PMS//Salad

Do you ever wake up and forget what yesterdays cry was about? Well I can describe last night in 3 letters.

P. M. S.

I'm not too familiar with being crabby for a certain period of time every month, but it gave me (and poor Derek) and good slap in the face last night. Derek made one innocent sarcastic comment and it was all downhill from there. I can laugh about it today, but last night was all tears and sadness.

SORRY HONEY!!

Tip for men: Just hug her and love her when she is sad. If she says she doesn't want it or tells you to leave, she wants it, don't leave. Her feelings probably don't make sense, but love the crap out of her and it'll probably all be ok. I'm grateful for my sweet husband who helped us both get to bed happier with arms around one another.

On a happier note, today for lunch I made the yummiest brussels sprout salad. I was nervous about it, but with so many health benefits, it was worth a try, and turned out wonderfully delicious.

Isn't that beautiful? I was lucky enough to catch some great lighting for a pic.

I'm still trying to find that exercising/eating healthy motivation. With all of this traveling and having visitors to eat out with, it has been so extremely hard. Today I decided that nothing was going to stop me. Hoping tomorrow is the same story. No promises. But today went pretty good and I'm feeling MUCH happier than I was last night. ;)

On the road

Hey there! Posting from the phone here in Pennsylvania. We've made a spontaneous business trip out to some Walker properties. We surprised managers and got to see the storage facilities in the normal condition, not the "the boss is coming, hurry, make it all perfect" state. And boy did we have some surprises. We've had to kick some homeless people out from living in storage units along with dogs sleeping in customer chairs, we've been to 4 states and back in 3 days, and today we saw all of Palmyra. It's been a very eye opening, exhausting, and fun roadtrip. I love roadtrips with my man. We could talk till the moon falls from the sky. Unlike the awkward silent couple across from us at a Thai restaurant in Scranton Pennsylvania tonight. We talk about everything imaginable. About our far future and our near future. Makes me so happy and tugs at my heart strings.

I'll add some pics from the camera later. As for now, my iPhone will have to give a little palmyra update.

xoxo

A late anniversary stay at the Plaza Hotel

My in-laws surprised us with a night at the Plaza Hotel! Their week stay at the Plaza came in a package with one extra night to spare after they left, so they invited us to use the night along with $80 credit for food! Again, I felt like a queen. We were so extremely spoiled this week and are so grateful for the fun experiences we had with family and friends.

Part of our hotel weekend included Goodburger. I'm OBSESSED. I've always loved it, but when we had it the beginning of last week, it was even better than I remembered. I was craving it so bad, so we had to go back. So glad we did. It's absolutely fabulous. If you come to NY, you MUST try it. And of course...the sweet potato fries. Mmmm. And the Cookies and Cream shake. Gosh darn it. Love it all.

Cool sculptures on Park Ave. I find myself really growing to love abstract art. I think the camera may have a little something to do with it. :p

For our food credit, we decided to order breakfast as room service. Well the $80 disappeared a lot faster than we anticipated. Ha! Like faster as in, after just our plate. No drinks, nothin. Yowza!

The greatest mink blanket on earth. It's like 30 pounds.

Found my new shoes for the first day of school!

Jk. Sometimes I don't get fashion. But hey, who says my opinion matters?

New York is endless fun. I'm so grateful we decided to and get to have this experience.

BTW... Derek is officially half way done with his Masters! I cannot believe how fast time is flying by!

A day in the park

We went on a bike ride through the park with the Walkers and Kandace. I highly recommend it. It's SO fun! We went to the end of the park and back. We were sweating like crazy. The way back was MUCH harder than the way there. I wasn't expecting it, but it felt good to burn off some Goodburger. :)

This picture was downloaded from Google + and came in all weird. Sorry! I know it's hard to look at, but I wanted to show everyone!

Can't wait to go back and do it again someday!

Hide your kids, hide your wives, hide your husbands... Amanda was forced into Timeline!

So here we were just sitting peacefully in the living room when I hear one of Amanda's disgruntled grunts from the couch.  Not just any grunt... It is the kind that implies that something absolutely horrible has just happened. Needless to say, when I hear that grunt, my blood pressure increases a bit and I start to get a pit in my stomach. I look over and she is staring at her laptop with her mouth open in disgust. Then she says [borderline screams] "are you kidding me!?"

Oh no! What could this possibly be? I started frantically scanning through my brain to figure out what it could be. Did she just get fired? Was she awaiting results from a doctor? Was her whole family just murdered? What could it be?

Finally, she looks at me with a face of death and says, "I have been forced into Timeline on Facebook! Ahhhhhh!"

Clearly I had underestimated the seriousness of the situation! Hahaha, good ol' facebook has struck again! So anyways, for all those who were awoken to the earthquake of Amanda's rage this morning... False alarm, the world is not ending... Amanda is just now on Timeline.

May you all live your lives to the fullest everyday, because all it takes is one moment for your whole world to be turned upside down.

