Summer Book Challenge: Week 6

Photo via friends, lovers & chocolate

Wow! We had two participants finish in the past week. Kudos, ladies! Here's the current scoreboard:

1. Momma Sunshine @ Cross-Stitching Diva — 200 (DONE: First finisher.)
2. Heather @ A Cupcake Love Affair — 200 (DONE: Second finisher.)
3. Cristina @ Bonjour, Je M'appelle Cristina — 150
4. Nova @ My Seryniti — 140
5. Stacey @ Stacey's Daze —105
6. Megan @ Semi-Charmed Kind of Life (host) — 100 
7. Jessica @ Sweet Green Tangerine — 85
8. Jessica @ Eternally Enlisted —80
9. Joslin @ Joslin as Mrs. Williams — 80
10. Jo @ In Which We Start Anew — 75
11. Sarah @ Books, Jeans, and Awesome — 70
12. Hannah on Goodreads — 65
13. Erinn @ It's the Journey — 60
14. Karstrel @ Infusions of Wit From an Everyday Girl — 60
15. Jen @ Grown in Southern Ground — 50
16. Book Dragon @ Book Dragon's Lair — 45
17. Lindsay @ Lindsay in Progress —45
18. Kevin @ The Blog of the System — 45 
19. Kelsey @ All-American Girl Living the Dream — 40
20. Jennifer S. — 35
21. Abby S. on Goodreads — 35
22. Amy @ Delightful Witticisms — 35
23. Pinar @ Pinuccia's World of Books — 35
24. Tina @ Like Ordinary Life — 30
25. Gabs @ Novel Ideas — 30
26. Jenna @ Cannery Row Reads — 25
27. Amanda @ Down to Sanity — 20
28. Becky Ingle — 20
29. Jessica @ Random Thoughts — 20
30. Darlene @ Darlene's Book Nook — 20
31. Reading After Bedtime — 20
32. Amanda @ Amanda's Weekly Zen — 15
33. Annie @ Explanniefyfed — 15
34. Michelle @ Book Crazy — 15
35. Rebecca @ Garrulous and Bookish —15
36. Scribacchina @ Parole/Words — 15
37. Angie @ Angels are Kids and Furkids — 10
38. Katrina @ Elements of Fun — 10 
39. Patty @ Pitter from Patty — 10
40. Sarah @ The Roaring Twenties — 10
41. Erin J. on Goodreads — 5
42. Amanda @ Words From My Heart — 0
43. TiggerRD @ Hooks, Needles and Brushes — 0
44. Caroline @ Carenpants — 0
45. Laura Swan — 0
46. Michelle @ The True Book Addict — 0
    

Don't read these books ... yet.

Have you ever read a book that ruined another book for you? Earlier this week, I started Odd Thomas for my book challenge and it said who murdered Roger Ackroyd in Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd on page 4! I don't know if I ever would have read that book, but if I had wanted to, that would be very frustrating.

The book that always comes to mind when I think about spoilers, though, is The Double Bind. It gives away the entire storyline of The Great Gatsby. I know The Great Gatsby is a classic, so of course I knew some aspects of the story, but the level of detail in The Double Bind gave pretty much everything else away. In fact, when I finally read The Great Gatsby this year, I found myself constantly thinking about the parts that were revealed in The Double Bind.

I also recently finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which outlines the entirety of The Hound of the Baskersvilles in one of its chapters. It lists the suspects, the actual perpetrator, the clues, the red herrings: everything! I tried skimming over that chapter in case I ever read the Sherlock Holmes story for myself and wanted to be surprised, but I felt like I was missing out so I had to read it all.

Has a book ever ruined another book for you? Let me know so I can avoid them until I've read the other book!

A skirt for every woman.

Happy Friday! First of all, I'm featured on The Observant Turtle today as one of Whitney's June sponsors! Go check it out; her blog is awesome. Plus, I just found out we both graduated in December 2011 will practically the same degrees. She studied communications and history, and I studied journalism and history. Now if that isn't a sign we should be blogger besties, I don't know what is. :)

For the meat of this post, I'm participating in my first-ever Fashion Friday link-up with Blonde Episodes today.




