32 Things That Make Me Happy

Yesterday, Erin at Two Thirds Hazel host a little link all about happiness. Since I had already posted a blog yesterday,  I decided to wait and use this post today instead. I started writing it yesterday though, and had fun thinking of some serious, some funny, and some random things that make me happy!

32 Things That Make Me Happy

1. Gorgeous, bright sunshine and warm spring weather.

2. Fun adventures and quality time spent with my husband.

3. My super cute and adorable doggie, Primrose.

4. Being able to make just a short drive to the beach for a day in the sun and the salt air.

5. A loving family that is also fun and supportive and caring.

6. Pizza. Seriously - it makes me happy. I just love carbs and cheese, y'all!

7. Cuddly nights on the couch under a blanket, watching a cute movie or tv show.

8. Craft time, and making random things for our house.

Just did this on Wednesday night, to finally re-pot my little African Violet!

9. Decorating our house!

10. Camping trips.

11. Walks around the park by our house.

12. Taking tons of pictures, even when it's of just everyday, ordinary things.

13. Brightly colored pens used for everyday activities. (i.e. at work)

14. The Easter wreath my MIL made for our front door.

15. Six months of marriage. Tomorrow is our 6 monthiversay of marriage, and I'd say things are going pretty great so far! I sure love this man :)

16. Living in The Sunshine State.

17.  Looking forward to seeing old friends at weddings. We're going to one at the end of the month, and I can't wait to see a big group of people I love so much!

18. New nail polish. Especially super bright colors that are perfect for spring and summer.

19. Wearing flip-flops all year long. And yes, I really am one of those girls that does that. I'm pretty sure I was wearing them with my sweater, scarf and jeans on Christmas day this past year...

20. Finishing a good book.

21. Our ever-growing collection of movies, both for grown-ups and "kids". AKA - Jeff and I still watch the kiddie movies just as much as the regular ones :)

22. When my husband texts me randomly in the middle of the day just to tell me he loves me.

23. Good music.

24. Getting coupon codes for Shutterfly in my email, making a book the day it expires, getting it only a week later, and being in love with it!

Thanks to my husband for being the hand model in this one ;)

25. Burning a yummy smelling candle in every single room of the house, so when I walk around I get bursts of a new smell in each room.

26. Spending an entire day in my pajamas - but most importantly, not putting on a bra the entire day.

27. Game nights with friends.

28. Making lists, of any kind. (Also see, I'm OCD and I love lists....)

29. Singing along at the top of my lungs while watching a musical or movie at home.

30. Florida State football.

31. Chapstick. Especially if I haven't put it on in a few hours and I've been craving it, my lips get real happy once I'm finally back together again with my beloved Burts Bee's or EOS.

32.  Having so many happy things in my life! I think I could list at least 32 more (my brain is still on a roll right now thinking of more things), but for the sake of brevity and closure and sticking to Erin's allotted number of 32, I'll cut to the credits now...

This was so much fun to make! I think I need to make these kinds of lists more often - things that make me happy, things I'm grateful for, things I love about where I live... I just want to bring so much positivity into my life and into the blogging world, and what a fun, easy way to do that!

Oh, and one more thing I'm happy about - it's Friday!!

Sunny Love,
Halie

Pigskin

So Jeff and I finally got the chance to go to our first Florida State football game of the season. And it was just in time too, because it was the last home game of the year! My mother-in-law's boss had a couple of extra tickets, and he generously gave them to us, for free! So Saturday afternoon, we got dressed in our garnet and gold, and hopped on our bikes. We live less than two miles from the stadium, so it was perfect to ride our bikes down there, and avoid all the parking craziness. So that worked out perfectly.

The weather was pretty great, despite a few clouds. Our seats were up at the very top, but it they were actually pretty great! I enjoyed the view, and we had a great time watching the game from the stadium. It's just such a different experience than just being at home, watching it on the TV. Sitting in the stands with 84,000+ Seminoles, all cheering and screaming for our favorite team, is just so much more fun! Also, participating in "The Chop" and the fight song and all the other game day traditions are just wayyy better at Doak Campbell Stadium, rather than in your living room. Am I right?!

