Happy Things 10/28 – 11/1

A few days worth of happiness:

 

1. The Today Show cast’s Halloween costumes were the Royal Wedding party. I love watching to see what in the world they will wear each year. Prince William, Kate and Pippa below -

 

2. Masina starting a Gchat conversation with “Does Kim Kardashian’s love life affect you in any way?” It was so random that I snorted with laughter at my desk (pretty sure my coworkers who sit near me think I’m crazy).

3. Four words: New. Years. 80′s. Prom.

4. Finding dark blue nail polish at Rite Aid for $1.99. It’s the little things, people.

5. Our HR department left bags of Halloween candy on everyone’s desk Monday morning.

6. Kid Halloween means candy with friends. Adult Halloween means candy-colored drinks with your cousin.

7.  Listening to Christmas music on Pandora.com!

 

 

October 27, 2011

Daily happiness from 10/27/11:

 

1. My work handed out $5 Starbucks gift cards to tell everyone thank you for all our hard work. I plan on using it for a giant autumn-inspired coffee drink this weekend!

2. Kindle’s library loan book policy. I love the free books! And I promise I’m not reading Lauren Conrad’s “L.A. Candy” series…promise…

3. “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” is on TV this evening. And DVR is recording it for me (thank you, DVR. I adore you.) so I can watch it over the weekend.

“Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. He’s got to pick this one. He’s got to. I don’t see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there’s not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see. ” -Linus

4. Knowing there are other people out there that still question what they want to be when they grow up.

5. Mormon blogs. Sound ridiculous? Check out the following links – I dare you to tell me you don’t like them.

   

      The Rockstar Diaries 

      Underaged and Engaged 

      Say Yes! to Hoboken 

Oh Happy Day

New Theme, New Blog

I’ve been neglecting this blog for far too long. I always mean to come back and update it but feel incredibly unfocused. In order to appease the guilt, I’ve come up with a more unified approach to posts. I am going to keep daily reminders of things that make me happy. That’s it. Nothing preachy or overly peppy (let’s face it, I’m neither of those things), just things that make me smile. I hope this new theme serves as an important reminder that even when I’m in the middle of a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day, there is still so much to be happy about.

Simple, right? I guess we’ll see.

John Wilkes Booth ‘Likes’ This – Ye Olde Facebook

My suggestion is to pay close attention to the details – photos, time stamps, etc.

Happy Monday!

 

 

My Brain Just Exploded

Thank you, Geekologie.com, for helping me illustrate ALL THE THINGS WRONG WITH PEOPLE IN THE WORLD TODAY.

Apart from the OBVIOUS-NESS THAT IS GRAVITY, I cannot believe the incorrect spelling and grammar going on in this Facebook thread. My brain is literally on fire. For real. Someone get me a damn fire extinguisher. Or a weapon.

Friday Links

In case you’re looking for something entertaining to pass the time (instead of working, maybe?) this lovely Friday afternoon, here are some websites worth checking out. Enjoy!

1. Cake Wrecks - Blog all about baking disasters.

2. The Oatmeal – Funny comics, quizzes, and stories. My favorites include How To Suck At Facebook, How To Tell If Your Cat Is Trying To Kill You, and The 8 Phases Of Dating.   

3. Catalog Living – Blog with funny hypothetical commentary about the lives of people ‘living’ in catalog ads.

TGIF.

The Price of Thursday, August 19th

$0.

SUCCESS!!!

Apartment Love

Since February, I have been living in a one bedroom apartment in Alexandria. It’s small (around 475 square feet) with basic off-white walls and wall t0 wall carpet. The front door opens into the living area where I have my couch, tv, bookshelf, and cafe-size dining table and chairs. Off this room there are sliding glass doors opening to a cute balcony area. There is a galley kitchen that amazingly has full-size appliances and a garbage disposal (totally and completely necessary) with a pantry and storage closet. The bedroom and bathroom are in the back of the apartment and ta-daa! Welcome to my home!

