I love Michael Bublé + iPhones coming back to life.

December has been flying by. I can't believe there's less than two weeks left until Christmas! Noooooo. This is the best time of the year. Sloooow dooooown.

Life lately has been:

dropping my iPhone into the toilet. Yup. Gross. Toilet water in and on my iPhone, mmmmm, and me being really (REALLY) distraught over it. I really thought all hope was lost and it was dead forever but it magically came back to life 36 hours after the huge disaster. Definitely not questioning it. I'll take it! 

going overboard with Christmas gift buying. Can't be tamed. I've spent so much money and I still have more to buy! I just love buying gifts. It's an addiction? I'll take an addiction to gift buying over an addiction to drugs. 

re-reading the Happiness Project. It's my favorite book and it's also a good pick-me-up which I need from time-to-time, especially lately for some reason. It's so refreshing and fantastic. I love Gretchen Rubin so much! I'm thinking about starting my own Happiness Project in January. Oooooooh. Ahhhhhhh.

waiting almost an hour to see the Symphony of Lights for the first time with Paul. It was as awesome as I wanted/needed it to be (after waiting so long for it - in line that night and I've been wanting to go for years). So purdy and how much money do they spend on electricity? Millions.

Michael Bublé Christmas music'ing for hours on end. Literally all I listen to when I'm home on the weekends/evenings. He's got the perfect Christmas voice. HE REALLY DOES.

wanting to bake cookies but feeling like I never have time to or am too lazy to or there's enough dessert in the house that I don't need to bake more. Rough life.

wishing I were a little kid again. So carefree and Christmas is even more magical when you're little. Christmas is magical as a 23 year old, but it's not the same kind of magical. I miss it!

stuffing my face with too much Holiday Bread from Panera. It's vastly different from any other food I've ever had and I love it. I'll eat it for dinner, for breakfast, as a snack, as dessert. Always eating it, mmm.

picking out my Christmas wrapping theme for this year! It's always a big decision. I'm happy with my choice, though! SO CUTE.

I love being thankful: part four.

I'm thankful for my life. Some mornings life is really tough because I'm so tired and just want to go to the mall and eat Chick-fil-a in my bed with Sasha. Deeeeeeeep down, I guess I really am thankful for even some of the more annoying things in my life! 

I'm thankful for:

• a life where I wake up every morning and believe the only way I can get through the day is if I watch that day's Daily Grace video while I do my makeup. It goes without saying that I'm obviously really thankful for Grace herself.
• having to try to fight my Starbucks addiction - that I even have the money to have an "addiction" like this. 
• my 2.5+ hour commute to and from work every weekday. Jeremy, Scott + Elliott are my radio best friends that make me laugh by myself in the car and look like a crazy lady. I almost did a whole post on how thankful I am for both radio shows (Scott Garceau Show + Elliott in the Morning)...didn't want to seem too crazy though! Talk radio is everything in my life now. 
• my extremely unorganized closet that is constantly a hot mess with hangers half-falling and clothes all over the floor. At least I have enough clothes to fill up my closet!
• the down comforter I have that is CONSTANTLY leaking feathers...everywhere...due to holes that Scamper (a dog I had) made in it. It makes my bed so warm and amazing even minus half of the feathers that were originally in it and Scamper was the best pup ever, even if she's the reason why I walk around all day with feathers in my hair and don't realize it until I get home.
• a job. Truthfully, I work for an amazing company and with a group of hilarious people. Both of those things make getting up early every day and dealing with (insert ridiculous combinations of curse words that I come up with and scream at people while I'm driving) to-and-from work every Monday through Friday.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

I love being thankful: part three

So...five posts on being thankful just turned into four! Whoopsies. I was busier than I expected to be on Sunday + Tuesday and didn't have time to do those days' posts. This one will be a two-for-one type deal and the last one will be tomorrow (for anyone who is keeping track). 

