August in Favorites.

This month I feel like I wrote a lot, and I've been loving that. But I also did a lot in my real life too! I had a Great Gatsby themed dinner party to celebrate the end of summer. I switched my blog over to self-hosted, which was both excruciating and so great! In the process, I learned how to refrain from verbally stabbing customer service reps. I started a new series about loving your brain and intelligence. I helped some of you lovely bloggers improve your blogs in super simple ways, in less than five minutes (for realz)! I co-hosted the Book Chat with The Tangerine and we talked about required reading books that we've loved and hated. And lots more! What was your favorite post that you wrote in August?



Because we all know bloggers love blogging and reading about blogging, Kenzie from Chasing Happy wrote a To Don't List for bloggers on social media. Jasmine wrote a post with cute pictures overload called Six Reasons My Dog is High-Maintenance. M'lady Kayte got engaged!! Woohoo!!



I'll be honest, school started. Not much book readin' going on in these parts other than school reading. I did read Pride and Prejudice for school (again) and loved it (again). But that's it. Instead, let me share with you what's on my list to be read as soon as I get a spare minute!

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

Have you read any of these? What did you think?



Ophelia // The Band
North Side Gal // J.D. McPherson
Uptown Girl // Billy Joel
Sugar, Sugar // The Archies
You Can Call Me Al // Paul Simon
Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) // Billy Joel
Walk of Life // Dire Straits





Now tell me your favorites this month! What did you blog? What did you read? What music have you been listening to? Share share share!

easy peasy photoshop: make a Pinterest-style collage

Hi everyone! Happy Tuesday! I hope you all have been resting well and enjoying your holiday weekend!

Today I'm sharing something new--my first ever Photoshop tutorial--Pinterest style! Now Photoshop can be really complicated and intimidating, but there's also some really great things you can make with really basic skills. Today we're gonna learn a little bit about 'layers' and how to resize and arrange images.

In the end, I'm going to teach you how to make a Pinterest style collage! I've made a few of these for myself recently and they are just so pretty. You can use quotes and put it on your wall or bathroom mirror. Or you can use fitness photos to keep somewhere that will motivate you! I'm sure y'all could come up with more ideas since you're such intelligent people (:



 

All photos are from my 'Destinations' board on Pinterest.

So we're gonna park on 'layers' for a moment. If you're a little familiar with Photoshop, you can skip these first basics and go to the heading about making the Pinterest-style collage.

Layers in Photoshop is like drawing on a bunch of pieces of transparent papers and then putting them on top of each other. This way you can move around or edit different parts of the pictures fairly easily.

So for instance, the first layer is usually the background, which is plain white. Then, you can put more layers of designs on top. By clicking the little eyeball, you can change which parts of the image are visible. So if you disabled the white background of a picture, it shows a checkered pattern but that means it has a transparent background.

To resize a photo, select the layer you're interested in resizing and go to Edit >> Free Transform. Then you can drag the edges of the picture to make it a different size. This tool is also a great/easy way to drag + drop your pictures.

EXPERT TIP: Watch the percentages of the width and height. You want to make them the same to make sure your picture stays proportional. To resize to a certain dimensions, you can type in the pixels in that little box in the top. Then change your other percentage to make sure it's proportional! Make sure you type in the W/H boxes not X/Y!

And now for the exciting part: making a Pinterest-style collage!

1. Open up a new file in Photoshop. The width should be whatever the width of your text area in your blog is. Mine is 640 pixels for example. The height can be anything, I'd recommend at least 900 pixels and you can crop it later.

2. Select all the pictures you want and copy-paste them into Photoshop. They will all go in separate layers--this is good!



3. In your head (or on a calculator), subtract 30 from your text area width. Then divide it by three. You can round to the nearest whole number; it doesn't have to be that exact. For example: my blog is 640-30 = 610. Divided by 3 is 203. That number is the width that you want all of your pictures to be.

4. Resize all of your photos to that width, using the method above. Don't forget your proportions! I don't want to see stretched pictures. This, below, is bad. Please don't make anyone's eyes look at this.



