader, now seemed like as good a time as anyto explain how I manage {or at least try to manage} all of those the things I read and watch on the internet.

Another confession: When I heard of the news that Google Reader was going away, I have to admit I started freaking out. I may or may not have tweeted some complaints to Google and signed some petitions pleading for Google to get rid of it. We all know how that turned out though, and that brings me to Feedly. After trying several options, Feedly seemed to fit my current workflow the best. If you’ve been floundering around since Google Reader died, I highly recommend Feedly. Basically, any RSS feed I follow got migrated to Feedly with their seamless transition from Google, and that’s basically where it all starts.

A view of Feedly in my browser.

So a ton of people posts to blogs I follow, those posts go into Feedly. From within Feedly, I can quickly skim through everything that was posted, and that’s where I choose to read the article immediately {only if it’s short or super interesting}, save it for later, or just ignore it. For now, I’m using the web-version of Feedly on my computer while I wait for my “go to” RSS Reader app, Reeder, to update both it’s Mac and iPad apps. Reeder for the iPhone has been updated to support Feedly though. {If you don’t want to use Reeder, Feedly does have it’s own iOS app that is also pretty nice.} Oh, by the way, Reeder for iPhone is currently free right now, so if you’re interested in trying it, now’s a great time to do it!

Reeder for iPhone

Now back in the day, I starred anything I wanted to save for later in Google Reader. The downside to that is not everything I wanted to save for later was from an RSS feed which led me to Pocket. I can save anything from the web, including articles from Feedly directly to Pocket. Both Feedly and Reeder offer the ability to add items directly to Pocket quickly. There’s also a browser plug-in for those non-RSS items I want to catch up on. Then, when I have the time, I can catch up on those articles on my iPhone, iPad, or computer either through the Pocket app for Mac or the web. {When I’m on the computer, I prefer the Mac app, but it does lack some of the features of the web version like bulk update so occasionally, I do use the web version.}

Pocket App for Mac

I do have some feeds where I always read every post like the Skimm which posts a “skimm’d” down version of current events for us, “non-newsy” people. For those, I save myself a step and set up an IFTTT {If This Then That} recipe to automatically send those posts to Pocket so that I don’t have to add them to Pocket each day. If you haven’t checked out IFTTT, I also recommend it. You can set it up to do just about anything from sending you a text that it will rain the next day to tweeting Happy New Year for you. It’ll even turn your lights on or off based on events like when the sun sets if you have certain electronic gizmos.

By this point, everything I want to read or check out later is in Pocket. I’ve successfully filtered down my thousands of articles into a more manageable hundreds, but that’s still pretty chaotic. Right now, I probably have about 330 articles to catch up on. Further organization methods vary depending on my mood, but in general, I try to take care of the quick items like pictures or short blog posts first. If there’s something worth saving, for instance, a really good cleaning tip I’m going to want to return to later, I usually pin that onto a relevant Pinterest board. {I know, not the best way to archive information should the author delete content.} Since I typically catch up on things stored in Pocket while on my iPad or iPhone, I usually star {mark as a “favorite”} any particularly long articles, things better suited for viewing on a computer, or videos so that I know those are ones I should catch up on when I’m at a computer.

Now that I’ve covered my RSS feeds, I still have to do something with all those Youtube videos. Since watching videos at work is usually frowned upon, I save watching them for later. Thankfully, YouTube has a handy “Watch Later” playlist for that. On any normal day, that’s where I’d put these videos, but right now I have over 210 videos to watch, and apparently, YouTube has a 200 video limit on your Watch Later playlist which I have reached more than a few times. Now if these were silly 30-second cat videos, this wouldn’t be an issue, but videos seem to be getting longer and longer. {I have one that’s almost an hour long!} I usually try to watch the quickest videos first just to keep the number down, so who knows when I’ll actually get to that hour long video. It seems like more and more people are making longer and longer videos. {Note to all the YouTubers out there – Make shorter videos so we have time to watch them all!} For now though, I have a second playlist, “Watch Later 2.” {How original!} Anything under 9 minutes {because my shortest videos are about 7 minutes right now} goes into that playlist, and I’ve been whittling down that playlist little by little {at least until the next Web Finds}. I plan to keep increasing that time limit up little by little as I watch the shorter videos at least until I get my original Watch Later playlists gets out of the zone where I risk hitting the dreaded 200 video limit. Oh and if any of you are curious as to how I watch these {being the App hoarder I am – I like to try apps until I find the best one…}, I either connect my laptop to my TV and just watch them through the web {42″ of planners, cat videos, and Jenna Marbles…}. If I don’t feel like doing that, I watch them on my iPad or iPhone using my favorite Youtube app, Jasmine.

