I promise I'm alive!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am back at home in Oklahoma. I have been reading your comments all week, and will be responding to them ALL when I get another small nap in.

My spring break was AMAZING. What more could a senior ask for than to get to hang out with good company and good food all week long by a warm beach? I think nothing. Also! I got to cross this off of my bucket list:

• Go on a vacation with friends only (road trip is the only way to go!).

So very excited to be doing things that I want to do!

I hope you all had an amazing week, and I can't wait to finish up reading all of your posts!

Also, be on the lookout tomorrow for my four photos from Florida in the Photo Swap. It was so hard to choose just four!

You all are amazing readers :)

Enter my friends' giveaways!

I pause 30 Days of Truth to share of TWO fellow bloggers of mine who are hosting giveaways. (It might even count as three.)

First, the lovely Angie at Living Aloha ended her 29 Days of Giving with hosting a giveaway for her readers. She has chosen to give a very beautiful necklace to one lucky winner that has a touch of the island within it. I will post a picture here  but you can also visit this post here.

What I love most about this necklace is the pretty bottle of black sand included in it. Overall it is such a beautiful piece of jewelry, and it would be perfect to remind the winner of warm sunshine.


The second friend (friends?) that is hosting a giveaway is Sam at Love Never Fails, with the assistance from the oh-so-talented Valerie from Threads and Thoughts and Things I Love. I have been following Sam pretty much since I started blogging consistently, and very soon after she mentioned Valerie a couple times in her blog, I fell in love with Threads and Thoughts Things I Love. Valerie is so amazingly talented, and she can sew so many things, not just clothes (although I'm not sure why she would ever want to stop sewing clothes). She even made her own pretty winter coat! She's so humble about her talent, and she even assists friends with sewing projects over skype!

Okay, anyways, here is the picture of the skirt (modeled by Valerie) that one lucky winner will receive, custom made from Val herself!

I love how cute and feminine it is, and it looks to be a skirt that can be pretty versatile in how you wear it! You can get the full details of the skirt giveaway here.

Both giveaways will be picked via random . org, but I just wanted to write a post dedicated to each of these giveaways because ONE I love both of these blogs and giveaways, and two, I want to encourage my readers to go check out both (or all three!) of these blogs. You're sure to be inspired by them all!


Don't forget to participate in this week's photo swap! This week we have a theme!

My Saturday adventure was quite fun :) hope all of yours have been as well!

Happy Weekend Friends!

I Love 4 Day Weekends!

Classes got cancelled on Thursday because of the icy conditions. I already don't have classes on Fridays, so I got to enjoy a nice, relaxing 4 day weekend. I already told you of my adventures Thursday night, with me going to celebrate my last night at the old O'Connell's location. Friday, I decided that I wasn't in too much of a mood to go out. I had already volunteered to help with scoring for the women's gymnastics meet, so I had that to look forward to for Friday night. At one point in the afternoon, the roommate and I decided to go to Hobby Lobby (and I needed to go to a shop called Christmas Expressions) to pick up some crafting supplies we needed. We spent all afternoon crafting our various projects, and then went to the meet together. Upon our arrival, we got to hang out with our sister Kaitlin for a little bit longer before roommate left to visit boyfriend in Stillwater.

Yesterday (Saturday) was a fun-filled sports extravaganza! I went to the OU men's basketball game at 12:30, and they had a very fun theme. "Star Wars Day" begun with our mascots, Boomer and Sooner, dueling Darth Vader and Darth Maul in an epic light saber battle. They also had things like, Yoda Cam on the screens above. It was a fun game to be at! The men didn't play so hot, but they ended up with a 67-60 win over Colorado. Then I spent the afternoon being lazy around the house, and then went to a men's gymnastics meet at 7. I forgot how different men's gymnastics is from women's. I freaking love the High Bar, and the Floor exercise just demonstrates so much power.

Then last night, I hit up the new O'Connell's on Campus Corner (AWFUL) and then my favorite place Logan's. I went to O'Connell's for two sisters' birthdays, and then because the waitstaff at the new place is the slowest ever, I went across the street to my favorite place ever. I met up with 3 friends from APO while I brought 4 sorority sisters with me. I also ran into a lot of my friends while there. Kaitlin, Rachel, and I spent about an hour or so there dancing before we left to go to a Pike rush party. After the rush party, we hit up What-A-Burger for the deliciousness that it is at 3 a.m.

