This is just something I was thinking of last night as I was failing miserably to fall asleep, and the though stuck with me into the morning, so I feel like its pretty relevant:

I don't want to be one of those people who talks about doing things and never does anything. I want to be the kinda person that gets shit done. 

Hair-spiration

So I cut my hair in April, and I really really love the way my hair looks short. That being said, I have now been trying to grow my hair out. My hair is just so ridiculously healthy now that all the of the hair is natural hair with no dye in it (besides my one tiny streak of purple). I am so curious to see how lovely my curls look au natural. So yeah, today I rediscovered my old flickr account, and I found the picture below. My hair is seriously the perfect length in that picture! So yeah, that picture is like my new hair growth inspiration picture. And look at that freaking dress I am wearing - it is so freaking cute! Remind me why I felt the need to return it?!

Heavy Boots

I have been reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close the past few days, I just finished it this morning, and it was honestly such a beautiful book. When I first started the book, I was so frustrated and I found the book really confusing cause of how its written. Oskar, the main character, has so many random thoughts and in the beginning it was soo hard to follow. But once I got into it, I began to really like the book. Its funny, because I would be sitting at work, totally engrossed in Oskar and his adventure to find what the key opened, and then someone would walk into the bakery, and I'd have to come back to the real world. At times it felt like I was existing in two different places at once. Sitting outside reading this book made so happy - I definitely want to start reading outside more this summer. For my next read, I am going to see how I like this book called House of Sand and Fog. My grandma recommended it. I have tried, half heartedly, starting it a few times but I could never get into it. Hopefully this time will be different. 

These are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"I miss what I already have and surround myself with things I miss" - Oskar's grandma

"I spent my life learning to feel less. Everyday I felt less. Is that growing old? Or is it something worse? You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness" - Oskar's grandma

"I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live, Oskar" - Oskar's grandma

"You can't love anything more than something you miss" - Oskar's grandpa

"Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they're nothing." "So what's something?" "Being reliable is something. Being good." William Black and Oskar

Also, whats with all these pictures of feet these days?! I don't even like feet. I gotta start changing it up; maybe actually get in front of the camera. I guess we'll see. 

Purple

Do you ever have ugly days? Days where you just look in the mirror and think to yourself, "how could I have possibly been cursed with such unfortunate genes?". Yeap, well today was one of those days for me. It didn't help that my mom decided it was a good idea to eat at Joe's Crab Shack (one of my favorite restaurants), where I got a meal that was completely fried and when I logged it into my fitness pal I learned that my meal was over 2,000 calories! Who knew?! Good thing I didn't eat all of it, but it still brought me way over my calories for the day. Anyway, the point is that today I was feeling completely unlike myself. So I decided to spend the day in, and do a little pampering. I tweezed my eyebrows, bleached my mustache (lets be real girls, we all have to do it), put a streak of purple in my hair and some purple on my nails. I listened to the wisdom of Carrie Bradshaw on Sex in the City, ate a chocolate chip cookie and drank a frap from Strabucks. Now, I am going to make myself a cup of tea and cry as I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Needless to say, even though today was far from ideal, I was able to turn it around and cheer myself up. Its nice to know that I can do things like that. Although it wasn't all me; thinking about that cute boy from the bakery with the beard made me feel a little better too (;

Just a side note, taking the pictures for this post took me forever, and kinda gave me a headache. Oh, the things we do to have a pretty blog. Just sayin'. Alsooo, my left toenail is shaped so weirdly because it fell off from running and is in the process of growing back. That toe nail is literally 6 months in the making. I can't wait till its fully grown in so I can cut it and make it a regular shape. TMI?

