41 Things more important than your GPA in college.

It's the end of the term and grades are coming out.

Joy.

This term I really enjoyed most of my classes.

I really felt like I learned a lot.

I tried my hardest.

And yet, I still have this sense of panic when grades are being released.

Why?

If I did my best and learned a lot isn't that enough?

Don't get my wrong grades are important.

But not the most important.

I took a final this term in a class I loved.

I learned so much about the subject matter.

Studied my butt off.

Sat down to take the exam...

And blanked.

It just seems so silly to me to put so much pressure on one test.

College is about so much more than that.

So with out further ado here are 41 Things That Are More Important Than Your GPA In College.

1. Finding Yourself.
2. Finding a major you enjoy
3.Making friends you actually like.
4. Interning.
5. Volunteering your time.
6. Taking a class on something you know nothing about.
7. Learning how to pay bills.
8. Figuring out where the money is going to come from to pay your bills.
9. Learning to live with people besides your family.
10. Learning what you like to do.
11. Learning how much alcohol you can handle
12. Learning how much alcohol you can't handle.
13. Finding a passion you didn't know you had.
14. Opening your eyes to the world around you.
15. Realizing you actually really like your parents.
16. Discovering the value of a dollar.
17. Learning what a deadline means.
18. Making deadlines.
19. Doing something stupid and having a good story.
20. Learning to keep in touch with people while your in a different place.
21. Traveling
22. Taking a class you absolutely hate.
23. Failing miserably at something.
24. But getting up the next day and trying again.
25. Learning to do your own chores.
26. Managing Stress

27. Eating healthy

27. Exercising when you don't eat healthy.

28. Starting to figure out what you want out of life.

29. Changing your mind about things.

30. Forming your own opinion and thoughts about things.

31. Especially politics and what you like. 

32. Changing your major if you find a new one you like.

33. Trying your hardest.

34. Accomplishing something you thought you couldn't.

35. Going to a college football game.

36. Tailgating

37. Learning to work with people you don't like
38. Figuring out how to make a budget.
39. Sticking to a budget.
40. Figuring out how to make things work when you don't stick to your budget.
41. Making it to graduation.

I am not saying that your GPA isn't important it is. But there is so much more to college.
However, I think it would be a shame if you graduated college with a great GPA without doing any of these things.

Bottom line is do your best and you'll succeed. If you don't get back up and try again.
Be open, try new things and learn.
That's what college is all about.

So Close, Yet So Far

I am smack dab in the middle of dead week right now.

While I should be focusing on finals and studying,

I find myself thinking ahead to our trip to Mexico.

While I would love to fill my suitcase up with all new goodies.

That is just not realistic.

However, I have created a little wish list.

These are the items I would love to get for our trip.

While I may not get all of these,

I am going to have my eyes out for them!

What would be on your wish list?

If you love any of these

Check out the links below!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

5 | 6

Dreaming of Mexico

Me and Nathan are planning a trip down south in June.

I am so dang excited that it is finally getting close enough to start planning!

To me the planning of the trip is 

almost as much fun as the trip its self.

Am I alone on this?

I am getting to the point

 where I am starting to count down the weeks,

until I can be in the sun.

With a margarita in my hand of course.

Here are some photos that are getting me through the next weeks.

Six Months Since I do

It has been six months since me and Nathan stood in front of our friends and family and said i do.

Can you believe that?

In some ways it seems like it was just yesterday that we were walking down the aisle,

and in other ways it seems like years ago.

Time is funny in that way isn't it?

A lot has happened in that time some great and some tragic.

We went on a wonderful honeymoon together.

Started classes again in the fall.

Adopted a baby kitten (Kingsley)

But other things have not been so good.

We found out around thanksgiving that my Mom's cancer was back.

It was horribly tragic news but we are dealing with it.

I do plan on writing a post about that.

But we can save that for another day.

That's life though, you can't have the good without the bad.

But I am thankful for so many things that have happened in the last six months.

I have a sweet, adorable husband.

A not so little kitten

and so much more.

Which is why I have taken a liking to this saying.

Review: Wedding Wire

Well, It's not wednesday, so Wedding Monday?
That works right?

From the beginning of the planning stages for our wedding we knew we wanted to do paperless RSVP.

1. It saves paper and is good for the environment.

2. It saves money and is any easy way to save in the budget department.

Therefore is became clear we would be doing a wedding website. 

If you have ever searched for a good wedding website then you know there are hundreds and a lot of them are crap.

When we began our search we were looking for a couple of things.

We wanted it to be a FREE service and we wanted to be able to customize it.

After searching around I realized this was going to be a tall order to fill.

That's when I stumbled across wedding wire.

I will start off by saying that this site is not perfect.

