Happy December! So happy

Tags

december, family, friends, fundraising, half marathon, happiness, inspiration, life

Hello everyone!!

It’s been a while, so let me fill you all in 🙂

I am currently in the middle of finals week, wow right?! This Thursday I’ll be finished with this fall semester, yee! My brother will be graduating from college (yay congrats bro!). I just had my big fundraiser for my half marathon, an ugly sweater party in downtown San Diego, which was a huge success! , I am more than halfway to my $1,500 goal, at around $900!

Basically in a nutshell, I am positively loving life. I feel so in control, so blissfully happy, I am just so happy. Even when people or things get me mad or upset, I bounce back so much faster. I feel so surrounded by amazing and loving people all the time. I have the most supportive friends and family in my life, I am so blessed. All of my relationships have been improving I think, and it makes me feel so good to be close to so many great people.

I am also loving my half marathon fundraising, running, team members, and the whole experience. I have networked with so many great and inspiring people, and have gotten SO good at taking on a leadership role and taking charge of something. I am much more confident in myself when talking in front of crowds and with strangers. I rock, if I do say so myself.

I just feel really wonderful.
I’m sorry I haven’t been posting hardly at all, no excuses…

But I’m happy to share my happiness with you now. I couldn’t ask for anything more in my life right now. Happy December to everyone, I’ll write again later this week I guarantee it!! 🙂

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Oh happy days

Tags

friends, happiness, inspiration, las vegas, life, love, marine corps, relationships, thoughts, USMC ball

Isn’t it great to feel happy when those around you are happy?

I have a friend who is sort of seeing a new girl and he has been gushing about her every chance he gets. He deserves someone really great and I couldn’t be happier for him right now. It just makes me smile when he lights up about his day and makes jolly facebook status updates about how good life is.

It’s a nice change from seeing some debbie downer post about how unfair/sucky/miserable life is. Because it’s not. Not in the grand scheme of things. Sure, we all have those days when everything goes totally 100% wrong and we just want to go to sleep to end the chaos of the bad day. It happens. And some days we feel like a million bucks and we see rainbows and the sky is bluer and we appreciate the breeze on our face. I like to see those days, and if I can’t see them, I’m quite happy to have a friend of mine feel it.

Our view at night!

A very cool shark

In the AM, a pretty sight!

I’m feeling really good lately. Las Vegas was a blast! We visited Ben’s family and had a wonderful night laughing with each other and I love his family and I love getting to know them more every time I see them. We got a great hotel room overlooking the strip and the beautiful Bellagio fountain. We had our own show every hour to watch! I loved it. We went to the Mandalay Bay shark reef aquarium and saw some really amazing fish, sharks, jellyfish, you name it. We both were really into it:) We walked around the strip and saw lots of interesting sights and people and shops. On Saturday night we went to the ball and had a really nice time. I love seeing all the Marines in their dress blues uniform, and all the girls dressed up. We ate and drank and cracked jokes and even danced a little bit. It was lovely.

A lovely weekend overall! We actually both had to work on Sunday afternoon so it seemed like Vegas was very far away by then, but we made it through and we used Monday as a much needed rest and relaxation day.

But life feels good. I still have some off days, and some days where I can’t explain why I feel down or just not myself. But mostly I feel great. Loved, happy, independent, well rounded, healthy, and content.

Aaaand, next week is Ben’s birthday, so we will have some celebrating to do!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Remember to really appreciate your wonderful happy days, and to be happy for a friend when they have theirs.

Live with confidence

Tags

athletics, confidence, exercise, half marathon, inspiration, life

Happy Sunday evening to everyone! I hope it was a great weekend for you all.

My weekend was exhausting. A very fun Halloween/Birthday party on Friday night, 6.5 mile run on Saturday bright and early morning (woo! new distance record for me!), work on Saturday night, Charger game today, which was a heart wrenching loss, so emotional exhaustion ensued, and then a mass cleaning of my apartment to finish off the weekend. I’m quite burnt out. My eyes are really quite heavy as I type this but my blog is important so I shall continue on.

I experienced a lot of emotions this weekend. I experienced the feeling of uncertainty and insecurity, of invisible-ness and anxiety. These emotions came from what I think is my last year’s emotional scars left over that keep resurfacing every so often, leaving me to feel vulnerable and attention seeking at the most odd times. It is a dreadful kind of feeling, making me feel grouchy, very easily brought to tears, and an overall need to be seen and heard  much more than usual, especially by those important to me.

