Day 8: A Piece of Advice

Challenge: Day 8: A Piece of Advice

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I have a few pieces of advice for all of you out there...
Marriage Advice: Do some sort of pre-wedding counseling.  Whether it be through your religious affiliation or not, it is really important and I can't stress this enough. Yes, you know your future spouse, I mean, you agreed to marry that person! But there are inevitably topics that you have yet to cover. Trust me! Rich and I only had phone calls and skype dates for the majority of our relationship, so we pride ourselves on our communication skills. Even when the marriage counselling came up, there were topics that we hadn't really talked about and this was a great way to get the conversation started.
Wedding Day Advice: Take about 20-40 minutes to spend time alone with each other. This just happened upon us. We hadn't thought about it. No one told us to do it. Between our ceremony and the reception (and all of the pictures and bustling my dress and and and) our caterer/day-of coordinator set up a tray of hors-dourves and champagne for us in a tucked away room. Away from the guests and the cameras, the flowers and the food to just be together. The room we were in was upstairs and had a big window looking down on the entire reception venue so as we basked in this amazing day we watched our guests enjoy the reception venue. It was magical. We were able to sneak away and spend some alone time together in peace and quiet and shrieks of excitement!
Work Advice: Make sure you are ergonomically set for your body type and drink a lot of water. I can.not. stress this enough. With the way technology is advancing these days, I cannot see moving away from sitting at a desk all day, typing away on a computer keyboard and staring at a computer monitor. Make sure that you are in an as ergonomic friendly position as you can be; if you can stand, stand! And make sure to drink a lot of water, for 2 reasons. 1) To stay hydrated! Obviously. And 2) So it forces you to get up from your desk and walk to the bathroom. Take frequent 1-2 minute breaks to stretch and look at something aside from your computer monitor. Break up your tasks with computer and other tasks that you may have that involves other muscles, and limbs! (Need help: check this out)
Life Advice: Your body is a temple, you only have one so take good care of it. Thanks, mom! This cannot be more true in more ways than one. Keep your mind learning, your body active and your heart loving. If you are lacking stimulation in any of the aforementioned categories, change up your routine! Run a new route, eat a new food, read a new article. Keep up with current events so you can engage in intelligent conversations with people aside from your spouse and your parents. Teach yourself a new language, start a new hobby, don't dwell on the things that hurt you in the past, forgive. All of these things keep us young at heart and wrinkle free!
Happy Hump Day everyone!

Day 7. The Thing(s) I'm Most Afraid Of

Challenge: The thing(s) I'm Most Afraid Of

~ Public restrooms with stalls
{insert scene from a horror film here}

~ The Ocean
The thought of its vastness terrifies me! I mean, c'mon, there are animals in the ocean that are as big as 747s! And there is more than 1! How is that not scary!?

~ My family and friends dying
yes, I know, morbid, but it's true!

~ Falling on my face and losing my teeth
Vain, yes I know, but what could be worse? (ok, a lot of things...lets not go there)

Why I Started Blogging..

I saw this link up last week and thought it would be fun to read some of my first blog posts. You can find my very first one here.
Wow! ha!

Reading this made me smile and it brought me back to that time in my life. The summer of 2009. This was the summer I was supposed to graduate from college. But since I couldn't make up my mind on what I wanted to major it, I had another year left. I was working in housing and for a private equity company Downtown San Francisco. I had not a care in the world except to get some work experience and have fun. I had been with my boyfriend (now husband) for almost a year. We had endured a deployment and lived apart for most of our relationship. We met through the lovely woman who I dedicated my first blog post to - his sister, my Alpha Gamm sister, my friend.

I started out writing about: current events - hello, what happened to Michael Jackson, Relationships, Inspiration,  Restaurant Reviews, Youtube Videos and Recipes (which is still make, to.this.day.) - all while incorporating fun colors and fonts what was i thinking?!

This blog has definitely gone through a lot - life, jobs, friends, travel, family, moving, life, health, wedding, moving, fitness, marriage, well being, recipes/food, family, friends, travel, life. I have kept up with this blog daily, weekly, monthly. I have neglected it. I had it designed, I designed it myself.

