Dressing it Up!

Last week, I was in Houston for the SIOP annual conference (the field in psychology that I studied). My dissertation was one of the ones selected for a poster presentation, and I was so excited to get there and spread the news of my research results. I was so grateful to have my chair come and support my poster presentation, and also help calm my nerves! I met a ton of great professionals and graduate students who were completing their dissertations.

If you ever have an opportunity to attend conferences within your field, I highly recommend going! It can never hurt to network and get your name out there! Besides, it gives you a chance to dress up!

The Happs

Where I have been? What's the happs? How's life? Questions you may be wondering about this lil' ole bloggette, and answers are what I'm givin' ya today! 

Things have been on pause with crafting and modeling my outfits becauuuussseeeeeee...

I've been taking care of my poor sick pup since we came home from Spring Break!

I'm getting ready to take off to present at our big annual conference in Houston, TX! Ms. Audrey was nice enough to get these fancy pants business cards designed and ready to take with me and help network! I'm presenting on my dissertation, and will be surrounded by all different professionals in my field... what more can I ask for?! 

Oh yea... WE'RE MOVING!! I started to tell you about it a few months ago (here)... More deets to come, but in a nutshell, we're starting a new chapter in life that I'm beyond blessed and so excited about!

I still have some catching up to do with my blog reading, but don't worry... you all are heavily on my mind and I love getting to see snippets on Twitter, IG and FB!

Do you know what today is??...

(singing)... it's my blogiversary... blogiversary!

Source: herwhitesunrise.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

H A P P Y * B L O G I V E R S A R Y * T O * M E!!

During my first year of blogging, I shared many triumphs and sad times with you all. My journey through life in 2012 was cray cray to the MAX! As the year was unfolding, so many things were happening that I just needed to vent! So that I did... I blogged about my life as it was in the making! But with the help of your support, I....

* Finished my dissertation and earned my PhD

* Married the man of my dreams

* Was a part of my Bestie's lovely wedding

* Had a great time at our Family Reunion

* Started the LLL series (what I loved, learned, and laughed about throughout each week)

I was also introduced to new things by you lovely bloggettes!! I discovered...

* Link-Up's

* Birchbox

* Blog Awards

* Blog Designs

... and much much more! You were all there to encourage me and give some great advice... and for this... I thank you ALL!

This upcoming year, I plan to head in a different direction. Instead of blogging as a lifestyle journal, I wanna be more of a service to my peeps!! I'm gonna blog about things that can benefit others... crafting, fashion, encouragement... things I had planned to do when I first started blogging! Now is the time for me to pay it forward and help you all just as you have all helped me! So, embrace yourselves (and me!) for year 2!

FIRST High Five!

Happy first Friday of 2013! I hope your three (or plus) day work week has been fantab.... I know it will be after today since the weekend is here yet again!

Today I'm linking up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk to share my top five fave things from my week. Here's the the very first 2013 H54F!

| one |

We returned back from Texas to these two cutie patootie faces! Oh how I missed em so, but I think they missed us more!! They haven't left our side since we've been back.

| two |

This week I heard back from a journal I submitted my dissertation to for publication. They didn't give me a "NO," but they gave me suggestions for revisions. THAT, I can work with!! I became an expert is revising while working on my dissertation. After revising with my chair as the second author, I'll resubmit it later this month for another round of reviews! One step closer to my goal of getting my manuscript published (fingers crossed).

| three |

Last supper of 2012 was a mighty fine one! We ate sushi til our buttons popped! Our stuffed faces lead us into the countdown for the new year.... New year meaning new planner and calendar, which took some time in transferring birthdays! But I always feel so rejuvenated once all dates are entered!

| four |

Wednesday night, I spent 2 hours (maybe even longer) Facetiming my little brother who wanted to play games all night long. He wanted to download every single game that had multiple players so we can virtually compete. The funniest thing was that his face didn't even show most of our call... he just wanted to stay online so I can hear his noise effects as he crushed me on every game! All in all, it was great QT spent from afar!

 | five |

I've been having a great time playing around with my new toy, thanks to the Alamo Bowl!! Any suggestions for fun iPad apps???

What's the happs with you lovies? Link up with Lauren and share your five fave for H54F!

P.S. As you may have noticed, I'm trying to be good with adding a watermark to my pictures. Instagram's new policies and procedures got me thinking about my photos.... and I'm trying to make a habit of watermarking! Let's see how it goes.

Fasting in Life

About a month ago, I picked up the Allure magazine with my goooorl, Lauren Conrad on the front page (remember me boasting about it here?!). Of course when I purchased the magazine, I was supporting my bestie.. but then I got to reading the content, and it turned out being a superb issue!

I read an article in there that totally lit up a light bulb in my lil' head... all about FASTING!

