Ryan Gosling and a Green Monster

Have you seen the movie Crazy Stupid Love. If you haven’t seen it then you need to watch it. I thought I had a pretty decent crush on Ryan Gosling prior to watching the movie, but now my crush on him has skyrocketed through the roof! Holy cow is that man hottt!!!

Aside from Ryan Gosling that movie is pretty funny. I was watching it by myself and I caught myself laughing out loud multiple times. Steve Carrel definitely helps the comedy part of this movie and Emma Stone is simply adorable.

So today I woke up and did some work for my internship and drank some coffee while watching Good Morning America. By the way if you are reading this please take 3 minutes to take the College Lifestyles Readership Survey! You could win a Burt’s Bees spa package! I mean who doesn’t love Burt’s Bees. Here’s the link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/rasummer2013

 

This morning I had my first green monster smoothie in months! I forgot how good they really do taste despite their intriguing green appearance. I didn’t even slack on the spinach today. I put in two heaping handfuls! Yummm

Now I want to share the two “strength” focused workouts that I did this week. Both are from Julie of the blog Peanut Butter Fingers. Ryan Gosling definitely was a huge motivator for me to workout today too haha.

The one I did on Tuesday was a functional training workout that I did two rounds of for a total 30 minute workout: Functional Training Workout.

The workout I did today is called the Burnin’ Legs & Abs Circuit Workout. It took me about close to 20 minutes to complete. After I finished that I took another 10 minutes to do a mix of some of my favorite leg and arm toning exercises to make my workout 30 minutes.

Now I’m eating my lunch/post-work fuel of…leftover thin crust pepperoni pizza. I know that’s exactly what all the fitness magazine say is the best post workout meal! I am having it with some broccoli and carrots, so it’s not all bad.

Tonight I’m hoping that Cooper will take me to see “The Great Gatsby” movie. I’m dying to see it!

In closing here are some things to brighten your day

First is a link to my new song obsession. After I had heard this song and then decided to look it up I was surprised it was by Selena Gomez! But I like it! So come and get it haha

And a little heavenly encouragement:

 

After experiencing a life crisis yesterday, this verse from my devotional this morning was perfect! God will reveal his plan for me morning by morning. All I need to do is seek his will and he will lead me on the path he has for me! That’s easier said than done of course, but with a little patience and a lot of trust I’ll turn out okay Isaiah 50:4 is the verse highlighted.

Any Ryan Gosling lovers out there? Is there a celebrity who motivates you to workout?

How Lunch With Friends Fuels my Run

Do you ever have those days where you just want to run. Need to run.

Today was that day for me. It was supposed to be my running day, but I truly wanted to run today. It was a bit windy just like it always is here in the eastern New Mexico Plains. I normally would have said forget running today, maybe tomorrow. But today I didn’t mind the wind. It wasn’t super windy or anything, but enough that it made it a little hard to breathe.

(See I even run in black, hence the blog name)

I had lunch today with two of my best girl friends from here and it was great. However, they’re in different stages of their lives than what I’m in. One is married and one is about to be married, so there was lots of marriage talk. While their talking about decorating bedrooms and how to change your last name, I’m over here thinking of what my blog post for today will be about and how I need to check RedBox for Les Mis. There’s nothing wrong with this situation at all. It’s just a bit weird for me because I really share none of those concerns right now. They seem to have their life all planned out and I don’t even know what I’m doing next week.

How does this connect to running? Good question. Running is my release. No I don’t run miles upon miles, but the small 3 miles I run is enough to refresh my mind, clear my thoughts, and give me a challenge for the day. I wasn’t running today for a certain time or distance. I just knew I needed to run or I would turn into a…monster. An emotional, confused monster. I didn’t figure out my life on my run, but it just made me feel a whole lot better.

You know what else makes me feel a lot better. Pancakes! Leftover pancakes are the best. I’ve had them the past two days for breakfast.

While I was running errands in town today I also stopped by Hastings to look for a magazine I looked at while in the Chiropractors office. Once inside I ordered an iced coffee. It was gross. Mostly because it was more coffee than cream. I’m not about that lifestyle. It tasted like yucky black coffee. Disappointing.

