Bellezza di Vita

It has been one of those weeks where I didn't do much or take too many photos since it was kind of boring, to be quite honest. Boring can be good - hey, it can be very good, especially if you have had a lot of chaos in your life. It can very well be a welcomed relief.
Saturday was a fun and pretty day. My roommate and I went out for lunch, where we split two different burgers (from Blazin' Onion) and had both ordered the Strawberry Lemonade. So yummy.
We later went to the casino, where I've never been lucky in playing slots until then - I won $100! That was completely unexpected and awesome, and it will probably never happen again. Haha

I've been in such a flower frenzy lately since it has been starting to look and feel like spring. I'm very excited to see flowers and blooms again... aren't these flowers gorgeous? We were at Home Depot looking at stepping stones to put in our driveway for safety, and I had to look in their nursery.
I've been teasing Ernie-…

I've been in a DIY mood - and thus, have been scouring Pinterest for some amazing DIY projects to do over the next couple of months. Here are some of the ideas I've found:

Spring-inspired mason jars and floral arrangements, and a very easy, yet festive St. Patrick's Day wreath.


Flowered letters and a beautiful pastel floral headband.

What are you dying to try? I'm looking to try them all! :)

Have a wonderful night,

Em

It seems as though everyone is talking about the 90s - makeup enthusiasts and fashion bloggers are raving about the new old 90s styles... and you're finding a lot more #throwbacks in social media. While I've already done a lot of raving about my 90s childhood memories recently, today, it's all about one of my favorite movies from the 90s: Hook.

Who can pass up on the beloved late Robin Williams' rendition as a much grown-up Peter Pan who must return to Neverland to save his children from Captain Hook? Between the exciting and adventurous world where the Lost Boys live, to Julia Roberts as a talkative Tinkerbell, the 90s had reprised the Peter Pan story and made it something so new and magical...


Have you seen this movie? What is your favorite part? Mine is probably the food fight scene between the Lost Boys where Peter and Rufio had a hilarious wordy argument resulting in food flying everywhere...

Ready to go find my happy thoughts in dreamland.

Em

I've been feeling tad bit depressed recently, which is something that I cannot be ashamed to admit. This blog serves to be a reminder that there is beauty in everything, so each time I blog about something here, it is because I find beauty in it and it also serves its purpose, at least for myself.
Last week was rough - some major changes and cuts at work meant that a lot of people are now searching for new jobs. I am very grateful that I still have my position, but it's still shocking to know that so many of my colleagues don't have that same comfort. I've also been under the weather with allergies and with my wisdom teeth coming in (I'm a late bloomer, I guess) and everything else added to that mix and - blah.
However, what gets me through is having beautiful weather and peaceful days. This is my week's story:
For Valentine's Day, my roommate ordered us all dinner - I chose a chicken salad from my favorite pizza place (and stole some of his cr…

Solitude can be a beautiful thing. It allows for you to collect your thoughts and observe the life around you, to reevaluate. It is a completely spiritual thing for me, particularly when I have stressors in my life that exhaust me. Being alone can bring peace.

I work with a lot of awfully rude and mean-spirited people - not my coworkers, for the most part, but in a service-based industry. I am yelled at, called names, and sometimes I get the occasional threat. It can wear a person down. How do I let all of that go?

For me, solitude helps me to get past the negativity, even on days where I cannot wait for the moment I can leave work. When I am at home, I can be safe in my room with only my own thoughts to make noise. There is comfort in curling up underneath my blankets, closing my eyes, and concentrating on my breathing. No talking. No brain power. Just quiet.