I am thankful for my family. 
Without my mom, I'd be a bigger softie than I already am. I like to think she's made me more of a tough cookie which I'm pretty grateful for. She also is always right. Okay, not ALAWYS but she tends to be right most of the time so she's a great person to go to life advice for! Grateful to have a smart (and tough) cookie for a mama. 
My dad, on the other hand, is probably the nicest and sweetest person I know. Recently, my car has needed some work done to it and without his help, I'd be completely lost. He's helping me save money and get things done that I'd have no idea how to do on my own. Not only that, but he also cleans my bathroom for me every weekend. What is going to happen when I have to move out and clean my own bathroom? Grateful I have him for now, haha. 
Without being TOO sappy, I'm so incredibly thankful for Catie and who she's becoming. She's an amazing sister and person and I feel so lucky to not only get along with her as well as I do, but to share the same sense of humor. 
Brooke maybe doesn't share the same sense of humor as Catie and I...but that's to be expected. She's ONLY 16 years younger than me, haha. She brings a hilarious and entertaining light to the family that wouldn't be here without her. It's hard to imagine what the house would be like without her yell-singing Selena Gomez downstairs. 

I am thankful for my Paul + Shannon.
I try to imagine what my life would be like if I had never met Paul, if we had never started dating, if we were never buddies. Whether I like it or not (I like it), Paul's definitely helped shape who I am and I'm thankful for that. I've grown up with him over the last six years and developed a ridiculous sense of humor and become someone I'm proud to be. He's the most hilarious person I've ever met and is so kind to everyone he meets. He goes out of his way to make sure he helps anyone and everyone he can and it's inspiring to watch. So many people love him and I can't blame them. He's a swell, swell, swell dude. Love you, Paul!
Truthfully couldn't ask for a better best friend, either. Shannon is the best listener ever and never lets me forget how much she cares about me. We always have so much fun when we're together - even if we're just sitting on my bed in the dark looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars that are on my ceiling and talking about the food we're going to eat next. Who else would I be able to talk about foods with while we eat food? She's my fellow food-obsessed best friend who will always go out of her way to be there for me and make me feel better when I'm down. The best best friend! Love ya, miss! 

I love being thankful: part two.

No one will be surprised by this...but I'm thankful for Sasha. 

My whole life, my family has had small/small-medium dogs...but none of them has been as small as Sasha. She's the smallest of her brothers and sisters - isn't that so sweet? I know, it is. She's a lil baby.

I love Sasha so much that I've become unable to speak normally around her/when I talk about her. I know other people do it too but I literally cannot speak like an adult. I say things like "her too schweet" and "her nice" when talking about her to other people. Sometimes I don't mean to...I've just become so used to talking that way around my family + friends that it comes out and I maybe like I didn't go to college/learn how to speak English.

One of my favorite things about her is how excited she is to see me. I'll come home from work, so grumpy about traffic and wanting so many Thin Mints in my mouth, and I walk in the door and she's there to greet me as soon as I walk in. So so so so happy to see me. No one else is the entire world is ever that excited to see me. It really is something. It's something I'm thankful for every day.

Girl can also pull of a sweater AND a Santa suit like no one else. I know she hates having puppy clothes on but I'm glad she at least lets us do it without biting us, etc. See...her schweet.

As sweet as she is, she can also get feisty which I also am thankful for because it's hilarious.  

Feel free to add her on Facebook! 

I love being thankful: part one

For the next five days up until Thanksgiving eve, I'm going to post one thing each day that I'm thankful for. So, here we go...

I am thankful for football. It never, ever gets old.  It's magical. It's exciting. And it brings everyone together. I don't know what my Sundays would be without football, without my eyeblack, without me cursing at the refs. It really brings so much happiness (seriously, though) to my life. Those Sunday afternoons after a Ravens win sitting on the couch with Paul, watching the 4:00 game, and being so genuinely happy are the best afternoons ever. 

