Bath and Body Works Steal of a Deal'!!

So apparently I took almost a month break from this blogging thing....remember when I wrote about having too much free time while on winter break from classes??  Well now like I anticipated, I am super busy and that free time is a distant memory!!  But no fear I am determined to get back into blogging since it is a fun outlet from the daily busy life.

Bath and Body Works and I have a pretty long history….I have loved this store from a young age, when I was a young tween going to the mall with my friends for the first time!!  I mean who doesn't love lotion and especially lotion that smells good :)  My love of BBW intensified when I started working there in 2005.  That was when my stockpile began, I bought sooooo much lotion/sprays, etc etc with my discount that I still have some today.  Since I still have a ton of lotion I usually never buy any when I go in there today, I go for the soap and the home fragrances

Occasionally get the travel lotions or $1 promotions when new lotion come out because I love to throw them into my purse :) 


I get sooooo many emails from Bath and Body Works, I think they send one everyday sometimes twice a day.  I recently got one that gave me a mystery coupon, either 20, 30 or 40% off.  The email also said that the large 3 wick candles were 2 for $22.  One of those candles is usually $20 so 2 for $22 is a fab deal so I took a trip to get some candles.  When I got to my BBW there was no sign about the candles being on sale and I was like "ahhhhh noo!!!"  I asked an employee and she said the email says at the bottom select stores only but they would honor the deal for me!!  woo hoo :) All of the tropical scents were in store and took me away to a tropical paradise each sniff!  

I ended up picking out Tiki Beach and Palm Beach Cooler for my 3 wick candles. 

They smell amazing!!  I am very impressed with their candles...the scent is pretty strong and carries throughout most of my apartment.  

I also picked up some of the mini candles too.  They usually have some deal going on like 2 for $5 or like this time it was 3 for $10.  I got Frosted cupcake, Honeysuckle, and island margarita. 

            

The soap was on sale for 4 $10 the day I was there so I stocked up on some tropical scents.  If I cannot be in paradise at least I can pretend every time I wash my hands :) One BBW soap is $5 so when they have deals like this its good to take advantage of it.  They usually always have some type of sale going on.  

I personally like the foaming soaps the best :)  

So that was everything I stocked up on during my trip to BBW....but don't forget that mystery coupon I had.  When I got to the register they rang up all of my stuff and my total was around $65.  Then she scanned my coupon and it was for 30% off!!!  And guess what my total was.......$31!!!!!!!!  Craziness.  The large 3 wick candles who are normally $22 were only $ 7.70, the soap ended up being $1.75 each and the mini candles were only $2.34 each.  I was very impressed with this coupon and how much stuff I got for such a good price.  As much as the daily coupons bug me sometimes taking up space in my inbox I would love to get another coupon like this.  For now I will enjoy my tropical paradise scents and look forward to the next stock up.  

High 5 For Friday

Another Friday...this past week flew by.  Linking up with Lauren again for High Five For Friday.

 So here is a pic from this past weekend when my friend Jess came to visit. Clearly I wanted to mess up the photo and have my mouth open in the pic hahah guess I was just trying to make it a fun pic :) 

I looked outside on my patio and this was in the snow...Do you know what it looks like??  I was like ahh look there is a heart in the snow...I guess cupid left it for me maybe :)

So this will be my life for the next few months..This is the study guide for the certification exams for becoming a school counselor!!!  I will be taking the national and counselor exam in April so me and this book will be becoming best friends....Side note Amazon Prime is amazing!!!  I signed up for a student version and they gave you six months free and with it you get free 2 day delivery but this is the second time I have ordered something and it came the very next day...I ordered this at like 1:00 yesterday afternoon and it was at my door at like 11 this morning!!! That is crazy...Way to go amazon

So don't you just smile looking at this picture :)  Here is a picture of one I took last weekend during the family shoot I did.  Cutest little baby Evelyn

During my trip to Target today I took a walk through the home section and these mirrors caught my eye... I love mirrors, they are an easy way to spice up your walls.  I didn't get these mirrors because I don't really have anywhere for them to go but I want them and like them and felt the urge to take a picture of them.

Cheers to the weekend!!!

Fill your minds and your hearts

First of all I apologize for the small hiatus...last week I was so proud of myself for blogging everyday and this week i don't know what happened...life got ahead of me and this week has flown by (I guess that will happen with grad school, work, etc etc)  The good thing is I'm back :)

So being a photographer I love to look for inspiration in other photographer's sites or Facebook pages and I recently started getting Click the magazine.  I like to read about the latest photography gadgets and to hear stories from other photographers and get ideas from poses.  I checked the mail today and it was a good mail day because there was a Click magazine waiting for me!!!!  It was wrapped in plastic and there was a little card inside promoting a company's card design.  What was on the card really gave me the inspiration for this post.

The card was reminding people to love what they do and do what you love... The front was the little girl in the picture with the John Lennon quote, "You Say I'm a Dreamer, But I'm Not the Only One" On the back of the quotes it had a few quotes from different photographers...

