It’s that time of year again, where all the single ladies (see what I did there) lament and complain about how they don’t have a special someone in their lives. Well, I’m here to tell you that being single on Valentine’s Day is kind of the best thing ever!
1. You can spend the whole day with your girlfriends.
(This is from the show Parks and Recreation, a.k.a. one of my favorite shows)
When you’re in a relationship, sometimes it’s hard to make time for your closest girlfriends; so since you’re single on this day that can be very lonely for people not in relationships, spend the day with your friends! You can make each other feel better about not being in a relationship, and chances are, you’ll have a much more fun day with all of them than you ever would with some guy.
2. If you want to stay in and do nothing all day, go right ahead!
My Valentine’s day will most likely be spent doing exactly this, and I really have no shame about it. The beauty of not having to impress a date is, you can wear your baggiest clothes. All. Day. You don’t have anyone to dress up for (except of course for yourself!), so make the most of it on this day and just don’t try at all. And watch Netflix all day.
3. Treat Yourself.
(Please tell me some of you guys watch this show)
This is also known as “Treat. Yo. Self.” Go out and buy all of the things that a significant other would buy you: jewelry, a nice dinner, a manicure/pedicure, or anything else you might want! This day is all about love, so why not love yourself! It’s perfectly healthy to focus solely on yourself for one day, and being single on Valentine’s Day is the perfect excuse!
4. You don’t have to spend hours getting ready for the night.
With all that time you’re saving by not having to get ready for a date, spend it doing something you love. Or, spend it on the couch watching those three extra episodes of Friends (or Parks and Rec because you all should watch it…I promise this post isn’t sponsored by this show)
5. Think of all the money you’re saving.
By being single, you don’t have to go out and get an elaborate gift for anyone, or spend money on a date! Just think of all the better uses that money could go towards, like chocolate, ice cream, movies, popcorn, new comfy pajamas….
Well there you have it, five great reasons why being single on Valentine’s Day is basically the best thing ever! But on a more serious note, don’t worry if you’re not in a relationship because you don’t need to depend on anyone else to have your own happiness! Don’t let a day that pretty much celebrates couples bring you down if you aren’t in a relationship, because there’s really nothing wrong with that! When it’s the right time for you to be in a relationship, and you find a great person to be in one with, it will happen! You guys are all perfect just the way you are (this just got real cheesy, real fast, I apologize.)
Do you have any plans for Valentine’s Day?
Thank you so much for reading, and have a great day! 🙂
You might be thinking “What the heck do you mean Kendra?!” but I promise, this isn’t a part of some strange cult. I have always been interested in genetics, ancestors, and things like family history, so I asked for the DNA Kit from Ancestry.com for Christmas. I actually heard about the DNA kit from the show America’s Next Top Model (a guilty pleasure of mine), and have been wanting it ever since!
The whole process is really easy; you get the package in the mail, spit in the little tube they give you, activate your test online, and then send the tube back to them in the prepaid box given to you!
This was actually the day I got my hair done – the last couple of pictures before I colored my hair!
Wow read those instructions Kendra.
Starting to spit hahaha.
This may be the best picture of me ever.
You get the results in 6-8 weeks, and they basically just tell you what you are, ethnicity wise! I know I have Scottish, Irish, and Native American in me predominately, but it’ll be so interesting to find out just how much I have, and what else I am, if that makes sense haha. I will definitely be sharing the results once I get them!
Thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day! 🙂
Disclaimer: this is NOT a sponsored post.
Change is something that I definitely struggle with. It makes me super nervous because I don’t know what to expect and I don’t know if I’ll end up liking the change or not; however, I have been wanting to change up my hair for a while now, and I didn’t want to dramatically cut it all off. I also was really worried about coloring it because I colored my hair when I was younger and eventually started to hate it.
This past August, you guys may remember, I got red in the ends of my hair when I wanted a subtle balyage, but that just ended up washing out after a couple of weeks. Since I wanted the change to be more noticeable than last time, I decided to go for something that would show up more! I also want this year to be a great one, so I decided to start it off with a pretty big change (to me anyway)! I thought, what the heck, I’m only young once, right? And, if I ended up not liking the color, I could just get it colored back to my natural color. So without further ado, here is my new hair!
Ok, so it isn’t as fire engine red as it looks in this picture. The lighting made it look crazy red, but it’s actually more of a dark auburn with lighter copper highlights!
This is what it looks like when it’s not directly under the light.
You can kind of see the copper highlights here!
I really love how it turned out! It’s honestly not too drastic of a change, and I think it looks nice against my paler skin, and it brings out my green eyes way more!
