Mid-Summer Goals Check-in

Hello All,

Are you guys enjoying your summer? I got an email from my school that we back in like 5 or 6 weeks until I move back into the dorms! Can you believe it? Summer is half over! I have a bunch of fun things planned the next couple of weeks but I do want to check in with how my summer goals are going!

Totally Completed

In Progress

Not Even Attempted

1. Redecorate and reorganize my home bedroom

Although all my big furniture has been moved its still very clutter and I haven't even begun decorating but hopefully I will before I move back.

2. Read and Review 3 Books on the Bloggy

Actually I have read 5! And the next review is actually tomorrow. I am so proud of the progress, and am currently looking for book recommendations!

3. Try New Food Each Week

I don't think I tried any new food this summer.

4. Go on 4 Day Trips/Adventures!

Tori and I went to the beach and even meet some new friends. I have a couple of adventures coming up in the next two weeks!

5. Get Back Into Shape

I have gone to the track at my old high school a couple of times but my work hours make it hard to get there. Although I have re-downloaded MyFitnessPal on my phone and have been using it daily to keep track of what I eat. 

6. Visit my Different College Friends

Unfortnately I haven't seen any of them. I've been working a lot (which I'm happy about) but that hasn't given me much time to go see my friends.

7. Relax, Renew and Prepare for Junior Year

I've actually been doing great on that! I work about 5 days a week and on my days off I actually have been doing a lot relaxing. Although my summer hasn't been overly exciting it has been just what I need!

How has your summer been? Let me know in the comments below!

Book Review: If I Stay & Where She Went

Hello All,

After this summer would you believe that for the last few years I have had a hard time finding books that I like? I know me neither and today I'm going to make that fact even harder by review not one but two books for this post!

So, let me set the seen about how I found these books. When I went to see The Fault in Our Stars I saw the preview below and thought this a book that I need to read before I see the movie! 

And when I went to Target to pick up my copy of the book I notice that there was sequel and picked that book up as well. Then continue to read both of the books in 5 days! 

The first book is about Mia who is cello playing high school senior with high chances of going Julliard. She is super close to her family although she doesn't really feel like she fits at times with her rocker family. She also is deeply in love with her future rock star boyfriend. One day Mia and her family go out for the day and get into a huge car accident that kills her family and leaves her in coma. As Mia watches the after in car crash from outside her body she most decide if she is going to stay or die. 

This book is so beautifully written and so though provoking. Its alternating pattern of going from flashbacks to the present and back helps the readers understand just how painful and scary this decision is for her. It also makes you think what would you do if you had chose. Would you go with you family or stay and live. 

I definitely recommend this book if you like thought provoking or tear jerking or heart breaking books then read this. You won't regret it!

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Where she went is the sequel to If I Stay and takes you 3 years into the future. It is told from the perspective for Adam, Mia's now rock star ex-boyfriend. I can't give too much of summary because I don't want to give too much away. But it gives you some inside of what was going on why Mia was in her coma and the months afterwards.

As for a recommendation I would recommend this to anybody who read the original one but if you haven't read If I Stay you have to do that first. It answer quite a few questions and I feel like I have a lot more closure with this story after reading the sequel!

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Have you read either of these books? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below!

I am also using this post for a link-up hosted by the lovely Rachael and Heather for there summer reads. Along with these two books I also have read The Fault in Our Stars, The Maze Runner and To All the Boys I've Loved Before. All of which I recommend! 

Trying to Write Away the Writer's Block

Hello All,

For the past few weeks I have had horrible writer's block! Like I have ideas but words don't seem to want to flow. In high school my favorite high school teacher (shout out to Flan Flan) always told us the best way to get rid of writer's block is to write through it. So, today I'm going to write a stream of conscious post.

Right now I'm watching Baby Daddy....I think its so cute how Ben interacts with his daughter...They are adorable...Men with babies are too cute...I can't wait to see my future husband with our babies one day...I wonder what my future hubby is doing right now...I wonder what his name is...I can't wait to meet him or realize that he's him...Sometimes the future is really scary...I really like where I am with my life...Expect I have no clue what I'm going to do for a career...I have some fun plans coming up in the next 3 weeks...I have 6 more weeks until I go back to school...That's INSANE!...Although my summer may have been boring so far its been just what I needed...We dog sat this weekend for a cute dog name Karlee...We also met a little pug dog name Bean...Mama J fell in love with puppy and now we both want a puppy...Mama J can we puhlease buy a puppy dog!...I can't wait until one day I can buy my own dog...Hopefully one day I'll be blogging about buying my first puppy...Hopefully by then my writer's block will be gone. 

