How well do you see color?? Take the test and find out!

I was over at Apartment Therapy, doing my usual perusal for apartment decor inspiration, and stumbled upon a post about color IQ. Apparently 1 in 255 women and 1 in 12 men have some degree of color blindness. This clearly explains why some men will never understand why their partners have 5 pink blouses and we’ll defiantly respond, “No! They’re salmon, fuschia, persimmon, punch and rose!” 

Anyway, I was quite pleased with myself that I scored a 4 out of a 0-99 score range, 0 being perfect color acuity and 99 being low color acuity. Guess that’s a good sign for my design and style aspirations, huh?

Take the test and see where you fall on the spectrum! 😉 

xox

REVIEW: North Shore Beach Club

(Photo Credit: North Shore Beach Club website)

I figured I should probably get to this review before I completely forgot about the experience. So about two weekends ago, another couple and the beau & I were invited to an event at North Shore Beach Club. To show their appreciation for our attending NYE at The Piazza in December, we were invited to a one-hour open bar event including free admission and all. Despite being during game 7 of the Heat/Celtics series, seemed like a no brainer. So after an awesome day at the beach, we got changed and headed across the street to North Shore.

There wasn’t a line, which I anticipated seeing as how they had invited the 1500+ people from NYE and it was a Saturday night. But even more to my surprise, there weren’t that many people there. I’d say maybe 100 total, and that’s being generous. I will give them credit, the decor was cool. The 4ft deep pool was surrounded by cabanas and beach chairs, and flanked by a wooden deck with a few tables set up, for what I assume would be table service…

The main bar was a decent size, and there were two flat screen TVs, one of which was showing the game, so the boys were happy. Now here’s where it got a little hairy. I order the first round of drinks – tequila & pineapple and a whiskey sour. The bartender makes my drinks, hands them to me and says, “That’ll be $6, the whiskey isn’t included in the open bar.” Now, if you’re in the hospitality industry, please let me know if this is common etiquette, because you would think at a MARKETING event, where you’re trying to get people to like the space, you wouldn’t start off their night by duping them into buying a drink during an open bar event. Sadly, my friends didn’t overhear the exchange well enough, because he got them too. So I’ve already got a bad taste in my mouth about this dude, and I wait a little bit and finish the first round, and unfortunately against my better judgement, I return to the bar and don’t well enough avoid the wompity bartender. This time I order drinks that I know for sure are on the open bar. As I order, he’s starting to look at me funny. He places my drinks on the bar, and as I go to hand them to the beau, wallet still in hand, transaction not finished, this d-bag has the NERVE to open his mouth and say “You know this is the second drink you’ve ordered and you haven’t tipped me.” o_O!!! I was floored, so taken aback, I wasn’t even sure what to say. I was so clearly being profiled, despite having my wallet in my hand, he came out his face to say that. My response to him wasn’t as cutting as I’d have liked it to be, and I had every intention of tipping him for my drinks up until that point, at which I had no desire but to go home and write a scathing Yelp review, wishing I had his name and employee ID number to cite as well. Ugh! As if! (Yeah, I took it there)

Needless to say, the rest of the night was soured by this encounter, and I began to really look at the place with a harder eye. I began to feel bad for the cocktail waitresses having to tend to the usual suspects of the flashy Philly/AC scene in what looked like American Apparel booty shorts a size too small respectively. A few people were in the pool, but most were just standing around or attempting to dance to poorly-mixed music you could barely hear from the DJ in the corner. All good songs, just absolutely no flow.

Overall, it just seemed like North Shore was having an identity crisis. It attempts to compile the elements of a beach bar, swimming pool and lounge vibe with inappropriately clad servers to table service for cabanas and makeshift tables on the deck to the sounds of house music. Oh and how could I forget, rude, clearly depressed and underpaid bartenders. And we couldn’t figure out if it’s always open to the public at night, or if they’re trying to maintain the whole membership only thing at night as well. Because if that’s the case, lo siento pero no dinero will be made North Shore. Not when we can get to a real beach in an hour. Sorry boo.

Rating: 2 stars. Get it together, you’ve got potential, but are sorely misguided.

