TGIF!

Well my friends, I could not be more glad that this week has come to an end! While it did have some high points (surprise date night with my husband!), it was mostly a stressful blur.

I decided to treat myself today for making it through with a purchase from my favorite store, J.Crew. I have been really good about not shopping much (at all) so far this year and I had a little extra money left over after paying bills so I decided to cross some of my 2014 Want Items off my list. Extra plus, they were all 40% off sale!

Clearly trying to stock up on staples!

I got this shirt in black, white and navy (realized I already have a grey v-neck...oops!).

And these white jeans, so cute!

I also found out today that I made it in to an online marketing class at my local community college which I am very excited about!

Anyone else make yearly shopping lists? Or get excited about going back to school?

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Still Plugging Along

Well, not much has changed as of yet. Work has still been insanely busy and probably will continue to be more or less until mid-April (tax day).I am still not quite ready to share my big news but I promise, it is coming!

So far this year I have really been struggling to keep organized, I haven't even had time to make my daily to-do lists! Things should be calming down a bit starting next week and I really want to use the brief calm to get a handle on things, both at work and at home. I have laundry that needs to be put away, clothes to get rid of, etc. One thing I have been feeling really about is my finances, well about my organization of them at least. The end of the year left me with a lot of big bills from travel, medical expenses, and vet bills and I am working diligently to get them all paid off. One of my resolutions was to be more in charge of my finances though and I feel like I have been doing well. I signed up for the free version of LearnVest and it has a wonderful budget tracking system that I am loving.

A big change for me budget-wise, is that I am trying to keep shopping to a minimal, at least for now. This hasn't been too difficult so far, especially since I have gotten some great new-to-me dresses from a friend! I do enjoy following along with many style blogs though so it is interesting to try to use ideas and remix what I already have.

Do you have any organizational tips to share?

Busy Bee

Well, 2014 seems to be off to a crazy start! Some busy-ness I am enjoying, some is a bit overwhelming. In a few weeks I will elaborate:)

Getting a good handle on my goals/resolutions though! I have already finished one book, Ender's Game. I think my goal of 36,500 pages this year might be a BIG stretch but at least it is getting me going!

Fantastic book, I highly recommend.

I also purchased this really awesome "journal" to get me started in daily writing.  I think it will be really interesting to see how my answers vary over the course of 5 years, assuming I can keep it up that long!

Work has been very busy also which has been a source of stress for me. Hoping that passes sooner rather than later and trying to come up with some projects to work on it my spare time to keep me relaxed and organized!

2014 Resolutions!

Well, it looks like I've made it back here once again...trying to revive a blog that never quite got on it's feet. Hopefully third time's a charm with this one. It seems my life/career/goals/etc may be ready for another big change so it seemed like with that and the New Year, now would be a perfect time to get back to blogging, starting with 2014 Resolutions. Or goals, I like goals better I think.

2014

1. Continue to read more. Gonna steal one from Kate here and shoot for 36,500 pages read this year.

2. Put together a realistic savings plan and stick to it. I'm not in a bad place financially at the moment but I would like to be in a better one this time next year.

3. Take some bigs steps towards achieving a graduate degree.

4. Do more projects, knitting, crafting, etc. Anything that gets me out of my head and focused on the task at hand really.

5. Blog more and start journal writing as well.

6. Most importantly, stay happy and healthy and enjoy any adventures that life throws at me!

That's all for now! Hopefully I will check in again next week with some progress!!

xo, Elena