Do What Makes You Happy {Blog-tember Challenge}

Hi lovelies!!! 

Hope you are all had a great long weekend, and ready for a day back at work.I sure ain't, but we gotta do what we gotta do. ;)

Today I bring you a special post. And omg, it's the third post in a row, in a long time. I know I've mentioned recently how I've been M.I.A here. And how sad I am about it. But I found this awesome challenge that I think will help me get back into blogging again. I found it last night. So I will be doing yesterday's post and today's post together. 

First, a little bit about the blog challenge. The challenge is hosted by Bailey Jean over at Brave Love. She kindly came up with a daily post for each day for the month of September, called The Blog-tember Challenge. Check out all the prompts here.

Yesterday's prompt: About the Author

Imagine the front sleeve of a hard cover novel. Give us your "About the Author" so we can get to know one another, and for fun tell us what your imaginary novel would be about.

Adrianna Avila, known as Adri to her loved ones, is the proud author of Adri's Thoughts. As a small girl, she has loved writing her daily life in journals. Now at the age of twenty-five she combines her love of reading with her dream of writing. This novel will be her debut novel, which combines her love of writing, reading and the fashion designing world. Adri was born and raised in California, and she currently lives there, and loves the California sunsets and year long warm weather. Visit her at thoughtsbyadri.blogspot.com to see a glimpse of her daily life. 

Today's prompt: What Makes You Happy

Write about what makes you happy, from the little joys to the huge game-changers.

{source}

- Pumpkin Spice Lattes

- My parents

- My brothers (although they still annoy me at 24)

- My Family

- Babies (Nieces and nephews)

- God 

- Best Friends

- Baseball

- Reading

- The time I get for myself

- Laughing

- Making things

- Flowers

- Health

- Love

- Finding words to live by

What would your About the Author say?

Sunday Social {Blogging}

First off I wanted to congratulate Neely and Ashley on their 2 year anniversary of their Sunday Social Link-up. 2 years that's amazing. I just started joining in earlier this year, and it has been fun. 
1. Introduce yourself and your blog to us Hi I'm Adri, welcome to my blog, Adri's Thoughts, where you can find a little bit of everything. From Recipes, my favorite has been the 3 Cheese Chicken Alfredo Bake, to Book Reviews, where I tell you all about my favorite books, to my Fashion Thoughts, to Recaps about my trips, about movies, and about life and of course some easy D.I.Y projects. I'm still learning the ropes of blogging, but it was definitely turned into one of my favorite things to do. 

2. What is your favorite form of Social Media and why? Personally I love Instagram. I love taking pictures and sharing them to the world. For blogging purposes, I'm still learning how to promote my blog through social media, but Instagram and Twitter are some of my favorites to get my posts out there. 

3. What made you start a blog? I first started this blog when I was a sophomore in college about 4 years ago. Me and my roommate decided to each start a blog, just as a way to document our college experience. It started off good, but soon I ran out of time and never kept it up. It was not until last summer, when I started to pick up my blog again, and have loved doing it. Is still a way to document my life, share my thoughts and other interesting things. 

4. What do you feel the most meaningful/special post you’ve written is? Last year as a part of Blogtember hosted by Jenni over at Story of My Life, I wrote a letter to my grandma. I was just writing to jot down all the things I wanted to tell my grandma. I shared it with my mom and my aunt, and then my aunt told my grandma about it, and the next time I saw her she told me about it. She was happy. Read it here: Grandma.. I love you.

Favorite Things about Blogging {Ten Favorite Things}

Happy Monday everyone!! :) Today's A-Z Letter is F.... Favorite Things

I love blogging, I've been doing it consistently for almost a year now. And I'm still learning new things everyday about blogging, reading new blogs daily and meeting new people. :)  Last month I wrote a little history of why I love blogging, but here are my Ten Favorite Things about blogging. 
//one// Blogging is an outlet. I'm trying to be more open about myself more, and I feel like blogging allows me to be more open about my life, my feeling and thoughts.
//two// Creativity. If you couldn't tell already, but I love making things, whether it be food or projects. I love that blogging has allowed me to share recipes and D.I.Y projects. It has also showed me to find creativity everywhere, while writing, reading, drinking coffee, studying. 
//three// The blogging community. Like I said on my blog post last month, one of my favorite things is the blogging community. Luckily, I have had amazing people come through my blog who have read and my posts and who leave sweet comments. Bloggers are amazing!!! :) 
//four// With the community comes the friends. I would like to believe that I made friends on here. I met people that I wouldn't have otherwise have met if it wasn't for blogging, exchanges, comments, posts, link-ups, blog hops. 

