Summertime

And a month and a half later......

I have gotten so bad at blogging and that is NO BUENO! I always think about typing out a post, but, like before, can't think of anything I want to blog about. My life is pretty boring so there's no adventures of flying across the US to meet with friends (although this may happen, keep reading), no blind dates (although if you know a single guy....), no drunken escapades. Seriously, boring.

But since I haven't updated you all on my life since the beginning of July, I figured I should do that since the last month has actually been a lot of fun.

I've had an extended vacation back home, a trip back down to Decorah & Luther College, two outdoor country music concerts, two trips to county fairs, lots of shopping, lots of working.

Trip to Decorah

Shopping

Betsy Johnson handbag.

Nine West heels

American Rag vest (looks SO GOOD over maxi dresses!)

Old Navy shorts

The last four items came from my newest addiction, Poshmark. I have a ton of items liked that I really, really want but I'm trying to exhibit a little self-control and not buy them.

County Fairs/Country Music Concerts

I went to both the Olmsted County Fair and the Freeborn County Fair. Thomas Rhett was playing in Albert Lea, MN at the Freeborn Cty Fair and he was SO GOOD. Highly recommend seeing him in concert if you get the chance.









So basically I ate too much fair food and drank too much beer throughout the month of July....

Also in July, Charlie Worsham played a free concert for Down by the Riverside in Rochester.





Story behind the pictures: we got down to the park and it was sunny. Concert started. 10 minutes later, the sky opened up and it started sprinkling which then turned into a downpour for like 5 minutes. We were soaked, but Charlie continued to play and we stayed in our seats. So much fun!

And, yes, we used our one and only umbrella to cover up our purses. Priorities here, people.

Crafts

I glitterized my empty wine bottles and made an old pair of jeans into a skirt.

Work

Still have those absolutely CRAZY DAYS where you just need to go home, sleep, and not think about anything. Still love my job and my co-workers (who tried to find this blog last night, UNSUCCESSFULLY. Investigative FAIL.)

Randomness

Best part of this summer and going home so much was all the puppy cuddles. I miss my baby!


This was outside my apartment building at the end of July. Seriously, my neighbors are whack and this place is becoming more sketchy.




Went through a box of my elementary school stuff.


Wine + candle + Lifetime Movie Network.

I received a $15 rebate for FishEye Wine from BzzAgent (um, they obviously know me too well), so I ended up paying a whopping $1.50 for this huge box of wine. And, let me tell you, it is YUMMY!


Oh, I almost forgot. That trip across the US to go see friends. Two of my absolute best friends since the 9th grade recently moved out to Colorado. I miss them like crazy and need to plan a trip out to see them sometime in the (hopefully near) future. So maybe I'll have some crazy last minute trip to update you all on!

Finally, I also updated my books page with what I've been reading + I've added a TON of new clothes to my Tradesy page to sell (to make up for all the buying!), so go check out my page here.

So that has been my summer in a quick, to-the-point recap since the beginning of July. What have you all been up to?

Friends: The Post-Grad Dilemma

I have a totally legit question for all you college graduates out there: how in the heck do you make friends after college? This doesn't make me sound like a complete loser, does it?

In college, everyone is desperate for a group of new friends. You become close to your roomies, the other people who live on your floor, and people in your classes. You become friends with their friends and soon develop a close knit circle that stay with you for those 4 (or more) years.

Then you throw those hats up in the air and are left to your own devices.

 

Most of the time, you end up working in a different town from those friends you made. You enter a workplace where friendships have already been established or the people you work with are much, much older than you. Married, kids in high school or college. Or just becoming parents.

Nothing you can relate to.

So how do you develop new friendships outside of relying solely on those college friends who are no longer a 5 minute walk away at all times?

Don't get me wrong: I love my co-workers. They make going to work fun.

But they're all at a different life-stage than I am and I can't really relate. They're in their 30's-60's and they all have kids and/or grandkids, are married. They're all from around the town I work in.

I'm not married, not dating, don't have kids, am only 25, am a new nurse, from a different city.

So back to the question: how do you make friends after graduation? How do you make friends outside your work? Did you or do you have this problem?

Happy (Early) Thanksgiving!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving readers!! I'll be back to posting on Monday!

Enjoy your time with family, friends, or whoever you may be spending it with. Eat all the turkey and sides your little heart desires. Score some awesome Black Friday/Thanksgiving deals.

