Friday Five: Links I'm Loving

via we heart it

I've been in my head the past couple weeks. Planning, analyzing, problem solving and dodging anxiety fun. It could be because I'm more aware or open to advice or thoughts right now, but I've found SO many internet things this week I really connected with. I love a good, mindless internet surf session, but I was snapped out of the mindlessness so many times and it suprised me so I thought I'd share my internet findings.

As I've ramped up in my new job, I've found myself feeling a lot more drained. I used to feel this way a lot and not know why, now I realize my little introvert is rearing her head. It was relieving to hear I'm not the only one when I read these 7 tips for the Introverted Career Woman.  I'm going to start putting them more to use in my everyday life.

Um. Snow + Panda = biggest smiles ever

When I mix my type-A ness with my 'realist'-ness, I find myself struggling to understand what "just knowing" means. Santa. Jesus. Love. Friendship. All those things based on rumors or 'feelings' make me really uncomfortable.  Well....I mean we all know what happened with the whole Santa thing. I read this article on the Elite Daily and the questions really sunk in for me. I think whether you're choosing a friend or mate these are all good questions to help gauge the whole feeling thing. 

Honestly, I just heart the whole The Everygirl site right now

I have been  obsessed with getting to Paris in the very near future. I was even thinking about making it the destination for my birthday last year. There is a part of me that thinks its a bit silly though since I've been there and it is so accessible. There are plenty of more exotic places in the world to discover right now, why settle for Paris? I saw these article about 5 Places to Find Paris in Chicago while I was looking at the 7 introvert tips.  It could not be more perfect to my life right now. 

Friday Five: Moving Tips!

Trying to facilitate a move is quite an intimidating venture. I spent 3 days organizing and re-organizing piles of things just because the thought of packing everything up was overwhelming. How do I organize? How to I track? How do I pack? Finally I just told myself to start putting the piles into boxes and it would all work itself out. Fortunately that did the trick for me and I was able to get my act together. Here are a few tips that helped me stay motivated and organize.

1) Start with a To-Do list
As simple as it sounds write down everything you need to do. I chose to do it by room in my apartment and wrote down things as simple as 'pack up Kitchen Aid mixer'.  It was a bit redundant but to see all the tasks in front of me was super helpful. In the moments I was so overwhelmed with everything I just made myself pick one of the things on my list  and that got me started.

2) Schedule out your time
This was a technique I used in college when I had a lot going on. In addition to dealing with the task of packing, cleaning and shipping my entire life. I had people I needed to see and things on bucket list to do. My last week was jam packed. I took my to-do list and scheduled out hourly blocks to get the items done {literally everything from getting coffee to painting the walls}. It took thinking out of the picture and really allowed me to just enjoy the moment.

3) Think about how you want to unpack
In San Francisco I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with a roommate. Things weren't always kept where they 'should' be. I kept my Kitchen Aid Mixer and Ninja Blender in my closet for example. I knew that ideally those would go in my next kitchen so as I packed up my kitchen stuff I pulled those out. Also worked with some bathroom supplies. I keep lotion and hair tools in my room, but pulled them out when I packed up my bathroom things.

4) Create an Inventory
As I sorted through the last 7 years of my life in the typical keep, sell, goodwill piles I recorded everything I put in a box and which box I put it in. This helped me determine insurance for each package as well as serve as a helpful key to finding things when you just too exhausted to unpack a whole box. I used towels and sheets to help pad various breakables too, so they found themselves in several different boxes. I used GoogleSheets, so I could access it from my phone and computer. It was also easily shareable with my parents whom I sent some boxes for storage too.

5) Pick out Necessities
One of the lists that I made was all the items I would 'need' when after everything is packed up and shipped. Including clothes, toiletries,  tools and cleaning supplies. I pulled them all aside before I started packing boxes so I didn't have to make that decision as I was going.

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

The last 3 weeks have been quite a whirlwind. In the end of July, my company decided to start moving operations to Canada and my role was one of those eliminated in move. After a week of some soul searching and math, I realized that the only jobs I was looking at were in Chicago and my severance would go twice as far there too. I made the decision on August 1st that after 6.5 years in San Francisco it was time to make the transition.

Then I was thrown into the chaos of arranging, facilitating and prepping for a cross country move! On top of it it was equally as rough wrapping up not only a huge chapter of my life, but the first one that I created entirely on my own. There were long days, minimal sleeping and a lot of life purging (I threw away 50 nail polishes....that 50x$8 = $450 worth of nail polish where did I even get that!?), but I'm finally in Chicago and getting my life (back?) in order. I'm pretty excited for this new adventure!!

Thursday Tumbls

Here are some of my favorite "tumbls" from this week!

Cute dress, lovely flowers, sassy pose :)

Chicago? at night, from the sky

Sparkly 'Morning After' Kate Spade Pumps

Love the classic, pale blue monogram