nothing.nada.zilch.

There are no words.  I've put all my words into my thesis and defense.  Maybe tomorrow when I'm smarter and have my Master's Degree I'll have something interesting to say.

black dress: Forever 21, blazer: UO, tights: target,
black boots: Payless, belt: thrifted

up-close of my belt.

No Picture Post.

I did wear a 30 for 30 outfit today but forgot to take a picture.
Lets use our imagination...Skinny jeans, tall brown boots, blue/teal tank top, mauve-ish ruffle sweater.  In other news... Today I had my first wedding dress fitting.  The alterations cost almost as much as my dress!  Insanity.  Maybe bridal stores should have a petite section so short brides don't have to chop off 6 inches of dress.  Anyways it was fun to put my dress on again!  I can't wait to wear it in less than 2.5 months!

I heart play dough.

I babysit.  I'm a babysitter.  That's my job.  My outfit reflects that today.  I try to look semi-pulled together when I babysit just so their mom doesn't think I'm a bum.  But today I woke up late, had an 8 am "discussion of thesis phone call" with my advisor and somehow managed to pour coffee into a coffee mug, pull my hair into a ponytail, throw on a scarf and show up by 9am to two little people (they're 2 and 3 but they're still people) who were still in their pajamas and eating Captain Crunch.  Kids don't know how good they have it.  We played with play dough, we "markered" (aka colored), we watched Beauty and the Beast (best part of babysitting) and I wiped up a lot of snot, changed a diaper, and got coughed/sneezed on too many times to count.

This picture sucks because I'm tired.  And I need to talk to my fiance.  Good night.

Countdown(s)

I have a lot of countdowns going on.  Thesis defense: 5 days.  Internship applications due: 12 days.  Moving to Denver: 15 days.  Wedding: 72 days.

In the 15 days I have until I leave for Denver I have a wedding dress fitting, have to finish and send wedding invitations, have to pack up all my crap, have hair and make-up trials for wedding, finish DIY decorations in addition to the aforementioned thesis defense (no big deal) and applications.

I'm panic-stricken.  Must.remember.to.breathe.  I will not worry.  Matthew 6:33-34: "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these other things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow..."

Day 3:

Shirt: Target, Jeans: Forever 21, Scarf: UO, Belt: Forever 21,
Boots: Macy's? (Honestly I don't remember, I've had them about 6 years)

Brrrrr.......Hat: UO

We applaud sleep...

Disclaimer: We are not lazy.  I promise.  TJ works incredibly hard and sometimes I do too. Also...I eat very healthy (most of the time).

TJ and I are weird.  We know that we are.  We think it makes us pretty cool.  When one of us sleeps for a long time or takes a long nap instead of doing something productive, we applaud each other.  Like we tell each other that we're awesome for sleeping.  We also do the same thing for eating.  If I eat large quantities of unhealthy foods (like the other day when I made 3 dozen cookies and ate 2 dozen), TJ gets really excited and tells me to go eat more.  He's the perfect man.

Day 2:

cardigan: Forever 21, yellow tank: H&M, skirt: American Apparel,
tights: Kohls, clogs (that you can't see): Kohls

Secret message for someone special.

Day 1 of 30/30

 This is a terrible, no good, very bad way to start this off!  Ice storm + thesis writing + no where to go = very little motivation to look cute.  You're lucky I even got dressed/put on a teensy bit of makeup/pulled my hair into a haphazard fishtail braid.  I promise this will get better.  Here's some pictures I literally just took.  Don't judge me.

Apparently this is what I look like when
 I set my camera timer for 2 seconds instead of 10.
I whip around and smile with a lot of teeth.  Awesome. 

Sweater: UO, Tank: Victoria Secret, Leggings: Target, Scarf: gift from China

P.S. I need to take some photography lessons or something...
My skillz are a little sub-par.

