Looking Up

Hello Readers, 

You might be wondering why my blog looks a lot different... Well clearly I have decided to change it. I have been wanting to change it for awhile now, and found myself getting bored with the "dynamic view" templates. I wanted to find something a little less busy. I was browsing around and found this- a simple style with a picture at the top. I might change the picture occassionally depending on how I feel, but for now here it is! The new (and hopefully improve) I like boring things!

picture taken from Everyday Elsie

And yes I chose this as my blog name because Andy Warhol is one of my favorite artists.

The Fall of Pinterest

CollegeHumor’s Favorite Funny Videos

Have a silly day! 

Summer Inspiration

Onescore and Two Years

This past Thursday I celebrated my 22nd birthday. It was also Christopher's birthday (he turned 18). Although my day was pretty low-key I wanted to share a few pictures and what I did that day.

I started off the morning by heading to Ludlow Central Bakery with my Mom. Since we both have been dieting strictly and decided to take the day off you better believe we nearly drooled on their display cases! 

 I ended up picking a pastry roughly the size of my head! (Don't worry I couldn't eat it all!) 

After that we drove in the car to downtown West Sringfield so I could get my TB skin test done (shout out to education majors). They checked it and lucky me I am TB free! 

We drove out to a credit union in CT next (I know, I know this story is really exciting; doctor's office and credit union, what could possibly be next?!)

On our long drive out and back I spotted a sign for German Shepherd puppies. Christopher has been asking if we can get a german shepherd so for his "present" I sent him a picture of this sign. (I am broke right now lol) 

Once we arrived home we hade a delicious lunch of Turkey Club sandwiches and watched an episode of 24 (a TV show my mom, chris, and I watch). 

After lunch we headed to the mall to do some birthday shopping. We both had a little leftover birthday money that my parents weren't sure what to get, so I ended up picking out a new pair of running shoes! Which I love dearly! 

Later we went out to dinner at Olive Garden, and I ordered way too much food, that again I couldn't finish (lucky Chris who ate my leftovers)! 

We came home and opened presents even with Gabby watching on Skype. I got some really nice presents and my mom was kind enough to let me shop with her and pick stuff out that I wanted. 

My birthday gifts included: 

Earrings and a necklace to go with my bridesmaid dress

Shoes that compliment the dress and jewlery

New running shoes

 Grey lace dress from forever 21

Antique sewing basket stocked with teacher supplies from gabby

and $20 Khol's cash from chris: which I put towards purchasing a professional "teacher bag" 

I loved all my gifts and the lovely FB messages or texts and calls from family and friends wishing me a happy birthday! 

We had ice cream cake after and played some board games! 

The ice cream cake included: oreo cookie crust, moose tracks ice cream, a layer of hot fugdge, peanuts, peanut butter, and whip cream, topped off with broken up reese's cups and sprinkles! Yumm! It tasted like heaven in a piece of cake!

I had a lovely relaxing day, although I can't believe I am 22. It sounds much older than 21. I feel like the past few years since 18 have just raced by. I wonder what the next 5 years might hold for me. Aside from the rest of this year I have no clear future plans. I am exploring lots of options and have no idea what direction life might take me. But for now I am gonna focus on taking it one day at a time. 

Thank you to everyone who has loved or cared about me at any point in my life. You have helped shape me into the young woman I am today, and I only hope I can inspire and share love with people as much as I have been blessed with in my life. 

<3 Have a great day everyone! 

Diet Update

Hello Fellow Dieters and friends...
Sorry I haven't been posting diligently about my diet, I figured a quick update would do well!

Diet: I am about a week in to cycle 2. I had been doing good with not cheating at all, but honestly a few days I took off from my diet. A special trip I made to Utica, my birthday, and Father's day observed. I am maing pretty good progress, however I haven't gotten on the scale in a few days :) but I am hopeful.

My latest weight: 177.6 (about 10lbs lost!)
I can't find the sheet with my updated measurments, but I lost a little bit most places, but not my waist :/ oh well. I am a work in progress.

In my exercising I am in "week 3" of the C25K program. It is going well. I was starting to have severe joint pain from running last week, but got new shoes for my birthday and the problem has greatly decreased already!

Comment on this post and let me know how your diets are going!

*Also if anyone wants I can do more posts about diet recipies or other things I am doing. Let me know if there is any desire for this*

B is for Band

About a week ago I got a text from Evan, a guy I am working with this summer asking me if I wanted to sing in a gig with him. It was all music I am learning for camp so I said sure. I showed up to practice and met a few other people: a violinsit/singer, another female singer, and a drummer, plus Evan on Guitar. We spent an hour and a half jamming out and practicing. The next night we showed up at the Elevns, the club we were playing at. We ended up going on an hour later than expected, and the show wasn't perfect but I had a lot of fun and got a bit of cash for it. It does sound a little strange playing camp music at a club, but the style is really folk-like and really just fun to sing and listen to. There were even a few people who came who are diehard Shiprockers. (fans of shiprock and anchordog project).

