Amazon has become my one stop shop for almost everything these days. I've been spending hours browsing through everything on that site and found myself putting together a list of accessories that I would love to add to my office space. All of these items are under $15 and fit well into the bright, and light theme that I love. 


one.

These hanging folders are everything you need and more for your bright and airy office space.  $12.57 for 25!

two.

Fill your hanging folder with these fun and colorful file folders.  30 for $7.38


three.

Store all of your magazines in these chic magazine holders. $14.16


four.

Add this acrylic tape dispenser to your office desk space. $8.84


five.

Come get your wash tape! Put washi tape in you tape dispenser to make labeling everything easier!

$11.01



six.

Match your tape dispenser with this snazzy acrylic stapler.

$14.99



seven.

Store your extra wires and cords in these CD boxes

$10.99

eight.

Use this mint julep cup to hold some fresh flowers!

$14.95



nine.

Get organized with this contempo planner. 

$12.99



ten.

So simple, so clean, the acrylic clip board.
$6.53



eleven.

Add this silver tray to your desk space to corral clutter.
$5.06



twelve.

If you work from home or are in the real estate field, you may just need this casa tissue box cover.
$6.00



thirteen.

Add decorative picture frames to your office space.
$13.50



fourteen.

Use this 2 gallon heritage jar to house pens and pencils! $13.00


fifteen.

I saved the best for last. I bought a baby fiddle leaf fig though Amazon back in September and I love the color and vibrancy that it brings to the room. It's still alive and kicking even though I am not the best fig tree mom. Read about that purchase here. 

$8.99

How do you like to decorate your space?
Links contain affiliates.

Weekend

Happy Marathon Monday! I want to send out a huge congratulations to all of the athletes who trained so hard for this amazing race! It's definitely one of my favorite times of the year having everyone from everywhere hanging out in the city with their brightly colored marathon jackets. I have running a marathon on my 30 x 30 list, and hope to one day have the opportunity to participate in THIS historic race!

via
In other news, I bought a new duvet and euro shams and have fallen head over heels in love with them. Making the bed is one thing that I cannot leave the house without doing. I would much rather be 10 minutes late to wherever I'm going, than come home to an unmade bed. I had been crushing on this set from West Elm for a few weeks and was finally able to justify pulling the trigger when they were offering 20% off and free shipping. Every time I walk in our bedroom my heart jumps for joy, so cute!

My dad scored some last minute tickets to the Sox game on Friday night, so we headed over to Fenway park, sucked down some beers and nachos and were fortunate enough to land a beautiful win! Nights like these make me so thankful to be living in this incredible city.

We traveled out to Stone Zoo on Sunday with my brother to take in the gorgeous weather. It quickly became freezing, so we headed to our favorite pastime, Friendly's, to relive our childhoods with kids meals and ice cream. A quick Uber ride to Chelsea scored us some groceries at Market Basket, and we wrapped the night up watching Horrible Bosses 2 on Amazon Prime. Am I the only person in the world who has been living under an Amazon Prime rock? I knew that you could get free shipping on some items, but free instant access to movies and music, what??

My brothers new phone has a setting on the camera called "beauty face" where you can adjust it to remove your blemishes... so here are L and I's blemish free faces! I'll just leave you with that.

Have a fantastic Monday and a wonderful week!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!
Here's to hoping everyone had a wonderful Easter Sunday filled with lots of love, joy, family and sweets!

L and I finally took advantage of living down the street from Old North Church and attended their Easter service. Being in America's Church truly is such a neat experience and I love that they still hold two services every Sunday. They had chandeliers filled with candles that were all lit, and the music was very traditional with a choir, organist and a brass band for the holiday! What an amazing service, we will definitely be back.

L and I put together Easter "bowls" this year mainly because we couldn't justify baskets that would get in the way the other 364 days of the year. Storage space is limited, so we opted to use our beautiful white serving dishes instead. I had so much fun putting together L's bowl! Being the huge cereal eater that he is, I picked up an adorable cereal bowl and I also threw in a bunch of candy, clothes, a candle, etc. L hooked me up with a ton of kit kats, an amazon gift card, and he filled an entire carton with cadbury eggs!! I was one happy chick. 

When it came to hiding each others bowls... we are both apparently wrong in the head. Inspired by my sister, I wrapped his up in a bag and hid it in the clean litter box. When it came to me finding mine, I looked every where and finally after 15 minutes, and a game of hot and cold found mine buried at the bottom of our trash can, covered in coffee grounds, last nights dinner, banana peels, and who knows what else!

We have a video of each other finding each others Easter bowls, but it's in the vertical format and super long. #rookie
We ended the night with pizza while watching the Wolf of Wall Street, so of course I whipped up a batch of the best sugar cookies on the planet, and made them super bright and fun!

...and what's a post without a super ferocious picture of my pet lion.  

