Best of Summer: Two Months in Review

Technically, I know August is still summer (and most of September), but I'm trying not to let three months go by again without a little life update from yours truly.

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This summer has been pretty slow thus far; I'm only taking one summer class and back to working one part-time job, but somehow having all that free time means I'm not motivated to do anything. I'm constantly thinking, "Oh, I don't work tomorrow, I can do that then...." Does anyone else get this way? Do you have any tips to get me motivated?? :) We have taken a few trips, however, in true #travelbug fashion. We attended a wedding in Hollister, I spent a weekend in Pasadena with my mom, I visited my grandparents in Pennsylvania for the Fourth of July (hence the airplane sunrise photo above), we visited some cousins at the beach in mid-July, and we just got back from a long weekend in Vail (more photos to come soon!). Hmm, now that I write it out I guess we've been busier than it seemed.... ;)

Best of Spring: Three Months in Review

Hi! Remember me? :) I know I've blogged before about how "I'm too busy" is really not an excuse, and I still agree with that. That being said, between a full-time job, a part-time job and a full load of graduate classes (a.k.a. four) for the past few months ... let's just say blogging has not been a priority for me. :) But, my full-time job ended last week and spring quarter ends next week, so I look forward to being more present on the blog over the summer! For now, here's a quick update on what's been going on with me this spring.

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Of course my most popular photo of the last three months has Jonathan in it ... and three of the four are about books. Should I just change my Instagram to a bookstagram already? ;) In all seriousness, we did get to take some pretty fun weekend trips this spring. From seeing Newsies in Hollywood (bottom right) to celebrating my little brother's college graduation to attending a wedding in Malibu to hiking in Aptos to wine tasting in Sonoma, there was only one weekend in all of April and May that we were home! (And that was this most recent weekend, when I wrote and scheduled this post. Woot!)

Best of February: A Month in Review

Happy March, everyone! I've been a little absent lately because I started a second job in the middle of February (yay for my bank account! nay for my schedule), but it's only a temporary gig so I should be back in a regular schedule sometime in May. :) Until then, I look forward to sharing snippets of my life when I can! Today, that means a February recap:

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All the books! And my in-laws' new lambs. My sister-in-law had her first son last weekend (yay!), so we went back to our hometown to be there for the birth. My husband's family has a few animals on their property (mostly sheep), so I enjoyed watching these little guys run around outside for a bit.

Best of January: A Month in Review

I know everyone is probably saying this, but holy cow: The first month of 2015 is already over! After changing jobs, starting graduate school and getting married last year, I'm happy to report my first month of 2015 was much more relaxing. Here's a quick rundown of my going-ons for January:

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Three of these photos are actually throwbacks; the only thing pictured above that actually happened in January was reading A Storm of Swords. ;) If you missed it, I also guest posted for the Girl Gone International account for a week in January and had a boatload of fun! As far as traveling/weekend outings, my husband and I rang in the new year in Pasadena with my family. (The weekend involved lots of football-watching, drinking and walking around town.) We then drove down to the Central Valley the next weekend to celebrate a belated Christmas with my other side of the family (holidays certainly multiply when you're a child of divorce). Luckily, the next two weekends were fairly relaxing (aside from me doing a ton of homework), and we managed to squeeze in two day trips to San Francisco and a night of drinks in Palo Alto for a friend's birthday. This month is shaping up to be similarly low-key, but we have lots of trips planned for the spring!

Best of December: A Month in Review

I probably should have posted this monthly recap before my annual By the Numbers post, but I was just too excited to hit "publish" on the yearly review. :) Here's what the end of 2014 looked like for me and Semi-Charmed Kind of Life:

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Considering we received our professional wedding photos during our honeymoon, it's no surprise the three most popular posts on my Instagram in December were mostly wedding shots. :) But the fourth post is also quite exciting: I first learned about this magical bathtub tray on Nicole's blog months ago and mentioned how awesome it was. Luckily, my husband remembered and gifted me with the tray (and a bathtub pillow!) for Christmas. The other side of the tray is made for a wine glass, so you can bet I'll be getting a lot of use out of this baby this year.

In addition to celebrating Christmas with the in-laws last month, Jonathan and I also traveled down to San Diego to visit my sister and her boyfriend in the middle of the month, and we flew down to southern California again on New Year's Eve to spend that holiday with my mom, who recently moved to Pasadena after spending several years living abroad.

By the Numbers: 2014

Sunset at Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand

This past year was certainly not as travel-heavy as 2013, but Jonathan and I were still able to visit a few states and travel abroad once for our honeymoon. We also traveled quite a bit within the state of California throughout the year, including weekend trips to San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco, and multiple trips to the Central Valley for wedding-planning shenanigans.

Best of November: A Month in Review

Woo November! Last month marked my first trip to Asia ... for my honeymoon! Expect lots of travel recaps over the next few weeks (or months, knowing me haha). We spent a little more than a week in Thailand and Cambodia to celebrate; let me know if you have any specific questions about traveling in Southeast Asia that you would like me to address in my travel posts!

