Dear Blogspot, it's been awhile...

I have had a fantastic week so far! I really enjoy my classes and since I have 2 evening classes (once a week, one on Monday night and one on Tuesday night) it's basically like I'm taking 12 hours when I'm actually taking 18! I have 17 hours a week at the Computer Lab hahahaha and I have been so productive there lately. For one of my Journalism classes, we had to write an 800 world self bio and I finished it at work when I most likely would have waited until the night before and stayed up late to finish it. Wheee sitting around doing nothing and getting paid for it is the life.

The weekend was really fun! There was a lot going on just because it's the first weekend of school and no one has tests yet and I had a great time going out with my girlfriends. Saturday was the Margarita and Salsa Festival and bands like Randy Rogers and Eli Young were there!

Sunday is winding down now and I'm reading for one of my Marketing classes...I'm actually enjoying the textbook. What??? Yes, that is correct. I'm. enjoying. my. text. book.

I think the roomies and I are going to have one of my friends who is a photography/journalism major take pictures of us for the apartment. She is wanting to take pictures to build her portfolio so she is doing it for freeeeeeee so I'm really excited about that. We just have to find a day/weekend where me and jennifer and vanessa are all free. That's going to be the hardest part - we have completely different schedules! But hopefully it will work out because I think it would be completely cool and absolutely cheesy to frame a large picture of the 3 of us in the living room. ahhh, please let that happen.
I baked cookies this evening for the girls that got 4.0's last semester in Theta (whoo a Scholarship Chair's duties never end) ...and I ate several of them as you can tell. Here is 1 partially eaten batch. Oops. There were snickerdoodles that I had a few of as well.

I have always wanted a lamp like this...and I happened upon one at Goodwill on Saturday! it was only $4.99 and it is in perfect condition. I think these lamps are so cool and would look perfect in a study someday. For now, the desk in my bedroom will have to enjoy it.

I have spent a long time trying to figure out how to decorate my bookshelf. I have a lot of random things (do you see the owl?) and for the most part, my room isn't "cluttered looking" at all. however, this bookshelf is allowed to be a little bit cluttered and I think I like it right now. My dad made this bookshelf for me when I was like 12 so I have always kind of liked it...and now it gets to be in my room again!

I found this at Salvation Army for $10! I'm going to paint it and sand it up a little bit better, but I thought it was really great!

Have a great week! and matney (since you are just starting class), GOOD LUCK. and don't walk on the grass.

first day.

Today was the first day of school. It actually went better than expected. I think it's getting better because I'm actually getting into upper level classes now instead of blow offs like Theater.

I'm in class from 10:10am to 1:10pm, then I have one evening class (with Brian) from 5:30 to 8pm.

My first class is called Pro Selling and Communication and my professor is amazing! He is an older guy (probably our dads' age), he wears blue glasses, he seems like one of those snobby older men that wear really nice suits and Gucci shoes, only instead of being uppity, he is really nice and eager to share his knowledge of the selling/marketing/business world with our hungry young minds. He is also a high school football coach.

My second class, eh. Not really fond of. It's Quantitative Business Analysis II (pretty much statistics) and while my teacher is precious (she was definitely a lil' hottie in her day), I just don't get very fired up about crunching numbers and regression analysis.

My third class was Business Writing and I think it's going to be pretty interesting as well. My teacher has actually heard of Kerrville and we got into a pretty intense discussion about the old flower children who are now in their 60's and 70's (but don't realize it) who attend the Kerrville Folk Festival aka hippie fest of the year. She's real loopy, my kind of prof.

The evening class I have, Principles of Marketing ... was FUN. Yes, it's true. School can be fun. When you have a total bad ass, smart ass, kick ass professor who is a frat boy from Cornell and describes himself as a tool who orders hot chocolate from Starbucks. It was literally a comedian tour the entire class period and the 2.5 hours went by quickly!

This is my day in summary. Hope you enjoyed my day as much as i did...or didn't. I haven't decided. I also just ate two bowls of ice cream.

I don't want to go

ugh. ugh. ugh. ugh. ugh.

I am not ready for school to start. This was absolutely the best summer of my life so far and now it's ending. My woes are immense. IMMENSE, I TELL YOU and NEVER ENDING.

I didn't buy a parking sticker (they were $225!!!) for this semester so it looks like i'll be a)hitching rides to school every day or b)riding the glorious bus to school everyday. I like the bus, but I seem to miss it quite often (the whole punctual thing and me ...yeah, we don't really mesh well).

I just changed the time of one of my classes like an hour ago and so now instead of having it on Tues/Thur, I have it on Monday evenings from 5:30 to 8pm. I'm also taking a Tuesday evening class from 6:30 to 9pm. we'll see how that goes.

