Things That Suck/Don't Suck

• Things That Suck: It’s spring break and I’m scheduled to work 43 hours. (side note: our pay periods are Saturday through Friday - I had this weekend off so in our work week I was only scheduled 35 hours… which is still kind of a lot)
• Things That Don’t Suck: I will be paid slightly above minimum wage for those 43 hours, which is enough for me. I enjoy my job. I love my job. I am fully capable of conquering this week.
• Things That Suck: The very pills that help me to function are also the pills that can ruin a Sunday for me if I choose to sleep in one hour.
• Things That Don’t Suck: After years of struggling with an overactive, self-destructive brain a couple of years ago, I finally found a doctor and medicines that wouldn’t make my life for me, but enable me and give me the power to make the life that I want.
• Things That Suck: I have goals that may or may not be realistic, and that’s pretty stressful.
• Things That Don’t Suck: I have goals. I have real, actual goals that I am working toward. I have goals that I am passionate about; goals that I am inspired by.
• Things That Suck: My psychiatrist had another medical emergency last week, on a morning that I was scheduled to see him for refills and discussion. The only other psychiatrist in the practice is his wife. (I’m not sure what his medical emergencies are, but after seeing him for the first time after his last one, they are quite worrisome and I really hope they are able to get it figured out - he’s a very very nice, middle-aged man, with a very very nice middle-aged wife, and they both run a great practice).
• Things That Don’t Suck: My psychiatrist’s receptionist/secretary/person who calls when they have to cancel your appointment is very nice and accommodating. I have health insurance. I have the means to go to the psychiatrist on a monthly basis like I have to.
• Things That Suck: I have the household dreams and plans of someone who owns a large, spacious home. With a room dedicated specifically to my own personal creativity, peace, and relaxation.
• Things That Don’t Suck: I can (usually) realize that I only have one quite large bedroom to myself and am creative enough to make do and figure things out to make it work for me!
• Things That Suck: Winter coats, high heels, and other personal items that you’d probably sell/donate/throw away except for the fact that these things are expensive and you actually do need them a couple of times a year.
• Things That Don’t Suck: I have winter coats and high heels and other items that I only need for special occasions.
• Things That Suck: I do not have enough storage for these high heels and winter coats.
• Things That Don’t Suck: One day, I may have enough storage for these high heels and winter coats.
• Things That Suck: I woke up an hour before my alarm clock was supposed to go off.
• Things That Don’t Suck: I did not wake up an hour after my alarm clock was supposed to go off.
• Things That Suck: I gained some weight over the holidays/in recovering for the holidays.
• Things That Don't Suck: I decided to simply be more vigilant and attentive to my diet and activity levels and lost three pounds this week!
• Things That Suck: I do not have all of the pens.
• Things That Don't Suck: I have an ample supply of pens.
• Things That Suck: I don't have enough energy or time to read as much as I want to.
• Things That Don't Suck: I am able to wake up every morning and put aside a couple of minutes to read my Simple Abundance book, which helps keep me centered, focused, and aware of all of the beauty that is around me in my life! (I seriously recommend this book to every woman in the world. Even just reading it makes me feel better. I believe she has written one for men, as well.)
• Things That Suck: I desperately need to figure out a way to budget my money that works for me but I can't figure out the best strategy for myself.
• Things That Don't Suck: I actually have money to manage, and a regular income that I am earning on my own.
• Things That Suck: Paying for computers.
• Things That Don't Suck: I am months ahead of my own plan for paying for my computer!

So, it's Monday, and we're all tired. Plenty of things suck. Trust me - if anyone knows that, it's me! However, for every little thing that sucks, you can find at least one thing that does not suck. I woke up with all of these complaints, worries, and thoughts in my head. The devil on my shoulder was trying to stress me out. I soon came back with a list of positives to fight my list of negatives; now I feel a lot less anxious about my upcoming month AND I got to post a blog!

I encourage you all to think about all of the things that don't suck when you, like me, have a little jerk on your shoulder whispering everything there is to be anxious, sad, angry, or upset about. No matter what you are stressing out about right now, there is something good happening.

So smile, be happy, and if you would like to donate some storage space for my collection of beautiful high heels and poofy winter coats, hit me up.

What sucks today? What doesn't suck? What are you thankful for? Feel free to leave a comment and let me know!

