Belated April Favorites!

Holy smokes! I’m so far behind on blogging this month.  Here I am about to blog about my April favorites and we are more than half way through May! Where does the time go.

Anywho…I’ll make this quick..so let’s get started! This month I will list 4 of my favorite items for the month of April.

1. My mini-planner

Earlier this year, I picked up a tiny purse calendar from Books-A-Million for $1. I figured it would be good for writing appointments, birthdays, etc.  Little did I realize how much I would use it for keeping track of other things as well.  For instance…I write down blog and video ideas for both work and personal use.  I cross off days as I go along and find myself writing down all of the important dates in life like meetings, doctors appointments, get togethers, out of town dates, etc.  It’s just been really a godsend for helping keep track of my days, weeks, months.

2. My Weekly To-Do Sheets

Another thing that has really been working for me are my custom made weekly to-do sheets.  I wanted something I could write on easily, have daily access to, was still cute looking, and kept all the areas of my life organized for what I had to do that week.  So I opened up photoshop and made a template.  Then I just printed out a bunch of them and stuck them in the clear cover of a white 3 ring binder that I already carry everywhere I go.  Now it’s easy for me to work on my to do list, read what’s next, and figure out what’s going on from anywhere.  I don’t have to worry if I synced my phone or if I can’t open my computer.  If you would like this template for yourself, just let me know and I can provide a downloadable pdf.  I can put your own custom headings and categories or leave them blank for your use.

3. My New IPHONE

So I finally got on board (and convinced the hubby to get on board) and got an Iphone.  We switched from TMobile to AT&T and both got Iphone 4s’.  We are absolutely loving them.  There are a few glitches here and there, but overall…absolutely loving them! I couldn’t ask for a better phone.  It’s so easy to use and works so smoothly.  I am so happy we finally made the switch.

4. Instagram

Since getting the Iphone.  I’ve downloaded Instagram and found myself taking pictures and posting them to Instagram everywhere we go! It’s so fun to see other peoples pictures and what they are doing.  I am part of a very nosy generation (or maybe that’s just me) and I wake up every morning and the 3rd thing I do is pull up instagram and see if there are any new posts (1st thing – breakfast, 2nd thing – email). It’s so addicting and I’ve started playing around with other apps to stich pictures together with layouts and different settings.  If you want to follow me…my instagram username is: blonde_designer

So those are my April favorites.  Do you have any favorites from the month of April or are you too enjoying one of my listed favorites? I’d love to hear what’s exciting you in your life this month! 

P.S. If you’re not following me on youtube.com… I also do a monthly favorites series on there of beauty products (mostly).  You can check it out by visiting this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/kpope51486?feature=guide

Spring Flowers!..or Veggies

Hi Everyone! Wow..is it just me or did April fly by! I can’t believe it’s already May.  I’ll be doing an April favorites post soon, but I just need a chance to get it together.  Today I am going to talk about our vegetable garden and flowers in our yard.  Every year we spend too much money on plants and veggies for our yard, but in the end it’s all worth it because it is so pretty.

Last year, Andy and I put together two raised beds.  One is in the backyard and it has all kinds of flowers in it.  When it’s fresh, it’s gorgeous..however.. we cannot seem to keep the dog out of it.  He seems to think that is were he needs to bury his tennis balls.  So, if we don’t let him take them out, it’s not a problem..but on the off chance that we forget…he is right  in that bad trying to bury his tennis ball.  Any suggestions on how to keep him out?!

The second bed we built is in our side yard and it is my vegetable garden.  Our harvest last year was not very successful, but I feel like I may have planted too late.  This year..I put the seeds in the ground at the end of March (we have an early last frost date…I was about 2 weeks early since we have had such a mild winter) and the buds and leaves are really starting to grow.

I’m super excited because we have planted so many exciting things.  In our bed we have corn, squash, zucchini, green beans, pumpkin, watermelon, cucumber, and artichoke.  I’ve probably way overplanted, but I just couldn’t help myself.  I love fresh veggies out of the garden.  We also have a variety of herbs in pots: oregano, thyme, basil, and parsley.