After these feelings occurred, I went to team training. The whole drive over to the coast I kept telling myself, I am confident. I am confident. I have confidence. The more I told myself, the more I felt it to be true, and those bad feelings were pushed to the wayside. At training, I ran 6.5 miles nonstop. I felt incredible afterwards. I felt like I had all the power in the world, to be able to reach that goal and I felt so proud of myself. I felt so confident. It was a really great experience and a great reality check that I am who I want to be.

So the rest of the weekend, if I felt a tinge of negative thoughts approaching, I would think back to my running moments and a surge of self approval and confidence would wash over me. Pretty powerful stuff!

I am starting to see so many solutions to problems I have that I think are unsolvable. It is so empowering. Through more confidence, independence, and goal setting, I am well on my way to facing so many of my fears and insecurities head on and turning them into strides and wins and new experiences.

Self reflecting is brilliant. And also exhausting. I am off to get some very much needed rest.

Again, please check out My Fundraising Page and Donate and read about the cause, your support is so appreciated!

Have a fantastic week everyone! Remember your own self confidence and treasure it every moment.

More sleep! More food!

Tags

charity, exercise, fitness, fundraising, half marathon, inspiration, life, running

Run!!

Hello all! I am up at an early 8 am (early for me!) and am about to go on my daily run. My progress has been monumental already in my opinion. I am running approximately 3-3.5 miles a day, and last Saturday I ran 5.5! I feel myself getting into better shape and I love feeling those endorphins when I finish my run. But with all this new activity, I am requiring much more fuel and much more sleep. I’m finding myself sleeping 11 1/2 hours a night if I allow myself! And eating many times a day to stay energized.

It’s been an adventure already and it’s only October. I am so happy I decided to train for the Half Marathon though, it has already made my life even better. But now I need to focus on my fundraising goal. Again, to all those reading, please Click Here to DONATE to my fundraising efforts to help me cross the finish line in January and to help those in need of a voice when it comes to sexual violence and assault.

Well, short post I know but I gotta run! (hehe I am so witty)

Have a fantastic day ya’ll. Bake some cookies, watch a movie, hang with family and friends, be happy!

Training, Fundraising, Raising Awareness, Half Marathon!

Tags

athletics, awareness, causes, fitness, fundraising, half marathon, health, inspiration, jeans for justice, justice in motion, life, running, sports

Hey all!

So, hope everyone is having a great start to their week and had a nice weekend : ) Mine was pretty great! Got my paycheck (woot!), worked all three days, AND had my first day of formal HALF MARATHON training!!!

Whoa whoa whoa, you may be thinking. Yes, I have decided to commit to training and running in the Carlsbad half marathon in January. I am training and fundraising with a group called Jeans For Justice, unique non-profit organization dedicated to ending sexual violence through creative awareness campaigns and cutting-edge education programs. My new roommate is an intern with this program and got me involved. At first, I was very wary of the idea. I mean I’m all for raising money and awareness for a great cause like this, but running?! Voluntarily?! For 12.5 miles?! That didn’t sound like me at all.

But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a great thing to pursue. It is a big challenge, not only to train for 3 1/2 months but to also raise a pretty good amount of money, all on top of working, going to school, attempting to keep a social life, etc. But I love a good challenge. And I figure I can only benefit from this! I will get into better shape, as I am being held accountable now for working out so I really am more motivated. I will be raising awareness for such an amazing cause and helping out my local community. I’ll be networking, meeting new people, pushing myself to the extreme, and most excitingly, I will be doing something I’ve never done before! And to say I have completed a half marathon would just be amazing to say the least.

So I had my first day of group training on Saturday morning. It was not easy to wake up at 7 am after working a Friday night to go run a couple miles. But I did it. I met everyone on our Justice in Motion team (that’s what the training program is called).  I met our mentors and coaches and everyone there was so kind and inspiring. I’m not surprised since this is all voluntary and we all have to be pretty motivated to do this. Being around all of these like minded people was very refreshing. We did a 40 minute run at a jogging pace along the coast in Encinitas. So beautiful! I was exhausted by the end, but felt happy I had decided to this.

Now I have those practices once a week plus a running schedule I do on my own throughout the week. I also have my own fundraising webpage set up here, that you can all look at, read more about the cause, and even donate if it strikes you. Any little bit counts and I am excited to see my progress bar jump little by little as the weeks and months go by.