30 for 30 Picks

Black leggings, Straight leg jeans, yellow tank

Skinny jeans, black pants

Casual black dress, floral skirt, greyish pencil skirt

Purpleish sweater, pink tee, white tunic, cream sweater

Blazer, blue tank

Grey dress

Purple sweater, grey sweater, yellow sweater, red ruffle shirt

tall brown boots, black clogs, brown booties,
tall black boots, grey flats (please ignore the dust)

So that gives me 24 items...I still need six more.  I'm thinking I'm going to add a blue and white stripe button down, a sheer floral top, a teal skirt, a black sweater, a black dress and something else.

P.S. I'm sorry for the terrible pictures.  I am by no means a photographer.  Hopefully you can kind of tell what these clothes look like.

30 for 30

I'm on a budget. A strict budget. An essentials only budget (I count a weekly latte at Starbucks essential).  Anyways I've been reading this blog, Kendi Everyday and she does thing every season where she challenges people to pick 30 items from your closet (including shoes) and you have to use only those 30 items to create outfits for 30 days.  I've never done this but I'm assuming it helps you extend your clothing budget by pairing items you wouldn't normally wear together.  I'm very excited to do this.  My goal is to choose my 30 items this weekend and take pictures and post them.  Then starting February 1st I will post a picture of my outfit everyday.

Feel free to join in!

2011

Ok, so I know that it's almost February but I wanted to do a recap of 2010 (because it was such a great year) and resolutions for 2011.

2010:
- 3 weddings of some of TJ's best friends (and now dear friends of mine)
- Our first Valentine's day together
- Lots of dinner dates and movie nights in the Attic
- A new job for TJ and a move to Denver
- Drove from Ohio to Colorado together
- The beginning of a long-distance relationship: Lots of learning, tears and becoming a stronger couple
- Getting Engaged!
- Planning a wedding
- 2 Notre Dame Football games
- Spending Thanksgiving and Christmas together
- Learning how to be in a relationship when one person is a carnivore (TJ) and one is a vegan (me)
- Getting our first apartment together

Resolutions for 2011:
- Pray more frequently together
- Get baptized together
- Abandon my deeply-rooted career goals and be more open to something completely different
- Drink less Mountain Dew and more water (this one's for TJ)
- Write Thank You notes (and send in a timely manner)
- Learn to sew (a little; were on a budget!)
- Read more
- Grow herbs
- Make more memories

The Kind Life

Visit thekindlife.com. I love how happy and zen she is. Plus she says "groovy". I love it.

Whirlwind

On Tuesday last week my computer crashed. I rushed it to the Apple store in Cincinnati. They tried to resuscitate it but it did not work. They told me they would have to keep it to work on it. I finally got my computer back on Friday. I know that's only 4 days but it felt like a lot longer. In those 4 days I got 2 jobs. Babysitting 2 adorable yet very loud and energetic little boys (aged 2 and 3) and working part-time at an assisted living facility as a resident assistant. I also finished all 20 of the table numbers for the wedding and cut out and assembled approximately 25 feet of pennant flags (apparently that's the official name) for the wedding reception. It was a productive week. And now I have a cold. Here's some pictures from my weekend.

Bonfire at my Grandma's...I promise there was fire in there.

I carried all this wood.

1 Cor. 1:25

I missed church on Sunday so I've been waiting for the sermon to appear on the website so I could listen to it. Going to church really balances me so I hate missing. Anyways this scripture really caught my attention.

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." ~ 1 Corinthians 1:25

Meditating on scripture is something that I admittedly do not do often enough.
This would be a great verse to start with.

I love...

vanilla frozen yogurt with warm raspberry jam.  Yum.  I'm about to eat some.

6 Months...

Until we get married!!  It's actually less than 6 months now; it was officially 6 months on Saturday.  We have done so much but still have a lot of little stuff to do.  We couldn't be more excited!  Hopefully this time goes by really fast! 

Here are some pictures from our most recent engagement session.  Yes we had two.  

*Pictures from Nixon Photography in Germantown, OH.

Happiness.

Things that always make me happy:

Hot chocolate

This perfect-shade-of-pink lipstick that I found for like $1.99.  I'm more of a lipgloss girl but this just makes me feel better when I put it on.

