awaited plans

i have exciting news, i will be moving soon!!!!! well, not exactly soon, but in a couple months and i am so excited about it! not because i have to pack everything up and drag it around, but because i finally get to have plants again! i have been dying with this apartments inability to get any sunlight. my lovely orchid, lola, died within a week and i was devastated. but hopefully where i will be moving too, will have a north or east window and allow me to have two more orchids! along with start my herb garden. i cant wait to get out of the dreariness! i really need to have sunshine in my life and this apartment has not been good to me or my plants. goodbye rainy day everyday, hello sunshine!

i was so excited about this move that i gave it a jump start and went to the fort worth orchid society's orchid sale and came home with two new beauties thanks to dave! thank you so much dave!

i knew that if i waited until after i moved to get my orchids that i would have to wait until around january or so to get them and i just could not wait that long. i am so excited to have my "children" back. i know that a lot of people feel like they are missing something when they do not have a dog or a cat. that is how i feel without an orchid. i love them so very much!

my mom will be taking care of them until i move so that they will not die in my sunless apartment. i think she is a little nervous about it, but i have let her know exactly how to take care of them so i think she will be fine watching them for this short time.

the first one that i found was ingrid. she has some of the most beautiful coloring i have ever seen with a pale yellow backgroud on each petal with purple stripes and solid purple in the middle. so lovely!

dorothy is a different species that i am not very familiar with, but am very excited about! she is a heartier orchid and can take more sunlight than ingrid can. she blooms twice a year and has a bulb where water is stored and thicker leaves which allow her to live in a pot outside until a freeze comes through. the bulbs end up multiplying and hopefully in a few years i will have 20 or so blooms in a pot! i have a picture of what the blooms on her "mother plant" look like and they are just beautiful! they are very different from your typical orchid blooms and are in the same color scheme as ingrid. they are bright yellow in the center and then fade into purple on the edges. dorothy's species apparently smell very good too. i cant wait to watch her grow!

while i was potting my beautiful new plants, i went ahead and transferred mine and my sister's pine trees to larger pots. i think they enjoy it.

now that i have all my lovelies, is it time to move yet?! i cant wait!!!!

love.

who are these guys?

are they twins? no. they are just noah and jonathan. wearing the EXACT same outfit!

from their hair down to their shoes! even the shade of denim they chose to wear is the same! the only thing that could make it better is if noah was wearing his glasses. maybe its a good thing he wasnt though, because then i dont think i would be able to tell them apart. silly boys. at least they both can pick out a good outfit!

at one point i even caught them sitting in the exact same position. and by exact same i mean even their arms and legs were at the exact same angles! it was weird. they refused to let me take a picture because they didnt want to find it online. i told them not to worry (they dont read blogs). tracy snuck in these two shots for me because she was at a better angle. good job boys. keep it coming!

i hope yall are having a very lovely day. the weather is finally beginning to be beautiful again and i am heading to colorado at this very moment! lots of adventures to come and i am very excited!

love.

there's a party in my tummy!

so, there seems to be a bit of a pattern to what i have been eating as of late so i decided i should share. and im going to preface with an interesting video. 

i discovered that i make the yummiest pizzas ever. at least the yummiest for me. when i make the dough, i divide it into about 6 balls and freeze some. when i decide to cook a ball of dough, i usually eat half of the pizza i make and then bring the other half to school for lunch the next day! i love it. but that would make sense since i have been eating it all the time. as in pretty regularly since january.

it consists of whatever ingredients i have at the time, but usually involves some variation of the following: olive oil, basil, oregano, spinach, tomatoes, green peppers, roasted red peppers, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese and goat cheese. the goat cheese adds the most perfect flavor. so much that each time i make it i end up adding more and more than the last time. i cant explain it, but you should try it!

i began march with ending the worst month and a half of school in my life. to celebrate, i went to yoga and shared a delicious pazookie and wine with tracy! 

ever since then, i make myself at least 3 pazookies a week. now, i dont make a full sized one when i eat it by myself, but i do make a good sized one. i just cant help it, they are soooo delicious!!!!!! and if i have all the supplies, i might as well put them to good use! 

that would be blue bell chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream you are looking at. only my favorite. and the best ever. that soft cookie dough that squishes between your teeth....so yummy!!! i wont eat any other brand.

even though writing this is making me have a craving, im going to refrain because i already had one today. and it was very delish. so delish that tulip licked up the remains! weird, i know. what kind of bunny likes ice cream and cookie?! but she seemed to enjoy it. and for that, i am glad!

love.

CELEBRATION!!!!