Okay, now on to more ridiculous reasons why I am thankful for football:

• Without football, we would never have this gem. So much love for mad/yelling Joe. 
• Joe yelling, "ALASKA ALASKA," and touching his butt. Also, him yelling "Nascar." Also, him just talking, in general. See here.
• I rarely use the word "sexy" to describe anything. But I would describe the Ravens all-black uniforms as being sexy. I can't handle it. Even just the black jerseys - so thankful for them.
• It's a good conversation-starter. Almost always. Unless someone doesn't watch football and in that case, why would you want to talk to them? Hahaha I'm just kidding!
• Purple Fridays.
• John Harbaugh is the best looking coach of any sport ever in the history of the world.  Do yourself a favor and watch this video. 
• Fantasy football. Even when I suck at it like this season. 
• The trash talk + people tweeting ridiculous pre-game and post-game tweets. It can pretty be hilarious. Shout out to Lindsey for the funniest retweets on game day and the most hilarious football-related tweets, in general.
• Football gave me Anthony Allen.  Sometimes, when I'm feeling sad or grumpy, I just go look at Anthony Allen's tweets. They are so hilarious. People want to give me crap for loving him so much but come ON. Just read them...please? You'll be thankful for them too. 

I love weekends.

FIRST AND FOREMOST, let's acknowledge that Grace Helbig acknowledged me. 
Most people probably 1) don't care and 2) don't know who she is because they aren't YouTube crazy like I've become (or maybe a combination of both). But other people - who I talk to on a daily basis - know that this made my weekend. I was freaking OUT. 
I maaaaaybe got tipsy a lil bit on Saturday night and decided to post a bunch of random photo booth pictures on my Tumblr late at night, hahaha. So cool of me. #livingitup. One of the pictures I put up was this one - which is a picture of my youngest sister and I from a month ago:

I won't explain it too much but that's called Grace-facing...and Grace liked the picture on Tumblr.  It's the little things in life. Please watch her videos. She's hilarious and is about to be famous, haha.

Without that happening, something else would have made my weekend instead - a crab pretzel. Shannon and I go out to eat every Friday night but I like to pretend this past Friday was special because it was my half-birthday. I really yolo'ed it up and got dessert (which was a cinnamon roll cookie with pumpkin icing and pecans...SO GOOD) and a beer. It was a great evening! I hope the second half of my 23rd year of living is filled with more crab pretzels + desserts. 

In addition to all of that, I made the most amazing pumpkin cookies in the world. I've made them every fall for the past 2 or 3 years. They're really incredible. "You should sell these cookies and make a fortune" - direct quote from Shannon. I can't really do that because I didn't come up with the recipe but I highly recommend trying these out if you like pumpkin-y sweets + cake-y things. Amazingly easy and amazingly amazing. I made my own icing because I was lazy and didn't feel like going all out - because it'll end up too thin anyways (as always, haha). The cookie itself is enough, in my opinion. They don't really need the icing! But go all out if you want. Yolo, hahaha.

I love(d) Halloween.

Holidays (or any days) that involves candy are awesome in my book. 

But truthfully, I wasn't really in the Halloween spirit this year - partially because I didn't go to any Halloween parties and had no reason to dress up! It felt really weird (and spooky) when after Sandy passed on Tuesday, Halloween was just THERE. Popped up out of nowhere. It was the day before Halloween and I felt like I needed to get my pumpkin carved ASAP before it was the big day and it didn't matter anymore. It took me a good couple hours to decide what I was going to carve it. Ask Shannon. She dealt with my "Wahhh. I don't knowwww." texts. Lucky her! 
My top three choices were the Ravens logo (from the front), Cinderella, an owl and a puppy. Naturally, I picked the puppy. It was easy and didn't cause me to drop the F bomb at all out of frustration (which carving pumpkins will cause me to do if they're too hard and start to look bad) AND IT WAS CUTE. ADORABLE. SO SWEETTTT. Arf.

I barely took part in passing out candy....because it was too cold out and I'm a baby (wah). But I did see a lot of cute lil ones in cute lil costumes. Like a lil guy in a police costume - ahh, adorable! And I did hang out with my sister a little bit while she passed out candy and listened to Big Time Rush and Christian rap music? She's cool. ;)

Maybe it's because of the lack of spirit I had this year, but Halloween felt funky. It just felt like I'm a weird in-between point in my life. Where trick-or-treating obviously isn't a big part of celebrating the holiday (and hasn't been for like 7 or 8 years) and I'm definitely not at the point where I'm having my own kiddies to dress up and take out. Just feels kind of weird! I don't plan on having lil babies anytime soon...so, hopefully I have plenty of parties to go to and dress up for so I don't feel so awkward and "funky" again next year! Invite me to all of the parties.

