good morning!

Good morning, chickens!

I am in Billings again on break, snuggled up in my bed. I am so content right here, ahhh I just love it. Break has been pretty boring so far, I really haven't accomplished anything! I LOVE IT!

Since I have to go back to school for wintersession and my break is less than two weeks long, I am completely determined to do absolutely nothing. It is rockin'.

Yesterday was my first full day back and I crocheted another ear warmer (pictures to come), made puppy chow for my mom's fourth graders, ran some errands with Jeff, made eggplant pasta (my current favorite) for my family and cute boyfriend and then watched our old Saturday Night Live DVDs with my family and Jeff. After my parents and brother were asleep, Jeff and I went to Borders (where I scored Stephen Colbert's I Am America And So Can You! for 4.99!) and then went to the movie "Due Date." Actually, looking back on it, it was busy and today I must do nothing.

I really don't have anything too interesting to say, so this blog post is mostly pointless.

But today, I think I will make those biscotti for Jeff's dad for Christmas, watch Funny Face and crochet some more. Sounds like a good day.

Love youuuu

Uh oh...

Mistake #1: Jeff let me walk into the pet store at the mall.
Mistake #2: Jeff let me look at the puppies.
Mistake #3: I spotted a BEAUTIFUL cream colored Shiba Inu.
Mistake #4: The lady asked me if I wanted to hold her.
Mistake #5: I said yes.

This was the result...

Jeff holding her...

!!!

Problem #1: Jeff and I vowed to never buy a puppy from a pet store.
Problem #2: We are broke.
Problem #3: We are so busy and don't have time to raise a puppy.
Problem #4: I live in a dorm and Jeff lives in a house where there are already two dogs and a cat.

But she is so fricken adorable. I just wish I could have her.

Things to be grateful for...

I am going to make a big, long list of things I am thankful for for the next few months. I am starting this list today! Please note these are in no particular order. And many of them will seem pretty silly.

Here goes.

1) Soft, fragrant towels.

2) My own bathroom. My freshman year I shared a bathroom with all the girls on my floor in the dorm I lived in. When I was hired as an RA, I still shared a bathroom with the girls, but now I worked there. When I was hired as a Supervisor, I got an "apartment," which, in my case, is a room with a cute little pantry and a bathroom. I am grateful for this little bathroom everyday.

3) Quiet Saturday mornings with no obligations.

4) Handmade cards.

5) My little fish that I get to greet every morning.

♥

Now on to my day!

Tori is going to come this evening and I am planning on making a delicious dinner! Eggplant pasta and salad and a yummy dessert!

I have been laying around like a big, lazy student who doesn't have a paper to work on...it is a life that I haven't known since the summer. Ah, recreational reading, I have missed you.

I hope everyone has an excellent & relaxing Saturday.

Lib

I'm sorry but...

This is the cutest thing I have ever seen...

Whoa!

Yesterday, I met with my literature criticism teacher to do some final editing and put some finishing touches on my final research essay for her class.

She read all thirteen pages of it without saying a word, making me very anxious.

She then said, "We are going to have to work on this title for next semester."

I was confused. This class ends this semester and I don't have her again next semester.

She then said "Because I am going to submit this for scholarships and possible publication. And I think you should consider presenting it at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research."

I was stunned. I could not, and still can't, believe that I had produced a paper that was impressive enough for her to believe it worthy of scholarships, NCUR and possible publication??

WHAT! I was SO SO SO happy! I seriously have never been prouder of myself.

I truly went into that class so scared and doubtful. We meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays and each time we meet we have about twenty pages of reading due and a two page paper. Katie (my AMAZING professor) has insane expectations for the students in her class. It is very rigorous, but I found that I was capable of fulfilling her expectations.

I seriously have never been so excited about anything in my life.

I am so proud of myself.

"I'm always in this twilight"

Writing my last of three research papers for the semester (all of which were due in a one week period! Come on, profs!)...

drinking hot chocolate+coffee from the Reslife Office

Can't stop listening to "Cosmic Love" from Florence and The Machine.

Can't stop thinking about my trip to Europe. I know it's not for like 18 months, but everytime I think about it, I get butterflies.

This is what I've been waiting for my whole life.

I keep thinking about this quote from Henry James' Portrait Of A Lady

"The world's all before us-- and the world's very large."

And I am so excited. And that word seems so flimsy for my real feeling.

I want one so so so SO badly...

So, I have been thinking about getting some tattoos pretty seriously the past few weeks.

