Dear Mrs. Procrastination....

I'm coming for you, one little project and goal at a time! Miracles don't happen over night, but I've been making a little bit of progress and I wanted to share one of the first projects I've finished in quite a long time.



I may or may not have shed a little tear over this one when I finished. I may or may not have muttered inbetween tears to my hubby, "Making this wreath and finishing reading The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks are two of the first things I've actually started and finished in a long time." Yikes! Bad day, much?!



I'm a work in progress for sure. I have MANY unfinished projects, books and crafts sitting around. Sometimes my sweet mother even insists on stealing them and finishing them for me, because she knows me well enough to know they probably aren't going to get finished in the near future.

My sister and I had a super fun girls day one recent Saturday afternoon. We lunched at Buffalo Wild Wings (my FAVORITE!!!!), did some shopping, took my nutty dog for a walk and then made these wreaths. My sister is incredibly crafty. It if weren't for her, I would probably be staring at a burlap covered wreath sitting next to a bag of half cut up fabric circles. :)

Needless to say, I was very proud of making this burlap spring wreath that Jen over at Tater Tots and Jello highlighted on her site.

Dishing It Partaaaay!

Amanda at Serenity Now is having a Dishing It Party and I'm joining in! It's a chance for new bloggers to introduce themselves to the blog world and for old pros to share with us newbies who they are and how/why they got started. I figured since I'm new and went MIA after a few posts, this might be fun to do. Enjoy!

My name is Sarah and I got started with this blog back in March, I think? I dabbled for a few days, got discouraged and went on hiatus until just a few days ago. I began blogging just as an outlet for getting my thoughts and feelings out of my head and onto some "paper" with hopes of doing something about it! I always have tons of goals, plans, ideas, etc running wild in my head. Here's hoping blogging motivates me to take action on those plans...and if I create a few relationships in the mix, PERFECT! I plan to blog about anything and everything that pops up. I enjoy telling stories and hope to enjoy writing them as well!

Why I'll Run With You Tomorrow you ask? Easy! I'm the biggest procrastinator ever and my lack of follow through is out of this world! Just try me. When I was younger, my sister always asked me to go running with her. I always responded with "No, but I'll run with you tomororw". I really meant it. Needless to say, it didn't happen. She even made a tape (back in the day, huh?) for me with a bunch of my favorite songs on it titled....yup! You guess it! "I'll Run with You Tomorrow". Back then I never thought much about it. Boy, lately it makes more sense than ever. Big sisters know best, huh?

If I could pick a famous person to become my most loyal reader it would be Reese Witherspoon and maybe Sarah Silverman. I love Reese Witherspoon! She's so cute and seems so down to earth. And Sarah Silverman...HILARIOUS! Enough said.

Well that about sums it up! Welcome to my little blog about my little life. Happy Wednesday1

My Three Change Challenge

Happy Tuesday everyone! This wasn't the best day in the world, that's for sure. I've had a pounding headache all day and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed in a dark quiet room. I came home and forced myself outside to take my pup, Jamie, out for a nice long walk. I love having her around. All she has to do is give me her sweet look and I melt into taking her for a walk. I enjoy it though. We have a beautiful trail near our house. Our long walks give me time to think and decompress from the day. I'm happy to say my head didn't hurt near as much when I got back! Yay for that!

Today I received a comment from Amanda at RuntoTheFinish She saw a comment I had made somewhere stating I really wanted to get back into running after taking a MONTH off! Yikes! She has started a 30 Day Three Changes Challenge. It's a really neat way to document the three changes you're planning to make in the next 30 days. She has a Google Document already started that each participant adds to. You can see what other people are working on, get support, receive support and hopefully meet your three change goal! Such a great idea. I'm so excited to get started. Here are my three changes from April 13-May 13. I can do anything for 30 days right?

Change #1 - NO MORE POP
This is such a hard one for me. Growing up I seriously drank upwards of 7,8,9 etc cans of regular pop PER DAY. So bad. I can only imagine what I put in my body. I was super athletic growing up, so luckily I never really saw the negative effects of what I was putting in my body...until the last few years. I'm by no means overweight, but I'm definitely hovering on the upside of where I should be for my height. I've tried SO MANY times to give up pop. I've even gone for weeks at a time with no pop. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I always end up coming back for more. Today begins NO MORE POP!!!!

