Stuff that I like and inspires me

I'm going to end today (or technically start today/tomorrow) on a more positive note than it's been going. So to answer the question, what do I like/what inspires me--in alpahbetical order!!

Advertising in any form
Books (on marketing, Calvin & Hobbes, contemporary classics...I love reading)
Chocolate milk
Doodling in class
Excursions...around town, in the mountains, around my house
Folding laundry
Graffiti
Honesty
Innovative furniture. I think more ideas come when sitting on funky furniture.
Juice of all kinds
Keds=love
Late night conversations/getting to know people better
Magazine layouts, there are some cool ones out there
Night time walks
Otter pops
Playing dress-up
Quitting when necessary and knowing when this applies
Rainy days
Sunsets in Montana
Traveling to countries that do not speak English
Unique artwork
Vintage everything
Warm breezy days when everything in the world seems right
X (I hate it when people try to make words fit here when they don't actually *start* with 'x')
Yellow sun dresses
Zip up hoodies

I would also like to thank two wonderful young men who tonight, without realizing it, made today immensely easier to get through :)

I'm really bored right now.

I've had a request from Big Sis #2 to post pictures of the various costumes I've had over the past couple of years. I didn't want to find all of them, so you get this instead: different uses I've had for white Hanes t-shirts!!! (that's kinda close, right?)

1. Team Shirts: Amoebic Dysentery was a soccer team comprised mainly of premed majors. Big surprise? I think not. I also added little teeny tiny socks to this shirt, they're just not in the picture.

2. Yeah I don't really know what's up with this other than I thought the idea of trees eating birds was hi-larious.

3. Aaargh, matey.

4. Redneck zombie complete with baseball bat and cowboy boots.

5. Matching tie-dye with Little B.

6. Homecoming in high school--matching t-shirt theme with best shirts ever.

7. 80s dance--not the best 80s outfit, but not super horrible either.

8. Made for midnight premier of HP5...I think. Inspiration from Potter Puppet Pals (you can't see it all the way but it says "sometimes I have nightmares about Dobby eating my skin clean off").

There you have it. 8 different uses for white t-shirts. Next post to come your way: the rest of ugly sweater December.

Happy 2011 **Updated**

A few items of business:

1. MOVIE TIME!! (This video now works. Sorry it didn't at first.)

2. The 'Best of 2010' is compiled and is as follows:

1. Scream by Hedley
2. Blue Eyes by Mika
3. New Romantic by Laura Marling
4. Picture Perfect by Every Avenue
5. From Where You Are by Lifehouse
6. Light Outside by Wakey!Wakey!
7. Can You Find Me by the Summer Set
8. I Will Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie
9. Warm Whispers by Missy Higgins
10. Back to Where I Was by Eric Hutchinson
11. Sky by Joshua Radin f/ Ingrid Michaelson
12. Angels of the Silences by Counting Crows
13. Take My Hand [Remix] by The Cab f/ Cassadee Pope
14. If I Die Young by the Band Perry
15. JCB by Nizlopi
16. Come On by Green River Ordinance
17. Lindsay Quit Lollygagging by Chiodos
18. Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine
19. Camera One by Josh Joplin Group

That's about all the business I've got. Oh wait. The camera cord was located. I left it at the motherland and should be getting it sometime next week. Schweet.

Indeed

It is the time. I have come to accept the fact that it is now winter. What does that mean???? Top 10 things I like about winter!!!

Things That Make Winter Awesome:

1. Hot cocoa (with Hershey's Kisses and candy canes--to diiiiie for)
2. Sledding
3. Footy pajamas
4. Christmas movies!!! (This an entire list for a later day...on second thought, it will be a sub-list titled: The Best Christmas Movies Ever Made)
1. Love Actually
2. A Christmas Story
3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (both get tag-teamed as one)
4. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
5. A Muppet Christmas Carol
6. It's a Wonderful Life
7. Mr. Krueger's Christmas
8. Any claymation :D
5. Chocolate covered pretzels made by my mom. They are the bomb. For real. 
6. Standing in front of the wood stove
7. Christmas stockings--my mom made us each one, we use them every year, and mine has the Little Drummer Boy on it :D
8. Going home
9. Nativity scenes
10. Tacky house decorations

Ahhh yes. There you have it. Amidst all the disgustingly cold weather there is a plethora of things I adore about this frosty, frosty season.

Also, I haven't done a music recommendation in awhile, so here it is: "Jersey" by Mayday Parade.

