Fall Goals

My summer goals were such a success (mostly) that I decided to make fall goals too! These are going to be somewhat school-related and in general not as involved as my summer goals, since I'll be busy with schoolwork and stuff. So... here goes!

1. Watch numbers 26-50 on imdb's top 250. Since I've already seen some of the movies, I only have 15 to see this semester. I'll probably put up a list in the sidebar or something.
2. Keep track of my meals properly. Since I'm living in an apartment with a kitchen I only have a meal plan with 90 meals, which works out to six per week. Clearly, I need to keep track of how many meals I've been using so as not to run out.
3. Achieve A's! I'm shooting for at least A minuses in all of my classes this semester. I think the only one that'll be a problem is American Literature III because although my professor is one of my favorites, she's the hardest grader.
4. Get my driver's license. This is a leftover goal from the summer. I rescheduled my test yesterday, but it's not until October 2.
5. Cook proper meals! So far I've made scrambled eggs and tuna salad. I have some recipes in a binder, though, and I'm definitely going to try and make them!

Well, I'm off to lunch. This is my third meal out of six this week. Rock on!

PS. I have a consulting appointment about my wisdom teeth with an oral surgeon. Wish me luck!

So hopefully now I'll be less busy and neglectful of blogging.

Woohoo! First day of class!

Hopefully, now that I don't have to spend all my time running around keeping track of freshmen I'll have some time to post more. Although classes are just starting, so we'll see how that goes, I guess.

Updates on my life: I'm living in an on-campus apartment (which means I have a kitchen!) with a couple of my friends. It's definitely awesome for two reasons: the aforementioned kitchen and (drumroll please!) air conditioning! I can never go back to crappy dorm life where your only cooling method is your fan. And hopefully I'll never have to!

Anyway, here's something I meant to post a while ago. It's a video my sister made about all of her converse, and I think it's kind of cool in an art-y sort of way. What do you think?

Today, I...

Had my second (out of four) day of peer mentor training.

My table won a trivia competition and as a prize we split a pack of silly bands. These are my first ever silly bands, and although I feel a bit ashamed to wear them, I figure as long as I didn't buy them it's ok! Right? Anyway, I got a dolphin and a flamingo/toucan. We couldn't decide which it was.

I really haven't been doing anything that interesting the past couple of days. I have been playing loads of icebreakers! Some of them are corny but some are really fun! My favorite so far has been called Ultimate Ninja. And yep, it's as awesome as it sounds!

Other cool things: My friend Nate moved in this morning, so now four of the six people in our apartment are here! And classes don't even start for another week!

Ok, that's only one other cool thing. But I'm tired! I'm trying really hard to post when I have some free time so I don't fall into a habit of not posting.

Well, TTFN, dearest readers. I think I'm going to start watching a movie and then go to sleep.

I'd love to hear it if any of you had movie suggestions! I'm always looking for a choice flick!

Summer Goals Revisited

Hey guys! I'm all moved in back at school! Pictures to follow, I promise. I'm here early because I'm a peer mentor, which means I (among other things) help out with freshman orientation. So I moved in last night, and today was my first of four days of training. Oh Mah Goodness I'm already exhausted! 10+ hours of training a day = I don't feel like doing anything but laying around. So I apologize if my blog posts are somewhat few and far between.

But anyway. Back in June, when I first started this blog, I posted a list of summer goals, and seeing as how my summer is over, I thought I'd take a look back and see how I did.

1. Watch the first 25 movies on IMDB's top 250 - Success! I have now seen all of IMDB's top 25 movies! My favorites of the new movies I watched: The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Pulp Fiction and City of God. All of them were absolutely amazing, but those were my favorites.
2. Be able to cook 5 solid meals - Fail... Because I didn't really feel like learning to cook, I went through all of my mom's cookbooks and made copies of all my favorite recipes.
3. Have 25 listings in my etsy shop - So close! Right now I have 21, but since I've had two sales it's 23 total listings. And I have another little something I still need to photograph and list. So when all's said and done I'll have 24 listings. Close enough, right?
4. Read 20 books - Done and more! I'm not sure exactly how many books I ended up reading this summer, since I stopped counting after 20. I strongly recommend Push by Sapphire, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, and Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.
5. Get my driver's license - So close! I took my test last Wednesday and failed, but I think I'll pass the next time I take it. The trouble is that I've been far too busy to reschedule it!