I really want to get a quote from W.H. Auden's poem lullaby "Find the mortal world enough" on my wrist. This quote is meaningful to me for several reasons, only one of them being religious. I don't want people to get the idea that I don't believe in an afterlife from my tattoo though, so that kind of scares me. To me, it means that I will make my life what I dreamed of as being "heavenly." I hold this notion close to my heart, because I know how ugly the world is capable of making people and I chose a long time

ago to never be like that. I endured some pretty rough stuff when I was a relatively young teenager, and after that I made the concious choice to not let hate consume me. I decided that I would make myself happy, because no one else was capable of doing that for me. So that is what that tattoo would mean to me. =)

Second on my list is this...

I've wanted some kind of bird tattoo for a long time, and this is just subtle enough. I am so in love with it.

Also on my list is possible getting "A mind without books is like a body without a soul" on the back of my neck. It is actually a quote from Cicero that I perverted to suit me, haha.

I'm so obsessed. INK ME OKAY

FOUND!

I just found these funny little pictures on Jeff's computer...
...funny, I don't remember taking them...

Just living my life...picking my boogers.

What an excellent and wholesome discovery...
Isn't he great? ♥

Mission...

I am on a mission to make these pretty little things...

So colorful and lovely they have to taste good, right?
Let's hope so.

yesterday.

Okie people.

Tis the end of the semester.

Yesterday, I didn't want to leave my room. I wanted to stay in my room all day and be alone and grumpy and hating.

But I didn't. I left my room. At 2:02. And not a moment before. I didn't work an office hour and I didn't shower.

I felt like this because of the future.

I want to move NOW.

I love Missoula, but I feel like I've done almost everything I can do here.

But, I only have a year and a half left and frankly, that scares me something terrible!

Jeff and I will graduate, go to Europe for a couple of months and then start new lives.

Elsewhere.

Yay.

Hey boy...

I am shamelessly in love with Rhianna's song "What's my name?"

Seriously, I don't even like music like this...

"Hey boy I really wanna see if you can go downtown with a girl like me

'Cuz you're just my type

Oh, na na na na"

Favorite parts? How you can hear her Jamaican accent. Also, when she says "Na, na, na, na"

Jeff makes me feel like a freak for LOVING this song so much, but I do! <3

P.S. I hate the C&I department at the University of Montana! Learn how to return emails, love Libby.

Romeo + Juliet

Romeo + Juliet. I love EVERYTHING about it, to me it is a perfect play.

Not only do I love the play...but I absolutely love the movie directed by Baz Luhrmann. I was just going to name the things that I love about this movie and play, as I am watching it right now, but I don't think there is a single thing I don't love about it.

I love this scene. Juliet is so quick-minded and the costumes for this scene are incredible.

Also, since the first time I read this play, I have been in love with Mercutio and Michael Dawson (who I also love in Lost) is INCREDIBLE in

this movie.

Leo is exceptionally dreamy in this movie...

There is a version of Prince's "When Doves Cry" in this movie that actually made me like Prince

.

Can I just say that Baz Luhrmann is a visual genius?

This play also contains one of my favorite Shakespeare lines of all time...

"Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days"

...almost too beautiful for words ♥

I love pips!

Greetings!

Guess what? I am officially done with all of my program coordinator responsibilities for the semester! REJOICE REJOICE!

Except for the time I spend with my great staff and boyfriend, the Christmas party was immensely disappointing. I felt like I put so much care and effort into the whole shin-dig and it was unappreciated. I pretty much cried the whole way home. After unloading all of the decorations, Christmas tree and lights from my car, Lindsay invited me over to her apartment and commiserated with me. She had my job last year, and was also one of my supervisors here in Turner Hall when I was just an RA. She let me sit on her couch and complain and cry, all the while listening with so much understanding and sympathy. I am incredibly lucky to have a friend like Lindsay. She is a grad student this year in clinical psychology and I know how extremely busy she is balancing her school work and being a supervisor of a dorm. She is absolutely amazing and wonderful, and I am so grateful that she is always there for me, regardless of her to-do list.

Jeff and I ran miscellaneous errands today, the most important of which was buying his (and mine, I say) nephew, Jameson, Nursery Rhyme books and The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh for Christmas. I vowed to only buy him books as presents for awhile. I want to build up his library for later in his life and I want to read all of the books to him that I loved (and still love!) as a child. He is only turning one year old on the 18th, but I still think books are great! It is never too early to be read to, in my opinion =). The Nursery Rhyme book and the children's fairy tale books we got him are illustrated by Mary Engelbreit and they are just absolutely adorable! I am excited to read them to him and see his little face observing the drawings and his little, soft hands turning the pages. He is such a little doll.