Jasmine for iOS on my iPad

So that’s my super-OCD method of keeping track of what I read and watch on the internet. {Actual books, movies, and TV shows are a whole other ball game.} If you have any tips on managing RSS feeds or YouTube videos, if you happen to love any of the apps or products I mentioned, or if you just happen to get something out of this post, I’d love to hear from you.

P.S. If any of you happen to have tips on how you keep your RSS feeds organized, I’d love to hear that too. That’s one part of this process I’m not happy about. I just can’t seem to find a good way to categorize them.

And again, all apps mentioned in this post are currently free. I wasn’t asked to mention these products, I just genuinely enjoy using them, and wanted to pass them on to my readers.

Until next time,

Current State of Planning

July 1, 2013August 25, 20163 Comments

Since many of you have found me through Angela of PaperLovestory’s My Week posts or Philofaxy’s Web Finds, if you’re still here, you’ve likely noticed a major lack of anything Filofax related, so what’s going on?

{Be prepared for a picture heavy post.}

A couple of months ago I mentioned that right after posting about how I got out of planner fail, I started to think I jynxed myself. Well today, I’m here to say, I did. I’m sure if I took my own advice in that post about planner fail, I probably wouldn’t be in planner fail, but for the life of me I couldn’t even get myself to open my Filofax for like the past few months. The only reason I’ve opened it recently has been to retrieve store credit cards. Thankfully, life hasn’t been too chaotic, but towards the end of this past semester, I felt like I was all over the place, and not having a planner certainly didn’t help.

I’d imagine many of you can relate that planner fail makes us go crazy {if we aren’t already}, and my wallet is certainly not appreciating it now, but here’s what’s been happening.

My first attempt to avoid planner fail was washi tape. {Over $50 worth to be exact.} I see everyone’s pretty pages, and then there’s mine, so plain and boring. I put a sticker or two on a page to make it cute, but it ends up looking stupid instead. I really tried with the washi tape, and my weekly pages were cute, don’t get me wrong. I loved creating and seeing every one of them, but it just took way too much of my time, and I just didn’t keep up with it.

Around the same time I ordered the washi tape, I also preordered a Day Designer from Whitney English. This thing was pricey, so I had high hopes for it. It’s a monthly/daily planner with pages to really iron out your goals. I finally got it at the end of May, just in time for it to start in June. The daily pages have plenty of room to right down your schedule, your to-dos, dinners, expenses, due dates, reminders, and most important tasks. In theory it should have worked out fantastically, but it didn’t. I opened it up, wrote down the first couple days worth of tasks {only to realize I wrote them all down on the wrong week! – ultimate way to ruin that “brand-new notebook” high.} and never opened it again. From a product standpoint, it’s an outstanding planner quality-wise, and if you’re an entrepreneur with “clients”, I assume the planning pages at the beginning really would help you put things together. For my lifestyle though, it wasn’t much help. There were a couple downsides to consider aside from just the price though. It doesn’t play well with Frixion pens, and I’d assume any type of erasable writing instrument. The lines on the page started to smear, and the ink came off totally when I tried to reposition washi tape. I also wish it had tabs on the months as this is quite a large planner and there’s no way to locate where you are.

Anyway enough rambling. So I had two planners, neither of which I wanted to use. The obvious solution was to buy a third!

I caved and bought a new Erin Condren planner! I bought one 2 years ago and loved the fun colors {instant cuteness rather than spending time with washi-tape}. Sadly three weeks into using it, I sort of ruined a lot of the pages by sweeping snow off my car right into my purse all over my planner. {Note to self: put purse in car before brushing the car off, and ALWAYS close your planner, don’t leave it folded open to the current week in your bag.} With the wrinkly pages and struggling to make the layout fit my lifestyle, I gave up on it for a while. I was actually using my A5 Malden successfully for a while so I didn’t repurchase one for 2012.

