A Week of Surprises & Festive Fun

Another whirlwind of a week has come and gone! It really feels like the closer we get to the end of the year the fast time flies. There's just so much that needs to get done! This past week was no different.

The first major thing of note happened last Thursday when I came home to a mysterious Amazon package. All of my gifts that I had ordered online were accounted for, but I wasn't sure if I had ordered something and forgot, or that Brett sneakily ordered me something for our anniversary the next day (he swore he didn't -- I was skeptical). I finally opene dup th ebox and it turned out to be What If It's Us by Adam Silvera & Becky Albertalli sent from my good buddy Michael! It was such a surprise and so fun to come home to that after a long day of work!

Brett and I celebrated our 6th anniversary on Friday (!!!) and as we're trying to save up for the next step of our life (hopefully moving closer to Boston within the next year), we still wanted to celebrate, so we went out for a yummy dinner at a local Japanese restaurant for delicious sushi and scorpion bowls (our scorpion bowl was called the Godzilla - amazing). It's so wild that's it's been 6 years since our first date and it was great to have a chance to spend some time just the two of us before hoping right back into the insanity of the holiday season.

Saturday we went out to Brett's family's house for their annual holiday get together for food, drink, family, and a gift exchange! We had such a fun time hanging out with everyone. Everyone really enjoyed the gifts we got them (Sophia LOVED her books! I may or may not be conspiring to turn her into a little book worm... 😇

The biggest surprise of the evening was when Brett brought out a gift for me from EVERYONE, and it turns out that everyone came together and got me a NINTENDO FREAKING SWITCH for Christmas! 😭😭😭 If you read this year's Dear Santa post, you'll know this is one of the items that I would have LOVED to receive for Christmas this year. And welp... I got my Christmas wish! I am so grateful for everyone who came together to give me this extremely generous gift. I've already been playing it a bunch and I can't wait to continue!

This week has been my last week of work before we head down to Florida tomorrow (!!!) and as predicted it has been hectic AF. I tried my hardest on Sunday to get a ton of things done (groceries, editing, pre-filming, packing, etc.) but I was battling feeling kind of dizzy throughout the day and had to take lots of breaks to lay down. UGH. Always so frustrating when you don't feel well but also have a to-do list that's a mile long!

This week was packed with holiday festivities including two holiday parties, a night of making SO MANY COOKIES, a cookie swap (for the aforementioned cookies) and a festive readathon, all while trying to get mentally and physically prepared for taking nearly two weeks away from home over the holidays. WHEW. It's been a lot, but it's also been so fun in the mean time! Usually the busy-ness of the season really stresses me out, but this year I really seem to be enjoying it. (Although, not gonna lie, now that I've had time to breathe this afternoon the anxiety has been knocking on my mental door. 😣)

My TBR pile for the Christmas at Hogwarts readathon that is happening this week.

Blue circle: Lupita being *real* comfortable under the blankets
Red circle: Brett hanging on for dear life to the edge of the bed
Lupita's really pushing her boundaries when she sleeps in bed with us recently 😂

Enjoying one of my reads for Christmas at Hogwarts ♥️

I made chocolate covered Oreos for our staff Christmas party, both white and milk chocolate. The white chocolate are above. They were a huge hit with both my staff and Brett! 😂
You can find the recipe I followed here!

It's always so hard to say goodbye to Lupita and Poppy when we have to leave for a long period of time.
We always miss them so much! This is the cuteness we had to leave behind this morning... 😭

Today was my last day of work before a beautiful 12-day vacation! We're flying out of Boston tomorrow morning, so instead of driving all the way back to our place in central MA tonight just to drive all the way to the airport in the morning, Brett and I thought it would be smartest for us to stay with a friend in the city instead, which means he came to work with me today! I tend to get into work about an hour early as to beat traffic, so we went to one of my favorite breakfast spots in the area called In a Pickle in the time we had before the work day started.

My epic waffle at In a Pickle this morning. Leslie Knope would be proud. 

After breakfast we headed to the office, where I gave him a tour of the building that I work in and he got to meet my staff for the first time which was so much fun! He's been hearing all about my new job and my new staff for months now so I was happy he got the chance to come to campus with me for a day.

