Scooter's Birthday happened during the redesign so I'm playing a little bit of catch-up on this one, but the pup only turns 12 once! Besides, a light puppy post (he'll always be a puppy to me) is totally acceptable for a Monday right?! Scooter says yes ;-)

This little guy couldn't have had a better birthday celebration out of the city on Long Island! While we certainly got lucky with some outdoor space at our current apartment, he doesn't exactly get to have free-range of a backyard all that often so he's pretty excited when he does.

He got a lot of quality outdoor time in making laps around the pool and yard and rolling around in the grass!

We were also planning on going to a BBQ with Chris' family so Chris had the idea of making a birthday cake for Scooter since we needed to bring something and it was his birthday. Plus, he's been talking about this cake frosting that his grandma used to make for the whole time I've known him but so he kind of tied all those ideas into one. 

The funny part about this frosting, that he literally always tells me about, is that we found out that it's the recipe on the side of the Domino Sugar box. Just some good old buttercream! Does anyone remember that Friends episode with the Toll House cookies? Because this totally reminded me of that! So it turns out that the recipe might not be a family legacy haha.. but either way it was really delicious :) They did a really great job of decorating the cake too!

Scoots was less excited about the pics than the actual cake, but let's just say the little guy got his fair share of table-scraps over the weekend.

Especially at the BBQ! He was on the hunt for anything anyone dropped or that he could put his cute face on and convince someone into giving him something. Who can say no to his little face though? Not me clearly.

It was such a fun weekend and I think Scootie had a really fun time too! He didn't want to come back! 

Here's to hopefully many more birthdays with this little guy! :) He's going to keep up with his Scootie sprints so he can try and go for the oldest weenie dog record!

It’s official, last week I turned 26. Call it sheer procrastination or a secret smart plan, I decided to quit making New Year’s Resolutions on the 1st of the year and instead focusing on realigning and reworking my goals on my birthday (or near it). Committing to resolutions after the holidays was always hard for me to jump into, especially now that I find myself usually traveling from coast to coast during the holidays, and so I decided to make a change! Besides, goals around my birthday make sense to me since it’s really my full year. Or maybe that’s just the rationalization I’ve made in my head.. either way, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it :-p

So what’s in the plans for my 26th year? Well, hopefully a lot! I have a lot of ideas running through my head. Sometimes too many considering there are only so many hours in the day but I’ve always been one to dream big!

If you read my blog anniversary post you already read about some of my blogging goals, which are a definite big part of some things I’d like to accomplish this year. So, on top of my blogging ambitions, here’s a few more personal things I’m working on in my 26th year.

1. Be more realistic with my to-do lists and weekly goals. I’m notorious for going big or going home. I want to do it all, and I want to get everything done all at once. What I’ve realized I end up doing though is setting myself up for failure. I make long to-do lists (I love lists) of things I want to accomplish each week and then end up beating myself up if I hardly make a dent in my list. Most of the time it’s not because I’m lazy, it’s just that I haven’t clearly thought out the tasks at hand before writing them. If I have 4 tasks all of which take several hours each, of course I’m probably not going to get them all done on a Tuesday after work. While I think it’s good to push yourself, I have finally realized I need to be more considerate with my lists so I don’t get so frustrated with myself.
2. Work at keeping my apartment neat and clean. I’ll be honest, I’m terrible at this. I’m not sure if my subconscious is rebelling for how clean my parents are or if I just inherited the messy gene (if that were even a possibility) but I am terrible at keeping my apartment clean for more than a few days and trust me it doesn’t take long to mess up a 300+ sq ft apartment. This is totally going to sound like an oxymoron, but while my apartment may look messy sometimes, I am actually very organized. That is, I don’t just throw things in the closet to look clean on the surface.. If it’s in my closet it’s put in the proper place and folded nicely. So this year I’m working on keeping things a little cleaner on the outside as well. I’m going to try and have check-in points each Sunday to pick up all of my clothes (which is 95% of the problem) and whatever other things I’ve left out throughout the week.
3. Follow my passions and know when they change. I’ve never been a quitter with anything in my life. Like, it’s really hard for me to let go of things.. Okay except for maybe going to the gym. I’m really good at quitting that.. For all other things though it’s been a struggle. I do my best to make things work or my best to practice and get better at those things for the sole purpose of not quitting, even if my heart isn’t in it anymore. And while not being a quitter is definitely for the most part a good trait to have I’ve found that I’ve stretched myself too thin on some things and then find myself feeling guilty if a project doesn’t go the way I’d hope or if life just eats into my time. This year, I want to work on being honest with myself when I want to go another direction. It’s okay for our passions or wants to change and I need to work on being okay with changing directions without beating myself up.

