21 Plus 1, The First Anniversary of my 21st Birthday, aka Turning 22

So I celebrated my 22nd birthday in a way I have never done before for the first time in my now 22 years of life I did not wake up in my bed in Conway or see my parents on my birthday. I know this is not a big deal to most people but if you even mildly know me you probably know I am a family girl. I was born 6 weeks early and I'm pretty sure God gave me my birthday because he knew that I wasn't going to be okay with being away at college on my birthday. My parents came up the weekend before my birthday to do a family celebration which was fun. We went to dinner and opened presents and they brought up Ed's petite-fores which are my favorite! Then my mom came up again later on in the week to help me pack for spring break and she left some stuff for me at Jacob's apartment which included a card that said not to open until Saturday. The card was by far the coolest birthday card I have ever seen you opened it and it had a picture of a cupcake with a light up candle and when you "blew" out the candle the card started singing happy birthday! It made me super happy because even if you are going on a cruise a 10 hour car ride on your birthday is not the most exciting thing. Luckily Kara had made me a birthday car care package that included Glee cd's, gum, etc. My sweet friends made the best of a car birthday by letting me sleep most of the way there since the week before had worn me out. When we got to Kathryn's Aunt's house it was Kat's cousin's birthday (whose name is also Katie) too! So they put candles in cakes for both of us which was so nice and sweet of them! We went out for a little while in Houston that night which is definitely a very different city than Fayetteville, ha. I'm keeping the birthday celebration going this weekend when Dani and I are doing birthday dinner followed by a night out in Fayetteville on Friday! I'm super excited for that! I want to post pictures but I'm not really sure where my camera is currently so those will come at a later date! Thanks everyone for a FANTASTIC birthday! Lots of love!!

OMG Em's Engaged!!!!

So my best friend since birth, literally birth our parents are best friends, got engaged over spring break to her boyfriend of forever. I turned my phone back on once we got to port in Galveston (the cruise will be a separate post, as will my birthdayness but this engagement takes priority) and had a text from Emily that said something along the lines of get out of the ocean and off the boat because I'm ENGAGED!! I literally screamed when I read it and preceded to psycho dial her phone despite the fact it was 2 am in Hawaii where she was, whoops. I finally text her mom at 5 am Hawaii time and asked her to have Em call me AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, you know in case Emily's phone had fallen in a volcano or something like that and she had missed my seven phone calls and multiple text messages. I am dying to go home and see her and her beautiful ring and talk all things wedding with her! I can't believe I now have two engaged friends, I'm so excited for both of them even if I do think my life is quickly turning into 27 dresses. I'll post pics once I get to see the ring in person! Lots of love bloggy friends!!

I sound like a broken record, but.......

So back to the same topic that comes up a million times a day in my mind and pretty much a million times on my blog, which makes sense because everything in my blog is what has been floating around in my head. Future...it's the big scary word that my friends and I only half-jokingly took a break from saying because it is so scary/exciting. I can't even tell you how many times a day I have a conversation with someone that revolves around this concept and with graduation approaching the topic of the future just keeps coming up more and more. Today while blog hopping I came across a post that reminded me of something really important, something I tell myself but have never really visualized. The idea is that while the future looks like a really big bolded question mark to me, it doesn't to God. Such a simple concept, right? I mean I have said it a million times, "God has a plan" yet I have never actually thought that God doesn't just have an idea type plan, he has a real, legit plan that he can see. I don't know why this is such a revelation to me but it really is a thought that I have never taken much time to imagine. God can see my future, he knows exactly where I will be in 6 months, what I will be doing, where I will be living, etc. I'm so thankful he knows exactly what my future looks like. While I am extremely eager for a peek into this future I am so grateful that my future doesn't look like a big question mark to Him. I'm mostly writing this post because I know sometime in this question mark of a future I have I will be clicking back through old blog posts and really get a good laugh at what I was doing a week away from my 22nd birthday when I was freaking out about a future I can't foresee. I know this will be the case because when I look back on my senior English scrapbook where I had to write a letter about my feelings toward high school graduation and college I just laugh and laugh. When I read the letter I can't help but giggle at the things that worried me that just played out perfectly in ways I could never have imagined. My parents tell me constantly to quit worrying, it will all work out and I think I am getting better (keyword better, not good) at that but its the reminders like the letter from my senior year in English that really cement the idea in stone for me. I could have saved so much time and energy if I would have just quit worrying and enjoy life the way it was meant to be. And back to enjoying life I'm going to call it a night because tomorrow I'm back to the lake to finish up the second half of my scuba certification! Sweet dreams bloggy friends!

I Made the Paper....

So this past weekend we (Kathryn, Schuett, and I) headed down to LR to watch Dani finish the LR half marathon! She did AWESOME, I mean there is absolutely no way I would ever run 13 miles unless my life depended on it and let's be real even then I would probably die before I made it the full 13. So proud of her to have the dedication to train and run it, not to mention it was freakishly cold that morning. After the race we headed to Cozymel's to eat some delicious lunch before we headed back to the hill. Well, now we are getting to the name of my post, today at work my phone started to blow up with text messages asking if I had seen myself on the cover of the paper. Well, obviously, since I was at work I hadn't seen any papers and had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Turn to find out that I managed to be in the background of a picture from the marathon. Poor Dani, she actually runs the marathon and I ended up in the paper. Not only was it the cover of the paper but it was the cover of the Democrat Gazette which is the statewide paper meaning that everyone from my grandma to my friends at school got to see it and thanks to one of my lovely roommates sticking it on the back board at Chi O I'm pretty much a celebrity. As embarrassed as I was when I first saw it I figure I might as well just own up to it and enjoy my little (very, itty bitty) time in the limelight, ha. So this post is mostly so I will just remember that I did make the cover of the state paper even if my name isn't mentioned. I posted the picture from the paper and a picture of Dani crossing the finish line for your viewing! Night, night bloggy friends!

