High Five for Friday: February 24

Let's end this week of GORGEOUS non-winter weather with reflecting on what brought the sparkle: 

• It's Blogger Galentine's Exchange link-up day, so let's start with my gift! I legit shrieked when I saw the return address on the package because it was Bri! ...who also had me for the Blogger Christmas Cheer Exchange! LOL what are the odds? Anyway, here are the lovely gifts she sent me this time around:
• A cute V-Day card
• Three Sinful Colors nail polishes (I now have the lightest pink, "Pinky Glitter," on my toes!)
• A lavender travel tumbler 
• An awesome candle that says "Babe, You Got This" (LOVE)

This could not have come at a better time because I srsly need all the affirmations. 😍 

Thank you so much, Bri!! xoxo

I sent gifts to Erin at TexErin in Sydneyland, and I am SO RELIEVED to hear that they got there because trying to send gifts internationally through Amazon was giving me fits! Erin had several cat-themed items on her wish list, so I obviously picked those haha!

• My college roommate Paulina came to visit last weekend for a celebration of Pops' b-day (which was on Valentine's Day). After dinner with the fam, the three of us ended up laying around and watching Zootopia, which is 👌👌 for a Saturday night. Sidenote: how pretty is this bag she brought me?I think she said she got it at Shop Rite! Like WUT.

• The weather here has been RIDICULOUS since last weekend when it was sunny and almost 70! People were losing their minds over it. (Some kid was legit skateboarding while playing the ukulele, I kid you not.) You know who else enjoyed this fine weather? CATS. Specifically, my gal Calico Pinky! She is just the sweetest little angel and turns me to absolute mush. Pops practically had to drag me out of the house for a walk on Saturday afternoon, and 30 seconds later, I was sprawled on the sidewalk with Calico Pinky, cooing like a loon. You guys, she comes running up to me for pets! And petting a purring cat fixes everything. She started following us home, and I was like DON'T TOY WITH ME. 😫💖😻😫

brb crying  

Signs you've lost it: you're sitting on the sidewalk, petting a cat that doesn't belong to you, and asking her if she'd like to come along to CVS. 👌 

• Back in December, I started looking up yoga options near work, and I found one that sounded pretty interesting (i.e. it had a lot of gentle/restorative options, woo hoo!). Annnd I did nothing with that information. Fast-forward to this week when I finally signed up for a class... and ACTUALLY WENT! (Despite loads of anxiety on the way there!) The restorative class was really good--laying around on props in a quiet room was just what I needed! 

• Because I had to leave work at a reasonable hour to make the yoga class, I managed to get to work by 9! WHOA! And it was still light out when I left! (Not to mention 72 degrees nbd.) This month's goal of getting to work by 10:50 has been mostly a fail, so making it in at 9 was a freaking miracle, ha!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! xo

High Five for Friday: February 17

Let's see what put the sparkle into this Valentine's week:

• Well, ridiculous cards, for one:

WELL-PLAYED.

• I love all the pink and hearts and cuteness of Valentine's Day and had miraculously been able to resist the siren song of LuLaRoe Valentine's leggings... until a few days ago when I totally cracked and eBayed it up!

Initially, I bid on a different pair with this pattern and lost the auction, so I bid on this pair and the one below, in the hopes that I would win one of them. Naturally, I won both oops.

• I spent last weekend away at a healing retreat and came home feeling rejuvenated and enlightened. My soul was feeling the love. <3 <3

• If you follow me on Instagram, then you saw my tale of woe about my glasses like a month ago. When I went to get new glasses (mine were 4+ years old nbd), my old frames SNAPPED IN HALF at the optical shop. 😦😱😰  After a few weeks of wearing makeshift glasses with my old lenses, I've finally got the new ones, hooray!

🎶I'm a model, you know what I mean, and I do my little turn on the catwalk🎶 

• Lastly, I am very jealous of Timmi's dog Mieze, who is clearly living the life:

Hope y'all have a wonderful weekend! xo

High Five for Friday: February 10

Here's what put the sparkle into my week! (Spoiler: not the snow/arctic blast that rolled in on Thursday!)

• Inspired by Mica and all of her gorgeous designer handbags, I busted out my Rebecca Minkoff MAM this week, for the first time in ages! It's so beautiful (#purpleisaneutral) and pricey (even second-hand) that I'm always afraid of messing it up. Eek. But I'm trying to put those fears aside because carrying it makes me feel all pulled-together and fancy! Plus, you can fit a TON of stuff in it, and it's structured enough to not become a bottomless pit! #pursegoals

Hello, lovahhh. 😍

• One of my inner child therapy "assignments" over the weekend was to play... which is a tall order for someone whose adult self thrives on structure and to-do lists! Luckily, I loved video games as a kid, so Mario Run was an easy solution! 

It looks like Mario knows how to sparkle punch! ✨👊

• On Sunday morning, I had a lovely Galentine's brunch with a few wonderful friends I hadn't seen in awhile! Donuts, pals, and Parks and Rec in the background? Who could ask for anything more? Bonus that it was another last-minute invitation that I didn't say no to!

