Labor Day Weekend 2014

This Labor Day Weekend was nice, but nothing overly exciting. I didn't go to a cookout with family, swim one last time, or see a fireworks display. It was not a stereotypical Labor Day Weekend filled with sun, and food. But it was an extremely productive long weekend, and for that, I am grateful.

I have class on Fridays this semester, which is already a bit of an adjustment after not having Friday class spring semester. I made my schedule though so that I am done with class by 11 and don't have to go into work at all. I loved having my Friday afternoons last semester to get caught up on homework, so I decided to do that again this semester. I find that I'm often so busy during the day and at night with class, work, and meetings that I don't have a lot of time to do homework during the week. That's why I try to get a lot done on the weekends!

This Friday though I needed a little break from school work and my mom was out of work early too, so we went to see the movie If I Stay in the afternoon. I read the book a few weeks ago, and I really enjoyed both the book and the movie. I would for sure recommend seeing the movie! We also grabbed ice cream at Zip Dip afterwards and went to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant with some friends. It was a really nice Friday after the first week of school!

The rest of my weekend had pretty much consisted of doing a lot of homework. I have actually been so proud of how productive I've been this weekend! I have a TON of stuff going on this week because recruitment starts on Thursday night for my sorority. I know I'm not going to have a whole lot of time to do homework, so I tried to get as much school work completed as possible over the weekend. I did two homework assignments, wrote a three page paper, and read the equivalent of about four textbook chapters. It's been a lot of work, but I feel so good going into this week already prepared.

On Sunday afternoon though my mom and I got out of the house for a little while and went shopping at my favorite mall. It had been a long time since I had been out to that mall, so I was thrilled. I also noticed in Macy's that they seemed to be clearing out a lot of room on the bottom level, which is where they put their Christmas merchandise each year. Yes, I am already getting excited for the thought of Christmas decor popping up in Macy's soon!

The main reason I was excited to go shopping is because I had a $50 Sephora gift card burning a hole in my pocket. The credit card I have does the reward points for every dollar you charge, and I recently got up to enough points to get a free $50 gift card, and when I saw that Sephora was one of the options, I was ecstatic. I've had a number of makeup items on my wish list, and I've been holding off on buying them until I got the gift card. I ended up getting the Laura Mercier Matte Radiance Baked Powder Compact in Highlight 01 along with the Bite Luminous Creme Lipstick in Retsina. I also had enough points to get a sample of the Make Up For Ever HD Microfinish Powder. Nothing makes me more happy than new makeup!

Today I slept in and worked on more homework throughout the day. I had a meeting up at school this evening, so I ran up there real quick.

Now I'm looking forward to taking a relaxing shower and watching a movie in bed before another hectic week begins!

Summer Treats

It's only the beginning of June, and yet I feel as though I've already had a pretty awesome summer. I am loving how perfect the weather has been these past few weeks - it's been just great for spending time outside.

On Friday I didn't have anything going on. Over the last month, Tuesdays and Fridays have been my free days since I didn't have to work those days but everyone else in my family did, so I've had those days to spend doing whatever. Most of the time that has meant not leaving my house and staying in my pajamas all day ;) This Friday though I actually got ready, ran some errands, and picked up lunch for myself.

I also took Coco down for a little walk at the park. She's the laziest dog ever and could hardly make it through our entire TEN minute walk. Clearly, that's rough when you're a nine pound diva dog......

I read my book outside on the deck for a little while in the hopes of getting some sun. It was really hot though, so I ended up only reading about a chapter before I went back into the air conditioning. I started re-reading the Harry Potter series at the beginning of May, and I just finished the fourth one yesterday. I just can't seem to put them down - they're even better than I remember when I first read them years ago!

She may be a diva, but I love her anyway.....

On Saturday morning my friend Courtney and I went downtown to Findlay Market to eat lunch, walk around, and shop. It was the absolutely wonderful morning for it - they had a German band playing, and there were a ton of people there. It was perfect!

I got a waffle from Taste of Belgium - my favorite!

I also grabbed some cookies to go! I haven't tried the sugar cookie one yet, but the chocolate chip one.....

