This past week has been one of the most emotional and overwhelming weeks I've ever experienced. I said goodbye to my best friends, moved out of my college place, went to nashville for a grueling apartment search and am on the cusp of frantically packing and tying up loose ends (a-la buying a car).
And when those weeks come around from time to time, as they always do, it's a good thing to know what puts you in your 'happy place.' The things that help you let down your hair or put up your feet.
Mine usually involve a cup of coffee or a glass of wine paired with a good playlist or a favorite movie on tv.
Tonight I'm listening to this, her music never fails to calm me down and allow me to relax.
Our lives are too short to spend them stressed out, so finding time to hide away from the world and relax is the best medicine for any overwhelmed head or heart, whether it's 15 minutes before you go to sleep, while you drink your morning cup of joe or spending 5 minutes away from your desk.
1. I haven't written just an average post about an above average song in a very long time
2. I checked my number one on the 'top 25' iTunes playlist for the first time in over a year and this song not only finally overtook Tegan and Sara'sCall it Off - who's had the number one spot on lock for years- but it's got it beat by over 100 plays,
It's safe to say that if there could ever be a 'number one' favorite song of mine, this would be a contender, also for some reason I've never shared it with the world (... well this blog)
So here it is, The Temper Trap's Sweet Disposition
I actually thought the video was a little distracting from the song, so in a two birds/one stone move I found it with a montage of my number one movie of all time, 500 days of summer.
It's the beginning of Memorial Day Weekend tomorrow! This is quite possibly my favorite weekend of the year because it's always nice out, always spent at the beach and always marks the official beginning of summer. We're heading down to Bethany tonight to soak in the rays ocean side for a nice long weekend at the shore.
There's only one song I want to hear on the ride down -- cause it's a smile, it's a kiss, it's a sip of wine, it's summertime (.... and maybe because I've had a huge crush on kenny since seeing him put on one of the best concerts I've ever been to 2 summers ago.. maybe).
Rain, rain, rain! The entire Northeast has been covered in it for a week now, I want to enjoy this last week or so of spring, so here's hoping the sun will poke through soon.
But, I will say, if I had this umbrella from Urban Outfitters, then it could rain for the rest of the summer. How cute is it?
I also love a cute pair of rain boots. I generally like the solid colored ones, but I have these anchored ones that I adore. Not only are they useful for rain, but also for - as my mom discovered - walking the dog through dewy grass on summer mornings.
word to the wise: leaving them out in the rain prohibits you from actually using them while it's raining
And, to keep it rained themed, I've been listening to my favorite Adele song all day, 'Set Fire to the Rain' give yourself some time, you'll want to repeat this over and over. Enjoy and stay dry!
Happy Mother's Day to the most wonderful woman I know. My mom is the greatest, I wish I could be home to celebrate this day with her and my family. Love you, mom! Happy Mother's day to all mothers: who were mothers, who are mothers and who one day will be mothers. Thanks for everything you do!
mom and dad, they are the best parents!
And even though my mom and dad have always loved so many different artists and music genres over the years (I credit my taste in music to them) and I could literally choose countless songs that I grew up on (no, mom, I love you but I still will never post smooth jazz or jimmy buffet on here) only one song came to mind when I thought about what to post, Carly Simon's 'Do the Walls Come Down,' the song my mom would use to sing me to sleep to when I was a baby.
It's Friday of finals week, while that doesn't mean much to this girl who finished school last week, it's exciting to see my roommates close their books an begin to enjoy these last precious days as students at this wonderful school. Today, one of my closests friends from home, Heather (check her blog out here! ) is graduating from ECU today. It's crazy that it doesn't feel long ago at all that we were nervously squeeling and hugging before going on stage to graduate high school. While time can change many things, there's always one thing that constant, time always eventually runs out.
My time has now run out here at Penn State. I am so sad to see it go but I'm so excited to discover what I'll be doing, where I'll be going and seeing what time will continue to do with my life.
Today, my mood is light, my resumes are out, my grades are in and I'm feeling so thankful to be sitting a week away from graduation.
Today I'm floating around my apartment thinking about packing but really only looking over old notes, photos, journals and absorbing every moment of this life I know so well and love so much.
And listening to this, on repeat over and over and over and over.
It's a Thursday evening, we have one week of classes left, an episode of The Office and two episodes of The Real World to catch up on -- so clearly there was no other option than for my roommates Kendall and I to order our favorite guilty pleasure: wings over happy valley. Ordering wings on lazy weeknights with Kendall has become a senior year staple. We spend one part of the time talking about how much we can't wait for them to be delivered, one part of the time talking about how delicious they are and double the amount of both of those times talking and laughing about what a poor choice we made by ordering unhealthy food late at night.
Oh well, here's to college, right?
And most recently, when we're not catching up on our trash TV. We're singing our lungs out to this little gem.
I completed my first multi-media project for a photojournalism class I'm taking. It was a lot of fun to hang out with my dear friend Carina, the subject of this video, and hear about what her influences are, why she likes playing and how she tells she'll keep playing for "as long as my fingers can stand it."
