4 Entertaining Podcasts You Should Be Listening To

Over the last few weeks, I've started walking--a lot. I don't have a car and I try to ride the bus as infrequently as possible. I get more exercise in (I usually get 10,000 steps in by 3pm!), I get fresh air and I like to think I'm helping the environment out a little bit. A few weeks ago, I was taking a bus to get dinner just two blocks away. But now, I walk to almost all of my classes, even when they're about a thirty minute walk away. 

So what brought about this change?

Podcasts. 

I've always liked podcasts. I'm not a good listener by nature. I'm an unapologetic visual learner. I'd much prefer to read than listen to someone talk, but gradually, I've become a believer. I've made a policy that I don't listen to podcasts unless I'm walking + now that I've found some podcasts I love...well, I'm walking everywhere. 

And of course, I don't want to keep these to myself (though I'm sure you've heard of some). 

My favorite podcasts:

1. Serial / It's new and it's all the rage among podcast-listeners. Serial is pretty much a long, audio-only CSI episode. Over the course of many episodes, a journalist investigates the case of an 18-year old boy who was accused (and convicted) of murdering his girlfriend in the 1990s. I change my mind at least three times an episode as to whether he did it or not! It's so exciting, sometimes I find myself speedwalking out of stress! ;) If you listen, make sure you start on episode one! 

2. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! / I've only just started listening to WWDTM and I already love it. I was trying to describe it to my roommate and it's like a comedy meets a newscast meets an SNL sketch of a weird Hollywood gameshow. It's super fun! Just yesterday, I was walking back home from one of my classes and burst into this huge grin after something funny was said, and this girl walking towards me on the sidewalk thought I was smiling at her and gave me the weirdest look. Point of story: it's funny and it'll make you feel up-to-date on current events.

3. This American Life / Yeah, yeah, I know. If you listen to podcasts, you listen to TAL. Most recently, my favorite was episode #504: How I Got Into College. TAL always has interesting takes on life and curious stories. 

4. All Songs Considered / I've talked about ASC before on the blog, but I thought I'd mention it again. ASC is my favorite podcast for discovering new and interesting music. I particularly like how the two guys on the show tell a little history about the artist or band and comment on what they like about the songs. Plus, they always choose random genres of music that I might not otherwise listen to. Most recently, I discovered (click to listen on Youtube) "I Don't Want to Change You" by Damien Rice and "Slow" by Leonard Cohen on All Songs Considered.

So! I'm challenging you to listen to one (or more!) of these podcasts this week while getting outside and getting some fresh air and being active. It's always worth it!

What are your favorite podcasts? Do you have any other strategies for making long walks fun?

Weekly Goals #36

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Hey friends! I hope you've all had lovely weekends and are ready for a wonderful week! This week, I don't have a whole lot going on until SATURDAY. Saturday is the big day! My town holds a big fair where crafts, food, antiques and all kinds of stuff are sold. There's a pancake breakfast beforehand and it's always a really fun time to shop around, hang out with friends and of course, buy stuff. But! This year, I'm selling cards that I have been making (and haven't even shown you!). More on that in a bit. 

What do you have going on? I really love reading other people's weekly goals posts, and then seeing how your week goes! 

Last Week's Goals:

+ Finish tattoo calligraphy project. If you remember, a coworker of my sister hired me to design her tattoo for when she gets inked this fall. I was having a lot of trouble with it since the only capital letter in the design was 'C' and that's possibly my most boring and least pretty uppercase letter. But I finally finished it and sent it to her and she loved it! There's nothing like that feeling of nervously presenting your work to someone and having them appreciate it.

+ Do the 7-minute workout 14 times. So I was super flexible with this one, but I'm still checking it off my list. I only did the 7-minute workout six times, but I also went for two, 40-minute walk/jogs and a long walk yesterday. So I exercised enough. I will say that I am a fan of the 7-minute workout! I found one that I can do on a park bench with step ups, dips, push-ups and such. Yay for exercise!

+ Finish designs and print my cards for this weekend. Sort of success. 90% of my designs are finished but I'm waiting for my paper + envelopes to arrive. Unfortunately, there's not really any sort of printer/office supply store within half an hour of me, so I just have to wait. But I'm confident that they'll get here in time!

This Week's Goals:

+ Read for 30 minutes a day. I'm in the adult reading program at my library (me so nerdy) and I have to read a book each in the fiction, nonfiction, historical, western, romance, sci-fi, and mystery genres. I've got the fiction and non-fiction section covered easily and I read And Then There Were None this wee, so mystery's done too. This week, I'm working on Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card for the sci-fi category. Any historical/western/romance recommendations?

