My New Favorite Devotional: She Reads Truth

If you've been following my blog for a while, you may have noticed that I recently added two buttons to the "affiliates" section of my sidebar. One of them is The Peony Project, a blogging community for female bloggers who consider themselves Christian. And the great part is that you don't have to be a Christian blogger to join. It's a great community that I think you should join if you're looking for a place to grow in your faith but also be in community with other people who have similar interests as you. 
The other button is for She Reads Truth. It's a site that has devotionals that cover a wide array of topics and specific books of the Bible. I discovered it recently through some blogs on The Peony Project, actually. Since then, I haven't been more excited and interested in reading my Bible in a long time (but that's another post for another day). 

Out of all the plans they have going (there are always new plans going on but older ones are archived too), I decided to start with the "Open Your Bible" plan to get myself back into the habit of doing just that--opening my Bible. 
I'm still not consistent on doing the plan every day, but I'm currently on Day 11 as you're reading this. I like that I don't feel pressure to keep up and that I'm the worst Christian ever for skipping a day or two (again, I'll talk about my past church experiences another day).

On top of the plans, they have photos with quotes or scriptures from that day's devotional that you can either save for yourself or post to social media.

Not only that, they also sell study journals to help you with the devotionals. They sell prints, mugs, scripture cards, and more. It's all so pretty but all so encouraging as well.

She Reads Truth has an app available for IOS and Google Play, where you can currently read the "Open Your Bible" reading plan for free, but you have to pay a small fee for the other plans. That's if you're reading directly on the app! You can even get free phone wallpapers too, which I love. One of the wallpapers are currently my phone's home screen background. 
It's just been a very refreshing and encouraging way to read and study the Bible. It's the exact type of thing that I've been looking for for a long time, and for the first time in a long time I actually am excited to have my one on one time with God. It sounds bad, but if you knew my story and my faith journey, you'd get a better understanding of why. I'll talk about it another time. Until then, check out She Reads Truth because I think there is something for everyone on there. 
What's your favorite devotional? I'd love for you to leave links to other devotionals you enjoy reading and studying!
Disclosure: I'm not affiliated with She Reads Truth at all! I just love them so much!

Wedding Tip: When it Rains at an Outdoor Wedding

My friend Taylor married the love of her life a couple weeks ago! I hadn't been a guest at a wedding since 2011, although I did work at a wedding last December. 

One thing that Taylor's wedding and last year's wedding had in common: when it rains, it pours.
Yes, it rained at both weddings. With the December wedding, it rained pretty hard before the ceremony, and at my dear friend's wedding, it rained quite a bit after the ceremony and before the reception. At both of these weddings, the ceremonies and receptions were in the same place. (Check out some of the heavy rain from the first wedding in my video above!)
With the first wedding, huge white tents were put up in case it rained during the duration of the wedding. Luckily, it only rained during setup and by the time the bridal party and family of the bride and groom came to finish last minute details, the sun was out. 

With Taylor's wedding, she sent out texts to everyone to bring umbrellas to prepare for the rain the day before. I unfortunately didn't have time to get an umbrella before the wedding, but most of the guests got the memo.
I had also only been to her hometown once before, but it was in the summer. So I had also underestimated how cold it would be compared to the beach city I live in. (Why didn't I consider this?!) I was also sick at the time, which probably didn't help anything. 
I had assumed that there would be tents up to prevent the rain from falling on everyone at Taylor's wedding, but realized that there were only two small ones, not enough to cover everyone and were not covering the tables or anything. 
With that being said, it's always good to over prepare for situations like this.

Two tips to cover up for a rainy wedding: 
+ Bring an umbrella! This one is an obvious one. If you suspect that it will be rainy due to what the weather app on your phone says or heavy rain the night before, then it would be smart to bring an umbrella. Simple as that. I like the ones that Forever 21 sells. 

