Perfection, Comfort Zones, Mistakes

I wanted to write a nice positive post for this Monday about mantras and positive affirmations and being positive with yourself.  Then one of the quotes I was using reminded me of this quote and I really wanted to tie it in too.  We shall see how it goes.

I love this quote because it is so true!  I don't feel like much of being an adult falls into my comfort zone.  I still feel like a kid faking my way through most days.  Being an adult is so much better than being a kid though in so many ways!  Yes, I had a lot less to worry about back then (comfort zone) but I can do so much more now and have so much more too.  One example: being a parent is much harder than playing with my dollies ever was, but it is also infinitely more fun and rewarding. :)
I feel like there are so many things that we do in our lives that are stressful because we are worried about making mistakes.  Most things that are outside of our comfort zone are outside of it because we are highly likely to make mistakes doing those things.
This blog is something that is very outside of my comfort zone.  If I compare myself, or this blog to other bloggers or youtubers and their blogs, I start to feel very insecure.  But if I choose to just look at my blog and how far it has come, I feel pretty proud of what I have accomplished.
The point I would like to make with this post, is that we aren't perfect.  None of us are and we aren't going to be anytime soon.  But we can decide to still do things that make us uncomfortable, we can see the progress that we make and enjoy the journey.
This all started with a quote from Taylor Swift that she has been sharing at her concerts.  The quote focuses on not tearing ourselves down, and realizing that mistakes make us wiser.  I love this idea because we are all going to make mistakes.  If we are too afraid of making them then we won't take any risks.  Realizing instead that they are something that we learn from is empowering.
I feel like these lines from Taylor's speech might say what I am trying to say, so much better than I can:
"You need to look into the mirror in the morning and not tell yourself that you're not special or you're not good enough, or you're not pretty, or you're not awesome.
I'm going to tell you right now the things you actually are not.
These are things you really are not: You are not the opinion of somebody who doesn't know you. You are not damaged goods just because you have made mistakes in your life. You are not going nowhere just because you haven't gone where you want to go yet. Those are things you actually are not.
Now I want to tell you what you are.
You are your own definition of beautiful and worthwhile, that's what you are. You are someone who is wiser because you have made mistakes--not damaged--wiser.
You know it's not about perfection. It's about just getting on with things sometimes.  Sometimes you just get credit for getting up and going on with things, and you don't have to do it perfectly."

You can watch the whole video and probably get even more out of her speech.  These were just my favorite parts that I wanted to share :)

Thanks for reading!  Have a great Monday!!

Scrumptious Saturday Breakfast with Cinnamon Sugar German Pancakes

This is funny, but making these German Pancakes last weekend and wanting to share the recipe was the push I needed to actually relaunch my blog.  Silly, right!?  But here we are :) This was such an easy breakfast to make, but it got our little family all to the table at once and all enjoying the same food at the same time.  That really isn't that easy with a toddler.  He was able to eat this without making a mess too! So without further ado, here's the recipe and some awesome instructions on how to make this easy, yummy, magical breakfast.  :) Cinnamon Sugar German Pancakes: Ingredients/You will need:

• 1/2 stick of butter (1/4 C butter)
• 9" x 9" baking dish
• 1 C flour
• 1/4 C sugar + 2 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1 C milk
• 6 eggs
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 T cinnamon
• 1 T vanilla extract

Start your oven preheating to 350 degrees, take your half stick of butter, put it in your baking dish and put it in the oven right after you turn it on and set a timer for 3 minutes.  You can start working on your recipe and just check your butter when it is time, set the timer for another 2 min if it is not almost all melted.  If melted or only 1/4 is not melted pull it out of the oven and it will continue to melt while you get everything else ready.

Crack your six eggs into a bowl and beat lightly then mix all ingredients together and pour into your baking dish that is already nicely coated in melted butter :)

Pop in the oven for 40 minutes (I think I checked mine at 30 just because my oven is crazy and they were done then).