Lately, I've been loving the pencil skirt trend, but I've also been wanting to branch out and get some looser styles to fill out my professional wardrobe. I was able to find a ton of adorable yet professional skirts on Shabby Apple. Fun colors, fun patterns, and you can find a skirt for any body type (though I realize all these women are about a size 2). Here are five of my favorites:

Clockwise, from top left: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Of course I included a few pencil skirts, but I'm also loving the looser style in the top two. (Is anyone surprised I picked a yellow skirt? Haha.) Which is your favorite?

The Fine Print: I am a Shabby Apple affiliate. Every time someone accesses the Shabby Apple site through a link on my blog and buys something within two weeks, I get 5 percent commission. So, if you're thinking of buying something from Shabby Apple, feel free to click one of my buttons first. ;)

Blog awards = more fun facts.

A long, long time ago, two lovely bloggers granted me two blog awards on the same day. I looked up the award specifications and bookmarked them but never got around to actually blogging. Well, today I'm changing that! Sarah at Crazy Beautiful Life gave me the Versatile Blogger award, and Erika at The Linden Life gave me the Tell Me About Yourself award. Both of these awards ask for seven random facts about me, so I'm combining them into one post.

1. I like to put chocolate chips in my popcorn. If you do it right out of the microwave, they melt into little gobs of chocolatey, buttery goodness. Yum! I also like to eat my popcorn with milk. Sometimes I drop the kernels on top of the milk and let them soak for a little while. I think I got this idea from a Little House on the Prairie book; the boy in Farmer Boy eats his popcorn with milk.
2. You probably already know that I really like turtles, but you might not know I had a turtle named Heineken once. I only had him for about a day, and then he crawled under the house and never returned. I like to think he's still living under there, about the size of Godzilla by now and ready to bust up through the kitchen floor at any moment.
3. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people are in the way. Usually, this means walking very slowly, walking two or three abreast on a busy sidewalk or standing in a doorway. Get out of my way. I can get very impatient when people impede my movement.
4. I don't like condiments. I'm to the point where I can eat them if I forget to order something without sauce, but when possible I avoid ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, salad dressing, etc. The only exception to this is barbecue sauce, which I love. I also like egg salad, potato salad, deviled eggs and other foods with mayonnaise as an ingredient; I just don't like it as a spread.
5. I pole vaulted in high school. In fact, my entire conference only had about six female pole vaulters, so I was even the conference champion. Yippee!
6. Foursquare has dubbed me the mayor of the Santa Fe public library and claims I have been there 12 weeks in a row. Why yes, I do have a crush on the librarian.
7. I can milk a cow by hand and with a machine.

Did you enjoy these random facts? There's more where this came from in my "Happy birthday to me" post. Also, instead of nominating specific bloggers for these awards, I want to extend an open invitation to everyone reading this. Feel free to claim the Versatile Blogger or Tell Me About Yourself award (or both!) for your own blog and share seven fun facts about yourself. Please leave me a comment with a link to your post if you choose to join, so I can check it out.

Also, I shared this picture on Twitter for #ThrowbackThursday today and thought I would include it here. It is also random and makes me smile. :)

My boyfriend and me at track practice during our freshman year of high school. Check out those braces! Haha.

Hellocotton Link-Up!

Happy Wednesday, everyone! I hope your week is going well so far. I'm so excited to announce that I'm co-hosting my first-ever link-up today with Mommy Huh. I don't know about you, but I love being able to interact with the blogosphere through different social media outlets. Here's the info:

Link-ups are all kinds of awesome. You get new followers and some new super-cool people to follow.

Each week the Totally Social Link-Up will have a different focus. This is your one-stop-shop for linking up various social media accounts and similar interests.

This week we are linking up our Hellocotton pages!