Love,
D

PS Love you sweetie

One, two, three strikes you're out!

We got totally spoiled and taken to the Yankees game. Not only did we go to the game, but we got to sit on the second row, in the Champions Suite! We had people bringing us cold wipes, sunscreen, we got unlimited food and drinks, and the comfiest cushioned chairs. I felt like a queen. Thanks Mom and Dad Walker for such a fun day at the Yankees game!

Bummed Derek's face turned out blurry. Still trying to figure out how to get it right the first time without having to try a million different settings. :)

What a fun memory that we'll cherish forever!

Go Yankees! (I'll admit. I felt some Yankee pride spark inside me. I've never been a Yankees fan. But I think this game changed me.)

Incense. Green smoothie. Friends.

We had such a fun week with family and friends!

I feel so spoiled to have such wonderful people in my life. I miss them already.

I was going to totally overload you with all of the wonderful pictures, but I've decided to give them to you throughout the week so you can enjoy them more thoroughly. ;)

I wish I could blow all of these up on a canvas and put them on my walls.

We had some incense burning last week and I was enthralled with how beautiful it was. Isn't it fabulous?

One of my best friends from high school was in town for a couple days.

We're trying to talk them into being our neighbors. We went to dinner at one of our favorite Thai restaurants. The environment is almost as great as the food.

My favorite breakfast....Mmmmmm.

I used to use spinach for my green smoothies, but I'm a new lover of Kale. It also makes it a beautiful bright green! Fun for pictures. :) You have to try it. It's so fresh, healthy, and delicious.

So, this poor blog of mine has been under construction for way too long. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the headers, sidebar tabs, pics, etc. that I create to transfer to the blog without getting all pixely and weird. I'm getting so extremely frustrated. I wish I had a money tree so that I could just pay someone to do it, but at the same time I want so bad to be able to do all of this on my own. I also am trying to figure out this photoshop thing so I can get a header made for those who requested it so long ago!

But speaking of design...I think I'm going to go to graphic design school this fall and I'm SOOO excited about it. Pray that it works out for me!

xoxo,
Mandy

First ever VLOG post!

Are you ready for this??

Yes, we seriously just made a video. We actually have made multiple but never posted them for fear you'll never return. Jk. Kind of.

Before you watch, I want to quickly explain my giant earrings. Got them from a sweet african woman who helped us out in Brooklyn today. Ok, now you may proceed.

Are you still here? I hope you still love us. 

Here are a few pics we took last week when we rode the Staten Island Ferry to go check out a property for a project Derek was working on. It was SO humid so please excuse the fogginess off the pics.

Derek made a friend.

Yes, this is for real. This dude looked like he either just walked out of prison, or had escaped from prison. He was shouting, "Ah! America! The greatest country in the world!" I was scared, intrigued, and became a sudden stalker with the urge to follow him and take pictures of him. 

                                                                                                                                             

My in-laws and one of my BFF's Kandace are going to be in town this week. I CAN'T WAIT!!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

XOXO,
Mandy

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my dear friend // acne // exciting news

Guess what. Today I think my motivation popped in to say hi. I hope she stays so that I don't have to fake it anymore! Cause that really wasn't working out too well.

Ok, before we get bombarded with pictures, I want to ask you all a very serious question...

Not really.

But kind of, because I don't know if I'm just now going through the acne phase of puberty or what, but my face seems to be begging for attention. I keep breaking out worse than I ever have! I'm sure this dirty humidity doesn't help much, but it seems there has got to be something else I can do to help this poor skin of mine.

Do any of you use Neutrogena face wash? I have heard of many lovely faced women using it. Share all your dirty (clean) secrets with me will ya? I'd appreciate it so very much.

Now to my dear friend. You've heard of her before. Her name is Berit and she is quite lovely. Well she came for a visit before heading off to her mission in TAHITI! That's right, TAHITI! We're so jealous.

It was so good to have her here. We had a lovely time, but of course never enough time.

She'll be a wonderful missionary. To learn more about a mission, you can go HERE.

Let's take a closer look at that middle right pic......

Beautiful Sisters.

We made a bet. I had to guess the length of The Gateway (in Utah) in feet within 100 ft. If I guessed it, Lombardis was for dinner. I'm awesome. Yum. 

Berit and Jordan waited all day for tickets to see Into The Woods at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. Amy Adams from Enchanted played the bakers wife and was awesome. Donna Murphy (voice of the witch on Tangled) played the witch in the show and was awesome. And Meryl Streep was there nearby attending the performance, and was awesome, cause she's just awesome. I was lucky enough to sit on the front row!!

We are SWEATY. But beautifully sweaty.

Sorry about the blurry pictures. And I'm sad my cute new necklace is hiding behind my shirt. My friends over at The Equals Project so kindly picked it out for me.

I'll leave you with some good news....

Ready? I'm doing a giveaway. Yes, a giveaway! And it's awesome. I'm so excited about it. Stay tuned!!

xoxo,

Mandy