However, it does have a lot of really cool features.

First off there are a ton of designs to choose from and you can completely customize them to make them feel like your own.

I loved that.

Also, once you begin tinkering around with it you can see that if you get creative you can really make your site look really individualized.

The site also features a lot of tools besides the website.

Checklists, budget makers, etc.

To be perfectly honest I didn't use any of it.

So I can't really tell you anything about those.

But, overall I love the site and found this to be the best option when looking for a free wedding website.

Now, some downsides.

The major one is that the site can be difficult to edit.

More than once I found myself scouring the Help page looking for answers.

But if you are patient and put in a little time It's well worth it.

Second downside the RSVP set-up they have is pretty complicated.

They want you to add every single guests name.

That just wasn't that practical for us.

So we got creative on that end.

We re-named our "contact us" page to RSVP.

We then asked guests to write their name and the number attending.

This message then gets sent to a special Gmail account we have set up just for the wedding.

Although this seems a little complicated it works perfectly for us and we could not be happier with our website.

Here are some photos of our website:

If you want to check out our page leave me a comment below and I would be happy to share the URL.

Here is the note we left to guests explaining how to RSVP.

Happy Monday All!

Done Done Done

I just finished my last final for the year! 

Which means I am officially done with school for the summer!

Although my summer is filling up pretty quickly, (Work, wedding, trips)

I am looking forward to relaxing for most of it.

Here some photos that just scream summer to me!

What's your favorite thing about summer?

Countdown to Summer

With all the stress and craziness of the end of another year of college I decided to take a minute and get excited for whats coming up this summer.

June:

Finish off school for the year.

Make a trip up to Portland to work on some wedding stuff. Food, decorations, ect.

Moving into our new apartment.

July:

Bridal Shower.

Road Trip down to LA.

See Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z.

August:

Nathan turns 21.

Get Married.

This summer is going to jam-packed with things but I could not be more excited.

The only thing standing in my way is two more finals and a lab report.

Wish me luck!

Stressed Out

Have you ever been so stressed out that you feel like the world is caving in on you?

I totally have and this last week or so had been especially rough.

It seems like I can break out of it and It's one thing after another.

I do my best to try and live by the motto of Choose Happiness.

But at times my despite my best effort it still feel like giving up on life and just watching Say Yes to The Dress all day long.

As nice as that would be, sadly that is not acceptable as a permeant-everyday-thing.

So, because of that I have been trying to do my best to take time to do things that really make me happy.

I thought why not share them on here because I am sure I can't be the only one who feels this way.

So here it goes, my list of things I do when I am to stressed to function.

Go on a walk.

I thought this was pretty interesting. When I go for a walk I usually try to go for 20 minutes, put my headphones in and bring along some water. The fresh air and endorphins get me feeling relaxed in no time.

Eat some chocolate.

Does this really need to be explained? These guys are my favorite, you can pick 'em up from Trader Joe's. AKA Heaven.

Indulge myself in Say Yes to the Dress

Because if Randy can't help you, no one can.

The only issue is trying to stop myself after one episode.

What are your favorite ways to de-stress?

Happy Monday!

My twenites: day one

 

 

Today marks the end of my teens and the begginging of my twenties.

 

My twenties, to me, always seemed like the most magical age.

 

I remeber thinking how old and sophisticated I would be in my twenties.

 

Visions of me drinking out of cocktail glasses in pretty dresses and living in a big city.

 

Although the reality may not be as glamourous I still belive in a lot of way that your twenties are magcal.

 

You're twenties are the point in your life when you truley become and adult.

 

No it may not be the fairytale, sex in the city scene I have imagined in my head.

 

But, I still have faith that my twenties will  be very good to me.

 

Mostly I am so ready to say goodbye to teens and hello to twenties.

Wedding Dresses

I went in to go wedding dress shopping today.
Mainly because I wanted to get the pressure of that first time over with.
Also because I was tired of everyone asking me if I had gone yet.

So I went in with those two ideas in mind.
Thinking there was no way I would find my dress.
My plan was to try on a bunch of different styles, and find some that worked.

I ended up walking out of the store with a dress.
(Bet you didn't see that one coming.)

Well, I am still shocked.
I am also shocked by the style I chose.
It was not one I would have guessed myself to choose.
I am not going to say what it looks like or post any photos, because I know Nathan looks on here.

But I will say it is gorgeous and lovely.
And perfect in every way.

Also, side note.
I think I like vails.
Another thing I thought I would never like!

While I was trying on dresses I experienced one of those Oh My God moments.
I realized holy cow, I am going to get married.
Obviously I have known that all along, but when I tried the dresses on it sunk in.
I am a bride.

