My (Attempted) Organized Life: Closet

"Attempted" is the key word here.

I've been such a terrible blogger! I am late in posting for this series yet again! Life has been way too crazy lately. Because of that, it is reflecting in the "organization" of my room...

This week marks week 3 and the final week of My (Attempted) Organized Life series! This week I have a short vlog that briefly shows you my closet and how it is organized, even though many of my clothes weren't organized and hung up, so you couldn't see the full extent of my closet. I also decided not to add in my dresser either because even more so there you will see why I entitled this series "My Attempted Organized Life."

Here is my short vlog about it!



So there you have it, the end of My (Attempted) Organized Life Series! As you can tell by the timing of this post I am definitely emphasizing the "attempted" aspect of the series. If you have any more tips for me to get more organized, please let me know!

Give It to Me, Honey

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial. All opinions are my own.

I feel like over the course of the past few months, people have been getting sick everywhere! Thankfully, I got sick early in the sickly season and have been over it for a while. For many others, not so much.

One of the most annoying parts of being sick is when my throat is itchy and has lots of stuff in it! As a singer, it is so hard because you're not supposed to sing when your throat is in this state but it's so tempting not to. However, I'm thankful for cough drops to help relieve the pain!

I received a package of Pine Bros Softish Throat Drops in Natural Honey for review, and it was definitely different than any other cough drop I've ever used!

1. They are true to their name--they're soft(ish). They're a little chewy so that you can chew on it if you want to, but not chewy enough for you to tear the drop apart. You still have to let it dissolve in your mouth.

2. They don't give off that minty feeling when you eat any other cough drops. I found that very interesting. It really does taste like a solid form of honey in my mouth, more or less. When you open the bag it's in, the smell is very strong too. Depending on the person, you may or may not like that. I didn't like the strong smell myself.

3. There are two different types of packaging that it comes in! There is the traditional bag of drops (however, no wrapper so no way to seal/protect the drops after opening) and the little plastic container it comes in (resealable!).

I definitely prefer the resealable container over the packaged bag. Other than Natural Honey, flavors come in Wild Cherry and Black Licorice. If you don't like the minty feeling from other cough drops or want a softer kind of cough drop or even just want to try something different, you should definitely get Pine Bros Softish Throat Drops!

Disclosure: I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

California Dreamin' // Outfit of the Day

I have not done an ootd post in such a long time! I had been trying to figure out when I would do one and when I wore an outfit that I really enjoyed, I just had to reach out to my friend, Ian, from Ian Rosal Photography to help me out!

It was a sunny day and I wanted to take advantage of it as the sun was going down. I'm not a model by any means (although I wish I was one) so taking photos were honestly really awkward for me. I don't know how models are able to pose without feeling weird!

This outfit is perfect as we transition from winter into spring, although there really is no need for a transition if you live in Southern California. We've had the same kind of weather for most of "winter."

There are a lot of dark colors, but the pop of red on my shoes and peach and cream for my flower crown brighten up this outfit a bit! The flower crown is my favorite piece in this outfit; I got it from a local fashion truck called Selvedge Dry Goods that specializes in vintage accessories and clothing. They also ship nationwide too if you would like something but aren't in the Los Angeles area!

Flower Crown: Selvedge Dry Goods // Purple Velvet Crop Top: Urban Outfitters // Brown Lace Bandeau: Stole from Sister // Black Knit Cardigan: Target // Black High-Waisted Shorts with Bows: Forever 21 // Red Snakeskin Loafers: Target

How would you transition into spring?

Lipstick Swatches and First Impressions: Lancôme and City Color Cosmetics

This is my first lipstick review/first impressions/swatches video/post! I'd had these lipsticks since winter break and I finally had the opportunity to film my first impressions of the lipsticks. One of them is from Lancome L'Absolu Rouge in "Jeweled Pink" and the other two are from City Color Cosmetics. One is a bright red called "Lady in Red," and the other one is supposed to be a more berry shade called "Paris by Night."

If you would rather watch me talk about this, then watch my video on Youtube, shown below:


Otherwise, you can read on to see some of my thoughts on these lipsticks!

My (Attempted) Organized Life: Planning

Today marks week 2 of My (Attempted) Organized Life series, and this week is all about planning and scheduling!

If you know me, then you'd know that I am a big time planner. I love making lists and writing in calendars and planners. Although sometimes it still doesn't help me remember everything, I still definitely love the idea of writing things down to better remember them!