North Shore Beach Club (1031 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19123, http://northshorebeachclub.com/)

Weekend Fun: Koo Zee Doo, Beachin’, North Shore Beach Club

Happy Monday! Hope your weekends were wonderful, fun filled, and replaying them in your head are helping to get through the day. Twas’ a weekend full of events around the city, and for me, good food, good rays and good company. I realized that I haven’t been the best at snapping photos – especially at restaurants, I just feel so weird, and like I’m screaming “Hey! I’m going to critique this experience somewhere on the WWW, so watch out!” But maybe I’ll try to be more stealthy about it.

Anyway, since Friday was the first night without a playoff game at prime time dinner time, I pounced on the opportunity to reschedule my reservation at Koo Zee Doo, the Portuguese restaurant in Northern Liberties with the amazing Yelp reviews and mention in Philadelphia Magazine’s best restaurants in Philly list. With menu options like fried chicken gizzards and roasted suckling pig, I’d have to say I understand a typical diner’s reservations about the quaint little place on 2nd Street. But of course, I was intrigued. Because of the need for beach prep, we didn’t have time to grab some vino, so we dined at a BYOB sans vino (a first, trust!) But with good company and delectable food, ice water was just fine.

As recommended by our server, we ordered two appetizers and an entree, as all dishes were served family size, and it was precisely portioned. To start, we went with Camarão com Pri Pri (Shrimp with hot sauce) and Alheira (smoked sausage, sauteed greens and fried egg), and for the entree, while it was a tough decision between the special of the evening – Roasted Suckling Pig, and the steak, but we went with the Bife à Portuguesa. The Camarão came with four large shrimp, heads and shells in tact, swimming in a fiery orange hot sauce and slightly roasted lemon for garnishing. Despite the work to get to the meat (which the beau is never a fan of), the shrimp were cooked quite well; the combination of the tangy hot sauce and lemony touch with the sweetness of the fleshy shellfish was great. The Alheira certainly did not pale in comparison. A clearly house stuffed sausage (of duck, chicken, rabbit & bread) on a bed of sauteed collards & mustard greens provided another blend of smoky savory and sweetness complemented by a garlicky vinegary tang. The fried egg and its buttery yolk just gave the two distinct flavors a place to converge, yet not overpower one another. Finally, our beautiful bife came. Three thick slices of Picanha steak, draped with prosciutto, flanked by golden fried potatoes rounds, and low and behold another fried egg. We ordered the steak medium rare, and it was cooked to perfection, tender, juicy and flavorful. Needless to say, the meal was very much enjoyed and I didn’t leave with that stuffed feeling, certainly wasn’t still hungry as some places can leave you, but everything was portioned quite well. And we didn’t break the bank! Dinner for two for ~$60.  Two thumbs up Koo Zee Doo!! (Koo Zee Doo ,614 N. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA, 19123 | 215-923-8080 | BYOB)

The next day, we woke up bright and early to head to Cape May with B&M and came prepared with snacks on snacks on snacks. The cooler was filled with everything from black bean salsa, fresh guacamole, chicken salad, cheese & crackers, cold brewskis and an especially juicy pineapple that had done a little soaking of it’s own the night before ;). Nonetheless, it was the perfect beach day! Cape May was much less populated than Ocean City where we usually go. The water was even warm enough to take a dip in every hour or so (of which we spent 5!) to cool off and feel refreshed. Had a nice late lunch at The Lobster House – soft shell crab sandwich and fries. Came home tanned and tired, but very satisfied with a well executed day.

Later that night, we headed to North Shore Beach Club for an invite-only one hour open bar event for attendees of the NYE 2012 Party at the Piazza. I really thought that I could include my experience there at the end of this post, but it’s definitely in need of it’s own, in addition to the Yelp review both M & I plan on writing, so that I may tell North Shore about itself, AND it’s bold/rude/arrogant bartenders. Needless to say, despite high potential, it was lackluster.

All in all, pretty sweet weekend, spent most of Sunday recovering. And promise to get serious about this packing thing today. Like for real…I hope…lol

xox

Oh Shake Shack…

 

 

Oh Shake Shack. I underestimated you. I mean it is Opening Day and all. I guess we’ll have to try you another day.

 

xox

Well Played Su Xing House…Well Played.