TODAY IS MY SISTERS BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!! her 21st to be exact. and i must say, i CANNOT WAIT! cannot wait so much that i decided to take an early spring break and head down to fort worth early this morning and risk missing pop quiz points two days in a row. oh well, this is more important to me.

i have discovered in the past few months that i really love lists. dont get this confused with to do lists though. i mean fun lists. lists of loves. lists of inspiration. lists of things that just make your heart flutter. so here is another one.

things i love about karen:

1. her love for bagels

2. she is the best model i could ever ask for. i never ask anyone else because i know they wont be as good.

3. she found these beautiful berries in the middle of winter.

4. she always makes amazing faces.

5. we have the same love for queso and beer.

6. her extreme love for animals. so much that she lets them use the fireplace as a litterbox.

7. she is the only person, other than me, tulip will show lots of love for.

8. even when she thinks she only wants greasy food. she will still still sit down and understand the amazingness of pink elephant.

9. there is no shame in spending hours playing with photobooth.

10. she is filled with so many unexpected funny things.

*i had a video i wanted to put here but i cant figure out how. i guess the new blogger thing doesnt let you anymore?*

there are so many more things, but then this post will go on forever.

love you karen! i hope your birthday is amazing!

love.

how i celebrated

i am not one who is very big on watching award shows. i just dont find enjoyment in watching people thank everyone they know for enabling them to be where they are today. its much easier and faster to look up who won the next day. i do however, LOVE seeing what everyone wears!

when i realized it was oscars night (yes, i had no idea) i celebrated by making tortellini that i make when i need a quick meal (topped with olive oil, parmesan and italian seasonings).

and curled up in my most comfortable thigh high socks! and a blanket.

and then sat down to watch the red carpet! i missed some but i felt like i got a good feel of what everyone was wearing. nothing stood out to me as something i absolutely hated or loved except that i did really like sandra bullocks hair and i thought sarah jessica parkers dress was very unique. i almost didnt recognize cameron diaz because of her lovely long locks. but i love them! i hope she keeps it that way. maybe it has been long for awhile, but i have been out of celeb news for a long time.

after the red carpet was over, i turned it off and watched julie and julia instead. i first saw the movie in theaters with my mom and i love it so much! my goal is to be able to cook. i think i would end up loving it more than i know.

ps. i get to pick up my comforter from the dry cleaners tonight! im so excited for it to be clean and free of squirrel pee!

love.

half broke horses

as you know, i am the slowest reader on earth. so slow that i am still reading harry potter 2 that i started back in august. lucky for me, i found a book club entitled the slow readers and im so happy!

i really like the idea of everyone reading together and that it is not at a time crunching speed. i even finished the first book on time! actually, i finished the night before! woo hoo! and this was despite the fact that i had an awful month and a half in school that turned me into an attempting to study hermit! im VERY impressed with myself.

the first book we read was half broke horses by jeannette walls and i surprisingly enjoyed it the entire time! it is not a book i would normally pick up because part of the story is set in the depression (which always reminds me of my torturous high school english attempt to read the grapes of wrath) and also involves ranching.

walls wrote it in a memoir style from the perspective of her grandmother, lily. i loved how it began with her as a child and followed her all the way to becoming a grandmother. it made me view the depression era in a completely different light. i now have less negative thoughts towards it and made me value the strength of people in that time, especially lily (walls' grandmother). there were many events that happened in her life that could have made her shut down as a person but she remained strong the entire time. she always stuck to her values and refused to let people push her around because of them. even when she was going to be fired from her job (which happened many times) she didnt back down. she was always optimitic and knew other opportunities, and possibly better ones, would come her way regardless of the situation she found herself in. she was also a daredevil. she did not stick to the normal roles that most people felt women should stick to. she loved flying planes, she could beat the best guys at poker, and she was great at keeping the ranch running smoothly.

i really enjoyed reading this book and love how the slow readers is opening my mind to options that i would have never looked at twice. i cant wait to find out what our next book will be and to begin the journey of reading it!

love.

vomit. and not the good kind.

i am going to begin this post by saying that last week was extremely intense for me and filled with exhaustion, stress and emotional instability. what was waiting for me when i got home wednesday night helped add to this issue.

background: the only time i had to study for a huge exam i had on thursday was wednesday night after getting home from class at 6. i was already stressed about what i had to do and was prepared to get things accomplished. however, the universe thought otherwise.....

i came home while on the phone with my dad and threw my school bag into a chair like any normal day and walked towards my room so that i could get some stuff i needed to begin studying. that is when i saw it. a squirrel was standing on my bed! staring at me! staring at me creepily like it was laughing! like he was playing a funny prank on me that was not funny in any way! he looked eerily like this:

