Books and Travel!

I decided that I want to travel as much as I can this summer and even now, even if it's just away to Boston this weekend, I want to take advantage to get away as much as I can, you are only young once and live once! Among these ideas, I have been reading some great books about it, here's some of them! They are great travel writings!

Taking Care of Yourself

My schedule has sadly been so busy where I have not been able to blog as often, but this needs to change. I am going to force myself to blog daily, even if it's just five minutes a day. The good thing about blogging for me is that it allows me to write, which I enjoy and get my thoughts all out. This particular blog is about taking care of myself and being overall healthy, not just physically but also mentally.

Here are a few things that have come to mind:

1. I need to exercise so much more often. I always tell myself I'm going to work out but I never seem to find the time (excuse I know) or I am just not "in the mood" to. After going to the doctors today for my yearly physical, I realized I NEED to exercise regularly now due to what my doctor told me I have. I have been having constant knee and leg pain for awhile now, I just never knew why. Apparently I have a loose knee cap, but I also have patellofemoral syndrome (anterior knee pain) which is very common in females. Squats and quad workouts will help, but now I have to do physical therapy, also for my neck pain that has not gone away =( Either way, I think this is a good wake up call for me to get into a good exercise routine weekly, which will def contribute to me feeling healthier mentally and physically!

2. Eating better! I try to eat healthy when I can, but that is not always enough. With my crazy school schedule, I need to be consistently eating healthy. What I plan to do is shop weekly for healthy foods that way I can have the food and snacks with me throughout the day and not go and spend money on unhealthy fast food or stuff that is not going to make me feel well. It also made me very excited for spring and summer when I can start my vegetable garden again, especially growing tomatoes! I think I will do some shopping at Trader Joe's tomorrow. Any suggestions for what I should buy or make with the food I buy?!

3. Happy mentally. I need to make sure I make time to always see my friends and spend time with my family. I have been realizing that the more we run ourselves into the ground, the worse our mental state can get. I have been trying to take breaks from my crazy schedule whether it is just reading, seeing friends, or taking a few minutes to clear my head. If I can continue to do this, I believe it will make me be able to handle stress better and be happier all around. Any ideas for what I should do to stay mentally happy and healthy?!

Hope you enjoyed this blog (Jimmy =) and whoever else reads it!

National Bubble Bath Day?

So I guess today is National Bubble Bath Day?! Had no idea this even existed, but I am not complaining. I love taking baths after a long hard day, but to make it a holiday? I will definitely take that! I have been running around like crazy today with work and school so this will be something I look forward to later! Best thing about it will be to light some candles and relax with some good music after this long day =) Here are some awesome products that I love, and they are animal free and all organic!!!!

Lush always has these amazing bath bombs, they are my favorite! They have so many different kinds and scents!

LOVE LOVE LOVE!

Candles make a bath even more amazing! Some of my favorites are from Bath and Body Works, like this one Yum! Last but not least, this is one of my favorite bubble baths, anything with lavender in it! =)

What a good holiday this is!

LOCKOUT IS OVER!

So I have been waiting awhile for this!! Before the last few days, we were very close to the nhl lockout being over, but it was just a cruel tease. Jimmy I know if you read this you will not be excited or really care about this blog post but I am super excited about this and had to blog about it! Its almost as exciting when we stood first in line and got Milan Luch's autograph and met him, thanks again for doing that! Jimmy is a real friend because he hates hockey and still stood in lane with me to get an autograph from the Bruins hockey player with me =)

I have decided that I will be investing a lot of time and money this season into going to the Bruins games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some people may think this is a stupid idea but if it makes me happy I don't care, which the Bruins def do make me happy!

The old schedule is up (the one before the lockout) and I got all excited and bought tickets to one of the games but then refunded it because the official new schedule is not up yet, the season should start January 15th or 19th..either way I want tickets to the Canadian game especially! We will see, I will probably blog about it when the official schedule goes up but until then I had to just blog about my excitement of the lockout being over because it's been SO long!

I will make sure that my next blog though is not hockey related because it is not that interesting to most, especially Jimmy who is the only one who reads my blog I think ;)

Christmas is Ahead of Me!

Ahh I've been trying to ignore the whole idea of Christmas for the last few weeks now, not even thinking about what I will do for it, what I will get other people for gifts, etc. I thought that plan was working great until it hit me today...Christmas is already ahead of me, I need to actually get on top of this!

I've been so busy with school work and finals coming up that I have not thought about the Holidays at all. When it snowed yesterday, I loved the feeling and it made me think of Christmas! Then this morning I was thinking of all the people who are getting me gifts and how I need to make sure I go shopping for them soon, the tree isn't even up yet!! 

It is still somewhat early in December but I know the time will fly if I don't start doing anything now because then it will creep up on me and I will only have time to do all of my things Dec 23rd! 

