Disney Dining: Raglan Road Irish Pub

As some of you may know a few weeks ago I took an amazing trip to Disney World with some family. On my last day there we went to Downtown Disney for the day. We had an amazing lunch at Raglan Road, an Irish Pub.

It was their Sunday brunch so there was a band and Irish dancers which added to the meal nicely. Two of my little cousins even got to go up and dance on the stage.

I had the Salmon Swoon. Choice Irish smoked salmon served with capers, shallots & crème fraiche. It was fantastic. I also got it with a side of "chips" which are fries. What I got was an appetizer but was more than enough for my lunch.

If you are less of a fish fan and more a fan of traditional lunch foods there are perfect options as well. Two of the people I was with split the Luscious Tart (Grilled asparagus and mushrooms, mixed greens, grape tomatoes & shaved parmesan on a warm caramelized red onion puff pastry tart with shrimp) and the Lobster Club (Lobster & avocado salad, crispy prosciutto, watercress & citrus herb mayonnaise). I have an allergy to shellfish so unfortunately I wasn't able to try either of these but the consensus from the table was that they were amazing. It is half of each portion in the picture below. Each is very large. 

One of my three year old cousins got the Heaven on Earth (Baby back ribs tossed in a Guinness glaze). It is an appetizer but was a perfect size. I was able to try one and they live up to their name! Sadly I don't have a picture of these, they were so good that they didn't last that long!

My uncle got the Banger & Booz (Guinness & onion banger on mash, topped with caramelized onions & beef stew). It is a sort of modern twist on a more traditional Bangers and Mash.

We ended our meal, on the recommendation of our waitress, with Ger’s Bread & Butter Pudding. We were told that we could all share it. We were a little skeptical seeing as there were 5 adults and 3 kids. Let me tell you, this is deceptively huge. It was also one of the best desserts that I have ever had, no lie. It came with a butterscotch sauce and vanilla creme anglaise. 

It was an amazing meal and we had a great time. I will certainly be going back the next time I am at Disney. Stay tuned for more Disney posts this week!

BRAIN BLOCK

I have nothing to say today.

I know.

I am as shocked as you are.

Let me explain myself, none of the posts in my little book of posts to write feel good today. I am not feeling fantastic and I didn't want to post something that wasn't giving it my all. So today I am strictly saying, I have nothing to say.

Here are some animals.

Love you guys!
See you tomorrow!!

Putting Yourself First || Reflective Monday #1

*ironically this post was written before Connor Franta's video. Maybe I am psychic. I am not sure*

Happy Monday everyone! This is the first in a new series I am working on. This series is actually fitting with the changes in my life. I have had a lot of amazing career opportunities come up recently and I have realized that before I can truly appreciate and work on those, I need to work on myself.

I spent a sleepless night last night trying to think how I could best do this. As some of you may know I have many health problems that as much as I hate to admit it and try to ignore, limit me. Recently this has become much harder to deal with for me. I just got back from a 10 day trip to LA for VidCon and some meetings which was absolutely amazing. The parts that weren't amazing were times such as being at Disney and needing a wheelchair. Now, this is not me saying that there is anything wrong with disabilities, it is just hard for me right now.

Career wise I have a ton going on right now most of which I can't publicly announce yet but this became slightly stressful. My health has gotten worse and with the added work stress, I realized that I needed to take a step back and reevaluate. I took a quick inventory of what was the most important to me and started to prioritize. My number one thing is my health, as it should be. I am a very hard headed, career driven person and have recently taken the stance that I am going to be in pain and feel awful anyway, so I am just going to push myself too hard. I realize now that as much as that is needed at times, that is not the best way to live my life.

I graduated high school about a month ago and because of my health I am not starting college right away. Once again, as some of you may know, I work part time from home. I also do my YouTube videos, blog posts and play music out. I love all of these things immensely.I don't plan on stopping any of these, I am just going to set some guidelines for myself.

