perseverance...

that sick of working out faithfully and not eating junk food whenever I want feeling is starting to hit. I need to stay focused, keep my eye on my goals, my progress, and not move backwards, but how?! so that bring us to this lovely post of keeping motivated! I looked over various tips and advice from fitness professionals and here's a few tidbits I liked.

1. Look back to the past- many people trying to lose weight have "tried" over and over with new plans, diets, equipment, medicine, whatever. I feel like I've been there somewhat and so by looking back at what made me fail then can help me prevent setting myself up again. For example, in the past I would stop or cut myself slack when I started seeing results. I would get comfortable with the progress I had made and decided I could afford less workouts or more yummies until I either gained weight back, or eventually weaned myself off my routine completely. So to avoid that, maybe I'll start weighing myself less to shift my mindset more to what I'm doing for my body rather than what a week of workouts is doing for my body. Does that make sense?

2. Relax- whether you're rewarding yourself for your efforts, or simply taking some extra time to do something you like to break up the stuff that's maybe not so fun, it's important! I have to make sure I'm still seeing that my needs are met and not just running myself ragged. Otherwise, I get cranky and stressed out and I'm much less likely to feel up to working out. Seeing as I always seem to bite off more than I can chew- this is a good one for me!

3. Look to the future- so I know I talked about looking back to the past but at the same time, focusing on the things you are working toward, and the reasons behind those goals can help too. I've seen a nike ad a couple of times that says to run from the pain, the problems, the fear, etc. Last night when I hit the gym I was tired, I was hungry, and I really just wanted to go home and bum around. I started thinking about that poster but then I realized I didn't want to think about running away from negative things, but rather running toward the positive things... Running toward the joy, the strength, the satisfaction of overcoming the challenges, the way I'll feel when I'm fit and healthy, all the good things that are slowly coming as I stick to my guns. I liked that better.

I don't want to make this too long so I'll leave it there for now. But what do you guys think? How do you get yourself out of a rut and push yourself to keep going when you're facing something hard?

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend (is Tuesday too late to say that?) and have an even better week!

<3 K

comfy cozy

So with my summertime dwindling, I started thinking about things I want to do before all the craziness of school starts. Mostly, I want to decorate my new place :) I love a blank canvas BUT we can't paint here so I've been trying to think of different ways to bring in color with white walls and all neutral furniture. Also, we're on a tight budget so this is all going to take some creativity. So today I have set off for inspiration and here's some top picks I've found!

I saw this DIY idea for a doormat and LOVED it! I've been racking my brain trying to think of ways to spruce up our front door area but seeing this, I pictured some potted plants arranged next to it and maybe a cute wreath on the door? I then thought how this would actually make a really cool bathmat. think spa... not sure about that one though. what do you guys think??

sorry for the blur on this one but I loved this little vignette and I've pretty much decided to use this navy, coral, turquoise color scheme for our bedroom. I already have a lot of turquoise accents I can move to the bedroom and steven loves orange so I think this will be perfect to keep our bedroom fresh but not too feminine. yeah yeah??

                                                                   

Some feminine is good though. I love this bold floral headboard and am wanting to do something like this with our own head board. Looks like it's time for a trip to the fabric store!

 I really like this room as well- both the colors and the style. Our bathroom accessories are already blue and brown so this may be something we could do to spice it up a bit if we don't go with the whole "spa" thing.










Framed or not framed, I also thought this"Get Naked" idea was funny for the bathroom. At least it's something I don't think Steven would fight me on haha.

 

These were some fun ideas for curtains. The one on the left would be a great way to dress up boring closet doors. The other would be an easy DIY for sewing curtains. Seeing as a few of our windows are currently bare, I very well may be doing this soon!

I loved this idea because it solves my problem of not being able to paint my walls! This came from a pin on pinterest (addiction!) where the pinner claimed to use some corn starch concoction to adhere the fabric to the wall. I'll have to look into it more but if it's easy to undo/clean up, I will deffffffinitely be doing this all over the place :)

and I just thought this was cute. I actually have a monogrammed letter framed like this but I like the addition of the buttons to add some texture and a bit more character.

Any brilliant suggestions from you guys? My main concern right now is color. I need some ideas on how to bring color and warmth into an apartment full of white walls. dark green carpet throughout doesn't help either haha. What do you guys to do make your place feel like home?

<3 K