I'm just a dreamer

So there has been a lot of talk on this blog of me trying to be happy on my own. Well yesterday I did something on my own I cannot even describe how happy I felt afterwards. A few months ago I bought tickets to see the Tallest Man on Earth. I kept forgetting that I had the tickets, but yesterday was the day. I didn't even really wanna go anymore, but I wasn't going to waste good seats (4th row from the front). So I put on my favorite dress and some really pretty earrings and I went, and I had such a wonderful time! The opening band was so incredible, and so was Kristian! For the very last song, his wife came out and sang with him. They were too freaking cute. He just stared at her the entire time. I was dying, but also pretty freaking jealous! Ugh, I left feeling so inspired and just really good about life. I was inspired to learn some music and to go to more things on my own and to dress up more often and just in so many ways! Since I had such a good time and loved the music so much, I decided to buy some CDs. They were only $10 each, so I bought 3. One of the opening band, Strand of Oaks, and two of the Tallest Man on Earth. I wound up spending all my money on music and had to pay for the bus partially in quarters. But it was so worth it! Kristian is seriously SO beautiful; one of the prettiest boys I have ever seen in my whole life; but unfortunately my camera really sucks, so the best picture I got of him was of his back. I am going to look into investing in a new camera soon. 

What I learned from not eating meat

So, today I was planning on posting about the Fun. show that I went to on Saturday night, but then some things happened, and now I want to write about those things instead! Basically two separate events happened last night the caused me to come to one conclusion.

Event 1: So I have been thinking about Fernando so much lately (in case anyone is reading this and doesn't know who Fernando is, he is my ex boyfriend. We dated for a year and four months, and have been broken up for about 5 months). Its driving my crazy because I love being single and independent and I love having time to do all these wonderful things for myself like go to the gym and randomly go to shows with friends and the such. And yet I cannot get this silly boy out of my head - I think about how cute we were together and how happy we made each other and all of the wonderful adventures we went on. And then I wonder if I will ever find another boy who makes me just as happy and is as adventurous and open minded and wonderful. And so I am sure you can see why this is frustrating. My heart is just being torn into these two very opposite directions. And so every once in a while when fondly reminiscing about this old relationship I remind myself of some things - the first is the last time that I saw Fernando when I really wanted to kiss him and cuddle with him and say I love him but I also really did not want to do any of those things. And I didn't. And I didn't regret it. The second is what a wonderful semester I had this year without him in my life compared to my first semester which was absolutely awful. And the third is when I told him about my grandma, to which he replied "I don't know what to say". Do I want to date a boy who can never hold a conversation about serious and personal things?! Not really. (Woah, that was a lot of information!)

Anyyyway, so after doing all that thinking, I decided I wanted to hang out with Fernando. Just for one last time, to see if I felt anything and then move the heck on with my life! It made perfect sense to me - just go for a walk or something, talk a little bit, and if nothing is there I know we made the right decision and even though it was lovely while it lasted, it is better that it ended. (I am not sure what I would have done if all those feelings were still there). Well I texted him and asked if he was free this week to go for a walk or something, and he said he wasn't.

Event 2: I have not eaten meat (meat as in chicken, beef, pork etc. I have been eating sea food) since April 1st. That means its been about a month and a half. At first it was so exciting and I tried so many foods I wouldn't try other wise. It felt really good. But then as time went on, I lost track of why I decided to not eat meat in the first place. My heart fluttered and my stomach grumbled at the smell of burgers on the grill or at the smell of that delicious pulled pork sandwich Johnny was eating the other day. All I could think about for every meal was how much easier and delicious and potentially healthier my meals could be with a piece of grilled chicken or something of the sort.

So yesterday was Fathers Day. Tom decided to go to this Cuban restaurant. Might I add that I freaking LOVE any sort of Hispanic food. So when I looked at the menu I was literally drooling over all the plates that included meat. Thats when I made the decision that I would be a "flexa-pescatarian", meaning that I would be a pescatarian that ate meat every once in a while. Well, I ordered chicken empanadas as an appetizer and then seasoned fried chicken chunks with white rice and beans as a main dish. I just want to say that I was far from impressed. The empanada hardly had any chicken, and while the seasoning on the chicken did taste nice, I liked the shell that the empanada was made of much more than the empanada its self. The seasoned chicken chunks were okaaaay but they were kinda slimy and I just had a really hard time enjoying them. Despite the fact that it was chicken, the seasoning was just okay. I enjoyed my side dish of rice and beans much more. Plus, when I went home and logged everything I ate into my fitness pal, I was over by almost 800 calories!