 Happy Monday, friends! 

St. Patty's Day and Other Happenings

This really should have gone up two weeks ago, however I refuse to go into April without a St. Patricks Day recap, and I thought it was due time to get some pictures up here to keep you in the loop! We did nothing mind blowing this year. Nope, nada, zilch. In fact, we kept it so simple that Landon didn't even wear green! Can you believe it? You can bet your bottom dollar I pinched him crazy and harassed the poor guy all day! 

I did make these delicious cinnamon chips out of tortillas, and they were indeed quite the hit! I wanted to make sugar cookies so bad so I could use my shamrock cookie cutter, but since I am in the middle of the 21 Day Fix I opted for a much healthier way to play with my cookie cutter.  These are so easy, you can make them in your sleep! Cut out your favorite shape using a cookie cutter, scissors or a knife, lay them on a cookie sheet, spray them down with PAM (or if you're fancy, lightly brush them with melted butter), and toss your cinnamon sugar all about. Bake at 400 for about 7 minutes or until the edges start to turn light brown. Serve with fruit, chocolate syrup, caramel... anything really!

In other news, eating clean has been going very, very well. It's amazing what a huge difference it makes, and how much more energy you have! Here's a little snapshot into my weekly meal planning. I'm obsessed with these containers. They are 8 ounces, which is perfect for the nutrition plan that I'm following. Basically, I measure out my portions way at the beginning of the week, and all throughout the week all I have to do is grab what I want and it's all set to go! 

I've also found my new favorite snack. These no bake protein balls. When I start to get the munchies at night, need some protein in the morning, or want something sweet after dinner these little guys are the perfect remedy. One or two of these will fill me right up!

The hard drive on my macbook took a turn for the worse the other day. Out of nowhere my fairly new Macbook froze so I turned it off in an attempt to restart it and was disappointed to find a grey screen with a file folder and a blinking question mark in the middle. No matter what I did, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I even took the backpack off, unscrewed things and took the hard drive out myself. It was definitely a gone-er. Everything was gone. EVERYTHING. Every last document, picture, bookmark.... so moral of the story, save all of your documents in google drive, save all of your bookmarks with google chrome, and back everything up on an external hard drive. I was reduced to tears.

Luckily, my brother does IT, so I shipped it out to him, where he was able to install a whole new hard drive and ribbon, as well as update everything and recover all of my information for a fraction of the price I'm sure Apple would have tried to swindle me for. What happened, and what was the problem? It was a manufacturing issue that apparently happens all the time to people unexpectedly... so if this isn't making you rethink where all of your docs are saved, I don't know what will!? Coming from someone who is plugged in way too much that I should be, I was lost for a week without my documents, and was on the struggle bus trying to make ends meet in terms of work and other assignments. 

Mountains and Snow

North Conway is one my favorite places to reset when looking for a nearby weekend (or week) getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city. I recently wrote about our AMAZING ski day on Wildcat back in December, and I'm sure that I've mentioned it here and there as well on the blog. We usually head to North Conway to ski the handful of mountains there, and in the summer it's a great place to float down the Saco River or hike! 

  We stayed at the North Conway Grand which is equipped with two pools and hot tubs (inside and outside), it's located a stones throw from the Settlers Green Outlets, AND they serve hot cocoa and cookies everyday from 4-6 in the front lobby. Heck to the yes.
The first day we had hopes of getting a lot of good skiing in, however the mountain was a little too congested for me and I didn't think it was worth the ticket. SO! Dad and I traded in our lift tickets for vouchers, and packed up our gear for the next adventure. Luckily, Pinkham Notch is 10 steps down the road so we parked it there and decided to hike it up Tuckerman's Ravine! Amateur Hour! We did not have appropriate gear with us to hike the side of Mount Washington, at all.. in fact I went up in loosely tied bean boots. No spikes, no cleats, ice picks... nothing. We were cruisin' though and made okay time to the caretakers house. We were about halfway to the bowl which is where the extreme adventurist hike up with skis and ski down. Afterwards we ran, and I mean RAN down the mountain like idiots because it was fun. Our knees will thank us later. Next time, we're springing sleds!! Do you want to do what the truley depressing part was? When we got back to the hotel, all of the cookies and hot cocoa has been eaten :( Saturdays are just too busy for me.  

The second day we skied Attitash in the AM and Wildcat in the PM, and were extremely happy with the conditions! It was less busy, and there was good snow coverage! Afterwards, we DID get to treat ourselves to cookies and hot cocoa! And then of course we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Delaney's Hole in the Wall.   

