iPhone love.

You might remember that I'm doing my share to keep Apple afloat after Steve Jobs' retirement by buying every Apple product that exists. So far my favorite is still my computer, then my phone, and then my iPad. I think I'm just not efficient enough with the iPad yet to make it step above my iPhone. Also, the iPad doesn't place calls so it's not as great because it doesn't let me call Sam twelve times a day. Kidding. Kind of.

And while my iPhone frequently irritates me (I say "you stupid piece of fill-in-the-blank-phone" at least three times a day to it, mostly when I drop calls), it is pretty great for a lot of things.

First, it has officially replaced my iPod touch because my iPod touch will no longer charge.

Second, it syncs with my iCal so I don't forget things (except to go watch people try on wedding dresses).

Third, it takes pretty dece pictures, despite the fact that it's a phone.


This third point brings me to the reason why I'm writing this post. Instagram. If you have an iPhone and don't have Instagram, you're missing out. I love how simple it makes editing your pictures right after you've taken them, and the fact that you can instantly share them on Twitter or Facebook. I also adore the fact that they look like polaroids. Who decided 4x6 had to be the standard photo size?


Point and case:

The obnoxious garden that turned out to be fairly pretty in my parent's backyard.

it's love

love her.

As you may have noticed, I particulary enjoy using this overlay but they're all fantastic.

perfect for capturing those quick shots of food for my blog, or for tormenting Alden.

weekend of bridal fun :)

Something happened to me last Saturday that NEVER happens. NEVER.

I mixed up the dates of something.

As all of you know, I am type A to the nth degree. In fact, I not only write things in a planner, I have a calendar hanging on my closet door that I put all of my important events on, AND I keep them on my iCal, which is on my phone, my iPad, AND my computer. So while you may all be under the delusion that I'm just totally awesome and can remember everything, not true. I have a lot of help.

Anyway, despite my best efforts to remain organized, I still messed up. So, Al & Linds, I AM SO SORRY even though I've apologized to both of you a million, trillion times.

See, my BFF Allie is getting married next June. She came in town to try on wedding dresses last weekend, but I wrote down that she was coming on October 1st. So even though she sent me a text at 9:30 in the morning and asked if we were still on, my school fried brain somehow thought she was confirming for NEXT weekend. I swear. I'm losing it. 

So while I was celebrating my ooother BFF Lindsey's upcoming nuptials at her bridal shower, Allie was waiting for me on the other side of KC at a winery with another one of her bridesmaids. Cue the texts and phone calls asking me, in much nicer words than I would have used, where the hell I was. Long story short, I ran out of Lindsey's bridal shower in tears to frantically meet up w/ Allie, which is just ridiculous, and in the process blew off my other wonderful friend Abby (who may not read this, but Ab, I'm sorry again, again.).

So, Allie. I'm sorry I was late, but totally happy that the rest of the day went smoothly and it all worked out for the best! You're seriously a wonderful friend, and I can't believe you weren't mad. Lindsey, I am sorry that I was a crazy person. I had SO much fun at your shower, and can't wait to see you again. And Abby, I'm making that shopping trip up to you this week!

And to those of you that weren't there, but I'm sure can imagine me having a panic attack when I realized that I'm a human that makes mistakes and actually forgets things sometime, yet still apologizing with words going about a million miles a minute, I'm sorry you read all of that above.


And what's a long blog post without some pictures? Duh! Here are some I took at Lindsey's shower. I have some from dress shopping with Allie, but those shall remain hidden until June 7th.

The bride-to-be hard at work in the kitchen!

Lindsey's grandma and aunt helping out.

Some lovely ladies

Lindsey and her mom :)

And with her grandma :)

miss you already!

One of my favorite gifts she received, haha.

ribbon bouquet! love these girls.

I have beautiful friends, it's true.

PS: Lindsey, tell your mom I will get these to her ASAP.

sunday shopping 2.0

Well, wanna see how I did? As you recall, I went shopping at the outlet mall near my house this afternoon. I think I did a great job, considering I only spent half of the money I budgeted for this trip!

Excuse the terrible pictures. The lighting in my bedroom is awful, and it was already dark when I took these pictures.  And I don't know how to work my camera.

This fun flannel shirt which is super warm was a steal from Old Navy. The whole store was buy one, get one 75% off!

This was on clearance so it wasn't part of the "buy one get one" sale, but it was still like $10 and I've been looking for a shirt like this for awhile.

This fun dress is maybe the tightest article of clothing I've ever owned, but I'm going to attempt NOT to be self-conscious in it, because it's PERFECT for a bachelorette weekend I've got coming up :). Also a steal at $25 from TJ Maxx.

