Do you ever get so wrapped up in what something LOOKS like, that you forget that the important thing is actually what’s in it?

For example, I’ve decided to redesign/rebrand SarahMitus.com to be a professional portfolio of sorts, which means hosting this wonderful blog on another domain.

But I can’t for the life of me decide what to name it and what it will look like.

The funny part though- is that most of my readers don’t come to the site from anywhere because of the name or how my blog looks. The majority of people put this blog into a reader or get the posts directly emailed to them. They NEVER actually see the blog, just the text and images in it.

SO why does the design matter?

I guess for one, I enjoy the design aspect of it. I enjoy making it pretty and thinking creatively and experimenting with the colors. I also think a fun design helps motivate me to continue writing and keeping with it. Hopefully, too, as my blog audience hopefully grows, having an name NOT associated with my name will help people identify with it more.

I find I sometimes focus more on the design aspect at work, too. I may focus on what the presentation looks like, but not be as concerned about the statistics in it. Or why do I hate the way one resume looks but haven’t even read it yet?

SO- I need your help, dear blog readers. I’ve been brainstorming names for the new blog and would love your opinion. Please vote in the options below- and if you have any other ideas please leave them, too.

The blog will continue to be a lifestyle blog for me- focusing on things I’m doing, recipes, fun projects, and my normally bubbly outlook on life.

The post Substance vs Design appeared first on Sarah Mitus.

While I may not agree with all of Gretchen Rubin’s tactics, I enjoyed this book for helping me to be more aware of my happiness and what I could control. As she discusses, this isn’t a book for the clinically depressed, but those average people who just aren’t getting everything they think they can from life.

I’ve been an optimistic person as long as I can remember. I have a Little Miss Sunshine cup on my desk, “Life is good” on my wall, and had an obsession with smiley faces as a child. But recently, I had been feeling really down. A few life events had happened, and I must have sent a really sad email to my college friends, because they ended up sending me a gift! While completely unnecessary and over the top (how CUTE is this beach bag?? And these placemats?!), it shows how wonderful my friends are, and really and truly, how great my life is.

Gretchen also talks about how making small changes, not big ones, can have a positive impact on your happiness. I have friends volunteering in places around the world (here and here), and most of the time the emails I get from them about their experiences are about the little things. They feel like they are doing the most good, making the biggest difference, with their one-on-one interactions with the kids and the caretakers. These are small selfless acts, ones which we can all easily do to make the world a better place and to bring more happiness into our lives.

Some other tips for increasing your everyday happiness:

Act the way you want to feel.

When I was little, I would pout about doing chores because I wanted to watch more cartoons. I distinctly remember my dad telling me I still had to do them, and telling me I had to do them with a smile (hi Dad!). Dad must have known that acting the way you want to feel would really make a difference- and he did not want me to be grumpy all afternoon.

Gretchen agrees that you can actually trick your mind into getting out of that funk or feeling happier by starting to make yourself feel that way. When you start to get frustrated with someone or are having a bad day at work, make yourself try to see the good things in the situation. I’m not saying you have to lie about your feelings, but in those moments, do your best to put on a happy face.

Soon, you’ll forget you were in a funk at all.

Be you.

Just because other people find things fun, doesn’t mean you have to. Do the things you find fun.

I loved this advice because I think it’s so important not to compare yourself to others or believe you should be doing something that just doesn’t feel right. What makes one person happy might not make another person happy (except of course chocolate). I don’t really enjoy reading the newspaper or cooking large elaborate meals, so I’ll stick to my books and my crockpot, which I enjoy. I’d rather watch The Voice then watch a documentary. Sorry, I’m not sorry, I’m just trying to be me.

Grow.

Gretchen talks about her specific principles for happiness, and her first focuses on how a part of happiness is growth. If you think about many of your most rewarding projects, they might be things you didn’t really enjoy during, but have a sense of accomplishment afterwards. I had this experience when getting a job, taking the GMAT and hosting my blog, because they were all longer projects with a lot of work that eventually paid off.

Do you think you could be more happy? How are you going to get there?

The post Little Miss Sunshine appeared first on Sarah Mitus.

Each Sunday night I think of how I don’t want it to be Monday morning when I wake up- but surprisingly those weeks go by pretty quickly and I’m back to my weekend sanctuary.

This weekend was a lovely one, not because of the crazy plans I had, but because of the weather. Since most of my blog readers are in New England, or have survived a few New England winters, you know what a wonderful time the first REAL Spring weather weekend is in Boston.  The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming (read: I’m sneezing) and people are finally getting some vitamin d.

