Productive Procrastinator

Usually I can be quite the procrastinator, I work much better under pressure. I seem to think faster, am more logical and focused when I'm working in the eleventh hour. In elementary school I was the kid who on Sunday night says "Hey, Dad, I have I have a science project due tomorrow...I need poster board, paint and 10 facts about Wisconsin." Yes, that really happened. So now that you all think I am completely lazy and would make an awful employee let's talk about being productive. 

Ever have a day where you leave work or school and feel like you have accomplished every little thing you set out to do and feeling awesome? I had one of those days today. I had a to-do list and each and every thing on it was crossed off all before the stroke of 5pm. I have a big training to do in the morning with over 60 people expected in a room that isn't one of our normal training sites. These 60 people are also being mandated by their employer to attend 8 hours of training tomorrow so I'm sure 8am will really be amazing for them (sarcasm intended). But I am pretty sure I covered all of my bases and managed to get all my prep work done this afternoon with a little time left over to get my tedious every day task done before leaving for the day. It felt awesome!

So, I pose a question: How can one self-proclaimed procrastinator get such satisfaction out of getting things done early? Seems a little hypocritical, doesn't it?

I'm not sure if I'll ever give up on some of my procrastinating ways, maybe only when it comes to stupid tedious things. What stupid tedious things do I hate doing, you ask? Well I'll tell you!

1. Browning ground beef - I did this for dinner tonight and it was painfully boring and takes too long

2. Shaving my legs - why do girls over 13 have leg hair anyway?

3. Blow drying my hair - ugh...I hate blow drying my hair

4. Putting away groceries

5. Matching up socks - they all end up in a drawer and we find the match before we put them on.

I'm sure I could think of more but then that would just be me complaining. So, what are the stupid tedious things you hate doing?

Tomorrow I plan on blogging as I watch the last episode of "Teen Mom" with the original cast. I realize it's on tonight but I'll be DVRing it so I can catch up on some sleep before tomorrow's big training. So stay tuned if you're a "Teen Mom" fan!

Good night, Em

5 Little Things I am Thankful For

I am going to start a segment of the blog called "Little Things I am Thankful For" - at this point I'm not sure if I will be doing it weekly or less frequently but my current "Little Things" are all things that made me happy in the last week and I thought I would share them with you. A couple of them are products that I adore too!

1. My "My Panera" card. This little gem has been providing me with amazing discounts and freebies for about two years and I WOULD NOT make a Panera purchase without it. Panera can get a little pricey so it doesn't get as much us as it used to but getting the 1/2 off "You Pick Twos" really makes it worth it! 

2. Mixed Berry Ice Breakers Sours. A friend (Hi, JK) turned me onto these a while back and now they are a regular appearance in my purse. They really aren't all that sour, but just have a little kick to them. They're good when you just need a little bit of sugar and leave your breath feeling fresh and not too fruity. I love the mixed berry flavor BUT would NOT recommend the the apple flavor - too much sour and not enough happy fruitiness!

3. My "Ribbon Candy" scented hand sanitizer from Bath & Body Works. This came in a Christmas gift from my boss and I absolutely love the smell! I have no idea what real ribbon candy smells like, but if this is an accurate depiction than I'm missing out!

4. C.O. Bigelow Mentha Lip Tint in "pink mint" - this is also from Bath & Body Works and I got it on Black Friday last year mixed in with a bunch of other goodies I snagged on sale. I love the minty flavor and the color adds just the right amount of tint without over-doing it. I also have this same product without the tint.

5. The 2013 Ikea Catalog. I usually have a hard time shopping at Ikea, things seem to either be cheap and confusing or awesome finds. The trick is you can't just go to Ikea and browse because it is COMPLETELY overwhelming so I loved flipping through the book and dog-earing some pages with things I want to look for on my next trip. Justin and I are debating moving in the fall so I'll have to plan my trip around that but there are some definite fun finds in this year's catalog!

And there you have it: The Five Little Things that I was thankful for this week - nothing huge and I'm sure I could come up with more but we'll save those for next week :)

A Lazy Sunday

I have been spending the last week looking at other blogs and seeing how I can ramp up my blogger profile a little bit. So far I have gotten a few ideas, some of which will start next week so stay tuned for that. I am hoping to keep up my blog while I start back up with grad classes in a couple weeks, but we'll see how that goes. For now I am busy getting the most out of the last bit of summer before the fast pace of fall starts creeping back into focus. In an effort to do just that, I am having a lazy Sunday afternoon with my sister in downtown Plymouth.

