What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

I am the busiest lady you'll ever meet right now. I have a full time job and TWO part time jobs. What? How did this happen?

Well the secretary at my parents office had to have emergency surgery so they asked me to step in for her for the month of September. I asked my editing job if I could work in my off hours and they said yes (woop). On top of that I have my job at Boston Pizza.

So here's how my time looks now: I work 7:30am-4:30pm at the office, then a couple days a week I work 5pm to around 11pm at Boston Pizza and whenever I'm not doing that I am editing. It's been crazy but it's also been the first time in a long time that I've had some decent money and I really need it for the cruise I'm going on at the end of the month.

What does a picture of a ferris wheel have to do with all this? Well I was asked by Boston Pizza to work at a booth at the fall fair. So from today until Sunday I'll be at the fair for 6-8 hours a day. I'm delivering food to the fair four times a day and spending the rest of my time sitting at the booth handing out coupons. Perks: free admission to the fair. Cotton candy please??

Moral of the story: I am a superwoman and I can't stop, won't stop, might cry (...I'm a little tired okay!)

I don't know how workaholics do it. I'm dreaming of a cruise right about now!

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Workaholic Against My Will

We Went Adventuring!

Over the past weekend we decided to make the most of our Labour Day and go on a good old fashioned adventure!

Our original plan was to go canoeing but after the rental place was sold out we decided to go to Webster's Falls. Turns out we made the right decision!

Webster's Falls is part of a huge gorge in Hamilton, ON. We thought we were just going to see some waterfalls. We had no idea how huge this place really was. It ended up being a HUGE nature walk that took us to the tops of waterfalls, over lookouts, and through the forest. I had no idea we had something so incredibly beautiful hiding near a city. It was a perfect day.

 << Sadly we couldn't get to the bottom of these falls because the stairs were out. Guess we'll have to go back! >>

<< It threatened to rain on us early in the day but the clouds went away and we ended up with gorgeous hiking weather! >>

<< One of the cool/freaky things at Webster Falls is the small plot of tombstones for the Websters. This one has a very creepy poem on it.

It reads:
"Come my friends and cast an eye

Then go your way and prepare to die,

Learn here your doom and know you must

One day like me be turned to dust."

Thanks George, Thanks a lot. >>

 << The girls conquering waterfalls and generally being fearless. >>

<< What a view. Who would have guessed that there's waterfalls and a gorge under there? >>

After thoroughly exhausting ourselves and pushing the guys to their limit of hunger we called it a day and went to go get a late lunch. Since I hadn't seen Shauna and Erika since my birthday last week they brought cupcakes. 

<< Dee-lish.>>

All in all it was a pretty fantastic Labour Day, I think we should definitely go back in the fall to see all of those trees with beautifully colourful leaves!

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Adventurer, Nature Lover

I Got Older

I am totally weird about birthdays.

I never want to plan anything, never want to make a big deal out of it...but I'm also the person that will wear her prettiest dress and sparkliest shoes because "It's my birthday." Which is also my line when I try to get people to do things for me. I will milk the heck out of that line. This includes but is not limited to: making people grab things that you are too lazy to grab, explaining why you've eaten desserts after every meal, reasons why you should get what you want.

What can I say? I must be a real gem to be around.

I turned 23 yesterday and this is by no means a special age. You know how some birthdays just mean something? 23 means that you're on your way to 25 (which is my designated "adult" age). Scary stuff people. Yes, I am a bit neurotic.

I worked during the day yesterday and then spent the night with my family. We went to dinner at the Keg and filled our bellies with laughter, but more importantly, with food. 

