anahorvath.com

Category: Writing

  • Why I Keep a Gratitude Journal

    Hello hello! Happy weekend. I hope this week was a good one. I’m feeling like talking about things that reminds me of the positives in my life. There are so many and I truly have so much to be thankful for. As I’ve taken time over the past year to focus on my health, specifically with all the gut stuff going on, I’ve found that a gratitude journal has been a great way to help me reflect on my days/weeks and find little things to be thankful for.

    I wish I could be the type of person that can regularly keep a journal of some sort, but I’m not. Sometimes I wish I was that girl though! I can keep a journal going fairly regularly for like a week or two and then who knows when it’ll see me again.

    The thing I like about I how keep a gratitude journal is that when I’m feeling like it, I write down 3 things I’m thankful or grateful for in a day. If I just want to write a word or phrase down, that works. And if I also want to write a whole paragraph or more, I do that!

    Especially when days are harder at school, I find that it can be good for me to look for little things during the day that made me smile or feel good and I write those. On tough days, sometimes it’s hard to think of things though. In cases like that, I keep a gratitude journal because it’s something I can look back on that always makes me smile. It always reminds of the good things in my life even when life doesn’t feel so great in the moment.

    Like recently I was just looking through my journal, and on one day in November I said I was grateful for sugar cookie almond milk lattes and on a day in January I said I was thankful for olives. HAHAHA. Oh what was I going through?! Of course I’ve included some things that are more meaningful to me, but I think it’s fun to look back and see what I’ve been grateful to have. It really can be the little things, like olives. No joke though, if you like olives, I really like these olive snack packs by this brand called Oloves, and they have a couple of different flavors. I take them to school almost every day as a part of my lunch. Not sponsored by Oloves, but I wish!

    Anyway, I think it can be really good for my mental well-being to keep a gratitude journal so I will continue to work on it. In the past I have kept a physical notebook as my gratitude journal but since school, I’ve been using my iPad so much that I just keep it on there. So that’s a little bit on why I keep my gratitude journal.

  • Another Year, Another Blogaversary

    So last year I missed my own blogaversary and that was a little sad. In all the world’s chaos, I just skipped right past it, oh man. Not this year though! Today, or at least within a few days of me posting this, anahorvath.com turns SEVEN!! That’s so crazy to me.

    First and foremost, I wanted to say thanks for being here! I’ve really enjoyed this blogging journey and I’ve really had a lot of fun sharing my life and my advice with you all. I hope it’s something you’ve enjoyed too. 🙂 A blogaversary is kind of a fun little day for me. It’s not the biggest thing in the world but it reminds of the day something really fun and special began for me: this blog and my website in general!

    another blogaversary

    Something I’ve been doing a lot lately is going back through some of my really old posts. I’ve come a looooong way as a writer, let me tell you. At the time, I definitely thought that writing was something good and life-changing, but now looking back on it, little freshman in high school Ana had a LOT of work to do. If you’re ever interested, a good chunk of my really old posts are still up, but I’m not sure how much longer I’ll leave those up. I’ve been cleaning out some of my really old posts, just to keep my blog looking a little cleaner and it’s been comical to read through my old stuff. A fun trip down memory lane too!

    So here’s to more years of anahorvath.com!! Please feel free to reach out if you want me to write about something or even if you just want to say hi! I’d love to hear from you all. Feel free to check out my contact page and reach me there or find me on Instagram at anahorvathh (yes there are two H’s!) Have a great week and I’ll see you next weekend! 🙂

  • I MISSED MY OWN BLOGAVERSARY!

    As I was prepping a post for this weekend I realized, I MISSED THE BEGINNING OF JUNE AND MORE SPECIFICALLY I MISSED MY OWN BLOGAVERSARY! To those of you that are relatively new here, hi, and welcome! 🙂 To those of you that have been here a while, you probably recall that I do a yearly blogaversary or blog anniversary post. Things have been so crazy lately and even though I’ve been doing most things from home lately, things seem to be moving so fast, maybe too fast.

    June 7, 2014 was the day my first blog was posted. I was so little then if you think about it. 🙂 Just a naive, little scared freshman in high school. And now here I am, a junior/senior at university getting ready to take a big exam to take me to the next potential chapter of my life. Time does fly! On that day, I didn’t really know where this blog would take me but I did know that I had a love for writing and a strong passion for editing too so I took advantage of the opportunity my dad gave me.

    Since that day, I’ve posted almost every Sunday. That’s so crazy to think that I’ve been doing this for SIX YEARS now! Six years of worth of Sundays are quite a few Sundays if you ask me.

