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15 years ago today the film Fight Club was unleashed onto “the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.” This movie is one of my favorite flicks of all time and one that I watch and quote frequently. If you have not seen this movie yet, you can get it HERE. If you have seen it and didn’t like it, we can’t be friends anymore. No, seriously! All cool kids like the movie Fight Club

Happy Birthday Fight Club!!!

Some of my favorite quotes from the flick include:

Tyler Durden:
You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank.
You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.
You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap
of the world.

Tyler Durden:
It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.

Tyler Durden:
Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever
lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an
entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white
collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we
hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of
history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great
Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is
our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day
we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t.
And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

Tyler Durden:
Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk
about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk
about Fight Club! Third rule of Fight Club: someone yells “stop!”, goes
limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a
fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: No shirts,
no shoes. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And
the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you
have to fight.

Narrator:
[about the soap]
Tyler sold his soap to department stores at $20 a bar. Lord knows what
they charged. It was beautiful. We were selling rich women their own fat
asses back to them.   

Narrator: This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.

This post may contain a link to an affiliate. See my disclosure policy for more information.

I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately and I have read a lot of self help books. We all have those moments when we want to know why we were put on this planet and that is something I’ve been seeking to find over the last several months. After really digging deep I’ve come up with my mission statement for my life:


My purpose in life is to learn how to be financially independent and how to take care of my mind, body and soul and to teach others how to do the same…

There it is. Why I’m here…To teach.

I have actually known this deep within myself for years and had that epiphany while I was in my freshman year of college. I remember a random bike ride with my mom where I broke down crying and told her I wanted to change my major to education.

Fast forward to today and for anyone who doesn’t know my major and the degree I ultimately graduated with was mass communications. However, the desire to teach never left me.

What I have realized over the past decade (wow- has it really been a decade since I was a college freshman?!? holy crap!!!) is that my mission in life IS to teach, but not in the traditional grade school setting I thought of many years ago.

I think this is why I was feeling the strong pull to become a writer. I want to learn something and then share what I’ve learned and writing has been a wonderful medium I’ve used to teach.

Now, that I have officially determined and written out what I know my full life’s purpose to be, I feel like I can create goals and passion projects that are centered around it.

It may seem silly to you, but simply defining what my purpose is has given me a new sense of excitement and a strong desire to fulfill it.With every project I think of going forward I will know how to center it around my life’s purpose and therefore be more passionate about the things I do and the life I live.

On Yahoo!’s home page today was a story about a Spaceport in New Mexico. More and more it would seem that “tourist” space travel is going to be likely in my generation’s lifetime.

Ever since my husband was little, like many young boys, he has desired the chance to travel into space. Many outgrow this dream, but even in his thirties, my husband still wants to embark into space just as much now as he did then. I plan to do everything in my power to help him achieve his dream…The current booking price is $250,000 and sure, the first tourist flights have not happened yet, but I plan to find a way to get the money for my hubby to fly when the time comes.

You may be wondering why I didn’t say I plan to go with him. Truthfully, I’m not sure I could handle space flight. Disney’s Mission Space ride alone made me so sick it ruined our Disney vacation so I highly doubt I’ll want to attempt a real space flight. However, if someone invents something to help motion sickness AND lack of G’s….well, maybe one day I’ll be a space tourist too. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to settle for seeing Earth from an airplane….

Where I found the image at the top of this post

Today, I’m reflecting on the last 29 years of my life and realizing how much I still have that I want to accomplish. For the purposes of this post though…I had a list of things I wanted to do before turning 30 so it would seem that as of today (8/10/13) I have just 368 days to accomplish all the things on that list.

Here is the list of things I wanted to accomplish by 30 (the things I’ve already accomplished are in red)…

1. Graduate college with my bachelor’s degree- graduated May 2008
2. Find a man to marry and marry him– married 7/29/2006
3. Buy a house
4. Be credit card and student loan debt free
5. Get a job I love/ start my own business- been in business as a writer and photographer since October 2007 and have loved what I do for a living ever since!
6. Have a substantial amount of money in a retirement account
7. Go to Europe
8. Go to Australia
9. Get a dog/cat/both
10. Drive cross country from Florida to California and back
11. Go to Hawaii
12. Get my master’s degree
13. Write a book- accomplished that THIS year actually. Wrote my first eBook and self published it…Check it out HERE 🙂
14. Make 6 figures a year to be able to retire by 40 instead of 68 or whatever the new number is for my generation…
15. Have a baby- yes mom…when I first created this list in my head I
wanted to have a baby by 30…but now I’m not sure when or if I will
have kids…

So….what have we learned from this list? If I’m going to get all of these goals accomplished by 30 I’ve got to get a crap ton of money in the bank ASAP and get on with my traveling like NOW…

Also check out Celebrites I Share My Birthday With, birthday freebies YOU can get and 29 Things I’ve Learned in 29 Years.

