Life

Too many words in my head right now. Too many emotions surging through me. I'll write about them later.

Thanksgiving at the coast. I only cried once.

My camera kicked the bucket thanks to an unfortunate water bottle event.

I'll never buy tights from Walmart ever again.

8 days. 8 days and I will be home in that horrible, sunny, thick aired, wonderful place.

I'd like to discuss the above statement, but I'd rather pass my Theory final.

I'm going to study really hard, so I won't be around. The next time you hear from me I'll be complaining about the heat and devouring the hottest salsa I can find.

I'll also be preparing for an entire month of X-Files and just hugging everyone I love.

I refuse to carry a book bag the entire month.

I just love Christmas. And I am really excited to spend it with the best people on the planet.

Baby It's Cold

On Tuesday night I discovered a severe weather alert for this week for heavy rain and possibly snow starting Friday. While this idea tickles me pink, it also freaks me out because I seriously have no clothing appropriate for snow. Over winter break I'm planning on knocking out some skirts and dresses to get me through the deep freeze of winter, but until I have a life again (performance this weekend! I'll have TWO WHOLE DAYS free from classes after that!!!), I'll keep dreaming up pretty velvet skirts, and cozy woolen coats.

Care Package

My family sent me a care package this week. Finally! Lol! I have been patiently awaiting this box for a rather long time and did a happy dance when it finally arrived (much to amusement of everyone in the mail centre). I even made a video of me opening it! The contents were wonderful and made me miss everyone just a little bit more. It was filled with sweets, and things I needed, plus a few surprises!

Coffee!!! No more crappy coffee from the dinning hall!

3 sweet notes from 3 sweet kiddos. Grace's cracks me up! She wrote "I miss you so much that I can't stop calling you. You're a silly Grace, and so am I, Love Grace."

Yummy dark chocolate hot cocoa! 

Candy Corn!! I couldn't find any up here so I pleaded for people to send me some. I will never be rid of it now. I am not upset about that.

Chelsea made Pumpkin Spice donuts. They were much more of a cake dough than a gross donut dough, and they were delicious!

My own pumpkin to carve. Foam pumpkins are a lot harder to carve than you'd think...

A cute little tin! There are different posters on each side of it!

I have no idea what the sparkly star is for/from, but I do like sparkles! And I got some of Gracie's yummy blueberry jelly that she made for 4-H this year! I'm actually not a huge fan of most blueberry things, but I adore this jelly!

Someone please remind me to change my address for my Martha Stewart subscription. Also, it really makes me happy that I have an Anthro catalog. I haven't been shopping since September....

Chocolate Chip Cookies!!

The most exciting thing in the box! Shampoo!! I ran out last Sunday and hadn't been able to wash my hair since. Things were bad. By the way, sea salt is not a good shampoo substitute, no matter what your 2am brain tells you...

Princess Phone Jammies

Princess Phone Jammies- Made by me

Sock Monkey Slippers- Target

Eye Mask- Target dollar bin!

Headband- Made by me

Mug- Anthropologie

Chocolate Chip Cookie- From my care package from HOME!!!

This post has been sitting as a draft since July. I have just never had the chance to photograph these until now! Apologies!

What, you mean this isn't how you look when you wake up? 

I am incredibly weirdly particular about my bed clothes. Basically I mostly hate them. They're hot, and uncomfortable, and I move around in my sleep so they contort, usually they're ugly, I can find a million things wrong with nearly every pair of pajamas ever made. I just don't really like them.

Except I do like vintage ones (who'd have guessed?). I think pajamas were particularly well done from the 30's until the mid 60's. But suddenly pajamas took a turn for the frump-alicious and the just plain wack-a-doodle. All I know about that last one is he must really love her. And be very secure in his manhood.

I've been trying to find a pair of vintage pajamas for a long time. Then I had a brilliant idea! Why not just make my own! Duh! So much easier, plus there's the whole I roll around in my sleep a lot, so these won't be as delicate. I'll just find a pattern for a basic set of pj's and make them up in some sort of vintage inspired print. Except it is really hard to find a basic pajama pattern. I ended up using Simplicity 3971, which is apparently a plus size pattern. I just figured that out. That explains why I had to cut out the smallest size... Anyways. I originally planned on using some red and white striped cotton and living out my childhood dream of owning Molly's pajamas, but instead I decided on some pink and white cotton (I'm saving the red for a dress). In the end this turned out to be a very wise decision, but we'll get there.

So this pattern. Basically I love it. It's great! It's not perfect for what I wanted, but it was close enough. I wanted some proper 40's style pj's not a big lump of flannel with cats on it. I mean cat pajamas are great if you like them, but uh, I don't. . I also wanted a waistband. I really hate elastic waistbands. On anything, but particularly on pajamas. They are uncomfortable, and get twisted, and look unseemly. I wanted a real waistband. With a button. Because I am insane. So what should have been a three hour project took me about six. Granted I really did take my time with these. I reinforced the (shudders) crotch, and measured out the hem, and carefully stitched the button and snaps on the shorts. I also shortened them considerably. The originals hit me just past my knee.  The shorts took forever to do, mostly because I was making it up as I went along, but also because I really did take my time. As a result I've got a pair of really great fitting pajama shorts that are comfortable and cute to boot!

