challenge

Sunshine Blogger Award

Mary1 Comment

A very long time ago I was nominated by Sharon Yvonne for the Sunshine Blogger Award, so thank you very much for nominating me, I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to get to it. I might have done this one before, but I’m going to do it again, because I have a lot of work to do so this is a good and quick post. Also, I leave in two weeks, like two weeks from today I’ll be in a plane on the way home, that’s crazy!

The Rules.

1.) Thank the person/people who nominated you.

Thanks again Sharon! I really appreciate it!

2.) Answer the questions from your nominators.

Down below!

3.) Nominate eleven other bloggers and give them eleven questions.

After the questions!!

  1. Why did you decide to blog?  I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but I just wanted to. I was going to college and I wanted to document my view of it without judgement of social media that family and friends would see, however, I put it on twitter right before Christmas the same year, and on Facebook either right before or right after the New Year. 
  2. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and why? I wouldn’t be so anxious. I would be one of those people who took everything with a grain of salt and lived life freely without anxiety because I would spend more time enjoying myself and less time annoyed/frustrated at the world. 
  3. If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be and why? I would make all the terrible people feel love, love so that they don’t want to kill and terrorize the rest of the world. It makes me so sad to see that so many countries and groups are just fighting and fighting, I would change the world to make it stop. 
  4. When did you know that you were meant to do something creative with your life? I’ve always loved crafting, writing, I don’t remember a point where I thought I was meant to do it, I’ve just always felt like I needed to do it. 
  5. Are you still enjoying blogging? Do you still feel passionate about it? I still enjoy it, I would say it’s the only thing that I’m really passionate about. Obviously there are times when I get frustrated or annoyed with it, whether that’s my lack of ideas or WordPress issues or just not being able to do what I want, I still really enjoy and love blogging. 
  6. Have you had to give up anything to nurture your gifts? What was it and why? I’ve given up time with friends, family, and sleep, especially when I was blogging everyday. My time management skills aren’t great so there were times that I passed on going somewhere to blog, or times that I left, or times that I would go out that I would stay up to ridiculous hours of the morning to blog. It was however, worth it. I would say that if I ever were to daily blog again, I would utilize off days and schedule more posts and have work days rather than try to write everyday. 

I am actually going to nominate every blogger reading this with the following 11 questions:

  1. What did you do today?
  2. Where is the best place you have yet to travel and why?
  3. What is your favorite type of holiday cookie?
  4. Do you have a best blogging moment? Why?
  5. Are you a brand person or do you  not  care and just grab whatever you see first? This is for anything: toothpaste, makeup, etc.
  6. What is the best kind of weather in your opinion?
  7. Do you have a dream career?
  8. If you could pick one place in the US to live, where would you live?
  9. If you could pick any place in the world to live, where would you live?
  10. What is your favorite quote?
  11. Where is your dream vacation destination?

Please tag me or let me know if you choose to do this! I want to read some new blogs!

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3 Days 3 Quotes Challenge: Day 3

Mary3 Comments

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Okay so maybe I went the unconventional route with this challenge, and didn’t take it too seriously but that’s how I like to do life. This is a quote from one of my favorite TV shows “Parks and Recreation”. I think this quote is very suitable for myself, however I must also include family with friends.

Leslie Knope is an inspiration to all. Like talk about an empowering woman, Leslie is a powerful, amazing, positive, breakfast loving woman, and all around very inspiring to me, which is why I thought it was very important to make it my last quote. She’s just this huge feminist icon in my opinion, feel free to disagree, but when I think feminism I think Leslie Knope.

I think this just suits me and my love for breakfast foods, especially IHOP, and that sometimes, maybe I can prioritize that over people, but not really. They might almost be equal because whenever I talk to my friends from back home I just go on and on about how I miss IHOP.  However silly it may seem, it really holds some truth to it though. Friends and family, waffles, work.

I really appreciate the last part, always put work third. Work should never be the first priority because than nothing is going to matter, and I think people forget about that. There is this idea that work is what makes you money so it has to go first, but really what makes you happy needs to go first.

So my list would probably go: God, friends and family, breakfast*, school/blogging/work. I put blogging in the work category since it takes up so much time, more time than a hobby, but I thoroughly enjoy it. I do need to remember not to put it first, because I did have a tendency to do that when I was daily blogging. You need to put people and the things that really enrich your life first.

What would your list be like?

If you are confused by this post, be sure to check out yesterday’s and Sunday’s posts to catch up! Thanks again to Getting Through Anxiety for challenging me to this, I’ve had a lot of fun with it! I didn’t challenge anyone like I was supposed to, but I really encourage everyone to try it, it really makes you think not only about  your favorite quotes,  but about what they really, truly mean to you.

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*Half joking about breakfast being that high up on the list, half not joking.

 

3 Days 3 Quotes Challenge: Day 2

Mary6 Comments

“People get scared when you try to do something, especially when it looks like you’re succeeding. People do not get scared when you’re failing. It calms them. But when you’re winning, it makes them feel like they’re losing or, worse yet, that maybe they should’ve tried to do something too, but now it’s too late. And since they didn’t, they want to stop you. You can’t let them.”

~Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling is one of my favorite celebrites.  Not that long ago, I read her book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?  however, this quote is from her book Why Not Me? which is on my Christmas list. I honestly looked up “mindy kaling is everyone hanging out without me quotes” and this came up even though it’s from her second book, but it still spoke to me. I really agree with this quote, everyone is threatened by everyone, it’s because of who we are as a species.

I know that I will start a competition with everyone in my head. …Okay not everyone, but there are a few people where I just do this and I can’t help it, that’s why it’s my internal battle. It’s one of those things where I try not to do because I think it’s bad, but I still do it.

I think that once you start gaining success more people will start to do this with you. People are threatened by success, there is this belief that as soon as someone else starts to gain success there is less for you to gain, which is completely and utterly untrue. I struggle with this, I just have to keep in mind that just because someone is doing better than you, it doesn’t mean that their success will stop you from gaining success too.

Like she writes, their jealousness of your success does not mean you should stop your success. It’s going to let people plow right over you. Beware that people will be jealous of your success and will try to stop it.

I love Mindy Kaling and this quote, what are your thoughts?

If you are curious about this challenge, check out yesterday’s post!

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Creative Blogger Award.

Mary4 Comments

It’s late, whoops.  A very long time ago I was nominated for the Creative Blogger Award. creative-blogger

Here are the rules:

Thank the person who nominated you and include a link to their blog.
Share 5 facts about yourself.
Nominate some bloggers in return and notify them about their nomination.
Keep the rules in your post to make it easy for everyone to know what to do.

So first and foremost, thank you to Liz Aivazis for nominating me for this award. I really appreciate it! I’m sorry it took so long to get to it!

  1. My obsession with giraffes continues to grow and may never stop.
  2. I have a growing lactose issue, but I finally got some of those pills for it after some major suffering.
  3. I have a weird relationship with art, I love it but I can’t do it and I try so hard. I just can’t put my thoughts to my hands.
  4. I hate shaving but I also hate body hair. It’s a strange toss up. However, I do like seeing the reactions of people touching my hairy legs because it’s hilarious.
  5. I really like working in retail, I find it much more rewarding than food service. I realize that sounds ridiculous but I really am enjoying it.

I’m actually just nominating anyone who reads this because I’m lazy and I always nominate the same people. So take a stab at it, and if you decide to participate let me know so I can check it out!

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Freestyle Writing Challenge: My Favorite Place

Mary5 Comments

Tori from Tori Story nominated me for the Freestyle Writing Challenge- thanks Tori! This is a different kind of challenge that I’ve seen, I would explain, but we all know how I am with explanations so I’m just going to paste the rules in here.

1. Open an MS Word / Google docs document.
2. Set a stopwatch or your mobile to 5 minutes or 10 minutes whichever challenge you think you can beat.
3. Your topic is at the foot of this post BUT DO NOT SCROLL DOWN TO SEE IT UNTIL YOU ARE READY WITH A TIMER.
4. Fill the word doc with as many words as you can in the time limit. Once you began writing do not stop even to turn.
5. Do not cheat by going back and correcting spellings and grammar with spell check in MS WORD (it is only meant for you to reflect on your own control of sensible thought flow and for you to reflect on your ability to write the right spelling and stick to grammar rules)
6. You may or may not pay attention to punctuation and CAPITALS. However if you do, it would be best.
7. At the end of your post write down ‘No. Of words =_____’ so that we would have an idea of how much you can write within the time frame.
8. Do not forget to copy & paste the entire passage on your blog post with a new topic for your nominees (at least 5) and copy & paste these rules with your nominations.

Tori assigned the topic of “Your favorite place” and I chose to take 10 minutes to write and this is what I wrote:

My favorite place isn’t really a place. Like yes, as a traveler there a places that I love, but I wouldn’t say any of them are my favorite place. Bar Harbor, Maine.  I love it there, but it’s not my favorite place. I love Seattle, Washington, but I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite place. I love the idea of the beach, the smell of the woods, and the look of the mountains, but none of those things are my favorite places.

I love to be alone. Like if I could sit on the beach and be alone that would be great. If I could sit in the woods alone that would be great. However, these are not my favorite places even when I am alone.

I don’t know why I’ve never developed a favorite place, maybe it’s because I like so many places. This makes it hard to see myself living anywhere after college, because there isn’t a place that stands out in my mind.

I have a favorite place in every place I go. Like here, it’s the hill on top of Turkey Hill Road at the stop sign. At the beach where my Poppop lives it’s the pier- even though it scares me. In Dublin it’s the lock bridge. In Bar Harbor I really liked the land bridge. At school it’s Baker Park. In Seattle I fell in love with Park Place Market. None of those places though are my favorite place.

There’s a million places to see and I don’t like narrowing it down to a favorite, I wish I could, but I can’t. It’s like favorite colors, I just don’t have one. Maybe this all comes back to me being a very passive person and not having much of an opinion about anything and my lack of passion about mostly everything. I just don’t have a favorite place.