5. Now, rearrange your pictures (with Edit>>Free Transform) into three columns. Leave a little space between the columns and each picture. If you used my number method, you can have 15 pixels between each column, but you can just eyeball it.

6. Click the little eye next to the BACKGROUND layer. Then click the little arrow on the layer menu and click Merge Visible. And save!

Ta-da!! There you go, your own beautiful Pinterest-style collage.

I think they're prettiest when you mix up vertical and horizontal photographs but it's all up to you!

Get fancy! Make your background a different color! Do not click the little eye (step 6). Instead, select the background layer. Click the little magic wand in your tool box and select magic eraser. Make sure your tolerance box says 1. Click anywhere on the canvas. Press Shift + F5 and select a color!

Now go forth and Photoshop! If you post any to your blog, share the link here so I can see your pretty new skillz! And if you want to be super lovely, you can tweet or pin this lovely tutorial with my icons floating on your left. (:

Weekly Wishes #13: gelato + exercise + antarctica

Is this picture not the most gorgeous thing ever? It's from a NatGeo Expedition to Antarctica. Have you ever seen so many shades of blue? It makes me a bit weak at the knees; I want to see it in person so badly.

Anyways, today, I’m linking up with The Nectar Collective for Weekly Wishes. Yada yada, I do this every week. The Weekly Wishes is where we all can share our posts about goals, challenges, and wishes for the week! 


Last week, I wished for a few things and was fairly. Here’s a recap in order of how successful I was: Basically my goals were to stay on top of my school work and life. I more or less did pretty well! I didn't turn in anything late and even got some decent sleep. I was born to ace this whole school thing.

So it was a pretty good week! I'm not dead yet! Here are my weekly wishes for this coming week:

Exercise! I have gotten really bad about this lately. I'm working on getting my gym membership back up but until then I've been doing Blogilates. That lady is craaaazy! I did Playa del Plank (along with others) and literally had to stop it half way through because my abs were crying. It's sad but it's motivating me to work harder!

Work on my big project with Aukele! I've got something big coming up soon with Aukele and I'm really excited about it! We haven't set a launch date but it'll be up within a few weeks hopefully! We've got some big steps to take this week and I can't wait to see where they'll take us.


I’m just sticking to two goals this week but I think that will be challenging enough!

__________________________________________________

I’m also linking up with Erika for Grad-itude again, a link up about being grateful! I loved looking through everyone else's happy thoughts last week so I'm in it again. Here are three things I’m grateful for right now.

Again, H. Saturday night, I was all alone and had a terrible migraine and the sweet boy drove to three different grocery stores to find me my favorite pistachio gelato (which is also way expensive) just to surprise me and make me feel better! How nice is he?! I told him it deserved a shout-out on the blog--I think he was excited about that.

The day off! I know this is a bit overdone because it seems to be the thing people are most happy about around here, but still! And I have fun plans for today. H is out hunting so I'm hanging out with my mom to sew a little and then my dad and I are hopefully going to choose my senior trip destination and do a little planning. Woohoo! This girl's excited.

Umm well there's a lot of good food in my house...I'm slightly ashamed about this one, but it's making me quite happy right now. We have good tea, good ice cream (thanks H!), good popcorn and good fruit! Happy Allie.

Now head on over to The Nectar Collective & Chimerikal and join the link-ups.

What do you wish for this week? What are you grateful for?

Weekly Wishes #12: pushups + not being dead + bagels

Hey! Announcement! I’m trying to get together enough benjamins (that’s coolspeak for money, y’all) so I can get me a yearlong Passionfruit subscription. If you’re thinking about getting any sort of blog redesign (header, social media buttons, or anything else!), consider me your girl! I’ll even give you $10 off any package until September 1st with code ‘prettyblogsftw’. Help me get my passionfruit! Truly appreciated, guys. Anyways….