I wish that I was as lucky as Matney and got to start school on Aug 31st. I envy her terribly right now. I know I'm not supposed to envy people, but how can I NOT when she gets a whole other week to do nothing that involves school?!?! TOTAL ENVY.

I also have a class with Brian now. ha. love in the classroooooooom.

I guess I'm going to hit the hay now (be shocked, Hannah and Jennifer. I'm going to bed before 3am). I'm rather tired from running errands and getting ready for escuela today, plus I have to wake up at like 8:45 because I'm not really sure when the bus comes (I'm prepared) so I need some shut-eye.

I created a new blog for Theta (scholarship stuff). check it out. www.thetabaylor.blogspot.com - I just posted the first entry. Have a good night and good first day of school (except for Matney because she doesn't have to worry about starting school for another week).

August Twenty-Second

Today has been a pretty lazy day. It's welcome weekend so there has been a lot going on ever since I got back from the beach. Tonight won't be any different. I enjoy that, and it makes me ready for school to start ...seeing all the new freshman out at parties has been fun. It will be interesting to see what Theta's new pledge class is like this year. There's a whole semester before rush starts ... that I am very glad about. I don't think I could deal with rush right now...although I'm a gamma chi this year so I don't have to actually be in on as much stuff as normal.

I'm not ready for classes to begin. If it weren't for class, college would be great. haha. I don't really believe that...I enjoy some of my classes and since I'm actually going to be starting in on classes that pertain to my major it should be a lot better.

This was a pointless blog. I'll leave you with a picture of me and my littles. I'm not sure why. I just like the picture. It describes our little family perfectly!

The Self-Timed Getaway

If I had to pick an awkward theme for our South Padre trip (that's what people do, right? pick themes for their vacations?!) it would be Self Timer. We had a lot of fun with the ole ST. I had to find random things to set the camera on, such as my car or a stubby palm tree. It was great and it totally added many points to our coolness level.

We had a good journey. We had to wait in line at the inspection station for a pretty long time (they were doing very thorough checks) I think partly because there was a high speed chase in Padre that we were in the middle of on our way out of town ... and apparently there was some illegal who injured a cop. Pretty intense.

creativity squared

I did a couple of teeny weeny crafty woman things today. First of all, I had these 2 little boxes on my bookshelf and ... I didn't really like them. I don't know why, but I have a plethora of these kinds of storage boxes (these are some of the smaller ones I have) and most of them end up under my bed ... storing nothing but dust.

Anyway, I decided that since these were small and since I bought a huge book of $6 scrapbooking paper at walmart the other day (I have been trying to figure out what to do with it...I can't pass up scrapbooking paper when i see it ON SALE). So i decided DUH the only logical thing to do with this huge book of scrapbooking paper is to USE IT! So i reverted to 10th grade Geometry class and cut out the shapes of boxes from 2 different sheets of paper.

This is the finished product. I am OBSESSED with this ribbon that i tied on the pink box. bought 5 yards at walmart when i was moving into my apartmet (for "decorating purposes") and have thus far used it on several items to add pizzazz. ITS THE BEST.

I'm also known to go a little ribbon decor crazy ... bows add such sweet touches. ahhh.

I liked these scrapbooking letters a lot! I decided that I should go ahead and give in to my creative (though somewhat juvenile) urge and re-vamp one of my picture frames. Wheeee. I believe this frame was actually a gift from matney for high school graduation. Anyway, when she gave it to me it had something cute on it ... I'm sure of it. But over the years, that cuteness has left the frame and now it's looking rather drab. and that's cork around the picture so it's very bulletin-board-esque, and I think it deserved some re-vamping. This is the finished product of the picture frame. I guess I will put a picture of Brian and I in it one of these days. Right next to another frame that is picture-less (I have friends, I promise). And right next to the boxes that I'm sort of thinking remind me of something in a nursery. Still better than they were before though.
Ta-Da.

I'll be packing for the beach soon. Yay beach. And I'm still working on my random and allegedly impressive mix of songs for the roadtrip.

worthy of commentary

I am feeling very guilty right now. I have used a tanning bed the past 2 days in a row. I just got back from baking my skin, actually. I hate the smell right after you tan in a bed. It's the smell of your skin having been burnt to a crisp, literally. I was getting rather pasty and just needed a "glow" for when I leave for the beach on Monday.

I still don't have a good quote for the long piece of wood that has been pictured in previous blogs. I was considering using the quote "Life is Beauty Full" from Hannah's blog, but I need something a little bit longer because the piece of wood is 4 feet long and the stencil letters I bought are only like 2 inches tall. I WOULD LOVE SOME SUGGESTIONS! I have been googling quotes for the past week and haven't really found anything that would be good for a bedroom/living room (I'm not sure if I'm going to hang it in the living room or my bedroom yet).

