Creole Wisdom

photo update!

I've been busy! But here's an update!

1.28.06

Isn't that baby adorable? She's Arlene's little cousin Amina. We had so much fun passing her around, taking turns holding her and getting our pictures taken with her : )

1.29.06

Okay I know this probably isn't kosher, but I'm sure in future years I'd regret not taking any pictures of the truly over-the-top amazing houses that I babysit in! Look at this beautiful powder room light fixture, and did you see the wallpaper? You all know I'm a sucker for toile. Oh so pretty!

1.30.06

Here's a shot of those new earings I got in Queens this past weekend (you also get to see my head, too). I love them, they just are so fun and comfortable- who can turn down some serious bling at a good price!?!

1.31.06
grrr *internal error*

my weekend!

I went to Queens this weekend with my friend Arlene.  It was so cool to spend some time away from school.  I'd never been there before, but Arlene and her family made me feel so much at home!

We had a great time and started out Saturday with breakfast at ihop and then a day out shopping.  I found two pairs of earings on way, way sale.  Lately I've been looking for large cubic zirc. studs- and I found em' (I'll have pics up later!)  Then we went over to Jamaica Ave and got pedicures and eye-brow waxes.  I can't believe it's been almost two years since I waxed my brows!  Usually I just pluck them : )

Queens is pretty unique, def. different from Portland.  Most of the houses where we were had been built around 1920 or so.  There were several really cool, older homes, too.  Most of the styles were dutch colonial and had about three levels.  Everything was close together and had been added on, re-done, and re-painted about 200 times.  Very, very cool to see another part of New York.

On a shopping note after discovering the lily pulitzer site I decided to upload a few photos of myself in Lily clothes onto their photo section.  If you want to see me, I'm in two pictures on the second page : )

For a few months I've been lusting over the great shirts at shade clothing, really adorable stuff!  Hopefully I'll soon be able to order a combo pack of those cap-sleeved t-shirts!

Well I'll make sure to add some photos later!

vintage filters & the big, bad world of photoshop

Yesterday I was checking out another woman's blog and I noticed this amazing photo. She'd applied what is known as a "vintage filter" on that particular shot and had bought it online. I clicked on the link and wow, those filters were just gorgeous, really. Until I saw the price tag. Alas never the type to just quit I decided I could probably create those very filters on my own (since I don't have $22 just to spend on scrapbooking stuff, hey a girls gotta eat!) I played around and discovered the sepia filter, this is just great. If you have photoshop or pse (I don't know if this feature is in here) really try this, you can choose how much sepia you want in your picture, and it's so cool.

Here's what I did:
The Original:

Photoshoped:

another fun one!

What were you doing 10 years ago?

When I was 9 years old I was biding my time away in third grade, doing the usual third grade things: jumping rope, cutting out paper dolls, playing barbies with my dear friend Abbie (we are actually still close to this day) and learning how to bake bread with mom : )

Five snacks you enjoy:

1. Tilamook extra sharp cheddar cheese and triskets
2. Sea salt and vinegar chips (the ones in the BLUE bag)
3. Limeade frozen pops : )
4. Peanut butter and chocolate ice cream
5. Gaucamole (sp?) made by Matt

Five songs to which you KNOW all the lyrics:

1. Always Be My Baby (Mariah Carey)
2. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Whitney Houston)
3. I Like Big Butts (Sir Mix A Lot)
4. Isn't She Lovely (Stevie Wonder)
5. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (Cindy Lauper)

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

1. Get family members out of debt
2. Buy property
3. Invest & save
4. Get myself a nice Lincoln Navigator
5. Buy my parents new cars (a Lexus for mom, a Jag for dad)

Five bad habits:

1. Talking too much
2. Wearing my heart on my sleeve
3. Biting my nails
4. Going to bed too late
5. My temper

Five things you like doing:

1. Organizing
2. Scrapbooking
3. Gossiping (I know that should be on the list above, okay!)
4. Fantasizing about my future
5. Shopping

Five things you would never wear, buy, or get again:

1. Strech pants (outside of the gym!!!)
2. Doc Martins (ick)
3. A really short haircut
4. My armpits waxed again (woah... pain: like no other)
5. Stuffed shells from that take out place called Pizza Pizza

Five favorite toys

1. My computer
2. My camera
3. My cell phone
4. The Very Hungry Catipillar puzzle at the preschool (it's really challenging!)
5. Matt? Oh just kidding... he is so not a toy!

