Leuchttrum 1917 Bullet Journal Notebook Unboxing

My Summer Goals

Although Summer started a few weeks ago I still wanted to share my top 5 goals for this summer. It started out as a much much much longer list, but due to some mental illness difficulties I have to cut it down. So since I’m looking at it I wanted to share it with all of you.

I want to see the stars

I’ve lived in the suburbs all of my life, and although I really do like living where I do I don’t get to see the stars… at all. Honestly I’ve never been in a situation where I can really see the stars without excess light or trees not covering them up. It wasn’t until a few months ago where my friend (now boyfriend) was waiting for me outside his apartment building that I really decided I did want to see the stars. He was telling me how he missed the stars, and what he missed about where he grew up. He was telling me about the stars, and now I really want to see the stars like he used to.

I want to improve my health

My physical and mental health have both taken a toll lately, and I want to do better with that this summer. I’m making plans right now but starting soon I’m really going to be hitting it hard with exercising, eating healthy, and working on my mental health. None of this will be easy and really I’m in it for the long haul, but you have to start somewhere and I don’t want to go down any farther so I wanna try going up.

Take More Photos

If you haven’t been following my Instagram for a while you might not know that the amount of pictures that I take and post has gone down. I want to do more of this because photography is something that I truly love to do. So I want to take and post more pictures as a way to document my days, interact with the world outside my house, and express myself more creatively. (If you have any photo ideas let me know!)

Read and Write More

The worst thing about college for me was that I wasn’t reading or writing for personal pleasure. So since graduating I’ve read two books and I want to start writing again. Although I didn’t do this a ton in high school, and these have both been things that I do when I have little to do I want these to be things that I do more often. I really do enjoy doing these, so I want to get back into it.

Smile More

This one is sort of my catch all. I want to do more things that make myself and others smile. Things that help others to enjoy their lives and just spread a little more joy in the world.

For the rest of the summer I will be vlogging some/most of these adventures, so remember to follow my blog and check up on my social media pages (@happysmiles159) for updates and stories!

What are your goals this summer?

See you soon,

~Amanda

Moana

So, this is sort of going to be a fun little post because I finally got to watch Moana with one of my friends. Now this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but we’ve been trying to see this movie since it was in theaters. BEfore I even started trying to see this movie with my friend he had been trying to see it since the release date.

When we tried to go see it in theaters we failed because we couldn’t get our schedules to match, so we agreed to see it when it came out on DVD. So fast forward to about a month ago when I was walking through target with my mom to find that it had come out. I bought a copy and got to watch Moana that night with my family. It was a good movie and I enjoyed it,  but I was still bent on watching it with my friend.

So the next week I had planned on going over to his house to watch the movie that I bad brought with me from home, but guess where the DVD was.

If you guessed at by mom’s house in the DVD player you’re right.

So that night we passed again, and rescheduled Moana for the next weekend. We still had a great time watching Game of Thones, though.

So I call my mom and she decided to mail me the DVD. And….I lost it. I’m really hoping that I find it while I clean my room to move, but at the moment that DVD is MIA and I had to buy a new one.

So that brings us to last weekend, where my friend didn’t really want to go home and ended up following me to target and then coming to my house to FINALLY watch the movie. This didn’t work either. Sadly, one of our other friends had gotten into a tight spot and he needed to go help her out.

But we finally got to see the movie, and we both enjoyed it.

Overall it was a great night, and I find it to be a funny story.

See you soon,

Amanda

Graduation Countdown Has Begun

I am incredibly guilty of having moments where things that I know are happening suddenly become very very real. Unlike last time, though, I can’t put this one off. The last time I had one of these moments was when Kurt asked me about a lamp and I realized that I would be moving in with him. Now we aren’t moving in together, but this time I can’t put my new “lamp” off.

Spring Break Vlog and Journal

Although Spring Break is notorious for drinking, partying, and amazing vacations that idea is always out of my grasp. So today I wanted to talk about my last Spring Break, and how a realistic and typical Spring Break actually is for many college students.