On our front porch, in pots we have rosemary, strawberries, lettuce, and a pot of snapdragons.

Elsewhere in our front yard we this lantana bush.  It didn’t flower last year (it was transplanted from someone else last year), but I’m hoping it has found it’s bearings and will flower beautifully this year.

We also have two banana trees in our front yard.  The both died off to hardly anything over winter and I was really worried about them coming back..but here they are in all their glory.

In our backyard we have NO GRASS (thanks to the dog and his need to run like mad through the yard), but we have a few Hostas, some daylilies, and our Hydrangea in memory of our dog Racer who passed away a few years ago.

So that’s our yard.  I am not a yard working person by any means, but the satisfaction I get seeing everything put together makes it all worth it.

What about you? Do you enjoy working in the yard?  Do you have a veggie garden?  I’d love to hear about your yard and what you’re growing in the comments below! 

Quick Braid Pics

Hi everyone! I’m posting from my phone today because I wanted to post these photos of a relaxed side waterfall braid. It is great for a relaxing day or a day when you don’t have much time to do your hair. Hope you guys like it!

Red Hot Chili Peppers Concert & Easter

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great Easter.  Andy and I went to Charleston on Easter Sunday and saw my dad and family.  It was great just hanging out and relaxing with everyone.  We enjoyed a great dinner and came back that night.  However, what we did the night before Easter was so unbelievably exciting and an awesome time.  We went to a Red Hot Chili Peppers Concert!

I’ve never seen them in concert before and honestly wasn’t a major fan.  I wasn’t not a fan, but just didn’t care either way.  However, Andy is a huge fan of them and as soon as the tickets went on sale, we were there scooping them up.  It was supposed to originally be in January, but they had to postpone until April.

Anyway, it was AMAZING.  That concert made me an instant fan.  By far, the best concert I’ve ever been to. If you ever have a chance to see them in concert, I strongly suggest it.  I took a lot of videos, but I can’t seem to get YouTube to load them right now.

However, I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the concert.  First though, tell me, what is your favorite concert that you’ve been to or what concert would you go to no matter the cost?

March: Things I’m Loving

Hey everybody! I hope you are having a beautiful start to your April.  It’s in the high 80s here and is really starting to feel like Summer.

Anywho, if you follow my youtube videos, you will see that I have started doing a monthly favorites video for my favorite beauty items.  I did a February favorites last month and will be uploading a March favorites this week.  They are just quick videos that I do talking about my favorite beauty products.  So I thought I would do something similar on here.  However, my favorites I list on here most likely won’t be beauty related.  They will be more home, life, internet, design related.  The things I do outside of beauty videos.  If you like this idea and want me to continue it, just hit the like button above (if you are a wordpress user) or comment below.  Let’s get started.

1. Swagbucks

I know I talked about Swagbucks in my last blog, but I had to put it on here as well because it has just taken over my brain this month.  In the month of March, I got $30 in Amazon giftcards from Swagbucks alone.  It’s just amazing and I can’t wait to figure out what I’m going to spend my free giftcards on.  If you missed last week’s post and want to know more about Swagbucks…click here!

2. Our Yard!

The past few weeks, Andy and I have been working hard on our yard.  We’ve been raking up leaves, planting flowers, mowing, edging, etc.  We are so tired of yard work, but the results are fantastic.  We do have a shortage of grass in our yard (thanks to an endless canopy of shade in the backyard and my lovely 80lb lap dog), but otherwise…it is SO NICE to have everything cleaned up and put together.  We’ve even filled the bird feeders and Yota just loves watching the birds fly to and from the feeders. I am planning to post a blog about my garden soon and I’ll include pics of the yard then.