 



Hey all. It’s 4am on Monday, you know what that means! It means I can't sleep so why not blog! Yayz. Anyways, today, I’m linking up with The Nectar Collective for Weekly Wishes. The Weekly Wishes is where we all can share our posts about goals, challenges, and wishes for the week! 


Last week, I wished for a few things and was somewhat successful. Here's a recap in order of how successful I was: Firstly, I wished to not die in my first week of school. I passed this one with flying colors! I mean, it wasn't fun and my brain might be dead, but I'm still kickin' y'all! Secondly, I needed to contact teachers about tutoring. I did this! And I already have one student to tutor basically weekly. So that's good!

And thirdly, I made a goal to exercise more which I just horribly flopped on. I did maybe, uh, twenty pushups? And I speedwalked to class. That's about it. I definitely think I underestimated how crazy school would be. But I've got a pickup soccer game scheduled for tonight so it'll be nice to dust off my cleats and kick some balls! (Sorry, I just love saying that--not classy, I know.)

I'm also doing something new--linking up with Erika for Grad-itude, a link up about being grateful! Hers is on Wednesday but it made sense to group it together with my weekly wishes. Here are three things I'm grateful for right now.

The boyfriend, H. He's been really nice to me the last couple of days. I mean, he always is, but he's just been extra nice, and I really appreciate it, especially since I've been stressed about school, which I'm not usually.

My biology class! It's tough, but I am really really loving it. The first day, I had to go catch roly-polies (that's right, the bugs), and I was SO not happy, but it's definitely one of my favorite classes! I really feel like I'm absorbing a lot of information and that just feels splendid.

A busy day by myself and with friends on Saturday. I had been feeling really funky on Friday night so Saturday morning I treated myself to Manhattan Bagel for breakfast, by myself, which I love, followed by Barnes & Noble (erhmagerd, berks!!) and shopping at a little consignment shop near me. Then I had frozen yogurt with an older friend and we talked about her trip to Israel. How awesome, right?! Then H and I wrapped up the day by grabbing the best barbecue ever and watching New Girl.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

So it actually was a pretty good week, now that I think about it in that way. Here are my goals for this coming week:

• Be proactive about getting schoolwork done, aka not at the last minute.


• Keep things tidy. And I mean this both mentally and literally. My room and house needs to be clean so I can be productive but I also need to keep my mind tidy so I'm not worrying about unnecessary things.

I'm just sticking to two goals this week but I think that will be challenging enough!

Now head on over to The Nectar Collective and join the Weekly Wish link up.

What do you wish for this week? What are you grateful for?

Easy peasy ways to make your blog prettier in 5 minutes

I may not be an expert on blogging, but I do know a thing or two about what makes a blog pretty. It annoys me so much to see a blog with fantastic content, but an awful design--most people won't give your words a chance if your layout isn't aesthetically pleasing! It's sad, but true. Here's how you can easily make your blog prettier without buying a whole new design.

1. Make all your photos the width of your text column. This isn't hard. Use high-quality pictures when possible and resize them in Photoshop or at Picmonkey (free/no registration). This goes miles to make your blog look more professional, and it's super easy! This also applies to your widget. You can alternate sizes but make sure your edges aren't jarring.

2. Please clean up your sidebar. You don't need to have a widget for everything, you just don't. A bio, categories and ads (if applicable) should be your basics and you probably don't need much more.

3. A note about backgrounds and fonts. Please make your background, or at least the part behind the words white. Make your words black or very dark. Please don't use cursive. That's so not okay. Also, don't make big blobby chunks of words; no one wants to read that. Tough love, you don't want your blog to read like a textbook. As a rule of thumb, keep paragraphs to six lines or under.

4. Make your social media buttons match your color scheme. Well first off, have a color scheme. If you don't know how to make social media buttons, have any designer make them, I guarantee they'll be under ten dollars. I'll make them for a buck each. (design) The ones with the brand colors are just not pretty and aren't doing you any good at making your blog look put together. It's the honest truth.

What do you think keeps a blog looking clean and pretty?

