on a week in pictures

- Stop by my 365 Project tab, seen above, and check out my newest picture uploads. I've been taking lots of pictures with it being the holiday weekend and such and had a tough time picking out my favs. It was a little easier to decide since I didn't know how my friends would feel if the picture had their face in it so I eliminated those from the runnings.

- The Forth of July weekend was a success at The Lake. When I say "the lake" I'm specifically referring to Reservoir 14 or something of that manner (to be honest I don't actually know the correct name) but around here with our friends, it's simply, The Lake. I was pushed off the boat, caught a horseshoe with my shin (on accident people), got hit with a sparkler in the cheek, consumed far too much Skittles Vodka/Blue Moon/Pinot Grigio, and had zero mosquito bites. Needless to say I came home black and blue but can still mark this weekend off as a success. Happy Late Forth of July everyone.

- I am spending the rest of the week at my lovely home with my family and friends. We're headed to the best water park on Thursday and are getting in a baseball game on Friday. Go Rockies! Beat those Padres! Among other things, I'll be plenty busy this week for sure.

- To all the people who still read my blog, thank you, thank you, thank you! I know I said that once my MCAT was done that I'd be more consistent but being home and it finally feeling like summer has made blogging fall on the priority list. Things will be back to normal soon and I promise to try harder. A little shout out to my newest follower *yay* because really, I appreciate you all so much.

on not quite being finished

So even though I'm finished with finals which is definitely a relief, I'm still trudging along with my MCAT studying and therefore have little if no concentration for much else as of right now. I'm pretty sure once I get into the swing of a study schedule it will be less demanding but as of now I'm definitely dragging from a full brain, sore eyes, aching back, and overall tired feeling.

However, the main purpose of this post is to inform you all that I have created two, yes two, new pages on my blog; one for my 365 project and one for my 100 List. They can be found on the top of my site and I would love, LOVE, love comments and criticism from any and all. They're much more accessible to see the progress for both and I just learned how to make them thanks to Cooper Culture at Wonderland or Not :-D

As soon as I get some more patience along with some more time in my life I plan on making a Book Review page as well. But given that my reading consists of study books and practice tests that'll have to wait. Hope everyone is enjoying the start of summer break. Enjoy!

on an update to Project 365

I promise that I've been keeping up with my 365 Project even though I've been seriously lacking on posting the pictures here. Sometimes my picture doesn't correspond with the blog I write or sometimes I struggle to find a picture for the day so I scramble at the end of the day to keep with my project. But I promise promise promise that I've taken a picture each and every day and so with that here they are....

I apologize that I'm not a great photographer, I'm trying and learning and would love any comments and criticism anyone has.

013/365

A birthday surprise filled with balloons, chocolate cake, and a night out with friends.

014/365

It's that time of year again that we all just love, finals. I'm lucky enough to not have too crazy of a schedule this semester but that doesn't mean I'm not spending time here, with textbooks, notes and powerpoints as friends.

015/365

I know this picture is sort of cheating because it wasn't actually taken today but since I don't live near my mom I figured it would be ok to use it anyways. Happy Mother's Day!

016/365

The sky was the perfect cloudy today, still showing some blue but with great clouds too. It's days lie this that remind me why I love living in SD.

017/365

My current mood: overwhelmed

018/365

In our adventure to find a bar last night we stumbled upon BJ and Todd who would play any song you requested as long as they had their google windows open. Sometimes this meant that your friend had to hold their iPhone to hear the song she wanted.

019/365

I drive past this house every week on my way to volunteer for Hopsice. This picture definitely doesn't do it justice. I took it while I was driving and would have stopped to take a better one but there was a truck behind me and I didn't want to make him upset. But the point is that it's an awesome house, one I would love to have.

020/365

Absolutely delicious and definitely not good for you but that didn't stop us from enjoying our wings and breadsticks for dinner last night. And you can't forget the pitcher of Blue Mood either.

021/365

Spicy Skillet Chicken from Betty Crocker turned out pretty yummy. But if definitely makes more than you think so be prepared for leftovers.

022/365

It was grocery day today and I feel like you can tell a lot about a person based on the contents of their fridge. I hope mine says good things?

on life and death

I had a stressful/motivating/heart wrenching/overwhelming day volunteering at Hospice today. It was probably the most I've interacted with patients in my time there and there was just something about today, something different. Different enough that I had to change my personal statement to include today's events. I am truly touched.

"This care is not just for families and it was in Hospice where I realized the reality of life and death. I visited with Ms. Suzie one afternoon, a 95 year old patient with end-stage kidney failure. She had a bald head, pale skin and spent most time sleeping. Normally she took her pills with yogurt but her disease required she have more liquid than yogurt so we switched to jell-o. I told her of the change and asked if it was ok. After she said yes, I spooned some jell-o to her blue lips and was shocked. She looked into my eyes and exclaimed, “it’s orange!” with a child-like grin spread across her face. In her last few days, Ms. Suzie truly exemplified that death should not be feared and life should be lived. I reached for her hand and promised myself to treat every patient with the simple joy and kindness she showed me that day."

