Mini Flashback: Last Weekend

A terrible thing occurred to my family last weekend; we lost my dear Great Aunt Bertha. As a child I remember when she would come over to my grandmother's house and I'd hide from her (I was a shy kid, I hid from everyone) and she would laugh at me. I loved her laugh, it was beautiful, heavily accented and so contagious. It always made me smile.
Her death put this enormous sense of enlightenment in my life. I've been so worried about school and the fact that I'm failing one of my classes when I'm sooo close to transferring to a university, but, her death put so much into perspective for me. Who cares? Who cares that I cannot remember the mass and atmosphere of each of saturn's moons? No one will be at my funeral was thinking, "Gosh she was a lovely woman who did so well in school." I understand school and my education is important, but stressing so much over it is only hurting me, hindering what little youth I have. Bad things happen in life. But it always goes on. And good things inevitably follow. These are some of the other things that happened last weekend. Thrifting finds, annual family camping/fishing trips (shoe save!), and a surprise party for my cousin (another shoe save!).

 Studying while camping. How nerdy -_-

 These are my lake shoes. Some people have sneakers or flip flops as trusty beach/camping shoes. These are my version.

 Fish shaped cloud!

 Literally 3 hours after coming home from fishing we had to go to a party.

 I practiced my surprise faces.

 I got to teach the extra-handsome bartender how to make Shirley Temples. The empty cup was his first try, but he TOTALLY got it down by the second one.

 The outfit, consisting of my first-ever pair of heels, saved!

Last weekend was full of equal amounts of smiles and tears.

So it goes.

The Calm Before the Storm

It's currently 2:15 a.m. where I am. Typing that makes me wonder what time you're reading this, and that, in turn, makes me wonder what the world will be like on your side of it. Because it's cold here, but it could be warm wherever you are. I think that's what makes blogging so important for me, because right now, I'm going through some tough times, but someone on the other side of the world probably has it 10 times worse off than I do, and in the same light, someone can be having the time of their life right now. Blogging keeps me focused on the bigger picture.

When these pictures were taken, I had no idea that later on in the evening while thrifting that I had to go to the hospital to comfort grieving family members. I would have no idea that a few days later I would be physically sick from the worst stress I've ever been under. I still have no idea what tomorrow (or rather, later today) will bring.

No, this is not a post about fashion, or makeup, or my shoes. Despite what the majority of posts may suggest, my blog is about my personal adventures, and even the greatest adventures have some form of villainy. A challenge to defeat. A dragon or two to be slain.

In my quest to find the fun adventures, and to survive the negative ones, I seem to be forgetting that the in-between days, the ones where an ipod, warm cardigan and watermelon lip gloss are my comforts, those dreadfully boring days are the ones I need to be cherishing, perhaps the most. I need to cherish that stillness. Embrace the simplicity of being alive and healthy and content. Learn to love that calm before the storm.

No. 22 (Shoe Save AND) Photo Friday #5: Kmart Adventures

What was supposed to be a quick run to Kmart to pick up my mother's table turned into a store-wide game of hide-and-seek. We had to look for employees, the employees had to look for the table, I looked (and bought) some shoes, of which I just HAD to wear while the employees looked for where WE had gotten off to. Adventures, adventures.

No. 21 Dorothy

I spent my Halloween like I've spent practically this entire semester:

being a busy bee in the school newsroom.

(They let me, a lil ol' reporter in her first semester, help the editors layout a page!)

I've been working my butt off lately and I'm not going to lie,

I'm getting a little stressed out.

Ok immensely stressed out.

I feel like the hours just fly by, and days do even faster.

I'm in a constant state of missing something.

My friends, my books, my blog, my sewing machine, my ballet, my dad, my sleep schedule!

I miss having time.

That's why I was so happy when I got to spend my last few hours of Halloween with my friends watching scary movies. I mean, yes, I almost fell asleep because I was so exhausted, but at least I was with them.

I know it seems I'm complaining, but... yea, OK I am. But in the grand scheme of things,

I think I would rather be overwhelmed while trying,

than be comfortable having given up.