But there does need to be balance. Too much solitude can off-set your peace and replace it with annihilation and loneliness.  …

There was a man who played his music in the downtown market long ago.  If he was strategic enough, he'd get a populated area on a weekend day where he could make $30 an hour doing what he loved - making music and sharing his passion with others.
He is one amongst hundreds of other street performers who make our city all the more cultured and lovely. If you walk around downtown, there are numbers of streets and corners where you can find musicians, painted statue people, and talented dancers, to name only a few talents. Their goal? To share their passion - to tell a story through their art. 
The man above sang folk songs along with with his playing and sang of hard times in life and just trying to make it through. Fairly relative to a lot of people. Moving, even.
Do you have street performers in your city? Who are your favorites and what are their stories?
Em

A year ago, I posted a video that was about not beating yourself up about not keeping your New Year's Resolutions. After more of my passion took over, I started to talk about how important it is to hold yourself in a higher esteem. It's so easy to let the world dictate your value and your worth, but this worth that the world places on you is inaccurate; it's devastating, and it's false.
You matter. You're valuable. You're loved. You're wonderfully made.
I really just wanted to share this message with you. No matter where you are at in your day or week, just know that I'm rooting you on from the sidelines and that I truly hope you are finding encouragement where you need it the most. I'm always praying and hoping for the best outcomes and scenarios for you, hoping for big smiles and a lot of joy.

I hope you all have a fantastic evening.

Love,

Em

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the nursery to get inspiration for my garden. I did manage to walk away without spending my whole paycheck on flowers and plants, although, I couldn't let escape me the prettiness that comes with flowers and well-designed gardens.

The garden statue that stole my breath - this moment was impeccably unplanned for the sunlight to be bearing down at such an angle that this statue lit up with a rose gold aura around her:

Wouldn't it be amazing to have a statue like this in your yard with sunlight pouring onto her?

Or perhaps, you are more into scenic ponds and realistic statues instead? Picture below, a walking bridge over a man-made pond and ceramic statuette sitting and fishing.


Of course, for me, the dream is to have a large greenhouse which can be used for various vegetables and herbs, tropical plants, and everything under the sun - literally. Sky Nursery - one big amazing greenhouse.

Even if you don't have a green thumb, you can create a bea…

This week was my birthday week and 26 isn't quite a special number, but this week did feel a little special.  (I posted childhood photos here if you want to see what I posted on my birthday) It felt like a great birthday present to see that there are buds on the trees again and flowers springing up from the earth. Birds are singing every morning. So beautiful.
While we didn't get much of a winter this year, (our only snow came right around Thanksgiving and just as quickly disappeared) I can say that having a beautiful spring is a very welcomed thought right now.
The beginning of my week marked the "week of salads" as I'm calling it - veggies just sound so good. It's funny to me that while I like salads, I get very sick of them easily - they're boring, with the same old flavors over and over again. Obviously there are thousands of salad recipes out there, but in my head, they're all the same after a while. I haven't wanted salad for months until f…

I just happened to come across a quote - one that stirs up deep contemplations about how I live my life:


A short reflection: don't get in your own way. Don't be self-sabotaging. Believe that you deserve to achieve your goals--to fulfill your dreams. Be tenacious and don't give up. You can do it!

<3

Em

Sound like a fun challenge? How about 196 countries...in 12 minutes. Think you can? Do you want to at least try?

Well, try you can. Click here to see what I am talking about.

During a slow time at work or when I want to challenge myself, I will go to JetPunk.com where their most popular quiz is their countries quiz where you name as many as you can in 12 minutes. Over time, I've been able to get all 196 with a couple of minutes to spare.

This morning, after a couple of months without doing it, I was able to get to 177. Not too bad. Still
pretty sharp in my memory, but with another couple of cracks at it, I will get back to 196... ;-)

Do you want to try it? I promise you that it is addicting once you start! It's a great mind challenge, and if you guess a lot, your high school geography teacher's job would have paid off.

Geographically challenged,

Your Em

...was the day that I was born.

Yes, today is my 26th birthday. For me, my birthday is a celebration of a life that I feel I take for granted sometimes. It's the one day each year that I can truly reflect upon as being a real Thanksgiving time. Without going much into it, I will say that I am very blessed to be alive today.

As my little celebration, I wanted to share a little piece of me in photographs.