Weekly Wishes #11: cacti + baby steps + design

Hey all. It's Monday, you know what that means! Today, I'm linking up with The Nectar Collective for Weekly Wishes. The Weekly Wishes is where we all can share our posts about goals, challenges, and wishes for the week! Is this the prettiest picture ever or what? I love bright things.

Last week, I wished for a few things and was pretty successful! I worked pretty hard to get my body on a good sleep schedule. My lights weren't always out by 10:30 but I slowly but surely moved from falling asleep at 3 am to 11:30 pm. Baby steps. I also did lots of cleaning and unpacked everything from the summer! Yayz! I also sort of randomly got a futon from my sister so I cleaned a lot to make room for that. I scheduled out this whole week to help me get through the craziness but still have time for this little lovely munchkin of a blog. I've got some exciting posts coming up--especially a guest post from Stacey over at Grace Believer.

This week, I did a lot of design work which was really exciting for me! Most recently, I did a big design for Caitlyn at ChemGradBoom. It was really fun for me to make a really cute, but chemistry-themed design--check it out! I'm really loving that I can do something that satisfies me while making a little money! If you're in the market for some new digs for your blog, noodle on over to my design page.

But despite all that fun, school starts tomorrow. Cue the conflicting emotions. I'm excited to see friends and learn stuff and all but I'm not excited to get up early and die slowly under the mountain of work.

But anyways, here are my wishes:

• Not die. This should be easy, but I'm seriously skeptical. 


• Exercise! Now that I'm home and settled in, it's time to start working out again. Anyone have any great home workouts they like to do?


• Contact teachers about recommending me as a tutor. Simple enough. I'm a tutor who needs a job, they need tutors.

Now head on over to The Nectar Collective and join the Weekly Wish link up.

What are you wishing for this week? Any recommended workouts for me this week? I'm thinking Blogilates maybe...

Weekly Wishes #9

Hey all. Today, I'm linking up with The Nectar Collective for Weekly Wishes. The Weekly Wishes is where we all can share our posts about goals, challenges, and wishes for the week! Last week, I had quite a few goals! Here's how I did.

• Get through my Bloglovin' feed? Ah no. But I did make significant progress! I'm just barely under two hundred!


• Get a new sponsor?? Nope, not this week. I do have a super awesome guest post coming up from Crystal at The Happy Type and I'm so excited to share! If you ever want to guest post/sponsor CMS, check out the sponsor page.


• Brainstorm topics for the first week of school posts? Yessirree sure did! Get excited!


• Make progress on school reading and college apps? Yep! I started my apps and am just waiting to hear back from my counselor before I finish!

I'm finding that my goals are just too vague so it's hard to really make progress. So I'm making a goal to make my goals more concrete (yes, my goals involve goal-making).

Now, for this week's wishes:

• Keep on truckin' through my Bloglovin' feed! I'd like in <100 ideally. Work on it a little bit everyday!


• Try to comment more on blogs! Make at least one thoughtful comment everyday--more is great!


• Plan two posts and write out one for the first week of school.


• Go home!! By this time next week, I'll be home in Charlotte! I get to see the boy eeeeeeeeee.

Now head on over to The Nectar Collective and join the Weekly Wish link up.

What were your wishes this week? If you have a blog, tweet me, or comment to motivate me and help me reach my wishes!

July in Favorites

Things I love about me + why that's not arrogant
5 more things I'm not ashamed of (but probably should be)
Three Must-Read Memoirs
Where'd You Go, Bernadette [book review]
Marie Curie, karate chopping stereotypes.
Funky Mood? Not for Long.
The Good and Bad of Living in Alaska [guest post]



Beautiful Boy by David Sheff.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye. Not done with this one, so that might be cheating but it's great so far!



Amanda makes super cute geometric jean shorts with a bleach pen and raspberry-rosemary sorbet. FancyHands shows a really doable way to live richly and avoid regret. Melyssa shares the experience of getting and dealing with her first negative commenter. Sarah introduces me to Jes the Militant Baker. I found Emily's pretty and natural blog, Growing Wild Ginger. Mary shares her thoughts on the Trayvon Martin case. Kelsey shares some super duper cute patterned things! Crystal works out at home.