ALSO. B and I are making playlists for the beach trip. We're each making 4 mix cd's and he has already made two and I have made zero! I need some GOOD SONGS that are very road-trippy and also upbeat and beachy so as not to let us fall asleep at the wheel. PLEASE HELP IN THIS CONQUEST. I have made so many mix cd's in my life that I feel like he has heard all of my songs and cd's and I want him to be like "dang, katie burn me a copy of this cd."

I expect a rush of comments on this blog, considering I have asked TWO, that's right, TWO questions.

if i had a band i would name it Blogspot.

...It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.

(and when you don't have to pay an electric bill...)

IN OTHER NEWS, I found this priceless gem of a photo while definitely not stalking the one on the right's facebook profile (pshh, who uses facebook anymore?). I would like to note that the very couch pictured in this photo is located in the boy on the right's apartment as we speak - he is 20 years old now.

I wonder how many children were conceived on that bad boy. kidding!

This is the piece of wood that I'm not quite sure what to make of. I was thinking maybe painting it a deep teal color and then writing or stenciling in gold letters a single word or a good quote. Or painting it brown and doing the gold lettering. I'm indecisive. Shoot me some ideas. Oh, and please excuse the I-look-like-I'm-on-drugs appearance ... I swear I'm not.

What would a girl do without a manly man to photograph while he sands his new future table of unmentionable purpose? Answer: she would make her own unmentionables!

tra la la, you're cute.

New Mexico, Part II

happy feet.

Because the lovely sky decided to start HAILING on us, we found refuge in a nearby garage. This was someone's garage to their HOUSE ... Imagine a random car pulling into YOUR garage. Yes, we were those people. This is us taking pictures inside the anonymous garage. It was scary. Those are our scary faces. Below you will see The Garage that we chose for refuge. I would say it's a prefect candidate if you're in the market for sketchy garages to hide from hail in.

We went to a bunch of cute shops (did I mention it was raining and hailing?!) and Hannah and I decided it would be a good idea to take pictures in the dressing room. We scoured the racks for some GREAT pieces. The lady at the counter was scowling at us as we went into a single dressing room together ... after we had been whispering about what to take inside. I'm sure she thought we were stealing her precious fashions. The best part about this store was that on the entrance door a sign was posted that literally said "do not take pictures in the store." We didn't see it until we left the store, but come on, how often does that actually happen??

Below, the fabulous Hannah Stewart is pictured in a lively and very fashion forward fur VEST made of the finest quality fake minx. and above is none other than yours truly (looking rather pale, I might add) photographed in a similar fur vest, red kimono, and American flag visor. These styles will be gracing your neighborhood Vogue any day now. Don't let your copy get away.

Taking pictures of Hannah and Little Ava is one of my most favorite things to do! Too bad I don't see them quite enough! I would like to let everyone in on a little secret: prior to my NM trip, I had never fed a baby! Yes, it's true. And I have another tidbit of hush-hush: I'm not the biggest fan of babies either. Don't get me wrong, they are precious and cute... and my babies (in the way way WAY future, mind you) are going to be my pride and joy ...but right now at 20 years old, I'm just like, eh, it's a small thing that cries and has to be fed every few hours. Which I actually enjoyed doing!! Ava is the sweetest thing. If and when I have a baby, let it be as cute as her. We ate at a cute little coffee/drink/dessert place Saturday night after shopping and horse races. It was called The Dreamcatcher and this is where we decided to move once we realized that the band was 3 rock hippies who didn't seem to like the idea of playing quietly. Oh, and did I mention that this cute little coffee/dessert place already had violated the city noise ordinance?

thriftin'

The crowned jewel of Goodwill finds ... DA DA DA. This was actually Jennifer's purchase, but I must take credit for the initial "spotting" of the item. Priced at $14.00, this is an unbeatable bargain! It's rustic antique-y blue metal with a storage compartment for magazines or anything you want and the top is colorful mosaic. Obsessed. This candle stand is about 3 feet tall and I paid $2 for it! I have seen other such stands at stores like Bed Bath and Beyond and Target, ranging from $25.99 to $58.00! I am pleased with this little addition. I kind of have a swirl-black-metal theme going on in my room ... didn't mean for that to happen, but it just kind of happened so this was an obvious fit. The candle came wrapped in plastic with a gold ribbon and a gold base for $0.50 at Goodwill. This is probably 1/3 of the current and ongoing "mug collection" that has been bragged about. Each mug was found at a different thrift store, none of them more expensive than $1. I'm thinking about moving the ever-expanding collection to the top of our cabinets (the room mates have suggested such...2 mugs have already been broken in freak accidents).