Quick, Little Post

Hey friends! I figure I should try and do a quick little post before I fall asleep. Yes, I know it's only 10:30 but I have to work tomorrow, ha. The past couple of days have been so great. I love how my Tuesdays and Thursdays remind me I'm still in college and how I think I enjoy them even more since I'm so busy on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Today was one of those amazing spring days that make living through a Fayetteville winter well worth it. The weather was gorgeous so Meagan and I hit up Sonic and then headed to Wilson Park to walk and talk. It was so nice to catch up and catch a little sun in the process. To make the day even better I was grabbing dinner at Chi O when I saw Chan and Britt and we had a little impromptu trip to Orange Leaf. I haven't been there in forever and the yogurt was so so so good! The past couple of days I have been trying to take notice when people do nice little things and then pass them on in return to others. Earlier this week I needed to get my homework turned in to my teacher's box before 5:30 when my class started because I was going to be absent for the senior service and I happened to mention to Kara how I hoped I would have time to run over there on my lunch break that day and instead of me spending my how lunch break trekking it across campus she just took my assignment and dropped it off for me. Then yesterday, I ran into Walmart to buy one thing and they only had three lanes open each one fairly long with each person in line having a ton of groceries, so I got in the shortest of the long lines and the lady in front of me insisted that I go in front of her to check out. I know this is a really little thing, but I was tired, it was late and it just really put a smile on my face. Then today during class I was coughing up a lung due to the lovely little sinus infection I have and my teacher tossed me some cough drops. I know her main motive was to get to quit being such a distraction but I still found it super nice for her to dig through her bag to find me some. I know all of these are really small things but it reminds me to take the time to do the little things for people because they really do brighten their days, or I know they sure brightened mine. Well, I'm off to bed so sweet dreams blog friends.

My Mom's a Hoot, Mom's Day 2011

This past weekend was Mom's Day for Chi O. I love Mom's day, mostly because it consists of three of my favorite things, my mom, food, and shopping. Mom and Rebecca got up here around 7 on Friday night and we headed to Mojitos (my new fave Mexican restaurant) for dinner and then headed back to Jacob's to watch a movie. Jacob was so nice, more like forced, to let us all stay with him for the weekend. Let's just say I bet he is looking for a roommate as we speak so that we can't keep having sleepover's at his apartment, ha. We ended up watching The Sandlot, which I had never seen. It was so good! I loved it, even if I fell asleep before the end and had to finish it on Saturday. Saturday morning we went by Bliss and picked up some cupcakes before we headed to the auction and brunch at Chi O. We had a good time looking through all the things and visiting with everyone and their moms. After that we went down to Rogers to do a little shopping. It was so weird, I actually wanted to shop for work clothes, I feel like they are pretty much all I wear anymore and I know in the next few months I'll have to wear them basically everyday. We managed to find some good sales (which we LOVE) and I picked out some cute stuff for my birthday (which is 18 days away in case anyone is counting). After a roundabout night of trying to figure out where to eat that wasn't going to have a wait of an hour or more we ended up at Mellow Mushroom with Nat and her mom and Dani and her mom. It was so much fun to just chat with everyone. It always cracks me up how much of someone's mom you can see in her, whenever I say this all my friends just laugh and say really since they seem to think my mom and I are really similar. I'm okay with that, I figure if they think I'm like my mom I'm doing okay since she's pretty fab! Sunday, Mom and Rebecca headed home after we all went to Waffle House. I just caught up on some homework and laundry before the week started. I can't believe March starts tomorrow, seriously where is the semester going?! I want it to slow down a little, I'm not ready for this to be over! Well, lots of love bloggy friends, sweet dreams!

Cap & Gown Day

Today I picked up my cap and gown for graduation. I'm not going to lie, it made me really sad. I am excited to see what the future holds but I absolutely LOVE college and can't believe it has been four years that I moved to Fayetteville and started school at the UofA. If you have known me since high school, you know that I felt the exact same way when I graduated high school. It's so weird that it has been four years since I stood in the long line waiting to pick up my Conway blue cap and gown at the West campus. I remember that day clearly, it was yearbook distribution day and that managed to keep my focus off of how sad I would be to graduate. Today I dreaded going to pick up my cap and gown from the bookstore, in my mind it's like this is just the start of all the things that signal my college career is coming to a close. I'm so excited to start the next chapter of my life but at the same time I'm going to really miss all the fun things I do in college and won't be able to do anymore. I can't imagine a time in my life when I will ever be so free to do and go as I please. I guess I can't dwell on how much I will miss it or I really will miss out on enjoying the few months I have left. I'm hoping that this next chapter will hold wonderful things I can't imagine now, similar to how college was better than my wildest dreams. I don't think I could've imagined what things would change over the past four years and how much I would grow up and love the life I'm living. I'm so hopeful that things for the future will pan out and that in four years I'll be writing a post talking about how I can't believe I've been out of college for four years and just how in love with my life I am at that point. Well, it's almost 11 and tomorrow's a work day so I'm going to bed. Sweet dreams bloggy friends!