On to the POTD:
1.26.06

Here I am, acting like a ham in front of the bathroom mirror

mail call!

I got a card today in the mail from my Aunt Ann! Normally I just get junk or "fun" bank statements, so I was pretty siked.

Here's what she wrote:

Dear Katy,

I guess congratulations are in order for you and Matt- huh? (Gotta love the quickness of gossip in a huge family, I only told one person honest!) A promise ring? How wonderful. Congratulations!!

Hope things are good with you and that you have a great New Year! How was your Christmas? Your mom said she had such a good time with you. We got a digital camera and I am diligently working on mastering that (chuckle)! I think I will loved it. Hopefully no more cut off heads and duplicates.

And one more thing, is that you and Matt on the front of that card??

Love,
Aunt Annie

Awwww.... Isn't that sweet? I am so lucky to have some really wonderful family in my life.

1.24.06

tired, but it was worth it

Okay I don't know if it's because I have my period, or as I like to say "Aunt Flo is visiting," but lately I have been pretty tired- it's no wonder. I've crammed in more work that my usual, here's what I've done just in the past few days:

-organized an entire dorm room
-cleaned the kitchen
-finished two applications
-called and had three quality conversations with my parents (they whined over break about how I don't call them enough)
-met with all my professors
-started reading 3 new books for classes (!)
-had hour long convesations with my Matt each day
-done my homework right away and as of now have it all done : )

I'm feeling pretty da*m proud if I do say so myself, I'm just a woman on a mission. It's strange really: me and this obsession about getting *stuff* done. I know I'll be the type of triple-tasking mom: you know the one on the phone, holding a baby, and vacuming too.

Life back at school would just NOT be complete without drama from X. Since I'm on the outside of this situation I see everything though Arlene's eyes (X is her roomate). Now granted, we knew early on that this girl was trouble, and I mean TROUBLE (with a capital "t"). Easily said she's a mess: lies constantly, narcissistic (sp?), sleeps over at random guy's houses (scan-d-lous), and manages to drive Arlene (who really is pretty sane) OFF THE WALL. Here's the recent entry into this X drama.

So this past weekend Arelene and two other girls along with X decided to go to the city for a party. X has promised it would be fun just like the one she'd taken them to in September ya, ya, ya. Okay! So they get there (keep in mind this was in the West Village part of NYC) and it's basically a drug fest. Arlene described it like this "it was so disgusting! Everyone was lying around on dirty matresses and people were smoking and taking ecstacy and dancing to stupid techno music. I was standing around and this stupid guy aked me to move so he could 'roll his blunt'. People were lighting ciggarettes and not stomping them out, it was a fire hazard. THEN X wanted us to go and sleep in Grand Central and wait for the 5 am train, with a bunch of homeless people. She kept saying she didn't have any money to pictch in for cap fare, but then she wanted to go to ihop!" Yeah... I'm glad I didn't go.

POTD-
1.22.06

Aren't I a glamorous girl??? The cleaning bucket, the must-needed acessory for spring-

1.23.06

the centerpiece of campus

good times

Well yesterday was a pretty fun day. Arlene and I went to brunch and just ended up talking with a huge group of friends, laughing and catching up.

