Christmas Vacation

Dress - H&M (Thrifted) // Belt - Thrifted // Tights - George // Boots - Go Jane // Socks - Target

Well, it's been a busy past few weeks! Busy, but fun. I'm actually in Florida right now visiting my Papaw :) But, like I said it's been busy. It's not like we've been going lots of places...it's just that it's a lot of work being on vacation when you're not a kid! I hope your Christmas was great--I know mine was!

So one of the funnest things I've done since getting to Florida was going out to dinner and to see a movie with my dad! I finally got to see Thor: The Dark World, which I must say I liked a lot better than the first one! Anyways, after the movie we were supposed to go to dinner...but that didn't really work out at first. Since the movie was late, we had to find a restaurant that was open even later. But, when we got to the one I picked out it was closed already. An hour early. Yeah, great. And we couldn't find any other restaurants so we were about to just settle for fast food when we finally found a restaurant that was open later. And, guess what. It was right next to the theater we had just driven away from :p So we drove all over tarnation just to end up right back at the same place! Oh well, it was still fun! And, by the way, my dad is really awesome 'cause he still makes sure to spend one-on-one time with all of his kids even though he has so many of them!

Oh...and I wore the same dress as in the pictures too! Haha. Even though the material's a bit thin, I do like it better with tights. Anyways...hope the rest of 2013 is great for y'all. Considering my posting schedule the past few weeks I'm guessing I won't get anything up until next year :p

PS I keep forgetting to say that my brother Michael's been taking most of my pictures lately 'cause my new (awesome) camera's too big for the old tripod. Thanks, Michael!

Sweater Weather

Sweater - Arizona Jeans // Skirt - GAP (Thrifted) // Tights - Merona // Boots - Thrifted

It's funny 'cause for years I hated both sweaters and dresses. And now, that's basically all I wear. Anyways, I finished all my finals and I am officially home for Christmas break! I haven't done much yet, but I did go to see Catching Fire and The Hobbit. Catching Fire was sooo much better than the first movie, but I thought the first Hobbit was better than this one. Well, I wish I could write more, but I have to go help my sister with her costume and makeup--she's in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Hope y'all have a wonderful break!

Last of the Nice Weather

So, these are definitely from awhile ago, but I still wanted to post them! This is from a hike my family (and a couple of our friends) went on about a month ago. This was right after I got my camera too. Anyways, as you can see, it was really a beautiful day and great weather for a hike!

On another note, I'm super excited that finals are almost over!!! You've no idea how much I'm ready for Christmas break! Good luck to everyone else who's powering through finals week!

Thanksgiving

So I know it's been awhile since I've posted! I've been pretty busy with finals and stuff lately. Except for the two finals I have next week, I'll be done this Friday! And Christmas break can't get here soon enough! Although I've had a few frustrating classes, I really feel like I've learned a lot this semester, and there were several classes that I actually enjoyed going to! Still, I'm gonna enjoy Christmas break. I'm actually setting up my Christmas tree later today. Well, hopefully. I started setting it up yesterday, but I got distracted with some more poster designs that are due...soon. I did, however, get my nativity set up. And I really need to take a picture of the wise men because, due to someone else packing up my Christmas decorations, some stuff broke. But, instead of gluing these poor wise men back together ...I just set them up in a way that uses said breakage to my advantage. It's pretty funny :p

Anyways, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving break and I'm so glad I was able to spend it with my crazy family! I hope all of you enjoyed your Thanksgiving. Gosh, looking at these pictures is making me awfully hungry...

Oh hey! And these are the first pictures I have to post from my new camera! yay!

hopefully the last summer pictures + guilty pleasures?

Dress - Nine and Co. // Belt - Vintage // Scarf - Thrifted

So I went through my saved posts from earlier this year and I'm pretty sure these are the absolute last pictures I have from the summer...and the last non DSLR photos! Now that I'm almost done with my digital imaging class, I see that these need a lot of editing and color correcting. But yeah, I'm just not gonna bother  :p PS: beehives are super easy to do + awesome for hot weather!