Have you ever fasted?... Fast from food? Fast from swearing? Juice fasting? Mirror fasting? Makeup fasting?

The article was actually about mirror fasting... avoiding the mirror completely. Putting on makeup with simply a touch... trusting that the outfit looks good... and then staying away from reflective surfaces to avoid checking themselves out. Mirror fasting is intended to boost self-esteem... avoiding mirrors prevents women to focus on their flaws.

I thought about this a lot... not just mirror fasting, but fasting in general... and how it impacts my own life. What consumed a lot of my time that I can definitely do without... or at least with less of? What can I fast from that would yield more time on my side?

I know that I spend a substantial amount of time on my social networking sites... Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The fact that I have easy access to all of those sites on my iPhone doesn't help my obsession either. And how many of you pick up your phone during commercials while you're watching TV (or is it just me...)?

BUTTTTT....there are some great advantages to social networking...

• It's helped me keep in touch with family and friends who I don't see or talk to all the time
• It's helped me network with my colleagues from school even after I graduated
• It's helped me share some fun times in my life with you all
• It's even helped me out during my dissertation and now in a professional aspect
• It's helped me promote my blog!!!

Still... I know that my time checking statuses, messages, and uploading photos can be lowered substantially. And that's just what I've been focusing on lately! For the past few weeks, I've spent less time on checking these sites as frequently as I was. In fact, being on the social networking sites less made reading much more pleasurable! I wasn't reading the same tweet in different words... I wasn't getting annoyed with all the game requests on Facebook... I've been going on these sites a few times a day, and having a great time catching up with America reading things for the FIRST time!

With this said... I urge you all to reflect after a typical day in your vida loca, and think about what you can do without... or less of... think about how that extra time and energy can be focused on something far more productive (like DIY's or reading a book or a magazine or studying!). Whaddya' say??? You want time on your side?

Source: leelloor.deviantart.com via Nicolas Raymond on Pinterest

High Five Friday!

Woo to the flippin' hooooo!!! Friday, I love you!! Another chance to give praise to the week by highlighting my top five faves of the week! Linking up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk, here's a super duper High Five for Friday!

:: one ::

This past Saturday, the Beavs went 5-0... a record we haven't seen since 1939!! Andddddd we did it with our 2nd string quarterback (Cody Vaz) who played his first Beaver game and brought us the victory!

:: two ::

We were blessed with two full days of sunshine this week!! Brisk but blissful!

:: three ::

Tried a new recipe that was a hit this week!! 

:: four ::

I have been working my tail off this week on condensing my dissertation into a shorter version to submit to a journal for publication. Oh, what an experience this has been. Trying to condense a 175 page dissertation to a 25 page manuscript is QUITE a task... but an experience that I am loving!

:: five ::

My cousin is visiting from home, and I'm excited to share a weekend of football and more football with her. Oh yea... and tons of rain!

What's been the happs with your week?? Link up with Lauren for a H54F!

High Five!

TGIF!! Time to list our top 5 fave things from this past week with Lauren at From My Grey Desk! Let's give a High Five for Friday and get this party started on this Friday morning shall we?

:: one ::

I'm not sure if you noticed from my blog, but we had the BEST time at our first official family reunion!

:: two ::

Someone left this sweet note on my desk, which meant the world to me. Giving me kudos "just cause" can bring some sunshine in my life any day!

:: three ::

During our family reunion, we had my graduation party! It was so overwhelming to see everyone and hear how they were all so proud of me. Also had an opportunity to make it rain during our customary Samoan dances!

:: four ::

Career hunting has been quite fun this week. There have been some great opportunities out there, and I'm excited to learn of many more!

:: five ::

Sweet words couldn't have been more bliss coming in an email!

Don't forget to link up with Lauren, and share your 5 fave things of your week! Happy Friday!

Decisions... Decisions...

Now that things have calmed down in life (for now), my mind hasn't fully grasped everything. I successfully defended and now have my PhD... and I am officially a MRS. Two things that I have worked so hard towards in life, and have always dreamed since I was oh so young. In the midst of running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, I started to make a list of things that I wanted to work on when I was completely done!

Here's some of those things I've been obsessing over:

• Edit the gazillion Maui pictures I have on my computer
• Read books I've been dying to read
• Complete the million DIY projects Pinterest has inspired
• Play with my our new goodies for the house we received for the wedding
• Complete a wedding scrapbook
• Update my bloggy blog
• Oh yea... and start career searching for the ideal company I want to begin my career with! 

 

My problem (which isn't really a problem compared to my previous problems with dissertating and wedding planning) is where to begin!! Obvi I'll be investing time every day into career searching, but I don't feel so pressured to jump into it immediately... I've been taking my time with the searching!

So do I make an official checklist? Or do I let my mood choose which task to do at that time?