Add some strawberries and powdered sugar or other yummy toppings or you can just put syrup on the table to use as needed. :)

Thanks for reading!!  I hope you enjoy these as much as we did :)

Fall Zoo Trip and My Favorite Fall Sweater + Boots

Jackson loved "petting the lions."

I love how close you can get to the giraffes and see eye to eye with them in their new exhibit.

Jackson and Aunt Colleen in front of the African Savannah.

Jackson is pointing at the water while Natalie tries to show him the otter.

He did go meet the otter statue a minute later :)

He had so much fun on the different animal statues for photos.

We had so much fun at the zoo last week!!  Utah's Hogle Zoo is such an amazing zoo!  I love how almost all of the animal exhibits are as much like their natural habitat as possible.  We got to take Jackson this summer but it was kind of hot and I decided after this last trip that going in the spring or fall is definitely the way to go.  The weather was perfect!!

We went with my mom and sisters and we just wandered and had fun and ate lunch.  Jackson's favorite animal was the monkey which is funny since we only looked at a few of them and only for a minute :)

I wanted to talk about my outfit for just a second, just because it was so easy to throw together but was also so comfy and I felt like it looked pretty good too.

My favorite parts are my sweater and boots.  I got my sweater for less than $10 at Runway Fashion Exchange in Ogden and my boots at J.C. Penney on sale for $19.99 two years ago.  I have definitely gotten my money's worth out of both of them :)

Here's some similar sweaters that I found on Amazon that have the drapey effect and two of the three even have pockets like mine. :)

This one is under $15 

This one is $14.99 and comes in the most gorgeous colors!!  Plus Prime Shipping!

This one is the thickest of the 3, it is beautiful!  It's $19.99 with Prime Shipping :)

EBATES!! Earn Cash Back on Online Shopping!!

I am super excited to share my new favorite money saving website with you today!!  That's right the secret to cash back and the best deals is a website and it is free and gives you cash back.  Score!!  I have been using it for about 9 months now (I think) and I have already been paid over $100 and should have another check coming soon!  It's called EBATES and it is amazing!

I first heard of EBATES through Instagram, and at first I just didn't get it.  It sounded too good to be true.  How could there be a magical site that gives you cash back?  It must be a credit card right? There must be some sort of catch?  Right?  Wrong!!
So how does it work?  EBATES earns money through "referrals" to other sites.  Similar to how most bloggers make money.  You go to EBATES first, log on and view all the deals on there or just search the store that you want to shop at.  EBATES tells you how much cash back they are giving for that store right now along with their top sales.  How nice is that!?  You then click to start your shopping trip and shop and you are on the strore's site and check out as usual.  Then you can go back to EBATES and see your cash back.  The awesome thing is that this does not affect the cash back you already earn on your credit card!  
On most online purchases I only earn a few dollars, but it is amazing to think how much I saved thanks to sales, credit card cash back and then EBATES cash back on each of those transactions.  On our bigger purchases the savings really add up.  We have already been paid over $100 in cash back just from EBATES.
Anytime we have a big purchase coming up (our lawnmower and our fridge so far) I try to talk Steve into doing it online because we can earn cash back through EBATES.  On our lawn mower we were able to get 6% cash back through EBATES plus our 1% cash back through our credit card.  It saved us a lot of money!!  With our refrigerator they were only doing 2% cash back but that still ended up being about $40 that we will be getting in cash back plus 1% from our credit card. Another thing that I love about EBATES is that they give you a $10 gift card when you sign up and use it for the first time.  They also give you money if you refer people to sign up.  So try it out and then share it with your friends and family.


Right now they are having their Columbus Day Double Cash Back that you can combine with store sales!  Here are some of my favorites:
Amazon 3% cash back Carters, OSHKOSH 5% cash back Macy's, J Crew, Old Navy, Nordstrom, JC Penney, Kohl's 6% cash back Hotels.com 6% Marriott 5%
Here's one that is really amazing: Groupon 6% cash back!  Groupon's already save you so much money!  I love that you can make them an even better deal!!  Living Social is at 3% (similar to Groupon).  Also if you love Zulily and Etsy they are also on EBATES!