Saturday I took my new park reading blanket (yes I bought a blanket with park reading in mind – curse you Target) and just read for a few hours. No plans, no where I had to be, not even another person to chit chat with in between pages.

There are weeks I forget in the hustle and bustle of things how lucky I am. But in the Springtime, when the sun is shining and Boston is no longer as angry because it’s still below freezing in the morning, you realize how lucky you are.

I wonder sometimes if I would love Spring so much if I lived in a place with less cold winters.

The post Working for the Weekend appeared first on Sarah Mitus.

I bought a rather large jar of it when I first made challah french toast and have been looking for recipes to use with it ever since. I tried a peanut butter cookie recipe with Nutella swirled in, but I have to be honest, I wanted it to taste more like Nutella.

I came upon the idea for this from Pinterest, but decided to maintain the true crescent roll of the crescent roll instead of cutting them into squares (mostly out of convenience). I give you… one of the easiest and most satisfying desserts I’ve made in quite some time.

Ingredients:

• Nutella
• Crescent rolls (found near the eggs in the grocery store)
• Cinnamon and sugar

Directions

1. The hardest part of this whole recipe is opening the gosh darn crescent roll container! I kept having to smack mine on the counter.
2. Spread Nutella along the crescent roll triangle piece, or if you like more of a filling (which I do) just glob some on.
3. Gently roll up your crescent roll from the large side to the little end.
4. Shake some cinnamon and sugar on both sides of your crescent roll.
5. Bake according to the directions on the package- 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes I believe.
6. Do not blame me if you eat the whole batch in one sitting.

The post Nutella Crescent Rolls appeared first on Sarah Mitus.

I’ve talked before about what I read in her book, Lean In, and frankly I don’t think I did the greatest job showcasing how helpful the book was to me, my outlook on my career, and my view on how we can change the world.

Sheryl says that the most important thing you can do to change the world is to lead.

While other honorable initiatives like girls’ education and changing policy are helpful, becoming a leader is the best thing you can to.

Because when you lead, you get to change things.

Sheryl talks about how one day, when she was pregnant with her first child, she had to park in the back of the Google parking lot when she worked there because she couldn’t find a closer spot. Her body didn’t enjoy pregnancy, so walking across the big parking lot was tough. In a conversation with her husband, he told her his company had pregnancy parking, where she then went into Google’s leaders and asked for pregnancy parking.

They said of course- just nobody had thought of it before.

Because Sheryl was in a position of power there, she was comfortable enough to ask for something as simple as pregnancy parking. If she were lower in the organization, she may not have the confidence or the exposure to ask for something like this.

When you lead, you get to change things.

Funny enough, Sheryl during the beginning of her speech was having trouble with her mic. It kept banging up against something, and it was clearly messing up the sound and the  recording. The sound team interrupted quickly- and told her she had to take her earring out. Her candid response was that if more women wore these mics then they would have made better ones.

While women are making HUGE progress in education, graduating more women than men from college these days, this increase has not filtered through to the top corporate jobs. Just 14% of top corporate jobs are had by women, including only 20% in the nonprofit sector, an industry we typically see as an industry for women. The worst part? This statistic has been the same for over a decade- showing no progress since 2002.

Sheryl thought back to the original feminist leaders, those who made great strides for women to actually work, women being able to vote and have a say in the household. She gives a quote from Susan B. Anthony, “Our job is not to make young women grateful. It is to make them ungrateful so they keep going.”

We have been too grateful in recent times- and have not continued to make progress. Women still don’t have the top jobs and they still make 77 cents to the dollar for every man. We did not feel as Susan B. Anthony hoped we would- we stopped the progress.

Besides leading in your organization, there are other, smaller actions, you can take to showcase what’s happening in the world and to help change stereotypes for women and girls.

Some of my favorites from the book:

• When a women gets interrupted in a meeting (which she will, more often than men) don’t be afraid to interrupt and say you’d like to hear what that woman has to say. Likely, those interrupting don’t recognize that they’re doing it.
• When you hear a mother tell her daughter that she’s bossy, a term that is almost NEVER used to describe little boys, give her a smile and tell her, “You’re daughter’s not bossy, she has executive leadership skills.
• Finally, be sure to give networking opportunities, and the ability to have mentors, to women as you do to men. The book tells of one c-level male executive who stopped going out for a drink or dinner after work with anyone, since he could only do this with men and not women, without looking creepy. He was always open to getting breakfast or lunch, but dinner/drinks was out of the question for everyone in order to level the playing field.

Again, I urge you to pick up a copy of her book and take a read. I hope you’ll learn a little about yourself and the world we live in, enough to inspire you to lean in, lead more, and change the world for the better.

