Happy Friday

Whoa. This week just seemed to zip by!  Does anyone else feel like they were hit hard by the time change?  I know it was only by an hour, but I still have felt “off” this past week.  I feel like I was a little bit on auto pilot for most of the week.  But I’m also glad to have the nice warm weather (it’s been in the 90’s this week!) and the longer, lighter days.

This afternoon after work, Shawn and I are heading up north again for the weekend.  I’m excited to escape the heat for the weekend and see my family.  We, well I guess I, have a 3-day weekend so it’ll be nice to not have to rush back down to LA after church.  We can actually enjoy our Sunday afternoon.  And I’m especially looking forward to this particular Sunday afternoon…

This “Happy Friday” post will be somewhat short since I really didn’t have much time to spend on the computer going through articles and such. But here are a few that did end up sticking out to me, so I hope you enjoy them!

1. 7 Signs Your Twenties Aren’t Going as Planned – Uh hello! Anyone else going through that “quarter life crisis”, as I like to call it? I was just talking to one of my good friends the other night and it’s a scary time going through that ‘college student to real life’ transition. I’ll be the first one to admit that my twenties aren’t going as I planned, but I’m still getting there.  Maybe slower than I thought, and with many more doubts, but I’m still getting there.  Just not in the timing that I planned. Which I also will admit, has been hard for me since I’m such a planner.

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2. The Key to Better Sleep is an Organized Bedroom – Because I have a roommate, the majority of the things are crammed into my room.  I’ve been doing a better job about going through everything every week to throw out stuff I’m not using, or donating clothes I don’t wear anymore.  At the beginning of the year, I even started using the hanger method.  (For those of you who don’t know what the hanger method is, it’s when you turn all your hangers around backwards and when you actually wear those clothes you turn them around the correct way.  At the end of the year, all the clothes that have not been turned around, you donate!)  But I totally agree with this article.  Coming home to a nice clean room, with a made up bed, and a clean desk is so much more relaxing after a long day at school or work.

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3. Frozen 2 – As much as I love Frozen, I don’t know if I can exactly get behind a Frozen 2.  But I guess we’ll have to see how Disney works it all out.

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Happy Friday

Wow did this week go by quickly!  To start, the San Francisco Giants won and they are going to the World Series!! That definitely makes one happy family here.  This past week was filled with some amazing visits with some of my friends, getting and starting a new job, lots of homework (thank you midterm season!), and lots of celebration (Shawn got accepted into the Master’s program at APU!).  Oh, and might I just add, it’s FINALLY starting to look and feel like fall around here.  From my balcony, I can start to see some of the leaves at the tops of trees starting to turn colors, it’s no longer 80+ degrees when I wake up in the morning around 7 AM, and look at this beautiful sunset that we had a couple of days ago.  Note: This photo was taken 1, through a window and 2, it is not edited with any filters.  How amazing is that?!

via Instagram

Okay, now onto some of my favorite things I came across this week that I want to share with you all!

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Sleep is a word that everyone is familiar with and we all wish that we could get more of it, right? This morning I was doing my routine social media scroll on my phone before I got out of bed, and I came across this article that one of my friends had shared on Facebook.  It’s called What Happens If You Don’t Get Enough Sleep.  Okay- well that right there is a definitely intriguing title, so of course I had to read it.  Some of the things I knew happened if you didn’t get a lot of sleep, such as being more irritable and more colds.  But some of them absolutely shocked me- unhappiness, depression, and death are on the list!  This really caught my attention. I absolutely love sleep, however when I was a Freshman in college, I used to not get much sleep.  It didn’t bother me that I only got 4 or 5 hours of sleep.  I was young and wanted to enjoy my college experience. Seriously though- 2 AM Donut Man runs are the BEST.

via Relevant Magazine

Another article that I came across was from Relevant Magazine, and it was about Honoring the Sabbath.  We live in a society that is so busy with something happening in our lives all the time.  How often to do we actually just sit and relax, without thinking about what needs to get done next or where we need to be in the next 15 minutes?  In college, I used to try and honor the Sabbath on Sunday, mostly because I didn’t want to do any of my homework.  But of course, once my choir schedule started picking up, and we started having concerts on Saturday, homework had to be done on Sunday, and there was no way around it.  Thus ended me attempt at honoring the Sabbath.  However, now that my schedule is much different, I really have enjoyed not doing anything on Sundays.  Well, I should explain a little.  I don’t not do anything, but I don’t do work that could be done on other days, such as cleaning the house and doing laundry.  Sundays are time where I spend it with friends (and sometimes family if they’re in town!) and I go to church in the morning, lunch with friends and/or family, and then head over to Shawn’s house for the afternoon, which usually leads us to going to his church’s Sunday evening family service, where we teach Sunday School.  So I’m not exactly not doing anything, but I enjoy what I’m doing and I always feel rested and ready to conquer another week!

I’m not a big soda person.  I have this weird thing that I don’t drink brown soda. So that leaves me with Sprite and Orange soda.  But I will tell you this- my family (not just my immediate family. My WHOLE ENTIRE FAMILY) keeps the Coca-Cola industry going. Mainly the Diet Coke part.  But I had to share this commercial that Taylor Swift did with her kittens. It’s just too cute not to pass up.  It’s nice to see “nice, family friendly” commercials.  Because a lot of the commercials I’ve been seeing lately, haven’t been the nicest at all!