Ah…life is good. Whilst I wish I could keep writing on here, homework and studying are calling my name. Back to the school grind tomorrow. Have an amazing week everyone!!! My fundraising link is http://www.stayclassy.org/fundraise?fcid=133073, again, just if you want to spread the info to anyone in your life.

Week 1: in the life of a college apartment dweller

Tags

apartment living, college, funny, happiness, inspiration, life, relationships, thoughts

worries going down with the sunset : )

Hello my lovely and amazing followers! Updates are here! I have officially lived in my new apartment with my new roomies for a week! And I have to say, it is going pretty good. My room is all put together, minus a desk I want to find and get, some thumbtacks, and shelves. But it looks great I think! Also, I am beginning to get closer with my new roommates, who are so sweet and who always involve me in plans they make, aside from going out on the town which I am too young for, but no worries there, I’ll have my time! I digress. Anyway, they are very sweet, open, fun loving girls who are just as laid back as I am.

I went grocery shopping, filled my cupboards with my main staples to keep me going for the week, bought some more decorations/needs for my room. It has been a big change living in a new city, with new people, away from my comfort zone, but I feel so happy about it. Right now I’d say my life is exactly where I have wanted it to be for quite some time.

Right now me and my two roomies are all sitting around our kitchen table chatting and getting to know each other more, sharing stories, laughing, and having a nice little Sunday night. It still keeps feeling like all these new experiences are going to keep piling up, but I think for now everything is going to start slowing back to a normal everyday kind of pace : )

Right now in school, I’m learning all kinds of interesting new communications skills, whether it be public speaking, or video editing, I feel like I have definitely chosen the right field of study. I feel happy to go to school an learn in my classes and apply what I know.

Not too long ago I’d been feeling a little low as far as my self esteem was concerned. I was feeling unpretty, undesirable, and just overall not good enough. Not so much that I was depressed or anything, just a lack of confidence was bringing me down for reasons unknown to me. I always have had the most supportive and loving people in my life, and my family, friends, and boyfriend are no exception to that. I think it was due to the general unknown-ness of my life. I had no idea what my future was going to hold, with school or living situations or work, and it made me feel like everything was out of my control, and in turn I felt a lack of confidence in myself.

Nowadays however, I feel really truly great about myself. I have a solid plan, I know what’s going on in my life for at least the next few months to a year, I have a job I really like and make good money at, and it is all reflecting in my overall happy demeanor and outlook on life and on myself. I’m also signing up to train and run a half marathon in January! It’s for a great cause, I will have more info up once I get all signed up and I will explain all! So I will get in great shape, make new friends, and help a good cause. Life’s good. With me at peace with my inside self and now my outside, I couldn’t be happier!

Thanks again to all of you who follow me and give me great feedback and encouragement. I appreciate it immensely and look forward to reading more of your blogs and posts and responding back!  What’s new in your life? What ways do you have in coping with any low confidence issues? What inspires you?

Have a fantastic week everyone!

A big day!

Tags

apartment, college, happiness, inspiration, life, moving, roommates

Hey everybody : )

Stack those boxes! It's moving day!

Sorry for the measly one post a week…I feel so lame. But it’s been crazy busy lately! That’s always my excuse…sigh. Well tonight I am reflecting on my life again. Tomorrow morning I’m moving into my new apartment (yay!) with two other roommates, in a great complex, awesome amenities, pretty much everything is great!

But I’m still feeling all kinds of emotions. Excited, scared, anxious, curious, expectant, hesitant… I lived on my own for a year in my schools dorms. I would hardly call that being on my own though, because of the constant other person living in the shoebox with you, and the meal plan that allows you to still delay learning how to cook, the always being surrounded by other peers and never feeling “lonely”. I think this will be the first time I am actually living on my own. So many new things! I have to do my own grocery shopping, which I’m really excited about.( I’ve been grabbing coupon books from my usual grocers hehe) I can work out at the gym at the complex! I can drive to school in five minutes. I can actually walk to the store and to starbucks!

But moving out and into a new city, means moving away from my comfort zone. I’m excited for it, but nervous. I’m moving away from my home town friends, and my boyfriend, my dad, my usual hangouts..I mean I’m not more than a half hour drive away, but it’s still not the same as hopping in the car and driving down the road to get to someone’s house in a matter of minutes.

But I like to think I will thrive being put in a new situation. I’m thrilled to be housing with two great roommates who I can get to know better and maybe even create a great friendship with. I can’t wait to gain some more independence in my life and become more confident on my own two feet and with my own self. I like the feeling of becoming more adult, even if it is just baby steps at a time. There is so much good to look forward to in it all, I shake my head that I was so worried about it before. Because there’s no point in looking at a prospective negative aspect of some situation, if it is just “prospective.” I won’t know until I just go for it, and until then I have the highest hopes possible.

