Focus on YOU Majie.

Focus on Self.

Focus on Maja.

Focus on Foutching Majie!

woop! I can do that :)

As most of you know, I am in my *hopefully-if-everything-goes-as-planned-even-though-I-will-have-no-life-what-so-ever*last year of my grad program. I love my program! It's so versatile and you can mold your  degree into what you want to do and focus on. It pretty much rocks my socks. HOWEVER, school starts up next Monday. Holy hairy sasquatch Batman! That is tooooooooo soon.

Needless to say, I am not ready. I want more summer. I want to stay up late with Will watching movies. I want to stay up late and  laugh with my husband. I want to stay up late and read magazines or my girlie books. I want to have my weekly Vixen (wine night/girlie TV shows/nails painting party) nights with Kelly. I want to wear jeans to work every day. I want to NOT have to  do homework when I get off work.

I love summer.

So, I decided to make the most of my August so I can enjoy summer to the max and enjoy this awesome free time that I have only during summer.

Goal ONE for August: read for fun as MUCH as I can! Yee-ah! I have already finished one book and started on another.  It was a fluff book and I freaking loved every silly-predictable-rom-com-moment of it. Every moment.  I love losing myself in a book. It's an awesome escape from the real world. I just started a new book by another chick lit author whom I have never read before. So far....LOVE. Emily Griffin....we are insta-friends! If you like Jane Green or Jennifer Weiner or Sophie Kinsella she is similar.

Goal TWO for August: like last summer I am giving myself a Pinterest challenge. I started out thinking that I would do one (or at least one) recipe from my "Rockin' Recipes" board and one other pin from any of my other boards. As much as I would like to do this I am also plugging away on WAM's growing project to do list. SOoooooo I have altered this to be do at least one recipe a week from my Pinterest board. Guess who loves this goal more than I do? That's right, Willie G himself. Bless his heart that sweet little guy thinks I am a good cook. Ha! I have him fooled ;) I am no cook, but I am an eager learner and I get really lucky in the kitchen....not like newlywed bow-chicka-bow-ow lucky, but lucky as in I don't read the entire recipe and directions before I start cooking and sometimes I improvise. So far, everything I made this month was edible and most of it was actually quite tasty. Go Maja go!


Here is what I made and the links to the recipes:

Pesto Chicken: http://www.cookglee.com/2013/06/how-to-make-juicy-grilled-chicken.html
(*Disclaimer, this one didn't have an actual recipe, so I just did what the photos showed and my pesto chicken turned out great! I made quite a bit, so I had pesto chicken for a whole week to put into my salads too. YUMMY!)

Zucchini Parmesan: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=2718
Delicious!!!! Enough said.

Parmesan Crusted Tilapia: http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipe-search/five-ingredient-recipes/parmesan-crusted-tilapia
(We LOVE Tilapia and eat it frequently. This was an easy recipe and so full of flavor!)

Crash Hot Potatoes: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/06/crash-hot-potatoes/
(I  could eat potatoes everyday of my life. Mainly mashed potatoes. These potatoes did not start out so well and we did not have high expectations...no offense Pioneer Woman....but we were pleasantly surprised! So good!)

Broccoli Bites: http://www.staceysnacksonline.com/2011/01/broccoli-bites-for-kids.html
(These are NOT just for kids. We loved them and devoured them. So tasty. So filling!)


So far I am loving August. Absolutely LOVIN' it.  Tonight I am making another Pinterest recipe....pumpkin brownies. You're welcome co-workers ;)

July = Booze, Wookies & Laughs

July.

If we stuck to the original plan, July would have been another "Focus on Self" month. When I took a look at my upcoming schedule of events for the month, I had to swap focuses. So, July 2013 was a "Focus on Relationships" month for me.