Since my last Erin Condren planner, a lot of things have changed. I love the month on 2 page spread, and from knowing how badly the plain cardstock tabs held up, I’m glad they decided to laminate them. Tweaks in this year’s layout with the lines for random tracking at the bottom and goals on each week are nice as well. Overall, the quality of this planner has only gone up, and this year I actually felt the price was more justified than it was two years ago. I also splurged for some elastic bands to hold the book closed, pens, extra stickers, and a pen loop. I hacked mine a bit too. I took apart my old Erin Condren planner and added the pocket, left over stickers and folder to my new planner. I had initially planned on taking apart my new one to add everything, but the new metal spiral is a lot stronger than the plastic and I didn’t want to damage the pages. I trimmed down the sticker pages and stuck them in a folder pocket, and just snipped a slot into each of the tiny holes on the folder and pocket. Now I have an extra removable folder and pocket in my planner which is a little nicer in my opinion because I can move them around.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m seriously excited to be finally using my planner today. So much space, and it’s going to match my room once it’s all done!

I Went on Vacation!

June 28, 2013February 21, 2016Leave a comment

So apparently I’m awful at updating this blog. Sorry everyone. In an effort to change that, this blog has a new look and a new name! It kind of just came to me, so go figure. All that time I spent trying to come up with one, and couldn’t, this one just comes to me out of the blue.

So what’s going on in the “Little Life of Andrea”? Well my to-do list app, Things, is telling me I’m behind on at least 10 blog posts. The app where I save blog posts that I want to read later, Pocket, is currently saying I have 368 things to read. On Monday, I actually had to make a second “Watch Later” playlist on YouTube because the default one has the max 200 videos in it. I had to return 2 library books because there was no way I could finish them AND the other two I’m already reading before they were due back. My DVR is currently more than 50% full, and I have 2 movies from Netflix sitting at home as well. Oh and my room is a mess. I can’t even shut the drawers in my bathroom vanity or my closet because things are piled on top of them. {It’s that bad!} I wish I could say my days have been jam-packed and that’s why everything’s piling up {literally} around me, but I honestly have no idea where the time’s been going.

Last week, however, I do have somewhat of an excuse. I went on vacation! Even though it was rainy and cold most of the time, I had a lot of fun doing things I’ve never done before, some of which I probably wouldn’t do again, but live and learn I guess. Anyway, here’s a bit of a recap. It all kind of blends together so bear with me.

Sunday evening:

We actually got to the beach at around 7:30 Sunday evening. The weather wasn’t so great so after we got our stuff into the condo, rooms picked out, and everything situated, we ordered some pizza, and headed up to the roof deck to relax.

Monday: Kayaking, Scooters, and Mosquitos

Now I don’t think we went out after hanging out on the roof for the fact that I was up the next morning bright and early. Early enough to organize all my stuff in my room/bathroom, make the bed, and read a bit. {This was the only day this happened.} Once everyone was awake and ready, our first stop was breakfast at Fractured Prune. If anyone lives on the East Coast, or is visiting close to the Maryland area, I highly recommend stopping in for a donut or 12 like we did. Seriously, best donuts hands down.

We rented scooters {a first for me} and took a nice drive to Assateague Island to go kayaking. I’d never been kayaking before so I was a bit nervous. I had been canoeing though, so I figured, “How much different could it be?” {Not too different.} My only fear was flipping, which my lovely partner happened to make happen in about 3 feet of cold water. Thankfully, my camera, my friend begged me to bring, was not in the boat. Everything else was soaked though.

After kayaking, we decided to check out a trail that used to be Baltimore Blvd. Apparently in 1950, the road was built, but only 12 years later in ’62, a hurricane wiped it out. There’s not much left of it. Sadly, I didn’t get to take many pictures because right after this, I got attacked by a swarm of mosquitos. I literally had a cloud of them around me, and took off running back to our scooters. [Note to self: Bug spray washes off when you flip in a kayak!]

Now here’s where it gets a bit foggy. I had thought that after Assateague, we returned the scooters, went back to the condo, and then ventured back out to play mini golf. The date stamps on my camera however tell me that our first game of mini golf wasn’t until Tuesday. I honestly wish I could tell you what happened during that stretch between Assateague and then, but I don’t remember. I believe we went to the boardwalk and everyone miserably failed at a bar crawl. I had a new hoodie on in pictures the next day so we had to have gone out.

Tuesday: Mini Golf and Boardwalk?

Now according to my camera, we played our first game of mini-golf on Tuesday. {I’m kind of enjoying piecing this puzzle together.} That means that before this happened we went to the outlets to look for flip-flops. I also had my first Whopper from Burger King. {Don’t ask… I don’t know why it took me nearly 23 years to have one.} After mini-golf and Burger King, we returned to the condo. It looked like it was going to rain again, but we are hard core and decided to go out on the beach with a tent and play corn-hole. It was FREEZING so I commend the guys that were next to us playing volleyball and actually getting in the water. Once it started pouring, we went inside. We had ordered crabs for dinner so I was thrilled.

