Why calendars are awesome

So, another year is almost over and new year is approaching. 2014.
A new year means a few things for me: new start, new goals and a new calendar.

Let's get one thing straight: calendars RULE!
I've always loved shopping for/receiving calendars around the end of December. Everything about a fresh, new calendar excites me, and here's why!

There are so many themes

Up until last year, I've always stuck with the island-themed calendars. They kept me dreaming of paradise even I was x-ing off another day while wrapped in a scarf and coat. My 2014 calendar, which I'm super excited to hang up on my wall, is the Sock Monkey Kama Sutra Calendar. If that's not exactly your style, there are calendars geared toward any hobby, animal, place, food, person, TV show, etc. And if those sound boring, check this out, and this, and THIS. You can get 12 months of anything, so don't be afraid to unfold your style!

Stay organized

This one is obvious because calendars, much like planners, keep you organized. I'd be lost without my calendar. It helps me remember my work schedule, my dinner dates and parties. I reply on it to tell me whose birthday it is more than I reply on Facebook.

Seeing how far you've come

Okay, don't judge me, but I have calendars from 2006-2011. Much like a diary, I can use my old calendars to see what I was doing five years and what I was into, like attending embarrassing concerts, just based off of the events I jotted in my calendars.

Busy-girl workouts

With three jobs on top of school and a social life, I'm a pretty busy girl.
I don't have a lot of time to devote to one thing without having to move on to something else.

But as a stated a few posts ago, I am committed to my November goal: working out once a day and no junk food/sweets.

So far so good in the no junk department, but sticking to working out is a little bit more difficult.

Thankfully, I have found a YouTube channel that fits my busy schedule well.
XHit Daily is a YouTube channel with a variety of different workouts, from legs to butt and abs and cardio.

The best part? None of the videos really go over 25 minutes, which makes it super convenient to workout before a class or before work!

I definitely recommend XHit to the busy gal who has little free time but still wants to keep her body moving!

Fashion trends I can't get behind

I work in a clothing store, so I see a lot of styles and trends come in and out.

Most of the styles I am absolutely in love with, but there are a few I just couldn't get behind, no matter how many times I tried it on in the fitting room.



High-Waisted Jeans



high-waisted jeans

The high-waisted look started gaining popularity in the summer with the shorts.
As August rolled around, rows and rows of high-waisted jeans in different colors could be found in almost any women's clothing store.

I love the way celebrities and other people rock these jeans, but, for some reason, I just can't pull them off. They always end up bunching up at the top, drawing attention to areas I'd rather not have stand out.
So, for those reasons, I cannot get behind this trend.




Fitted Midi Skirt


mini skirt


Tight, colorful and falling right area the knee cap, midi skirts started becoming a hot item around September.
The patterns and colors they came in were enough to peak my curiosity. Plus, I thought it was cool that women were buying a long skirt over a short skirt.

But, as it turns out, the midi look just doesn't work for me.

I'd say it's an item made for taller women...and mannequins.


Sweatshirts Tied Around Waist

sweatshirt around waist


Okay, I'm a fan of the '90s era, being a '90s kid myself, but I believe that what happened in the '90s, should stay in the '90s.
The sweatshirts-tied-around-waist look included.

Sure, it's a convenient look when you're wearing a sweatshirt and then get too hot, but it should not be a style that women aim to nail.

Can't we just move fashion forward?

Please?
 

November Goal

Happy November! (I know I'm a little late.)

It's a new month with new opportunities and possibilities in store!

I've never done this before and actually stuck to it, but this month I am committing to not eating sweets/junks.
That means no candy, chips, nachos, cakes, anything really delicious.

Here's to a new month and new goals!

5 ways girls can participate in No Shave November

Let's be real, aside from Black Friday, November is a man's month.

No Shave November is their Fashion Week.

As a personal fan of mustaches and beards, I do enjoy this month, but why should guys get to have all the fun?


Here are 5 ways women can have a little facial-hair fun:


Car mustache

Cruise around in a 'stashmobile that will probably make spot the facial hair you wish you could grow!
Car mustache


Mustache cups

If the mustache is in the general facial hair-growing area, it counts. Plus, everything feels classier with a mustache, even if you are chugging beer from that cup.
Mustache cups



Mustache dress

Strut into the party in this hot bodycon dress and you'll have all the men stroking their beards in approval...and jealousy.
Mustache dress



Knitted beard

For when you really, really want to be one of the guys.
Knitted beard



Vibrating mustache

On those lonely nights that will be sure to happen because by now all of the guys are jealous of your mustache everything and don't want to talk to you anymore. 
Vibrating mustache
 

I don't know how to gym

I've always been skinny, having gotten my dad's genes.
I used to eat brownies, cake and cookies for breakfast, lunch and dinner and not even feel bad about myself. Well, not until my tummy started to hurt, not when the lbs started to rack up, because they didn't.
That is, until I turned 20.
It seems my 20s have a little surprise for me: a slower metabolism.

