Fortunate Fridays! {tales of a pretty awesome week, plus tons of pictures}

Good day my loves.

We have made it to the weekend! I've had quite the busy week (what's new?!) and wasn't able to post most but I made a decision to at least make it in here for my Fortunate Friday series. How was your week?

Here are some of the things that happened to me this week which I feel fortunate for:

1. Awesome book finds. So, I listen to a few really good podcasts (i'm writing a post on that very soon) and I've been getting some pretty cool book recommendations. Needless to say, I have been spending some time ordering and picking up books from my local library (one of my favorite places in the world). Here is my "books in queue" stack:

The One Thing (reading now)

The Four Pillars of Investing (pending)

21 Success Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires (read)

The Women's Guide to Successful Investing (pending)

The Confidence Code (pending)

The Best Investment Advice I Ever Received (read)

And here is what I am currently reading (I am hooked on this book):

2. Jillian Michael's DVD 6-Week 6-Pack: I started the week with a made-up mind to incorporate this DVD in to my life for the next 6 weeks. Monday was day one. I almost felt like throwing up during the first workout but is getting easier. Has anyone used this one?

3. Work I am passionate about and the ability to make it work: I say this a lot but I am thankful that things are falling in to place slowly but surely. Things had been scary at first but lately I have been feeling so full of life an excited to get to work as I wake up every morning. I feel like I am dreaming sometimes. For anyone out there hesitant to follow their passion, please reach out to me and I can share my personal perspective on this topic. 

Source

4. Spending time with my dad on his birthday: It was my dad's birthday yesterday so we went out for a birthday dinner. He is a fan of seafood so he choose the infamous Red Lobster. As usual, he had his seafood platter and I opted for some chicken tacos as I was not really in the mood for seafood. The tacos were pretty good. Spending time with family, and my dad whom I love so much, was truly priceless.

Don't these look good:

We HAD to embarrass him as the staff sang him happy birthday.
...that chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream was pretty delicious (whats a bday without cake?!)

 Some of the family (grandma joined us!):

5. Last but not least -- An amazing fourth of July weekend with amazing friends: I have to admit that towards the end of last week I was feeling a little down on myself as I had no set plans for the "big and exciting" 4th of July weekend. Thankfully, some 'serendipitous' and 'spontaneous' plans appeared in my life and I had one of the best weekends I've had in a very long time. I kept telling myself "live a little" and it just made me realize that I work so much that sometimes I forget to live and have fun with people I care about and that care about me. I am now working on "living a little" more often.

...It all started with a trip to PinkBerry with one of my best friends (Hi! Yosi!)

What she had:

What I had:

...we then wondered the streets of NYC, people watching and such. We ended up at 42nd street which is the capital of CRAZY (so many people around. I had forgotten how insane busy that area is).

Decided to play along and become a tourist during my time downtown. Lets not even go in to the fact that I've lived about a 40 minute train ride away from the city for 20 years and counting. I should really take advantage of the City Life more often:

We got hungry so we arrived at one of my favorite restaurants -- Havana Central:

..We weren't very hungry so opted for some appetizers (shrimp, feta & spinach, and cheese empanadas- highly recommend) PLUS some delicious sangria made to order right at our table (also highly recommended):

...amazed at the waiter's skills as he made our drink (he was also handsome, friendly, and hitting on my friend):

...we then ran in to some friends and of course had to take a picture and then proceeded to chat for hours on end.

By the time we headed home it was past midnight so we got to welcome the 4th of July right in the middle of times square. Cool stuff.

[that was my Friday-going into-Saturday last week]

On Saturday during the day I met up with another good friend of mine. We went for a walk, talked a whole lot catching up on life and then ended up at a pretty delicious restaurant in Harlem (full review coming soon):

Hi Jess! 

On Sunday I kept it low key. Went to the gym with my bestie:

...and then spent some quality time with my niece whom I love so much:

And that's all folks. That was my week in a nutshell. What are your plans for the weekend? what are YOU feeling particularly thankful for lately?

Love,
Mabelle

Whether you fell Joy or Pain be thankful...it means you're alive

The title of this post was inspired by a wisdom tooth located all the way in the back of the right side of my mouth, the very last tooth in fact.

Before you all think I am crazy I'll give you the short story about how this past summer I suffered weeks of excruciating pain thanks to the fact that I never removed my wisdom tooth (I am 30 years old!) and-- I hope this is not too graphic-- the tooth eroded meaning that, what was once the "center" of that tooth is now a hole and the entire thing needs to be extracted, which is something I am in the process of doing

But anyways, the excruciating pain was so bad that I often feared for my life. I finally got myself to a dentist whom advised me, after an xray, that the reason for the pain is that I had nerves that were now out in the open because of that hole in my tooth. Hence, anything and everything that would irritate the nerve would hurt like hell. And boy did it hurt!

I recall eating something at a conference and bitting on it too hard. Apparently I hit that nerve because I was holding back tears the entire hour and a half of the keynote speaker presentation and was too embarrased to get up. And that was just one of several times this past summer where that so called "out in the open" nerve in the inside of my mouth drove me painfuly insane.

Well thankfully and eventually the pain of that tooth subsided. I still have the hole and that tooth is still there (because I havent gotten my ass to a dentist again) but there is no pain anymore. In fact, I was eating an apple earlier and a whole chunck of it went to that hole in the back of my mouth and I bit hard. And there was no pain. At which point I came to the conclusion that nerve was now dead. And I felt sad for a little bit. As much as that pain was unbearable, it meant the nerve was alive and well and kicking and screaming. But now, there was absolutely zero response from the hole in my tooth.

...and there you have it.

At that second when I realized that strong bite out of an apple and in to  my eroded wisdom tooth hole didnt result in any pain whatsoever; I had one of those Oprah "aha moments" where I realized that as much as painful circumstances and experiences may hurt us emotionally; the flip side of that is that it means we are alive and well.

We are alive when we fell joy just as we are alive when we feel pain, and everything in between, and for that we should be thankful. <3

Thanks for reading.