Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

I know it's not actually summer yet, but it's getting really warm. Plus! It smells warm. The semester is winding down. I'm in the middle of hiring grad students for the summer sessions. I've started a new workout regime/plan/8 week thing; added it to the line-up, anyway. (More details on that soon, as well as a project I teased ages ago. Yeah, I remember it, I just haven't gotten to it yet. Sigh.) All of those things point to summer being swiftly approaching.

I feel a sense of freedom and lightness that I associate with the middle of the year. Let's be clear here: I am in no way a fan of summer in relation to the weather. I do not like heat, as I'm sure I have mentioned before, probably more than once. Anything above the upper 70s and I start to get really cranky. (Fun fact about me: I run, on average, about 1 degree higher than normal human oral temperature. So whereas the average oral temperature is 98.6F, my temperature hovers around 99.6-8F. Interestingly enough, I discovered around age 13 that my oral temp started going down when I got sick, and it has remained that way. I've gotten as low as the 95F range. I don't know why or how that works, but whatever. At least I can tell when something is wrong.)

So anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, not a fan of the heat. But I have a lot of fantastic associations with summer, and there's just something about it that renews my spirit. I feel more capable of meeting my goals; the days feel less heavy and full of more possibilities. If you ask me, I will always say I'm a winter kind of girl, but summer does have its good parts. :)

So! Since I'm in that lazy hazy part of the summer feeling, and it's Friday and I can't wait to go home and start a weekend I'm dedicating to being a homebody, I am going to do Five Question Friday for today from this wonderful blog (love the url). So let's get to it!

1. Groceries are high right now. What is the easiest way you have found to cut back? 

 Well, luckily it's just me, so I don't have to buy a ton of groceries. I do sometimes get carried away, especially when I get lured in by new GF products. However! If I stick to my list and stick mostly to the perimeter of the store, I don't have much trouble sticking to about $50 per week. Every now and then I splurge a bit, but it usually evens out. I do give myself a little leeway when I need to stock up on important items. About 97% of the time I stick very closely to my list and my budget. And shop sales, and coupons if I remember them!

2. What are the top 3 things on your "bucket list"? 

I totally don't have one and I'm not really into making one. I find it important for me to focus on where I am now. My main goal is to be healthy, which means I should have plenty of time to make a bucket list later! ;)

3. Would you rather give up AC or heat?

I refer you back to the beginning of this post. I will give up heat in a heartbeat. In fact, I rarely use it. I set the thermostat pretty low. And I have a fireplace in my new place, hidden by my couch. So, yeah.

4. What's your favorite cocktail?

My favorite thing to drink, period, is water. I don't drink alcohol, but I love me some water. It's pretty much the only thing I drink, aside from tea and milk sometimes when I have cereal. Oh and coffee on weekday mornings.

5. What was your first job and how old were you? 

I was probably 15 or 16 when I started working (under the table. shhh! don't tell) at a dry cleaner and a music store, both part time in the summer to earn money. My first legit job was in a bookstore when I was in college. I think I was 18. Possibly 19. I loooooved my discount. Working retail, though? Never, ever, ever again. God willing. But I do have some interesting memories from that place.

Ok lovelies, that's it for me today. I hope everyone has an ab fab weekend. Get some rest, have some fun, do what you wanna do, go where you wanna go. I will catch y'all later. xoxo

Good Friday

I realize this is redundant if you know me on facebook, but for those who don't, or who are not on facebook, here ya go. 

It feels strange to say Happy Good Friday, but I guess it actually does make sense. I don't have the words to express how grateful I am for the sacrifice He made to save so many. So here is a song video to do it for me.

