Books, quotes, and a puppy

I have to confess, I just discovered Pinterest. And now I get what everyone has been talking about. Seriously addicting. I’m pretty sure it’s going to become my best friend now that all my friends are back in school ;)

Here are a few of my favorites from Pinterest this week. Enjoy!!

I love this bookcase/coffee table. It was originally a giant spool. I’d love to make one of these. I also love this use of a fireplace. If I owned a coffee shop I’d definitely turn one into a bookcase...

This Pug sign is adorable. And so is the cross-stitch. I’d hang both of them in my house.

And finally two quotes:

“Google before you tweet is the new think before you speak”

“life is a balance of holding on and letting go”

Isn’t that the truth?! I do love a good quote :)
Which is your favorite?

ps. Tomorrow is my first day of fulltime work. So long part-time. So long random shifts. So long freedom/free time galore. Welcome to the real world… wish me luck!!

13. Double Date

Sushi. 21-Day-Aged Burgers. Crab Dip. Caesar Salad. Chocolate Combustion Cake.

Construction. Cheers. A dog and a snake.

Lot’s of driving around to look for a parking spot. Lot’s of singing along with the radio. Lot’s of time with siblings, which have become best friends :)

GG Fashion Police

I did not watch the VMA’s. But thanks to twitter, E!, facebook,  and People, I really didn’t need to. Ahh I love social media…

The most important thing: Jay-Z and Beyonce. Last night when I found out that Beyonce was pregnant I started smiling. And almost got off my chair to do a little victory dance. And I texted mark with all capitals. I may have screamed out loud – or it may have been in my head. Not really sure. BUT I AM SO HAPPY FOR HER/THEM!!!! YAY!!!! I have been waiting for this moment. This baby is going to be beautiful and is going to come into this world with more talent that half the people who were even at the VMA’s last night. Seriously – I might be more excited for Beyonce than I was for Kate Middleton. And that was an impressive excitement.

But now let’s move onto fashion. I’m pretending to be Joan Rivers for five minutes.
Or maybe Kelly Osborn. Fashion Police Gertie Girl Style…

Worst Dressed of the Night
Miley vs. Britney

Miley’s dress isn’t THAT bad, but she just looks so darn awkward.. Actually I take that back – animal print, floral print, fading blues, stripes, long sleeves, train – it’s a hot mess. Maybe it’s just the fact that she wore it to this event, but I’m not loving it. And Britney looks lost/dazed/confused. Also what is she wearing? The shoes might be the best part about the outfit…

And the Worst Dressed goes to… Miley.
I mean common. She’s what – 19? And that’s the best she can do? I’m not a Miley fan to begin with, but I’m pretty sure  she could have asked someone for help when getting dressed. Britney has had two kids, has had many lows among her highs, and for all she’s been through looks ok. Maybe she forgot to make a hair appointment.

 

Most Bizarre of the Night
Katy Perry vs. Niki Minaj

I think that Katy Perry is beautiful.
Exhibit A: The Smurfs movie premier and last years VMA’s.

She’s always been playful and I think it’s fun and cute. She’s proved she can do that but still look beautiful. I mean that blue eye make-up and blonde hair was gorgeous! But this year’s VMA’s was just bad. I’m not loving the pink hair or the dress or the umbrella.
She looks twelve. Obnoxious twelve.

And Niki. Who I also think is super pretty but downplays her looks… Last night she literally covered them up. When I first saw this outfit I had flashbacks to the Gaga episode of Glee when Rachel comes to rehearsal in that pathetic dress made out of beanie babies or Hello Kitty’s or whatever. And they’re coming off. And Kurt get’s that pitiful look on his face. Yes that’s exactly how I felt. Poor Niki. Covering up her pretty face and wearing the strangest assortment of things on her body. It’s like someone dumped the barney bag on her while she was wearing glue or something. STRANGE.

And the Most Bizzare award goes to…. Niki.

It’s one thing to be out there. She’s proven she’s crazy with her wigs and makeup before. But this is just out-there. And not even artistically out-there like some of the stuff Lady Gaga has done. This is just all wrong. Let Gaga do her thing. Maybe she knew you were going to be doing this and that’s why she decided not to wow us with a crazy outfit and just show up as a dude. (I wasn’t going to mention that at all, but I think it needed a nod).
And speaking of the barney bag…

 

Best Barney Babe
Selena vs. Demi

Selena has looked WAYYY better. This dress isn’t too bad, but every time the mullet dress comes back it’s cute on the first three people who wear it and then it’s old again. Which is kind of the case here. Plus it looks like Halloween is coming early around her neck. Demi is just smokin’. Her voice sounds incredible on her lastest single and she’s overcome a lot in this past year. She remains positive and never stops thanking her fans. I love that she's not a little twig, but she looks fit and healthy. Her hair is also out of this world. I’d pay large sums of money for hair like this…

So which Barney Tot turned Disney Princess turned Total Babe wins… DEMI!!
This girl is on fire. And she’s was working it last night. You go girl! She’s also friends with the Kardashians. I mean really – Kim Kardashian as a surrogate older sisters or Justin Bieber to gallivant around Hawaii with? In this case – Demi wins. In every other situation Selena wins. I do love me some Bieber sans the snake.

And finally, as if her baby announcement wasn’t amazing enough, Beyonce looked stunning. Which is nothing new – she always looks flawless.
She’s my best dressed pick.

And then because I just can’t NOT mention them…Kim matched Demi, but I thought she looked blahhh. Not the best dress for her. And Adele looked precious. I would have loved to be apart of that standing ovation.

 

 

Who do you think was best dressed last night?
Which performance was your favorite?!

Irene

I don’t know about you, but by Saturday afternoon I had had ENOUGH of hearing about Irene. People fighting over cases of water in the grocery story? People in suburban Philadelphia boarding up their windows? My mom getting over 30 weather notifications on her blackberry? Yes. Here is PA we don’t get hurricanes that often. So we freaked out. A lot.

Thankfully, this area wasn’t hit too hard. Yesterday the world started coming back outside around noon and the most damage I saw was some flooding and a lot of down branches. I know some people weren’t as fortunate, but here at my house, we fared quite well. And by quite well I mean we ate like fat rats…

Saturday

8:00pm I got home from work. It was raining pretty hard, but not too scary yet…

8:30pm Mark got here!

9:00pm The five of us all sat around talking and eating friendship bread.
Aren’t our reactions to Irene great?

10:30pm We all went to bed.

11:30opm We all dragged our half-asleep selves to the basement because of a tornado warning.

11:50pm We all fumbled our way back to bed.

Sunday

12:00am Dad comes in to tell me that we don’t have to get up at 6:00am because church has been cancelled. He also scares me half to death.

8:30am Mark texts me from the living room: “Is church cancelled? Cause if not I think we’re going to be late. And I’m not even sure if you’re still here. Should I call your mom?”

9:30am Mom starts cooking up breakfast, Sarah mozies down in her cute jammykins, Mark get’s a backrub/footrub/legrub/handrub.

10:30am Dad comes down and we feast on homemade Egg-Mc-Muffin sandwiches, sticky-buns, friendship bread, coffee, and juice.

12:00pm Mark and I venture out to get some back-to-school items and hit the mall so that he has some presentable clothing.

2:00pm Kayla and Bucky come over!! And we eat again… Buffalo chicken dip, salsa, and guacamole with chips. Cantaloupe and grapes. Cheese, crackers, pepperoni.

3:00pm We play a rousing game of Taboo where the girls kicked some serious bootayy.

4:30pm Dinner time. Lasagna with Caesar salad and Texas toast.

6:00pm Mark and I took a walk in the beautiful sunshine and thanked God for the calm after the storm and the coming of fall…

7:00pm We all laid around sprawled on couches because we were fat and stuffed and super lazy. Yes we survived. And also took way too many pictures on his mac.

10:00pm Bedtime.

 

As I tweeted yesterday: All we did today was eat.
And it was marvelous.

Irene thanks for bringing us all together and giving us an entire 24 hours of laid-back, care-free, full-of-food family afternoon :) It was the best end-of-summer weekend…

How did Irene treat you?!

Back to the start…

Langhorne Coffee House – the cutest place in all of Langhorne, that is frequented by everyone who goes to PBU. My sister was the first person that ever introduced me to it. It’s adorable. The walls are lined with local artists’ paintings and the seats are filled with business people, college students, the local police officers, and moms with their children. It’s tiny, but so welcoming. I love mom-and-pop places, and this one is probably my favorite. Over the course of my three semesters at school I went with my girlfriends a bunch of times, and it became the place to go. It’s only open until 2pm and they serve breakfast and lunch items. My favorite thing about LCH is that they cut their muffins in half and put them on the grill with butter. They come to you warm and toasted. Delish.

