new apartment

left around 6 am this morning and got to rochester about 1 pm with one stop because i was pretty sure that i was going to pee in my pants. good news, made it to the newest grocery store on time. the car seat appreciated that.

picked up my key & started moving things in. after a few hours of organizing, okay so i'm not ure if it was hours but it was hot & i was rather tired so i have no idea how long it took.

is it possible to be in love with a room? or an apartment? because i think i am. my room is so bug-free and organized and my very OWN. oh yes, did i mention there is a laundry thing in the apartment? excuse me while i go wash one sock.

did i mention that the bed was wrapped in plastic which assures freshness?

it was.

after unpacking i realized that i had not eaten much more than a peach and a few soy crisps all day so i zipped off to wegmans and purchased some tasty protein (yogurt) and dinner (salad bar). so delicious.

more tomorrow.

color palette

Color Wheel bike

birthday celebrations

There has been much celebrating going on around here. My birthday, last Friday, Sarah's birthday this coming Wednesday, school starting (okay i don't think Sarah is celebrating that one), summer, family, etc.

Celebration is only complete with one thing: cake.

I have to admit that this icing didn't make it anywhere but the trash. But we practiced! Two weekends ago Barb and Joe came down and Nana came up from Georgia and we ate delicious food, hung around, waited for the next meal time and then ate again =) Oh yes, and we practiced our icing skills.

And got some icing on my nose...

This past weekend Grandpa and Frances came up from Georgia to spend the weekend. I officially turned 20 while headed down 95 towards the airport. Alison slept over Thursday night and we had a tasty irish soda bread for breakfast. Lunch was wraps & watermelon and dinner was black bean burgers with carrots and pineapple rice. So tasty! Mom even made me a delicious coconut carrot cake for dessert. Yummmm.

Okay, so this whole post was about food. Pictures of the cake to come.

artist series: tara donovan

Tara Donovan

europe & the countdown

One week left of summer -- technically two but only one more in Maryland. For some reason the song that comes to mind when I think about this is Europe's the final countdown.

So far I think the majority of the stuff I need for school has remained contained in nice piles in my room. A few piles, however, resemble something close to a small explosion.

I'm loving summer and deciding what I want to do --or not do-- on a regular basis is quite fantastic. I do have to say that I have a teensy tiny urge to buckle down and do some math homework draw pretty pictures and make macaroni necklace (afterall, that's what graphic design majors do, right?). But I'm sure this too shall pass come the first major homework assignment. My buckling down and studying hard will no longer seem like a good idea.

Hopefully I will come up with some semblance of a normal schedule. My icalendar is currently writhing in pain after I have overloaded the first week back to school. It's used to the occasional "dinner out" or "naptime" but real work and classes? Okay, so I don't really schedule naptimes on my calendar those are more of an impromptu thing.

This whole schedule thing will seem so new and exciting and wear off after a week after unpacking, packing and then moving every 2 to 3 weeks this summer. Seriously, who came up with that bright idea? Yes! Let's pretend to be a nomad and move around as much as possible. Just kidding, it actually kept things interesting. Although it has clearly ruined my attention span.

Dive

the PEN story: part two

comic sans, drop shadows & gradients galore

See the full version at: The Oatmeal

the PEN story

Things to look at

This week has gone by at lightning speed and it appears as though I have run through my prewritten blog posts faster than I thought.

Days are filled with gym going, eating whatever meal is appropriate for the given time, reading, checking up on emails, and, of course, naps. Oh who I am kidding, I should not have used the word "filled"... it took me until 5 pm yesterday to shower and get dressed. And even then I slipped on pj's :)

Sunday night when I got back, Alison came over and we got chinese food for dinner. My parents and Sarah had headed up for another college visit in NY, ironically at the same time I was driving south so we met part way and said hello before continuing on.

Monday I managed to get mostly unpacked-- well, unpacked is a totally relative term here pretty much everything I have is in a box or bag waiting for school. Met up with Liz and went on a walk around Centennial-- it is so ridiculously hot outside even at 5 pm, you would have thought we had just run a marathon. Ate some tasty dinner and finally got to try out a frozen yogurt place in ellicott city.

Sarah and I went to giant yesterday to get ice cream because we were out -shocker- We couldn't decide what to get so we ended up with 5 different kinds.. slightly ridiculous but you know.. Nana is arriving later today and we all know how quickly she goes through ice cream ;)

Less than 3 weeks left of summer break, I'm headed back to Rochester on the 30th of august.

Here's something to check out today: Mila's Daydreams

the recap continues

the past three weeks spent in Rochester did not include an abundance of free time so now appears to be a good catch up time on the blog.

after work at 4:30, i'd race back, quick get ready and then head downtown for vacation bible school with a beechwood church. a bunch of us from IV all worked on it.

i made more paper origami than you can imagine. if this whole graphic design thing does not work out i'll become a professional origamist.

every night had songtime, a puppet show and then a craft.

what happens at work

this is what happens when we're not busy (or while we're busy) stuffing folders, making copies, giving tours, and what not.