For example, I am not letting myself work more than 6 hours in a day. The rest of my day is going to be dedicated to mental and physical healing. I am also going to be going back to my Paleo eating plan. It really does help me with my overall well being and helps with some of my medical conditions. Plus, there is a huge sense of accomplishment for me in sticking to that.

Because of physical limitations and pain, exercise is slightly harder for me. There used to be nothing I loved more than going to the gym and specifically working on the elliptical, but I can't do that anymore. I have always loved yoga. I love the mind body connection that yoga provides. I started doing yoga when I was in kindergarten and was in the adult class in 1st grade. I loved it. I haven't done it in quite a while. I am going to start doing at least 20 minutes of yoga a day gradually building my pain tolerance up to hopefully being able to handle full hour sessions or more.

One new thing that I want to introduce is meditation. I have read amazing studies about the benefits of meditation and know people that swear by it. I plan on starting with guided meditation and working myself up to being able to reach a meditative state on my own.

The final thing has to do with sleep. Because of pain, and my own issues with insomnia and anxiety, I have a very hard time getting any regular sleep. I have had to adapt to the "sleep when I can" sort of mindset and that often results in the only sleep I get being between 3pm and 7pm which is not healthy. I am going to try my hardest to be in bed ready to sleep by midnight. I have an app on my phone which has been the only thing that has ever helped me. It is a voice guided relaxation app and it has done wonders for me. I believe it was $1.99. There is also a free version that is great to start. I have since purchased a few extension. In all I have spent less than $10 on this app and it has changed my life. I haven't been using it as much recently and I plan to use it to get to sleep every night from now on. It is also amazing if you suffer from anxiety attacks like I do. I recently used it on a plane ride and it stopped my anxiety attack.

I hope you guys like more of this sort of post because this is the stage that I am at in my life right now and this is more of what Mondays are going to be about. But don't worry, I will still be blogging about beauty, music and everything else.

I have a challenge for everyone today. Make a list of things that you want to work on to make yourself a better you, and then under it, make a list of small things you can do to work to achieve them. If you do this I would love to see them, so please tweet them to me! Hope you are all having a great day. See you tomorrow.

Concerts

It is probably no secret that there is not much in my life that I love than a good concert. The problem is that they are SO expensive. So I thought that today I would give you a list of some of the best concerts I have been to and ones that are worth the money for sure!

One of, if not the all time, best concerts I have ever been to is Ed Sheeran. I saw his first US headlining show and Passenger opened for him. The entire experience was amazing. I went with my parents and one of my friends and to this day, almost 2 years later, we are all still talking about it

Along the same lines, after about a 6 year wait, I finally saw Taylor Swift live. It was a comedy of errors with tickets. I didn't get presale or general sale and had a complete emotional breakdown. There were no tickets to be gotten anywhere. Then the miracle came. I was picked for pit tickets. This meant I was in the stage. I was front row. Taylor Swift grabbed my hand. Just let that sink in for a minute. Ed Sheeran was the opening act so it made it even more amazing. She puts on an incredible show to be topped in production by very few.

I have seen Demi Lovato 3 times now. Each show has been better than the previous. Most recently I saw her Neon Lights tour and had floor seats. It was an overall amazing show. Demi was flawless in her vocals as always which was extra impressive because she was extremely sick which I knew from soundcheck. The high light of the day for me was getting to hang out with Little Mix before the show for a while. If you don't know my connection to the band you may want to check out this post. They also put on an amazing show and Jesy even pointed at me and sang one line of one of their songs that applied to what I had told them directly to me.

Because this post could drag on for hours, I think I am going to cap it at one more band. I have seen We The Kings 3(?) times in the last year and will be seeing them twice more in the next month and a half. These guys put on a SHOW. They are so high energy and so talented. All of the member are fantastic, although I am partial to Charles because I have watched him on YouTube for the last 5 years.  Travis, the lead singer is talented enough to make anyone not want to sing again. Danny is one of the best drummers I have ever seen. Hunter and Coley hold down the rhythm flawlessly, sidenote, I have also never seen anyone with as much energy on stage as Coley.