This poor dress has the problem of looking way better on than on a hanger :). Also a great deal because it was on final sale at the Loft outlet for $14.

I have this blue open cardigan shirt in gray too from J. Crew and I love it. And since it was 40% off, I had to have another.

These shirts were $6 from Old Navy..which means one of them ended up being $1.87 after the 75% sale.

I almost walked out of Banana Republic before I spotted this beauty :)

FINALLY a pinterest suggestion. I love this royal blue infinity scarf!

Some jeans because I had like 2 other pair that fit.

And finally, these are not for me, but I found these in the J. Crew kids section for my 7 year old cousin. She loves leggings and purple and I loved the stars, so I bought them for her for Christmas. At $6, I could NOT pass these up!

i heart fall!

Fall is in the air in our household. We've been keeping the windows open at night (hence the beginnings of the sore throat I can feel), and even though my mother adamantly refuses to get excited about any sort of decorating, I have enough excitement for like 4 people.

Remember that little obsession I constantly talk about called Pinterest? Yep, inspiration for this blog post too. I always doubt my abilities to be crafty, but when I showed this project to my mom she didn't believe I made it (she thought I bought it at the store), and Sam said "that looks like it was made by a pro for real." So therefore, I believe it is blog worthy!

So, without further ado, behold, The Fall Wreath.

I started out with a basic GrapeVine wreath from JoAnn Fabric. They are only $4.99 and they happened to be buy one get one half off, so I picked up another one to make a Christmas wreath (spoiler alert!).

They also had a bunch of "Autumn Inspiration" bouquets, so I picked up three of those. You could probably vary how many you buy by how voluminous you want your wreath to be. These were also a steal--the bigger one was $4 and the others were $1. I got lucky and went on a day when all of their fall stuff was 50% off! Once I got them home, I cut each individual stem apart so that they'd be easy to stick in the wreath.

These were each like $1.50, and while they weren't as good of a deal as the bundled bouquets, I thought the little scarecrow man would make the wreath.

I also bought some ready to finish numbers and painted them white. I thought these were 50% off (and they were only $2 to begin with) but the woman at the register wouldn't quit arguing with me about it and I was really hungry so I just paid full price for them. She was really annoying.

So anyway, this type of wreath is SO EASY to make. I just stuck each of those individual stems through the wreath and made sure they weren't poking through the back. Although the covering on the stems are plastic, the underneath part is wire so it makes it easy to bend and make sure it's in there really snug. It does not make it easier to cut, FYI.

And here's the finished product! I was pretty impressed myself, although now looking at this picture I can see a gap in the leaves I'm not pleased about. As you can tell the house numbers aren't on there, because I can't figure out how to glue them on there. Hot glue won't hold them to the leaves, so I'm thinking I might try some twine or something.

And here is the beginning of my other fall project. I'm obsessed with tablescapes and I'm terrible at making them. We had most of these things (minus the pumpkins and scarecrows), so I just decided to put out what we had and then add as I find more stuff on sale.

Did I mention I love fall?

How is everyone else decorating for this most joyous of seasons?!

bathroom overhaul

This is a project that I started for.ev.er. ago when I first moved back from Columbia. My bathroom (okay, I have always shared with my brothers), was so pretty when I went to Mizzou, and over the 5 years that I was gone, my brothers demolished it. I couldn't stand how masculine it was, so I decided to switch it up a bit. Here's the finished product!

Before.. super not cute shower curtain, my brother's artwork from the 8th grade. I forgot to snap a picture of the other wall, but there used to be some cheapy black frames with pictures of us in them that were totally falling apart.

Before...bottles all over the sink, make up bags and straighteners and wires everywhere. I admit, some of this is my mess.

And after! I went with a beachy theme because I already had a lot of it (the shower curtain and candle in this picture). I made the wall art by using some seashells that we already had around the house and painting some $2 canvases from Hobby Lobby a sand color.

This picture is terrible because the lighting in the bathroom is so awful, but we are still looking for some pictures to put in that frame, and then it'll go on the wall. Notice there is NOTHING on the cabinets, which makes me happy.

I had this shelf in my bedroom and when I overhauled my bedroom, it got reassigned to the bathroom. We also had these shells, the candle, and washcloths. I also found the little seashell frame for $3 at Kohl's at the end of the summer.

I bought that bath rug and another matching one at Target for $4.50 last weekend.. they were normally $20! Such a bargain.

Outside looking in. I love it! I think it's not too feminine (although Nick doesn't agree), and I DEFINITELY don't think it's too masculine! Now onto the next room...

giving in

Remember this post I had about technology overload?


