Hellooo everyone and TGIF! This week marks the end of my fall semester at Tri-C and I am SO relieved to be done! I took all of my exams within these last few days and passed with flying colors, of course. This semester I took French I, Comparative World Religions, Intro to Civilizations, and Ethics and for the most part really enjoyed all of my classes. After my winter break, I’ll be taking French II, Abnormal Psychology, and Intro to Criminology – but I have an entire month until I have to start thinking about that!
I’m looking forward to having some downtime for once in my life during my winter break but not too much because I’ll be starting my new work opportunity this upcoming Saturday! As I mentioned in my previous post Exciting Announcements, I’ll be taking part in a research project as an interviewer for families effected by developmental disabilities. I’m so excited to get started and the beauty of the project is that I can make my own schedule for it so I can interview people whenever I want during my break. This is great for the days where I feel like lounging on the couch and watching America’s Next Top Model marathons!
I have a lot of friends returning to Ohio for the holidays so my winter break provides me with a lot of much needed catch up time with some of my dear friends. My brother and his wife will be coming home for Christmas. A pal of mine in LA will be returning to the home front AND my beloved best friend in the army, Tyler, will be making an appearance, as well! I’M SO HAPPY!!!
In the last couple of weeks of my fall semester, all I could think about was winter break…But that didn’t stop me from fully enjoying all of my classes! I learned so much in each of my courses and rocked straight A’s for days in all of them. Not only did I excel in my coursework but I also got accepted into two different advertising companies, Wordads and Twistfire Media, which I am SO thrilled about. Everything seems to be falling into place very nicely so with a happy heart, I can say So Long to my Fall Semester!
I hope all of you are having a fantastic start to your weekend! Where are all of my college kids at? Has your winter break started yet? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Hellooo everyone and happy Hump Day! A few weeks ago I applied for an interviewing position for families effected by developmental disabilities. I would get to chat with the family for a half hour or so and report my findings so that they can be provided with the best services possible for them. Well, yesterday I received an email that I was one of the fifty applicants accepted out of over five hundred for the position!!
Next weekend I’ll be making a two hour trek to Columbus for a day of paid training and then I can be on my merry way with the program. It promises to be a great opportunity and I’m so excited to get started! I was so happy to have heard back from the company because I had given up hope on earning a position with them! The timing couldn’t be better, either, considering my winter break from Tri-C starts next week! It looks like homegirl won’t have to scrounge around for a short lived retail job for my month off! 🙂
You’ll notice in the title of this post that Announcement was plural, so yes, I have one more cool happenstance to share with you guys. As you know if you follow lifewithlilred, I started working for Twistfire Media last week. Things are going fantastic as you might have read from my post about it! Someone pretty special to the company also happened to stumble upon the article, as well…The president of Twistfire!!
Yesterday when I was with Kyle, I checked my email and saw that I had a new message with the subject “Blog Post”. I opened the email and saw the sweetest memo from Twistfire’s very own president thanking me for my post and also giving a shout out as a fellow redhead. I was SO surprised and proud as I read through the email and it made me even happier to start working for a media company where the founders have a genuine interest in you and your work. Thanks again, Mr. President! (And if you’d like to know more about working for Twistfire Media, you can email me at sarah.mush6794@gmail.com)
So there you have it, this week’s Exciting Announcements compliments of Lil Red! Who else has some exciting news to share? What was the best news that you’ve received this month? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
^^^ That pretty much sums up how I’m feeling! 🙂
Hey everyone and happy Tuesday! This past weekend I was SO happy to finally finish my Christmas shopping! I got a vast majority of my shopping done at Kohl’s, TJMaxx, and some local shops in downtown Kent. But this weekend, I broke out the big guns and let Amazon take care of the rest. I ended up saving a lot of precious time and moolah this year thanks to smart shopping and all I can say is…I’m glad it’s over. Let’s discuss:
I was really pleased with all of the items that I bought in person and because I had lots of great coupons and gift cards, I was able to save a lot of money, too! But after spreading the wealth in stores, I knew that there were things that would just be simply easier to buy online. That’s when Amazon and a beautiful gift card that my mom got from work came in.
I affectionately call myself the “Queen of the Amazon” because I really am. Give me an hour on that site and I’ll have a shopping cart full of the perfect gifts for everyone on my list. I spent some time writing out ideas of what to get everyone who I still needed to shop for and then I logged on to Amazon to browse what might work for each of them.
