Meet the Shaneyfelts

Lists

11 Random Facts + Questions

Last week, Makensey nominated me for the Liebster Award!  I think the best part about this award is that you get to learn more about a blogger.  I’m going to not follow the rules (first time ever, y’all, because I am a rule follower to a default) and not nominate anyone.  So if you feel like answering these questions and listing 11 facts about yourself, please do because I want to read it!

1. What inspired you to start blogging?
I used to read a lot of blogs in college and kind of forgot about them once I graduated.  I started reading them again while I was engaged.  After we got married, I told Dustin it was something I wanted to try but I was a little nervous.  I didn’t think anyone would want to read what I had to write, so I’m so thankful for the people who read my blog daily!  You make writing fun!

2. What is your blogging ‘niche’? What do you most enjoy writing about?
I really enjoy writing about my life and day to day happenings–with a few recipe posts thrown in.

3. What is your drink of choice at Starbucks?
I only started drinking coffee drinks on my last birthday and my first Starbucks drink was a Pumpkin Spice Latte.  I like to get a skinny Caramel Machiatto now!

4. What do you do for a living outside of blogland?
I teach seventh grade English (and my patience has grown immensely haha)

5. What is your ultimate guilty pleasure?
Reality TV shows!

6. How would you spend an entire day off to yourself, where money isn’t an object?
I would go shopping and buy myself whatever I wanted 🙂

7. What was your favorite vacation ever?
I love any vacation to the beach, but I think my favorite travel memory wasn’t actually a vacation at all.  During my senior year at Alabama, they made it to the National Championship game in Pasadena, CA.  I went with my best friend and two of our guy friends and we made so many memories–that might be the best friend trip I’ve ever been on!

8. What is your all-time favorite recipe?
That’s really hard to choose.  Lately I’m loving most things with quinoa in it!

9. What is your favorite place to shop?
Hands down, Anthropologie!  I also like to get a few things in GAP, too.

10. Who is your celebrity crush?
I’ve always had a thing for Jake Gyllenhaal haha

11. What is one CD (old school I know) that you could listen to on repeat?
Dave Matthews Band Live at Central Park–I started listening to them in the seventh grade and I prefer live music any day


Now for 11 facts about me:
1. My hair is naturally curly, but I pretty much straighten it every single day.  I’ve decided to start wearing it curly more often to give it a break from the straightener.

2. I start listening to Christmas music in the beginning of October.

3. When I was in elementary school, my mom used to wake me up early during the week so I could watch an episode of Martha Stewart before having to get ready for school.  I was an adult living in a child’s body haha!

4. My best friends in high school were all in my youth group at church and it made high school so much fun 🙂  We did so many fun things together!

5. I love baking–it’s therapeutic.

6. I enjoy listening to sermon podcasts while I’m getting ready in the morning.  I alternate my mornings between listening to music and listening to sermons.  Some of my favorites include Tim Keller and David Platt.

7. My bff Janie and I spontaneously bought plane tickets to Washington DC one time.  We had zero plans for our trip but it ended up being so much fun, and we still laugh about certain things that happened on that trip!

8. My sister and I may not look anything alike, but we have the exact same voice.  There have been times where we’ve pretended to be the other person on the phone.  It lasts as long as we can go without laughing!

9. I used to bite my nails in elementary school.  When I was in the 5th grade, my gran decided that was enough and told me that she would pay me $10 a finger to stop biting my nails–I had to have them at a length that she felt was acceptable before she paid me.  In the meantime, I went with Gran every week to get a manicure to help me stop biting them.  I was the only 5th grader with professionally manicured nails!  And the manicurist we went to would paint flowers or designs on my nails each week.  My gran passed away the summer before 7th grade, but I know she would be very proud to know that I still don’t bite my nails!

10. Speaking of my gran, I remember that she used to take me back to school shopping, too.  I’ll never forget one time she told me, “You cannot get anything else that is blue, B!”  Blue was (and still is) my favorite color, and she always called me B or Miss B.  I miss being in another room and hearing her call for B.