I thought about it a little and here's some ideas I have on what I could be next year:

• Sasha - who doesn't love her? It'd be a hit.
• Anyone from Pretty Little Liars - specifically "A" with the baby mask, you know? 
• Lauren Conrad...or I would be okay with just looking like her, in general/all the time
• Katniss - she'll be awesome/relevant forever, right?
• Poe - the Ravens mascot. I could probably DIY that somehow, hahaha.

P.S. Sasha was adorable. Look at her lil fairy costume. I'll start brainstorming some new costumes for her next year as well.

I love things lately.

Lately has been pumpkin brownies, new obsessions, and fun buys.

Last weekend, I baked pumpkin choco-chip brownies for my sister and I. We were home alone and needed treeeeeats. They turned out pretty decent. I think Catie liked them more than I did. I usually can't get down with brownies from scratch -- they just don't taste as good as brownies from a box. It has something to do with the cocoa powder? I don't know. 
If Catie weren't in the house when I was making these, I probably would have gone nuts. There were a few mishaps - including putting in the wrong size pan and having to scrap off parchment paper while yelling. Good times. I think they look pretty! If you like brownies from scratch, pumpkin, and chocolate chips - here's the recipe!

In the past week or so, I've developed a few little obsessions. One being Google Docs. I'm obsessed with using Google Docs right now. I have so many lists and it's thrilling to me to know that I can look/add to the lists while I'm at home, at work, etc. SO CONVENIENT. Anything that helps me with my lists makes me happy. The other obsession is scarves. This isn't a new obsession in my life - just a new obsession now that it's fall again. I have to have at least 15 scarves already....and then I've been buying them online every weekend since it started even looking like it was going to be cold soon. Even when it was 75 degrees outside, I was looking at scarves, wanting to wear scarves, dreaming of scarves. Ugggh. I love scarves. So warm and cozzzzzzy.

When I said fun buyssssss...I meant fun buy. Singular. Just one. I mean, I always have fun/make fun buys when I buy things online at 10:00am every Saturday morning. But I made this one on a random Tuesday afternoon and I'm pretty excited. I got a Baggu bag! I've never had a reason to buy a Baggu...but I've always wanted one! This lil guy will be my new lunch bag. 
Here's the one I got:

It's got cute lil baby foxes and it's orange-ish pink-ish. I'm in love. 

I love weekends.

This weekend I:

• baked the yummiest pumpkin cupcakes! 
• went to Baugher's with Paul, Aditi and Anusha to hit up the pumpkin patch. It was a blast. There's so much to do there! We did the hayride to the pumpkin patch (obviously) which was so fun. When we got back, I bought some applesauce and apple cider and a baby (or not-so-baby) pumpkin to carve! I need to think of how I'm going to carve that little baby. 
• had about 8 heart attacks during the Ravens game. Ouch. Luckily, I had the previously mentioned applesauce to eat as I ate my frustration/pain away during the 4th quarter.
• did the "dynamic duo" - I just made that up - with Shannon. The dynamic duo is Chick Fil A and Target. Winning.
• spent a lot of time on the couch with my puppy. Quality bonding time.

I love pumpkin bread + pumpkin cupcakes.

Actually, like most other people, I love pumpkin everything. The best part about fall time (other than the humidity leaving and my hair finally being awesome again) is pumpkins everywhere - in my mouth, in my drank, on our front step. Loveeee itttt. 

In the past couple weeks, I've made some pumpkin bread and pumpkin cupcakes. And that's just the start. There's still plenty of weeks left to bake/make all of the pumpkin-y foods and drinks (aka milkshakes). 

Here's the recipe for the pumpkin bread I made. It's made with greek yogurt - which makes me think it was really, super, incredibly healthy. That's probably not the case at all but it was delicious. The recipe also gives info on how to make it with Nutella + chocolate chips. Ahhh yum.