I Want You to Want Me / Cheap Trick
Somartider / Gyllentider
Thrift Shop [electro-swing cover] / Postmodern Jukebox/Macklemore
I Would Walk 500 Miles / The Proclaimers
Jackie Wilson Said / Van Morrison
Hey Willy / Shannon and the Clams
Guaranteed / Eddie Vedder



[8tracks width="400" height="400" playops="" url="http://8tracks.com/mixes/1912963"]

What were your favorite things this month?

Catching My Eye 09.

Would you make me very very happy and take my survey? I promise, it's super short, 9 questions. And most of the questions are multiple choice, a few you have to fill in a word. I will love you forever! 

The best of the interwebs:

(This is probs NSFW...but it's effin hilarious.)



♥I'm working on the 30 Day Arm Challenge with Claire from DaisyBisley. I love feeling stronger!

♥This slightly depressing article shows that I'm about as smart as an eighth grader in 1912.

♥I love this cool Kickstarter campaign for laboratory glasses made into tableware.




♥Think your life is tough? Here are 23 easy fixes to first world problems.

♥If anyone wants to give me $60, I'd love this studded Stella & Dot bracelet.

♥Michelle reviews a subscription box of gourmet food!

♥This is so freaky cool! A photographer spliced pictures of family members together and shows how cool genetics are.



♥Make graffiti with moss!

♥You might have missed: Funky Mood? Not for Long ♥ Weekly Wishes #8 ♥ Choices + free iPhone backgrounds ♥ Sponsor CMS in July/August.

What have you been loving this week? Which of these links did you think was the coolest?

Weekly Wishes #8

(Isn't this gorgeoussss? It's in Norway, somewhere.)

Hey all. Today, I'm linking up with The Nectar Collective for Weekly Wishes. The Weekly Wishes is where we all can share our posts about goals, challenges, and wishes for the week! Last week, my goals were to run once, get through my Bloglovin' feed, connect with bloggers, keep my bedroom clean and learn something new.

• Ran once? Sure did! Five miles.


• Get through my Bloglovin' feed? Oh man, no. I'm closer to 300-350 now. I'm so sorry for commenting on everyone's posts from two weeks ago. I'm working on it.


• Connect with bloggers? A little bit but not as much as I would have liked. You're a blogger? Tweet @CallMeSassBlog or comment or comment on my Facebook! (See buttons above)


• Keep my room clean? Did pretty well! Not perfectly, but it was a good try!


• Learn something new? I learned about the colors you see when you shut your eyes!

Now, for this week's wishes:

• Go through my whole Bloglovin' feed (take two)! This is getting pathetic. Share your blog with me below!


• Get a new sponsor! Want to help me out? Check out my sponsor page! Starts at only five bucks!


• Spend some quality time brainstorming posts for my first week of school--it's gonna be crazy busy!


• Make progress on my school reading and start college applications!

Now head on over to The Nectar Collective and join the Weekly Wish link up.

What were your wishes this week? If you have a blog, tweet me, comment or sponsor to help me reach my wishes!

Choices + free iPhone backgrounds

Because I believe that your attitude is always a choice.

           

Download any of these iPhone backgrounds.

P.S. If you like these, please pin or share them using the buttons below.

Catching My Eye 08.

Would you make me very very happy and take my survey? I promise, it's super short, 9 questions. And most of the questions are multiple choice, a few you have to fill in a word. I will love you forever! 

Just a heads-up, friends. I'm heading up north today for a super short trip. I have posts scheduled for you but I won't be responding to comments until Friday. So no, I don't hate you, I'll reply soon!

The best of the interwebs:

♥This video. True, ain't it?



♥This beautiful word art! I'm getting SO into typography lately. Any of you like typography or things like that?



♥This DIY on A Beautiful Mess on making a photo-covered journal.