I hope that this helps a little bit in reviewing some concerts and you will be able to choose wisely where to spend your money. You can't go wrong with ANY of the people I mentioned in this post.

Nordstrom Wishlist!

I am so excited. I am going to a huge mall about an hour away this weekend! Don't get me wrong, we have two malls in my town, but they are both small and pretty awful. I was given a $50 Nordstrom giftcard from a family friend back in November and I am finally going to get to use it! I decided to do a little "pre-shopping" and come up with a list of things I am interested in and ask your opinions on them, so, here we go. I will preface this with these are all totally splurge purchases that I never would have made without a gift card, but that is the fun of it!

The first one I am considering is this Dolce and Gabbana Smooth Eye Shadow Duo in 107 Gems. It seems like the epitome of a splurge to me. I am going to have to test the formulation at the counter to see if I like it because at $43.00, it would use most of my card. 

The next one that I am considering is this Bobbi Brown  Apricot Shimmer Brick Palette. I believe it is meant to be used as a sort of shimmery bronzer? I am not sure to be completely honest. I do love the colors, however, and think they could make amazing eye shadows. Once again, I'll have to test it in the store. This one runs $42.00.

This one is a limited edition Burburry Eyeshadow Palette called Summer Splash in Midday Sun. This caught my attention right away because the blue that is in this palette is one of my all time favorite colors. I think that blended properly with the other colors in this palette it could look amazing! This one is $47.00

Yes, I am considering joining the beauty cult. I have heard this product raved about so many times I am thinking that it mat be time to give it a try. This cult favorite that I am talking about is the Chanel VitaLumiere Aqua Ultra Light Skin Perfecting Foundation. I have never spent this much on a foundation but it is getting to a point where I think if I want to keep my skin happy, I am going to have to. Not as high as I would have expected, however, at $45.00.

Oh my how I love Clinique Eyeliners. I got a sample once from Sephora. It was a full size. I believe that was the closest thing to a miracle I have every personally experienced. I particularly love the "Quickliner for Eyes" Intense Eyeliner Pencil in Intense Ebony. It is a slight splurge for eyeliner at $16.00, but well worth it. 

I am fairly certain it is going to be one of or a combination of these products. The only thing that is tempting is that I could get 5 Mac eyeshadows instead. That is very tempting to a Mac addict like me. I guess we will find out when I get there on Saturday. 

Here is the question, if you were turned lose in Nordstrom's beauty department with about $50 ( I will probably add some of my own money) what would you get? Let me know! You can leave a comment or tweet me @lovefromkelsey! Thanks! 

Making Money on Your Own

Today I am going to talk about something a little different. I want to clarify right off of the top that I am going to be talking about a specific site but this is in NO WAY sponsored (I wish...).

About 7 months ago I found myself a month post-surgery with no job and concert tickets I wanted to buy, yes, I know, teenager problems. I started looking online for work opportunities. I spent about a week doing those god-awful "paid" surveys. I think in total I made 18 cents. I realized really quickly that was not going to cut it. Almost by accident, I stumbled across a site called Elance. It is a site for virtual freelancing.

If you are someone like me and have taught yourself computer skills or are a trained graphic designer or writer, there are lots of jobs to be found! I did a lot of graphic work before switching to blog writing for other sites. It has been an amazing experience. I have recently been working as a virtual personal assistant. There is something for almost anyone.

There are multiple levels of accounts, I personally have the free one. It has been enough for me to this point but I am considering upgrading now. What I love is that I can get jobs that fit into my already insane school and work schedule. 

If you want to give it a try for free (which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND) you can use this link. It requires NO CREDIT CARD or anything annoying like that. By using this link you also get 10 free connects which are what you use to apply for jobs. https://www.elance.com/?rid=2FKA3  (make sure you verify your email and phone number so you get the little approved check thing and more people will hire you)

I hope that this helps some of you. I know how hard it can be to make any money and this is a fantastic way to use your skills from home.