I wore this because I'm a birthday princess and I deserve to look beautiful (I told myself as I stared in the mirror). Please enjoy this totally "candid" and definitely not staged selfie:

Fun fact about me: I tend to cash in all of my birthday presents early so my birthdays seem even more like a regular old day. In April I got Ray Bans from my parents and decided not to wait until the end of summer to get them (because sunglasses should be used in the summer. Call me crazy, but this is a strong belief of mine). Another equally fun fact about me: I am on my third pair of Ray Bans. I have actually gotten them for three birthdays now. How can a get a "Find My Ray Bans" app onto my iphone? That would save me a lot of grief. Jordan got me our Jack White tickets from earlier this summer so all that was left to enjoy was the company of my family (which is a-okay by me. They're pretty alright...I guess :)

Another pretty alright person: Erika. She came over the second it turned into my birthday (12am my friends) with ice cream sandwiches. This is by far my favourite birthday tradition. She also brought me this from her adventures in France:

Moral of the story: I'm older and also happier :)

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Former Birthday Princess

Diving from the Sky

This past weekend I did one of the most amazing things I've ever done: I skydove!

Honestly, it was the most mind-blowing experience. I can't compare it to anything I've ever felt.

A couple of weeks ago Jordan mentioned skydiving and I kind of blew the idea off. It's really expensive and I really didn't see the idea coming to fruition. When he actually started looking into booking his dive I realized it was now or never.

So Saturday August 9th it was. We drove an hour and 45 minutes to end up at the Niagara Skydive Centre at 1pm. I don't think we've ever been so excited for anything in our lives. I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face as we watched the informational videos. We then did some quick training and suited up in some very tight onesies. I felt like a race car driver in mine, it was pretty damn badass.

We chose to do tandem skydiving because 1) it takes less training 2) it's cheaper and 3) because I prefer to have someone more competent than I doing all the work while I just enjoy the ride.

We got in a place and went three kilometres up into the air. We passed over the Falls and looped back to the centre before jumping out. Weirdest part about skydiving: you need to get reallllyyy close with a complete stranger, and fast. My instructor/personal human parachute was named Fredrick and he had the best french accent and said my name like this: "Taylerrrr." For the ride in the plane we were basically riding a rattling old tin can up into the clouds. There were no seats so we sat in between our instructors legs. We were at the back and there were two other tandem divers going as well so I also had another instructor in between my legs. I've never had each of my limbs touching so many strangers. Even more, when you get to the right height it's time for your instructor to attach themselves to you. To do this you sit in their laps…for the remaining 5 minutes of the ride. Hellooo Frederick, nice to meet you!

When it was finally time to jump the door opened, the light was green and a pair of jumpers fell out of the plane and disappeared. WHOOSH and they were gone. Oh and the plane was so light that losing two people caused the plane to jolt up and then find it's stability again. I watched this happen three times before it was my turn.

We scooted up to the door, legs dangling and I screamed "I"M SO SCARED." Fredrick took that as his cue and out we went. I've never experienced such a weird feeling in my life. I was rushing towards the ground, there were fields below me and I couldn't do anything but scream, laugh, and take it in. After about 30 seconds to a minute of free fall time the parachute deployed and I laughed in relief that the most dangerous part of our trip was over. The rest of our fall was spent putting our parachute into corkscrews while Fredrick instructed me on pulling the cord to make us spin.

When we started approaching the ground Frederick reminded me to stick my legs out in front of me and to let him do the work. He asked me to try to stick my legs out and they wouldn't go very high. My suit and the harness around my thighs was SO TIGHT. "Highherr Tayllerrr. You can dewwww it." And I used all I had to pull them up…for the practice round…not even the real thing.

We finally got to the ground and as it got closer, and closer, I just dangled and waited until he told me when and the finally I heard "Now Taylerrr." I took the rest of my strength and pulled my legs out straight and we magically slid to the ground. It felt pretty dang graceful. Frederick unhooked me and I just sat there and said "THANK YOU! THAT WAS AMAZING!"

My legs felt like jelly and I watched as the other divers landed around me. When Jordan finally landed we walked towards each other, hugged and talked about how our minds were literally just blown.

If you ever get the chance to skydive I highly recommend it. It was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced.

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Certified Badass

Jack White, Mexican Food and Being The Fanciest People We Know

Last week I got a very early and very amazing birthday present from Jordan. My birthday isn't until August 27th but Jack White came into town on July 31st and my birthday dreams came true.

I'm a huge White Stripes and Jack White fan so this was basically as fangirl as it gets for me.

We decided to stay the night in Toronto so we got a hotel near the ACC and walked to El Catrin for some delicious mexican food for dinner.

