Notes & Goals

I'm Victoria. It is so nice to meet you! Follow me as I work towards my yearly goals. See below for the list with links to all the related posts. Here is where I also put fun things that I see, find, read, and love! Past Goals: 2012 2011 I can also be found on my website, my photo blog, flickr, twitter, pinterest, goodreads and vimeo.

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Summer Routines

I have a few additional goals I want to accomplish this summer.  Most of these are things that I want to add to my daily/weekly routines:

Shoot one roll (or 10 images) of film every week. Mail off film every 6-8 weeks.

Create a house cleaning routine, so I don't have to do it all at once. Run dishwasher after breakfast is completed while we are at work. Do not let clean clothes sit in the dryer.

Blog more.  One photo post every week.  One goal post every week.

And a few non-routine goals:

Do not buy anything for myself the month of June.

Decide whether to close Loving Care Photography.

Decide whether to combine this tumblr with my photography blog.

Finalize photos for our wedding album.

Edit short video clips for our honeymoon summary.

Post honeymoon photos.

Do you have anything you want to accomplish this summer?  I'd love to chat about any and all of these and yours!

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Goodbye Facebook App

This past weekend I took a break from Facebook.  I deleted it from both my iPhone and iPad.  Since I rarely go on my computer over the weekend I wasn't tempted by the bookmark I have for it.  I didn't miss it at all!  I still haven't put the app back on my phone, but I did check my notifications on the computer.  I like the idea of not having facebook on my phone.  I won't be tempted to check it throughout the day.  I won't miss anything!  I might put it back on my iPad, just for ease when I'm relaxing in the evening, but maybe not.

I did go on Pinterest a lot more this weekend, since I didn't have Facebook to fall back on, ha! Pinterest always makes me hungry since I follow so many food boards.  I love Pinterest for visual bookmarking and getting inspiration.  I used to have a ton of photos saved on my computer for interiors and hair cuts, but now I just use it on Pinterest.  But it is easy to get lost on there for way too long.  I will need to work on this!

I have also trimmed my blog reader down again to only my favorites.  I follow a lot of bloggers on twitter, so if they have a post that sounds great I can read it that way. 

And I am still loving Instagram, so I do check that a lot!  It's just fun to see.

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Last week was terrible since I didn't plan out our meals.  Now I want to get back to it, so I spent some time with a stack of magazines and came up with the below list:

May 26th Meal Plan:

1. Sunday - Sautéed shrimp and seared scallops with asparagus

2. Monday - Buffalo burgers with grilled onions and roasted cauliflower (Burger and onion recipe from DDPYoga)

3. Tuesday - Crock Pot Balsamic Chicken

4. Wednesday - Jesse grilling fish he caught himself and broccoli

5. Thursday - My parents are coming over with a take-out dinner

6. Friday - Slow Cooker Beer Chicken with brown rice and crispy green beans

7. Saturday - Sweet and Sour Panko-Crusted Scallops Stir Fry (Recipe from Clean Eating Magazine April/May 2013)

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Wedding Planning

Hello all!  I'm sorry i've been so MIA around here. I really love these goal posts, so I want to get back to updating them and reflecting.  It helps hold me accountable and keep me optimistic.

My wedding was absolutely amazing!  The best ever!  It was worth all the hard work and money spent.  I will be reflecting more on the day in another post.  Right now, I wanted to tell you how I did on my "Not be a Bridezilla" goal.  As well as the last two weeks leading up to the wedding.

And I can successfully say I did great!  The week before the wedding, my mom hosted my bridal shower since all of my English family was in town, so it was great to be able to include them.  Plus, none of them had ever been to a bridal shower before because it is an American thing.  My Gran was hilarious as always. :)  That same day, the men (Jesse, my dad, my uncle, my cousin-in-law, and Jesse's uncle) went deep sea fishing.  I was a little intense on them to put on sunscreen.  And to not get burned.  I didn't want them to look like lobsters in the wedding photos!  But, I knew I would feel this way so I allowed myself to be "bridezilla" about this one thing from the beginning, haha.  I wasn't that bad about it though!