After dinner, we did take 2 of a bar crawl. I think we did a better job this time. The guys said so. I don’t know how much I agreed.

Wednesday: Pancakes and More Mini Golf

Wednesday was honestly terrible for me. I woke up feeling awful and exhausted. I ordered 3 blueberry pancakes and could barely eat a few bites of them. By mid-afternoon, I was feeling slightly better, at least enough to play mini-golf again. {I don’t think I lost this time.} I think we went to the beach a bit too {at least long enough to get Scopes} and we walked on the Boardwalk for a bit. We did ride the ferris wheel and they had fireworks while we were on it which made the price sort of worth it. This was pretty much the end of the day for me. The guys went back out, but the girls stayed in which was fine with me because I was practically dead.

Thursday: Our “Last” Day

This was our big day. It was the only day the weather was supposed to be nice, so we had a lot planned. We ventured back to Assateague. It was a nerve-wracking drive for me because I had to drive a car much larger than what I was used to, but I did alright, and had a bit of fun while I was at it. While the others went kayaking, we stayed on the beach. {That way there was no flipping.} We stayed there nearly all day playing corn hole, flying kites {another first}, and playing with a frisbee. We even jumped in the water and realized it wasn’t that cold once you got in. We left Assateague after getting tossed around in the waves a bit, and made it to one of my favorite parts of the vacation – the Dew Tour. Seriously, I don’t know what it is with “action” sports. I just like them, and this was about as close to being at the X-games as I’ll probably ever get. The day was a success as far as I was concerned, but my friends weren’t nearly as excited as I was for the Dew Tour. Oh well. Oh, and I also managed to get absolutely sunburnt despite applying layers of sunscreen. {I’m talking blisters.}

Friday:

Friday was our day to leave. We were packed and out the door at 8am. I drove my friend’s Dodge Challenger nearly 150 miles, and by the time we got to his house, I guess I was used to it. My Nissan Altima felt so tiny compared to the Challenger . The one thing that came out of the day though was my decision for my next car. The decision was between an Infiniti G37 {fun and sporty} or a hybrid Lincoln MKZ {practical}. After driving a somewhat “sporty” car, I realized that I enjoy having a fun car to drive a lot more than a practical one, so the decision right now is to wait a couple years and get the new Infiniti Q60 when it’s released. Getting home, I was greeted by two very excited dogs, one who insisted on carrying a 5lb. dumbbell around and then peeing on the floor, and 3 very happy kitties who didn’t stop meowing for nearly the entire day. I also got to look at my new Erin Condren Planner and the new copy of the Beach Babe DVD from Tone It Up. The rest of the day was spent lathering myself in spray aloe and snacking on trail mix and my latest obsession popped chips.

So that was last week. I look forward to actually updating this blog more often from now on. {Or at least I’ll try…}.

{Bedroom Project} The Introduction

June 5, 2013August 25, 2016Leave a comment

I’ve been talking about this room remodel for what seems like forever on here {even longer offline}, yet this is the first actual post about it.

It all started when a mischievous cat, who goes by [Mr.] Chase, chewed through a bottle of bathroom cleaner while I was at work. That’s what set this whole bedroom redesign in motion. That bathroom cleaner happened to be sitting on my sofa, and this was what I came home to…

My dark grey sofa was ruined. The cleaner actually ate through the fabric. Now the reason this started it all is because this is not your typical sofa. It’s incredibly small (53 inches wide, perfect for a bedroom) AND it folds out into a bed of sorts (handy for those nights when I was too lazy to move myself to the bed during a late night Netflix binge.) Now I could have just repurchased the same sofa. IKEA still makes it, and it’s only $129. I just didn’t really want to buy another insanely cheap sofa that I didn’t plan to keep long in the first place. I bought it with the idea that it’d last me until I decided to move. So with that settled, I was getting a new sofa.

BUT… there’s a catch. Apparently not many companies actually make 53″ sofas that aren’t utter crap or designed to actually be sat on for more than a couple minutes. If I wanted a decent sofa, I would have to get a larger one, and in order to do that, I’d need to make some space in my room by rearranging furniture. Thankfully my cat had me covered on that front as well. Within a couple months of the sofa incident, he decided to knock over quite a few drinks while I wasn’t looking effectively ruining my TV stand, desk, and storage cube shelf.

