Category: Diary
Quick Update
| January 16, 2014 | Diary, Wedding |
Hello everyone. Just wanted to let you know that I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth, although it somewhat feels that way. This week has been super busy preparing for a call with our caterer tonight for our wedding. Since we’re in the home stretch now (4 months away!) there are so many small decisions to make and items to buy that every day this week after work I was busy.
I’m actually super exhausted because bed time has been no early than 11:30 or so every day this week. (I have to get up at 6AM). I’m looking forward to this weekend when I can sleep in SOOO badly.
That’s about it folks. Unfortunately I haven’t had a second to work out or do at-home yoga, so no real healthy living content this week. Hopefully I can put together a schedule this weekend that I can implement starting next week.
If you want to see what’s going on with me more frequently, check me out on Instagram and Twitter. I post there a lot.
Thanks for reading, friends! Friday Favorites will be up tomorrow!
- Nicole
Lately
| December 2, 2013 | Diary, Living, Weekend Recap |
Every so often when I feel like I have a lot of things to catch you guys up on, I do a “Lately” post. I haven’t posted since before Thanksgiving so I thought today would be a good day to just post a huge update for you guys. Here’s what I’ve been up to:
Our Christmas lights are up on our balcony now. It only took me an hour and frozen hands to do so, but they are up! We are getting our Christmas tree this upcoming weekend, so inside our apartment will start feeling Christmas-y soon.
As part of A Week of Gratitude, one of the days called for writing a thank you note to a friend. I decided to send one to my dear friend Danica. She actually received when she was having a bad day, so it lifted her spirits a bit!
Haha, ok so that picture above is clearly not me nor is it my photo at all. Another task for A Week of Gratitude was to donate cans to a local food bank. Giant Food Stores has this thing where if you donate $10 you can feed a whole family with a box of food. All boxes stay local and go towards a shelter in your area. How amazing is that?! I think they are doing this all season long – not just for Thanksgiving, so if you shop at Giant I highly recommend this.
Another thing to do during A Week for Gratitude was to spend time with a loved one. One of the days last week, Bryan and I decided to just relax all night an watch TV together. Sure, we do this on most nights but we made an effort to watch TV without phones, laptops, etc. It was nice.
On Thanksgiving morning Leslee, her BF, Bryan, and I drove down to Philly for the Thanksgiving Day Parade! Holy moly was it cold! Good thing we had chairs, blankets and mimosas to keep us warm 
. Next year I think we will be watching on our TV. It was by far the coldest year yet!
On Saturday, Bryan, his friend Jonathan, and I went out to Jim Thorpe in the Poconos to walk around for a bit. Of course I made Bryan pose for the obligatory holiday picture (seen above). It was such a nice day. We checked out some really cool vintage jewelry stores, Bryan sampled different types of jerky, we walked around Country Junction, and had an amazing lunch at a diner in Lehighton.
On Saturday night when we got home, I had a package in the mail from our wedding photographer. Inside were the cutest Moleskine notebooks and a thank you card. If you’re wondering, we are having Jeff from Brooke Courtney Photography do our wedding. So if you are looking for a wedding photographer, I highly recommend him! His work is amaazzzzzing.
On Sunday, Bryan and I went over to the mall for a quick store in Bloomingdales. Bryan saw a phone cover he thought he liked while we were there on Black Friday and wanted to go check it out again. Turns out it doesn’t fit on his phone properly. While he was doing that, I tried on some more clothes from Free People. I had no idea Bloomingdales had it’s own little Free People section! Wahoo! The pullover above can be found online here. I’m waiting for the pullover to go on sale, so I didn’t purchase it yesterday although it FOR SURE will be coming home with me at some point. If you’re wondering, the size I’m wearing is a Small. The website suggests you size down because they run big. However, the pic on the Free People website has the model wearing it almost as a cropped sweater and I hate that look so I actually sized up.
Another highlight of my week – an iPhone5S in gold! Bryan’s mom surprised me on Friday by buying me an early birthday present. I was due for an upgrade for a while now and Apple actually wanted to buy back my iPhone4 so it all worked out perfectly!
Talk to Me
- How was your week?
- What did you do for Thanksgiving?
- Did you shop on black Friday? What did you buy?
A Week of Gratitude
| November 20, 2013 | Diary, Holiday, Living |
Good morning! If you’re in my area, you probably are freezing right now. I do have to say that my J.Crew Camp Socks are definitely getting use today; which by the way is on sale for $14.50! They are by far my favorite purchase in the past month or so and keep my toes warm on days like today.