The month started off with me being married. w00t! It was awesome. We spent the first of day of July together. Will and I both took Monday off of work...which makes sense to me. Sunday we had a big garden party lunch with both sides of the family. So fun! Half of the family left Sunday and the other half left Monday. Since we'd been around so many people and been going non-stop for a couple of weeks, we decided to have a WAM day-married edition :) It was great! We slept in, which is always nice. Then we headed out for a day of fun….it was also really hot that day, so we were seeking AC! We had a lot of gift certificates, so what better than to head to Bed Bath and Beyond and spend money. The funny thing was that we bought a lot of big stuff and my car is only so big that Will had to sit in the back underneath all of our goods. Needless to say, I laughed the entire ride home.

After that we used another gift card we had for lunch at the Alehouse. Awww sweet bliss. Our favoritest place in Moscow. We enjoyed a yummy lunch and then headed to Pullman to use another gift certificate for the movies. You know what I like better than going to the movies is going to a free movie! We ended up eating dinner out too just to enjoy our WAM day and we still had gift certificates and money to spend. We soaked up the AC as much as possible and we had a good time together.

Two weeks after we got married, I worked an 80 hour work week. Never done that. Don't want to do it again. However, I did spend my week doing some pretty cool stuff. The week of July 7-13th was our college's Summer Design Week program. It's a summer camp for high school kids and they get to do some college level design work and have fun in Moscow. Plus, it's a good recruitment tool for us. I spent a majority of my evenings with these fine folks. It was no fun to be away from my new husband every single night, but I did have a blast with these three.

We ended each night by sitting around talking about the shinanigans that took place during the day. We made wookie noises, told hilarious stories about kids we weren't fond of, rode the Vandal trolley, almost punched people, carried torches, told stories of our childhoods, made jokes about everything and everyone, we laughed our heads off! These three, Lexi, Rachel and Michael are all awesome individuals! It was a great week and I know I couldn't have made it through the week without them.

The next big focus of July was WAM honeymoon. I could write a whole post dedicated to just that, but I won’t. This was our first true WAM only vacation. Kind of hard to believe, but it’s true. Lucky for us, we travel very well together. We are on the same page and vacation to me has the same meaning as it does to Will. No agenda. Sleep in. Do whatever you want! So that we did! We had a great time on the Oregon coast and can’t wait to go back. We hiked. We drank. We ate. We enjoyed some awesome seafood. We got wet on a whale watching boat. We saw wildlife. We went to two hippie concerts. We slept in. We lounged. We hot tubbed. We swam. We chased bigfoot. We saw a wedding. We drove 1,100+ miles. We saw Multnomah Falls. We made friends in Oregon. We got free stuff. We had a great time together. I really do love that guy and spending a week and a half with just he and I  was beyond awesome.

July was a great month. I had a blast and laughed harder than I had in a long time!

June = big price tag

Yikes. It’s been a long time. A REEEEEEEEALLY long time. Sorry for the unexpected blog vacation. I’ve had a long going on…

Let’s pick up where we left off…

June. June’s focus was finances which was perfect because June was a BIG, important financial (among other things!) month for us......WAM wedding!

June was also going to be a time when we spent a lot of money. More than we spent in a month ever. June was the month that we had two apartments. 2 apartments = 2 months’ rent = 2 strapped for cash young adults. June was when we paid the balances on our venue, paid our caterer, paid hotels, paid for various wedding expenses and last minute expenses. We had lots of family in town. Will had a bachelor party. We entertained guests. We had three family birthdays. I spent the week getting all the last minute wedding prep stuff done with my mom, sister and mother-in-law. This is not a wedding post, but a financial goal post. Back on track!

My goal for June, which you may think it is lame and simple but it was legit, was to have money in my bank account. And the wedding account. And Will’s account.  Again, lame goal, but after all the happenings that happened in June I think it is a realistic goal! I didn’t want us to have an awesome wedding and then be completely broke. Not a great way to start off married life :(  Weddings are expensive. Will and I aren’t the type that need to have the biggest and best of things. We are pretty simple and I love to DIY and craft. So that is what we did :)

We made due and we worked it all out. We were in the positive for all bank accounts and did not have to put anything on credit. Go team!

I think some things that helped us were creating a budget, strategic planning, evaluating ideas before making purchases, paying things off as we go along and just overall a budget for everyday life, not just for WAM wedding.

That’s it. Lame finance post. Lame goal. I can’t wait for July….