Since starting my new job in Center City about a month ago, I’ve struggled each day with my lunch decisions. For some, this may sound ridiculous as you are completely content going to Subway for your $5 foot lonnggg (sorry lol) and find complete and utter satisfaction in the breadth of their rotation. The foodie in me? Not so much. So of course, I began to scour the web and found some really cool sites like Midtown Lunch and PhillyPhoodie, and came upon a review of Su Xing House. A 3 course lunch special for $7, say what?! As I kept reading, the vegetarian Chinese place with the crazy cheap lunch special began to ring a bell, and I realized my friend Marissa had mentioned it recently as her new fab find. So I thus put it on my to do list. And I can officially cross it off!

The reviews said 11:30 – 1:30 just avoid, but I took my chances since I was dining alone, and because there had been weird spouts of rain during the day, I banked on people not venturing far for grub. So around noon, I arrived at a dimly lit, dark wood walled dining room and asked for a table for one. I was promptly seated at a window with a faux garden view – I say faux because it was window that faced a small patch of soil and greenery in front of another window, nonetheless it was quaint. My water glass and tea cup were filled immediately. The tea tasted a little soapy/perfumey, but I think it might have been some type of flower tea like rose or jasmine, so just not my particular cup of tea 😉 lol. Anyway, my server was very attentive and took my order within 5 minutes of my being seated, and I asked for a hot & sour soup, broccoli in garlic sauce with brown rice, and braised mushrooms for my side. Moments later, I overheard someone ask for a spring roll, and the server kindly accommodated me when I wanted to change my side, I mean a little crunch would be nice amongst a meatless meal, no?

And my experience began….

I’d never had hot & sour soup before, so I thought I’d give it a shot. It was quite flavorful and full of a bunch of unidentified veggies and tofu, I believe. It was a tad gelatinous at first, but seemed to thin as I consumed more, which I found interesting. And then my beautiful entree arrived, with a healthy portion of broccoli in it’s sweet, tangy and spicy garlic saucy goodness, a heap of brown rice, and freshly fried spring roll. The spring roll was so hot, I could barely hold and/or bite it, but was deliciously accompanied by a pretty standard duck sauce. I was slightly off put by the fact that my broccoli and rice weren’t as hot as my spring roll, but they weren’t cold either, lukewarm I’d say.

Nevertheless, I did indeed clean my plate, and it was promptly removed from in front of me and my check delivered. $7.02! I gave $10, and it took them a while to bring my change, which could have been ok for gratuity, but I hate when it’s assumed. But contrary to my own assumption, the maitre d returned with $3 even. I so appreciated not having to take 98 cents with me, that I found 2 pennies to accompany the 20%+ tip I’d left. Well played Su Xing, well played. You’ve found a new patron!

Next up: Underdogs! (17th & Sansom) How great or filling can a hot dog be? With an option like the “Texas Tommy” wrapped in bacon, fried and topped with cheese, I’m going to go ahead and say very!

xox

Weekend Fun! Great eating and greater times!

So Friday was supposed to be a fun evening filled of First Friday events and an amazing dinner at Koo Zee Doo. As I finally got home from work, my mother called just in time to see if I had heard of a tornado warning, which prompted me to check my Weather Channel app only to see a flood warning, but no tornado. But as the sky began to look more and more ominous and my sneezes and coughs more prevalent, I decided against frolicking under looming downpour and making something hearty to soothe the colds the beau and I both had. It also didn’t hurt that the game was on at 8:30…mhmm.

Nonetheless, I had searched the net for some recipes including the Aidellis Spicy Mango & Jalapeno sausage there happened to be a boatload of in the fridge and found a simple one for dirty rice. So we headed to the grocery store to pick up the few ingredients necessary, and I couldn’t find the fire roasted sweet red peppers it called for, but I opted for some black beans to pump up the heartiness and veg factor. And as we left the grocery store, we were met with torrential downpours and absurd winds (yes – I believe it qualified as the tornado my mother had forewarned) and made me feel even better about my decision.

Let’s just say, while it might not be my prettiest dish, it’s definitely top 5 most delicious. Hot and hearty, savory and sweet, just down right yummy. And lasted three meals!

Here’s my adapted recipe:

Aidells Spicy Mango with Jalapenos Smoke Chicken & Turkey Sausages 12 oz
Zatarain’s Dirty Rice
2 Large Green Bell Peppers
1 Medium Sweet Onion
6 Garlic Cloves
2 Cups of Chicken Broth
8 oz of canned Black Beans

Chop onion & garlic finely. Core bell peppers and dice into 1 inch pieces.  Take meat out of sausage casing and crumble. Saute bell peppers, onions & garlic in olive oil. Add black beans and meat. Heat through. Add rice mix and combine. Add chicken broth. Bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cover and cook for 25 minutes. Then enjoy!

