Life Lately

Life lately has consisted of a lot of coffee | trips to target and sippin on water | pretty bonfires | trips to the park and exploring and hanging out with daddy.

What does life look like for you lately?

My New Found Frugal Life

It’s been almost two weeks since we’ve adopted our new found frugal life.  A couple observations/thoughts/musings:

- It hasn’t been easy.  I really want to shop and this is forcing me to not mindlessly spend and it’s also making me appreciate delayed gratification.
- I’m still using a lot of my allowance on food.  Which annoys me.  Coffee/lunches/etc. 
- We still haven't seen the fruits of our labor (yet) I know its only been two weeks.  But since we changed up how we pay our bills, we should see some substantial change by the third pay period.
- It makes me realize that I had a shopping/spending problem, because I get the urge too really bad and I have to physically stop myself.  I was in target and didn’t realize it until I snapped out of it – but I had a gorgeous purse in my hands and I was convinced I was going to walk out of the store with it.
- I think once I see how much (hopefully) is in our checking account by the end of the month I’ll be a changed woman… here’s to hoping.

Overall, it’s been good for me to stop buying buying buying (not that I was out of control, but it was obnoxious) and really forcing me to ask myself… “Do you really need this?” “Is this something that is worth spending your allowance on?” and for that, it’s been worth it so far.  Here’s to many successful and slightly less painful weeks ahead!

 

Image here

Very Pinteresting

I am girl crushing hard on Lana Del Rey. Listening to her album on repeat lately.

Doesnt this apple cider sangria look absolutely delish this fall?

It's only Monday and I am thinking....

Yes please.  Looks amazing.

Looks soooo comfortable!!! 

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

My Personal Style

My style in clothing has changed throughout the years.  I’ve been a girly girl with the dresses and fancy shoes, I’ve been a tom-boy with graphic tee’s and a ball chain necklace, I’ve been into labels… I’ve been through many.  But as I’ve gotten a little older, I’m realizing that I prefer simple tastes. 

A couple good pair of jeans that have a nice relax fit, I prefer a straight leg over flare or boot cut.  A dark denim, black and a colored is ideal.

A couple tissue tees, they are so soft and light and fit amazing no matter what size you are.  I’ve had the same one, which I am afraid I’ll have to retired soon that I've had for over 2 years.  I’ve worn it pre pregnancy, during pregnancy and post.  Now that’s a versatile tee if you ask me.

A cardigan, I loooove layering.  A long cardigan over a tissue to to cover up if it gets cold or to run up to the store.  Works for me.

A handful of scarves.  Once the cooler weather hits, you wont see me without a scarf on.  It’s my go-to accessory in the cooler months.

Shoes: A wonderfully fitting flat, ankle boot and knee boot for all seasons. 

A over the shoulder, messenger-esqe bag is my thing.  Ever since having a kid, my arms are always full so I prefer a bag that I can swing over my chest. 

I never have been BIG into jewelry.  I always have a couple pieces I wear all the time including a pair of earrings my husband gave me before we were married, my watch my parents got for Christmas, my wedding bands and a ring with my sons initials and a red thread bracelet to keep away the evil eye and that’s it.  Simple. 

I’m going to be purging A LOT of my clothes this month and purchasing my key go-to pieces over the course of September and October.  I’ve been all over Pinterest pining my favorite styles.  Here are a few of my favorites.

How has your style changed over the years? What is your go-to style?

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

When My Life Changed

Today’s prompt is “Describe a distinct moment when your life took a turn.”

That’s an easy one – it’s the day that this little man came into our lives.

Everyone tells you how much your life is going to change.  How your world is going to be turned upside down and before that moment, you’re like… OK… well duh… it’s a baby.  Babies have a way of doing that.  But in no way was I prepared for the amount of love and frustration that came with a new baby.
Love because he was in me.  Survived and sustained by me.  It took all my strength to bring him into this world.  The 20+ hours of labor and the 3 1/2 hours of pushing.  He was literally perfection, the biggest lips I have ever seen on a baby and the sweetest little nose. 

Love because he is so pure and innocent.  Love because he is half of me.  Love because he is my everything.  Love because how could you not possible love this little kid and his sweetness?

But frustration because it’s just not easy.  The late night feedings, the gas, the poop, the pee, the spit up… oh the spit up

The schedule and the routine.  The crankiness and whining.