These photos were taken when I was home, and I’m back at college now, so I’ll probably have a post soon of how it looks now that I’ve washed it a couple of times. I’m so glad I decided to color it, though! It’s the perfect time for a change, and having the different tones in my hair kind of forces me to actually style my hair everyday in order to actually see them, instead of just leaving my hair to dry at night.
Have you guys made any changes so far this year?
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day! 🙂
Blogmas Day Five!
Today I was watching Louise’s (from Sprinkle of Glitter) latest Vlogmas vlog, in which she talked about giving back, and how the holiday season is the perfect time. With my last couple of posts being about gift ideas for loved ones, her thoughts got me thinking about the importance of giving back as well. I’m not saying that it’s horrible to only give presents to those we love, if that’s all you can afford to do, then that’s perfectly okay! But if you happen to be fortunate enough to have the time or money to help out, then by all means go ahead. I actually went into a store today, and the fire department was standing outside doing a toy and canned food drive. My family usually donates a couple of cans of food, but this year I really want to do more and try to help a lot more people. With it being the holiday season, giving back is all the more important to help other people have the warm fuzzies associated with Christmas and other holidays. So many people aren’t fortunate enough to even have a warm place to be at night, let alone receive presents on Christmas morning. Don’t get me wrong, giving back is extremely important all year long, but this time of year really helps people realize that there are others who are in desperate need of help from people who can afford to lend a hand.
Being at college has also opened my eyes to the horrible realities some people face; homelessness, going without food for a couple of days, becoming unemployed, or worse. It’s easy to forget how some people live in the world when you aren’t surrounded by it everyday. Living is very, very hard in some parts of the world – sometimes it can only be called surviving. This time of year is the time for you to be grateful of what you have and not what you don’t have. What I mean is, don’t be grateful that your life isn’t like the lives of the less fortune, rather be happy with the things that you do have, and try and help others out when you can. I heard a wonderful talk about this, and how the speaker hated it when people were grateful for the wrong things – that they have a home that unlike homeless people, or that their health isn’t like that of the ill. Try and always be thankful for the things in your life as they are. Life becomes so much easier when you are able to be thankful for everything you have, and even for the little things in life. And on that same point, trying to help out in little ways, but often, can add up to a lot over time! An act of any kind of kindness goes a long way.
Giving back and helping out has always been something that I’ve been passionate about, so it’s something I could drone on and on about! I just think the world would be a much better place if more people tried to help out, even in the smallest of ways. I know that I could definitely try and help and give back more myself! This is just the perfect time of year to try and help out a little bit more than you usually would, because it helps spread holiday cheer 🙂 This time of year is definitely my favorite for that reason, and all of the warm fuzzy feelings of being with those you love, and being able to give them a gift that shows just how much you care for them. I hope all of you have a great holiday season this year!
What are some of the ways you give back?
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a great day! 🙂
I’ve had the same purse since seventh grade (we’re going on six years here!) because it’s convenient and goes with most anything, however it is starting to show its age, and it is a very casual bag that probably wouldn’t be the best to bring to things like job interviews. Now that I’m in college, and am technically an adult (what?!), I figured it would be a good idea to get a new bag that is a little more “grown-up” looking!
I was looking at some sales over Black Friday to see if I could get a good deal anywhere, and Ted Baker was having a really good sale on bags, so I decided to order one! I worked this past summer, and will be getting another job soon, so I had some money saved up that I was willing to spend a little bit of.
As soon as I got the package in the mail, I pulled out my camera and took pictures as I unpacked it. You could say I was just a little bit excited.
My first look at it in person! It’s called the Petra, and is considered a small tote bag.
Here’s a better picture of it out of the box – I am in love! I thought it would be a bit bigger in person, but I actually really like the size because it’ll keep me from hoarding around things I don’t need in my purse!
A closer look at the bow!
I’m really glad that I ordered this, and relieved that it finally made it to my house! I ordered it on Black Friday (November 28th), and it just now made it here today! It was definitely worth the wait, though. I’m not sure if I’ll just be using this bag for special occasions, or to places where I know I won’t have to set it down anywhere, or if I’ll use it for everyday purposes. We shall see!
What kind of bags do you like?
Thank you so much for reading (and happy Blogmas Day 2!), and I hope you have a wonderful day! 🙂
I just turned a ten page paper in, and I have never felt more free in my life.
For the past couple of weeks, final exams and this impending paper have been hanging over my head, and to finally be done is one of the best feelings! I took a couple of college classes last year (my senior year of high school), so I have had a “finals week,” but they were through my high school, and we were eased into it by having our teacher’s help us through every step.
Basically, this was me this year:
I figured I had already had a couple of college finals, so it really wouldn’t be too bad, but boy was I wrong!