Also, something incredibly exciting happened today! Jeff and I were at Rockin' Rudy's tonight and I had a pip (which is my shortened version of epiphany)! We were looking at 2011 calendars and there was one of black and white shots of Paris and right there, I decided I was going. I began babbling to Jeff about how we should just save our money for the rest of the school year and go to Paris. He was not as excited as I was, mostly because he is incredibly realistic, which is what I need most of the time. He said we should go the summer after this one, which is actually better as we will both be done with undergrad AND it gives me ample time to save money (which I am very, very terrible at). We decided to save ten dollars each a week and go to Europe next summer. I am SO FREAKIN' EXCITED! I have never been away from North America (except to go to Hawaii, which is still included in my opinion!) and have HUGE dreams about traipsing around Europe. I am incredibly, insanely and enormously PUMPED about this decision we made tonight! WHHHHOOOAOOAAAA

So, let's hope that this time next year I have achieved all of my goals: saving money for Europe, losing all of the icky weight, and not spending money on stupid things!!!!

Well, I think I shall sign off my friends. Have a spectacular night!

"The Dog Days Are Over"

Hello everybody!

How is everyone? I am doing extremely swell, thank you.

So, I had an entry written when I went home for Thanksgiving break, but the internet at my house was being really funky and would not let it live. I'm very sorry about my long absence, because I know how much you all were looking forward to another interesting post after that extremely exciting last one (haha)!

Today is the day of the Residence Life Christmas Party, so I am in charge of being extremely stressed and annoyed all day! Yahoo! I do love my job here, but at times it makes me want to pull people's hair right out of their little heads. The only thing that has saved me lately is listening to Florence and the Machine's "The Dog Days Are Over" extremely loudly and dancing like a crazy. Keep in mind here people that my boss's office shares a wall with my room, so in reality this is very audacious! It truthfully really will not be that bad, just bossing people around and being such a hard ass is not really my thing, so I dread that part. But when everything is set up, looking pretty and people are having fun thanks to my careful planning, that is when it is all SO worth it! I'm excited for all the pretty glittering lights and my pretty centerpieces. I will post pictures of how it all turned out soon!

So, I have this problem. And it is called "That I spoil my fish too much." He is a pink beta fish (bet you didn't even know those existed!) and he is SUCH a baby. He actually has this red mustache above his little mouth, which is hilarious and his name is Ollie. When I got him, he was in a one gallon bowl with little red, purple, white and pink gems at the bottom and a little green plant. Then I wrote his name in cute little letters on the bowl with sharpies (I have this need to decorate plain things). So that was relatively normal, until one day when he jumped. That is right people, he jumped. I was over talking to him and it was almost a like "Look what I can do, lady" move and he jumped right out of the water! Luckily I don't fill his bowl up completely, so he didn't come out of the bowl, but I literally screamed SO LOUDLY and freaked out. I poked holes in a piece of paper and rubber-banded it around the top so that if he was feeling daring again, he wouldn't end up committing suicide. Then I had this problem where he was mad about that. He would flare his "mean fins" at me every time I came to chat with him. I was like "My own child hates me" and it was a terrible feeling (hi, p.s. I realize he is a fish, okay?). But he got over that once I came home from Thanksgiving break, thank God. So, being the weirdo that I am I ordered this thing called a "beta halo" from someone on etsy for like 15 bucks and it has his name on it and little heart shaped holes so air can still get in. It sits right on the top of the bowl and protects him from jumping out! What a great invention! And then last night Jeff and I went to Petsmart and got him a little pink castle to hide in and more gems and a thermometer, I can know if he is too cold. I realize how ridiculous this is, but I seriously feel like I need to take care of something to make me feel fulfilled. I have this need to nurture and love something that depends wholly on me. My dog used to be this for me, but Tait sort of has taken her away (complicated) and I really love caring for something. As most of you know that read this, I am a Resident Assistant so I live in the dorms and can't have anything other than fish, unless it lives at Jeff's house, which we did with Izzy when we got to keep her. So now I have Ollie, and that is enough for me now. But I reserve the right to spoil him as much as I wish =).

Here is a little snap shot a particularly great day spent at home for Thanksgiving break...

...which is particularly large.

That concludes today's post, my loves.

I hope everyone has a fabulous day!

Lib