The Perfect Winter

I don't know about your hometown, but this LA weather has been super bizarre. One day it's freezing and all the clouds are black, then the next day it's beautiful outside, 80 degrees, and sunny. Can you say global warming? Anyway....

Chris and I are so excited about winter that we've already broken out the wool socks, beanies, fleece blankets, and candles. We've also already started to plan our trip to Park City with my sister and her boyfriend to visit my Aunt and Uncle for the Sundance Film Festival in January!

Due to my excitement, I'm going to ignore the perfectly sunny day outside, take advantage of my day off, pour another cup of tea, and show you a few things we love about winter!

Tea! A few of my favorites are PG Tips, English Breakfast, Green, and Peppermint! 

Dates by the fireplace! Chris is a picnic pro, inside or out of the house. I can always count on him to prepare a delicious snack for fireplace hang times.

Candles! You can never have too many candles. The best thing about winter candles are the amazing seasonal scents. My favorites: pumpkin, cinnamon, and spiced apple!

Cozy Socks! Well, all winter clothing will do.

As you may have read in other posts, this year has been filled with many firsts for us. This winter we'll be able to add so many more to the list!

- Chris's first Thanksgiving in the US

- Chris's first winter Christmas

- Our first Christmas together

- His first time seeing me perform in a ballet

xx D

Groover - Bouncing back after a wedding

Maybe it's just me, but there's was something exciting about the idea of getting back to normal life after our wedding. For the past few months our lives had been completely consumed by this party of a lifetime that unfortunately, my work hustle suffered. Being primarily self employed and responsible for finding the bulk of my work on my own, meant some serious time management between wedding planning and work life. I would easily say now that that is my downfall. Sure, I'm the 'To Do' list girl, the filer, the organizer, but for some reason I just can't manage my time well. I made a few goals for myself while I was laying on the beaches of Maui and a nice long 'Back To Reality To Do' list on the flight home. Here's what i'm finding is helping me get back into the swing of things...

#1 Exercise: Leading up to the wedding, I was doing some serious cardio and over all fitness, but one month visiting with out of town guest.... and not any guests, Australians, meant a lot of drinks and good food was consumed. My first dance class back was pretty much hell but the good kind of hell where you know the deeper the burn, the more you're getting done. I've since scheduled in some sort of exercise every day. This brings me to my next tip.

#2 Scheduling: Since my mornings are slow and I don't start teaching or rehearsing until the afternoon or evening, this is prime time to schedule in anything personal I need to do. Additional dance classes, blog posts, filing paperwork, responding to e-mails, etc. Even if I've only loosely plan out each day, I'm bound to achieve more with having a bit of structure to my days.

#3 Setting Goals: I used to hate the idea of setting goals because when I was younger I was worried that I wouldn't be able to live my 'free as a bird', 'whatever happens, happens', 'just live life' lifestyle. Sadly it's taken me until now to learn that I can still have those mantras while using goals to get what I want. My goals for the rest of the year are to perform on stage again. Get back in to pointe shoe shape, get an additional job, and make a financial goal to allow us to start house hunting. 

#4 Read More: This is a hard one because if I have free time, I either am spending it online, Pinterest, or while doing something on my never ending To Do list. Lucky for me, I've just joined a book club with some wonderful girls I work with. There's nothing like a little pressure to get me to do something.

We'll that's my plan so far, so as I bid you adieu, I leave you with pictures from my honeymoon to make you jealous! Aloha!

xx D