Happy shopping!!  Click here to go directly to their site and sign up and pick your $10 gift card. Comment below if you have any questions.  Don't forget to subscribe to my blog for more money saving ideas and fun stuff :)
Disclaimer: The link to sign up is my referral link so I will earn some money if you sign up.  Don't worry though, I really am telling you about EBATES to help you save money not to earn me money :)

It's a Launch/Relaunch!!

I'm back!!  I've wanted to get back to blogging regularly for quite a while now.  But I really wanted to branch out more.  I didn't just want to do beauty blogging and skin care anymore, but I still wanted that to be a part of my blogging.  So, I debated about starting a brand new blog, but the thought of giving up on this blog made me sad.  
I asked for advice from other bloggers and then started sketching out my future posts.  Luckily I still had enough beauty blogger in me that I felt I could continue to stay true to this blog while also being able to branch out.  Yay!!  
The next three months of posts are already all planned out and I am so excited to share them all.  I wish I could just write and publish them all at once!  There is going to be a lot of great information and a lot of fun things too.  Each week has 3-4 beauty related posts and 1-2 lifestyle (just for fun) posts.
Today I wanted to share how excited I am about everything I have planned (I think I got that covered above :) ), plus a give you a quick life update and highlight a few of my favorite past posts.

At Hogle Zoo this Summer

Life in our household has changed quite a bit since my last update :)  Jackson is now almost two and he talks a lot.  He sleeps through the night almost every single night and is the sweetest little toddler I have ever met.  He loves his grandparents (he is lucky enough to have 7 of them!) his aunts and uncles and especially his cousin Alice and he is very good to his parents too :)

At Hogle Zoo this Fall

I went back to being a regular nurse.  I left Avalon and my cushy nurse-who-does-paperwork job in July.  I now work at McKay Dee in Ogden and I am really enjoying it.  I work two nights a week, so I am really tired sometimes.  Every once in a while I work a night shift right before Steve works one of his lovely 24 hours shifts.  I get home at 6:00 A.M. he leaves around 7:20 A.M. and then Jackson gets up a little later and tries to get me up...those days have been hard, but we have made it through so far.  Sometimes we are lucky and either Aunt Shaylee or Grandma Shauna can watch him while I get some more sleep.  (2 hours doesn't even come close to enough sleep for me, ha ha!).
Steve is still working for Ogden Fire and loving it.  He got to take a Ropes Rescue class up in Oregon while we were visiting my grandparents this summer and he is taking more classes now.  On his days off we have been getting a lot done with our house.  We finally got all of the wallpaper stripped off of the walls downstairs, all of the glue scraped and washed off and the walls all painted.  Then we got to pick out carpet and now it is so nice down there.  I am going to have to do a video tour once we get the trim all painted and put up :)  
As far as the house goes, we still need to build our new kitchen cabinets and then take out the old ones and install the new.  Then we'll just have a few more things to finish before the house will be done for now.  We might be able to finish sometime around Christmas or a month or two after :)

Zion National Park this Summer

We had so much fun this summer!  We got to go to Oregon and Southern Utah.  I might put together a post in the spring about our trip to Zion National Park because it was amazing and maybe it will help some of you plan your own trip there. :)
Last but not least, I wanted to share some of my favorite posts from this blog so far.  I am going to start with the one that I feel is the most helpful: How to Save $$ on Drugstore Makeup

Another fun one that can help you save a lot is my Favorite DIY's post:

Last, but not least, this post about growing out your hair is full of a ton of great information that I have learned over the years it has great info for keeping your hair healthy no matter what length it is :)

Thanks for reading!  I hope to see you back tomorrow :)  Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on anything!