Weather in Kentucky. It doesn’t get much better than warm, sunny weekends and cold, snowy weekdays. Vacationing in Florida for a week in June keeps looking better and better.

What’s worse than the weather in Kentucky are people’s manners. Last week I was on the shuttle headed towards campus. The girl sitting in front of me had a take-out box sitting on her lap. It was around 9:00 in the morning and no one on the shuttle was talking. This girl opens her take-out box, gets a metal fork out of her backpack and starts eating whatever she has in this container. At first I was thinking breakfast to go? Clever! Until the smell hit me. It was putrid. I had to hold my breath for a couple of seconds to keep from gagging. It smelled… vinegary? And not just vinegary, but room-temperature vinegary.  I peeked around the seat to see what she was chowing down on. It was SALAD! At 9Am! And from the looks of it and the smell of it, salad that had been from the night before and left in her car all night. I quickly looked around to see if anyone else was just as disgusted as I was. Oh yeah… not happy students.  She wolfed this salad down in minutes, licked her fork like it was going out of style, made the mistake of getting up on a moving bus to throw this container away and I think you can guess what happened next. Ooooh yes, she loses her footing and this container goes flying!! It was like something out of a movie… no joke. I would have felt bad for the poor girl but then I kept remembering the smell that had the potency to wake myself up without coffee and everyone else on the shuttle for that matter. Never eat on a bus people! Good rule of thumb to follow.

Computer labs. Are for working on computers and studying quietly. Not for chatting it up with your best friend on how this girl you know is sleeping around with all your best guy friends and not caring how discreet you are about it in front of other people. I kid you not. I heard about 6 different phone conversations today while working in a computer lab on campus. And I’m not talking whispered phone conversations, I’m talking loud in your face, the person might as well be present, phone conversations. I guess I can name this as my biggest pet peeve. When people don’t give any thought to what they are doing and how it is affecting the people around them. Your cell is ringing? Fine! But be polite and step outside to have your gab fest! I for one don’t want anyone else listening in on my phone conversations. You would think others would feel the same. Some girl even went as far as to put the person she was talking to on speaker phone! I just… can’t… wrap my head around it.

I think all the studying I’ve been doing for the past 5 days has caused me to go into overly observant mode. This stuff always bothers me, but normally I just cringe and go with it.

That vacation in Florida can’t come soon enough.

I haven’t forgotten about my site… I’ve just been busy with moving to a new city, getting settled in and ready to start school, and I wasn’t able to get internet until last week!

New city! I love it here. It took awhile to adjust to being away from home and family, but I have learned that I am quick to adapt to any new situations and am able to make home anywhere. I was pretty lucky in finding a place to live and a job when I first got here.  So my summer was full of moving furniture, unpacking tons of boxes, shopping for stuff I needed but didn’t have, and working almost 50 hours a week. I thought this would be one of the longest summers of my life, but it turned out being one of the fastest.

I started classes at a new university on Monday and I have to admit I’m a little nervous. I know, Ms. “Quick To Adapt” is having cold feet. I’m just nervous about not finding my classes or getting lost on campus. I’m sure it will be like everything else and I’ll be fine after a day or two.

What’s new? Well, I’m dating someone new. My previous boyfriend and I broke up before I moved because we felt our lives were going in different directions and we had different life goals. I’m not going to lie… it was hard at first, but moving and working quickly took my mind off things and I was given the opportunity to meet someone new. I have no idea where things will go with this person, but it will be worth it to find out. We met at where I work and were friends from the beginning. He’s already done with school and has a different job now using his degree, so it will be interesting to see where the relationship goes after I start school.

My aunt got engaged this week! I am soooo excited for her! She was married once before but she didn’t have a ceremony so I’ve always felt she’s deserved her special day. She’s planning on a sunset beach ceremony in Florida next June and I’m already starting to save for the trip! I need to find the cord to my camera so I will be able to take some awesome photos! (My cord got lost in the move… blah!)

I’ve taken an even deeper interest in cooking. I follow all kinds of food blogs and have tons of interesting recipes I want to try out! (All the more reason to find my camera cord!) I’m even excited about updating this thing more often! Life just couldn’t get any better!

I had not been on a proper vacation since I was 12. My family was given a vacation as a gift one christmas by my grandmother and my mother chose to take a trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina. That vacation will always be a prominent memory from my childhood. We were able to do a lot of stuff as a family since my grandmother was footing the bill for the condo.  Since then, I have been on a lot of trips, but none of them I would classify as a vacation. We would sometimes visit my other grandparents when they lived in an elderly community in Florida. Those trips were sometimes just as stressful as being at home. I promised myself that I would take a vacation when I was old enough to do it with friends. I thought after my accident, that I would get enough money from my pain and suffering claim to take a trip somewhere. That wasn’t the case. So back in Feburary I decided I was going to figure out a way to go on a rather cheap vacation and I asked Mel if she wanted to go for a long weekend with me before I moved away from home. I started researching hotels on beaches up and down the east coast.  I found one in Myrtle Beach through hotels.com that was really cheap! So I booked it!

