Resolutions for the New Year (plus some bonus inspiration!)

In case you haven't noticed from previous blog posts, I am an avid fan of making lists. I'm convinced that it has something to do with my anxiety and keeping me sane. Regardless of that, I have really grown to love writing them, so here's another list of mine that I plan to print out and stick to for the new year of 2012. Some of these resolutions are also bucket list items, but I try to challenge myself every year to do anything (and everything) on my bucket list. Might as well, right? :)

1. Attend Red Hot Chili Peppers concert (already planned)
2. Attend other awesome concerts
3. Stop walking on tiptoes
4. See a chiropractor about back problems
5. Meet new people (always an easy one to cross off!)
6. Get more sleep (we'll see about this one... haha)
7. Start Etsy shop for my crocheted projects
8. Get a new piercing (most likely another ear piercing)
9. Turn 21 :D
10. Go to a karaoke bar
11. Get a coffee table for my living room
12. Meet someone famous (it could happen!)
13. Go on a spontaneous road trip
14. Get scholarship monies
15. Learn how to play an instrument/relearn how to play violin
16. Make more playlists
17. Eat healthier and drink more water
18. Go to the gym often
19. Rock climb more often (this is a must!)
20. Become satisfied with my wardrobe
21. Watch Community and become addicted
22. Watch Star Trek and become addicted
23. Grow a pair and actually do the polar plunge
24. Have an adventurous spring break
25. Try something new/become more cultured
26. Become more prepared for the zombie apocalypse (you never know)
27. Read more books! (You'll most likely be seeing a book list posted on here very soon)
28. Be more carefree and less anxious
29. Take a women's defense class
30. Buy a typewriter (I actually might buy one before the year starts!)

There's definitely more I could add, but these are the ones that came to mind. There's a lot on this list, some of which are out of my control (such as number 12), but let's see how much of it I can actually accomplish!

While every year has its ups and downs, I think it's those very ups and downs that make us who we are. They form us into stronger people and help us on the way to finding our true selves. Bad things may happen to us and sometimes all we can see are the bad things that cloud our happiness, but we must realize that the bad things are simply bumps in the road. They're hard to get over, but once you've surpassed them, you're one step closer to where you want to be, metaphorically speaking. We must cherish the great things that happen to us and look forward to both the expected and unexpected moments in life, whether they are good or bad. I see this new year as a fresh start for myself and I have a feeling that it has a lot of great things in store for me. And with that, here is a quote for you all to think about as you ring in the new year. Cheers, fellow blog readers! :)

"Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties."
- Helen Keller

Movies I'm excited to see when released:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

War Horse

The Secret World of Arriety

Marvel's The Avengers

Mirror Mirror

Brave

The Amazing Spiderman

The Dark Knight Rises

Frankenweenie
The Hobbit

Monsters University

Arrested Development movie (whenever that happens!)

Overcoming sadness

Since I've been quite lonely and a bit sad lately, I thought it appropriate to share some of my wisdom, or wisdom of others, rather.
I've discovered that picking myself back up from a collision of unfortunate life events can be a difficult and a rather frustrating process. It's hard to sort all of my feelings and make sense of what is going on in my life, and it's even harder to come to terms with the fact that the sorting takes time.

I've also found it challenging to describe how I really feel to others, not to mention to myself. I've been looking up so many quotes to help me with my sadness as well as my anxiety as a result of my depression, and it's surprisingly comforting to read what other people say about heartache and feeling lost or unsure. Reading quotes makes me feel a lot less lonely and also less stressed out; it gives me comfort to know that others have gone through similar hard times and they've made it through.
A lot of the quotes I am sharing are sad, but they are also beautifully said. I feel as though the best way to overcome sadness sometimes requires the truthful, albeit heavyhearted words to help with healing the parts of the heart that are still hurting.

Sometimes two people need to step apart
and make a space between
that each might see the other anew,
in a glance across a room
or silhouetted against the moon.
-Robert Brault

People change and forget to tell each other.  
-Lillian Hellman

Some people come into our lives and quickly go.  Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.  
-Flavia Weedn

Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go.  
-Author Unknown

“I'm not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.”

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” 

“If there ever comes a day when we can't be together, keep me in your heart. I'll stay there forever.”
“I don’t feel very much like Pooh today," said Pooh.  "There there," said Piglet. "I’ll bring you tea and honey until you do.” 
-A.A. Milne
(All A.A. Milne quotes are amazing and make me smile.)

I know that life has it's rough patches and that I'll feel like myself again eventually. I can at least say that I'm lucky to be with family that I love and care about around the most wonderful time of the year: Christmas time!
I hope everyone gets to be with the ones they love, and if you're not yet, get there soon! In the meantime, let them know how much you love them, because one can never tell when someone may need to hear it. :)

Top 10 Christmas Movies!