To see Sheryl speak about her book, check her out on Levo League’s Office Hours here.

The post When You Lead, You Get to Change Things appeared first on Sarah Mitus.

I’m from Western Mass originally, so when people would ask where I was from at school, Boston was never the answer. Then I went abroad, and Boston was my answer, because at least people knew where that was on a map (okay, they knew it was somewhere on the East Coast, near New York).

But being from Massachusetts, Boston is your home city, its where you dream of living, to someday say that’s where you’re from.

After living here the past two years, I’ve seen a lot of Boston pride. We love this city, even though the T stops at 12:30. Sure, the “Titletown” designation makes it easy to believe in Boston sports, but we also have some unbelievable history, some very opinionated people, and are quite known for being unwelcoming (only because we love Bostonians themselves so much).

But the last week I’ve seen a group of people come together and have faith in our town like I’ve never seen before. It was never a question of, “Do you think we’ll ever find who did this?” But only, “I bet they’ll find them soon.” Law enforcement officials were clearly invested in finding the people behind the Boston Marathon Bombings, and the people of the city of Boston were going to do everything they could to support them.

Thursday night, I couldn’t sleep, and obviously went on to Twitter. What I found was that the city of Watertown (probably about two miles from where I work) was where the two suspects had fled to. After that, there was no sleeping. I stayed up reading #Watertown tweets and listening to the Boston Police scanner, until I made myself sleep at 5:30 am. We all worked from home that next day, but really we were all listening in and seeing what was happening in Watertown. As did everyone in this city, I watched coverage all night and all day, and joined at one point 181,000 people listening in to the Boston Police Scanner, hoping for justice.

When that moment finally happened (of course I was in the bathroom) it was a huge sigh of relief. My city was safe again. I no longer lived in a Batman movie.

My words cannot express how much pride I have for this city and how much I will never be able to thank those who help to keep me safe here. Many people were worried about me, but I knew that if I stayed in my home and let law enforcement do their thing, everything would be okay.

My prayers continue to be with everyone affected, and there have been some truly selfless stories that I’ve heard which make me want to be a better person.

Sure I’ve contemplated living other places, but I must say, Boston you’re my home.

If you’re interested in finding ways to help, nearby or afar, a few links friends have shared:

One Heart Boston: Letterpress Print

Boston Strong T-Shirts Emerson students immediately created these t-shirts, all proceeds of which will go to the OneFund. Show your Boston pride and raise money for a great cause.

Bucks for Bauman: Go Fund Me site for Jeff Bauman who lost both of his legs in the bombing and who helped to identify the suspects responsible from his hospital bed. He doesn’t have health insurance.

Ann & Eric Whalley Recovery Fund: Give Forward site for Ann and Eric Whalley, North Andover residents both injured in Monday’s bombings.

The post Boston, You’re My Home appeared first on Sarah Mitus.

Though I’ll probably still use it during the summer, most of the things I’ve been making in it are soups and hearty meals I prefer during the winter months.

One last recipe that I really loved was a chili variation with pulled chicken and taco seasoning.

I had taken pictures of this meal, but I cannot do justice the original pictures I pinned from Pinterest.

SO I of course hate to take you away from my blog, but I think I have to this time.

I give you:

Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili from Redsie, which was actually adapted from Skinnytaste.

The post Crockpot Chicken Taco Chili appeared first on Sarah Mitus.

What I didn’t realize is how much I would learn from this book. There are countless studies (the last like 50 pages of the book are actually footnotes) that really showcase the issues women face at work and actual studies to prove them.

The most shocking story for me was a study done by a Columbia Business School professor Frank Flynn and New York University Professor Cameron Anderson ran an experiment to test perceptions of women and men in the workplace. They started with a Harvard Business School Case Study about an actual woman named Heidi Roizen. Heidi had become a very successful venture capitalist by using her outgoing personality and building a professional network with very influential people.

Flynn and Anderson gave half of their students this case study on Heidi, and the other half of the students got the same verbatim story, except Heidi’s name was changed to Howard.

They then polled the students about their impressions of Heidi and Howard. While the students rated both Heidi and Howard as equally competent and as having similar accomplishments, Howard was someone they would like working with or for. Heidi was said to be selfish and not the type of person you would want to hire or work for.

Let me repeat- the story was the same EXACT thing except the name of the person, showing strong evidence for the idea that success and likeability are positively correlated for men and inversely correlated for women.

This sucks for women. Because gosh darn it do we want to be well-liked, and feel feminine, but we still want to succeed. One of my best friends was recently described as “cold” in the workplace- just because she acts like any guy would within her role.