Gyms are, of course, the option everyone suggests. "Exercise! It's good for you!"

Well, the truth is, gyms scare me. I back out of going to the gym more times than I actually commit to going. But yesterday was my third time going to the gym in all of my four years at college. And it wasn't too pretty.


Leaving the house

My main concern before I left the house was do I eat beforehand?
I'm convinced that anything I eat, even a cracker, will just force its way back up my throat after a few running the track once. But I settled for an apple that I couldn't even finish.


Are these sneakers?

I know enough to wear breathable shorts and a loose tee to the gym, but sneakers are something strange to me. I've never owned sneakers before I was 21 (I always borrowed my friends').
Fun fact: my roommate owns over 10 pairs of running shoes.

I settled for these sneakers (if you can actually call them that).

I also decided to wear makeup (just eyeliner and mascara)...I don't know if that is a gym no-no or what....


Am I running right?

I feel like every one at the gym can tell that I'm a newbie, from the second I walk in. I feel eyes staring at me, but I convince myself its just because I'm so hot and naturally fit looking that they are jealous as I strut around the gym....right.
That mentality only lasts until I reach the track. My run can be compared to that of a baby giraffe.

I take small laps around the gym, looking at the overly complex-looking machines that I wouldn't even guess how to use.


How do I use this thing?

After running around the track three times and exiting with a bright red face, trying to recapture my breath, I take a small lap around the gym. Looking at the overly complex-looking machines with strings and wires and liftys and pulleys and bricks of weight, I am terrified.

I settle on to an elliptical machine and run through 7 exhausting minutes, my hardxcore music motivating me (barely)!

I cool down on the track, walking slowly, yet proud of myself for spending around 45 minutes at the gym without vomiting/dying.

 

Forever a Freshman

Senior. That word holds a lot of weight and a lot of expectations. Seniors are supposed to be wise and experienced and know the ins and outs of world around them.

But I don't.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the end.

Tomorrow I move back to my school, thus beginning my final year of college, making me a senior.

Although I am technically heading toward the "real world," I still feel like a child.
In many ways, I still feel like a freshman.

I'm still learning about myself and the world around me - how to act in certain situations, how to deal with certain personalities types, what I like and what I don't like.

I don't think that will ever go away, and I realized that that's a good thing. But for a while, I saw this as a bad thing. I felt almost like I hadn't grown up right because I didn't know some things that my roommate knew. But then I realized that no one knows everything, but everyone is learning every day.

Even though, I am going to be a senior in college, I will forever be a freshman.
I will always want to learn and discover and explore the areas within my mind and out in the world.
 

Do you know what's beautiful?

                                                             Life.

The taste of your surroundings

I had an internship in New York this summer, right on Tenth Ave. I was there twice a week.
Walking to and from the bus terminal, I would fast-walk passed blocks of nifty shops and restaurants without turning my head. I was so focused on getting from Point A to Point B and back, without drawing too much attention to myself.

Yesterday one of my supervisors took me out to lunch.
He took me to this little shop on Ninth Ave called Better Being 940 that I had passed by every time I was in the city.
It was a tiny place with paper menus stacked on the counter and a chalkboard menu above. An iHome provided music for the shop.

As I was scanning the paper menu, I noticed that the food this place offered was nothing this Jersey girl had seen before.

Avocado toast, herbed turkey burger on an English Muffin, cabbage and scallion coleslaw...

And then there were the sandwiches! Taken from website..

The Massaman Joe: Thai Massaman Curry Turkey Sloppy Joe, Basil Peanut Gremoulata, Seeded Brioche 
The Djanger: Hangar Steak, Tomato Coulis, Brussels Sprouts, Caramelized Onion, Rosemary Horseradish Mayo, Onion Foccacia
The Squashbuckler: Squash, Manchego, Onions, Kale, Sourdough

I'm a boring lunchmeat girl who is used to turkey and cheese on wheat bread and throws mayo in when she is feeling daring. Coming from my three-ingredient sandwiches, it was a mouthful just reading about these sandwiches.