As Christmas slowly is coming upon us, I thought I'd share my top 10 favorite favorite films to watch during the holiday season! I seem to love a lot of the old classics, so you've been warned. :)

10. Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
 This movie makes it at number 10, because... you caught me again, I admire Tim Burton's work. It's more of a Halloween movie rather than a Christmas movie, but I still love watching this around Christmas time anyway.

9. It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
I love watching this with my family. It's so romantic and Christmas-y all at the same time! I wanted to put it closer to the top, but I'm a sucker for the kid's movies.

8. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
I love Rudolph and his dentist elf friend, but it always made me so mad that they got made fun of throughout the entire movie. And why is that red-headed doll on the island of misfit toys?

7. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
Oh, how I adore this movie. Charlie Brown is the best. The movie has the absolute BEST soundtrack that would definitely make it in my top 5 Christmas albums.

6. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
I actually just watched this movie the other night and rekindled my love for Muppets. And Michael Caine. I heard that the new Muppets movie is hilarious and I can't wait to go see it.

5. The Snowman (1982)
For those of you not familiar with this film, it is fantastic. The music and art combination is gorgeous and I absolutely love it. For those of you who were not fortunate enough to watch this movie, you can watch it on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=PeVaj4zkWy0&v=h7iTKVMA8MA&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_63308

4. Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983)
I love this version of the Christmas Carol, mainly because I love Mickey Mouse. I always watched it as a kid and loved seeing all of my favorite classic Disney characters in a Christmas movie.

3. Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (1977)
Not many people know about this movie, but it is one of my all-time favorites. I'll add a link for this movie as well, but the story is beautifully told. Nestor is the cutest!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_2165&feature=iv&src_vid=LmSvoyIit7I&v=-d_ByKm8jVY

2. Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)
Dr. Seuss has stolen my heart with this Christmas classic. Every year I look forward to watching this with my family! The Grinch will forever be known as the nastiest and most creative Christmas villain.

1. Elf (2003)
Finally, number ONE! I can't get enough of this movie. Will Ferrell is a comedic genius with his character, Buddy in this hilarious Christmas movie.
"We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup."

And that's it! I hope that this list has brought you early holiday cheer and I also hope that I've introduced you all to some new Christmas favorites.

Remembering Cody

About two weeks ago, my dog Cody was diagnosed with lymphoma. Just last Friday, he had to be put down because of his condition. He was 11 years old and lived a good life, but it is hard to see my life without him. He has been with me for more than half of my life, and to have such an important member of the family leave is hard to cope with. He was the absolute best dog a family could ever ask for and he made us so happy. I will never forget all of the wonderful memories we had with him. From the very first time I held him, to the last time I hugged him tight before I went back to school, I will never forget such a perfect and beautiful dog.
Rest in peace, Cody. I love you so much. You will always be the best dog I've ever had.

My first ever VLOG!

I'm pretty embarrassed by any video of me talking directly to the camera, but I am a lady of my word. Don't hate on my n00b video skillz. You know they're awesome.

The good, the great, and the wonderful news!

So first off... my shirts came in the mail! I am extremely happy to say that I didn't get any shirts that were too lame, but I definitely have a favorite out of the 3 shirts I bought. All I can say is that for being random, they ended up being pretty cool shirts!

Now for some great news... I have been inspired by my friend Kelcey to do a vlog post! Since I just got these shirts, I might as well show them in a video instead of taking pictures of the shirts and posting them. I also have some fantastic holiday earrings I recently bought that I've been dying to show off.

In case that wasn't enough great news, I also finished my art project today! I am very proud of the way it turned out. I will actually share some pictures of it now since I promised pictures of my shirts and won't be showing those until I make my vlog post. Everyone wins!

I started off wanting to do a very Tim Burton-esque project, and I think it turned out quite well for what I was aiming for! I feel like I appear to be obsessed with Tim Burton now that I've brought him up two blog posts in a row, but I just admire his work. :P

This project was an altered book project and I used all Disney books. I made the Cinderella puppet out of paiper-mache and the pumpkin is actually made from a book. I tried to make this project into a darker outlook on romantic Disney movies by conveying the idea that Cinderella is still waiting for her "prince" and really doesn't do much to go out and find him herself or even develop confidence to stand up for herself. Without a fairy godmother to turn the pumpkin into a carriage, Cinderella would still be waiting and continue being miserable for the rest of her life until her "knight in shining armor" came to save her. Now don't get me wrong; I love Disney movies and Cinderella. I just think that it is important for everyone, especially girls, to understand that they cannot wait around for their prince to come and find them. To delve even deeper into the meaning of my piece, I must simply say this: it is important for everyone to go out find their own happiness. Don't wait around and expect happiness to find you, because chances are, that just won't happen.

