You guys. This break from college is… awesome. I feel like a totally new person and the idea that I can do whatever I want for most of the summer has me almost giddy! Let’s catch up.

Life:

Life has been wonderful now that I’ve finished my worst year of college. Next quarter I’m going to be taking classes on neurobiology, molecular genetics, psychology, and American literature. Oh! And I’m probably going to sign up for a soccer exercise class as well. Little known fact about me, but I played soccer for 12 years (5 of those being on a competitive club team) and I really miss the sport. FREAKING EXCITING.

Other than that, I’ve been soaking up my time in my hometown and have been developing some new recipes for Apple of My Eye and for my freelance job. Exercise is starting to make a come back as well and I went on a walk/run with my sister yesterday and played a good amount of tennis with Kyle today.  This Thursday also happens to be my birthday, so there’s always that excitement :).

Blog:

One thing that really killed me this year was not being able to put much time into AoME. I love to blog. I love seeing my photography improve. I love to connect with all my bloggy friends. I love watching the site grow and think, “holy heck, could this turn into something?”. It’s exciting to say the least. One of my main goals for the summer is to nurture my little corner on the internet machine and (hopefully) watch it thrive! I don’t really mention monetizing my blog since that is NOT why I blog, but the idea that one day, maybe, it could turn into a part-time income is thrilling. Even if it just means paying for my Starbucks and food expenses, woweeeeeeee.

One thought that I’ve been toying with is posting monthly income reports like the fine folk at Pinch of Yum do. Lately, I’ve been talking a lot with Amanda about how we both plan on growing our blogs, and the transparency of talking numbers, different ad companies, freelance work, and improving our sites has been unbelievably helpful. There seems to be almost a taboo on mentioning making an income from blogging, which leaves little baby bloggers like me grappling for a sense on what works and what doesn’t. I’m still iffy about it, but I love the idea that my other blogging friends could learn something helpful from my trial and error and that we can all grow together. My one major reserve is that I don’t want to come off as insincere to my readers. The thought of you guys thinking that my primary goal is to make money makes me cringe.

Thoughts? I’d love to hear from some non-blogging readers as well! Your opinions mean the world to me.

Kyle:

Still happy as a clam with this handsome guy. He’s glad to be done for the summer as well, but has a really difficult year coming up since he’s on track for an insane schedule of engineering classes. We have a couple of fun dates planned in the next few months like an oceanside dinner, korean BBQ get-togethers with friends and family, hiking in our local canyon, and a possible road trip! Lots to look forward to . 

So there you have it! A quick recap of things. I think not being able to blog has left me deprived because I have SO much pent up energy to write and post and take pictures of everything I eat. Expect to hear a lot from me via Apple of My Eye in the future because I can’t seem to shut up. HOORAY FOR SUMMER!

YOU GUYS! I did it!!!

I finished my last final at 11 a.m yesterday morning and am officially free from the worst academic year for biology majors. No more having to take stats, bio, physics, organic chemistry, and labs at the same time ever again!!! AHHH. I’m ecstatic!!

After I got back to my apartment, I immediately ran around my apartment screaming and then jumped into my housemate’s bed with her and her boyfriend. Typing that out it sounds really weird, but I promise it was completely PG and I just lay there rolling around and yelling how happy I was while they laughed at me. Can you tell I was excited?

Then, I cleaned up my room and lay in bed watching Say Yes to the Dress with Kelty and internet shopping. While I was cleaning out an old purse, I stumbled on over $100 worth of Forever21 giftcards from 5 years ago, so I made sure to take advantage of it. Turns out you can get A LOT from the store there for a hundred bucks. This is what my basket currently looks like:

So true. Coffee, you get me. 

Thoughts before I press the order button? 

Today I slept in till 8, then made myself some coffee and whole wheat pancakes before walking to the gym and doing 30 minutes of cardio and an arm workout. I haven’t done anything but sit on my butt and study for the last week and a half, so it felt so so so good to move!

Plans for today include packing, finishing up a freelance recipe (I’ll post the link when it’s up- it’s a good one! 😉 ), and hanging out with my housemates before everyone heads back to their hometown. I’ll be going back home fore a week or so before coming back to Santa Barbara for summer school, which should be pretty relaxed compared to what this last year has been. Did I mention that I’m moving into a beachside house with a whole bunch of other friends? So stoked!!

Life is good, my friends.

Question of the Day: What’s the most exciting thing to happen to you this last week?

Hi friends, just popping in to say that I’m still alive… kinda.

