High Five for Friday: March 11

It's been a rough week, you guys. Not only am I still getting over my weird illness from last week, but Tuesday was my last session with my therapist of three years. :( :( So I've been sad about that and also super stressed about finding a new one (or having one of my other therapists adopt that role). Even though I can't remember the last time I had a suicidal thought, I'm always a little scared that they will come back if I'm not super vigilant... so not having my therapy situation all figured out is unsettling. Sorry to get all "seven strangers picked to live in a house" real on a Friday morning! :) Let's get onto the things that did put the sparkle into my week, shall we?

• Did anyone else catch this last Friday?!

As soon as I heard about Link being on Google Maps last Friday, I had to check it out! I loved A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time so so much growing up! Just looking at Link puts the main Zelda theme in my head! :) 

• On Saturday, B and I went to DiBruno Brothers in Center City. I had never been there before (I don't actually like cheese *gasp* ...or most normal people favorite foods for that matter, haha). We didn't actually get anything; instead, we just ogled the tiny cakes, and I might have hugged a display of cookies and chocolate covered pretzels...   

I'll take one of everything, please!

• Then, when I got home Saturday night, Pops was headed out. (Exact conversation: "You're going out now?! It's so late!" "It's 8 o' clock!" Pops is clearly the 29 year old here.). And if Pops is out, you know what that means: ITS GETTIN CRAZY UP IN HURR! 

A WiiU was B and my shared Valentine's gift this year :) 

I don't know that I can fully convey my excitement over finding an ALL STRAWBERRY bag of fruit snacks!!!

• It has been SO GORGEOUS this week!  Sunny 70 and 80 degree days in March? I am 1000% on board with that life. This has pretty much been me all week:

I love Anna Kendrick in Twilight. Her stereotypical teenagerness just cracks me up.

• It was so beautiful on Thursday (my usual driving day) that I went to Target at lunchtime. (And I hadn't been there in like two months!!) On the way, I had the windows down and sun roof open (which I never think to do) and was jamming to this great song from the Grey's pilot. What a delightful afternoon! It's truly the little things. :)

HELLO OLD FRIEND. 

Here's to a great weekend! xo

March goals

My Blogger Christmas Mug Exchange present! On a coaster that says, "And how much emotional baggage will you be checking today?" #perf

All right, let's see what's on the white board for March!

1. My regular therapist leaves her practice in mid-March (wahhh), so I need to find a new non-EMDR-or-exposure therapist like yesterday.
2. Did I mention that I'm doing exposure again? Well, I am, to work on my default tendency to avoid everything that scares me (so, everything?). I've been doing all of the assignments thus far, even though I don't want to, so let's try to keep that momentum going in March!
3. I didn't do it every day, but the gratitude log was a nice reminder that everything is ok in times of frustration and depression.
4. Self-explanatory. I made an extra payment last month, so let's try for two in a row!  
5. A chill fifth goal, because there's some big stuff on this list that makes me feel exhausted just reading it! ;)

 Ok, so how did February's goals go?

1.  Do taxes. CHECK! I finally did them last weekend... better late than never!
2. Keep a gratitude log. CHECK! As I said more eloquently above, it was a good reminder that life doesn't suck.
3. Putting shopping money into a separate account and also trying to be more mindful of my shopping in general. Uhhh. I didn't actually do this, but I stayed way under budget last month, so it all worked out!
4. Try to question anxious thoughts instead of defaulting into them. Hmm. I didn't really do this, but we are working on addressing my automatic anxious thoughts in exposure therapy, so maybe that will help?
5. Pay extra on student loans. CHECK! So I didn't pay as much as I would have liked to, hey, it was something!

What's on tap for you this month? 

High Five for Friday: March 4

Oh man, this week. On Wednesday, I was smote down by a cold (I think?) and didn't even have the energy to sit up, so I slept half the day. THAT definitely did not put the sparkle into my week, so here's what did:

• Is anyone else watching the O.J. Simpson mini-series on FX?? Pops and I are so into it! Even though I was 7 at the time, I vividly remember seeing the Bronco chase on TV with my grandmother (an avid fan of the news!), so I find the whole OJ thing really fascinating. Anyway! Grease was on last weekend, and seeing Robert Shapiro do this totally cracked me up:

No wonder Johnnie became lead counsel!

• Speaking of TV, who watched Fuller House?! I had no intention of doing so, but my dad was suddenly all excited about it last Friday, so we watched the pilot. I can't say I'm dying to watch more episodes, but I had such low expectations that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! Pops is a Netflix novice, so his mind was blown by the fact that all episodes were available at once! "Is this like a TGIF thing, it's on every Friday?!" Poor Pops.

Everywhere you look... 

• In continuing with my watching Supernatural all out of order, B showed me the musical episode, which is as ah-mazing and insane as it sounds. I love how this show openly acknowledges its fans and fan fiction and the effect that a show/book/movie can have on a person. The episode also gave a shout-out to The Outsiders, which is one of my all-time favorite books, and one that I have that total fangirl level of affection for. When I read it in fourth grade, I wanted to be friends with the characters and live in their world. I memorized "Nothing Gold Can Stay." I even wrote a sequel (in pencil, in a notebook covered in penguins nbd) from Cherry's point of view! The fact that Supernatural openly acknowledges this fan phenomenon is like <3 <3. (Not to mention that S.E. Hinton is apparently a big Supernatural fan, thereby giving the show the biggest endorsement ever, as far as I'm concerned, haha!!)