♥Yeah, I'm way behind. But Mulberry's Fall 2011 line ads are phenomenal, aren't they? I want to live in it.

♥Victoria's Secret PINK has launched a line called Consent Revolution: underwear decorated with phrases like "Ask first", "No means no" and "Let's talk about sex". By the time women in the United States graduate from college, one in four will have been raped. Women are twice as likely to be raped in their lifetime than to develop breast cancer. This is little, but maybe it'll change things.

♥In this video, Heineken offers people free flights to exotic destinations. The only caveat? They have to leave immediately and they don't know where they're going.

♥This fascinating study shows that Instagram is more depressing than Facebook.

♥Have you heard that the Postal Service might stop delivering to your door? If you live in America.


♥You might have missed: july music recommendations ♥ 5 More Things I'm Not Ashamed Of (But Probably Should Be) ♥ Marie Curie, karate-chopping stereotypes ♥ Sponsor CMS in July/August.

Catching My Eye 07.

The best of the interwebs:

♥How to make your t-shirts look semi-ladylike.

♥This super duper cute elephant and hot air balloon throw pillow. Literally, anytime you see anything with an elephant (or rhino or whale or dinosaur) on it, please just buy it for me. I'll love you forever.

♥This writer made me laugh by rejecting his rejection letter.



♥This jelly.

♥Is there any land in America at all? This map makes it look like all rivers.

♥Here's that permission you've been waiting for.

♥McDonald's suggested budget for employees shows just how hard it is to get by on minimum wage.

♥Your sneezes sound like choruses of angels giggling. --Emergency Compliments.

♥You might have missed: Three Must-Read Memoirs ♥ Things I love about me +why that's not arrogant ♥ A reading playlist ♥ Sponsor CMS in July/August.

Weekly Wishes Printable

For those of you participating in Weekly Wishes with Melyssa over at The Nectar Collective, I've created a little log for you to journal about how you're doing on your wish. Click the link below to download + print!



Download here.

Love, A.

 

 

Related posts you might like:

•  Free iPhone Backgrounds


•  Let's Make Thing Pretty: Free Fonts


• Weekly Wishes

Twitter / Bloglovin' / Facebook

Tips for a Long Distance Relationship (Part 2)

For the first part of this two-part series, I had H (the boyfriend) come over and help me out and give you some tips on surviving a long distance relationship. H and I spend every summer (~2 months) about 800 miles apart. You can read part one here. How do I live without this stellar human being? Read on.

Be intentional about communicating. I work a lot during the summer and because of that, H and I don't find a lot of time to talk. But you've got to show your boyfriend that they still deserve your time. I'll call H whenever I can--on the walk home from work, or sometimes when I get off my shift at midnight. Yes, I'm exhausted at that point, but it's worth it to be the time into our relationship.

Send letters and care packages. It's really special to have something tangible with you that you know your boyfriend or girlfriend has touched and put together. Letters are cheap and always fun to get. Care packages can be cheap too--fill it up with little things that remind you of them wherever you are. Encourage them to send you one too!

Be really honest. Really really really honest. When you're not face to face, it's really easy to misunderstand things or not notice how the other person is feeling. It may feel tough, but it's best to be honest about how you're feeling about things. If you're angry, don't push it down and let it boil up--deal with it. If you're in a bad mood, don't just be grumpy--admit you're in a bad mood. When I'm in a funk, I always tell H and he'll send me pictures of cute animals or bad jokes or funny internet articles until I can cheer up a little.

Trust each other. This one sometimes seems really tough to do, but it will make both of you infinitely more happy with the relationship. I try to let H do pretty much whatever he wants as long as it doesn't hurt him or us. Hopefully, you're with someone who makes trusting easy but sometimes you might not be. Don't be controlling and set rules for each other--you need to trust your boyfriend that he'll be honorable.

Are you in a long distance relationship? How did you make it work?

P.S. Don't forget about the Adventure Lovin' Giveaway going on right now. And ad spaces are also on SALE!