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It looks like my Instagram followers also preferred Cambodia to Thailand; the two pictures on the right are from our time exploring temples and relaxing at our hotel (which is how we spent almost all our time in Siem Reap). November also marked another important travel "first" for me: I finally rode a cable car in San Francisco (pictured at lower left)! I know, I know; I've lived within driving distance of the city for nearly 12 years and had never done this before. It's a shame how much we take for granted the things we have nearby (which reminds me—I really need to write a Bay Area bucket list! This strategy helped me get a lot of cool stuff done when I was living in Santa Fe.) And, of course, as I mentioned last month, I think any wedding pictures are automatically going to skyrocket to the top of my "like" spectrum from now on. ;) Personally, though, I think this Instagram photo should have been the most popular last month. Seriously; how gorgeous is that?! (#unhumblebrag)

Best of October: A Month in Review

I was going to wait until next month and wrap October and November up together, but with me getting married and all in October, I thought it deserved its own post. ;)

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I have a new foolproof way to get more than 100 likes on an Instagram picture! It used to be simply "include Jonathan in the photo," but now I think "include wedding dress" would work as well. ;) I've calmed down on posting wedding photos a bit recently, but that's just because I'm waiting for our professional photos to come back. Be sure to follow me on Instagram at @mcstroup if you want to see those babies when they're available! (I'm also known to post photos of books, coffee cups, and vacation destinations near and far.)

Best of Summer: Four Months in Review

Wow, has it really been five months since I posted a monthly review? Although, to be fair, I've posted less than 15 times total since then, so I guess there hasn't been much to review on the blog. ;) As far as life goes, though, oh boy! Lots has been happening around my real life lately, as you may already know. Currently, that includes lots of homework, writing wedding thank you notes, and taking care of some last-minute preparations for our honeymoon next week (eek!). I know I have a lot of wedding sharing to do here, and after I get back from our honeymoon, I know I'm going to want to post a million pictures, so I thought I should catch up on the summer (June through September) quickly before moving on to the very exciting months of October and November. Without further ado ... this summer in review!

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Considering my obsession with Instagram, there was no way I could boil four months of photos down into just four picks! :) So today, you get to see the nine most popular photos from my summer feed! (To be fair, this photo was tied for 9th place, but the triathlon bib got more comments.) As you can see, my summer mostly consisted of wedding planning (including my bachelorette party in Vegas—woohoo!) and drinking coffee, but I managed to throw a triathlon in there, as well, and a trip to Seattle for my grad school orientation. By the way, I noticed that once again any photos with my fiance husband in them automatically get more likes. ;)

Best of April & May: Two Months in Review

Once again, I completely missed a monthly check-in, so I'm going to fill you in on two months of happenings in my life and on my blog today. I have to say, it was kind of weird thinking back to April and what I did that month. I fluctuated between "That was really two months ago? It feels like yesterday!" and "Oh my goodness, that was only two months ago? I barely remember that." Is anyone else feeling like 2014 shouldn't be almost halfway over already???

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So basically, y'all are telling me the only thing you like better than photos of books are photos of my fiance? I can't say I blame you. ;) But really, April and May were relatively tame compared to some of our busier months this year. We celebrated our one-year engagement anniversary on May 18 by registering for wedding gifts, treating ourselves to In-N-Out and opening a bottle of wine my sister and her boyfriend got us from the vineyard where we got engaged. I also started my third annual summer reading challenge (it's not too late to join!) and have been reading some great books (details below).

June is shaping up to be another crazy month; we had family visiting this weekend and we'll be out of town the next three weekends, but we were able to take some time this afternoon to nap and for me to catch up on some blog reading. Oh—and did I mention we're training for a triathlon? We're on week five of the training plan now to plan for the big race on July 19! (That reminds me: I guess we'll also be out of town at least the first three weekends of July as well! Yikes!) Looks like my next two monthly recaps will be chock-full of fun stuff. :) For now, continue reading after the jump to see what you (and I!) liked the past two months.

Best of March: A Month in Review

March is a pretty cool month. St. Patrick's Day, the first day of spring, my birthday ... what's not to like? ;) Here's a quick recap of what you liked this past month on the blog and my social media, as well as a little insight into what I've been up to away from my computer:

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As I mentioned last month, I knew March would be busy for Jonathan and me. We started off the month with a trip to Hearst Castle with my family, drove down Highway 1 to visit the coast again the next weekend with his family, ran a 10k and traveled to St. Louis for a dear friend's wedding (hence the fancy photos in the Instagram collage above). It was a whirlwind month, but we made some great memories along the way!

