Letters and Laundry

I just thought this was pretty, and it kind of reminded me of my mountains.....I miss them

Oh hey, it's me. Duh. Who else would it be? Ha....um...ok....anyway.....here are some highlights of my day. I finally got my laundry done! It's exciting alright? It has been almost two weeks and I was just about out of things to wear...well not completely, but you know what I mean. Even more exciting, (I know, what could be better?) I got two letters today!! That's right, TWO! From two of my best friends. That made me ridiculously excited. Plus, they were good letters. I mostly cracked up the whole time I was reading them. I love that. Now I have to try and be witty in my responses. Nuts. Also, I started working on this weekend's painting assignment. Fail. We have to paint a landscape with only black paint. Yep, just black. We can use the paper for our white, and if you add lots of water, it lightens the black a little. Sooo hard! Mine looks terrible. We have to paint the same landscape four different times, in four different ways, with just black. Then we have to paint it in color. I got the four little black and white ones done. I was almost done with the big one, when Melissa reminded me that it was supposed to be in color. I was doing it in black and white. Nuts. I will have to work on that tomorrow. Probably pictures of this assignment won't be going on here. I don't think it's going to be one of my proudest moments. Also, I went to the play tonight. The school's theater department was doing The Wizard of Oz. They used the movie script, but they added a lot of original stuff too. It was so funny! They kind of made fun of the movie and alluded to lots of other movies too. It was obviously a low-budget production, but that made it so funny. I think that's what they were going for. Also, all of the actors were perfect for their roles! We have some good theater kids at this school. They acted and sounded just like the people from the movie. So good! Also, watching the play made me really want to go to New York and see Wicked again. I will never look at the Wizard of Oz the same after seeing Wicked. I love it soo much! But, good news, I found out at my Activities Committee meeting yesterday that Wicked is going to be in DC in October.......and the school is taking shuttles to DC for kids who want to see it! Of course I am going. I am too excited. I hope it's as good as when I saw it in New York. That's a lot to live up to. Okay, that's the end of tonight's programming. Tune in next week....or tomorrow....

Michaelangelo?

Today in painting, we had to hang our pictures up one the board and then go through them one at a time and critique them. She had some nice things to say about my clouds, and said my trees were beautiful. Yay! Now that I have her approval, I guess I will let you see them. P.S. they are better in real life. You can't really get the full effect here.

My first cloud picture....I don't love it

My second cloud picture....it looks like a volcano getting ready to erupt

Tree #1

Tree #2....I kind of like this one.

Well, I have no more excitement for you today. It was a pretty average day. Minus that I made another delicious smoothie. I am so good at those....and they are my favorite thing ever! Okay, yep, that's the end.

Another Rambly List

Maybe I will just start blogging in lists. I feel like that is a better way to express my scattered thoughts. Then I don't have to mess with transitioning smoothly and all of that junk. I could never be a writer. Okay, I'm not going to do lists every day, but I will today and probably often.

