Fortunate Friday {Broadway Edition}

Good day sunshine!

Is Friday! Had to wake up at the crack of dawn this morning joined by a lingering cold and allergies; definitely not a great way to start my day but thankfully I am starting to feel A LOT better.

I've been drinking a whole lot of this:

Green tea simmered with a cinnamon stick, lemon, & spices: my god sent salvation!

This week was busy and productive and everything in between. Although I do work a bit on weekends I am just happy Friday is finally here. And without further ado' here is my list of fortunate happenings this week:

1. My friend is healthy again: One of my best friends sent me a random text on Monday night letting me know she was in the hospital due to some kidney issues. The message freaked me out as I have never see this girl hospitalized in the twenty years that I have known her. Thankfully she is finally out of the hospital. I plan to go see her today after work. Health is our most precious gift.

2. My Computer: So, this week I almost had a heart attack because my beloved laptop was having some issues. The screen went crazy and I seriously didn't know what to do. I booked an appointment at 'geek squad' almost immediately and then, like a miracle, it fixed itself!!! Praise the lord. The brief minutes of panic reminded me how much I rely on this tool for work and everything else. Something apparently I didn't realize until this week. Taking better care of it. Grateful for it.

3. The ability to sign up for upcoming races: Its been a while since I've ran my 5Ks or 10Ks consistently. There was a time in my life not too long ago when I used to participate in fun races all the time. Well, my efforts to bring that back are in full swing and just this week I signed up for my 3rd race of the year-- first one is next week! (stay tuned for fun race review posts).

4. My dad's new found enthusiasm for health and fitness: After a health scare at the beginning of the year my dad finally got his 'act together' and started working out consistently and eating healthy. He's actually taking it a bit overboard as apparently he's cut out a lot of stuff from his diet (insights from my mom) so I am excited to help him in this area and am actually working on a list of foods that he can feel good about eating (he avoided Gluten like the plague for a couple of months, it was pretty funny). Love my dad. So proud of him.

5. Work that keeps me busy, focused, and helps me provide for myself: Receiving tons of positive signs from the universe, Thank you Jesus. I keep telling myself to just keep on swimming.

BONUS: My first Broadway show date with my mom: This was so incredibly awesome! So, a few weeks ago I won tickets to go watch GiGi on Broadway, starring Vanessa Hudgens. It turned out to be so perfect because I was able to take my mom on a pre-mother's day date. Plus, it was the first Broadway show we ever saw together (and the very first one for her, not counting The Rockettes which we saw about 6 years ago). Can you believe we have been living in NYC for over 21 years and it took us that long to go see a show together? next goal is to get the entire family to a show. Will share a full review regarding my GiGi experience on tomorrow's post.

Other fun things that happened this week:

Finally got a manicure and two rings I found on sale at Old Navy's accessory section:

Wanted that 'white-ish' color that's trending now. I am not sure if it was the manicurist or the nail polish (Essie's baby breath) but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. But it'll do.

My friend mailed every person that attended the wedding a thank you card. I loved this so much I am framing it:

*This week I also took some steps towards something it was time for me to tackle-- Having the strength to detach myself from something that was not bringing my life much joy (more on this to come).  Still not completely on the other side of things but well on my way. Work in progress.

And that is all my friends. How was your week? any exciting plans for this weekend?

Happy early mother's day to all my readers that are mothers. Looking forward to 'joining the club' in the near future :-)

Love,
Mabelle

Fortunate Friday + Week Recap, blended in 1 :)

Another Friday has arrived and no Friday would be complete without my summation of things that I felt fortunate for this week. And here you have it-à

1. The little things in life that bring us joy.  Needed a new mug for work and found the beauty pictured below at my local TJMaxx. The phrases literally put a smile on my face. My very first use of the mug was paired up with one of my favorite Luna bar flavors:

2. The people that find my blog and send me messages letting me know how much they like it. I know I’ve said this before but it means a lot to me. One of the individuals that reached out to me this week was a representative of an organization called “Happify”. The concept behind their idea is amazing and I cant wait to take part in their activities. I will share more about this soon!!

 

 

3. Random acts of kindness!--Was running late for work one day this week and the bus driver actually waited for me to get to the stop. He could have very well taken off but he waited and that was a really nice gesture!

