Heart Day

{Tights//top: F21, skirt: Target, sweater: AE , boots: Tilly's, hat: borrowed}

In case you guys didn't know...today is Valentine's day. I hope you all had a lovely day with the ones you love! Like I said before I've always been on the fence about Valentine's day. I neither love nor hate it. Aside from the biology midterm I took today, which I don't think went very well, (I studied all of the chapters but none of the things I studied were on the test. Shoot me.) the day was a pretty nice day. I made some great progress on the painting I'm working on, which is awesome because just a day ago it had me wanting to set the art studio on fire and gleefully cackle from the sidelines as I watch it and my painting burn to smithereens! I know. I have a passionate imagination. Anyway, after my morning workout the fam bam and I enjoyed a breakfast of heart shaped pancakes. I went to class, painted a masterpiece and failed an exam. To wrap up this lovely day of love my beautiful sisters and I went out to the movies to see Beautiful Creatures. It was completely adorable in the teen drama sort of way! All in all a good Valentine's day I'd say! Oh, and on a side note, I watched Perks of Being a Wallflower last night and it was one of the greatest movies I've seen in a while. So good. Watch it if you haven't!

"You see things and you understand. You are a wallflower."

Happy Valentine's Day!

Blast from the past

{Denim jacket//belt: F21, maxi skirt: borrowed, shoes: Steve Madden}

It snowed...again...and again...and again. To keep warm from the snow and simultaneously get creative with this whole shopping diet thing I decided to play search and rescue with this corduroy maxi skirt because what's more frugal than re-using things from the past? It came from the dark ages, otherwise known as my older sister's high school years. Anyway, I remembered it's existence last night and decided to rescue it from the back of the linen closet it was shoved in. I decided I'd rather wear it as a dress so I hiked it up, belted it, and pulled a denim jacket over it. With the snow covering the ground I decided I'd rather not wear heels so I put on my all time favorite flats I got four years ago. I got them for like $10, which is a major steal for Steve Madden's! Four years later they still look totally amazing, plus that bead work is just to die for! Anyway, today I wanted to keep this post short and sweet due to the large amount of homework that awaits me...ugh...homework...I just have to keep reminding myself that I signed up for this and that as nerdy as this sounds I actually love school! How about we do some bullet points of both relevant and random thoughts, kay? Okay.

• Utah weather is crazy. It dangles the hope of warmth and spring in front of our faces for a couple of days and then it snows for two days straight as if to say, "haha, just kidding!"
• The baby brother blessed the sacrament in church today for the first time ever. It was awesome.
• The Walking Dead comes back on tonight. I. Am. Ecstatic.
• In my household The Walking Dead is a family affair. 
• We gather round the TV and pig out on food while humans get devoured by zombies
• What screams appetite more than blood and guts right? 
• Clearly I have a television addiction...but who doesn't these days? Right? Right?? Please tell me I'm normal!
• Don't tell me I'm normal. I'm so not, and I actually kind of like it that way. :)
• The Grammy's are on tonight but since it's on at the same time as The Walking Dead for the first time in a long time I will not be watching. 
• I never thought I'd say this but tonight zombies take precedence over celebrity fashion and music

Happy Sunday!

For the sake of my sanity

{top: F21, jeans: Abercrombie Kids, Shoes: Charlotte Russe, earings: H&M}

For the sake of my sanity I took a day off today. Between school, work, and the insane fitness goals I push myself to meet everyday my body has been feeling bruised, beaten, sore, and just incredibly exhausted. When I went to bed last night I had gone to sleep fully intending to go to the gym in the early hours of the morning, attend the three classes I have today, and run my long run for the week. When my alarm went off at 5:40 this morning I felt like a train had passed through my room at some point in the night and run me over. For the sake of my sanity there was no way the gym would be happening today, so I slept on thinking that, oh well, who cares if I miss one workout, I'll still get my run in later today so it'll be alright. When I finally got up at 8 to get ready for class and send out a few important emails I realized I was still pretty tired and wasn't feeling up to going to school. I couldn't just let myself miss a day, though, because what would be the point of working my butt off at my job to pay for tuition if I didn't even show up for school? I gave myself a little pep talk and told myself I had to go, but IF for the sake of my sanity I had to skip my last class so I could come home early that would be ok. I made it down the stairs and opened my laptop to get started on those urgent emails.

As I started typing I started realizing just how tired I actually was. There was no way I could possibly make it through my second class of the day, biology. I told myself that if it was for the sake of my sanity I could miss biology just this once too. After all, I deserved a bit of a break, but NO MATTER WHAT I had to push myself to make it to my first class of the day, painting. I got a reply to the first email I sent. It wasn't the response I was hoping for. It left me feeling disappointed, hurt, and just a little harassed. As I was typing out a reply to this disappointing email I asked my mom for a little advice on the situation. While her advice was helpful it ended up turning my response to this email into a bigger issue than I was ready to deal with. I ended up getting so frustrated and angry at the person I was emailing that I ended up crying. Do you remember that lovely speech I gave in this post about crying being perfectly alright? Well, cross my heart and hope to die because I'm a bloody liar. Crying sucks. A lot. Especially crying in front of your whole family. It's embarrassing and no matter how many pretty speeches I give I can't shake the feeling that crying makes me a weak pansy.

