Instagram for Blogging & New Blog Obsessions for December

Last night I went through my Google Reader feed and updated my blog following.

I followed probably over 200 blogs and many of them were outdated, not up kept, or if you read my content rant, did not really have what I was looking for from my blogging experience.

So I've been trying a new approach- Instagram. I've had my Instagram for over a year now and you can follow me at the Instagram handle- kimberlyersk1ne.  It's the same as my blogger account, in case you lose this post and are still interested in following.  I have a private account, but send a request and we can become Instagram buddies.  I love seeing updates of different lives through views of snapshots.  Instagram is quite possibly my most favorite outlet of social media. I'm really glad that they clarified their new policies, otherwise life would be a little weird without that lovely gem.

I've chosen to follow the Instagrams of blogs that I'm interested in or people that are just really cool.  I definitely have an Instagram "type." I know, it's like dating all over again.  I love hipster mommas and people sharing fun, little-known products or crafting/design projects.  For the season, I love snapshots of Wisconsin and Madison and anything Christmas-related.  With following bloggers via Instagram, I can identify which ones really fit my personality and wham bam, thank ya ma'am- I'm a new subscriber to their blog.  

The original problem was that I subscribed to way too many blogs and many of them really weren't my style.  I love finding new blogs, regardless of how many I've subscribed to, I just often have to do some clean-up work.  If you think I would lurve to follow a specific blog- send me yours or their Instagram feed handle.  I realized that I need to find more that fit that quality of content that I discussed in that earlier post so let the search begin!

Here are some of my new favorites:

Gridiron Lipstick- Kait Sawyer

Why Should You Follow Kait- She's so adorable and fun and I love her posts.  Essentially, she fits all of my blogging criteria lol.  While being in a long distance, military relationship, she has created so many cute crafts and has so many adventures.  She talks about having extraordinary events happen to her (or better yet, she goes out and makes those opportunities happen).  This East Coast lady loves margaritas and her adorable chocolate labbie (aka labrador retriever). As a dog lover myself- this is an A+ in my book.

Crunchy Catholic Momma

I am obsessed with this family and the momma blogger is just so darn cute! She crafts up a storm and encourages folks to actually use what they have in their craft baskets.  My husband alone loves that message since it's impossible for me to walk into any craft store without spending $20. Which by the way, walked into Michael's yesterday with my 50% iPhone app coupon and bought ribbon and stitch counters all for under $5. If that's not impressive from a crafting perspective, I don't know what is.  Back to the blog, I originally found it while searching for a tutorial on how to make a cost effective Waldorf doll.  This lady is so crafty and basically someone I completely admire for the influence she has on her children. They have an itty bitty farm and a ton of kids.  Overall she has great, quality blog posts and has made me re-think what it takes to raise a family.

The Freckled Fox

Emily herself is just too cute.  I adore her hair, and fittingly so, since she includes hair tutorials on her blog.  She's another blogger who loves paying attention to the details.  Her posts and pictures feature everything sparkly, wonderful and festive in her life, including her beautiful fambam.  She loves to sew, craft, thrift and basically do everything that I love to do (I'm seeing a trend here :P)  This Southern Idaho lady has three lovely babies and of course, anytime there's an adorable momma with cute little ones- ya know there are going to be amazing ideas that I'll have to save for my future babies ;) 

Poppytalk

So many cute ideas in one spot! I found this blog via Pinterest, aka the land of all that is good and wonderful. There are a bunch of crafting ideas, cute decor items and they also feature other blogs. Consider it blogging eye candy.

 

Baby Rabies

If you're looking for another adorable mommy blog, Baby Rabies  is pretty funny and of course, super cute.  She's the momma who created the #InappropriateElf contest and they're so funny!  Although the contest is over, I'm still working on shooting a rather hilarious Elf on the Shelf moment with my elf, Blisterz.

That's What She Read
As a book lover, if your Instagram or blog feed starts featuring the covers of novels, I'm already intrigued.  Of course, this blog title had me at "hello." Jen works for a non-profit hospital in the marketing department and is an avid reader.  She provides book reviews as well as information on an online bookclub for bloggers called, "The Literary Junkies Book Club."  This is organized by By the Porchlight and Goings on in Texas, two blogs which I've just started to follow and hopefully will be just as fabulous as they seem.  I've just requested to be apart of their bookclub, so hopefully I can do a future post on how awesome it is :)

 The Kinch Life
I think Aubrey's relationship with her husband is wonderful! She talks about her faith so openly and her posts have such great content.  I also love that she's a fan of tattoos and incorporates her beliefs into many aspects of her life.  She's also a big fan of Target and Harry Potter- a winning combination in my book. This is another blogger whose Instagram feed, I simply adore.