Here's Cassie's day:
1. Today was my Art History professor's birthday. She brought us cake. So great. Then she told us that her husband wrote her a poem for her birthday, but she wasn't going to read it to us because it was too emotional. Then she read it to us. Ha. It was super precious. I love her so much!
2. After my classes, I needed to go to Wal Mart for some essentials, so I decided to stop at Taco Bell and get lunch on the way. The two guys in line in front of me were obviously on a lunch break from some sort of manual labor job. I don't want to sound judgmental, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of the type of people we were dealing with here. They were dirty and dressed really grungy, and after the one guy ordered he told his friend he was going outside for a smoke. Do you have a picture in your mind? So, these guys in front of me mumbled what they wanted to the lady at the cash register. Kind of grumpy/ rude. Give me my food and don't talk to me. I have learned what it's like to be under appreciated when you are working hard, and it sucks. So, I decided to do a little better than those guys had. I smiled and was very friendly to the cashier lady. She seemed to appreciate that. She complimented me on my necklace and we just had a nice little chat. Then she told me to have a nice day and I said, "Thanks! You too!" I have never seen someone light up at the phrase like she did. She said the most sincere thank you I have ever heard to one of those mundane sayings. Then, when she gave me my food a few minutes later, she looked at me and said, "You have a really nice day, okay honey?" She said it like that was her one wish in life: that I would have a nice day. So sincere! Okay, I realize that this is a very long story for something that isn't that big of a deal, but it was fun for me. I love when I feel like I have brightened someone's day a little, and they do the same for me. It was fun.
3. After Taco Bell, I gave Little Blue his first bath in over a year. I know, sad. He very much appreciated it. Plus I vacuumed him. He loved that. Unfortunately, the ghetto car wash didn't have any dryers. So he is a little water streaked now, but he is still feeling good.
4. I have recently discovered a plus to not living in a family situation: you can eat food out of the container. I bought some ice cream today, and I fully intend on eating a couple of spoonfuls out of the carton, and putting it back in the freezer. Be disgusted all you want, but what's the point in wasting a bowl? I realized that I could drink my juice out of the carton too, but I don't know if I will go that far. It's kind of exciting though.
5. I tried to do laundry at two different houses today, didn't happen. Not having a washer and dryer in our house is super annoying! I don't know the people at the house that we are supposed to share with, so it's awkward. There is no schedule for doing laundry, so I just have to hope that when I have time to do it, no one else is doing theirs. It's a pretty tricky task. It's going to have to happen soon though because I am running out of clothes. Ugh.

Well, I think that's all the thrilling things I have for today. Sorry I'm just a boring college kid.

Happy Birthday....and other things

Happy 50th Birthday Dad!! Man that's old. Don't worry though, you don't look or act your age. Good thing too. Sometimes I hate that I live 2,000+  miles away from my family. I don't like missing things like birthdays. I missed all the big ones this year too. Sam turned 21, Lexi turned 16, I barely made it in time for Mitch to turn 13, and now Dad is 50. And all I can do is call and say Happy Birthday, hope you had a great day. Of course, maybe that's nice because it gets me off the hook for party planning and present buying (well, okay, I could still buy presents but I never know what to get anyway and shipping is expensive). Anyway, happy birthday Dad. I love you.

In other news, I painted some trees and some clouds today. The trees are okay looking but the clouds are terrible. My professor said "clouds are white, not blue." How are we supposed to paint a picture of clouds if they are white...and we aren't allowed to use white paint? Yeah, I struggled with that. It's possible though because we watched her paint clouds today and they looked incredible...so did her tree. Really I would be content to just sit and watch her paint for the whole class time. She makes it look so easy. Somehow she manages to make some blotchy blobs of paint turn into a beautiful picture. I have a long way to go. I would put pictures of my paintings on here, but I am feeling too lazy tonight. Maybe another time.

In other news, the spider that built....made....spun....created that cool web on my back porch has gotten out of hand. Our porch is COVERED in giant (yet still very cool) spider webs. They are everywhere. The guy works quick. Also, he is suuuuper creepy. I decided today that the web thing was getting out of hand and he probably had to go. Unfortunately, he is a little too big and scary for me to want to squish. Also, for some reason I feel like killing him for simply building himself some mansions is a little harsh. I don't know why I have a soft spot in my heart for this little creeper, but I kind of do. Relocation would probably be a better solution but, like I said, I don't actually want to get anywhere near him. Mostly I wouldn't be too concerned except for that I finally got a chair to go on our cute little deck. Now I just want to sit out there all the time, but I can't because there's a giant spiderweb blocking the doorway (No, literally, there is a huge one directly outside the door. You can't get out without walking into it). Rude. I don't know what I will do with this little guy. Ha sorry, you are probably wondering why half of my blog post is about a spider web....this is the excitement of my life okay!