(while waiting for 1450 copies to be made)

(we played quelf this game that requires you to do funny things like sit under a table until your next turn...)

(we all usually eat lunch together at the SAU because apparently 5 8 hour days of work in a row is just not enough time to fully bond)

(teamwork happens)

(and then when we are done with work and spending so much time together we have movie nights with lots and lots of food.. and yes, that is pork steaks, salad, spinach artichoke dip, yellow rice and grilled veggies and no, we do not eat like normal college kids)

college and careers: august edition # 2

I'm going to go ahead and guess that I'm going to be relatively tired at this point (more blogging into the future) so here are a few more photos from college & careers.

college and careers: august edition

perfect weather + 700 families + lots of tours + crazy ambassadors = college & careers.

this college & careers was so much nicer than the previous one, everyone asked if we had specially ordered the weather. last time was pouring rain and more humid than you can even imagine. this time was blue skies, fake looking white puffy clouds and 70 degrees.

however, there were over 700 families which made things wayy busier. i didn't even realize how tired i really was until halfway through saturday when i felt like i had run head first into a brick wall of tiredness. good thing it was sunny out, wearing sunglasses hides the huge bags under your eyes ;)

we did lots of work, moving boxes, giving tours, directing families, taking pictures, etc.

but had equal amounts of fun.. ie: getting shark tattoos and performing ufc style fights in the slc entrance.

and of course, jumping in the photobooth whenever it was not in use.

only two students were sent to the hospital (not due to our ufc fighting, don't worry) but i'd call that a success.

between the hours of 8:30 on friday morning and 11:00 pm that night i took 1,121 pictures. my harddrive is not appreciating that much at all. it needs to go on a serious diet.

ps: i'm currently on the road as this is posting.. not to worry i wrote it yesterday, i'm not blogging and driving. i figured i'd avoid two posts in one day yesterday =) should be home a few hours from now!

fixing problems

so college & careers part two is over and exhaustion is setting in quickly.

for the past three weeks i've been staying with my friend linnea in her apartment but i'm not technically signed into hers which is not really a big deal except today i forgot to ask when she was coming back =)

figured it was no big deal, we got out of work at 4:30 and i decided to walk back and i'd drive to the church where she has a festival thing going on all day. except i got back and realized that i did not bring my car key to work this morning-- smart thinking, i know.

so i sat in the bus stop for a little bit and contemplated taking a nap but i have my laptop with me and that just sounded like one bad idea.

that's when the biking idea came in. although, my feet kind of feel like they are going to fall off if i step any further so biking for 2 hours did not sound like a very good plan. neither did walking around campus.

but then i remembered the lovely thing called park point which i have never put to very good use.

biking to park point = good plan.

especially when i realized said establishment has a starbucks and starbucks is the keeper of the caffeine. mocha coconut caffeine to be exact.

and then i realized that it is dinner time and the only remaining food i have is 1 carrot, honey nut cheerios and about 4 glasses worth of soy milk... so starbucks also has scones which looks to me like dinner.

but then mr. starbucks man informed me that they were all out. not surprised, that is how these problem days go.

good thing the coconutty goodness has made up for it. plus i found a comfy chair and when i get bored of this there is a whole floor of art supplies and another full of art/design book and cookbook.

and when all else fails, move onto the next park point restaurant ;) just kidding.

if you want attention...

...walk into a BJ's, buy 225 juice boxes and 225 cracker packs.

and don't explain your purchases. to anyone.

beet stains

This week is pleasantly relaxing which is a nice change from the past 2 weeks.. because I have done, absolutely nothing! Just kidding, that's not entirely true.

Friday night ended up going to the tail end of IV summer group and then coming back and watching lots of Gilmore Girls episodes! Yesterday morning I slept in-- well, I technically woke up at 7:19 but I was not pleased with that so I fell back asleep until 8. Around noon, Linnea and I headed down to the Rochester Public Market to get some tasty things. Got corn on the cob, pears, peaches, tomatoes, beets and two doughnut peaches! And no, that isn't actually a doughnut, it's a flattened peach! Quite tasty and convenient because we got the person to sell us only two rather than the whole basket =)

For dinner we had carrots, corn on the cob and beets-- quite messy but tasty. We continued watching more gilmore girls and figured out that if we did nothing but that for 5 days straight we could fit in all 153 episodes.. not that we're actually planning on trying that, we haven't even finished season 1.

This morning we're headed to church, I'm going to try out a new church just for the heck of it. Need to run some errands after for various things this week-- mostly picking up 200 juice boxes and 200 cracker boxes from BJ's for vacation bible school this week. Might hang out with some other people tonight, we'll see.

Tomorrow morning is back to the usual. Lots of folders to stuff for college & careers which is on Friday. Monday night we're having a pre-VBS planning session again with dinner. Tuesday-Thursday is VBS from 6-8 every night downtown somewhere. Then Friday and Saturday are C&C. Sunday I drive back home!

Busy, busy.