From the words of Robin Farr from Farewell Stranger. Perfect life of a blogger.

//five// Inspiration and motivation. There are thousands of blogs. But what I love the most is reading blog posts from my favorite bloggers and being able to identify with them because of their words. It makes you realize that we are all going through similar things in life. There are so many inspiring stories out there about every aspect of life, and I just love reading.
//six// Entertainment. Just like there are many inspiring stories with a serious tones. There are so many bloggers I go to when I need a laugh, because their posts are so witty and creative and funny. It is also where I go to to get reviews of new products, books, shows, etc. I enjoy reading blogs just as much as I enjoy writing my posts. :)
//seven// Hobby. Blogging is one of my many hobbies, and as time passes, it has become something I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY enjoy doing, even if I still struggle to come up with my posts. I look forward to write at night and in the mornings on here. 
//eight// Learning new things. I feel like I've learned so many things through blogging. I've learned to do technical things about my blog. I've learned so many things about life, travels, foods, through other bloggers. I've learned about myself. That's what blogging does, it opens you up to learn new things. 
//nine// A journal to look back at. Just like blogging has become an outlet, I love that it was become a place that I can look back at and see what I was passionate about writing. I have a couple of posts that I wrote when I first started blogging (4 years ago), and I just like to read them and see how much I changed and/or stayed the same. 
//ten// Staying connected. My best friends and I started a group blog where we would post what was going on in our lives. It was one of the ways we were able to stay connected. I hope we can bring it back. 

Most of these probably go hand in hand with each other. Some are in a sense the same thing, heheh, but I had to get creative.. hehe. :) 

Why I Blog {The Girl Between the Lines}

This Week: Why do you blog? Tell us what got you started, what keeps you going or where you want to go.
I think I've answered this a few times here on the blog. But everytime someone asks me about my blog I get excited. I started blogging back in college as a way to document what my daily life was like. But it was hard for me to keep up with the blog those first few years of blogging. I rarely posted, if at all. I went months without posting. So I give props to everyone out there who blogs!

I started blogging again this past summer, and I'm loving every second of it. My blog turned into a place to document my thoughts, my inspirations, my dreams, some of my struggles, and an inside to the things and people I love. 
I like to say that blogging has made me open up about myself.  I'm able to be myself on here without much judgement. Which takes me, to my next point. I love blogging because through it I've met so many amazing people, the blogging community is amazing. 
What I love the most are the comments that are left on my posts. They truly make me feel special, that someone took the time to read my blog and post a response to it. So I try my very best to comment on the blogs that I love the most.
Very few people in my family and circle of friends know that I have a blog. I think it might be the fear of being judged by them or about the posts that write or lack of them, but as the blogging community has welcomed me and encouraged me, I think I'm ready to put my blog out there more. I would love any help on how to do so.
At times its hard to think of something worthy of publishing, sometimes I really have to stretch to think of something, and sometimes I can't. I think, no I know I still have lots to improve on. But do know that I love writing and blogging and reading and thinking and dreaming and planning and that is why I continue to blog.

What do you love most about blogging? How did you start your blog? Ps. - I just joined Twitter. I would love to follow new people.

Always the listener... how blogging has changed me.

Day 8 of Blogtember: Thursday, September 12: Discuss ways that blogging or social media has changed you.

I feel like I've written about blogging, re-starting my blogging a lot this summer. But this post is on the Blogtember prompts, so I'll try not to repeat myself.

Through my childhood until now, and probably forever, I've been the shy one, the quiet one. I was always nervous when it was my turn to read or when I had to present in front of the class. I was not a public speaker. When it came to my emotions, I always decided to keep them to myself. When my brothers would tease me, yell at me, or hit me, I wouldn't hit them back or yell back, instead I quietly (pretending it didn't bother me) went to my room and cried. If I stuck up for myself maybe it wouldn't affect me too much.

I had a few friends growing up. I had my cousins, which were like sisters to me. But somehow I just couldn't find myself to tell them whatever was going on, small or big, in my life. I was always the listener never the talker. And for me that was fine. I loved listening and giving some advice once in a while.