+ Wrap a scarf around your head. I didn't have an umbrella and was freezing cold, so I bought a scarf at an outlet we stopped at on the way to the wedding. This scarf, as you can see, is super furry, making it very warm for my neck and my cold self. When it rained, I wrapped the scarf over my head to protect my head/hair from getting wet. It did its job pretty well, I might add. 
You never know what to expect at weddings, so it's always good to be prepared so you can focus on the love of the couple for that special day. 
Do you have any interesting wedding stories? Any other tips on how you handled a wedding in the rain? 

Pinterest-Style Typography with Stencils

I love crafting and DIY stuff and always have. Ever since I was a little girl I've dreamed of having my own craft studio and still have every intention of having that when I have my own place. However, I usually don't have time to craft or am out of ideas for what to do. 

I recently got DIY Type: 50+ Typographic Stencils Perfect for Decorating, Crafting, Gifting courtesy of Blogging For Books, and I was very excited to try it out. 
Its style is pretty vintage, which is pretty popular among crafters and people on Pinterest. The stencils include the entire alphabet in large, capital letters, capital letters that are shorter and stubbier (but still vintage looking), and some little embellishments that one could use. 
I decided to paint a canvas with my initial, a "K," to see how it would look like, and I was pretty pleased with the finished product for the most part. 
The stencils are made out of cardboard, which makes them pretty good for tracing outlines and stuff, but when my paint got a little watery (partially my fault), the paint went right underneath the stencil. However, I was able to recover from that so it's all good!

I did a pretty simple design for now and hope to add more to it and really make the stencil shine. These stencils are perfect for the upcoming holiday season so I can't wait for that! My only other criticism with this book is the variety of stencils. I think there should've been lowercase letters, script letters, or something more with the variety of the stencils. Other than that, I approve and recommend this book for all the crafters out there! 
Disclosure: I received this book courtesy of Blogging for Books. All opinions are my own.

Salmon with Sautéed Mushrooms and Broccoli (Dorm-Friendly Recipe)

Anyone who knows me knows that I love food and my stomach is a bottomless pit. I could eat at an all-you-can-eat buffet and be full but still feel hungry less than an hour later. I am always looking for something to eat, and when you get tired of your school's dining hall, it's always nice to eat something in your room that isn't instant or microwaveable. 
I was experimenting with dinners this week and it was all completely random and spontaneous. Over the weekend I bought some single-serve salmon filet's from Albertson's, 2 for $3. As I was in the dining hall getting a to-go box, I went over to the salad bar and decided to get myself some broccoli and mushrooms to save to cook for myself later. 
I live in a quad-style dorm, where there is one shared living area for 4 different rooms. In the living area, there is a kitchenette where you could keep any electric appliances, like the griddle and rice cooker I have (at my school, it's not allowed to keep these in your room other than microwaves & electric kettles). 
Big tip: If you live on-campus at your school and don't like eating in the dining hall or eating microwave food all the time, invest in an electric griddle! 
I normally cook rice & spam with the occasional scrambled egg for dinner, a typical Filipino breakfast. So when I figured out this recipe, I was happy to eat something healthier and different! I made this recipe in my dorm, but you can make it in a kitchen too, of course! You may also substitute the salmon for another type of fish or the broccoli/mushrooms for whatever veggies you want in your meal! This is a really simple but customizable meal to make. 

Here's the recipe: 

• 1 Salmon filet any size you want
• A handful of broccoli
• A handful of mushrooms
• 1 Lime or a bottle of lime juice (you won't use up the whole bottle)
• 1 Tablespoon of soy sauce
• A quarter-sized amount of cooking oil
• Rice (optional)

