GUYS ONLY TEN DAYS ‘TIL CHRISTMAS. That’s what I’m most obsessed with. But here are some other things, too.

Nikon 50mm 1.4 lens
The guys at Newtonville Camera hooked me UP with (aka: helped me spend a lot of money on) a 1.4 50mm lens, which is a big, exciting upgrade from the 1.8 (by far my most-used lens when I shoot weddings). I have been wanting this lens for a LONG time, but only recently decided to go for it and I’m so excited to use it!! (I took that above photo of my adorable Christmas penguin with it!)

JOHNNYSWIM
I saw Johnnyswim (husband and wife duo, Abner + Amanda) live on Saturday! It was their Christmas tour, so they sang a lot of classics in their singer-songwriter style. O Come O Come Emmanuel basically turned the Royale into a church service and it was amazing. They also played a lot of their original music, which I was really glad for because their music is amazing! It was such a fun show! I really love seeing my favorites artists live… mostly because I can physically SEE and FEEL just how much they love doing what they do. It’s different than just listening to a recording. Johnnyswim was no exception!

PRETTY GIFT TAGS
Tis the season for cute wrapping paper and fun ways to let people know whose present belongs to who! I made you some free gift tags that you can cut out and string yourself. My friend Mal makes SUPER pretty ones that are on sale right now! And these ones are pretty dang hilarious!

My list is pretty short this week, but I’m planning one more post for December and then I’ll be taking it easy (with blogging, at least) until the New Year!

Long time no blog + HAPPY DECEMBER! 😉 I felt like I blogged a lot in November, but I just looked back and decided that it wasn’t actually that much! That being said, my favorite (and your favorite!) posts from November were Holiday Markets in Boston and Planning Your Workouts! Go back and read those if you haven’t yet! For December, I plan on FINALLY blogging about our DC trip two weeks ago and possibly doing a gift guide or two.

And now it’s time for my weekly obsessions! (thanks Superfruit)

First of all, I’m obsessed with this photo booth picture of Nate and I from Friendsgiving! 🙂 I posted the actual selfie on my insta, so check that out when you get the chance.

EPs! 
I love EPs! EPs are basically pre-albums so that artists can give their fans SOMETHING even thought they might not be done with a full album yet. My favorite EPs from the last week or so have been Maren Morris‘s self-titled EP (country) and Jordy Searcy’s Seasons (singer/songwriter)! They are different genres, but both have great beats, meaningful lyrics and just overall a ton of talent!

SYRACUSE BBALL
Just because I’m not on campus anymore doesn’t mean I’m not watching basically every game from my couch – complete with cheering. Cuse won a 4 game tournament last week, including beating UConn on Thanksgiving, so *high five emoji* to us. I’m patiently-ish waiting until January 30th and February 14th for games in REAL LIFE.

CHAMPION RUNNING LEGGINGS
I also plan on doing a full blog post about my favorite winter running gear probably in January, but until then, I’ll just gush about Champion’s PerforMax running leggings. They are comfy and pretty warm (but the coldest I’ve run with them so far has only been 34 degrees, so we’ll see.) I mostly love them because they don’t fall down like a lot of leggings do!

ETSY
You can probably guess that I love handmade, homemade things, so you can probably also guess that I’ve been having a LOT of fun shopping for Christmas gifts this year! (some for myself, oops.) Some fave shops: NS Pottery, Ross Lab, The Silmarillion, Jill Makes, Salem Style!

JT + CHRIS STAPLETON COLLAB– Duh, how could this not be on my list?! I just can’t even imagine what it would have been like to witness this magic LIVE last night at the CMAs! The amount of fun and passion and pure jamming that was going on still blows my mind and I was only watching from my couch.

NOVEMBER – I’m really glad November is here. Usually I am allllllll about October… But this October was a hard month for me because my Grandma passed away. Plus I had record amount of photo shoots, so working so much while also processing my Gram’s passing was a little much for me! Needless to say I welcomed November with open arms.