Now, being in college, my professors gave me a study guide, and essentially just wished us good luck. Dead week was something that I was definitely not prepared for, but at least I had my friends who had never gone through it either. In order to make it out of dead week – and finals – with my mind intact, I did a couple of things that really helped!
Get Sleep Whenever You Can
Sleep can be hard to come by during dead week and finals week – so get it whenever you can! I took a couple of study-break-naps so my mind could be fresh for another couple of hours of studying. When your grades are on the line, it’s a lot easier to stay awake and study, even when it means you’ll get a lot less sleep. This is the case especially when you have multiple finals!
Study With Friends – Even When You Aren’t Studying the Same Subject
Even if you and your friends aren’t studying for the same class, it can be beneficial to study together, because you force each other to stay on track. This is also very helpful because you don’t feel so bored and trapped in one place, and when you all want to take a short study break, you can just talk and hang out for a couple of minutes!
Eat Small (Healthy) Snacks Frequently
They say an empty stomach means an empty brain, and it’s very true! When you’re hungry, all you can focus on is how much you want to eat, and it’s harder to retain information. Make sure the snacks are healthy, though, in order to give your body the most nutrients possible – nuts, fruits, or vegetables are good options (edamame, carrots, and apples are my personal favorite!).
Take a Couple of Study Breaks Per Hour of Studying
It’s a good idea to take short study breaks throughout multiple hours of studying. In order to keep your mind from getting absolutely fried, allow yourself a couple of minutes to focus on something other than what you are studying. I find that this helps me come back and focus on the material I’m studying, so I don’t get bored with it and I can refocus after each break with a fresh mind.
Coffee is Your New Best Friend
I drank a lot of coffee throughout both dead week and finals week in order to wake me up after a particularly long night. I love drinking coffee in general, though, so it was a nice excuse to have even more during these weeks!
Celebrate When You’re Done!
It will be one of the biggest reliefs of your term once you are done with finals – so go celebrate! Get some frozen yogurt with some friends, or simply have some well-earned down time and watch a movie or read a book. Usually after finals, you get some sort of break (yay, Christmas break right now!) so enjoy the time off, because you deserve it for studying so hard!
This will be me tonight since I’m officially done with finals and turning in papers!
How do you study for big tests?
Also, just a side note: I think now that I am on Christmas break, and have a lot of free time for a month, I will be starting Blogmas! I know I’m about a week late, but better late than never, right? I’m super excited to be able to devote all of my time to my blog this month, and hopefully you guys enjoy my December posts! 🙂 So, technically, this is Blogmas Day 1!
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a great day! 🙂
Ahhhh book reviews, how I have missed you. It has been so difficult in college to find reading time, let alone time to write a review on one. However, I have slowly been reading City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare, and I finally finished it the other day!
Just a quick side not, this is the last book in the Mortal Instruments series, so I will try to not spoil anything! If you haven’t read this series, I highly recommend that you do! It has been a really great series, and I’m really glad I decided to steal borrow the first book from my brother.
The whole premise of this book is good versus evil, as with the whole series, and it again follows the lives of Clary Fray and her friends. As this is the last book in the series, it ties up all of the loose ends from the whole series, and also has an epilogue which allows readers to see how the characters are doing a couple of months after all of the falling action.
Overall, I was really pleased with this book. I loved the ending, and also how all of the villains ended up. I felt like Clare did a great job at connecting all of the story lines in this book, and it was also so great to see that she incorporated some events and people from the “prologue” series she did to this one. Honestly, that was probably my favorite series from her, so it was so nice being able to meet those characters again in some way.
Cassandra Clare is a great writer, and this book was written in a way that I never got bored. It was hard to put down when it was time to go to class (I like to get some reading in while I eat breakfast and drink my coffee in the morning), and it was so easy to pick back up when it had been a couple of days in between reading it. She flawlessly introduced new characters into this series, and it actually turns out that she will be doing a new series with these characters. While I think that’s pushing it a little with this world and set of series, I of course will be reading the new series. I know that as soon as I get my hands on it, I will be really glad Clare is continuing on with a different series based off of the new characters in this book. She introduced the issues that the characters will face in the new series very well, and I already have predictions of what will happen in it.
I’m so sad to see this series end, but I’m also very pleased with how it ended up. I am very satisfied with the ending, which is always a great feeling after you have loved a set of characters so much. I’m really looking forward to reading more of Cassandra Clare’s work, and I’m very excited for her new series! I believe it will be coming out early next year, so I definitely recommend reading her previous series – the Infernal Devices, and this one, the Mortal Instruments – before her new one comes out.
What books have you been loving lately?