Either way it was the first time I had performed in any venue like that and I really enjoyed it. Not to mention collaborating with other local musicians here was really fun. I hope I can jam with them all again! Not to mention it was cool to get a "B" on my hand for Band instead of an "X" :)

Meowza!

So let's talk about how I am a terrible blogger lately and haven't posted anything! You are about to get a bunch of posts about so many things! First things first: Cats.

We have 3 cats, and I have found myself spending a lot of time with them. They are all super cute, but don't really get along with eachother :( We are trying to get the 2 newer cats to be nice to our older one.  For a better take on what is going on with them read my mom's really funny post about Cat Survivor!

They all have cute moments though! 

 Maggie

 Macey

 Marilyn

Sometimes these cuties make it hard to get things done :) 

Have a cat-astrophically wonderful day! 

I'm Not Zorsing Around

Today I watched a movie called "I'm Reed Fish," I was home alone, it was on Netflix instant view, and had Alexis Bledel in it: Clearly a match made in heaven. I sort of started the movie with very low expectations, but right from the first downbeat of the peppy introduction, I knew I was in store for something good. It was an independent film about a young man named Reed Fish. It centered around one summer, and two women he was torn between in his very small town where he had taken over his father's role as a radio personality. By the end of the movie he kind of figures out who he is. I won't give away any more details because it's worth watching. But essentially it reminded me that as people we should be ourselves! We spend too much time trying to please everyone, or fit into some ideal life. If we just relax, breath, and take some pressure off of ourselves we might just manage to find our true self. Wisest line of the movie (in my opinion): "Nobody needs you to be anything other than yourself." Those are words to live by! 

Check out this movie, it's a good one :) 

Now stop zorsing around and get back to work! 

*watch the movie it makes more sense*

Thrift Love

My take on Thrifting:

What it is (my words): Exercising frugality in order to land yourself a great deal on a previously loved item.

Wiki's def: "Thriting refers to the act of shopping at a thrift store, flea market, garage sale, or a shop of a charitable organization, usually with the intent of finding interesting items at a cheap price. A larger philosophy permeates the act of thrifting which celebrates the recycling of formerly-owned items, finding new use and new love for vintage material goods which had been thrown out, and the thrill of imagining what the former life of the item was like."

Thrift shopping has been a huge passion of mine since high school. I started shopping at thrift stores to find outdated clothes to use as costumes in shows and began to realize they had some great stuff buried in the racks. Part of why I love shopping is 'the hunt' for the perfect item. It has to have everything: the right price, the right look, the right fit. The thrifting scene really intensifies this hunt; hiding amazing finds between worn out overalls and grandma's old mu-mu! I enjoy the thrilling search to find this perfect item, sometimes I come out victorious with bag-fulls of things that worked just right, other times I leave empty handed- but every time I enjoy the experience. But other than 'the hunt' why do I enjoy thrift shopping?

Why thrift shop?
I do it for several reasons: 
1. To save money
For our generation, our financial stability is looking bleak. Most of us start out in the world thousands of dollars in debt! We need to save money wherever we can! And saving it in clothing and other small items is a perfect idea to spare a few dollars (and sometimes a ton of dollars). 
2. It's good for the environment
Recycling clothing and other products is good for the earth. It practices reuse, recycle, and restyle: this means less things are ending up in the landfills and going to waste. I also love the idea of finding discarded items and giving them a new life, a sort of material reincarnation. 
3. It's usually supports charity
This is not true for most garage sales, or flea markets, but generally thrift stores like; Goodwill and Salvation Army support charities. 
4. Unique finds!
If there is one thing I notice about our generation, it is our intense desire to prove ourselves as indivduals; Show that we are creative and unique people, and can offer the world something special. It's only natural we should want our clothes to reflect that attitude. Finding unique and interesting buys from a plethera of eras gives us a great base to start building our own style identity!
5. At least good for a laugh
Sometimes I go to the thrift store and seek out the most hideous outfits I can find. I don't know why, but I find it extremely humorous to try on silly/ugly outfits... (this could explain my obsession with Ugly Sweaters!) So even if you don't find an outift, there will always be a sparkly tye-dyed jumpsuit or an entirely denim ball gown to cheer you up.

By now, you should hopefully be convinced to at least take a whack at second-hand shopping! But don't worry I am not about to leave you in the deep end without swimmies... Hang on to the edge of the pool until tomorrow when I will start a mini-series of posts about the thriftiest tips for shopping complied by my mom, sister, and I!