The Halloween Spirit

I bought this jar without a clue of what to do with it. Thankfully I found these chocolate eyeballs in our commisary!

So Halloween is my favorite holiday, as I'm guessing most will say. No that we have our own home I went crazy trying to make and put together as many decorations as I could. So here is a gigantic post of some of the things that I made/put together for this holiday. Also you can see what my favorite scented candle was in a picture below.

I used a technique that any  kindergartner could master, while making these hats. You make a cone, cut a circle (for brim) and tape it together!

These were the first things I made, they have been hanging since the beginning of the month.

I'm usually more of a Silkin & Co. fan but this Yankee candle has been my ultimate favorite!

 This candle reminded me so much of home during Autumn. Here in Korea, with the lack of trees, I haven't seen many changing leaves. I miss that so much about Georgia. I miss walking through Sims Lake park listening to the water run its course and the rustling of the leaves in the wind. 

We finally got some shelves and it made me just giddy with excitement to stuff them with pumpkins!

These bat lights are one of my favorite decorations. They go perfectly with the black and orange pumpkin garland!

ALL THESE DANG SPIDER WEBS!! I should probably clean more often ;)

Last but definitely not least, Lily! We all started getting stuff for our costumes sometime towards the end of September. Our tiniest fluffiest member of the family also needed a disguise. I searched all over the internet and on amazon so something befitting of this little girl. We found on costume, Wonder Woman, that ended up being more like a ball gown than dress. Lily is a tiny pooch fitting between the (dog) sizes of xs and s. So my finally searching ended up on Etsy! I should have known I'd find something here. I present to you the cutest little Goku! 

This little fluff monster would not stay still so these are the best shots we could get :)

Maybe later on I can show you guys better shots of the costume. It has a good amount of detail.  Also some shots of our Jack-o-lanterns we will be carving tonight!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Alice Brunch (mostly pictures)

So for my birthday we got to go to this nice place named Alice Brunch. It's small and cutely decorated. As the name suggests, they sell brunch! The over all experience was so nice and cute that I had to go back with my husband. After two failed attempts that left us disappointed, we finally made it! It was around three pm so I was a little scared that for some reason we wouldn't make it yet again.

The charm starts as soon as you walk in but also look as this menu!

Close up of my husbands new shirt i got him. Spider-man and his villains make up a spider.

My favorite picture and wall decoration.

Yummy!

Last, but not least, our brunch! Everything was super delicious. I always enjoy variety.

The Goblet Of .... Fire?

Diva Cup!

WARNING TMI AND WHAT NOT!

So my first ever menstrual cup! Wow, you've heard of these right? Well if not I introduce to you this surgical grade silicone menstrual cup. You can find it online at Diva Cup or Amazon.

I personally decided to try this product because of my constant struggles with tampons, as I dropped the pads years ago (adult diaper much?)  Every time aunt flow dropped by I had forgotten to restock and found myself in a frenzy running to the grocery store for more. Or sending the husband cause he's sweet as candy! Anyway I had heard of the Diva Cup years ago in high school from this "free spirited" girl, well her explanation at the time turned me off from ever trying it. Fast forward six years later and I've been convince by all the eco-friendly do goers. If you think about it, doesn't take too much of it, and you'll see that it will save you loads! The cost of this product is around $25 dollars that's you'll only pay once a year (at least once). Compare that to the $8-$10 bucks a month (minimum) every month.... $96-$120 a year compare to that $25!

So for my first time, I was terrified not going to lie! It's something totally new to me. If you going into it with this sort of mentality you'll definitely freak. Don't worry though you'll be more than perfectly fine and your are only sycing yourself out. It comes with instructions just like those pesky tampons. And of course like most things there a bagillion videos about it on youtube. After my first days, though, I got a hold of everything and ended having the best experience. Did I mention you can use one for up to twelve hours?!?! So even if you find your self out and about you don't have to worry about your lady time being in the way. Make sure to at least carry a water bottle with filter water if you do feel the need to freshen up. When you do clean it make sure to use a fragrance free soap/ a vaginal cleansing wash (like Summer's Eve, as I used). After you're done with your period you wash it in the soap THEN throw it in a pot filled with water and boil it for five minutes. Yep, you can totally do that without harming it. Also no need to remove every time you use the restroom. Overall I believe this is a very necessary product/change.

You'll get to know yourself a little better but it's all very worth it. I would 100% recommend.