And this past weekend, I made one of the best things on the planet - pumpkin cupcakes! Here's the recipe! These...I also pretend are supposed to be healthy just because they were on a website called "Skinnytaste" but I'm pretty sure they're not healthy at all (just like the pumpkin bread). Truthfully, I try not to really care if they're healthy or not if they involve pumpkin because pumpkin is worth it. 

I've probably written about this before but making homemade icing for cupcakes is always an issue for me. Even if I follow the recipe EXACTLY...it still ends up too runny. What's wrong with me? Why can't I make icing that isn't the consistency of water? It's not supposed to be like that! The day I make good homemade icing will be one of the best days of my life. 

Despite the super liquid-y icing, the cupcakes were pretty amazing. Super proud. They even got the Paul O'Sullivan stamp of approval. Catie and I are home alone for the week, though. And that means we have to find some way to eat all of them before they get icky...I think we can do it with a little help!

I love weekends.

This weekend I:

• went to dinner with Paul and two of our friends, Aditi and Courtney. We were expecting two more - but they stood us up, hahaha. It was a lot of fun. It's nice seeing the both of them since Paul and I rarely get to see them in general. I got the "trifecta" of margaritas - which was pretty great. 
• attended an 80s party @ Zoe's house with Paul. I'll be real - I wasn't sure if I was going to dress up! Luckily, my handy-dandy kind of-crafty skills allowed me to just make an off-the-shoulder shirt and my mom's handy-dandy "OH MY GOSH THE 80S" skills allowed me to have a jean jacket to wear. Those two things with some stirrup leggings and a side ponytail = 80s life. I was most impressed with Paul's outfit. He's cute. And so was Zoe's cat, Shiloh. I love him and he loves me.
• drank an iced pumpkin spice latte. Who loves hearing about Starbucks? Okay good. My brain never thought that iced + pumpkin spice would ever be a good pairing but AH IT WAS SO GOOD. If it were warmer outside, I might start getting them but I have a feeling I won't want an iced drink once the fall weather really decides to kick in and stay around.
• sportsed it up with Shannon and watched the O's game with her on Friday night. I can't lie - I fell asleep between the bottom of the 8th inning and right after the top of the 9th ended. My body knew what was coming during the bottom of the 9th and decided to wake me up so I could watch it and I'm so glad it did! AHHHH. 

I loved September + the first week of October.

September was and October has been:

sweating (and yelling) during Ravens games + also some minor heart attacks.
cruising in the Inner Harbor + more with coworkers. It was like the Senior Cruise I never had except with alcohol.
hanging at the Greene Turtle on Wednesdays with Amanda to see Lardarius' radio show and in the process, falling in love with Jacoby Jones.
being spooked by the Spaceship for the first time this year with Paul.
stalking Shannon on the Find Friends app on my iPhone.
trying pumpkin beer for the first time and being sad that I don't love it as much as I thought I might. 
loving the new Ke$ha song, hahaha. I can't lie. Happy she's back!
crying (almost) over the Orioles. I can get emotional over sports from time to time.
baking pumpkin bread with yogurt in it! First time ever using greek yogurt as an ingredient while baking and it was nummy.
drinking way too much Starbucks. As usual. I'm finally a gold member, though! Congrats to me.
feeling very uncomfortable in jeans - as I do every fall. I'll have to get used to it but for now, it's rough times.

I've been terrible at blogging lately. I'll be better about it soon! 

I love these things lately.

Lately I love:

