My top 5 websites for procrastination

I have a very unhealthy relationship with stress, my first inclination is to eat something. Big, greasy, crunchy and salty. Jack and the box tacos do the trick wonderfully, my expanding waistline non-withstanding. I have learned to quickly suppress that urge and replace it almost immediately with an all consuming urge to shop. In college I was able to curb this to buying two $10 tops from Forever 21 and not breaking the bank. BUT my new Dave Ramsey lifestyle to become completely debt free has been forcing me to look again at my finances and not splurge on anything. So that is out. So now, I came back to an old friend my Xbox 360. But what about during school or work or anytime that you are not near a TV and have 5 hours to waste. What about then? Well I use the all-powerful internet to fill my time. Here are my 5 favorite sites

5. Pinterest

Obviously. This is a great time filler and a way to pretend you have a wardrobe and designer and fabulous outfits. You go into dream mode with your house and wedding. You can pretend that you are living all the fitness tips and your weight is magically falling off. You repin those witty someecards imagining that it is you who is thinking of them, and will now start using these phrases.

"Well it is true!"

This is one of my favorites too and I do all these things above too, because I can plan the perfect wedding or find work ideas, or plan my house with 40 pools, 10 kitchens, 25 master suites, and a whole slew of living rooms, organized spaces, offices and libraries. All that is within a super sleek, shabby chic, modern inspired Castle. Probably in the South of France. 

4. Cracked

Sooooo, this site is amazing. I don't know how many people have read it. But I suggest you do so immediately. As long as you, and the good friends at Cracked promise not tell about how I stole their lay out for this Blog. 

They have guest writters, reappearing ones, Magician ones, silly ones. Its a great site, full of both humor and knowledge.

3. Meme Base

Everyone loves a good meme.

Ouch

This is linked to LOLcats, can I has cheezburger and many more. I love these a lot. Many funny ones in there.

I actually stopped writing this, because I got caught up in meme base.

2. Refinery29

This is a site full of how-tos, top ten lists, and just the overall success guide to fashion, career and a glamorous life in a city. They have 5 or 6 cities now, and are growing rapidly, but they have local spots to eat, and the appropriate attire, cute outfit ideas, and great gift ideas. They show you wonderful splurges and cute steals from local boutiques as well as big department stores. This is one of my favorite sites ever. 

1. Stumble upon

This site is widely popular I know. But it is the best. Get websites that are unknown, amazing pictures, even just cool ideas. You tell the site what you are looking for and it will deliver. It is awesome! I have found some pretty cool stuff from this site like the Side Walk Chalk Guy.....

uh-maze-zing

I'm Back!

This has been an eventful week. (Well I know. Its been since last Friday, but lets just call it a week.) I got to see Kevin. He came up for Easter, and then spent the week with him. It was awesome. But it was hard, he went back today. So don't mind the depression or the alcohol, but I am here to blog, and will be for the foreseeable future.

This has been a really chill mellow week for me, but a crazy eventful one at the same time. You don't think that that is possible, I know, but I will tell you all about it!

First thing, Friday of last week I had a great time out with friends, I got to hang out with a friend that was MIA since he was in a relationship, it was really great to catch up with him, he is a really nice guy. But the girlfriend reeled him back in, so I doubt we will be seeing him anytime soon. I deleted them from Facebook, just to minimize some potential drama, because I don't need that in my life. But it is a big deal because I NEVER delete people from Facebook. Like seriously never. I feel bad when I do it, but I know that it is the best thing to do, so I made the decision.

I don't know why I can't delete people. I don't feel anything from having them as my friends, there are some people on my list that I rarely have any interaction with. Even when I do, it is just stalking someone, seeing what they are up to. But I just can't bring myself to delete people. And I pretty much accept ANYONE. Its almost a sickness.

Secondly, I had a great staff meeting for work. It was really good to see what everyone else was planning for our Candyland event. It will be a huge event in September/October. We do a carnival type event and this year we are doing Candyland! It will be so cute! Pinterest has been my lifesaver. I have found some really great things on there. I am in charge of decor and signage, so I have found some really great ideas off of Pinterest and from what my coworkers have sent me from things that they have found. I am really excited about this event.

For my personal Carnival Day in June, I worked on it last week, and have booked a location, have my petting zoo, my magic show, my balloon animals, and my games almost all sorted out. I have to do my site walk and order some cupcakes coming up. I am planning on making a cupcake carousel too with animal crackers. I am super stoked. But before that can happen. I have my cake decorating class, which is going to be full, and then a couples trip to Magic Mountain! Going to be super fun times.

Finally, Kevin and I had such a great time together. I really love my life with him. It is just so natural. I mean the first dayish is weird and not like real life, but we quickly fall back into the routine of our life. It is nice to have these days with him, but it is almost bittersweet. We get to hang out and spend all day together, (minus the time spent at work) and then we have to go back to only texting/phone calls again. I feel like we get used to each other, and we have such a good time, and then we have to say good bye. We have spent more of our time apart or long distance than we have in the same city. Which has been really hard, but I think that it really has made us stronger and we are sure of what we want now. Its a big challenge sometimes, but the time we have together makes it all worth it.

See you all tomorrow ;)

Bee Bops and Lollipops: A Shout Out

For anyone in Snohomish, or even just Western Washington, and haven't yet heard, my parents just purchased a store in downtown Snohomish. It is the most darling thing you have ever seen! This is my mothers first venture as a business owner, and the self made entrepreneur is going to be a huge success. Click here to go in and see their Facebook page and follow them on their new journey. The store is absolutely adorable! My mother has a wonderful gift for design, party planning, and for crafting and creating something that is cute and unique to each person!