....had an OREO inside of it. The cookie was soft, chewy, and delicious on its own, but when you added in the Oreo in the center? It was one of the best cookies ever. I loved it and am kind of wishing I would have bought more than one :)

Yesterday was just a usual Sunday. I love the simplicity of Sundays though. It's the one day a week where I feel like I can consistently take it easy, get some things done, and prepare for the week. My Sunday routine lately has been church, reading a book, and sometimes watching a movie. That's exactly what I did too - read all afternoon.

Hope you are off to a good week! This one's going to busy for me - I've got lots of cake pops to make that  I can't wait to share!

Formal & Other Fun Things

I'm still trying to get caught up! I guess that's what happens when you go several weeks without publishing anything.

April has been a crazy busy month, but it's been a lot of fun. I've had to work hard on a lot of projects for school, but I've also just been doing a lot of fun things with friends and family too.

First off, just because she's so adorable (I may be a bit biased though......), I have to start off this post with a picture of my sweet pup.

The weather around here has been pretty gorgeous these last few weeks, so one weekend my family went downtown to the Banks for dinner. I absolutely love going down there since it's a new development right along the river. We went to a restaurant called the Yard House. It was my first time going there, and I really enjoyed it.

I absolutely love this city.

Every time I look at this picture I crack up, since it was my dad's idea to take a selfie ;)

My family always has a bet for the NCAA brackets - the loser has to buy everyone else Graeter's. Unfortunately I lost this year......

A couple Wednesdays ago, I had a test in one of my classes and then my class that I usually have after that was cancelled, so I decided last minute to go with a few friends to Taste of Belgium for waffles. Delicious!

On the 12th, my sorority had our formal. I loved high school dances, but I think college formals might be even more fun since you pretty much know all of the girls there. I re-wore my prom dress since I love it still so much.

Some of my sweet friends from my pledge class! I had so much fun dancing with these girls all night ;)

I really love college - I'm a little sad my first year is already almost over. I've made so many new friends already, and I can't wait to see where the rest of college takes me!

Bipolar Weather

I think we have just about the most bipolar weather around here. As I was looking over the pictures I've taken the last few week that haven't made the blog, I realized that most of them have to do with the crazy weather we've been experiencing.

For example......

Two weekends ago, my family had tickets to see the show Evita downtown. I was excited, but they were calling for an ice/snow storm. We ended up getting out of the house and heading downtown for dinner at Rock Bottom, but then when we left dinner it was getting worse, so we just headed home. I was sad to have to miss the show, but at least we got out for a yummy dinner!

I snapped this picture out the window as we were driving home - the roads were pretty bad.

The next day I was just on a delay for school, but I almost couldn't make it out of my subdivision. I couldn't get my car up this hill - my mom ended up having to do it for me and even then it just barely made it. Insane!

We were able to make it through the rest of that week without any snow, and on Fat Tuesday I was pleasantly surprised to find that my work had a little food party. I went into the print room to find this.....

.....and this is what I grabbed. Have I mentioned how much I like my job? :) And if you've never tried the Russell Stover Red Velvet eggs, you really need to!

Continuing with the weird weather - I took this picture last week when it was heating up and the sun was shining. It was probably in the 50s and we still had some snow laying around. Typical Ohio weather. Coco was enjoying the sun though.

Last weekend I had a sorority thing where a woman from nationals came to observe our chapter. We ended up being done early, so I went with a few friends to Graeter's afterwards. Perfect Saturday night!

I made some cake pops last week because I had an order from my cousin. Although they aren't super fun like my Frozen ones, I figured I'd share them anyway - the theme was one of the local grade schools around here.

It was warm enough this past weekend that my family visited our favorite local creamy whip since they had just opened for the season. Summer can officially start now since Zip Dip is open!

This past Tuesday it went up to 70 DEGREES. It was absolutely amazing. I was walking around campus with a short sleeve shirt on and everyone was hanging around outside. It felt absolutely amazing and made me SO incredibly happy.

And then on Wednesday - less than 24 HOURS LATER it was in the 20s and snowing.

Here's to hoping for spring weather from here on out!

The Best

Last weekend was one of the best. And you want to know what I did?

Honestly, not a whole lot. Sometimes the weekends where you don't have a lot of big plans can end up being the best just because of the simplicity.

My family made Lemon Blossoms late last week, so I enjoyed those all weekend. Having Lemon Blossoms on hand always makes for a better day!