Where I found the picture at the top of this post

#BlogHer13

One week ago today I was arriving back to Tampa from Chicago. I had just encountered a whirlwind of a weekend known as BlogHer ’13. Exhausted mentally and physically, the plan was to get to work right away on everything I learned at this amazing conference, after a loooooooooong sleep session of course. Sadly, my body had other plans as I spent most of this week dealing with a sinus infection that was causing me some pretty frustrating headaches and blah blah blah…

Fast forward to today and I’m feeling a little better and ready to hit the ground running…I’ll start with this post..Here are the top 10 things I learned from BlogHer’s 2013 Conference.

1. I have too many blogs! LOL! (See below this list for my new plan)
2. I packed too many clothes. I focused too hard on trying to have an outfit for day time and night time and given my transportation and “living” arrangements for the weekend I should have stuck to one outfit for day and night…which brings me to my next lesson
3. I should have stayed at the designated conference hotel for the entire weekend. Having done so would have afforded me the opportunity to not worry about the swag in my bag because I would have had a way to easily drop it off, I would have been able to comfortably change clothes between day and night activities and I would have been able to hang out more with the girls I met instead of needing to find a way back to my sleeping location.
4. Being outgoing is a good thing! I talked to as many girls as I could! I made a point to go out and just chat with anyone who would listen to me and talk back with me. It was awesome! I met a bunch of people and can’t wait to get to know them and their blogs!

The Famous Ashley Grant and Katy from Katy in a Corner

5. My vlogging hangups are just plain silly! Every woman has something about themselves they wish they could change. Instead of focusing on my looks, I need to just get in front of the camera and go for it! Thanks Katy in a Corner for your great session!

Jill Nystul of  One Good Thing By Jillee and The Famous Ashley Grant

6. Pinterest is the current key to big traffic. I got to meet whom I would refer to as the queen of Pinterest , the blogger behind One Good Thing By Jillee. Jill Nystul is awesome! If you aren’t familiar with her amazing blog, then you are either not on Pinterest or just not paying attention to her million plus repins of awesomeness!!! I fully intend to use her tips on getting the most out of Pinterest ASAP!
7. I need new business cards with my twitter handle and less clutter. This goes along with the too many blogs thang…I need simpler cards. That is all…
8. I should have budgeted for the unexpected. I ended up needing a last minute hotel room for Saturday night and was out $350 I did not have by the end of the weekend. I regret not having a “just in case” fund in my budget!
9. I’m not working hard enough. I get too lazy and am barely scratching the surface of the awesomeness that comes with blogging and vlogging. I’ve got a ton of work ahead of myself to be as good as I now want to be!
10. Going to conferences is very good for me! Blogging is so lonely sometimes and meeting real people and seeing their faces was absolutely wonderful! Sure, we may not hang out on a regular basis, but at least now if we comment on each others blogs or skype or some other form of communication it will feel more like we actually know each other and can connect.

Eight blogs
is a lot, but I love all of them. I have decided though that I will let
one blog dominate and the rest will become hobby blogs as they say. I
plan to focus pretty hard on one and then in my spare time I’ll add
posts to the others. The one I have decided to focus on? Lessons Learned From Frugal People
– Why? As I was soul searching and brainstorming I figured out
something pretty cool about myself. I LOVE learning things and sharing
them, but I’m also A.D.D. The awesome thing about Lessons Learned From Frugal People
is that I can be A.D.D. and still have one major focus. Saving money
can be as diverse a topic as all of my blogs but it boils down to one
topic!

For the past several years my husband and I have been making a conscious effort to get out of debt. Now, as responsible of us as this may seem, I feel like it has reeked havoc on our friendships 🙁 You see, saving all the money to pay off the debt has meant no nights out, cutting back on attending sporting events, skipping lunches and happy hours and more. I’m the type of gal that loves going out as frequently as possible and for more than two years I’ve felt more like a hermit than a socialite. I want to be a socialite AND be debt free.

