Friendship Bracelet.

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Do you remember these? I sure do...!

When I was younger, which seems like such a long, long time ago, my friends and I were obsessed with making these bracelets. From what I can recall, I had several tutorial books and hundreds embroidery threads -- all different colors! 

I stumbled upon this post from Volcomunity today, and it would appear that friendship bracelets are back in trend. If my memory serves me correct, these bracelets are one of those trends that resurfaces every few years, each time with an updated look. Now that I think about it, I actually received one for Christmas, but with a few beads on it.

Anyways ... instead of going out to buy one, I thought I would share a few of my favorite DIY Friendship Bracelet links that I found and thought were worth sharing!

+ DIY: Friendship Bracelet
+ DIY: Friendship Braclets
+ DIY: Heart Friendship Bracelet
+ DIY: Grown-Up Friendship Bracelet
+ DIY The Fastest Friendship Bracelet
+ DIY: The Ultimate Friendship Bracelet
+ DIY: Fishtail Braid Friendship Bracelet

Don't these fabulous DIY's make you want to stop by the craft store and make a few?!! Or maybe that's just me who has this sudden urge to make a few!

An Apple A Day...!

In an attempt to improve my overall health, I have been trying to improve my diet. More water, less soda pop, more vegetables at dinner, and fruit for breakfast and/or snacks. It's a slow work in progress, especially reducing the pop. 

Today, instead of going for a piece of toast or an eggo waffle, I decided to eat an apple for breakfast. Because I was still hungry, I also may have had a chocolate chip muffin and a glass of milk afterwards. Another breakfast option that I plan to try later this week is breakfast smoothies. I even bought some quick oats to include in my smoothies! 

Although I know that eating any kind of breakfast is better than no breakfast, I have been learning about how some breakfast options are much better than others. For example, a healthy breakfast should include fruits, low-fat protein and dairy, and whole grains. This combination will also help you from getting hungry too quickly. 

I may or may not have mentioned this before, I am a fussy eater. As a result, my fruit options are limited. To help save time in the morning (and money, because buying fresh strawberries and raspberries can be expensive), I decided that eating an apple most mornings would be very beneficial. 

To help encourage me to eat an apple a day, I found three interesting health benefits: 

1. Eating one medium apple counts as one cup of fruit. So, after eating one, you are well on your way to meting your daily fruit quota. 

2. Apples are an excellent source of immune-boosting vitamin C. 

3. Prior to your work out, eating an apple may boost your exercise endurance. 

Obviously there are many more benefits, but they aren't very relevant to me at this point in my life. Now, I just have to make sure that my new breakfast routine sticks around longer than a few days. The mornings where I have more time, I plan to make breakfast smoothies with quick oats, frozen fruit, low-fat yogurt and juice -- maybe twice a week. What do you eat for breakfast every day? 

This Week for Dinner.

Dinner's this past week have been super simple, and as usual, have included some form of pasta! 

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If it were up to me, I think I could eat pasta every day. While out grocery shopping this morning, we bought $20.00 worth of vegetables and fruit.

My goal is to start incorporating more salads into our evening meals, and to start eating more fruit at breakfast time. I also purchased some oats and low-fat yogurt so that I can make some breakfast smoothies. I have never tried them before, but I know I love smoothies, so I am sure these will be delicious! 

+ Monday: Leftovers: Cannelloni & caesar salad

+ Tuesday: Leftovers: Cannelloni

+ Wednesday: Tacos

+ Thursday: Leftovers: Tacos

+ Friday: Chicken Mozzarella. Recipe here.

+ Saturday: Leftovers: Chicken Mozzarella

+ Sunday: Homemade spaghetti sauce & pasta. Recipe here.

What's on your meal plan for dinners? Have you tried any new recipes lately? Do you have any delicious salad recipes? Feel free to share your weekly dinner menu for this past or upcoming week, no matter how simple or fancy!! 

March's Resolutions.

Hello March, I cannot believe you are here already! It feels like only yesterday it was December and we were celebrating the holidays. And now, we are already three months into 2013. Needless to say, the past three months have flown by!

As I mentioned last month, I started reading The Happiness Project and have started setting resolutions for myself each month. Last month, I added a few new resolutions to my list. I would like to say that I was successful in all of them, but that would be far from the truth. I hate to admit it, but February has been a tough month for me. 

- up until the other week, i was going to bed early most nights. then i started playing around with my blog's code some more, and that plan flew out the window. the exhaustion finally caught up to me this week; so, for the past few nights, i have had to force myself to bed earlier than i would like. 

- cleaning the condo has also taken a back seat, mainly because i am working tons and the boyfriend and i are on different sleep cycles. i am hoping to get back on track in a few weeks.

- exercise, oh how i really dislike you. i was actually doing pretty good for a week or two, maybe even three. my biggest mistake was starting to stay up late again because once i started doing that, i had little to no energy to exercise. though i have been doing regular stretching almost every day! 

- last week i ran out of ginger root, but i had been drinking ginger tea every day. it was the best thing i could have done all winter because i didn't get sick once. i've also been drinking water more regularly (not as much as i should be drinking though). to my surprise, in the evenings, i actually have started to crave a nice cold glass of ice water. reducing the soda pop has been really hard. some days i can go with only half a can, other days i really crave it. 

Knowing that the next two months are going to be hell at work, and I am already feeling overwhelmed with the work load, I am not going to add any new resolutions to my list this month (or next). For the entire month of April, I will be working 7 days/week. Ugh! Anyways, my main goal is to work slowly on my exercise and get myself to a point where my muscles aren't in as much pain. Every time I go to get a massage, he comments on how bad they are. This is something I really need to focus on, and sitting up straight! 

How are you resolutions coming along?