Since I don't have class on Fridays and didn't actually have to run up to UC for anything (it seems like I always end up there on Fridays anyway!), I took my dog for a little walk at the park. She's just about the laziest dog ever and gets tired after a 10 minute walk, so we made it quick. It was still nice that it was warm enough to get outside.

I also got a lot of homework done in the afternoon. It wasn't too hard to get motivated when I was sitting on our couch in the sun with Coco laying at my feet!

I also finally got around to tackling a project I've been meaning to do since Christmas: updating my car decals. Although it made me a little sad to take off the Seton one.....

.....I was so happy to have a cute Kappa Delta one to replace it with, and I am absolutely obsessed with it!

I spent the rest of my Friday night with a trip to Target and then came home and watched The Wedding Planner while I pained my nails. It doesn't sound too exciting, but it was just what I needed after a few crazy weeks!

My friend Danielle came home for the weekend, so I met her for Skyline and Graeter's (what else?!) Saturday afternoon. I tried the new gelato for the first time, and although it was good, it still doesn't come close to comparing to Black Raspberry Chip.

The weather was absolutely perfect on Saturday. It was sunny and 60 degrees - fantastic weather for February! I was able to drive with my windows rolled down, which was awesome. There's nothing better than driving with the windows down and radio turned up. It felt just like spring!

I headed to the park again that afternoon because I didn't want to waste the good weather by just sitting inside. I went by myself, listened to some country music, and ended up walking 3.5 miles because I didn't want to leave. It felt so perfect to be walking in just a sweatshirt (and I was hot!) with some good music. I couldn't keep myself from smiling - I was so happy!

Last Sunday was another relaxing day mainly just hanging around my house and getting some homework done. The best part of the day though was when my mom went grocery shopping and brought me home some Oreos - my absolute favorite!

I hope you all had a great weekend - I'm really hoping to get caught up on some posts this week!

Recently.

I am finally (after almost an entire month) getting time to sit down and actually blog! It's crazy how much I've missed it, but I just haven't been able to justify spending the time journaling about my life when I've hardly had even enough time just to live it - ha!

This picture pretty much sums up a lot of what I've been doing lately: homework. I went the first five weeks of the semester without any exams, and then I had three within a week. I've been spending a lot of time studying, and I'm just super relieved that those exams are behind me now and that I have a few more weeks until any more :)

Sometimes in the midst of a hectic school/work day, you just have to treat yourself to your favorite candy bar. At least that's what I do!

I took this picture on my last snow day, which was the 5th. It's crazy how many snow days we've had, but it's been nice at the same time to have days to just catch up. I may not go to school on snow days, but I honestly think I get more work done than on the days I do actually have school.

Plus it's nice to have a super cute puppy to snuggle with inside all day!

My mom's birthday was the 7th, so we celebrated with breakfast at Price Hill Chili. Then while she was at work, I ran out to the BonBonerie to pick up some treats.

I went with the intent of picking up a few cookies for my family. But I went when I was really hungry, so I ended up getting a red velvet cupcake for myself, as well as one of their chocolate caramel macarons because they are the absolute best, and I couldn't resist! (It's honestly a miracle I'm not 500 pounds).

I ended up enjoying the cupcake for lunch that day ;)

My family also went out for dinner that night at Moerlein downtown. I am absolutely obsessed with that restaurant, so I was extremely happy my mom picked it for her birthday dinner. I'm already thinking that I may probably want to go there for my birthday this year. Their menu is great, but the blueberry cobbler? I die......

This is pretty much how I look when I first wake up in the morning too.....

Two weekends ago I went out with a few old grade school friends and it was so much fun. I love how you can go months without seeing some friends and then still pick up just where you left off. We had originally planned to go to Sky Zone, but it was so crazy crowded that we ended up at Dave & Busters instead.

We also grabbed dinner at Chick-fil-a and spent some time shopping in Target. Honestly, I don't think there's anything better than spending a Saturday night laughing and catching up with old friends that you don't see much of anymore.

We also picked up these Oreos at Target (because hello - cookie dough Oreos?!). They were good but didn't actually taste a whole lot like cookie dough, so I was a little disappointed.

I've still got a few more things to post about (including some Valentine's baking projects!), but I think I'll stop here for now. I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!