Lamp originally priced at $6.99. Fridays are 25% off days at Goodwill, so it was 25% off of that. I still haven't found a good shade for it yet ... but the texture and antique quality is great and even better in person! This is our fabulous $20 coffee table...purchased at Goodwill. the bottom of it says 1968, so I would say that it's in pretty damn good condition for being alive 40 years.

midnight carpentry

I have been wanting to do some hardcore crafts all summer and break out my Martha Stewart skillz but since summer school started and I don't really have any free time during the day until 9 or 10pm, I haven't really been able to hone my creative urges.

The great thing about summer school? It always ends. I have my final exam from 6-8pm on Tuesday and then it's sweet freedom. I also think that the lab is closing after Tuesday until school starts (which means that I'm not going to get a paycheck for two full weeks. I'm going to die) so I will have a LOT of free time. I foresee myself writing like 6 blogs a day. Okay, not really, but I do foresee a lot of boredom.

Anyway, back to craft projects. The other day Brian and I found this really great large piece of wood that he thought would be perfect for a table of sorts. So we waited until nightfall and we drove to the place we found it and hoisted it into the back of his truck. I more like watched him hoist it...I didn't really want splinters.

Then last night he was thinking about giving up on the project because of complications with the wood but I urged him to keep going. After it's sanded and stuff we can paint it and we came up with the great idea (thanks to Hannah and Jennifer's love of chalkboard paint) to paint the table in chalkboard paint! so we went to walmart at midnight last night and bought some paint and chalk and I think it's going to be pretty awesome. People can make a list of stuff on the table and draw things. here is the most important part of the blog: out of the scraps of wood that he had to take off, there was this really sweet piece of wood that I saw and started having creative visions about. It's about 1 foot wide and 4 feet long and I was thinking it would be great for either turning into a large chalkboard and putting somewhere (that's the problem...how practical is a 4 foot long chalkboard unless you're a teacher, ha) and I also thought it would be awesome to paint it and then write a quote on it ... or maybe just like one word on it.

Like I said, I'm not really sure what to do with it yet, but it was a great piece of wood that I couldn't let go! I'm still in the sanding stages of the wood right now and yes I took pictures last night of our "construction projects" beginning stages, but no, I am not able to upload yet. So that's kind of a bummer...but the good news is: I'm ordering my new computer battery like TOMORROW.

Have a blessed computer enabled day.

Cool Kids

Brian and I are going to have a Waco photoshoot this afternoon. Going to random buildings in Waco such as the ones that I pass everyday on the way to class ... buildings with graffiti and colorful buildings and old abandoned churches. We're pretty cool.

Find something creative to do today.

when words become superfluous

and if i truly am crazy, i think i like my life that way.

this is how i feel today

it's amazing what a good night of sleep can do for you.

New Mexico, Part I

I had an amazing time in New Mexico. I have to say that coming back to Waco weather has not been an easy transition; the nights would get as cool as 55 degrees in NM and the days were a cool and easy 85. Coming back to 107 degree with high humidity has been a little disheartening.

disclaimer: I would like to credit all of these wonderful photos to the mad photography skillz of Hannah Bockhoff Stewart, but would like to note that I will be uploading my own photos from the trip in due time.

We got to Ruidoso around noon on Thursday, New Mexico time (we had left at 5:30 that morning from Olney) and I had to put on a jacket when I got out of the car! We went on a picnic at Lincoln National Forest for lunch - the best chicken salad ever with chips and watermelon and crackers and cheese and cold weinies (I'm not sure how the weinies came into the mix...but Hannah was talking about her weinie craving the whole trip so it was kind of ironic that they showed up in the picnic basket...nice and cold). Ava sat under an umbrella ... but the umbrella toppled over and almost hit her several times! Isaac drank a lot of Red Bull and wouldn't stop being a comedian (we named him the comedian of the group). "Red Bull gives you wiiiiiiiiiiiings."

FRIDAY: Carlsbad Caverns ... where I have not been since 1996! When I went with my family in '96 we rode down the elevator because my grandparents went with us, but this time we climbed down. It was a great workout! I forget how far down it was, but some of us (ahem HANNAH) were sore from the climb the next day.

SATURDAY: As soon as we left the house for lunch, it started pouring. Today was supposed to be spent walking around town and shopping, so this was initially a little disappointing. We dropped Ava off at the restaurant so she wouldn't get wet when we went to find a parking space, but as soon as we did that, it started HAILING! We were worried about hail damage so we found someone's RANDOM GARAGE (this was the garage for their HOUSE) and we parked under it until the rain let up. (i have pictures of this fiasco which will come later, as I have not purchased a usb for my camera yet...but don't worry, it's going to happen soon. I know all of my loyal followers are awaiting the moment). For now, you will have to settle with a picture from the restuarant: Cafe Rio. You can't really tell in the picture, but our hair was wet and our clothes were wet and our legs and feet were muddy from walking through the rain and hail.

To Be Continued...