March Photo a Day Challenge!

I can't believe February is almost over..  This year is already almost a quarter of the way through, and it still feels like Christmas was last week.

Now's the time for March Photo a Day Challenge!  Let me know if you plan to follow this month's challenge and leave me your instagram name so I can see the pictures you take.

My instagram is: DivineMissE02

Instalife #8

Long time no see, huh?  Here is the (on time!) instalife post for this week!  I promise, I'll get better at keeping up now that things have started to settle down a bit.

Day 47: Polka Dots - Obsessed.  Polka dots and stripes are my favorites.

Day 48: Lace - Bought myself this dress for my birthday, please excuse my arm.

Day 49: Car - Liking the Prius more than I thought I would...May need to save up and get one for myself!

Day 50: Hat - the only hat I've ever really been able to pull off.

Day 51: Street Sign

Day 52: Decor - Pinterest has me obsessed with fun decorating and DIY projects for a home.  Someday!

Day 53: Prized Possession - I love my journals. I've kept one since first grade!

Hooray for finally (almost) catching up! Hope everyone's enjoying their weekend!

Instalife #6 & #7

Obviously, I've been neglecting to post here for about two weeks, and if you saw my previous post, you'll know I've been pretty busy in that time.  Here are my 365 day challenge photos (plus some extras) for the last two weeks!

Day 33: Shadow - I always get raccoon eyes when I wash my face...

Day 34: Mail - I regret contacting anyone from a college.

Day 35: Cozy - Slept in!

Day 36: Stairs 

Day 37: Memories - I've always done this with the last piece... I don't know why.

Day 38: Routine - My morning routine was all messed up because I packed everything to come with me on the plane to Connecticut.

Day 39: Travel

Day 40: Shopping - All the snacks!

Day 41: Birthday - Kaeley is the best. Black forest cake, from scratch.

Day 42: Makeup - Playing with some color.

Day 43: Lips - I need to make one of these and frame it.

Day 44: Baking - I skipped this! AH! =(

Day 45: Lights - O'Hare Airport

Day 46: Candy - Tracy and I are adults and got 4 spins worth of candy from the machine at work.  Worth it.

AAAAAND EXTRAS!

Casino with some of the best people I know.

Giant margarita thing.  Delicious, and dangerous.

Walking Dead penny slots!  I actually won on this one =)

Travel day, out of the snow and back to OKC.

My nephew, Tyler, was born this week!!!

Snuggle time with the munchkin <3

Look for another Instalife update in just two days!!  Almost caught up!

Welcome Back/Books I Love

Hello, again!  Sorry I haven't updated in over two weeks now, it's been absolutely crazy for me and I feel like this is the first time I've really been able to sit down and keep my eyes open long enough to write for a bit.  I will get more into detail in the next post about what I've been up to, because I obviously haven't been keeping up to date with my Instalife posts either.

However, as some of you may know, I had a little vacation time to go home and visit my boyfriend and some friends as well as the family I have still in CT and the day I came back to Oklahoma, my nephew was born!  Needless to say, vacation and baby, plus going back to work just in time for spring cleaning has been hectic and exhausting to say the least, but at least I've been staying busy and making plans to get back into the swing of things.

I had had this idea of wanting to post some of my favorite books with you guys for a while now.  As I mentioned in this post, I have a goal to read more in 2014 (you can find my reading list for the year here).  Since I don't think I read many, if any books at all last year, I'm already off to a good start.

All photos in this post courtesy of Goodreads.com

I've finished Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris, which was a really great book.  It's written in true David Sedaris form, which I've found to be a mixture of wit, hilarity and also, at times, truly heartbreaking.  I honestly have not found a book by him that I haven't enjoyed (I've also read When You are Engulfed in Flames and parts of both Me Talk Pretty One day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim) and I fully plan to read the whole collection.  He often tells stories of his family, which will either remind you of your own (especially if you come from a larger one) or make you roll on the floor laughing at the sheer insanity of their actions.  I really can't recommend his books enough, especially if you're looking for a good laugh.

Some of my other favorite books include:

• A Million Little Pieces by James Frey - Although the story wasn't as true-to-life as the author originally tried to claim, the story itself is just wonderfully written.  A very interesting and somewhat graphic book.

• Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - I've read this at least 7 or 8 times now.  I also have a tattoo of one of my favorite quotes and the movie is almost just as great as the book itself.

• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut - This still comes up in my mind every so often, simply because of how much it made me think and pay attention to detail.  It's a little more on the challenging side, especially if you have very little attention span, but the history and occasional graphic scenes keep your attention from wandering too far. 

• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - A true classic, and something I think everyone should read in their life.  This was one of the few books I actually read when I was in school, and I'm really glad I did, although it did make me pretty sad.

• The Newsflesh Trilogy (Feed, Deadline, & Blackout) - If you like zombie books and have a faint interest in politics and the media, this is definitely something I would recommend.  The first boo, Feed, was a little slow starting off, but once you get to about the halfway point, the story gets very interesting.  I won't lie, I had to kind of force myself through the first book, but the second two were nearly impossible to put down.  The action and suspense had me hooked and I finished the second two books within a week.

So what are your favorite books?  I'm currently reading This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong, but honestly, I'm kind of struggling to focus.  The book is interesting, but I think it's just my attention span kicking my butt.

February Playlist

This month's playlist consists of some of my top played songs through my iTunes account.  Granted, I don't have every song I listen to downloaded and some of my top played songs have already been in a playlist in the last couple of months, so I switched a couple of them out for Pandora and YouTube favorites instead.  Let me know if you guys listen to any of these playlists or have suggestions for future songs to add to my lists!

Listen HERE!

1. Greg Laswell - "Comes and Goes"
2. Andrew Bird - "Fiery Crash"
3. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - "Man on Fire"
4. The National - "So Far Around the Bend"
5. A Weather - "Fond"
6. Blackmill ft. Veela - "Let it Be"
7. Sufjan Stevens - "Chicago"
8. The Mountain Goats - "No Children"
9. The Lumineers - "Stubborn Love"
10. Fleetwood Mac - "Never Going Back Again"
11. Greg Laswell - "Then There's You" (Yes, another Greg Laswell song, I love him..)
12. The Moutain Goats - "Outer Scorpion Squadron" (And I love The Mountain Goats, too.)
13. I Monster - "Early Morning Robot"
14. Modest Mouse - "Dramamine"
15. Punch Brothers - "Soon or Never"
16. The Smiths - "Asleep"

Instalife #5

Hey everyone! Sorry I've been kind of dead the last week or so, I was trying to organize a baby shower for my sister as well as get ready for my upcoming trip this weekend while working a ton.  Hopefully I can catch up a bit before I leave for Connecticut this Saturday, so here are the photos I took for the week of 1/26-2/1:

Day 26: What's in my bag?

Day 27: Books (most of my actual books are in my parents garage)

Day 28: What I Bought

Day 29: Mom

Day 30: Water

Day 31: Shoes

Day 32: Friend (Picture taken from work with Victoria)