So now I was in the market for basically all new furniture, and I designed a wall unit from IKEA’s Besta line. I came up with the design you see above which would combine my TV stand, desk, and a TON of storage in one. {You can never have too much storage right?}

Now here’s where my story starts taking a bit of a “If You Give a Moose a Muffin” twist. I figured, if I’m going to be mounting things to the wall, I might as well paint before I do that. So I went off to pick paint colors. Paint colors for my room turned into also painting my bathroom since they share a wall. Paint colors and furniture choices needed to be saved somewhere so they turned into a board on Pinterest, and before I knew it, I had everything from flooring to furniture to new lighting and drawer organizers picked out for my room and bathroom.

It’s been a massive undertaking, and while the painting is wrapping up this week, the fun really starts in the next few months where I get to start getting the furniture, and actually blogging about the process.

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It Was Him All Along

June 4, 2013January 20, 2015Leave a comment

This post is a bit of a rant, not because I’m bitter or whatever rants usually stem from. I’m just utterly shocked this thought never came to me before which seems to be quite common in my life right now. I’ve been having quite a few mind-blowing realizations about my life lately.

Once upon a time, I dated a boy. He had this habit where he’d break up with me every 6 months or so when holidays came around or he had something new to do. He’d treat me like absolute crap and say things like I ruined his life, and then he’d come back a couple months later saying he screwed up and he was sorry. Again and again, I took him back. This went on for nearly 8 years. {I know, I should have known better.}

I guess I went back to him because he was my first boyfriend. It was easier to go back to him than meet someone new {or so I thought}, so that’s what I did. I kept going back to him, and each time he’d do the same thing. He’d always end up saying something along the lines of “You do so many fun things when we aren’t together,” or “Why do you become awesome after I break up with you?” My response was always the same, “I’m still the same girl. I was always this way. You just never taken the time to appreciate it.”

Well the other day I realized my answer has been wrong all along. Yes, I’ve always been that girl. Yes, I’ve always done fun things and been awesome, but he rarely saw it. The thing that was different was that I’m that girl when he’s NOT around. I do so many fun things, and I become “so awesome” because that boy isn’t in my life.

It took me 8 years {8 freakin’ years!} to realize that, but I’m glad I finally did. Each and every day I wake up and I know I’m accomplishing more than I could have ever accomplished if he was still in my life. Each night I look back and see how far I’ve come in the past few years {all because of the times I spent WITHOUT him}, and I’m truly amazed at what my life has transformed into – all because he’s gone.

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Where’s Andrea?

June 3, 2013February 22, 2016Leave a comment

Hello lovely readers,

Last week I promised I’d new posts would be coming this week. Now I’m not one to break a promise so here I am, but I can’t say for sure when I’ll be back {you’ll see why in a bit}, but this is sure to be a long post. I haven’t really posted anything worthwhile since May 13. So what exactly have I been doing?

I finished my second graduate course for my Masters degree in Instructional Systems Design. I can honestly say I counted down the days until I was done with the course – not because I didn’t enjoy it. I loved it because it made me realize that I’ve unexpectedly managed to find a way to combine my childhood dreams of being a designer, teacher, and working with computers without ever realizing it. What I didn’t enjoy is actually having to do work. I procrastinate so I found every little way to not do my work until the last minute. {I shouldn’t do homework at work. My internet connection is too slow at home. The list goes on.} Waiting until the last minute backfired on me quite a few times when I totally missed Friday deadlines thinking they were on the usual Sunday.

Work was probably the most stressful it’s ever been. Around the beginning of May, students start worrying about finals. While I was worrying about finishing my own class, I had to not only keep on top of making sure we had coverage in our office, but also put together the Summer schedule. Imagine my surprise, 2 weeks before the Summer started, when I realized our current students were all available to work the exact same hours. We had gaping holes in the schedule, and I had no choice but to hire new staff nearly 2 months earlier than I’d planned. Thankfully I started collecting resumes in March. I browsed through over 50 resumes, interviewed about 10 people within about 3 days, and made a decision to hire them shortly thereafter. In the end, we got a few new employees and were able to fill the majority of our gaps in the schedule which was posted 5 days before the Summer hours began. {I’m going to say I succeeded.}

The week the interviews and schedule making was going on, my mom went in for her 2nd shoulder surgery. She had her first one in August of last year, but reinjured her shoulder a couple months ago trying to do the Surfer Girl workout from the Tone It Up! Beach Babe DVD. I took off of work for 2 days during that week to take her to her surgery and I suppose be there for moral support. I desperately needed a couple days off, but I still set up my computer, 24″ monitor and everything in the dining room and worked for the majority of the time.

