Mindset of Working Me. Help Needed.

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Two days back from vacation and my mind is wandering. I can’t stop thinking “is this it?” Is this how my life is going to be the rest of my life? Working for the weekends? Working to get me to my next vacation? I’m two years out of college and I’m already feeling so run down of working (kind of pathetic, I know!). What frustrates me the most is I can’t seem to put my finger on why that is and how I fix it. I have a good job. One that, when I really think about it, I like. It’s in the area that I earned a degree in. It’s with a “good” company. It’s for a brand that I truly like and connect with. It certainly seems better than some of the other jobs my friends have. However, I can’t even imagine doing this for another 30 years. It feels like an impossible feat in which I’d go insane doing.

I’ve always been a hard worker and I enjoy being busy so why is it all of a sudden that I can’t stand the structure? I can’t stand the 8:30-5:30 every day. At the same desk. With the same people. Doing relatively the same thing. It’s mundane and honestly, it’s boring. However, the second I mention something like this to anyone older the age of 25, I get a response of, “get used to the real world hunny, you’re going to be in it for a long time.” Could it get any scarier than that?

Per the aforementioned rant, I could clearly use some advice. Got any? I’d love to hear it!

xoxo,

Jess

Vacation Bliss

Posted in My Stories by

After over a year of having no more than four consecutive days in a row off, I was delighted when the clock struck 5pm last Monday and I was officially ‘off the clock’ for 6 days in a row- wahoo!!!

Mike and I started the vacation with a trip to Portland, Maine. I haven’t ever been there and it’s less than a two hour car ride. So we packed our bags and headed north. As luck would have it, we got up early, packed our lunches, got in our bathing suits and headed straight to 62 degree and raining weather. No bueno. With that, we checked into our hotel and ended up doing this the rest of the day:

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Hopping from bar to bar to bar. Not what we had planned but I’ll never complain about a day like that. We ended up at a nice place called The Grill Room & Bar for dinner. It was absolutely delish! We sat at the ‘chef’s table’ which was offered to us because there were no other tables left. So glad they did, we got to see all the food being made and the chefs and wait staff were super nice. We had so much food and everything was phenomenal– in particular the lobster bisque and lobster tail. If you’re ever in Portland, this place is a must try. Here’s their website: http://www.thegrillroomandbar.com/

Wednesday we woke up and it wasn’t as cold but not very sunny so we decided to hop on a ferry and take it to a small island off of Portland called ‘Peaks Island.’

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While we were ferrying over, our luck turned around and the clouds lifted and the sun came out. All of a sudden, it was hot, sunny and absolutely beautiful out! We got to the island, changed into our bathing suits & cover ups and rented some bikes. The island is only 4 miles wide but so quaint and adorable. The people here are really friendly, the houses are beautiful, the views are breathtaking and there’s a small beach that you can walk (and we laid out for on a while). They have a few small restaurant and bars right on the water, in which we stopped at two of them.

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To my dismay, we had to leave this perfect little place only a few hours after falling in love with it so when we got back to Portland we treated ourselves to some unbelievable lobstahhh rolls and headed back to Boston.

Thursday– it’s America’s Birthday. I love America, so I love this day!!! We headed over to a good ‘ol back yard pool party to have some good eats, good drinks and good laughs with good friends. It was about 95 out and really sunny so it was a perfect day to be by a pool. What’s more, I got to see my favorite little creatures in the world– bull dogs! Our friends have two english bull dogs, “Hogan” and “Hoodsie.”

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We finished the day at another friends house to enjoy the fireworks from their rooftop deck in Charlestown. Great view and of course, the Boston Pops put on a great show. Gotta love patriotic music– always puts you in the spirit!

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Friday and Saturday I spent with my a bunch of girlfriends from college that were in town for the 4th! You won’t be able to find me much happier than when I get to be back with my best friends. I hate that we’re all scattered around the country so whenever we get a group of us together, it’s really special. Here’s a few pics to sum up our two days together:

drinking coronas in the pool

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crushing delicious bloody’s and breakfast in the morning

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and topping off our vacation together the best way we know how… with a lobstahhh dinner!

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A week later and the clocks about to strike 5pm again on Monday. It’s safe to say I won’t have the same week as I did last week.

Until next time,

Jessy

Washi Tape: my new obsession!

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Some of the perks of managing your brands Pinterest is staying up-to-speed on all the newest and cutest DIY’s. Washi tape is a new discovery for me and one that I’m totally in love with. It’s cheap, so simple and can be used in a wide variety of different crafts/tasks.

Here are some pics of the ways I’ve used the stuff so far!

– I often find candles that I love the smell but I hate the packaging. In this case, I found a candle on sale and removed the packaging and wrapped with washi tape that looks like markings from an old book. Since I was able to pick it out myself, it matches the decor in my living room perfectly! 🙂

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Here I found two decorative letters ($3/each at A.C. Moore) that will go on a small wall in my bedroom. I wanted to spruce it up more than just white, so I bought some washi tape that has black and white music notes on it and wrapped it around the letters in a chevron print.

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When hosting a party, find some washi tape that fits the theme of your party (or a pattern you just love!) and put small strips on wine glasses, beer mugs, mason jars– whatever you have out for drinkware. Leave out a few black markers with the glasses and guests can add their names to their glasses. No one mixes up drinks and it looks super cute– win win!

