Positive thinking Thursday: 15 powerful Jim Rohn quotes

Feel like you need a little motivation? Let's look at 15 powerful quotes by the legendary Jim Rohn to get you inspired.

Positive thinking Thursdays: get motivated for success

Happy new year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everybody's holidays went well. In the spirit of the season I've decided to share my New Years resolutions (and blog about them periodically as we progress with our goals throughout the year).

Aside from getting our general existence more organized, re-vamping our grocery budget is a major goal of mine. We've been bad about eating fast food way too often up until recently. Cooking at home will be more friendly to both our wallets and our waistlines. I am not exactly a seasoned pro in the kitchen, so I'm actually very excited to expand our current menu to have more variety & overall nutrition. It'll be fun to learn how to cook different foods.

I will post about our adventures in organizing and at-home cooking as we get along. It should be an interesting year and I'm excited to be sharing it with all of you!

<3

Fun Diy T-shirt Bracelets: it's time for cute & easy indoor projects!

The seasons are changing and it's time to rotate out our closets: in with the warm cozy winter gear, up and away with the tanks and tees.  Finding a few tees that look too ratty for future wear?  No problem!  Here's some fun ways to upcycle those shirts.  (Added bonus: it gives you something fun to do indoors where it's nice and warm)

Yes, I'm sure you could simply cut your shirt into strips and braid them together, but just doing that gets old after a while.  So, I've gone around the web and found you a few projects to get your creative juices flowing.  These bracelets add a little something extra to make them out of the ordinary.

Make Money Mondays: Sell Your Used Books

Fall is in the air again.  The "spring" cleaning bug always nips me in the butt when the weather starts cooling off again.  I think there's 3 reasons for this:

1. It's finally cool enough to clean without feeling like I'm melting.
2. It's time to start pulling out the cool weather clothes, which means more organizing.
3. It's much more pleasant to envision the upcoming holiday decorating season without having to think about what to do with a bunch of clutter sitting around.

One way to kick-start a good seasonal house cleaning is to gather up a bunch of stuff you don't want or use anymore and get rid of it.  If you're anything like me, chances are you have a bunch of books sitting around that you never read.  They could be lurking in your bookshelf or maybe there's a stack of books sitting somewhere collecting dust.  Clear up some extra space by selling them.

If you find that you've accumulated a decent amount of clutter aside from just books, check out a list of ideas to make some money by selling your old things.  




First, gather up your books:
Check through your bookshelves, storage spaces, etc.  Look for all books that you really don't have a need for.  Maybe it's a textbook from last semester or a novel you don't plan on re-reading.

Cautionary note:

• If you're getting rid of textbooks, make sure that you won't actually need the information in this book for future classes.  
• If your book is an antique, signed, or collectible edition: be sure to look for buyers who specialize in antique or collectible books to get maximum profit
• If your book is damaged, many buyers (especially online) won't be as likely to purchase your book.  This might seem to go without saying, but it is always worthwhile to find out the damaged book policies that your buyer has.  Each buyer has different rules and some may not return your books to you if they feel that the books are in too poor of a condition to sell.

Where do I sell books?

Shop around.  Compare offers from various sources. 

Often, it is best to check with your local used book stores first.  It's common for used book stores to offer more money for used books than most websites. 

If you prefer selling them online, there are tons of sites out there.  Not all of them are buying the same books so if one site doesn't take your book, check with another.  Most of the time, shipping is free because the sites that buy books will send you postage-paid shipping labels to use when sending books to them.  Some sites have a minimum cashout amount though, so keep that in mind.

Here are a few sites to get you started:

Alibris.com

Half.com - owned by ebay

eBay.com - has special section for "antiquarian and collectable" books

Abebooks.com

Textbooksrus

Amazon
 

Getting Out of a Slump by Taking Control of Your Life

I'm sure you've been there before.  Everyone gets those moments where they don't feel 100%.  Instead of your usual self, you feel more lethargic, listless, or just generally unhappy.  You might feel drained of energy, stressed out, or overwhelmed by your situation.  Sometimes it lasts for a couple of days, weeks, months, or even years. Instead of letting it take over your life, it's time to do something about it.

8 Amazingly Easy and Adorable Diy Nail Art Ideas

Since we covered getting a perfect diy french manicure the easy way in a previous post, I thought I'd get together a link roundup to share some super easy nail ideas. All of these ideas can be created with tape or by adding polka dots!  So cute yet so simple.

The creative genius behind the Nail Stories blog did her own twist to the nautical mani for those of you who enjoy thin striping.  I think it turned out amazing!  She just used nail striping tape to make the stripes.  If you're patient, you could use the trick from our scotch tape manicure to paint on stripes instead.  It will take a little bit longer to do but won't require fussing with that sometimes aggravating striping tape. If you're looking for inspiration, she has tons upon tons of pictures on her blog page of nail art that she's done.  There really is some great stuff on there.  She doesn't go full tutorial mode, but if you're the creative recreate-it-yourself type, Nail Stories has some great inspiration.