hey guys! I’ve been trying to eat breakfast more often these days since I have more time in the mornings and these are some of the things I’ve tried that are yummy and healthy but also super simple! I put a time estimate for each of them in case you need to know how much time it would take, but they all should be pretty easy/quick.
Continue reading “breakfast ideas (yummy, healthy, and simple)”
I can’t believe it’s already May! today I’m sharing a list of gift ideas for mother’s day. Shopping for parents is always hard but I think you’ll find at least one thing for your mom in this post đ
hey guys! since spring is here I thought it would be fun to share some ideas to make your room cozy for spring. also I thought it might take our minds off quarantine (I’ve been sharing lots of posts about that lately so I thought something new would be fun!) đ
hey y’all!! since everyone is doing online school now I thought I’d give you guys some tips since I did online school for for 3 years and learned a TON of helpful info. so bookmark this post because you will use it â¤
Today I decided to do a compilation post about what I’m reading and listening to! I don’t know why but I really like this type of post so I wanted to do it today. On Monday, I’m going to post my reactions to your assumptions about me (you guys… they were the BEST) and that’s going to be really fun so definitely stay tuned. Anyway, enough with the intro… let’s get started!
The War I Finally Won// Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
I read the previous book in this series to my siblings and honestly I really just wanted to know what happened to Ada… also now I want another book in the series. TBH I got so annoyed at Ada halfway through but now… i’m so sorry Ada! The ending đ°
Anne of Green Gables (the whole series)//L. M. Montgomery
I don’t have this cover… BUT HOW PRETTY! OFC I’ve already read this series but I just had to read it again. My favorite book in the series is Rilla (the last one) just because. Even though it’s SO sad.Â
Ariana’s Flying Life//Ari’s podcast is the best just like her blog! It’s been so fun to listen to her talk about diverse topics… guys I have a feeling that she’s AMAZING at debating. đ
Blogging 101//If anyone should make this podcast, it’s Hannah. Because she’s a (very) successful blogger and entrepreneur, I’ve been hanging on to every single word of her podcast đ It’s amazing and you should definitely check it out!
Do you guys have a favorite podcast? If so, let me know- I’d love to check it out!
Soo I limited myself to five blogs… WHAT. Bad idea. đ˛Â There are so many blogs I wanted to include but didn’t because I wanted to do the first five that came to mind… no hard feelings if I didn’t include you! đ
Ari//Ariana’s Flying Life//I know Ari’s blog is pretty much nominated in all my tags and I talk about her all the time but her blog is amazing! She’s a really sweet girl and her posts are always really uplifting and encouraging. She posts often so definitely go over and follow her!Â
Maggie//Dreaming of Guatemala//Recently, Maggie’s blog has been one of my favorites. Her posts are very uplifting and are great reminders about God’s love for us. She also has been doing weekly challenges and positive change a lot recently, which is one of my favorite topics and a great reminder for me! Maggie’s blog is wonderful and you will not be disappointed if you go over and follow her.
Audrey Kate//The Junebug Blog//Audrey is so creative and her posts are so fun! I always love seeing a new one in my reader đ I found her blog pretty recently, and I’ve really been enjoying it. If you like creative posts, then check her blog out!
Covah//Dancing in the rain//I love Covah’s blog title and her design has me like… đ I really like her style of posts and they are always really fun. I would recommend her blog for sure!
Allison//A Farm Girls’ Life//Allison’s photography is really good, and I’m always really inspired after reading her posts. I don’t really know what to say about her site, but it’s really great and her photography is impressive. đ
Soo I pretty much make a new playlist on Spotify every. single. day. But these are the songs that I include pretty much every time! Most (actually all) of them are worship songs…. đđ
What did I tell you? đ
This post was so fun! I hope you all enjoyed as well. Let me know your favorite podcast!
agg why do I have no idea how to start posts?
ANYWAY…. how was your weekend? Mine was great! My Dad was home, and a break from school is considered great no matter what, haha. On Friday, I talked about my goals for February (and I have already failed the journaling one… I didn’t journal on the 1st. I know, I’m a horrible person. Seriously. I might be able to catch up on that, but I don’t know, haha. And I ramble way too much.) but I also hinted at a couple fun new changes to Christina and Camera. Soo… here they are! I’ll also be sharing the results from my question about what posts y’all what to see.
Two posts per week// I’m changing up the amount of posts per week. They’ll probably be a little shorter, but hopefully around the same length. I really want to get more content out there, and I love blogging, so we’ll see if this works out.
Email List// I seriously haven’t been able to use this like I wanted too. Most bloggers send out emails with their posts, but if I’m email subscribed to them too, it gets annoying. Soo… what do you guys want to see in the email list? The stuff that I normally put in there are things I want to feature on the blog, so I really don’t know! Maybe more personal stuff??? Honestly I have no idea.
More personal// Honestly, I’ve been treating blogging like a business. Posts have to be done by a certain date, I must have this amount of followers, I need to be as professional as possible, yada yada yada. While this mindset is great for some people (aka those who actually blog as their job) I really need to stop. Healthy goals//deadlines are great, but I don’t need them to be set in stone. Y’all’s favorites of my posts are generally the personal ones, and the impersonal, business-style posts don’t get much feedback. how did I just figure this out!?! Basically, I want to post more things that are peeks into my real life, and more things that are personal to you guys.