Flowers.  I'm lucky that whenever I pick TJ up from the airport or he picks me up...I get flowers!

Sitting in church with TJ.  It's like everything I need in life is in the immediate area surrounding me.

Driving with my best girl friends and chatting about life and getting lost.

Diet Cherry Pepsi.  I know, I know. Artificial sweeteners.  It's good ok? I have to live a little.

Puppies!  My heart just melts.

Quotes about love. i love love.

The ocean.  but I'm learning to appreciate the beauty of the mountains.

When I twist my hair into a bun on the top of my head (and TJ calls me Lindsey Loo-Hoo) and when I take it down in the morning my hair is wavy and perfect.  (this only happens, oh maybe, 20% of the time)

When I hear of people who throw away their boring, conventional lives to pursue a lifelong dream.  So brave.

Menu

It's no secret to people who know me that I love making lists.  I also LOVE creating menus.  I love searching cookbooks and websites for new recipes.  Some have been complete failures (chickpea and broccoli casserole) and others have been pretty delish (chicken and peppers with balsamic glaze).  There's something very comforting about knowing exactly what I'm going to be eating that week.  I've been making menus for my family since I moved home so here's our menu for the rest of this week:

Tuesday: butternut squash risotto and fire roasted veggies with balsamic glaze (veggies from Trader Joe's; not everything needs to homemade right?)

Wednesday: Trader Joe's potatoes with green beans and mushrooms (love trader joes) served with scrambled eggs and wheat toast

Thursday: Tomato soup and grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches

Friday: margherita pizza and salad

TJ/Lindsey Time

The only time I seem to blog with any consistency is after I've spent time with TJ.  Maybe that's because it's the only time I have anything interesting to write about.  Here's a recap of our 2.5 days together.

Friday Night:  TJ was supposed to get in around 11:40 pm.  Official arrival time was 1:06 am.  Quite a delay.  We were both pretty tired but so happy to see each other.

Saturday:  Up bright and early for engagement pictures.  Yes, we already had some done but they came with our wedding package so we thought, Why not?  Ok, that's what I thought.  Thankfully I'm a lucky girl and TJ smiled through more pictures just for me.  After pictures, we had to book it to a catering consultation.  YUM!  We had salad, 3 different chicken entrees and 2 beef entrees.  The Winners were the salad and the stuffed chicken parmesan!  We still have to decide on a few more things but we're one step closer to finalizing the big wedding decisions.  After the catering appointment, we went back to my parent's house, hung out and had dinner with them: zucchini and asparagus, baked potatoes and chicken wings.  And wine!  Then we cuddled on the couch and attempted to watch a movie.  I fell asleep.

Sunday:  Breakfast with my parents: fruit salad, bacon and coffee cake.  Then we went to church.  It was so nice to go to church together.  It's one of the main things I miss about being apart.  After church we relaxed and looked through pictures.  Then we got ready and went to Mamma Disalvo's for dinner.  Even though our anniversary isn't until next week, we celebrated while we were together.  It was our one year anniversary (dating) and we realized that we will be getting married 1.5 years to the day after we had our first date!  We had a fun dinner together.  I got baked ziti and diet coke and TJ had spaghetti and meatballs and Mello Yellow (he had to settle since they didn't have mountain dew).  Then we visited my grandma and watched Iron Chef.

Monday:  Our last day together.  We hung out and had lunch at a little cafe.  We got cheeseburgers and split a strawberry milkshake (so romantic).  Then I had to take him to the airport.  I cried before we even left the house.

Ugh.  I hate the airport.

Fall!

I love Fall. I'm very much looking forward to:

• Apple cider
• Bonfires
• Wearing sweaters
• Leaves changing colors
• Only 6 months until I marry my best friend (Oct 16)
• Leggings and boots
• Crisp, cool air
• Picking out apples and pumpkins
• Candy corn
• Homemade soup and bread

So apparently my favorite things about Fall revolve around food and clothes.  However, I feel like Fall is a healthy food season!  And I love layering clothes so I can take stuff I already have and just reinvent it so less shopping.  Plus I have a feeling this will be a great Fall season!