I had my stats exam Monday (got a 95 on it- woo!) and physics exam today (meh). Tomorrow is organic chemistry and bio is on Friday. I’m absolutely exhausted.

My stress levels have been through the room and the only things that have been keeping me from completely breaking down have been coffee and Kyle. Have I mentioned he’s the most thoughtful and caring guy ever? He brought me some “summer flowers” to remind me that I’m thisclose to being done. Kyle usually brings me my coffee as well, so he is the root of all things good haha. 

Anyways, wish me luck! I hope all is good with you guys. I can’t wait to get back to regular blogging and to see what all of you have been up to. Oh and I can’t wait for sleep. Pleeassseeeeee let me done soon. 

Hi all!

I’m sorry my posts have been so infrequent. To be honest, I’m just completely overworked and it’s leading me to major burnout. I don’t want to sound like a broken record or be a redundant complainer, but this has been a really, really tough year for me and I just need a break. From my Kind giveaway, I learned that a lot of my readers are college students (hi, guys!), so I’m sure you all know what I mean. It’s the last few weeks of the school year and summer is thisclose. 

I feel like blog life can be so glamorized, but in reality, I only show the highlights on Apple of My Eye for the most part. Yeah, I went out shopping and to brunch with my parents last weekend, but most days I’m up and running from 6 a.m till 12 at night. Yeah, it’s super cool to have a job that lets me cook and photograph recipes, but those recipes take up a ton of time- time that I need to take away from sleep or relaxing. Yeah, it’s omgcute that Kyle and I have library dates, but we have them around 4-5 days a week for hours at a time and it’s draining. 

I’m at that point where I’m tired of having to depend on coffee to get me through the day. Two days ago, I had a small breakdown from exhaustion and overall frustration that stemmed from being too tired to retain information as quickly as I wanted. I feel like my mood is completely dependent on coffee since it’s either copious amounts of coffee to keep me energized or feeling drained. Having coffee and triple shot lattes four times a day just to keep running is neither healthy nor something I want to keep up for the rest of my college experience. 

So rant over. Basically the summary is I’m tired and need for this year to be over (this year is the hell year for bio majors at my school) and for SUMMER! I can’t wait to channel all of my energy into relaxing, my health, cooking, blogging, traveling, spending times with friends, etc.

Anywhoville, this is what my marvelous Saturday looked like!

After staying till 11 at the library on Friday night (I know, I’m cool), I got to bed around 12 and slept in a bit till 8 in the morning. I made myself some coffee, then did an hour or so of studying for a bio exam I have on Wednesday before digging into some brown sugar banana oats! 

Mid-morning, I headed off to watch Kyle play in a recreational doubles tennis tournament that the club team at our school puts on. The weather was perfect, and I enjoyed an hour and half of relaxing spectatorship that alternated watching him play with browsing Pinterest on my phone (shh, don’t tell him). 

After I got back to my apartment, I worked on a recipe freelance project that involved lots of cheesy goodness. Amanda and I are both starting to work for a new recipe site, so I wanted to make sure it turned out tasty and that the photos were decent. One thing that I constantly struggle with is timing my cooking and baking so that they’re finished when the natural lighting from the sun is good for pictures. Shooting in good light is (in my opinion) the most important thing you can do to improve your photography, but getting everything set up and ready within the hours of 2-4 p.m can be challenging when you reach those sleepy midday hours. #foodphotographerproblemz. 

Here’s a sneak peek! I’ll link to the recipe when it goes live on the site :).

After getting the pictures taken, I finished a physics assignment and did some reading for my organic chemistry class before taking a pie (!!!!) and Netflix break with Kyle. I’ve been complaining to him on a daily basis about the lack of pie in my life lately, so he picked up one from a Danish bakery on a whim. 

This is snapshot of Kyle singing the Circle of Life song from The Lion King:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwSKkKrUzUk]  

Imagine him (trying to) belt out the lines “Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba, sithi uhm ingonyama” while raising that glorious pie in the air. Thats my boy!

You do you, Kyle. 

And now, more pie pics. 

Beautiful, just beautiful. 

OH. And let’s talk tv series. Kyle and I just started watching House today, and it’s SO good. Our other favorites include Game of Thrones, the Walking Dead, The Following, Orange is the New Black (one that I like), and I also recently have watched a few episodes of The Bible. Do you guys have any favorites? I’m always on the lookout for great new series!

The rest of my night includes a bit more work and (hopefully) a little more relaxing before bed. 

Hope your weekend is going swimmingly!