But honestly, I wasn't that stressed leading up to my wedding.  I didn't let it get to me.  I wanted to enjoy my time with my family and with Jesse's family.  I even went to my regular workout class the Wednesday before my Saturday wedding!  People thought that was hilarious, but I wanted to feel great on the day and working out helps with that both physically and emotionally.

Something else that helped was planning a date night with just Jesse and I the Thursday before the wedding.  Our families had been in town since two weeks before the wedding, so we hadn't had much time for ourselves.  We weren't eating very well because we were always having dinner with them.  But I wouldn't change that for a second!  Our date night was wonderful!  We had sushi at our favorite place and enjoyed each other's company as two single people.  I would recommend this to anyone getting married!

I second guessed myself a few times.  I wasn't sure it would come together.  I went with all white decorations with a few champagne accents.  I started worrying things would too bland.  My mom said no it will look great.  I believed her and moved on.  She was right of course.  And everything looked amazing!  And the whole day felt wonderful!  And I was glad I didn't stress too much about the little stuff.  And it was all little stuff.

I was tested when my mom's friend who volunteered to be our hair stylist/makeup artist dropped out on us due to a family emergency five weeks before the wedding.  I understood and wasn't angry.  I only had three dreams about my wedding in almost 16 months of planning.  And each time it centered around her not showing up.  So I was almost relieved.  I was too busy at my new job to do anymore vendor searching, so I enlisted my mom to call around for me.  I did give her a couple leads and she took it from there.  The first five places we called were already booked that day for multiple weddings.  Eventually my mom found a place with both a hair stylist and make-up artist available!  My trial run with them a week later was amazing!  They were so nice and I immediately knew I would look beautiful!  Even this problem worked out better than I expected!

My advice: Weddings are fun but they are stressful.  It's important to realize that the marriage lasts a lifetime and it isn't just between you and the groom, but also your family and your groom's family.  Invitations, dresses, decor, etc isn't as important as you think.  It will all come together.  Focus on one thing at a time.  Set deadlines for yourself and research all that you want until that time.  Then make a decision, and stick to it.  Try not to second guess yourself.  I promise it will work out.

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Oops!

I didn't get around to planning out our meals this week. Which also means I didn't get around to going grocery shopping yesterday. I get lazy when it is cold. I decided we should order pizza last night. Bad decision. We feel so gross today now. I woke up to having no milk or bread for my usual toast and tea breakfast. Oops. I would go grocery shopping this weekend, but I am doing my wedding makeup and hair trial after work. Not my best moment of planning. I will have to go tomorrow after work, but that doesn't help us with lunches the next two days! I must be better especially as the wedding approaches in < five weeks!

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February 3rd Meal Plan

Actually no meal plan this week. I did go grocery shopping today though! We have a lot of frozen chicken, shrimp, and scallops so we will be eating that each night.

SUNDAY Super Bowl - taking out wings from Hooters

MONDAY Jesse is preparing something since I am working out after work

TUESDAY Eating at my parents!

WEDNESDAY Again I am working out after work, so Jesse will be preparing something - probably shrimp and scallops and broccoli

THURSDAY I'll pick a chicken recipe I like

FRIDAY Again I have time to find a recipe

SATURDAY My first wedding dress fitting!!!

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I am not doing very well on cutting back my social media use. I have this crazy desire to catch up on everything! It is so weird because none of this stuff really matters.

My RSS reader feels overwhelming and I already cut it down at the beginning of this new year in anticipation of this goal, which included all of the wedding blogs except for two that are just great. There are some blogs I really love and they help me with business ideas or just life ideas. There are some others I love but aren’t useful. I don’t have the time to read everything anymore. I know I should cut it down to just the bare essentials that I can read while eating my breakfast/lunch/weekend for 30 minutes or so! This is going to be a weekend goal!

I have always had a love/hate relationship with Twitter and I’m in the hate part right now. I guess this is a good thing because I’m not checking it at all except to see if someone contacted me once or twice a day.

Instagram, while I love it, is tiring me out! I am always checking it and liking almost everybody’s pictures! I need some overhaul of this, but not sure how to do that except maybe to cut back on the number of people I follow!

Let’s see what I can get done this weekend where I will have a social media free weekend again to see if that helps cut it back!

