the skimm

I realize that I am wayyyy late to the party, but I am loving the Skimm right now. If you are looking for something you can read in the time that it takes to brew your coffee, or commute to work the Skimm is IT!

I honestly love opening my email every week day and seeing a new Skimm waiting for me. It's a quick read of important things happening around the world. Topics include current events, politics, technology, sports, and the list goes on. This is a great way to catch up so you can participate in office conversation and not look like a moron who doesn't watch the news. 

Here is a peek at today's Skimm about the upcoming GOP debate tonight.

Don't take my word for it......check it out The Skimm for yourself!!

erin condren life planner

Last week one of the best things showed up at my front door. My Erin Condren Life Planner was waiting for me on the front porch when I got home from vacation! EEEKKKK!!! Needless to say I was pretty pumped about it, I mean how cute is this packaging!

When you order the Ready to Ship Life Planner it also comes with a few freebies inside. Along with the planner you get a a sticker (top left light blue), am adorable post card (top right), and gift tag stickers for birthdays and other special gifts (bottom). I don't know yet how I plan on using these, but it's nice to have these things around. 

Since it is the 10th anniversary of Erin Condren all orders also included this adorable gold-foiled print. I will probably frame this and keep it on my desk or in the craft room at the house. Again, it's nice to have a free gift but not quite sure how I plan on using it. 

This is the standard cover that the Ready to Ship Life Planner comes with. You also get a $10 off your next purchase coupon code so you can essentially get a different cover if you prefer. I may get a personalized cover, but I am also thinking about getting some accessories. The code never expires so I have some time to decide how I want to spend my $10

Erin Condren Life Planners have two separate layouts. They have what's called a horizontal layout and a vertical layout. The one shown below is the vertical layout. If you want to see what the horizontal layout looks like, you can check out this YouTube video. I decided on the vertical layout even though I don't separate my days into "morning" "afternoon" and "night". I instead like to separate mine by "work" "personal" and "to do". If you search YouTube for planning videos you will see that a lot of people go all out with stickers and such, but I'm not quite there yet. I don't think I will ever be that person who uses my planner as a "scrapbook" like some but who knows. 

Overall I am THRILLED with my Erin Condren Life Planner and could not be happier! I do plan on decorating my planner some, just not over the top. 

beach vacation

We are the family that is crazy enough to drive into an oncoming hurricane/nor'easter that hit the East Coast last week. We had been set to go on vacation and the deposits for the condo had been paid, so we didn't want to waste the money. We headed down to South Carolina on Sunday and hit rain every minute of the drive down the coast. Once we arrived to the condo this is what we were met with. 

The water was about ankle high, but luckily it receded by the next afternoon. Because of the weather, there wasn't a whole lot of places open for dinner, but the Krispy Kreme still had the hot light on! We grabbed a dozen doughnuts and had cheeseburgers for dinner. 

On Monday, it was still cloudy/dreary so we hit the shops and spent the day shopping and browsing around the outlets. The next statement I am about to make is going to sound crazy: I am 25 years old and I have never eaten a Big Mac. I finally ordered a Big Mac at the McDonalds across the street from the outlets-and it was DELICIOUS!. Holy cow, I didn't realize what I had been missing. 

The sun finally decided to come out on Tuesday and I was able to sit and relax on the beach. The weather was great Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and i soaked up every minute of sunshine I could.  

The rest of the week was filled with putt-putt, sunsets, and some amazing meals. As much as I loved being on vacation, I am excited to be back home in my usual routine.