 

But this little man, has been growing up before my very eyes and to be honest it’s breaking my heart.  He has such a sweet disposition and his vocabulary is blossoming, his favorite word is “No No” while he shakes his finger at me.  Wonder where he gets it. 

I love him so much and while yes there are frustrations the love supersedes those over and over again.  My life is so much better because of Vincent and I am so grateful to God he has brought him to us.  Thank you Vincent for changing my life.

ISFJ

Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Today's prompt we were asked to take this short personality test and report back our findings.  

 One of the things that I first read was this:

ISFJs are often unappreciated, at work, home, and play. Ironically, because they prove over and over that they can be relied on for their loyalty and unstinting, high-quality work, those around them often take them for granted--even take advantage of them.

I couldnt agree more with this.  I have high expectations of myself and others that people just expect certain things from me.  Most of the time, I usually brush it off - but others I am just like "Hello? I still work here?"

While their work ethic is high on the ISFJ priority list, their families are the centers of their lives. ISFJs are extremely warm and demonstrative within the family circle--and often possessive of their loved ones, as well. 

I would agree with that as well.  I dont know if I would say I am possessive... but more fircely loyal.  That sounds a bit better eh?

All in all I thought this test described me pretty accurately.  What were you?

Spend Less

Being an adult has it's awesome days... like days I want to have ice cream for breakfast or stay up late watching movies.  No parent  hovering over me telling me ice cream isn't a suitable breakfast choice (I beg to differ) or I have work in the morning and I should get to bed instead of watching movies all night.  

But a lot of the times, being an adult really sucks.  It comes with an insane amount of responsibility, bills, places to be, home to keep up with, relationships to nurture, metabolism slowing down... it's all very tragic.  One of the things that Mike and I have not put our adult pants on with was the whole budget thing.  We've been getting by for the last 3 years of our joint finances with not much to show for.  

After having a couple rough months this year where it felt like we were barely going to get by, we sat down and shit got real.  We realized that we are frivolously spending our money on food (lunches, dinners, coffee (me) in the morning) and a lot of little things here and there that added up like books, movies, hobby stuff, makeup etc.  We were getting to the point where we were beginning to step out of living within our means.  

We went over our net income + monthly expenses and we (happily) realized that we had quite a bit of money left over but didnt realize because we were pissing it away and didnt understand where it was going.  Sigh.  

What did we do? 

We created a 2 week menu plan that had a shopping list.  We just dont make it to the grocery store every week - we've tried.  We just dont.  The two week plan has worked.  

We also got a lot of fruit, veggies and snacks and pre-packaged them in easy accessible baggies so we dont waste.

Going alongside with that is we are brown bagging it - boring, yes... but sooo sooo SO cheap! 

We switched up when we pay certain bills.  A lot of them were at the end of the month leaving us sweating.  We moved up a lot of the bills to the beginning of the month and so far it's working.

We set up 3 month, 6 month and 1 year goals for our savings account to make it grow.

And the single most important thing we did to help our finances? We gave ourselves an allowance.  This allowance is for 2 weeks.  We have to make $100 (each) last for two weeks.  This means I can use my $100 on anything I want, coffee, make up, clothes, movies, lunch etc.  But if I blow my $100 before the 2 weeks are up - that's my prob.  I've never put myself on a budget... That sounds kind of crazy to say but I havent.  We are going to have weekly budget meetings to keep each other straight.

I am super excited to see how we are going to be able to improve our financial lives together.  I want to be debt free in 3 years (excluding mortgage and student loans) but I feel like if we stick to our plan, it can happen easy! 

I feel like I have to make it into a game or else I am going to loose my mind since I love to shop and spend.  So I am putting together a list of things to do instead of spend.

- Go for a walk

- Sit down and read one of the 40 books you've gotten recently

- Make some homemade bread

- Go to the zoo with Vincent

- Go to the Library

- Go to the DIA

- Clean out your closet 

- Write in your journal

- Go for a drive and blast some music

- Meditate

I am excited for this journey.  Here's to being debt free! 

here

January 3, 2003

I liked him.  He liked me.  Both came from Italian roots.  But something was off – I didn’t know it yet.  But what happened January 3, 2003 albeit a very scary night.  Probably stopped me from having a hard, heartbreaking life.

He asked me out on a date, but due to not having reliable transportation asked if for this one night I wouldn’t mind driving.  I kind of felt foolish – really? I have to drive us around for our date? Lame.  But since I really into this guy, I thought eh, why not.

