Bucket List Bandwagon

Summer Bucket Lists are popping up everywhere - and really, I can't find a reason to NOT jump on board with the blog trend.

Join me, won't you? Here we go!

background image via Tumblr

Spend time at the pool.
I mentioned awhile back that we've started the grand ol' House Hunt of 2015. While we're pretty pumped (read: terrified) at the thought of homeownership, we realize that said House may not come with access to a pool. In the year that we've been at our current place, we've visited the pool a handful of times. When it's not crowded and the weather is right, being in and around the pool is pretty great.


Eat a s'more.
Add me to the millions of other people who have said this already, but s'mores are best in the summer. I've melted many a marshmallow on my stove with a butter knife, and if you're nowhere near a campfire or grill it's DEFINITELY the next best thing. COUNT ME IN.


Hop in a kayak.
One of my favorite places to be.

Folly Beach, SC

Beach getway.
It's a must. Even for just a couple of days.


Disconnect.
Unplug and pay attention when I'm with those I care about. I love Instagram, but I love people more.


Go on an adventure.
Day trips to new places can be oh-so-wonderful.


Conquer a fear (or two?).
YIKES. This one is scary (obvious much?), but must be done. What's life if it's not a little bit exciting once in awhile?


Run more.
Not for distance or exercise. Just for fun.

credit: Tumblr

Write more.
Even if it's just blogging more. Writing was my first love, and it's a wonderful, soothing outlet for me.


Buy fresh flowers.
There's something about having fresh flowers in a vase that makes everything seem prettier. It really brightens up a room. Even though I've only bought them on occasion since, well, ever...I'm thinking I need to incorporate more of this into my life.

Have a party.
BONUS POINTS if said House is in the picture at this point. Plus ALL THE MORE REASON to BUY THE FLOWERS! :)


Be more positive.
I can be QUITE a downer on the rough days. I declare this...THE SUMMER OF JOY!

{insert George Costanza gif here)


Keep in touch.
Earlier this year, I rebooted my Facebook in an effort to reconnect with folks. However, it only reminded me of why I deactivated it in the first place three-ish years ago. I spent too much time on it, and read status updates instead of actually calling someone. So, this weekend, Facebook went BUH-BYE once again. My goal this summer: keep in touch with those I don't see often. I want to call my people, send them a card or two...or MAYBE even WRITE A LETTER (OLD SCHOOL). We shall see!

Okay people, it's your turn. What's on your summer bucket list?!!!

Friday Thoughts

I've sat down at least TWICE this week to write a post or two, but to be quite honest, there's not a lot going on right now and I thought I'd spare you pointless details about the tacos I made on Tuesday night and the beautiful weather we've had lately.

Don't you love me? :)

However, it's been kind of quiet over here today, and I've found that writing keeps me HIGHLY entertained. So bear with me, because

ONE. There are some people that can go all day at work - all eight hours or so - and still leave looking just as flawless as they did when they arrived that morning. I am NOT one of those people.

Please, somebody, tell me how it's done! How on EARTH do you people keep your hair looking FANTASTIC? How do you keep ALL OF YOUR MAKEUP ON through the day? By noon mine is non- existent and my hair looks A HOT mess.


TWO. Ever since our daycation last weekend, I'm in full-blown vacay mode. Unfortunately, it's impossible to find a place to stay, um, ANYWHERE near the beach without roughly SIX MONTHS notice. I have an idea or two I'm stewing on, but it MIGHT have to wait until June.

JUNE. Patience is not my strong suit.



THREE. Today we had a baby shower at work. With what appears to be THE MOST fantastic diaper cake I've ever seen in my life.

I kind of want a centerpiece like this for my dining room table. I have a feeling that JUST might be vetoed by a certain tall man wearing a ridiculous hat.


FOUR. Speaking of baby shower, I MOST DEFINITELY bought THESE SHOES for my gift. I have no idea if the couple were registered anywhere, but as soon as I heard the words "baby girl gift" my mind IMMEDIATELY said "GLITTER."

 

THEY EVEN HAVE CUPCAKES ON THE INSIDE.
DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW THIS AFFECTS ME???

If I found these in adult sizes I would most certainly own them by now.

FIVE. It's been five months since our St. Jude race in Memphis, and my knee/leg issue has FINALLY healed up. So I'm celebrating tomorrow by - WHY NOT - doing a 5K, because the weather has been fantastic lately and all I want to do is RUN THE RACES.

Fingers crossed that my leg really is, in fact, healed up and there will be no hobbling like last time! :)


SIX. Every year around this time I catch myself thinking about how nice it must be to be teacher with summer break right around the corner. But THEN I remember how scary it must be to be outnumbered by small children and/or teenagers, and then crawl back into my cube to continue sending emails to people who are not, technically, children.


SEVEN. The Hannah and Kaylee Show. Gets me EVERY TIME. Watch their stuff and just TRY not to laugh.

EIGHT. I saw this yesterday and was THISCLOSE to sending it to Hubs at work. Considering the fact that we don't exactly have a dog (or any kind of pet) I'm thinking it will not fly.

A girl can dream.

Have a great weekend everybody! And to all those mamas out there -- Happy Mother's Day!

Friday Thoughts

Friday!!!!!