Dean's words of wisdom to the high school girl who wrote the Supernatural musical. Aka ALL THE FEELS.

• On a related note, I've been feeling more inclined to get back to my own creative writing lately. This feeling has been percolating for at least a month, but I struggle to actually sit down and write. I have several characters in my head that I created years ago, but they've been at the on my mind more and more lately. It's crazy how you can create these fictional people and see them so clearly in your imagination. Maybe it's time to revisit them... 

• And finally, I stumbled onto this amazing Drake gif last week, and it never ceases to crack me up: 

Here's hoping for restored health this weekend! Have a great one, you guys! xo

February 2016 Budget

YOU GUYS. I think I had a breakthrough this month. Or I lost my mind... either/or. 

I'm not sure why, but I suddenly didn't want to buy things this month. My usual cravings for retail therapy and wanting all the things just weren't there. I don't feel like I did much differently in February, but here's one thing that might have helped: at the end of January, I made a list of a few things I was interested in buying. Having that list to refer back to helped keep me away from a lot of impulse buys, which is usually where I get into trouble. I also didn't really feel like I needed more clothes in February... perhaps because I have like the same 5 tops on rotation, haha!

With all that said, I did still buy things this month, so let's get on to the fun stuff! :)

1. Moda Luxe Zipper Flap Crossbody Bag (Target): $40 on sale for $30
2. Purple Druzy Necklace (Etsy): $27
3. Benton Snail Bee High Content Steam Cream (Amazon): $11
4. Paige Denim (20% off $22 = $18) and Madewell (20% off $15 = $12) skinny jeans (Plato's Closet)
5. C.O. Bigelow My Favorite Night Balm (Bath and Body Works): $8

Not pictured:

1. Cynthia Rowley leggings (Plato's Closet): 20% off $12 = $10

TOTAL: $116

Instead of doing my usual favorite/least favorite reviews, I'm just going to ramble a bit! First off, here is the list I made back in January:

And I only wound up purchasing two items from that list, hurrah! I had been coveting the Target bag since the fall, but it was always out-of-stock in black. As soon as it was back and went on sale (like two weeks later), I pounced! And I had been obsessing over a druzy necklace for awhile, so I finally bit the bullet. I'm pretty happy with the one I picked--it's so sparkly and pretty! (And PURPLE!) Plus, the pendant isn't huge, and the seller's listing had included a picture of it with a penny for scale--super helpful in determining the proportions of a piece you're thinking of buying! (I don't love chunky jewelry.)

The Benton cream (actually all Benton products) are something I've been contemplating for MONTHS, back when I first got on my K-Beauty kick. Some people have tagged Benton's stuff as holy grail, while others apparently got contaminated batches that broke out their skin horribly. EEK. I haven't had any bad reactions, thank the lord, but the cream is sort of greasy on my skin... and I only use a very little bit, on the areas of my face that tend toward redness and breakouts. Sigh. But it's only been a week, so I do need to test it out more.

The jeans are AWESOME, I've been wearing them like every other day. I'm always on the hunt for high-end jeans at secondhand stores (ever since scoring my beloved pair of Citizens of Humanity skinnies at Buffalo Exchange), so I almost audibly gasped when I found both Paige Denim and Madewell pairs in my size! And I've been using the Night Balm almost every night and really like it, especially at that $8 price point! :)

What did you buy this month??

Linking up with Fran's Budgeting Bloggers!

High Five for Friday: February 26

This week was somehow both fast and slow. But who cares about that because it's finally Fri-yay!! (Wut.) Here's what put the sparkle into my week:

• Inspired by Mattie in the comments of last week's H54F post, I broke out my OC DVDs and had a wild Friday night partying like it's 2003!

Californiaaaa here we come...

• I actually dragged myself out of bed earlyish on Saturday morning and went to yoga! And who did I see on my way back home, but Gingy!! Gingy is a rarely seen neighborhood cat so, much like in Neko Atsume, it's thrilling when she makes an appearance! She came right over and started rubbing up on me, and I was all heart-eyes emoji. (#HALP. #catervention)

Look at the splotches on her sweet little face!! <3

• I got a facial this week, at the awesome massage place with the tea! (I wanted a massage, but they only had facials available on the day I could come in... which is kind of hilarious because, when I got a massage there in January, I had actually called about a facial! Someday we'll be on the same page!) It was great, of course, but at one point, the esthetician used these cooling globe things on my face, which felt awesome and are supposed to help with redness (one of my major skin issues). I think this might be them... they seriously look like those water-holder things you sometimes see in plants, haha! Imagine my surprise when the esthetician showed me what they looked like!

• Continuing with my newfound love of Supernatural, I made B show me some "fun" episodes over the weekend. (So I am watching the series entirely out of order nbd.) One such episode was "Mystery Spot," featuring the sweet sounds of Asia! ("I know, no Asia. This station sucks!") I can't even with comedic Jensen Ackles--his pouty pretty-boy face re: Asia just cracks me up every time. Who knew that watching him die repeatedly would be so entertaining?!

• Speaking of things that crack me up, let's usher in the weekend with one of my favorite Simpsons moments ever, courtesy of "In the Garden of Eden by I. Ron Butterfly!" :D

"Wait a minute... this sounds like rock and/or roll!" Can't pull the wool over on Rev. Lovejoy!

Have a great weekend erreybody! xoxo