When I’m doing a big online shopping haul, I have a tried and true technique that I return to year after year:
Step 1) Make a handwritten list of gift ideas.
Step 2) Browse the ideas on Amazon and bookmark anything that might work.
Step 3) Mull it over.
Step 4) Return to the site a few days later to make your final decisions.
I bookmarked so many items on Amazon that I lost count and ended up forgetting a lot of the things that I had saved. But that’s the beauty of expanding your options far and wide. Because I picked out so many possibilities, there were only a chosen few items that I really remembered and those were the ones that I ended up going with each time. I’m all about picking items that are memorable, useful, and relevant to the person that I’m shopping for.
After I had time to think of each gift, I returned to Amazon one last time to make my final decisions. This is when I start the nitpicking. I look for the best price on the product, an item that will ship for free, and the one with the best reviews and ratings. My rating rule of thumb is that if it has less than four stars overall, then I don’t even consider it.
Once I’m 150% sure that I have the perfect gift for the best price, I add the item to the cart and repeat the process for the next product. Thanks to this ballin on a budget method, I ended up spending under one hundred dollars for SEVEN items and still had cash to spare on the gift card! Nice!
Thanks to smart shopping, coupons, gift cards, and having a keen eye for the best deal, I ended up spending a grand total of…Eighty dollars of my own money for multiple gifts for seven people! Not bad, not bad at all!
I can’t say what I got for everyone because you never know who’s tuning in to lifewithlilred! BUT, I know for a fact that my dad doesn’t read my blog so I can say that I’m pretty excited for what I got him! My dad loves to travel and plans fantastic vacations so one of the gifts that I got him will definitely come in handy…A brand new atlas for 2016, which will be a vast improvement of his torn and used 2005 atlas that has never been updated. I think that after eleven years an upgrade was much needed! 🙂
I’m All Done Christmas Shopping and I couldn’t be happier! Now it’s time to sit back and relax until it’s time to start wrapping all of the presents up! Who is all done with their holiday shopping? Where do you usually do all of your shopping at? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Heyyy everyone and TGIF!! This past week I started working for a new advertising company called Twistfire Media. I got invited to work for the company by a friend of my sister’s because she knows that I have a pretty strong social media presence and I am so glad that she did! Basically, I run different ads on my personal Facebook page as well as on my page for lifewithlilred and I get paid per click on each ad. Take a look:
If you like the way that the ads look on my pages and would like to become a member of Twistfire, you can email me at sarah.mush6794@gmail.com. These ads can run on your Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest accounts and they’re pretty cool! You can pick which campaigns to feature and you can run as many as your little heart desires. If you’re a prominent player in the world of social media then Twistfire is the perfect company for you!
Once again, if you’re interested in becoming a member of Twistfire Media, you can email me at sarah.mush6794@gmail.com or shoot me a message on either of my Facebook pages. While you’re at it PLEASE like my Facebook page!! What is everyone up to this weekend? Any big plans? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Helloooo everyone and happy Tuesday! Most of you guys know that before I started school I worked hella retail. My days were spent slaving away in PacSun, The Body Shop, Claire’s, Piercing Pagoda, and Next for what seemed like an eternity. This year, however, I’m so excited to not work a holiday season in the mall. After working five Black Fridays in a row – I am officially free from the evil clutches of the mall during the holidays! SCORE!
On Saturday, my sister and I took a trip to the mall so she could make a few returns and do some shopping. As soon as we entered the premises, we were greeted by Christmas music, decorations, and a mall that was jam packed for an early November evening. Seriously, just being in that environment gave me anxiety and as far as I was concerned, we couldn’t leave soon enough.
Being in the mall among all of the really early holiday shoppers who seemed to be just as crazy as the last minute gift grabbers reminded me how thankful I am that I can finally have a holiday season to enjoy with my friends and family. When I worked retail I can’t remember one holiday season that I genuinely enjoyed because I was too wrapped up in working crazy hours and dealing with insane customers. This year, I don’t have to worry about going into the mall on Thanksgiving day to work a thirteen hour Black Friday shift. I also don’t have to be at the mall late on Christmas Eve to tend to everyone’s final holiday needs and clean the trashed store to perfection. *sigh of relief*
When you’re working every minute of the months of November through January, you simply forget that those times are meant to be for your loved ones. The thing that I’m most looking forward to is actually having a Thanksgiving. For the past five years my Thanksgivings were spent counting down the hours till my Black Friday shift and trying to cram in some power naps before the insanity unfolded. This year I’ll be able to help cook, prepare the table, and spend quality time with my family and boyfriend. It’s going to feel so good but SO strange because I’m completely not used to relaxing during a holiday – what does that even mean?!