Take A Simple Breathe

Stolen Lavemder(?) from the Pyongtaek subway station.

Sometimes it's hard for me to PAUSE.BREATHE.AND RELAX. I don't have much going in my life but my mind is a hodgepodge of crazy. So I have to tell my mind to shush up from time to time. And haven't you found yourself in the same position? Latelty, though, I've found calmness in the small things, as people tell you to. For example, seeing the clear(ish) blue sky for what feels like the first time in forever. Here in South Korea it always seem to be smoggy, but you tend to get use to it. I feel like our little town even looks nice when this happens. Secondly, I've always been a big fan of making a space your own. Since being married and living with my husband I haven't gotten the chance to do that. We moved to California which was super expensive so any extra money was used for groceries or transportation. Then here we are now! In S.Korea, where we will only be living for about a year and a half now. So I guess whats the point? Well I still try. So I bought a set of cheap shelves! To my disdain our walls, I later found out, were concrete! SIGH!! So I sat and looked at those selves for months. My friends had suggested some solutions but I was to scared to be disappointed again. Well I gave in finally low and behold, SHELVES! Sadly, I don't have much to put on them and one of them is crocked (which makes me a smidge crazy). It might be ridiculous but these things have chipper me up. And of course as always my baby pooch Lily keeps a smile on my face every day.

Our little town of Songtan.

Our Hot Seoul

So as a extended birthday "celebration" I wanted to go to Hongdae to find these nice unique shops. Everybody else was busy with work and such on on my actual birthday so we did this that Saturday after.

We started off our day pretty early, 9 am wake up! After that we got on a bus, which we had to wait for, and rode on it to Seoul for about an hour. Once at Nambu bus terminal we hopped on the subway and rode around 11 stops to Euljiro3 then transferred to the Green line for 7 more stops until we arrived to the Hongik University stop. Seoul being in 95 degrees F weather sucked loads. Thankful the subway cars were all air conditioned.... but the streets weren't. This was our first time traveling in Seoul together, my friend Liz and I, without and Korean speakers. We were determined to make it out alive.





After having visited at some clothing shops, such as Uniqlo and H&M, we decided to try and find what we had come here for. Everything was in Korean and made everything difficult and the hot weather did not help at all. So we decided a cold drink would help calm us down and give us a mental boost so we could find this shop.

As a lot of shops here in Korea, this shake and ice cream place was tiny just like the rest. It's quiet quaint. Only four tables inside with minimal but cute decoration.

Our desperate attempt at using a Korean map

We busted out as many maps as we could. Obviously most of them were in Korea so it got pretty desperate.

While walking around we arrived to a pretty hip part of town. This is were we were to suppose to find our shop we were looking for, Lomography. This graffiti caught my eye so i stopped to take a picture of it. Funnily enough this building was wrapped with a Lomography sticker. We busted out laughing at our dumb luck. We circled the building hoping to find said shop but with no luck.

My favorite of the graffiti!

There was a lot of nice wall art as we walked around so at least we got something nice and beautiful out of it.


At this point our legs and feet we aching and the heat was weighing us down. Slowly I was giving up any hope of finding the one place I had set out to find. We kept walking and I finally just settled down for Lush and other cosmetic stores.

My friend Liz at the Hello Kitty cafe in Hingdae

 To our wonderful surprise, we found the Hello Kitty Cafe!! It was hidden in a deep corner. The only reason we saw it was because it was the only bright and pink building in town! It being a Saturday the cafe was a little too busy for us to go into.

They even had their own street signs

Nine hours later we were more than ready to go home and relax. We hopped back on the subway and did it all again... For far too long. This was definitely enough traveling for about a month or two.  I might not try finding these shops for a while or at least until the weather cools down here in South Korea.

24! Happy Birthday to Me!

I was in a rush to not have my huge camera out in public, thus a semi out of focus picture.

Yikes, does time fly by or what?! Today was 24th birthday and I could have sworn I just turned 19 yesterday! As the years go by you don't notice much of a difference. I guess thats why I still stuck in the past.

My husband made today really special! He woke up at midnight to wish me a Happy Birthday and then sang me Happy Birthday day before he headed out to work. Later a couple of friends and I went to brunch at this cute place called Alice Brunch. I wish I had brought my camera to take pictures of this super cute place (maybe next time).After a mimosa and yummy breakfast we headed for coffee and girl talk. 