This blog really does represent who I am, what I am going through and what is important to me. Of course life isn't perfect, I don't use this space of mine to complain and vent about the bad things, I use it to highlight the fun/exciting/beautiful things that I am up to and what is most important in my life. I mean seriously, who wants to read about what 'Debbie Downer' is doing? No one.

I use this blog to catalog my life and share it with my family and friends. To keep in touch. I use this blog as a portal to keep it touch with my friends in far away places and learn new and exciting things.

Thanks for reading!
And going on a trip down memory lane with me! ;-)

Day 6: What Do I Do

Challenge: If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question, 'what do you do'?



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The best way that I can explain what I do is by thinking about the last month or so and consider what I did when I wasn't working, or what I do when I get home from work.
On my off-the-clock time-during-the-week, I... ...read ...run/exercise ...catch up on "my"shows ...chat on the phone with friends and family - or we video chat ...cook ...eat ...blog
On my off-the-clock-time-on-the-weekends, I... ...go on morning walks with Rich for a coffee date ...visit friends and family ...cook ...exercise ...celebrate date nights ...read
I am in the process, now, of getting my tefol/tesol certificate, so that is taking up my free time. We are planning a summer trip, so that is taking up some of my free time.
I like to make our house as homey as possible.  I enjoy spending time with my husband - he is pretty cool ;-) I am an aspiring food blogger. I sometimes wish I was a photographer.
I do so many things, it is hard to keep up with it all!

Day 5 - Profess Your Love for Someone

Today I would like to profess my love for my Alpha Gamm Sisters! Near and Far. Friends and Family. Sisters I've met, and other I have yet to meet. Alpha Gamma Delta has become part of me. I have absolutely loved every moment spent with my beautiful, brave, strong, loving, courageous sisters and I look forward to life time more of memories in the making.
One of the best parts of being an Alpha Gamm is that our mascot is a squirrel. The next best part is that we send funny pictures and videos of squirrels to each other and love.it.
The video is in French, and since I don't know the language I muted it and read the subtitles!

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Day 4: Favorite Quote

Challenge: Favorite Quote

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I was perusing pinterest and saw this quote. 

There are a lot of great things in life and it is easy to miss them because of fear.

And this quote spoke to me - when the going gets tough...

Hang in there, there is a reason and purpose for everything.

Find joy in what you do.

You only have one life.

Live it.

Love it.

Source: sueswink.tumblr.com via Collin on Pinterest

Day 3: Things that Make You Uncomfortable

Challenge: Things that make you uncomfortable
This is a tough one. I am not one to get uncomfortable easily. And as I sit here thinking about things that make me uncomfortable, the list I come up with is a list of fears, which we will talk about on Day 7 - I don't want to steal any 's thunder!
So the one thing that comes easily to my mind is that I am uncomfortable being the complete center of attention. I am pretty sure that the only reason I ugly cried (I mean, who doesn't ugly cry?) when I walked down the aisle on my wedding day was because every.single.guest was watching me. I mean, naturally - who else would they be looking at - but still...

composing myself...

I love to entertain and be around people but when all.eyes.are.on.me my heart races, I start to sweat and I instantly want to cry! I just get so overwhelmed. Mostly, its an ImSoHappyThatEveryoneIsTogether kind of cry...I'm kind of a mess, I guess, when it comes to that!

Day 2 - Edumacation!

Challenge: Educate us on something you know alot about or are good at. Take any approach you'd like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)

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Anyone who lives in LA or has driven through LA knows that driving can be a stressful task. You have to leave at least an hour before you need to be somewhere, even if it’s 5 miles away and if you want to go to the beach, and its sunny and beautiful out, you know you have a long day in the car ahead of you.

Another great part about driving in LA is that everyone is so inpatient. No one is considerate and everyone has somewhere more important to be than you.

I thought that for today's challenge I would write about how not to get honked at while driving in LA. Enjoy!

5 ways to avoid being honked at in LA

1. Gun it when the light turns green at an intersection, if you stall for even an instant you are doomed!

2. Run the red light to make that left hand turn, so will the 3 cars behind you!

3. Use your blinker, we aren’t all mind readers!

4. Don’t fully stop at stop signs, ain’t nobody got time for that!

5. Don’t follow any traffic laws, be aggressive, and put everyone around you in danger!

Happy Driving!

Source: fkgl.tumblr.com via Manfred Kwakman on Pinterest