Weekly Wishes 9.30

You guys. YOU GUYS! October starts this week! It's my favorite month, I'm not even joking. And with October comes a bunch of fun fall activities, Halloween decorations and parties, the performances for Seussical the Musical (finally) and my first two performances with my BYU Ballroom Team. We'll be Triple Swinging for the whole 2 mile parade route for the BYU Homecoming Parade and performing a Samba routine for a BYU Social Dance party on Halloween. Whoo!

In other news, I got to spend time with the cutest nephew in the world today. If any baby can make me baby-hungry, that kid can. He's just a bundle of laughs, hair-pulling, and big baby eyes.

And now... on to my weekly wishes! You guys, I felt pretty good about last week. And this week should be even better! (Hello... October is starting...)

Last Week

• I wanted to make a list of fall dates I could do with my husband over the next few weeks. Success! You can see my list of 20 fall dates here.
• I wanted to find ways to serve my husband. Um... I made a point to try to give him more out-of-the-blue back scratches and massages as he sits at the table working or doing his homework. He enjoys it. I also took the time to listen to something that was really bugging him this weekend, and it was a great service to him, I do believe. Being a listening ear is always great... and it strengthened our relationship.
• I wanted to do a minimum of 3 blog posts this week. Well, I did 3 posts, but that was including my weekly wishes post from last Monday, and I wanted to do 3 posts not including the weekly wishes post. Keep it up, Ashley, keep it up!

This Week

• Keep my apartment clean. I finally got my apartment pretty tidy (except the bedroom) this weekend, and I want it to stay that way. I will not allow myself to put up Halloween decorations on October 1st if the apartment has started to get messy again.
• Do all of my homework early so that my evenings are free and my weekend is practically homework-less (especially because I will be busy watching this this weekend.)
• Buy ingredients for pumpkin foods. And then make those pumpkin foods. It's been too long since I've had pumpkin bread or homemade pumpkin cookies. MUST HAVE! Plus, some sort of pumpkin soup sounds really good too.

Weekly Wishes 9.22

Next week marks the beginning of my favorite month! October, you are soooo close... But I suppose I should focus on the here-and-now.

I had a pretty good weekend, filled with a documentary about camels and their owners, wading in the pool in the BYU statue garden, briefly holding my old roommate's little baby, going to see an awesome dance concert, watching the BYU/UoU rivalry game (we lost, but it was still fun to watch it), and trying to sleep as much as possible because my throat started feeling sore and I want to prevent a full-out cold. So far, I've been mostly successful. We watched Mulan last night... such a good movie. Did you know I've made a sandwich for Donny Osmond? True story. Except I want to call it a MANwich because every time I think of Donny Osmond, I think "Be a man! We must be swift as the coursing riverrrrr..."

Time to report on weekly goals!

And check out these flowers that were blooming by the statue garden pool. What is this, spring?! They're pretty though...

Last Week
I wanted to post on my blog more. Success! (I posted 2 times more than the previous week!)
I wanted to make a fall date list with my husband. Nope. But it's coming! Fall just barely started, anyways.
Finally, I wanted to keep cleaning the apartment. I wish I could say I did... but... school. Life. And laziness.

This Week
Date list! Make that dang fall date list!
Find ways to serve my husband. Return and report.
Keep doing better on blogging. 3 posts during the week, at a minimum. And this weekly wishes post doesn't count!

Weekly Wishes 9.16

You know school is in session when my posts decrease in frequency. I don't mind, though! It means I'm keeping busy with ballroom team rehearsals, homework, Seussical the Musical rehearsals, spending time with family and friends, and sleeping when I get the chance. Not to mention making a chocolate chip cookie recipe that yielded about 5 dozen big, fat cookies. Yum.

Of course, it means I need to find extra time to take care of my goals. So here we go with my weekly wishes!

This week's ombre image was brought to you by my Scenic Design class. It's just the base coat for one of my first projects. Painting, painting, painting... I'm going to like that class.

Last Week
- So apparantly, one of my goals for last week was to organize my jewelry. Yeah. That didn't happen. And I think I'm going to give that one up because I mess around with my jewelry so frequently that my jewelry shelves will just get messy again.

- I also wanted to do some fall cleaning in honor of a new season - with the reward being that I could put up my fall decorations. My apartment is looking better already, so I let myself put out some autumn-esque flowers for my table centerpiece, but that's about it. No other decorations until this apartment is spotless!

This Week
- Keep cleaning. It's just so hard when I'm gone all day and by the time I get home I just want to relax (although I can't because of homework). Le sigh... oh, first world problems.

- Also this week, I want to sit down and make a fall date list with my husband of things we need to make sure we do together this fall. I'll make it a blog post this week and you guys can read all about it! Hooray!