After brunch we all headed home. When my husband finally came home he surprised me with a huge gift bag! I hadn't been expecting much at all since I had gotten my DSLR as my birthday gift. Wham bam thank you ma'am! I got a WII U! A Mario Kart themed one if fact! I'm a child at heart and my husband knew I'd be elated with this gift! So here I am at two am playing Mario Kart 8 thanks to my uber awesome husband!

You've reached 28! That's pretty great!

                               Apparently this is the month of kick ass people having birthdays. On Friday we celebrated a 23rd birthday, which ended up in to many drinks! And today is my friend Madison's birthday! She turned 28 and it's so great! We had a small get together in her home with her husband and pooch, Ellie. It was so nice. Like true adults we ate cake as our dinner and more tofu friend rice as our dessert. Then we enjoyed some video games. Well actually Maddie and i just got super mad at Mario Kart.

                               I'm very grateful that decided to share this day with us and can't wait to share my birthday with them as well. Just 10 more days guys!!!

Happy birthday Maddie! Hope you have a milliom more and that we get to share them with you guys!

The 3rd Spring

Ps: at the end of this post I will bombard you with Lily pictures

                    There's a pretty sweet way of saying someone's getting older in Spanish, Primavera, which means Spring. So this year Lily is having her tercera primavera (3rd Spring). My baby is getting wiser and I couldn't be happier. My mother always said the fireworks after her birthday we just for her. Obviously we know it's the fourth of July but we're so in love with her that we don't care.
                   So being that I've been in such a mood to make and bake everything in site.... here are some cupcakes I made for my precious (yes, you may say this is a smeagol voice).

Easiest Granola

                    I made these delicious chocolate chip granola bars for my family and friends last night. My husband fell instantly in love with them as did I. The best part about these is that they were so simple and I had all the ingredients in my cupboard! Nothing better than that huh? Also it ended up making a lot  more than I anticipated so that was a super plus.

                  I encourage you to make these if you're feeling like snacking but don't want to go out and buy that  store junk. These taste so much better. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of Old-Fashioned rolled oats
• 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour
• 1/2 of shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1/3 cup of packed brown sugar
• 1 cup of chocolate chips
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1/2 of vegetable oil (canola/coconut oil is fine as well)
• 1tsp of vanilla extract 
• 1/2 cup of honey ( to make vegan you can substitute for date syrup)

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit (163 degrees Celsius) 
• Place your flour, oats, coconut, brown sugar, chocolate chips, and salt in a large bowl. Mix them until combined.
• In another bowl mix your oil, vanilla extract, and honey with a whisk until its smooth and well combined.
• Mix both the dry and wet ingredients together. 
• After it is all mixed together (make sure its all covered in your honey mixture) dump into a cookie sheet. Here you'll use a flat spatula to flatten out you mixture about an inch thick. Make sure you are squaring off the edges. It should look like a rectangle.
• Put into the oven and bake for 40 minutes. It should be nice and golden. Let it cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into small bars. Use a sharp knife for this, otherwise you could have jagged bars.

Befores and Afters

Back on the subject of JUICING! It's my jam, I'm not going to lie. Throwing random fruits and vegetables together making they best juices. When I first stared I remember on,y wanted to do fruits because I was scared of what it would taste like if I mixed veggies in. So it was a mostly apple juice and let me tell you IT WAS THE BEST. As a child I was a big lover of apple juice, but this.... this was pure nothing else (i.e sugars and such) added. The experience was short of magical. I don't have much going on so yes I was way too excited about apple juice.

Do Better Feel Better

  As of recently I've wanted to change it up a bit. First off I wanted to change my diet. I also want to become a little more conscience of what I use and how it ends up after I use it. Also buying local is a pretty amazing idea that I've wanted to work with. And by local I really mean things made in the USA as of right now (being I'm located in S.Korea). So here are some tid bits I've been doing to make the change.


 I've always needed to consume more nutritious foods, and I've always had a strong dislike for vegetables. Well JUICING! It helps me with both my veggie and fruit in take. For some reason it's like a million times easier for me to juice something together than to figure out how to use it in a dish. It pretty fun to see a whole pineapple turn into nothing but juice. What isn't fun is juicing things like beets and you getting splatters of it all over your wall. I guess this all depends on your juicer though.
   Some of my favorite juices include:

• 2 Apples
• 1 Cucumber
• Handful of Spinach 
• Juice of half a Lime

or

• 1 Whole Pineapple
• 1 Whole Cucumber
• Handful of Spinach 

at last but not least

• Half a Watermelon 
• 1 Beet (which are freaking hard to come by here in Korea)
• Juice from half a Lime

Whole pineapple, whole cucumber, inch of ginger, and a handful of spinach.