Happy Good Friday everyone. God bless. xoxo

Finally moving on...I hope

Saturday I left my keys at my old place and can finally close that door and move forward. I hope. We'll have the final walk through some time this week, but I did all I could, so fingers crossed. But I finally feel free to focus entirely on my new place. I did a bit of shopping this weekend, with several different stops. Dollar Tree was kind of a bust, but I think it was a mistake to go there first anyway. I'll need to go there after I get everything unpacked and get baskets for organizing. I got a few great canisters at Tuesday Morning on Saturday, which made me happy. But it wasn't until I was on my way to Target Greatland before church that evening that I hit the mother lode. I discovered that they finally filled the empty Borders building in the shopping center with a Home Goods. I'd never been in one of those before, so I figured I might as well pop in and have a look. Boy was it crowded! I'm not sure when they opened, but it couldn't have been too long ago. (Update: I looked it up and the store opened the weekend before. No wonder it was still so crowded.) And I hit paydirt. I found exactly what I had been picturing in my head when I thought of canisters. And for really good prices too. I didn't want to overdo it, so I limited myself a little, but I walked out of there with two huge square glass canisters and two tall beehive glass canisters. For about $20! I was so excited. I had to skip a full on Target stop because I had to get to church.

The next day after lounging a bit (which is what I love to do on Sundays) I headed back out to the Target Greatland and managed to pick some shelves and get my grocery shopping done. Except for a couple things I got at Safeway.

I decided to get a couple of these for my closet to put my folded clothes in, but I'm not sure they will really work for that the way I envisioned. At the very least I would need another one because they're a bit smaller than I expected. But they could make great storage on the closet shelf. So many options.

 

I got one of these for extra kitchen storage, but again, I'm not sure it will work exactly the way I was imagining. I'm thinking over the possibilities, but I might move this into the closet for my clothes and find something else for the kitchen storage. Or I might just get another one of these so I can have one in the kitchen and one in the closet, because it is really cool and so easy to put together. We'll see how that turns out.

I also scored season 7 of The Office on a great sale - the last season with Steve Carrell in it and the last season I feel the need to have. The current season has been rather uninspiring; at least once per episode I find myself saying, "I miss Michael." AND I got Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 on a great sale. Finally used my Target gift cards too. I've been waiting and waiting for both to go on sale. It took long enough!

I am happy to report that all of my movies, music and books are put away (shocking, I know). Always the first to get organized because it makes me feel at home. I'm slowly clearing the dining area of things only so I can move the stuff to get rid of into the space. Which will get it out of my way, so I'm excited about that. I still need to put all the games away (after sorting and seriously decreasing my collection), which will make a big difference in there.And then I can put other things that I want in the inside storage closet away, which will make an even bigger difference. I can't wait to get the curtains up, but that won't be for at least two weeks (at the earliest) because this weekend is Easter and I am booked solid. Plus I still need to get anchors and get my uncle to help me. I am not good at hanging things straight if more than on screw, nail, etc. is required.

Things I want to get done this week that have nothing to do with moving, packing or unpacking things (i.e., it's time to get back to my normal routine at last):

My workouts! Ugh, I have gone more than a week without a workout. Not that moving isn't one, but it isn't the same. I am determined to get on my treadmill tonight, even though that means moving a whole bunch of stuff out of the way first. I don't care. I need this. And maybe I'll even squeeze in some toning.

Laundry. Surprisingly, I don't even have a full basket yet. Probably because I did a bunch of laundry before packing up all my clothes and moving them a little over a week ago. So, I haven't accumulated too much. But I want to try out the machines at my new place. And there are several things in the basket that I would like to wear, so they need to be washed. I'm hoping to do that tonight as well. I guess can put it off until tomorrow if I must.

Turning off the TV and other electronics at 9 and reading until it's time to go to sleep. I have been slacking on this in a major way while in transition and since I've moved because it soothes me. And I'm seriously behind on my DVR. And I've been unpacking into the evenings, which delays my shower and my entire nighttime routine. I need to get back to that so I get more and better sleep.

That's about it for me today. A little scattered, but not too bad. I hope to be sharing more projects here soon as I've been super inspired to bake since moving. So far I've made waffles and donuts.

Banana donuts with maple glaze.

I will also try to share pics of my new place once I get it more put together. Here is the only one I have so far, of my new storage unit where I planned to put. It may or may not stay there. As you can see, there is still tons of stuff around it that needs to be put away.

 

More soon. Ta for now! xoxo