Words to live by

This is what my beautiful roommates taped to our bathroom mirror this morning and I couldn't be more obsessed with it... ♥

"I believe in being strong when everything is going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and I believe in miracles." -audrey hepburn

Happy Belated Valentines Day!

I was going to write a Valentines Day post, but my night class went a little longer than expected and I was not in the “blog worthy” mood. Anyways, Happy belated Valentine’s Day! My day was filled with ceramics, a nature study paper, night class, sushi take-out and the Bachelor J The roomies and I were going to watch The Social Network, but I got back too late and the Bachelor seemed like the timely option.

The Social Network was a vday gift courtesy of my mom! I got quite the holiday package on Friday… 2 swimsuits, nail polish, chocolate, Kristy’s homemade candy popcorn, gum, a DVD, sports bras, and a cute top! I was wondering why the AMAZING package and I chalked it up to it being mom’s first year with both her girls out of the coop ;) I guess she figured she needed to make them extra special since she was surrounded by too much testosterone on the home-front. I also received a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, in a festive Vday vase, AND teddy bear from my father J It was quite the showing, and made me (almost) completely forget I did not have a boy to share it with. Oh well, I am boy-free, drama-free, and LOVING IT. I sing that song, I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T by Ne-yo in the shower daily. Hahahaha

I have just been trucking through the normal senior stuff. Portfolio is in the editing process and I feel like I have a good handle on it. Spring break is in TWO WEEKS and I am excited to head down to Palm Desert to see the grandparents!

OH I almost forgot! I took a breather from Redlands last Friday and headed out to San Diego to visit my friend Jenna for the night! It was SUCH a breath of fresh air, she wined and dined me and it could not have been more perfect. We went to dinner, got drinks, shopped, stood in a relatively short line for Sprinkles cupcakes J and listened to live music at this open bar patio place before I headed back. It was perfect in every way, I want to head back out there soon!

So those are my current happenings. I am working on homework today and then have yoga tonight. I hope everyone had lovely Valentine’s day’s ♥

F is for February Freakout

It's already February?? Well usually I'd be embracing the closeness of spring and all things related, but in senior terms, new month means less time. Less time to figure all this crazy stuff out. And even before the dreaded "G" word, senior portfolio is staring me in the face like the meanest looking shark that ever lived (I say shark only because I find them to be the scariest animal in the world) So that should help to illustrate my feelings about the whole thing.

I feel like I am Judy Bloom in a sea of peers who write fantasy, or sci-fi, or mystery. To say I feel like the black sheep would be an understatement, but after a few good pep talks I am here to talk about how I am embracing it and not how I am hating it. I cut my manuscript down from 106 pages to 96... (they want around 60...) but that's progress! Plus, it will most likely move in a different direction after I meet with my advisors countless times before my March deadline.

This weekend marks the end of my last RUSH! This is my sixth semester and I think I am okay with saying farewell. It is exciting and weird all at the same time but it's definitely a good time. Frat parties don't sound as fun, my weekend tolerance has subsided, and I get exhausted quicker. Man, 21 has opened a whole new can of worms, haha. BUT I'm hanging in there ;) You know you're old when the freshman girls we are looking at are 18... I will be 22 soon.... NOT OKAY.

I threw on the wheel in ceramics yesterday, and after two failed attempts I made a bowl that was decent enough to keep. YAY! I don't know how it will stack up when I compare it to things I am making in April (hopefully!) but for now it is my pride and joy :) I am trimming it tomorrow and will tell you how it goes!

To end, had yoga tonight sans spiders, thank goodness they took the hint and avoided my mat at all costs. I left feeling relaxed and bug-free.

A shout out to my little sister who is battling yet another east coast storm. Hang in there Meg! Good thing Mom and Dad stocked you up on good winter clothes for christmas.... I won't tell you that I wore a sundress to class today.... whoops ;)

When is yoga not relaxing?

I'll tell you when.

There I am. Clear mind. Slightly sweaty. Enjoying the music. We are doing sequences of downward facing dog, coming up to standing, extending our backs, stretching our hamstrings. Then we come back down to plank and push forward onto our mats on our hands, chest leading the way. As we begin to come down to the floor to begin the sequence over again I see it. On the corner of my mat. It is black and looks like a shadow at first. A shadow? I am confused. The music is still playing. I squint. SPIDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I FLY off my mat, changing the energy in the room from calm and zen to panicked and alarmed. Holly is next to me being a good little student and flowing the flow. I almost knock her over in attempts to get closer to the wall thus further from my mat. People are staring. I keep whispering "oh my God, oh my God" and I can't stop. Goodness gracious, I'm not arachnophobic but I sure am close. The teacher has to come over, I explain with hand gestures and point to my mat. I am trying to be quiet but let's be honest, that ship had sailed.