Haven't you ever thought to yourself, "Self... when I'm done with ____, I am SO gonna invest time into _____!" Did you ever think about what you would do FIRST? How'd ya know? Decisions.. decisions... and it feels great to have these decisions to make!

What I Loved, Learned, and Laughed About

Happy Monday peeps! Hope your weekend was full of love, laughter and some!! Ours was full of boxing... that's right... my fiancé is a huge fan of Manny Pacquiao! I have to admit that I myself like watching him fight too! He's such a humble man, who is ooberly aggressive in the ring. Things were going just fine in our house... Pacquioa was dominating each round, and even scored higher than Bradley in 11 of the 12 rounds... and then BOOM!! Bradley was announced the winner and our mood in the house just turned super silent. Quite the disappointment to hear that Bradley was announced the new champ... even though the stats (and common sense) said otherwise!! WOMP!!

Good news is that we BBQ'd for the fight, and I had a scrummy turkey burger :) Gotta look on the bright side, right?? Anyhoots, moving on with Monday Funday's post... last week I brought up starting a series on this bloggy blog called my LLL's, which stands for Love, Learn, and Laugh (hence the title of my blog). Without further ado, here are my LLL's of the week!

LOVE

I love that I passed my final defense (if you haven't heard by now)!! It's just a huge accomplishment that I've been waiting for since the day I started grad school! WOOP WOOP!!

LEARN

I learned that this wedding is approaching me wayyyy faster than I imagined!! I've been so indulged with dissertating, that time has been just slippin' away from me... 9 days to be exact.... AHHHHHHHHH!!

LAUGH

I caught an I Love Lucy marathon on Friday AND Sunday, and I from the gut as I always do! I didn't even have to watch the tv to know what was happening... I've watched her episodes so many times, I knew exactly what was happening by hearing it all while I sat at my desk in my office! The episode where Lucy and Ethel bet Ricky and Fred that they can live from the 1900's was on, and watching Lucy knead the dough was hilarious!!

Those were my love, learn, and laugh moments from the week... What were your LLL's of the week?

High Five for c/o of 2012!

TGIF!! Man oh man what a long week it has been!! Monday just started off with a BING BING BANG!! And if you haven't heard why... then read on!

Linking up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk, we're counting the top fave things of the week, and saying HIGH FIVE for Friday!!!

:: one, two, three, and four ::

That's right.... I'm saying my top 4 faves this week are PASSING, PASSING, PASSING, and PASSING my final defense!! WOOOOOP!!! Told you guys about it here, and telling you about it now... and probably will mention it for the rest of my life!! There's nothing in the world that can explain how I feel... it's slowly sinking in that I actually passed with great feedback from my committee members!! All that's left are a few minor revisions and then applying for my diploma, but I got their signatures and that's the main accomplishment!! Thank you guys so much for your awesome support and encouragement these past strenuous months! I definitely did not do this alone... it took a village ;)

Surprised the family!!

Celebrated with some good lovin' In-N-Out on the way back to the airport.. yes flew for the day, and still recovering!

One of my great friends, Mel (and another cohort) came to watch my defense, and Mel brought me a gift with the most awesome card that I cry when reading for the 5th time! Isn't this the most cutest Michael Kors (professional) business card holder?!

My boo took me to din din the next day to celebrate. Can you guess which meal is who's?

Brings me tears of joy to read encouraging words of congratulations from my loved ones. Even came to work with a ZONE bar on my desk! 

:: five ::

Last but certainly not least, I am so proud of my two cousins (they're both sisters). Ke'ea graduated from high school, and Raelynn graduated from middle school! These two girls are so bright, and I know God will bless them with amazing futures no matter what direction they head in. I am SO proud of these two, and I can't believe they're officially getting older... and so am I! WAHHHH!!! Can't wait to show off pictures next Friday of my other cousin's graduation (Kyle), which I am OH soooo proud of!!

Ke'ea

Nenen

Now it's off to celebrating more graduations this week, and oh yea... getting ready for the wedding we will be taking off for NEXT weekend!! GAHHHHHHH!!! 

Don't forget to link up with From My Grey Desk for your top five faves of the week!

And the WINNER is...

Ashley from Embracing the Everday! Congrats to you Ms. Ashley for winning the oh so fab wheatgrass ring from my 100 follower giveaway!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you guys for entering and showing my blog some love!! I'm sure this is the first of many more to come, now that I'm gettin' a hang of it!

Just wanted to let you guys know, there's another winner winner chicken dinner up in this hood... and it be ME!!! I PASSED MY FINAL DEFENSE YESTERDAY!! WOOOOOOPPPP!!! And how did I celebrate? Of course after seeing some of my family, I indulged in a piece of cheesepaper heaven!