So, all in all I think I had a pretty successful summer. I certainly had a lot of fun!

But oh, it feels so good to be back on campus! I love it so much here!

Lauren vs Wanting to See Scott Pilgrim a Hundred More Times

I just got home from seeing Scott Pilgrim vs The World. My reaction:

AWESOME. Absolutely the perfect way to end my summer (seeing as I move back in to school tomorrow).

And honestly, I'm too distracted by that weird spot on my tongue to think of anything more to say. I'm not fungal, I swear!

But anyway. The movie was awesomely refreshing and different and perfect and I want to see it again and again! Must persuade Matt to take me on a date to see it.

And I think every time I do a movie review-type-thing I'm going to post a photo of my reaction. It's just too much fun! (See my reaction to The Wicker Man)

Etsy Finds/Wants: Or, I'm bored and don't feel like packing.

Let's Go Diving necklace from Penny Masquerade

Perfect Wallet from Happy Kathy

Little Red Cotton Tape from Lilla Lotta

Against the Light from On Your Head

OUCH pouch from Pilli Pilli

Map Wallet from My Paper Garden

Boombox Monster from Little Zoo of Misfits

Vintage Pink Kitten Heels from Pineapple Mint

Pine Cone Necklace from Vector Cloud

Tea Time Necklace from Random Prefect

There you go: ten awesome Etsy items. I had so much fun browsing around and finding these that I might attempt to make it a regular feature. It'll probably be more like a semi-regular-whenever-I-feel-like-it feature, to be perfectly honest. Or a I-have-to-write-a-paper-but-instead-I'm-going-to-spend-an-hour-on-Etsy feature, now that I'll be back at school soon. 

Only time will tell.

All Aboard the Failboat!

So, my first go at getting my driver's license was a fail. What's most frustrating is that I did the parallel parking and the backing into the parking space fine, but I just got too many points off for little stuff. Like, I was apparently "driving with my thumbs!" What does that even mean?

And I was stressed to begin with because she kept asking me where my heater was and I didn't get that you just had to turn up the temperature. I spent a good minute and a half looking for a heater button.

Le sigh. I will just have to reschedule and try again.

My day is getting better, though. After my test I went to the post office to mail some stuff (including my second-ever etsy order!) and it only cost me 13ish dollars to ship four packages, including one to England!

Aaaand... I'm going to go see Scott Pilgrim tomorrow with one of my friends! I'm so excited!

And then on Friday I move back into school! Classes don't start until a week from Monday, but I'm helping out with Freshman orientation, so I have to get there early for training and stuff. One of my friends I'm living with is an RA, so she's there already, and she says our apartment is really nice!

And now I've gone from upset and frustrated to feeling awesome and excited about the next couple days. Oh, internets, what would I do without you?

I just joined weheartit (don't judge me!)

My new hobby: searching for interesting adjectives and seeing what comes up

Hollow

Murky

 Crowded

Vast

Chunky

Crooked

Lovely

Ps. Dear readers, I have my driving test tomorrow! I just finished practicing parallel parking for (hopefully) the last time. Wish me luck!

New Jersey Fun Times!

Highlights of my week at the Jersey Shore:

• Eating White Castle for my first and SECOND times! 
• Getting Kohr's custard on the boardwalk! (My favorite flavor was the strawberry/banana twist)
• When Matt's cousin played the beer pong game on the boardwalk and won a harmonica! 
• GIANT pizza from Maruca's!
• Going crabbing for three freaking hours! It was fun, but lasted soooo long!
• When we went crabbing, Matt's poor cousin Rachel had to ride in the back with the crab traps and the dead fishes.
• Cramming 18 people into a house that's only supposed to fit 11, tops. For a couple nights there sere seven teenagers sleeping in our room! 
• Going kayaking on the bay!
• Glimpsing Ronnie and Pauly D from the boardwalk while they were folding t-shirts in their store. 
• Fried Oreos! Yummmm.....
• Seeing what's cooking at the beach. (This one's kind of an inside joke - the first night Matt's dad told us to "go see what's cooking" and then we said it about everything, several times a day.
• Loads and loads of fun! Hooray!

AND THEY EXPLODED OFF THE STAGE

As many of you are probably aware, I saw The Arcade Fire about a week ago.

