Since it is that time of year, and since I'm being perfectly honest, I have never spring cleaned my house and have no clue what to do first. I remember growing up and watching my Grandma pull all her curtains down, strip all the bedding, and just wash for days. Wash china, baseboards, inside/outside windows, light fixtures...on and on and on. And the house always smelled so good.

I found a couple resources with tips on spring cleaning - Real Simple & Martha Stewart. Go with what you know, right?

Real Simple has a pretty comprehensive room-by-room article of what to clean, which can be found here.

And not to forget the Queen of Clean, Martha Stewart has a printable Spring-Cleaning Checklist, which I also plan on referring to. You can find the PDF version here.

Time to roll those sleeves up, girls!

Florida!

Well, I wish I had better pictures for you, but I really didn't take many and truthfully, the best ones I took were with my cell phone! What a shame...

Here's a few for ya [and FYI, I spent way too long in Picnik editing these things...]!

My bro-in-law, Joe, my girlfriend, Bobbie, and myself...startin' out the long, 25 hr drive

This was our sanity-saver, having the back open. We put the seats down and were able to stretch out and sleep.

Finally made it! Justus, Bobbie and Joe on the beach. Justus was super proud of those white sunglasses...he got a lot of teasin' :)

One night we ate out at a seafood restaurant on the water, Waltz Fish Shack. Very small menu w/ all local seafood. Here's me and Brad...

Pretty much all I love about vacation in one picture - the beach, wine and good food!

My lifesaver on the trip! I would've been drowning in testosterone had she not come!

It is nice to be home, although I have felt somewhat overwhelmed with everything. I am not going to lie - my suitcase? Still sitting in the front door, wide open. And I may or may not have dug clothes out of it and not moved it. I think part of the problem is that I worked right up until we left, didn't do much to clean or get my house in order, and so when I came back it was all still staring at me. My solution has been to take the week off from working out - running, step class and yoga - and just recover. Recover, meaning clean my house, start gearing up for spring cleaning and spring projects, cause let me assure you, I have lots to do. I bought "easy" food at the grocery store (frozen stir fry, frozen pizzas, spaghetti) cause I refuse to slave in the kitchen this first week back.

There you have - a few pictures, a confession, and a plan. I'll let you know at the end of the week how it all turns out!

Beach --> Snow

Well, friends....we're back from our glorious week at the beach. That sentence gets no exclamation point because there is nothing to EXCLAIM about that - we came back to snow and a frigid, 1-degree temp this morning. Really - side note - 1 degree? What a joke. At least be 0, or 5 or something. But 1 is just ridiculous.

So anyway, we're back and I have a few pictures from our time at the beach, but I'm still in the process of uploading/editing. Overall, it was an amazing, amazing trip with perfect weather (sunny + 80 degrees all week), incredibly fun friends, and lots and lots of relaxing on the beach. We literally didn't do anything, and it was perfect. I got in a couple runs, which was a feat considering beach running is a beyotch. But we basically slept in, went to the beach, then went to the pool, and then went out or stayed in at night.

Apart from vacation, I have lots of other things to talk about soon, like....

line dancing

my new favorite lotion

house decor

cheap finds on eBay

good books

As (another) side note, we came home only to deal with our dog's broken foot. He jumped up on a dumpster while playing fetch with my father-in-law. Yes, the dog is that dumb. But we love him so much.

Hope whoever is reading this is getting much better weather than I am!

The long road

We made it to Florida! I'm currently sitting on the lanai [golden girls, anyone??] drinking my coffee and looking out at the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. It's downright amazing, and even though I had to spend a ridiculous amount of time in the car, it's well worth it now!

The trip down wasn't so bad. We left home on Friday night with 5 - FIVE - people packed into our Mountaineer. We made the wise decision to put our luggage on a tow rack on the back of the car, and open up the very back for people to lay. Around 10pm my girlfriend, Bobbie, and I, laid down our side of the backseat, stretched out, and slept til we got to Tennessee. We made it to Nashville in great time and then spent the morning/afternoon out shopping. Later that night we got all gussied up and took ourselves downtown, where we spent the night going from bar to bar and listening to amazing country bands. A shot of celebratory tequila may or may not have been involved!

However, the drive to Florida took.an.eternity. Seriously, it felt like we were in the car for days. It was about 13 hours, and that is definitely a long time, but holy smokes, I felt like my butt was glued to the seat!

But we're here, and I'm enjoying coffee outside and watching the beach walkers. Thinking I might go join them for a morning run!

workout must-have

If you know me, you know I'm a music freak...if I get in the car for five minutes, I have to have good music on. If I go to the gym and forget my phone (which plays my music), or the battery's dead, then I can pretty much forget the workout. I'm obsessive about having good music to listen to.

Which is why Rhapsody has saved my life. I know I've talked about it before on here, but seriously, it's amazing! I pay $9.99 a month and have unlimited access to whatever song in the whole world that I want to listen to. I've got different playlists, like my workout playlist, plus a "beach" one, and a "rock" playlist. I can spend a long time on that website picking out the perfect songs!

Here's my current Workout playlist:


This week I also bought a Bluetooth In-Car Speakerphone, mainly because now I can listen to Rhapsody in my car! Perfect for a 28 hour roadtrip!

Crisis

Back when I lived in Sweden I randomly picked up some Nivea chapstick - Nivea Pearl & Shine, to be exact.


For the record, I'm the girl that buys lip stuff and either hates it immediately or loses it a week later. Miraculously, I've kept this tube for 2 years and am just now wearing it down to the last little nub. As for the color, it's the perfect, nude-pink sheer color and it's not sticky at all.

Problem? It's only sold in Europe.

So.....if anyone's taking a trip over there soon, please see me!

the haircut

So....I took the advice of the snarky stylist who told me I needed to cut my hair and did just that. I shouldn't say she was so snarky, though, cause when I sat down in the chair for the cut my stylist, David, asked what I wanted to do with it. I started, "Well, I think I'm going to cut some -" and at this point he started clapping. See, my hair was very long, yes. And not really that healthy on the ends. But the poor man had to comb my hair for at least 10 minutes every time he would do anything to it. That's how snarly and un-healthy it was at the ends.

For reference sake, here's a picture of (un-styled, humidity-laden-from-Charleston) my hair this past May. So, almost a year ago:

See? Long, slightly stringy. In my defense, it is a lot cuter when it's styled. Which I probably tried to style it that day, but it fell the second my foot hit the pavement.

And after my hair cut...(please note, this picture is at 7:30am, no makeup, no hairstyle and the lighting is awful):

Yes, I'm happy it's healthier, and I'll be the first to admit, it looks a lot better. However....I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of this length. For me, I either want a short, cute, styled haircut, or long, long hair. While this is probably really long for some people, this is that awkward, medium-length hair that is not long enough to style (curl) well, but too long to be cute straight. It's just kind of blah to me.

But it's healthy!