In other news, I watched Fever Pitch the other night ($5 movies at Wal Mart are my weakness). I hadn't seen it since it first came out, and I had forgotten how much I liked it. Plus, I became a Red Sox fan since I watched it last, so I really loved it this time. Unfortunately, it just made me want to go to Fenway suuuuuuper bad. Like super super bad. Also, it made me really envious of the guy with his season tickets that he gets every year that are wonderfully located. So spoiled! That's it, I'm living in Boston when I am done with school. I will get rich and have season tickets that are right up there with the players. Oh wait, my plan to marry a member of the Red Sox team will help that out a lot. Great! For real though, who wants to go to a baseball game? I'm dying here.

In other news, I'm not kidding about the people outside my window late at night. Every night they are out there having a good time, but they don't show up until about 1:00 am. So weird. I wish my dang tree wasn't blocking my view of them.

In other news, it's bedtime.

We Will Never Forget

"We have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers, working past exhaustion. We've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers -- in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own. My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of our Union -- and it is strong....

...We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.

It is my hope that in the months and years ahead, life will return almost to normal.  We'll go back to our lives and routines, and that is good.  Even grief recedes with time and grace. But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened that day, and to whom it happened. We'll remember the moment the news came -- where we were and what we were doing. Some will remember an image of a fire, or a story of rescue. Some will carry memories of a face and a voice gone forever."

-President George W. Bush

September 20, 2011

I Love Adventures!

I love weekends sooo much! I don't have very much homework this weekend (I know, I was shocked too) so I have been trying to find ways to entertain myself. After class yesterday, I went to Wal Mart and then worked on homework for the afternoon. Last night the school was showing Pirates of the Caribbean 4, and I was running the popcorn machine so I had to be there 30 minutes early. About 20 minutes before I had to leave, I decided to watch TV for a minute. Guess what was on! Hitch! My all time favorite movie. I was so upset that I had to leave just as it was starting, but I went anyway. Imari, Camille, and I were the popcorn girls all night. SVU has a popcorn machine that we get out at all of our movie nights, and some other random activities. It's free so EVERYONE wants some. I never realized how stressful it was to be working the popcorn machine. You can only pop so much at one time, so you end up filling 6 ish bags and then having to wait for a while for more to pop. Kids have to wait in line for a long time, and the line is sooo long! Also, kids like to send up one friend to get popcorn for the whole group. That's frustrating when you think there are 10 people in line, but it's really more like 20. One girl wanted 5 bags! 5! I don't think the people behind her loved that. Also, there was this 12-year-old kid there (not a student, a sibling.....I was concerned at first) who just kept coming back for more. I think by the end of the movie he had 3 or 4 bags....and he didn't even go to our school! Also, I burned my hand on the hot popper part. That hurt super bad and there is a big red mark on the back of my hand now....almost exactly where my other burn just recently healed from. Appreciate your popcorn people! It's not an easy job. We had fun though. We didn't get to watch any of the movie, but luckily I had seen it before. Imari and I decided that being popcorn girls could be a good way to make new friends. We introduced ourselves and chatted with everyone that got popcorn from us. Some loved that....some didn't seem to as much. Ha! Best part of the night? After we got done at Pirates, we went back to my house. Imari turned on the TV hopeful that we would be able to see the end of Hitch and guess what.....it had started over! It was at almost the exact spot that we had left it. I was soooo happy!

This morning I got up early to go on an adventure! (we decided that we want to go on an adventure every weekend) Imari's friend Melody had invited us to go to Foam Henge with her and a group of people. For those of you who don't know this area very well, there is absolutely nothing in BV, but drive 10 minutes and there's all kinds of crazy, ghetto, fun stuff. We are planning on seeing more of those things on other days, but today was Foam Henge: a life size model of Stone Henge made out of styrofoam! I know what you're thinking, I thought the same thing. You just have to see it. It's super funny.

Then we went to the volleyball game at W&L. Our girls were playing really well, but we didn't stay to see how it turned out. Hopefully they did great. My hopes are high. Mostly watching them made me wish that I could go home and watch Lexi play. I'm sure she's doing great.

I don't know what the rest of the evening will hold, but hopefully it's lots of fun!

Pretty legit huh?

Imari and I with Merlin....apparently he created Stone Henge

This is me trying to show you that it's styrofoam

Also we found this snake skin. It was huge. That made me suuuuuper nervous! Luckily we didn't find its owner.

