Goals - Tiny and Tremendous (and everywhere in between)

We all have them - sometimes they're little goals like making it through the day without drinking pop (ok, that might be a tremendous goal for some, mainly me and my good friend diet coke) or they can be huge and include major life changes. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the time we tend to set negative goals for ourselves by taking something away from our lives and we rarely look for positive goals, especially when looking at small goals. I also think we are so incredibly hard on ourselves for not successfully reaching our goals - why not celebrate the time and effort you put into your goals and adapting your expectations to set yourself up for success?


In the spirit of tiny and tremendous goals, I thought I would share some of mine with you in the hopes that you will also share some of yours (SERIOUSLY people, share stuff with me so I don't feel like I'm talking to myself. Please and Thank You :))


I am an organizational junkie so my first goal, while tiny, is going to bring me A LOT of relief, happiness and calmness - I plan on cleaning out my purse before going to bed tonight. I have a rather large purse and I tend to just shove things in there and that has resulted in about six birthday cards (my birthday was about two months ago, btw), old receipts, about four mini bottles of hand sanitizers, etc. Who knows what I might find in there - maybe I'm a millionaire and don't know it ;)


This next goal is a little bit on the tremendous side because it requires me to wake up a little earlier and put in more effort in the morning - I am going to start making my own breakfast at home. For months I have been picking up breakfast on the way to work (along with a giant, cold, diet coke...soooo good) and not only is that incredibly unhealthy, it's also ridiculously expensive. If you're spending about $4 a morning, 5 days a week that's $20 a week on breakfast when I already have bagels, cereal, carnation instant breakfast and eggs at home...what a waste!! So far this week, I have been successful and have even brought my lunch to work both yesterday and today - I must admit, it's nice to know I'm saving money and not wasting the food I already bought from the store. Score!!


Now, a super duper tremendous goal of mine is to save enough money to buy a house. We are so over living in an apartment and really need more space but have been screwed several times in the home purchasing department and pretty much have to start over again...in a couple years. With everything going on in our lives right now we are extremely thankful for not being stuck with a mortgage, but boy, would we love to have a house right now. Can someone just deposit a couple hundred thousand dollars in my bank account? kthanks.


These are just a couple of my goals and I'm sure I'll post more but for now I'm going to try and work on my tiny, kinda tremendous and totally tremendous goals.


Tell me about your goals!


xo Em

Saturday Night Traditions!

Saturday nights have become full if traditions for Justin and I. A few months ago we started coming over to my parent's house for dinner. We are going on four months and have only missed one Saturday! Its tons of fun and nice to spend time with family.
Tonight we joined two traditions, our Saturday night dinner and what we call "hockey snacks"! Hockey snacks are a bunch of yummy appetizer type of foods that my mom makes to eat during a Wings game. We have been doing it forever and it is a favorite tradition for each of us. I took some pics of the yumminess that will be consumed tonight :) we have mexican dip, mini reubens, bagel bites, cheese sticks, etc.

What are some of your favorite family traditions?

Happy Saturday & GO WINGS!!!

Cold Feet and Crock Pot Pork Chops

Michigan officially has the craziest weather, ever! Yesterday it was about 45 degrees - I didn't wear my coat for most of the day and actually had to open a window in the office because it was too hot in there. Today it was chilly but not too bad in the wee hours of the morning, but it started snowing like crazy around 9am...just enough to make it slippery, slushy and wet. Now, as I look out our window I see ZERO snow. Kind of irritating considering I wore my ballet flats today and ended up with soaking wet feet for about five hours and then snow decides to melt as soon as I get home and don't have to bother with it. BAH!


So I'm all snuggled up at home now, in the lazy-boy under my favorite purple blanket with dinner in the crock pot, catching up on the DVR with the hubs. I have to admit, I feel super strange not being at work (and hesitate to admit that I've been on my work e-mail all afternoon even though I got off work at 2p) but I am enjoying my afternoon off with Justin, who had his fourth chemotherapy treatment this morning. Looks like the drugs are kicking in since he's eating us out of house and home - in the last three hours he has consumed lunch, a bowl of chili and a bag of popcorn. THIS is why they say you gain weight while going through CHOP chemotherapy, haha.


Has anyone else seen this commercial? I think it's hilarious!!

I plan on updating with more substantial things soon, but thought I would brag about my cozy afternoon ;) Also, if this new pork chop recipe turns out well, I plan on completely bragging about that later too!
xo Em.

50/50

So it might be a little early in my blogger life to bring up my husband's cancer, but if I'm going to be honest, cancer is what I think about 90% of the time so it's going to pop up in here from time to time.

My husband was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma in August and I have been dreading seeing this movie since the first time I saw the preview. I knew I HAD to see it, but I also knew that I couldn't see it before I was ready. Justin watched it a couple weeks ago after his chemo treatment and said it was hilarious and amazing so I figured it was safe. This morning was my first opportunity to actually sit down and watch, so I pushed aside my apprehensions and pushed play. 


I am about an hour and a half in and I have to say this movie is extremely real, raw and emotional. Recently I have been seeing "cancer" in the media as jokes, lame story lines and something that hollywood uses as an indication of drama. This. This Movie is what cancer is. It really lets you see into the world of someone with cancer - it helped me understand a little bit more of what my husband is going through and instead of making me feel awful it encouraged me to continue the fight along side Justin (not that ANYTHING could ever convince me otherwise). 


The level of acting in this movie is the best I've ever seen, Anna Kendrick is stellar! I didn't realize she was in the movie until I watched the On Demand preview, I was expecting to love Seth Rogen like always (which I did) but Anna Kendrick was quite inspiring. I've been a fan of hers since the first Twilight Movie and I have to say, she was the only interesting thing in Breaking Dawn but I'm sure I'll whine more about that later. 


So, if you're holding out on seeing 50/50 - Don't! It's great, emotional but inspiring all at the same time. If I can make it through it while feeling inspired and not like all hope in the world is lost - you can too!


Who else has seen 50/50? What did you think?


What other movies have just completely surprised you? Inspired you?


Who's your favorite actor/actress? Why?


Happy Saturday!
xo Em

Welcome!

Hi There!

I'm Emily and I am making my attempt at creating a fun, interesting, whimsical, blog that is a look into my life and the things that shape it. I am learning as I go, so bear with me as I figure out what I want to share, how to share it and how to improve the experience (for both of us). So I figured I would start with a collage I made on Polyvore - if you haven't checked out this site yet, you totally have to! You can make all kinds of collages! I haven't gotten too much into the rest of the features but I think this one turned out pretty cool :)