"Value yourself and your work"

"Follow your own heart and dreams"

"Continue to challenge yourself"  

I never thought I would become a photographer, I always loved taking pictures, and then a job at a photo studio fell into my lap and then now I have my own small photography business.  It may be small but it makes me happy :)  When I get to take pictures, whether it be for a wedding or family shoot I get excited to capture memories.  I take pride in my work and work hard to make my clients happy.  These pictures will be pictures they will look at for the rest of their life and I want them to be happy with the end result.  This pushes me to challenge myself and get creative and not stop coming up with new ideas.  A photographers job can be very challenging at times, especially with certain age groups (toddlers) :) but I have various families tell me how patient I was and how they couldn't believe how good the pictures came out even though their child was being so bad.  All it takes is a little patience and time and that cute pose and smile will be caught in a moment.  

I don't know why the card made me think about my own life so much tonight.  It is not just in my photography work that I want to live by the mottos above, if you are doing anything you should value and love what you do.  If you are not enjoying yourself you will resent it in the end and not be happy. If you have an interest in something work hard to make it happen and do not be afraid to take a chance. We only get one life so shouldn't we enjoy living it??  

High 5 For Friday!!

Today I am linking up with Lauren for High Five For Friday where I pick the top 5 things from the week.

1. The Blizzard of 2013 kept me stuck inside for two whole days but I was finally able to dig out and get back to a normal routine this week!!! (A lot of people were stuck at their house for much longer than me, but trust me when I say there is only so much movies and dare I say pinning on Pinterest you can do.

2.  In my post about reading Girls in White Dresses I said how hard it is to see friends from college but this weekend that is happening!!!  My friend Jess is coming for the weekend!!  She lives in NJ and we try hard to see each other every few months but sometimes life gets in the way.

3. I have blogged everyday this week!!!  I try hard to post everyday but sometimes that does just not happen.

4. I am excited to laugh tonight when I go see Identity Thief.  I love Melissa McCarthy, she never fails in the laugh department :)

5. I have a photo shoot tomorrow!!  I love being a photographer and it has been a little while since I took family pictures so I am super excited to snap some shots tomorrow :)


TGIF!!  I hope you had a great week and enjoy your weekend!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Hope you have a great Valentine's Day!!1  I hope you are wearing red or pink and spreading the love today... I got the cutest card in the mail from my goddaughter Emma and her baby sister Evelyn :)

Emma decorated it herself and her mom wrote a quote she said about me...I guess I am funny hahaha 

On my bookshelf

Here are the books I have read over the past few weeks…

Safe Haven
By: Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks has to be one of my favorite authors.  Yes the books are pretty much the same, love story, predictable at times, but still always a great read.  I read Safe Haven when it came out, but with the release of the movie coming (this week actually on Feb 14) I wanted to reread the book.  The books are always better than the movies in my opinion but I still enjoy the movies.  While rereading this movie there were a couple parts of the book that I had forgotten about and I still enjoyed reading it for the second time.  It was hard to not picture Julianne Hough and Josh Duhmael as the main characters though.  You know how you create the characters in your head and what they look like, well these two are not what I pictured for Katie and Alex.  If you haven’t read this book I definitely recommend it and I will be going to see the movie so I will let you know what I think.  If you like a good love story then any Nicholas Sparks book will do the trick.

Girls in White Dresses

By: Jennifer Close

I have seen this book browsing through Target and bookstore and finally downloaded it on my kindle and read it.  This is a book that I could really relate to.  The book is about a group of girls and there life after college.  What its like when the first of your friends gets married, and then another, and others who are no where near close to getting married.  Life after college is the time where you really find yourself, find a career, or start to decide what you want to do with your life.  The book follows the girls through their adventures, girls trips, romances, going back home, moving, being broke, visiting their college campus, etc.  In the book they discuss how much they miss college and this is something I was just talking about with one of my friends the other day.  We didn’t know how good we had it in college.  Yeah it was a lot of work, all nighters studying, class, labs, etc etc but think about it, a place where all of your friends are in the same area and there is always an excuse for a party.  Now my college friends are all over the state or country for that matter and busy with our own lives that it is hard to get together that much.  Yeah it is nice to have a job and more money, but college was 4 great years. 

One of the characters in the book thinks all of her friends have a plan and direction and she doesn’t really know what she wants and I could relate to her in some ways.  I know what I want career wise, it just took me a little while to get there.  I am the only one of my college friends that is still in grad school and not working in a full time career.  When I graduated from undergrad I worked for two years before starting grad school.  I don’t regret it; I learned a lot working for two years and gained experience but sometimes wish I was on the same page as everyone else.  My friends work M-F set schedules and mine is all over the place.  I have class in the evenings, work retail all different hours including the weekend and it is hard for some friends to remember that I am not free on the weekends like they are.  Enough of my rant, I am enjoying grad school but excited to be done in a year and get a job as a school counselor.  I would recommend the book J

Softball Seam DIY Project

 I played softball for many years growing up, and apparently there is something in my sister’s and my blood because all three of us played softball.  My younger sister plays now on her middle school and travel teams and by looking at her Facebook page you would clearly see that softball pretty much is her life, she loves it. 

While stuck at home during the blizzard I came across this DIY project on Pinterest and knew I had to try and make it for her.  Lucky for me I had a softball lying around and here is what I made…a bracelet out of the softball seam.  I followed the instructions found here… 

 Here was my end result

You are able to make two bracelets using the seams.  I thought this was such a creative project, something I never would have come up with.  It would be sentimental to make one with a ball from your senior night game, or a game you hit a home run or something like that. 

Cheers to another completed project from Pinterest!!! 

Oh and who knew that this is what a softball looks like naked…