Tomorrow I will be thinking of a time this week to set up the tree, maybe tuesday?! I will also need to start going to the stores this week for xmas gifts and to start brainstorming, and I need to make a list of all the gifts I need to get everyone! ;) Ah there is so much to do! Hopefully once school slows down I will be able to be more on top of this but school never slows down!

Hopefully tomorrow I will have a few things accomplished christmas related like maybe having a list of things I need to do! We will see how much time I have tomorrow...


Thought I would also share this photo because Bear seems to have all the time in the world these days! ;)

And thought I would share this other picture of what I've been doing all day besides schoolwork, drinking tea out of my new favorite starbucks cup, love me some mermaids! :D

Trying Something New

It seems I've been in reflection mode for awhile now, I've been having my ups and downs of moods, maybe it's the holidays? I really have no clue but I have been doing a lot of thinking about it. 

I realized that sometimes as we get older we feel that we need to rush to have some kind of plan whether that be trying to be with someone, finishing school right away/getting a career, trying to have children, etc. In my case lately I think it has been trying to please everyone and not being alone.

My schedule has become so busy lately that I feel guilty when my friends or family wants to see me and I don't have the time but say yes anyway. I found out that sometimes you have to take a few steps back and not always say yes. If you don't take a break or do something for yourself, it can make things worse. For me, it got to the point where it put me behind in school in some moments or I was being pulled in all directions trying to make everyone happy that I became so drained and unhappy which is not okay.

As for the not being along concept, I'v been in relationships over the last few years and have tried being with someone, but I think that I THOUGHT I needed to do those things to be happy which isn't the case. I wondered why I felt so alone sometimes and I realized that maybe I was trying every angle of being happy with someone or thinking I needed to be with someone when sometimes being alone and being happy for yourself can be the best thing. I also realized that it's not the best idea to dwell when something doesn't work out with another person because if you let it, it can make you unhappy and feel bad about yourself when it may have had nothing to do with you in the first place. It's important to remember that just because something doesn't work out with ONE person, it does not mean the end of the world or that you are going to end up along. There have been moments where I have sat there and thought Wow this really hurts, I don't want to date again because I don't want to feel this way again or It must have been me, now it's never going to work out with someone else. We have to go through all of these hard feelings in order to learn and grow more about ourselves. It also helps to remember that if someone doesn't like you or want to be with you, it's their loss because if they can't accept your for who you are then what is the point of even trying to convince them? There is no point! You can never convince someone to like you, be with you, or be your friend. Another great thing I learned was that I AM NEVER alone because I had to sit back and look around to what really mattered in my life. My friends, family, what makes me happy, etc. We are all going to have bad days or days where we feel down but it's important to remember the good things already in you're life and what makes you happy. Glad I finally posted this!

Old Friends

This is not too common for me to be writing about my weekend before it's even over...but I couldn't help but blog about it anyway...

Yesterday was a pretty short day that consisted of my first class being cancelled, which was a good thing but still had to go to all the way to class to find out it was cancelled because there was no email about it, just written on the board in class...then I got to see some old college friends during lunch which was nice because I got to catch up with them and hadn't laughed that much in awhile :) my last class was not too long, under 40 minutes thankfully and then had to go run errands with my friend which paid off because I got to pick up my car from the mechanic. I was happy to get the car back, but it was very expensive just for an inspection, but hopefully we will be getting a new car sometime soon...that night also I got to see an old friend from high school which was nice because it's been awhile. 

Today must have been the best day though because of all the people I got to see. I woke up late, but finally got to Beverly to see Jimmy! It had been a little while since I had seen him last since he is an hour away from me. We were going to go to Salem but it was too crowded and parking was not anywhere to be found so we decided to just stay close to campus. We first went to a small candy store where everything is all homemade and it reminded me of the little shops I used to go to in the white mts. I bought a lot of milk chocolate and truffles which made my belly happy :) We then went up the road a little where we came to a little town where there were lots of shops and we found an organic/healthy food shop place called Wild Oats. The store had a ton of vitamins, healthy food, and other products. I bought a few things: hummus, soup, shower gel from alba with coconut milk in it, and moisturizer with shea butter, it's hard to find such good organic stuff near home so I was excited when Jimmy and I found this shop. We grabbed food after at a little sub shop up the street and had grilled cheese with tomatoes, which I haven't had in awhile, it was so delicious. We also got to play frisbee for awhile by the beach which was amazing because Jimmy lives right on the Ocean. :) We eventually grabbed dinner and I ate so much I was happily full :) 

When I got home I passed out because I was exhausted, but when I woke up I finally decided to go out and visit a few more old friends :) We got to play pool for a few hours, and I won once but then lost after that miserably! Tomorrow I get to see family from Virginia and more old friends, so so far this weekend has been great because I have seen so many old friends and got to relax, which doesn't happen too often these days. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be nice enough to do apple picking or have a picnic! :D