So moving day tomorrow, but probably not much unpacking because I have to work in the afternoon, and all weekend. Monday will be my unpacking day, and I can’t wait to lay back in my newly put together room and open my windows and feel at home, in my new home.

I’ll keep ya’ll posted as the week goes by, happy weekend!!

My heart’s a stereo

Tags

happiness, inspiration, life, love, maroon 5

So let’s talk about loooove, heh and life and happiness and how it all can come together so harmoniously we actually think we did something right in life. That’s how I’ve been feeling lately : )

So as many of you know, and many of you don’t know either, I made some big changes in my life over these past few months because I wanted more than anything to change the quality of my life. I’ve always been an all around pretty happy person, with a general positive and upbeat outlook on most things. Last year was different though. I was in a bad place and felt so alone, even though I was surrounded by people. I had my family supporting me and thousands of my peers surrounding me on a daily basis at school, and I still felt like I was so lonely and invisible. I tried to bring myself to be social and get out, meet new people and friends and not stay in my room watching netflix marathons to distract myself from my real feelings. But my efforts were in vain and I eventually spent all of my time by myself, wallowing in my own misery and throwing pity parties for myself on a daily basis. Not my best moments.

When I came back to California for the summer, it was as if the last year had been a dream, or a nightmare really. I felt alive again, reawakened and so happy. I saw that, no matter what anyone else thought of my decisions, at the end of the day it’s going to be me who is happy or unhappy, not those other people judging my decisions. And ever since I have been living with the sole purpose of doing what is best for me, and for my well being. I know that there are those who support me but don’t agree with me, and that’s okay. Life is like that. And we still have to love those around us even if they are making decisions we don’t necessarily care for. (unless we’re talking about hard drugs or alcohol or violence, then it’s time for an intervention).  And I have to say that I have not been this happy and this pleased with where my life is at in a very long time. Everything has fallen into place just the way the world wanted it to, and I am just going along enjoying the ride. My mom is always the woman with the plan, a five year plan and a ten year plan, and she is amazing at achieving all of her goals. But for now, my plan is to see what happens tomorrow and the next day and just keep living the way I want to, and we’ll see where I’m at next week : )

I also wanted to share this song with you (the title of this post). It’s just a catchy maroon 5 song but I like it, maybe you will too!

August 22nd 2011, new new new!

Tags

happiness, inspiration, life, new, school

So, as this summer is coming to a close, and many changes have been made in my life, my blog will be taking a bit of a turn in a new direction! Sorry for any of you who follow and have been looking at the same blog posts for several months now, summertime was a big transition time for me, and I didn’t feel like I was going to be writing anything good during that time of flux. But now things are starting to get on a new path, new job, an internship!, a new school, and new outlooks on life and love and happiness. So hopefully the posts will be coming out at least once or twice a week again, it feels very good to get writing on this again. And I somehow still have a follower or two, and I thank those of you very much for sticking with me and this blog.

“Dreams are illustrations… from the book your soul is writing about you”

– Marsha Norman

Peanut Butter

Tags

cookies, cooking, dogs, happiness, inspiration, life, peanut butter

So today I made some peanut butter cookies from scratch. After I added as much of the peanut butter as I could, while making a mess of course, I gave my dog the spoon to lick. It was the funniest thing in the world to watch. She licked it so clean she could probably see her reflection, and then she kept smacking her lips and rolling her tongue over her nose over and over because it was so sticky, and she had a big dollop of it on her snout. I laughed for about 10 minutes while I watched her. It just lit up my day. And she just kept looking up at me wondering why I was giggling.

I guess I’ve just been thinking so much lately about what it means to be happy, how to pursue and achieve happiness, and how to make it last. And it’s obviously right in front of me, staring at me covered in peanut butter. Or my best friends back home skyping me and us laughing with each other so easily. Or some sweet text messages from my boyfriend that tell me I’m being thought of. It’s my mom showing me a silly and ridiculous youtube video and us laughing over it. I think maybe I’m searching too hard for it when it’s always right next to me.

I’m sure everyone’s life could be tweaked in some way or another, and we all wish we could get everything we wanted and that our worlds were perfect. They aren’t though, maybe that’s the fun in it, or the challenge. Or the simplicity of it. We all have to work with what we got, and not worry so much about what we don’t.