And while we could have simply eaten that all weekend, I spent the rest of the days enjoying Pinterest finds. Both my own and my friend Marissa’s. Saturday morning’s brunch included these cheesy bacon pull apart biscuits, eggs and home fries…mmm! Which of course prompted “food comas”. A few hours later, we got our lives together, to make and have dinner with Bryrissa, since they were dog/house sitting an adorable 9 mo. old boxer puppy named Basil in a ridiculously swanky apartment on 10th & Spruce. I wish I had taken more pictures just for home decor inspiration, but I’ve been slacking in the pic department lately. Food has definitely dominated my camera roll. As you can see: 

The food, the decor, the friends all made for a fabulous evening. I made the citrus salad (recipe swiped from a friend’s amazing birthday brunch last year) and the cuban grilled corn on the cob…yep, you guessed it! Pinterest. M’s spicy BBQ chicken was apparently also a Pinterest find, and I’m going to hunt it down and pin it to my board right now because it was that friggin’ good (Update: FOUND IT! Here). It seriously made me second guess moving to an apartment in a building without a yard, like I’ve ever grilled at the house I’ve lived in for the past two years. Epic fail on my part if we could eat this well all summer. So so delicious! The rest of the evening was followed by fresh mojitos in the posh digs, and then we meandered our way to TIME on 13th & Sansom to dance the night away and apparently have our hearing damaged. Legitmately couldn’t hear for the next day or so. Thank you for that DJ, good tunes, bad volume.

And I thought we’d complete the weekend of good grub with take out from Ekta (Indian restaurant in NoLibs), since I read so many good reviews about it, and again still feeling under the weather wanted something spicy and hearty. After ordering two entrees and naan for $35, my expectations were probably higher than they should have been for take out, but let’s just say we were disappointed, not by the quality, but the quantity. Like seriously, maybe 7-8 shrimp in the Ekta Shrimp, and certainly no more than 1 full Chicken breast diced into the Chicken Tikka Masala. The sauces were amazing. I just wish there was more meat to enjoy them in. No pictures, because I was angry. Possibly enough to write a Yelp review…

Anyway, that was my weekend of good eats and fun around the city. I think I may actually be able to make it to Su Xing House today, and hopefully since it’s raining it won’t be too crowded. Fingers crossed.

xox

Love Park Food Trucks…

So I went to Love Park today with some co-workers. I was planning on trying out Su Xing House after reading so many amazing reviews. Nonetheless, I was convinced to be social. We headed over to Love Park, which was a hot crowded mess. There was a Rita’s stand, a truck serving fro yo, and then only two food trucks in the park itself. One was Pitruco Pizza, for which the pies were $6-9, and the line was really long. So I ended up going with the other, which was Delicia’s, Arepas & Latin Food. I waited in line for a good 5-8 mins, then waited another 8-10 to get my food. So let’s say it was approximately 15 mins for the whole thing. I ordered the Pabellon Arepa, which contained shredded beef, black beans, cojita cheese & sweet plantains all in a corn arepa. Give me beef, beens, cheese and plantain any day and I’m a happy camper. Or so I thought…I’ve never even had an arepa before, so I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but when I opened the foil to find this stuffed pita-esque pocket, I thought ok, I’ll try to eat it like a sandwich. Only to pick up my arepa and see that the bottom half was covered in oil. I didn’t know to ask for utensils, so I try to fold the foil back up and eat it like a burrito, despite being half the size. It was tasty enough. The beef was tender and marinated well, but I think there must have been one slice of plantain in there, because after my first bite I found none. All in all, it was flavorful and a decent portion for the $6. 

 

But here’s the clincher…I was already not feeling so hot this morning, and unfortunately the arepa has not helped. All I can think of is that commercial with the health rating being taken from an A to C and the friend slapping the sandwich out his hand. Yeah, there was no good friend nearby, nor a health rating for me to assess, but such is the risk with food trucks, right? Maybe it’s a fluke and really due to my own ailments, because the line was at least 20 people deep, so idk…

Anyway – pros: quick despite popularity, decent portion, well flavored meat; cons: long line, greasy, rumbly tummy

So I guess we’ll try Su Xing tomorrow…wish me luck! We’ll save Pitruco’s for sometime next week. There were also the cutest old men all dressed in white singing on a stage for some sort of summer concert series. Might eat at the park more often, but remember to bring my own for sake of time and comfort lol 😉

xox

Let’s try this again…

Wow…so I totally didn’t even realize that it’s been exactly a year and a day since my last post on here. I think I had decided that I wouldn’t write publicly until I could stop writing so personally. And seeing as how so friggin’ much has happened and changed in the past year since writing my last post, I think I’m ready to do exactly that.