Weekend Vlog: Patrick’s Eagle Scout Award

Pros and Cons of Bullet Journaling

Every planner system has pros and cons, and it’s looking and figuring out those pros and cons that help us know what might work best for us. The bullet Journal is do different, and if you’re thinking about trying this system I think that you should defiantly continue reading. All of these come from my experiences with the system and no one else’s, so let’s start!

Pros 

I always like to start off with the pros because if I’m telling you guys about something odds are that I already like/love it.

The first pro that I have is that the system is totally unique to you. Since you’re the one creating it on a blank page you control everything about this system, and I do love that. It also allows you to be flexible with what you need. If one week you want a horizontal spread and the next week you want daily spreads go for it, it’s all up to you. I love the flexibility with this system (partly because this semester I’ve had a lovely habit of forgetting my notebook, so my bullet journal does have some class notes). It really allows you to get what you need in one spot, and I absolutely love that because as a college student everything is always changing.

Pry my favorite thing about this system is how inexpensive it is. When I started I spent about $5 on a new notebook, but in reality I didn’t really even need to because you can use ANY notebook and any pen for this system. The initial system is super easy too (click here to go to the bullet journal website to find out more). I actually showed it to my mom at some point and she thought that it was sort of insane how simple the system was, because we should have been able to figure that out on our own. Even with the added ideas from other places (Pintrest) on the internet the system was so simple to use.

Cons

My main issue with this system is how you need to be able to sustain it on your own. There is no way around it, but if you are lazy one week and just don’t get to filling out or creating pages in your journal it will not get done. As a college student and someone with depression it can be so hard for me to get motivated sometimes, and even to do a simple spread for the week in my bullet journal can be hard sometimes. I feel like having a little bit set up for you would help, but that would take away from the point of the system.

My other issue is that as you look through the internet you can easily get discouraged with this system. When I first started to research this system I went bonkers because I couldn’t make the beautiful spread that other people could make. Although my spreads still are no where near fabulous they’re very functional and very useful to me, so I’m still getting great use out of this system.

So those are the pros and cons, as you can tell I do like this system and I will continue to use it, but you just can’t get caught up on how “pretty” your spreads look. Personally I have my Erin Condren for that, my Bullet Journal is the functional one that I want to get messy and scratch things out in.

What do you think of the bullet journal system? Have you tried it in the past? Let me know down in the comments.

See you soon,

~Amanda

Once More With Love Review

Over Black Friday I was sucked into the vortex of Easy and sticker shopping, but in my defense who didn’t? I decided to try a few new shops that I had heard great things about, and the first one was Once More With Love. This was pry my best purchase on Black Friday, and I am still so excited about it. You can still see a lot of her stickers in action in my plan with me Videos, which are up on my blog in various places. For more details keep reading, and let me warn you that this shop is worth reading the entire thing.

New Hedgie!

On January 8th we welcomed a brand new little bud into our family! Although while I’m writing this he doesn’t have a name we are so excited to have him here with us. He is nothing like Gatsby was, but he’s energetic and curious and really brave. He’s a sweet heart and is a great addition to our family that we are so happy to have.

So here’s our adventure of going to get our little bud and his time so far with us.

Enjoy!

~Amanda

3 Years

This blog is a year old, and as you know I did have a life before that. On November 1st I will be celebrating a 3 year anniversary with Kurt, so I wanted to talk about our relationship for a little bit, and sort of tell you our story a little bit, what I’m thinking now, and a little bit about what we think our future holds.

Kurt and I met on my first day of college. I had finished my first two classes and was off to my first day of work at my brand new job. I walked in and was confused for a little bit with another girl, and we were looking at the time clock trying to figure out what to do. That’s when I saw someone come up next to us, looked up, and saw Kurt for the first time. He introduced himself and commented that if we ever needed someone to cover a shift to call him. He shook my hand, flashed me a smile, and then was on his way.