Thank you guys so much for your support. My support system has been tremendously overwhelming throughout this process. All your sweet thoughts, prayers and words have helped me get through the hardest part of my life (thus far). So thank you thank you thank you!!!! WE did it!

Change is gon' come!

Happy Monday FUNday! I hope everyone had a fantabulous weekend! Mine was spent prepping for my final defense, so if you remember please send some positive vibes on my way today ;)


I've been thinking about my blog a lot more than ever lately... what joy is has brought me to speak non-English with made up words that EVERYONE on here understands... what a filter it is for me to talk about the ups and downs in my life (more so UP's b/c I'm trying to stay positive!)... and just how much the blogging community has been so supportive in life!


So, I've made a few minor changes... some you may have already noticed, and others not until now! I now have an official blogging notebook... which was briefly introduced to you guys Friday! Other changes? Read on!

:: one ::

I took off my "Weekly Postings" which mapped out my themes of the week. The reason I took it off was because in the beginning I really needed a foundation... a template, so to speak, to guide me through each day's post. Now that I'm getting a hang of blogging (I'm so not an expert, but I would consider myself to be Intermediate), I don't want to worry about following a certain theme on a particular day.

:: two ::
I also removed the "Bloglovin" page, which listed some of my fave reads. The thing is my list is getting longer and longer as time ticks tock away! I love following new blogs I just discover, and for that reason, there's such a diverse list that can only be kept maintained through my reading lists on Blogger and Bloglovin!

:: three ::
I would like to start a new series of posts based on my blog title, la la Love, Learn, and Laugh. This title has so much meaning to me...probably a longggggggggg post kinda meaning. But, the overall gist of it is no matter what happens in my life, good or bad, there is ALWAYS time that I need to stop with the daily chaos to LOVE someone or something, to LEARN from others and myself, and to LAUGH from my gut! With that said, I want to take one day of the week to reflect on what I la la LOVED, LEARNED, and LAUGHED about from the previous week! I'm going to refer to these weekly posts as my "LLL's" of the week! 

I shall kick off the series today with my LLL's from this past week:

LOVE

I love the unexpected visit we had with our neighbors/good friends. Being around their loving family who laughed from the gut just like my family does made me love and appreciate them even more!

LEARN

I learned that if my chair has enough confidence in my dissertation work, I should have just as much confidence (if not more) in myself and my research!

LAUGH

I literally LOL'd in my dream that it woke me up and I couldn't stop laughing in bed! My dreams don't make sense at all, and I know it won't be funny to you... BUT I was laughing so hard I was crying. I asked for a pair of sandals, and my cousin brought me two different types of sandals of the SAME foot that weren't even my size!! I guess it was a gut-laugh for me because it's typical of him and seemed so real.

There you have it!! Feels so good to share em with you all! Who knows... maybe one day I'll create a link up for everyone to share their LLL's!

Don't forget!! Today is the last day for the 100-follower giveaway I started up last week! The winner shall be announced tomorrow :)

Cheers to a FAB Week!

Happy first day of JUNE!!! Wow... June AND Friday came so quick... could be due to Memorial weekend... or could be due to brain overload. Whatever it may be, hats off to you Friday!! 

Ooberly happy to link up with Lauren at From My Grey Desk for a High Five for Friday! Let's go through my top five count down faves from the week, shall we?

:: one ::

Celebration is contagious on this bloggy blog, and as you can see, Philip from AI is so happy I reached 100 GFC!! What can I say... bloggers make the world go round! Make sure to enter the 100-follower giveaway before it ends on Monday!

:: two ::

Thanks to Ms. Jes at two smuppies, I discovered coconut m&m's and they are fantab!! Just to be clear, Jes HATES coconut, so she wasn't bragging about em... BUT she was involved in the oh so fun Send Something Good project we revealed earlier this week, and she was sweet enough to get them for her secret blogger! Tastes just like a Mounds or Almond Joy without the almonds! The best part is that selective white m&m's have cute beachy logo's like the (faded) Umbrella and Palm Tree you see below!

:: three ::

Some sunshine is making my world go round!! Went on a beautiful early morning hike this week, and the sun was beaming through the forest trees making me smile from ear to ear!

:: four ::

This week I've been prepping and practicing for my final defense, while being able to stay cool, calm, and collective (so far). Let's just hope the winning attitude from this week stays with me the day of!

:: five ::

If you can't read my "L", that says BLOG on my notebook :) I finally created a notebook for my blogging thoughts, stories, giveaways, sponsors, etc. I've been meaning to do this for awhile, but school, work, wedding, all that fun stuff has kept me going full speed. Anyhoots, I was able to put this bad boy together during the long Memorial Day weekend! It will satisfy my soul until I get something more fancy pants, like a SMASH book introduced to me by Bree!

How was your short work week? Link up with Lauren and speak up on the five most faves from your week!