10,000 hits on the BLOG!!!

Woo hoo! Today the blog hit over ten thousand views!!  So exciting!!
For some it might be no big deal, but for my little blog that could...it's kind of a big deal!!!
I'd like to thank my regular readers, my facebook friends,  my google and blogger followers, all the new "friends" I've "met" through link ups, challenges, and such.  I'd also like to thank my international readers from places such as Canada, Costa Rica, the Maldives, Latvia, and the Ukraine, just to name a few! Thanks for reading, commenting, and just being part of my world for a little while!!  Here's to the next 10,000 views!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Katie

A Peek at the Week!

It's always a long week back at work after the Spring Break but lots of fun stuff helped make it a little more bearable!

ONE:

My blog was nominated for a Liebster Award!  Pretty cool!  Read about it {here}!  Thanks Carrie!  Go check her blog out at A Lovely Little Wardrobe!!

TWO:

Last Friday night, I won a $20 Gift Certificate to one of my faves!  Piper Street ran an anniversary giveaway on Facebook.  To be entered, you had to comment about your favorite Piper Street item.  I so totally heart giveaways so I commented and received the last gift of the day!  WOO HOO!!

Check out Piper Street {here}

THREE:

On Sunday my mom threw a Tea Party at her house for her four granddaughters!  I was invited too!  It was really super cute and my nieces were soooo excited!  They drank out of their tea cups with their pinkies in the air and munched on cute finger sandwiches!  My mom worked really hard and everything was fabulous.  My sisters and I had a great time too!  

FOUR:

I know I've probably overloaded my Friday 5's with too much Jimmy Fallon love, but I seriously need to include this!  HILARIOUS!!  I DVR Jimmy every night (I JUST LOVE HIM!) but I was actually awake for this one and was laughing hysterically! And I love that Emma Stone sang Hook! My college friend Jana always called me Hook, (I don't really remember why, maybe because I rocked at singing this song!!  Yea...I'll go with that!!) And it made me remember that!  All I Do is Win was insane too!

FIVE:

It's May...and it's time to get Pin-spired!  Go check out what I've pinned and recreated this month {here}! I kinda rocked it! HA!

Have a Happy Friday!

Cheers, 

Katie

Linking up with Darci and the girls for 5 on Friday
Lauren Elizabeth for High 5 for Friday
Style Elixir for Friday's Fab Favorites

Good News!

I am so excited about this!!!  I just found out that I was nominated for a Liebster Award by Carrie at A Lovely Little Wardrobe. The Liebster Award is an award given to new bloggers who have less than 200 (others say 500...I'll use both!) followers, to help them discover new blogs and grow their following!

Thank you Carrie, so very much for this!!  HOW FUN!! Very sweet of you to include me!  Much appreciated!  Go check out her blog!

I found Carrie's blog upon joining the Spring Style Me Challenge and she is one of the bloggers who decided to link up each week to showcase our outfits during the challenge! She is so stylish and puts together outfits in many different ways...all from the clothes in her closet!  She is on a self-imposed shopping stall for the year!  I'm so jealous...I spend way too much on clothes!  I must remember this for 2015!!  She is also a military spouse!  A huge thanks to her husband for his service to our country!


There's lots of information online about The Liebster award and it's rules but here's the gist of what I have to do:

1. Write a post about the award, thanking the blogger who nominated me! Thanks Again Carrie!
2. Post 11 interesting facts about myself.
3.  Answer the 11 questions Carrie posted for me!
4.  Nominate 11 bloggers for the award...with 200/500 followers or less!
5.  Post 11 questions for my nominees to answer.

Here goes nothing...

11 interesting facts about me:
 I was born two months premature and because of this, developed cerebral palsy.

For PT when I was younger, I rode a horse named Shane...I'll never forget him.

I don't drive. (Iknow...I know...)

Coffee is an absolute NEED in the morning, without it, I get headaches!  Awful!