Then came the top. I'd seen a few old patterns with some sort of monogram on the pocket of the shirt so I thought it would be fun to kind of use this technique I saw on the Colette Patterns blog. I used some bias tape to make the A and stitched it onto the pocket, then trimmed the edge with the tape as well. The pocket ended up being my favourite part of the whole set! This is why I ended up being kind of happy I didn't go with the red. Y'know, a scarlet A on my chest and all? While not many people will be seeing these, I'm not sure that's the impression I want to give off even if someone tries to murder me in my sleep... Anyways, I love these babies. They totally make me think of that scene in Grease where the girls have a slumber party. And The Mouseketeers. And Bye Bye Birdie. And talking to your girlfriends on a pink princess phone. And playing MASH until four in the morning. Good stuff. They are cute and comfy and just what I wanted. I fully intend on making the full length ones come winter, maybe in a heavier cotton or a lightweight flannel. Turns out I don't hate all pajamas.

I really don't have a gut camel toe. I promise.

Retreat

Kirsten! And Laura looking crazy!

Choir retreat is basically a "fun" excuse to force choirs to practice more. I really shouldn't say "fun" because it is fun, but it pretty much is slave singing. For 7 hours. But really it was great and everyone had a lot of fun with all our crazy shenanigans.

Spencer!

This is how I spent the three hour drive. I'm almost done now!!

P-town

We went to a Swedish Lodge thing up in Washington State. It was absolutely beautiful! I can officially say I have been to Washington. I was way more excited about this than I should have been. I kept making really great Twin Peaks references all weekend, but no one else has seen the show and so I had to laugh at my own jokes, which is pretty common anyways.

Okay. I am actually totally mortified by this costume. Let me remind you how pretty I looked last year....

Jade as Angela Carlson! And Stu as The Doctor!

Laura and I! Yes, these were the only axes we could find on short notice!

Laura, Kirsten, and I

Spencer was an Ice Road Trucker.... Someone pointed out how we were both in drag when this was being taken.

Flaming Pumpkin!

Our first night there we had our Hallowe'en Party. Everyone was divided into teams for pumpkin carving. Our team did Comedy and Tragedy masks, which came out pretty cute I think. And everyone was dressed up! My friend Laura, who is from New Mexico, and I went as lumberjacks. The reason is that one our first conversations was me telling her how my mother kept insisting that I was going to move to Oregon and marry a lumberjack. Laura looked very shocked and confused when I told her this. Turns out her mom told her the exact same thing. So we both went as lumberjacks. I got a little carried away in making my beard. One guy in choir told me that he thought some random mountain man had joined in and it took him about twenty minutes to figure out it was me. It really freaked some people out to try and figure out who I was and then hear me talk. Kinda funny. My friend Jade went as our Theory professor who is amazing and has a bowl cut, so I cut her wig, and she paraded around the room with an annoyed scowl on her face. My friend Spencer did her makeup (he's amazingly good at stage makeup!), and Jade even wore her costume on Monday to class where our professor was tickled pink!

The aforementioned flaming pumpkin.

Pretty much sums up the day.

Do no let college guys be in charge of the fog machine. Otherwise four people will have an asthma attack. (I'm exaggerating)

The next day we rehearsed for most of the day and in the evening had our candle ceremony, which is not as cult-like as it sounds! Before we left everyone drew a name and had to get a candle for that person. You also had to get to know as much about that person as you could. Then we all gathered together in a dark room and each person got up and told everyone about their person and then gave their candle away. It was a really fun way of getting to know everyone a little better. Jade got me, which was awesome because she and I have gotten crazy close, and she was bawling when she made her little speech and then I started bawling and then had to give mine, it was really, really sweet! (Love you Jade!)

Choir guys are weird. Actually college guys are weird.

Piano mimeing! 

Spencer gave our director a black eye.

Ashlee hoolahooped while making an origami crane.

I looked awful. It is a talent.

After the Candle Ceremony we had a talent show, which was awesome! There were some hilarious acts, and also some really cool acts (like one of the guys did a presentation on rock climbing and went out to a tree to show us how to use a certain type of rope-thing in rescue situations.). After the talent show I got to chat with Bri on Skype for a bit, we played card games, drank coffee and cocoa, and got all packed up to leave.

Sunday we drove back to Corvallis. Spencer was driving our bus and let me torture everyone with my brand new She & Him Christmas CD, which is awesome (and it's never too soon!!!). Drive back discussions included: our tour to Canada this year, Twilight, Harry Potter, me correcting everyone about Disneyland (which happens a lot actually), and my hilarious Steven Spielberg story. When we got back Laura drove a friend of ours and myself back to our respective homes. On the way back to my room we found a park and had to stop and take pictures! So pretty!

And then I arrived home, tired and wet, and wishing for another day in the weekend. It was a pretty awesome weekend!!