// I miss blogging so that’s why I’m back!

// I don’t curl my hair that often so when I do, I must take pictures. Moving on.

// Best sale at Bath & Body Works – 2 candles for $20! Summer Boardwalk & Beach Grass are now my new favorites.

// It’s going to be 100 degrees this weekend. Not great timing since we’re going to be working on the backyard putting pavers in.

// I love The Hunger Games! Yup, I caved in and am still reading it. :)

// Check out my cute little fan that I got for my cube at work! {from Target}

// I attempted the braided top knot {from Ashley aka The Shine Project}. I didn’t think it would work since I don’t have thick hair but hey it did with a small bun.

// It’s been a while since Tyler and I have had the house to ourselves. Our roommate is moving out tomorrow morning. He’s moving back home to be closer to his family. We’ll miss him but we’re excited to have the house to ourselves again. Tyler is anxious to get his hands on the room and turn it into a man cave. He’s unstoppable!

// I know I promised a post on what iPhone photo apps I use and I’m already working on it. Hopefully it’ll go up next week. <3

I was inspired by San to do this post when I read hers so here I am doing this.

♥ I tease my hair every morning! {see image above}
♥ I over think things & always think of “what if” situations.
♥ I’m a homebody like woah!
♥ I’m a real picky eater. {fruits > veggies all the way}
♥ I set the alarm for 2 hours before I have to be up because I have to snooze like 15 times. Tyler hates it!
♥ Dumb drivers piss me off & it doesn’t help that I drive 2 hours a day.
♥ I refuse to cut sweet pickles myself. My mom always did it for me & thankfully Tyler took over when I moved out.
♥ It scares me to think about 5 years from now.
♥ I love smoked oysters & pickled herring. Thanks to my family & grandpa!
♥ Sometimes I compare myself to others…a bad habit of mine.
♥ I’m obsessed with nail polish & paint my nails 1-2 times a week.
♥ I have over 30 photo apps on my iPhone. I’m obsessed with Instagram!

So when I was thinking of the 12 changes that I want to do, I couldn’t decide which one I wanted to do for each month since I want to pretty much start some of them this month at the same time. So this month I might focus on 2 changes and if I feel ready for another change then I’ll add another change instead of waiting until the next month to change.

So with that said, here are my 12 changes (not in order):

Eat healthier. I want to learn to like new vegetables & fruits that I don’t like now.

Bring lunch to work. I’m so bad at this one! I don’t think a day ahead. This means I would need to prepare my lunch the night before. It helps that the girls at work are totally in on this goal so we can’t go eat out.

Stop eating out! There are so many times where Tyler and I come home from work and not in the mood to make dinner so we eat out. I want to start planning for the week on Sundays.

Exercise for 21 days! It takes 21 days to form a habit so why not?! Plus I already did this last year and I felt amazing! Not that I’m going to stop after 21 days but focusing on small goals here and forming a habit out of this.

Drink water every day. I seriously need to work on this and drink water every day. There are times where I get a headache because I’m definitely dehydrated. I want to make it a habit to carry a water bottle around with me everywhere I go like my iPhone!

New hobby…Zumba? I’ve heard a lot of great things about Zumba from Missa Lee who has lost 60 pounds so far. There are plenty of Zumba classes here where I live so I have no excuse to go try it. I don’t want to get bored with just going to the gym to exercise on my own so this would be a great thing to add to my plate.

Save money! Clearly I should be saving tons of money every month but we’re not. We recently signed up for an American Express card with Costco so we can get cash back for using our money. So far we like it and it seems to be working in terms to sticking to our budget. I want to build up our savings AND pay off our credit cards. I want to be debt-free before 2013!

Take vitamins every day. I keep forgetting to take vitamins every day so Tyler and I decided that we will take them every night at dinner time. We have them out in the kitchen so it’s in our sight. If we seem to be struggling then we’ll invest into vitamin organizers but seriously I don’t want to get to that point. It shouldn’t be that hard to remember to take them!

Quality time with Tyler. I’m so busy with designing blogs that we don’t really have quality time together. So what I mean by this change is eat dinner together without the TV on, walk the dog together, exercise/cook together. Tyler agreed to this in addition to ignoring his iPhone when we have quality time together. I don’t want him walking behind me in the grocery store because he’s busy looking to see who won what game or whatever.

Clean house daily for 15-20 minutes. I hate that Tyler and I have to spend an entire day out of the weekend to clean the entire house because it wasn’t kept clean during the week. The house can stay clean if we spend 15-20 minutes cleaning every day so that we can have the weekend to enjoy ourselves and do things we want to do.

Keep my emails organized. I want to keep my emails organized and not let it get out of control. This means labeling them more often and archiving them. Unsubscribing from emails that I don’t want to get emails from instead of deleting them.

