weekly wishes 004

Weekly Wishes, created by Melyssa from The Nectar Collective, is a place to share your weekly goals. 
Join & see what we achieve!

Thank you everyone who left such kind words on my previous blog post. I removed the previous post from my blog because everyone who cares about us has read it. I explained a personal situation that I wanted my friends and family to know about, and as time went on, unkind people began to be rude and negative in the comment section. Our situation is hard enough without people making it worse.

Now I'm ready for a fresh start. We appreciate the help we've received with our current situation. We've reworked our budget and with the financial help we received we can make a trip to Europe work. So thank you so much for your help. We are overwhelmed by those who have reached out to us & are thankful you are in our lives. 

With a lot of change in my life, I felt it was appropriate to spruce up my layout on my blog. 

Do you like it? I hope so!

This is my forth installment of Weekly Wishes. I've really enjoyed this journey of setting goals to accomplish on a weekly basis. It has helped keep me focused.

Last week my goals were to:

1. Organize all of my files. That hasn't been accomplished yet, but I plan on working on this on Monday! 

2. Make my own açaí bowl. This goal was finally accomplished. My boyfriend, Keith and our friend, Ballo & I made açaí bowls for dinner. We loosely followed this recipe. We felt it tasted kind of bland. We added agave... I want to look for more açaí bowl recipes. I know I could try and make them on my own, but I like following recipes. :)

3. Work on my Europe to do list. I definitely worked on our to do list. 

9 more days until we leave! 

My goals for this week are to:

1. Get ready for a garage sale. My boyfriend Keith and I are hosting a garage sale this coming weekend to earn some extra funds before we travel. I need to continue to collect my own belongings and I have some donations that I need to organize.

2. Sew headbands. I don't know how realistic this goal is. I make headbands like this. (My friend, Katie won that giveaway and here are pictures of her in one of the headbands during her trip to Ecuador.) I figured I could make more headbands to sell at the garage sale. Hopefully I have time for it! If you are interested in purchasing a headband (now or in the future) please let me know! I want to continue to make more when we return from Europe. I have an Etsy shop. Feel free to "favorite" it so you can be up to date for when I truly stock the shop. 

3. Get ready for Europe (that to do list!). I feel that when I start to chip away at my to do list, more and more gets added. But it's okay, I just means I'm preparing ourselves more, which isn't a bad thing. 

I cannot wait to share my journey with you all. Thank you for all of your support these past 8 months. I've really enjoyed my blog and I feel like it's coming into it's own. So thank you for reading and following along. 

Sorry for a somewhat long-winded post. But thank you for reading. What are you goals for this week? I would love to hear all about them!

- Christina

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weekly wishes 003

Weekly Wishes, created by Melyssa from The Nectar Collective, is a place to share your weekly goals. 
Join & see what we achieve!

I hope everyone had a productive week last week. It was my last week working & now I'm officially on "get my Europe to do list done" & blogging mode. It's interesting and exciting to not have a job to go to. 

Last night for Valentine's Day, my boyfriend Keith and I went to a fun bar called The Blind Donkey in Long Beach. There was a photo booth that I couldn't turn down. I think I've made it a promise to myself to use photo booths every time I encounter one. I hope you had a fun Valentine's Day. What did you do?

Last week my goals were to:

1. Organize my Europe to do list. I finally did it. Everything is in order. I have my "To Buy," "To Pack," & "To Do." This list is long, but I'm ready to tackle it!

2. Order my Warby Parker frames. I am so happy to get this off of my to do list. I've been procrastinating it because I needed to scan in my prescription. You know those easy tasks that you just don't make time for? Ya, that was one of them.

3. Make my own açaí bowl. I didn't do it :( My local grocery store does carry açaí, so that's one step in the right direction!

This week my goals are to:

1. (a really boring goal, but) Organize all of my files. I just recently switched out my MacBook Pro for a MacBook Air & I just threw a bunch of files onto my external. & my Dropbox account is a mess (& I want to clean it up before I travel!). 

2. Make my own açaí bowl! I can do it this week. 

3. Work on my Europe to do list. Now that I have my to do list organized, I can now chip away at it. 

What are you goals for the week?

- Christina

P.S. - I'm currently hosting a giveaway on my Instagram page. Please feel free to enter! Thank YOU!

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#throwbackthursday to vlogmas 2014 | VLOG TWO

Here's another installment of me throwing it back to Vlogmas 2014. My #throwbackthursday if you will. ;) Join me as I watch Love Actually for the first time, get my bangs trimmed by Grace & show you some cereals that I love. 

This is my second vlogmas vlog out of four. Feel free to watch my first vlog!

- Christina

P.S. - I'm currently hosting a giveaway on my Instagram page. Please feel free to enter! Thank YOU!

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I CUT MY HAIR!!!

For the past 5 years or so, I would grown my hair long, chop it off & repeat. For the past 2 years my hair has be long. I was debating about whether or not I wanted to cut my hair. I would go through phases like, "I am going to cut my hair!" & then I'll be scrolling through Instagram, see this and then change my mind again. 