I got a dee-licious watermelon Margarita to drink and Jordan got some sort of Mojito that had chilli peppers in it and burnt my soul when I tried to drink it. I'm a big sissy when it comes to hot stuff. To eat we had fish and chicken tacos, which is about as adventurous as the two of us get.

Afterwards we grabbed some drinks with friends and then quickly made our way to the concert.

I cannot express my love for this night enough. It was SO good. He played for two hours and basically made all my dreams come true…if I'm not being dramatic enough. Did I mention I love Jack White?

Of course I had to grab myself some merch to commemorate the night:

Honestly…the highlight of the trip was ordering room service in the morning. I was doing my makeup in the bathroom when the room service arrived so I didn't see them come in. When I walked out I was expecting to see a tray with our order on it but instead I saw a table that they brought in and set up with our breakfast.

We honestly thought we were the kings of the world. We were so pleased with ourselves for being so fancy. Of course everything was delicious :)

It was the perfect early birthday present and I couldn't ask for a better person to share it with (woah…that got a little too mushy there. I'll try to tone it down next time :)

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Jack White Enthusiast, Queen for a Day

A Night in the City

A couple of nights ago Erika and I made the trek to the city for our best friend Shauna's birthday. We walked the length of the city…probably about 3 times, we ate Mexican food, we came, we saw, we conquered.

We started off by parking our car and then immediately walking in the opposite direction of where we needed to go so Erika could pick up a gift bag from an event she had worked at. We walked back to the car and changed our shoes as a mid day break (I highly recommend having shoe variety during a day in the city). After more walking, a stop at Starbucks, and even more walking, it had been 3 hours and dinner had arrived.

We met Shauna and a bunch of her friends for work at La Carnita. It was a delicious Mexican restaurant that did not disappoint. We ordered for the table so we all got to try a little bit of everything. I'd definitely go back!

After dinner we made our way to the car once again, fought the post Blue Jays game traffic on the highway, and made our way home.

I love a good excuse to go to the city and it was the perfect, most beautiful day to spend walking around and talking with my best friend before we honoured another best friend.

Hope your birthday was amazing Ms. Shauna :)

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Proud Owner of Some New Blisters

Laze, Laze, Laze

If you're looking for me lately and I'm not at work then you can probably find me in my bed, or lying down somewhere.

Does anyone else get that laze haze where if they aren't obligated to do something then they will just lie around all day?

I'm soaking it up though because I think that's what summer is all about. You should spend all your free time lying around, reading books, watching Netflix, eating fruit, and working on your tan.

I have tried to be a little more productive lately though, I've been trying to work on my tan by going for lots of jogs outside. This may have backfired now that I have a racerback tank top tan but hey, the arms look great.

I do take a lot of naps but seriously, I just love them so much, especially when I can take them on my porch in the warmth.

I guess this is a prime example of work hard, laze hard.

Today I have to renew my license (Bye $80. Bleh), and workout because we're at Thursday here and I've only worked out once so far (say hello to three more workouts, body). The upside: I don't work until next Friday. So. much. free. time. Naps, reading, sleeping in, it's all going to happen. I like to dream big, yah know?

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Horizontal Enthusiast

6 Months of Resolutions…is Over!

<< Celebration! >>

The Six Months of Resolutions challenge is over. And I won! Woo. Sorry, I'm a bit competitive sometimes. 

The challenge this month was: no chocolate, candy, chips, lattes, fried food, or baked goods, you must workout 3-4 times a week, and consume 8 glasses of water a day.

My real struggle was not eating chocolate (I love it so) and making myself workout 3 times a week. I love to workout, but when I was forcing myself to it was just no fun. 

As happy as I was to see the challenge end, Tessa and I know that these challenges have kept us from eating a ton of horrible stuff for us and kept us working out consistently. So we decided to start another six months of challenges. Six Months of Resolution Pt II! 

We haven't worked out what every month will be yet, just this one. We are doing more tailored challenged. 

This month we both have to workout 4 times a week (ouch) and can only have fried foods once a week. I am only allowed chocolate once a week and only one serving of bread a day. Tessa is only allowed a latte once a week and one gluten-free sweet a week. 

