Quotes – Just a Dash

2013 in Review

January 1, 2014January 22, 2014by SymoneFLeave a Comment

I sat and typed a long post on 2013 but I’m going to scratch that and condense it because even though I thought it was exciting, I don’t want you to get bored and start skimming. So here’s my 2013 recap in pictures and bullet points 🙂 basically TLDR format with pics.

In 2013 I:

♣ Visited 3 new countries: Dominica, Norway, France

2013 in Review — Dancing by the river in Dominica

♣ Took trips throughout the year: Orlando (wedding/January), San Francisco (birthday getaway/February), Dominica, Barbados, Norway (3.5 wks// 2 weddings and a conference in that order/ May-June), England and France (conference// Paris for fun 😉 / November/December), Barbados (surprised family for Christmas/ December)

♣ Had a few new experiences: first awful hangover 😦 (like pass out before the night’s end), took public transport alone in a different country, had traditional high tea in England

Snapshots of Tea at the Chesterfield Mayfair

♣ I played host for 8 weeks straight in July and August for family and friends

♣ Got delayed on almost every flight I took using American Airlines. I’ve already sent a letter to them.

♣ We saw Rihanna, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar and J Cole in Concert and Dave Chapelle’s comedy show

♣ I baked two firsts: coconut bread/sweet bread as we call it back home, and my first cake. Got an A for effort and flavor on the cake but need to tweak the recipe so it’s not so dry. The coconut bread was a hit apparently :).

Sandwich cake with Guava Jelly in the middle as my husband doesn't eat berry anything. — Sandwich cake with Guava Jelly in the middle as my husband doesn’t eat berry anything.

WordPress sent me my annual blog report that you can view here. I want to thank you very much for visiting and I hope to do a better job on blogging this year as I spent so much time focusing on my other blog last year. I had tons of drafts that I never got around to publishing, but as I said I’ll try to get better at working on both.

For 2014:

♦ Now that my parents have Fitbits and passed me in the first week due to salsa and walking in the morning, I’m more inspired to workout, they’re over 50!!!

♦ I’m looking forward to visiting a new country, no plans yet but spontaneous trips are the best

Have a wonderful new year. I’ll leave you with a few quotes to help you get through with your direction for this new year in case you were a little lost or need a push.

Uncategorized

Being Content

April 25, 2013by SymoneF1 Comment

~~It’s amazing how much your perspective changes as you get older.~~ It’s amazing that as you mature, your perspective changes. When you get married, it’s no longer about you anymore, you have a partner to consider. If you took the career route, working late means more to you than a night out with friends. Your priorities change in ways you never thought possible.

But the roots of life aren’t based on material assets. Setting goals and achieving them can be seen through material things but in the end, what matters is looking back at how far you’ve come and being content with where you are going.

To be content, you shouldn’t envy others. Please don’t. See what others have, be happy for them but work towards your own successes. Some people have things handed to them and they don’t understand how hard someone else is working to achieve that same thing. What may take weeks or months for some may take years for others. Negativity does not enhance your character. It also makes everything around you sour and stifles progress.

So the next time you see someone and you want their life or something they have, use it as inspiration to be a go-getter and do better for yourself. Set goals and know that nothing happens overnight. Leave envy at the door. You don’t know what they went through to get where they are and if it’s well known that it was handed to them, then that makes it even better for you personally to know you worked hard to get to the same level.

None of us are perfect, but we can use our imperfections to bring out the best in us.

Because you love the quotes I post, here are two, as usual, taken from Real Simple:

Uncategorized

Drawing Inspiration

April 10, 2013by SymoneFLeave a Comment

I’ve been really drowning myself into my other blog. It’s based on something that I think about daily and I’m so happy to share with others my “obsessions”. Part of my inspiration for that blog comes from magazines. I love flipping the pages, smelling the perfume, cutting out pictures – some things technology could never replace. Yes, I may be able to have a virtual pin board like Pinterest or Polyvore, but they don’t offer me perfume samples or little cards that I can keep at bay with 5 colors that go well with gray.

With this blog, I like to share life experiences and that comes with everyday things. My struggle to keep fit, eat healthy, share recipes, rant and offer inspiration where I can.

Blogging is very personal. If you don’t have many followers, you are opening up yourself to a few that you may not even know. A few who may know more about you than your family. But it is also something that you want to be of substance, not always a ramble that fails to draw in readers and keep them interested and return to your blog or even subscribe. I wish I had more subscribers but I have this reservation about really putting my blog out there – basically pushing it down people’s throats. I like that people read one post and find me interesting enough to subscribe and see what I have to offer in the future.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t feel like I should post just because. If I take a while to post in between, trust me I’ve started and deleted posts and just left it until I felt like I had something worth sharing. To push posts constantly that lack substance will only get people uninterested.

I sometimes find it amazing that I can sit and watch the world go by but I could never retain information long enough to put it in a post. My mind is like 10 trains going through a squiggly maze and I have to try to pick one train and focus on where I want to go with it. With that being said, I love notebooks. Writing my thoughts or a quick blog post on my phone is sometimes very important because I become so overwhelmed by my thoughts and you can also see y passion/excitement when I do a quick post. It’s like I’m screaming “I HAD TO SHARE THIS WITH YOU!”. And I’m kind of feeling like I have to share with you now.

Hopefully I can keep on this role of being inspired and maybe keep you inspired as well.