And he came on such a fun day as well! Our entire division did a Cookie Swap, which I had never participated in before, but was actually a lot of fun! The idea is that each person brings in a bunch of cookies of their own recipe, then we all set out our cookies and we get to take a variety of cookies from everyone else! We wound up with SO MANY MORE COOKIES than we brought, which was weird because I still have an entire box of cookies from what I made left over. 😂 Either way, it was a fun festive activity that I had never done before, so I was glad I got to participate.

I brought Peanut Butter Fudge No-Bake Cookies, which are some of my all time faves. I forgot to snap a photo for the blog, but you will be able to see them in my Happy Vlogidays Week 3 Vlog (which should go live this weekend) AND you can find the recipe I used here! It's actually super easy and produces the most delicious peanut butter chocolatey goodness you can imagine. YUM.

And that catches us up to right now, as I sit on our friend's couch typing this post and Brett snoozes next to me. I'll be waking him up in a bit so we can order dinner, but not before I get some Christmas at Hogwarts reading done. I may even pop open the champagne my director gifted me and sneak some of the cookies we swapped from this afternoon. The less I have to carry on the plane, the better, right? 😉 

Like I mentioned, we'll be flying down to Florida in the morning to spend Christmas with my parents. I'm SO looking forward to seeing them, Kiwi, and Mikey, and getting some sunshine. It is much needed! It'll be such a great holiday and I'm so happy it's here. 🌞 

What are you doing this weekend? Have any plans for the last few days of the year?

Let me know in the comments!

LINKS I LOVED THIS WEEK

Hogwarts House Uniform Wearable Snuggie-Like Throw Blanket from Geekologie

So Much Christmas Spirit: Video Of A Guy In A Truck Completely Covered In Christmas Lights Doing Donuts At Night from Geekologie

Home Alone Again with the Google Assistant from YouTube

Grasshopper Brownie Cookies from Oh My Veggies!

Taking the Control Back

Happy November everyone!

From Brett's game on Saturday. This scene just looked so quintessential autumn that I needed to snap a pic!
Bonus: they won their game. :)

Last month I picked out  a fun desktop wallpaper for my work computer to help me get into the Halloween spirit and I loved looking at a festive wallpaper every time I minimized my windows, so I thought I'd pick a new one for November! Like the Halloween wallpaper, I got this adorable pie wallpaper from Sarah Hearts. This was her November 2016 wallpaper freebie and I couldn't resist. I am so pumped for Thanksgiving this year - more pumped than usual - and this image just makes me so happy and excited! :D

Download from Sarah Hearts

I've been talking a lot about how my mental health has not been the best as of late, and it really took a toll on me last month. It's getting to the point where I am just SO TIRED of feeling the way I'm feeling and if something didn't change very soon, I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to pull myself out of it. So, at the end of October, I sat down with my bullet journal and wrote out a specific plan of action to take back control of my mental and physical well being. I'm not going to share with you what I wrote as I would like to keep that close to my heart, but I will let you know that I've taken up fitness planning and getting back into my #plannergirl groove!

I'm using my Kate Spade Wellesley as my fitness planner and in there I'm keeping a food log and exercise log. I've had the Kate Spade Wellesley for literal years and have never used it, mainly because I'm not the biggest fan of the personal size ringed planners. I've always needed more space! But I thought that this would be the perfect size to take to the gym with me without it being too cumbersome. I'm so glad I'm finally using this beautiful planner more regularly! I've already been learning so much about my habits and identifying what I need to change, especially when it comes to my diet. #sugarfiend

I've also been shamelessly decorating my bullet journal and my KS with stickers, cute clips, and washi, just like I did once I first got interested in glam planning. It makes me so happy to look at my planners which is fantastic because that's half the battle of staying on top of your lists - actually looking at them! Honestly I'm feeling so motivated to plan and work toward my goals right now and it's been a long time since I could honestly say that. :)

Autumn has been really putting on a show for us in these early days of November. I took Poppy out for a walk on Sunday afternoon and just couldn't stop taking photos. I complain about the weather getting colder non-stop, but I really can't argue that New England really is so gorgeous in the fall! It's too bad that we really only get these gloriously gold and red trees for a week or two before all the leaves fall, but they're amazing while they last!