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HGTV has always been one of my favorite channels to watch on TV.  In the next week or so, my roommate Heidi will be moving out to live with our sister out in the Santa Monica area.  It will definitely be weird not having a roommate, especially since I’ve been living with roommates for the past 4+ years now!  Aside from Pinterest being one of my favorite places to look up decorating ideas and stuff like that, I love watching HGTV and going on their website!  Some of my favorite HGTV shows are Property Brothers, The High Low Project, and Love It or List It.

 

Happy Friday

Do you ever feel that when one thing happens that’s not the best of things, it tends to just snowball from there? That’s how I feel this week has gone. Ever since the beginning of last weekend when things started going crazy, it felt like there was just no time to breathe. There was always something that was happening, or something that needed to get done. In all honesty, I kind of forgot about my blog, despite the fact that I had great ideas of what to do for some of my blog posts I schedule!

But don’t you worry. Next week shouldn’t be as hectic, so I’ll be back to blogging. So for now, I just wanted to share with you some of the fun things that I came across this week to help you get through the day to the weekend!

I like Relevant Magazine, and this morning, there was one article that stood out to me.  It’s called “The Real Danger of Unforgiveness”.  I’m the kind of person who likes to “forgive and forget”, however, I also know how easy it is to still hold a grudge against someone.  Or you end up not forgiving someone because of little petty reasons, and then you can’t get it out of your mind.  I really encourage you to take a look at this article because it’s definitely a good read.

I’ve always loved Resse Witherspoon, so this video was great. And hilarious! These videos are good little 7 minute breaks. 🙂

What have I been doing on Pinterest this week? Well looking at Fall/Christmas decorations of course! Fall time and Christmas is my favorite time of the year. Maybe it’s because my birthday is thrown right in between Thanksgiving and Christmas OR it’s the fact that everyone’s so happy during that time, family and ones you loved are together, and everyone is in the mood for giving to others. (Follow me on Instagram! Also comment with your Instagram handle because I’d love to check out your boards!)

via Mika’s Instagram

I went home last weekend, and I just love the caption that my friend Mika put for this photo on Instagram. “Friends since birth, sisters in Christ, and partners ministry. This picture makes me happy!”  I have to agree. There’s something about looking at this photo that just reminds me of home.  The four of us have been supporting a child from Compassion International for the past 8 years (going on 9).  Let me tell you- this is the absolute coolest thing I think we’ve ever done.  The fact that we can join together to support a child who needs the support for food, schooling, etc.  If you haven’t thought about choosing a child to support, I really encourage you to do it. You can do it through Compassion International or World Vision.

Turning Complaining into Thankfulness

So often I find myself complaining either to myself or whoever I’m talking to at that moment, whether through texting or in person.  “Why is _____ doing _____ wrong?” and “Why can’t _______ just do _______ for me?”.  And of course, the list goes on and on. And I know that I could go on and on. And I am 100% completely guilty of complaining. A LOT.  It’s so easy for us to just quickly (or not so quickly) voice our opinions, which are often complaints.  And I’ve noticed the more I complain, the more I end up being negative about more things and more people.  And then I’m unhappy. And the cycle just continues.

This morning (Note: I’m not waiting to post this at midnight because I think this is an important post!), I did my normal morning routine, kind of, and as I was doing my computer time, I checked out Relevant Magazine, which I usually do at least once during the day.  The article at the top of the page was Complaining Is a Spiritual Problem.  This article was completely calling my name to read it. So I did. And oh my goodness.  The article talked about how we turn complaining into our own little world of negativity, rather than being grateful for what we actually have.  Why complain about having to do laundry and clean the house, when you should really be grateful for having clothes to wash and a home to actually clean (and keep clean too!).

I really encourage you all to read the article and comment and let me know your thoughts!  I love hearing your thoughts and love having conversations about topics like this!

 

Choosing Joy

My whole life people have always said I was always the happy child with a smile on my face.  Of course when I was little, the first few months of my life all I would do is frown…

I stumbled upon this article called “5 Habits That Sabotage Joy” that Relevant Magazine had posted on their Facebook page and it really got methinking.  So often I find myself getting caught up in the struggles of life and the roadblocks that come between us and it’s hard to find happiness in that moment.

Last night I met with my mentor small group, and we were talking about how it’s so easy for us to have an exact plan as to what we’re going to and what we want to do.  And somehow, it never goes exactly how we want it to, because God has His way of steering us into a different direction.  For me, that can be so frustrating, because I just want things to go my way, right now.

In todays society, we’re all so used to getting things instantly and we want things “right now!”.  Patience is something that I know I have to work on.  But it’s not easy.  I was thinking after reading this article about myself and asked myself “How often do I look for joy when things don’t go my way?”.  Why is it that somehow we’ve become this society that is so negative and cynical? And I’ll admit, I’ve fallen into that trap too.  But why is it so hard for us to get out of that trap and find real joy?