I am not ever FULLY awake until 10 a.m....ha!

I never wanted to be anything but a teacher when I grew up!

When my parents sold our family home to my sister and her husband a few years ago, I came with the house! LOL  She graciously let me stay in my "room sweet room" for awhile.  Luckily I have since moved out and bought a home of my own!

Some months my credit card bills are more than my mortgage....eeeekkkkk!!!

I watch way too much T.V.

I'd be nothing without my parents, and three older sisters.

I'll be o.k. if this solitary life is "it" for me...but I'll still be waiting for my Mr. Right in the meantime!


Carrie's Questions for ME!

1. Do you have a favorite Bible verse? If so, what is it and why?  Matthew 19:14  And Jesus said, Let the Little Children Come to me. A poster with this verse on it was the very first thing I bought for my classroom when I became a teacher.  It is now up  in my library and I think it personifies teaching, from our greatest teacher.
2. What is your favorite season of the year and why?  Summer is my favorite season.  I'm happiest when it's 85 and sunny and I have a TAN!!
3. What is your favorite color to wear?  I wear lots of purple but the 2 colors I am LOVING right now are coral and mint!
4. What is your favorite book or magazine?  My favorite book is Wonder by R. J. Palacio...it's a MUST READ!!  I've blogged about it here!
5. If you could travel to any destination in the world what would it be and why? There are so many places I want to go! But I'd say New Zealand and Australia just because I think they are beautiful! (Thank you, The Bachelor!)
6. Where and when was your favorite vacation?  I've been on so many fun vacations over the years and on a lot of cruises.  But my most fun vacation was a trip to Walt Disney World with my family in the early 90's.  i think I was 11. My dad had a conference there and we stayed at the Lake Buena Vista Hotel.  It was pretty new and so, so nice!  The best part about it...every night we got huge waffle cones from the hotel!  They were so yummy!  HA!  This was also my first time I remember being in Disney World.  I love it there...even now! 
7. What do you like to do in your free time? Hobbies? In my spare time  I like to shop online, go out to eat, hang with friends and family, read...and maybe have random dance parties in my living room!
8. What or who inspires you?  My Family inspires me.
9. Do you have a favorite restaurant or type of food?  Mexican Food, Italian, and BBQ are my favorites!  Right now my friends and family would probably say that my favorite restaurant is That MeetBall Place, it's a restaurant/bar in my town that opened up earlier this year that serves one of my favorite things...you guessed it...MEATBALLS!  And the jumbo hot pretzel as big as my head is not too bad either!! I am there all the time! 
10. What is your favorite type of music and favorite artist?  COUNTRY MUSIC!!!  Kenny Chesney is my fave...summer is just not the same without KENNY in concert.
11. Why did you start to blog?  I started this blog called the Mishaps and Mayhem of a Solitary Life becasue it took me 32 years to get my own place!  (CATHOLIC SCHOOL doesn't pay much people!  HA!)  And with that, comes those little everyday things that just happen.  I started the blog in 2012, but decided that 2014 would be the year, I'd jump full force into blogging.  I have added a few facets to it along the way, such as fashion posts and fun link-ups, but at its' heart it's still just about me...trying to navigate the ups and downs of this thing called LIFE!

11 Questions for my nominees:
1.  What one word best describes you?
2.  What's the best advice you ever received, from who?
3.  What's you're guilty pleasure show? 
4.  What's you're biggest pet peeve?
5.  What is something you never leave home without?
6.  Name something you treasure.
7.  What is your favorite movie?
8.  Morning person or night owl?
9.  What's your favorite accessory?
10. What song describes your life at the moment?
11. Why did you decide to start blogging?


