Health Goals

This summer I did a lot of thinking about health and how I feel about it, but I didn't do much to actually keep on top of my heath. However, armed with my new knowledge and opinions on how I would like to deal with my health, I am ready to make some changes and take some action this fall. These are my goals:

1. Commit to some form of cardio, three times a week. This is not for weight loss (because weight loss is not the goal). This is to sweat out the toxins, to have more energy, to have an excuse to be outdoors, to relieve stress. There are a ton of reasons why this should be done - weight loss is not one of them.
2. Take vitamins, daily. Since I do not eat meat most of the time, I do not get a lot of vitamin b12, and vitamin b12 gives you energy. But also, I think it is just important to make sure my body is getting all  of the necessary vitamins - not just b12.
3. Go to bed early, and wake up early. The morning is my favorite part of the day, I am usually just too tired to wake up early and enjoy mornings. Its going to be hard to go to bed early and wake up early - especially in college. But I did it last semester, so I know I can do it again. Not to mention, working out in the morning is da bombbb.
4. Sunday morning long runs. Theres never anything going on at Rutgers during weekends in the morning, so there is literally no reason why this shouldn't happen. Plus, I wait to train for the Philly Half Marathon again, and possibly a Full Marathon some time in January, so long runs are going to have to become apart of my routine.
5. Join the Triathlon team. This is pretty self explanitory. I will meet people with the same goals, and stay motivated.
6. Meditate. Ugh, how I wish I was really into meditating. It seems so relaxing and wonderful. I will try and commit 5 minutes every morning, after breakfast to meditating.
7. Eat a big breakfast. I notice when I eat a big, nutritious breakfast, I am less likely to get really hungry/get cravings for unhealthy foods through out the day.

Do you have any goals this fall?

Thanks Bro, No problem Sis

Hanging out with this little guy is one of my favorite things to do! Today we bough best friend cacti, had lunch at Asian Grill, finished his entire summer book report and got froyo from Swirls. It was so lovely. I am so lucky to have such an awesome younger brother. I seriously love hanging out with this kid.

If this is real life, then somebody will bring me a sweater!

Ugh, so this past weekend was just ridiculous. I am not even going to talk about it in detail here, I am just going to say it was literally unbelievable. I remember texting my friend Megan saying how it was okay, because I was with a really safe group of people, and I stand by that 100%. Everyone was so incredible and nice and not judgmental at all, and we had such a blast. Saturday was dinner and chillin' at Kitty's house, and Sunday was the beach and Surf Taco for lunch.

These pictures are so disgusting, but they hold so many great memories. And I just cannot get over how nice everyone was - listening to all my rants, bringing me a billion glasses of water (John commenting on how Ariel and I are the most hydrated people on the plant) Ryan for finding me something similar to a sweater, and Ariel for not judging my grossness. Ha ha.

This picture is not gross at all. In fact its kind of wonderful. And those two girls are kind of wonderful.

To Live Doesn't Mean You're Alive

I suppose all of my posts on this blog are personal, but this one is a bit more personal. I considered simply writing about it in my journal, but I think this might be something that others could benefit from so well, so I will leave it here for random strangers to come across. Here it is:

This weekend, I had a very scary experience. Basically I felt like life was not real. It felt like everything was simply  projection of my imagination, and it felt like people were not actually people and life was all a sort of dream I guess. But it didn't feel like it was a dream I could wake up from, if that makes sense. It just felt like life was fake, and it had always been fake, yet it was something I could not control. Its kind of difficult to explain. Anyways, that sort of anxiety attack (induced by other things) happened on Saturday, so it has been two days. But since then, I have been thinking about it a lot. There are times I am just sitting around thinking to myself holy shit, what if I was right. But that only happens when I am just sitting around with nothing to do.

The whole thing just made me realize that I need to do more things that make me feel alive. Do you ever just do things that make you feel like man, this is life, and I am alive, and thats a wonderful thing? Today I was painting a notebook, and I got that feeling. My mind was totally clear, yet I was so incredibly focused. And I just felt alive. Another thing that makes me feel quite alive is running. I miss running so much, yet I just cannot bring myself to do it. Hanging out with my friends and laughing is something else that makes me feel quite alive, but I think that makes everyone feel alive! Ha ha.

Anyway, I am taking this weekend as a wake up call. I spend far too much time in these sort of fantasy worlds where everything is great and dandy. I live in this little bubble. But I need to really start interacting with the world around me, and doing more things that give me this feeling of being alive.

