Oh Hey, Friday! 5 Reasons I'm Just Happy to be Alive Today.

1. It's October. The best month ever. Coming soon: November and December. We're on the up and up, guys.

2. It's the weekend. This really needs no explanation.

3. I have a puppy (fox?) who likes to watch the sunrise. And it's just the sweetest thing. My heart is happy.

4. I'm spending my morning under the covers, drinking coffee and making to-do lists.  If you're a to-do list junkie like me, you need to go download these immediately. If you need some ideas for your to-do list this month, click here.

5. In a few hours, the love of my life will be home. And I don't want that to ever stop being something I get excited about. We dated long distance for a long time, and I would be so incredibly happy whenever he came home or came to visit me. And I'm still happy--I'm happy that I have a person who will come home, exhausted from working, and will sit and have coffee with me and pretend he cares about the to-do lists I'm showing him. That's pretty lucky.

Why are you happy to be alive this week? Link up with Karli to talk about it!

Happy to be Alive, Because: FRIDAY.

I know that Fridays are meant for being happy and thankful, but this week is most definitely a contender for the worst week ever I've had in a while.

A car wreck (that I cannot wait to write about), a ticket (my first ever), a stolen credit card (Target, I love you, but you're killing me here), a 4:00 wake up call every. single. morning. (which I realize is normal for some people, but yo..I'm tired), and what I feel like are a thousand other things that have gone wrong since last Friday.

But weeks like this one are the exact reason I list out five reasons I'm happy to be alive every week.  So let's do this.

1. Friday is here. And I've never been so happy to see it. 

2. My family came to visit!

3. The pumpkin spice latte comes back into our lives on MONDAY. I know a lot of you are griping about this because you just can't be bothered to have pumpkin interrupt your summer.  To you I say:

4. On that note, I played this on repeat approximately seventeen thousand times yesterday to combat the horrible day I was having. #adultlife

5. New headbands are here! And they are super colorful.

On that note, I'm off to drown my sorrows in buckets of sunshine. It's just so much harder to have a bad day when you're tan, yes?

Linking up with karli + amy to celebrate how we're all just really happy to see Friday.

Why are you happy to be alive this week?

Happy to be Alive, Because: Pretty Dresses & Coachella.

Happy to be Alive, Because Fridays are based off of my new novel, Happy to be Alive, Because.   Feel free to join in with #happytobealive2014.

1. I get to get all dressed up and go out with my husband tonight!  He has a fancy pants medical dinner, which means I have a pretty dress and expensive wine that I will pretend to be sophisticated enough to like.  Everyone is happy!

2.  I got this text from two of my friends:

With the caption, "We are happy to be alive, because we have a friend who is a fantastic writer."

My heart. 

3.  This post from my girl Jordyn about the difference between 18 & 22.  "At 18, you think you're a grown up, and wish more people would treat you like you are.  At 22, you know you're supposed to be a grown up, but wish more people would stop treating you like you already are." Amen.

4. "Coachella" by Brooke Fraser.  "I am bright as the sun, you are high as a kite, we are daughters, sons, brothers, and sisters tonight..."  It makes me want to dance around wearing a flower crown.  Aka, every day of my life.

5.  It's Friday.  And sometimes that's just enough.

What makes you happy to be alive this week?

b u y   m y   b o o k :

Here's to 22.

Here's to twenty-two.

Here's to celebrating with the same girls who stayed up late with you in college, dreaming about when you would maybe publish a book one day.

Here's to being married to your best friend and loving someone more than you thought was humanly possible.  To salty, windy beach days.  To laying in the sand and counting down the hours until you're a published author.

Here's to waking up at 6:00 on your birthday, both elated and panicked because a certain book is now available for anyone to read.

Here's to celebrating.  To way too much sun.  To family and cake and water way too cold to swim in.  Here's to dreaming and laughing and taking time to remember how good life really is. 

Here's to the twenty-second year of life that's turning out to be quite beautiful.  Here's to laughing and dreaming about the year to come. 

Here's to twenty-two.  To shopping and cocktails and getting caught in the rain.  To staying up way too late and getting up way too early.  To campfires and midnight movies.  Here's to ignoring fear and jumping all in.  Here's to following your dreams no matter what it takes.  Here's to the weeks of fancy dinners and to the weeks of Ramen noodle dinners. Here's to that beautiful place between success and failure.

Cheers to twenty-two.

PS: I'm thinking it's time for a new blog design!  Who are your favorite designers?

On fridays we talk about being happy.

1. Um, my book comes out on Monday.  Really, this could be reasons 1-5.

2.  My best friends are coming over tonight to celebrate birthday/book weekend by going out for pho and champagne.  Does life get any better?  No, no it does not.

Sassy. 

3.  These were delivered to my work yesterday.  Please just look at that card.  I love him.  He's my person. 

4.  MY BOOK IS ON AMAZON.  This is real life, my friends.  And real life is good. 

5.  The next time I blog, I will officially be a published author.  That is insane.

Have the best weekend ever!  If you're wondering about me, I'll just be off partying like it's 1999 like I'm turning twenty-two and I have a book coming out on Monday.  And listening to this on repeat, obviously:

What made you happy to be alive this week?