The Dainty Squid
Last but certainly not least, I love Kaylah's blue hair.  I love self-expression and if I wasn't in the Air Force, I'm pretty sure I would have tried out several more different hairstyles than the long, jet black hair that I have now.  Kaylah is another blogger who loves little details and I constantly swoon over her pictures.  I feel like if Anthropologie was a person, combined with Urban Outfitters and Etsy- that would be Kaylah.

There you have it, some of my favorite blogs that I've come across since my last post in November.

Now this is just a build-up of my current favorites.  To check out some of my recurring favesies, you can find the post here, which includes Southern Hospitality, Trial By Sapphire, The Chronicles of Ruthie Hart, Today, I'm Bobby, and The Daily Tay. Keep in mind that I don't have traditional blog sponsors, just new blogging friends who I love to support.  I try to keep my blog "clean" by not having too many guest posts or giveaways, but I do love to feature a great blogger so do not hesitate to visit the sponsor page and swap for free.  These featured blogs in this post are blogs that I legitimately like and I think many of my readers will be interested in as well. So curl up in front of the fire with your laptop and some great blogs to start reading!

xoxoxo,

End of the World...?

Well we've survived the end of the world.
I think this is cause for a celebration.
In fact, it's the start of our winter break.
I put my hands up, they're playing my song...
This break could not come soon enough, I am so thankful for the time off.
I did kick arse on my last exam, scoring 100%. Really amped that happened and now I start break after tonight's late training ride.

Downloaded song of the week


Obsessed with this song and highly recommend adding it to your playlist for the repeatability (that's not a word...) factor.  I play songs over and over again, so if I can stand them with a 100+ play count, they're probably pretty good.  I'll try to put together a wonderful collection of holiday favorites over the weekend, just in case you need to make a playlist for your Christmas dinner.

Speaking of Christmas dinner, what are y'all making?
I'm thinking of making a turkey dinner for Christmas Eve and then steaks for Christmas Day.  I lurve turkey. Holy deliciousness.

  I could always throw something in the crockpot, and with special thanks to my classmate Nicole for her awesome Secret Santa gift of a crockpot cookbook!  I use mine constantly and crockpots are just simply magical.  You can throw anything in there and it comes out delicious.  With such a busy schedule, our household crockpot has been used for dinners and class parties.  I think I may or may not have influenced many of my classmates (especially the guys) in getting one because they're so handy to have around.

  So far we've sent out 67 cards and have 13 left over to send out to family and friends- I know, so many Christmas cards! I actually had to order two different sets.  My favorite cards of the year are photo cards, just because I love to see so many shining faces.  So our first set were a more traditional open and fold card and the second set a flat photo card (both featured family photos).  The first 40 ran out so quickly and then I still had a ton of people to send them to, which I don't mind at all because sending and receiving anything in the mail (apart from bills) is so fun.  I don't think snail mail will ever die because of that.  I bet the U.S. postal service is having a field day with Christmas.  Every single time I'm there (which admittedly is rarely) it's crowded.  I try to buy stamps at our base exchange to avoid the lines and even going to the post office but I did have to go there to mail a package and pick one up.  How did I avoid mailing Christmas packages while being miles away from my FamBam?  An Amazon Prime account.  I get free two day shipping, so I would have my family members tell me what they would want and whambamthankyama'am, they sent back to Wisco in a few days.  I also heavily utilized Etsy, but who doesn't love Etsy?  If anything, it's a beautiful inspiration board, just like Pinterest. 

  Ermahgerd guys, I almost forgot that my Pampered Chef Cookie Press came in from eBay!  I grew up with one and I use to make so many Spritz cookies for the holidays.  It's on like Donkey Kong tonight as I, hopefully, will be able to make a ton.  The plan is to package some for our neighbors as a friendly, "thanks for being awesome."

Enjoy this weekend leading up to the big day!

xoxoxo,

No More "See You Laters"

For the first time since Ryan and I have been married, we finally get to be together.
Not like living together for a month or two and then being separated, but really and truly be together.
He will receive his discharge papers later today and I finally get to breathe that sigh of relief.

My husband is my partner and my best-friend.
I am so incredibly proud of him for the sacrifices that he has made to defend our country.
He graduated from high school early to join the Marine Corps and dedicated four years of his young life to the Corps.  When many kids were getting trashed in college, he was deployed to Afghanistan.
Now that's not to take away from anyone who has gone to college, clearly I just graduated from a top-notch university, but his life experiences made him grow up a lot sooner than other young people.

While he was deployed, I made three videos for him.
The first was right before Christmas and it was a video of well wishes from all of these people who love and care about him.  It's long but filled with love.



You had everyone from his mom, step-dad, my parents, my sorority sisters, my residents (I'm was a House Fellow otherwise known as an R.A.), extended relatives, even the dogs telling him how much they missed him.