I'd say that all in all I had a pretty successful weekend!

How were your weekends friends? Anything exciting you want to share?


p.s. If you like to share your weekend in pictures, you should DEFINITELY begin participating in the photo swap. It's a lot of fun!

manic monday?

Okay, before I update you on my life, let me say that EVERYONE needs to go to this week's photo swap RIGHT NOW. Everyone's pictures this week were SO GOOD! And then, go look at all the previous weeks too. I really like Sam's from last week (the one with the ferris wheel). So neat! Okay, enough about photo swap (sorry, it's just a really fun thing, and I enjoy participating in it because it keeps me on my toes about what to take pictures of! Now I'm always looking for something to take a picture of to share with everyone! Sorry, blogging A.D.D. again)

Without further ado, let me inform you of what all has happened with my life the last couple of days (by the way, I apologize for being absent yesterday). On Saturday, I ended up having to take Erika to urgent care. Her migraine would not go away, so I took her to get a couple of shots to help with the pain. The shots helped her feel better, but unfortunately she couldn't go out with us on Saturday night. She did demand that I still go out with all of her friends though, and I'm SO GLAD that I did. To start off, me, Matt (Erika's roommate), Brandin (from California), and Greg (roommate Matt's friend) loaded up in Brandin's little BMW to head to Old Town Scottsdale. On our way, we picked up Alexis (Erika's coworker from NYE) and Chris (roommate Matt's friend). Yes, you read that correctly, six people in a BMW car. It was definitely interesting. We were fine with the 5 of us, but when we picked up Chris, Matt had issues with cramming 4 people in the back seat. He lost feeling in his foot and said some things that were hilarious but totally inappropriate for a post. We went to Adam's house, where we met up with him, OK State Matt, Carsten, and another guy that I can't remember his name (I'm terrible with names). We had a couple drinks, did some introductions (mostly me), and then got rides to the Pussy Cat Lounge in Old Town Scottsdale.

If you are anything like me, you read "Pussy Cat Lounge" and automatically think it's a strip joint. Oh you're not like me? Well, now you know how I think. It actually WAS NOT a strip joint, it was a very small club with a couple tables and a dance floor. Because it was supposed to be part Erika's, part Cara's birthday (another coworker) we had a table with bottle service. SO MANY PEOPLE WERE THERE FOR THE BIRTHDAY EXTRAVAGANZA! I got to see Chris (CK) again, and then met about a dozen other people who work with Erika. We danced and drank the night away, and I had a lot of fun! Minus the part where my toe got stepped on. I was upset about that. And that Erika didn't get to join us. That was sad.

So, Alexis, Jen, OK State Matt, and I all got a cab to take us back to our various places of interest. We almost get back to Erika's apartment when I realize that Matt (Erika's roommate) has the only key to the apartment. Matt, Chris, Brandin, and Greg all went to the casino. Ah &!$#. So Alexis and I had to tag-team calling Erika to wake her up FROM HER MEDICINE INDUCED SLEEP FROM HER MIGRAINE to try to let me in. I felt bad. But I was intoxicated so even though I felt bad I still talked her ear off for an hour while I tried to fall asleep. Oops. I'm really sorry BIG :(

Fast forward to Sunday, and as you can imagine I couldn't wake up very well. I checked the weather again, and it wasn't in the cards for me to leave Phoenix yesterday. I was kinda sad, but also very glad so that I could take a much-needed nap. I slept basically ALL DAY. It was bad. Then when I finally woke up, Erika cooked us dinner, and then we played Lego Harry Potter again. When we finally went to bed, I had the HARDEST time going to sleep. I think I fell asleep around 3? I don't know. 7 a.m. came WAY too early today, but I packed up everything, hugged Erika and Matt goodbye, filled up the gas tank, got some breakfast, and then hit the road to begin my trip back to Oklahoma. The entire way back, I got to enjoy some AMAZING scenery. I am only giving you ONE preview because the others I may use for the photo swap next week (it's still up in the air):

CACTUS!

Please forgive the semi-poor quality, as this was taken while I was driving. (p.s. I love/am obsessed with the Saguaro Cactus)

The more and more beautiful the scenery got, the more I realized that it is all truly God's creation, and I began to feel a deeper appreciation for the scenery I was admiring.