I have a few different calendars/lists that I use to keep my schedules as clearly laid out as possible.

I have a weekly dry-erase board to see things at a week's glance and see things up close and personal. I also have two monthly calendars--one that I keep on my desk and another that I have in my planner. The one on my desk is to see my plans in a cute way and separate from my planner. I have a daily portion of my planner too that divides the days by the times from 8am to 5pm. It allows me to See how much free time I have in between classes, meetings, and other things like that.

The last part of my planning and scheduling are these three notepads that I got from Target in their dollar section! I love it so much. There are three pads: to do, to buy, and to call. I use them on a day to day basis when I have a lot to do so that I can keep track of everything.

I love all of my planner-type stuff--I'm obsessed with planning! I also have a blog planner to help me plan out posts and stuff for this blog (although I am obviously not always keeping up with my schedule, like this post, whoops). It's a compilation of different blog planners that I like and I'm just trying to figure out what works best for me.

I don't have a video up for this week yet, but I will make one soon! (If not, I'll have it for next week, haha).

Until then, I'm trying to find a good planner for me to use! Although I love my current planner, I work better when my workspace is aesthetically pleasing (like my planner). I want one that is like the Erin Condren Life Planner, but much cheaper than that since I am currently on a budget!

How do you keep yourself organized when you plan out your days?

Stories of Valentines Days' Past

Happy Valentine's Day! I'll cut straight to the chase and say that in honor of today, it's only fitting that I write about my past experiences with this consumer-based holiday, right?

This year is my fourth Valentine's Day with my boyfriend, Darell. And while you would think I have three years' worth of Vday romantic dates...

I don't. 

Haha. Let's just say that Darell and I haven't always had the best Valentine's Days together...

He believes that it's just a day that promotes consumerism and doesn't believe in going all out for it, and for two years, that is exactly what he did.

Valentine's Day 2011: This was our first Valentine's Day together! I was a junior in high school, and he was in his first year of college. His car was in the shop at the time and I didn't drive at the time (not until I was in college myself). I'm a hopeless romantic and had high expectations for the day, but I was disappointed when Darell didn't do what is typically expected on Valentine's Day--fancy expensive date and flowers. However, as I look back on it now, I realize that he actually did something pretty sweet for me. He took a bus from his house all the way to my high school and walked me home that day. I was honestly a jerk that day and got mad that he didn't do anything "special," but what he did was when you really think about it; it just wasn't what I wanted or expected.

2012: I actually don't remember this day too clearly; I believe that Darell simply picked me up from school and took me home. We couldn't hang out for some reason that I don't remember, but all I remember was that we ended up fighting because for the second year in a row, Darell hadn't lived up to my expectations of Valentine's Day. (I'm so demanding and selfish, huh? Haha.)

2013: Okay, so this year was different than all the rest. I had figured that Darell was going to visit me for Valentine's Day, but I just didn't know when or what he was going to do. However, when I walked out of my last class for the day on the day before Vday (he was working the next day), there he was, standing with a bouquet of roses in his hand! My heart had dropped and I was so shocked to see him there! Darell isn't the type to do grand gestures like that, so I was so surprised at what he did! I remember Darell telling me that he was so terrified he thought his heart was going to burst, but once he saw me walk out of my class he didn't notice anything else. And honestly, right then and there, that Valentine's Day was officially my best and most favorite yet. We went to Flame Broiler for dinner before doing devotions together and going to my school's worship service together. It was a beautiful evening.

Us before the worship service. This was a great night<3

So what is happening for us this Valentine's Day?

I don't even know. I'm not even sure if we're seeing each other today, but that's okay! I've learned to accept that he's not a romantic and that you don't need one day to be romantic. You should be trying to please your significant other all the time, not just on one day. Will Darell be doing anything for me this year? Who knows! But follow me on Instagram because if something does happen, I'll probably document it for you.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I hope you all have a great day, no matter what you're doing [:

What I Love About My Boyfriend

With Valentine's Day coming up soon, I figured I'd talk a little bit about Darell, my boyfriend. I've talked about him a few times on this blog, but it's usually a mention here and there or referencing him when I'm writing relationship posts based on my experiences.

I figure that Valentine's Day is a great way to remind yourself of why you love and care about that person you're with. It's also the perfect time to express how you feel about them. So today is dedicated to Darell.