This second video was a birthday one, but I wanted to show you all the third one.

It's a collection of memories from the deployment and my graduation/commissioning. The very next day I hopped on a plane to San Diego to welcome my husband home!



So many wonderful memories :)

Twas the Night Before My 23rd Birthday

Today I had a training ride, so my weekend consists of enjoying Sunday off this week (or technically the start of a new week) but lucky for me, tomorrow is my birthday! 
So many incredible things have happened in my 22nd year of life.  I had my first year of marriage, although most of it was spent separated by entirely different continents.  I'm so excited that in our second year of marriage, Ryan and I finally get to be together.  I graduated from an awesome university and commissioned as an Air Force officer.  My husband came home, safe and sound, from his second deployment.  I cannot verbalize how completely and utterly happy I am in this moment.  I cannot wait to hold my husband in my arms and now that he won't ever have to deploy or train.  That moment will come in less than 5 days!  It's going to be amazing to finally just be married and together.  I've mentioned it in previous blog posts, but it can be difficult to have a "real" marriage when you're balancing it between phone calls and text messages.  We'll be able to get down to the nitty gritty and adjust to each other instead having to adjust every two weeks.

Speaking of adjustments, tomorrow I turn 23-years old.  Where did the time go?  I remember being in high school and imagining what being 23 would be like.  I also remember having my family life plan of starting to have kids anywhere from 26-28.  That's only three years away and that's just so close.  Ryan and I have started talking about it, but with the idea that we're going to try to wait until Ryan's done with school and then that'll become more of a possibility.  I've had some outrageous baby fever and I wonder if that's just natural with getting older.  I never thought this maternal clock would start a'ticking...so weird.

I spent my birthday eve grocery shopping at the commissary and stocking up on delicious food for Christmas and some of my husband's favorites, including Dunkin Donuts Coffee, Simply Made orange juice (with pulp), and yogurt.  It was fun putting his favorite items in the cart once again.  Now I'm all bundled up, watching Prep and Landing on Hulu.  So fricken adorable!  It was the perfect touch to the Fresh Frasier scent that is in my new warmer and the glow of the Christmas tree lights is perfect.  Tonight is also the last night of Hanukkah and I am thrilled to have celebrated this year and am excited to expand on that next year.

 

My roomie, Brittany, got me a Keurig! What an amazing friend I have! I showed a pic to Ryan and he totally geeked out. He is so excited and it seriously is the perfect birthday/Christmas present for the both of us. I certainly know Ryan is going to use that Keurig like crazy.  Tomorrow will consist of seeing The Hobbit (which I am totally amped for), pedicures, maybe getting a fishy, and dinner at a habachi...we'll see :)

So in celebration of my birthday, here are some things that make me happy and bring me joy.

The first includes 26 moments that restore my faith in humanity.  I started to get a little emotional at how beautiful and truly inspiring these people are just to their fellow neighbor.  We could all learn a little something from this. 

The second, my Erin Condren planner came in today! I ordered mine to go from January 2013 until December and I cannot wait to use it!! I'll do a review in the coming weeks.

 

Excited to start reading the Mortal Instruments series.  The books have been incredibly popular and I picked up the four book set as a birthday present to myself.  Here is the movie trailer, based on City of Bones:

My latest issue of Time Magazine came in today with some of the year's best movies and books.  I totally need to see the movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild and I saw The Invisible War, earlier this year and it was heart-wrenching but impactful.  As an officer, I want to do as much as possible in re-creating the culture of women in the military.

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 There are so many books that I want to read from their Best of 2012 recommendations.  These include: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and NW by Zadie Smith.

Well I have a ton of cookies to make for a Cookie Exchange Party tomorrow. Have a great weekend!

Dear Santa: A Letter from the Grown-Up Me

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As a kid, I remember Christmas being downright amazing.

During the winter months, our cable provider with Disney made the Disney Channel available as a selling incentive, now it's available on basically every cable provider but at the time you had to pay extra.  I loved it!

Christmas time also meant waking to up to Market Day french toast sticks with syrup and my mom playing a range of Christmas cds.  Getting up in the mornings was awesome.

I adored decorating the Christmas tree and have several pictures of my dad lifting me up, into the air to put our angel on top.  We had a little one with blonde, ceramic hair that was meant to be more of an incredibly large ornament than a tree topper but she did a great job as the beacon of our family tree.

Our ornaments would be placed out and each one had a significance to it.  One of my favorites was a blown glass sailor that my grandma gave to my dad for his service in the Navy.  Others were the million and one Disney ornaments I collected over the years and of course, the ones you make in elementary school out of the lids of jars and handprints.  Simply classics

Did you write Santa letters as a kid?

I sure did.

In fact, rough drafts.