    One of my favorite things to do is look back and see what my writing was like in 2014 or 2015. I’ve removed a few posts just because they didn’t seem relevant to my blog as much as they did when I was 15 but it has been really interesting to also see where the world was at and where I was at then. I was in a boot at one point and then I was getting ready for surgery and then I was stressed about all three of my AP exams and then I was applying to college and then I was getting ready for college and then I was beginning college and all of the sudden I’m here. Crazy, right?!

    Blogaversary

    And so it’s a happy belated blogaversary to me! Haha. 🙂 As I post this, my blog has 13,016 views and 300 posts. Thank you all so so much for your time and for letting me share my life story and also my passion for writing. It’s been a blast. 🙂 It’s exciting to see how far I’ve come and I look forward to the many more posts and adventures to come! If you’ve got any ideas or there’s something you really want me to talk about, reach out! I’d love to hear from you!!

    Thanks for being here on this journey with me. I appreciate you spending time here. Have a good week and I’ll see you next Sunday!

  • It’s Every Day, Bro

    every day bro
    Grammarly, you couldn’t have said it any better!

    Just to be clear Jake Paul, it’s not everyday bro. It’s every day, bro. Get it right… So I’m a big grammar geek for those of you that didn’t know or haven’t guessed by now based on how many of these blogs are written. One of the things that’s really been on my nerves lately is the incorrect usage of the word everyday. Let’s have a little grammar lesson this Sunday!

    The word everyday is an ADJECTIVE and it means:

    encountered or used routinely or typically: ORDINARY

    Merriam-Webster

    Pay attention to the difference here people! It’s a big one! Here’s how every day, an adverbial phrase, is defined:

    the adjective every and the noun day

    Dictionary.com

    When using every day, you’re saying that something gets done on a daily basis. For example: I sleep every day. Every day, I do physics homework.

    When using, everyday, you’re describing something that is typical, ordinary, or a part of your daily routine. DESCRIBING WORDS ARE ADJECTIVES. DO NOT FORGET THIS. So if you were to use everyday in a sentence, you might say: A t-shirt and jeans with sneakers is considered an everyday outfit. My everyday routine for school mornings include getting dressed, brushing my teeth, washing my face, and eating breakfast.

    I really hope you are all seeing the difference if you didn’t see it already. And there’s my little grammar lesson for the week. I hope you all learned something and can fix this grammar mistake that has become so prevalent in society. I see incorrect usage of the word everyday in writing, on social media, in songs (cough cough, one of Jake Paul’s ridiculous songs about himself), and all over the news too which is very disappointing. If we could all learn the proper usage of the words every day and everyday, I’ll be a very happy girl and I think a lot of other grammar geeks out there can finally sleep a little better at night too. See you all next Sunday!

  • Out of Online Classes!

    online classes
    Photo by Sergey Zolkin on Unsplash

    As of yesterday, my microeconomics class and my technical writing class are COMPLETE! Woohoo! Online classes are DONE! I still have my physics class to finish at my local community college, but I feels nice to know that my load just got a lot lighter.

    Eleven credits this summer may have been to big of a task to handle. I’m a bit worried that I’ll burn myself out for this upcoming fall semester. Considering that I will be taking seventeen credits this fall, I feel nervous about what my work ethic is going to look like. I’m a pretty hard-working person so I think I’ll be able to stay strong but we shall see. Haha, I bet you guys will hear about how all of that goes.

    Online classes are extremely helpful for people who can only make those work. Or for me, they’re helpful when you add a business minor to your load and still want to graduate early. Online classes are also cheaper than most classes you can take at a community college or university. Super convenient, let me tell you.

    One of the biggest things I struggled with in my online classes was actual dedication to the class. Of course I got all of my work done in a timely manner and to the best of my ability but it was hard to find the motivation. I never met either of my teachers (with the exception of a Skype call to my Econ professor) and I never met any of my peers. I personally really appreciate the personal connection that comes with physically being present in a classroom or lecture hall listening to a professor. I feel that I am more involved and present to learn the material.