Why was it in the dining room you ask? Because my room renovations have FINALLY begun, and I’m talking big time. My room is currently a disaster zone.

This was a few days ago. The pink is gone, but there’s twice as much furniture in the middle of the floor.

Everything in my two closets has been relocated to our two guest bedrooms which are so full the doors can’t even shut {Now keep in mind, I somehow managed to fit what is now occupying around 350 sq. feet in those rooms into two not so large closets (maybe a total of 40 sq. feet together). How it all fit is beyond me.} My TV and anything breakable has also been moved into other rooms. All other furniture is sitting in the middle of my room, including my bed which is the only usable piece in the room. Needless to say I’ve not been spending much time in my room aside from sleeping.

If that weren’t enough, my bathroom is also a mess. Getting ready is a major pain in the “you know what.” When I emptied out my closets, I decided to stack my clothes in the other rooms so they are absolutely useless unless I want to rummage through piles if I can even get to them in the first place. I’m basically living out of the clothes I just washed that are currently still in the dryer because I have no other place to put them. My bathroom mirror and light are also currently missing waiting to be replaced, so I have to pack up my makeup every morning and make my way into the bathroom in the hallway. The good news is my updated skincare routine {*hint hint* future blog post :)} has me wearing less makeup so I don’t have to tote too much back and forth.

In any event, the majority of the painting is almost wrapped up. My bathroom should be getting a mirror and light tomorrow {I hope.}, and I should be able to get things back in my closets soon. After that, it should be smooth sailing with the fun part of buying furniture and accessorizing.

Once my room’s not in chaos, be on the lookout for a lot of fun posts about what I did.

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Quick Update

May 20, 2013February 22, 2016Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I’m going to be taking a break from the blog this week. There’s so much to do that my blog has to take a back seat.

I’ll be back next week with all the updates.

-A

Liebster Blog Award Nomination

May 17, 2013August 25, 20163 Comments

Thank you again to both Jennifer at MyPurpleyLife and Carla at Fridays, I’m in Love for nominating me for this award. I love both of your blogs, and if it weren’t for the tag back rule, you guys would definitely make my list. Anyway, I know I say it all the time, but I started this blog mainly for myself, and never really expected it to go anywhere. It’s pretty rewarding to know people actually read it, enjoy it, and know I’m not just rambling to myself, so thank you to all my readers. You guys rock.

The Liebster Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. Here are the rules for receiving this award:

Here are the rules for receiving this award:
1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
2. Answer the questions that the tagger set for you plus create 11 questions for the people you’ve tagged to answer.
3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post.
4. Go to their page and tell them.
5. No tag backs!

My 11 Random Things:

I’m allergic to frozen strawberries, but not fresh strawberries.
I’m an only child.
My name was supposed to be Andrew.
I can’t bowl to save my life.
I’ve taken pole dancing classes, and they really aren’t as trashy as they sound.
I hate Facebook.
I went to daycare, college, and now work at the same university.
I love all things planners and stationary related.
I have a reminder set to tell me when to repaint my nails otherwise, I’d forget.
My friends say I’m somewhat of an animal whisperer. All animals seem to love me (even the ones who hate people).
I’m always making up random songs about my pets. {Think Jenna Marbles crazy, that’s me.}

Now what to do when you’re nominated by two people? Do you answer both sets of questions? I have no idea but that’s what I’ll do because I like questions.

This first set was asked by Jennifer at MyPurpleyLife:

1. If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only eat one thing, what would it be?

-I absolutely love fruit. Apples or strawberries would probably be my first pick though.

2. If you were a color, what would it be?

-One look at me, and you’d probably say pink. I’m always wearing at least one thing pink without even trying.

3. If you were an actor/actress, who would you be?

– I would love to be Mila Kunis. She’s adorable, funny, a bit sexy, and still manages to have a good personality. {This interview was priceless.}

4. Who is you favorite singer/band?

-I don’t really have one. I never have actually. I like such an eclectic mix of music that it is too hard to say which one I like more. I’ve always been a fan of Breaking Benjamin though.