* If you want rice with your meal like me, prepare the rice in the rice cooker before you start cooking. *
Heat up the griddle to 350° F. Once it heats up, take the broccoli and mushrooms onto the griddle. You're almost stir-frying them so keep mixing them around on the griddle with a cooking spoon. 
Pour the soy sauce, then squeeze/pour the lime juice onto the veggies. Continue to mix and sauté the veggies until they are cooked to the way you desire it. Plate it. 
Turn off and briefly clean off the griddle. Turn it back on to 350° F and pour a quarter-sized amount of cooking oil onto the griddle. This will keep the salmon from sticking to the griddle. 
Take the salmon filet and put it onto the griddle. Let it cook and flip it over to the other side when the salmon has turned into a lighter pink. 
Once you've flipped it over, you may add some more lime juice to the salmon, but this is optional. 
The salmon is cooked when it is a light pink with some browning on it!
Add it to the veggies and you're all done! Your dinner is ready to eat, and if you cooked rice like me, you can also eat it with that. I like adding the rice to my meals not only because I grew up eating it, but it makes the meal much more filling. 
With this griddle, I'll definitely be experimenting some more with dorm-friendly recipes, and I'll try to share them (with more photos) in the future!
What are your favorite dorm recipes? I'd love some ideas so if you have a link, link to it below as well!

Find Me Elsewhere!

I love to write. Hence why this blog exists. And while I haven't written one yet, I also hope to write a novel one day. 
Back in June, I talked about why I write and why I love it and why this blog exists. Long story short, I love to talk. It sounds very self-centered but I promise you, there is more to it than that. 
If you're interested in reading more about my writing and the types of writing I do, I write for my university newspaper & for my school's website. I am a section editor and a student blogger.  If I could, I would totally write for sites like Relevant Magazine or even Brit + Co, but I currently don't have the time to do so. I'm hoping that will change over the next few months. 
Writing is one of the best ways for me to relax. I love the idea of writing down or imagining a full-on story in my head. Reading and writing actually both work in relaxing me any day. 
(By the way, if you've noticed, I've made a couple changes to the blog! What do you think of them? Oh, and I'm relaunching sponsorships on the blog! Check out my sponsors page if you're interested in getting lots of love from me!) If you're a blogger, do you write elsewhere other than your blog? If you're not a blogger, have you ever considered getting your opinion out there, whether through blogging or social media?

No Scary Movies for Me. // 7 Reasons I Hate Horror Films

Happy Halloween! 
Since Halloween is known for being scary and a reason to watch horror movies, I'll go against the grain and talk about why they most definitely aren't for me. I absolutely hate them with a passion and definitely wouldn't mind if they were banished from the world forever. 
I just don't like scary things.  I'm trying to think about a moment in my life where something may have contributed to this, but there is nothing that I can think of at the moment. I just don't like scary things. 
Scary movies aren't happy.  I'm an optimistic person. Now I know that there are certain horror films that end up having a happy ending (aka the protagonist barely survives), but waiting to put that at the very end isn't my cup of tea. 
The anticipation for something to pop out gives me anxiety.  In an attempt to be less scared, I try to prepare myself for something to pop out. It's counterproductive in my case because I still get scared anyway and I'm already breathing heavily and hiding behind my hands or sweater even though nothing will pop out for another five minutes. 
Example: On one of my first dates with Darell, we watched one of the Twilight movies (don't judge) and a Paranormal Activity 2 trailer came on. I tried to prepare myself, but the shock of whatever had popped out freaked me out so much that I tried to hide myself behind Darell's arm, only to hit my nose on his arm and MY NOSE STARTED TO BLEED EVERYWHERE. What a way to impress a date. I mean, he is still here and that happened 4 years ago so I must've done something right. Haha.
I'm gullible.  I believe what I see. I try telling myself that it's all just makeup and that they probably laughed and messed up in the takes before coming up with the take that got into the movie, but I'm so freaked out by what's on the screen in front of me that it doesn't help me at all. 
It gives me the feeling of being unsafe.  The fact that the main characters are unsafe makes me feel unsafe. Part of this is my mom always telling my sister and I to watch out for everything around us when walking anywhere by ourselves growing up, so I was never at ease. I don't like being unsafe because what happened on the news could very well happen to me. And same goes with horror films. 
I'm not a fan of blood and gore. You don't have to watch a horror film to see blood and gore, but I just hate it in general. Just the idea of blood and violence spewing everywhere is disgusting and sickening to me. I can't even look at my arm when I get blood drawn. What more when it's getting everywhere like a fountain spewing water or paint splattered on a canvas?
With some films, those events are definitely plausible in real life.  Not everyone may agree with this, but I believe that we live in a physical and spiritual world. Because of my personal faith, I believe that there are forces (good and bad) at work in this world that we cannot see. And another reason that confirms that? If you go to most places outside of the United States, the people in that country are aware of the spiritual realm and are more in tune with seeing spirits and all that. 
So with films like The Exorcist or any film made in Asia, they freak me out all the more because of the spirits that are at work in those films or in similar situations in real life. When I was younger, my cousin and some other family told me of the spirits they've seen in the Philippines. My cousin had one in her house growing up in the Philippines! My sister was too young to remember, but apparently my sister had seen it too when we'd stayed there years later. NOPE. NOT FOR ME. 
See, I actually have some pretty valid reasons in my opinion about why I don't like scary movies. It's not an irrational fear because there is some meaning behind why I whine and complain when my boyfriend (who loves horror movies) tricks me into watching Paranormal Activity 2 instead of Footloose in theaters. (Darell, you remember that nightmare of a night). 
What are your thoughts on horror movies? Do you agree with anything I said? Any counter-arguments against any of it?

