Pointless Title Because I'm not Feeling Creative Today...

(Hey, at least it still starts with a "P," so that's gotta count for something right?!)

Happy Friday my lovely ladies! Before I get into my regular post, I have some "housekeeping" stuff. With all the hoopla over Google Reader and GFC lately, here is just some quick information for y'all... First of all, GFC isn't actually going away (yet), so stop freaking out about that. The two things are completely separate. You can still follow via GFC, and keep up with blogs from the Reading List right on your Blogger dashboard. Only Google Reader is going away on July 1.

Second, although it's not going away yet, there's no guarantee it'll be here for long, so you might want to think about other options to follow me, such as through my BlogLovin profile. You can also subscribe via email, through the little box on the right side bar, under the GFC widget. In addition, don't forget you can always follow me as well on Twitter and Instagram (@halierenee 88 for both) for other random shenanigans, and I post all blog updates on Twitter too. And on that note - I don't have Facebook fan page for my blog, but I'm thinking about making one. Any thoughts/opinions on that? Should I do it? And is it worth it?

Moving on now! Today I'm going to try something new, and switch from my usual Friday's Letters, and instead join Lauren @ From My Grey Desk for High Five for Friday! Super simple, but should be super fun :) And hopefully I'll meet some new blog friends today through this new link-up! If you are stopping here from HF4F, make sure to let me know, so we can exchange an email or two at least :)

1. Wore my very favoritest t-shirt the other day for my run/workout, and I loved it. It's little penguins that are lined up to look like a piano! So cute :) And definitely the softest and comfiest shirt I own.

2. Ran my fastest mile yet on Wednesday!! (While I was wearing the penguin shirt.)

3. This frozen yogurt is soooo delicious. I mean for real. And for only 110 calories for 1/2 cup, that's not too shabby, huh?! I just gotta be careful I don't get carried away with it though...

4. Had a great 1-mile run and 60 minutes of Zumba on Thursday for my workout session.

5. Did a LOT of laundry earlier this week (that's not even all of it in that basket, there were about 15 dresses hanging up to dry still), and I've actually put almost all of it away already! Which is a huge accomplishment for me...

I'm actually not too sure what all I've got planned yet for the weekend. Things are still kind of all up in the air right now, and I'm fine with that! Means there are lots of possibilities :) If it's not freezing in the morning (although I think it's supposed to be), my friend Sara and I are gonna go for a run/hike at Maclay Gardens. Then hopefully I'll be going to the beach in the afternoon with Jeff and some friends of ours. The high for Saturday is supposed to be like 78 or so, and I really hope that happens. Sunday I seriously need to do some grocery shopping, and maybe stop by Kohl's and Old Navy too - just to check out what they've got goin' on there ;) And of course I'll try to get in a workout or two as well at some point.

What are y'all's plans for the weekend? Anything fun? Is it warming up where y'all are too?! I am sooo ready for spring and summer and warm weather and sunshine!! And it's so close I can taste it!

Penguins Made Me Run Faster

First of all, this is post #300 for me! Hooray! It's been two-and-a-half years of blogging, 300 posts, 502 followers, 28,300+ page views, hundreds of photos, funny posts, serious posts, brave posts great new friends, amazing connections, fun link-ups, lots of support and encouragement...I sure do love this blogging community! :)

But anyways, normally I don't really have any sort of posting "schedule" for Thursday's, and I just write about whatever I find or feel like or wanna ramble about...And today is no exception. And even though I just did my Weigh-In Wednesday post yesterday like normal, I still have more to talk about today, so I'm doing another "fitness & health" related post today!

And really, this post is mainly about how I just have to brag on myself here guys, because I was soooo pumped about it yesterday. After work, I tried to go to the high school I always run at, but there were TONS of people all over the track and field, so I'm guessing it was probably the track and field team or something. (It's like I'm Sherlock Holmes or something over here, right?!) So instead I went and ran down a big multi-use trail close to where Jeff lives (for you Tally peeps, I was on Blair Stone), since it was such a nice day outside!

(And my shirt is little penguins, all lined up to look like a piano :) It's called the "Choir of Antarctica." I ordered it from Threadless a while back, and it's definitely one of my favorite t-shirts. Because it's cute obviously, but's it's also super-duper soft and comfy. You should check out Threadless.com for some awesome stuff. I have two others from there as well, and they're also some of my favorite t-shirts.)