We made this month a little more lenient so we could still enjoy something we've been missing, without diving back into it face first. The real tough part will be working out 4 times a week, but hey, I'm up for a challenge.

Join us if you'd like. Tailor it to you!

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown

Winner (Sorry Tess, I'm basking in my glory)

P.S Funny story: I have no idea who the guy in my photo is. Erika took this picture while we were in Toronto this week and had gotten some free noise makers for the World Cup final game. I put this picture on instagram captioned "Just pretending to care about soccer in the streets of Toronto and sketching out the stranger behind me." And someone I knew actually recognized that guy and alerted him to the fact that he was the "sketched out stranger." How amazing is that? I wish I could be alerted of every photobomb I've ever done haha!

I Am Comfortable with my Uncomfortableness

<< A little wisdom from GIRLS for you >>

In February I went to a weekend long Life Coaching retreat for Women Who Run It. I spent three full days in a room with twenty other people learning to be a life coach. While I had zero intentions of becoming a life coach, I was writing a story and chose to soak up the experience as much as I could.

I learned a lot more than I ever thought I would that weekend. I completely pushed myself to spend a weekend with a room full of strangers. I was totally outside of my comfort zone but one woman's words really struck me. Her goal for the weekend was to be "comfortable in my uncomfortableness."

What she meant was that she was completely uncomfortable being there, much as I was. This was definitely a taxing experience for someone who feels introverted around people they don't know. She knew that no matter what, she was going to feel discomfort, but she was choosing to accept it, be comfortable with it, and push past it.

I think of these words a lot when I'm trying to push myself past my comfort zone.

One thing I try to do a lot is to stop hiding behind my cell phone. It's kind of an anxiety blanket. If you're sitting somewhere and you don't know what to do, you pull out your phone. Unfortunately it shuts you off from the world.

I try now to sit by myself and take in my surroundings, or even read a book, which actually gives off less of a "leave me alone" signal.

To prove my point: I went to an event a couple months ago and instead of sitting on my phone I sat quietly and watched the people around me. A girl approached me, asked me if the seat next to me was taken, and we struck up conversation.

Also, I was at a bus stop reading a book and a guy asked me what I was reading. Books are actually a good segue way into conversation.

My next adventure in becoming comfortable in my uncomfortableness will be going to a coffee shop to enjoy a book a la Shoshanna:

<< This scene in Inglorious Basterds has always seemed so cool to me. It looks like a good way to spend an afternoon >>

Even further out: enjoying a meal without any "alone armour" like Carrie did:

<< Just truly enjoying your own company>>

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown

Comfort-Junkie in Detox

Summer Reading

So far this summer I've spent every Saturday reading all day (or at least until I have to go to work at night…which I always do). It's been amazing. I always lay out on the deck and read, read, read until something like taking a shower or making something to eat pulls me away.

Sometimes I feel a bit guilty about lazing around all day but I guess it's better than staring into a tv, amiright?

I guess it's even more okay because I'm working towards a goal. I want to read 10 new books this year.

So far this summer I've read:

1. Orange is the New Black
2.  How I Live Now (Not new, just an old favourite)
3. An Abundance of Katherine's

And I just started Go Ask Alice. 

I've read all of these in the last four weeks…I don't want to brag…because who would brag about reading…so I won't.

Oh Summer, it's just so good. I think I'll let myself laze around for the rest.

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Lazy Person Posing as Someone Productive

#swipestrike

Have you heard about some of the injustice that has happened over at the Tinder headquarters?

Watch this video to learn more and join a movement again sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace:

Also, don't forget to use the hashtag #swipestrike on twitter and to share this video with your friends on Facebook. 

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown

Supporter 

Making Things

I'm a pretty big fan of DIY's despite the fact that in the end, making something yourself tends to cost you a little bit more. As a broke girl I put this aside for a few reasons:

1. It's fun!

I spent most of the afternoon making necklaces yesterday. It's a great way to do something productive and creative, and it keeps you away from the computer screen that I'm so often glued to.