Moving on. I looked at a couple magazines about writing in Hastings. I also read this blog post from Copy Blogger (It’s hyperlinked). The Copy Blogger posts gives you links to a lot of other blog posts to encourage and give you tips on how to generally be a better writer. You should check them out if you are serious about your writing. They just made me realize that I truly enjoy writing and if I enjoy it so much I need to be doing it more. So look forward to seeing more writing from me or maybe hearing more about my writing.

Now I’m just sitting on my back porch and just had my dinner of left over beans (I promise they’re good) with steamed broccoli, carrots, and peas of some sort. It was very satisfying.

Sitting right here on my back porch I’ve concluded that yes my friends and I are at different stages in our lives, but that doesn’t mean I can’t connect with them. It just means we simply value things differently. Maybe in the future they can help me understand some things I’m facing and I can do the same for them. It reminds me of this graphic I saw the other day:

If getting married is your thing. Then do it. If you aren’t ready to get married and everyone around you is, that’s okay. You just value different things at the time, so invest in those things you value. Right now I’m into writing, fitness, photography, and just enjoying life so I’m going to pursue my passion for those interests. Don’t try to change your values to those of others because you won’t be happy doing that. I’m not going to start browsing wedding pinterest boards because that’s what my friends do. Nope. I’ll just keep watching stupid YouTube videos and keep searching for the perfect iced coffee.

And probably run a little more.

Sidenote: Taking selfies with my sister’s Nikon is so much cooler than taking ones on my phone. I still feel weird doing it though!

Is there an interest gap that exists between you and your friends? What does running do for you!

My Sister Graduated from High School! Weekend Recap

As I mentioned in former posts my sister graduated from high school this weekend! I really can’t believe that it’s been 3 years since I graduated. I feel old. Anyways, I’m super proud of my sister and so this little post is for her.

On Friday night we had my mom’s family come in who live in Colorado and the Austin, TX area. Both sets of Aunts & Uncles have new babies. One is almost 2 and the other is close to being 1 (I don’t know how many months they are haha). They are adorable and the whole family is pretty much obsessed with them. It’s kinda weird. So when they arrived the weekend began!

Saturday was graduation party madness. The whole day was spent scrambling around to get ready for my sister’s party that evening. But it all came together and here are some scenes from that.

 

We served some amazing brisket with beans and all that good stuff for dinner. There was a lot of people there and we have tons left over. You will probably be hearing how I had brisket for lunch throughout the summer.

 

Family fun in the photo booth.

I didn’t even take a picture of the best part of the party. Cake and ice cream! My mom bought this HUGE cake. It was a chocolate and vanilla swirl cake. Fortunately it was mostly vanilla because if it would have been chocolate I would have eaten the whole thing. I’ve eaten a lot of cake this weekend. I can’t even begin to tell you how much haha The ice cream that my aunt and her mom makes is to die for! One made vanilla and one made chocolate. They were both the textures of a Wendy’s frosty and I swear it’s better than most soft serve ice cream. I love dessert

Now for a few pictures of my adorable cousins. Meet DL.

Now meet Kendall.

Sunday was their actual graduation so here is an actual picture from that. My sister is gorgeous right?

Well that’s a little update on what I’ve been up to lately. Monday morning all of our family went home and I helped my mom pack up her classroom. This post doesn’t give this past weekend near the amount of words it deserves, but when a weekend is full of family, friends, and celebrating you know it’s a good one.

Now back to reality. Today, I’ve just been working on things for my internship and helping my mom, dad, and sister get all ready to leave for the senior trip to Florida tonight! Lucky dogs.

Have you attended any graduations this past weekend? I’ll be back on Wednesday!

Oh! Check out these articles from my internship with College Lifestyles. I’m an editor this summer and would love if you checked out the site!

Introducing the Sophisticated Sorority Life Team for Summer 2013

Meet Skylar Starbuck, Sorority Life Editor from New Mexico State University

Jumping back on the health/fitness wagon

Well I didn’t exactly ever fall off of the wagon, but my dedication was slacking. To be honest it is really hard to eat healthy in college. Really hard. I don’t really have problems with working out because I usually get that done in the morning, but some days school just takes priority and getting fro-yo with friends.

