catching up.

welllllll.

i'd say that was the longest unintentional blogging break i've ever taken. i've been meaning to catch up for so long, but i was super busy for a few weeks and then was overwhelmed with the idea of posting all those things. i blog to record my memories, but that can be a daunting task sometimes.

oh where to begin. after laura's prom, i went to milwaukee to see the bff graduate from grad school. she now has a masters in art therapy with a concentration in counseling and she managed to get two degrees before i even got one. she worked really hard for two years without even taking a a summer break, so i'm really proud of her.

after that i flew back home for laura's graduation party and then her actual high school graduation. she is going to KU in the fall. i was sort of hoping she'd join me at IWU, but i think she'll do well at KU too.

then it was time to go to kansas city for my niece's 8th grade graduation. she is precious. 

then it was time for a quick trip to the lake house with the heringtons. 

the lake is one of my favorite places on the planet. i just love it.

and i love this girl.

i came home from the lake tuesday night and started my internship at the church the next day. i'm interning with my friend holly in children's ministry. she is moving to florida in the middle of the summer, so that will make for an interesting internship. 

i'm finally starting to get on some what of a schedule and i am drinking smoothies like its my job. it's hard to believe that i've been home for a month already and i still have three months left of summer. it's gonna be busy. hopefully it will be fun too. 

xoxo

ko.

letters.

yesterday was the last day of school. i have zero complaints about that. yesterday was also the last day i had 28 precious girls living on my unit. they left, one by one. we've been together for 8 months, and it's hard for me to even picture in my head what is was like when each one moved in. but at the same time, i feel like they just moved in yesterday. 

at our first unit meeting, i asked them to each write a letter to themselves. i collected each letter and then gave them back to them when they checked out of their rooms yesterday. this was something that i had done my freshman year, so i wanted to pass it along to them. i never actually got my letter back (no i'm not bitter at all!) but i knew there would be something special for them about looking back on their first day of freshman year. 

i wanted to read them each so badly, but i resisted the temptation. when i was getting ready to give them back, i had to open them to find out who's letter was whose, so i did end up seeing a few words. most along the lines of, "you did it!" "be yourself!" "good job, you made it!" i was so overwhelming proud of each one of them. each one had her own battle to fight this semester, each one had struggles and successes, but each one made it through to the end. 

i started tearing up a little bit when i was checking some girls out of their room yesterday. it's such a strange feeling to watch over 26 freshman and then to let them go after 8 months. i will miss them. i think the tears were also a little bit from being reminded of this time my freshman year. i cried a lot of tears those last few days as i watched my best friend graduate, knowing she wouldn't be here the next year. and i was nervous about going to alaska for the summer, not really knowing what to expect. but, just like my sweet girls, i made it.

i always felt like i got the best group of girls. all of them were so sweet and adorable and precious. they bonded so quickly, something i'm thankful for. we, of course, had our issues, but i couldn't have asked for a better group of girls. 

i'll be packing up my room in a few days and closing the book on this year. i'm apparently going to be a senior next year. but first, i cannot wait to be in my house making smoothies all day long. oh summer, 4 months of you does sound good.

ko.

happy spring.

if you walked outside right now, chances are you wouldn't know it is spring. probably the snow falling from the sky would persuade you into thinking that it is still in fact winter, but it is definitely spring. dumb. i am seriously so tired of the cold. i'm tired of coats. and gloves. and boots. i'm thankful for coats and gloves and boots, but i'm ready for shorts and chacos and sun. soon. hopefully. 

a few random things you should consider checking out:

i was recently asked to be a contributor on the flourish blog. it is a blog with short posts meant to encourage women of all ages. i have enjoyed reading it, so i'm excited to be a part of it. check out the blog here, and see the other contributors here. 

i just redid my friend, emily's blog. she is a gem. she keeps threatening to stop blogging, so hopefully a new clean blog design will help her stick around a little longer. 

my friend, kern, hiked the entire appalachian trail a few months ago and has recently finished a beautiful film documenting his journey. you can see the film on vimeo here. it does cost $10, but you can download it and it is 100% worth it. and i'm 100% not getting paid to say that. he also just started a new adventure called current sea which involves driving all the way to california in a volkswagon van and learning how to surf. honestly, i'm confused that he doesn't already know how. if there is one person whose lifestyle i envy, it would be kern's. the dude is an adventurer through and through and i love that. 

if you have an hour to spare, i would recommend listening to this sermon by jake hamilton. it is ah.ma.zing. i've listened to it twice, downloaded it and plan on listening to it again. do it now. 

i'm leaving for wisconsin tomorrow to go visit the bff. it's been a while, so it should be a good time. 

also, i decided to cut sugar out of my life. it's been 24 hours, i'm grumpy and i hate everyone. waaahh.

love.

ko.

ps. does anyone actually listen to the songs i add to the end of each post? just curious.