The original idea for this blog was to write about two things primarily. 1) The existence between college and adulthood, what it means to navigate that place, etc. and 2) Living in the city between NY & DC and all the fun things that come with living in this awesome place that is Philadelphia. So get ready, because I’m backkkkk.

On the topic of existence, I will share just a few things I’ve learned over the past year. My mother always told me that “..You can’t hold anything against people that they do under the age of 25, and if you don’t expect people to make mistakes now, when will they?” And even better, “And honestly, which would you prefer?” I always thought it an incredibly absurd and generous notion, nor did I dare ever consider myself to potentially find solace in someone else’s belief in such. Until I made an incredibly rash decision that I wanted to look back on my life and laugh at all of the ridiculous things I had done, crazy risks taken, good and bad, and realize I’d lived a full life. And I will never regret that decision.  But in a sobering moment, I realized that I too was human. And under 25. And had no friggin’ clue what I was doing attempting to navigate this world,  that some mistakes would be made along the way, but most importantly, that it was OK, if not even necessary to my growth as a person. I say all this to say that if I’ve learned anything so far in this rollercoaster that has been the post-college world, here are a few (be prepared for, but embrace the cliches):

Everything that happens in the dark will come to the light. The repercussions of your actions will manifest themselves in ways you may never imagine or anticipate, so just avoid wrongdoings…to anyone.

Be kind to yourself and others, and God and the world will reward you for that. I can’t emphasize this enough. Letting go and letting God was the best thing I could have done for myself. Asking for forgiveness, and just living a life with an open heart and good intentions will allow good energy and success into your life. There’s no room for grudges, negative energy, contempt. It will make you sick, emotionally and physically. And there’s no space for success in any of that.

Everything happens for a reason, luck is when preparation meets opportunity, and what doesn’t kill you, will make you stronger and forever impact who you are. Sometimes we need really crazy things to open our eyes to what we haven’t seen for a variety of reasons, but mostly because we didn’t want to. Whether it be something in ourselves we didn’t want to acknowledge, or characteristics in another person with whom our lives are shared with in some capacity. You cannot fully assess yourself or another being without the intense introspection and acknowledgement of good and bad aspects of yourself first. John 8:7 says “When they persisted in questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the person among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”‘ Think first, speak second. Oh and being in the right place at the right time can change the course of your life in a moment.

Finally, slow down. Allow yourself time to bask in your successes and be thankful for them for tomorrow is promised to no one. Figure out what it is that you love and enjoy and want out of life. Be able to find solace and happiness in yourself alone, because if you can’t find it there first, you certainly won’t find it in someone else – despite the Disney Princess Theory (I’ll write a post on that soon…). But always show love and appreciation for those around you that support and contribute good things to your life. A simple thank you or I love you goes farther than you can imagine.

So that’s my melodramatic resurgence for the day. I promise to myself again that I will keep writing, no matter who’s reading, because it’s my passion, comes with ease and is so friggin cathartic.

And for part 2- stay tuned for my reviews of lunch excursions, happy hours, and all things fun around the city! Since I’m moving to Center City and all next month…woot woot!

Tomorrow is First Friday! So I’ll be venturing down to OldeCity, NoLibs, and then Koo Zee Doo for dinner! Reviews to follow… 😉

xox

Hitting Refresh

Take 3. I’m hitting the refresh button on my life. I’m doing this because I find myself frozen. Not that I lack ambition or goals, because it’s quite the opposite. More like the little rainbow pinwheel on my MacBook spinning. It’s colorful existence provides the appearance of all that color implies: vibrancy, life, happiness. But yet it spins in a circular motion, telling you to wait patiently, while your hard-drive goes into over-drive, your fan spurs loudly trying to cool the motherboard from overheating because it is working so hard to fulfill command that your fingers have demanded with a simple click.

