Whoa thereee!

I have been SO busy. I have been living and breathing Wentworth, ah! I have been working 12 hour days for orientation, then classes started, then my financial aid went crazy. I just have been settling one thing after another and have been so overwhelmed.

I'm starting to get a grasp of my new schedule. I've been getting into a good routine too!

This weekend I get to craft. YES! I can't decide what I want to do. Scrapbook, sew, play with mod podge... I could barely make up my mind. I'm just so happy to have time to myself to make things and just unwind and do me.

So for an update.....

• My Co-Op ended, now I'm back in classes! I'm taking 6 classes which is 23 credits. I'm a crazy woman
• This month is me and Benjamin's ONE YEAR!!! yay!!
• I saw my sister and Dan since they've come back from Hawaii
• She showed me how to make wire wrap jewelry
• I've done a lot of thrifting
• Ben and I bought a vacuum cleaner (seriously it sounds lame but I feel like we're officially married now. we bought a vacuum cleaner together!)
• Jack, our old roommate, is officially moved out and Alex, our new roommate, is all moved in!
• I came up with lots and lots of ideas.........

I'm so glad to get back into the blog game. I feel like its my year! I feel like I'm gonna do great in classes, plan a great Alternative Spring Break trip, and make lots of things and even make a few garments I can wear. I get to start Project Life!!!!!!!!!!!! (I was going to start it a couple weeks ago, actually, but all the kits are backed up in stocking and plus, I love the new Heather Bailey designed Olive Edition and will be getting this core kit when it's finally out :)

Ben thinks that the PL thing is silly. He understands the idea but is just like "why.." Honestly.. I love the idea of scrapbooking. I love decorating photos and having them as a keepsake but the typical layout with one or two pictures with inspiring words around them just isn't me. My scrapbook pages are so much more boxy and geometric I guess. I like having a lot of photos on one page with stickers to accent and emphasize.. Not the whole thing to revolve around the stickers and just stuff on and around the pictures. I feel that PL keeps the main idea of scrapbooking there and keeps the simplicity of just a life in photos. I want to just take pictures, print them out, and slide them in their place. For me, I almost see it as a journal with lots and lots of pictures. I'm excited to think of things to fill it week to week. I'm excited for the weeks that just fill themselves. I'm excited to pick one or two things to revisit every week to see its change and progression (like a picture of Ben and I week, or our favorite munchies of the week) I want to capture this journey of Ben and I in our college life with no real obligations and just the beginning of our relationship. This month is a year we've been together and when I look back on the year... we have no freaking pictures or anything! There are a couple.. from Thanksgiving... and then a handful of just pictures of us. Literally like 5. A year together and all I can show for it is 5 pictures?! Not this year! This summer we did a couple awesome things and got great pictures (trips to the farm, our fishing trip on the Cape) but those big trips don't make our relationship fun. The every day does. I'm excited for this and I hope that Ben starts to love it when he sees the pages come together.

Taking advantage of this fresh start :)

Monday Update!

Okay so maybe I should have considered how busy I'd be with my Mom's visit when I was making my schedule. I guess I should of just had planned to start it on an even day, like August 1st instead of... June 25th? Guess I was just anxious.

I got a few of my things done here and there. But mostly I was just so happy to be with my mom and the blog kind of went to the back of my mind.

But I had an amazing weekend.

We got some great food, went thrifting, shopping, flea markets, watched the Olympics, and just bonded and talked. I actually cried saying goodbye to Bernadette at the airport. And usually it's me yelling at her to stop crying and she's sobbing. Yesterday was the opposite. I guess that I've just grown up so much in the past couple of months that I just missed having my mom take care of me. Now instead of me telling her about stupid girl dramas, I'm talking about the bills and grocery shopping and cleaning and my work schedule and this and that. Instead of arguing about stupid things, we both fought over washing the dishes.

I didn't even take pictures! The weather wasn't the greatest so I wasn't too motivated to do that. But, like I said, I was just so into the moment and hanging with my mom.

I showed her the scrapbook I was making for her. She couldn't stop looking at the three pages I made and told her that made her night and she couldn't wait for me to finish it. She's going to mail up some baby pictures she loves, too. She wants a little of everything in her scrapbook and I think that's an awesome idea.

My mom was also so impressed and interested in my little craft life! She was asking me questions and really into it when I showed her some of my favorite blogs. She actually asked me to email her the links!! It was so great to have her behind me with all of this. Usually she's like "oh you won't do that" and now she's like "oh can you make me something like that?!" and I love it! I even showed her Project Life and she thought the idea was really cool. She doesn't think I'll be able to keep up week to week but also agrees it's pretty simple to document each week so she has some faith in me. I can't wait till the new products are available to buy! Ah!

My boss is so good to me. He let me have Monday off so I could spend the day with my mom. He even made sure I got a pay for it :) So thankful how lucky I've been. Except now my week is a day behind. My Tuesday feels like Monday. But that's okay, I can't complain :)

SO! For the UpDaTe!
Today, before I go home from work, I plan to....