So there you have it.. they’re out on paper (in an Internet way of speaking)! I think there’s power in sharing and I hope to succeed on these couple of things!

I took a little dip down south to New Orleans for the weekend to celebrate my boss’ husband’s birthday! The trip got off to a little bit of a bumpy start {maybe that’s an understatement}. My co-worker and I got diverted to Jackson, Mississippi for weather and ended the night getting into a cab that looked like this..

**Excuse my blurry, “quick, get a picture!” shots ;-) Totally necessary

So yeah, that happened!!! Eventually after a few hours of sleep {3 hours to be exact} we did indeed make it to good old NOLA! My boss had the whole weekend planned to a T and luckily we were able to quickly drop our bags off, hop in another cab {this one minus the 4 ft antenna} and meet the rest of the group for their tour around the city! 

I was really looking forward to the tour to learn a little bit more about the city. I’d heard a lot of different things about it, but other than watching The Originals each week, I didn’t exactly know what to expect. We hopped onto the part of the tour in City Park, which was a really big park with lots of different things to do. Outdoor fields, children’s museums, cafes, it really seemed to have a little bit of something for everyone. We got to see one of the black swans too, which they say there are only two in the city.

From the park we headed towards some of the graveyards. If there was one part of the city I had a little idea about, it was this one. Only because of my dorky vampire show I watch.. lol. Something about old graveyards interests me. Though creepy, it is interesting to see the differences in area as well as changes over time in laying our dead to rest. In New Orleans case, the graves are all built above ground. They say that many years ago, whenever the city would flood coffins from the ground would rise and float, so they decided to build above ground. 

Something interesting, other than the appearance is that those who have passed don’t have typical messages on their headstones, but rather just their names and dates they came in and out of the world. While it isn’t uncommon for families to be buried together, it felt like much more of a family place of rest in New Orleans.

After the graveyard we continued on our tour onto the parade route, St. Charles Street. We were riding in a van so I wasn’t really able to snap any photos of the homes, but boy were they gorgeous! Historic mansion after mansion after MANSION! Each house you passed by being more beautiful than the last. If I ever make it down to NOLA again, you can bet I will be walking this street again and day-dreaming!

We concluded our tour in downtown and then headed for a delicious bite to eat before having a little down time to explore. Our restaurant was only a little over a mile from our hotel so a couple of us decided to adventure a little throughout the streets.

New Orleans is interesting.. It has an old-world charm but kind of a Vegas party-24-hours kind of vibe. I wasn’t there long enough to really wrap my head around it, but I will say it’s definitely unlike anywhere I’ve visited before. 

Saturday evening was spent helping set up for the main event, the birthday party! The weather was playing games with us all the way into setup, but luckily the rain held off through the night and the party decor turned out beautifully. 

I’ve worked for my boss and alongside her husband for nearly 5 years, so it was a really cool experience to be in New Orleans, where he’s originally from.

After the birthday party came to a close, my coworkers and I decided we could stay up a little bit later {still going off that 3 hours of sleep} and go and see what the fuss was about on Bourbon Street. 

At first glance as we walked up it looked like a huge block party. “This is awesomeeeee!” I recall saying. We walked in, went to one of the first bars we saw and ordered a drink. $10 for a 32 oz hurricane? We definitely weren’t in NYC anymore! I opted for a beer from one of their local breweries, Abita, but wait for it.. here’s the cool part. When you head out they have to-go cups! Yep, one of the cool things about the city is you can walk around anywhere and drink in public. It seems like such a funny thing to be excited about, but something about it feels a little freeing. We continued to walk down the street and things started to get a little interesting. Let’s just say we realized real fast that this was not exactly the classiest part of the city. Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun people-watching and bar-hopping before we decided it was time to call it a night. 

The next morning we wrapped up the trip at a gorgeous restaurant for brunch. Another thing that New Orleans is know for is being haunted and legend have it, our brunch spot was just that. We didn’t see any ghosts while we were eating, but they leave a place seating out for the ghost of the restaurant and have a slightly creepy seance room on the upper level. True or not, the food was fantastic and I had my first taste of crawfish, in the form of crawfish cakes!

After brunch we poked around the city a little more before having to head back to the airport.

It was a whirlwind of a trip, but a nice visit in the end and I’m thankful I was able to join!