2. It's a good chance to get outside

A lot of DIY's are done outside because…paint. I got a nice little bronze going yesterday afternoon!

3. You create something unique

Even if you're following a DIY that you've seen online or re-creating something you've seen in a store, it's unique because you made it. It will inevitably have little imperfections and special things that are unique to you.

4. You'll cherish it more

I'm pretty sure the things that I've created personally will stay with me longer than something that I bought at a store. These are the kinds of things that I'd want to keep until I have kids of my own. They're just special that way. Also, how fun is it to tell people you MADE something after they ask you where you got it? The answer is lots of fun.

I've been wanting to do this DIY for a while now and I finally went to the craft store this week and made the leap. 

Here are the results:

I'm pretty happy with the results :)

All together the materials cost $50.00, which means these necklaces were about $25 a piece. This may seem like a lot but I think it was worth it. I love them a lot.

Not all DIY's are expensive though. Check out what I did last week:

That's right! I painted that bad boy! And all together the entire bench cost me $20!

Last summer someone on my street had put the bench out on garbage day and I swooped in and carried it back to my house (with the help of my boyfriend because it.is.so.heavy). I finally got around to painting it last week (mostly because my mom was threatening to get rid of it if I didn't). It was in pretty bad shape. The lacquer was peeling and it needed a good sanding. I got a belt sander and did some magic, spent a ridiculous amount of time taping the metal, and attacked it with some spray paint. It's not perfect by any means but I'm a big fan.

I wonder what I'll make next!

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
DIY-Enthusiast, Paint-Covered and Sun Kissed

A Broke Girl Dreams of Europe

One of my biggest and most exciting goals for the next year is to go to Europe next summer. My boyfriend and I plan on saving tons of money this year so that next summer we can spend 2-3 months touring Europe.

There are a lot of reasons why we want to go but mostly because this is the only time in our lives that this will be possible. We'll never be younger, free-er, adventurous, or more willing to stay in hostels. We want to make sure we read the book before we die.

Today I started some research on Pinterest. Hey, there's a lot about a lot on there.

So far I've found some great info on some of the best places to travel, pinned tons about how to travel cheap, and pinned a bunch about how to pack for a backpacking trip (this is my biggest and most irrational worry about this trip).

So far we've decided that we want to go to:
* London
* Paris
* Amsterdam
* Germany (Munich, maybe Berlin)
* Rome
* Venice
* Greece

We'll probably add and take from that list as we plan but I'm excited to see how it goes.

First things first: I need to save about 5 grand. So far I have…$200. I think I'll start an adventure fund to keep me motivated.

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Future World Traveler

A Month of Running and Juicing

Today marks the final month of the Six Months of Resolutions challenge!

I've already shared my experiences in juicing with you but the other part of the month was running at least 10K a week. This was actually pretty easy for me. I'm a runner anyways so it was just about making sure I got out to go for those jogs. Tessa and I did miss a week when I was too hung over one Sunday to run the last 3K I needed to reach 10 (whoops) and Tess had moved back from B.C that week so she had zero time to run.

The hardest part was having to make every workout a jog. When I go to the gym I like to do interval training and I dabble in the art of the stair master, but I couldn't do that because I had to get those kilometres in. This month's challenge should make that a little easier since we only have to workout 3-4 times a week.

The score sits at 8 for Tessa, 9 for me. This month is my final chance to win, and there are lots of places to mess up so I have to be very focused!

The challenge this month: No chocolate, candy, chips, lattes, fried food, or baked goods, you must workout 3-4 times a week, and consume 8 glasses of water a day.

Don't worry, I consumed my fair share of chocolate and chips yesterday in preparation. Chocolate covered almonds have become my vice lately so I had to say one last goodbye. I'm hoping this month will break me of my obsession because it was getting a little out of hand!

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Chocolate for Breakfast Enthusiast

Office Mornings

Fridays are always good days for me. Even though I have to wake up earlier than usual, it's great because I get stuff done, get out of the office by noon, and have the rest of the day/weekend ahead of me. And I get to rock some of my favourite blazers. Working from home for most of the week really creates an appreciation for the opportunity to actually get yourself together before 2pm.