Hopefully the next time you stop by this blog my writer's block will be gone!

-P.S. Check Out this video on my youtube Channel featuring one of my besties!

BOOK REVIEW: To All the Boys I've Loved

Hello All,

I can't think of snazzy opening line so I'm just going to get started because I'm excited!

It has been a really, really, really long time since I've loved a story as much as I loved this one. I read the 355 page book in 3 nights. I read for hours and hours at a time, I just couldn't put the book down. No, its not the next Great American Novel and its not going to be as big as the Hungry Games. Although if they do make it into a movie can I play the lead? 

What book am I talking about? The book is to All the Boys I've Loved by Jenny Han. I hadn't heard about this book but I was at Target one day and I was looking at books and I picked this one but and read the summary, I mean how good is this summary (I'm taking it word from word off the back cover  of the book and all words belong to Jenny Han).

"When I write, I hold nothing back. I write like he'll never read it. Because he never will. Every secret thought, every careful observation, everything I've saved up inside me, I put it all in the letter. When I'm done, I seal it, I address it and then I put it in my teal hatbox.

They're not love letter in the strictest sense of the world. My letters are for when I don't want to be in love anymore. They're for good-bye. Because after I write my letter, I'm no longer consumed by my all-consuming love. I can eat my cereal and not wonder if he likes bananas over his Cheerios too: I can sing along to love songs and not be singing them to him. If love is like a possession, maybe my letters are like exorcisms. Me letters set me free. Ore at least they're supposed to." 

That's what caught me. I picked up the book and couldn't put it down. The book is about a shy 16 year old, Lara Jean who every time she "falls in love" writes a letter to they boy to help her move on. Her whole live changes when her big sister moves to Europe to go to school. All the letters that she has kept hidden get sent out to the boys. The first one to receive his popular boy Peter K whose uber popular girlfriend has just dumped him. And the other one to receive a letter is Lara Jean's sister ex-boyfriend Josh. 

When the letters serves Lara Jean and Josh's relationship completely changes making things awkward and Lara Jean desperately wants things to go back to normal and Peter wants to make his ex jealous. The two decided to start a fake relationshp and then things start to spiral out of control.

After reading Jenny Han's triology The Summer I Turned Pretty I found this book hard to predict or maybe I didn't want to because I was disappoint with which brother the character choice in the triology. I was worried I'd be disappointed again. But with this book the only thing that disappointed me was that the book ended and I didn't know what happened to the locket. 

The book was an easy book to read. There were no hard words and the story line was easy to follow. Its the perfect beach reach for girly girly or anyone looking for a good coming of age, love story. AKA my favorites. 

But this book really hit home for me because much like the lead character I've never been in love. I don't believe in forcing anything. Its not the way it works. But I also know that I been shy. I've been scared that I'll get hurt but this book taught me that being scared it pointless because  fear just means you are just going to be writing unread love letters forever. 

If you read this book let me know your thoughts and if you like the book like I did then email, tweet me and facebook me so that we can nerd out about it together. Because I need to nerd out about it to someone!

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P.S. - Jenny Han, please please write a sequel, I need to find out what else happens in Lara Jean's life because she's perfect!

Big Brother 16 Recap {Week 3}

Hello All,

Happy Weekend! Being that its Saturday it obviously means its time for a Big Brother Recap right?

This week wasn't as exciting as last week because we all kind of knew what was going to happen. So, let's begin!

In this competition each house guest turn hitting a ball hoping to land it in the highest number hole. These competitions were pretty quick we knew the winner soon. This week's starting HOHs were Nicole (with the highest score) and Derrick. 

The Practice Rounds
and eachSource

For Battle of the block played Donny & Amber and Caleb & Jocasta. Since they work as partners one person was hooked up to a harness and the other person would run away pulling the person up grab and puzzle piece and run it back to there partner. When the one in the harness was pulled up they were brought to a maganet board where they would put the puzzle together. Donny and Amber were the winners! 

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 The final competition was the Power of Veto. This week is was played by only 5 players because Jocasta was too sick to play. For this they would go head to head and would climb into a giant dice and figure out how to get the right number facing upwards. Everyone's goal was to get Devin out but it wasn't until little old Donny got him out of competition and eventually won it all!

