Joan Ellen Cornell

I definitely do not consider myself super "fashionable." I wear what I like and what is comfortable, despite what is "in" I guess. In the summer, I live in dresses and skirts. In the winter I wear jeans and a lot of leggings with boots.

Even with Porter here now, I make a point to get dressed almost every day, even if I have no plans of leaving the house. He is awesome about sitting in the Bumbo while I shower and get ready.

Here's what I'm wearing, today.

The other day, I was going through the books in the iBook store on my iPad trying to find one that interested me. I came across Jaycee Dugard's book, and it caught my eye. I am a lover of reading autobiographies- something about reading about someone's life that actually happened- love it. And I had heard of Jaycee, on the news and stuff. I never really followed it or knew much about it, so it was something new to learn about!

OMG what an awesome book! It took me longer than usual to read, not because of the length, but because I had to put it down and take a break a couple times. While it was an awesome book, it was also sad. Really sad. It was really interesting to kind of see (through Jaycee's description) how Phillip and Nancy brainwashed her, which in turn made it impossible for her to escape, even though she had plenty of chances. They took her shopping all the time, and she lived in a fenced backyard...easily escapable!

There were a lot of parts I liked that I bookmarked while reading it, but here's one of my favs.

"My least favorite thing to do is sit in the office and talk, but my therapist has found a way to make it interesting for me. I love metaphors and she has come up with the idea of lighting candles to symbolize my past, present, and future. My past and present were the two candles we started with; she would ask me what I would like to start with or deal with today. I would light up either my past or present depending on my answer. During the last few sessions we've used the candles, I've noticed my past melting more and more and becoming duller and duller in light. To me, a lover of imagery, this is my past slowly extinguishing itself becoming something that's been melted. Shifting and changing into something completely different that the way I saw it when it was first lit. Remarkably, my present candle has stayed pretty much exactly the way it was when we first lighted it, which to me, symbolizes continuity. My future candle is a special one. From the first time I lit it to this day, it has burned brighter than the other two put together..." (Dugard, 250)


I thought this whole candle idea was really awesome :)

Anyways, go read it!!

{side note before I flashback: these posts make me think about the past, and in turn, I realize how fast time goes. ugh. please slow down life}

Growing up, I had a best friend who lived next door to me who was a year or so younger than I was. When I was about 8, we buried a time capsule in my backyard. It was an old coffee can. We filled it with pictures and trinkets that had meaning to us, along with letters about who we thought we would be when we opened it- what we would have accomplished in our lives in the next 10 years (I believe kissing a boy was on there, haha, among other awesome things such as what job we dreamed of and where we wanted to live). We buried it along the fence that a neighbor's yard backed up to, and then forgot about it.

Years later, when I was 14, we moved.

I have never gone back to try to dig up the time capsule, but I could definitely walk right up to where it was buried and find it. I wonder if I ever will...or if someone else will find it someday...

We've been doing baby sign language for exactly a month now. It's going pretty well. We started out with 8 or 10, but we've dropped a few and use the rest all the time. Right now we are consistently using milk, mom, dad, and bath. We use "more" and "all done" pretty often, but not as much as the first four.

The signs that we use all the time- they've become second nature to do when I say the word. It's pretty funny- when I do the sign "mom" Porter usually laughs at me, haha. I guess it is kind of funny, haha (you put your hand wide open with your thumb to your chin...picture below).

It really seems like Porter watches when we do it, he really sees it and I would imagine it's sinking in that little brain...I can't wait until he starts to use the signs!

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was going to start working out. Well, I finally did. Yesterday. Haha. I have NEVER in my life done any sort of workout plan or diet, ever. I've been lucky enough to have a great metabolism and athletic-ish genes I guess. Not that any of my family members are big athletes or anything, but I am def blessed with some nice muscles that I don't really work for (my arms and shoulders mostly). My body has always fluctuated a bit, depending on my lifestyle at the moment. As horrible as this is to admit, thus far, when I want to lose weight all I have to do is stop eating fast food. After Porter was born, I got back down to my pre pregnancy weight within a month of having him (probably more like 3 weeks). But even so, my body is so different. I used to LIKE my butt. Now, it's saggy and jiggles. My thighs look horrible to me when I sit down, and they jiggle too. And my stomach- considering I just had a baby 5 months ago- it looks good. But I want abs. I just do.

So my goal is not to lose weight, because I realize that muscle weighs more. I want to lose some inches. I spent a long time (the last few months) putting off working out because I didn't have any clue where to even start. Sounds kind of stupid, but I didn't want to just start doing random stuff. I wanted some sort of organized workout plan. I also wanted something I could do at home because it's not that easy to leave the house without Porter these days. I remembered that Jeremy has P90x, so that's what I'm doing. I'm most definitely not doing all 12 cd's or whatever there are. For now, the plan is to do the cardio every day (which is about 45 mins) and abs or legs/back every other day. I am not working toward a certain number of inches lost, or a certain weight lost...I just want to feel good and be happy when I see myself in a bikini!

Part of my plan is to also stop eating fast food. I seriously eat fast food like, every other day. Sometimes more. I know that's horrible, but it's fast and easy and I am seriously addicted to Taco Bell. That's what I mean when I say "fast food" because it's almost ALWAYS Taco Bell I want. I don't really plan on dieting, just not eating fast food and not eating so much junk food at home either.

So yeah- working out has begun :) It was so hard to finally take that first step to start, and it's only been 2 days, but I already feel a tiny bit better and kind of look forward to working out already! And my abs are SORE from that 15 min ab workout I did yesterday. Feelin' the burn!

The reason why i'm posting this on here is because I feel like now I HAVE to do this, haha.

I have a confession.


I love to read. LOVE it. It probably stems from my parent's reading to me every night before bed and weekly trips to the library. In 2nd grade, I was in a special reading group (3 or 4 of us) that would leave the classroom during the usual reading time. We would go to this small room wish only a small table and chairs and read chapter books. It sounds kind of dorky, but I loved that I was part of this group :) In 4th grade, I remember getting in trouble by Miss Cox for reading Naya Nuki under my desk during math class- hahaha. Numerous times in my childhood/teens I would turn down going out to play so I could finish a book I was engulfed in. In turn, my english skills are pretty awesome...I'm articulate about grammar and in college one of my favorite classes was a history of language class.

Curling up in bed with a good book is one of my most favorite things to do...there's something about just being able to get out of the "real" world for a while and into another one. I love all types of books...I love autobiographies, and I also love women's novels (the type that would be on Oprah's book list, or like Elin Hilderbrand for instance...).

Here are a few of my favorite's, starting from childhood until now...

I've been getting so bored with my hair lately. I see all these awesome pins on Pinterest of braids that I always repin and save to try at some point. Well, starting Monday I will be trying a different braid for the week. I want to have a whole week to perfect it- and it'll be fun to see the changes from the beginning of the week to the end, haha. Not that I go somewhere every day to necessarily "get ready" for, but this will be a good way to make myself get ready!

I also found an awesome tutorial for putting feathers in your hair, which i'm going to try as soon as I order the supplies (which are minimal and i'll order them tonight)...i'm really really excited to share this though, so check back!

Here are some of the braids and feather pictures that are super inspiring...