And, maybe try to win a $150 Visa giftcard!

Lipgloss & Lunges // Farmer & the Bell // Pink Heels Pink Truck

Simply Alli // Sweet Silver Lining // Love the Campbells

The Girl Who Loved To Write // Never the Same Spice Twice // You Can Have Your Cake

The Life of the Party // Elizabeth Nygard // Stay Blonde Ski Local

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Ghost of Weekend's Past

Truth be told, this weekend I was sick. And I tutored some nursing students on Sunday afternoon for their midterm today (eek!). And that is all I did.

However, I didn't tell you about last Saturday night (*last Friday night..yeah we danced on tabletops...*).

I went for a night out on the town with two of my best friends, which I haven't done in forever. Mainly because one of them has been going to graduate school in England and we just never all planned a night of "going out" in Rochester because, let's face it, it is (mostly) full of drunk 21 year olds who are stuck in Rochester and haven't really left.

We started out the night at a fellow Luther alum's apartment playing card games. We then (of course!) made our way to Applebee's for half-price apps and happy hour drinks. Hello, mozz sticks & a Long Island for $9! We literally sat in there and laughed for practically two hours. Just what we all needed!

We then made our way downtown to some of the bars, which were PACKED due to Halloween celebrations. Lots of cowboys/cowgirls, lots of slutty army girls/cats/people dressed in random slutty clothes (which I'm all for dressing a little slutty on Halloween. But make sure your dress covers your hooha, ladies!), lots of Miley Cyrus', lots of (fake) cops, lots of (real) cops. We met up with some friends of Caitlin's and spent the night talking, admiring the bridal party who came to the bar at midnight, taking a free Smirnoff Honey shot (delicious!), laughing, taking pictures, and, for myself and Sarah, avoiding the dance floor because it was THAT PACKED. And hot.

And, let me just say, I finally got some curls to stay in my hair. I was bored that afternoon and plugged in my curling iron to experiment. Voila!

Of course, by the time the pictures above were taken, most had fallen out.

That right there is non-purposeful ombre. And my obsession with dramatic eyes thanks to my Naked 2!

linking up with Syndal & Sami

THIS IS HALLOWEEN

I'll admit it: my Halloweens in the past have always been kind of lame.

I usually end up watching scary movies and eating candy with roommates or family.

I went trick or treating up to 9th grade. My favorite costume? A cheerleader! I wore a crocheted cardigan with a cute little pleated skirt. Oh....and I MADE MY OWN POM-PONS! Out of newspaper. They were pretty sweet.

Through the rest of high school I didn't really celebrate. And we never usually get too many kids in our neighborhood. So fast forward to college.

Freshman year

On the actual Halloween night, we had local children trick or treating in our dorm. My best friend made a requisite stop in my room to show me her (freakin' awesome) German costume.

Halloween weekend, however...different story. A bunch of my floormates and I got all dolled up and, for the first time in our college careers, went to some of the campus houses to "party". I put "party" in quotations because, although I did go to 2 or 3 different houses, some of us (me included) didn't drink and were a little sketch about certain houses and promptly (at no more than midnight, mind you) marched our butts home, took off our makeup, and watched One Tree Hill. Yep.

Sophomore and Junior years were a blur of scary movies and candy. You know, the usual.

Senior year

The MOST FUN Halloween weekend! We had planned a fall house dinner for that Saturday complete with chili, squash soup, cornbread. So yummy and domesticated of us 21-24 year olds.

Then, a few of us took a Walmart run and proceeded to buy 7 of these huge fake glitter color eyelashes and the most god-awful eyeshadow colors. Yes, there were dishes sitting dirty everywhere, but we were all sitting at the table doing each others outrageous makeup. Typical girls.

We all came up with some pretty creative costumes. Mine? Ke$ha. Although my roommate kept calling me Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood because I was wearing cowboy boots with my dress and tights. 

See our crazy makeup?! And let's just put it out there that my hair was impossible to comb through the next day....

A pirate, Where's Wanda, Ke$ha, a bride, a gumball machine, an army wife, and Paris Hilton

We all went out to the local dance place/bar. We didn't stay very long: only enough to dance for a while and sell those tiny balloons for 25 cents a pop! Yes, people actually did give us money just to pop a balloon. Laundry people! You need quarters!

