Music I Love, 3/7/13 Edition

[Update...so I totally just went in to erase the period in my title, and it changed my published date. This is totally killing my OCD, but whatev's.]

Happy Thursday! It's almost Friday which means it's almostttt the weekend! Which I so desperately need. 

There is so much music on the radio that I am obsessed with that I decided I must share it with my readers :] Shout out to my newest followers: Rachel (remember her from the Valentine's Day swap?!! She's stuck around!) and my newest one...Lauren over at Pink On the Cheek! Kayyyyyy was pimping out Lauren's "Hello Box" where you're paired up with a blogger and get to know them and hopefully become bff's! I'm paired up with a girl [to be blogged about in the future!] who is recently engaged. Hopefully I charm my way into her bridal party! Haha.

Anyways...back to music:

MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS - THRIFT SHOP FEAT. WANZ

I don't know what it is about this song, but I am alllll about it. It makes me so happy and I always want to dance!

ALICIA KEYS - NOT EVEN THE KING

I. Love. Her. LOVE. I love her piano skills. I love her amazing voice. I love everything about her. I'm going to her concert next week! Wooo! So excited because I've never seen her live. I bought her latest CD, and love all the music on it, but Not Even The King and  When It's All Over are my two favorites. There's no official video but below is Not Even The King on David Letterman. I love the message of the song. The relationships we have with each other are priceless, materialistic things are worthless, not even someone as rich the king can buy the happiness we've got. Click that When It's All Over link...good song, but my favorite part is when she features her baby at the end <3 

MIRANDA LAMBERT - MAMA'S BROKEN HEART

I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I'm not too fond of Miranda or Blake as country artists. I feel like they're too hollywood for me. [Says the girl who is obsessed with LA! I'm an odd one.] I don't know what I don't like about them, I just know I don't LOVE them. With that said, I love this song. I think one comment that convinced me of it was a KSON DJ saying this song would probably be sung in a cabaret. Which I'm currently obsessed with...hahaha.

KACEY MUSGRAVES - MERRY GO 'ROUND

I don't know much about this girl, but what I do know is she helped write Miranda's song up above, and I was intrigued by Merry Go 'Round the second I listened to it. This song is too true about how we get stuck in ruts and just go with it. Not doing anything to shake up our lives and move on to bigger and better things. Hope this girl makes it big time! She's on her way!

Let's pick up the mood and close out with this song...

BRUNO MARS - LOCKED OUT OF HEAVEN

Another song that makes me happy. I don't think I've every really listened to the song, but the beat and hook are so catchy [as with any Bruno Mars song] that it makes me want to dance. Tickets for his concert go on sale Friday! I can't wait to buy them!

Never Doing That Again...

This might get me banished by the blog world…but whatevs. I won't mention any names so this post will only be partially passive aggressive.

A few months ago I signed up for a thing that pairs you up with other bloggers and throughout the month you’re supposed to keep in contact throughout the month, follow each other’s blogs, comment on posts, and eventually do a gift swap valued at like $10.00.

March.

1^st month. I was paired up with a chick and didn't really hear from her all month. Didn't get a follow or comments on my posts and only heard from her when I commented on her posts. I can’t hate too much because she did send me a gift that was pretty sweet and reignited my love for ferrero rocher chocolates.

April.

2^nd month, hopefully I’d get paired up with someone cooler because for me it wasn’t so much for the gifts as it was to get to know other bloggers...or so I thought. This month’s partner was much better, we constantly talked, commented on each other’s posts, etc. I had high hopes for this blog friendship. I mailed out my gift and was told that mine might be a little late because the chick didn’t have money. NBD, I understand not having money. But then I not only never heard back about her receiving my gift and if she liked it or her trying to get a hold of me to send me my gift. Whomp. That kind of sucked really hard.

May.

3^rd time is a charm, right? Nope. But this was kind of my fault. I kind of fell off the face of blog world because school was kicking my butt and I needed to make sure I graduated. I didn’t post much so there wasn’t much opportunity for my partner to comment and I did my best to comment on their stuff but kind of sucked at it. Once graduation was said and done, I tried to get a hold of her to at least get our gift swap done and never heard back. Whomp.

Didn't sign up for June, and probably won’t do it ever again but it is what it is…oh well.