I’m so thankful for everything that my years of hard work provided me with before I started college. I was able to buy my car (Little Red Love Machine!), buy clothes, purchase gifts for others, and put money towards my tuition. But this year, I am so ready to sit back, relax, and enjoy a glorious Retail Free Holiday Season! I hope everyone is having a fabulous week so far! Have any of you worked retail during the holidays? Do you have any funny/traumatic moments to share? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
PS: My traumatic story to share from a very retail holiday season doesn’t deal so much with me as it does an unfortunate Victoria’s Secret employee who got punched THREE YEARS IN A ROW during Black Friday. #threepeat
Helloooo everyone and happy Tuesday! Good news: I’m feeling much better after this past weekend’s concussion catastrophe and now everything is smooth sailing as usual. My fall semester at Tri-C will be done in about a month or so and let me tell you, I am SO ready for it! I have officially hit the end of semester slump so hard to the point that I had to motivate myself with buying a Starbucks drink yesterday before class to get myself to go, haha it’s that bad! 😉
I’m currently taking French I, Comparative World Religions, and History of Civilization this semester and have already completed a half semester Ethics course. My classes are alright for the most part aside from History. It’s a half a semester course as well and I have such an ungodly amount of homework to do each week for it…It sucks. I do like history, but the only reason I decided to take the class was because it was a prerequisite for a course specifically about WWII, which is my favorite thing to learn about. But unfortunately, when I went to schedule my spring classes I found out that the course was not offered online and it can only be taken on a campus that’s even farther than the forty minute drive I already make to my campus. I was SO PISSED! Had I known that, I would have never signed up for the history class to begin with and stuck with something that I really enjoy like Psychology or Theater.
Speaking of the spring semester, I am very excited for the classes that I registered for last week. I’ll be taking French II, Abnormal Psychology, and Introduction to Criminology. I’m looking forward to continuing my work in French and I’m lucky because my current French professor is teaching French II and I just love her! It will definitely be nice to be able to pick up where we left off in the fall. As I mentioned earlier, I love Psychology so I was so excited to see that Tri-C offers a course on all of the strange and unusual that goes on in the brain with Abnormal Psychology. I also was pretty pumped to see that an Introduction to Criminology course was offered from a sociological stand point so it was a no brainer to sign up for that too!
Other than my semi-boring history course, my fall semester has treated me very well. I’ve been repping straight A’s for days and made myself an awesome spring schedule to look forward to next semester! Then by the end of next fall, I’ll be officially graduated with my Associate of Arts degree! Yippy!
You know how I said my history course has an ungodly amount of homework? Yeah, this post may or may not be a procrastination tactic on that so I guess I should probably get to it! I hope all of you are having a fantastic week so far! Where are all of my college kids at? How is your fall semester going? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Hellooo everyone and happy Saturday! You guys may have noticed that http://www.lifewithlilred.com is looking a bit different now and I’m here to tell you why: I got accepted for WordAds!!!! Because I got accepted for ads to run on my site, I had to select a new theme that was more compatible with the positions and amount of the ads that will be featured on lifewithlilred. I’m going to miss my old Reddle theme because I’ve had it ever since I started blogging over a year ago but in these next few weeks, I’ll be doing everything I can to get lifewithlilred back to looking semi-normal again!
Until I can figure out how I want my blog arranged, all I ask is that you be patient with me because lifewithlilred is officially being reconstructed. If you have any suggestions on ways to improve the appearance of my site, PLEASE let me know! I’m currently using the theme Matala but I’m open to any suggestions on what WordAds compatible theme you might recommend! What theme does your site use? Who else is a member of the WordAds team? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Howdy everyone and happy Monday! I hope all of you had a fantastic Halloween weekend, I sure did! You know why I had a great weekend? Because for the most part I did absolutely nothing for the first time in weeks and it was AWESOME! Now that I’m all relaxed and ready to go, I’m here to bring you the Monday Update for the week so you guys can be on the Look Out for some exciting posts coming up in the near future!