Post ideas// Here’s the part of the show post where larry comes out and sings a silly song I share the results for what you guys want to see. Plus does nobody get that reference? Please please someone get that reference. I don’t want to be the only Veggie Tales fan out there… *looks around awkwardly*
ANYWAYS.
I suggested 8Â categories, and you guys also made up 2 more.
So. I’ll be sharing pretty much all of the categories with 4-5 votes this month (except Bible Study series, I’m still working on that, but hopefully I’ll be sharing that sometime in March or April.
SO.
Bye, see you all on Friday with another post! Please chat with me in the comments.
the pictures in this post are from unsplash, a lazy photographer’s best friendÂ
How has your week been? Mine has been good, but busy with school. I can’t wait for Christmas/New Year’s break! Do y’all like the Christmas “redesign” of the blog? It’s not as good as the regular one, because Mukta designed that one, but I like it. It’s fun to change things up!Â
Anyway, today’s post is “winter” photography. If you could call it that… I’m a Florida gal, so our winter is basically the same as summer (except we kinda freak out at 65 degrees “It’s so cold! It’s going to snow!”- and yes, that is a real conversation). Plus the majority of these photos are of my cutesy little sis Em. Hey, I won’t complain if you won’t!
#sorrynotsorry
I decided to split the post into two categories: nature/outside and Emily/sibs (my siblings). So…. let’s get started!
I don’t really know why I took this photo (maybe it was a lighting test) but I actually kinda like how it came out. The quality isn’t great, but I like the different elements. The stones are so pretty, and I love the layering of the steps and the plant.
This picture is weird… I like the detail of the cherry tree’s trunk, but the angle is really crazy… what do you think?
There were a couple of tiny flowers by our sidewalk, so I tried to take a picture of them. Believe me, it’s harder than it looks! I was literally lying on the ground hoping that none of our neighbors were watching me… the things we do to get a picture!
THIS PICTURE IS SO PRETTY. I literally have no idea why I like it so much… but I love the pine cone. Plus we have some bokeh in the back… yaaaaaassssss!
I can’t decide which I like better- the pine cone in focus or out of focus. In this picture, I really like how sharp and clean the grass is, plus I like the bokeh.
BEHIND THE SCENES/// I moved the grass so I could focus on the pinecone… it was way harder than I thought! Steadying the camera was MUCH harder with only one hand…. plus I was lying on the ground.
I don’t love this picture, but I wanted to show y’all how huge our cherry tree is. It might not be super big, but we planted this thing from when it was TINY. It was about the size of a marigold, I kid you not. It’s so huge now! We planted it at the end of February in 2017, so we haven’t even had it for two years.
The light was so pretty coming from the top of the tree, so I had to take a picture!
I love the way the light is coming in through the leaves! This picture is so pretty đ
Now for the part of the post that you OBVIOUSLY came for… my cutsie patootsie sister Em plus my brothers! Plus an overload of camera mirror selfies (that sounds weird) of me!
C: Make me a cool rapping singer. Here I’ll sing for you “BOOM BOOM BOOM I’M A RAPPER” I obliged.Â
C: Take a picture of my eye… with sunglasses on!Â
Okaaaayyyy?
Em’s face the entire time that C was posing “as a cool rapper”
I don’t normally like color contrast like this, but this is adorable! I love her expression… J was posing for me like this, and she decided to copy him.
OH MY GOODNESS I’M FRAMING THIS… How cute, though? I love it.Â
Wouldn’t you love to knock on a door and have this cutie answer? How adorable!Â
BTS (behind the scenes): She was actually trying to slam the door on me while I was taking them. She was literally saying “Out, Tina! Out, Tina! Chris-tin-a, get out!”.Â
If you look past the blurriness, she’s adorable!Â
“And what are you doing here, my good friend?’ (not what she was actually saying lol)
I tried to capture pictures of her running… and failed.
I told her “Pose for me” and “be a model” (she doesn’t know what a model is lol) and this is what she gave me.Â
I love her messy face… She looks so deep in thought.
She was mad at me when I wouldn’t let her “see it, see it, see picture”… I haven’t taken the picture yet!
But when you tell her to smile for the camera… CUTENESS ALERT! I love this picture!
Need I say more?
She found this random green ribbon… and she loved it!
Selfie of me! Probably not the best part of my fave to take a picture of… hello acne + freckles đŚÂ
I have no idea what he was doing…
They have ganged up against me! I took both these pictures within 10 seconds of each other…
These were so fun to take! I might make one my profile picture!
Sorry for the long post… I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what picture was your favorite!
I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is almost here! When you read this, I’ll be on the home stretch- the last day of school before Thanksgiving break. Yay!
This is SO comfy and also really casual. A thanksgiving t-shirt would be super cute!