By the time I rapped up those stupid emails I had all of ten minutes to get my things together to go to painting, by which point I was feeling so emotionally/physically drained that I just decided shuck it. SHUCK IT ALL. For the sake of my sanity, I need a WHOLE day off gosh dang it! Instead of pushing myself to my breaking point like I always like to do, I went back upstairs to my room, got into my bed and cuddled with my puppy for a good long while. I then put together an outfit that would channel my inner peace loving, happy go lucky hippie and took these pictures with my little sister. Last of all, I changed into my running gear and for the sake of my sanity went on my long run, basked in the warmth/sunlight of the day and enjoyed the burning in my legs as I pushed them through their fatigue to run.

Happy Thursday!

P.S. I came across this video on my facebook feed, and it totally made my day so much better. Watch it!

P.P.S I actually think the best part of this video is the older sister eagerly waiting for what she knows is coming and then just cracking up like a little whacko. :)

Does the girl ever wear pants?

{dress//shoes: H&M,sweater: Hollister,pearl hairband-worn as bracelet: F21} 

Hi all! It is now officially February, the month of love! It seems to me that the majority of the world either hates or loves Valentine's day. If you ask me, though, I'd say Valentine's day is neither here nor there. It's not my favorite holiday, that would be Christmas of course, but it's not my least favorite either by any means. It's just a day when everyone remembers to say I love you to the important people in their lives, or feels unnecessary pressure to fall in love on that SPECIFIC day. Why not remember to say I love you everyday, or relax about being single and let love come at its own pace? Although this Valentines day I will be in class for the majority of the day and will actually be taking a midterm exam to boot, (I know, vomit right? -Insert sarcasm- what screams love more than midterm exams?!) I will try to make a conscious effort to let all of the amazing friends and family in my life know just how much I love and appreciate them!

Anyway, in honor of it being the month of love I decided to wear this heart patterned dress I got at H&M. Also in honor of the month of love, I decided to show a little love to my hair and give it a break from the heat of styling it, which is why I resemble Merida from the Disney movie Brave. To help my hair look a little more put together and a little less wild I tied the ribbon from my dress around it as a hairband. It's been warming up around these parts, so much so that last weekend we reached 43 degrees! How awesome is that? It's still not warm enough to just wear this dress on its own, though, so I decided to layer this chunky knit sweater from Hollister on top of it. Oh, and I realized that in all but one of my posts I'm wearing either a skirt or a dress, which begs the question do I ever wear pants? The answer to that is yes, yes, I do. I wear jeans or some form of pants about 5 days a week. It's just that whenever I have a chance to wear something that isn't my work uniform or the fitness clothes I spend a lot of time in since I run to school or at school in between classes, I decide that what I would like to wear the most is a skirt or a dress. Plus, I seriously have bought like one pair of jeans since I was fifteen. I know, I know, kind of shocking right? I just haven't needed to though, I mean it's not like I grew past my saddening height of 5'3 since then. That just means, though, that most of my jeans, while being perfectly broken in and cozy, aren't going to be winning any prizes in the style department.

Happy month of love!

P.S. I just love these little shoes, so comfy cozy!

Happy Belated Birthday & the Best Thai Food EVER

{Way back when I myself was sixteen. Look at my little guy, wasn't he the cutest?!}

My baby brothers birthday was earlier this week. The little man turned sixteen! It's crazy to think he's gotten so big, especially when it feels like I was just sixteen myself! I know, I know, sixteen was YEARS ago for me but...well, no, it wasn't YEARS ago, it was five years to be exact. That's not THAT long ago is it? Is it? I'm so old. Ha, well, in retrospect I know 20 almost 21 isn't old at all but for the girl who would have been happy to stay five years old, in Winnie the Pooh shoes no less and singing about everything that happened to me, 21 might as well be 80. Anyway, back to my little brother. He is just the greatest kid around. He'll always take out my bathroom trash for me, no begging necessary might I add (and if you read this baby boy, my trash can is full, hint, hint), asks for random hugs every now and again, never fails to tell me if my hair looks good in the back, and always gets adorably annoyed when he notices strangers checking me out. We've always had a strong connection with each other since the day he came home from the hospital. I was always eager to take care of him when my mom was in the shower. I remember rubbing his tiny baby belly and singing songs to him till he fell asleep. When he was first learning to talk I was the only one who understood the gibberish he spoke. Even though he's now a grumpy and sometimes aloof teenager he's still the best baby brother a girl could ask for. And hey, I know I was no walk in the park as a teenager either.

Now onto the food part of this weeks Food & Fitness Fridays post! For the little guys birthday we went to a  Thai restaurant called Sawadee that my family has been RAVING about for the longest time. I had never been because I'm the pickiest person alive and thought there would be nothing at a Thai restaurant that would suit my tastes. I was SO wrong. I went, and I am now in love with that place. It's got the cutest decorations ever, and has just THE coolest vibes. Not to mention, the service is incredible! I had a tofu and vegetable dish. I know, I know, I'm always preaching about how awful tofu is for you because its chock full the poison we all call soy, but cookies aren't great for you either and we all have them now and again anyway right? So I caved and indulged in a little poison...and it was delicious...obviously. That which is no good for our systems is usually that which is delicious. Why must you be so cruel world? WHY, WHY? Anyway, whenever you're in downtown Salt Lake go check it out!! You get two dishes, a spring roll, and rice for $8.25! Jeez, you'd think I own the place the way I'm pushing you all to go there but seriously them Thai peeps were just so dang nice, you'd be a fool not to go! Here are some pics of all of our dishes! I'd tell you what they all are but I have no clue what my family ordered.  

This one is my lovely non-meat eater friendly dish!

Our waitress brought out these fried bananas and ice cream, on the house! So delicious!

P.S. Sorry the pictures are all crooked and such, don't really know what happened. Oh, well!