Let’s post some favorite random pins to lighten this post up a bit!   

How cute is this?!!

Every. Single. Damn. Time.

Fundraiser: $1.00 per piece of tape. Brilliant.

Country concerts=summer. 1st one of the season is tomorrow!

#swoon. i love zac. amanda bynes has lost it. nikki, well...meh.

Like that one time I was "shush"-ed at a bar for cheering on the USWNT during the world cup. Funny stuff.

#willyoubemyvalentineswap

aaaand Valentine's Day is OVAH! As a single girl, I don't hate Valentine's Day...but I don't love it. It kind of just meh, another day. Mine was spent sitting in history class, followed by drinks at On Th Border with my friends. I'm sure my view on love day will change once I fall in looOOoOOove. Haha. I actually meant to blog some photos of my favorite hollywood men, but I didn't get around to it. I guess it's just something to look forward to in the future!

So, the title...#willyoubemyvalentineswap. Kayyyyyyyy, and her friend Eryka hosted a Valentine's Day swap and I figured I might as well make sure I have at least one Valentine this year...so I signed right up :]

I was Rachel over at Shooting The Moon's Valentine and I really wanted to rock this swap since it was my first ever, so I kind of stressed over it a little.

She pointed out that she likes to run, turquoise, gold, chevron pattern, jelly beans, flowers, and cooking. 

I hit up my favorite store ever...World Market and was on a mission to score some sweet stuff. I kind of had a little trouble staying within the $10 limit, so I didn't and exceeded it. Unfortunately my package kind of doesn't look like it...but it's the thought that counts, right?

[L-R Red Velvet Pancacke Mix, Turquoise Stud 

Earrings, Face Mask, Eye Mask, V-Day Jelly Bellies]

Red Velvet Pancakes: She likes to cook. I figured I'd help out with her & her husband's Valentine's day and give her something to whip up for breakfast since I assumed her Husband Jase [what a cool name!] had plans for dinner all set up and I didn't want to ruin them by sending the heart shaped pasta that I would have loved to send her!

Valentine's Day Jelly Beans: They were the second thing I saw. They were on her list and an alternative to those candy chalk hearts with love notes. Too cute.

*At this point I had reached the $10 threshold but felt it was a lame swap so I kept shopping!

Turquoise Stud Earrings: I had to get her something else so the gift wouldn't be so lame, and after stalking her blog [while still in the store!] it looked like she wears more studs than dangly earrings, so studs it was. and Turquoise...another check off the list!!

Face mask & Eye mask: The baskets by the checkout counter got me. I thought they were too cute NOT to include so what the heck, purchased. 

I was pretty excited about my purchases that I couldn't wait to get home and pack my box, write my letter, doodle some on the box, and ship out and then this happened...

I sealed my box WITHOUT my letter! Oops!

My reply from Rachel..."I got your adorable package for the valentines swap today! Thank you so so much!!! It was so dang adorable and SO me!" and I got a follow, so I'm gonna say I think I did pretty well!

On a side note to Rachel, I noticed on one of your blogs you wanted to DIY letters for your home...

Check out your local World Market! Letters were $8 each! Takes away from the DIY-ness, but they're super cute!!! IDK where showing you what I didn't get you falls on the etiquette scale, but I couldn't resist! 

Also, I did some impulse shopping for myself...

Now onto my gift!

Ever expect a package and you run to the mailbox every day to see if it's arrived and then are disappointed because it's not there? Welp, that was me for like a week and a half and was starting to think my person forgot about me...but it finally arrived on Saturday, Feb. 9th! Yay for Joni over at Blended With Love for coming through!

It was sealed with pink zebra tape, SO MUCH FUN! that I forgot to photograph.

So many awesome things! Yummy smelling lotion, red nail polish...which is awesome since I'm totally out, a little carrying case thing for pretty much anything, a huge tube of mini M&M's which I sucked down in a heart beat, 3d heart stickers which kind of inspired me to make home made Valentines but I never got around to, some sticky notes on a mini chevron clipboard [how cute, where do you find something like that?!!] and a cute rope bracelet with little charms on it! 

Definitely loved everything. Thanks so much!

Overall I'd say successful swap! I can't wait to do another one!