• Burt's Bees tinted lip balm. Big time obsession. Use it every five minutes. I'll even wipe it off just so I can put more on. 
• Getting ready in the morning with candles lit. I pretend this makes my morning more calm and about 500x better. It's really all in my brain. Whatever makes me happy in the morning...
• Football Sundays. Thank GOODNESS IT'S BACK. Mondays are so much easier now that football is back. I can't explain why. Partially because Monday Night Football is something great to look forward to at the end of the day as well. I love that football is back. Brightens up my life so much. 
• Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Yup. Shout out to the PSL haters. You guys are just jealous. 
• YourAwayMessages on Twitter. Endless LOLs. 
• Catie's birthday. I love her and I love birthdays. So her birthday was great. Got her the best shirt ever: a Jackie Battle shirt. Long story short, she doesn't like football that much (yet) but watched a game last season against the chiefs and decided she loved Jackie Battle (randomly). So I got her one of those custom made NFL shirts with "JACKIEBATTLE" on the back. Get it? Get it? 
• Seeing my best friend. She's a big kid in grad school now so we don't get to hang out as much as we used to so getting to see her when I can is extra awesome. 
• Getting to go to Charm City Puppies in real life. It never gets old. Amazing. Best ever. Cute puppies. So sweet. In cribs. Sleeping and eating food in cute ways. 
• Anniversaries. Those are nice. 

I love(d) Big Time Rush.

So...I didn't mention this previously. Partially because I forgot and partially because I've been busy and not able to update as much. But a few Sundays ago, all of my dreams came true and I finally got to see Big Time Rush in real life. If anyone's been reading my blog since the beginning - which hasn't been that long - you'll remember when I got tickets and was pumped. All I can say is, I had no idea how much I was going to love seeing a boy band in concert again. They all looked so good. They DANCED SO GOOD. I'm in love.

Ahhhh, it was so good. Imagine thousands of 10-year olds...and then Tim, Catie, and I. I was probably the oldest person there that didn't have a parent with them. So proud, though. Truthfully, I've never gotten so out of control at a show before, hahaha. Jumping up and down, screaming, singing super loud. It was very unlike me. I guess acting that ridiculous comes with being at such a show. I could never get away with doing such a thing at any other show - unless I wanted to be looked at like a crazy/made fun of and probably extremely embarrassed of myself.

Catie, Tim, and I made shirts for the show! Typical life. Puffy paint and all. I was really proud of them. Probably too proud of them? I like to pretend they - Big Time Rush - could see me all the way in the back (we were in the very back section in the pavilion - yolo) and really liked my shirt. I also like to pretend they miss me as much as I miss them. I've never felt so sad after a show was over. The entire week after, I listened to them over and over again. I think my obsession with boy bands probably will never end. I'm 23 and still this crazy over them? No shame. No shame.

I love muffins, fantasy football, etc.

It's been a loooong time. A verrrry long time.

Lots has happened. I've just been lazy.

I made muffins. Banana crumb muffins. Wanna see them? Here's pictures. And here's the recipe.

I had my fantasy football draft...with buddies and buffalo chicken dip that I'd made for the first time. I was impressed with how easy it was to make. And how good it was in my mouth. I accidentally got Matt Flynn as one of my QBs and that brought a lot of LOLs to the room. I thought I'd be okay...then Russell Wilson existed and my dreams were crushed. Ouch. I have Ray Rice, though. Let's hope he can carry my team?

I met a lot of dogs. A husky named Thunder - hiiii Muranakas! A schnozzle (?) named Scout - hiii dog Paul and I have been obsessed with for months and finally got to meet (dream come true). And more. Dogs are life. Puppies are everything. Having a rough day? Just go to Charm City Puppies' Facebook - here's a link...add it your Favorites - they have the sweeeeeeeeetest little puppy pictures.

I went to an O's game with my department at work. Work outings are fun. The O's are fun - even if they lose. Sports. Hiii Jackieeee.

I lost MY S#@$ over Pretty Little Liars. Hiiii Shannon. Wow and wow. I'm really sad it's over (til October). Come baaaackkk to meeeee. Say hi to our "A" pizza we got that took 90 minutes to arrive - not kidding. It was worth it. It was amazing. 

I tried on bridesmaids dresses. Never done that before. That was fun! Lots of fun dresses. My favorite is one that's got pockets in the side - for easy Instagram'ing. 

I love DIY mugs.

My little sister, Catie, and I had some sisterly bonding time over the weekend. It was pretty great to see her considering she's been basically working full time and we've been on opposite work schedules! We did some wandering around Target, some closing ceremony watching (who is Tinie Tempah?), and some DIY mugging. 