Hope you are having a wonderful day! I'll see you tomorrow!

14 days until LA

The Thing I Hate The Most In Life!!! (That may be a tad dramatic)

Have you missed me? I have certainly missed you all. As you can probably infer, I do all of my work either from my laptop or from my iPhone. Well, last week, BOTH BROKE! Now, I have been saving for VidCon to the point as not as much as replacing my tic tacs when I ran out this week and then I got hit with two $160 repair bills!!! It was awful! However, due to the overwhelming graciousness of my parents, they are both now working and I can resume blog posts and videos. I will be taking this weekend to film a TON so that I can edit while I am at work, (I started a new nanny job but most of the time I just have to be there so there is a ton of time), I can also prewrite posts while there.

I leave for LA in 18 days and I am so excited. I am going on a major shopping trip (with money that has been set aside) on Sunday and I am getting outfits for the trip as well as my performance.

Yes.

You heard correctly.

I am performing at VidCon!

If you are going to be there and would like to see me debut my first single, make sure to be at the stage outside at 12:50 pm on Saturday, June 28th! There is also an incredibly special person introducing me and I have to say that I cried when I found out.

I hope you are having an amazing day and will continue to have a fantastic weekend and I will see you all on Monday!

Blog and Video Scheduling

Oh my dear, this is been quite a week for me and technology. First my cell phone broke, now my laptop is dead. If this continues I should be completely cut off from the world by tomorrow. I am not able to make videos and put them up because I do not have a computer or editing software. This is become very frustrating for me but fortunately I am able to continue blogging from my iPhone. As many of you will know, I am headed out to Anaheim California in just under a month for VidCon. Because of this, I have been having to plan out all of my videos and blog post until after I get back. This has resulted in me getting very very very good with my schedule. I thought that I would share my method for staying on top of all of my online content with you. When I first started online, I was very overwhelmed by trying to keep a good schedule. It has taken me years to get to a place where I have a system that works well for me and I know that my system will not work for everyone. For me, the key is not figuring out the video or blog post the day that I want to make them. If I end up doing that, there is no post it all. Or else, I and up doing something off the top of my head and it is never as good as what's been planned. I have tried many different things to stay on top of my schedule and it hasn't been until recently that I have found something that truly works for me. I thought that today, I would share that system with you.

For me the first thing, is to keep an actual written paper schedule. If I tried to keep everything on my computer or my phone it honestly does not work as well for me. I typically by a couple of planners to use some for my every day life for my work life and for my blogging and video life. If you shop during an off time at the bookstore you can get date planners for very very inexpensive. I purchased mine from Books-A-Million and it is the perfect size to be able to take with me on the go. I also make sure to get one that I like the color and design of because it makes it much easier for me to use. This is the one that I'm using currently.

 

I have found that I work best with a color coded system. I use colored ink pens to differentiate different content. I use purple for my LoveFromKelsey channel, pink for this blog and blue for my KelsTalks channel. 

I try to keep things planned out a month in advance. Right now I am planned through a week after I get home from my LA trip. 

I hope that some of this might help you in some way, I know that other people's scheduling and organization posts helped me a lot over the last few years. 

Until my computer comes back to me from the laptop hospital, this will probably be the place to find me since I can not post videos. You can also find me on my social media.

Thanks! Let me know if you have any scheduling tips. 

Transformations

I was looking through some old photos on Facebook today and I came across some that made me cringe. It got me thinking, how amazing is it that our bodies and faces change all on their own? Very cool. I thought that I might share some before/after sort of pictures and let you all laugh at the awkward pre-junior year Kelsey.

To show that I think it has gotten a little better, here are some more recent pics. I'll let you decide. 

This just goes to show, no matter how awkward you look now, there is always hope. At least I like to think so. I feel like I look better than I did in the first set!

I know this was kind of a throw away post, but it was something that was on my mind so I thought I would write about it! 