Side note: Let me stop for a moment to interject here and explain my one-mile routine, because I don't think I have yet... I use the RunKeeper app on my iPhone to track my runs, and I have it set up for the lady to talk to me every quarter of a mile. So I run/walk/run/walk the first mile, alternating at each quarter-of-a-mile mark. So essentially, if I stick exactly to that routine, I run exactly half of the mile, and walk exactly half of the mile. (Then when I'm on the track, for the second mile I run the straights and walk the curves.) But lately I've gotten better at being able to run more of that last quarter-of-a-mile, instead of walking that whole time, which is how I've been slowly improving my time...

But even as pretty as it was, it was still pretty hard, because there were huge giant hills I had to run up! But since I was on my official "run" quarter of the mile, I stuck it out and ran up the whole hill instead of giving in and walking. And then once I reached .75 miles, I walked for just a little bit, and then decided to start running again. I checked the time on my phone, and I was somewhere in the 12-minute range. And I decided that I wanted to finish the mile somewhere  under 13:30. So I kept running. And I pushed harder. And I was breathing so heavy. And I kept telling myself, "Just a couple more steps and you're almost done. And you're gonna do this in under 13:30. You're going to."

So I ran a little further for a little bit longer. And then the lady finally told me I had reached one mile. So I quickly unlocked my phone and took a screen shot as fast as I could. And at first I didn't even realize what the time said. And then I took another look, and this is what I saw:

And I almost had a fit!! Not only had I done it in under my goal of 13:30, but I actually finished in 13:04. Holy crap people! That is by far my fastest mile I've done so far!! As of yesterday, I told y'all my fastest had been 13:47. So that was 43 seconds faster than that!! I seriously didn't know what to do with myself. I was exhausted, but I had run a mile away from my car, so I had no choice but to run that mile back. So I kept on truckin'. And it was pretty slow, but I still pushed myself when I could. And even with a slower second mile, I ended up finishing the two miles in 28:41, which is only 40 seconds longer than the two miles I did last Friday. I'd say that's a pretty great time still!

Then I drove the couple of minutes to Jeff's house, and decided I wasn't done working out yet. I did a whole ton of stuff with my little hand-weights, and went through a couple of those Pinterest-style circuit workouts  for my legs, booty, arms & waist from my "Gotta Get Fit" board. At the end of all that, I had worked out for a total of one hour, and burned 608 calories. Dang. I think I'm becoming someone who likes to exercise?! Weird.

I can't prove this or anything obviously, but I think those little penguins helped me run faster. I mean, penguins in general are always my little buddies. And maybe the ones on my shirt were cheering me on yesterday instead of singing like a little choir. Cheering for me to run faster and harder and longer! And just maybe it worked ;) Oh, and even though this isn't about the scale today, I would like to announce that I'm back down to 195.5 today. For a total of 21.5 pounds lost in 2013!

And today I'm linking up with Katie @ KTJ Weighing In, for the non-scale victories link up.

P-cubed: Say My Name

Yesterday, lots of ladies around the blogosphere participated in a link up (with Amber @ Brunch with Amber) to share why they picked that particular name for their blog name. Well I was doing Weigh In Wednesday, so I missed it yesterday, but I decided to join in and link up just a day late :) So here's a simple story about why I picked my blog name, P-cubed/P-to-the-third, or better known as:

"Penguins, Pasta & Polka Dots."

So, I first started my blog in August 2010. I had just graduated college that April, and I moved away from the college town and a lot of my friends who still lived there. Then for the first 10 days of August, I went on an epic road trip with 5 of my best girlfriends from Florida > North Carolina > Tennessee > New Jersey > New York City, and then we reversed the whole thing back down. And it was amazing!! (And I just realized I've never written about it on this blog, so that'll definitely be coming up soon!) 
While on that trip, we got on the topic of blogs, because my friends Megan and Kaley already had them, and I kind of wanted to start one. I was afraid though that I wouldn't know what to write about, or that I wouldn't have anything interesting to say, and so I was kind of slow to take the leap. However, they convinced me that I would be good at it, and that I should just start one, for no other reason than to stay updated with my friends in other cities. 
So the very night I got back home from our road trip, I started setting up this here blog! I'm definitely a words kind of girl (meaning I love words, and hate numbers), and I've always been a fan of alliterations. Thus, I knew that's the direction I would go. And then from there, it just kinda happened pretty easily! Penguins, Pasta & Polka dots are easily three of my very favoritest things, and they just all flowed together so nicely! 