12 Steps and 3 Things You Never Knew

Sooo the other day I was bored and happened on an article on how to write a successful blog. Seeing as I have more fingers than I do followers, I decided to read it (not that I am necessarily aiming to get a ton of followers, but I don't want to bore you guys that DO read all of my ramblings and exhortations). Anywho, this particular article said that the blog should concentrate on 3 to 4 main topics, as to build up an 'image'....righty-o! So that got me thinking...what would those main topics be? Here is a rough list of more than 3 to 4, but it will get narrowed down by the end. Here goes (the article also said to use bullets or short paragraphs for those people like me who hate to read HUGE pockets of text) For realsies now, things my blog COULD BE about:

*My hobbies
*My family
*Something that I'm SUPER good at
*Sports
*Politics
*Entertaining things I find
*Relationships
*Witty, funny stories about my life
*Movie/Book/Music reviews
*Celebrity Gossip
*Educational, Smart, Philosophical Things
*My wisdom about life

That list looks good enough for now, eh? So now to figure out what it should be about ('cause now that I'm at home, let's face it, life has gotten less adventurous, so I can't amaze you all with my wonderful traveling exploits). To start to narrow down the list, I could do a few things. BUT, I will not. Why not? you ask. Because. By specifically mentioning things I will avoid, I limit myself on the oh-so-wonderful possibilities that could come my way.

SOOOO where does that leave us? Do not be alarmed, I will now make a list of topics that will FO' SHO' come up in one way or another at some point in this blog (whether in the past or future). Here we go AGAIN:

*Costumes and/or dressing up
*My favorite pop culture at the moment
*My amazing philosophies on life and all that comes with it
*The weather
*Stuff I make, cook, or otherwise concoct

That looks good for now. Anywho, so now that it's established WHAT this sucker is about, this article ALSO said that the readers should know something about the author. If you have not noticed all the random junk on the right side of the page, you are missing out. It pretty much comprises all that is me. In addition to all of my favorite ways to waste or otherwise spend time mentioned, I will now divulge three super-secret things about myself:

1. My favorite thing to give people for presents is books (mostly because I love getting them so I figure other people should too).
2. I hate the smell of wet ceramic or glass plates...and raw hamburger.
3. I won a dance contest my senior year of high school.

There. Three SUPER STELLAR things about me. I think now that I have loosely followed two of the [roughly] 12 steps to a successful blog, I am well on my way :D

Music recommendation of the day: "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall & Oates. Peace out.

School's out for SUMMER

I finished all of my classes three weeks ago, so what have I been up to? I will tell you--Dublin for a night, Morocco for a week, Cork for the better part of five days and back to Galway. Since then we've gone out to the Aran Islands (it was GORGEOUS) and rode a tandem bike around for a couple of hours, drove through Connemara, went to some boat races in Carna, went to a coral beach, and went to the Cliffs of Moher. That is the past two weeks in a nutshell. Here are more deeeeets and some pictures (they should all be fairly self-explanatory):

MOROCCO






I'll post pictures of everything else later, later as in 'when I'm back in Montana'. Weird. Tonight is my last night in Galway and that is tragic. I leave tomorrow morning for Dublin and fly out on Tuesday, travel 19 hours, and finally get home. Oofka. Yeah. So in entirely stealing the idea from a friend I have made a list, two actually. Things I'll miss and things I won't. Here we go,

Thing's I'll miss about Ireland:
Squash (the drink, not the veg)
Melissa and Sinead
Good chocolate
Walking everywhere
The ocean
Being able to take the bus and be across the country in a few hours
Trad music
Walking on the prom
Everything being green ALL YEAR
Watching entire episodes of tv shows on YouTube
Everything running late ;)

Things I won't miss about Ireland:
Leatherjackets (aka flying daddy long legs. gross)
Hanging clothes to dry (I'm a whiner, I know ;))
Wood lice in my bedroom
Conversion charges at the ATM

Those were just what I could think of on a whim. If I think of anything else, I'll post them up there. Anywho, it's getting late and I have to be up early to finish cleaning everything up and scoot out the door.

My music recommendation for now is the album Films About Ghosts by Counting Crows. Amazing. Ireland, I heart you.

Signs that a final probably will not go well:

1. While studying you realize that you have no idea what the class was actually about

2. Again while studying, you look at the example questions and have no idea what THEY are actually about

3. The first two realizations do not worry you, so you couldn't be bothered about learning the material now.

I'm [unfortunately] testing this tomorrow. Stay tuned to find out how it goes.