Catching My Eye 06.

The best of the interwebs:

♥I know this is super old stuff, but this video of Jimmy Kimmel getting Coachella attendees to lie about their music knowledge cracks me up. Probably something I'd do though--I hate admitting when I haven't heard of a band. Anyways, I was cracking up.

♥We all know we should go to bed early and get up early, but how often does that really happen? Here's 7 ways to get in bed earlier tonight.

♥Clearly, I still can't stop thinking about Iceland. Take me there!



♥This Spanish restaurant allows unemployed patrons to work for an hour in exchange for a meal.

♥This awesomely education infographic shows ten top destinations in the world that may be disappearing and why you should visit them while you still can.

♥Beautiful faceted, geometric tattoos on The Uniqueness of Being's feature called Tattoosday.

♥You might have missed: Let's Make Things Pretty: Free Fonts ♥ 4 Genius TEDTalks ♥ In Which I Try To Make You Like Something Weird

Don't forget these two super important things!!

I'm holding an awesome Adventure Lovin' Giveaway AND Call Me Sassafras has ad spaces on SALE for super cheap!

Weekly Wishes #5

Hey all. Once again, I'm linking up with The Nectar Collective for Weekly Wishes. The Weekly Wishes is where we all can share our posts about goals, challenges, and wishes for the week! Last week, my goal was to watch a TEDTalk every night! Some nights I watched a couple talks but other nights I didn't watch any so it kind of evened out. But it's definitely a habit I'd like to keep up with. Tomorrow I'll post a list of my favorite talks and I can't wait to share some with you!


Now, for this week's wish:


I had been doing pretty well on preparing for my half-marathon but unfortunately I skipped like a week and a half when I started nannying and my mornings were crazy busy. On this past Saturday, my town hosted a fun run and I participated in that on the spur of the moment and that's inspired me to pick back up where I left off. This week, my runs are three, four, three and six miles and that last one will be a doozy. But I'm publicly committing to doing the whole six mile run, even if I have to walk a little. Guys, make me do it!

Now head on over to The Nectar Collective and join the Weekly Wish link up.

Catching My Eye 05.

This week: I started my new nannying job with two little rambunctious boys. ♥ Saw Monsters University!--so cute ♥ enjoyed meeting some new people ♥ hung out at the library (typical) ♥ did not run--once ♥ bought some little things for the boy's care package ♥

Now for the best of the interwebs:

♥This Tumblr called Humans of New York shows little snippets of everyday lives.

♥In honor of Independence Day, read up on our (my) nation's first murderer and our origins in cannibalism and alcoholism. Splendid. That'll inspire some patriotism.

♥This beautiful photo shoot of Mic & Sam on Manzanita.



♥A super creepy (probably entirely false) story in case you're into that.

♥The surprising reason why almost all Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes. This is such a beautiful idea.

♥Lastly, this beautiful scene of stars & a sunset.

♥You might have missed: Tips for Surviving a Long Distance Relationship ♥ Why I Like Jerry Springer ♥ 6 Things I'm Not Ashamed Of (But Probably Should Be) ♥ The Reverse Bucket List ♥ Free iPhone Backgrounds

Tips for a Long Distance Relationship (Part 1)

For this two-part series, I'm having H (the boyfriend) come over and help me out and give you some tips on surviving a long distance relationship. H and I spend every summer (~2 months) about 800 miles apart. Here's how we do it:



Greetings fellow members of the interwebs, you can call me H. Not because I have anything to hide, I just like feeling mysterious. I like hunting, fishing, offroading, blowing things up/lighting things on fire, NASCAR, football, baseball, golf, the south, and my bitchin 95 ford bronco. That's not everything but it should give you a rough idea of who I am.