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January 27th Meal Plan

SUNDAY Roasted Peppers & Shrimp Pasta (Clean Eating Magazine Nov/Dec 2012) MONDAY Thai Pork and Papaya on Couscous (Clean Eating Magazine July 2011) TUESDAY Coq Au Vin (Clean Eating Magazine Nov/Dec 2012) WEDNESDAY Pick up dinner THURSDAY Maple-Dijon Cod (Clean Eating Magazine March 2012) FRIDAY Curried Turkey Burger Sliders with Roasted Broccoli (Clean Eating Magazine July 2011) SATURDAY Spaghetti Squash with Chicken (Clean Eating Magazine Nov/Dec 2012)

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25/30 Days of Clean Eating

The holidays were bad this year for eating well. I was buying snacks which meant we were eating snacks. I wasn’t cooking much so we were eating out a lot. It just wasn’t good. One of my goals from last year was to try thirty days of clean eating. I never really got that opportunity last year and was always making excuses. But since I do have a wedding to be in soon ;) and the holidays were so bad, Jesse and I both decided to stop drinking until Super Bowl and eat as clean as possible. We are 25 days in since we started on the 2nd. We’ve been really good! Mostly clean foods, organic whenever possible, cooking at home instead of eating out, no red meat, and definitely no drinking. The first two weeks I really wanted a glass of wine, but that craving went away after that. I could have definitely enjoyed a bad snack once or twice but I didn’t give in to the bags of chips in my new office break room one time last week! I feel like I have more energy and I lost 5 pounds which is what I was hoping to do! Jesse has lost 11! Making my meal plans for the week on Sundays are helping so much. I should start posting them here as well. Tonight we had to go to Jesse’s boss’s house for dinner so we did have a glass of wine and ate steak. I was so tired after dinner and wine though! And I didn’t really enjoy it all that much. I am definitely enjoying eating this way. I know I’m not being perfectly clean in all my choices but it’s good enough for me right now.

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This month has been a whirlwind! Starting a new job, final wedding details, house stuff. I'm exhausted! I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with some wedding decisions. I wish someone could just make them for me. I want to make a post about my new house! Sort of an in-progress type of thing! What it looked like when we moved in and what it looks like now. I also want to go out photo shooting! It's been way too long. I miss it and I should plan on taking a walk around my neighborhood at the very least.

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In November, I did a thirty days of thanks where I actually thanked all of the wonderful people in my life.  I called/texted/wrote/emailed these great people and told them how important they were to me.  It was very fulfilling!  I hope to do this every year.  Some of it was repetitive, but I was just keeping track of it on twitter.  Anything is better than not telling people how important they are to you.

Grateful to have my brave, funny, caring, and beautiful sister in my life! How lucky I am!

I love my Mom! She is one of my best friends and I value her opinion so much!

I am so grateful for my fiance. I hope I can care for him as well as he does me. Live Goal: be a great wife!

I am thankful for my house. I love being a homeowner! So empowering! I love making a home with my best friend.

I am grateful to have a job. While not ideal, it has helped me buy a house, pay the bills, and have benefits.

I am grateful to be a citizen of a great nation where I am granted the freedom to cast my vote and voice my opinions.

I am thankful for my fitness studio: Beyond Motion. They helped me find a fitness routine I not only do, but love!

I am thankful for dinner and margaritas with a friend after work. It was great to chat!

I am blessed to be living in such a wonderful place! The weather and views are unbeatable!

I am thankful for the gift of love. And to have my own soul mate!

Thank you to all the men and women serving our country! I truly appreciate your sacrifice!

I am thankful for the grocery store! Silly but as much as I hate going I am glad I don't have to hunt and gather!

I am grateful for my Grandad. We shared many interests: dancing and photography included.

I am thankful for my exercise calss. The instructor is so sweet and the calss helped get me exercising again. And I love it!

I am thankful for my sweet future sister-in-law!

I am thankful for my energetic, cute nephew!

I am thankful for my future in laws. How giving they are and how well they raised their son!

I love being a homeowner!

Grateful to have a friend who I would feel comfortable talking to about anything.  Plus I love our pen-pal ways! 

I LOVED writing tomorrow's to-do list item: Read Magazines.  aka a day off from work

I am thankful for my Gran and her never-ending love. So inspiring!

Grateful to have a wonderful day to spend with BOTH of my families! And that my Dad was home this year!