I ended up ordering the Nuyorican.
- Sofrito chicken
- Plantains
- Peppercorn mayo
- Avocado 
Held together in a tortilla wrap.

                                                                       Taken from website.

My God, it was the most delicious thing I have tasted in a while.

Being Spanish, I was loving the Sofrito chicken and plantains; they complimented each other in an interesting way.
Being me, I loved the avocado. I have a weird thing for avocado; If I'm out at a restaurant looking at the menu, my eyes are searching for the word "Avocado." Me likey.


If you find yourself in New York City, check out Better Being 940. Let your tastes buds do a lil experimenting!

 

NERDGASM: Books rule, eBooks drool.

I'm a technology cavewoman.

While everyone was scrolling 100 songs on their iPods, I was flicking through 50 songs on my Mp3 player.
While everyone was pulling up the Google browser on their smart phones, I was texting Cha-Cha and the Twitter Mobile number.
While everyone was plugging in their laptops, I was powering up my desktop PC.
Sad, but true.

I eventually caught up to everyone's techy trends, except for one.

eBooks.

I refuse.

I refuse to try and convince myself that a swipe of the finger on a smooth screen to go to the next the page is better than the lick-and-turn method. I refuse to curl up in bed with a nice Kindle. I refuse to open up a Nook on a fall afternoon. I refuse to pick up a device that I can read both a text message and learn the message of a literary text from.

When I read a book, I am transferred into another world. A world where I know new people and am a part of new situations. I am outside of myself. I can leave my worries and stress beh----BUZZZZZZZZZ.

Text message.

No.

And nothing beats the feeling of satisfaction I get from adding a read book to my book shelves. Horizon and vertical, short and tall, skinny and fat. The spins of my books tell stories from periods of my life. eBooks could never do that.

There is something wonderful about walking into a Barnes and Noble and browsing the aisles and aisles of shelves of books until a spine catches your eye. When you hold a both in your hands, you feel the weight of everything awaiting in between the front and back covers. Opening the cover, ceasing the page, folding the book. I would never give up that timeless (and unbreakable) magic for a device I have to charge at night.


Books build friendships and relationships. They create common ground for people who have read are reading the same book, or at least serve as an ice breaker for people who have differing opinions on a book. If you were reading your Nook in a coffee store, no one have any idea what you were reading. And if that was the case, Summer from 500 Days of Summer would have never met her husband!

                                             Ignore the terrible quality and skip to 3:35.

I don't want to make it seem like I'm against technological improvements- that's not the case at all.
I'm all for it! Make my cell phone smaller, make my laptop thinner but, please, don't mess with books.

Paper > Plastic and glass.

THANK YOU AND GOOD DAY.

My lame Kick-Ass 2 review

I saw Kick-Ass 2 tonight.

If you haven't seen Kick-Ass, here is all you need to know: It goes there.

If Kick-Ass 2 were a tree, the roots would be violence, the branches would be sadness and the leaves at the end would be comedy. Oh, and the tree's name would be Badass, because that's what the movie is overall.

The movie has managed to created its own genre...Vi-sad-edy. (I just made that up, but feel free to start referring to Kick-Ass flicks as vi-sad-eddies, the way How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days is referred to as a rom-com.)

So don't be thrown off by the knee-slapper that is the preview for the movie.
It ain't all sunshine and kids dressed up in costumes pretending to be superheroes only to discover that they are ordinary heroes or some shit.

People die and get brutally hurt. But Aaron Johnson takes his shirt off so maybe that is reason enough to get your booty to the movies and see this one-of-a-kind movie. Mmm, Aaron Johnson.
 

Goals and blue skies

Every summer, I like to set goals for myself.

• Read more.
• Learn how to cook.
• Take up a hobby.

Those are just a few on my super duper long list.
Unfortunately, I usually don't really get around to doing or sticking to most of the goals on my bullet-pointed scroll, but today I got to strike out two!

• Go outside more.
• Do more things on my own.

This summer, I've really been wanting to get outside and be around nature, something I don't do often. I've also been trying to be more independent and do more on my own, without relying on others.

Today, I went canoeing and hiking with friends and then went bike riding on my own!
It was a day of big accomplishments and I'm pretty happy about it. :)

 

It was a beautiful day.

 

 

 

 

How I became a cat lady

I’ve always had dogs. Ever since I was born, there has been a dog in my life, as well fish, snakes, (so many) hamsters and newts, but mostly dogs.

When I went away to college, Jade, my black lab, , had been a part of the family for four years. As the days of my freshman year went by, I found myself missing her a lot, probably a little bit more than I missed my parents. I felt like there was a Jade-shaped hole in my heart that was aching to be filled again.