5. What musical instrument did you wish you could play?

-The guitar. I sort of taught myself how to play piano by ear, but the instrument I never managed to pick up was guitar. Mine just sits in my closet.

6. What are your favorite pizza toppings?

-Hawaiian pizza is my absolute favorite, but a lot of people don’t like it, so my go-to pick is Pepperoni.

7. What is your favorite quote/saying?

“A piece of fruit never made anyone fat.” -Tone It Up – I heard this in one of their videos and it made me laugh for some reason. Some of my family members always seem to be on diets, and when they list all the foods they’ve cut out of their diet including fruit, I wonder what else is left.

8. What is your favorite season (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall)?

I absolutely love Spring weather. The colors and baby animals are pretty sweet too. The pollen this year is killing it for me though. Summer is a close second though. The cold and I don’t get along.
9. What color is your car? (If you don’t have one, what color do you wish it was?)

Right now it’s a lovely shade of greenish yellow – Thank you, pollen. When it’s clean, it’s black. In the future, I think I’ll avoid black and go with either a white or a grey metallic though. I can deal with the heat, but living on dirt road and having a black car don’t work out too well.

10. Where would your dream house be?

I would love a house in the mountains. Some place I can walk outside and enjoy nature away from the chaos. Of course, it’d have to be close enough to everything. I’m not driving an hour to the closest store.

11. What is your favorite scent?

Believe it or not, I cannot smell things. If I can smell things, I can’t form the associations between the scents and what caused them. One time I walked downstairs and asked if we were having pasta for dinner. I was super excited because I could smell it, but no, we were having barbecue chicken.

And here’s Carla’s questions from Friday, I’m in Love:

1. If you had $5,000.00, what would you spend it on?

– First is get rid of the last little bit of credit debt. I’d split the rest 50/50 between savings and fun money.

2. If you closed your eyes, right now, and could magically travel to anywhere in the world, where would it be?

– I’d love to go to Europe. I’m not sure what my obsession is lately because normally I’d pick a more tropical location.

3. What would you say is your talent?

– I have strange animal whisperer abilities. Seriously, my friend had a cat that HATED people. When I moved in, he practically lived in my room. He even let me cut his nails like it was nothing.

4. Describe a perfect Sunday afternoon.

– My Sunday afternoons are usually comprised of laundry, laundry, and more laundry. How one person accumulates so much laundry over one week is beyond me, but any Sunday that didn’t involve laundry (and maybe Starbucks instead, would be wonderful.)

5. How do you like your eggs?

My dad used to make me “Egg-in-a-hole”s when I was little. They were delicious. Otherwise I prefer a cheese omelets. I’m not a big fan of just plain eggs.

6. If you could paint the room you’re in right now, what color would you pick?

– Well my office is glass. The library that my office is in is a lovely combination of beige, mauve, and green. I’m not sure what people were thinking with that color choice., but I’d love to just paint it something bright and lively.

7. What was your favorite childhood toy/game?

– Cooties was my favorite. Although a few years back, I actually went and bought the game. It definitely wasn’t as fun as I remembered.

8. If you could eat a particular dish/type of food for the rest of your life, what would that dish/type of food be?

Fruit.

9. If you had an invisibility cloak that made you invisible when worn, what would you use it for?

I would totally sneak around the house and mess with my pets. Maybe move some things around and freak them out a bit.

10. If you could be any character in any movie/book, who would that character be, and why?

– Hermione from Harry Potter. She’s incredibly smart, and she gets to go on really cool adventures.

11. Describe your ideal Summer vacation (money is no object here…).

– I have this dream to just spend an entire summer at the beach. I think I’d fit in pretty well, and maybe I’d get a tan.

These are the blogs I’ve nominated, and I have no idea how many followers they have, so I hope they qualify.:

And here’s my questions for the nominees:

What is your favorite animal?
If you could spend your day however you wanted, what would you do?
What’s your favorite thing to snack on?
If you could take a vacation anywhere, where would you go?
You have $100 to spend however you want, what would you do/get?
Are you an Mac or PC person?
What’s the best advice you have for someone (any situation)?
What website do you visit the most?
Do you write in cursive or print (or both…)?
Where’s your favorite place to shop?
Do you keep your phone in a case? If so, which one’s your favorite?

My {Filofax} Week 19

May 13, 2013August 25, 20164 Comments

Paper Lovestory's My Week

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all have been lucky enough to have had at least some of the gorgeous weather we’ve had here lately.