I do indeed love to travel and I want more than anything to see the world, I just think maybe I haven’t seen enough to decide on a favorite place or maybe I have expectations so high of the world I’m afraid to pick a favorite place. My favorite place used to be San Francisco and then it just wasn’t anymore. Then I think for a while I said Seattle, but it’s not my favorite place. Maybe it’s my favorite place in the States, but when I think about Bar Harbor, I get the same feelings that I do about Seattle and the same feelings about Dublin and even sometimes the same feelings about Frederick.

I’m sure this sounds incredibly weird. I need to see more before I pick a favorite place. There’s too much to see in this world for me to narrow it down to one place, especially if I haven’t even seen half the world yet. There’s so much more out there and I can’t just pick a place. So I guess I kind of failed this prompt with my lack of not having a favorite place, but I just don’t. I just love the world and everything it has to offer.

Word Count: 517

Not going to lie, I impressed myself with this, it’s one of my favorite things I’ve written as of recent and I might choose to use this method more often.

Now I’m going to nominate five people:

Logan from Leaves of Logan

Hiba from Trying Novelty

Katie from Tick Tock

Lauren from Girl In Between

Simplexvita

Now get ready, because your topic is: Five Year Plans

Anyone else who wants to, feel free to do this post, let me know if you do so I can read it!

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30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 4

Mary4 Comments

blog challenge day 4

I’m the kind of person that has a lot of pet peeves because I get annoyed easily. However, I always find choosing the top five rather difficult. Yet I will try on this snowy, disgusting day.

  1. Tardiness. I hate when people are consistently late. It’s rude and it drives me crazy. If I can show up on time, so can you. I understand that there are some circumstances where it’s fine and excuses are acceptable but if you just forget to leave or intentionally leave late, that’s just rude and I don’t understand it. It wastes my time and I hate when people waste my time.
  2. Lying. I don’t understand why people lie just for the sake of lying. If I catch someone lying I lose all respect for them and I can no longer trust them. It can really ruin a friendship or any type of relationship if someone lies. By lying you’re discrediting yourself and any type of information you have shared with a person. It’s a terrible thing to consciously do.
  3. Fake people. This is up with lying. I don’t get how you can just pretend to like someone you really don’t like at all. It’s common to talk about a friend when they’re frustrating you but it’s another to talk about how much you hate someone and still pretend to be their friend. It’s stupid. I don’t understand why people think it’s an okay thing to do just to spare someone’s feelings. How do you think they would feel if they found out?
  4. Static. I hate when things get staticy. It makes so anxious when my clothes or sheets get staticy. It drives me crazy and I don’t know why. It’s one of the grossest feelings ever to me and it makes me want to get rid of anything that can contract static. Static guard is my best friend.
  5. People who pretend to be dumb. I don’t know why girls usually pretend to be dumb. I don’t know if they think it’s cute or something but it drives me crazy. If you’re smart why hide it? Be yourself and embrace who you are, don’t try and hide the things that make you the person you are. I will never understand people who do this. I wish I was smarter than I am and I’m jealous of people who are really smart so don’t try and hide it!

I know I have a lot of pet peeves and they’re kind of weird. What are your top five pet peeves?

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30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 1

Mary2 Comments

blog challenge

I’m trying to be a better blogger and if that means temporarily going back to daily blogging (kind of) then I’m going to do that. I’m trying this 30 Day Blog Challenge but I’m going to make them all drafts in the upcoming days. Because of this that will mean that there will be days that I have more than one blog post. These will (hopefully) be posted once a day for 30 days at about 7 p.m. However, on days that I have my own things to say I’m going to do a second post that will be posted when I write it. Also these are probably typically done at the start of a month but I think you should all know by now I’m not a very typical blogger. So here’s goes the challenge day one (wish me luck because we all know how these things typically work for me). This challenge was found on this blog by a simple google search but always give credit where credit is due.

What I write: I write what I feel and what I think. I’ve never had a category or “niche” as the professional bloggers call it. I write what I want to and I try my best not to filter my opinions and thoughts. I write my opinions and I try not to offend and I’m sure I do sometimes. I try to give my opinion and advice to everyone. My blog is essentially a compilation of me, my life, and my thoughts.

Why I write: I write because it’s what I love to do. There’s not much I like to do so when I find something that I enjoy it’s really something that I’m going to run with and try my best to do. I don’t do things I don’t like so I blog because I love it. I also write because I need an outlet. I don’t like to talk about my feelings because I don’t like to get emotional. When I can write them I feel better without crying or letting someone see me cry.

Where I write: I write everywhere. Right now I’m in the student center right now. Sometimes I write in my room, I’ve written on buses before, in other people’s rooms, in hotel rooms, and wherever I can. I don’t limit myself to a specific writing zone. I write where I can and where I want to. I don’t like limits especially when it comes to where. I think it’s wherever you get inspired and that shouldn’t be limited.

So I need to work on my writing so if anyone wants to join me in this adventure let me know!

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