Life Story: Friday Firsts

HAPPIEST of Fridays to you!!!

Sorry (I'm not sorry), I'll tone it down a notch. I have officially passed the 8 month mark of M3 year and it blows my mind. But really I'm most excited about my first real break I've had for a whole year! And I get a whole month of it! (Cue happy dance!)

Alright, now that that's said, I'm sharing about 5 "first times" that happened this past month or are happening this coming month.

Life Story: Happy Friday

Happy Friday friends! I can't believe it's already November! Plus, I'm officially halfway done with M3 year! WHAT?! :) *Cue happy dance*! PTL!! God is good! 

Again, I'm linking up with Lauren for High Five for Friday. Now let's get on with my five recent favorite things!

1. Favorite Quote

I recently read this beautifully written article called "Single and Not Waiting". One of my favorite reminders in the article was, "I’ve been living like I’m waiting for someone to get here. And it isn’t Jesus." It's easy to get caught up in this notion that my life would feel more complete when I'm married & have kids. But my life was already filled & complete when I accepted Jesus in my heart. He is enough.

2. Favorite laugh

Boy talking to himself while pooping. He has such a grown-up palate! "Poutine...chocolate thingies..." Okay well we never grow out of loving chocolate thingies.

3. Favorite sound

Recently Matt Wertz & Elenowen played in Chicago & it was amazing! At the end, Matt and Elenowen and their band jammed IN the crowd! How fun! You can check out a snippet of the awesome-ness on my instagram! And be sure to check out Matt Wertz & Elenowen!

Elenowen

4. Favorite memory

Last weekend my good friends got married & I played the violin for their ceremony. The bride walked down the aisle to Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years" which stirred up tears in everyone's eye, including the groom! Aww! 

My beautiful friends!

5. Favorite eat

In an attempt to make me eat healthier, my sister made a delicious hummus-based pesto. It was so delicious!!

What are some of your favorite things? Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Life Story: The Urbaness

If you haven't heard of The Urbaness, it's an amazing Chicago city guide & lifestyle website that I love to read to get creative ideas to make the most of living in this great city. And I'm so excited to share with you guys this Fall feature on the website that I "modeled" for a couple months ago! And by "modeling" on my part, I mean lots of laughing as you will see. It's funny seeing these photos since one of my patients actually told me that I was too happy while interacting with him the other day.

I had so much fun with my fellow beautiful models, Amina, Erin, Bianca and Lisa! We had a great time getting pampered & working with talented people. We had our hair done at Blow by Blow hair salon, makeup done by Mollie and our outfits were styled by Cashmere & Wit. I think our favorite moment was when we found out the models were being fed and we could actually eat the beautiful & delicious food prepared by Chicago food blogger, Kit. Such a hard life, getting pampered and sharing a meal with awesome people among a beautiful picnic-scape set up by The Eventful Life.

Please head over to The Urbaness to check it out! One of my favorite experiences! Enjoy!

Style Story: Sister Style

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a fundraiser for an amazing organization called Pursue Scholars. What they do is nothing short of amazing.

While there are many organizations that provide the monetary resources for students to attend college, Pursue Scholars goes beyond that and provides support in other ways. The organization supports them throughout their college journey by providing life coaches and by keeping in touch with them often, praying for them, sending care packages and cards for birthdays and other occasions. How amazing is that?

The fundraising event took place on a boat cruise on Lake Michigan and thankfully the weather was perfect for dresses! The sunset & my favorite skyline were breathtaking as always. 

Dresses: Hong Kong | Necklaces: ILY Couture (Also seen here & here) | Earrings: Betsey Johnson | My shoes: Anne Klein | Jess's shoes: Naturalizer | Purse: Asos (also seen here & here)

Thanks for reading! And please be sure to comment below if you know any other great causes that I & other readers should know about!

Life Story: 20 Years...

This morning, I had the opportunity to play the violin with the worship band at church and in the midst of it, I realized just how much joy it gives me to be able to play my heart out in that way. My violin is like my third arm that I am able to, so naturally, lift up to glorify God. I am incredibly thankful for this gift He has given me to worship Him in ways that my words cannot. Also, thinking back on my life and experiences, I don't know who I would be today without it. It has opened so many doors for me, brought so many wonderful people into my life, and helped cultivate the character fruits in my life.