Anyways, we did other things this weekend, but all I have picture-wise is from the game, so we're going to leave it at that, and just do a photo dump from the game....

After the game, I didn't want to leave Prim at home alone any longer, so Jeff picked up Chinese food and grabbed "Bridesmaids" from Redbox, and we just vegged out on the couch all cuddled up together. We also saw "Thor" on Saturday morning (which was soo good - and thanks for that Mama!), and saw "We're The Millers" on Sunday at the cheap theater (which was so funny!)

After grocery shopping, I made potato soup for dinner on Sunday, and we watched quite a few hours of "Friends" throughout the whole weekend. (We started working our way through the series over the summer since Jeff hasn't seen it all, and we just started season six.) It was a nice couple of days, and now we only have a three-day work week - bring it on Thanksgiving! Yay, and Happy Monday!

Much Love,
Halie

Patio Dining & Sunshine: Reasons I Love Florida

I'm feeling a little tiny bit creative today, coupled with a feeling of just really loving where I live. So I've decided I want to come up with a list of the reasons why I love living in Florida. It won't be anything fancy, but ya know, it'll do :) So the following is a quick list of some of my favorite things about Florida.

+ It's nickname is "The Sunshine State," and that right there is enough reason for me to love it. I mean seriously, it's sunny here about 89% of the time (I totally made up that statistic on my own, so don't quote me or anything), and I'm a girl who loves my sunshine. I mean even during the months of November through February when the majority of the country is drowning in rain, snow, sleet and hail, we can still have gorgeous blue skies and a bright shining sun. I love the sunshine.

+ Hand-in-hand with the glorious sunshine, are the gorgeous beaches that surround 89% of the state (that's a made up statistic too, in case you hadn't already assumed that). I mean, did y'all see that picture above? That's not taken on some remote, Caribbean island. That was taken on the Gulf Coast, at St. George Island last year. Beautiful. Am I right, or am I right?

+ Florida State football is perhaps the greatest in all the land of college football. Don't even try to argue with me on this one, or I'm pretty sure we can't be friends anymore. The Florida State Seminoles are my absolute favorite. And plus, I look pretty good in garnet and gold.

+ We have some of the most amazing entertainment places within just a few hours' drive of anywhere in the state. I mean hello? Orlando is like the top tourist spot in the country or something, right? (I guess I could have actually done some research to give y'all real stats, but I'm not all about that today...) Orlando alone is home to Disney World, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Harry Potter world, Epcot, Sea World, Wet-n-Wild, and about 15 other amazing amusement parks.

+ Just about every restaurant has a patio for outdoor seating, and you can sit there almost the entire year. There's just something a little bit special about eating at a restaurant, but still getting to sit outside. Do y'all agree with me on this one? Especially the places at the beach where you can just walk up off the sand, and plop down right in your bathing suit and still get service. Those are the best.

+ And for more entertainment, there are of course zoo's and aquarium's, and there are even some pretty neat museums too. (Nerd alert over here for this girl!) But more importantly, you can take airboat rides in the Everglades. Which is pretty stinking awesome. And they even let you hold baby alligators.

+ I can wear flip-flops and dresses basically year-round. Yeah, people will sometimes be all like, "Hey crazy girl! Aren't your feet freezing?" And yes, sometimes they are. But sometimes I just don't care. And I hate having my feet all confined in restrictive shoes, so I'd rather just brave the "cold" and wear my flip-flops in December. And I know all you Northern girls love your Hunter boots, but I barely even know what those are. (Never heard of them before this past winter in fact.) And I'm glad I don't have to wear them just to make it to my car to prevent my feet sinking down in the snow and having frostbite start setting in before I even make it to work. No. thank. you.

There really so many other reasons I love living in Florida, but I think it's time to wrap this up for now. Maybe I'll do a Part II to follow this up sometime in order to rub it in your face how awesome Florida is fully detail why I love my state.