Bloggers I'm nominating:
Four Sisters (found this blog through the Friday link-ups...it spoke to me!)
Loving, Crafting, & Cooking in the Country (A good friend of mine...and a much better blogger at that!)
A Light in the Closet  (Another fellow challenger!  Such a cool blog!)
See You in a Porridge (Super Cute!)
Peanut Butter Tales (Did you think I wouldn't love a blog with a title like this?!? HA!)
This Gingers Journey (A sweet girl who commented on my blog and who I've been reading ever since...we have the same taste in blogs too!)
Beyond the Gradebook (fellow teacher, lover of country music and books!..basically ME in another state!)
Hilary's Grace (a sweet and honest blog!)

Go check them all out!!

I hope you all take the time to participate too!  Please know I'm so glad I found your blogs, enjoy reading them and getting a peek into what makes you...YOU!


There is no physical Liebster award but the satisfaction of knowing my blog touched even one person, makes me feel grateful! And doing this was a lot of fun!


Have a happy week!
Katie

Bloggin' from my new Phone!!

Since I realize that it's a bit ridiculous that it took me this long to get an iPhone, I thought it'd be pretty hilarious if I wrote a post entirely on it!! I can't wait to use it!! Just think of all the pics I can take for the blog...and the SELFIES...and the Insta Challenge photos! And I can Shazam songs and use the Cartwheel app everyone is just so in love with!! I've made it, I'm in the in crowd! FINALLY!!!

Set up was pretty painless! I had a mini heart attack when I saw that they assigned me a new number but I got right on the phone and got that taken care of pretty quickly. In less than 24 hours I'll have my old number back and all will be right with the world!

I'm also loving the cheapo case I picked up on Amazon for the time being, until I found something I really loved, LOVED! (I had to stop myself from purchasing the naked Adam Levine case, but I think that's a story for another day!) I may keep this one longer than I thought!! 

And my bestie brought up a good point tonight: I will now be reachable!!! Hahahahahaha With my old phone I had for 5 (maybe 6!) years with no upgrade, it no longer held a charge and needed to be rigged up in various positions to actually charge as of late, which ultimately, was the straw that broke the camel's back! I can't travel around town or on trains and not have that security of a good, reliable phone!  

I do however, need to get better at typing on this thing. My fat, man hands were not made for this little keyboard! Thank goodness for auto-correct right now! Ugh

I'm off to fool around with this thing some more! Hope you had a Happy Hump Day! 

Just think, FRIDAY's one day closer! Come back then for another 5 on Friday! Betcha can guess what one of my five is this week! :)

If you have the iPhone and wanna share some favorite apps, please do!! 

*Disclaimer-

This post is not meant to be discriminatory! I have nothing against android phones (I had one!), but since I'm more of an Apple user, I figured the iPhone was the logical next step for me! 

An Exciting day!

Awhile ago, the art teacher at my school approached me and told me that she had heard about the iConnect Challenge, a contest in which students were asked to create a PSA for an app.  I was totally on board with it!  Many of our 8th grade students were interested in doing it, but as time wore on, only one team of three girls really committed to the project.  The videos were submitted on January 31st and today was the celebration to view the video submissions in the IMAX theater and find out who won!  And guess what?!?!  The girls from school won second place!!  Woo Hoo...it was so exciting!!  Which brings me to the main reason I decided to write this post...

The celebration was at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, a museum, you guessed it...centered around aviation and flight!  BUT....during intermission I ran to the ladies room (which I might have got stuck in for a hot second, but that's a story for another day!) and as I was coming out, I saw large posters advertising the exciting things coming up at the museum.  None of which where school field trips, IMAX movies, and the like!  Instead, I saw information about a Craft Beer Expo (which sadly, I missed), a Chocolate Lovers Expo in March and the Wine Expo in April!  WHAT THE WHAT!?!?!  WHY HAVE I NEVER BEEN TO THIS PLACE BEFORE!!!  How much fun would all these events be??  Who coming with me???  I am the first one to say that I think this is the most over-populated place in the entire world, but it really is an amazing Island with tons of fun stuff to do...I just have to get out there and do them!

Have a great week!