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This whole week the plan was to back door Devin so the two heads of households went for anyone BUT Devin. Nicole put up Amber and Donny while Derrick put up Caleb and Jocosta. After Battle of the Block Donny and Amber were taken off leaving Caleb and Jocosta

After winning POV Donny took Jocosta off the block in order to help house plan success and throwing Devin up on the block! making it nominations...

The bomb squad has complete been blown up and no longer exist. Although there seem to be some new alliance forming but none are definite! 

Nicole and Hayden's little showmance is still going and is still adorkable!

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The Zach and Frankie showmance/bromance was not feature that much this week.

But the pick update is the new found love triangle between Caleb, Amber and Cody. Caleb is a creepy and always looking to see where she is. Where as Cody and Amber have a little bit friendship that could blossom to more. We'll see!

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The main drama was from the love triangle above!

For the majority of the week the plan was to back door Devin. But in the few days between POV and eviction night there was some talk of evicting Caleb but in the end the house voted together to evicting...

Some Big Brother fan might not agree with my pick this week. But I think that this player was the mastermind behind getting out one of the biggest threats in the house. I do believe that if Devin had stayed in the house they would have lost sight of him as a target and could have used that to his advantage. Because of that the person who mastermind his eviction deserves to be my player of the week.

Who would be your player of the week? What did you think of this week? Let me know in the comments below!

COLLEGE TIPS: Changing Your Major is OKAY!!!

Hello All, 

A few months back I wrote this post about how I changed my major. I went into college thinking that the only thing that I could be when I grew was teaching. It was the only thing that I could picture myself being. But one day I woke up and knew that I had been wrong.

It took me a while to tell anyone that I wanted to change my major. For the longest time I had wanted to be a teacher and I was worried I would be letting people down by changing my major. But it was actually the complete opposite when I told my family (at Thanksgiving) that I had changed my major. They were all very surprised but supportive. 

One of my best friend told me she had always told me that she couldn't see me being a teacher, although she knew I was good with kids she thought that I would make a better mom then a teacher. And one of my aunts told me she wasn't surprised, she told me that she always had wonder if it was really my dream or not. 

There wasn't a single person in my life who didn't support my decision to change my major. There were a lot of questions I had to answer like why? And what are you going to do now? And those questions are hard to answer. Sometimes its just easier to say what you don't want rather then what you do want! 

But for all you college students out there who are struggling or ashamed with the thought that they might have changed there mind from their childhood dream to something more them, trust me from someone whose been there and is still going through it, its perfectly OKAY to change your mind!

Follow your heart because its normally pretty smart! If don't think its for you or it no longer makes you happy then change it, move on. Your happiness is more important then what you may have written in a five years from now I will be...essay. 

I wish I could tell you that deciding to chang your major was easy but in reality its not. A lot of times you have to get a whole new academic advisor, you have to change you course plans you might have made. Sometimes you lose a lot of your credits and it sets back your graduation date! 

But in the long wrong you will probably be happier doing something that you are passionate about rather then what your high school self thought would be cool so you checked it off on a college application. 

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Good luck to all the incoming freshmen to colleges and don't forget to follow your dreams!

DCL Recap: Final Thoughts!

Hello All,

Happy Thursday!

Before I start I want to apologize that this post is late, I know some may say that fine but I like planning and organization so I'm a little upset with myself.

Today I want to wrap up this feature. I have talked about everything I want to talk about so I just wanted to share some of my final thoughts. 

I definitely know that I want to cruise on Disney can. There is no doubt about that! They are so fun and super exciting. I would definitely recommend it to anyone!

I had a great time and really enjoyed my experience at Palos and hope to eat there again one day! The was delicious! We had a great waiter which made the experience more magical. 

I really enjoyed being able to get off the boat at the different port of calls. On future cruise I want to get off and do other port of calls. 

Although felt really grown up during the trip I am so grateful about how grown up I felt I loved that Disney gives you the ability to act like a kid. By meeting either the characters or getting engross in one of the show!

But the biggest thing that made this cruise as fun as it was was being with my family. Although I'm not comfortable sharing their pictures on here without their permission, I can promise you that they were there. Also I am so grateful to them for letting me come with them. 

Thank you guys for reading this feature and I hope you enjoyed it! I have more travel plans coming in the future and I can't wait to share them with you.

Have a great day!

-P.S. If you ever have any questions about Disney Cruise or want to know more about anything I've discussed during this feature, feel free to email me, the address is in the get connected page!