She ends up having to fold my mat up (trapping the horrible creature) and brings it into the hallway, releasing it. She hands me my mat back but all I can picture is "it" crawling all over it, leaving a trail of disgusting germs and totally throwing me off my game.

The whole rest of class I kept feeling things crawling on me. I was just a little bit distracted. A few minutes would go by and I would forget about it. Then I would realize how good I was doing and therefore re-live it. Out of all the mats in class, all 20 or so odd mats, why, Mr. Spider, did you have to crawl onto mine? UGH.

The silver lining? Actually, GOLD lining because it was just that groundbreaking and should in NO WAY be overshadowed my by traumatic episode..... I DID MY FIRST HEADSTAND TODAY. Holly helped me. It was so cool. After months of yoga I thought I had enough built up core strength to try and it was a success :) I was so proud of myself!

So, I'm going to remember this day as the day I did my very first headstand :) and not the day I encountered a creepy crawler. I thought I would share! Now I am showered and exhausted. Goodnight to all!

Nyquil, you treat me well

Well there were a lot of things on the calendar for this weekend but my "allergies" turned into my first headcold of the year. Boo! So instead, I spent the weekend in my apartment. And let me just say, I am amazingly talented at entertaining myself. I watched a few movies--Eat, Pray, Love, The Last Song, Mystic Pizza and caught up on bad TV. I also reorganized my shoes that were turning into the second floor of my closet. Oohh.. I got some work done on my Nature Study paper. It's the science class Hil and I have together and to say it's painful would really be giving it too much credit. Our teacher is pretty OCD when it comes to format, word count, citations, etc. We are going a little nuts. However, ask me anything about langur's (monkeys) that live in central India or what kinds of plants grow in the rainforests in Ghana.... I'm your girl.

I got a little laundry done as well (well, that was the last little bit of expended energy before the cold really hit...) And I slept. A lot. 12 hour nights and two naps on Saturday. I felt like a bear going into hibernation.

Yesterday I spent my entire day in English building for our first all-day editing session for our literary mag that comes out in May. We were reviewing submissions and the writer in me actually didn't mind the long Sunday.

It's going to be in the mid-70's through this week. We have informal rush on Thursday and formal rush on Saturday.

Here's a picture from last weekend... pre-sickness! Senior girls :)

A good Wednesday night

Well, I am becoming more domestic by the day. Today, I opened my first cookbook (Christmas present from my amazing mother) and felt inspired. I decided to make dinner for the roomies. I was going to be good and go to yoga at 630, but the thought of a home cooked meal? It was just too enticing.

On the menu? Jeffory's roasted chicken, asparagus with brown butter, crusty sourdough bread and white wine. The white wine was a perfect choice since the chicken recipe called for a 1/2 a cup in the gravy.

I know how to follow a recipe, la la la. But the timing thing kinda threw me for a loop. When to boil the water for asparagus, when to heat the bread, what it meant by the liquid coming out clear. The brown butter was maybe getting too brown, the chicken had been sitting for a while, should I do anything with the soggy lemons? And Redlands finest grocery store, Vons, didn't carry spanish onions. I spent a good 11 minutes searching the produce section for this particular genre of onion with no avail.

Sans spanish onions....the end result? YUM. The rue I made had the (white) onions, lemon, and garlic that I used to roast with. Then I added chicken stock, dry white wine, a little flour and lots of salt and pepper. The onions got all withered and candied. The asparagus turned out perfectly cooked (even after I left them drying in the sink for too long because the rue was boiling too high and the brown butter was popping....) and the bread, which I accompanied with olive oil dipping sauce, was soo good. I didn't want to get up and tackle the chicken carcass or wrap up the bread so it wouldn't get hard. So I poured myself another glass and enjoyed our cozy apartment, the lit candles and my friends. :)

A good Wednesday night, I'd say.

1201 Party!

Our first delta party of the semester! All our girls who went abroad are back and it feels so good. Today we have a recruitment event from 11-1. Rush starts in two weeks and things are flying by quickly as usual. Its going to be 75 and sunny out today... no complaints :)