Feel free to answer the 11 questions above and then list 11 random facts about yourself!  

Confessional Thursday

Happy Thursday, y’all!  Can you believe it’s already the end of the week?  Spring break is inching closer and I am so ready.  We’ve got sixth grade orientation today so my first three classes will have half the students in them, and tomorrow we are back n the computer lab finishing typing our expository essays–then it’s freedom for a week!

Lots of bloggers I follow participate in the Confessional Thursday link up, so I decided to try it out!
1. I have made myself a morning person after getting married.  Every morning during the weekday, I am up at 5 AM.  I get my blog reading done, start laundry, put away dishes–you name it and I’m up doing it.  When I don’t have to work, I’m up anywhere between 6:30-7:30.  I prefer being up early rather than staying up late–10 PM is late for me!

2. I’m a very fast reader!  There have been many times where I’ve read whole books in one day.  That talent came in handy many times in college when I would wait last minute to read for my lit classes 🙂

3. I love eating pizza so much–I just don’t eat it very often since I track my calories.  I had enough calories left for dinner last night, so we went to Mellow Mushroom sit on the patio and eat pizza!!
I tried the Thai Dye from Mellow Mushroom!  Two slices of a small pizza were 740 calories.  I had A LOT of calories left over for dinner because I didn’t eat very much during the school day.

4. I am very much into routines.  As much as I love going on vacation, I’m always ready to get back home so I can get back into a routine.

5. My husband is a Type I diabetic and has been since he was 4 years old.  I always get really nervous before we go on vacation together because I worry about him having low blood sugars in the mornings and if I would have to call for help.  

6. I’ve been wearing reading glasses since the third grade, but because my eyes are continuing to get worse, my reading glasses now have transformed into wearing them whenever I need my eyes to focus.  I hope I don’t ever have to wear glasses full-time and I’m definitely not ever wearing contacts–not touching my eye, thank you!

7. I had a student write an essay about how I was her favorite teacher.  Her three reasons: my clothes, make up, and personality.  Although it was the sweetest thing ever (and I learned how observant she is haha), not once did she mention anything about my teaching style.  Guess she hasn’t learned anything in my class–she only checks out my clothes each day haha!

8. Speaking of clothes (which are my absolute fav), I almost majored in fashion merchandising instead of English.  I prayed about it for a week in college right before I had to really make a decision about which route I was going to take, and I really felt like the Lord was calling me to English.  I knew that if I went the fashion route, I would get so caught up in labels to where they would become my identity–and not the Lord.  So I teach English in nice outfits haha!

Book Club Thursday–March 2016 Edition

Victoria and I had so much fun hosting the Book Club Thursday link up in January that we decided to do it again.  I had high hopes for reading a few books since it’s been almost two months BUT you know…grad school.  I read two super easy reads since the last link up–one I enjoyed and one I didn’t.


Let’s start with the one I didn’t enjoy.


I LOVE The Selection Series by Kiera Cass, so when I saw that she was publishing The Siren, I immediately knew that I wanted to read it.  I think because I loved reading each book in The Selection Series so much, I had such high hopes for this one.  It’s hard to describe, and it was weird.  I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

I read The Siren back in January when it came out and didn’t read another book (for fun) until this past weekend–grad school will do it to ya.

I read See Me by Nicholas Sparks and LOVED it.

I’m already a big fan of Sparks and have read all of his books.  Yes, they are predictable but I don’t care.  The prologue of this book confused me and I didn’t understood how it tied in until after the first couple of chapters.  By then I thought I had the book figured out, and I pretty much did except for one part that threw me for a loop.  If you like Nicholas Sparks, then you’ll definitely love this book!

I’ve got to make time to read Joshilyn Jackson’s latest book, The Opposite of Everyone, because my book club may be skyping with her during our April meeting.  Isn’t that exciting?

I can’t wait to read your posts and add to my reading list!