It's Friday and THIS is my HAPPY DANCE:::::::::::

Thoughts for today:

one. No sign of Royal Baby #2 yet. However, here is a royal slideshow that tracks The Royals' road to Baby #2. It's silly, but I had a jolly good giggle. 

two. They're calling this whole she-bang The Great Kate Wait. This MIGHT be taking it a leeeeettle too far, people. And that's coming from ME.

three. Since we've started The Great House Hunt of 2015, all I can think about in terms of requirements is that I MUST, at some point in time, be able to have a PORCH BED. Don't you want to come drink coffee with me IN MY PORCH BED????

...aaaand now I want a nap.

four. I took one of those crazy surveys last week to see "Which Steel Magnolia Character" I was. My result?

NAILED IT.

Oh Ouiser. You've ALWAYS been my favorite :)

five. I also took a quiz to find out "My Spirit Animal" or some nonsense.

Does anyone know what a PANGOLIN is? Except for GROSS?

Apparently it's some sort of "scaly anteater" creature or something. I'm NOT sure how I feel about this.

six. Last week I got my very first monogram! I'm only a year and a half late, but who's counting, right? ;) The Mister and I were shopping around in this CUTE little home store here, and when I saw the color of this hat I knew I just HAD to have it with a monogram. Didn't they do a great job???

It's coral with navy writing. I am IN LOVE and now I want to monogram ALL THE THINGS.

seven. This week I finished reading Melanie Shankle's "Nobody's Cuter Than You." Let me tell you, this book made my heart SO HAPPY like none other. It's the sweetest, funniest thing, and you feel like she is right there telling you every single story. I laughed and smiled so much while reading this book...and it made me REALLY miss all of my ladies!!!

HIGHLY recommend this one, people ;)

source

That's all for today - have a great one!

Friday Thoughts

We made it! It's FRIDAY and the work week is done!

Sort of. I have to work tomorrow but it involves FOOD so WHO CARES?!

I'll be sure to report back when fun has been had. :)

Meanwhile --- a list for Friday!


---


ONE. Remember last week when I said I was doing a midnight experiment for the Mister's work party and then proceeded to talk about Gilmore Girls in a rather loopy fashion?

Well, people -- we had success.

Thanks to Pinterest, a last-minute Kroger run, and an inordinate amount of CHEESE, we pretty much made the easiest and most successful dish in the history of our short marriage.

Let me present to you...THE Pizza Bread.

If you're in a bind and need to bring some kind of appetizer/side dish/wow factor/etc. to a party or whatnot, please believe me when I tell you that THIS IS IT. Thankfully I grabbed a small bite before Hubs took it to work, because there was NONE left when he returned. I found the recipe on Pinterest, but you can find the original pinner HERE.

TWO. I'm trying to convince everyone around me that me getting a dog is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY right now despite the fact that we are in an apartment and still house hunting.

A friend of mine accidentally adopted a dog when it wondered into her yard and needed a home, but my friend cannot keep it at the moment. OF COURSE my puppy fever has reached an all-time high, thus convincing me that I NEED THIS PUPPY and now it's all I can think about.

Not to mention the fact that I cry and feel the need to rescue any animal I see that doesn't immediately have a human at its side.

Except for snakes, of course. Snakes are evil.
And owls. But we won't get into that.

THREE. I feel about 30 years older than I really am. Not in terms of maturity - gracious, no (HA) -- but physically. I bought WRINKLE CREAM a few weeks ago (???). I'm tired and ready to go to bed at 8pm, which means usually I reallllly want to eat supper at 5:30 p.m. Early bird special, anyone?

I also keep hearing myself say things like "I just don't understand kids today" and "Wellllll when we were their age we didn't have {insert nostalgia here}!!!"

Plus, DID I MENTION THE WRINKLE CREAM?

My life is a party, I tell you this.



FOUR. Someone called me "Linda" today in an email. I have no idea where this came from.



FIVE. I made these Red Velvet Pancakes from Southern Living magazine recently and WHOA. As someone who's not a huge fan of pancakes, I kind of inhaled these. What a great recipe.

Also, I'm a lousy blogger and deleted the one picture I took of them. So this puppy picture will HAVE to do.

Yes. A puppy is A MUST right now.

Link Lovin'

The weekend is ALMOST HERE! Just a little while longer to push through and then the weekend is ours!

IthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcan!

To get us through the next little bit, here are a few things I've read/seen this week that I wanted to share. Hope you enjoy these as much as I did!

...

This Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese from How Sweet It Is. I want NEED this in my belly ASAP. Still drooling over that one.

JIMMY FALLON. Usually enough said, right? USUALLY. But this week? DOUBLE WHAMMY. That Saved By the Bell Reunion PLUS the Fresh Prince Remix? Had me smiling all week.

If only we could all age as gracefully as these folks. WOW.

via

Major kudos to the writers of this. It was basically perfection.

PLUS -- did anybody notice the Screech look-a-like in the background? Or was that just me?

Andie Mitchell's Tedx talk from last year. I love everything about her presentation. Her poise, her story, her optimism, her realness. Seriously cannot wait to read her book.

Jen Hatmaker's post "On Becoming A Writer." It's been a lifelong dream of mine to write a book (or series), so naturally I soaked in basically every word of this.

The Big Boo Cast podcast. Technically, this was posted last week, but I'm still giggling about it this week. I love these podcasts between Melanie and Sophie - they are hilarious and I had to try my hardest to control my obnoxious laughter at work while listening to this one.

Today's Entertainment post on The Pioneer Woman. Romantic, rom-com, or not, these are GREAT movies. And there's a whole section dedicated to The Princess Bride. Love it!

Aaaaaaas youuuuu wissssshhh....