Life as a Color Rebel

If people don't want to dress up in an actual costume for Halloween, most still want to get into the spirit, whether it's through animal ears or a Halloween-esque piece of clothing (ex: a skull t-shirt). One of the ways that I have also seen people get into the spirit of Halloween is dying their hair crazy, atypical colors!
Growing up, my mom never allowed me to dye my hair, and now that I'm older, I realize that I don't want to damage my dark hair by bleaching it just so that it can retain the color. The only other time that I have attempted to color my hair was my freshman year of college when my friends tried using chalk on my hair. It worked on my light-haired friends, but the color did not stay on me. 

When Redken sent me two out of five of their Color Rebel hair dyes to try out, I was a little nervous but very excited. I was nervous that the color wouldn't stay in my hair, but I was also excited at the possibility that it could stay in my hair. 
I received two bottles of color to try: Punked up Pink and Gilty as Charged (gold). 

I was eager to try out the dyes for myself since this would be my first time dying my hair, and I thought it would be so awesome to do crazy colors for this. 

The dyes were pretty easy to use--my friend Stephanie helped out since she was more familiar with hair dye than I was. 
The biggest thing about the hair dye was using the sponge applicator to apply the dye like makeup onto your hair. You set the dye by brushing and air drying or blow drying your hair. If you want the color to stay even longer, you can curl your hair after your hair is completely dry like I did after using the pink dye. 
For the gold dye, I was able to do a temporary ombré without bleaching or committing to keeping it that way for a long period of time. 

I don't have many pictures with the gold dye, but here's how it looked when I first did it!

These dyes are supposed to wash out after 2 shampoos, but the dyes have stayed in my hair well over 2-3 weeks' worth of shampooing (I wash my hair every other day). 
The verdict: I actually really LOVE these Redken Color Rebel dyes. They've lasted pretty long in my hair, considering my hair is so dark and I haven't had to bleach it for the color to stay. But also because my hair is so dark, when it came to the hot pink hair dye, it came out purple in my hair (see first photo at the top of this post). I actually preferred that because I'm not a huge fan of hot pink. 
My only negative comment I have to say about these are that they make it impossible to completely detangle my hair because the dye is so thick and makes my hair look a little dead. 
Other than that, I love these so much and want to always color my hair because of them! I'm a changed woman. 
What crazy colors have you dyed your hair? Do you have dark hair and struggle with coloring your hair too?  Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Redken and Brandbacker. All opinions are my own.