And then my next realization...I've been playing violin for TWENTY years. Though my violin & I have had a tumultuous relationship (what 5 year old wants to practice 1 hour/day when all her friends are outside playing??), I will always love and cherish it. Since starting a new chapter in life this past fall, I knew my relationship with my violin would drastically change and I wouldn't get that much time with it. Thankfully, God has continued to open doors and give me ways to utilize this gift of music even with a crazy schedule and I hope to continue bringing Him glory with it and everything else I do.

One of my favorite open doors was the chance to record this song, "Watermark", with Sleeping At Last. He is an amazing musician and is also blessed with beautiful, poetic lyricism. Seriously, I wish I could write like him! Enjoy!

Decor Storyboard: A New Beginning

I've been wanting to start a blog for the longest time. I think the last time I blogged was pre-Myspace & Facebook when Xanga was the coolest thing! Since I have a couple weeks away from school, I thought it'd be the perfect time to start.

This blog will be an avenue for me to capture my baking & cooking adventures, home improvement and decoration projects, and random thoughts that need to be written down somewhere. This year has been a year of new beginnings: graduating from undergrad with two degrees under my belt (how I did this by the age of 21?...All God's grace!!), moving to the city, and starting med school. My updates will probably be sparse due to other priorities in life, but here's to another new beginning!

I'm going to start with one of my latest projects. Decorating the house for Christmas by upcycling! I've been in charge of the decorations for many years, but in the past years, I just did the same old thing. This year I wanted to change things up a little, but didn't want to spend $$. I'll admit, I'm a Pinterest addict (You can follow my Pinterest boards here) and took some amazing ideas and made them my own. Utilizing decorations we already had as well as some new additions from the dollar store, Michaels clearance and HomeGoods, I ended up having to spend very little! (Just like buying accessories to change up an outfit instead of having to buy a whole new outfit!)

I'll begin with the dining room table: I started with a simple runner down the middle that my sister got for our mom from Thailand. I wanted to create organized chaos aka. I didn't have much to work with and nothing matched, but according to Rachel Zoe, this is the new thing. I placed a Christmas candle wreath my mom has always used as the centerpiece, but added some ornaments. Then, I placed a mix of candles and candleholders across the runner. In some candleholders, I put ornaments on top of them instead of candles to mix it up and strew ornaments and little bell ornaments around them. And here's my version of organized chaos:

In the kitchen where all the food would be set out, I took extra ornaments and hung them from the light fixture with ribbon over the center island since the kitchen is where everyone usually congregates and there had to be some sort of decoration that would be out of the way of all the food (the most important part of any party).

Then to prepare for Santa's visit, I dressed up the fireplace: I didn't want it overdone, so besides the stockings, I only added a couple focal points. I took an old wreath I found in a box, cut out the old bow and made a new bow out of red velvet ribbon. I initially wanted to hang it, but I hate adding unnecessary holes in a wall, so I just let it sit on top of the mantel and it worked perfectly! Then, I took elegant sparkly silver faux bells I found at the dollar store and hung them with red velvet ribbon onto the lights on each side of the fireplace.

Next up was the living room: Our family tradition is to set up a Christmas Village on the living room table. To make it more "believable", I use a large piece of white felt to create the illusion that the village is blanketed with snow. Then I set up each building and figurine as if the village is bustling with activity. And as a finishing touch, I surround the display with a single strand of white lights to illuminate the village.

Lastly is the foyer, my favorite area to decorate: It's usually just plain green garland wrapped around the stair railings, but this year I dreamed up something red, white, and gold. I got 25 yards of red ribbon for $2 at Michaels. And at the dollar store I found white and gold wired ribbon which I tied into bows and added gold ornaments and bells. Also at the dollar store I scored some bunches of beautiful faux white poinsettias with berries which I mixed with a stem of faux white gladiolus I already had from a previous event. These flower arrangements were placed on the handrail volute (Okay, I admit, I'm just trying to sound smart...I had to Wiki "Stairway" to figure out what this was called...it's the spiral end of the handrail) with some more white-gold ribbon and more ornaments and bells. At the top of the stairwells I added the same large sparkly bells I hung on the fireplace, but gold ones. My favorite final touches were simple snowflake ornaments that I found at the dollar store that I placed sporadically along the garland. And here it is ladies and gents:

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas and have a wonderful New Year! I should probably start writing my New Years resolutions...but the kitchen is calling me...Off to bake something yummy!