If YOU live in Florida, what are some of your favorite things about living in this sunny state of ours? Let me know, and I might include it in my next list. :) But if you don't live in Florida, I want to hear why you love the state you live in! I guess some of the others out there are pretty cool, so let me know about that too! In fact, we may even make it a one-time link-up, but I don't know yet. I just threw that out there as my brain thought of it, so let me marinate on that a bit more. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, and I'll let y'all know later if it'll actually be a link-up or not!

Much Love,
Halie

Post-Thanksgiving Update

It feels like it's been forever since I've written a proper blog post, because Wednesday's post was a scheduled post with a yummy recipe, Thursday's post was scheduled too (and it was just a ton of pictures anyways), and then Friday I quickly wrote a few simple letters. So really, it's been about a week since I wrote a real post, and that just seems strange! And I missed it, and I'm glad to be "back" of course :)

So, since I've last written, here are a few things that have happened...

I was in charge of Thanksgiving dinner at our house, because my mom's elbow isn't healed from surgery

But I loved doing all of the cooking and decorating!

And I wore my super cute apron the whole time too :)
Painted my nails garnet & glittery gold to support my Noles

I did end up leaving the house a bit on Friday from some shopping, but not too much
Bought three new Christmas albums, each of which was only $5! (Perry Como, Colbie Caillat & Straight No Chaser)

Also did some much easier, online shopping on Friday, and got great deals

Had dinner with one of my besties, Sara on Friday night

Missed my boyfriend a whole bunch while he was out of town

Continued eating way too much food, even after Thanksgiving itself was long gone

Made some delicious appetizers for a football-watching party

Sadly watched my Seminoles lose to the stupid Gators :(

Did a lot of hanging out with my parents

Went to lunch with some awesome friends after church on Sunday
Finally got out my box of winter clothes with sweaters, scarves, gloves, boots and jackets! 

Went to an amazing night of worship at Awaken at my church
And finally welcomed Jeff home after missing him while he was gone for six days!

My dad took this when I wasn't ready, but it turned out pretty cute still :)

My super sparkly garnet & gold nails to support my Seminoles!

Bacon-wrapped Lil' Smokies I made for the football game. "Recipe" to come later this week...

An amazing "Awaken" worship service at my church on Sunday night.

Thanksgiving decor at my house, and my yummy dinner plate!

To sum it all up, I'd say I had a pretty great holiday, spent with family and friends. I cooked and ate a ton of delicious food, and enjoyed having time off for this holiday. It was a good mix of busyness and laziness, and I enjoyed both of those. I hope y'all had good Thanksgiving holidays as well! 

Today I've decorated my office for Christmas, and have definitely started listening to Christmas music. (Actually that's been happening for a while now...) I'm absolutely in the Christmas spirit, and I can't wait to get a tree and decorate our house! Oh, and I need to show off the Christmas wreath I made a couple weeks ago!

Oh, and for those of you who read my Friday's Letters about how annoying Picasa is, if you were wondering what I've done... for now I paid the monthly $2.50 to Google for the extra 25 GB's of storage. Basically just to buy myself some time to do more research on other options. If I find something better, I'll update again for those also having the same problem, because it appears a number of us are based on the comments and emails I got about it! Apparently Picasa is annoying quite a few of us bloggers... Rude.

And today I'm linking up with Brooke, Sami, Heather & Syndal.

Picasa Is Annoying Me

Dear Thanksgiving: You were delicious, and I thank you so much for providing such yummy things for my family and I to chow down on. Yum! (I'm too lazy to import and edit pictures right now, so I'll have to share some Thanksgiving pictures one day next week, maybe...see next letter...)

My sister Megan and I on Thanksgiving, with me still wearing my cute apron :)

Dear Blogger/Picasa Web Albums: You kinda suck. You say I've reached my 1 GB of free storage and won't let me upload any more pictures, at least not the "regular" way. Now I have to figure out what to do in order to add more pictures the rest of my bloggy life... super annoying. Pay for extra Google storage? Or circumvent the system and start using Photobucket? I don't know yet...