Change #2 - Run at least 4 days a week/P90X 6 days a week
I began training for a half marathon back in December. I was rock star devoted and motivated. I even had some crazy ice spikes so that I could run in the snowy and icy weather...and I did! I ran in sub-zero temps while training. I was seriously doing great. Again, not sure what happened. Life got in the way. My husband's baseball coaching season started up, I began taking on more work, etc. Excuses. Strange thing is, I ran religionsly in the nasty weather, but stopped when it started getting nice. Strange, no? I want to get back to running. I want to enjoy the racing circuit in the Chicago area this summer. Even if that means just running 5ks and 10ks. Sometimes I set my sights too far and plan on running marathons and then let myself down. I just need to start slow...baby steps. :)

Change #3 - Call two friends a week
I've talked about this in earlier posts (uhhhhh yeah, I think I only wrote like three posts prior to this, but whatever!). Friends have bounced in and out of my life over the last few years. I have a small few who are wonderful friends, there for me whenever and wherever I need them. I love them and am so grateful for them. I feel like I'm at a place in my life where I need my girlfriends. I also think it's really hard at this age to make new friends. Everyone seems to be pretty comfortable and set in their ways. I would really like to concentrate on nourishing the relationships that I do have and hopefully find some ways to meet new people in the meantime.

What are three changes you can make in the next month? Is there anything you've been thinking about changing or working on? Spring is here and now's the time to find ways to grow and become your best self! I've got a loooong way to go, but step by step, I'm making changes.

I'm Baaaaack!

So yup, I'm back to this whole blogging thing! When I first started this blog a few short months ago, I was in a funk. Chicago seemed to be having a long, cold, snowy, never-ending winter. I usually LOVE the winter, but for some reason this one was rough on me. I was feeling a little lost, lonely and totally unmotivated to do anything but come home and lay on the couch. Writing this blog and reading other blogs sparked an interest in me....unfortunately it was a bit of a short lived interest! I took an unplanned break after only about three posts! Haha, a bit pathetic? YES!

But, I'm happy to say I'm back. I think I had this idea that I was going to start blogging and I'd "meet" lots of new people, get motivated to do a bunch of projects (hey, I completed a few!)and things would be wonderful. I didn't give it near enough time, this I know. I'm just going to take it slow and figure out this blog world, what I want out of it and how to get it to fit into my little life. I definitely know that it's something I want to do. I'm working on my most lacking personal skill - FOLLOW THROUGH! Here's to following through on my blog and bettering myself one day, one task, one skill, one "new friend" at a time. Care to join me as I figure some of it out?

My Happiness Project

I've been reading Gretchen's Rubin's The Happiness Project. So inspiring and motivating! The Happiness Project acts on the fact that "days are long, but years fly by", therefor encouraging us to live each moment and find as much happiness in life as possible. The author comes up with all sorts of tips, tricks, goals and plans that lead her to personal happiness.

I've felt a bit down in the dumps lately and thanks to blog world and my own inability to shut the computer off and be constructive, I can't seem to really pull myself out of this rut. I've come up with my own little way of creating a happiness project. I figure at the very least, this will give me some direction and goals to work towards. And well, I think everyone could afford to really look at themselves and make some changes.

Basically, I took some random things from the book, some random things I've read elsewhere and my own experiences and self reflections to figure out what I need to work on and in which direction I hope to head. I haven't ironed out everything yet. I'm really in the beginning stages so far, but this has definitely got me thinking and planning ahead a bit. Hopefully, in the next few days or so I will come up with a more solid plan. In the meantime, here's a basic breakdown of 3 of the 12 areas I'm working on. I plan on talking about the others later this week.

1. Marriage - I have a wonderful husband who works his butt off on a daily basis. He's up and out the door by 6am and back in the door anywhere between 6pm and 10pm. I tend to carry out all of our day to day tasks (make lunches, make dinner, clean, tidy up, walk dog, etc,). It's very easy for me to become resentful. I'd like to work on giving him a little down time when he gets home, being more affectionate, running with him in the mornings, turning off the computer/tv and having quiet conversations, more date nights, and doing tiny acts of love throughout the day.

2. Friendships - I've been feeling a little isolated lately. I've never been one to have groups of friends, but I've always had a handful of really great girlfriends separate from each other. Recently, I've had a falling out with one friend and I have the feeling that a relationship with another close friend is becoming more and more distant. Some of these things are my fault, I admit it. Others I've felt are out of my hands. I think it's hard to make new friends at this stage in my life. I mean where do you even start? I'd like to really work on keeping and nurturing the friendships I have. Maybe I need to make a phone call or send a card to try to repair a broken friendship (scary!)? I also plan on putting myself out there a bit more. Even if I don't make new "friends", perhaps I can acquire a few more acquaintances and get to know some more people in my town.