*

i thought for a moment that maybe i was delusional and it was all in my head, and then it leaped off my bed. that is when i knew it was real.

of course i freaked out. what are you supposed to do when a squirrel is on your bed?! i opened all of the doors in hopes that it would run outside without me needing to do anything. i stood by the couch and waited for a few minutes. it then peeked around my door and i tried to let it know that it was free to run outside, but it thought it would be a much better idea to run into my closet and hide amongst my clothes and storage boxes.

after repeating over and over again that of course this would happen to me, i decided that the best idea would be to get a broom and scare it out of my closet by moving things around and banging on the wall. i began to head towards the living room to get the broom and that is when i saw it. the squirrel had peed on my bed!!!! naturally, i got even more disturbed and nearly vomited. i was shaking because i was so freaked out and disturbed and i was trying to keep my stomach contents down while my dad kept telling me that if i was going to be able to get this squirrel out, i had to calm down. which is much easier said then done.

i had all the doors open in the lovely freezing 30 degree weather just so it would have a quick path outdoors. i gathered some courage and then began using the broom to try and scare the squirrel out of my closet. nothing happened. my dad thought that maybe the squirrel found a hole to crawl through (since i was not sure at the time how it got into the apartment. my dad kept reminding me that knowing how it got inside was not going to help me get it out so i had not thought of alternative ways  it could get in except that no one would break in and just throw a squirrel inside). i got a bit closer with my broom and moved a few things and then saw a tail! i swallowed some vomit right then and began shaking even more. i knew i couldnt get it out. i was way too scared i was going to be attacked. the one image that kept replaying in my mind was how my 7th and 8th grade latin teacher told us a story about a squirrel that ran up her leg, bit her thigh and made her bleed. that is the last thing that i wanted to happen to me. and i also didnt want rabies. and still dont want it. i dont care if an immunoglobuin and a vaccination exist. it still would not be fun and would take out even more of my study time.

*

i began calling manly men to come help me and of course, no one answers. i called tracy and im so glad she actually had her phone by her because she came to my rescue with a box and another broom! we emptied out my closet while making sure to not get too close to where the squirrel was and set up a trap to sweep the squirrel into the box. despite our efforts, we could not get it into the box. it kept squishing itself between the wall and my holiday decorations container more and more and the sound of it scratching the wall and knowing that it was less than a foot away from me was enough to scare me into stopping.

nick finally called me back and i told him the situation and how i needed help. his best idea was to get a blanket and throw it over the squirrel, pick it up and then throw it outside. he was also kind enough to let me know to not be surprised if its tail falls off because apparently that is a normal occurrence. the last thing i wanted was for this squirrel to touch more of my stuff. (who knew what it had already touched and it already peed on my bed!) i also knew that i could not handle a tail falling off, so i opted against the whole blanket idea.

that is when i noticed two guys playing frisbee outside. i went up them and told them my situation and how i needed them to help me. i could tell that they didnt believe anything i was saying, i mean, it sounded completely unreal, but i told them i was serious. they followed me to my apartment with the look of uncertainty on their faces. that is until they saw the squirrel with their own eyes and began to smile. they picked up the brooms and got the box situated to sweep the squirrel into and began trying. the squirrel was almost in the box and then it escaped and sprinted straight at me and tracy! lots of screaming was involved and i was worried that it went under my bed instead of outside. the guys went to look and found it out on the patio and quickly shut the door so that it couldnt come back in. i thanked them very much for saving my life and we all went on our merry ways.

naturally, i couldnt study after this nearly hour and a half adventure. i was still shaking. so instead, tracy and i shared some wine and then ate some delicious burgers. i began watching a lecture at about 10:30, but was unable to get much done since i had to get up at 5:45 the next day.

it turned out that the squirrel had fallen down the chimney and landed so hard that it was able to knock the flue slightly open and get out. my mom told me that at least i came home and found it on my bed because it would have been way worse to wake up at night to it jumping on me. thanks mom for looking on the bright side! if that had happened, no one would have been able to help me! i probably would have ended up sitting outside and crying.

*

to wrap it up, callie told me i couldnt be a princess since i look like liz lemon when trying to do princess poses, but i think she is wrong. i am giselle from enchanted. little woodland creatures come to my "call". after this experience, i dont think i want to be a princess. at least not one that interacts with woodland creatures. i will be belle. because enchanted castle people are not woodland creatures. or ariel. fish are sea creatures which im sure are way better than woodland creatures. except for maybe sharks.

love.