I've been dating Allie for a while now, and I think she's pretty cool. You should definitely follow her blog. If Bob Saget wasn't so tweaked out on coke all the time he would give it two thumbs up, so that just goes to show how awesome her blog is. Anyways, this is our second summer together. During the summer, I stay here in Dixie and hold down the fort while Allie goes up North. Long distance relationships are far from easy but they are possible. Here are some tips that help us get through the summer:

Look at the small picture. When I go on runs, I focus on a crack in the sidewalk about 20-30 feet away, run to it, pick another crack, run to it, etc.... If I look way ahead, I get discouraged and I get worn out faster. When I focus on something close to me and run to it, I find that I can run much farther and the run is much less miserable. This same idea can be applied to long distance relationships. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the idea of being away from your loved one for (enter time apart here), take things day by day. When you wake up in the morning, focus your mind on getting through that day. Don't look at the big picture, look at the small one.

 

Go out of your way to make your time apart as easy as possible on the other person. Make time for phone calls and skype dates. You don't have to set aside a whole hour for a phone call, even 15 minute phone calls are nice. When you can't talk on the phone or skype, text them. When you can't text, just send a little text saying something nice and letting them know what you're up to. One of me and Allies favorite methods of communication is letter writing! It may not be as popular as it once was but I love it. You can write about future date ideas, tell them stories that they haven't heard, tell them things you like about them, or write really anything that comes to mind. You can draw pictures too! I'm no artist but it adds a little personal touch.

 

Keep yourself busy. If you're broke like me, you may think that it's hard to keep busy when your wallet is as empty as a doughnut box in a police station. However, there are many things you can do to keep busy without having to spend much or anything. Things to do with a little money: Go see a band you've never heard of (cover charges at music venue near me are usually $7 for minors, $5 for adults). Go to a discount movie theater or get a redbox movie (there's a $2 movie theater near me, and redbox is only $1.20). Go to a minor league sporting event (the tickets for the minor league baseball team here are $14), There are many more things you can do on a budget, those are just the first three I could think of. Things to do for free: Go to a park, read, window shop, clean/organize (I know, not very fun but it still keeps you busy), run/walk/exercise, cook (Not free for everyone, but I still live at home so I don't buy groceries. If you have to buy your own groceries, you can still cook on a budget. And no, I don't mean ramen noodles). There's plenty of things to do for free. Just google free things to do in (enter city here), and I'm sure you'll find something. The less time you spend alone doing nothing the better.

 

Give your significant things for them to remember you by. Allie has some of my t-shirts, a sweatshirt, a bottle of my cologne, a bear I gave her for valentines day, and a photo album full of pictures of us. I have one of her t-shirts, some sweatshirts, one of her stuffed animals, and a bottle of her perfume. Sure it's not the most manly thing to sleep with a stuffed sheep covered in perfume, but it helps. Having some of hers stuff makes me feel closer to her, especially her perfume. Every little bit helps in a long distance relationship.

I hope these tips help!

Thanks for reading,

H

P.S. Tune back in next week to hear my tips on how I survive living without this stellar human being. --Allie

Weekly Wishes #4

 

Hello friends. Once again, It's time to link up with The Nectar Collective for Weekly Wishes. The Weekly Wishes is where we all can share our posts about goals, challenges, and wishes for the week!

Last week, my goal was to drink water often and journal everyday. How did I do? Pretty well! I didn't drink a ton more water than usual, but I was more conscious of bringing a water bottle to work and keeping it near me. I also journaled just about everyday, which was weird for me! Some people say journaling helps them clear their minds but it's just not for me :)

Anyways! Now, for this week's wish:


In short, TED Talks are short lectures (5-30 minutes, generally) on anything that's an "idea worth spreading". I love watching TED Talks, but just don't get around to watching them often for whatever reason. This week, I plan on watching at least ONE every single day. I'll share my favorites at the end of the week! If you're slightly geeky or just like learning new stuff, start watching TED Talks! I promise, it's so worth it! They have videos on everything from plankton to street signs to religion. 

(Here's a great/short TED Talk to get you started: Gary Lauder's new traffic sign: Take Turns).

Now head on over to The Nectar Collective and join the Weekly Wish link up.

How did your weekly wish go? Have you ever watched a TED Talk?