first day jitters!

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tomorrow is my first official day of work! i have been waiting for this moment for six long months and if you know me, that is way too long of a time to not be working. it has been an interesting couple of months to say least, not working, not studying, and trying to keep myself occupied in a foreign country with limited resources. however, i did it! and now i will have something to keep me occupied every day and i will FINALLY be getting a pay check. can't beat that!

anyway, it's been a little bit of a stressful process getting my permission to work here in costa rica. scratch that .. it has been and extremely stressful process especially as of late. i recently found this lovely blog called The Freedom Experiment and was especially drawn to this blog post entitled 55 ways to take care of yoruself when you're busy busy busy."

now, i know i'm not busy busy busy yet but i probably will be pretty soon. and moreover, when i read this post i took it as more of a way to relax yourself when you've got a lot going on and feel a little more stressed than usually (yes, that's me!). so i'm not going to post all 55 but i am going to post a few of my favorites. here you go!


Listen to your favorite music
Calm music will help you calm down and upbeat music will help you up your game. Pick music that won’t distract you (like music without lyrics or in a foreign language). Your favourite music will boost your mood and keep you happy, no matter how tired you are.

Break your self-care habits into smaller tasks and do one each day
No need to look like you’re constantly running after your life, even if you are! Just break up your routine into smaller, and more achievable chunks. Shave your legs one day, paint your nails the next day, wash your hair the day after, etc. This approach also works with keeping your house tidy – just do one little chore every day and you’ll stay on top of everything more easily. 

Keep a planner and schedule no-appointments time
To make your life less chaotic, it’s a good practice to keep a planner. Make sure you write down every single appointment, to save yourself from unwanted surprises and missed meetings. Just remember to schedule time for yourself. Honor your appointment with yourself just as much as you would keep an appointment with anyone else. Just make sure you schedule time with yourself first – anyone else needs to come in second in your life.

Make sure you keep in touch with your friends
Just a few text messages, tweets or the occasional coffee will make sure your friendships don’t suffer. You will feel much better when you focus on something else entirely, and it will prevent you form becoming a workaholic hermit. You don’t have to keep in touch with everybody, most people will understand that you’re having a busy period. Just make sure you stay in touch with the people that make you happy and inspired.

Resist the urge to be productive all the time
You can’t be equally productive every single waking moment, so you might as well schedule some off time right away. Be nice to yourself and don’t expect to accomplish as much in the late evening as you do in the morning.

and there you have it :)

half birthdays

too bad half birthdays arent celebrated like regular birthdays. and too bad on regular (and half) birthdays you can't just go to your favorite stores and pick out any item of your choosing for free. wouldnt that be the life? we've had a pretty relaxing weekend here. we did celebrate a cousin's birthday by going out dancing but after that i have had plenty of time to play on pinterest and blog around to look for what i might like if we celebrated half birthdays with free things! here is what i came up with:

 black lace top via anthropologie

these awesome madewell sandals

and this lovely sofa from pottery barn (because we are missing one in our apartment!)

happy weekend!

a life abroad

 

as for many people, living abroad has taught me a lot about myself. i began my travels in college with two month-long stints during our school's winter term. the first in madrid, spain and the second here in costa rica. i've always been somewhat of a shy person, not opening up until i feel extremely comfortable, choosing to stay home and watch a movie rather than going out to party, and mostly sticking with my main group of friends since high school. which is why i've been surprised at myself to choose to be so far away from my home.

even though, i myself had chose to move to spain, not knowing a soul and not being at all familiar with my location of cordoba, i felt like i had to do it. it was a very hard transition at first, not knowing where anything was located or how things were done and constantly feeling overwhelmed by the language barrier. however, little by little i became accustomed to the spanish ways of eating, sleeping, socializing, and even talking until my last five months there felt just like i was at home. 

living in costa rica so far has been a similar experience but having paris here as well as his family has made the experience much different. almost everything i do i rely on paris or someone else in his family. even just going to the grocery store down the street i always prefer to wait until paris can come with me so that i dont have to go alone. while the language barrier now is much less apparent i still ask paris to make certain phone calls for me.

i begin working next week and getting ready for that has pretty much forced me to get over my fears of venturing outside of the apartment by myself. so today i got myself ready and ran what seemed like a million errands all around town by myself. i was able to accomplish things in the morning that normally would have taken days if was going to wait for someone to be able to help me. its funny how things so small such as going to the store for school supplies or getting another document for my visa certified seem like such a victory for me today but they do. and i'm darn proud of it.

