i got my first award!!

Yayyyy!  I got my first blog award, and I'm so so excited.  Kai over at 

All Kinds of Complicated gave me the Stylish Blogger Award!

She is such a sweet and beautiful girl, and if you do not already follow her blog, I highly recommend that you should.  I love how she takes pictures of food (just like me!), shares her fun dates, and mixes her blog posts with stories from her life along with life, style, and design inspiration.  :)

Okay, so the rules for the award are as follows:

1. Thank the person that gave you the award. (Thanks again Kai!! ❤)

2. Name 7 facts about yourself

3. Give the award to 7 stylish bloggers, & comment to let them know.

1. I'm a twin!!  My sister, Brooke and I are best friends.  Yeah, of course we fight, but we always get over it.  We had always been in the same classes (until college), had the same friends, and lived together.  There's not much that we don't know about each other, in fact, sometimes she knows more about me than I know about myself.  She's most likely going to be moving to Milan, Italy for the Fall 2011 Semester, and I already miss her.  It's going to be such a change, but it will be a good one.  If you don't already follow her blog, go check it out: Living Today But Dreaming of Tomorrow

me & Brookie 

2. I'm a vegetarian. No meat, no fish, but I'm definitely not a vegan.  I love ice cream, cheese, & chocolate milk.  My mom raised me and Brooke that way.  Our dad eats meat and our three brothers eat meat, but us girls are veggies.  Yeah, it definitely limits restaurant menus to two or three items, but I think that it makes me unique, and I like it like that.  Oh, and we found this really great restaurant called Green in Scottsdale, and their entire menu is mock-meat.  It's the one place that I can order everything on the menu, but I still always only get the same two things (buffalo wings & a mexi-cali burger).  

3. Chipotle is my favorite restaurant in the whole world. It's not fine dining, and I'm sure it's not the best mexican food out there, but I eat there at least once a week.  Last week, we ate there probably about 3-4 times.  It's kind of ridiculous, but their $6.50 Vegetarian Bowl is to die for.  I get: cilantro lime rice, black beans, pico de gallo, LOTS of hot, sour cream, LOTS of cheese, guacamole, and lettuce.  Sprinkle some Smoked Chipotle Tobasco sauce, and it's even more amazing. I used to get burritos, but they're too hard to eat and with bowls you can get the perfect bite every time. 

when a burrito has a hole that big, it kind of turns you off of eating burritos

4. I'm a sucker for all cheesy, girly, & romantic movies.   I've seen The Notebook a million times, and I cry even harder each time I see it.  The same goes for Titanic.  All of those girly teen movies like John Tucker Must Die are in my movie collection at home.  I love action movies, scary movies, and all different kinds of flicks, but chick flicks are by far going to win in any contest.  This is exactly why Nick won my heart once again when he bought me yellow roses & my very own copy of Sex and the City 2 out of the blue. :)

5. I'm a pet lover.  If I could have a pet, I definitely would.  I love puppies and dogs.  I have a cat that lives back home with my mom and dad, but it's almost 16 years old.  I got him when I was five.  If it wasn't for the cat hair that gets everywhere, I would maybe own a cat in the future.  The first thing I'm going to do when I have a real job is get a puppy.  I love little to mid-sized dogs.  If I could have any dog in the world, it would probably be either a puggle or a shiba inu.  Both are so cute & darling.

6. I love to travel.  I've been so fortunate in my life to be able to see a lot of the world with my family.  My parents love to travel, and thankfully, they love taking me and Brooke with them.  We've gotten to see the beautiful cities of Paris, Madrid, London, Edinburgh, Cape Town, Melbourne, and so many more.  It's been great traveling to all of the different cities, and I think that seeing how other people live makes me appreciate my own life and have goals of how I'd like to live my life.  It's hard to pick my favorite country that I've been to, but I'm pretty sure that I enjoyed Spain a lot.  We went there my senior year of high school over Christmas, and we had a magical time.  

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." 

St. Augustine

mommy & me exploring the streets

7. I used to be a great cook and a fabulous baker. Keywords are "used to be."  When Brooke and I were younger, we wanted to be chefs.  Our mom even got us chef outfits with our names embroidered onto them.  My sister and I would spend all day finding recipes, going to the grocery store, and making new kinds of dishes for our family and friends to enjoy.  We watched The Food Network every night before bed, and we even had Iron Chef challenges and used our friends as judges.  We went to cake decorating classes and made all of the treats for our family gatherings.  Once we got to college, everything changed.  Now, we barely have anything in our fridge, and we eat out (at Chipotle mostly) almost every day.  Nothing's changed in our minds though.  We still love cooking, and we want to be able to eat fantastic meals every day.  So this last fact is more of a goal.  I'm going to start devoting more time & money into cooking and baking again.  We enjoyed it so much a few years ago, so I know it will bring us happiness again.