Simple Rules:

 * Follow my Hellocotton page

* Follow the Hellocotton pages for our lovely co-hosts:

Breanna @ My Beautiful Crazy Life
Julie @ The Funny Thing of It Is

Katie @ Little Becky Homecky

Megan @ Semi-Charmed Kind of Life

* Follow 3 or more others and get to know them!

* Grab the button and share!

* LINK-UP & ENJOY!

<a href="http://megancstroup.blogspot.com/2012/06/hellocotton-link-up.html" img src="http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w399/mcszr3/totallysocialbutton200.jpg" alt="Hellocotton Link-Up" width="200" height="200" /></a>

Travel Tuesday: Week 15

Hello, and welcome to another edition of Travel Tuesday! This week's topic: Share an old trip. This can be anything: A domestic or international trip. A long or short trip. A trip you took last year or a trip you took when you were 9. You can share pictures, tell us a story or two, or do both. As always, you are free to write about anything travel-related; don't feel obligated to answer my prompt. And, of course, don't forget to link up below!

<a href="http://megancstroup.blogspot.com/search/label/Travel%20Tuesdays"><img src="http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w399/mcszr3/TravelTuesday3.jpg" alt="BWS tips button" width="500" height="338" /></a>

I'll admit it: I created this prompt to force myself to blog about something I've been putting off for months: The Outside staff retreat to Colorado in March. Believe it or not, this was my first trip to Colorado! (Not counting layovers in Denver and drives through the state on road trips, which I don't count.) Apparently, ski weekends are a yearly perk for Outside staffers sponsored by Vail Resorts. No complaints here! I have a special focus for this post, however: The food. Oh my goodness sweet heaven in my mouth. But seriously. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the food, but I can (and will!) tell you all about it.

Santa Fe bucket list.

It's hard to believe, but two weeks from tomorrow is my last day at Outside before I head home to transition for my year as an LC. Wow. Time sure flies. I've slowly been checking things off my "Santa Fe bucket list" over the past few weekends, but I still have quite a few locations to hit (mostly restaurants). Maybe sharing this list publicly will help keep me accountable and encourage me to get out on the town. Here are some things I've recently completed (with links to my Instagram photos or blog posts when applicable):

1. Visit every Santa Fe Public Library branch.
2. Eat at Cafe Vingt Cinq.
3. Get a fajita from a food truck on the Plaza.
4. Eat gelato from Ecco.
5. Visit the New Mexico National History Museum/Palace of Governors. (Both are free on Friday evenings from 5 to 8 p.m., along with the art museum!)
6. Eat at Blake's Lotaburger (a New Mexico-only fast food joint).
7. Get a crepe at The French Pastry Shop.  
8. Drink coffee from Holy Spirit Espresso. (It claims to have the "best coffee in Santa Fe." It doesn't.)
9. Celebrate Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.

The Cathedral Basilica, Photo by LeRoy N. Sanchez

And here are the remaining items I hope to squeeze into the next two weeks:

Summer Book Challenge: Week 5

Photo used with permission from Alec Vanderboom Photography

 Current scoreboard:

1. Momma Sunshine @ Cross-Stitching Diva — 135
2. Nova @ My Seryniti — 125
3. Cristina @ Bonjour, Je M'appelle Cristina — 115
4. Heather @ A Cupcake Love Affair — 95
5. Jessica @ Eternally Enlisted —80
6. Joslin @ Joslin as Mrs. Williams — 80
7. Sarah @ Books, Jeans, and Awesome — 70
8. Jessica @ Sweet Green Tangerine — 65
9. Megan @ Semi-Charmed Kind of Life (host) — 60 
10. Erinn @ It's the Journey — 60
11. Karstrel @ Infusions of Wit From an Everyday Girl — 60
12. Stacey @ Stacey's Daze — 60
13. Jen @ Grown in Southern Ground — 50
14. Kevin @ The Blog of the System — 45
15. Amy @ Delightful Witticisms — 35
16. Abby S. on Goodreads — 35
17. Pinar @ Pinuccia's World of Books — 35
18. Jo @ In Which We Start Anew — 30
19. Jenna @ Cannery Row Reads — 25
20. Hannah — 20
21. Reading After Bedtime — 20
22. Becky Ingle — 20
23. Darlene @ Darlene's Book Nook — 20
24. Michelle @ Book Crazy — 15
25. Annie @ Explanniefyfed — 15
26. Scribacchina @ Parole/Words — 15
    
