What I'm Lovin'

My sister has done this several times and I have always wanted to join...but it was always thursday when I thought about it. Well, it is actually wednesday so here goes!

1. Matt Wertz's new album Weights and Wings. I'm obsessed. It is the perfect spring time music to enjoy driving with the windows down.

2. Cookies and Cream: I have recently discovered two of my favorite desserts have amazing combinations of COOKIES and CREAM. #1: Sweet Wishes Cupcakes. It is a chocolate cupcake with an oreo inside a cupcake! Ahhhhh-mazing. #2: CHOCOLATE cookies and cream ICE CREAM from the LSU Dairy Store. It is a little shop on campus that sells dairy products that are produced by the LSU Ag department. Now this is not your typical cookies and cream ice cream. It is chocolate ice cream with cookies and cream. Changed my life a little bit.

(Beautiful photo that my boss took on campus)

3. The Quad: This weekend I had a friend visit me from home. I was showing him around campus and we walked to the quad. It was a little after noon and it was a quiet Sunday afternoon. The lighting was magical. The beautiful arches were filled with magnificent streams of light and the azaleas were in full bloom. Azaleas will always have a special place in my heart. Shreveport is covered with them and they will forever remind me of home. I don't visit the quad very often, so it was a special reminder of how much a love my university.

(I love my little sisters!)

4. ZTA: This weekend was filled with several wonderful ZTA events. I had formal on Saturday and Family Day on Sunday (crawfish yum!) After all of the festivities were over, I had to watch skit and preference tryouts for formal recruitment in the fall. I got to sit and listen to a few girls sing some of the songs that we use during the last round of recruitment and it gave me goose bumps! It was another great reminder of how special our sisterhood is to my life.

5. My amazingly supportive friends and family: I am fairly positive that this has been my busiest and most stressful semester to date but it has also been one of the most enjoyable! Due to the love and support of my friends at school I have been able to survive all of the chaos and find the joy in each day. My family is always understanding and willing to drive hundreds of miles to come visit me because they know how happy it makes me to spend time with them. I am so thankful for all of the opportunities I have been given. I know I go crazy some times...but I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Watch out world! I'm TWENTY-ONE!

In the event you were unaware, I love birthdays. Last week I turned twenty-one and it was a wonderful day! My entire family made a trip down to Baton Rouge to celebrate the weekend before my birthday. We started off the day at Alex Box Stadium for an afternoon baseball game against Wake Forest. The only tickets that they had available were standing room only...but we were sneaky and got really awesome seats!

Then we checked into our hotel and got ready for dinner. For almost a year, I have been wanting to go eat at Juban's. It is a nice restaurant in town that is known for their seafood. It was delicious! The absolute BEST part was the banana's foster CHEESECAKE.

Awesome, right? Right.

It was super fun to get all dressed up for the night!

THEN, my sister and brother-in-law drove back for my actual birthday! I took them to the Chimes for dinner so they could experience a typical Baton Rouge restaurant. Then we went to a painting studio where they teach you how to paint a picture of your choosing. It was by far the absolute best way to spend my birthday! My mom sent tons and tons of food and decorations for the party. It really made the day super special (and the cupcakes were beyond delicious)

In other news...I failed to complete my list of "21 things before I turn 21." So now I am going to spend the next year attempting to check everything off that list by the end of my 21st year! So stay tuned!

work is not a job

Tonight while I am supposed to be completing sketches that are due tomorrow morning I stumbled upon workisnotajob.com and I it kinda changed my life a lil bit. I am so inspired by her perspective on life and the creative process.

This semester has been challenging in the creative department. I am...well simply, uninspired. So when this caught my eye I couldn't resist sharing. More often than not, our planners are filled with appointments and deadlines...but what are our actual lives filled with? Are we defining ourselves by the "stuff" filling our lives or by what truly makes us thrive? It is easy to get busy and see all the things on our to-do list and get bogged down...but I am doing my best to look at each deadline as an opportunity not a burden.

Soooo anyways...this is just my way of transferring some happy thoughts into the world. I hope that you find some inspiration and pass it along.