We went out to dinner – I forget where…max and ermas I believe.  After dinner we decided to go see a movie.  Movie was sold out.  What do two 17 year olds do? Go play pool? Sounds like a good idea.  Little did we know that many pool tables were in bars.  Bars we couldn’t get into yet.  We tried 3 of them before we decided to head back to my house to watch a movie.

I was heading south on Haggerty.  It was a clear night.  No rain.  No radio on.  Just the two of us laughing and talking.  Then it went dark… piercing dark and white rang throughout my head.  My jaw clenched.  I blacked out.  I woke up.  I was facing the opposite side of traffic, I was up against the guard rail and my car was smashed to pieces.  I looked to my right and he was still unconscious.  Bleeding.  I believed him to be dead.  I began to scream.  My mom said I called her, which I don’t remember doing telling her we had been in a bad accident.  Mike wasn’t responding.  Paramedics were all around us, a man was yelling and swearing at me, and a sweet old lady put her arms through the broken window and around me and kissed me on the cheek. She said everything was going to be OK, she looked up and said “Theres yo daddy.” I looked up and saw my dad running up to my car.  I sobbed harder. I think she was my guardian angel.

The boy started grunting – still not awake – but a live.  Thank you God.  Metal crushing, neck brace being secured we were both pulled from the wreckage and into an ambulance.  I was broken.  Inside and out.  How did this happen? I heard through the radio I went through a red light.  We got T-boned.  We were lucky to be alive.

At the hospital I thought I heard him in the room next to me being worked on, I kept trying to push the curtain away to see him.  It wasn’t him.  They had to check for internal bleeding, they took x-rays and patched me up.  A couple chipped up teeth, a broken wrist and some bumps and bruises were the final prognosis.

I remember sitting in that car scared, frightened, and upset I caused this.  How could I have been so careless? But I believe in some way, it was God’s weird plan to stop up from wrapping ourselves up into each other because he went away to the Marines.  Around the world.  I would have been away from my family.  It would have been a hard life.

Everything happens for a reason.  I’m just happy we were all OK in the end.  Life’s path twists and turns and you just have to go along with it. 

Words of Wisdom

Today’s prompt is “Pass on some useful advice or information you learned and always remembered.”
I have a couple pieces of advise that I’d like to pass on.  Some of it is personal some of it is work – but it applies to anything reallyThis one is HUGE for me.  So many times I would count on my mom or boyfriends to pull me out of my funk and while sometimes it works, I cant always do that.  I couldn’t always count on them being there for me every time I get sad.  It’s wasn’t fair to them and it’s wasn’t fair to me.  I put together a list of things that I do that makes me happy and when I start feeling sad, I do one or ALL the things that make me happy.  Now that I am older and maybe a little wiser, I tell that to everyone – learn to be alone – learn to pull yourself out of your rut… it will help you when you need it most.

Just like children testing their boundaries with their parents… people are going to test their boundaries with you as adults.  They are going to see how far they can push before you finally say something.  Are you going to muzzle yourself after being disrespected because you don’t like confrontation? Are you going to keep taking the little jabs here and there because it’s easier to stay quite? Are you going to keep letting something go without saying something or consequences? By not sticking up for yourself or saying something we are teaching those who intentionally or unintentionally hurt us how to treat us.  By not saying something, we are in essence saying it’s ok to treat me that way – I wont call you on it.  It’s OK to talk behind my back, I’ll just ignore it.  We teach people how to treat us and if we don’t say anything at all we are saying a lot. 

This is an easy one for me… by nature I crave solitude.  I absolutely love being by myself, but have met so many people hate being by themselves.  Just today, I threw my hands up in the air and said I need some me time.  I went to the bookstore, got myself a Starbucks and plopped down on a big cushy chair and read for an hour.  BLISS I TELL YOU.  But it’s not for everyone.  I’ve learned that from a very young age that if I enjoy my own company, others are going to enjoy it too – but if I cant stand being alone in a room with just me and my thoughts – why would anyone else? Take some time to get to know you a little better.  Go to the bookstore, head to Starbucks and people watch for a little, go see a movie.  Soon it becomes a part of you, you’ll not only want that alone time – but you’ll crave it.  Be your own best friend, because you are kind of a cool chick.

Those are a couple of my favorite pieces of advise – what about you? What are yours?

September Goals

I don’t know about you but August sucked.  We weren’t responsible with our money, I ate like crap a lot, I didn’t work out – like once.  I stressed out a lot at work.  I didn’t have ONE me day or like Maria’s day out.  I didn’t do anything that inspired me.  Basically I was going through the freaking motions.  Which sucks. 