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this is where i'm talking to myself.

i haven't blogged in two weeks. or showered. just kidding on one of those. 

the bff came to visit and i just didn't feel like blogging despite the fact that i have an entire list of things to blog about. interestingly, this post is about none of those things. 

i have an iphone. obviously. i love my iphone. like, maybe borderline-addiction-love my iphone. i love that the world is literally at my fingertips. oh what's that? you don't know the name of that guy from that one show that had the brown hair and said that one thing 3 years ago? let me google that for you. 

courtney is one of my most honest friends. that is why she is my bff. she could also throw her phone out the window, never pick it up again and be fine. so we're sort of different. a few times while she was here she said, "you are attached to your phone." or "why don't you just put your phone down." and the first time i was like, i am not. and then the second time i wanted to punch her (sorry court.) and then after a few more times i started really actually thinking about punching her, okay, fine. actually i started thinking about why she kept saying this over and over and over. it couldn't be because i'm addicted to my iphone. 

i can come up with 4 gagillion excuses why it's okay that i am so attached to my phone. i can justify the enormous amount of time i spend on it because i'm "staying connected with friends" and "being available to my girls" and "keeping up to date with what's going on in the world" and "promptly responding to emails." and while all those things are fine and great and whatever and there really are people who i can only connect with over instagram and twitter, when i'm saying yes to all of those things, i'm saying no to lots of other things. i'm saying no to being fully present, fully listening, and fully soaking in the time i have with the fleshy people in front of me. 

there is this phrase i've been hearing lately "fear of missing out" or FOMO. this article said that FOMO "can feel like an uncontrollable yearning to be two or more places at once, fueled by the fear that missing out on something could put a dent in your happiness, status, or career."  In the same article, a psychologist, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., says, "FOMO happens when we invalidate the experience we're having because we're obsessed with the ones we're not having." and really, truly, honestly, FOMO fuels my iphone addiction. i'm afraid of what i'm missing out on in virtual life so much that i'm seriously missing out on real life. 

this post from emily ley and this post and this post from gina zeidler also helped me see the light on this issue. (am i writing a research paper right now? haha.)

whenever me and courtney see each other, we always pull out our calendars and pick another time to see each other. usually this is great and wonderful and makes saying goodbye 100 times easier because we know we can hang out again in a month or so. it didn't really work that way this time and it turns out i won't see her again until the end of april which just sucks all kinds of ways. that realization helped me to really see what a time waster i am. i had only a few days with her and i spent a lot of it on my phone. next time will be different.

i followed gina's advice and moved/deleted some things on my phone. i deleted most of the short cuts on my google chrome toolbar and i'm trying to be present when i am with people.

i gave myself some lofty goals the other day that i have already failed at achieving, but i guess it's less about the goals and more about the reasons behind it.

"check instagram, facebook, and twitter only once per day. you must get over the fear of missing out. you are missing out on entirely more in your real, active, present life by checking these things than you are missing out on by checking them constantly. your life is whizzing by in front of you and around you. don't miss it."

hello life.
ko.

this + that.

the best part about being home from school is laying around all. day. long. courtney just finished her semester, so she was fine with laying around too. we really didn't do anything all week except watch netflix and go to a ku game. 

i haven't been to a game in years. but nothing has changed in allen fieldhouse. we're still whooping butts at basketball. please notice in the photo above that the score is 33-11. 

we got crappy $20 general admission tickets. the people in front of us stood the whole time. which was a little bit annoying. 

my brother and niece were at the same game, and they had better seats. so we took the liberty of upgrading our own seats at halftime. 

they were a lot better. :) 

courtney left last night. every single flight to chicago except hers was cancelled. we were checking until the very last minute hoping her's would be too. it wasn't. bummer.

on a unrelated note, i made these wings that i saw on ashley ann's blog,  under the sycamore. ashley ann is one of my very favorite bloggers. i would be happy to buy a house and let her decorate the whole thing. 

ashley ann is so good at combining patterns. i love it. i decided to give it a try with the wings and i really like the way it turned out. 

caroline loves them. i'm so happy. the minute i saw them on ashley ann's blog i knew i wanted to make them for my kids some day. buttttttt, i am impatient and don't have any kids. so, caroline got them for christmas!

i'm pretty sure i broke every sewing rule in the book. oh well. one thing i did do differently from ashley ann is the fabric feathers. she sewed the edges of all of hers, i did that on the first set of fabric feathers (the pink fabric on the bottom left. you can see the white stitching) and thought i would pull my hair out. so i bought some fray check and used that on the edges after i finished each wing.