My physical TBR for #BorrowAThon Round 5

We're in the swing of #BorrowAThon Round 5 at the moment and, as always, it is so much fun. I say it every round, and I may be biased, but the community around BorrowAThon is honestly the best. Everyone is so sweet and encouraging and funny - I'm always so happy whenever BorrowAThon rolls around! I can't wait for the BorrowAThon Live Show this upcoming Friday. It'll be at 6PM EST on my channel - feel free to join us, even if you're not participating! :)

Lupita fell asleep on my hand on the couch yesterday morning. Was seriously considering calling out of work as to not to disturb the cuteness. XD

I voted yesterday in the midterms. If you're an eligible voter, I hope you did too! I was really excited to vote, but I was REALLY excited about the fact that my polling place had stickers. Since becoming a resident of Massachusetts 3.5 years ago, none of my polling places I voted at have had them for any election. Of course, I wore it loud and proud all day yesterday! ;) All jokes aside, I'm so happy I live in a country where I get to participate in how it's being run. That's not something everyone in the world gets to say! If you missed this election for one reason or another, I strongly encourage you to make every effort to vote in the next. Our right to vote is not something we should take for granted!

This weekend is Richmond Marathon weekend! I'm flying down Friday morning and running on Saturday and I'M SO NERVOUS!!! I think it will be fine, but I'm honestly going into this race with no clue as to how it could potentially go. I'm sure I'm going to reach the finish line, but I just hope that the journey there isn't too excruciating! ^_^" Either way, it will be good to see my pal Erin and to test my body to cover 26.2 miles once again. I'll be updating you all next Wednesday via a race review and I am planning on vlogging so hopefully that comes together for you all as well. Wish me luck!!! <3

LINKS I LOVED THIS WEEK

Parent Trap Halloween Costumes from Carly the Prepster

A Unicorn Performing a Gymnastics Bar Routine from Geekologie

That made my day by @PopularPups on Twitter

A farm put together 31 days worth of puppy Halloween costumes from Twitter
An Inktober series completely dedicated to "Medium-Rare Vines" from Twitter

New Job, One Month In

On a walk with Zoe at Golden Hour this past weekend!

A few months ago, I stated that I wanted to make an effort to write a non-video blog post once a week on Wednesdays. Then my whole life got insane with my job search and that plan when to the gutter. :P Now that I've got a bit more of a handle on my life, I thought I could bring that idea back and give little life updates each week to let you know ~what's going on~ and get back to my blogging roots. I feel like life has been whizzing by lately and I want to take some moments each week to share what's been up!

Panorama of the West Coast sunset at Baker Beach when I secretly went to San Francisco in July for a job interview! So happy I was able to sneak in a visit to the Golden Gate Bridge during my 36 hour stay!

Saturday was the one month mark of being at my new job and I'm confused at how quickly this milestone came, but at the same time confused at how I've only been working at my new campus for such a short amount of time. It feels like I've been here forever and no time at all. How is that possible?

I feel like I've been adjusting to my new position really well. I feel like I've been connecting really well with my colleagues, bringing a lot of my strengths* to the table, and learning every day. Of course, if we're being completely honest, all of the change has been overwhelming from time to time, but I'm lucky enough to have so many kind and understanding people on my staff that make the transition so much easier and coming into work every day so much fun!

I'm in charge of the Activities Fair. I think this semester's event was a big success!

The new academic year hasn't come without it's various challenges. My morning commute is nearly 2 hours with the Boston traffic, and my afternoon commute is not that much easier. I'm adjusting to a new sleep schedule (up by 5AM and so tired I can't keep my eyes open by 9PM) and coming to terms with what my new amount of free time looks like. Brett's been crazy busy with football, as usual, which has been tough as we rarely get to spend quality time together. However, through all of the challenges, we are both making the best of what we have, understanding that this will be temporary, and having as much fun as possible when we are together.

Chillin' with the pups (our favorite thing to do) and a dinner out at Ichigo!

This weekend we're heading to a wedding which should be a lot of fun. I don't have a tone of formal wedding wear (most of my closet is work clothes or athletic wear), so I went out and bought this really cute pastel pink Calvin Klein dress earlier this week at Marshall's (originally $139.99, bought it for $39.99 #score) that I'm pumped to wear! It'll be great to get the chance to have a few drinks with B and dance the night away. Definitely need to blow off some steam!

Not a typical color I go for, but I'm excited about this find!

Hopefully I will do better about keeping this blog up to date through these busy weeks! There's so much I'd love to record and remember and sometimes things just move so quickly that I forget to take a moment to reflect. Here's to hoping I can stay on to of the ball over here on this corner of the internet and work to make this more of a place for memory keeping! See you next week... hopefully. ;)