The first post wasn't anything exciting, but I sure liked writing it. And it definitely set into motion a momentum to keep me writing. I purposefully made my first post title start with a 'P'  as well, in order to mimic the title of  my new blog. Then the second one kind of happened on accident the next day. And then my friend Dani suggested I should make ALL of my post titles start with a 'P'! And decided to accept her challenge, even though I wasn't sure I could do it for very long. So as we were driving around town doing errands that day, my Mama, Papa and myself made a list of every single P word we could possibly think of, and I took notes on my little iTouch. We came up with hundreds of words that day!  Now I keep a list of all the P words in a bulleted-and-alphabetized Word document, and strike through each one as it get's used. (Can you tell I'm a little weird and OCD about things sometimes? Please someone tell me you do weird stuff like this too...) Right now, there are 455 words on my list!! It gets added to occasionally as I think of new words or realize ones that have been left out. And I try to not repeat words I've already used in titles - but there are definitely still repeats. For instance - the three words penguins, pasta and polka dots have been used multiple times, but I've given those a free pass for unlimited repeats, since it is the blog title and all. But I'd say out of my 289 published posts, only about 10-15 of those have other repeated words!  I hope some of you have noticed that each and every title starts with a P, because sometimes it's really tricky to think of something that makes sense with that post, but I work hard to figure it out each time! I know a couple of you have mentioned you noticed it, but only after months of following me! Haha :) I've considered trying to stray away from it, but I just can't seem to do that yet. So I'm going to try to keep it up for as long as possible on this here blog!  Well, that ended up being wayyyy longer than I was expecting! Hopefully that wasn't boring for y'all, and that you still want to stick around, even after a rambling post such as this one...I'll try to be more exciting tomorrow, although I can't really guarantee that if this stupid cold won't go away! I'm still sucking down an enourmous amount of hot tea and Emergen-C, and going to bed early. Super exciting right? Anyways, at least it's Thursday, which means that we're getting very close to the weekend :) So happy Thursday!

Paris, Pens, Playlist, Planner & Pink

I am 'stealing' this idea from my friend Bri over at Breezy Days. She just did this yesterday, and I thought it was so cute, I had to write it down so I could do it someday myself. But I just couldn't wait and started working on it right away, so that I could just post it today! Plus, I've gotten a ton of new followers from a giveaway I'm participating in, so I figure you newbies might like to learn a little more about me. And besides, we all know how much I love lists, right?! 

Well I decided to add a little spin on things, and also add in a few more categories, so here we go!

Sets of FIVES

Five things you'll find in my purse...

1. There's almost always a bottle or two of nail polish in there

2. Six, colored Sharpie pens, that no one else can write with...

3. Burt's Bees chap stick. Always. 

4. Hand lotion, because I hate it when my hands feel dry

5. Little pouch full of gift cards waiting to be spent until I lose more weight (don't want to buy clothes now, then quickly shrink out of them in the next couple months!)

Five things you'll find in my bedroom...

1. Tons of stuff that doesn't have a 'home' so it just sits around somewhere

2. Stuffed animals, even though I'm 25 years old

3. Almost always or pile or basket of clean clothes I don't feel like dealing with

4. A bookshelf stuffed to the brim, and still piles of books on the floor...

5. Candles on just about every flat surface (bookshelf, vanity, dresser, night stand, knick-knack shelf...)

Five things I've always wanted to do...

1. Get a tattoo!

2. Go to Paris

3. Learn the guitar, although recently I've changed that to ukulele ;)

4. Get married

5. Meet and pet a penguin!!

Five random things I'm currently loving...

1. My beautiful engagement ring :) P.S. - Y'all getting tired of me mentioning that? Hope not, 'cause I prob won't stop...

2. My running playlist I made for myself

3. Veggie burgers - just sans bun for a little while since I'm trying to be super low-carb

4. Blogging. But duh, I always love that. It's just been sooo much fun lately! Thanks to you wonderful peeps :)

5. A lot more pink than usual...Turquoise is supposed to be my favorite, but I've been rockin' a lot of pink lately

Five weird quirks I have...