Now I am safely in my hotel room in New Mexico, watching the BCS National Championship (never thought I'd say this, but Go Ducks!). I just enjoyed some pizza and will continue watching until the game is over then head to bed. Tomorrow I've got about an 8 hour drive to return to my hometown near Tulsa. One thing I do love about all these long drives is that I get to flip through a lot of radio stations. Two current song loves from this trip: "Stuck Like Glue" by Sugarland and "Somewhere with You" by Kenny Chesney. I also got to hear a lot of old songs that I forgot how much I loved them. (ugh seriously?! Why do I have such BAD blog A.D.D. tonight?!)

WHEW! If you made it this far, congratulations! You deserve an award for reading through my entire rambling post. That, or you're just too nice to me :)
I promise I'll update more often so that my posts are not this long again, and that I will tame my A.D.D. before attempting to post again.

Thanks for checking in!

p.s. Don't forget that 30 Days of Truth is coming soon! I'm very excited and very nervous about these posts, and I hope you are excited to learn more about the inner being that I don't always discuss.

A Tale of New Things and Things to Come!

Yesterday, I sat around at Erika's apartment all day. I really want to take a new direction with my blog, and I know I've said that a couple times. I want an all-new background, banner, buttons, the whole works! Since I had a lot of time on my hands, I began looking around at friends' blogs to see if I could maybe figure out how and where to begin. I am so excited to let you all know that I created a couple buttons for my blog! So if you share buttons on your blog, you can now add mine if you would like! I gave you two options, one with some BEAUTIFUL Arizona scenery, and the other is a picture of me. I wasn't sure if everyone would want my face on their blogs or not, so that's why I gave the option of the scenery.

I hope you'll also notice that I have cleaned up my left sidebar quite a bit, and just under my profile information I have created a list of links to different pages within my site and to my real-life blogging friends Baxter and Sam. I made an "about me" page for the extra followers that I have who may not know very much about me. It's post-dated to just before I started blogging consistently. I also wanted to create a link to my Bucket List page so that every time I let you know that something else has been crossed off, you can go and check my progress on accomplishments yourself.

Along with tinkering around things for my blog, I also found a meme that I would LOVE to do. It is called 30 Days of Truth. I found this when I was referred to Write Now Write Later via Scenic Glory. Lindsay at Scenic Glory did a guest post on Write Now Write Later, and being the curious person that I am, I scrolled through a little bit of her blog. I saw her posts of 30 days of truth, and I found the list. It's a pretty phenomenal little meme, and does a lot of soul-searching. When reading through the things that the list asks you to write about, I realized that it is going to be a TOUGH list to complete. I'm going to be completely honest with an internet full of unknown people, and I'm sure I will leave each post feeling a little exposed. Not excited about the feeling of exposure, but I'm hoping that by participating, I will discover more about myself and continue to grow as a person exponentially. Look forward to that beginning on January 15. I kind of wanted to wait until I had a month that was 30 days, but then I realized the next month that's 30 days is April. That's 3 months away. I don't want to wait that long. So I figured that half way into the first month of the new year would be a good time to start :)

OKAY. With all that being said, I am enjoying catching up on all of your posts, and seeing everything you all did during your break! I'm also excited to be participating in next week's photo swap with all my blogging friends over at A Grimm Tale! Look for the photo swap next Monday to see all the pictures that everyone is taking!

Have a wonderful Tuesday! And be sure to check out my "about me" page to get to know me a little better!

Sickness = no fun

I have spent the entire day in bed sleeping. Not because I am still catching up, but because I have been sick almost the entire day. I don't really know what it is that I'm sick with, I had a fever that broke and my chest hurts terribly. But instead of boring everyone with the pity party, I just wanted to challenge everyone to participate in a fun little project with me and my friends at A Grimm Tale called the photo swap. Last weeks post was a lot of fun for me, as it's my first time to participate in something across blogs! I'm also anxious to see what this next week's photo swap brings, as I'm sure many people will include holiday-fun photos!

For now, I'm going to watch my Gossip Girl and enjoy my home-made hot chocolate that my mommy made me :D (The hot chocolate is very yummy!)

If you see my tweets on the left hand side of the page, you might notice that I had tweeted about wanting to change things up with my blog. I think I've decided to do something a little similar to this photo for my banner:

However, I've got a couple ideas to make this photo more my own. I feel like it ties into what it is that I feel about my blog...searching for the beauty in things, but maintaining that everything can be seen as beautiful. I'm going to play around with it for now!