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Lastly, another entertaining tip is to make little flags to add some flare to your cocktails. Just fold the tape around a stick or straw and cut the ends like a ‘V.’ In this case, I used red, white and blue themed tape so I can bring it to an upcoming 4th of July party! They’re kind of like wine charms…but better! 😉

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Enjoy using washi– god knows I do! 🙂

xoxo

-Jess

 

 

Healthy, Easy & Yummy: Mediterranean Tuna Salad

Healthy, Easy & Yummy: Mediterranean Tuna Salad

I really like tuna but I hate that it typically comes smothered in mayo. However, at the salad bar at work, they started putting out this tuna salad that was delicious and had no mayo. SO I tried recreating it and (if I do say so myself) did a pretty damn good job.

Mix together the following ingredients:
– tuna
– chopped kalamata olives
– artichokes
– red onions
– parsley

Toss with lemon juice and olive oil and serve on a wheat pita with original hummus and cucumbers. Drizzle with balsamic vinaigrette, if desired.

The beauty of this recipe (beyond the health benefits) is that you can make a big batch at once and keep using the leftovers for lunches the rest of the week.

Hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did! Let me know what you think!

xoxo
Jess

Country & Rap Collabo: A Match Made in Music Heaven

I’ve really been digging ‘The Voice’ for the past two seasons (not sure if it’s Adam, Usher or Blake but they’re all equally yummy and I enjoy spending 2 hours with them on Mon and Tues nights…sue me!)

Anyways, last night during the Finale they had Nelly accompany Florida Georgia Line to their hit song ‘Cruise’ and I was in total music euphoria.

Basically, I’m all over the map when it comes to music, but that’s just how I like it. A little bit of this. A little bit of that. Favorite artists of all time include Justin Timberlake, Ellie Gouldling, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Michael Buble, Nikki Minaj, and Kaskade. Rappers have integrated into a lot of different genre’s in the past decade including electronic, pop and contemporary but I’ve never heard it with country before and it really blew my mind.

SOoOo, lets get to know each other better! 🙂 Do you love it when artists of different genres collaborate?

xoxo
~Jessy

p.s.
This made me think of how much I love live performances and how I have a few that I think go down in history as greatest TV performances. I shall share at a later date.

Super Easy DIY Project

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On Sunday’s, after a delicious bloody mary, there’s not much I like more than lounging and doing some arts and crafts or ‘around-the-house’ projects.  Yesterday, I made a fancy schmancy dry erase board for the kitchen. Here are the easy steps:

–          Buy or recycle a medium size frame that matches the décor in your home

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–          Replace parchment with a solid background. I used burlap paper to give it a rustic, new country feel

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–          Find yourself some dry erase markers and you’ve just finished the D-I-Y

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It’s that simple! Took about 3 minutes and it looks great on the wall and it can be used for so many different things! Grocery lists, dinner menus, to-do lists, weekly schedules, inspirational quotes, or even love notes (that’s my favorite!)

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-Ta ta for now love bugs!

Yogi’s

Yogi's

As with a majority of girls my age, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little on the obsessive side about my size. Don’t get me wrong- I’m by no means huge but I’m also definitely not the girl at the party who has one slice of pizza and a vodka soda water. I LOVE buff chic anything—love pizza, love pasta, obsessed with nachos and can drink just about any beer there is. SO, weekend cal intakes are FOSH not my best friend. Lucky for me, I don’t completely despise working out. However, as of a few months ago I was feeling over the treadmill and elliptical and decided to buy some classes for heated yoga (not to mention, at the time it was March and as far over the treadmill I was, I was even more over the cold—I needed warmth). So I attended my first class and to my surprise, I didn’t hate it—hinted at really liked it. After I began going on a weekly basis I noticed a few things that I thought I’d share:
– A. they should explain what the hell ‘ommminggg’ is and why you have to do it. I loudly laughed my first class—unknown to me, people take this ‘oming’ bit extremely seriously and I got nasty glares.
– B. there is an ALARMING amount of men that attend these classes. None of which that I’m overjoyed about looking at without their shirts on and sweating profusely for over an hour
– C. the instructors can either be awesome or awful. And by awful I mean the WORST. When a bro MY age is trying to give me wordly thoughts and tell me his feelings about the meaning of life, I’m bound to get a weeeee bit irritated.
– D. I get that breathing is a really important part of yoga—HOWEVER, there is NO need for panting and exhaling as if you’re having the most amazing sex of your entire life. It’s a small room and that makes me feel EXTREMELY uncomfortable. To top it off, it’s mostly ALL men that do this and if you go back to point ‘B’ you can guess where my feelings are towards hearing those noises. It not only creeps me out to no end, it also irritates the beejesus out of me and during an hour that my heart rate is supposed to go down and my ‘chi’ to go up, all I can hear in my head is me yelling STFU!
– E. Lastly, I still don’t know what Namaste is. Really, I just need to Google it—probably would be a simple solution. But every class I continue to smirk and feel like a complete ass clown when I bow my head and say outloud a word that I have NO CLUE what I t means. Point being- there should be a sign on the wall with the definition of this word. That would be mighty helpful.
Other than those absolutely on-point points—you should give hot yoga a try. It’s not as dreadful as people think it would be and honestly, you feel a few pounds lighter and tighter at the end of class. Something we can all appreciate the beauty of.
Have a wonderful day lovebugs— and NAMASTE 
p.s. here’s a funny video of yogis. It’s not new to the scene in the slightest- but I got a good laugh out of it- last year—so you should now too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IMC1_RH_b3k