Four Years. GO.

I've been feeling a little under the weather today and I used the extra lounging time to not only apply for jobs but to also peruse some other blogs.  TJ tells me I'm a little bit of a hippie, which I am, so I'm always looking for cool alternative health/wellness blogs.  I came across one that focused on living an authentic life and was really inspired by this posting about Four Years. GO.  I had never heard of it before but wanted to share it because I think it's a great idea.  Here is the video:

9 Days Together!

So I've been slacking on my blogging duties but I'm vowing to be better about it!  Plus things have been really busy!

I finally moved home with my parents and have everything settled in.  I still need to hang up pictures but other than that it's all organized.

I moved home on a Saturday and the next week I did a cake tasting and flower consultation for the wedding.  The cake tasting didn't go as well as expected so I'm still looking for a baker but the flower consultation went really well! I picked out all the flowers and am planning on DIYing them all.

After a week of relaxing/cleaning/wedding stuff, TJ came to visit!  We hadn't seen each other in almost 6 weeks so it was a happy reunion at the airport.  We drove straight up to South Bend, IN to spend the week with his family and friends.  It was a wonderful 9 days together.  Here is a recap:

Saturday: Notre Dame vs. Purdue   Tailgating with family and friends!  Delicious mimosas, cornhole (I'm terrible and hit a woman in the head), singing the Notre Dame fight song (by the end of the week I finally learned it) and having a good time!  Luckily the weather turned out great; sunny and a little bit chilly!  We got tickets to the game and Notre Dame won!

Sunday:  Breakfast with TJ's family.  His grandma and uncle and aunt drove down from New York to spend some time with them so we all had breakfast at Cracker Barrel before they headed back home.  It was great to meet them and hear stories about TJ when he was little!  Afterwards TJ and I headed up to Lake Michigan with his dad and stepmom.  We played bocci on the beach and then had fish tacos and pizza on the rooftop of this little restaurant, The Stray Dog.  Afterwards TJ and I split some sherbet and spent the rest of the night relaxing.

Monday:  Nothing exciting happened that I can remember!

Tuesday:  My favorite day of the week!  We registered for our wedding gifts at Bed, Bath and Beyond.  It was so fun to pick out stuff for OUR home!  We agreed on almost everything except bedding.  Oh and my need for a KitchenAid mixer.  I really want one!  Afterwards we looked at suits for the wedding.  We walked around the mall for a while, then headed home to get ready for our engagement pics!  I surprised TJ by finding a photographer in South Bend who could take our pictures on the campus.  They were an awesome couple and I'm so excited to see the pictures!  After pictures we picked up TJ's brother Tony and met their grandma for dinner at Olive Garden.  Delicious!

Wednesday:  Another relaxing day...

Thursday-Friday:  We were up bright and early to head to Chicago.  TJ went into work and I sat downstairs at Caribou and studied for my diet tech test.  Eventually I got bored and headed over to Michigan Ave.  I did some shopping and stopped to get lunch at this little Italian sandwich shop.  I got a turkey panini, cucumber salad and an orange Pellegrino water.  I walked to the lake and ate.  I usually hate eating alone but it was strangely relaxing.  After TJ got off work, we headed over to Wrigleyville where his friends live.  They graciously allowed us to stay with them in their gorgeous condo!  We walked to dinner at Giordano's where we split a large pizza!  Sooo goood!  TJ had been talking about that pizza for weeks!  The next day we took the train into dowtown; TJ worked, I studied.  We grilled out that night and made smores on their rooftop deck!  Then early to bed, early to rise!

Saturday:  Notre Dame vs. Michigan  Rainy Day....ewww.  And Notre Dame lost.  Not fun.  Especially for the fiance's and wives of the ND fans.  The guys complained the rest of the night and kept talking about the loss.

Sunday:  Drive back to the airport.  Dropped TJ off for his flight back to Denver.  I cried all the way home.  Another month until he comes back.  But until then lots to do!