He'll probably hate me for posting this picture, but I don't care. [:

What I love About Darell:
1. He makes me laugh. We have a weird humor when we're together. It's a little weird and it's really random.

2. We are different. While Darell says it's a negative at times, I definitely see this more as a positive thing. We have widely different interests, but yet somehow we're able to make it work and it makes things fun when we each do something that the other one loves.

3. He puts himself in uncomfortable situations for me! He does things for me that he normally wouldn't do otherwise because what I like is so out of his comfort zone. One of those things are grand romantic gestures. While he hasn't done very many, he has told me the times that he does grand romantic gestures for me make him feel like his heart is going to come out of his chest, but that it's all worth it. That gives me butterflies. [:

4. His faith is amazing. I've known Darell since right before he came to Christ, and watching his faith grow over the years has been such a blessing for me to see it up close and personal. His love for Jesus is so admirable, and it is definitely my favorite quality of his.

5. He is honest with me. Darell still has trouble with relaying his message in a way that isn't rude at times, but I know he means well. I love that we can both be honest with each other, even though it sometimes hurts.

6. When he is vulnerable, I think it is one of the most beautiful things. He hates when I bring it up because he doesn't like people knowing that he has deeper thoughts. Shhh. Haha. No, but seriously I love listening to him talk during these moments because it's not something that happens often.

7. His passions and quirks are so adorable to watch! He's passionate about film and has weird quirks about him when it comes to things like books, celebrity crushes, and videogames. I love when he gets excited about these kinds of things because it brings out a childlike spirit in him that I love!

He introduced me to LOTR and is such a hardcore gamer, as you can see

I could keep going on about the many things that I love about Darell, but I'll stop things right there. With our fourth Valentine's Day together coming up, I like reflecting on what I love about him. I don't have very high expectations of what we may do together this year (if anything), but I'll save our stories of Valentine's Days' past for my next post!

NEW SERIES: My (Attempted) Organized Life: Workspace

Happy Tuesday! I am so sorry I couldn't post yesterday when I normally do; I got stuck writing a paper so I had to focus on that, but that's okay because I am back with a NEW SERIES for you all!

For the next three weeks this February, every Monday (other than today), I will be highlighting a certain aspect of my life and how I like to keep organized! One of my goals for this year is to be more organized and be more consisted in it, and this series will kind of show you what I'm trying to do for myself. I love the idea and concept of organizing and keeping everything organized--my only problem is that I'm not always the best at maintaining my orderly attempts. I'm hoping that by talking about being more organized on my blog throughout this year, I feel like it could help me in being organized!

This week is about my desk/workspace, next week will be about my planning self, and the last week will be my closet. I will be documenting the series here on my blog and on my Youtube channel, so if you would rather watch something than read it, then you should subscribe to me and follow along with me there. I have this week's video already up!

With that being said, let's get started onto this week: my workspace!

Valentine's Day Gifts For Him and Her

It's almost Valentine's Day! If you're single, you're either getting ready to mope (which you shouldn't) or planning to go out with some friends. If you're in a relationship like I am, you are probably wondering what you're going to do for your significant other or you already have it all planned out (not me).

If you happen to be in a relationship and don't know what to get for your boyfriend or girlfriend, don't worry, I'm here to help! While I still don't have my gift for my own boyfriend, Darell, after putting together this gift guide, I definitely have an idea of it.

Depending on your budget and the type of person you're shopping for, I've included a few different options for you to give you some ideas!

1. Valentine's Day Coupons 
For: any kind of man (or even woman)!
Cost: As low as $0
I personally like coupons because they are low-cost and you can make them for anyone and customize it to that person's liking. I found these coupons as a printable off of The Frugal Girls. There are more coupons that what you see, but I decided to give you a sample of what they have. Or, if you are more on the creative side, you can make the coupons and hand-write them yourself! Not only is this gift easy to make, but there is no expiration date so he can use this throughout the year!

Spontaneous Adventures

I have found this to be true in every spontaneous adventure that I have been and have yet to be proven wrong. 

Especially as a young adult, we am living in a time where our bodies can still get away with hanging out late at night and waking up early for classes the next day (although it is not always the best feeling). 

Although I am a planner by nature, on a day to day basis, I love spontaneity. As long as I know what I want in life, it doesn't matter what I'm doing on the day to day, as long as I get to my goal. That allows for random adventures to go out with friends when you never expected to. 