I did it.

I bought an iPad.

To be fair, it's going to come in handy for studying for my dreaded boards, and will be super handy on trips and such, but I'm such a sucker.


Anyway, if you don't have one of these gadgets...I recommend you run out and buy one immediately. I liked my iPhone but i LOVE my iPad.


And tomorrow I promise to write about something other than myself.

Dear 18-year-old me...

Remember how I told you I had epic (EPIC) writer's block lately?

Still have it. So I'm stealing a blog idea from another blog I frequent. She did hers at 16, but I think my 18 year old self needs to know a few more things.



Dear 18-year-old me...

...it's okay that your hair is brown. It looks better that color. Give up on any sort of blonde NOW.

...take advanced chem your senior year. Don't be lazy and take a study hall. While goofing around might be fun, retaking three different chemistry classes is NOT.

...Hollister is not where it's at.

...keep up your exercising like you're always, ALWAYS going to play soccer.

...in 2 years, you're going to go to Mizzou. You're going to love it and love the people you meet even more. Therefore, stop crying right now and get excited.

...don't drive to Chicago.

...don't resent the time you spend with your family. In a few short months, you'll wish you hadn't.

...when your dad tells you that you won't even be friends with half of these people in a few years, he's right. Listen to him. You're only actually friends with 3 of them. The rest are now acquaintances.

...you're doing a good job not giving in to peer pressure, but you don't do so hot after graduation. Withstand that pressure and you'll find yourself in a lot less trouble.

...your prom dress is pretty. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

...cherish your night drives with the windows down. You'll still remember them and the girls you danced with in the car.

Love,

23-year-old me.

snoozin sunday

Hope your Sunday is relaxing!

writer's block

I am having massive blog block lately, so I've decided to do a "Ten Random Thoughts" post, which Sam tells me is the easy way out when writing, but alas, whatevs.

1. Crate & Barrel. It's like the mothership calling me home. I'd never been in one until this morning and OMG. It was amazing. I really wanted to get this chair, but I'm short a few (hundred) dollars.

Don't you just love "chair and a halfs?"

2. I've started a new exercise motivation thing where I put a nice shiny star on my desk calendar every day I work out. It only has 2 stars this week, so I don't think it's working very well yet.

3. I went for a bike ride today (ie: star #2) for the first time in about 10 years and relearned that I suck at riding a bike. I can't ever figure out the whole hill thing and it makes my hip hurt (old soccer injury) like crazy.

4. I own all 10 seasons of Friends on DVD, and I cycle through them over and over again. I always start over at the beginning of the semester, and I'm already on Season 2 which I think corresponds to TOO MUCH STUDYING.

5. I finished another book, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and it was hysterical. It may be a fluff book, but I adored it. The movie is cute too!

6. I'd rather be knitting than...just about anything.

7. I have so many friends getting married right now and I am SO excited for all of them I can hardly stand it. I love finding dresses for weddings and showers and buying gifts and looking at wedding dresses for them (here's lookin at you, Al!).

8. Did you know that they have the Sims for your iPhone? I'm reliving 8th grade and can't stop playing. My Sim (her name is Olivia, so random) is gettin pretty flirty with Johnny right now, I'm trying to fulfill her wish of getting married.

9. My parents are CA-RAZY and are flying into DC tomorrow. Let's just say, the security has been stepped up due to several security threats. I am nervous for them, but more nervous about my mom finding out about whether or not her cancer treatment is still working. WHEN we find out that it IS still working, it'll be a milestone because it means that it's about a year since she initially had the treatment and it's continuing to work. High fives all around, guys!

10. "See, he's her lobster!" One of my favorite lines/episodes of a TV show, ever, and it's on right now. Time to start studying!

MIZ.

Feeling all sorts of nostalgic tonight and wishing I was going to be there to chant ZOU for my Tigers tomorrow. I feel sort of stupid because I liked going to games when I was in college, but I didn't love it. Oh the things I took for granted. Instead I'll be crying inside that my college days (the real ones at least) are over and that I'll have to settle for watching the majority of games on TV. Until Sam and I fulfill my bucket list item of owning season tickets to Mizzou Football games.

Here are some of my favorite Mizzou Football memories:

Love her.

Tailgating at Reactor before it got shut down, lame.

Prior to spilling nacho cheese all down myself (after doing the splits down the hill...just call me Grace..).

Camped out on the hill.

At Arrowhead for the MU/KU Border Showdown.

Side note: this isn't my video, but I was at this game. For about 30 seconds of it, before I wimped out and went back to Sam's apartment to watch the rest of it. It was freezing rain, so sue me.