And I would recommend following them on twitter. Then you get to see happy reminders like this in the midst of another Manic Monday:

2010: A year in review

This year has been a long 52 weeks. Each week seemed busier than the last. There was not a lot of time for sleep (except when I slept through my alarm and was late to class/work) Looking back overall it was a pretty good year. Worked hard, learned a lot and had some fun mixed in there too. Looking forward to all that is in store for 2011!

January 1, 2010:

I spent last New Year's Eve with my wonderful

friends Stephanie and Chris in Hawaii!

January 8, 2010:

Began my office as Public Relations Chair for ZTA

February 6, 2010:

Leah and I found out that our video won

the Forever LSU Student Video Contest

March 4, 2010:

ZTA Step Team won 3rd place

March 10, 2010:

Spontaneous trip to see John Mayer in NOLA

June 5, 2010:

Sister got married!

June 7, 2010:

Started my first real job as a graphic

designer for the Forever LSU Campaign

July 14, 2010:

Repelled down a 200 foot cliff

August 23, 2010:

Began my second real job working as the Art Director for the LSU Foundation

September 23, 2010:

Became a GRAND-Big and Auntie! My Zeta Family is wonderful :)

November 7, 2010:

Accepted position of Vice President of Recruitment for ZTA

(these are all of my binders that I received when I was selected for this job!)

December 15, 2010:

Got lost and took a FERRY over the river and

through the woods to Lauren's Grandmothers house I go!

December 31, 2010:

Celebrated the New Year with home cooking,

ice skating, fireworks and yahtzee.

#4 Dinner Party

Hostest With the Mostess

The next item on my list was to plan and prepare a dinner party for my friends and family. Due to the fact that I don't have a kitchen when I am at school, my knowledge of cooking is very limited. New Year's Eve sounded like a good night to have this little gathering. Everything turned out really great (Matthew had three plates...so I guess it was good?) I made my famous BBQ Chicken, green bean bundles, Nani's twice baked potatoes and homemade bread.

A few things I learned:

- It takes a really long time to cook an entire meal! At our house we have double ovens and I had something in each oven at all times for hours!

- Then there is the quandary of how to keep everything hot for when your guests arrive. Timing is everything.

- Always have extra. I made enough food for what I estimated was 12 hungry people, but I was really only expecting 9. At the end of the night all of the platters were completely empty! (But I suppose that means everyone liked it! ha)

- "Ideally, if you serve a fruit salad, you probably shouldn't serve a apple pie." — Lenae M. Scott, Founder of the Lenae M. Scott School of Hospitality

- "Cookies aren't an acceptable dessert for a dinner party." — Lenae M. Scott

Santa brought all of the girls matching aprons :)

Wonderful friends to celebrate!

(Yummy)

#3 Sista Date

When we were in high school we would occasionally go to the local paint-your-own-pottery place, Arts on Fire to spend some quality sister time together. Then when Leigh Anne went to college we continued the tradition when she would come home for holidays. So it seemed only fitting that when she and Matt came home for Christmas that we stick to tradition.

Leigh Anne painted a Christmas Light-shaped candy dish and I painted a tall vase that I thought looked cool. It was a great way to spend the afternoon and I think they turned out to be pretty cool!

#2 sitting in the woods (aka hunting?)

Thus far I have failed to accomplish any more milestones on my list of 21 Things to do before my 21st Birthday. So now that I have "free time" I feel like I should knock a few things off that list. One of those was going "hunting" with my dad and brother.

Chad asked me to go with him over thanksgiving break but I was too swamped with school. When he asked me to go again over Christmas I didn't really have a good excuse. So we suited up (head-to-toe) in camouflage and an awesome pink hat (compliments of my hunting guide) and we were ready to go! He taught me how to shoot, and I was actually pretty good at it!! ha.

(The top 4 shots...aka ones closest to the center...are mine. Chad missed his target and hit mine. ha.)

We climbed up into the stand and started hunting. After about 20 minutes I realized that hunting is far less exciting when there is nothing to actually hunt. Then Chad talked me into going the next day because "Bubba always sees deer at this stand. It will be a GREAT day to see deer!" You sure about that? hmm...

At the end of the day it was fun to hang out with the boys, and now I have obtained a greater appreciation for all the hard "work" that Dad and Chad put into bringing home that good meat ;)