Thankful to crash a 10-year high school reunion and catch up with old friends!

Thankful for my Wash U friends!  I was watching Senior Dances and just missed you all so much!

I am grateful for 17 wonderful years with our Chardonnay! We miss him every day.

I am so thankful for my father for his endless giving. Time, love, gifts, everything. I love him.

I am thankful for my Nana. She was an incredibly sweet woman and I am lucky I got to spend the time with her when I did.

I am lucky to have an Aunt and cousins who, despite distance, would help me out with anything!

I am so blessed to have Jesse in my life every day!

I got a little behind on #30daysofthanks, but I am so grateful for everyone in my life. My friends, family, fiance, house, job, and so so so SO much more!

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I decided to abandon my "Find or create a science club" goal from 2012.  I didn't have the time to do it the way I wanted to.  I was hoping to gather a few people to watch a science-based movie, most likely sci-fi but a science documentary once in a while, and then read an article related to it.  We could then discuss and bring our respective knowledge together for it.  I had a few bites of interest, but I knew I didn't have the proper time to devote to choosing the movie/article/time and even place to host it.  Then I kind of just lost interest in the whole idea.  I still love reading about science but I don't necessarily need to discuss it with anyone.

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Almost a bridezilla moment

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my mom about hiring a calligrapher to address my wedding invitation envelopes.  I love the look of white ink on a beige envelope.  Like the photo below:

Photo by Clary Photo via Style Me Pretty

This is just my perfect envelope: Kraft paper envelope, white calligraphy, vintage stamps. So for my invitations I ordered a latte colored envelope and had the return address printed on the back flap. My invitations look awesome and I am so thrilled with the result! More on that to come next month.  :)

So I reached out to a lot of calligraphers and only one got back to me.  She was not available to do the envelopes but I have hired her to do my escort cards.  So my mom contacted a local calligrapher and we got her samples.  We weren't thrilled with the result and decided that she wasn't worth our money.  I really didn't want to do it ourselves, because we can't get white ink easily.  I wanted a calligrapher to give me the above.  My mom didn't know what else to do and I almost freaked out about getting white ink.  Then I took a deep breath.  And realized what I was doing.  White ink...nobody cares what the envelopes look like, most people just toss them anyway.  I can't even remember most of my friends' envelopes and I save them (with the invites all tucked inside).  So why does it matter if I can't find white ink?  It doesn't.  I just had in my mind the above type of images from my Pinterest.  

Yes I do love it, but it just wasn't working out for me.  So I told my mom that I just wanted to do it ourselves.  My dad has beautiful handwriting and volunteered to do it.  And my handwriting is pretty good as well.  So we will practice and write them in the upcoming weeks.  I plan on mailing the invites on Saturday February 2nd.  And they will still look beautiful!

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What have I learned in my 20s?

I'm only 27 so I'm sure I still have plenty to learn, but a huge lesson that I learned this year is that a career doesn't define who you are.

Maybe it's obvious to know that, but for more than the first half of my twenties I was job searching! I have a full-time job but it is so unsatisfying and doesn't make me happy in the slightest.  I wanted to find my dream job.  Who doesn't?  It sounds so glamorous and how empowering it would feel.  A couple years ago I learned that there is no one dream job.  It is all work, whether you enjoy it or not. Sure there are jobs that can be a perfect fit.  But where I live, I know I am not going to find that for myself, it doesn't have the industry. I started my photography business in this time because I thought maybe I should make my dream career.

But this year neither "job" has made me happy, I realized that  I don't need the perfect job to be the person  I want to be!  Relationships and helping others are the key to true happiness.  If you can do that through your job that's wonderful.  But if you can't, it doesn't make you a failure and you CAN still be happy.  You just have to put more effort into other things.  I want to be a good wife, good daughter, good friend, and eventually a good mother.  None of that is dependent on what job I have!  If I can pay my bills while still achieving these things then I am a success.  This was a huge lesson that I am so grateful to have learned.

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As you read this I am wrapping up my first day of my new job!

In 2012, I had decided that with buying a house and planning a wedding, I didn't really have time to throw job searching into the mix.  Jesse and I planned for me to keep my job, try to be positive about it, really work hard to deserve a raise and get it, and then start searching for a new job after we got married and had a honeymoon.  I stopped complaining about it, as much.  I did work as hard as I could to change things.  But there was only so much I could do.

