Is the Secret to success as simple as waking up earlier?

I wake up every day at 4:00 AM sharp. Every morning, I rise, make myself food, and begin my day. However, I have recently come across a video concerning this kind of lifestyle, a TEDx Talk recorded from a presentation given by a man named Felipe Castro Matos. He decided to wake up earlier for 21 days, setting his alarm clock for 4:30 sharp, with the understanding that he would be building a new habit over the course of those three weeks.

And it took off.

Mr. Matos was featured on Business Insider, his story was publicized worldwide, and there have so far, as of March 27th 2016, been 1,884,404 views of his TEDx talk on Youtube (here is a link to his video, if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOEB1Fr0_MM ), but I think that his message has a good bit of wisdom in it.

You can set a goal of doing the things that you want or need to do, and you can actually accomplish them by making time for them. In my case, when I was a high performing student, worker, and member of society, I rose early to work on my assignments, get time to study and perform my various chores and duties before I had to commute to work, school or various meetings. Now, many years after I started waking this early, I can go exercise, work on my cooking and household tasks, write, read, keep up with my industrial education, and even indulge in leisure activities in the wee hours of the morning. The amazing thing is, waking up earlier rarely subtracts from your lifestyle, because you can always socialize in the early evening.

Whether you decide that you are going to wake up at 4:30, or at 4, or start walking every day, or pick up a hobby, you can follow up with the activities that you care about and make them part of your schedule, part of your lifestyle, and part of yourself. You can, as Mr. Matos was insightful enough to say, make all of the little things that you do each day positive, or at least make time for the positive things.

Getting Back Into Pinterest

I remember opening my Pinterest account.

It was another time, I lived in another state and had vastly different life goals. Most of what I pinned was in the form of an infographic or pulled directly from a blog or advertisement, and I was primarily interested in delicious food and high quality glassware.

All of my friends were using Pinterest to swap recipes and show off the pictures from their camera phones, and I was interested in getting involved with them, so I made my account and promptly forgot about it for several months.

In any case, I'm getting back into it with a quickness that I hadn't anticipated. So far I have reviewed a good number of my infographic pins, and a fair portion of the different kinds of tea that I like.

If you haven't looked into Pinterest lately, check it out and try to find something you like!

Cooking Up A turkey

I have a lot of little ways to save money, but one of my favorite is taking advantage of advertised deals and stretching out my savings.


I was able to purchase turkeys frozen after the winter holidays, and I am planning on roasting another one today. It has sat waiting in my freezer as I ate through frozen beef, discount chicken, and bags of frozen vegetables, and I am finally ready to cook it!


I have been keeping it in the refrigerator for several days now, and after just a few hours I will be able to carve out a great slice of turkey.