Best of January & February: Two Months in Review

January didn't really have enough going on to warrant its own post, so I thought I'd wait another month to have more exciting life updates to share with you. :) The beginning of 2014 has been low-key so far, but it is nice to relax, especially with the busy month we have ahead of us in March! We will be out of town for three weekends (including this one!) and running a 10K race on another weekend, so there is a lot going on. Here's a recap of the past two months:

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As you can see, I'm starting off the New Year right with two of my favorite things: books and travel! Or at least that's how it appears from my Instagram feed. ;) I finally got the huge National Geographic map I've been coveting for Christmas, and then my wonderful fiance made a frame for me to hang it. (Yup, he made the frame! That will be its own post one day.) It was so much fun putting in the pins and remembering all the places we've traveled (and finding new places we want to go!).

The only travel I've actually done in the past two months was a weekend trip to San Diego for my mom's birthday and another southern California excursion to attend a conference outside Los Angeles. My sister and I also threw my dad a surprise 50th birthday party, which was pretty sweet. The cake was definitely Pinterest-worthy! Locally, the weather has been looking up during the past few weekends in San Jose, so Jonathan and I have been venturing outside the house on weekends to find relaxing places to read (as you can see). My family also visited during the first weekend of January to "celebrate" Christmas at our apartment because that was the first weekend we were all available to meet up.

By the Numbers: 2013

I could pretend I waited until now to post this so it wouldn't get lost in all the other 2013 recaps in your blog feed, but let's face it: I just hadn't gotten around to compiling everything until now. :) My numerical summations of 2011 and 2012 were so fun, I thought I would do another one for 2013! Enjoy....

Best of December: A Month in Review

December: The end of 2013. The month of Christmas. My first NFL game. Rocking a sock bun on NYE in the city. Here's the best of last month in my life and on the blog:

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December started off on a high note when I attended my first NFL game with Jonathan and his family. (But I'm definitely rooting for the Panthers tomorrow—sorry California friends!) We also visited a nearby Christmas tree farm to chop down our tree, which neither of us had ever done before. (And the tree is definitely still up in the living room, lights and all. Whoops!)

Other notable events of the month included two holiday parties with Jonathan's co-workers and a night out in San Francisco to celebrate the New Year. Jonathan and I went to a NYE party at a lounge near AT&T Park with his sister and cousin and their significant others. I even participated in a dance-off! He told me I was a "pretty good dancer." I admitted he was better. ;) 

Photo a Day: November

My thoughts tonight: "Quick! Better get my November photo-a-day recap up before December ends!" *whoops* But really, I almost skipped November because it is so late until I noticed I only participated four times last month anyway, so this won't take too long to share. And I really liked these photos, so I wanted y'all to see them. :)

Dear 2013 ...

Photo via @mcstroup on Instagram

When I saw Amanda was co-hosting a "Dear 2013" link-up, I knew this would be the perfect way to recap the year. As I mentioned in my November recap post earlier this month, this year has been full of SO MUCH FUNNESS. (Yes, I am aware funness is not a word. And because I know this rule, I can break it. Ha!) Without further ado ...

The Best of 2013: Read

So I'm probably not going to reach my goal of reading 53 books this year, but I have read 39 already, and the even better news is that I thought eight of them deserved 5 stars! That means I absolutely loved more than 20 percent of the books I read this year, so I really can't complain about that. :) In no particular order, here are those eight special books:

Best of November: A Month in Review

Who else thinks 2014 should be a lot farther than 25 days away?! Even though this year has gone by way too fast, I must admit I'm getting pretty excited about writing my "year in review" post for 2013. This year has been eventful and full of "firsts" for me, which are always fun to record. For now, though, let's review what happened at Semi-Charmed Kind of Life (and in my "real" life!) during the month of November:

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November was full of fun events, as illustrated in my Instagram feed from the month. Jonathan and I either had people visiting us or were traveling every single weekend. My mom and sister came into town and helped me pick a wedding dress (I'm not sharing pictures of that for obvious reasons haha), Jonathan and I took our engagement photos, I ran my first half-marathon with my sister in Monterey, and my family was able to spend Thanksgiving together in San Diego. (Even our dog, Brady, was able to join us!)

Week in Review: 10.19.2013

I think this will be my last weekly recap post, at least for the near future. Now that I'm working a 9-to-5 job, my weeks all pretty much look the same, so I'm finding these posts to be a little repetitive. I plan on switching to a monthly recap instead (similar to what I used to do, but with an updated format), but I'll be finding other ways to share my most popular Instagram photos and posts each week, whether that's on social media or elsewhere. I hope you enjoy my final Week in Review post (for now)!

Get this: I only posted two pictures on Instagram in the past week! Whaaaaaat? I know; insane in the membrane. I guess I just didn't think my life was very Instagram-worthy this week. Here are the chosen two that made it to my feed:

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Photo A Day: September

My participation in Chantelle's photo a day challenge last month wasn't so hot. I think part of that was because I was pretty focused on my own photo challenge for one of the weeks. But, I did get a few nice shots to contribute to the #fmsphotoaday hashtag on Instagram: