Author Archives: kellynotkatie

Blogtober Recap… I DID IT!

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I DID IT YOU GUYS! Today is the last day of Blogtober 2017 and I completed it!!! It was a close call on a few days, but I set out to complete 31 posts in 31 days and this one will finish me out. It was kind of a fun challenge (and y’all it really was a challenge…) but I can definitely see why I do not post every single day the rest of the year.

Some of the favorite posts I made this month were:

A Quick Hello from Kelly (Not Katie)

Just a quick hello and some fun facts about me!

10 Things to Know Before Moving to Dallas

Just what it sounds like – 10 things I wish I’d heard before moving to he best city in America.

My Favorite Christian Podcasts

Some of the MANY podcasts I listen to, and I love that I get something out of these.

Random Ramblings

Some some of the random thoughts that were bumbling around inside my brain.

I Took a Baking Class (and so should YOU!)

Sharing my fun time taking a macaron baking class!

And just like that, October is coming to an end! I don’t know if I’ll ever participate in this kind of challenge again, but I’m glad that I did it and I’m glad that I stuck it out!

Did you participate in Blogtober, too? Let me know, I want to check out all of YOUR posts!!!

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My Favorite Halloween Tradition

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Trick-or-treating was always pretty fun growing up. Getting dressed up in costumes (my all-time favorites were Dorothy, a 50’s girl, and an Oompa Loompa!) and going out with family and friends – what’s not to like! Besides it being super cold and having to wear a winter coat that covered the amazing costume. That was always kind of a bummer. But while walking around and going house to house was great, my very favorite part of Halloween happened AFTER trick-or-treating!

My favorite Halloween tradition: trading candy with my sister!

Every year my sister and I would come home, get into our pajamas, and immediately spread ALL OF OUR CANDY on the living room floor. Then the sorting began. The sorting was the most important part. We would get all of our candy into neat little piles so we could assess how many Skittles, Snickers, etc. we had. Then it was time to look over all of the candy, decide what we wanted to keep and what we wanted to give away.

Now the exciting part…. the TRADING! My sister and I would spend SO MUCH TIME bartering back and forth, trying to get rid of the candy I hated (like Nerds and gobstoppers) and get more of the candy I loved (like ALL of the Reese’s cups!) We would also eat some candy here and there during the trading, but it was very important to focus on the task at hand.

Finally after a while when we both felt satisfied in how we had changed up our candy situation, the trading floor would close, the candy would go into the pantry, and we would go to bed in a slight sugar coma.

So that’s the best thing about Halloween in my eyes. I can’t wait for my nephews to get older so I can make sure that this tradition continues with them. I’m sure my sister will teach them the importance of trading candy, but don’t worry, I’ll be there to make sure.

How to Decorate for Halloween When You Don’t Really Feel Like It

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I don’t think that I’ve ever really been too into Halloween. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVED dressing up as a kid and going around to get candy was pretty much the ultimate things, but I’ve never liked scary movies and I even remember being kind of nervous about all the scary costumes walking around (I totally blame this one neighbor we had in San Antonio who was dressed up and sat motionless on the front porch, waited until we had rung the doorbell, and then JUMPED to scare us! It was all in good fun and wasn’t that traumatic, really, but I WILL NEVER FORGET!)

Now that I’m a grown-up, I still don’t really care too much about Halloween. And this year I (for some reason) volunteered to have a Halloween gathering at my place and then realized uhh…. I HAVE NO DECORATIONS!!!! So, I ran to Target and grabbed a few little things. It took all of 20 minutes to “decorate” my place and I think it turned out just fine!!!

I got: an orange plastic tablecloth, a Halloween banner, some paper straws (everybody loves paper straws!!!), orange light bulbs, orange twinkle lights, cobwebs, and white candles for the fireplace. That’s it! I love how it turned out, and my friends said my apartment was just and “festive enough,” so I’m calling that a win.

Once Halloween is over and I take these (minimal) decorations down… I think I’ll go ahead and start decorating for Christmas! I have the PERFECT spot for my tree this year, and I didn’t really decorate my place at all last year, so I’m feeling extra antsy to get some holiday cheer in my new apartment!

Falling in Love with Stretching (Again)

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Back in high school, I was part of the color guard for the marching band (you know, the really cool people that spin flags and toss wooden rifles metal sabres). It was so much fun, and I was in the best shape of my life! All that running around and training and throwing around heavy-ish objects is really great for the waistline, tbh. But another great thing about being on colorguard was the fact that I was SO FLEXIBLE! We did INTENSE stretching before every practice/performance (which was necessary before dancing and jumping as much as we did) and all that stretching really added up. I could do the splits every which way and kick all the way up to the sky and you get the picture.

Fast forward to recently and I am…. less flexible. A lot less flexible. Somewhere along the way, stretching got out of my regular habit and man, it really shows. I can NOT do the splits any ways. I can NOT kick all the way up to the sky. I can barely kick higher than waist level without bending over. #yikes

I’ve been trying to get back into stretching lately, and thankfully I remember the stretch routine that we did back in high school. It definitely takes a while but I’m slowly getting some of my flexibility back.

I wanted to share the routine that I do for stretching at home, but I can’t figure out the best way to do so… so instead I’m going to share another stretching video that I have used and love!

Are you big into stretching? Do you only do it when you workout out or do you stretch other times, too? I’ve been trying to remember to stretch every night before going to bed – hopefully I can keep it up for a while!!

 

Five for Friday #39

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Happy almost weekend, friends!! This week has been so confusing – I literally thought it was Thursday EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. So you’d better believe that I’m glad it’s finally past Thursday and we made it to Friday! I can’t wait for this weekend – I’m having people over for a movie night tonight (delicious food and friends, yes, please!) and tomorrow I’m going to hang out with some LLAMAS!!!!!! Ahh!!! I can’t remember the last time I was this excited – I hope that it is actually amazing and not a total let down!! It’s going to be chilly tomorrow morning when I go, and I’m so excited to finally bundle up a little and spend some time with cutie llamas.

I hope you guys have a super fun weekend, too! Here’s what I found and loved this week!

one || I’ve been trying to REALLY focus at work this week, and that meant that I was listening to a lot of music with NO words. I found the score to The Good Wife (a legal show I’ve kind of been obsessing over lately) and it is great – give it a listen! It’s string-heavy, which I love, and kind of propels me to work faster. (Just skip the last song.)

two || The 21 Unwritten Rules of Flying. This has some language in it, but I agree with just about all of them. Number 4 (never ask somebody to watch your stuff) reminded me of once in the Baltimore airport where somebody asked me to watch THEIR TODDLER (I didn’t actually say yes, but the lady just walked away) and she was gone for a solid 10-15 minutes. Not cool.

three || THIS VIDEO. Love love love!! It was made by someone in my college town (he would come speak to us about blood drives, so we’re pretty much bff’s… haha) I’ve watched it about 6 times and it is making me feel inspired – I hope it inspires YOU to make something where you are, even if you don’t live in NYC or LA or some other big “creative” city.

four || Brunettes rejoice – we can now have #unicornhair without bleaching or dying our hair first. What?!?! I’m not going to show up to Thanksgiving with magenta hair… but… I kinda want to…

five || These pumpkins are TOO CUTE!!! I probably won’t make them this year since Halloween is so close and I’m running out of time…. but NEXT YEAR!!!