  Monday was kind of random, nothing crazy. We invested some time and money in at the Outlets and I'm proud to say I only bought what I needed and nothing more! Except for a pair of shorts from J. Crew (They were so cute!), and I cashed in a gift card at L.L. Bean for a boat and tote. My new weekend bag!
We had aspirations of hiking Diane's Bath, however with all of the ice and snow there was a decent chance we might fall through and hurt ourselves so we decided not to. We did however hop on a little nature trail right outside of L.L. Bean which took us for a little spin around a pond of some sort. Pretty, pretty!
We wrapped the day up on York Beach in Maine where we snow walked shoed around the Nubble lighthouse area and checked everything out. We may or may not have popped our heads into a beautiful ocean side house that they were building. We ate dinner in Portsmouth and then walked it off around Downtown Portsmouth. What a day! What a weekend!

 

   Back to the grind tomorrow!

Traffic Kills Me

Gah I need to vent... so here I go. 
Long story short.... I'm going up North, had plans of taking a train at 5, the train overbooked, so I took a FOURTY FIVE minute 2 mile Uber ride to the bus station (It should take 10 min, dang traffic!),  sprinted out of the car mid traffic the second I saw South Station in sight, and now I'm on a bus and we're stuck in traffic again... and I sit here typing this to you all. So it's not THAT bad at all... I'm just frustrated.
In other news, our beloved fur child took it upon herself to knock down our "I love you because...." frame in the middle of the night, shattering it and sending glass chards everywhere. I guess she doesn't love us, or maybe she feels unloved? Maybe she didn't think L would look sexy with a man bun? I don't know. Instigator.

My bean boots arrived after being on back order for three months. I was overjoyed when I walked in our building and saw that beautiful L.L Bean box sitting there. Not to mention, just in time for my ski trip this weekend. They know me too well. I went all out with the gortex and thinsulate... these babies are going to be with me for at least 20 years ;)

In terms of my P90X3 workout/21 Day Fix Nutrition I have been doing great, 34 days down! I did two workouts yesterday and today because I don't know if I'll be able to get them in at the hotel, and am feeling so SO sore. My arms may or may not fall off. My chocolate Shakeology arrived the other day and I instantly started concocting. I made Shakeology balls and haven't quite decided if they're going to be my breakfast, or dessert. Yum yum! Healthy either way!

I went a little crazy last night and created a wall for my nutrition plan. I have it all figured out in terms of days of the week, what meal, and where/what all of my carbs/veggies/fruits/proteins, etc. are going to be. I love it!

I bought new sheets and 4 euro pillows the other day, and now I'm on the hunt to find a new duvet and shams for the Euro pillows. I'm starting to love these ones from West Elm... maybe I'll pull the trigger, maybe I won't... we'll see!
Have a glorious weekend!! 

Lately

HEY! Do you remember me? Once upon a time, I had a blog, and then apparently dropped off the face of the earth. WELL, I'm back to brief you on everything I haven't been doing for the past 11 days! For being the shortest month of the year, I feel as though it has been the LONGEST one to get through, what's up with that!? It still isn't over! That's okay though, I'm a winter lover and will take these days any day! I left off talking about my ski trip to Vermont, oh Vermont, I love you...
For Valentine's day (ya know, almost two weeks ago), L and I kept it simple this year and indulged in some heart shaped pancakes, and then went crazy with some heart and lobster shaped sugar cookies. I once again used my absolute favorite sugar cookie recipe which calls for...

Ingredients: 1 cup granulated white sugar 1 cup butter, softened 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract 1 egg 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 Teaspoons baking powder.
Directions: 1 - Preheat oven to 350 F 2 - Mix the butter and sugar together until it is creamy 3 - Beat in the egg, vanilla extract and almond extract 4 - In a separate bowl, combine the baking powder and flour. Slowly add to the wet ingredients while still mixing. 5 - Divide the dough into two batches. Roll one dough ball out (about 1/4 inch thick) onto floured parchment paper. 6 - Punch out your cookies using your favorite cookie cutters and then place on a cookie sheet with parchment paper. 7 - Bake 6 - 8 minutes and let cool completely before frosting and decorating. 

We did our own number with the frosting by mixing together powdered sugar, vanilla, food coloring and milk. 
I think Boston might be done getting dumped on with snow. Aside from the random snow hour that we get every here and there, it's starting to warm up and people are beginning to dig their cars out of the piles!

I just finished up day 24 of P90X3, and it definitely has me feeling stronger than ever. The first two weeks, I was eating whatever I wanted and wasn't feeling/seeing much progress. I'm now following the 21 Day Fix nutrition plan and have noticed a huge difference. It's all about portion control, and since your actual workout is only about 30% of the effort, and nutrition is the rest it has really helped me out! Basically the nutrition plan I have been following requires less carbs, and more protein. I am waiting on the edge of my seat for my Shakeology to arrive! I have all these fun recipes to try out like Shakeology balls or these Shakeology bites ... and they're good for you too!! I'll continue to post updates as I work through the program!!

 What's your weekend looking like!!?