There's even more to be excited about because I have a good weekend ahead of me! Tonight I'm heading to Toronto with Erika and Emma to meet up with our friend Shauna to enjoy dinner and a movie. We're seeing The Fault in Our Stars and let me tell you, I'm beyond excited. I read the book a couple years ago so I've been pretty excited about this since I found out they were filming. I'm very prepared to cry excessively throughout the entire thing.

Saturday I work at night so that's a good opportunity to makes some cash, and Sunday Jordan is having a BBQ. Sounds like a good weekend to me!

Every second in between those things I'll probably be hiding in bed watching the new season of Orange is the New Black that just came out. I'm a real self-starter like that.

Enjoy your weekends!

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Shameless Public Cryer, Netflix-aholic

A Woman of Many Jobs

When I left Toronto I vowed to never work a part time job again. Two weeks later I was giving my resume to my sister's friend in hopes of getting a serving job. I'm a little backwards like that apparently.

When I got home I realized that even though I had no bills, I was still feeling like I was stretching it paycheque to paycheque. I don't understand it either. I also felt like I had too much time on my hands. It didn't feel very productive and I figured that if I was going to try to occupy my time, I might as well make money doing it.

You're looking at the newest hostess in town:

You read that right. Hostess. Apparently my lack of serving skills held me back a little but I've been told that there's room to move up once I've gotten a hold on the menu/depending on my performance.

It's been fun to get a new job, meet new people, learn new things, and get my butt out of the house. Because I work from home I need something else to make me feel like I part of society sometimes!

On top of that my mom offered me a data entry job on Friday mornings so I come into the office bright and early and put numbers in a database, look at spreadsheets, and all of that fun stuff.

So that makes three jobs when you count my Monday- Thursday Editing job. I actually like having three very different jobs to go to. There's no juggling required because they all fall into different availabilities and hopefully I'll start to have enough money to have fun and save.

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Associate Editor, Hostess, Data Entry Specialist

Juiced Up

As part of this months Six Months of Resolutions challenge Tessa and I were to complete a 10 day juice cleanse at some point throughout the month.

Last Tuesday Tessa texted me to let me know she had started and I figured "hey, might as well have a partner in my misery" and started up the day after her.

The rules were that you had to do 10 consecutive days of juicing. If you quit on the 4th day then you would get 6 points against you (and so on…you get the point). If you still had time in the month and wanted to try for 10 days again then you could with no points against you if you completed it. Knowing what I know now, no one would EVER do this twice.

Truthfully, I felt little to no joy during my juicing experience.

Here are a couple photos. I didn't get many because of my sheer lack of a will to live, or do anything at all.

What I Juiced
My favourite vegetables to juice were spinach, kale and carrots. Spinach is high in protein, carrots have a sweetness to them so they blended in wonderfully, and kale is apparently some kind of superfood.

I was initially a big fan of the combination of apples and oranges in my juices, but that was before I discovered pineapple and strawberries. Unfortunately too much acidity made my tongue feel a bit raw by the end of it.

I tried to do a 1:1 ratio of fruit to vegetables. This helped mask the vegetables and left my juice tasting yummy!

Note: never, EVER, juice beets. They are the worst. Don't even try. It's a waste of time and tastebuds.

How I Felt
During the cleanse I felt very strong (mentally…definitely not physically).

I had low energy throughout but I felt incredibly alert mentally. I'm usually exhausted at night when I'm watching tv but I was always feeling very focused and awake.

Physically, I was a different story. I didn't work out during the cleanse because I knew that burning calories when I was probably not taking in enough already was not a good idea. I was really subdued during this. Usually I'm jumping around like a crazy person and talking a mile a minute. On the cleanse I was more quiet, less compelled to be talking all the time, and more likely to be sitting down and conserving my energy. People found this really weird and always assumed I was dying. I told them to enjoy it while it lasted.

This is another annoying side effect: everyone will assume you're either close to passing out, not feeling well, or have taken up an eating disorder. While cleanses are generally a healthy idea, especially when done right, most people can't wrap their head around not eating. I heard a lot of grief from my family but had no energy to listen to it.