• After brunch, I went to Reading for a meditation gathering, and before heading home, I stopped at Sheetz for the first time by myself! When I used to carpool to yoga classes in Reading with a friend, we would often stop at Sheetz before going home, but now that I'm going by myself, I've been too scared to stop. (My stranger danger may be slightly extreme.) But I did it!! One can only resist the siren song of their chicken finger sliders for so long, I guess. 😂

• I only ever wear flats/flat boots/sneakers to work, so when I decided to wear my new booties from Nordstrom Rack on Monday, I basically felt like Beyonce. Give me a little wedge, and I will apparently stomp it out while walking from my office to the bathroom. ✌️

They're quite comfy too!

Here's hoping for a warmer weekend! Happy Friday! xo

High Five for Friday: February 3

Was this a weird week for anyone else? Is Mercury in retrograde or something?! (Spoiler: NO.) I've just felt... strange all week, and I don't know what's bugging me. Sigh. Anyway, since emotional stability didn't bring the sparkle this week, here's what did:

• Awesome mermaid nails added some literal sparkle! I hardly ever use this color (Zoya Charla), but it's sooo pretty!

• You guys, I'm definitely a pod person now because this week's meal prep involved quinoa. QUINOA! Who am I, an adult?! I used this recipe again, just with quinoa, and it turned out delicious (because all you can taste is the pesto! Wait, does quinoa have a taste? I don't even know.). And I didn't cut myself with the food processor this time! 💯

• On Saturday, Pops and I watched the NHL Skills Competition, which basically transported me back to senior year of college (2009), when I took the GRE in the morning (ack), and then my bffl and I went to my dad's house, and the three of us watched the Skills Competition together 👨‍👧‍👧. My hockey fandom has been sadly lacking the last few years, so watching the Skills Competition reminded me of the good ol' days with friends that feel like family. 💖

Oddly enough, Jeff Carter was last an All-Star in 2009! But with the Flyers, of course.

• For some reason, I legitimately did not want to go to work on Monday. Work is never something that feels optional to me, not to mention that I love routine, so this was real weird. But then, right before I was about to drag myself out the door, my boss called to tell me to work from home because the heater was broken!! I practically did cartwheels! 🎉🎉🎉  (Apparently, leaving the house was the real problem, ha!) And then, I got sent home on Tuesday because the "fixed" heater broke again! Pops had this hilarious take on the situation:

Well-played, Pops. 👏 

• This week, I started (and got 100+ pages into!) Scrappy Little Nobody, my Blogger Christmas Cheer Exchange gift from Bri! I don't exactly love it, yet I'm strangely drawn to it and enjoy it. Yeah. Pretty characteristic of this weird week!

Here's hoping for a good weekend! xo

February goals

Somehow, I went way overboard with this "new year, new you" nonsense in January. (I usually hate that phrase, so it was truly a new me!) I started using an alarm clock, meal prepping my lunches, reading before bed (!!), and using YNAB. Like what? Adulting (or insanity?) at its finest! 

Anyway, here's what's ~officially~ on the white board for February:

1. I was actually successful in getting to work by 11 every day, which was one of my January goals! But most days, I only juuust squeaked into work before 11, hence February's goal of getting in by 10:50! (Baby steps!)

2. Thanks to Mia's post (and my reader Molly's encouragement!), I tried YNAB this month. I'm still easily confused by the interface, but I like the premise, as it's geared toward breaking the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, which I definitely need to do! YNAB encourages you to allocate all of your income for different expenses, not just your bills, and I found that to be surprisingly helpful. (Usually, I just figure out how much is going toward bills and then pray I won't spend more than the meager amount that's left over!) Because it forced me to set money aside for inevitable but non-bill expenses (like gas and groceries), I didn't feel deprived on the YNAB system--in fact, I felt less panicked about money overall. So I'm curious to see how Month #2 goes.

I did not meet last month's goal of "switch to a fee-free bank," but that was intentional after I started researching my bank options. I don't have direct deposit at my job, which makes hold times a big deal. So I think I need to break the paycheck to paycheck cycle before I start dealing with a new bank and potentially longer/more erratic hold times. 

3. My job is 100% seated, and I've been feeling basically like a gross lump lately, so I want to try to move more and incorporate basic exercise into my day. I'm legit scared to go to a work-out class or gym, so maybe following along with some YouTube videos this month will be a good start. 

4. and 5. Self-explanatory. 

As for my phrase of the year ("out of hiding"), I did pretty well! I went to dinner with friends in the city! (I'm terrified of city parking AND driving at night AND unfamiliar driving routes! I went to Target after work! I went to Nordstrom Rack at lunch! I met up with friends from my old job! (Which was perhaps the biggest accomplishment because it was a last-minute invite, and that's almost always an automatic "no.") 

I was not able to push through anxiety to go to the Women's March, though, so that's a bummer. :( In general, I still have a hard time getting myself to out of the house for non-obligatory things, but at least I broke that pattern a little bit in January.

What are you working on this month? 

Linking up with Nicole at Writes Like a Girl!