Dear Boyfriend: I hope you're having a great vacation up in West Virginia and North Carolina, but I really super miss you. I can't wait until you get home on Sunday night!

Dear Black Friday: I'm still at home in my PJ's, and I think I might actually stay here all day. I'm not sure that I want to brave the craziness. Maybe tomorrow we'll do some shopping, maybe... I am however doing some online shopping right now, so that may win out over actually getting dressed and all that nonsense.

Dear Florida State: Tomorrow afternoon is the FSU vs. UF game, and WE BETTER WIN!! Let's do this Noles!

Dear Sore Throat: Get the heck outta here!! I'm sooo over it.

Pitiful Sickie

Dear Random Sickness: You suck SO SO much. It's not a cold, it's not strep throat, I have no idea what it is... but you caused me to miss the Chris Tomlin concert last night, and now I can't go camping tonight with my Sunday school class. You make me angry!! Let's get outta here, OK? Because I really am a Pitiful Sickie :(

Dear Seminoles: Thanks for pulling ourselves together last night and avoiding an upset last night. Glad we won!

Dear Live with Kelly & Michael: I'm so glad I get to watch you this morning while I'm at home. I love love loved Regis & Kelly back in the day, and I've missed getting to watch you for quite some time now. So excited!

Dear $2 Tuesday at the Fair: Whoa man that was awesome! We didn't even know it was $2 Tuesday, so we lucked out, big time. Normal admission should be $7 a person, but we got in for $4 total!! Then we got to ride a few $2 rides as well. And even enjoy some $2 snacks. So much fun!

Dear The Ransomed: We're glad we got to come watch y'all play at the fair! Good job kids :)

Dear Fair: You truly are pretty from the top of a Ferris wheel. So many bright, pretty, twinkly lights and spinning things to look at. So nice.

Not the best picture, but wanted to include it anyways...

Dear The Civil Wars: I wrote an entire blog post dedicated to my excitement of seeing you in concert here in my hometown - and then you went and cancelled your entire tour due to "irreconcilable differences." What the heck?! This makes me a very sad lady. Very sad indeed.

Dear Christmas Music: It's sooo on. Let's start gettin' in the spirit now :)

Here's to hoping I'm back to normal again and very soon. Because I don't want to waste away the entire 3-day weekend because of this stupid sickness. Prayers are always appreciated :) Happy Friday my friends!

Pinstagram of September

Disclaimer - this was "scheduled" to automatically post on Saturday afternoon at 12:30 p.m., but for whatever reason I appear to not know how to actually do such "scheduling." So this was supposed to be the end-cap to September, but since I'm sometimes blogging inadequate, we'll just throw this out as the second post for the day because there are some pictures in here I didn't want to be left "unseen" by my blogger friends and followers :)

Sooooo......

Here's an end-of-the-month Pinstagram phone dump! (I figure "Pinstagram" is just going to be a regular word around here from now on...hope that's OK with y'all that I make up words sometimes.) If you want to see all of my Instagram photos, but don't have Instagram yourself, you can check it out online HERE. Ya know, just if you wanted to :) If you do have it, you can just follow me, my username is "HalieRenee88"

#tbt to Nicole's wedding reception in 2010 (tbt = Throw Back Thursday)

Lunch date with my sweet boy :)

#tbt of "Senior Girl" in high school, from 2005!

My first time trying the ever-so-popular macaroons!

Mint bracelet, mint nails, mint dress. Love the matchy-matchy!

Baked homemade pumpkin cupcakes. So good. Should I post the recipe?

"Fall" M&M's? Looks like Seminole M&M's to me!!

After-dinner coffee run for my fam one night with Jeff.

Tribecca white pizza from Red Elephant for lunch one day.

Opening game of football season, with my beloved 'Noles!

Cute little print-out desk calendar at work.

Squishy face Squirt.

Nail art supplies and colors.

Yummy tuna sammy for lunch at work.

Cute little shop in St. Augustine.

Pretty sunset.

Bike all loaded, and ready to go to St. Augustine for the weekend!

Simple, no-design nails, but loved the colors together!