Like I said I had a few friends, and in college I met these amazing set of friends. We all lived together at one point, live-in roommates,, neighbors, or honorary housemates. But put 5 girls into a one bed room apartment and you'll have pillow talk. Again I listen to their stories, worries, problems, achievements, happy moments. I was always nervous to tell them about me. Then I began thinking how could you not feel comfortable enough to tell your best friends about yourself. Then they began thinking that, and we became having some problems, we reconciled with the promise that I will tell them what was going on (at this time I was going through a dark time in life.)

I look back at that time, and I wish I could've came here to blog about it instead of doing some of the very stupid things I know wish I hadn't done. My junior and senior year seemed like such a blur! :/

Source: Pinterest

Anyways back to the prompt, I shared this to show you I never was a person to share my feelings, thoughts, emotions, dreams, verbally/out loud. But I feel that I'm able to do that through here, even if it's sharing a recipe or writing about a book I'm reading. Written words, although difficult, are much easier for me then Verbal Words. Even my ISFJ profile agreed with me. I started/restart blogging to start sharing some tiny part of my life, that I think I'm ready to share. Through the years my blog has on, and off activity I've learned that my feelings and thoughts are mine, and there is no need to be embarrassed by them (even if they are silly). Be proud of who you are. Although my blog is still starting and so is Fab5Adventures, I've become more confident to about myself.

I'm not quite on FB as much anymore. But Instagram, I'm obsessed!!! When I first got insta I felt like I needed to share everything, because its cool. Now I'm finding myself holding back, because people around me are telling me do you really need to share it? So I hesitate, but in my head I say yes! There is nothing wrong with it. From now on, I'm going to try to share as much as possible without spamming. heheh

Check out the Blogtember prompts!!

Why I started {re} blogging

My very first post on here was in August 2009. Wow. That's been 5 years since I have had a blog to call my own.
I remember starting this blog when I was a sophomore in college. Me and my then roommate thought it would be cool to start blogging and have a place  where we can write our thoughts. So we each started our own blog at the same time.

Although it was been 5 years, I have not posted a lot. For the first year of my blog I had only posted 4 posts!! That's embarrassing!. The follow years were the same, little content was posted. Pathetic!! And then I wonder why I don't have followers. Helllloo, Adri, I don't have any content for the readers and visitors to stick around for.

But now for some reason, I want to become a real blogger. This last month has been a little different. I have been writing on a more regular basis. I also write for a group blog, that me and my college decided to start as a way to keep in touch with each other. Although we each have a designated day and only write once a week at Fab5, that experience is helping me think and continue writing some posts.

I don't think this blog is anything special. It's just a space where I can jot down, blurt, or reminisce some of the thoughts that go through my head.

The main thing I want to get out from re-starting this blog is to meet a lot of new bloggers of all kind. There are a lot of incredible bloggers out there, that I wish I could follow on their blogging (and real, not in a stalkerish way) life for one day, to just see how fab they are.  I also want to make time in my not-so-busy life to wind down, and what better way to do it than to ramble or let out some of the things that happened to me or that I am thinking about.

I'm really excited!! To Re-Start! What better what to start on the right foot this week than with this awesome Link Party, where we get to visit lots of new blogs, and meet lots of different friends. Its called "The Collective" hosted by Peacoats and Plaids and other awesome co-hosts every week!! It's a way to hop away to different blogs to meet new people. So head over and find some new blog. For the awesome visitors thanks for stopping by.

So please stick around and stay with me through this journey. I would so much appreciate it!!
Follow me on Bloglovin, Instagram. Also check the other blog, Fab5 Adventures!!

Do you have any advice on how I can Re-Start my blog with a bang? Why did you start blogging? I want to hear!! :)

Restart!!!

Time to restart this old thing!! :) I love blogging, or at least writing, and I would like to write everyday sometimes it gets hard. But now that me and my college friends have started writing our blog!! Fab5Adventures, I have fallen back in love with it. At our blog, we have decided that each of us would take a designated day to post our individual blog post, it somehow keeps us on check and responisble when it comes to actually writing our post!! I write on Fridays at Fab5 but I would like to write everyday, so here I go again!! :) Let's do this!! :) I will try my very, very best to write every day on here!!

P.S - This last Friday I wrote a D.I.Y post at Fab5 with a giveway!! Check it out and you would win the cute clutch I made. :)


http://fab5adventures.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/d-i-y-clutch-giveaway/