ALSO

Pepe Le P(h)ew

   It has been a while. I'd say that there wasn't much going on in my life but I'd be lying. Maybe I've just been a tad bit indolent. Any way, this month on inactivity on the blog has brought SCAD (suspended catch air device), bungee jumping, and health endeavors. See, no excuse for the lack of writing. But i will show you a couple of pictures so you feel like you didn't miss out.

And Breath....

                   So being from a none militant I know nothing on the matter. I'm currently an military wife to an Airman based in South Korea. All together its been a huge change. I've been married two years to my high school sweetheart. In 2011 he decided to join the military and in 2012 we married. First move was to Northern California. I didn't really experience the military life there very much.

                 Well here we are thousands of miles away from home and BAM! I have to get ready for things like evacuations due to war/natural disasters with gas masks and such. It's all very new too me and sometimes still scary. Apparently no military based people have had to evacuate since the 50's, but you never know.

              Anyway I guess I just wanted to tell someone about the fact that today I was given and gas mask for my safety and I'd never even seen one in real life until now. Personally, I never saw my self here like this. Not that it's a bad thing but I never pictured my self living a slightly militant life. I guess I imagined myself stuck in Georgia living the boring life forever. I'm grateful no matter how stressful it gets..... but I will evacuate as fast as I possibly can once the time comes don't doubt that for a second.

Gangnam And Lanterns

     As some of you might know Buddha is having a birthday soon! In celebration the was a Lightning/Lotus lantern festival (April 26th) in Jogye- sa. Before this we when on a mini adventure to Gangnam for Gundams and Lush goodies. While in Gangnam we visited Bongeunsa Temple.

Haunted, maybe not?

So never before have I been one to break rules OR laws. Today we girls decided to take a trip to an abandoned hotel. They whole time I'm there I'm imagining zombies or some other creature jumping out of the dark. This building is about a grand total of five to seven stories including the basement. We've decided to explore the whole thing. Here we are walking from room to room. Every one different from the previous one. Some more lit than the last or pitch dark. We've prepared for this....at least one of us has. Big old flash lights are taken out as soon as we walk in. Thank goodness other wise one of us might have ended with glass in an eye or something.

I faced the ROCKS!

          Man, was today (March 8th) all kinds of "hard". By that I really mean is now that I'm home I really feel tired and have noodle arms.

Ignorance: Blissful yet quite the handful.

           Here I am in a whole new country oceans away from my birth place. Did I do any research before I decided to pack my bags, grab my dog, and hop  on a plane? Of course not, that would be a smart thing to do. Did you know that when living in South Korea you can experience the polluted sands of china? Tha heck?! I wasn't aware of this until the day I landed here.So from end of winter to sometime in the spring we get tortured. Apparently as a " Sensitive Group" my more likely to be effected by said sands. Well behold! We were sick this week!
  Not only do we get sands we also get banana spiders. No, I'm not excited about this.So coming from a small town that never got any really "exciting" weather changes I will be a little freaked every time something major occurs.

Anyway this has been a small post to be sad about. Have fun where ever you are because you don't need to wear a surgical mask. Or worry about spider....hopefully.

Whoops, but really though?

              I feel kind of bad that since being here I haven't really brought my camera with me when we've been out. I'm sad to say that I just haven't seen the point of it anyway. It's not to say that where I live lacks beauty but its not what I'm use to. Hopefully.... eventually I'll snap some photos here and there just so you can have a mental picture of my new home. As for right now this is all I have.

Oceans Apart

                      

                   Oh man, I want to start this off by apologizing to my readers.... the two of you lol. "I've been busy" isn't completely the truth. Mostly I've been lacking a computer/internet and some slight motivation. As I mention in a previous post, that is now gone, I moved back home to Georgia from California for a couple of months. All this while I waited to make one of the biggest moves of my life, but a little more on that later. So I spent seven months back home in which I got two jobs and spent way too much money. I made a couple of new friends but nothing much. So truth be told my months were a bit bland.