So anyways, guilty pleasures Um, yeah...so I just watched High School Musical. And I wish I could say this is the first and only time I've watched it. But it's not. It's not that I like the movie at all (so technically it's not even a guilty pleasure), I was just really in the mood to watch something cheesy and stupid (please tell me I'm not the only one who does this). Plus, Netflix, unfortunately, has an abundance of new Disney stuff available.

It was great though 'cause I spent the entire time just rolling my eyes at the random singing and then just yelling at the screen the rest of the time. Why yes, I am crazy. No seriously, when I'm the only one watching a movie, I like to yell at characters when they do stupid things. I've thought about filming myself watching movies Mystery Science Theater 3000 style just so ya'll could see how really crazy I am. I also say quite poignant and amusing things when I'm not yelling at people that don't actually exist.

And speaking of stupid things, can I just rant about the movie for a minute...or twelve? Keep in mind, these are only a few of the things that bothered me as I have basically zero memory retention, a short attention span...and because it's this movie and I just didn't care enough to bother remembering anything else. So first, why would Gabriella care about making sure people did not know how ridiculously smart she was? Girl, you're smart! Don't hide that under a bushel basket.... Also, Why would Troy's and Gabriella's groupies care if they were in a musical? It's really not that lame or even a big deal. Their plan for making Troy and Gabriella quit the musical is ridiculous. People can actually handle more than one activity at once...unless *gasp* they're scheduled at the same time. But more on that later.

Why was there a kids' New Years Party? I can't see any way that could possibly go wrong. Why would Gabriella's mom make her go to the party? The entire movie wouldn't have happened if Gabriella had just stayed back and read like she wanted. So Troy and Gabriella both know this random song and can sing? How convenient! They also are very well groomed for highschoolers. (Where's their acne??)

Why didn't more people audition for the musical? Why was Sharpay so worried about competition? Is she really that insecure? When you think about it (please don't...) Troy's good at basketball, Gabriella's smart, and theater is Sharpay's thing (who names their kid Sharpay? isn't that a dog? Oh wait, that's Shar-Pei...). So, I guess I can see her not wanting them to take over her activity. Oh, and Kelsi, speak up for yourself!!

Why didn't Troy and Gabriella just speak to the crazy theater lady and tell her that the callback times didn't work? Because, obviously, sabotaging both the basketball game and the scholastic decathlon was so much easier. But it's ok because everything worked out and no one suspected a thing. No wonder Troy's and Gabriella's posse didn't want them in the theater.

The wrap-up at the end...I just don't even know what to say. Just suddenly everyone gets along? Then they start having overly long + weird conversations just to tie up loose ends. And then everyone starts singing and dancing again. Oh, and for some reason almost everyone had time to change into relatively nice clothes? (Gabriella's dress here is pretty awesome though).

Most annoying thing about the movie? The karaoke lyrics at the New Year's Party were written out in Hobo. Really. As my type teacher says, "never use a typeface where the 'o' looks like a urinal." Truer words were never spoken...

But the real lesson here is :  Have a problem? Sing about it! And then sing some more. Actually, the lesson is :  Have a problem? Don't talk it out like normal people. (singing's ok though) Come up with some round-about crazy scheme that may or may not work and may or may not be legal. Ok. Rant over. I promise to never bring this up again. (But now I want to watch the sequels so I can rant about those too...)

Well, that was way more than I wanted to write. I'm probably going to regret posting this at some point...but ya know. Some things just need to be ranted about.

And The Good News Is...

Shirt - Faded Glory // Cardigan -  New York and Company (Thrifted) // Skirt - H&M (Thrifted) // Socks - George // Shoes - Hotcakes

So, I actually do have really great news! These are (um, hopefully) the last crappy pictures you will ever have to see on my blog! (come to think of it, I think there might be one or two more sets of pictures from the summer...so I shall post those asap) Anyways.... I just got a real camera. That's right, I finally bought a DSLR and I am sooo excited! I've been on a few adventures over the past week, so I have plenty of pictures to post! 