My extremely rich drink and Gatsby :)

A couple days ago I went to see "Hope Springs" with my mom and sister and while it was a good movie, I came away with a bigger impression from one of the previews that played before the movie. In case you've missed it, a film depiction of "The Great Gatsby" is coming out next year and the preview alone was intriguing. I have never read the book because, in all honesty, I enjoy easy, fad-type of stories rather than the great american novel. However true that may be, I have had an itch to try Gatsby several times in the past and after seeing the trailer for the movie, I couldn't get it out of my head so I made it my resolve to at least give it a go. So when my sister said she needed to make a quick pit-stop at the library this afternoon, I knew this would be my chance to check it out. In the end, we both ended up  borrowing the book (yes, I did look slightly silly checking out two copies of the same book) and decided that we will have our own private End of Summer Book Club and discuss it over coffee over the next couple of weeks. I'm not entirely sure if either of us will finish it, but at least we'll get coffee out of the deal :)

My sister, Laura. 

In more Lazy Sunday news, we are spending this beautiful day in downtown Plymouth watching the bustling Kellogg Park from a cozy booth inside Panera. We are relaxing with yummy frozen drinks and she is in the process of writing a paper for school. So I will leave you with a couple of questions to ponder and if you're feeling nice, you can answer them for me!

What is your favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

Have you read The Great Gatsby? If so, what's your take on the great american novel?

What is your favorite frozen drink (adult or otherwise)?

Happy Sunday,


Emily

Quickie Post

I had a couple things that I've been wanting to post and figured since I have only 20 minutes on my laptop battery I would start a "Quickie Post" segment of my blog where I can just throw a couple random things at you that I think you should check out. Here are my current Quickies:

1. I made delicious shredded chicken tacos for dinner tonight - if you're a friend on facebook you've already seen the post so sorry for the duplication but I cannot rave enough about this incredibly easy recipe. I neglected to take a picture of dinner tonight, but here is the link to the original blog post. I used 3 frozen chicken breast instead of 6 and let it cook on low for 8 hours and it turned out juicy, tender and delicious! With the 3 chicken breasts we had enough chicken for us each to have a taco for dinner, gave 2 tacos worth to my dad and enough for 4-6 more tacos for lunch/leftovers. I cannot recommend this recipe enough. Try it!

2. I wanted to call out some blogs that I am currently following that have some great stuff happening:
 - Bethany Joy Lenz is an actress, Mom, philanthropist and lover of all things cool, I enjoy reading her blog and she is one of the reasons I decided to start my own blog :)

- My cousin Sarah and her friend Erin write about their estate sale adventures on their blog Dig This Treasure. I have the RSS feed on my phone and like to read 4-5 posts at a time when I can't sleep or am bored. I ALWAYS manage to chuckle at their adventures and antics.

- All the Small Things is a new blog that I have started following and I am slightly obsessed. She has all kinds of crafty and girly things going on and the simple fact that she taught me how to cut my own bangs makes her a rock star in my book.

And there you have it - my quickie post. Only 3 more minutes of battery life left so I'm off.
Em

The Good, The Bad and the...Confusing?

I would be lying if I said the last 10 days or so haven't been slightly strange and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not but you can help me decide :)


First of all, this week the weather completely did a flip and went from disgustingly hot and humid to cool and rainy. We definitely needed the rain so it was a welcome soggy mess for a couple of days but rain really has a way of making people look just as soggy as the grass outside and it kind of puts a damper on the whole summer wardrobe and usual sunny commute to and from work. Today seems to be the perfect combination of cool, breezy and sunny so that's a good thing.

Ugh, I will have to write an actual blog post for this next event of the last week, but the gist of it is that in the process of selling my Keurig on eBay I had to deal with a complete jerk. The whole situation gave me anxiety for a week and made me want to climb through my computer and strangle someone. Good thing this guy lives across the country. Thumbs DOWN!


On a more "strange" note - Justin offered to go grocery shopping with me on Thursday night. Considering it works 40 hours a week in a grocery store it's a very rare thing for me to convince him to grocery shop with me so considering he sought me out to help was so completely awesome! We hadn't been shopping in over three weeks so we revenged the aisles of Kroger and took home one of everything - I may have slightly exaggerated the amount of loot we hauled home, but only slightly. So having food in the house is also a good thing - another thumbs up!

On a more recent note - I started watching Gossip Girl on Netflix today. I was in need of another show to have going on in the background of my lazy Sunday and I'm already out of How I Met Your Mother episodes. Considering I have an obsession with teenage dramas I knew this could go either way: loving it and becoming slightly obsessed or hating it and having to find something else to obsess over while I do laundry, drink lots of coffee, give myself a pedicure and love on the kitties! And so far the verdict is I think I'm going to be obsessed...not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, so that gets a confused...eh.

I'm trying to get back to my regular blogging schedule that I had last month soon so I hope that's a good thing for all you FB friends that get inundated with posts in your news feed.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday! I'm off to Draino the tub, switch loads of laundry and refill my coffee cup - ah, the life of the rich and famous - be jealous, outrageously jealous :)