Fall Favorite #2: Scents

Another one of my absolute favorite things about Fall are all of the fun scents. My Supervisor at work always talks about how she burns "fall scents" at her house all year round. While I don't do that, Fall scents are definitely my favorite.

And I am a huge fan of my Scentsy. I love being able to turn it on when I leave for work or before I go out in the evenings and come home to a wonderful smelling apartment. Above are my favorite scentsy scents for fall (and Christmas time... I promise those will wait a while!). The big one is called Welcome Home. It is amazing and my very favorite scent. It's my signature fall/winter scent that I use most of the time while mixing in others. The others pictured are Pumpkin Roll, Cinnamon Cider, Cinnamon Vanilla, Christmas Cottage, and Cranberry Spice.

I highly recommend the scentsy!

But I also love my Yankee Candles. This year I have tried out small samples of Farmers Market and Pumpkin Buttercream.

And then there's this classic...

Nothing says Fall like a Spiced Pumpkin candle burning. Nothing.

Fall Favorite # 1: Clothes

One of my absolute favorite things about Fall is the fashion. I am not a very fashionable person, but I just love all the clothes in the fall. I love layering and I love my jeans more than anything else in the world.

Here are a few of my favorite things this fall:

Boots!! I love my cowboy boots that I bought last October. I pulled them out for the first time in a while this week and I just love wearing them.

Scarves are another Fall favorite. I love how easily they can add to a plain outfit and the color coordination I can do with scarves. So fun.
For some reason this year I am really into sweater dresses, I have bought a couple along with a sweater tunic and I can't wait to wear them. I even bought my first pair of leggings last week to go with all my dresses this fall!

Those are just a few of my favorites. I also love being able to curl up in my long pants and sweatshirt whenever it gets cool. And I'm a huge fan of jeans and a long sleeve shirt.

Last Summer Fling (...hopefully...)

Sunday I got to enjoy a gorgeous day at the lake with these lovely ladies and some other great friends. The weather was hot, the water was cold and we enjoyed a good afternoon of swimming and spending time in the sun.

As glad as I was that the weather held out for a day at the lake, anytime that fall would like to grace us with her presence would be awesome.

Here's hoping this is the last time we see that number in the forecast for several months!

Tomorrow I will begin my wishful thinking list with a series of blog posts starring my favorite things about fall! They will take up the next week as my countdown to my New Orleans trip with 2 of my friends from work (we leave next Thursday... it could not get here fast enough!). Stay tuned...

First Race

Last weekend I completed my first 5k... and I absolutely loved it. I have tried picking up running a whole lot of times and I just never really enjoy it. Last year I finally came to the point where I knew it was the best way for me to lose weight and keep it off.... but I still didn't like it. And once I saw that I was walking at about the same pace I was running I just wanted to give up completely.

But I've still tried to pick it back up over the last several months. This summer I fell into a pit of laziness. I don't know what it was. Probably a combination of record-breaking heat, losing my walking/running buddy, insane work hours, various trips, and busy schedules. None of those are good excuses, but I let myself become really lazy this summer. So when my friend Amy mentioned at the beginning of August that she signed up for a 5k in September and was looking for people to join her, I knew it was just the motivation I needed.

So even though I still remained fairly lazy, it did cause me to get up and get outside both walking and jogging. About a week before the race I jogged outside and was able to do 1 mile and I wanted to fall over (yes I'm that pathetic). It all goes back to the fact that I am terrible at pacing myself outside.

I went in to the 5k knowing I would probably walk most of it and get in some jogging. When my friend Amy told me that she usually kept an 11 to 11:30 pace I knew I wanted to stick close to her.

So we did most of it together and I am excited to say I jogged almost the entire thing. There was a hilly bridge and I jogged it on the way there, but walked up on the way back. Everything else I jogged.

I think my official chip time was 35:13. I'll take it!

Now I just have to remind myself on my daily workouts that I did 3 miles, so I can do it again!

When You're Exhausted you must Pay Closer Attention

So this week was very long and busy busy busy. I had several late visits and just spent a lot of time working trying to get everything in place. In addition to work I had busy evenings this week too which left me a little exhausted.... which leads to one of my stories of the week.

My hair is very oily. I can wash it in the morning and by the afternoon it looks like it hasn't been washed in days. I have tried the whole not washing it as often to help prevent the oiliness (because that's what I hear works) but after working out or running I can't just not wash my hair.

When one of my friend told me about dry shampoo last summer I thought it had to be too good to be true. But I found some at Ulta and decided to try it out. I will say it does not work miracles on my hair like I have heard others claim it does. It leaves my hair very staticy (yeah, I know that's probably not a real word) and stiff feeling. But sometimes I will use it if I washed and styled my hair the day before and am just going to put my hair up but don't want it to look completely gross (I feel like this post is really boring and probably more info than anyone wants to know about my hair, I promise there's a point I will get there now)

So in the midst of my exhausting week, I woke up on Wednesday and grabbed my bottle and started spraying it. After about 30 seconds I started wondering why it didn't seem to be working.

That's when I looked down in my drawer of hair products and saw my dry shampoo.

I had grabbed my Headrush (aka Shine Adrenaline). So instead of toning down the shine, I was intensifying it. Awesome. Granted, the bottles look very similar, but it still felt a little pathetic.

So there is my word of advice. Pay closer attention, especially when you are exhausted. Or just make sure all of your things look drastically different from one another.

Chase

So I've been absent from blog-world lately. Things have been very busy. I feel like tonight is the first time I've been home with no plans in at least a few weeks.

One of the major "distractions" of the last couple weeks is my brand new nephew Chase who was born on August 30th. I am totally in love with this little boy.

So without stalling, here is a blog post full of baby pictures. You have been warned :)

Just an hour old. So alert

With his proud Grandma

The diaper wreath I made for his hospital room. So easy but I thought it turned out pretty fun

Spent a Friday afternoon holding him in the hospital room instead of being at work. Best decision ever.

My Grandpa went to meet him over Labor Day weekend

And last, but certainly not least, my sister-in-law texted me this picture last Friday night saying Chase couldn't wait to see me on saturday. So I spent Saturday afternoon holding him too.

Isn't he just precious? (I know, I'm a little biased)