Trades Of Hope: I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of my dear friends, Sarah White, to chat about the company that she works for, Trades Of Hope. TOH employs female artisans in third world countries and pays them a fair living wage for the creation of their beautiful accessories, home decor, and beauty items. On Tuesday, you can tune into http://www.lifewithlilred.com for the full article and the link to Sarah’s site where she’ll be hosting a TOH party for the next few weeks. When you make purchases through the party you have the opportunity to win free or discounted items and I strongly urge you to take advantage of it because everything is gorgeous! I was gifted with the Kala Necklace from Sarah and I’m obsessed! Take a look:
My necklace was made by artisans in India and I love it so much! Once again, I’ll be posting the article this Tuesday and the links for the party will be provided in the post!
John Patrick Halling: This past Thursday I was so excited to sit down and chat with an extremely talented musician fresh out of Kent, Ohio, John Patrick Halling. John Patrick is a blues/folk/country hybrid artist and he is simply fantastic. During our meeting we chatted about everything from his most recent tour (the Boy in the Water US tour), his style on stage, and what influences him as an artist and musician. Everything during our get together was just swell, until…..
Until I made the biggest fool of myself of all time!! When I meet with new clients, our talks usually happen interview style and I record everything on a Word document on my laptop. Basically, they talk and I type. John Patrick and I chatted for a solid thirty-five to forty minutes and once I had everything I needed, I told him he was good to go. We packed up our belongings and I said something along the lines of “let me save and exit” the document. Unfortunately, a classic case of “I shouldn’t have clicked that” happened because instead of saving and exiting, I accidentally just clicked exit. It was one of those things where you do what you were saying because you were saying it and since I had “exit” on my mind and tongue, it just kind of happened…It. Was. AWFUL.
Thankfully, John Patrick was SO nice about it and I was able to recall almost everything we talked about from memory. I stayed at the Starbucks we met at after he left and retyped everything and ended up with more than I started with. As soon as I got home, I got a draft of the article ready to go and the only things that needed corrected were the brand name of a hat, the location of a venue that he played a show at, and the name of a city. Since those were the only things that didn’t ring true, I’d say I did pretty well!
I’m so happy that the article is looking good so far but you guys have no idea how embarrassing it was! My best friend, Lea, and I have discussed how difficult it is to think of a moment that was truly cringe worthy but I think I found it with that unfortunate incident. But fear not! The article is almost done and is set to publish mid-November when John Patrick releases his music video for “If I Would’ve Known”. Until then, you can check out his music at: http://johnpatrickhalling.com/#/ and make sure you give his Facebook page a like at: https://www.facebook.com/JPHallingMusic/?fref=ts ! Seriously guys, make sure you give his music a listen because it really is wonderful and stay tuned for the article on Mister Halling which will be coming out soon!
^^^ My life.
So there you have it, this week’s Monday Update: Look Out Edition! I’m so excited to share these upcoming posts with you and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did working on them! How was everyone’s Halloween weekend? What did you do to celebrate? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
Howdy everyone and happy Tuesday! It’s my 450th post here on http://www.lifewithlilred.com so I just wanted to take the time to thank all of my fantastic readers for their continuous love and support! As you can see by my featured image photo, my reader map is growing nicely as is my amount of followers! Over 750?! What even?! You guys are awesome, seriously.
There are a lot of really fun posts coming up which I’m so excited to share with you all soon! In fact, I’ll be starting a new one tonight for one of my clients that I think all of my jewelry lovers on here will appreciate. Which brings me to the next thing that I want to bring up…As you guys know by now, I freelance write through my blog for local artists, businesses, and musicians in the Akron, Ohio neck of the woods. So if any of you ever need any type of advertising for your product, art, music, or anything else that you can think of, please let me know!