i love her. i love pretty felt. i love pretty fabric. happiness.

ko.

home sweeeeeeeeeet home.

i'm finally home. i'm so happy about that. i've been counting down the days. i was sooooooooo over classes. it was time to come home. usually, i am a little sad to leave school. i'm always like, "oh! just a few more days with my friends!" this time i was more like, "peeeeaaaaaaaceeee OUT." 

unfortunately, the only ride i could get to the airport resulted in me sitting at the airport for 6 extra hours. this included getting up at 5:30am, mcdonald's breakfast, sleeping in the airport's main lobby, checking my bags in FOUR HOURS early, sleeping on the floor, having bad hot chocolate cause starbucks was too far away, and watching 24 at my gate. i was a little bit nervous that they were going to kick me out of the airport for watching a show about terrorists. yolo.

i was obviously exhausted by the time i got on the plane, so naturally when i started reading the on flight magazine's article about a man who loved a tree, i cried a little. it really was a touching story which i have selflessly found on the interwebs and provided for you to read here. no but for actually, you need to read it. 

i don't consider myself to truly be home until i'm laying in my mother's bed. my favorite place to be. and i figured out how to hook my laptop up to her tv so i can watch netflix. this is both the worst and best thing that has ever happened to me. 

the church had their christmas program today. i teared up a little when they sung this song and did sign language to it. it was so precious. 

another crucial part of home is seeing this little peanut. gosh, i'm in love with her. we have a special connection. she calls me bimbo.

my mother dragged me to kohl's. my reward was finding this awful(ly) beautiful sweater. a timeless piece really. 

i am feeling really old today. one, because i cried about a tree and that seems like an old person thing to do. two, a bunch of people at church told me i looked like a grown up. and three, my high school bff told me today that she is engaged. she is the first one of my high school friends to get engaged. i am feeling very weird about it. am i really old enough to have married friends that are my own age? strange.

tomorrow i pick up the bff from the airport. i successfully harassed her into coming to visit. well done self. 

ko.

fall + friends + photos.

fall break is a joyful time of the year. this year, it unfortunately did not include me going home to enjoy the maple leaf festival. i was first introduced to the maple leaf as a small child. i have been in the parade approximately 12 times and it is one of my favorite things. baldwin has the most beautiful trees in the fall and i love it.

however, this post is not about the maple leaf. it is about what i did instead. i had to stay on campus for break because of RA duties, but some friends came and joined me to make it more fun.

i knew courtney was coming, but rho flew from south carolina to surprise me. twas quite delightful.

here are the little brats making fun of me for my "sorority girl" pose which i don't even do.

we enjoyed having the hall to ourselves since everyone else was gone, cookie dough, pizza, movies, laying in bed until 4, having a sleepover in a giant bed with loads of blankets, mexican food to celebrates courtney's 24th mexican birthday and of course each other.

courtney wanted to take pictures of the three of us since we are never all together. it was her birthday so i complied. we used a trashcan and a stool as a tripod. #creative

these look a bit like awkward prom pictures to me. but they are still new treasures.

it was fun having the three of us back together. we haven't all been together for more than a day since they graduated two years ago. geeeeeeze that was a long time ago.

sorry about the tree sticking out of your head, court.

i didn't get any homework done. and i'm okay with that. it was worth it for sure.

i love fall.

ko.

how to have fun with your bff: 4th of july edition.

happy late fourth of july friends. i just got back from the airport after dropping this lady off.

yes, i'm burnt and no, my eyes aren't that squinty in person.

courtney had the week off of grad school because of the fourth of july, so she came to visit. it was wonderful. we went to the pool for a few hours on monday and swam like mermaids. and then tuesday we headed off to the lake of the ozarks to hang out with the heringtons for fourth of july.

this was probably one of the most packed trips to the lake i have been on. we went jet skiing, tubing, skiing, cliff jumping, swimming, paddle boarding, kayaking, hammocking, and had smores in the oven. i accidentally threw her off the jet ski and she landed on her head. so she had a sore neck for the rest of our time at the lake. oops.  

uncle harry always sets off a huge firework display right over the lake, so we enjoyed a private firework show.

i think i jumped almost every time one went off.

on thursday we went on a boat ride and got nachos.

they were huge. we ordered 2. after shoveling those down, court and i went to my brother's lake house right across the main channel. my 3 year old nephew, grant, basically ignored me and flirted with courtney the whole time. he would not stop running around and even took his shirt off so he could swing it around for her. it was comical. he was so sad when she left.

we came back to lawrence on friday and enjoyed a spontaneous dinner at kokoro's. yuuuuuuuuuuum.

we sat with some strangers with hysterical children. they were so amazed by everything our chef did. when he pulled out a lemon they kept calling it a watermelon and all their hands shot up for a piece of it.

yesterday and today included a lot of laying around and doing nothing on account of our exhaustion. but it was still wonderful.

so glad i got to see my bestie this week. miss you already.

i leave in 7 hours for 5 days of youth camp. annnnnnnnd i haven't packed. so i'm gonna go do that now. happy almost monday. 

ko.

spring break.