As for the wonderful news, I am finally home at last for Thanksgiving break! I've been looking forward to coming home for weeks, so it is definitely an awesome feeling to be home with my beautiful and loving fambly. :)

If you would like to let me know what you think of my altered book project, please do so in the comments! My first vlog post will be up soon, so be on the lookout. Until then, thanks for reading and have a very happy Thanksgiving! :D

Still sick!

Man oh man, do I HATE being sick! Today has been the absolute worst day to be sick, but I somehow managed to get through it. I woke up this morning with a nasty eye infection. Yeeeeah. Disgusting, I know. I got very little sleep last night due to my horrible cough keeping me up and had to wake up waaay early for my Praxis test at 8 am. Fortunately enough, I passed my reading praxis with flying colors! It was quite the relief to see a juicy score on that screen after I finished racking my poor, tired brain for an hour. As for the writing, I feel as though I did well, but I get my results back from that section in a few weeks. We'll see how that turns out.

After the test, I skipped my math class and went straight to health services. It took a while, but I finally got to see a doctor! She was the same doctor I saw last week and she is just wonderful. She gave me all of the medicine I need for my eye and my cough. She hooked me up with some awesome cough syrup that will help me finally get some much needed sleep. :) Thanks, doc!

Oh, I should also mention something cool I found out while reading through entertainment magazines in the waiting room. Tim Burton is coming out with a new animated movie in October 2012 called Frankenweenie. This was something he actually came up with in 1984 and couldn't create a full movie because of budget cuts. Instead, he made it into a short film. But now... it's going to be a movie! I'm such a sucker for Tim Burton films, so I couldn't resist sharing the news.

Sparky from Frankenweenie

In other news, I gave in to shirt.woot's mystery shirt special once again... but this time I bought THREE shirts. The lucky number. For those who are not familiar with shirt.woot, it's a website where there is a new shirt every 24 hours for only $10 with free shipping. Every now and then they have a mystery shirt sale where each shirt is $6.66, but you don't know what's on the shirt. Most "wooters" say it's the safest bet to buy three shirts during these sales, so this time I did! At the last mystery sale I only bought one and received an awesome "Metro-gnome (Metronome)" shirt, art courtesy of Ian Leino.

You can't really see it, but I'm wearing the shirt in this picture!
Oh, and there's my super-cute brudder. :3

When I get the shirts in the mail, I'll be sure to model them for my blog! Woohoo! Until next time... :)

Late Halloween pictures and GUESS WHAT? I'm sick again.

Yeah, it's true... I have the flu. And it's absolutely dreadful. I always get sick at the worst times, but at least this week isn't as important as next week. I have to take my Praxis test next Monday, so I better get well before then! The good news is that I feel heaps better this morning than I did yesterday morning, so hopefully I won't have to skip any more classes. It seriously pains me to skip all of my classes today (because I'm such a good student), but my health is more important.

As for Halloween pictures, I completely forgot to post them!

My roommate and I!

Party time!

My friend Christina and I! We worked so hard on our costumes!

And there you have it! The costume was successful overall, except in crowded areas... which was the majority of my surroundings. It's still in one piece, albeit a little scratched up! Regardless, I was very proud to be the Death Star. :P

Alright, now it's time for me to kick this flu! Good morning and goodnight!

Spooky weekend and the unveiling of my costume!

Well, I'm a little late in giving an update on my weekend, but it was a pretty fun time! On Friday, my friends and I all went to Scarowinds and rode a couple of rides and of course went into a few greatly decorated haunted houses. Then on Saturday, we all took part in my friend Ashley's annual family hayride! We roasted hot dogs, marshmallows, played with glowsticks, and rode a surprisingly scary hayride. It was truly a wonderful vacation from school. Much thanks to Ashley's mom for taking pictures!

As for this week, it's been somewhat busy. I've been getting ready for Halloween, for it is one of my very favorite holidays. :) I finished my costume, which I will now reveal to you all! I am going to be the Death Star for Halloween. I based my costume off of another girl's costume that my friend Christina found online. I've been working on the skirt with Christina who will be my Death Star counterpart. While these skirts are definitely going to be hard to move around in, I think it's going to be a hit.

I'll post more pictures of me wearing the full costume later, but the skirt is the main event of the costume!

As for further decorations, here's what my room looks like for Halloween. It's not much, but I love it!