We left this past Thursday around 11:30ish and drove nine and a half hours to the east coast! We arrived at the hotel, checked in, and unloaded the car! We needed to run to Wal-mart to buy stuff to make sandwiches and some fruit. Our hotel had a microwave and a full fridge so we decided to bring as much food as possible so we didn’t spend money on eating out every meal. We decided we would eat out one night and we chose a sea food buffet! The first day there we spent the entire day on the beach with a break around lunch time to eat a sandwich and to dodge the hottest part of the day. After we showered all the sand off we took a walk along the beach to take pictures and to walk in the shallow water. At night we would either watch a movie or we would read the books we brought.

Our last day on the beach was insane!! A little girl got pulled out into the surf due to a strong current and had to be rescued by the lifeguard. She was ok, but a little shaken up. A while after that happened we think a surfer got hurt and required some medical attention. It was a little way down the beach so we weren’t positive what was wrong. We took a longer break than usual during lunch since our skin really needed a break from the sun. When we got to the room we noticed the maids hadn’t made a visit yet so we decided to go for a walk to the pier where there was a gift shop. We bought ourselves some jewerly and some ice cream! We headed back out to the beach after a late lunch and spent our last hours in the sun reading our books and watching the crazy people around us. That evening we ventured out to a sea food buffet that was really good and we went shopping at one of those over priced beach shops. We really didn’t want to go home the next day. But we made some awesome memories that I will always remember and we agreed that we would try to do it again another year but go somewhere different. It’s hard to tell being a college student if you’ll have any money to take a trip in the near future.

I keep my french horn in its case sitting near my dresser. I keep telling myself that I should put it away since I don’t play it anymore, but I don’t have the heart to shove it in a closet. I will pick it up again… one day. Right now it just makes me sad to realize how much I suck, when I put in so much hard work to be GREAT!

I still mess around on our piano, but it’s so out of tune and my parents won’t get it tuned since I’m moving out here soon. No one else in the house plays like I do.

My guitar is on it’s stand… gathering dust. It needs new strings, because the ones that are on it are so old it won’t stay in tune for even 5 minutes.

*sigh* My instruments are a mess. I’m sure my french horn needs a lot of work when I get the guts to take it out of its case.

But speaking of french horn and my glory days, I completely forgot that there is a recording I did with the entire horn studio my freshmen year in music school that is still up on the school website! If anyone is a fan of James Horner or the movie Titanic… zomg… this is for you. It’s a piece called ‘Titanic Fantasy” and it was actually arranged for 15 french horns by James Horner himself! If anyone is interested in listening to it… here’s the link!

Titanic Fantasy

I remember the night we recorded this… it was late wednesday night, before Thanksgiving. We were all anxious to get done so we could go home for break. We didn’t finish in the studio till about 11 and we had started around 7 or 8. I was thrilled to be able to experience what it is like to record something professionally. It was a lot of hard work and my face felt like it was going to melt off, but it was worth it when we finally heard the ending result. My professor said he was eventually going to put together a CD of all the stuff that his horn studio has recorded over the years and he was definitely going to feature our song on it. So who knows.. maybe in a couple of years I’ll be on a CD!

Yay for making a post so close to my last post. Normally it takes me a long time to get a post ready to roll out. But I made a promise to make at least weekly updates and for once I actually have interesting things to blog about!

So I woke up last Thursday morning not really thinking too hard about my upcoming day. I try to be chill when it comes to classes since I tend to get overwhelmed a little easily. I think it was between my psychology class and my spanish class that I decided I was going to get the top part of my ear pierced. I’m becoming more and more spontaneous as time goes on. Of course during my break I researched the pros and cons of having such a piercing. It was about 50/50 so I decided to go for it. After I got home from school I checked out a new local tattoo place. I was going to ask some questions and get an idea on cost. The local establishment was definitely a no-go. The place did not look like a place where I would let a stranger put a hole in me and the woman I talked to wasn’t very informative or friendly. I don’t know about anyone else but I have to have a certain level of trust when it comes to someone giving me a piercing. The boyfriend got an estimate on a tattoo he’s been wanting so the trip wasn’t a total loss. He seemed to think the place looked fine and the staff were friendly. (What?!) So I opted to go to a place 20 minutes away where I had my belly button pierced when I was 16. My mom scoped this place out since I was underage and needed her to take me. The people there were friendly and I had no problems whatsoever with my navel. So we drove the 20 miles – in a storm I might add- just for a piercing that would take all of 5 minutes to do. I tell ya when I get in these moods I seize the moment! The girl that helped me was awesome. She knew what she was doing and was able to answer all my questions without coming off as a cold bitch waiting to go on her smoke break. She even gave me advice on if I should go with a stud or a ring and which cleaning option I should go with. Hands down – she was awesome. The piercing itself didn’t hurt a bit. She told me she was going to be gentle and she was! I didn’t flinch and I seriously thought she still had more to do when she was finished. It’s not too sore anymore, only when I hit it real hard. Yay for random bouts of piercing fetishes!