• Rearrange the Calendar
• Create 2 goals for the month
• PostalPix order
• Finalize Financial Aid things for the Fall 2012 semester
• Insta update
• Work on some formatting of the blog

 For after work I plan to...

• Catch up on some at home projects 
• Work out "What I Wore" for the first post on Friday
• Clean
• BE PRODUCTIVE!

I can do this!
I know I've been slacking and not doing everything I've wanted, but it's not like I'm sitting around doing nothing. I've just been so busy with things I just need to take care of first. That's life. I know when classes start I'll have way more free time to do all the things I want.

As for home life, there's good news!!! Alex is moving in! So I'm so glad I sacrificed one of my days last week to spend the day with him and Ben and talk to him about moving in. I love Jack but I'm over living with him... I'm excited that the house is about to change up a little bit. Yay!

Currently Post

So I had an urge to do an update, but had nothing for an entire post. So I decided to do a Currently post! I always read Danielle's of Sometimes Sweet blog and wanted to give it a go myself. A little personal and a little update, yay!

Loving: My job! As much fun as an internship is, it could super boring. Especially since I have a desk job. My boss was on vacation last week and only left me a few tasks to complete. I went crazy with all my free time! This week he's been keeping me super busy and the days have been flying by. I'm done today within the hour so I'm just organizing my things and getting ready for tomorrow's tasks. Always keeping busy keeps me awake and alert and I actually am motivated to work on things I need to get done at home when I get out of work. It keeps my work flow consistent. Otherwise I just want to go home and take a nap. Isn't it weird how actually doing a whole bunch of nothing makes you tired and lazy? Hm!

Reading: What the rest of the world is reading... 50 Shades. Ah, this book. First I read the Twilight series because a good girlfriend loved them and wanted someone to discuss it with and see the movies with. I hate Bella as a character because she is so weak and dependent on Edward, so it made it difficult for me to read. But honestly, I was just waiting for the sex scene which was incredibly disappointing (I know it's a tween series, but still! Their sexual tension was ridiculous and just ugh.) But then, I heard about 50 Shades... then I heard about how it was banned in libraries which immediately sparked my interest What can be that bad that it's banned in a library?! and then I heard it was Twilight fan fiction. So, I was interested. I wasn't expecting to get anything out of it and honestly it wasn't as crazy as I thought it'd be. I got threw the first book, and was interested enough to get the second, but I can't get into it. It's just blah. It's too much Twilight and not enough sex. I know it's Twilight fan fiction, but I wanted it to live up to it's banned in libraries rep!!! Oh well. I gave up on that book and I'm about to start Lolita. Ben's sister, Lauren, gave me her copy. Can't wait to get into that.

Watching: BREAKING BAD!!! The finale season just premiered on AMC this past Sunday night. I could talk about this show for hours. Ben and I are so obsessed. It's about a high school chemistry teacher who gets diagnosed with terminal lung cancer with a prognosis of two years and he decides to cook meth and be a drug dealer to get money for his family before he passes. It gets crazy and super intense. Ben and I are also watching Dexter. He's never seen it before and I'm rewatching the entire series before the 7th season premieres. Ben has gotten addicted to that, too. We're currently on the 4th season. I can't wait until he's caught up and he could finally watch the first two minute sneak peak of the new season, ahh!!

Anticipating: Dinner tonight. Ben is cooking the fish that I caught on Sunday! I always cook for us, he even convinces me to take lunch at home some days so I could make it for him, so I'm pretty excited to be catered to a little bit. Ben is all about his fish so it should be delicious and I can't wait to watch my man cook for me!

Listening to: Lots of Lily Allen! She's back in the studio so I got in a Lily kick. My sister and I used to listen to her all of the time and saw her in concert a couple years ago. I just love her :)

Planning: My next project and ASB! For a short term plan, I'm deciding on what shorts and dress I'd like to start tonight. I'm done with work early today so I want to finish at least one of the two by the weekend! I could definitely get them both done if I start one tonight! And for a long term plan, last year I went on an Alternative Spring Break trip to Homestead, Florida to do volunteer environmental work in the Everglades. I applied to be a coordinator for next year, and I got picked! My co-coordinator and I are already starting to plan out details. We both were on the trip last year and are so excited to plan a similar trip this year. We'll be able to eliminate all the bad parts of last year, too! Not that there were many significant ones, but we could of planned better for dinner for 15 kids every night. As you could imagine that was difficult!

Working on: A student survey for work. Every freshman during orientation fills out a survey of what they expect college life to be like. My job is to organize the survey raw data and get it formatted and ready for my boss. It's pretty interesting to see the college from this perspective. It's also interesting to see where all those things we do as students go within the college and what the college actually does with the results. But I'm done with that for today and have the last stretch to complete for tomorrow!

Wishing: It was July 27th! My mom is flying in from New Jersey! Ben's dad has a ton of frequent flyer miles and offered to fly my mom from Newark to Boston for a weekend. Of course we had to take advantage of this!! I can't wait to have some quality time with my mom. She's my best friend! My sister's birthday is also the 28th, and since she'll be in Hawaii and spending it without us, it's kind of like we're celebrating in spirit. We're glad we could be together even though Sam is away. I can't wait to see my Mom and these weeks have been going so fast, she should be here in no time!