A Few of My Favorite Things || Perfume Collection

I went through the first 14 years of my life thinking that all perfume smelled like over saturated flowers and that it was only something worn by old ladies. You can imagine my surprise when I entered the world of beauty and found the amazing world that in Perfume. Because of my earlier exposure, I find myself drawn to more fruity, light scents and less intense floral ones. I have come across a couple in the last few years that I absolutely love.

The first was a 16th birthday present from my parents. I got a sample of it because Taylor Swift is one of my favorite singers in the world. I was surprised to find that I was completely in love with the smell. It is light and fruity with some slight floral notes and a little bit of sweetness. When I got a full sized bottle of Wonderstruck by Taylor Swift for my birthday it made me ecstatic. I also have some travel sized sprays of it that are perfect for travel and my bag.

The bottle is also as cute as can be and I love displaying it on my vanity.

There is a fun and slightly emotional story behind my next favorite. I had wanted to get Lady Gaga's Fame since I got a sample in my Ulta catalog. At the time I wasn't working because of my health and had no money to get it so I put it off. When I got to open for Little Mix in Miami (if you don't know the story, you can read it here) I decided that I was going to treat myself while shopping and buy the $20 roller ball. I was in Sephora about to get it when they showed me a set with a full 3.4 oz bottle and roller ball for a great price, but I couldn't justify spending the money. My parents bought it for me as a gift to remember that amazing weekend. Now, every time that I wear it, I get brought back to that weekend and it makes me instantly happy. 

The scent is edgy but still light and I think the bottle is very pretty. While I was in New Jersey this winter I found a sale set that had a 1.7 oz bottle, a roller ball and the matching lotion for $22. I now wear this almost every day and don't have to worry about running out soon!

Those two are the ones I wear the most but I have a few that I use when I am looking to switch it up.

The first was a gift from when a family friend went to Italy. Being as picky as I am about scents, I didn't think I would like it. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the floral scent.

I don't use this as much because it irritates my dad's allergies, but when I am going to be out for the whole day, I like to wear this one for a nice change.

The Stila Mandarin Mist roller ball was also a gift. It came in a set of three but this one is my favorite. I keep this in my bag and use it on days when I run out of the house without putting any perfume on. It is a great mix of fruity and floral but still light enough to wear on a regular basis. I don't know if this is still available because it was a limited edition set, but you may be able to find it!

This last one I got many years ago and I doubt is still available. It was a freebie from Seventeen Magazine if you brought the ad into an Aeropostale store. It is a very sweet, citrus scent and was perfect for me at 14. It is still nice if I feel like something a little more fun.

What are your go to scents? Are there any that you avoid like the plague? Let me know! I am always looking for new ones and also looking for ones to keep away from! Thanks for reading, I'll see you tomorrow!

I Have an Addiction

We need to talk. It is time to come clean about a problem I have. I have an addiction to merch bracelets. All joking aside, any time I am at a concert or event, I get a bracelet. They are my favorite souvenirs because you can wear them all the time and are typically very inexpensive. Today, I thought I would share part of my collection with you!

Tyler Ward Concert Bracelet

From the Taylor Swift Red Tour

Unfortunately, not from a concert, just a favorite band of mine, Sleeping With Sirens.

Both of these were bought at the We The Kings concert in Orlando last month.

Bracelet I bought at Playlist Live 2014

A fun Peace bracelet from Target

This was from a documentary I really connected with.

These were passed out at both Playlist Lives that I have been at. I am both a gamer and a geek so I was happy to take some.

My personal favorite, my CTFxC ribbon bracelet. Not only is Charles Trippy my idol, but the money went to brain cancer research. 

Once again, sadly not from a concert. A Paramore bracelet from Hot Topic (I am, however, finally seeing them live after almost 10 years this summer)

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my addiction *ahem* collection of bracelets. What do you collect? If there a type of souvineer that you always love to buy? I also love getting key chains and postcards.