My new mini series

I came across this man's posting about 100 tips on life (things that will make you happier or just advice on being successful) I read through them out of boredom a few weeks ago. I loved a ton of them! So I decided I am going to do a mini series of my photo's and put some of my favorite quotes from him (the ones I agree with the most) then send them over to him once I am done. I think I will do about 10 images. So for now I am picking my favorite ones and some of my favorite picture that I have taken, and going to find what fits best.

For the first one of my series, here is "Walk More."

Sadie

Hi Sadie. I think you are the most photogenic person I know.

Tea Party Jewelry

Tatum put up her new Etsy account up. She is designing personalized jewelry that is adorable. They are great for gifts! The thing I love the most about this type of jewelry is that it's dainty and you can wear it on a daily basis without throwing off your outfit. I have been wearing my dainty gold necklace for almost a year straight. I never ever take it off!

You can check it out HERE

scruff

Scruffy Beards = ❤

Movie Time

Julia Roberts in My Best Friends Wedding, I absolutely love her in this movie!

When you are left with no t.v. or cable for months, there is only one other option for visual entertainment: Movies of course!

I have to say I have missed watching weekly t.v. shows, or being able to watch anything on a screen bigger than my mac's interface, but living abroad means you might not get the pleasures from America (for example having a microwave, a garbage disposal in your sink, a shower that is placed in the wall instead of a hose you have to hold yourself, a laundry mat within 20 minutes walking distance, certain American food etc. ) 

But I imagine myself standing in front of a balance scale and seeing the weight of one side rise over the other, and for now in this time in my life... living in Rome without those American luxuries is definitely the winner. 

Anyways back to my movie talk, I am going to list some of the great movies Shane and I have watched over the past few months. If you are looking for some good movies to watch, I recommend some of these, especially the bolded ones. If you can stand watching gory films my top two recommendations are "Apocalypto" and "City of God", they are incredible movies!!

My Best Friends Wedding
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Bourne Identity
Pulp Fiction
Godfather 1 & 2
City of God
Revolutionary Road
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Vanilla Sky
Passion of Christ
Tombstone
Serendipity
Casino Royal
Gangs of New York
Gladiator
I love you, Man
In the Line of Fire
Forgetting Sara Marshall
Se7en
Lord of War
Munich
Raging Bull
The Great Outdoors
Uncle Buck
Count of Monte Cristo
The Prestige
Prince of Egypt

Whit

Blondes

Trevi and a pink building

I adore the colorful apartment buildings around here. I think I take them for granted a lot, probably because they are everywhere. But today I went on a long walk and at one point sat down to drink some water. I landed in front of this pink one and loved it, so I snapped a photograph of it. 

Google

I thought this was funny: I was typing in "why are" and was continue my google search then it caught my eye that the 4th most popular topic if you are to type in "why are...." that comes up is "why are mormons so hot"

I laughed out loud. So I clicked it and saw that these celebrities are all mormon, or should I say were mormon at some point. It's quite entertaining to type just one word into google and see what the worlds most popular topics are

Such as: type in "what" and the top guess it gives is "what does my name mean"
"why" - why is the sky blue
"who" - who unfollowed me
"where" - where is my refund
"what are" - the seven deadly sins
"how does" - how does facebook make money
"when did" - when did the titanic sink
"why does" - why does my eye twitch

It's just funny to me. It is funny to see how similar people are in the fact that they are all interested in the same thing. I mean what would we do if we didn't have google to look up these freakish things that happen in our daily lives. We are all guilty of having something wrong with our health or something out of the ordinary happen to us, so we go home and look it up to see what people have to say about it.

Because I guarantee if you type in those things I posted above, you will be guilty of typing in at least one of the top ten guesses they give you.

Calming it...

Do you ever feel trapped in a small space and need to get out 

Well for me, the best thing to do in that scenario is get out and take pictures

Wishing I also had a bike on a day like this!

Roma Roma Roma

 Since it has been warmer here in Rome that past week, there sure is much more going on outside. Tons of people will sit on a little ledge or stump and play Italian music, it really is wonderful. It's like your walking around with background music playing constantly, it's great! Thank you musicians for being the soundtrack to my days.

Video from last weekend

Mama

Do you ever look at pictures of your mom and think, She is the most beautiful women in the world.... I do.

I miss my mama.

Our weekend of true bliss

We celebrated our one year on Saturday and decided to make a fun weekend out of it. A FUN weekend it was. We walked over to the Coliseum area and found this scooter rental place, picked up a scooter to have for 24 hours [ and some ]. 

Have I mentioned how out of control the drivers in Rome are? They truly frighten me. Mainly because there are no lanes in Rome, so people drive wherever they please. They drive however fast they want, wherever they want, and follow some red/green light rules if they feel like it. Therefore, renting a vespa in Rome was a scary thought to start off with, I was thinking we probably would be in some sort of accident by the time the weekend was over. But obviously that wasn't going to stop us, we wanted an adventurous weekend on wheels! 

There are parts of Rome that not a lot tourists visit. It's on the more outskirts of Rome, so it's much more quite and lovely there. We started driving towards the south-eastern side of Rome and found some treasures! 

    -1.The aqueducts [ these huge arches that were a water supply channel to convey water, built 300 b.c.]

    -2. Cestius Pyramid [ built in 12 b.c. ]

    -3. Appian Way [ the first long road in the history of the world, built 312 b.c. ]

    -4. Circus Maximus [ ancient Roman chariot racing and entertainment stadium, held around 200,000     people ]

These were all great sites to see. Driving down Appian Way was the best part, we took left turns and rights turns off that road and found pieces of heaven. Huge Italian home that sat on a large piece of land. Cute little towns that I never knew existed?! 

At one point we were driving and stopped for a heard of sheep, it was truly a dream. The most adorable little lambs that were BAHHing and the mama lambs that were BAHHing back at their babies. I fell in love. We drove through glorious green lands, through big lines of trees, and pretty much saw places we would have never ever seen if we weren't on a scooter. 

Then we woke up the next morning and hit the high road through Italian countryside. This day was the best of all! We saw the most gorgeous scenery, gorgeous! We knew we wanted to go north out of Rome to go see this castle on a lake. I wrote down directions and hoped for the best. Somehow, someway, we found our way.

We drove up north on the A90 highway [ one lane, open road ] we saw fields of bright green grass, fields of flowers, more dream-like Italian homes sitting on hills, and much more. We finally made our way and came up to the city of Bracciano. The castle was shining at us as it sat at the top of Bracciano Hill. It was such a cool feeling to get to a destination you hoped you were going find; then when you do get there, the site is more amazing that you dreamed. The town of Bracciano was like nothing we have seen yet in Italy. The town had tiny ally ways, homes on every level of this town built on a hill. It was quite, peaceful, quint, and best of all... right on a lake!

The lake is huge and bright blue. Everything seemed to be so peaceful, I absolutely loved it.
Also a fun fact: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got married at this castle we went to in Bracciano. You can look it up on google, it's kind of fun to see.

Anyways, we stayed in that town for awhile then made our way back to Rome. Sitting on the back of a vespa and being able to take pictures all along the way was too perfect. Great weekend to say the least!

This could possibly be the best picture ever! The horse so perfectly positioned!!