3. Womanfreebies.com

Now..this is somewhat of a love/hate situation.  Until Easter Sunday, womanfreebies.com is hosting an egg hunt on their website.  They have set up a special software on the site that randomly places eggs throughout the site at random times.  These eggs contain giftcards for all kinds of places (ie: Target, Dairy Queen, McDonalds, Barnes & Noble).  I won a Subway giftcard in the very beginning (a few weeks ago), but I’m just dieing to win another giftcard.  I’ve been addicted to this site day in and day out.  If you have the ability to surf their website (it’s mobile friendly as well)…try your luck and see if you win a giftcard.  If you’re a big winner..comment below and let me know.  Did I mention that one of those giftcards contains an Ipad?  Their website also contains a ton of coupons and free samples of everything from food to beauty products.  Make sure to stop in on the hunt before easter. You can get to the hunt by clicking the photo below.

Now..just like on my videos, I’m only going to post the number of things that coorelate with the month number.  Meaning, your April favorites blog post will have 4 items.

I hope you enjoyed this and have a good week!

Swagbucks!

Hey everybody!

I am so exhausted.  The hubs and I have been working in the yard in our down time for the past week or so and I feel like it never ends.  We are absolutely horrible at raking up leaves and weeding beds at the end of fall and so our Spring yard work is like double.  We’ll get it done though.  I’m planning to blog soon about some of the things we’ve planted and what’s in our food garden this year.  So be on the lookout.

What I wanted to talk about today is Swagbucks.   If you’re not familiar with swagbucks then you should get familiar.  Swagbucks is this great website where you can earn virtual dollars to redeem for free things.  For example, this year, I have earned enough swagbucks to get me $35 in FREE amazon gift cards.  I always go for the Amazon gift cards because you can buy virtually anything on Amazon, but they have a slew of other gifts as well.

Before you read further..open this link…(trust me..just highlight it and open it another tab and we’ll get back to it in a minute): http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Kpope51486

It’s really easy.  You just sign up and start earning.  There are so many ways to earn.  The biggest way I earn is through my search bar.  I used to be an avid Google searcher, but now most of my searches are done through swagbucks.  You can download the toolbar or you can make them your preferred search engine in your browser.  You can also earn swagbucks by watching short videos, taking surveys, purchasing offers from other companies through their website…the possibilities are endless.

You may think I’m crazy, but really, what do you have to lose…it’s a great way to get free stuff..and by Free..I mean truly free.  I’m not just saying that because believe you me…Swagbucks is NOT in anyway asking me to offering me anything in exchange to write this post.  I’m just simply a believer.

So, remember that link I had you open a minute ago…go to that window and sign up.  You’ll thank me the first time you get a free gift in the mail (or email).

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to follow to be notified everytime I post!

St. Pats 5K recap

Hello everybody..morning going alright?  Mine was good.  I had a breakfast meeting for an organization this morning and it went off well.  It’s nice sometimes to have things like that to go to because it forces you to really put your professional gear on and actually want to do my hair fully.  It’ so easy to fall into a rut of black pants, hair in a bun..know what I mean?

Anyway, so last Saturday, Andy and I ran the St. Pat’s in 5 Points Get to the Green 5k.  That’s a mouthful…

I’m excited because even though I didn’t train, I still beat my race time by a minute over last year.  Isn’t that awesome?! Also, my recovery was a lot easier and I hardly had any down time..woohoo to being in better shape! Here’s a pic of Andy and I with a friend of ours:

Wow…that’s rough looking.  Anywho..so after the race, Andy and I headed home to get cleaned up for the festival.  Every year, the 5pts area host the St. Pat’s festival and it’s always a good time.  Fortunately the weather was nice (very warm) and we got to see some good performances.  They have a handful of stages that bands play on throughout the day.  The 3 perfomances we saw were Crossfade, Hinder, & Blackberry Smoke.  We also enjoyed our share of beverages:

This week has been the typical work week..nothing exciting really.  We have to attend a formal dinner this evening, but I can’t wait for Friday.  Even though I have to work weekends, something still feels great about Friday.

Do you have any special weekend plans?

P.S. I’ve been partaking in this scavenger hunt on womanfreebies.com.  They have randomly placed eggs throughout their website (on the individual posts) and each egg contains a prize.  I won a $5 subway giftcard the other day, but they have all kinds of prizes including an Ipad.  Check it out and maybe you might win something exciting!