+ Put in 120 minutes of exercise over the week. This doesn't count by 15-minute walk to the beach everyday. If I'm wearing my heart-rate monitor, it counts!

That's really all I can think of for this week! Have a great week, lovebugs!

Weekly Goals #35

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Happy Monday! Now that it's summer, Mondays are actually happy because they're my one day off! Seriously, I never understood how much I would love Mondays until I started working this job. Even though it's my day off, I still have some errands to run to pick up some stuff for the shop--it seems like there are always errands to run. I tend to put them off as long as possible because the nearest restaurant wholesaler is like an hour away and who has time for that? But then I ran out of napkins on Saturday so I kinda need to go...napkins are actually kind of important in ice cream shops, as it turns out.

Anyways, that's my day! This week should be more of the same old stuff. I'm working every night and beaching it every afternoon (I really do have a pretty sweet deal). One exciting thing: our town-wide barbecue and square dance is on Saturday! My town is super teeny but everyone gathers in the field in the park and we all have a big pork barbecue dinner together. It's really so much fun! I love living in a small town.

Last Week's Goals:

+ spend time being intentional with H when he comes to visit. I think we aced this! After he left, I realized a bunch of things I forgot to show him, but he still saw a lot of my life in those five all-too-short days. We had such a nice time and I miss having him here already! He would stay up for me to come home after work and we recapped our days before going to bed. Now it feels weird to come home to a house of sleeping people!

+ write all my thank you cards! Well I was totally up to date on this, but then I got two more gifts (not that I mind! ;). So I've still got a few to do, but I'm definitely considering this a success.

This Week's Goals:

+ Finish my tattoo calligraphy project. As I mentioned the other day, I was hired to calligraph a tattoo for someone and I'm struggling with it a little. As it happens, the one capital letter it includes is 'C' and my 'C' is so boring. I'm driving myself crazy trying to make it pretty. But I'm working on it.

+ Finish my print designs and order them! This is a big step for me since I only have a few designs done. I'm really sort of scared about this for some reason because it's the first real monetary investment I've put into this project! If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions for preparing my prints for this fair, let me know!

+ Exercise. I've been SO bad about exercising since I don't belong to a gym here and I just get distracted whenever I try to work out. Or I get overwhelmed at the thought of an hour of exercise since I'm so out of shape. I've started doing the 7-minute workout to help combat this. This week, I aim to do 14 sets of the 7-minute workout--so only about 15 minutes a day.

That's all for today! I think I may go back to doing these every week since I'm posting more frequently these days. So for once, these might actually be weekly goals! What are your goals + plans this week?

Planning Ahead: Goals for the Week, Month and Summer

Today is our regularly scheduled beginning-of-the-month goal-making sesh, with a little twist in that I'm also going to share a little bit about my goals for the summer as a whole! I know summer feels like it started a month ago but technically I'm only a little over a week late. Please forgive me. And I'm making the executive decision not to recap on my last set of weekly goals because they're boring and I pretty much failed at all of them. Whatever.

This week is suuuper exciting for me because my boyfriend H is coming to visit on Wednesday! To recap (in case you don't keep up with my life), I work in Michigan during the summers and H stays back home in NC. The last few years, we've just done long distance loving for two months but this year, he's finally coming to visit me! I want to make sure I am really intentional about spending time with him and showing him around my town. 

Secondly, I failed last week at writing thank you cards for all my graduation gifts--I didn't do any at all. And that's super embarrassing. I absolutely have to finish those this week.

This month is going to be pretty low-key. I don't have a lot of huge events or plans. I do have secret(ish) to share with you though. I've been working on a series of hand-lettered cards + prints that I can't wait to share with you all. Without giving away too much, I'll tell you that there is a fair in my town in late July that I am reserving a table at so that I can sell them and test out the waters for this new venture. I'm not sure if it's something that will stick or not but we'll see! So in short, my goal is to continue doing lettering for the fair and hopefully be all ready to sell them!

This summer, I would really, really, really like to get in good habits of exercise and reading. Both are things that I love to do, but I'm not always motivated to carve out time for them. My goal is to read six books before classes start, including my required reading book. Slightly more vague, I also aim to have developed an exercise regime that I can take with me to college in the fall.

I think that about does it! Oh! And I'm again linking up with The Nectar Collective on this post. What are your goals for the summer? What do you have planned that you're excited about?

