Monday always strikes me as a day to start over and make good from anything that happened last week. This mostly falls into the work category for me as I always seem to leave the negatives of my work week in my office Friday afternoon hoping Monday will be better. This week I am not as thrilled about Monday coming around, as it means change. I don't do so hot with change lately.


If you followed me over the weekend on Twitter and Instagram you saw little peaks into what I was up to. Moving. This isn't something new for me, as I was a military kid and embraced it as a child. Today this marks my 4th move in 3 years since moving to New York.  A new chapter to me and R's lives as we join households. This should be exciting right? I am feeling more overwhelmed then excited.

I am really exited to be living full time with R as our lives change together, but on the other hand there are going to be a lot of challenges in the upcoming months. One of those challenges is children. I am joining households with R and his 2 boys who he has every other week. The next challenge is finding another home by June so we can have more space. Yes that will take me to FIVE moves in 3 years. Is my hair gray yet folks?

With all of this excitement going on in my life, I feel very uninspired lately. My ideas are not flowing as smoothly as they were just a few weeks ago. (I did write most of those puppies down though!) I am hoping the change won't take to much out of me, so I can come back stronger then ever here with all of my new ventures. I still want to keep bringing you all local posts. I don't have anything exciting this week due to all the moving shenanigans. I will be launching a new design in the next week, which I am very excited about.

I am hoping with all of this change will come clarity for my future. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm gonna hang in there if you guys will. Deal? I am so grateful for each and every one of you. Now tell me about your crazy moving stories, or what you did over the weekend. Inspire me.

It's no secret that I enjoy the freebie things in life. Although I am on a freebie freeze at the moment due to some address changes coming up, and lord knows I don't want to miss out on anything because it was sent to my old address. People often ask me how I do it. What are my "secrets"? Well today I wanted to share with you my top 5 favorite places to scope out freebies to review.

Remember not everything that you get for free is "free". There is often a little work involved when you get some of the better freebies. These things include writing reviews, promoting on social media, hosting parties, and just all around letting people know about this product. If you are cool with that then you are already one step in the right direction. These are not in any particular order. They are all great sites!

One
Crowdtap - Crowdtap is a Social Influence Marketing platform. What that means is brands ask you questions both about their products and your every day lives to gain research for marketing their products. You have 2 actions: Quickhits and Missions/Challenges. The Quickhits are short questions you can click your answer to where the Missions/Challenges are asking you to do something. All free samples and parties come out of these. I have gotten some great products to sample and review through this site. Bonus to this site is getting entered into drawings every month for gift certificates. I paid for Christmas last year on Amazon gift cards alone last year from this site.

Two
Influenster - You all know how much I love Influenster. This is a site where you can go and review, ask, and answer questions about products. You connect all of your social media accounts to give you an influence "reach". The higher your reach the more chances you get at receiving VoxBoxes. These are boxes full of full size products. You have all kinds of badges you can unlock by doing tasks. Again the more involved you are the better chance you have at getting into another campaign. Check out my VoxBox reviews here,  here and here.

Three
BzzAgent - This is such a fun site. It is survey based so you need to keep them up to date to keep your "bzzscore" high. The higher your score the better chances you have of being invited into a campaign. I have gotten lots of food items as well as beauty items from this site. I am currently in a campaign for Cashew Milk and a new Electric Razor. Lots of great stuff to be had here! Stay on top of those surveys and you will be "bzzing" in no time!

Four
House Party -  If you like to host parties and you want to try out new products, this is the site for you. I have been on the site since January of 2013 and just wrapped up my 5th party with them. There is no real science to how you get picked for a party but I feel like if you do everything you are asked to do you have a better chance. When you are chosen to be a host you receive a party pack filled with goodies for you and your guests. Things I have received in these packs to help you plan your party are: decorations, recipes, games, T-shirts, and samples.

Five
Social media - Believe it or not, social media is one of the easiest ways to get free samples. Most of the time when you request a sample this way there is no obligation to do anything once you receive it. I have a separate Facebook page dedicated to just freebies. I have "liked" hundreds of brand pages because this is where the samples come from.  Here they will announce when they are giving away stuff and how you get get it.

So there you have it guys! Get yourself set up with these sites and you will be on your way to freebie heaven! Have a great Friday!

Everything around us is built up with science. There are millions of molecules buzzing around us at all times. Our body is made up of molecules, and the biggest element is H2O. Water, for all you folks who don't use the scientific part of your brain. Because of this, it is super important to keep our bodies hydrated. Today I wanted to talk about the benefits of water and why you should be drinking more.

As a society, water is often passed over for sugary and caffeinated drinks. What we don't think about is the drinks we are choosing in place of water can often make us dehydrated and sluggish. Water is needed to help flush the body of toxins, and when it's not present we aren't getting everything moving. During the day we should all be consuming half of our body weight in ounces of water. For example, if you weigh 140 pounds, you should be drinking 70 ounces of water a day or roughly 8.5 cups of water.

This sounds harder then it is. What I have done to maintain my water intake daily, is purchased a fun water bottle that has the ounces marked on it. I drink four 20oz bottles of water a day. It goes a lot quicker then I thought. I drink one 20 ounce bottle before I go to work. I refill 2 more times at work and then drink the last 20 ounces after work once I get home.

I have been doing this now for a few weeks. The changes I have noticed are amazing! I have been having a lot of trouble with acne on my face and back. My face and back are FINALLY clearing up. I notice my skin looking brighter and I look more awake. I am not as hungry so I am not snacking as often in between meals. The bloat I have been feeling is going away. So many benefits come out of drinking water.

Do you drink enough?

Are you new to your area? Looking to meet new people? Tired of the same things day in and day out? Why not try attending local events? What better way to meet people in your community then to attend something local? I wish I would of taken my own advice 2 years ago when I was moping around with nothing to do weekend after weekend. Sure I had my co-workers but sometimes it's nice to spend time with people who don't know what you do day in and day out at work.

Over the past 4 days I have attended 3 fun events. Most of them were free and were a great opportunity to meet new people. I was able to find all of these events on the Facebook Events page. I clicked on "Events Near Me" and it listed everything going on in my city and in cities nearby. Once you find something that interests you, you can "join" so it will be added to your Facebook calendar and will be reminded the day of so you don't miss it.

To give you an idea of some of the fun things you can find, I want to share with you the 3 events I attended and how they are fueling me to attend even  more in the future!

Thursday
I attended a trunk show at a local beauty bar. Avanti Boutique teamed up with Miel Beauty Bar to offer some beautiful spring dresses, jewelry, beauty products, and wine! Who doesn't like a good night of fashion, beauty and wine? Speaking of wine, Redhead Wine was featured and it was created by a local women. It was a wonderful sweet red wine. I really enjoyed it and can't wait to purchase my own bottle! Make sure you check out their sites!

Friday
Red is my new favorite! The Red Event that is. This was a fundraising event put on by the Hangar Aces to raise money for the local arts and especially the Hangar Theater. The Hangar Aces are a group of young professionals (Ages 21-39) who put on events to help raise awareness of the arts as well as offer social and networking events for young professionals. The event was so much fun! Everyone comes dressed in red and there was music, wine, beer, raffles for fabulous gift baskets, and lots of networking! I wore my favorite red wedges (and paid for it later) and had a great time mingling and drinking wine.

Sunday
There's no party like a tea party! A local community center put on an afternoon tea fundraiser. It was fancy! So pretty and such a great time with friends. We may have been the youngest ones there but it was great. The tea sandwiches were great and each round of tea was a new tea to try. Totally going to this again next year cause who can pass up mini everything and tea?


So how was your weekend?