1. I always have multiple water glasses in my room, because I can't drink it again once it gets dusty overnight

2. I'm OCD about really random things (bed sheets, labels, my planner, placement of things)

3. I get creeped out easily and get the heebie-jeebies from the most random stuff. Like, a LOT.

4. I can kind of imitate Mickey Mouse, especially when I say, "Oh boy!" and sometimes when I laugh

5. My toenails must always, always be painted. Otherwise, ew.... I hate it.

Five random songs from my running playlist...

1. 22 by Taylor Swift

2. What Goes Around Comes Around by Justin Timberlake

3. Thrift Shop by Macklemore

4. Keep Holding On by the Glee cast

5. Babel by Mumford & Sons

That was fun, and easy! Just my favorite kind of blog post :) You guys should play along too if you want, because I always like learning more about my blog friends! So what are some random things about you??

Penguin Teapot & Friday's Letters

Dear Life: Why do you have to be so hard sometimes? I mean for real...I think I've dealt with enough in my life and I simply don't want it right now. Any of it. So back off, would ya? Because I could use a break right now.

Dear Family & Boyfriend: Thanks for being the bestest and for supporting me through all the craziness this week. You guys really have helped me feel better when I've needed it, and I thank you for your love and support.

Thank you again for this sweet card, boyfriend :)

Dear Bank Account: We're so happy right now! We reached our goal of $_,000 before my 25th birthday, in both my checking and my savings account! Woohoo! Now let's not get crazy and spend too much money around the holidays, OK? I like it where you're at now, so let's keep it that way for a while.

Dear Boyfriend: You looked so cute making homemade cookies the other night :) And they tasted delicious as well! Also, tonight we're going to the Victorian Christmas in Thomasville right after work, and I'm so excited. It should be lots of fun, and just the kind of activity I love doing with you! I can't wait to see what it's like this year!

Dear Readers: I just realized that in past two shorts months, you lovelies have tripled in size. Holy moly. In the beginning of October, I had 50 followers, and now I have almost 160. This is amazing to me, and I'm truly so glad you're here! If you're new around here, which most of you are, then welcome! Glad to have you! If you've been around for a while now, I'm still thankful to you peeps as well :)

Dear Dani-Pants: Thank you so much for sending my a little package in the mail. That was so sweet of you, and it was a great week to get it, since things haven't been so great this week. I had already painted my nails pink on Wednesday, so as soon as I got this on Thursday, I found some little pink flowers that went perfect! Thanks again so much for my random surprise :) You're the bestest!

Dear Sister: I had fun planning some wedding stuff with you last night! Things are coming along nicely, and I'm sure it's going to all be so pretty. Oh, and of course we're so excited about our bridesmaids dresses coming in early!!!

Dear Hallie: I'm so excited and looking forward to our upcoming link-up collaboration! It's going to be so much fun, and I hope we get a lot of participation from both of our readers. I am also looking forward to making some new friends too! So peeps, be on the lookout next week for a fun link-up with me and Hallie from Life: Oceanside! :)

Dear Mama: Thank you so much for my tiny, new penguin teapot! It is adorable and I love it, and I can't wait to use it more. It's just precious, and was such a cute surprise gift this week :)

Dear Instagram: I love you. I am obsessed with you. Thanks for all the entertainment you provide. And thanks for all the pictures in this post today. You can follow me here if you want, or my username is HalieRenee88

Friends, this week has indeed been a little rough. I can't yet say on this blog what all is going on, but I will say that if you're the praying type, I would definitely appreciate some prayers to be sent my way. There's some hoopla going on with one of my two jobs, and it's breaking my heart. We'll leave it at that for now, but just know that I'm OK, but could definitely use some extra prayers around here.

Oh a happier note though - I have a fun weekend ahead of me, and I'm really looking forward to that! Like I mentioned earlier, we're going up to Thomasville, GA, tonight, tomorrow we have two graduation parties, I'll get to spend some time with friends and hopefully get some rest as well. I hope y'all have a lovely Friday today, but an even lovelier weekend!

Parade, Penguins & Parties

Dear Penguins: Thanks for coming to my office and decorating for Christmas. I love seeing all of your cute faces, and you did such a great job! Feel free to invite a few more of your friends to come before the season is over. We always welcome more penguins around these parts.