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And now, a visual review of the past week or so:

I am very proud of the paper organization that I was able to whip together with limited resources!

Ryan and 

The lady rats got a new bed and it's freaking adorable.

I had an awful headache yesterday from sleeping in and taking my meds late. Alllllllll day. So I slapped a cooling gel sheet on my forehead and built stuff.

Annie!

My month. It's going to be nuts.

My roommates are gone for spring break and left me a nice little note!

The laundry room desperately needs some fixing up. Why do we have so many vacuums?!

I re-did my file box this weekend. I am very happy with it. I just wish I could justify the cost of those pretty colored file folders! But damn, are they expensive.

The rainbow folders were my first file folder purchase. I thought I was getting a great deal - 12 for like $8 at Walmart. I thought it was a great deal because these were the only folders that Walmart had.

I'm obsessed.

I really really love my gallery wall, but I need to print some more recent pictures!

This week in the planner.

Rough planning of my meals so that I can roughly plan my budget for the week

I'm not counting. Nope.

Enjoying some time to play with my camera. :)

Have a great week, y'all!

Little Life Update

Hellooooo! It's been a while Since I've let y'all in on what I've been up to. I've been... busy... Sure. We'll go with that.

This post is going to be very bullet-point, music, and picture heavy!

Firstly, a playlist of my latest jams, for your listening enjoyment while you read all about my life. It's quite an eclectic mix. My taste is evolving. I have no problem with this.

• General Life Update: I've been reading a lot and spending a lot (and I mean a LOT) of time at Ryan's house. It's been peaceful and pleasant and relaxing and happy. Knightro's been with me since Christmas and the weather's been absolutely BEAUTIFUL for the most part, so Ryan and I have been enjoying a lot of time outside!
• Knightro: Knightro is the greatest dog. He's seriously the absolute best dog in the whole entire universe. Everyone loves him! He's become best friends with Ryan's neighbor, Marti, and he now goes looking for her anytime we go outside. It's pretty precious. Marti is a really sweet woman and reminds me a lot of my mother, and I usually try and go talk to her at least a few minutes every day with Knightro!
• School: Going well. I'm glad I decided to be realistic and take my classes online this semester. I'm getting good grades so far, actually learning the material, AND I'm not overwhelming myself with other grown up things like work.
• Work: I absolutely LOVE my job. Sure, it exhausts me, and sometimes in the morning I'll be doing something and thing "man I don't wanna go to work!" but in the end I really love my job and I can't verbalize how thankful I am to be able to say that. Finally. The five months that I've been there have flown by and I'm looking forward to much more time with this great company and our great mall.
• Family: My family currently lives in three different places now. I'm not a fan of this situation, but whatever; all I really care about is that I'm in Orlando! Ha. My father was transferred to Maryland at the beginning of this year and luckily he learned from his past with me that moving my brother (a junior in high school) to a different school was not a good idea. So I'm in Orlando, my mom and brother are in Jacksonville, and my dad's in Maryland. For now.
• Speaking of my mother, she's coming to town today. I love love love my mother but I do not have the energy for people today, considering it's my first day off after a few days of work. Not to mention the lack of planning involved - "do you work tomorrow?" "no" "okay I'll see you at 11:30"
• Parents are weird. People are weird. Just give me my quiet time and I'll be okay.
• Planner: My planner life rules right now. I think I've achieved planner peace. These DIY Fish inserts are so awesome and I just enjoy doing things and I'm so productive and it just RULES. Not too long ago I bought a Kiwi Desk-Size Day-Timer Malibu from a friend on Facebook and it is so BEAUTIFUL and my Malden is also being wonderful and I'm just having a great time. I love planners and journaling and pens and writing and being productive!
• Health: My body's been sending me some messages lately along the lines of "stop eating all of that crap and give me REAL SUSTENANCE" lately and I've been slacking with tracking my Weight Watchers Points so I'm going to try to get back on that.
• I haven't stepped on a scale in a while but all of my clothing still fits fine and I just bought some new jeans (FINALLY) and I went down a size so while I'm terrified of weighing myself later this week I'm just trying to psych myself up with positives so I can take the inevitable blow of a gain.
• Money: I think I've been managing my money kind of okay lately. The beginning of the month I got a bigger-than-usual paycheck, my normal allowance, AND two old paychecks from when I worked at Waffle House so I took responsible advantage of that and just paid all of my bills at the beginning of the month to get them out of the way. It felt good. I even still have a little bit of money left for the last week of the month! That never happens! Ha. I'm getting a good idea of my needs/wants/expenses/ideal income/etc. so it's definitely helping me organize my budget a little better. I want to do a post on how I planned out all of my money for the month, so hopefully I can do that soon!