Our goal wasn't to get wasted and whore ourselves out in some barely there outfits. But we still had a blast and it is one of my favorite memories of living with those girls.

What's your favorite Halloween memory?

Playing Favorites

I was commenting on a blog post for a giveaway & it asked you to name your 5 favorite things. I typed them in & then it occurred to me....why haven't I wrote a blog post about this? So here we are. I'm a little desperate for topic ideas at the moment. I always go through ups & downs with figuring out what to write (like most bloggers tend to do). I'll have a week or two where I am on and cranking out some awesome posts practically every day. Then I'll have two weeks of pointless rants.

This can probably be considered a pointless rant. I nanny on Thursday & Friday this week, so maybe I'll have motivation, inspiration, or fun content on those days, who knows!

So, without further ado, here are some of my favorite things (an extended list because I can't exclude these!). Also, this is really just an excuse to use a bunch of pictures. I like pictures.

1. Country Music

Seriously, is there anything better than country music festivals? Sitting in an open field in shorts, a tank top, & cowboy boots or flip flops. Soaking up the sun, eating greasy food, drinking copious amounts of booze. Rocking out to multiple country music acts. One of the funnest things I can think of! Unfortunately, I'm not going to any this summer because I can't afford it.

 
 

 Regular concerts will also do it for me. Heck, sitting around drinking & listening to country music works too!

2. Sparkles

Definitely my real favorite color. If it has glitter or sparkles, I usually want it. Everytime I do my nails, it has some sort of glitter or glittery looking part. When I was in junior high & high school, I used to buy those little pots of Bonne Bell baby blue glitter & apply it to my upper lash line on my eyes for dances, football games, etc. I used to glitter all the time.

3. Coffee

You probably know this if you follow me on Instagram. I think half of my pictures are my dog and the other half are coffee cups. I used to only occasionally drink the Frappucinos I would get from Starbucks & that was the extent of my coffee consumption. Enter nursing school. I started drinking it occasionally with a lot of creamer and ice and flavoring for a pick-me-up if I was tired. That soon progressed to pouring it, black & strong, into a travel mug, throwing a little milk and creamer in and guzzling it down. Oh and I am now addicted to Starbucks & am 6 or 7 stars away from gold status. And want to know something cool? I haven't paid out of pocket for Starbucks since October 2012. Yep, 9 months of free coffee. Thank you, generous blog giveaways!





 

 

 

4. Shopping

Even if I don't buy anything, going to Target or a clothing store or really anywhere except Walmart makes me happy. This will probably be a problem when I have a steady income coming in. Online shopping is also a problem because I love getting packages in the mail. Just yesterday, I bought a liter of Chi Infra shampoo, Ultimate Blonde conditioner, and Moroccan Argan Oil travel size from Ulta (in my defense there was a sale, a $3.50 coupon, & I had a $10 gift card so I paid less than $20 for all that!) and a phone cover from Amazon (hey, I had a gift card there too & it was less than $7!). See? Problem.

5. Summer Thunderstorms at night

We had one on Sunday night! But it was really just more like a light shower. I like when you can hear rumbles of thunder. Not any tornados or hail or anything. But I like a thunderstorm on a warm night.

6. Hanging out with family & friends

I have the best friends & family and I bet they rival yours.

7. Nashville

This could never be excluded from a list of my favorite things. I don't know if I ever said this on here before, but being there, I felt more like "myself" if that makes any sense. I submitted a general application to Vanderbilt (if you have followed my blog for awhile, I applied to their nurse residency program back in September, but didn't get in) just to see. I can't wait to go back!

8. Ford

I'm obsessed with my puppy dog. Kisses, morning & evening cuddles. I even give him hugs! He's my little Ferdy Bird!

9. Luther College

LU-LU-LUTH-TH-TH-THER! L-U-T-H-E-R! LUTHER! LUTHER! LUTHER!

 

 

 

10. Blogging

Despite my writers block every once in a while, I love blogging. It calms me down & helps me relax. And I enjoy writing about things I love. I can tell the difference between when I first started blogging versus now. My older posts seem like I'm writing to impress someone. Now, I love if people like my post & leave comments (read Helene's post on commenting) or if I get a lot of pageviews (I've recently discovered Pinterest has done wonders to up my pageviews!), but, as long as my post interests me, I'm okay.

What are some of your favorite things?