So I remember the last time I sat down to this blog I shared these feelings of accomplishing stuff with the world. I’m still on my “gotta do it all” kick. I’m still working on that dinner party I plan on having. I’m pretty sure I have the evening menu all planned out. I shall share:

Appetizer- I found 2 awesome cheese dips that would be good for starting the evening out. One is a cheesy bacon dip and the other is a hot Parmesan artichoke dip. Both are simple and easy so maybe I could go with both?!

Cocktails – Last year I went with this idea of soaking raspberries in vodka for a week and mixing it with champagne. The idea did not go over very well with my guests. I’m guessing it was a little strong. So this year I’m going to do something much more simple and easy to just make it in a big pitcher and people can pour what they want and go with it. Last year I had to take time out on dinner to make everyone their own drink. I’m going to be smart about this!

Dinner -  I’m planning on doing pasta this year. It’s easy, everyone loves it, and I will only have to make like a salad to pair with it since pasta is so filling by itself. I love the food network and one night I was watching Rachael Ray make this awesome pasta dish. It had everything people love – pasta, cheese, and MEAT! The sauce is a light garlic cheese sauce and you put huge chunks of cheese it in right before you bake it in the oven with a crunchy topping… and the cheese melts throughout the pasta so when you dig into it, its nothing but stringy cheesey goodness! I plan on making a few changes with my recipe – I’m all about taking something and making it my own. Here’s Rachael’s version: Spinach and Hot Ham Fake Bake. I plan on subsituting the hot ham for chicken since I’m pretty sure hot ham is hard to come by around here – not to mention expensive – and everyone loves chicken. I might want to try this one out though before the party, to make sure I get everything right.

Dessert – Last year I made homemade chocolate truffles. They… were… AWESOME. I know I shouldn’t brag about my own creations but I really out did myself with those. They are so time consuming though so this year I’m going with something more simple, but will taste and look great! Can you see my theme here? If not then it’s SIMPLE! I found this brownie recipe in a cooking magazine we get at the house. You take regular brownies but turn them into mouth watering masterpieces. I won’t go into detail because these will probably be the grand finale! I’ll post pictures of them – of course I’ve got to document all the wonderful food before it gets devoured!

So there are my ideas. I’ll probably experiment with some stuff before the actual party. Would be good to work out any kinks BEFORE people are expected to show up at my house starving. I’m planning on having the party on the weekend that my parents are going to be out of town. Last year they were in PA and it worked out perfectly. Not that I don’t want my parents there, but the house was already full and adding 2 adults who owned the roost to the mix would have probably made me want to pull my hair out.

Enough about the dinner party. On to Halloween! In the past I’ve always been all over the Holidays! I wanted a decked out house for Christmas, scary spiderwebs all over the trees and bushes for halloween, the fall smelling candles with gourds everywhere on Thanksgiving, cute fluffy bunnies everywhere for Easter – you catch my drift. But ever since I started college I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t care. And that saddens me. This year I want to do something awesome for Halloween. I passed out candy last year at a friends house and that was a lot of fun. I put together a costume in like 30 minutes and all kinds of people were complimenting me on it. (I was a warlock from World of Warcraft… lawl) I even had a wand. This year I want to do something twice as awesome. I was thinking about putting together goody bags to pass out to trick-or-treaters. Or turning the front part of the yard into like a haunted cemetery or something. So many ideas… so little time to get them all together.

Oh! I’m having a Mary Kay party in two weeks! I never thought that I would be the type of person to want to host a Mary Kay party. Well, I like hosting parties in general but I’m not the type of person to get all excited about skincare or make up. My twin sister had a party this past weekend and I was so impressed with the products that I bought like this entire bag with everything in it. She offered to take 100 dollars off if I hosted my own party and invited at least 5 people or more. I thought about it… tried to think of 5 people who I knew that would want to come… and decided yes! I would host a party and I would get all these cool products for 100 dollars less! I invited some old friends from high school that I haven’t seen in awhile and they agreed to come! So it’ll be like a reunion party but with food and pampering! I can honestly say I am uber excited about this.