I'm just doing my thing and living my life and trying to be a good person and for the most part having a good time. It feels good. The next couple of months are pretty light in terms of plans; spring break is in the first week of March, finals are in the second week of April, and sometime this summer Ryan is most likely going to Field Training for the Air Force. Life is really picking up and it seems as though 2014 is the year we all become adults.

Thank goodness I'm turning 21 in August, then, right?!

Bottoms up, and Happy Thursday!

And now, a smattering of pictures from my life. Enjoy!

Pro-Tip from The Goddess of Laundry

This morning, I was folding my laundry and came across three socks without a mate. THREE! That's just too many. Especially considering the last time I did my laundry, I noticed an unusual surplus of single socks as well.

What do you do when you find a sock without a mate? Throw it back in the hamper and hope the mate shows up in the next load? Just toss it into the sock drawer to be forgotten forever?

How long until you have to go buy another pack of socks because all you have are random lone socks? Not long, I'm guessing. And socks these days have gotten freakin' expensive. (Trust me, I know - I was going to celebrate getting hired at my current job with a pack of nice black socks, until I saw that any socks that fit the standards of my picky toes were upwards of eight dollars. Like, come ON, I know I just got a job, but I don't get a paycheck for like three weeks!)

When you find yourself in a situation such as this, just ask yourself one question: what would The Goddess of Laundry do?

She'd put it in her box of Lonely Socks.

Thanks to this box, I was able to reunite seven pairs of lost, sad, and confused socks this morning. SEVEN! And they were all my favorite kinds of socks, too. Four of them were black, so I could wear them to work.

Seven happy little bundles of lonely-no-more socks. It cost me zero dollars and about two minutes.

In other words, it saved me both the time and the money of the tyranny that was coming to my way - driving all the way to Target or Walmart, inevitably looking at everything in the store, getting depressed at the rising cost of socks, and leaving the store with new socks and a $10 debit of disappointment on my checking account.

Official Laundry Goddess Pro-Tip: Don't you dare throw a lonely sock back into your hamper, under your bed, or worse - into the sock drawer to be lonely forever. Make a designated box, bag, bin (I used an adorable purple $1 Sterilite Target box with an Avery shipping label that I customized on my computer to match the rest of the Sterilite boxes in my closet), or any other kind of container that suits your fancy - specifically for socks without mates. Every once in a while, go through that container and reunite the long lost lovers.

Your feet will thank you.

Have a lovely day!

Surviving Sickness

Good morning everyone! Long time, no blog, right? I have to leave for work in about fifteen minutes, so I'll save the life update for later. Today, I want to show you all how I've been surviving the current cold that's going around... it finally got me! So, want to know my secret?

It's this little sparkly bag. I've been lovingly referring to it as my "am sick" bag.

Call it what you wish, but this thing is genius! As you can see below, I am strict and religious about taking my medication - I hate being sick and I want it to get out as soon as possible. Somehow, I always forgot about the times when I took cold medicine and when I should take it next, so I started writing it down.

Once I conquered the timing of my medication, I encountered another problem: I didn't have the medicine I needed at the right time. So I started carrying around this little pouch full of all of my sick necessities.

Contained in the $2 Walmart pencil pouch is the following:

• Small pack of tissues
• Thermometer & thermometer covers
• Zicam (I swear by this stuff. It works so well!)
• Alka Seltzer Plus - Cold (my cold medicine of choice)
• Crystal Light packets to encourage hydration
• Airborne - for the brave souls who spend time with me!

I was so excited when I came up with this idea. If I'm going out somewhere, such as work or the grocery store, I just toss this bag in my purse and I'm able to keep myself prepared to fight the cold. I keep this pouch at my desk or on my nightstand, and it's been super convenient for when I come over to Ryan's house as well!

This little pouch has seriously saved my life during this little bout of the common cold. 'Tis the season of sniffles, so set up your little sick bag to make taking care of yourself nice and easy!

Hope you all are having a lovely week. More blog posts will absolutely be coming :)