You can get in touch with me in an abundance of ways, like:
Leaving me a comment on this post
Emailing me at: sarah.mush6794@gmail.com
Sending me a friend request on Facebook at: Sarah Mushenheim
If you plan on friend requesting me on Facebook, I do insist that you shoot me a message to let me know that you’re one of my readers. Usually I end up deleting the request when I get one from people who I have no mutual friends with or who don’t live in my general area. Once you contact me we can discuss the post, payment, and whatever else you might need! 🙂
I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far, I know I am! Who’s excited for the new episode of American Horror Story: Hotel tomorrow? Whose blog should I immediately start following? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
PS: Make sure you give my Facebook page a like! Pretty please?!
Hiii guys! I hope you’re having an awesome start to your week so far! So on Friday I had the pleasure of seeing my friends in Millstone perform as the openers for Hawthorne Heights at The Outpost in Kent, Ohio. I got to spend the day with the band and my boyfriend, Kyle, and it was honestly one of the best times I’ve had in a long time. Take a listen to Millstone’s debut full length album, The Dreams We Don’t Remember, and then let’s discuss:
Kyle and I had a somewhat early day on Friday, because we had to drive from Canton to Highland Square in Akron to meet up with the Millstone boys to help assemble all of their equipment for the show. Lucky for me, since I was the only girl all I had to do was watch as the guys did all of the grunt work! I did carry a few guitars though, so I guess you can say that I helped. 😉 After a break for a late Chipotle lunch, we (and by we I mean everyone but me) gathered the last of the amps and instruments into various cars and headed for The Outpost.
Once we arrived at the venue, all of the gear had to be hauled out of the car and onto the stage so everything was ready for the big show. A lot of other local bands were performing as well so tons of musicians were already there preparing for their set upon our arrival. It was basically like being in a co-ed fraternity for musicians and their friends. Thanks to the helping hands of people at The Outpost and the adrenaline for the evening kicking in, we were able to unload the car in record speed, which left us enough time to get some margaritas at Salsita’s, a Mexican restaurant down the street.
It was so much fun hanging out with the band, mutual friends, and my man in such a relaxed environment after a semi stressful afternoon. We got hella pitchers of raspberry margaritas and enjoyed our time out until the Millstone members had to get back to the venue. By the time we got back to The Outpost, bands were already performing on the multiple stages in the building. Kyle and I opted for a spot out on the patio where we had some time to kill with friends for two or so hours until Millstone was ready for their set. We had a few more drinks and I got to meet a lot of Kyle’s friends who I’ve heard so much about, so that was awesome!
Millstone was due to perform at 9:30 and we were all getting really excited. By the time they were getting themselves together on stage, I was lightweight freaking out from happiness for them. The last time I wrote about Millstone, their guitarist, Adam, told me that he would love to have the band eventually open for Hawthorne Heights and here they were a few months later doing the damn thing! Millstone one hundred and fifty percent annihilated their set. They sounded so amazing and were so much fun to watch. It was so cool to see their music come to life off of their album and to see all of the guys let their individual personalities shine through on stage. Millstone killed it like no other and I was so proud to be watching them in the audience.
After an amazing performance by my friends, it was time for Hawthorne Heights to take the stage. As I mentioned before, I saw HH live when I was sixteen or so and it was awesome. All of my emo kid fantasies of meeting the band and crying to “Ohio Is For Lovers” came true that night, so needless to say, I was pretty fucking stoked to see them again…And then, Hawthorne Heights appeared on stage…Oh.
As soon as the guys came on, I only recognized two of the band mates who I originally saw all of those years ago, which was kind of disappointing – but don’t even get me started on their appearances. All of the Hawthorne Heights players looked old, overweight, and tired. They were not the energetic and charismatic guys I saw five years ago. Here’s the thing, I wouldn’t have been so upset about the guys not living up to my memories appearance-wise BUT their music didn’t sound very good either. They mostly played songs off of The Silence In Black And White but all of it sounded slow and toned down. It was like watching a really bad cover band competing in a battle of the bands competition…It was shameful.
About three songs into their set, I was bored to tears, I wasn’t anywhere near as emotional as I wanted to be, and I just really wanted to go home…And that’s what we did. After a long day and despite not even bothering to stick around for “Ohio Is For Lovers”, Kyle and I left The Outpost and returned back to his place for Taco Bell and an episode of Dexter before bed. A perfect end to a perfect day!
So there you have it, the Hawthorne Heights Concert Recap! What did you guys think of Millstone’s album that I posted the link for? Have any of you had an experience similar to what I described when I saw Hawthorne Heights perform again? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah
lifewithlilred 