Random late-night adventures are always the best because they aren't planned. You didn't think you would have so much fun doing what you did, which is what made it so much better and so much more worth staying up later or spending more money than you thought. On top of that, we all know that the people are what make these kinds of nights the most fun and memorable. 

I recently went on one of these adventures after a photoshoot with my floor at sunset. It wasn't a late-night thing, but we definitely went to a lot of different places and ate lots of food while we were at it too. 

The weather was really cold (for Southern California standards), and my roommate Alissa and my friend/RA Emily had never had pho before. My friend Jackie knew of a really cool pho place not too far from our school, and since we were hungry for some dinner, we decided to check it out. It was a great place and I will definitely go back soon and probably do a full-on review of it! 

After that, we were talking about dessert because I was craving something sweet. I had wanted something baked, but my friend Emily was driving and really wanted to introduce us to Joe's Italian Ice, where you could get custard and Italian ice together. I only got the smallest size of the Caramel Apple ice, but I still loved it nonetheless. 

And finally, while we were eating our Italian ice, we were talking about Disneyland/Downtown Disney and Emily had mentioned how close we were to the park. So what did we decide to do? We went do Downtown Disney, of course! None of us have passes, so we figured the next best thing was to walk around Downtown Disney. That also gave me the opportunity to satisfy my baked (technically it was fried) craving by getting some of Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen's famous beignets! If you don't know what they are, they are like a donut drowning in powdered sugar, and it tastes like a funnel cake, except it's much softer and fluffier. We watched some fireworks, walked around a bit more, then we headed back home. 

That was a very abridged version of the actual adventure, but the point is that we didn't plan on going out or even hanging out together after our floor's photoshoot. However, it was Friday night and we didn't want to eat at our school's "Caf (dining hall)." It ended up being one of my favorite nights in a while. 

So if you get the opportunity to do something random, don't think about it too much (unless your safety is at risk) and just go for it! Take advantage of being young now and having the opportunities to go drive around late at night and do something crazy! You never know when something may come up and compromise all that. Just go out and have fun! 

Just... please, don't do something stupid.  

Updated, Upgraded

Happy Monday! If you've been following or reading my blog for a while, then you've probably seen that there have been a few changes happening slowly, but surely throughout the blog. Last week, I finally got around to changing my navigation menu to have a "home" button so that it could fit onto the row! And this past weekend, I was able to make quite a few more "subtle" changes to the blog:

+ SIDEBAR: I changed the fonts and sizes of the titles on the sidebar so that my sidebar wouldn't be so long.
+ SOCIAL MEDIA: With the help of Google, I was able to create myself new social media icons that I customized for myself! And quite frankly, they look so cute with the color they have.
+ NEW BLOG BUTTON: I created a blog button! I actually have a couple made, depending on the size of the sidebar, but here are the bigger versions (feel free to grab my button on the sidebar if you'd like!):

Feel free to grab my button on my sidebar if you'd like to take me with you and place it on your blog! If you like the first one, let me know and I can get you a code for that [: I like both because they are two completely different pictures, but yet I love the style of the buttons.

+ FEATURED: Otherwise known as sponsors. These are going to mostly be people who are friends with my blog or like my blog and want to display an "ad" for their blog on mine to advertise, and this brings me to my next point:
+ SPONSOR/SERVICES: I started a new page for sponsoring and other services! Sponsoring is pretty cheap and you get a lot for your money so if you are ever at all interested, give me a holler [: I am also offering blog consultation services, prices varying depending on your situation! I'm still trying to figure out what other services I can/will be offering so expect to see more ways for you to support me soon [:

Having said all of that, I would like to introduce you to my first sponsor ever! Say hello to Jay, from Mind of Mcshorty. She is originally from the Virgin Islands but going to school in Texas! She started her blog to vent and talk about her life and what she was going through. I just recently met her from the Her Campus Blogger Network and so far, she is a pretty awesome girl! I'm excited to get to know her through her blog and through having her as a sponsor on my blog this month [: Go check her out!

So, there you have it! That was an intro to my first sponsor of this blog, and a little update on the changes happening on this blog! I'm still tweaking some things, and I will update you as those happen. I also have some great series and other projects planned for you guys over the course of the next few weeks, so stay tuned and connected to me!

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Until then,