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a great day! 🙂
I’ve been moved into my dorm for three weeks now, but I finally have all of the decorations just the way I want them! Since it’s all nice and done now I thought I would finally share some pictures with you guys!
The area by the front door, and our little chalkboard/corkboard/key holder thing.
These are our closets, and also the first thing you see when you walk in. To the right is the bathroom.
I know I have dishes drying but I thought that would be nice to show you guys since that’s what that counter space is used for most of the time haha.
Our little “kitchen” area.
It’s really nice being able to have this area, because it actually feels like a little mini kitchen.
My desk area!
I really love the second shelf area since I can store books up there and my perfume as well.
My little perfume area, and also my whale ring holder that I adore.
I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS. I am super happy with how it turned out, and it makes my dorm seem so much more homey! I also love maps, and I really like how the poster blends in with the wall.
I keep my rice cooker, crockpot, pans, and tupperware in this little shelving unit, and I store food, shoes, laundry stuff and extra storage drawers under my bed.
I love my little fox plant holder! 🙂
Broader view of my side of the room.
Close up picture of my wall.
My polaroid frames.
View of the “window wall.”
Overall, I am so happy with how my room turned out! I am loving college life, and having my dorm decorated really helps to make it feel more like home.
Thank you so much for reading, and have a great day! 🙂
I’ve been moved into my dorm for three weeks now, but I finally have all of the decorations just the way I want them! Since it’s all nice and done now I thought I would finally share some pictures with you guys!
The area by the front door, and our little chalkboard/corkboard/key holder thing.
These are our closets, and also the first thing you see when you walk in. To the right is the bathroom.
I know I have dishes drying but I thought that would be nice to show you guys since that’s what that counter space is used for most of the time haha.
Our little “kitchen” area.
It’s really nice being able to have this area, because it actually feels like a little mini kitchen.
My desk area!
I really love the second shelf area since I can store books up there and my perfume as well.
My little perfume area, and also my whale ring holder that I adore.
I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS. I am super happy with how it turned out, and it makes my dorm seem so much more homey! I also love maps, and I really like how the poster blends in with the wall.
I keep my rice cooker, crockpot, pans, and tupperware in this little shelving unit, and I store food, shoes, laundry stuff and extra storage drawers under my bed.
I love my little fox plant holder! 🙂
Broader view of my side of the room.
Close up picture of my wall.
My polaroid frames.
View of the “window wall.”
Overall, I am so happy with how my room turned out! I am loving college life, and having my dorm decorated really helps to make it feel more like home.
Thank you so much for reading, and have a great day! 🙂
Well, I definitely underestimated how hard and time consuming moving to college would be. I moved in on Thursday, and it has been nonstop activities since! I had about a week before classes start when I moved in (my classes start this Wednesday), but my college has a week of activities for Freshman in order to get adjusted, and probably to help avoid homesickness.
So far college has been really fun! It has been crazy busy and I have met more people than I have remembered names (and I always thought I was so good at remembering names!). My floor is surprisingly quite, which will most likely be really nice during the year, but for now it seems really lonely and my roommate and I don’t know what to do because we really want to meet more people on our floor!
I think this will all get a lot easier once I fall into a routine, since right now I’m still trying to figure out how my routine from home fits in here. I think Thursday night and Friday morning were the hardest for me, since it was my first night and morning away from home. I’m still homesick sometimes, but that’s only when I have a lot of downtime and don’t really know what to do.
I’m pretty excited for my classes on Wednesday, though! I’m not sure how I feel about going back to school and having to do a bunch of work again, but I’m sure I will get used to it like I do every year. However, I think it will be a lot more fun since I’m taking subjects I really want to learn about. It’s just so crazy that I’m at college! I feel like I’m still twelve years old, about to go into middle school. I remember my first day of middle school, and high school, like it was yesterday. Time has really flown! I know my time at college is going to fly as well, so I really want to make the most of it. I’m hoping I get well adjusted soon, and my moments of missing home aren’t quite as striking or sudden. It has been really nice having one of my best friends with me, though. It’s like having a little piece of home in this giant, new city.
Speaking of city, I am not used to all of this street noise! I’m used to coyotes howling and my dogs barking, but not buses running all night and people laughing and screaming on the streets until 2am. But once the colder weather hits, we’ll be able to shut our windows which really blocks out a lot of the noise. For now, our dorm has been super hot! Even when it isn’t that warm outside, our dorm seems about ten degrees hotter. But like I said earlier, the hot weather will be turning to fall very soon, so I’ll probably be wishing for warmer weather anyway!
Well, I just wanted to do a little quick update and let you guys know I wasn’t MIA! Regular posts will resume soon, and I plan on sharing some photos from college so far, soon!
Thank you so much for reading and have a great day! 🙂