27. Lindsay @ Lindsay in Progress —15
28. Book Dragon @ Book Dragon's Lair — 15 
29. Amanda @ Amanda's Weekly Zen — 15
30. Rebecca @ Garrulous and Bookish —15
31. Angie @ Angels are Kids and Furkids — 10
32. Sarah @ The Roaring Twenties — 10
33. Katrina @ Elements of Fun — 10
34. Patty @ Pitter from Patty — 10
35. Jessica @ Random Thoughts — 5 
36. Erin J. on Goodreads — 5
37. Amanda @ Words From My Heart — 0
38. Amanda @ Down to Sanity — 0
39. Michelle @ The True Book Addict — 0 
40. Tina @ Like Ordinary Life — 0
41. Caroline @ Carenpants — 0
42. Gabs @ Novel Ideas — 0
43. Jennifer S. — 0
44. Laura Swan — 0
    

How I lost 20+ pounds (almost) without trying.

Note: I wouldn't normally talk about my weight, especially on such a public forum, but I figured one of my blog's main focuses is post-grad life, and I attribute the great majority of my weight loss to simply graduating college. I think if you're going to make the lifestyle changes like the ones I describe below, the transition between college and "grown-up" life is the perfect time, so hopefully any recent grads out there will find my experience helpful.

Well, it finally happened. I looked at the scale yesterday morning and it started with “12” for the first time since I was a senior in high school. Toward the end of my college days, that number was more apt to start with a “15.” As I said in the title of this post, I lost this weight (almost) without trying. Let me explain the “almost” part....

I think there were three main things that contributed to my weight loss, but of these three, only one was a deliberate choice with the intent of losing weight. Here are the first two:

Photo via ADPi Mizzou

1. Moving out of the sorority house: I didn't really have a choice with this one. You graduate; you have to move out. Obviously, living on my own came with some necessary lifestyle changes. Instead of having a delicious buffet of unlimited food offered to me three times a day in the sorority house, I had to buy and cook my own food. I am fortunate to have a paid internship, but my monthly stipend isn't even enough to cover my rent. Therefore, I'm on a very strict budget, which means I am very careful about what type of food I buy, and I typically don't waste money on junk food. Also, when I make a meal and realize I am full before I finish, I just put the leftovers back in the fridge. In college, I felt bad about wasting food and didn't have anywhere to store leftovers, so I would eat everything on my plate, even if I was full. My budget also limits the number of times I can go out to eat. When I do, I only eat half the dish and save half for later. This isn't even a way to cut calories; I do it because it makes my money go further.

Rabbit, rabbit!

Flowers on Johnson Street, off Santa Fe Plaza. Photo by me.

Guess what? It's June! That means I have less than three weeks left at my internship here in Santa Fe. It also means it's time for another monthly recap of Semi-Charmed Kind of Life. Check out what happened on the blog last month:

My five most popular posts of May*:

1. What I learned from Les Miserables. — May 10
2. What goes through my mind in the security line. — May 4
3. New policy on images. — May 18
4. It is about the bike. — May 16
5. Friday's Fancies: Week 12 — May 11

*My Semi-Charmed Summer Book Challenge check-in posts were far and away the most-viewed posts of May, but I didn't count them in this list. It's still not too late to join! The challenge runs until September 1, and I have new readers joining every week. :)

Other notable posts:

• I celebrated my first blogiversary on May 27! I can't believe it's been a year already.
• I also jumped on the "what's in your purse" bandwagon and showed you the contents of my everyday bag.
• I shared my #photoadayMay Instagram pictures in two posts.
• Finally, my "Bookworm humor" post from March has still been getting a lot of traffic. Must be The Hunger Games joke working its magic.