Charleston, South Carolina

for spring break this year i went to charleston, south carolina to visit rho. she graduated from IWU last year, and it makes me sad that i have to get on a plane to visit her instead of just walking down the hall. she lives with her sister, jennifer, in mount pleasant which is basically charleston except not. 

here we are on the pier in downtown charleston. they have gigantic porch swings which i enjoyed very much. after this we went to mama kim's. my favorite place to eat in charleston. i've only actually eaten out at three places there, but this is my favorite of the three. i've been there twice, and it was delicious both times. mama kim's is a hibachi grill style place but it is express, so they don't cook the food in front of you and it is way faster. i like it. probably i will go back every time i am in charleston. 

i flew to charleston on friday. i drove to the airport unaware that there was a tornado warning in my area. so adventurous. on monday, britta and jamie drove down. they both go to IWU too, but they were visiting other people on their way, so we didn't travel together. we went kayaking on wednesday, and we saw a dolphin! it was cool. i like kayaking. but i have no muscles in my arms, so that makes it a little bit not enjoyable. i hope i will be able to kayak some more in alaska this summer. maybe i'll have muscles then. and no mom, i didn't take my camera in a kayak with me. jamie has a point and shoot. 

we took that. 

 

jamie and britta left on thursday afternoon. i don't exactly remember what else we did all week. actually that's a lie. i wrote it all down. but i will spare you the details. something that stinks about living in a dorm is the lack of a kitchen. actually, we have a kitchen, but i live on the third floor and it is not very much fun to drag everything down to the lobby. so i was excited that i would be able to have a kitchen at my fingertips all week at rho's. we i made lots of food. it was great. i am not very good at delegating tasks to people when i am cooking. so i kicked everyone else out of the kitchen, and i just did everything myself. it occurred to me later that it might have been more fun if we would have cooked together. oh well. maybe next time. 

something that i did not particularly like about cooking was buying food. not because i don't like grocery shopping, i love grocery shopping, but i do not like paying for it. holy. cow. food costs so much money. so. much. money. i added up how much i spent this week and almost died. when i am a real adult i will have to be much better about buying and planning food. every thing adds up super fast. one day i was putting my milk back in the refrigerator and noticed that it was almost empty. 

a few thoughts crossed my mind:

how did i run out so fast?

oh yeah, i drink an entire glass of milk at every meal. sometimes more. 

i'll just get some more.

i don't want to pay for it. 

what if i have to not drink as much milk when i'm a real adult so that i don't have to pay for it?!?

that would be awful. 

seriously. everything cost so much money. i hate that. booooooo. oh well. here is some of the food we ate. basically everything came off of pinterest. that's right. i finally made stuff from pinterest. i'm not just a pinner, i'm a doer. what an accomplishment. i would also like to thank my mother for answering my gagillion phone calls when i had ridiculous cooking related questions. thanks mama. 

taco night with homemade guac and salsa (lovingly referred to as "plant salsa"), lasagna roll ups, sourdough french toast, chicken parmesan, and chicken cordon bleu. yay food that's not from baldwin.

note about the salsa: don't use a magic bullet to mix everything. you will end up with spicy pink baby food. gross. 

on saturday, courtney joined us. she didn't know i was in charleston. she thought i was in kansas. sneaky sneaky. she was very surprised to find me laying in the back seat of the car at the airport. happy smiles all around. we went to the beach with jennifer to watch the sunset because rho had to work. it was cold. and windy. and there weren't that many clouds, so the sunset was sort of sub par. total bummer. oh well. we had hot chocolate and waited for rho to come home. she jumped on us as she ran through the door. she obviously wasn't excited at all. the three of us haven't been all together since august, but that doesn't even really count cause we were only together for a few hours. so really we haven't been all together since may. dumb. i have no idea when we will be all together again. dumb.

jennifer took these pictures of us before church. i think the bottom one of depicts us more accurately.

 rho went to work on sunday too. there was much sadness. i left that night to go back to school. the weather is just as good at school as it is in charleston, so that makes it easier to go back to school. 

but only a little.

this is incredibly long. lucky you.

ko.