But it’s also really hard to eat healthy at home. Most of the time I always eat a healthy breakfast such as oatmeal. Of course the end of the school year always includes lots of parties and graduations. The other night my sister had athletic banquet and there was a potluck dinner (I hate potlucks). I only eat what my aunt or mom bring! My mom made oreo chocolate cake which is amazing and my cousin made Texas chocolate sheet cake which is also to die for! I had two pieces….life changing.

I was doing really good at the beginning of the year with getting good solid workouts in and eating pretty healthy most of the time. Then the end of the year just got really busy and I was lacking in motivation. I barely had enough motivation to finish my school work. I want to get back to that place that I was in at the beginning of the year. So for the rest of May just getting back into some type of routine and work on eating better is my goal.

Let’s see how that’s going…

Monday I went for a 3 mile run and ended it with some runner’s yoga.

Tuesday, I went to my workout binder and did a bikini body full body workout with weights and that went pretty well.

Wednesday I went for an afternoon run and did HIIT. I ran for 5 minutes then did 20 seconds at a good pace, 10 second sprint, 30 second slow run, and after I repeated that 5 times I would walk for two minutes. I went through that 3 times and reached 3 miles. After that I did some ab work.

Today has been cleaning mania at my house. My sister graduates from high school on Sunday so we have family coming in on Friday for the weekend. So I’ve been cleaning for dayyysss. Not really. Hopefully, I’ll do some kind of full-body workout today.

This weekend will be really crazy, busy, full of family and friends, good food, and my little sister will be graduating. *tear* *sniff* *sniff* I don’t know why people, including myself, get all emotional about graduation. It truly is an exciting time!

And I just finished reading The Great Gatsby. It was really good! I am now dying to see the movie. Until then I’ll just listen obsessively to the soundtrack and make an excited scream sound whenever the commercial comes on the TV.

 

 

It’s almost Friday! Have a great weekend everyone!

End of Spring 13’ Junior Year in Pictures

Finally, I have gotten a chance to blog again! Last week was finals and what I thought would be an easy week was jam packed with things to finish up the school year. When I did have a split second the last thing I wanted to do was try to compose a blog post. If I wasn’t busy with school I was either at work or hanging out with my girl friends.

Now to the fun part. Pictures with captions to summarize the end of the semester!

The most wonderful time of the year: Greek Olympics!!

My chariot team! I had so much fun having practices with these girls and getting to know them.

Made a book as my portfolio for my documentary photography term project, so I laid them out and decided the order while standing on a chair in the dining room of our sorority house.

Aced my third Grammar exam which means I will most likely get an A in that class.

While working out for the most part went to the back burner, I did make it to Tuesday Thursday Fit Camp three weeks in a row! Most of the time I followed up the workout by going to the nutrition club to get a Herbalife shake. Peanut Butter is my favorite. Go figure.

My Little and I got to see our boyfriends, Jason Aldean and Jake Owen, put on an amazing concert! We were in heaven every second.

Crown Ball with Cooper We had fun, but it sure was a wild night is all I will say.

Spent a lot of time writing papers and drinking iced coffee. I used up all of my Starbucks gifts cards. Definitely went there a little too much.

Displayed my pictures in my first photo gallery with the NMSU photojournalism club!

 

Fro-yo. Enough said.

 

The only way I made it through these last few weeks is with a lot of help from God!

This last weekend I went to watch my cousin and sister run at state track! My sister made it to the podium in the 800 meter run and our cousin crossed the line at the same, but ended up 7th.

Before I headed home I had to get one last Starbucks iced coffee. Maybe I’m obsessed with iced coffee.

I’m excited for summer to really begin and to be back on the blogging train!!

Greek Sing ‘13 and returning to normal life…sort of

Well it’s been almost three weeks since I last posted and I have definitely missed my little blog. However, I honestly haven’t had any time to blog or read any blogs. Today, I finally got to sit down and caught up on some of my favorite blogs. It was nice

The past two weeks my sorority had been preparing for our Greek Sing performance. Our theme this year was “rainforest” and I was on the props team. We built the set and all the other props for the performance. Other girls were on risers, some were actors, some sing, and some just moderated everyone.