The funny thing is, every day my hubby and I get closer to paying off that final student loan or that final credit card bill but we’ve been in the shadows for so long, we fear all of our relationships will be harder to mend when we come out to play again. Being in debt can be horrible, especially when you’ve not got any money to pay off your outstanding bills. This can lead you into a cycle of needing to apply for another loan or credit card to make sure that you have enough money to live off. Luckily, the Opensky credit card is available for most people, even if they have a poor credit history from credit card debt! Even though it’s not a great idea to get into more debt, you need money to live off.

Sure, we’ve done as many free and dirt cheap things as we can, but the loneliness of it being just us is sometimes breathtaking. How can you have the best of both worlds?

*Photo credit- I don’t know where this image originated. If it is yours let me know and I’ll credit accordingly 🙂

I was born in 1984 but was raised 90s style. Yes, that’s me above in the
90s…oy! Why a black and white photo? Well, I was blessed with
horrible acne so I preferred all my photos in black and white to hide my
acne as much as possible!

Oh the 90s…. I had a trapper keeper, a gigapet, loved Ring Pops and Clueless
was my go to movie ALL THE TIME! I even tried to dress like Cher from
the movie and dreamed of having her rotating closet. memories….

What brought about these flashbacks? Well, tonight my friend Kim and I are traveling to Orlando to watch a New Kids on the Block concert complete with Boyz II Men and 98 Degrees.

To show just how all out I’m going with the 90s theme for the night…I’m going to wear a slap bracelet, put my hair up in a scrunchie, my backpack purse and wear this ridiculously loud shirt I painted:

You know you want that shirt! Jealous? Yes, you are! Don’t lie. LOL.

I want to see if I can find some ring pops on the way to Orlando too!!! hahahaha

I know Kim and I are going to have a blast at the concert! I’ve been
re-memorizing all of the songs and plan to sing the ones I can remember
at the top of my lungs! YES!!! ….I will go to bed really early after
the concert though. NOT!

Want some more flashbacks to the 90s? Check this out and this too!

This post may contain a link to an affiliate. See my disclosure policy for more information.

For Father’s Day this year, I decided to make some simple gift baskets. The theme was inspired by Pinterest. If you can’t tell by the picture, the theme was POP!

Difficulty: Easy

Materials:

– Basket or bucket. I chose to use buckets from the Dollar Tree.
– Plastic Wrap/ Shrink Wrap
– Bow/Ribbons
– POP tarts
– Soda POP
– Blow POP Candies
– Tootsie POPS lollipops
– Corn POPS
– POP Corn
– POP Chips
– POP Rocks Candy
– Glue Dots- (re-positionable ones work best)
– cardboard pieces and plastic grocery bags

How to Assemble:

1. Decide how you want everything to sit in the basket/bucket.
2. Use cardboard pieces and plastic grocery bags to add height to some of the items and make it look more presentable.
3. Once you have decided how you want everything to sit, secure everything with glue dots.
4. Then place the basket in the shrink wrap/plastic wrap and tie it off.
5. If you used shrink wrap then follow the instructions on the package to shrink it onto the basket.
6. Lastly, add the bow and tape the card to the front/back depending on where you want it.
7. Admire your awesome work!

I was CRAZY hot from working out. So, naturally I jumped in the pool with my work out clothes on. That’s just how I roll!

I’m proud to report that last week I worked out four days and this week I’ve worked out four days so far…Finally getting back into a habit of trying to be healthier. It hit me a couple of weeks ago that I’m almost thirty (a year and two months to go…) and I would like to be in shape for my next several decades in life. So, I’ve been werqin on mah fitness! Yep!

Stopped gambling? Check! Stopped drinking? Check! Started working out again? Check! Gonna stop eating unhealthy foods…next on the list along with getting over my need for diet Pepsi…I’m losing bad habits left and right ya’ll!!!

People were looking at me all weird like why is that girl wearing sweat pants and a sports bra in the pool. I just looked back like- why are you wearing swim suits ya weirdos?!? I was hot and DID NOT CARE! hahaha! Only bad thing? I still had another quarter of a mile to walk back to my apartment. Doing that soaking wet kinda sucked! Was totally worth it though 😉

Have you ever jumped into a pool fully clothed? It feels like the ultimate rebellion, doesn’t it? Although skinny dipping is the actual ultimate rebellion, this felt pretty bad ASH if I do say so myself.