Today it started to hit me....

Today was the first day that it finally started to kind of sink in that I really am graduating in 25 days. I can't believe that in 25 days college will be a past tense, that I won't be going to Chi O to eat lunch every day, that I won't live in the same town as 95% of my friends, that in 25 days I have no idea what I will be doing with my life, that in that amount of time I somehow have to find the motivation to finish my school projects, that I have no need to order any more Chi O shirts, that Chicken Finger Friday will be a thing of the past, that I won't be walking across campus talking on the phone, that the center of my world won't be the University of Arkansas, that I'll be beginning to box up my room in a house I swear I just moved in to, that gym shorts and sorority shirts won't be my constant outfit, that I'll have a college degree, that the best four years of my life will be wrapping up, that I'll be done with school forever, that I'll be leaving the school I was so scared to start, that the same place that caused tears at the thought of moving away from everything I really knew now causes tears because I can't imagine my life just like this. Sorry for the incredibly long run on sentence but it's exactly what's on my mind right now. Like the blog title says I'm still trying to enjoy the moment and I am I think I am really appreciating each moment with my friends a little more whether it is a quick chat on the way across campus or running errands or watching a baseball game I just love it all so much! Here's a few random pictures of some of my most recent favorite college moments!

Lazy Friday Night

Today is one of those rare, cold, wet, all-around dreary nights. I got off work and had plans of going to eat with friends then we would head to the baseball game but the chilly temps and rain called off the second half of those plans. Katie & Heather & I went to eat at Chili's and made the executive decision that movies and cookies back at the house would be a much better end to our week than freezing at the baseball field. So currently I am sitting here listening to music and typing this while they are watching a scary movie on the TV. Lucky for me because they know me so well they also rented Billboard Dad so once this scary movie is off we are watching that! I just really can't even put into words how blessed I am to live the life I live. I just LOVE it so much and it literally makes me want to cry when I think that I graduate in less than a month and won't have the same faces to greet me each day after class or work. I know God has great things planned for my future and I'm excited to see what those plans look like but at the same time I just love my life right now so much I can't imagine it being much better, but I said the same thing about high school and college proved me wrong again with more fun and more friends so maybe the real world won't be as scary as it seems. I'm trying to play catch up for my little blog break, I still have some posts I need to do that will include pictures but right now I just felt like typing out all the little thoughts hopping around in my head. Happy Friday blog friends, I hope you have a great relaxing weekend!!

SBK2K11 (Spring Break 2011)

So I know this post is a little late, but I'm going with the philosophy better late than never! So let's see Spring Break was amazing! Around 30 Senior Chi O's headed to Galveston to go on a week long cruise. We spent the first two days at sea laying out by the pool and eating the AMAZING food! On Wednesday we ported in Jamaica and got so lucky to have a "tour" by our taxi driver, James. We ended up getting off the boat so early that we made it to Margaritaville before it was open so he took us all over Jamaica to see some of the not so touristy stuff. I can't even tell you how different lives there are from my life here in the states. We got to see some really neat stuff including a Jamaican school with kids playing out in the school yard in their super adorable yellow and blue jumpers! We also got to taste pineapple that James bought for us from a local street vendor. That day we got lucky and the taxi driver on our way back to the ship took us to a shop that if you bought anything would let you have a free phone call back to the states (let's just say I'm pretty sure that was my mom's favorite place I went, ha). Thursday we ported in the Cayman Islands and did an excursion that took us to a coral reef and then Stingray City. I can not even tell you how amazing it was to snorkel in the reef! I seriously can't imagine how anyone could see something so beautiful and stunning and not just be in awe of how big and creative God is. After swimming around the reef we went a little farther in the boat and got out and swam with the stingrays. I'm not going to lie I was a little nervous but it was such a cool experience. A stingray swam right over my leg and then we got to touch them, they are such neat creatures! Friday we ported in Cozumel and caught up with some people we met when we were boarding the boat back in Galveston to go scuba diving. Lucky for us these people had found a great deal and shared the knowledge with us. We got to snorkel and scuba and layout and see a sea lion show and then shop in the town! The weather was super hot and sunny, just the way I love it! Saturday was another day at sea that we spent laying out by the pool. Overall the trip was amazing and just absolutely wonderful. I could go on and on but instead I'll just post some pictures :)

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!