Working with all my friends on props was probably one of the best two weeks of my life. Basically, at 5:30 every day we got together and worked on our props. I was more on the carpentry team and helped build frames, mold chicken wire, and other more “masculine” things.

The set we built was absolutely amazing and took a lot of work, but it definitely paid off. Below is a picture of them basically finished.

 

This was our props team. I love these girls so much!

Like I said before all our hard work paid off because we won!!! We haven’t won Greek Sing since my freshman year and winning it again is exactly what my chapter needed. Winning Greek Sing is a feeling like no other!

The week before last my mom, sister, and cousin were down for State FFA competition and luckily I got to hang out with them a couple of times.

This past week has been “Greek Week” so we have had a few events at night. The most exciting part so far is that our spirit jerseys came in and I am absolutely obsessed with them. I’ll be wearing mine all day errdayyyy.

Greek Week ends tomorrow with Greek Olympics! Greek Olympics is my favorite part of spring sorority life. I’m the captain of chariot and I hope my team does good. I mean we’re all really fast girls so we should do great! Win or lose it’ll be fun!

As far as working out and eating healthy I’ve done an alright job. This week I’ve finally been able to go back to my Tuesday/Thursday Fit Camp which has been sooo nice! I just love that class, the workouts we do, and the motivating people that I get to workout with. The two weeks prior I really didn’t get many work outs in, but with Greek Olympic practices I usually did get some type of physical activity in along with building props for Greek Sing.

I always do decent at eating healthy because I always, always eat a healthy breakfast. I’ve been on a huge oatmeal kick lately and I think I had oatmeal every day…except maybe once or twice. Of course we had our share of ice cream/sonic/taco bells runs for food, but hey you can’t do much about it or think about it. You just have to enjoy it

School is winding down. Only about three weeks left I think then summer is here. Ahhh that’s scary! Summer always comes so fast!

Now of course I can’t post this without shouting out to Boston and West, Texas.

I was absolutely in shock when I heard about Boston. I first heard about it from Sarah of sarahfit.com who actually lives in Boston. She was at the marathon (she is safe) and posted an Instagram photo that broke the news to me.

What happened in West is also a sad tragedy for that community. Both Boston and West have been in my prayers constantly.

Here’s an article that maybe can give you some hope: Boston, Waco, America, don’t give up hope.

This picture is from the blog Sweetness Itself:

We don’t live in a perfect world. Bad, terrible things will happen, but one day Christ will return and will deliver his believers from this evil world. We have to hold on to the hope of one day having eternal life where there will be no more sorrow, tears, and suffering. I know that’s easy for me to say when I have not been directly impacted by those tragedies, but it’s the only bit of hope I can offer anyone.

Lastly, watch this video. I promise it’ll brighten your day. I personally think it’s hilarious. Now I’m off to Greek Olympic practice before our big day tomorrow!

http://youtu.be/qnydFmqHuVo

April Goals & a declaration

Happy April 1st!! I can’t believe it’s already April. Whoa whoa whoa. Hold your horses there April.

Sadly today will be my last blog post for hopefully only two weeks. By 5 pm today I will walk into the Zeta house and my life will then be consumed with Greek Week things for the next two weeks. Maybe three.

So my declaration is that I’m going on a two week blog fast. No blog posts. Probably no blog reading unless I need to kill sometime. Trust me I am really sad about this, but my first priority is being a student and then April is pretty much dedicated to Zeta activities and finishing up classes.

Papers, presentations, and term projects. Blah.  Life comes first.

I can sum up my goals for April in one word. SURVIVE

If you want to keep up with my life the easiest ways will be on Twitter by following me @skylarstarbuck or on Instagram where you can follow me at skylar35. So please find me!

On a more positive note I had a wonderful Easter yesterday with my family and really didn’t want to come back, but summer will be here before I know it.

 

Anyways, I was just killing time before a chiropractor appointment. See y’all in two weeks!