Mark and I decided to go Monday. In honor of meeting two years before, we spent a few hours in the town where we met. So cheesy. But still fun. The weather was SO gorgeous that we got to eat outside. The humidity has finally died down and the air has that cool hint of the coming of fall that I love. We both got Arthur Palmer’s to drink which is iced tea mixed with lemonade – I never knew it had a name!! And I called it a Hey Arnold because I couldn’t remember the real name :) Mark, of course, knew all about it/him…

After brunch, we headed to school and walked around the pond. It was weird to be back on campus, and even weirder that for the first time since I was five I won’t be going back to school. No school supplies, no packing, no anticipation. No school. Very weird. Mark high-fived me for taking the easy way out, joking of course. We both agree that my decision to work until I figure out what I want to do is the right thing, but it’s a little sad that I won’t be with him at school. No more runs to Wawa or Dunkin or LCH for coffee. No more sitting in the library listening to completely different music on our headphones and mouthing the words while writing papers next to each other. No more dates in the Eagles Nest for fried food and cookies. This fall is going to be a lot of change for both of us, so we’re trying to hold on to these last few days of freedom and summer. I feel that way at least. On September 1st I’ll start a full time job and five days later I’ll say goodbye to my teens. Welcome to the real world, right? It’ll be an adjustment, but I’m glad I still have days like Mark and I had to relax with the people I love.

The end of summer is always a little sad, but Autumn truly is my favorite season. And I can’t wait to see what the next few months have in store…

I’m a slob

Three hours ago my room looked like this…
Please feel free to judge me. I am.

Basically I’m disgusting. I hate when my room is messy, but once it starts looking untidy I abandon ship and only spend time in it when I’m sleeping. The clean laundry stay in my chair in a heap. The clothes I wore to the gym are on the floor. The clothes I wore to work yesterday and the day before that (and the day before that, and the day before that) are slung over the back of my desk chair. And the laundry that I attempted to fold is on the stool or on top of my dresser. There are books everywhere. And there are about 43985 water bottles or cups of water because I get wicked thirsty before bed and never think about them the next morning. And the trash bin is overflowing. Yes. I’m disgusting. And my room was so despicable this afternoon that I sat on the edge of my bed and thought, ‘This is too overwhelming. What if I just ignore it?”  I seriously considered, but that wasn’t an option. So I cleaned up the bomb of a place… and now we have this!!!
*cue the choir*

Some things will probably have to change in the next few weeks because there is WAY too much stuff in here… but I think she cleaned up nicely :)

In the process I learned a few things:

1. You can ALWAYS fit more in your closet. Just like there’s always room for one more person at a round table – more things will fit into your closet. You just have to fold things and puzzle piece them in. Shoving doesn’t work. (And yet I shove when I don’t have time to care. Which is mostly always. Why?)

2. I am even more disgusting than I originally thought – I cleaned out an old purse and found not one, not two, not five, but SEVEN spoons. I always take a spoon to work to eat my yogurt with and evidently I don’t know how to bring the spoons home and run them through the dishwasher. And just to make this all that much more laughable – I’ve been mentally and verbally complaining about my house’s shortage of spoons. I always tell my mom, “Spoons are the socks of the kitchen. They disappear. What happens to them?” Oh yes, I know what happens to them – I LEAVE THEM IN MY PURSES!

3. I have an odd number of black flip flops which makes no sense. I also have too many pairs of black flip flops. Why don’t I throw the old ones away? Seriously, they are worn down so much that I’d basically be walking on the hard ground.

And I learned some other things… but they really aren’t worth sharing because I’d be the only person who would find them amusing. So there you have it. Three hours, a vaccum, some trash bags, and some 835 sprays of Febreeze later, we have a mostly presentable bedroom. At least tomorrow morning I won’t trip on my way to the shower at 5:30am!!

Also – Kayla – if you’re reading this… I have about 4 empty shoe boxes, and I know you collect those and all to put stuff in… soo let me know ;)

Toes in the Water

Last Saturday I went to Ocean City with my dear friend Kaitlyn. The weather was amazing and it was the perfect beach day. We’ve both been going to the gym all summer and decided to celebrate our new fabulosity by going to the beach and then going onto the boardwalk and eating french fries and ice cream. Yes. It was the perfect reward for our hard work… We also sang like idiots the entire way down and back and made a lot of dumb jokes and reminisced about middle school. Best last hoorah ever.

We saw a few pods of dolphins around lunch time and spent the majority of our day watching the tweenage surfer wannabe boys and clapping for them. True story.

Basically sums up Summer2011. Am I right or am I right?

JB please go on tour so we have a legitimate reason to justify the purchase. Kaythanksbye.