Anyway, back to the purpose of this post. Sometimes we can be so wrapped up in all of the negative things going on that we forget to be grateful for what we do have in our lives. My friend Leslee created this thing called “A Week of Gratitude” which you can read about on her post today. Basically, she put together a list of things to do every day next week in order to show gratitude. Her post inspired me to make my own list of things for “A Week of Gratitude”.
Like Leslee, I’ll be posting my acts next week on Instagram with the hashtag #weekofgratitude. So if you are interested, follow along and upload your own pics!
Talk to Me
- Will you be taking part in A Week of Gratitude?
- What’s one thing you like to do every holiday season to give back?
- What are your Thanksgiving plans?
Thoughts on Perspective
| September 11, 2013 | Diary, Living, Operation Bride |
Good morning! Tonight I have a dentist appointment, and I have a lot planned for the day, but I wanted to share with you the workout from yesterday:
I kept it light because I wanted to get something done, but my muscles were pretty sore from Monday. It’s supposed to be over 90 degrees today, so I hope to get some time in the sun, because it’s been a LONG time since that has happened.
I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective. This may have stemmed from watching Undercover Boss yesterday. There are so many people out there who on the outside may seem like they have it really rough. They have not the best home situations, they have a not so glamorous job or they don’t make enough money to support their families. However – they are extremely grateful and happy with their lives. That’s what happened on Undercover Boss. One employee’s home and life was basically washed away by Hurricane Katrina, but that guy was so happy and grateful for his current situation, that you’d never know that his life was drastically altered.
It’s all about perspective and how you view yourself, your life and your surroundings.
I leave you with a few amazing quotes I found via Pinterest this week. I hope you all have an amazing Wednesday and get outside and get some fresh air!
Talk to Me
- What are your thoughts about perspective?
- Have you found any great quotes lately? Share in the comments!
- How often do you go outside to work out?
Lately
| July 3, 2013 | Diary |
I do these “Lately” posts every once in a while. Whenever I have to get some random stuff off of my chest, want to let you know things I’m doing, or just want to list some new products I’m using, I title the post Lately. There’s been a few of these posts.
Read the other “Lately” Posts:
This time, since I didn’t do a Weekend Recap and I’m sick, I decided that a Lately post was necessary. There’s a lot of random stuff floating around in my head so this post will bring it all together (so I hope).
Lately…
I’ve furnished our deck. It’s been empty since we moved in, aside from the L.L. Bean chairs we move from inside to outside every other day. I’m so happy to have furniture out there. Now to buy a Bug Off candle and some plants! We ended up getting the chairs on sale at Lowe’s and the two tables 70% off at Target. WAHOO.
Lately…
I’ve cooked meat. Although I’m a vegetarian, I’m not going to shun Bryan for wanting to eat meat. I firmly believe that food preference is a personal choice. Yes, I cook meat in my house, sue me.
Lately…
I went to the Dave Matthews Band concert. It was OK. I mean I enjoy his music, but not for 2+ hours. There were also so many drunk annoying teenagers around, many of which spilled beer and bumped into me. No good. Overall it was a nice night.
Lately…
I’ve been making more and more juices. I’m hoping that all the vitamin C will help get rid of this cold faster. On Monday night I plopped on the couch with my blanket, a box of tissues, my green juice, the recent issue of The Knot magazine and watched the Bachelorette for two hours.
Lately…
I heard about Peet’s Coffee’s Do You Give a Cup campaign. Peet’s Coffee and Tea is celebrating their new single serve cups with a “social sampling experiment” this summer. Each week, Peet’s will post new topics on DoYouGiveaCup.com for you to vote on. The voting will determine where they host their next sampling event each week. Click the image above to read more about it and to see whether a sampling event is coming to your town!
But other than that, I’m just trying to get through today. I’m off from work Thursday and Friday so that’s nice. I’m hoping this cold goes away before the holiday, but I really don’t think it will. Doctors appointment tonight so maybe I’ll get some prescription medicine to help me sleep. I’m running on very few hours of sleep these days.
FTC: Peet’s Coffee is compensating me with a gift card in exchange for promotion on Simply Nicole. As always, I only post about products I truly believe in and would purchase with my own money. All opinions are my own.
Talk to Me
- What have you been doing lately?
- What do you like to eat/drink when you have a fever/cold?
- If you’re a vegetarian, do you cook meat for your family?
