Hello friends! US readers, I hope you’ve had a restful Labor Day weekend. Right now it’s rainy and cozy outside. The weather this weekend was thankfully below 100 degrees, which was nice.
Here’s what I’ve been up to:
Studying (boo)
The fiscal year for our main client ended on Friday. Now that the fiscal year has ended, it is time to start entering hardcore study mode. Honestly, I did a lot of studying this weekend. I’m now at 72.25 hours total. There’s still SO much left to study. Quantifying the amount of time I have left to study in weeks or months freaks me out, but counting the time in days makes me feel a little better.
Right now I’m studying hydrology and air pollution engineering. Water resources has been making more sense thanks to the class I am taking…but air is still kicking my butt. I think I *finally* made a little progress this weekend because I am working on having a better understanding of coal emission rates and how to work those problems. I still find this concept a little confusing, but I think I’m getting there.
I really have to take it a day at a time, and work as hard as I can while still finding time to relax; I don’t want to burn out. I also have to believe in myself and my abilities, and not psyche myself out. One of the reasons I failed twice already is I didn’t believe I could do it. If I learned anything this year, it’s that I’m capable of more than I realize! 53 days to go, I’ve got this!
Labor Day Sales
Too much studying makes me grumpy, so I took some study breaks and advantage of all the sales.
I dragged Husband to Ulta and purchased this palette:
This is the Morphe X Jaclyn Hill palette in Bling Boss. I can’t say I’m very adventurous with my makeup – for example, I avoid contouring like the plague because (A) I don’t know how to do it and (B) I look a decade older if I slap a bunch of makeup on my face. But I love indulging in eyeshadow palettes, and I really like the colors in this palette. I’m on the fence about a couple of the colors, but I’ll see what I can do with them.
Yes, that is a Dave Grohl coaster on my night stand. Yes, I keep a cute ass penguin there too.
I love Half Price Books’ Labor Day sale – 20% off! I purchased several books I’ve been eyeing for a while. As I look at my stack of books, I can’t say that I NEEDED any of them. The projects in the knitting book are beautiful, but I’m unsure if the patterns are accessible at the level I’m at now. I’ve read two of Ruth Ware’s books and have been underwhelmed, but The Lying Game was a selection for Reese Witherspoon’s book club that I follow on Instagram – so I’ve give it a chance.
Today I went with a friend to JoAnn, which was a welcome break from said studying grumpiness. My mother-in-law had gotten me a gift card for my birthday; time to spend it!
Some beautiful fabric for an unknown future project.
Baby sport yarn…for the baby on the go! (NOT FOR ME)
For my bachelorette party, we did a fun paper workshop…so periodically I think, “I’M GOING TO DO SOMETHING WITH PAPER” and then never do.
This is so cute, I can’t.
I don’t NEED more yarn…but I WANT more yarn.
Crafting
I worked on more of my crochet shrug –
along with a couple of other random little projects – progress is not meaningful enough to post.
Miscellaneous
- We saw Searching on Saturday…it was a good movie!
- I made some cookies. My mom makes some yummy cookies from a Skinnytaste recipe , and after talking with her, I was inspired to make some myself! They are almost gone!
- I pulled my back. Boo. This is what happens why I try to do the Camel pose and then fall asleep on the couch.
- I’m trying this recipe (sans the spinach and bacon because I’m lazy.) I’m not sure if this is a legitimately Italian recipe, so I’m probably besmirching my heritage by making it, but I like crock pot recipes and I loooove gnocchi. I also need a redemption because when I tried making this recipe last week, I accidentally purchased condensed milk instead of evaporated milk. You used condensed milk to make things like…caramel, so I unfortunately had to toss this batch out.
Ok, I have babbled enough. I am watching RBG, so off I go! Have a great week!
Categories: ALL THE THINGS, Books, Craft Haul, crafts, crochet, Food, Holidays, Motivation, PE Exam Grumpiness, Pretty things
Jennifer Stark 
I love Skinnytaste recipes, just a few days ago with had some awesome low cal pasta with zoodles – delicious and guilt-free 😉
Also, I don’t contour either, I really don’t like it and it seldom looks as good is reality as on Instagram photos… but palettes are my thing. Currently I’m just switching between different Urban Decay Nudes (I had 4 of those palettes, embarrassing to admit!). I had one Morphe and loved it but I felt bad in these colours so now my friend rocks it. They are good quality and stay on the whole day!
Good luck with your exam too… this seems a little related to my field, although I deal with environmental issues more from the biodiversity loss/conservation point of view. You can do it!
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Skinnytaste is the best! I think the General Tso’s recipe is one of my favorites. It got me eating cauliflower rice, and I don’t even like cauliflower! 🙂
Yessss makeup palettes are such a fun indulgence, I have too many. Did you hear UD is retiring the Naked palettes?
Thank you so much! 🙂 I am looking forward to getting it over with! My day to day work involves remediation, which I enjoy so much more than studying about air pollution…but unfortunately remediation is just a small portion of the exam! That sounds really interesting, are you involved with impact studies?
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I haven’t tried this recipe – I need to check it! My recent favourite one is angelhair pasta with zoodles – delicious and I can eat a lot without guilt 😉 I lost 10 kg in the last 4 months and Skinnytaste was a great help, it let me enjoy food and lose weight at the same time!
I didn’t know about UD Naked being retired, glad I bought my palettes this year (I decided it was time to replace my old more colourful palettes because hey, I’m supposed to be a mature woman now)!
I’m not involved with impact studies (although my last job before moving to Ireland was in an environmental research institute where many of my colleagues did it!) – I’m currently a subcontractor through a consulting company to the European Commission as a consultant on Natura 2000 network (that is a EU form of nature protection focused on species and habitats) and restoration of habitats and populations. Since often pollution and degradation of soil/ water/ sometimes air, too is one of the factors in population decline or habitat loss, it has to be addressed before focusing on the species or habitat itself. Remediation seems even more connected to what I do!
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I will have to try the zoodles! I would eat pasta every day if I could…so maybe substituting it with something healthier would be better :p We love that we can keep track of the calories/fat content while making the recipe too.
Your job sounds really cool! And it
definitely sounds like there is an overlap 🙂 I finished up a report for a site where we had to screen remedial investigation data to see what media were contaminated and with what…and we had both terrestrial and aquatic ecological receptors to deal with!
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You sound like my bf with your loce of pasta (he’s partly Italian so I guess it’s in his blood lol) so try mixing zoodles with real pasta – not so caloric but still includes pasta, it’s a cool trick I learned from Skinny taste 😉
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That’s a great idea, thanks! 🙂
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And I should note that I am not on the team that identifies the ecological receptors…I just screen the data against whatever action levels they come up with :p
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