I loved doing this! Probably something I'll have to keep up :)
Tomorrow I'll post an update with some pictures of the things I start working on tonight!

Cape Cod

Yesterday, Sunday, I spent the day in Cape Cod with my boyfriend and two of our other couple friends. Our friend Marie lives in Orleans, and her dad has a Charter boat. He took us out on the ocean and we went fishing for striper. I caught the biggest one!! All by myself!! It was 31 inches. I was so happy. After, we pulled up Marie's Dad's lobster pots and got 16 lobsters! After this, we took the boat to an island only accessible to people who have their own boats and grilled on the beach and walk around and explored.

I have some pictures from the trip, but Ben has the best ones from his camera. Whenever he gets those to me I'll update the post and add them, but for now, here are some of my pictures from our trip :)

My Benjamin

Brian fishing

Tony's fish

The line covered in baby clams

This is a pregnant lobster. Ew.

Sand dollar that got caught in the trap :)

Before the cooler was full

Found this lil baby crab on the beach :) It's dead though :(

Seriously had the best time yesterday. Can't wait till I get Ben's picture and I could post pictures of my holding my fish!!!!

I made my sister's dress!!

Yes!! Saturday I was super productive and made my sister's maxi dress. When I went to the fabric store on Friday, I forgot to buy a zipper for the dress (of course) so after I cut my fabric and had it all ready to go, I walked to Chinatown to get my zippers. On the way I stopped at Boloco for a Mango Passion Smoothie. It was so delicious and perfect to beat the heat.

I didn't completely finish the dress, it still needs to be hemmed and I need to adjust the zipper a bit and had a hook and eye.

I had so much fun making it and felt so good after I finally finished.

So happy with how it came out! Of course there's a few rough areas, but they'll only improve and go away as my skills improve. But for my first garment, I'm pretty proud of myself. I strayed from the pattern a little bit but I like how it came out.

Food Dehydrator!

One of my favorite things about the summer time is all the fresh fruit! Mmmm. Nothing better.

Though, as much as I love fruit, it could be such a pain to eat it. I like my fruit cut up, so I almost never take the time to that. I always make a mess with eating/cutting, so I usually only eat fruit just at home. I also hate buying it because I always forget about food and then it goes bad and I waste money. So I just stayed away from fruit.

But then... my sister, Sam, and her boyfriend, Dan, visited with BAGS full of dehydrated fruit. They told me Dan's Mom bought a dehydrator and it's their new obsession. They brought us different kinds of apples, bananas, beef jerky, and a bag of assorted left over fruit they wanted us to try. I fell in love. I also ate both bags of fruit in two days. Ben hid the beef jerky from me so we could save it and snack on it throughout the week, haha. But I couldn't resist with buying one from Amazon.

Best 35 dollars I ever spent.

The best part is, there is no right way to dehydrate. It's all preference. Apples are probably me and Ben's favorite. We experimented with leaving them in for different times (we like to leave apples in until they're crispy like apple chips, but I like mangos and bananas a little softer so I take them out a little sooner than the recommended time), different preserves (they suggest putting an acid on the fruit to prevent browning, like pineapple juice on bananas and apples to keep them fresh looking, but it's all preference), skin or no skin, putting cinnamon on the apples, and even just cutting the fruit in different ways.

But prepared to be listening to a fan, A LOT. Dehydrating isn't an hour process. You need to cut your fruit, prepare how you like, record when you put them in and make a note to check it at the recommended time (the dehydrator comes with a booklet of recipes and directions and suggestions). I've gotten up at 3 AM to check on my fruit because I accidentally put them in at time it'd be inconvenient to check them. Usually I do all my drying on the weekends because it's when I'm most available. Time is the biggest challenge. Trust me, you get pretty bent out of shape when you spend hours preparing/waiting for your fruit and you over dry it and it's leathery :(

Here are some pictures to see! Enjoy!

When I first got my dehydrator, yay!

Mangos and Kiwis

Dehydrated mango, kiwi, and apples

 

Apples! Taken via Instagram

Strawberries and blueberries. Taken via Instagram

Strawberries and blueberries added to my organic red berry cereal :) Delish! Edited with PicStitch and uploaded via Instagram

So now I get to buy fruit, dry it, and eat it before it goes bad. I seriously bring a baggy with me everywhere. I LOVE it. Saves the mess and no more worrying about it perishing :) Perfect snack! :)

Also, if you have some extra blueberries (I can't decide if they're worth it to dry or not, you have to blanch them and then wait like 12 hours for them to dry) throw them in the freezer! Eating them frozen is so good and addicting. Personally, I can't eat fruit if it has any bruises or isn't completely firm so them being frozen completely eliminates that problem! Seriously frozen blueberries are my obsession right now!

Taken via Instagram

I think I'll start documenting my fruit drying. This way I could keep a record for myself and let you know the best way to dry fruit/how different ways come out! The Dehydrator Series!

Hope I inspired someone to think about getting one :)

Take care!

xx V