4. Recycling my books from undergrad! This may not be what you think so let me explain. One of my professors this semester is using an old version of a business book that looked very familiar to me (at least the title did). He said the core concepts in education do not change much from year to year so he didn’t want us expending crazy money on a new version of the book. Nonetheless, cheap or not, the book still had to be purchased and that’s something I did not feel like doing.

Well, while browsing through my old business books from undergrad guess what I found---the book required for this semester! Crazy huh?! I have to admit that at first I was mad and thought to myself that I would be wasting money on a course I’ve already taken. But then I had to remind myself that there were MANY chapters that were not covered back when I was in undergrad and realized that those chapters are the ones I’ll be covering this semester. Isn’t that great?! Must have saved around $80+ just on that alone, plus I get to cover stuff I didn’t cover before!

5. My team member for one of my classes this semester—he’s super smart and thank god seems to know what he’s doing! Looks like we’ll both do great in this course and we complement each other quite well regarding knowledge.  (sorry if theres a lot of school stuff on here but my life has been bombarded by work and school lol).

6. Bonus Fortunate—Getting to know my sister’s cool friends and spending quality time with them! This past weekend my sister did an actual celebration for her bday (actual= clubbing). I got to meet more of her friends and realized I need to hang out with them more often. Such an amazing group of upbeat and positive people. Loved every second of the party! Below are some pics:

 

So, hopefully this post somewhat makes up for being  M.I.A this week. I’ve tried to blend in a wrap up of my week and what I feel fortunate for—hope I did a good job with that :). Thank God Is Friday!

What do you feel fortunate for this week? What was the best part of your week?

Adriana Lima is Hot and a Awesome Quote

So this post is a little late. Meant to post this morning but ran out of time. Lets start with the food part. Yesterday my lunch was simple yet amazing. I am running out of groceries so couldn’t bring food from home so I decided to go to one of my favorite lunch spots: Hale and Hearty. I went for a chicken avocado salad over mixed greens. Asked for EVOO and vinaigrette on the side (I rarely ever have any other kind of dressing). It was so good. I was a little scared I wouldn’t be fully satisfied but surprisingly I was! I also completed yesterdays Elf4Health challenge by having the salad so: done and done!

Later on during the day I snacked on an apple and a granola bar before my finance exam at 7:30.

I don’t want to go over the exam too much. I am glad is over. Let’s just say the professor told us one thing and the exam was the complete opposite. In other words, he claimed there wouldn’t be too many calculations (mostly conceptual) but guess what, most of the exam was calculations. I knew better so I did have all my formulas ready on the sheet he allows us to bring to the exams. The challenging part was figuring out which formula to use for what and my head was spinning at one point. Most of the class needed an extra 30 minutes to finish—so you can imagine how we all fell!. The professor was nice enough to stay extra time but I think we were all wondering WTH throughout the test. When I walked out of the exam one of my classmates approached me and asked me whether I thought it was difficult. That made me feel a gazillion times better because I knew I wasn’t the only one that felt that way! So, we’ll see what happens. Praying for a major curve and 100% on my final—is not over till is over.

In other news...Today’s Elf4Health challenge is sharing one of your favorite snacks. Here is one of mine:

 

I love the kashi dark chocolate coconut bar. I pair it up with tea and its so good and satisfying—specially in mid-afternoon when most of us needs a recharge.

Sometimes during the day I also snack on apples which I bring from home. I add lemon so that they don’t turn brown and munching on them during the day helps me control cravings.

So, if you are a girl you are probably well aware that last night was the Victoria Secret fashion show. I got home about 30 minutes in to it so I couldn’t see much besides a little bit of Rhianna’s performance. I was specially intrigued by Adriana Lima’s body after having a baby. She is my favorite VS Angel and I think she is absolutely gorgeous. Her body looks like a normal human being with curves and it was a breath of fresh air to see someone looking normal and not skeletical in that runway. Go Adriana!

I stole this pic from a Self or Shape magazine facebook post :) Hence the caption.

Finally, I want to share a quote I saw today on facebook by Clare @ Fitting it All in which I loved and just had to share with you guys:

I love Brian Tracy and I actually have one of his books. He is so inspirational with his words! Quite the motivator!

This is all for now. Have a good evening everyone!

Tell me, Did you see the Victoria Secret fashion show last night? What are your thoughts?