beauty & a blog

If any of you have seen me watch any chick flick you'd know, I'm a sucker for love. Like complete hopeless romantic. It's understandable for people to get sappy over The Notebook, Titanic, Pearl Harbor,  or basically any Nicholas Sparks movie, but um I used to think High School Musical   2 & 3  (the first one sucks) was one of the greatest love stories ever told. Or maybe I just loved Zac Efron, that's still up for debate.  source If the two lovebirds don't end up together at the end, I permanently remove that movie from my memory. I'm all about the happy endings. And I get it, life doesn't always work out the way you planned, but still I like to always hope for the best.  For me, banning same-sex marriage is like one of those movies without a happy ending. Who's to say who you can and cannot love? I don't necessarily have the best track record with guys (and by that I mean I went through a rough Justin Bieber look-alike slash frat sta

No- the dorm rooms in college are not anything  like the ones you see in those PB Teen magazines. Well, in my experience anyway it was far from that. My roommate and I were forced to make a tiny, lifeless room look uhh liveable. It was quite the task let me tell you.  Especially for me because I am the ultimate pack rat. In order to make it look semi-cute we had to keep everything in place otherwise we'd literally drown in our mess.  It's important to optimize your living space by strategically setting up your room. I needed the most space I could get so I chose to loft my bed. My roommate and I set up our beds so that we'd have room for sort of an entertainment area for people to come in and chill. We used this to lure people in. Gotta make friends somehow right?  Actually, I think the first week we tried to make friends by giving people food.  So, since I had the space under my bed to use for a desk and shelving, I was able to put a lot of my storage containers on

After hearing life coach Meg Daly speak at one of my sorority's Chapter meetings, I asked her to share a little bit about what she talked about that day. We did a simple exercise (read about it below!) that really made me rethink everything. Basically, the secret to being happy is to get rid of the little things that you have to deal with on a daily basis that might not be ideal. Like...always being cold in class, for example. The solution seems obvious- wear a sweatshirt. Sometimes we're so caught up in schoolwork, friends, jobs, and the millions of other things that we can't see the simple solution. Sometimes, a different perspective on life can make all the difference. Once we rid ourselves of the little things that bother us every day, we'll have more time to grow in other areas of life.  source With all the pressures facing high school and college students today, it's no wonder the stress levels of teenagers are at a record high. It seems that the &q

Alright here's my training schedule. I was able to run 6 miles without a problem before I started training BUT even if you can't do that, it's still possible! Just gradually increase your distance every time. You can even alternate between running and walking. If you're new to running, alternate 2 minutes of running, and 1 minute of walking. If you're more experienced, maybe run a mile and walk for a minute. This is the beauty of training- you can do it however you want!  You could also use this to train for a half marathon (13.1 miles) but I would suggest maybe doing the first 5 weeks twice, depending on when your race is and your running capabilities.  I adapted this from  fitsugar.com  but they had the long runs on Saturdays. That wasn't gonna fly with me. If you're a more trained runner, feel free to skip to about week 4 or 5. That's what I did at least.  Also, you can switch which days you do certain runs just make sure the mileage per week r

After running my first marathon last Sunday, crossing the finish line was surreal; however, the greater feeling was knowing all the support I had from other people. After the race I had so many people tell me how proud they were of me, but what really blew me away was all the people who later told me that I inspired them to run a marathon or just start running in general. Let me tell ya, that  is what keeps me going on days when I don't feel like running.  source When people heard that I was training for a marathon, 96.5% of the people said "Wow, I could never  do that." No, you just think you can't. To tell you the truth, I didn't think I ever could run a marathon either. It just seemed like an impossible goal I would save for "someday".  I didn't even know that a half marathon was in the picture. With just a little  lot of training, heart, and dedication you- yes you!- can run a marathon. Because after all,   "A journey of a t