oh hey

NEWS FLASH

apparently it's cool to use disposable cameras again... missed that memo

under construction

My family is finally starting to make headway on project: turn our garage into an awesome hangout room.

Since it isn't attached to our house my friends and I talk as loud as we want and I can laugh at everything the

y say until the sun comes up without worrying about waking my parents.

This summer is going to be great.

In the meantime I've been searching blog world for inspiration to send to my mom for the design of the room.

I'm figuring with my retro/bohemian style, my mom's coastal rustic, and my step-dad's modern/Frank Loyd-Wright style it should be pretty much the coolest room ever created.

Thrift stores, look out.

Summer checklist

Let the summer checklist begin.

1. actually check off these things.

2. homemade fish tacos

3. vaca with the girls

4. get rid of all my tan lines, compliments of the sun, none of this fake shit

5. learn how to surf

6. find a fun job

7. volunteer with an event planner

8. craft all day with ashley

9. read the classics

10. watch Casablanca

11. stay active

12. take a dance class

13. stay up all night

14. save money

15. get another tattoo

16. pierce a second hole in my ears

17. successfully make creme brulee

18. skinny dip at night in the ocean

19. do something unexpected

20.

scattered

I'm not exactly sure why I think it's a great idea to drink coffee when I'm trying to study because i know within 2 minutes I won't be able to focus on one thing for longer than 4 minutes, especially something important like oh I don't know, my college education.

Instead of just taking an hour to read articles, look through my notes, and memorize the dumb study guide I have spent the last 3 hours:

• reading The Pact
• locking myself out of my apartment
• looking up concerts close to home over summer
• looking up plane tickets to anywhere but florida
• reading random blogs
• wishing I had a ridiculous amount of money to spend of Free People's clothing
• attempting and failing to get my scanner to work
• staring at facebook
• listening to the new she & him album
• and actually scanning through my articles for Social Problems.

It's not that I don't find the information interesting, I do for the most part. Well other than when my brain refuses to accept anything to do with the words "economy"and "government", yeah it's great, I have to make a conscious effort to understand what I'm reading when those words are involved. But give me an article on naming children, relationships, or gender and I suck it all in....thanks brain.

Maybe it's because I feel so scattered. I don't know what exactly I'm working towards. I know what I would like to have, but I can't have most of those things now. Money and distance are not my friends. So for now I just focus on today and tomorrow.... hopefully that will last for more than 4 minutes.

in and out.

I have constantly been looking for answers, for a reason to something I cannot fully understand. Anything that will give me some clarity in life, school, growing up, or relationships. I question things. It's just what I do. Or at least what I have done for as long as I can remember. When I was 2 years old I asked my mom how water came out of the faucet and received the response of "magic", naturally I believed this. I believed in magic, and for some reason even after 17 years, I still do.

About 2 months ago I gave up. I had put my heart into something, yet again, where it clearly did not belong. Things changed, and so did I. It was the last straw, where everything just crumbled a little bit. It wasn't because of that one thing but rather a few years worth, and I stopped. I slowed down, and let myself take some time to have just myself.

Taking that time, being just a tiny bit selfish for once, not looking for all the answers, and realizing that sometimes things just happen the way they do, has helped me see a lot.

I now know that a lot in my past is not worth fighting for or clinging to. That's who I was but definitely not what I want to continue to be. I took time to separate myself and see people for who they truly are, not just some emotion I had tied to their face.

Crazy as it seems, I was able to look at my life rationally. While some people had easily walked out, others had somehow come back around or never left.

It took a while, but I finally see what is worth my time and effort. I cut through the bullshit, stood up for myself, and I can honestly say I don't hold onto a lot of what I had clung to for years. I can finally breathe and it's clear who was worth the years in my past and hopefully the years to come.

People change, we grow up, we live through a new perspective, see new things, fall and recover. At the end of the day there's always someone there. Someone who helped you through it, or was there in the morning. Even someone who didn't have to be, who might be hours away, but was still there. Those are the people that are worth it to me. Who are worth holding onto and putting your heart into, who remind you of the "magic".

nothing better...

than a good movie.

My new current favorite is Love Me If You Dare (Jeux d'enfants)

It's completely French, and completely heartwarming and heartbreaking. The perfect movie for the days when you want something that will make you laugh, cry, and open your eyes. Also, it doesn't hurt that Marion Cotillard costars with Guillaume Canet who is pretty much the most beautiful French man....ever.

Nothing better...

than a good song.

So as I was wandering around YouTube trying to find something to listen to besides the stuff on my itunes, I came across John Mayer's new album and the song "Edge of Desire". I don't think anything else could really put into words the way I feel most days the way this song has.

Nothing better...

than a best friend.

This week has been rough, but Dolly is always there. Hell, the past 5 years have been a roller coaster and yet she's always letting me curse and complain and say random words that don't exist. She just gets it, we share a brain. Must be that whole spirited child thing we got on our sides.

Nothing better...

than a good book.

Evening is refreshingly real. It is a story of a woman's life, her greatest love, and others that came and went.

Nothing better...

than good quotes.

Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists...When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence. -Edmond de Goncourt

sometimes i wish i had never met you, because then i could go to sleep at night not knowing there was someone like you out there.
--good will hunting.

I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift. -Shauna Niequist

Nothing better...

than amazing roommates.

3 girls who put up with your loud noises, repeat stories, and bad decisions every day. Three girls who call you when Ingrid Michaelson is singing to them in Jacksonville, push you to workout, encourage chocochip pancakes at 11pm, jump on your bed and chat before bed, celebrate the completion of a test or paper, think the same words, and love you regardless of how many dirty dishes you leave around the apartment.

Nothing better...

than fresh nail polish on fingers and toes, especially with the name of Cancun Fiesta.

Nothing better...

than long-distance friends.

Friends that despite living hours away, attending different schools, having different lives, still find the time in the their day to send you a text or message on facebook, talk for hours on the phone or video chat while doing nothing. Then, when finally in the same city or at the same table, or in the same bed it's as if you were never gone.

Nothing better...

than having things in your life that remind you it's okay to feel the way you do and be the way you are.

SOMETHING

As I'm sitting here shoveling cinnamon and brown sugar almonds in my mouth, trying to create a perfect schedule for next Fall and attempting to kick this caffeine high I've had since approximately 1 pm the only thing keeping me focused is the music playing in the background.

Apparently typing the word "something" into my itunes library has managed to create a list of songs that range from classic french music, The Beatles to Aly & AJ all seamlessly coming together to keep me going. The sun shining in my window doesn't hurt either.

What are these songs you ask?

Well the majority come from the Something's Gotta Give soundtrack... yes I am aware that I am 65 years old, however you can't deny a soundtrack with of Edith Piaf and Eartha Kitt.

It definitely takes me out of this suckhole of Tallahassee and to the Mediterranean or a Parisian cafe, either one would be nice.