But with a new month brings new goals, wishes, aspirations and – a new job! Same company… new job.  But really, it’s so perfect.  Before I was a hot mess of stress, tension and anxiety.  It was NOT for me.  This new role is much more for me.  It is a lot less stress and basically exactly what I needed.

I am getting my life back on track.  I realized I was a hot mess after re-washing the same load of laundry 4 times because I forgot it and when we were out of clothes went down to the laundry room only to forget about said load in the wash and opening it up only smell that mildewy smell.  Sigh.

I am not going to dwell on my mistakes last month, only look forward to a new month and new goals and aspirations.

1.) Get our budget for the month figured out and STICK TO IT!
2.) Add a significant amount of money to our savings.
3.) Set up IRA with old retirement money from Con-way
4.) Create a menu plan for 2 week periods and shop accordingly.
5.) Do a 3-day juice cleanse
6.) Read another book
7.) Take a ton more pictures and document them.
8.) Find a new church
9.) Read more from my daily devotionals
10.) Go for a walk every single day from 9/9/2013-9/30/2013 (Minimum 20 minutes)
11.) Schedule a TREAT YO SELF day and document it
12.) Purge & Donate
13.) Document every day this month (Not counting weekends but it’s not off limits)
14.) Organize office
15.) Write a lot more.

I love writing out goals.  It helps me stay accountable.  I want September to be super productive…I want to take care of myself in all aspects: Financially, mentally, emotionally and physically.  I think my goals above will help with all of those. 

What are your goals for this month? Make it count!

My DREAM 3 months off

Today’s prompt is “If you could take three months off from your current life and do anything in the world, what would you do?” – I am going to do this is as if money weren’t an issue, because its more fun that way.

Wouldn’t that be a freaking dream come true? Everyday life can be hard sometimes… it can get monotonous, it can get…well boring at times.  Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade in my PJ Tuesday’s, my little home or my sweet obnoxious dog for anything – but it is fun to dream.

If I could take three months off from my current life and do anything in the world, I would leave the states and head over the pond to Europe.  I would go to France for a month and sit in little café’s on the street.  I would read good books and drink fancy coffee’s.  I would take leisurely walks down little alley’s and eat lots of cheese and bread.  I would write my little heart out.  I would smoke an abundant amount of cigarettes.  I would spend days in museums and hours taking pictures of beautiful things and people.

Here
I would then spend another month in, of course, Italy.  The other homeland.  I’d take Vespa rides around the city, eat way to much gelato, stuff my face with pastas and meats.  I’d swim in the Mediterranean and get drunk on red wine and high on espresso.  I’d hop of the metro train and zip around the country soaking up every little bit I could.  I’d master the art of doing nothing and be inspired by the country’s true authentic beauty.

Here
Lastly, I’d spend the last month in Greece.  I’d spend my days in and/or by the sea.  I wouldn’t leave.  I’d wake up and the first thing I’d do would to go swim.  I’d spend my time fishing, taking hikes, visiting vistas and eat the most delicious food.  I’d walk through acres of vineyards, visit Mt. Zas and watch the sunset.  Life wouldn’t get any better than that.

Here
What would you do if you have three months off from your current life to do what you wanted?

Where I Come From

I am writing (or attempting to write) every day this month with Jenni from Story of My Life

I come from Italian and French roots.  A mother who was 16 months when she came off the boat with her mother (My nana) from Calabria, Italy.  A father whose family goes back to France. 

I come from a mother who is warm and generous.  A mother who is selfless and protective.  A woman who grew up caring for her siblings and then her own children.  A woman with an infectious laugh and a beautiful soul.  A woman who is the epitome of what family is and what they should do for one another.  A woman who makes a mean pasta and an a killer pesto.  She is my best friend, my shoulder to cry on and the one who really, truly gets me. 

I come from a father who has a work ethic like no one I’ve ever met. A man who is fiercely loyal which I guess lives up to his astrological sign of a Lion.  I come from a man who protects his family and would literally to anything for them.  I come from a man who has a rough exterior but is actually very soft and sensitive on the inside.  He is my hero, my role model and my example of what hard work and dedication can do.

I come from a family who is loud, there for you at the drop of a hat, imperfect and perfect and they are a part of me.  I’m lucky to have so many people I can count on, they make me..me.  They are where I come from.