Even though I made friends in college and had roommates, I felt alone and couldn’t help but miss the company of a pet. This feeling grew immensely when I reached my junior year because my roommate and I were hardly ever home at the same time, leaving me to do homework alone in an empty apartment without the distraction of a cute furry face.

My roommate and I had both began having that “something is missing” feeling ever since moving into our new apartment. She was missing her cat and I was missing my dog. We discussed getting a pet for a few weeks, throwing ideas around to see which one stuck for both of us.

‘Cat’ was thrown around a few times but a cat never seemed like a practical pet seeing as how we were broke college students. Plus, I didn’t know cats. Hell, I had never even pet a cat before. What could a cat do for me? Could a cat fill my Jade-shaped hole? All I knew about cats was that they were mean, antisocial and unattached.

But somehow, my roommate convinced me and immediately took to the Internet to begin our search for our new pet. A week later, we were pulling up in the parking lot of a Target on a chilly September night to meet the owners of the cat that would soon become my most prized possession.

His owners had put an ad online for somewhere to take their 1-year-old cat, Mr. Fluffballs, because they were moving to a new place that didn’t allow cats.

He wouldn’t stop meowing as my roommate held him and cooed to him. She fell in love with him fast. Now it was I who needed convincing.

And to this day I don’t know why I said yes. There was nothing overwhelmingly adorable about this cat that made my heart turn into syrup. His eyes did not speak to me in a sweet little voice. He was just a cat that looked frightened to be outside and in the arms of a stranger.

I really don’t know what made me agree to take that cat home that very night. But something did, and, as sappy as it sounds, I’m so glad I did.

My cat, who we renamed Kevin, has changed my life and my opinion on cats entirely, to the point that I melt whenever I see a cat!

 

                                                                           He's a freak. <3
  

Super friendly and cuddly, Kevin gives me something to look forward to, something to sleep next to, something to randomly hug and kiss when he least expects it. Obsessed is an understatement.

Yep, I’m a cat lady.

When the winds shift for the better

A professor once told me that once journalism gets into your blood, it doesn't leave.
At this point in my life, I couldn't agree more.

Ever since I was in high school, I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
I wanted to be a copy editor. That was the one thing about my life that I was certain of.

I got through my first two years of college as a journalism major with the same goal, a goal that was intensified after winning the position of head copy editor for my school paper last year.

Spring semester of my junior year, my goal became less appealing.

I was on my way home from a class when I received a Twitter notification on my phone saying that my advisor had tweeted to me. When I saw what she had tweeted, my lips pulled back into a huge smile.
Ever since I started my junior year, I had been telling my adviser that I was very serious about finding an internship, specifically a copy editing one, of course. I had gotten a fall internship with a magazine that I wasn't too crazy about and was now ready to a step closer toward my ever-so-precious goal.

I guess my adviser remembered how eager I was to get a copy editing internship because her tweet letting me know that the local newspaper was looking for a copy editing internship, following by about a hundred exclamation points. I was so excited! I jumped on the opportunity as soon as I got home, hooked an interview that week and started my copy editing internship shortly after.
After a few weeks, I found myself not enjoying what I was doing at the internship.

Maybe it was the hours?
I was there from 6-10 p.m.
I had had two internships prior to this copy editing internship, and they both started in the morning, so the change of time was a bit different, even though I was used to working all through the night as a copy editor for the school paper.

Maybe it was the people?
There are only five people tops there when I'm there a couple nights out of the week. They are older and hardly talk to each other, not even to say "Bless you" when someone sneezes. To come from a work environment at the school paper that is loud, crazy and chaotic is the best and most organized way, to this dullness, is just a shock. A bad shock.

Maybe it was the reality of the situation?
Copy editors never get the spotlight. They are last ones to thank when things go right and the first ones to blame when things go wrong. I knew this and was fine with it, until my internship. I realized that as a college student and member of a school paper, I have a lot of freedom. Even though I am a copy editor for the school paper, I am still allowed to write articles and contribute in more ways than one. In the real world, I don't think those things are allowed. I feel very unsatisfied when I interned at the local paper. It made me realize that I don't think I could be okay with just editing.

Journalism is in my blood. I can't fight the urge to write and report.

While I was a bit upset at the sight of my long-loved goal diminishing, I am a strong believer of the saying "everything happens for a reason." I do believe that I had to experience what being a copy editor is really like in order to be ready for the next step in my career.

I don't know what the future holds, but I know I'll always be on the right track.