Create more pre-made blog templates. I’m pleased that Yellow & Savvy Design has been keeping me happily busy! I want to unleash my style into pre-made templates that I can add to my Etsy shop.

I’m so ready to rock it this year and accomplish these goals. Bring it on, 2012!

Cheerio in his cutest as Santa! :)

We served cranberry margaritas in these jars with striped straws that I bought on Etsy a while ago.

I can’t get enough pictures of our poochie!

My parents had a palm tree that they didn’t want to use this year so we hooked it up in the backyard for the party.

Voting station for the ugliest sweater!

Look at my dad. He said he didn’t have an ugly sweater and had a hard time finding one and ended up buying this ninja shirt from Walmart, haha.

Tyler and his DIY sweater!

Pretty much all of us…some left early.

He won the ugliest sweater and got a $15 gift card to Starbucks.

See if you can find me!

All of us with Erwin’s famous ugly glasses!

It was a great Birthday weekend with friends and family. Anyways, I hope you all had a great weekend too!

Tyler and I have been wanting to adopt a dog for a few months now. Thanks to Missa Lee for telling us about Paw Placement, a no-kill organization. They have a Facebook page with a photo album of dogs that are up for adoption. Browsing through the album, we fell in love with Bennett {a 1 year old dachshund & terrier mix}.

Yesterday they were having an adoption day at Petsmart so we went and met my parents there. We talked to the foster mom for Bennett and as much as we would have loved to adopt him, we all agreed that Bennett wouldn’t be a great fit for us since he is the smartest dog ever and is really active that he would need to be with someone who is home most of the time with him to keep him active.

So we went back outside and saw this cute corgi mix pup and Lucy {a toy fox terrier}. We went into a private room with both dogs. Lucy was so cute and house trained. Tyler was sold on the corgi mix pup and convinced me that we should adopt him over Lucy* since we wanted a pup that was more playful.

We met with the foster mom and learned the story behind the pup. He was found running the streets of Phoenix. They located his owner and found out that their dog had puppies and they didn’t want them so they let all of them go. All of the puppies had been hit by cars or just disappeared except this little pup.

It made me feel good that we were adopting a pup that needs a home and I knew we were going to spoil him for sure!

We did the paperwork and bought toys for him, a cute green polka dots collar & leash, a crate and some other things. How exciting is it to buy him things? I almost went overboard and bought him a outfit!

We were trying to decide on a name for hours yesterday. Tyler and my parents kept on suggesting typical names like Toby, Willy, and so on.

Really? Have they forgotten our cats’ names? Coconut & Cozy.

Anyways, I thought of Cheerio because of the color of the pup and just because I like the name! Tyler and my parents were not on board with the name. After a while, I finally worked my magic on Tyler.

So let me introduce you to Cheerio!

He was afraid of the cats at first but this morning he was trying to get Cozy to play with him. Last night we went on our first family walk and he really enjoyed it. We’re looking forward to having him and training him!

*We later found out on their Facebook page that Lucy was adopted by a woman. I’m so happy to hear that she has a new home since we couldn’t adopt her!

This is just one of the many things that happened today.

Missa Lee was telling me that her engagement ring was too loose on her finger and as she was explaining it, it went flying off her finger and fell under the filing cabinet.

This was just what I needed….to laugh! I managed to take pictures of her. So hilarious!

Seriously, I’m so ready for this day to be over. Friday better be sweet & easy!

Yesterday during lunch at work, Missa Lee and I were talking about hair tutorials and actually watched some YouTube videos. We learned how to make a hair bow that reminds me of Minnie Mouse! We quickly tried doing it ourselves and it was pretty easy! It’s better if you have long hair though.

Last night I did it again and thought it was cute. But when I answered the door last night, my friend instantly recognized my bow and wasn’t sure what to think. See…this is why I can’t do things like this out in public because I’m not that confident with myself when it comes to hair stuff and this is not me at all. I always have my hair down sporting a Lauren Conrad braid or with just my bangs to the side. Sometimes I’ll curl my hair when I have time but that hasn’t happened lately. In the evening when my bangs are annoyingly in my way I just put it up in a messy bun.

I love playing with hair and will often beg my sister to do her hair. By the way, my apologies for never getting around to doing a curling tutorial. I’ll have to beg my sister to come over and let me do her hair again.

I have a confession to make though. I don’t use a straightening iron at all. I refuse to own one and use it. I don’t need to add more time to my morning routine and I’m happy with how my hair is after I blow dry it. Hairspray is all I need afterwards!

“What gives a girl power and punch? charm? poise? No, it’s hairspray!” – Hairspray