As I mentioned in my previous post, my roommate is getting married. So with a bridal shower, bridal magazines floating through the house, and talks of invitations and dresses and every other detail, it's safe to say that my apartment has been enamored with weddings for the past year few months.
I love love love music and know that picking out the complete soundtrack to my future wedding will be one of my favorite parts, but not everyone shares this feeling -- so, Janelle asked the roommates to help her find her first dance song. We gathered on our couches, with laptops in hand and played our favorites for her as she either rejected them or put them on a "potential" list.
It was so much fun to brainstorm with her and yell "awwww" in unison when one of the roommates picked a really sweet song. We played a lot of old ones, a few new ones and countless in-betweens. For the rest of the day and for the past few days, I can't get some of my favorite ones out of my head, so enjoy them below [please extend me grace for extremely cheesy youtube videos].
And yes, they did decide on a great song, but I'll let that be their secret.
My dear friend and roommate, Janelle, and another good friend, Brett, are engaged. They tie the knot in exactly two months! Yesterday, our apartment held her beautiful beautiful bridal shower, thrown by her lovely maid-of-honor, who is also one of our roommates, Lauren.
Almost everything has a touch of purple, and the food spread was to die for. Another roommate (can you tell I just love my roommates?), Kendall, is amazing at baking and decorating cakes and cupcakes. Look at these beautiful little cakes, and yes, she made that white chocolate "B" (Janelle's future last name intial!) herself. She is just so talented I can't even handle it.
The decorations were simple and elegant - candles tied with purple ribbons and small and simple purple touches everywhere.
It was a lovely shower for our lovely bride to be. After all the guests left we finished the day watching a marathon of chick flicks including Bride Wars, Sex and the City 2, and Life as We know it.
The perfect decorations, the perfect food, the perfect occasion,
the perfect people, the perfect day.
I'll leave you with a song. I love this classic love song, it makes me tear-up almost every time I hear it. Half because it's sweet as can be, and half because it reminds me of the Notebook. Either way, you can bet it made an appearance on yesterday's bridal shower playlist.
Okay, as promised an explanation for my extended absence. However first, some background. My laptop is my life. No, I'm not kidding, my life. It has tens of thousands photos going back to high school, countless articles needed for my professional portfolio from all four years as an undergrad, all my personal spread sheets, THON documents, receipts, passwords, everything! Not to mention, the real heart-wrenching part, all my beloved music. All of it.
And no, none of it has ever been backed up, as common sense would advise one to do so.
A few weeks ago, my computer started acting up - blue screening and all of that yucky stuff. It would randomly shut down and would take about 45 minutes of boot up time and 3 no-warning shut offs to even access the internet. I was lucky, if I could check my email before I left for the day [let alone try to blog... cue the two-and-a-half-week absence]. I knew my computer was on its final days and I knew that I had nothing backed up.
I called my wonderful and always supportive parents and explained my dilemma, they told me to not hesitate and to buy an external hard drive asap. But I did delay, I waited a few days. And I waited too long.
As you can gather, it crashed, I lost everything and have been completely heartbroken for the past week about it.
My parents were great, encouraging me that they know a computer guy who might be able to recover my stuff and I had a nice, shiny new computer in less than 24 hours after my old one crashed.
Again, I find myself in this place. The same place I was when I blogged two and a half months ago when my car died on me, hence the 'pt. 2,' part one. Living without, living where I've had great things and have had them taken from me. It's pretty dramatic to say about a computer, but looking past the material things like my pictures and music, I feel hopeless for finding a job. I don't have any work to prove that I know how to write. If finding a job was tough before, it just got 10 times tougher. Fantastic.
But, like last time, something has brought my perspective back to where it needs to be, and made me realize that a computer crash doesn't leave me living without. Not even a little bit. Last time this came in the form of watching the riots begin in Egypt. This time, it was going to a THON recognition reception for the year and hearing a Four Diamonds Family speak about their beautiful 5-year-old daughter who has lukemia.
Suddenly, a computer crash didn't matter so much. Suddenly, I found myself praying that my computer would continually crash if it meant never having a child who has cancer. A computer, a car, a ____ whatever of mine will break soon, is made by the world. It's from the world and for the world, and worldly things have no value. They have use, but not value. They have purpose for phases of our lives, but don't matter in the grand picture of our lives.
And through these lessons I am continually learning about the process of letting go of things of the world, the have no meaningful worth in my life. My faith, my family, my friends... now those are things worth fighting for, those are the things worth valuing.
"The world and its desires will pass away,
but those that do the will of God will live forever." 1 Jn. 2:17
So I'm slowly learning. I'm not there and probably won't be soon. But through these small but important life lessons I am trying to be a person who values the things in life that really matter, not laughable things like a hard drive, and itunes filled with music.
And so, dear friends, that is the story of why I haven't been blogging and the story of the last days of my precious computer. It's also the story of the birth of my new laptop [which is actually pretty amazing], a new iTunes filled with music, and a renewed perspective of what's important.