Dear December: I'm so glad you'll be here tomorrow! I'm already in the Christmas spirit, but you really kick it off for everyone else who's been waiting around  for an engraved invitation. And tomorrow we're going to the Festival of Lights downtown, so that will make two lighting festivals for us this year! But this one has a parade!

Also, I've made an awesome activity calendar for Jeff and I for the month, and I can't wait to do some of these fun Christmas activities with him! And I wrote them all down on this little calendar that I picked because I knew how much he would like the cute little robots :) (You can find more cute stuff on their website.) Even if we aren't able to do every single thing, every single day, at least we have plenty of options to choose from on the days where we do want a Christmas activity!

Dear Fingernails: I'm sorry I've neglected you and you've been completely naked basically all week. I promise we'll make up for it and do something cute this weekend. And if I do something "fancy" enough, that will make nail art design #10 of 10 before my 25th birthday! And then that will be another goal I get to cross off :) Maybe a Christmas theme to kick off December? As if I'm not already Christmasy enough right now...

Dear Family: I'm so excited to decorate the Christmas tree on Sunday afternoon! And put up the rest of our decorations all around the house as well, of course. Get ready for my peppy spirit and some Christmas tunes while we do everything, because you can bet I'll be all over that.

Dear Boyfriend: Thanks for taking me to Japanica, where our chef was talented enough to breath fire out of his mouth after cooking our meal for us. Awesomeness I tell you. And the food wasn't so bad either.

Dear BFBC Youth: We're having another ugly sweater Christmas party on Sunday night, and I'm sooo looking forward to it! Last year's was so much fun, and we saw some truly ugly sweaters. So make plans to attend again, and please show up in the most hideous Christmas sweater you can get your little hands on! I'm going to be wearing one myself, and I promise we'll have a great time!

Sooo does anyone else notice how much I mentioned Christmas in all these letters? I'd say I'm a tad bit excited, but that's probably a huge understatement. I'm thrilled!

Perpetual Organizer

I am absolutely a Perpetual Organizer. I get serious joy out of organizing, straightening, and rearranging. Only slightly OCD right?! But for real. There's something calming, stress-relieving and therapeutic about simple organizing and streamlining, to make my life just feel a little bit better! This past weekend I did some major cleaning in my room, and it feels so much better. I tend to keep my floor space pretty neat and tidy, but I pile up all sorts of nonsense in about four different places around the room, and it then proceeds to drive me crazy. But no longer! I tidied ALL of those places up, and it's such an improvement. I literally smile when I first walk into my room now, because the tidiness of the place just makes me happy! (Holy moly I'm a huge dork...)

But anyways...one of those newly super clean places is my bookshelf. I tidied up the top, which had become a catch-all for all sorts of mess, and then actually organized my books as well. I loaded up an entire box to donate to Goodwill, as well as a box of ones I wanted to just store in the basement for a while. Then with all that new space, I was able to reorganize the rest of my books. I actually had huge amount of books in 5 *giant* stacks, (three in my room and two in our family "reading room.") And now they've all been shelved!

These first two photos are the BEFORE shots, and that's my dog Mollie's crate down there. The top of it was one of the spots that I tend to just throw things and forget about ever putting them where they belong... don't worry though, all the stuff has been cleaned up, and her crate has been put in a better/less obvious spot in my room now!

Before any cleaning of the shelf or the crate...

After cleaning/moving the crate, but before organizing the shelf.

And now here are all the pretty pictures of how it looks now! I took off the ribbon of earrings, and did some purging of those as well, threw away some old perfume bottles, stored my college graduation regalia, cleaned and organized the right half of the top of it, and dusted the whole thing. The bookshelf itself is pretty old, and wasn't even new when I first got it. It's had some better days. Maybe one day I'll do some real work on it to get it into better, more attractive shape. But it works for now, and it at least looks nicer than it did before!

See my little penguin friend down there?! So cute :)

However, even with all of this new-found space on this bookshelf, I still couldn't fit all of my books onto it. So I had to house some more out in The Annex (as I've now dubbed it), in the family reading room. Most of these were books from college classes or I've read them already or something like that. Basically, not the ones I wanted the most access to, thus why they were chosen for The Annex. 