Spring Break: Week 3 (& then Some)

Ok, so I promised the last three days of spring break would be posted soon, so here they are:

Monday the 19th: Never went to bed Sunday night and spent about 2 hours booking ferries and buses to get home. At 5:15 am we shipped out of the hostel to catch our first bus. We were at the airport for an additional three hours before the bus actually came. Then the 51 hour trip began. We got on the bus and proceeded to ride it through part of Spain, along the southern and eastern borders of France and ended up on a ferry to England at some hour of the morning (or night?) when it was still dark. I can't even remember what time this was at, it's all kind of blurred together in a haze....

Tuesday: Aforementioned ferry ride, drive UP England from Southamton to Leeds and get there early afternoon. Upon arrival we hung out in the airport for a few hours, got interviewed by a paper and radio station, and then made our way to the Leeds bus station. We then got on another bus at 6:15 and were on it for the remainder of the evening.

Wednesday: At 2 am we hopped on a ferry and finally made it to Dublin. We then caught the 7:15 bus to Galway and got back around 11:30 am. Whew. 17 days after leaving, I can finally sleep in a room with just me and take a shower in my own bathroom :)

So now that that's done, moving on! Today was a lovely SUMMERY day, complete with freshly cut grass, sunshine, IT WAS WARM, and there was a delightful little breeze. Can't ask for much more, I'd say :) Which is what brings me to my next point: Why summer is awesome.

Let's start with a general background, shall we??? Growing up my summers consisted of taking care of the flower and vegetable gardens (and thus was born my love of all things green and living), jumping on the trampoline, sleeping on the trampoline, eating boxes and boxes of Otter Pops, painting (barns, fences, the house once, etc. etc.), and hanging out in Utah with the cousins for weeks, if not months, at a time. Jolly good! So those were the wonderful warm months until my sophomore year of high school. For the next three summers I ended up working as an office gopher. Not bad considering what most high school jobs are like--this one was mostly just a lot of office work. As a bonus, my mom worked there (meaning that if I got bored I could go bother her and she would try to teach me AutoCAD, which I found out I DO NOT have the patience to learn). The last summer I worked in the office (after my senior year), I also had a part time job mowing lawns. I worked with a 79 year old man that had a mouth like a sailor and it was a terrifically fun job :)

After I started college, I decided that I liked being outside for these 3 glorious months and consequently got a job working for my neighbor doing farm and ranch work. LOVED. THIS. JOB. I got to be outside ALL day, drive big machinery (and learn how to fix it. amazing!), and come home every night covered in tractor grease and hay and completely exhausted :) That particular summer was odd in the fact that while the days were nice and sunny and rather warm, it rained A LOT in the evenings. Also that summer, the little bro was working in the mountains for 10 day stretches at a time so he was never home, leaving me alone with the parentals. What was I to do? Get home around 7 every night, take a shower, eat dinner, go out and sit on the porch on a rocking chair and practice my guitar or read. I saw some good sunsets that way, also. For example:


Now we get to the other things that I like about summer now that y'all know the major ways in which they have been spent. Here are the things I like:
-The smell of warm asphalt
-Snow Cones in Choteau...and the ice cream parlor
-Warm nights
-Running around in the dark on warm nights
-Hiking Palisade Falls on warm nights (my favorite time of the day during summer is night, can you tell?)
-The 4th of July!!! (and going to the Evenson family reunion every year :D)
-Barbecues on the porch
-Music on Main
-Riding bikes
-Floating the river
-Playing with Squirt on the front lawn
-Saturday adventures

Hmm...I think I have comprehensively covered just about every aspect of summer imaginable. I am quite excited that it has finally decided to arrive and I can once again whip out the Birkenstocks and/or flip-flops and give the feet an old breather from the sneakers :)

This is where I leave you, but not before the music recommendation of the day, three actually. Song: "You've Got the Love" by Florence + the Machine. Re-discovery: "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane. Artist: Imogen Heap. Amazing. Over and out.

FRIDAY :D

Things that are making me happy:
*Scribd: thank you to the glorious soul that scanned an entire 700+ page textbook and put it online for peeps like me to use when we don't want to fork out the 100 euro for it and there is never an available copy at the library
*Sunny weather: today I walked home from class while carrying my hoodie :)
*Motion City Soundtrack music
*This project almost being done (done for me anyway, I only need a 40% in the class to pass)
*Browsing eBay for vintage clothes with Melissa
*Using study time to talk to friendly people instead
*My inhaler: Something is in bloom here and this sucker is saving my life at the moment
*"Homeward Bound" by MoTab: I've always liked that song and their version is amazing
*Talking to people that sadly fell out of my life at one time and are now becoming a part of it again :)