    Another thing that I hated about my particular online classes were the mandatory, weekly discussions. Every week, there was some topic we were required to discuss with discussion group members. In order to receive credit for our discussions, we had to make a post that fully answered the question or questions, respond to AT LEAST two other classmates posts, and then interact with our peers based on responses we got. I was always really good about posting early in the week but oh my goodness, my peers were not. I would answer everything by Tuesday and sometimes Wednesday and wouldn’t hear back from ANYONE until Saturday. Discussions closed on Sundays and I honestly didn’t want to deal with all of that so late in the week, but I eventually just had to because some people are stupid and some are just big procrastinators. Thanks…

    Online proctoring for exams creeps me out too. WOW. The process is overkill. I had to be proctored twice for my Econ exams and both experiences with that were just horrendous. It’s creepy that another person can just hack into your laptop like that. I also didn’t appreciate that I practically had to be glued to my seat the entire two hours I took my Econ midterm and final. What if I was uncomfortable how I was sitting, huh? I also found it unnecessary that the proctor had to see my entire room to understand that I wasn’t cheating. I was even asked to take down a tennis tournament draw I have up on my wall from when I won regionals my junior year of high school. How in the world would they expect me to cheat off of that?!

    I understand the point of online proctoring, but as I mentioned earlier, the process and extremes to which these services have gone is a bit extreme. Sometimes I just wish people were honest and trustworthy and then we wouldn’t need these creepy, strange proctoring services. Oh well.

    Other than these couple of things I mentioned, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to take a couple of online classes. It has been helpful to my college plans and allowed me to see another side of the academic world.

    More importantly though, here’s to a more true start to summer for me! Well, minus physics. But still! Have a good week everyone. 🙂

  • Check Out allysonhorvath.com!

    allysonhorvath.com

    I hope you’re all having a great summer so far. I know it has been one crazy summer for me with all of my classes and everything, but it has still been a fun one. My sister just recently decided to update her website and fully commit to keeping up her blog (YAY) so I invite you all to check it out at allysonhorvath.com!

    She’s a fantastic creative writer and she’s planning on posting about regular-everyday stuff as well as her creative writing pieces like poems and some critiques. She has the full layout as to what she plans to post and she also plans to post more frequently than I do, haha. From what I can remember, Sundays will be regular blog days, Mondays will be movie and music reviews, and Thursdays will be short stories and poems. A lot of fun stuff is in store at allysonhorvath.com. 🙂 I’m most excited for the poems and short stories she writes!

    She’s had the domain and website up for a long time. She just hasn’t been able to get around to writing and I’m SO EXCITED that she’s finally going to keep it up. She’s a super talented writer and sometimes I don’t think she believes that. I’m hoping you’ll all go show her some love and support and check it out.

    Sorry this post isn’t all that exciting I just really wanted to give Allyson’s blog a shoutout today and give her some support. 🙂 I’ll see you all next Sunday!

  • Another Year of Blogging!

    • CSU
    • miss Colorado
    • triangle mountain
    • Blogging

    Well my friends. Here we are again. Another year, another blogiversary. Yay for more blogging! Including this post, we have reached 247 posts, a lot of pictures and way over 10,000 views. For all of that and for all of you I say thank you. 🙂

    Thanks again for being here to read everything I have to say. Thank you for being here to listen to my rants and hear about my adventures and struggles and journey through life. Blogging really is just so much fun. If you’re bored and looking for something to do, I totally recommend blogging. There’s really a lot you can do with it!

    It’s crazy to think that little, high school freshman me started this off and here I am now, a sophomore in COLLEGE still writing for the same blog. I’m clearly boot-free by now (anyone been around since then? haha), still have my sweet little, wonderful doggies Marty and Boo, gained a feathery friend (was Bobo in the last Blogiversary??), learned that chemistry is super hard and NOT a favorite class of mine, and of course continued to spend time and love life with my wonderful family and friends.

    It’s crazy to think that this will be my last Blogiversary as a teenager too. The big 20 is coming up in October. It’ll be my golden birthday too! I’ve got two-and-a-half years left of college. My sister goes OFF to college this upcoming fall. I take the DAT for dental school NEXT summer. Life is happening so fast, wow. With that in mind though, it’s important to be thankful for what we have in the moment and cherish it all right as it happens.

    With that in mind, I hope you all have a wonderful week. I’m so thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to pick up blogging and share my life and thoughts will you all. Don’t forget to live in the moment and be thankful for even the little things. 🙂 See you next Sunday.

  • 10,000 Thanks

    10000 thanks

    This past Monday, this blog hit a big milestone in my opinion. We reached 10,000 views! To some of you, you may be thinking, “Yeah, 10,000 views, whatever. That really means nothing. Not that big of a deal.” That’s ok if that’s what you think, but to me, this was a pretty big deal. That means that people are reading this blog and what I write! And hopefully that means that you’re enjoying what I’m writing and feel inclined to come back every week. So for that, and for this week’s blog I’d just like to take some time to reflect on the life of my blog and say thank you, 10,000 times.

    I really never thought this blog would amount to anything to be completely honest. I started doing this all for myself to share my love for writing and put my thoughts and feelings and ideas somewhere I could look back on later in life but I never really thought that others would get on board.