The best part about the job is that I had built up a nice large amount of PTO (paid time off) to use while I was wandering around Italy with Jesse for our honeymoon.  It also gave me some flexibility when it came to taking time off for wedding vendor appointments or buying a house.  Overall, though, the job wasn't very rewarding.

The first weekend of December my fitness studio was holding a anniversary/holiday party.  I wanted Jesse to go with me to meet everyone, but he had another event he had to go to. I decided to go by myself anyway.  While I was there I bumped into his old boss and his wife.  His wife is actually the person who suggested I start at the fitness studio, so I took the time to say hello to both of them.  It was a quick chat and I said I would pass on a hello to Jesse.

The following week, his old boss called Jesse to ask him a question.  Jesse missed his call and we both thought that he would be asking him to lunch.  Jesse called him back the following day and the question was about me!  He wanted to know about my current job and if I was happy.  He remembered Jesse had said that I would be good at "this kind of work" and wanted to interview me for a new position that he was currently trying to fill.  Since Jesse approved of the job, I set up an interview for the following week.  Honestly, despite all my best efforts I went into thinking I wouldn't like the opportunity or that it would conflict with Jesse's job.  We chatted for about an hour and really hit it off.  It sounded like I would be a great fit for the position: love working with numbers, organized, and strong attention to detail.

The following week I was offered the position.  After thinking and talking it over with Jesse, I accepted the job!  I feel incredibly blessed that this opportunity came to me.  It really is true that things happen when you least expect them.  I put in my two weeks notice on New Year's Eve.  It was incredibly surreal leaving my old job for the last time on Friday.  I wish them all the best.

I am now working for the same company as my fiancé, but in a different office.  The job is in the insurance and financial planning industry.  I am really looking forward to this job and I am taking the same positive attitude I started putting on my job last year to this new opportunity.  I must make it the best!  I will need to get my insurance license and my Series 6 or Series 7 by next January.  Wish me luck!

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I think my goal on "Comparison is the thief of joy." - Theodore Roosevelt might need some explanation.  There have been a lot of times where I would be looking at friends' stuff and feel like I was missing out.  And wondering why I wasn't invited.  Or I would get caught up in one of my internet friends' life and wonder why I can't be as happy as them.  Or whatever.  I would compare myself and my life and my choices to theirs.  Not only is that silly, but it is unhealthy!  I have decided to cut my time on social media.  I want to reach out and hang out with people and do the things that I want to do.  Real life doing is so much better than virtual life stalking sulking.  

I just want to do what makes me happy.  I want to spend less time online.  I want to make goals and actually achieve them.  I want to read books instead of watching tv.  I want to go for walks instead of surfing twitter/instagram/facebook/pinterest.

I turned off all notifications on my iPhone and iPad for my email and the majority of my apps.  I moved them off the first page of my iPhone home screen.  It was honestly scary at first.  But it is so freeing!  I already love it and do not miss having those bright red bubbles there at all!  I can check it when I have a free five minutes, but I'm not a slave to it.  I can check it, surf it, close it and then go back to doing something real.  I highly recommend it!

Last weekend I didn't check any of my social media outlets at all.  It was good, I did a lot of cleaning and planning.  But it wasn't great.  I don't have much time during the week to just veg out, so I didn't feel very rested after a busy weekend with no time spent online, just relaxing.  We'll see when I try that again.

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My Vision for 2013

Act for other people.  Making them happy is better.  Be a better friend.  Instead of thinking how they can help me, let me treat them to what they like!  Do good for strangers too.  Don't sacrifice my own fun and wants but don't rely on myself so much.  Life is about relationships.  Live in the present.  Celebrate the every day.  Make it fun.  Don't get bogged down with planning for the future or stuck in the past.  Feeling sorry for myself doesn't pay off.  Magical things happen when you live in the present.  Jesse comes first.  Always.  Our marriage will be our savior in the future.  Strong marriage, happy life.  Take the time to e active even if it is just for a walk.  Sitting in front of the TV doesn't help anyone.  Love on Jesse.

Making Things Happen in 2013