I am so proud of her in all that she does, because she is such an amazing woman and pushes her self so hard to be successful at everything she has tried, she is approaching this new endeavor as an exciting and wonderful opportunity. She is so ready for any challenge that may arise, and is confident that she can overcome it and grow so much stronger for it!

I admire my mother so much, she is everything that I aspire to be one day. A loving mother and wife, involved in my community, working at a job that I love, and still making time to pursue my own dreams and desires. My she and my father make a dynamic and unstoppable team that is held together by the love and dedication that they have to each other. I am so excited for both of them!

Please please follow the link above to check them out. If you are ever in Snohomish looking to stop by, they have some adorable products for children, they have a delectable candy bar, and a whole room for parties!

Check them out!

Baths, Beer, Books and....writing

There is nothing more relaxing and more wonderful than these four things. ESPECIALLY when you can combine them. Any of these combinations is completely wonderful and amazing. I try to do at least 2 of these a day. (Usually beer and writing, though the other two are just as great). I think that it is what keeps me sane through a busy or tough week. This week we are doing our district Easter Egg Hunts, and our bi-annual expo.

Shout to Mark from Element Fitness in Camarillo, CA. They do awesome boot camps and personal training for people! They are great! So helpful and knowledgeable! If you want to get back into shape, definitely check out their website here. Mark told me today that he read my blog it was embarrassing but kinda awesome. So he gets a shout out!

But anyways, this is an amazing time for me because I am so busy, we had our event last night with over 400 people, today was closer to 300 and then we finish up at Mugu tomorrow. It will be so amazing, both to execute the event, and to finish it! This is a really great feature about my job, I am able to go and do an event several times. Usually most events you work on for months, then in one night, usually just a few hours, it is over. Which is bittersweet. After pouring your heart and soul into a project and spending so much time going over all the details that few hours seem both so rewarding, but anti-climactic at the same time.

When you do it 3 times, 3 days in a row, it gets crazy. You love and hate it, you see ways to improve on it, but at the same time, you don't want to think about it anymore. But really it is a wonderful thing. come friday morning ill be exhausted and glad the event is done, but already excited for my ideas for next year. My next two events are very low work on my part on the day of the event. We are doing cake decorating in a few weeks, and then are doing a couples adventure to Magic Mountain after that. It will be great. Then we are doing the event that I am SO excited about. A kids Carnival. I am trying to make it seem like a traveling gypsy type carnival/midway games event. I have so many ideas and am so excited about this! I will be posting lots about this as I get more ideas and more things come to fruition!!!

Chicks be crazy

It is amazing to me that I am surrounded by people in wonderful and healthy relationships. I am so glad that I have role models that are mature and in a place where they can talk about the stuff that are their problems. I really love to see that, though there are problems in every relationship, they can work through it and their love will pull them through. Because what they have is more important than their fight.

This is true with so many people in my life I love watching their relationships grow and flourish and become stronger. They are amazing. Despite their problems. I get to learn from them and apply it to my relationship and make my relationship greater :)

I think that when you do long distance it makes it so hard and you completely depend on communication. I love my boyfriend so much and grow so close to him :) he comes home in 4 days!!!

Get published podcast

I listen to many podcasts during the week on many different subjects. Stitcher radio is the one I use, but there are many different types of ayers I'm sure. Today I listened to this American life from NPR I think it is, and one about getting published. The host is an aspiring writer himself. He has a few books coming out and stuff but as I went listening i walked away with some really helpful tips.

1. Treat every character like a hero. At first this seems odd, I mean they are called secondary and minor characters for a reason right? Do they really need all this insight and plot and backstory? They are nothing more than plot tools to keep the story moving right? Well my original thought to this is to agree. That it is unimportant to spend much time and development to each character because that is one thing you are warned against from the start f writing is to limit the number of named characters to make it easy to keep track and remain invested in the plot. But I think on the flip side it's important that in this story, in the world you have created they have their own story and their own life and experiences to bring them to the point that they are at in the story. If you look at each character realistically and treat them as a real character instead of a name or a stereotype, you will have characters that the reader can relate to and can understand. This also gives a drive and reason to the sub plots through out the book.

2. Be open to changing. This is a difficult one. If you are an author who writes because you enjoy it and you don't need the royalties that comes with it then you have more of a bargaining power. But if you are going to make a living and a lively hood off of it, you have to be willing to look at your writing objectively and not take critiques personally. Which can be hard. I have blogged about how these characters are like my children. That I have more insight into their lives than I do in my best friends or even my boyfriend's life. I know their want and fears. I know their lives. I created the adventure. It's too much to hear someone wants to improve upon your perfect work. But you have to look at it from a different perspective and see the true problems in the work and make the needed adjustment from the pros.

3. Work on many novels at once. There is nothing worse than wanting to write but being just done with your work i have been there 100000000000 times and just feeling like you have no inspiration for it. So you just walk away from your work. I feel like that is the worst thing you can do. If you are working on many stories, then you can put it away and work on something else or start something new! It's great!!!

I love writing! If there are other writers out there and you want to share work, let me know I'd love to see what you got and get comments on my stuff!

So I fell off the horse

Wow 2 weeks into my 1 year of blogging and I already missed 2 whole days!! Yikes. That's not good. But it was a dang good weekend. I went out with the roommates today then got to see some of my favorite kiddos!

The best thing is that in 6 days Kevin will be here for Easter :) I'm so excited its been over a month. We always have such a great time together and it's just so nice when he is home. I just feel like my life is whole again. I have my great friends and my main squeeze I just want to be here and with me for forever :)

Love him a lot. :)