Mine were elaborately long, filled with details as I scoured the pages of the Penney's mega toy catalog, American Girl, and any commercials that invaded our preview of the Disney Channel or on ABC Family. I would nit pick, erase, delete (as I got older and more tech savvy) and would debate whether or not an item was deserving enough to make it on the list.  I didn't want to ask for too much but then again, "ask and you shall receive." ya dig?

So as a grown-up (ew, when did that happen), I started thinking about what that letter to Santa might look like today.  Something along the lines of "Santa Baby"...I suppose.

Santa honey, I wanna yacht and really that's
Not a lot
I've been an angel all year
Santa baby, and hurry down the chimney tonight
Santa cutie, there's one thing I really do need, the deed
To a platinum mine
Santa cutie, and hurry down the chimney tonight
Santa baby, I'm filling my stocking with a duplex, and checks
Sign your 'X' on the line
Santa baby, and hurry down the chimney tonight

So out of some fun, here is my letter to Santa, if I had the wants and desires of an adult and the childhood wonder and adoration of Santa from my youth (which admittedly never really went away).

Dear Santa,

  I hope you're doing well sir and that you and Mrs. Claus have enjoyed your time off.  I'm sure the off-season never stops being hectic but you certainly deserve some time to yourselves.  Just saw "Rise of the Guardians" and I definitely have a different perspective on how you handle your job.  Kudos sir, kudos.  I've been a wonderful young lady this year.  I graduated from a great university with a bachelors degree, commissioned into the Air Force, and welcomed my husband home from his last deployment.  I don't want to ask for too much this year, but if you would be so kind to look at my Christmas list, I would most certainly appreciate.

With Lots of Love,

Kimmie

P.S. I've whipped you up some cookies from Pinterest recipes...so you know they're good ;)

First item of business

Belle's Library 

from "Beauty and the Beast" fame

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Santa, as I'm sure you know, I'm a voracious reader and although I've had to slow down a bit for training, I still love reading.  The discovery of a good book amongst the shelves of a used book store or even a Goodwill gives me such great thrills.  I probably spend more on books than food.

I realize that creating a mythical library out of nowhere can be a daunting task, but I've already found the perfect solution

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Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Austria's National Library

Yep, right behind that statue over there, you'll find my copy of 50 Shades of Grey.

I joke, I keed.

But seriously, I'm running out of room on my bookshelves.

 Every girl dreams of vacationing to a wonderful land so for my second item I would like

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

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With my husband and I not having a honeymoon, this would be a wonderful place to call our vacation home.  It's one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  

Accounts indicate that the garden was built by King Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled the city for 43 years starting in 605 BC (There is an alternative story that the gardens were built by the Assyrian Queen Semiramis during her five year reign starting in 810 BC).  the gardens were built to cheer up Nebuchadnezzar's homesick wife, Amyitis. Amyitis, daughter of the king of the Medes, was married to Nebuchadnezzar to create an alliance between the two nations. The land she came from, though, was green, rugged and mountainous, and she found the flat, sun-baked terrain of Mesopotamia depressing. The king decided to relieve her depression by recreating her homeland through the building of an artificial mountain with rooftop gardens. - The Museum of Unnatural Mystery

 Talk about romantic! He could have been a total jerk but he built her this massive garden to remind her of home.  That's like if Ryan created a massive snowglobe to overtake our house, so I could have snow for Christmas! *hint hint husband hint hint*

The Third Item

As stated before, Ryan and I never went on a honeymoon and we spent more than 75% of our first year of marriage apart due to his deployment.  We've always wanted to go to Europe so if we could go on a European Cruise, that would be amazing!

 I've never been and I have always wanted to go!  I want to see all of the historical landmarks and just see the architecture.  I would swoon and I know Ryan would just love it.  Plus, it would be nice to take a romantic vacation together.  I always feel like we're constantly doing something or worrying about this or that.  I think that's why people are always surprised to hear that people as young as we are happened to be married.  

My fourth and last item:

New Wedding Band

When Ryan and I got married, we didn't have a lot of money or time (almost two years later and that hasn't changed :P)  however, we did get very simple wedding bands.  I love my engagement ring because my husband picked it out and for not being a romantic guy, he did a great job.  It's a heart, solitaire diamond on a silver band.  My wedding ring is a silver band.  Although in reality, getting a new wedding band may be a few years off, I would love something with a little extra sparkle.  So yes, I do suppose I follow the song, "Santa Baby" a little bit on that one. 

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I am so grateful for everything I have in my life, including my family and friends. 

They continually support me and cheer me up whenever I am down.  

They are there for everything, no matter how far the distance.  

So I lied, my last and final item would be to go home for Christmas, although that's not feasible for us this year.  No worries though, enjoy this holiday classic with a fun twist 

(filmed not too far from my hometown).

 

xoxo,