 

Quick story about The Annex - my dad and I found it for $10 at a garage sale a few summers ago, and I loved it. I bought it with the intention of painting it, but ended up liking the color more than planned. I think it's actually supposed to be a record cabinet, because there are a ton more shelves that aren't in there right now. I just think it's so cute, and my favorite part is the little scalloped edge at the bottom. Even though I didn't get a good picture of that cute detail, you can slightly see it from the inside of the door on one of the pictures...

So that's that! Newly organized and neatly arranged bookshelves. Makes me a happy, OCD lady :) However, some of the pictures in this post makes me realize that I should bust out my real camera a bit more often, rather than relying on my trusty iPhone for everything...oh well. Next time, right?

And Happy Organizing to you too!

Penguins Laugh Too

My sweet friend Jenni thought of me when she saw this the other day, and posted it on my Facebook wall. And it is just the cutest little thing. It starts out kinda squeaky, but then it just get's precious. It made me laugh and coo and get all silly and giggly, and I loved it. Check it out...

I don't think I realized that penguins can laugh like people do, but apparently they can! And apparently they can also be tickled. This just makes me love those little black-and-white feathered birds even more. So stinking cute! Who wants to buy me one?? Please and thank you :)

Penguin love to my dear friends and family :)

Perfume & Other Collections

I have little collections of the following happy things:

PENGUINS. Duh. They are just the cutest little things! For a long time I couldn't figure out where my obsession came from with these furry little waddlers, but recently I've been able to pin-point it. I believe it started from that old chipmunk movie when they go on a balloon race competing against the Chipettes - "The Chipmunk Adventure." Well, the girls end up finding a baby penguin somehow and take care of it for a while. I loved this movie when I was real little, and I think this is what started my penguin obsession. I haven't watched it in forever, and I've really been wanting to watch it for the past year or so. However, I can't find it anywhere, and not even Netflix has it on DVD or streaming. So instead, I'm thinking it's time to order it on Amazon real soon. :)

EARRINGS. Oh man do I love me some earrings. I have this tree in my bathroom, I have another big earring holder in my bedroom, and then a ribbon nailed across the top of my bookshelf where I can dangle even more. I'm just recently getting into other accessories (rings & bracelets), but I've got the earring department covered. And I'm sure I will never have "too many." In fact, I haven't gotten new ones in a while, so that might be happening this weekend. I mean - I'll need new earrings to match my new Easter dress, right?!

COFFEE MUGS. This isn't a collection that I've really been working on very much, but it's one I want to grow a lot more. When I grow up, I don't want a set of typical, matchy-matchy coffee mugs. Instead, I want a ton of them that I've found and collected and been given over the years. I much prefer that over having 20 mugs that all look the same. I think that would be so much cuter, and I like that eclectic look.

RESTAURANT MENUS. I have been collecting these since about my sophomore year in high school. One of my friends started it, and then I joined her for a while. Then, I just kept on doing it on my own, and now I must have over a hundred or so of these! Sometimes I ask the restaurant for them, sometimes we just sneak them out. :) It's fun and exciting, and I like having little memories from random times of my life. I have menus from Colorado, New York, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, all over Florida and everywhere in between. And I have accomplices as well - sometimes my parents do it for my when they go on trips too! Unfortunately I wasn't able to pull out my entire collection for the photo. I was taking the photos around 11 pm, and I didn't feel like digging the giant box out of my closet. So these are the ones that haven't made it to the box yet. (Maybe when I clean out my closet, I'll take a few more pics of the whole collection.)



PERFUME. It just smells so lovely, and I can never pick just one that I like the best. I know a lot of guys and girls that can pick one smell and stick with it forever. I am just NOT one of those people. There are too many yummy smelling perfumes out there to use only one. :) Right now I have about 23 perfumes, and 4 or 5 body sprays. And I usually wear a different one every day. I definitely do have my favorites though - like Versace "Bright Crystal" and Dolce & Gababban "Light Blue." Luckily, both of those were Christmas gifts from my Grandparents, otherwise I probably couldn't afford to buy those for myself! Another favorite is "NYC" by SJP. (Sarah Jessica Parker) It smells absolutely amazing - so of course I like it for that reason - and the bottle is real cute. (It's the one in the back left of the top photo with the different panels.) But I also like it because of the memory that comes with it. Megan and I bought it together in the giant Macy's on our NYC trip, and smelling it always reminds me of buying it with her, and of our trip together!