It’s a good thing I chose to smile like a 5 year old because when it was all said and done it looked like it was the first ice cream cone I’d ever eaten. Butter Brickle – 1. Rebecca – 0.

What.A.Babe.

The man that took this picture for us actually thanked us for asking him. It was sweet and sad at the same time… like no one had ever asked him before and it made his day. He also held the camera in a way that made us pretty sure the picture was going to be of our knees, but it didn’t turn out too bad :) I love the beach, good music, good conversation, and good food. Most of all, @KaitKinsey who makes me laugh harder than anyone I know :) This basically sums up our day: “Shawty whatchyo name is?” “Hey Daddy” “Knock, knock. Guess what? The goon’s home” “Justin Bieber is the bombdotcom” “Cool story babe, now go make me a sandwich”
Annnnd a Justin Bieber rap and Astin Martin music because it’s the perfect go-to song.

It’s sad to say farewell to summer, but I’m glad we squeezed this day in.

Young Love

Disclaimer – This post is sickeningly cute and lovey dovey and very verrryy sappy.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you :)

August 21, 2009

…Was the day after I moved onto campus for my freshman year. I was sitting outside my dorm watching some people play foursquare with my roommate when three boys walked up. I don’t remember much about that specific night: how long we talked, what we were wearing, or introducing ourselves at all… but when it was all said and done I had Mark Kikendall’s phone number and he had mine. I actually got his number for my roommate because she thought he was hot but didn’t want to seem too desperate. I played the outgoing, fun, friendly roommate that just happened to get it for her… The next day the entire freshman class and student leaders that were on campus took the annual trip downtown for a scavenger hunt through Philadelphia. It poured at the end of the day, so we all got seated on the busses early and my roommate and I just happened to sit right in front of Mark and one of his friends. We made plans to hang out that night and unfortunately I don’t remember it at all… but I do have pictures…

From there on out we spent every day together. Taking notes in the library because we were sharing a psych book, walking the mall, driving to Wawa in his Civic, singing at the top of our lungs…

walking around the campus together at night…

and sitting by the pond during our breaks… (I was WAY in over my head… *swoon*)

ahh those were the days :) Freshman year. No job. No real schoolwork. No responsibility. Just time, sweet time. We sat together in chapel every day. We texted every day from 1-2 while he was in Intro to Theology and I was free, which is probably why he didn’t get such a great grade in that class. And we spent many hours on benches by the pond talking about life. It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. In fact, there was quite a lot of turmoil. And it’s all because I was finally free on my own and decided I was going to do what I wanted and not listen to a single thing my parents said, which did come back to bite me in the butt. But somehow Mark and I made it. I’m glad we are where we are today. We’ve been through a lot. And I’m thankful for every storm we’ve weathered. Today I still proof his papers, I still help him study for tests when he asks, we still walk the mall to window shop when we have time, we still sit around talking about life, and he’s still my best friend. It’s nice to travel back through time to the days when I hardly knew who Mark was at all and everything was so new and exciting because I tend to forget the people we were when he was 18 and I was 17… we’ve both learned and grown so much since then.

I’m also thankful for August 21, 2009. And I can’t believe it’s been two years :)

^^Seriously… I had no choice. No choice.

Thank you for working so hard. Thank you for being so sweet and kind. Thank you for putting me first. Thank you for being my best friend. Thank you for loving me.

#5

On the End-of-Summer Bucket List:
Tie Dye T-Shirts

CHECK!

Two weeks ago I babysat for a friend. It was quite a party with my sister, her two kids, their dog, and me! We went to Wal-Mart to get supplies, tie-dyed our little hearts out, ordered a pizza for lunch, and then bummed it on the couch watching Newsies until we were ready for ice cream :) I love these kids.  I love their dog. I love their Mom!

What I DON’T love are all the pictures the girls took of “us” actually doing our shirts. All you see are my hands, my legs, and the shirt – it’s like no one else was even there… But they’re 10 and 11 and I guess I wasn’t too clear when I asked them to take pictures…

Anyways – here’s us tie-dyeing our shirts!!
And aren’t my green thumbs nice?? Yeah those gloves didn’t work so well…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s the finished project…. I babysat the kids again today and we all decided we’d wear our shirts for the day and wow the community fabulous matchy-matchyness…

My shirt and J’s turned out the best, Sarah and A’s could have used a bit more dye… but they look great!! We visited Kayla today at work and she told me her co-workers asked if we usually coordinate our outfits… Why yes, yes we do :) I’m glad I can cross another thing off my summer bucket list and that I can now say I’ve tie-dyed!!

Happy Friday! Hope you have a great weekend!