- In fact, I want to make it a goal to post on my blog at least 3 times this week. Homework is no excuse! I just need to stop playing Candy Crush and blog instead (curse you, Candy Crush!)

Weekly Wishes 9.9

I lived through one of the most ridiculous storms I've ever seen over the weekend. You wouldn't believe how quickly those clouds blew in and how heavy the rain was! We had flash floods and tree branches falling and so much wind. I'm glad I wasn't out driving in that crazy weather because I would have been hydroplaning everywhere. The best part? BYU was about to start pre-game warm-ups for a football game against Texas. The stadium emptied pretty quickly and the game was postponed for nearly 2 hours.

But today the sky is blue... it's a new week... and it's time for another weekly wishes post!

Source.

I couldn't resist borrowing this photo from Washington Post. When I say the stadium emptied, I mean it!

Last Week
- Organize my jewelry shelves. Okay, I completely forgot about this one. I had a good excuse though, and that leads me to my next goal:
- Rock my ballroom auditions. You guys. Not only did I get into the Gold Latin class, but I also made it into the BYU Ballroom Dance Company! YOU GUYS! I am so excited, you have no idea! We are going to start learning our first routine today: a samba. Ooooooooh, I love ballroom dance so much! And now you'll be seeing more on this blog about the inner workings of a ballroom dance team. Whoo!

This Week
- Let's try the jewelry organization goal again. Yeah. I like that idea.
- Do some "fall cleaning". Who said spring cleaning was only for spring? I need to get ready for fall, and that includes a nice, clean apartment. AND I'll only allow myself to put up fall decorations once the cleaning is done, so that is great motivation because I love fall with all my heart.

Have a wonderful Monday, everyone!

Weekly Wishes 9.2

Happy September everyone! And happy Labor Day, of course. School starts for me tomorrow (finally) so today I'll be relaxing and making homemade pizza and finishing my Harry Potter marathon and making those snickerdoodle cookies that I never got to earlier this week. Which leads me to my Weekly Wishes...

Last week:
- Try at least 3 new recipes. On the top of my list was snickerdoodles, but first I had to go out and buy cream of tarter and once I finally got my hands on it, I procrastinated. Those cookies are getting baked today! Other than that, you can see my peanut butter cookies here and my experiment with banana bites here. I need to branch out and play with recipes that are not desserts/snack food items... goodness :P
- Organize my hair and makeup drawers. Done and done. And it's so nice to know exactly where everything is.
- Practice the piano music for Seussical for at least 1 hour each day. I will admit defeat on this goal. I did practice for at least 1 hour a few days, but not every day. Shame on me. Oh well... with rehearsals starting up again tomorrow, I'll be getting plenty of practice.

This week:
- Rock my ballroom auditions. I have to audition to get into the advanced gold-level classes, and I'll be going up against people who have already done gold-level dancing and have more experience than me, so we'll see how things go. I also want to try out for the BYU Ballroom Dance Company (eeeeeeek!) and that is stressing me out!
- Organize my jewelry. Now that my hair and makeup items are in order, I need to tackle my jewelry. I have two shelves of the bookcase in our room that are devoted to jewelry, and I need to create order out of that chaos.

Weekly Wishes 8.26

I'm back from California! It was super hot over there, but boy was it worth it! You just can't beat spending time with family and friends. And, as I predicted, I absolutely loved coming home to a clean apartment (thank you weekly wishes goal from two weeks ago).

I keep flipping out and thinking that school starts this week, but I still have another week of vacation before the first day, and I intend on enjoying every last bit of time I have. Which leads me to my goals from last week and my new ones for this week!

A word about this picture... I think that M&Ms and popcorn are one of the most awesome snack food combos ever. Preferably plain M&Ms, but other types work as well. And I've been craving this snack. Just throwing that out there.

Last week's goals:
        - Not think about school at all on my vacation
        - Visit Downtown Clovis with Douglas
I only thought about school ONCE, and that was because I needed to order my textbooks online... but that was all, I promise! And we did not make it over to cute little Old Town Clovis because our days were just too darn busy. Well, there's always next time!

This week's goals: 
        - Try at least 3 new recipes. With all this time on my hands, I just have to spend some of it in the kitchen. Snickerdoodles are on the top of my list!
        - Organize my hair and makeup drawers. It just really needs to be done.
        - Practice the piano music for Seussical the Musical for at least 1 hour each day (rehearsals start up again soon, and I'm the Music Director!)

Other than that, I'm going to make sure I enjoy this last week before classes start. I will be reading books, watching the final items on my Netflix playlist, trying new hairstyles, and listening to John Mayer's new album over and over again. Yes, this should be a good week!

Don't forget to link-up your wishes

Weekly Wishes 8.19

I am currently blogging to you from the hot, sunshine-filled land of California. We're visiting my family, so pardon my lack of blogging. We'll be back before you know it! Until then, let me do a quick report on my goals and such! I really love this link-up, so I just couldn't resist, even though I'm on vacation!