YEARS & YEARS – More musical things coming atchya, sorry (but not really). You need to listen to Years & Years new full-length album. I’d say their style is chill-but-with-great-beats-and-even-better-vocals. Basically perfection for all activities, including but not limited to: working out, driving, focusing on work or even dancing in the kitchen.

MY NEW iPHONE + CASE – This is so materialistic of me, so I hate to even write this. But. I upgraded my dinky 5c to a snazzy 6s and I have to say that I’m pretty obsessed. The size is perfect and bonus that the screen isn’t cracked in three places. 😉 Also, my Rifle Paper Co. case will be here any day and I can’t WAIT! Hashtag safety.

BROWNIES
For the last two weeks we’ve randomly picked up a box of brownies at the grocery store. It’s not like us to get stuff we don’t really need, but BOY! is it yummy to eat brownies while you watch TV at night. I secretly hope this becomes a weekly thing!

THE NEW PENTATONIX ALBUM
If you know me at all then you KNEW this was going to be an obsession!! 🙂 It’s only been a week but I obviously already know the words to my favorites (which are: Misbehavin’, Take Me Home, Light in the Hallway, Can’t Sleep Love, New Year’s Day & Rose Gold). Even though I definitely have favorites, I really think all the songs are great (except First Things First. I can’t get into that one for some reason). Anyways, it’s magic. GO LISTEN! Spotify has it! But actually… Go buy it, because buying music is cool.

TAKING PHOTOS OF NATURE
Back in the day before my photography business was real, nature was the only thing that let me take photos of it 😉 And I really loved it! So now that my favorite season is here, I’m choosing to make time once a week to go on a walk in nature with my camera. AND I’M OBSESSED.

STUFFED ACORN SQUASH
It’s so out of character for me to be sharing a recipe, but I have to! We’ve eaten this meal twice in the last two weeks! It’s such a great fall dinner! (Also, you could totally add ground beef or turkey to this.)
– Cut an acorn squash in half, place in glass dish with water in the bottom & microwave for 8 minutes.
– Meanwhile, start making 1 cup of orzo from directions on the box.
– Meanwhile again! Cut up a white onion and sautee in butter on high heat it for 5 minutes.
– Add to the pan a can of drained chick peas, a bag of frozen corn and thyme, salt and pepper to taste.
– Add orzo to the mixture. Cook all that together until it’s hot.
– Spoon into acorn squash and top with shredded mozzarella cheese.
– Place in oven until cheese is melted. Eat! SO easy!

What are you loving this week?!

BEN RECTOR – Nate and I saw Ben last night at the House of Blues and the concert was sooo good!! I love this guy’s music 100%. He is an amazing singer and his music is so meaningful and well-written and full of life truths and relatable things. My favorite songs are probably Fear and Men that Drive Me Places (I cried the first time I heard this one). It was also awesome that Nate knew some words to the songs (yayyy for forcing your music tastes on your spouse!) I just had a really awesome experience. Live music makes my heart happy.

ONE BARS – I’ve been LOVE.ING. these bars lately for right after my workouts and runs! They’re made only with fruit, aka: there’s no gluten, dairy or added sugar in them, so they fit right in with healthy lifestyles (or trying-hard-to-be-healthy-lifestyles, like mine ha! 😉 ) I’ve only seen them in the wild at Peet’s Coffee, but you can buy them by in 12-packs on their website. My fave is the apple flavor!

CROSSFIT – On my 26th birthday (June 1st) I made the decision to COMMIT to this crazy thing called Crossfit. It’s hard and my body hurts after each workout, but honestly it’s worth it & I’m pretty obsessed! I can feel myself getting stronger and I like that a couple days a week I’m doing something besides cardio. And GUYS. I can do 20 push ups in a row. IN A ROW. That’s pretty legit, right? 😉

HARPOON PUMPKIN CIDER – Fall + cider + pumpkin cider = Best fall drink option, hands down!