Also we went to the zoo. We decided that we would save the actual zoo-going for another day, so we just took a picture with the elephant outside.

P.S. I finally figured out how to change the background on this thing. So, annoying as it may be, I will probably change it all the time.

Slightly Scatterbrained

Well, life hasn't been anything too new and exciting. I don't have any super cool stories to tell. So, here is one of Cassie's lists of random happenings and thoughts:

1. My professor quoted "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" in class today, and was very upset by the one person in the class who hadn't seen it.

2. I went to Institute...and loved it. Elder and Sister Crowther are just the best. He was on one today too! So funny!

3. I pulled my guitar out for the first time in 4 months. I've forgotten everything. My guitar teacher is going to hate me. Nuts.

4. I sat outside, ate pizza, and chatted with some pretty great people. We weren't even trying to do homework while we talked, we were just taking it easy.

5. I tried to figure out my class schedule for the next two years so that I can graduate on time. I am now regretting how easy I am taking it this semester. I am already stressing about how hard the next three semesters will be because of how easy this one is.

6. I may have decided to do a minor in Business. I have recently decided that I feel like a slacker for only having one major and no minor. If I don't care about people judging me for being lazy, graduating in May of 2013 will be cake. I feel like I should push myself a little bit though.

7. I burned 525 calories in a 45 minute work-out tonight. Whooo! And Imari and I are definitely sore from the work-out videos we have done the last two nights. They are pretty entertaining though.

8. For those of you who have been losing sleep over this, I decided that zebra print is the shower curtain that would go nicely with my cactus wallpaper. Okay, not really. I do however love zebra print, and it was calling my name so I bought it. It looks terrible with the cactus wallpaper. Melissa and I decided that we would hang our "less-than-professional" paintings in that bathroom too, just to give it a little more.....tackiness, ugliness, clashiness, character....take your pick. 

9. Speaking of painting: we had painting yesterday and we had to show the whole class what we had done and then Professor Crawford talked about it. She didn't have much to say about my actual painting, except that the tape that I used to make a border looked really nice (that has nothing to do with painting skill whatsoever). Our other assignment was to try a bunch of different techniques and just play with the paint a little bit. After she talked about mine she said, "Have you ever water-colored before?" I said, "Not even a little." She said, "Huh, could have fooled me!" That gave me a little ray of hope.

10. This is a super weird list since each number is pretty much a paragraph. Oh well, I like numbers better. I have always hated dividing things up into paragraphs and making them run smoothly together.

11. I don't know if I told you this, but my mattress is suuuuper squeaky! Like ridiculously so. All of my housemates can hear every time I even touch my bed. That makes me super self-conscious for some reason so I mostly never use my bed except to sleep. I also try to get in and out super quickly and quietly (impossible) and once I'm in, I don't move around. I told my RA about this problem. He laughed and said, "Welcome to SVU." Great.

12. The blinds in my room have a creeper hole. Literally at eye-level one of the blinds is missing so you can creep right out. Unfortunately, there is a tree right outside my window, so I can't see much.

13. Yesterday morning, I discovered a HUGE spiderweb on my back porch. Like really huge. It was all sparkly because of the dew and looked kind of beautiful, in a disgusting way. I took lots of pictures of it. Then I looked at my neighbors' porches on either side of me, they both had giant spiderwebs too! Crazy!

14. It hasn't rained since I complained about the rain two days ago. I'm so powerful. I'm sure it will come tomorrow now that I've said this though.

15. I hate when it is 1:00 in the morning and I am going to bed and I can hear people talking and laughing outside. A) Why is there never anything fun going on outside my window during the day? B) Why are you out so late? C) Why are you so loud? D) Why didn't you invite me to come play with you??!!

Well, again with knowing that I have more things that I was planning on writing about, and not being able to remember them now. Sorry. 

Pretty cool, huh?

I know, I'm artistic

I also found the creator himself, but I couldn't get a very good picture of him.  Plus he was a creep.