My goal last week was to completely clean my apartment in preparation for our vacation. I am pleased to say that our apartment looks pretty good... except for our storage closet. I can never seem to get that thing organized! I started on it, and I think the biggest thing I need to take care of in there is organizing all the holiday decorations and all of my gift wrapping supplies. Other than that closet, though, I'd say our place looks pretty dang good!

This week, my main goal is to relax and keep my mind off the upcoming school semester. The last thing I need to do is think about which books I'll need to buy when we get home and the preparations I need to do for my ballroom auditions and all that. For now, this is ME time.

I also want to go walk around Old Town Clovis with Doug sometime this week. Downtown Clovis is pretty cute with it's cobblestone sidewalks and old store fronts that contain tons of antique shops and art stores and boutiques. We're staying at my grandparents house, and they live pretty close to the area. I've decided that we need to spend some time there. Now I just need to figure out when to fit it into our schedule! There are so many people to see and things to do! Sometimes, vacation hardly feels like vacation at all, ya know?

Well folks... I've got things to do. Friends to see. Movies to watch. Frisbee to play. The Fresno LDS Temple to clean. Ice cream to eat. Pools to swim in. Siblings to tease. Naps to take. You get the picture, yes?

Weekly Wishes 8.12

Before I move on to my wishes from last week and the ones for this week, I just want to say... surprise!!!! I gave my blog an entire makeover! This little piece of the web is no longer called Of Thoughts and Things! (I figure everyone is allowed one major change like this in their blogging career, right?)

I even have my own web domain and everything! But there were some issues with that (my campus wireless network thought the website was malware. Campus IT and I are figuring that out right now.) but I should have my new URL up and running in next to no time! There are still some things I'm fixing and updating, so don't point your finger and laugh if something is not working or looks funky. I'm working on it, I promise! It was a lot of change to make all at once. *****Brownie points for you if you know which movie my blog title is referencing!!!*****

Okay!

Let's move on to the main post, shall we?

If you remember from last week, my wish was to get to the final round of at least one of my ballroom competitions. And guess what? I made it to the final round for all 3 events I competed in! Talk about meeting your goals!

My Ballroom/Latin partner and I placed 3rd in the waltz and rumba competitions. Considering that the couples who placed 1st and 2nd for waltz are on the BYU summer ballroom team and we are not, I'd say we did pretty good! And considering that my partner is not a Latin dancer whatsoever, we did pretty well for rumba too! (Pay no attention to the ugly background behind the dancers! We were in the backstage area and it was dark outside, waddaya want from me?!)

We weren't allowed to wear fancy outfits for this competition, so we made sure that we at least matched (hooray for electric blue!) and that I was wearing the flowiest (yes, that's a word!) skirt I owned.

My other partner and I came in 5th for the West Coast Swing competition. And this, I admit, surprised me because he just learned the steps the day before the competition. He just catches on to things really quickly, I suppose. We beat out people who have been practicing for the past month or two.

And, to report on my sub-goal of doing well on my Medals Exams... I got high honors on both Latin and Standard Ballroom! If any of you out there do ballroom dance, you'll understand. This is a big deal! I would have been pleased with just plain ol' honors, but... high honors?! Win! I've got big plans for ballroom dancing. Big big plans.

And now for my wishes for this week:

Mainly, I want to get my apartment entirely cleaned. We'll be going on a trip to California to see my family, and I want things to be in proper order so that I don't flip out over any messes when we come back home. Since the summer term is ending this week, I'll actually have time to clean things! Hooray!

So yes, that means I have to tackle our messy walk-in storage closet. Oh joy. Time to put on my game face!

Happy Monday, everyone. Get out there and make your wishes happen! And don't forget to link up!

Weekly Wishes 8.5

I've had my eye on this weekly wishes link-up for quite some time but never got around to joining it... until today! What better way is there to commit to a wish or two than putting it on a blog where other people can see it and hold you to it? Plus, I like the idea of a little wish here or there. It has just the right amount of optimism and hope to start out the week.

My goal this week is to get to the final round for at least one of my ballroom competitions. I will be competing in Waltz and Rumba (and possibly West Coast Swing) in a Dancesport competition this Friday, and I am very excited! I've put a lot of time into these routines and have improved a lot, and so I want to show that improvement on the dance floor.

Also related to ballroom dance, I have a sub-goal to get honors on my medals exams this week. We have a professional come and watch our dancing and give us a score on a national level so that we know how we are doing compared to other dancers across America. Fingers crossed!

I just love dancing so much!

I look forward to being a part of this link-up every week. It's inspiring me a ton already!

Go join the fun and set some weekly goals!

And happy Monday, everyone!