I ended up with the Pentax K-30 and the best part is it's weather sealed! I was originally just going to go with Canon because, well, just because. No particular reason. Well, I guess it's because a lot of the bloggers I follow use Canon. But yeah, after doing some research, I decided to go with Pentax. And I'm so glad I did 'cause I found out later that almost all of the older lenses are compatible! And they're so much cheaper!

The weirdest thing is I really hadn't touched a camera before I started blogging. And now, in just about 8 months, I've gone from cell phone camera to point-and-shoot, to a totally awesome DSLR! I know that it's the photographer and not (necessarily) the camera that makes the photo great, but having a great camera really helps!

Just to show you how amazing the k-30 is, check out this video:

And...we'll see if this actually posts, because there's a tornado watch here and the internet's a little spotty.

Erza Scarlet

Shirt - Merona  // Skirt - Gap (Thrifted) // Boots - Yoki // Bow - Pat Catan's Ribbon // Sword - Flea Market

I realize it's a wee bit late for a Halloween post, but I still had to show y'all my costume! I'm a huge fan of the anime Fairy Tail and I've always wanted to cosplay as the character Erza Scarlet. Aside from being a redhead, she's actually pretty awesome and usually wears a variety of armor. Since I don't actually own any armor (yet) I went with her street clothes. Believe it or not, I actually straightened my hair for this, but as soon as I put the hair dye in my hair just got all weird and sort-of-curly :p oh well! It was either straight and ginger or weirdly curly and red...it was for a Halloween party, so I'm glad I went with the red hair dye :p Anyways, if you haven't watched Fairy Tail...do it. It's great. And the subs are way better than the dubs, just so ya know.

Well, hope you had a great Halloween...two weeks ago, haha. I don't know about you, but I'm actually really excited about the holidays. I bought a bunch of candles and my house smells like pine needles now :) So, even though it's really early, I'm thinking I might put my Christmas tree up this weekend! Maybe it's because of the snow we had today, or maybe I'm just looking forward to Christmas break! Can't wait for the end of the semester!

Mauve on Over

Shirt - Mossimo (Thrifted) // Skirt - GAP (Thrifted) // Tights - Mossimo // Shoes - Rocket Dog // Jacket - Delia*s

Yeah, I know. Nothing I'm wearing is mauve. The reference? My lipstick! I have not worn lipstick in years (balm stain, yes...lipstick, no) but one day I decided I wanted this color of lipstick. So I bought it. And well, I've worn it every day since! It's L'Oreal Saucy Mauve. And I kind of really love the color! It smells kind of weird though. Like it doesn't smell bad, it just smells like lipstick. And to me, that's never been a pleasant smell. I guess I've gotten used to it, but I don't know... we'll see!

Anyways, I'm really hoping I don't get sick again so I can focus more on blogging! (random subject change, i know) I've basically given up on not trying to get sick. No amount of hand sanitizer has kept me well this semester. Seriously, it's like the germs can infect me from 10 feet away! Yeah...it's been a fun semester. (sarcasm) If one of my classmates is sick I have it the next day! And, well, there's always at least one sick person (besides me) in the classroom...and that's why I've basically given up. Except for the hand sanitizer. I will never give that up. I do not apologize for my love of clean hands. (It also works in a pinch if a certain feline decides to sneeze on my face in the middle of the night...)

Yeah, I don't even know what I originally wanted to write about, but I wanna get back to watching more Psych (Whaaaaaat?) and sleeping. So I'm gonna leave you with that lovely description of my various ailments throughout the semester. (Which, in reality, wasn't even that thorough. I could get several more blog posts out of this...) Anyways, what do y'all do to deal with colds and other nasty fall/winter ailments?