Here’s my week:

I prettied up my pages with some washi tape. I picked up a total of 13 rolls from PrettyTape and another 16 from the SewingPost on Etsy. I also finally got some of the cute magnetic bookmarks everyone’s been putting on their pages. Design-wise, you may notice a lot more sticky notes than usual. I had this bright idea to use only black ink for a cleaner look, but I ended up forgetting halfway through and used color anyway. Having half in color and the other half in black bugged me. Turns out I like seeing a mix of colors on my pages because I can see a mix of thing going on in my life. Anyway, I decided to use sticky notes to cover up most of the black ink.

So what did I do this past week?

I worked out a lot. I’m talking 40 minutes twice a day some of the days. I practically lived in workout clothes which didn’t bug me one bit because they are incredibly comfortable and quite cute. Each week, I try to write down the Tone It Up schedule, but I have to be honest, I don’t always follow it. Most of their online workouts are designed to be repeated about 3 times, but I have a tendency to not repeat them. Sticking with the 10 workouts I have on DVD keeps me on track more.

I was able to write a ton of blog posts for last week. I think I had a post just about every day.

I had a few meetings one of which included my performance evaluation. One of the only negatives is my lack of enthusiasm for public speaking. The whole department seems perplexed by it. I assume that seeing as my mom (who also works on campus) is so incredibly outgoing, the idea that I might be incredibly introverted doesn’t make sense, but in any event, that’s who I am, and I don’t see that changing. I do see value in pushing yourself to try new things, and I do. However, I’m happy with who I am as a person. It’s taken a long time to be comfortable with being an introvert, and I don’t feel like I should be forced to change that.

Somewhere during the week, I managed to find time to watch a few movies and finish 3 books:

The Summer I Learned to Fly by Dana Reinhardt – I honestly expected more from this book. I didn’t feel like the story every really picked up enough. It was like I was stuck always reading the first few pages of a book where the story builds and then it just ended.
Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxnreider – This was one of those books I started and never got around to finishing. I’m trying to finish those books, so I picked this one up. It wasn’t any different than any other organizing book I’ve read. Actually a lot of it was just the author saying something like “Well this is what I did, and you should too.” Maybe I would have gotten more out of it if I had 2 weeks to devote to clearing everything out of my house room by room, staging it in the backyard, cleaning everything top to bottom, and replacing only the necessities, but let’s face it, I have a life.
Drive by Daniel Pink – I found this book difficult to read which is saying something because I love Psychology and self-help books and this is a bit of both. If I didn’t have to return this book, I likely wouldn’t have pushed myself to finish it so soon. It was pretty dry with one study after another. Do I think it would be nice to work in some Motivation 3.0 world? Sure. Is it realistic to hope my office will some day get rid of their vacation policies or let me work from wherever I want? No, because my office is based on the fact that people are in the office. I don’t work in a retail environment, but imagine if you went to a store and no one was there because they were working from a coffee shop down the street… His theories have science to back them up, but unless I’m working in some fancy office job that doesn’t involve interacting with the public, it just isn’t feasible, and that was the extent of a large portion of the work.

Moving on to the weekend…

Cartilage piercing + sneak peak of the new room color.

Saturday, I met up with a friend for piercings. I wanted to get my cartilage pierced. I had gotten my right ear done a few years ago, and wanted to get the other side done to balance it out. Total count now is at 7. I’d love to get more, but I have to stay professional. We followed piercings up with drinks and dinner at Chevy’s. {Oh, and I found my friend’s lost cat. She hadn’t come home, but with my “Cat Whisperer” abilities, of course she came back and I spotted her in the yard.}

Sunday was Mother’s Day. I made my mom a cute card out of washi tape and scrapbook paper. I’m not normally one to make cards, but I didn’t pick one up ahead of time because I didn’t plan on being out most of the day on Saturday. I worried that it’d come off tacky and look like I forgot Mother’s Day, but in the end, it turned out really cute, and I went into super creative mode. The card even had slits in it to hold the check I gave her. {I offered to buy her something fun, but she asked for money.}

School-wise, I turned in all my assignments on time. I am actually really happy for the work I did. We had to post our evaluation instruments for the course we’ve designed. I was really scared that I wouldn’t have time to finish it {I really should stop waiting until the last minute.}, but I actually enjoyed this assignment and I got into a groove and worked away. Of course I’m not sure whether the groove was due to actually enjoying the assignment, watching tv, or wine. All I know is it got done, and for once I’m proud of my work this semester.

Well, that was my wonderful week. How was yours?