New hair, new music, new me.

hair_21

I got my hair cut. I needed a change, but I wanted to keep my hair long, so I cut it with layers to make me wear it down and stop feeling like my head is always wet.

This man named Tony cut it. He was very nice, and very good. He took the entire top layer of my hair, twisted it around as though he were going to put it into a clip, and cut half of it off.

I thought I was going to have a heart attack. But my hair looks great, so there you go.

Here it is:

hair_1

In other news–new lyrical lovahs:

Brett Dennen (new album)

Third Eye Blind (new EP)

Sister Hazel (kick it back to the 90s)

Hootie & The Blowfish

Matt Nathanson

25 Random Things.

Someone asked me to make a list of 25 random things about myself on Facebook. I figured I’d post it here, too, in case you were wondering…

1. I’ve been to China. I’ve been to the Olympics. It was wonderful.
2. I love lists more than anything. I make at least 2 lists a day. It keeps me sane.
3. Any band that you heard one hit from in the 90s is my fave. Third Eye Blind, Lifehouse, Gin Blossoms, Train, Sister Hazel, Better Than Ezra, Matchbox Twenty, etc., etc.
4. I’ve had stints of loving yoga, the elliptical machine, lifting, and Pilates. I love Billy Blanks, and I love kick boxing. However, despite all this, I always have a problem working out. But this year, I’ve decided if President Obama can work out every day, so can I.
5. I went to the Galapagos Islands once, and I loved every minute of it. I swam with sea lions, and with penguins. Wild ones.
6. Penguins are my favorite animal. Pandas are my sisters. We love the black and white together.
7. I love The New York Times and reading the news in general.
8. Crosswords are my love. I must start doing them more often.
9. Scrabble is my favorite board game. Sophomore year of college, when I went to Europe, I memorized all the acceptable 2 letter words. AA is one of them.
10. To go along with Lauren’s thinking, all my names have a double. JeNNie LyNN. And my confirmation name is MicheLLe.
11. I love hanging upside down from monkey bars. It’s great, and I’ve been able to do it since I was very small, and I hope to never NOT be able to hang upside down from monkey bars.
12. I love OnDemand, because I can watch programs about Hitler’s secret city under Berlin, and 17 minute NatGeo clips on the magnetic poles of the Earth and how they are reversing.
13. I love riding the train. I love fall colors, the ocean whizzing by, going through Gary, Indiana, and arriving at exciting places such as Chicago and New York City. I love train stations, too. Union Station with its gold benches, and Grand Central with its beautiful ceiling.
14. I bite my nails, which is a problem, but I can’t stand having any. They get in the way of cooking, cleaning, typing, playing piano, pushing buttons on my iPod, turning book pages…
15. I love reading. Love it. Mostly NatGeo, but also historical fiction, and recently the Twilight books, because sometimes you need a teen love story.
16. Speaking of reading: I dog ear. I make notes in the margins. How else am I supposed to remember what I loved? And I love reading other people’s books with notes in them. It is always exciting to know which part of a book someone else loved.
17. I organize my bookshelf by color. A friend had her books like that, and I saw them, and immediately knew that was the best way for me to organize my passion.
18. I love politics and history. I love presidents. I love world leaders; I love war novels, movies, and anything to do with cultures that are unlike my own. And I love to argue.
19. Photography is my creative outlet. I photography everything and nothing, and I love seeing other people’s pictures, and wondering what they were thinking and feeling when they took them.
20. I am an amoeba person, not a pie person.
21. I have crazy dreams a lot. Ask my sister. Or my BFF. Or Jeff. They happen all the time. Who knows why?
22. I like arts and crafts, knitting, sewing, and pretty much anything involving some glue, paper, crayons, and color.
23. I hate when people use “they’re” and “their” and “there” wrong. Same with “your” and “you’re.” C’mon, people. It really is easy to learn. I also detest Internet lingo. For this reason, I always type things out in text messages.
24. My favorite line of a song is, “Your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know you’re wrong.”
25. I am also always late.

All right, all right. It's true: We're going to Forks, WA!

That’s right. My friends B, C, J, K, and I are heading to Forks, Washington, for a vacation, Twilight style. We are going to enjoy ourselves in the place it rains the most to enjoy the vision of a one Edward Cullen–the sexiest vampire since Spike on Buffy–frolicking through the trees with a girl we all wish was us.

It’s a little pathetic, but we need a girl’s weekend, and I think this is the perfect place to go. Here’s the weekend’s recipe:

1 part seeing Kiki, who I miss already!

1 part shrieking over Edward Cullen

1 part staying in a cabin miles from Indian Territory and MAYBE telling scary stories

1 part a 4 hour road trip full of the Twilight soundtrack and the High School Musical soundtrack

1 part plane ride where we giggle continuously at our adventure which is beginning/ending

1 part time to RELAX.

= perfect weekend. 🙂

I am so excited I might pee my pants a little.

edward

Happy New Year. Happy Updated Blog.

I know, I know. It’s been almost a month. It’s Admissions season, which means it’s the season where I have more work than I know how to handle. But we’re back with pictures of my vacation, and now that I have the Internet at my apt, I should be updating more frequently.

I was in the cold for Christmas and New Year’s, and now I’m back with some New Year’s resoluions. Among them? Simplify food. I am sick of planning a meal for every night of the week, and Jeff is sick of helping. So we’ve come up with an agreement–we’ll have themed nights, and work within that theme to cook something up.

So here’s what we decided:

Mix it up Mondays

American Tuesdays

Asian Wednesdays

Mexican Thursdays

Italian Fridays

We basically took the foods we eat the most, and slid them into days. This will work for me, because I will finally start remembering to take things out to defrost, and should work for Jeff since he’ll be able to grocery shop with me  without my brain splattering on the wall from confusion.

Meanwhile, here are some pictures from my journey home for you to enjoy:

img_00401

img_01041

img_01101

img_01221

img_01861

img_02082

img_02101

The wisemen came, three made their way…

Happy close-to-Christmas, y’all.

I am sorry, I’ve been absent. I know, I know. I said I was going to do this right, write every day (or at least every other) and I’ve been slacking. But, to make up for it, a picture of my tree:

tree

Things I have been doing to keep festive:

1. Trimming the tree with stringed popcorn, balls of blue and red, icicles, and blue and white lights. Jeff also got a star to adorn the top. Perfect.

2. Getting ready for my holiday party tonight which will be a Yankee Swap. I am making peppermint bark, champange punch, and lots of snacks.

3. Figuring out what to make my ladies from home, who decided this year we were going to make homemade gifts. I’d indulge more, but they read this blog, and I did not forget that.

4. Wearing cute sweater dresses that are ALMOST too warm for this mild climate.

5. Enjoying snacks and realizing I am going to have to diet when I get back from the holidays.