Alright, so there are my seven facts!

Now I need to pass off the challenge to a seven of my favorite bloggers.

I follow so many blogs & I LOVE them all,

but here are the ones that stand out:

1. Steph at (sweet) symphanie

2. Christine at Bijou and Boheme

3. Christine at bun & borough

4. Alycia and Trevor at Crowley Party

5. Debby at Inspired Design

6. Nicole at Scraps of Color

7. EJC at Stiletto Beats

[day one] first of thirty

My sister Brooke is doing a thirty day challenge right now, so she's probably going to be mad that I copied her.  But...it's a different one!  So, I say that's okay in my book :)

Day One. Your middle name & how you feel about it.

Paige.  I used to not like it as a kid, but now I've grown to like it a lot.  And, it's pretty crazy but my best friend is named Paige!  We're going to be best friends for life.  We met freshman year of college.  She thought Brooke & I were weird, and we thought she was a bitch (excuse my language haha).  It turns out that she's not a bitch, we're all weird, and we've become sisters.  We've been there for each other through everything--boys, deaths, rough nights, & all the good times.  We became friends when we were becoming who we're going to be for the rest of our lives.  That's how I know we'll be friends forever.  Even if we separate after college because of work, families, or anything that could possibly tear us apart, I know that we'll always come together as if nothing had ever changed.  When I write my full name down on job applications, e-mails, or new credit cards and licenses, I will always think of my best friend.

goobers for life

live while we're young

School problems, relationship issues, friend fights.

We need to be grateful for these things.

Yeah, we're college students.  

Yes, we're going to have homework & social dilemmas.  

But having homework and a social life is the first sign 

that lets us know that we're all going through 

the most exciting time of our lives.  

Your 20's are for having fun, doing what you want to do, 

exploring the world, and most of all, 

they're not for dwelling on little things that won't matter the next day, 

the next week, and definitely not a year from now.  

Everything seems like such a big deal the day it happens, 

but in a little while, none of that's going to matter.  

Whatever happens to us each day makes us who we are, 

but it definitely doesn't destroy us.  

I want to live my life with no regrets.

I want to have a fulfilled life throughout my 20s and into my 90s.

images via weheartit

literature & life

"For friends... do but look upon good Books:  

they are true friends, that will neither flatter nor dissemble."  

~Francis Bacon

My dad always said that you should never count the pages that you have 

left in a book because finishing a book is like losing a friend.

It's my new goal to start reading more!

I'm guessing that my taste in books is a lot like my taste in music:

I LIKE EVERYTHING.

So, what are some books that you like or that you're currently reading??

courtesy of weheartit

❤

sandwich wonders

My internship was a lot of fun today!  Arizona State played Stanford, so we were all nervous about what the final score, but we ended up losing by only 4 points, haha.  We're not the best team in the world this year :)


My tasks were more exciting as an intern this game than they usually are.   ISP Sports got Jimmy Johns sandwiches to do a promotion that ended up becoming an eating contest!  It was a contest between three competitive eaters and three Jimmy Johns sandwich makers.  The sandwich makers ended up winning since they made more sandwiches in 5 minutes than the competitive eaters could stuff down their gullets in 5 minutes.  My task before the contest was to meet up with the competitive eaters and the Jimmy Johns PR girl.  Seeing her work definitely made me more interested in PR, and I definitely want to try and get some sort of PR internship this summer in LA.  But, the most fun part was that I got to hang out (a.k.a. make sure they don't run off anywhere) with Joey Chestnut, Eater-X (Tim), and Erik "The Red," all famous competitive eaters!  They were so nice, and I have to admit, I was a little bit star-struck, but I definitely kept my composure.  It was a pleasure "babysitting" them, and it definitely made my long day even better.

The whole ordeal totally reminded me of my Venezia's pizza challenge that I did with my friends over summer :) 

Here's my blog about that <3

Eater X (a.k.a. Tim)

Erik "The Red"

World Champion:
Joey Chestnut

Marc, Tim, Erik, & Me :)