Introducing: Six Weeks of Wellbeing

(source)

Hello lovelies! How is your Thanksgiving break going? I'm in Florida with my family and I've been cooking all day which makes me super proud of myself haha. This girl cannot cook at all. I even took a picture of my potatoes to send H's mother since she's always trying to get me to cook. Y'all should be proud of me.

I want to tell y'all about a sort of project I'm doing for myself and invite you to join in. If you recall, one of my goals for the rest of the year was to do something good for myself everyday for the rest of the year and write it down. And I'm really excited about this. I'm putting more thought into building health into my life: healthy relationships, healthy eating + exercise, and healthy attitudes. 

If you'd like to join me, you're more than welcome to! At the end of each week (ending on Wednesdays), I'll be sharing some of the things I did during the week to improve my wellbeing. I'd love if you commented and shared what you did!

This project will be going on for six weeks--five weeks until the end of the year and one more week to start off 2014 on a good foot (can you believe it's almost 2014?! I feel like 2002 was yesterday).

So how about you? Are you in? Let's dedicate some time to our own wellbeing! 

Your turn: I plan to do things like call my grandmother, write thank you notes, and exercise. What ideas do you have for improving your wellbeing?  

recent design + folk music + the correct plural of platypus

Hello lovelies! I hope you have had a splendid week and are ready for the weekend (I'm sure you are)! I have personally had a pretty great week! I've had a lot to do, especially design and it's been fantastic.

Most recently, I finished a redesign for Dee at A Deecoded Life filled with hues of lavender and a peaceful vibe. 

Anyways, I really love it and I know Dee does too! :) I also installed my most popular template (the "Honey Sugar") on Kathryn's blog "As Told By Kathryn". Super cute, right?

So I've been having a great weekend! Last night, H and I went to a concert for Keelan Donovan and Folk Soul Revival, who were both fantastic. Oh but we had both had super busy weeks and we got pizza (and garlic knots!) before the concert so I was like straight up falling asleep, even though the show was really good. I was literally dying (terrible use of literally #sorrynotsorry). Moving on, here are a few of my favorite songs that are literally awesome (completely appropriate use of literally):

Science Bit of the Day

Today's science bit is about platypuses, which unfortunately is the official plural, as I learned today. I've actually always said platypi, just to be annoying and pretentious. But anyways, here are eight things that you didn't know about platypuses unless you're just weird. For example, platypuses can use their bills to pick up mild electric signals in their prey. Cool, right? We're so nerdy.

That's all for today!

Over and out, nerdballs.

4 Genius TEDTalks (Part Two!)

You can see Part One here!

Hello lovelies! As promised, I'm here to share some of my very favorite TEDTalks with you today. But
first off, how was your day? In the comments below, tell me one great thing that happened to you today! For me, I got a big statistics test back and got a 96. Oh yes, bow down.

Haha anyways, I hope you have had a fantastic day and if you live in my part of the world, hopefully you're getting ready for bed (which is what I should be doing right now....). If not, watch some of these TEDTalks and prepare to feel your brain literally stretch (bad use of the word literally)!


1. My hero (as of yesterday) Eva Vertes talks about the future of cancer research. Oh and she was only 19 when she gave this talk.

2. Holly Morris talks about what a person's connection to 'home' can mean--and why it makes a group of women live in Chernobyl.

3. Iwan Baan: Ingenious homes in unexpected places.

4. And finally, in a classic but wonderful TEDTalk, David Christian tells the history of the world in 18 minutes.

What about you? What's your favorite TEDTalk? Don't forget to tell me something great that happened to you today!

weekly wishes + orderliness + hippo flips

Hello pretties! ]Can I just say this is the second weekend in a row that has just been fantastic? My team won our soccer championship earlier today, I love my new design + I've just been blessed by so many kind words from so many kind people today. I'm just really, really grateful.

As far as weekly wishes go, last week I made a goal to watch a TEDTalk everyday. So I failed at that; I maybe only watched them three days. But I watched more than seven talks so I'm counting this week as a success. I'll be sharing my favorites in the next few days!

In this coming week, I want to practice orderliness which sounds like something I'd be practicing in 18th century England or something, but it's more of a state of mind. I actually looked it up + it means 'the quality of appreciating method or system". And that's a big thing I strive for. Whether that means keeping my things organized or my living space or just my mind, I want to keep my life neat.

Science Bit of the Day

Not super sciencey, just cool. (Image + excerpt from The Guardian)

An elephant bull charges a female hippopotamus as her calf scampers to safety. This female hippo was flipped several feet into the air as she stood her ground against an aggressive elephant bull at the Erindi Private Game Reserve in Namibia. (The hippo was just fine) (Also, how cute is the calf?!) Photo by Rian van Schalkwyk/Barcroft Media.