I’ve been in the process of putting it together since move-in day a few months back. I have artwork on the walls and everything!  I would love to paint the walls and finally get a real-life tv stand and possibly move a little table out to the balcony. Knowing me, I will most likely pull the last part of that off with just enough time for the weather to get cold and then I won’t have time to enjoy the outdoor table. I have awesome timing like that. But I am pretty happy with it for now. There are a few things I have been coveting for a while now and want to take just a moment to share…

-Lovely, typographic wall prints (swoon), pretty housewares (how cute are the bird salt and pepper shakers?), and PAINT!

             

               

 

I’ve also been reading a blog (thanks to Mary Frances) called Young House Love about an adorable young couple in Richmond (how cool!) who have a gorgeous home and a seemingly fantastic life. Make sure to check out their house tour page and  wedding page!

  

The Price of Wednesday, August 18th

Ok. So this isn’t the most thrilling post to read (compared to, say, the ever-important posts regarding hair styles, obviously), but it may serve as inspiration to anyone trying to figure out how to afford their daily lives.

Being 25 and living in the Washington DC area – ranked no. 10 on Forbes 2009  “America’s Most Expensive Cities” list – is definitely a challenge. The apartments are pricey; the commutes are hellacious. I’m spending more on gas per week living in Alexandria than what I used to spend in almost one month living in Richmond. For real. And while I adore living alone in my one bedroom apartment, it sometimes makes me nauseous to justify the rent and living costs.

The point of this isn’t to make me want to run and hide (it does anyway) but to try and make an honest effort to budget smarter and more effectively. I haven’t decided if I will post details of my necessary life costs such as rent (sorry, I’m not looking for the open judgement that information would elicit) or possibly student loan payments. We’ll see how it goes.

Today’s costs:

-Lunch $6.29 (cash)

-Laundry $3.25 (cash)

Total: $9.54

Already this is shaping up to be a wonderful learning experience because, in my mind, I was super proud for not spending any money. Because apparently cash does not equal ‘real’ money in my head since I’m not taking anything out of the bank with a Debit card. However, that’s $10 gone in a day where I had already decided I spent nothing.

Crap. This might be harder than I originally thought…

Awkward Family Photos

I had a wonderful vacation to the Outer Banks (maybe my favorite place ever) this past week with my cousin Jordan, his girlfriend Andrea, and a bunch of friends. We went down to Nags Head mile post 11 Saturday May 23rd (the house photos are here, I can’t do a copy paste from the official website but will upload my own photos soon). I was able to stay until Wednesday which was wonderful. The weather was gorgeous most of the time; it was rainy one morning which did allow me to do a little outlet shopping so it was acceptable. Andrea cooked wonderful dinners, we played a bunch of board games including Apples to Apples and Taboo, and relaxed on the beach, in the pool and in the hot tub. 

Jordan and I acted like complete idiots most of the time (albeit hilarious idiots). We over-shared some classic family stories with people I’d just met, decided to speak and write in haiku form for a few days, quoted Kenny Powers from the TV show Eastbound and Down (read, totally and completely inappropriate in any and all social situations), and went t-shirt shopping. 

Now, you may be thinking that t-shirt shopping sounds fine. I mean, it’s a totally normal, socially accepted vacation pastime. Visiting a new place? Buy commemorative clothing to really highlight the significance of the vacation. However, that was not the case with us. We purposefully went t-shirt shopping with every intention of buying the ugliest, most random article of clothing possible. Luckily for us, Nags Head’s T-Shirt Whirl was about 4 houses from our rental. We managed to rope the 2 employees into helping us choose the tackiest iron-on graphics possible. One in the running was a hunting logo that said “Your duck is ugly and your dog is stupid” with a lovely graphic including guns and camouflage. Pissing off other tourists in the shop (a lady left the store b/c of us and yelled “ASSHOLES” in passing), we finally settled on our designs. 

 

Mine is a lovely 10-point buck amidst fall foliage. Jordan’s is a stealth tiger swimming (do tigers swim?) in a lagoon. We put the sweatshirts on quietly while everyone was playing a game. Feigning yawns and holding back laughter while asking the other “Brr, are you cold in here”, we reappeared in our tacky sweatshirt glory. 

It may have been the highlight of the trip. 

The second part to this post is a website you need to see immediately. It’s called Awkward Family Photos and highlights real, hilarious photos sent in by readers. 

Jordan and I may have to submit these sweatshirt photos. Maybe.