010/365

011/365

012/365

PS- I promise that picture 010 is not of my boob. Well I guess technically it is but that wasn't the point of the picture people. It's the sunburn. It was my first day back in the sun and I got burnt and so I thought I'd document. Think sun...burn ok!? Don't judge me.

on a quick little something

So there hasn't been much to blog about lately, just the normal every day stuff that I'm sure everyone experiences. However I thought I'd share a few picture updates anyways and promise to try and write something more inspiring soon.

004/365

005/365

006/365

I was also listening to some Lady Antebellum while at the gym the other day, right before picture 005/365, and totally fell for these lyrics. I love them and thought I'd share.

'Cause love only comes

Once in a while

And knocks on your door

And throws you a smile

And takes every breath

Leaves every scar

Speaks through your soul

And sings to your heart

on hating fixing things

+ It's official, I hate anything that has to do with fixing technical problems. Absolutely hate it. Like today, our internet decided that it wasn't going to run at normal speed. Not only that but it decided that instead of just being sorta slow on the pages that have lots of adds/pictures/links/etc, it decided to seriously not work. Like "take-ten-minutes-just-to-open-an-email" slow. Then when I tried to take matters into my own hands and fix the problem by restarting the router, it only made it worse. Now my lovely computer said I was connected to the airport network but would load and load and never get anywhere. I seriously wanted to throw the router at the wall it was so frustrating. And I wasn't going to call the internet company because well 1. I didn't have their number, I'd have to look it up online but funny, I couldn't do that anyways and 2. customer service people just annoy me. If anyone was going to call them it would have to be Jeff, he's much nicer to people in these types of situations. So the more time I sat here trying to get it to work the more pissed frustrated I was getting that I just started to unplug, re-plug, reset, push buttons, anything. I had no idea what I was doing and low and behold, it worked :-) But seriously, moral of the story, don't leave me with a non-functional router again. I'll attribute this time to luck and I doubt it would work for me again.

+ I went to Ikea this afternoon to purchase a cake pan because I want to make a cake but, as you can assume, I didn't have a pan. I have muffin pans and bread pans and brownie pans but nothing to bake a cake in. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed in Ikea's selection of bakeware. Sure its awesome if you want to make a cake in the shape of a horse but I'd rather die first. (In case you didn't know, I'm terrified of horses) I ended up finding a circular pan, one of those spring-form pans that the bottom comes out of and figured I could make it work for a regular cake. Plus it came with an insert if you want to make a cake with a hole in the center, like Angel Food Cake. I'll update if and when I decide to bake and let you know how this pan works or doesn't.

+I also purchased the following 3 jars that just happen to be my picture for my "365 Project". I've always wanted to have a kitchen where everything has it's place with little labels all in coordinating containers. This is my start I guess. This sort of goes along with my cake-aspirations because I hate having flour/sugar in the bags they come in. It makes it really difficult to measure, you always end up spilling and its just not as visually appealing. Someday I hope to have the kitchen of my dreams and not just have 3 jars it taped on labels. Maybe I'll have jars for spices, and cereal, and coffee, and snacks all with vinyl stenciled lettering... the list goes on and on.

003/365

+ Lowe's can be a very frustrating place especially when you go looking for some soil. I purchased some of these white flower pots to put my new cacti in so they weren't so farmers-market-looking in their plastic containers. They are the perfect size to fit on the window sill and I thought I'd give my new green friends a treat to some new soil. But what do you know... Lowe's sells nothing smaller than 1 cubic-foot of soil. Seriously? I don't need 23lbs of soil, I needed like 3 cups of soil. Needless to say, I left Lowe's empty handed and plan on scoping the nearby flower gardens for some extra dirt I can "use." For now my cacti remain in their original soil but in new pots with a little more room to grow. Good thing they're hardy and aren't fussy like some flowers.

on a year's worth of photos

I was inspired by Jaminicole and her 365 Project so I decided to check it out and I really want to try this. The rules are that you have to take at least one picture every day for a whole year. Wow, that's going to be a lot of pictures but I love the challenge and I love pictures so I think I'll give it a shot. I plan on uploading pictures here as well as on my 365 site so please feel free to check that one out as well. I promise that I'll take a picture every day even if I don't get a chance to upload/blog about them every day. Maybe I'll have to feature a "my week in photos" blog at some point if I'm away from my computer for a few days. (I actually like the way that sounds.)

I'll most likely continue to blog like normal, tidbits of my life. The pictures I take may inspire me to write about them, they might just be places I've been/things that I've seen, or they might be completely random if there's nothing exciting going on that day. I hope you enjoy and I hope I can keep up on this. I'm calling yesterday Day#1 because I love the photos I took on our trip. That might be cheating a little, I'm not sure, but frankly I don't really care either :-)

002/365

Today's picture is nothing too exciting because, hey, its my first day so I was sorta limited to make sure I got a picture of something. The weather here is gorgeous, definitely starting to feel like summer and I love it! I decided that after my weeks of grunge while studying for my MCAT that I'd try to put myself together a little more now. I absolutely love this dress. I got it at American Eagle last year and I wish I would wear it more. The fabric is extra soft and it even has pockets! (I'm a sucker for dressed with pockets) My jean jacket is from The Gap, on clearance too which is always a plus.

PS- look how long my hair is getting! After wearing it in a pony tail for about a month straight you tend to not realize that it's grown. I miss my long hair very much so this is awesome for me.