Letcha bones show

It took a few tries, but I ended up being really happy with my outfit for today. Off to the city to see Charlene Kaye, with a massive headache. Hopefully some music and a nice cool bus ride will make this shiz go away! Also, totally loving my sandals from Madewell! 

Girls, just want to have fun

These pictures suck because they were taken from my webcam, but whatevz. I just have to say, playing dress up when no one is home is pretty much the funnest thing ever. Except for the fact that now I have a ton of clothes to put away. 

I realized that I really love wearing things that make me feel really good. And I also realize that different outfits make me feel ready for different things. Its hard to explain. In some of these outfits I felt incredibly sexy, and in others I felt ready to walk through the city. I usually just stick to the basics; a v-neck and some form of denim. But fooling around with other things and changing it up was really fun. 

Also, even though she doesn't read this, Happy Birthday Megan!

Hello, how are you? Like your shoes, love your hair.

I have not been able to put this much of my hair back since I cut all my hair off in April! As much as I love having short hair, its really nice to just pull my hair back, throw on a white tee and some red lipgloss and call it a day. Unfortunately, putting my hair up takes a lot more time and effort then it used to because of how short some of my layers are. But its totally worth the effort.

I kind of took a mini, un intentional break from blogging, because I was feeling all of these crappy negative things. I started keeping a journal to write down all of the crappiness I feel. I want to really make sure this blog stays positive. But I am back to feeling normal again, and so I am ready to post lots of happy things! 

Anyway, gotta run to work, but I'll be back with more happiness later! 

I fell in love with the girl at the rock show

The title of this post has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Its just the song that is playing right now. I don't feel like writing too much, so I am going to keep this short. My bestfrand Michelle stayed over my house a few days ago. We did lots of lovely things, including this photo shoot. All of these pictures were taken by Michelle. They're so creepy, but super awesome. We did another shoot that I'll post as soon as Michelle finishes editing the pictures and puts them up on her blog. 

Also, you can't really see my outfit, but incase anyone is wondering: Dress - Urban Outfitters | Flats - Urban Outfitters

Learning about myself

Last week when I was in Brooklyn I was doing some thinking, and I realized that I really have no idea who I am. I am not really sure what I like or what I like to do or what I like to eat. I don't know what it is. I seriously don't have a favorite anything. I don't have a favorite food, book, movie, band, store, shirt ... Its kind of frustrating. I am 19 years old, and whenever I am asked what I like to do, I always recite the generic "hangout with friends, read, go online, run ... " its never like theres any real conversation starters or anything that really defines me, ya know? So I am on this sort of mission to discover who I am and what I like. Its kind of hard though. Its tough to be honest with myself when I am always worrying about what others think. For example, today in Sephora a girl showed me this really red lip stain that I really liked. I felt comfortable wearing it in Sephora, but once I left the store I felt a little odd. When my brother said I looked like a clown I started to feel really self conscious. And I almost died when I saw Fernando (thankfully he didn't see me). Perhaps thats why I have no idea who I am - I let other peoples opinions heavily influence the decisions I make and as a result I am a person that I think other people would approve of. Does that make sense? The frustrating thing is that I don't really approve of this person that I am. And isn't that whats most important?

Well anyways, I decided to start this journey of finding myself by first making a list of things that I actually do know about myself:

1. I hate charging my cellphone. I have no idea why, I just really hate doing it.

2. Running is my ultimate form of therapy. Most of the time however, I am too lazy to go for a run, which leaves me feeling like poop.

3. I love making lists. I find them so soothing and relaxing. I make lists about everything.

4. I also find writing incredibly therapeutic. I am awful at talking 98% of the time because my mouth is 10x faster then my brain and so my thoughts get really jumbled when I try and speak. But everything goes at the perfect pace and is so much clearer when I write. 

5. I believe that coming home to a clean room is such an incredible feeling. Just everything about a clean room is nice. When my room is messy, everything else in my life starts to suffer including my hygiene, my eating, the way I dress. Its quite odd how the cleanliness of my room is directly correlated to how I act. 

6. I am an awful speller. I just used spell check to help me correct the spelling of 6 different words in the number above this one. 

7. I suck a finishing things. I lack the drive and the passion to see a project from start to finish.

8. I have trouble doing nothing for long periods of time. Eventually I begin to feel really antsy. I often feel like I am just wasting my life when I do nothing.