Then I would think about how much my hair is a pain. My hair would take so long to wash and dry (AND STYLE if I wanted to do that, but I didn't because it was time consuming). My hair became a time consuming project, something I didn't want to have to worry about when I'm traveling. 
So I cut it! 

My friend, Grace Harpole hair stylist at Toni & Guy gave me this great cut. We've been adorable this last few months pinning and brainstorming what it was going to look like. I know I wanted it below my shoulders so I can pull it up when I want and have a soft A line. I also decided that I want to grow out my bangs while I'm traveling. I don't want to worry about making a bang trim appointment every 3-4 weeks. 

So what do you think?! I love it. Thank you, Grace!

- Christina

P.S. - I'm currently hosting a giveaway on my Instagram page. Please feel free to enter! Thank YOU!

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my tank is arm the animals

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So my first round of Weekly Wishes was successful! Last week my goals were to: 

1. Post a giveaway! CHECK! If you missed it, starting yesterday I am hosting a giveaway. I am giving away an adorable tank from Arm the Animals. Please check it out!

2. Schedule my blog posts into a calendar. CHECK! I have a lot of blogpost ideas, it's just a matter of giving myself a deadline. I now have all of February planned out. Very excited!

This week my goals are:

1. Organize my Europe to do list. I currently have a Google Doc that I keep on adding "to dos" & my shopping list to & it's all over the place. It needs to put into categories. Like things I need to pack, things I need to buy, etc.

2. Order my Warby Parker frames!

3. Make my own açaí bowl. I always buy açaí bowls, this post has really inspired me to make my own. Anyone know where I can buy açaí? Whole Foods? Online?

What are your goals for this week? I'm excited for this upcoming week. It's my last week of work. From here on out I'll be focusing on my Europe to do list & blogging. I'm really excited for the rest of this month and leaving to Europe in March. 

I hope you have a positive, productive week! 

- Christina

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arm the animals giveaway!

Thank you so much for such positive feedback on my Arm the Animals post. It's always exciting when other people love what you love. 

As a thank you, I am hosting a giveaway for this Arm the Animals tank! This giveaway is hosted on my Instagram. & the rules are simple. Just click over to this post and enter!

The giveaway ends February 28th. Good luck!

- Christina

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The tank was a gift from Arm the Animals but I would like to share it with you!

#throwbackthursday to vlogmas 2014 | VLOG ONE

Remember when I said I didn't have enough video content to participate in Vlogmas? Turns out I did have enough footage! I started to cut it all up and found out I have 4 vlogs. I'll post them every Thursday of February as a "#throwbackthursday" I enjoy watching old vlogs, especially vlogmas vlogs! So I hope you do, too.

I hope you enjoy! (Just so know, relatively soon, my vlogs will be in Europe! Eeee!)

 - Christina

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inside joke t-shirts

Last December, I gave my friend Courtney a custom t-shirt that said "Is that your stuff?" It is an inside joke between us about how she left a banana peel in the gutter in front of my neighbor's house, and my neighbor came outside to confront by her saying, "Is that your stuff?" It was such an awkward, hilarious situation. (Here's a photo of the shirt.)

Then of course another inside joke came around. An episode of This American Life called I Was So High (Act 2) talks about interesting things that happen while people were on drugs. While listening to this podcast together, we busted up laughing when a young man expressed that he wrote poems while high. His poem has become one of my favorite pieces of work. 

"What if you were a cat

and all you could say is 'meow?'

All you'd have to talk about is

'meow.'"

Then Courtney gave me a shirt with the poem on it!

Then I decided to keep this going (for her birthday). (Now inside joke shirts are an inside joke!) A film we both really love is When Harry Met Sally. Like, a lot. We talk about it all the time and even call Billy Crystal, Billy. Ha. One of our favorite lines to quote among many is,

"Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash.

But I would be proud to partake of your pecan piiie."

- Harry Burns

Here's a video of the line, it's silly. (Spoiler alert after the 41st second!)

So we'll see how long this inside joke of inside joke shirts will continue. ;) 
What do you think?

P.S. - We made these shirts on Zazzle.com!

- Christina

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weekly wishes 001

Inspired by Coley's Weekly Wishes, I have decided to start making weekly (public) goals for myself. It's really great to have New Year's resolutions that you can focus on during the year but breaking down your goals to weekly just seems easier to accomplish. And making them public makes me more accountable!

My goals for this week (which are mostly blogging related):

1. I have a giveaway planned! So my first goal is to get the giveaway post this week. I'm super excited for it! I hope you are too!

2. & I want to start scheduling my blogposts into a calendar. I think giving my posts a due date will make me less lazy :)

So this week I am starting two weekly posts. Weekly Wishes will be posted on Sundays & I am starting a new series called #throwbackthursday to Vlogmas 2014! Apparently I did have enough footage to participate in Vlogmas. I figured instead of letting the footage just sit there, I would post my Vlogmas vlogs on Thursdays! It will be Christmas in February. (I didn't do too much Christmassy stuff anyway, so they won't look that different from normal vlogs.) I really enjoy vlogging so I appreciate you all watching!

So I'm hoping for a productive week. I hope yours is, too! What are your goals for the week?

- Christina

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