the life of a tico dog

meet isaac. he is the dog of paris's sister but really he stays in the main house all day just hanging out and pretending to be a watch dog. whenever i go to the main house, especially when paris is at work, me and isaac hang out. he has a pretty leisurely life, when hes not laying on the floor he is usually looking out the window to see when his mom is coming back or to bark at anyone who enters through the gate. i think he has a little crush on me though because whenever paris comes close to me to give me a hug isaac goes crazy and starts jumping up paris's legs. you better keep your eye out, babe!

sh*t girls say

soooo i can't be sure how long these videos have been circulating the web and if everyone else in the world may or may not have already seen them, but i am just coming across these "sh*t girls say" videos and i died. they are hilarious. i've watched them multiple times this morning and realize i am guilty of a good majority of the things in the first 2 episodes. my favorite is when (s)he says, "did i lock the door?.....yes." i think i do that every single time i leave the house!

 

happy hump day!
xx

weekend fun

just a bunch of pictures taken from my camera phone this weekend...well, except the last one. we had a really nice weekend especially because the weather is becoming really warm. on saturday we spent the afternoon at a pool party, soaking up some much needed sun! then we went out dancing because i recently learned some salsa moves, pretty cool huh? and sunday we spent all day at a friend's birthday bbq. not too shabby if you ask me! hope you all had a great weekend too.

happy anniversary

so last week, in the midst of all the craziness of being back and organizing paris's sister's tea, we had our two year anniversary! its hard to believe that its been two years already, mainly because of how much time we spent apart from each other physically (such is the life of a long distance relationship) but here we are now! two years later and together.

i wasn't expecting to do too much, mainly because we're not in any situation to go all out like weekend trips or anything too fancy. paris asked me where i wanted to go out to dinner that night, he said i could pick anywhere. well really all i was craving was the chicken fingers from the restaurant that we always go to down the street from us! so when i told him that he said great and that he had been thinking of going there too.

so when i was getting ready, paris told me he was going to go run and by some medicine for his cold that had been troubling him for a few days. i thought nothing of it because he usually runs out to talk with whoever is around while i'm getting ready. however, i finished after about 5 minutes and then waited around for another 15 which is way more time than it usually takes and was getting a little annoyed so i texted him and said "i'm eating all the pringles so you better hurry up" (i know i know i can be such a brat sometimes!). as soon as he got back i said lets just go because i was so impatient at that point.

we get to the restaurant and go out on the balcony where we always sit and low and behold...a table already set for us with candles and two glasses of wine. the little bugger had snuck out to ask them to set a table for us for our anniversary dinner! i didnt think he had it in him but it was such a nice surprise and i immediately felt bad for being impatient with him before! it was a great dinner and afterwards we came home to watch almost the entire first season of the walking dead, which we cant get enough of.

thank you babe! i love you so much.
xx

and i'm back!

pictures courtesy of the disposable camera given to me by Brandi

i'm back! back to blogging and also back in costa rica! i got back a week ago today, and have been extremely busy so sorry for the little hiatus in posts!

last week i helped my boyfriend's sister plan and get ready for her bridal tea (i think thats what i can call it). it was a mixture between a bachelorette party and bridal shower but for about 80 women in a really nice hotel venue. we spent all week running a million errands and making hundreds of little "recuerdos" or remember me gifts. the event was saturday and it was really funny watching everyone sing and dance trying to win prizes.

then on sunday we got the a-ok to check out our NEW APARTMENT. yep we switched apartments. however, sunday and monday were spent deep cleaning everything because the previous renter literally left it a pigsty (so gross that pictures arent internet appropriate!). then we painted all the walls a nice light shade of yellow and finally yesterday we moved all our stuff in! i'll post pictures this week ;)

hey, bunny

 

 

meet tinks (the bunny). the girl is my best friend lindsey!  tinks is our other friends pet bunny. you see, me and lindsey love bunnies, we just think they are so cute and more importantly so cuddly soft! so the other day we went for a little visit to see him, pet him, and feed him a carrot. he wasn't really that interested in hanging out with us, he was more interested in getting out of his little cage. but thats okay! he was super soft and thats all we really cared about.

the day has finally come..

 

i have glasses!! now i know you may be thinking, "and that is a good thing...?" but, YES it is! i have been wishing upon stars that one day i would need glasses. glasses just make a person look more interesting, like there is so much going on in their brain that their eyes can't take it anymore and they just need glasses to make sure everything stays in line. also i think that they are just so darn cool. i mean, obviously its not cool if i can't see, but thats not the case, i can see fine. there are just sometimes where i cant see everything fine.  for example, i was watching a movie at home with my mom recently and i asked her probably a good five times to tell me what the words on the screen said. so i went and got my eyes checked out and low and behold, the doc said i could probably be using some glasses! i don't need them all the time, mostly for distance, but that still means that i need 'em!