Belle Lily has a ton of cute thanksgiving themed shirts on their site. They’re really inexpensive and they also have a Black Friday coupon code right now, so definitely check that out. Here are some of my favorites:
 
 
How cute would any of those be with jean and ankle booties? It’s super effortless too! They also have a ton of long sleeved options for all of you lucky ones who actually have a temperature change during the fall season.
Sweater dresses are GENIUS! They’re a great choice for thanksgiving too.
This sweater dress (picture credit) is a great idea! It mixes sweaters and dresses so well. This is the perfect choice if you don’t want to wear jeans.
This sweater dress outfit (picture credit) is also super cute. It’s simple and effortless but it looks adorable.
This awesome compilation is perfect for families. There are lots of color schemes, and they’re so cute! Coordinating with your family is SO adorable. Plus, you can use all of these ideas for your own personal outfit too!
I hope you enjoyed this short (but hopefully sweet) post! I’m off to go make yummy goodies for thanksgiving!
Have you ever wondered how I write my blog posts? It’s definitively not one size fits all, but my current method works well for me.
This step might seem minor, but it’s actually very important! About a month in advance, I pick the posts for the next month from a list that I keep of things I’d like to post. Then, I add them to an excel sheet that I keep (excel is like sheets for google) going.
I used to use monday.com for this step (just because I had a 30 day free trial) but it’s expensive if you want to keep using it, so I just decided to use an excel sheet.
Here’s an example of my excel sheet for June, July, and August:
Once it’s added to the excel document, I open a google docs and start planning the post. For example, in my bible journaling post, I listed all the supplies I would include and found links and prices for all of them. Most of the time this is just a simple bullet list of what I want to include in the post (for some posts, I don’t even do this, like a photography post).
I try to include photos in all my posts, even if I grab them from Unsplash (like the one above). If I need to actually take photos with my camera, I do that, but if I’m getting the photos online, I pick the one’s I plan to use. Then I add EVERY SINGLE photo that will be in the post to an empty draft. This includes my “Hello” Photo, signature, and dividers.
This step is pretty self explanatory: actually writing the post! This includes typing captions for photos, and actually building a post. I generally do this in 1-4 stages (depending on how much work it is).
Then, I schedule the post! I write my posts about 1-2 weeks before they go live, which relives me of stress. For some posts that are more personal and need to be written closer to when they go live, I try to prep as much as possible ahead of time.
I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my blog post planning+preparing process (triple points for alliteration)!
Today Iâm going to be sharing some tips for being productive when youâre not motivated. This has always been a struggle for me, so when I found some solutions I knew I wanted to share then with yâall so that you would know what to do!
Thereâs a wide spectrum of reason on why youâre not motivated. It might be that you simply donât enjoy doing the task, or it could be possible that you have too much on your plate. Whatever it is, there is a fairly simple solution. If you donât enjoy the task- make it enjoyable! One idea is to provide yourself with a reward for completing the task- maybe 5 minutes of social media, 10 minutes to read a book, or even simply a break to have a healthy snack. This question is essential because once you know why you donât feel motivated you can remedy it.
This one is absolutely essential if you just feel unmotivated. Itâs easier to scroll through social media that to sit down and complete tasks, even if the task is something you enjoy. Turn the power of all of your devices and turn off all of your notifications. You should probably make some way for emergency phone calls to come through, just in case.
When I donât feel motivated, Iâm ready to munch on things like chips and sweets. Aside from the fact that those foods are unhealthy, theyâre not going to help with the motivation issue, I promise! If youâre feeling unmotivated, try making a smoothie with some nuts and greek yogurt, plus some fresh fruits/veggies to make it even healthier. I find that taking the time to make and drink my smoothie gives me a break (which helps too) and gives me much-needed energy. Fresh fruits and vegetables also help with this.
Sometimes youâve just been sitting too long, or you havenât stretched all day. That is the time to shut off your screen, close your planner, and take a quick walk. It probably wouldnât be a great time to do an elaborate workout because that would take more time and you probably wouldn’t enjoy it very much. A walk is relaxing and peaceful.Try taking one next time you feel unmotivated.
During my research for this post, I came across an interesting sentence: âItâs hard not to do something when everything you need is staring you in the face.â The post was talking about grouping the items and placing them in a place where youâre bound to see them- maybe on top of the TV remote or your phone, next to your alarm clock in the morning, or even where you put your purse when you get home. For example, if you want to start making a smoothie every morning, you can gather every single ingredient you need and put it on the kitchen counter. That way, itâs so easy, even easier than making a frozen waffle for the umpteenth day in a row.
While this statement is probably true, I wouldnât recommend eating a live frog⌠ever! However, doing the hardest/worst/least enjoyable thing on your to do list first I do recommend. The first task you do should be the hardest, and then youâll fly through the rest of them.
If youâre trying to accomplish an especially long task, donât try to do it in one sitting. One idea is to work on your task for 25 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. You have enough time to check social media as a reward, or even better get a drink of water and make a smoothie. After three repeats of 25 + 5, take a 30 minute break.
Whether this is in a coffee shop, at your own desk, or under a tree outside, this really does help. A change of scenery always gives me motivation, itâs really helpful!
Hopefully these tips will help you if youâre struggling with this as well. Goodbye for now!
christina raquel 