3. Career - I have two great jobs that I love. They both require lots of self motivation and self monitoring. I don't really have anyone to report to on a regular basis and I'm really on my own most days. It's so easy to put things off until tomorrow, do the bare minimum to get through the day, not put in a lot of effort. In order to be happy, successful and confident in my jobs, I need to: keep more accurate and consistent records, stick to my schedule, go out of my way, be creative, work on collaboration and get more involved.

More to come in the next few days! :)

A Good Day

I'm pretty fortunate. I come from a very close knit family and I have a great relationship with my sister. I've been kind of on my own a lot the last several days and was itching for some sisterly fun! Lucky for me my sister, Amy, knows her way around a kitchen and is quite the crafter. What a great person to have around as I attempt to make some progress in the crafting and cooking department!

When I got married a few years back, I registered for and received a bunch of fun small kitchen appliances. My kitchen was quickly filled with all sorts of goodies...food processor, griddler, immersion blender, mandoline slicer, etc, etc. Cool, right?! Ummmm yeah, only if you have a clue how to use any of those things or the patience to read the manuals. Which of course I did not. So yes, these small appliances were all shoved into my corner cabinet and never touched. It was my "I have absolutely no clue how to use those things" cabinet. Instead of figuring out how to use those things, I manually did everything instead. Let me tell you, if something in the kitchen is supposed to take 5 minutes, it takes me triple the time. At least. A normal person would say forget taking the time to do everything by hand and use that time to learn the darn appliances. Have I mentioned that I put everything off and am a HUGE procrastinator?

So anyway, my wonderful and very patient sister came over and decided to break open the cabinet to teach me how to use my food processor. HELLO!!! Who knew that thing did about 100 fancy tricks?! Geeze, if I would have known it chops, purees, shreds, etc, I would have been all over that two years ago (ok, maybe not, but we can pretend). We (she) made some yummy chicken club salads with a creamy avocado dressing (thank you food processor!). Definitely a keeper. Now, let's see how long until I use that darn thing again.

After making lunch, we decided to forgo staying inside to watch the possible tsunami hit (yes, we are strangely and not so embarassignly obsessed with natural disasters)and instead took my nutty dog, Jamie, for a long walk. She had a blast and loved prancing around in the deep snow. She's a cold weather dog so playing in the snow is her version of heaven. Following a brief glance at CNN (the tsunami was not near as bad as anticipated-don't get me wrong, this is a good thing!), Amy busted out her digital scrapbooking materials and got to work craft-ifying me. I made a scrapbook page from my honeymoon in Hawaii and really enjoyed the process and how "simple" it was. I have tons of real scrapbook stuff, but it's such a pain in the butt to drag it all out and make such a mess, only to have to put it all away and start all over the next time. Digital scrapbooking is much easier and less messy! Now that I've invested $100 in photoshop, digital scrapbooking here I come. :)

It's nice to have a sister who's a jack of all trades! Hoping she rubs off on me a bit.

A Little About Me

Hello! My name is Sarah. I'm 28 and live in the south suburbs of Chicago. I've been married to my best friend for almost two years. So crazy how time flies by! I can't believe that two years ago I was planning our wedding and house hunting. Life is good and I'm lucky to be where I'm at and to have people in my life that I love.

I'm a teacher and I love my job. I teach blind and visually impaired kids and babies. I'm one of the lucky few teachers out there who has had the chance to bounce around a bit to test the waters on different teaching jobs. Funny enough, I'm back teaching where I originally started my first job and things are great. The grass isn't always greener on the other side and I'm thankful that I was able to find that out for myself!

My husband and I live in a cute little house in a quaint and quiet part of town. It has that small town atmosphere but is a short drive to the nearest Target. Everyone needs a little Target in their lives! Can't forget to add the other love of my life, my dog Jamie. She's part malamute, part lab and the best little buddy to have around. My husband, Matt, is a teacher and varsity baseball coach. He works incredibly hard and tends to get home later in the evening. Although I prefer to come home to Matt, coming home to my pup is the next best thing. It's a win, win situation either way. I'm guaranteed a kiss hello, no matter which one I come home to! :)

I love setting goals, making plans, writing lists and organizing. Nothing makes me happier than a happy, peaceful and organized house to come home to. I have all of these lofty plans, but follow through isn't exactly my stength! If someone was to ask me what kinds of things I enjoy spending my time doing, I'd list off running, reading, knitting, scrapbooking, taking pictures, working out and doing community service. I'm a bit of a poser. I admit it! I'm what I like to call a dabbler. I dabble in this and I dabble in that. I'm a master of nothing. I know I have it in me. It's just a matter of creating some goals, a plan and finding things that I love and interest me.

Stick around a bit and maybe you'll see me spring into a jack of all trades and a master of many! Orrrrrrrr at least maybe you'll get a good laugh at my attempts.