9. My friends are incredibly important to me. It takes a lot for me to get close to people, and so when I let people in to see the true me, I hold them very near and dear to my heart. Which is why I find it incredibly painful when I feel like I am beginning to lose a friend. 

10. I have this weird obsession with checking my e-mail. I think its because I don't have a facebook.

Well, thats all for now. I'll keep you, and myself, updated on this odd and confusing journey. 

Inspiring ideas

Dear Picture Taking, Art Making, Awesomeness Creating Friends,

I never know where to begin when explaining large amounts of information to people, so hopefully this isn't too all-over-the-place. So I was at work today and I was trying to think of something that I could do that would would keep me really busy in order to prevent me from consuming 5,000 calories (for those of you who don't know, I work at a bakery). Well a little bit of thinking led to this idea and project that I am about to tell you about and ask for your help with.

Before I even tell you the project and idea though, here is a warning: I get lots of ideas and start lots of projects that usually go no where - I am really awesome at starting things but I suck at finishing them. I really hope this project is different and I hope this turns into something incredible that will affect and help lots of people. But just a heads up, this might fall flat because I might get too busy/lazy to finish it. 

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, here is my idea (its kind of a big idea with lots of parts, so bare with me). I want to create a shop on etsy and sell some things. For right now, I am thinking of just sticking to post cards and stationary, but I am hoping to eventually expand my shop and sell a bunch of things created by my awesome and talented friends. As of now, here are the goals of this project:

1) To keep the written word and physical pieces of art alive. Today, everything is on the computer. But having a piece of art or a letter to hold is so much more satisfying.

2) To make people happy - who doesn't get happy when they get mail from friends or when they look at something thats really awesome and pretty and hand made?

3) All profits of the sales from my shop would go to feeding local families. Right now I am thinking of just saving the profits for a month or so, and then either donating all profits to a food pantry, or trying to find a local struggling family to support for a month. I really want this to be super personal, so I am hoping that we will be able to support a family, but if not, the food pantry feeds local families as well. Either way, we would be helping those who need it. 

4) Heres where you come in! I seriously have so many incredible and talented friends (yes, you!) You guys are awesome at drawing and photography and jewelry making and tree making and tee shirt making. You guys are all just incredible creative. So, I want this project to spread the work of young, talented artists by including your drawings and photographs on the back of the post cards that will be for sale. Then, if you choose, I will include a post it on the post card with some information about you (your name, e-mail, blog, flickr, etsy, etc.)

So heres the plan:

If you're interested in being apart of this, e-mail me with some information:

1) Attach either some of your drawings (preferably scanned) or some of your photography, that you'd be willing to have put on the back of a post card. It can seriously be anything. Anything that you've created that makes you think, "damn, I am freaking talented", send my way! There is no specific theme to the post cards right now. When the holidays come along, I will ask for more specific images, but right now I am just asking for whatever you've got!

2) If you'd like a post it with some of your information, please tell me exactly what information about your self you'd like the post it to include.

3) If you know a family we could sponsor, first contact them and make sure that they are okay with it, and then let me know.

4) Anything else you want to say! (:

I want to get this project up and running by the end of this summer. Once we go back to school, life is obviously going to be super hectic. That means I need to get your images, create the post cards, and get them all put up in a shop and spread the word by the end of August. With that being said, if you'd like to have your art on a post card, please send it to me ASAP!

Once the etsy shop is created (hopefully by the middle of August), I'd like to get some giveaways going on blogs in order to get people to check out the post cards and stationary. If you're interested in having a give away on your blog, let me know. Basically what will happen is the host of the give away will say something like "leave a comment on my blog letting me know which post card you like most". This will get people looking at the shop, and will hopefully get them to buy something even if they do not win. I am thinking that the winner will receive 3 free post cards, but we'll figure that out when we get there. 

Anyways, if you have any questions/comments/advice/want to get involved/want to chat/etc, please please reply! Also, if you could e-mail me with your art work by August 7th, that would be incredible. If thats not enough time, just let me know. But like I said, I'd like to get a shop running by the middle of August so that I can spend the rest of the month spreading the word. 

One last thing, if you know anyone else who is super talented and might be interested in having their art work featured, feel free to forward this to them! I am going to need all the art I can get!

Thank you so much for reading all of this,

Jess