Weekly Goals #32

Hello all! I hope you had a lovely Easter if you celebrate it or just a lovely weekend! I had Friday and Monday off and my weekend was oh-so-relaxing...I'm not looking forward to putting that nose back on the grindstone tomorrow. 

On Friday, H and I went out for lunch at a local Cajun place and tried to go golfing, only to find that the driving range was closed. After a quick google, we found out that the owners of the range just up and left a few weeks ago. So no golfing (I was not-so-secretly relieved)! On Saturday, I did lots of exam review + visited my long-neglected lover (aka, the library). Sunday was for church with my family and lunch with kids. Then yesterday, H and I went out again to get us some Genghis Grill (which is delish, by the way). It was just a very laid-back, happy weekend. Also, it should be noted that I watched approximately six episodes of Breaking Bad this weekend...

But even with all of that awesome quality time with Netflix, I still managed to kick butt on my weekly goal! Which, if we recall from last Monday, was to exercise for at least 45 minutes three times + my two soccer practices. Check, check! Well sort of. My first two workouts were about 35 and 40 minutes each because I procrastinated and had to get home for dinner. But yesterday, I got a solid hour and a half in, so that felt good! So I'm considering this week a success!

I have two goals this week: stay on track with my exam prep + finish my book! I've made a daily schedule of which sections to review for each course and I'm already behind! :/ I just need to focus on putting in the time so I'm not super stressed out the night before! Secondly, I'm reading Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and unfortunately, I'm not liking it as much as I hoped. But I've heard great things so I just need to keep working through it. As soon as I finish it, I'll post a recap with The Memory Keeper's Daughter and Reconstructing Amelia.

What are your weekly goals?

Weekly Goals #31

For the record, let it be known that I'm completely aware that these "weekly goals" are more like "every-few-weeks-aka-when-I-feel-like-it goals". But for clarity, let's keep calling them weekly goals. 

This past weekend, I visited my future college for the bajillionth time. I'm getting so excited to move myself into my apartment/suite in August! Yay college! But now it's back to my last few weeks of school before I graduate. And let me tell you guys....senioritis: so real. It's so, so real. 

Let's review last week's (aka the goals I made like a month ago...on my birthday, no less) goals! I made a goal about exercising. Like I've mentioned, H and I have a big event coming up in less than two weeks. Personally, I hate everything about the idea of a "big event" because that means a late night, lots of people, lots of socializing, and lots of anxiety. The last time we went to an event like this one (and it was much, much smaller), I had a panic attack, got sick, and had to leave after only half an hour. Even thinking about that night, I get a little emotional because I've never felt that nervous and out of control. 

I'm not generally an anxious person. I don't get stressed about work or classes, like ever. Something about feeling like I have to live up to some expectation of how to act and not knowing how makes me feel lost. It's a totally confusing feeling for me. And obviously, a really miserable one too. 

But H really, really wants to go to this event and so we're going. I don't want a repeat of last time so I've been trying to take steps to avoid it. I've been practicing doing 4-7-8 breaths (in for 4 counts, hold for 7, out for 8) whenever I start getting anxious, using my anxiety beads and journaling. It's seemed to help, so far, but I'm not convinced that I'll be feeling this confident about it in two weeks. 

Part of my anti-anxiety plan is making sure I don't have any other sources of anxiety. I made sure to get a dress that I really like, I'm going to practice my hair and makeup ahead of time and most of all, I'm exercising to lose a couple pounds before the event. I figure if I can feel great about how I look, I'll be a little less nervous about how to act and all. 

As part of that goal, I joined the #1800minutechallenge, which you might have heard about on Twitter or other blogs. Basically, the goal is to exercise (in any way!) for 1800 minutes during April and May, which comes out to about 30 minutes a day. I play soccer 2-3 times a week with a recreational team, but I'm supplementing that with running intervals on the treadmill and the occasional elliptical workout. 

This week, my goal is to exercise for at least 45 minutes, three times outside of soccer. I'm also tracking my steps and my water intake and working to cut out desserts while eating solid servings of vegetables (my weakness). 

What are your goals for the week? How do you manage your anxiety? What do you like to do for exercise?

New Series // Snippets 01.

A few weeks ago, I shared some of my vision for this blog and how what I was currently doing didn't line up with that vision. I realized that I didn't just want to teach on this blog, though I truly believe that everyone has something to teach. I realized that I also wanted to show life through this blog. I want to read about what's going on in your life and though it may sound self-centered, I want you to know what's going on in my life. I believe it's a deep human instinct to want to share life with others. Why not do that through my blog?