    Disregarding my welcome post, my first actual blog post was published June 8, 2014 and it was about some tips for tennis tournaments. From there, I posted about a variety of things, that those of you who’ve been around a long time probably know about.

    I wrote about my two injuries, both to my sesamoid on the bottom of my left foot as well as my peroneal tendon subluxation and eventual surgery on my left ankle. During the two years I dealt with injury and wasn’t really able to play any sport at the level I was used to at the time, this blog and my website were a great place for me to put my energy and time into. I was able to share my thoughts and love for the things I do and love in life here and I think that my blog really helped keep me sane during that time of my life.

    I shared experiences from my numerous trips to New Mexico and also Omaha, Nebraska, New York, and most recently Hawaii. I’ve talked about all of my breaks during school from getting off of summer break, to spending time with family during Thanksgiving break, to the joys of winter break, and also spring break, which I recently came back from. Even just my adventures around Colorado are written about here on my blog, and those have been a lot of fun to go back and look through.

    This blog has been a place for me to share stories of times with my families and my sweet, amazing little dogs, Marty and Boo. And when Bobo, my green-cheeked conure became a part of my family, you all heard about that too.

    From the time I started high school, to graduating near the top of my class, you’ve been with me. From the beginning of my college experience to March 31st, 2019, you’ve been here too. From every goofy, random post about polar bears and my favorite foods to eat on rainy days, you’ve been here and listened to what I have to say and I really, really appreciate it.

    So thank you. Thank you all for being here to hear what I have to say. Thank you for sticking around, through good and bad posts and good and bad times. Thank you for hopefully enjoying what I write and giving me something to get excited for. Getting ready to post on Sundays has become one of the highlights of my weeks and thinking of post ideas has become a really fun part of my week too.

    So here’s to the next 10,000 views. I’m excited to see what’s in store for this blog and my website and the future in general! Thanks again for being the amazing people you all are. Thank you for taking a little bit of time out of your day to read this blog and spend some time with me. Have a good week everyone. 🙂

  • Here’s to Another Year of Blogging!

    Wow it’s already July! Summer has flown by. I also realized that after a crazy June and my big chunk of Hawaii posts, I totally forgot about my blogiversary which was in early June. This post actually marks my 201st post too!

    I just wanted to thank you all for reading my blog and taking time out of your day to visit my website. I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed the content because I’ve enjoyed putting in the work to make it all happen! I feel that I’ve come a long way as a writer and person. It’s crazy to also think that I started this blog as a rising high school freshman. At that time, this blog was a good way for me to do something since I was trapped in that stupid boot. At that time, I was dealing with a sesamoid fracture and I feel like I was really struggling. I honestly wasn’t excited about going to a totally new school that was HUGE compared to the small charter school I had been at my entire life.

    As high school progressed, I wrote more and learned more, and this blog became such a big part of who I am. I love writing and thinking of fun things to post. I love coming up with ways to keep my website looking clean and professional and reflective of my personality. Sometimes I struggle to get posts up on time but I work extremely hard to make sure I get content up as soon as I can. I plan to continue this blog as my journey in college begins and I’m excited to see where this takes me!yay for the blog

  • A Pretty Piece for Your Sunday Afternoon…

     

    I was recently helping my sister write a descriptive piece for her AP Lang class and fell upon this. I wrote this describing a friend of mine and it was a really awesome thing to make someone feel good about themselves. I hope you all aspire to go out and make others feel pretty and confident about themselves! 🙂 Enjoy.

    Rolling gracefully over her shoulders, her golden, almond brown hair frames her sun-kissed, gentle face and soft, rosy cheeks. Between her straight, cute, button nose, outlined by long and playful lashes, sit two perfect gemstones. Ambers that glisten magnificently and display beautiful flecks of milk chocolate, hazel, and gold. Her lips appear as delicate, pink rosebuds popping out of the snow. When she smiles, those roses blossom and she paints a ray of sunshine all over her face, revealing twin rows of river pearl. Her contagious, warm laugh sounds like wind chimes dancing in the wind or bubbles flying away from a soda can once it’s been opened. She is a butterfly, flying gracefully and fearlessly through the challenges and obstacles of life. She is adventurous and curious like a young child, eager to learn everything she can about the big, crazy world she lives in. She stands strong on the highest peak in the world taking in the sights of everything that surrounds her. From that point, she appears to be at the summit, but she knows that there is more to see and more to learn and more to feel and more to do. She is a ray of sunshine, she is like art, and she is a golden treasure inside and out.

    Pretty