It was freaking awesome!!!!

If I was a fan of the band before, I'm absolutely in love with them now!

I saw them with my boyfriend, his sister, and a friend of ours from school. The bank Matt's dad works for has a box at the stadium for every show, so we got tickets free that were pretty close to the stage! Yay for free stuff!

But yeah, it was one of those concerts that make you remember how much you absolutely love live music and make you want to go to concerts all the time. There was the most exuberant xylophoning I've ever seen! And at one point a guy was beating on a drum so hard that bits of it were flying everywhere! Everyone was absolutely rapt!

Only one funny thing happened, and that was when they were playing Half Light II (my favorite song from their new album) the drum machine messed up or something, so they quit halfway through and moved to the next song. It took us a while to figure out what was going on because at first it just seemed like the lead guitarist put down his guitar and started laughing. And when the song stopped we were like, "uhh, what's going on?" It was really ok, though, because the whole concert was ah-may-zing! (But OF COURSE it had to happen during one of my favorite songs! Harumph!)

And I am absolutely in love with their one girl drummer/accordioniste/singer/everything! And how cute! After doing some light wikipedia-ing of the band, I've found out that she's married to the lead singer.

Gosh, I'm so smitten.

Anyway, here are some more pictures. The first one is of Spoon, who opened, but they weren't that good.

And now I'm back! From Outer Space!

The Jersey Shore, actually.

I mean, it might as WELL have been outer space! New Jersey is weird. Did you know you can't make a left turn in New Jersey? Strange but true. And there are parking spots in the middle of the street.

But HO-Lee Crow does the internet move fast! I just turned my computer on after over a week and I have exactly 500 new posts on Bloglovin. It's going to take me an age to read everything!

So for now, here's a short post to let me know I'm alive and well. I'll be posting a bunch from my week soon, first from the Arcade Fire show (which was amazing!) and then from Joisee.

Oh, and a big hey-o to my new followers. Who knew I'd get six more followers just by going away for a week!

Hugs and Kisses,
Lauren

Doodle God! And I'll probably be taking a blogging break.

Bleargh! I've been playing this game for the past several hours! I just couldn't stop until I finished it!

I'm going to an Arcade Fire concert tomorrow with my boyfriend and his sister, and then after that I'm spending a week at the Jersey Shore with his family. So, depending on whether or not I end up having internet, this may be my last post for over a week! How will you live without me? (dramatic swoon...)

But if the house we're staying in does have internet, then I'll try to post a couple times.

TTFN!

Love,
Lauren

Yesterday At The Park

Yesterday I went to a park with my mom and sister. We hiked for a bit, then sat on a bench and watched the lake. At one point we hiked to a nature center-type place with a bunch of birds. Sadly, I couldn't take any pictures because my camera focused on the cage instead of the birds, but I swear one of the vultures was giving me the stink eye!

We took the Indian Trail at the fork and then shouted "Injun!" every so often. Well, my mom and I did. I don't think Kristin knew what we were talking about.

PS. Aren't those the most beautiful mushrooms you've ever seen?

Also PS. Super Duper Thanks! to Amyschmamey for featuring me on her blog today! And I'm the first one in the list! (However, I'm pretty sure this is because it's in alphabetical order...)

So if you've come here from her blog, welcome! If not, go check it out! Dooooo itttt.

Wicker What?

I just watched the original Wicker Man. Here's how I felt about it:

It's my "What just happened?" face.

PS. This post was inspired by the face I made to myself in the bathroom mirror as I was brushing my teeth just now.

Extra-PS. The movie wasn't horrible or anything. Just weird.

Homemade Pasta: Looks Kinda Weird, Tastes Delicious!

Eaten simply, with some butter, a dash of olive oil, and parmesan cheese.

Etsy Update: Plush Pins

Super Exciting Yay Time!

Soooooo, back in the Blog-A-Palooza giveaway a while back I won a prize from Creating Myself, and it came in the mail today!!!

YAY!!!

I won a beautiful print and four faux polaroid frames! As soon as I can find a frame to put the print in it's going up on my wall! And I'm trying to think of an awesome way to use the polas. Any ideas?

Here's what I suggest you do now: Go to her shop and ogle. Trust me, her stuff's definitely ogle-worthy.