Please learn from my lessons, particularly from my mistakes in valuing material things more than I ought. If you can get it right, let me know how you did, and if you struggle like me, let's walk through this together.
On another note, it's APRIL. How on earth did that happen?! I have exactly one month and one week until I graduate! Ah!
Go out and enjoy the spring, and here's a little love. From me, to you.
Spring break was wonderful! I'll write in detail and post photos tomorrow [well, later today considering that it's 12:30 am].
I got back pretty late and completely pooped last night, so today was the perfect relaxing Sunday. Waking from a 12 hour slumber, coffee made my way, a long hot shower, my itunes playing and grocery shopping and cupcake making with roommates. life is just so good.
The weather is a little dreary here, but I've been spoiled with a week of sunny warmth, so it feels natural for a chilly overcast day -- the State College way.
I can't believe my senior year spring break is over! The final stretch of my academic life has officially begun! ah!
and my favorite things of this week have come in the form of the thing that has my heart, the one and only music. My ratio of albums that I buy and think are just okay to albums that I buy and like every single song is about 5:1, so purchasing 2 within 3 days of each other where I love every single song feels like Christmas morning. Open your iTunes now and purchase. I believe that they're so good, I'll even burn them for you. Do it!
Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More
Standout songs: all of them + "Timshel" "Cave"
Adele - 21
Standout songs: "Someone like you," "Set Fire to the Rain"
and because I love 'love,' I'm combining a valentine's day tribute with music monday.
If you know me, you know that I have a deep and real love of Taylor Swift (I don't care what you say -- I love her) and my favorite song on her new-ish record is Enchanted. It's sweet, precious and frankly, enchanting. When the song came out, rumors flew around that it was written about Adam Young from Owl City.
Well, it turns out it was, and he has, for Valentine's Day, given her a song response and it absolutely melts my heart across the floor. It's equally as sweet, equally as precious and equally as enchanting.
Enjoy these songs.
Let them melt your heart as they did with mine.
Tell the ones you love how special they are-
today, tomorrow and everyday after.
Happy Valentine's day!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
I have a super busy week ahead of me and therefore have to hibernate from most social activity these next few days to get work done, meaning I have to miss the grammy's which is a huge bummer. I don't think I've missed them since 5th grade.
Who are you rooting for? My fingers are crossed for Michael Buble, Sara Bareilles, Norah Jones and Florence + The Machine.
I'll be anxiously looking for winner updates online all night. For those of you not busy, pour yourself a glass of wine, snuggle up in comfy clothes and enjoy the performances! I'll be youtube-ing them tomorrow
Saturday, February 5, 2011
I haven't liked a song this much in a very long time.
I had never even heard of The Civil Wars before, but my iTunes needed a facelift so I went browsing. It was the number 1 selling album on that particular day, that happened to be the day it was released, was only 7.99 and sounded right up my alley -- so I sontaneously purchased it, and I'll never look back.
My younger sister is obsessed with Christmas music, but since it's on the radio a week before Thanksgiving, I find myself sometimes becoming bitter with the overplayed Christmas songs (a la Alvin and the Chipmunks anyone?)--- so I tend to indulge in my normal music more than seasonal music during the holidays, however, there are a few, wonderful, Christmas music exceptions that I could listen to all day everyday. Enjoy!
Yesterday, I finished my last fall semester of college and also had the last day of my internship. I was, and am, so excited to put a semesters worth of hard work and sometimes stressful moments behind me and move forward to spring semester. Where I'm getting caught up, you see, is that I'll move into spring semester naturally and without effort. It will, as always, fly by at an incredibly speed. The only difference is that it'll be my last semester as a college student.
I'm not sure that I know how to function outside of being a student. I throughly enjoy staying up-late, blaming a cookie and coffee diet on exam stress and having someone else pay my rent. I'm not sure how much that flies in the real world.
But in honesty, it's not really leaving college that scares me. It's a life of ordinary that I'm afraid of. Perhaps I just watch The Office too much or maybe I've been tainted by 9-5 job cliches, either way, I'm worried that my last semester of college will be the last time in my life where I am free from restrictions on how to live.
But maybe, the only lessons I'll ever learn aren't the ones in this bubble of a college town. Maybe, and hopefully, the rest of my life will be phases of life lessons -- a constant state of growing, moving, changing -- all for the better, all pointing me in the direction of who I will be. And maybe, that's the lesson in itself; things change, we change, circumstances never stay still, and once we accept that, we can start to learn from it.
I don't want to leave, but I'm looking forward to where I'm going.
On a completely unrelated note, Florence + The Machine's Cosmic Love is the greatest song to ever happen to my finals week playlist. Actually, the entire Lungs album is. Give yourself a Christmas present if you don't already have it.
I fell in love with Adele two years ago when she released 19, but since she won her best new artist grammy, she's been rather MIA. However, on the cusp of her new album release, 21, in early 2011, she released this song & video. It's amazing and reminds me why I fell in love with the super talented brit in the first place.