What I realized: Maybe its just me, but there seems to be soo many parallels with my Fernando situation and my meat eating situation. I had something for a while, gave it up, and then when it was gone I was happy. Even though I was happy, I couldn't stop thinking about what I lost, so I tried getting it back. The only difference is with Fernando I was not able to see what happened if I were to "get him back", as in hang out with him again. But I am going to assume that the same thing would have happened - once I tried it again, it would have been okkaay, but I would have been far from impressed and realized that life was nicer, happier and more exciting without it (or him).

And even though I will never know if that is the case, its good enough. I am happy. I have realized something about myself - what I have is never enough. Its something I really need to work on. I am happy now, but for some reason that is not enough. I have this idea that I can be happier if I am thinner or with Fernando or eating meat. Well I have a feeling that I might be happer when I am thinner because I will be healthier and more confident, but neither Fernando nor meat is going to make me healthier or more confident, and they aren't going to make me any happier either.

Strawberry Fields Forever

I just found these pictures on my camera and realized I forgot to post them. They aren't that great because like I said, I have not been taking pictures these days, but I will post them anyways! A few weeks ago I went to visit my friends from college in their lovely little town called East Brunswick. It was such a nice change of scenery and pace and people and pretty much everything. They're really great people! While I was there we ate some food, watched this incredible show called United States of Tara and went Strawberry picking! We also got these incredible sandwiches from Wawa. It was a really good time. These are the pictures from our strawberry picking adventures. Might I add the the strawberries we got were absolutely delicious!

Freelance Whales Show

Last weekend my friend Michelle and I went to a lovely little concert in the city. I didn't even know any of the bands playing, but I am always down to go to a show, and so when Michelle asked me I did a little schedule re-arranging and said yes! The band we went to see was Freelance Whales. I don't remember the name of the first opening band, but the second one, Lucius, was absolutely incredible! Freelance Whales were also really really good. It was such a fun experience and it was exciting because it was sort of a last minute plan. Michelle happened to get offered the tickets through a girl on Tumblr. After the show, we went to this 24/7 Polish(?) restaurant that I can never remember the name of. As you can see, I have a terrible memory. Anyways, here are some pictures from the day, all from Michelle. I don't know what my problem is but I have been a weirdo about taking pictures lately. I still love taking pictures, I have just been super self conscious because I haven't taken any in a while. 

Life as We Know It

I seem to find myself posting a lot less frequently than I would like. I don't know what it is. Its not even that I am busy or don't feel like blogging. Its more that I just don't have much to day. I have been doing things this summer; attending great shows and hanging out with great people and working. I just recently joined the gym which I am super excited about (I am actually going to head there after I write this post). And so yeah, I have been trying my hardest to keep busy. The next few goals I have are daily meditation, volunteering and reading more. And posting on this blog more of course.

As for happiness, because that is in fact the topic of this blog, I find myself rather content. I have been getting a little frustrated recently, which is a feeling that I haven't felt in quite a while. I am hoping that some meditation will change those feelings. Also, I have been feeling a bit lonely. For some reason these days I really wish I had a boy in my life. I don't know if its just because the last two boys I dated both have new ladies in their lives, or because I am bored and a little bit lonely. But wanting a boy really frustrates me; I want to be happy on my own. My mom said this to me the other day when I was upset about not having anyone to hangout with and its really true. She said:

"You can't always depend on other people for your happiness"

And to hear that little bit of wisdom come from my mom; the lady who is all jokes and reality tv and never ever serious, well its was quite incredible. It really is true though.