Baby me with my Daddy. One of my most treasured photos (in a beautifully engraved silver frame).
Baby me with my Momma. My mom looks so beautiful here.
My second birthday. Look at my baby smile!
My dad used to wear baseball caps all the time. When I was little,  I wanted to be just like him. I loved my hats too.
A fashionista before my own time - at 5 or 6 wearing a quilted blazer, a black  belt cinched around my mid-section, and a cute dress underneath.
Me with my Grandpa (Great Grandpa) Lee. He passed a couple of years ago on my birthday,  and this one of the fondest memories w…

I'm deep in thought at the moment, thinking about how fun it would be to just hop into my car and drive off to somewhere unexplored. It is a bucket list dream of mine to drive cross-country, stopping to see amazing sites, eat delicious food, meet incredible people, and see the country. 
And then when all that exploring is finished, take a drive through Canada and then onward to Alaska. There's so much world to see. 
Wouldn't it be amazing to drive southward through Mexico to Central America? Flying is great - if you need to get somewhere fast, but for someone who really would like to see the world, doing so by car sounds even more fun.
What about you? Is a road trip in your dream? Where would you go and why?
Every day, you get a new chance to see something new. Take a new path. Open your eyes to see. You never know where the road will take you.
Em

Sometimes, the most delicious treat is something as simple as chocolate pudding. I had such a sweet tooth and while I had really wanted to make a run to Starbucks, I instead decided to indulge on some instant chocolate pudding.

I know that a lot of people really like to add whipped cream to their chocolate pudding - and while this is most definitely something that I love... I didn't have any, so I chose crumbled up graham crackers instead.


Having pudding around helps me avoid the disaster of going to the grocery store and grabbing the first sweet thing that looks good. Thankfully, pudding is easily low-calorie and it also satiates the chocolate craving.

What do you have on hand to handle your sweet-tooth?

Sweets to the sweet,

Em

So... three times this week I've gone without blogging, even though I said that I'd blog every day this year. I guess it's time to bust out the scheduled posts?
To be honest, it was one of those weeks. You know, the ones that leave you mentally exhausted and ready for the weekend? Blame it on the Seahawks losing the SuperBowl? Nah. Blame it on the weather? Double nah.
Perhaps it's simply me not getting enough zzz's every night. That seems more plausible. I feel pretty badly about not having posted, but to be completely honest, work has me beat. I have to be so mentally present, and to be good at what I do, it often counts on the emotional aspect of it too, which can be even more draining, but it isn't typical for me to be this tired. Having more sleep will help with that though.
So what does that mean? It means that I'm going to push myself to stick to a much more stringent schedule: going to bed earlier and making sure that before I start to completely u…

Just for fun, I decided that I wanted to share with you what I'd do with exactly that amount of hard cash. This would be a fun tag blog, so if you decide to do this tag too, that would be awesome. Just comment below with your link. 
For logistics, let's assume that this is hard cash with no taxes owed and it was a gift - no expectancy of having to pay back the money.

When I think about all the little things that I've wanted, and just how much cash $1 million is, I realize that it really is a lot of money! For the average person making a $50,000 annual salary, it would take 20 years to earn just that amount of money. That's a crazy thought, right?

So here goes:

1. Pay off my debts. This is probably a no-brainer for most, but it would be nice to stop paying on student loans or making my car payment each month. Wow, that would be really nice.

2. Finally take those dream vacations.

3. Stock away about half the money to earn interest.

4. Buy a reasonably sized home or cond…

A couple of weeks ago, my roommate and I went to run some errands, but stopped to each brunch at Georgia's Greek Deli, which I talked about in this post. What I haven't talked about yet is our excursion to Frost, a delicious doughnut shop in Mill Creek.

They refer to themselves as the "Destination for Dessert," which is a very fitting description indeed. Outside of the store, you're met with giant sized images of cupcakes and desserts, making it very difficult to simply walk by without wanting to walk in:

I had a hard time choosing a delectable treat, which you can possibly determine was a result of there being so many choices available. In the picture below, you can only see the cupcakes side. Further to the right, there were the doughnuts. Aren't they pretty? Oh cuppy-cakes...


 But I eventually selected the maple bacon bar:

which has gobs of crunchy bacon layered into the maple glaze. Truly delicious. I waited until the following morning for breakfast to …