Pet Peeves, and more...

These posts are sometimes easy to fill out, and sometimes fun for the blogger, and I hope sometimes interesting for y'all to read... :)
Here are the ABC's of ME!

Age: 24
Bedsize: Queen
Chores I Hate: Folding and hanging clean laundry
Dogs: 2 pups - Mollie (a peka-poo) and Squirt (a beagle mix)
Essential Start to Day: I love me some bold, strong Keurig coffee
Favorite Color: Teal/Turquoise - although any green-or-blue-ish color usually grabs my attention
Gold or Silver: Usually silver, but I really like gold too
Height: 5 whole feet... :)
Instruments I Play: Piano - although not very much anymore
Job Title: Senior Clerk (at the state) & Associate Minister to Students (at my church)
Kids: In the future, yes please! right now I still am a kid for the most part...
Live: The lovely, sunny Florida
Mother's Name: Amy
Nicknames: Halez, Hazel, Habie, Big, Hazelberry, Rene,
Overnight Hospital Stays: Two nights for Giarda when I was 2 yrs. old. (Mama reminded me of this!)
Pet Peeves: Labels facing the "wrong" way (I'm actually quite OCD about a lot of stuff...)
Quote: "Live in the Sunshine, Swim in the Sea, Drink the Wild Air." by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Righty or Lefty: Righty
Siblings: Sister, Megan - 21 & Step-Bro, Drew - 19
Time I Wake Up: Around 7am, although I should get up around 6:45am
Underwear: Um, yes? (This is a weird one...?)
Vegetable I Hate: I can't actually think of any that I hate - I quite enjoy veggies!
What Makes Me Run Late: Other people usually - I tend to always be on time, if not early
X-Rays I've Had: Only on my teeth I believe, I've never actually broken anything!
Yummy Food I Make: Pasta Salad. (Check out my friend's blog, where she featured my recipe!)
Zoo Animal: Penguins. Duh.

Personalized Cubby

I have finally gotten around to making my cubby more personalized. Before I just had a few random things that I could manage to grab real quick on my way out the door - like a lamp, a starfish picture and a small stuffed penguin. But now I have gotten pictures printed, and frames brought in. And those pictures have been put in the frames, and/or taped up on the wall. And I like looking around in here now. :) 

I am still going to get more printed because I want some of my New York City trip last May for graduation, and the G.A.R.T last August with my besties, and my family vacation from this June...but for now, I am happy with it, and I think it looks cute.

Here are some of the cute things in my new cute cubby :)

Love y'all.

Penguin On My Desk

Last week I moved into a new cubby at work. I have my own tiny little space now, and I don't even mind it's technically a cubicle. (I am in a long office, with two doors, split by a 5-foot divider and a bookshelf...) It's mine and it's private and I like it.



I have slowly been bringing in a few items every day in order to make it look a little cuter, and I just wanted to share this little guy, because he is way cute. And he of course goes along with my theme/title. His name is The Admiral, and I like having him on my desk. Now I just gotta get some polka dots up in this cube. Probably not gonna bring in any pasta to decorate with though...but definitely to eat at some point.

Peace, Love and Penguins ♥

Profile Facelift

In honor of my 1 Year Anniversary of Penguins, Pasta and Polka Dots, I gave the old profile a face lift. Do we like? I know I certainly do! (I'm very much into all things yellow right now, and so I'm loving this new color scheme.)

For the record though, my blog-iversary was actually August 11. But I'm celebrating a few days later... :)

Much Love.

Penguin Watch?! Yes, Please.

So, I want a "fancy-ish" gold watch. The kind with rhinestones around the rim, and the dials on the inside. But I can't afford to pay an arm and a leg for the beautiful ones like Michael Kors makes, like this beauty...

So instead, I've been searching on Amazon to find a much more affordable option - maybe something like this...

In the meantime though, I've found this treasure - and I think I like it. I think I want it. Actually, I think I need it...

Penguins, Pasta and Polka Dots

I own all of these penguins, including the penguin cookie jar. (You can make fun of me if you like, but I love my penguins...) My PJ pants are here. Mine and my sister's comforter's are both polka dots. (Mine the aqua/green combo and Meg's the pink/orange combo.) Those are also my books. And those are pasta recipes I like. ♥