It could all be so simple, but you’d rather make it hard. Because we don’t know how to do anything easily. I’ve been taught by Ivy League professors to write 15 page papers on 4 line poems, to dissect the meaning of every sentence and word that composes it, so nothing ever is that simple anymore. No text, no email, no glance, touch or lack there of will ever lack meaning to me. My friend said months ago, “Put your fancy degree on the shelf; it won’t help you with this one.” But I couldn’t wrap my head around the thought that I wasn’t smart enough to be prepared for anything that came my way, or rather see it coming a mile away and have enough time to prepare myself mentally, prepare my argument verbally, and execute my plan flawlessly. Because I’m LV. That’s what I’ve been bred to be. And it worked for a while. Until I was finally faced with a situation that no re-engineering of structure or theme could remedy.But they say that God works in mysterious ways.

Because what you want might make you cry, and what you need might pass you by, if you don’t catch it…but what you need, ironically, will turn out what you want to be if you just let it. And God provides not what we want, but what we need. And sometimes we need the most the extreme of scenarios to allow ourselves to not feel like we’re taking an L on something we’ve worked so hard on. Because We, as hard-working people, must feel that the situation be completely out of our hands in order to detach from feelings of failure. We do not quickly escape feelings of frustration or unsatiated curiosity, because such inquisitiveness is what makes us intelligent. For it is how we learn. But there is sometimes more to learn and to learn from than facts alone. And to say that I have learned more about myself, about youth, passion, drive, love and life, is the understatement of the day. I know this is an incredibly academic and rational way to address an emotionally charged event in my life, but that’s me. I’m rational. Often too rational, if there is such a thing, which I do believe there is.

A recent personality test taken for work revealed that I’m a big-picture thinker, not overly concerned with the minutia, the little details, I want to get to the point, and want the point to be successful. I only want to do things well, and have a tendency not to do things that I don’t know for certain that I will do well. Someone also recently told me that I appear to have a low-risk tolerance and play my cards close to the vest. So this is why I find myself frozen. In a moment of complete overwhelm, flustered by flurry of public declaration of life progression in one realm or another, and some other developments, I’m faced with the question of what do I and I alone want out of this thing called life. And at 23, what the heck kind of question is that? How in the world am I supposed to know that? What am I supposed to do with all this crazy information that the past two years out of college have taught me? I have straight up been pretending to be an adult. So what takes me from pretending to being? That’s what I’ve got to figure out, and the only person that can hold me back from that is me. But they say high-risk, high-reward, right? So while it may seem small to you, this control freak in a moment of clarity is deciding to let go and let God. The goals have been set, ain’t nothing to it, but to do it, right?

And with that, I’m hitting refresh.

And singing on my way out…forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us…forgive them father, for they know not what they do…

xo

LV

*If you don’t know my italic references, I highly encourage you to educate yourself with the miseducation of l-boogie…

5 Year Plan Worksheet

So a few days after my last post, I fulfilled the goal of taking a stab at a 5 year plan. I took a blank sheet of paper and divided it into four quadrants. I labeled them: “Next 3 months”, “Next 6 Months”, “1 Year”, “5 Years”. In the 3 month box, I wrote March, April, and May with colons next to each month, and then did the same for the 6 month box, June, July August. I demanded at least 3 bullet points per quadrant of myself, but I didn’t force any particular order. In fact, I found it easiest to start with the 1st and 4th quadrants (3mo & 5yr, immediate & long-term respectively). The 3 month box had more measurable action items – for example, one bullet in March was “Start studying for the GRE/GMAT” and the sub-bullet was “Make a weekly schedule, including 3 study sessions and a practice test per week.” Then in my 5 year box I was able to write the bullet “Complete a graduate degree.” I won’t disclose all of my goals, but the process was pretty simple and uber gratifying. Just think of a goal, set the time window in which you’d like to achieve it, then list the steps it’ll take for you to achieve each goal, so you can check them off along the way. And repeat.

I also did this exercise with my boyfriend, which was nice because I had someone to share it with when I was done, as well as see how our goals and plans compared to one another’s. It’s nice when they compliment, if not even include you :)…but don’t go running to the dude you just met 3 weeks ago and think is thee “One” and insist that you do your 5 year plans together and then cry your heart out if he doesn’t mention you. The exercise should really be about helping to visualize what you want and the steps to get there.

Hope this is helpful to someone out there, and if it is, let me know how it goes!

Next up: Renewed Commitment to Healthy Living…

xox