 

I bought the Jack-O-Lantern lights at an antique store last year and they're my favorite. As for the window clings, I actually got the Halloween Disney princesses at the Dollar Store! They reminded me of my childhood, so of course I had to get them.
Yesterday I carved pumpkins with Spencer, which was so much fun. We roasted the pumpkin seeds afterwards and they were absolutely delicious. We covered them in butter, garlic, and salt. Om nom nom! For our pumpkin creations, Spencer carved the Boogeyman from Nightmare Before Christmas in his, and here's mine! If you can be the first one to tell me what it is, you get major cool points.

Today I've been quite lazy, but I think I deserve to be for once. I skipped my morning class so I could sleep in, but then I walked all the way to my 2nd class only to find that it was canceled! So in spite of that, I walked back home and skipped my last class. I feel so rebellious and it's awesome!
Tonight I'll be going to see The Three Musketeers. It looks very well done, but I'll let you all know eventually. Ta ta for now! :)

Fall Break = Success!

Hello!

So unfortunately, I only managed to complete one of the things on my list of things that I said I would do over fall break. This ended up being... that I dyed my hair! I really like the way it looks; it's not too red, but still gives off a really pretty shade of auburn in the sunlight. Too bad the beautiful days in Boone are numbered! I think the weather is going to start getting colder by the end of this week. It's around this time that I try to wear all of my skirts and dresses before the cold weather decides to come and stay for the remainder of the year. Not that I mind wearing sweaters; I just love wearing dresses!

Onto what I was up to on my fall break...
I ended up spending a lot of my time with my mom and my little Jo bro! Josiah was sick with a double ear infection the last time I went home, so I was very happy to come home to a happy and healthy smile. His ability to remember people is getting better, so it was also nice that he remembered who I was and wanted to play with me!

Oh, and I also painted my nails! They're Halloween themed!

Aside from that, I went to the NC State Fair with my sister and some good friends! I had never been before, but I ended up having a great time! We went on a ride called Freak Out twice, rode the ferris wheel, pet some cute baby animals, watched the fireworks, and ate a lot of delicious fried food. I especially enjoyed the fried pickles. So delicious. After all of that fun, I think I just may love the State Fair quite a bit. I can't wait to go again next year!

This week will be pretty busy for me, but hopefully on Friday I'll be going to... Scarowinds! I can't wait! Hope everyone is having a fun and stress-free week. Enjoy the sun while it's still out! :)

Camping, cupcakes, and craziness

Since I lack the motivation to get a head start on my homework for this week, I decided to grace my blog with another post. :)

Aside from torturous schoolwork and attempting to cure my recently relentless acne problems, things have been pretty good for me! In recent crocheting news, I have made another hat. This time, it is a cupcake hat. You can't tell from this picture, but I used sparkly white yarn for the frosting.

It took me a pretty long time, but I thought it was good enough to show off. I ended up getting a huge response on Facebook, which I did not expect. After the comments I've received, I'm thinking about making more of them and trying to sell them on Etsy. Perhaps with different bands and flavors. It would take a lot of time for me to create more, and with time being something I don't have a lot of these days, we'll see!

I had a lot of fun things happen this past week! I went to my friend's concert, which was fantastic. I also went star gazing on the Blue Ridge Parkway with some friends where we drank hot cocoa and wished on all of the beautiful shooting stars we saw! 

As for my weekend, I went camping on Friday. It was a lot of fun, minus the part where we had to sleep. It was a freezing cold night, which wasn't so bad for me since I had a deliciously warm plush blanket wrapped around my entire body. What I couldn't take was the ground being so bumpy and hard to sleep on. Needless to say, everyone missed their own beds that night. 

The girl's tent! We set it up perfectly :D

And here's the boy's tent... not quite as great as the girl's tent. :P

We had wonderful campfire music, thanks to the instruments we brought!

I brought my bongo with me and gratefully contributed to the campfire tunes. :)

My friend Tanner and I!

Not a very good picture of us, but very reflective of the crazy night we had. :D

On Saturday, I got to hang out with my sister Danielle and Kyle! They came to visit me, which was very nice. :) After they left, I went to a basement party on Saturday. It was definitely the weirdest party I've ever been to. Also the most confusing. Haha. Then today I hung out with my friends Katie, Christina and Kelsey! We made beautiful Star Wars-themed Wookiee and Wampa cupcakes together and watched Up. All in all, I think my weekend turned out to be a great success. :)

         

Who would win in a battle against each other?

In other news, I'm going home for fall break on Wednesday! There's a few things I hope to get done whilst at home besides hanging out with the fam; for instance...

-Finish my Halloween costume (which will remain a secret! For now. Details to be announced later :P)

-Dye my hair auburn/red

-Finish watching season 3 of Arrested Development

-Start watching a new TV series; either Breaking Bad OR Community. I'm leaning towards Breaking Bad.

-Start working on new crochet project! (also another secret!)