The Much Anticipated End of the Cleanse
Tessa and I both tapped out on our 7th days of juicing. When she quit I knew that my motivation would drop, the next day I was picking something up from the mall and said "Ah to hell with it" and grabbed myself a slice of pizza (apparently that's not what you're supposed to eat after a cleanse but it was so worth it).

My stomach definitely shrank because yesterday all I had was a juice at 10am, pizza at 2:30pm and by 8pm I knew I would't be needing dinner. I also lost 6 pounds which I assume will be easy to find since my weight loss was definitely attributed to probably being a tad dehydrated/ having nothing in my stomach at generally all times.

When I ate food I noticed 1) that I could barely fit anything in this dang stomach anymore (which is both a good thing, and a bad thing depending on how you look at it) 2) my energy came back pretty fast. Last night I was back to my old self. Jordan said that it was as if everything that I was too lazy to say in the last 7 days had been stored up and was coming out now that I was fuelled with food again.

In Conclusion...
I would not recommend a juice cleanse because:

1. They are generally pretty miserable
2. You can't workout
3. Some of my weight loss was probably due to muscle loss because I barely moved in those 7 days
4. Not eating food is the worst
5. You tend to crave things you never would have before and when the cleanse is over you'll probably eat them (ex. my trip to Pizza Pizza).

These are just my opinions of course, so do with them what you will. I'd definitely recommend buying a juicer so you can get all of your fruits and vegetables in as part of a healthy, balanced diet, but do so once daily, not for 7 days straight.

Now Tessa and I are back to making sure we run 10k a week next week (we decided not to run this week because as I said, burning calories when you're already consuming less than normal is not a good idea). As far as we stand in the challenge right now I have 8 marks against me and she has 7. Don't worry, I've got big plans for a comeback before this is all over.

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Functioning Member of Society Once Again

Desk Organization

Do you ever have those times when you just feel like your life is a mess? 

They really tend to stress me out.

My best solution is always to go to Target and find an organization solution.

Last week at work I felt like I was completely out of it. There were emails flying everywhere, I was flipping through my notes wondering "Did I write that down?", and remembering things right before I was finished that I was supposed to remember in the morning. It felt really stressful and sent me into anxiety overdrive.

Right when I finished work I hopped in my car and made my way to Target so I could find some kind of balance for myself.

Luckily I found some amazing stuff that was also completely adorable.

I got myself a gorgeous gold letter holder, file folders, a brand new notebook for my daily notes, and two kinds of sticky notes. 

I immediately got to setting my desk up:

I've been using this system for about a week and it seems to be going a lot better. I write notes on my stickies and they peek through and remind me of things to do. My next step is to work on getting a little filing system going for my folders.

I know this may sounds sad, but these are the kinds of things I get excited about my friends. I've also had a thing for the stationary aisle.

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Organization Junkie

A Month Without Fried Foods or Alcohol

The latest in the Six Months of Resolutions challenges was to live a month without fried foods or alcohol.

I would never have guessed that this would be a difficult month for me, but it turned out to be!

I went out drinking one night during this month because hey, a girl's got to live a little. What was weird was that I practically never drink but this month left we really wanting a glass of wine or a mimosa. Why of all months did that craving come in this month?? You always want what you can't have I guess.

It was actually the fried foods that caught me up, specifically fries. On good Friday my family basically looked at me like I would be disowned if I didn't eat fish and chips, and it just looked so good I had to take another notch against me. I ate fries one night at my boyfriends house because they specifically made them for me, who can break a person's heart by refusing that? And then one day I completely forgot and got fries with my meal! Fries, fries, fries.

So I ended the month with four new notches against me, so five in total for this competition. Tessa had a couple slips as well and she has a total of four notches against her.

We've moved onto the next month now. We have to run at least 10k a week and complete a 10 day juice cleanse at some point this month. Tessa and I have already started our juice cleanses and don't worry, I'll update you on that when it's over. Just to give you an idea: you don't know struggle until you've agreed not to eat solid food for ten days straight. I'm on day four…it's a struggle. But there's benefits as well!

You'll hear all about that soon enough!

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Fry Fanatic