Thing that are not making me happy:
*Mozilla: I realize that you hate me, but STOP CRASHING. I am about to go back to Google Chrome
*The washing machine: Please stop ruining my clothes. You've already gotten the better of all my socks, is it really necessary to start in on the t shirts?
*That's all I've got for things that are not making me happy, but they really are problematic

The Big Two-One

Woot! Yesterday I turned 21. Neato!!! So there are a couple of things: 1. What can I now do that I couldn't before and 2. How did I celebrate this oh-so-glorious occasion??? Here we go:

1. I just Googled it and pretty much nothing of interest. I can buy a handgun, my car insurance will go down, and I can legally drink in the US. Hmm...I don't to burst my own little bubble of 'happy', but not the most exciting age as far as everything mentioned goes (but still a delightful age regardless).

2. This actually started on Wednesday night. We were going to go out, but instead decided to stay in, make food, and go out on Thursday. I ended up going home after that and texted my roommate on the way. When I walked in the door to the house, she surprised me with party poppers, a decorated house and an absolutely delightful cake (it was double layer and had peaches and pears in it. Oh my goodness, it was amazing). After that, the circumstances led to me learning a stellar techno dance. Oh yes. In my kitchen at 11:30 at night, the three of us found a sweet jumping techno dance and I learned it :) On Thursday I didn't have class until the afternoon, so I hung out at home and got a bunch of stuff done, went to class, went to a BaconSoc Meeting (where I was officially made the Dance Coordinator. Everyone was arbitrarily given an office. Nifty! Mine was due in large part to the 'Star Dance' that I taught everyone last week during rehearsals. Hahahaaa!). Then I went into town, met the peeps at their apartment, and then we went out. We ended up finding a live band that was pretty good and that finished off the night. It was kinda late when the band and such finished, so I just spent the night in town on their couch.

This morning when I woke up it was GORGEOUS out. Everyone else was still asleep, so I left them a note and went on my way :) The docks are less than 5 minutes from where I stayed, so I walked there and here it is:



Moving on. After that I had to get some groceries, so I went to the store, wandered around the shopping district for a few minutes, and made the trek back home. That sums up the birthday and brings me up to about right now, and now I have to go study some Celtic mythology and read more about Japan.

One more thing, my music recommendations at the moment are "Picture Perfect" by Every Avenue and "Two Princes" by Spin Doctors. That's all. Peace out.

Another Day in the Wonderful Life of Yours Truly

So today I woke up thinking that I was going to go to work. However, being carless for the next week, I couldn't really do much by myself to get there. I called my boss and for the sake of not wasting a WHOLE bunch of time telling the story, I didn't go to work today. I stayed at home and got a ton of stuff done. This sounds good, but do not be fooled. While the first couple hours were quite productive, by early afternoon I was quite lonely (both the roomies were gone. sad.), no one would answer their phone, and I was quite literally stuck at home. Oh geez. What was I to do? Clean of course! So whilst in quite the state of despair, my room is looking much better. While all of this was going on--the being by myself and all--compounded with the horrendous night I had, my day was not going so well. But then, I had a saving grace of sorts in the form of a delightful friend calling. We proceeded to go shopping, pick up some food, eat at my house, and had an all-around delightful time.

Also a delightful time was tonight when the aforementioned friend took "The Cable Man" out of the DVD player and snapped it in half. The world is now a better place. If you have never seen that movie, I would suggest keeping it that way. If you have, you have my deepest and most sincere apologies. Seriously. You do. Terrible movie.

Moving on, in the previous post I mentioned that I would expound on what I learned this year. Here goes...

1. Be yourself for yourself and not for anyone else.

2. Hiding emotions is not always the best route to take.

3. Life isn't about big accomplishments. It is about all of the little moments, conversations, inside jokes, spontaneous plans, and utter surprises that can be thrown at us. It sounds cliched and corny, but seriously, we will never remember what we did in class or at work on a specific day, but we will remember the one time that we skipped out and caused mayhem and whatnot.

4. It's good to move on, but only when the time is right. Because this is a list of what I have learned, I'll expound a little more on this. When this happened to me, I started chucking stuff. I was moving on with my life and simplifying in the process. Thanks to this little change, my room and car (contrary to popular belief and physical evidence) are much less cluttered and I am much happier. I don't know if this is actually a correlation but that's ok. :)

5. People are generally interesting. I read a quote that said something along the lines of "Everyone that is interesting has a past that made them that way". Indeed, anonymous scholar, indeed. Even if a person does not seem that interesting at first, they will become more so with time. It's true.

Ok, that's all I've got for now. I'm spent :) If I think of anything else I'll throw it on the end of the list.