Studying and Projects

I love my major. I really really really love my major. But sometimes, I will be in the library or somewhere else on campus studying or working on a project, and it feels really funny when I'm looking at powerpoints about fashions through the ages or drawing a floor plan for a room and everyone one around me is looking at biology, history, or anatomy. Sometimes I feel like I'm not working as hard or challenging myself as much as others, or that what I'm doing is less worthwhile.
However, I know better. I still work hard and spend hours studying and working on my projects. And more importantly, I adore my major. I'm doing what I love. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light comes with a job. Not everyone can say that they know exactly what kind of job they want at the end of their college career. Or even what jobs they will be qualified for. Sometimes I just have to remind myself that my major is just as worthwhile and educational as everyone else's.

Artsy/craftsy

I've never thought of myself as an artistic person. In general, I cannot draw a straight line, and I have a terrible eye for colors. I can't draw anything, and I don't usually think of myself as being very creative. However, this semester I'm in an Interior Design class. I've learned a lot about colors in the last 2 or 3 weeks. We made a color wheel by mixing the paints of the primary colors, then looked at tints and shades, followed by neutralizing colors then making tones. All of this basically means that I played around with mixing paints a lot. Finally, our big color project was getting a fabric with a color scheme in it, and mixing the colors we would use for a room.
My fabric was really ugly. It was a dark brown with big yellow and pink flowers on it. I picked it because it was the only fabric I could find that I would ever consider putting on a couch, and that's what he told us to look for-a bedspread or couch fabric.
I started out feeling very discouraged and thinking that I couldn't do it. Then I realized that I could. I actually mixed the majority of my colors without help from my teacher. I ended up very proud of my project, and actually fond of the ugly fabric.
I feel like this class is very good for me, because it is forcing me to find my creative side. There are people whom I've told I'm not creative who have pointed to my sewing, but sewing isn't very creative to me. It's more mathematical-measuring out inches to fold or sew. However, you can't make mixing colors mathematical. If you put in equal amounts of orange and blue, they won't cancel each other out because blue is so much stronger. You can't make an equation or put into numbers the way making a color scheme works.
So while I'm pushing myself so much for this class, I'm also coming to appreciate so many things much more.

New Home

Our new apartment is actually coming together very nicely. A little more storage space, and some more space in our "dining room" would be great, but overall, the apartment is the perfect size for the two of us. The bedroom might even be a little bigger than we need...which is why that's where our storage is going.
Our living room is turning out really well. So far, we have a couch, a secretary desk I bought at a garage sale years ago that my dad refinished for me, a chair from my best friend Brittani, and my hope chest acting as a coffee table. We also have Shelby.

Our decorations on top of the secretary

The view from the door

The picture we put up directly above the secretary

The pictures above the hope chest

The rose Matt gave me for our one month anniversary and our favorite engagement picture as our coffee table/hope chest decorations.

The Happily Everafter sign was a wedding gift from my mom's incredibly talented best friend Debbie, and the picture frame was a gift from my sister-in-law Anja. We have this on display right next to the door.

Then our kitchen might be my favorite room in our little home. I LOVE our kitchen. Again, I wouldn't complain if it was bigger, but that's a want, not a need. The two of us can both be in the kitchen cooking and be fine. I'm even learning to love the gas stove and oven. They cook a lot faster than electric, but we have yet to master simmering on a gas stove. I do however, ADORE the KitchenAid. My wonderful parents-in-law gave it to us as a wedding gift, and I don't know how I ever managed without one...already. Also, please notice the beautiful spoon hanging on the wall. Matt made me it for me after I told him about Welsh Love Spoons and how much I liked the tradition.

Slightly blurry, but here's a quick overview of the kitchen

This is my favorite part of the kitchen. You can see my adorable salsa bowl and my beloved KitchenAid.

These are the canisters for our dry ingredients. I love them. They're really cute, and super convenient.

Here is my love spoon. Isn't it just beautiful? It's one of the few things Matt has been able to keep secret from me.

Our dining area is a little cramped, and that's with only 5 chairs...but really we only need the extra chairs once in a while, and we really enjoy having a table to sit at. We also love our Menu board. I really appreciate not having to come up with a plan for dinner each night.

For right now, I'm just going to provide this. This is the wall right above the table. I did laundry by hand today, so all the chairs are covered with clothes that are drying, so I'll put that picture up later.

Our bathroom is the room we've done the least with for obvious reasons. There is only so much you can do in a bathroom to make it look nice. Especially on a student budget.
                                                              See the caption for previous picture
Finally, here is our bedroom. We have a lot of storage in here, and all of the extra stuff in our front room will be moved into here when we get our bookcase and put up all our textbooks, thus opening up a lot of space in the totes.

Here's our bed. We have totes for our bedside tables, and we actually really like them. We may never actually buy bedside tables

Such a dilemma

For most of my life, I've had short hair. When I was really young, my hair just grew really slowly. When I turned 8, I convinced my parents to let me cut it off. And by off, I mean into a short cut. From that point on, it's been shoulder length twice, but it has never gotten much longer than that. When Matt and I started talking about getting married, I resolved to grow out my hair so I could do something pretty for the wedding. So, for almost a year now, I have not had a hair cut. I know I need to at least get a trim soon, but it is so tempting for me to go cut it all off.
It's hard to describe, but I love the feeling of cutting off my hair. I love looking in the mirror and seeing something so different from what I have come to expect. I love seeing everyone's reactions to a new haircut. I love cutting my hair.
However, at the same time, it's so much easier to have long hair. I have to spend less time on it, and if I don't want to do anything with it, I can just pull it up. There are also more things that can be done with long hair. So, in the spirit of self control, I've starting looking up cute ideas to do with long hair. Hopefully looking at these, and trying a few will be enough to keep me from cutting off my hair.

Once you get married

At the beginning of every semester I get sick. I always thought it was moving back in with all of my roommates and living in very close quarters with 5 other girls, or the stress of figuring out a new semester's workload. I now stand by the new semester's workload.

However, what I found out this semester when I started not feeling well is that as soon as you are married, any time you feel almost any sort of discomfort, people assume you are pregnant. Having been married for about 2 and a half weeks, I was not feeling well one morning, and ended up rushing out of my lab to run to the restroom. When I came back, my TA's first question to me was "What kind of sick are you? Is it morning sickness? Are you pregnant?" A few days later, I mentioned that I pulled out some crackers that I had in my backpack at work to snack on, and the girl sitting next to me asked me if I was pregnant.

Finally, today, I mentioned that I woke up a few times in the night with a back ache. My back ache had gone away completely, with just a little bit of massaging, and I assure you that I am not pregnant, but that was the immediate assumption from my classmates.

So, I've learned that any kind of discomfort I have right now, I should pretty much keep to myself, because everyone around me will assume that I'm pregnant.