Monthly Goals {Weekly Wishes}

Link-ups are always fun.  They give you the opportunity to meet new bloggers, make friends and promote your blog.  Community is my favorite factor about blogging, and I am very excited to be linking-up with The Nectar Collective and other AMAZING bloggers today.  Since I will be starting my last semester of college this next week, I figured it would be fitting to make a list of monthly goals.  The Nectar Collective’s Monday post came at an ideal time!  These are my monthly goals:

Personal:

• Try something new that is outside of my comfort zone.  This goes along with my New Year’s goals I posted a week ago, and I figured that I should stick to them.  Maybe, I will join a new club to meet new people or try parasailing like I have always wanted.
• Write in my personal journal more often this month.  I love to write (aka this blog).  I share many of my adventures and thoughts on this blog, but sometimes you can’t share on the WWW.  I love writing in my Journal, and I want to do it more often this month.
• Visit two beautiful locations to practice taking photos.
• Take a friend out for coffee that I have not talked to in a long time.
• Plan my trip to England, Scotland and Ireland in May.

Academic:

• Make an effort to block out AT LEAST two hours a day of straight studying.  I’m almost there, but senioritis is starting to sink it.
• Enjoy my last semester of classes & start them off right!
• Visit & take pictures in my favorite places around campus.
• Get to know at least two of my professors and develop a relationship with them.

Career:

• Apply, Apply, Apply!  Applying to jobs will become harder as I get deeper into classes, but I want to make an effort to apply to at least 30 jobs this month.
• Open up sponsorships on my blog to start helping others and my blog.
• Revisit my resume and have two new people read through it.
• Apply to new teaching positions in Asia.
• Enjoy my job with the Boys N Girls Club.  It is quite an amazing organization.

So many goals so little time!  If only these goals could be read to me when I wake up in the morning, they might be more apt to happen!

Onward to 2014

Wow, it is already 2014.  The year of my college graduation, the end of one chapter in my life and the start of a new one.

I celebrated the countdown to 2014 with a couple of my closest friends, got barely enough sleep last night then went to stake out our spot at the Rose Bowl Parade early this morning.  Every year, friends of ours sleep on the streets of Pasadena for two days before the start of the parade to get a decent spot.  We did this one year, but I froze.  Never again!  Now, we leave at 4:00am in the morning and grab our spot on the sidewalk alongside them.

The parade was amazing this year, and the floats were as beautiful as ever.  It is a special year, because Michigan State made it to the Rose Bowl.  There are two older adults in this household that graduated from this college.

These guys were pretty fun – full of laughs.  Well, they had a fun personality and put on a show for us.

Spartan Marching Band!

This float was one of my favorite floats celebrating women in the military!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Christmas is now over but I continue to quote Christmas songs, because I truly feel like I am living in a ‘winter wonderland.’ Cheesy I know! But putting a Californian in snow is like taking a fish out of water.

Well, this Californian girl had to explore this winter wonderland.  I am not use to staying inside all day, and I was getting anxious at the end of today .  Unlike California, I had to strap on my wool socks, winter boots, three jackets and gloves.  Somehow it still was not enough, but I did live.

This is my journey through the snow…

All of these beautiful pictures are taken at my grandmother’s farm which has been in the family for the last 43 years.  It is a beautiful place, and it holds many memories for this brunette.   I hope you continue to have a beautiful Christmas season – stay warm!