I also find this the most staggering because I probably would have said Heidi would have been scary to work for, too. Even though I’m a huge proponent for women in the workplace- I probably wouldn’t have felt great about working for Heidi either.

This book to me is a great read because it brings these issues to the forefront so that they can at least be top of mind. There are many stories in this book that you just wouldn’t think of as a man or woman in the workforce and Sandberg gives constructive ways to move forward past discrimination.

I also really enjoyed her personal stories. Seeing as I’m part of the online marketing world- her telling stories about working for Google and Facebook were little snippets of a life I would love to have.

I recommend this book to anyone and everyone so that we can all lead a more informed discussion about women in the workplace and at home.

Have you read it? What was your favorite part?

The post Lean In Book Review appeared first on Sarah Mitus.

I just made one of the best dinners I think I’ve ever made for myself- I am in LOVE with this chicken rollatini thing.

I’ve had lots of cravings lately for stuffed, good chicken and the whole process was way easier than I could have imagined. I thought I would need some sort of fancy ingredient, have to somehow tie it together, or spend too long hammering out a piece of chicken.

I had to do none of that.

I adapted this recipe from SkinnyTaste to fit a single-gal-cooking-for-one- who-wants-some-leftovers-but-doesn’t-want-to-eat-this-chicken-all-week. Thus, I used four thinly sliced breasts instead of the recommended eight.

Ingredients

• 1 Package of thinly cut chicken breasts (four come in a package)
• ¼ c Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
• ¼ c grated parmesan cheese divided (I really like cheese)
• 2 egg whites or ¼ c of egg beaters
• ¼ of a block of frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed out of any liquid (You could probably use more but I don’t love it. Also not really sure how the half thawed spinach I put back in the freezer will do next time I want to use it—but that’s to figure out next time!)
• 3 tbs part skim ricotta cheese
• Handfuls of shredded mozzarella (again, I really like cheese)
• Olive oil non-stick spray (aka PAM)
• 1 c marinara sauce
• Salt and peppa

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 450.
2. Wash and dry chicken cutlets and season with a little salt and pepper.
3. Combine bread crumbs and 2 tbs of parmesan in one bowl. Put one of your egg whites in another bowl. These will be used to coat the chicken, so make sure the bowls are shallow enough that this is easy to do.
4. Combine mozzarella, the rest of the parmesan, ricotta and spinach all in a second bowl.
5. Coat each chicken breast- enough to cover it but not enough to make it hard to fold. The original recipe says this is about two tbs on each chicken breast.
6. Loosely roll up the chicken breasts, coat in the egg white and roll it around in the breadcrumbs. For some reason, I thought this was going to be the most difficult thing ever and that alllllll of the cheese was going to fall out but it actually came together quite smoothly.
7. Repeat for all four chicken breasts, and lightly spray some PAM on top (not sure why exactly haha)
8. Bake 25 minutes at 450.
9. Pour your marinara sauce on top and add on some more mozzarella.
10. Bake for about 2 minutes or until the mozzarella is melted.

I enjoyed with a little salad (trying not to eat pasta these days) but you could definitely pair with some pasta and have a wonderful meal.

The post Chicken Rollatini with Spinach alla Parmigiana appeared first on Sarah Mitus.

So if you’re wondering what makes me cleaning happy and what YOU should consider stocking in your cleaning arsenal, here are a few of my favorites.

1- Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Tried and true, this is the best-smelling toilet bowl cleaner that I rave about. It may not be the best one out there (I don’t even use the one with bleach) but at least it smells good. I get mine at the dollar store!

2- Gel Bleach

I’m scared of the real pour bleach. I’m not really sure why. But the gel bleach comes packaged like my toilet bowl cleaner so the familiarity works for me. Something about bleached white sheets screams comfy cozy hotel bed to me- and now I get that at home!

3- Windex with vinegar

If you hate the smell of vinegar, then don’t get this. But I LOVE the way it smells- and so do my roommates. It’s multisurface and works on really anything. I use it to clean my floors, countertops and even my mirrors.

4- Magic Erasers 

If you have never used a magic eraser, than you are missing out! While I don’t use them for average day clean ups (they are too expensive for me) I use them for things I don’t want to scrub like crazy. I use them most often for cleaning the tub or the strange marks that happen on my fridge. While I haven’t tried them- there is this pin going viral on Pinterest that talks about all the things you can do with them.

5- Lavender trash bags

Not really a cleaning item, but nevertheless, still awesome. Having pretty smelling trash bags makes me more likely to change the trash bag than to let it stay there stinking up the place.

What are your favorite cleaning supplies? Trust me… I want to know.

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