I then preceded to get all giddy on the inside and want the wedding to come tomorrow.
But alas I will have to wait another 7 months.

Save The dates

Me and Nathan are starting to think about sending out Save the Dates.

Our plan is to send early announcements out in the next month or so to those traveling across the country and then send out official save the dates around april or so.

Here are some save the dates we are using as inspiration.

Fall Term Complete

Words can not explain how glad I am to have this term behind me.

This last term was challenging in many ways from finding out my mom was diagnosed with Breast cancer, to starting a new job, wedding planning and other things that just stole my attention.

I finished my last final this morning at 8 am.

Whoever decided to allow finals to exist at 8 am should be fired.

But anyway, my point is I am so excited for a new fresh clean start.

Do you ever feel that way? 

I always do after some big milestone, a new year, new term and after my birthday. 

So here is to fresh starts and being done with finals!

CHRISTMAS TIME!

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it is officially Christmas time!!

I can't wait to go home to Portland in a few weeks and see the city all dressed up for the holidays!

Happy Holidays!

Magical red cup

Can someone please explain to me why drinks taste so much in the red holiday cups?

Is like they are filled with happiness.

My weakness is Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

What's yours?

Positive Additude

My mom got diagnosed with Breast Cancer last month. 

When I first heard the news it was terrifying, horrible and all I could think was how unfair, why my mom.

These feelings have not gone away in the slightest, but my mom's attitude is inspiring.

She has a great sense of humor, a positive attitude and kept her head up through everything. 

I hope that if I was handed something as bad as this that I would be able to stay as strong as she is.

She got a mastectomy and now after a series of tests it is looking like she is cancer-free at this point.

She will still have to do around 4 months of radiation, but things are looking up.

I want to take the time to thank every doctor who has spent anytime trying to find a cure to cancer and every person who has ever donated money to help the cause. You are helping to save my mom and millions of other people around the world.

Thank you.

I am going to make a real effort to start posting on a more regular basis, and hopefully the next post won't be as solum as this one.

If any of you have know anyone who has gone through breast cancer of Chemo please comment and let me know more of what to expect my mom to be going through.

Things I wish I knew my Freshman Year.

This year I am going into my second year of University. Looking back my freshman year of college was one the most challenging, but rewarding years of life.
Here is some advice I wish I would have going into the craziest year of your life.

1. You will change. Be open to it.
In fact embrace it with open arms.

2. Make real friends. 
Friends in college are great, but real good friends are priceless. Your friends become your support system and your family while you are away in school. Also make sure you a real friend to people. Give and take.

3. Do something Crazy.
Step outside your comfort zone. Do something that you can look back on and tell your kids about and laugh. Stay out until 3 am, run around campus with friends, do stupid things because you can.

4. Relax about your grades.
This may seem strange, but don't spend all of college studying. Remember to have a balance.

5. On the opposite side, Do Study.
You are paying for these classes, so show up.

What advice would you have given yourself during your freshman year of college?

Ps. The photo above is from Animal House, which was filmed on my campus. :)

number three.

Playing Tennis.

I love to play tennis. I have been playing on and off from when I was around 8.

In high school I played on the tennis team for three years and looking back it one of my fondest memories. 

I don't play as much as used to but every time I get back on the court I am reminded of why I love it so much. 

The cute skirts aren't bad either. :)

Here's a throwback from a tennis season during high school.

This was taken at a tournament with my doubles partner and amazing friend Emma.

number two.

Painting my Nails!

Painting my nails has become an almost spiritual experience for me. Haha!

I paint them pretty much once a week and let me tell you there is no better feeling then sitting down and making your nails perfect!

I love to file my nails down, and spend time making sure the polish goes on perfectly.

Somehow it always makes me feel 1000 times more put together.

Also who wouldn't be put in a good mood when you look down at your nails and see a hot pink painted on them?

My new goal is to try out some more adventures ideas.

What's your go to nail style? What your favorite brand? Also have you tried out those nails strips?

Happy almost Weekend!

Number one.

My next ten post are going to be about ten things I love. 

I thought this would be a fun way to get to know me a little more.

So with out further a do...

Here's the first one!

Portland, Oregon

With out a doubt my favorite place in the whole wide world.

I was born and raised here. 

I love walking around downtown, trying out a new restaurant, going to one of the many street fairs, watching flicks on the bricks during the summer.

I plan on traveling a lot and living in a lot of different places in my lifetime. 

But when I decide to start a family and have kids this is definitely where I want to raise them.

If any of you are looking for things to do in Portland, activities, restaurants or shopping let me know and I would live to give you some suggestions!

A Very Special Day

Today is a very special day.

Today is Nathan's 20th Birthday! Ahhh!

Happy Birthday to the love of my life!

I love you!!