I think I've found a new hobby - DIY mugging is what I'm going to call it from now on. It's addicting. It took days and hours and lots of internet searching for ideas on what we/Catie/I should do to make our mugs pretty and in the end, I/we/she ended up just coming up with something on my/our own and wound up pretty happy with what we decided to do! Now I want to make MORE + MORE + 500,000 more. 

I think part of the reason why I love it so much is because it was so easy. All you need is colorful Sharpies - or Catie used paint - and an oven to bake the little muggies in at 300 degrees for 30-35 minutes.  

Now I've got something to drink hot tea/coffee in at work! 

I love being gutsy.

Gutsy: Showing courage, determination, and spirit. 

It's hard to change habits and parts of myself that have been the same for so long. When I break down the definition of 'gutsy,' I think I am all of those...sometimes. I can be courageous. I am definitely determined...usually (but I give up at times). And I think I show plenty of spirit.

The only problem is I can't be consistently gutsy. It's either I'm VERY gutsy...or I'm the opposite of gutsy. What is that? Lame? Cowardly? Shy? Timid? I want to be consistently gutsy. Gutsy all the time. But not in an overbearing way, of course. Or maybe I should! Maybe if I was gutsy all the time in an overbearing way, I'd be happier. That would mean I wouldn't be a people pleaser and I'd probably be a lot happier overall and probably have more confidence - which I could always use more of. Confidence and gutsiness probably go hand-in-hand, though. Not only would I be happier, but I definitely think the people around me would probably benefit from me being more gutsy. I'd be better at making decisions for my boyfriend and friends and family. I'd be an easier person to be around, I'd like to think. And more fun. 

As a lover of the Happiness Project + Gretchin Rubin, I feel like I'm always trying to find new ways to be happier. It's not that I'm sad or unhappy, I just feel like there's always ways that I could be happier. And as a lover of plans and making lists, I feel like I need to make a 

list of ways I could be more gutsy. So, here we go!

1. Dare myself to try new things. Like restaurants, obviously. Food. Food. And other things like yoga?

2. Dare myself to go new places. Like restaurants, hahaha. Just kidding! 

3. Dare myself to talk to new people. Oh, to get over my shyness would be so exciting. 

4. Step out of my comfort zone one time each day. This could be a million different things. I could go on and on.

5. Speak up, speak up, speak up. No waiting for other people to speak up. 

6. Make decisions. Asap. No waiting for other's approval. 

All of this is a lot easier said than done but it's something I really want to work on. Or maybe it looks easy to be done. I can't decide. Either way, I think I might make it a rest-of-the-year goal to try to be more gutsy. We'll seeeeee how it goes.

I love parties. Weeeee.

This weekend, Catie + I had the house to ourselves so we had a bunch of people over. Or...she had a lot of people over and I just had Paul and Shannon over. It was a good time. Lots of hard ciders (for me) and apparently just a lot of balloons for everyone else. Catie has a really solid (and awesome) group of friends that I really like so I'm pretty thankful for that. Great food and good buddies and lots of Olympics watching.
On Saturday, Paul and I went to his cousin, Amanda's, going away party. Her family decided they were going to host some backyard Olympics. Magically enough, Paul and I ended up on the same team. Team China. Myyyyy favorite. We won the bronze in jump rope - which was pretty great.
Fun parties. Fun fun fun. 

I love(d) July.

In July I:

• saw a lot of pretty summer sunsets. And took plenty of pictures on my phone of them.  I can't help it.
• made cupcakes for Heather at work that looked like something else...I'm still embarrassed. I FIXED THEM, though, and no one said anything. Maybe until now. I could never own my own cupcake shop.
• had my first Lime-a-rita. Love at first sip.
• celebrated Amanda + Jess's graduations...and lol'ed forever about Amanda's Ryan Sheckler narrating impression.
• loved the beach. A lot.
• saw firefighters kick in a door...dramatically. And apparently for no good reason at all.
• finally saw the Promise Ring live! Hooooraayy.
• stopped running...oops. But started doing pilates. Running will make a comeback in August, though, I hope. 
• realized that summer is speeding by.