Such a fun vacation to Myrtle Beach this year with the family!

currently || october

craving || my grandpa made a homemade pumpkin pie for me last week and I am savoring every slice. It is literally my favorite time of the year because I can cut a slice of pie with Cool-whip and snuggle up on the couch.

ordering || an Erin Condren Life Planner-FINALLY. I have seen so many YouTube videos and blog posts and I am practically drooling over my keyboard. I can't wait to get my hands on one.

planning || to head to the beach this weekend/week. Stay tuned for some updates from the beach vacation.

reading || I haven't made a final decision on a beach book yet, but I am leaning towards The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. It was loaned to me by a friend and I just haven't been motivated to pick it up yet.

decorating || the entire house. We are living in boxes right now, but I am getting read to leave for vacation. My goal is to get most things done before I go because I DO NOT want to unpack a house after a week long beach vacation.

book review(s)

I have two book reviews from last month to share today. If you recall I was reading The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, then jumped right into Yes, Please by Amy Poehler. I am here today to give my thoughts and overall opinions of each book. 

Lets start with The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith. In case some of you don't know Robert Galbraith is a pseudo name for J.K. Rowling...yes her. I will start this by saying that I have never read a Harry Potter book from cover to cover. I thought the first one started really slow so I put it down and never picked it back up. I have also only seen the first Harry Potter movie- I know, no judgement. I was a little hesitant to read this book for that very reason. J. K. Rowling's writing isn't my favorite. This book was no different. It started extremely slow for my liking, but I didn't put the book down. I kept pushing myself to keep reading, and by the midpoint I was completely hooked. Without giving too much away this book is a murder/mystery novel with a twist. It takes place in London so I do read to myself in a terrible British accent, but the ending left me sitting on the edge of my seat-never wanting to put the book down. Overall I think this was a great read with an okay story line. There is a squeal called The Silkworm that I plan on reading this fall. 

The second book that I read was Yes Please by Amy Poehler. If you have no idea who Amy Poehler is you have either (a) been living under a rock for the last 10 years, or (b) have no access to the internet. Please take a minute to watch this lovely lady at work. Back to the book review. I love Amy Poehler and want to be reincarnated as her when I die so I knew I would love this book-even if it was complete garbage. I am here to tell you that it is not complete garbage-it is actually quite amazing. This book is an autobiography/memoir/life lessons book. It was a light, easy read meaning that I could go through 60-100 pages in one sitting without being book drained or thinking too much. Overall I would give this book two thumbs up-because I only have two thumbs. It is also now available in paperback which is the one thing I didn't enjoy about reading this book. I am an avid spine folding reader so having it only in hard back was a little bit of a bummer. 

moving weekend

This weekend was the much anticipated moving day! We wrangled up some friends with trucks and moved most of our stuff from our townhouse to the new house.

We spent Friday packing up the last of our kitchen and our clothes. It was very odd to sleep in a townhouse full of boxes and empty dressers/closets. Saturday morning rolled around and we needed some more boxes to finish up the last of the packing.

Lunchtime came and the guys were moving machines. We finally got to walk on our newly refinished hardwood floors-which were treated extremely delicately when it came to heavy furniture. I supplied them with Coke and pizza once all the heavy lifting was done.

Once all the boxes were allocated to the correct rooms-the unpacking process began. I honestly don't know which is worse...unpacking or packing. I have successfully unpacked the master bedroom and most of the kitchen over the weekend. This week I will probably focus on the living room, bathroom and guest bedroom. We need to purchase a few things like some bathroom storage, a dining room table, new light bulbs, and a new shower head. The joys of moving!

As you can see our fur baby has had no issues adjusting to the new house. He made himself right at home on his cozy bed.

reno and demo: stage nine (final days)

We are less than two weeks from moving day. TWO WEEKS! I am trying my best not to lose my mind in this move. 

Over the weekend we got the dining room and kitchen painted and finished. 

As you can see, the counters are covered in paper because we are getting the floors done sometime this week-hopefully. The floor refinishing process makes a huge mess and produces a ton of dust, so we covered as much as we could to reduce the clean-up afterwards. 

You can also see at the top of the walls/ceilings we are missing some crown molding. Our contractor will be installing the crown molding once the floors are finished and able to be walked on. We are hoping to get the floors done on Friday because our contractor is free on Thursday to install the crown molding. 

Keeping this post short and sweet so we can do some final touches to the house while the floors are getting re-finished.