I want to start a fairly regular series on my blog called Snippets, just about my thoughts in my daily life. I'd love your feedback and thoughts in the comments!



ONE. Some of you know that I'm going through the college selection process (yes, I'm that young). Lately though, it's been full of rejection. In the last week, I got rejected by one school, waitlisted by two others, and turned down for a women in science scholarship that I had sort of been banking on. It hasn't been easy, but I've been proud of myself in the way that I've handled it. I'm trusting that those colleges weren't the right ones for me and that there is something better in store for me. It's been a lesson in strength, in patience and in faith. I'm feeling encouraged that I still have two great schools that I like to consider (UVA is one of them!)

TWO. I love love love plants but I admit that I'm not the greatest plant mama. I've had my kale get attacked with some moldy-fungusy thing and my pansies are just getting all shriveled and brown because of all of our freezing weather. I spent some time today nurturing my little babies, pulling off the dead blooms or moldy leaves and clearing out the soil. I found it deeply therapeutic to spend time picking out the things that were suffocating my poor plants so that they can (hopefully!) live and thrive a while longer.

THREE. On a more lighthearted note, I've been using an app called Argus over the last week or two to track my steps every day. The recommended goal is 10,000 steps per day, and I find I don't even get close to that if I don't schedule in a good run or a session on the treadmill. It's ridiculous the kind of satisfaction I got when I hit 17,000 steps after a long day walking around UVA. Little victories, y'all!

Weekly Goals #30

 Helloooooo ladies! Happy Monday! Last week off from classes was oh-so-lovely! I spent the whole week with my family in Florida, where we biked around, ate so. much. yummy food and just generally hung out. Even though it was rainy a good part of the week, we still got enough beach time in for me to get sunburnt. Where did I get sunburnt, you ask? My armpits. Like that little crook in front of your shoulder. Somehow, that's the only place (other than the tops of my feet, which always get scorched) that got as red as all the traffic lights that I occasionally run. I'm almost cried trying to put on a sports bra the next day (is that TMI? #sorrynotsorry).

Aaaaaanyways, I'm back to school this week and all the excitement that that brings! I've got about a month until exams so while the learning in my classes is winding down, the crazy stress of exams is right around the corner. :/ to add to that stress, I have something almost every weekend in April. Prayers, y'all. Send 'em this way. 

Last week, I talked about trying to find time for all the minutiae that comes with blogging beyond simply writing posts--the comments, the social media, the sponsorships, etc etc etc. I tried to be intentional about spending time doing all these things. I didn't do quite as much interaction as I had hoped as far it's social media (I'm working on it, really!), but I still feel good about my effort. 

I had been frustrated, as others of you are, that there's not a good way to comment from the bloglovin' app or even an iPhone in general. Just so ya know, I have found that the google chrome browser app will remember your login info for websites so it will keep you logged in to disqus. So that makes commenting a little but easier. I still have to bother to open up the post in chrome, but at least I don't have to log in every single time that I want to comment. 

So obviously, it's a process. But I'm on my way. 

Sort of shifting gears (I'm terrible at segues), I want to share my goal for next week--and really the next few weeks. I have a big, formal event with H in about a month. To out it straight, I'm really nervous. I get super anxious (like I cry and have to go home like a three year old who missed her nap) at social events, especially ones that require dressing up and being perfect all evening and socializing and dancing and yucky yuck yuck. But H really, really wants to go and I'm trying to be the fabulous girlfriend that I know I am somewhere inside, so we're going. 

I'm trying to plan ahead and make as many things as stress-free as possible, so that I have as little anxiety as possible. I made sure that I got a dress I like and that I feel good in. But I'm also going to work on getting in shape for the event, because I always feel better when I'm in shape. This week, my goal is to exercise today, Tuesday and Wednesday, since I'll be out of town Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with no chance to work out. 

I've found this treadmill workout that involves really short intervals (:30 to 1:00) that make up four bigger phases: incline, sprints, endurance and hills. I've never been a huge fan of the treadmill but I've run it a few times and it's not bad! I'll be doing that at least twice this week. 

What are your goals for the week? How do you exercise when you're out of town and without a gym/fitness center?

P.S. Today's my birthday! I'm not big on birthdays, but I just couldn't write this post without sneaking that in. :)

This post is brought to you by Netflix, orange-cranberry scones and Jillian Lorraine!

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