I went into "Saturday Mode," (whatever that means) and I cleaned, organized, and worked. Here's what I got done:
-Cleaned entire kitchen
-Organized desk area
-Organized behind desk area a.k.a cord city
-Organized under bed
-Put huge pile of stupid stuff I cannot believe I took here to school to send right on back home
-Wrote two application essays (yeah!)
-Finished my Art History homework and almost finished my Writing homwork : )

Now since I didn't finish everything here's what I plan to do today (will I get it done? Tune in later to find out!)
-Organize shelf
-Organize stuff near door
-Do laundry
-Finish writing homework
-Writing one more essay for an application
-Read for Black History
-Do a scrapbook page : )

So last night after a pretty busy day working alongside my roomate I decided to head to bed a bit early for a weekend night (this translates to about 12:30 am). Well no sooner was I all tucked in than my phone rang (fyi I usually keep my phone on in case someone calls in an emergency, college is a crazy world, you just *never know* what will happen next!) Well this time it was Matt : )

Since I wasn't really asleep I thought, oh what the heck I can chat for a few. After a sweet conversation that ened in "if you ever want to talk again tonight, just call me back" (let's just say he wasn't his usual self, i.e. he was at a frat party!) We hung up and I started to relax and read my book. Three minutes later the phone rings again, and what do you know... it's MATT! He's so silly. This time he was just going off on how much he missed me and all the great things that will happen in our future. Awww. So I said good-bye again and started to fall alseep, but NO. The phone rang again, "Matt you just won't let me sleep tonight will ya?" He responded with "nope!" Gosh this guy is so funny- Well I don't mind it too much, and I'm sure glad to have him that's the truth-

Okay I know these are both pictures from the past, but I've been really busy okay!

January 21, 2006

In August my mom and I went down to the Outer Banks with the rest of our family. It was so beautiful there and some of the orginal architecture is amazing. This is a building near the lighthouse we visisted.

January 22, 2006

Playing around with photoshop last night I decided to start working on a Valentine's card for Matt. This is not the finished product, but I really like it anyway.

Well I was so busy yesterday that I forgot to put up my potd. So far I've been juggling the first week of school work with appication deadlines- oy! I cannot say I'm alone in this, my roomate and another dear friend are in the process of transfering also. Look forward to a "what's wrong with Sarah Lawrence" post soon... I'm not going to say that it's a "bad" school, but there are a bunch of things I would of *loved* to know before I got here-

Today I babysat during lunch. Every Wednesday and Friday I watch a little girl and sit with her between her two preschool sessions (she goes to morning and afternoon). Today I noticed that her lips looked different, now keep in mind she is four years old. We had a pretty interesting chat:
Me- "hmm is that lipstick?"
Girl- "Yep!"
Me- "Don't you think you might be a little young for that?"
Girl- "Nope!"
Me- "We'll I think you are" (maybe I shouldn't of said that)
Girl- "No I'm not, it came in my makeup kit"
Me- "Oh" (well *that* explains it)

shesh! Kids grow up too fast. I mean I'm not a huge "you can't shave until you're 16" kind of person, but lipstick at four? Wow!

Okay on to the photos:

I love tea, so I brought a ton of mugs to school. This has to be one of my favorite, I love this china- and it's very expensive, so all I could get was one cup, but maybe someday I'll have a set of plates, I think it's gorgeous!

This is the doorway to Andrew's house, the downstairs has classes and upstairs are dorms. So pretty. You never see such detail like that on newer homes.

a little bit of Portland in Bronxville...

This morning I woke up and looked out my window, it was raining a lot- like pacific nw rain, no kidding. It looks like it followed me here : (

However since I'm an optomist and loving looking on the "bright side" I realize that since it was raining and all the snow had melted meant it would be warm (this is realitve, but to New Yorkers in January a high of 54 degrees is a heat wave!)

I broke out my rain gear, which I honestly thought I wouldn't use at least for a good month and a half (thus gave me the inspiration for today's potd).

Some cool things to check out in this picture:
a) my boots: aren't they cool? They're not "official" wellies, but instead shrimping boots. Yep, that's right. I scored these at a fishing supply store outside of Plymouth, Mass. during one of my mom & my road trips. I bargained the guy down from $15 to $9. I knew they would work for heavy duty rain. They're also men's boots, so why are they white? Since shrimp are clear before they're cooked it's easier to see them on the deck when you have clear boots on instead of the usual navy or black. Pretty cool eh?
b) wood floors: aren't we lucky? Gosh I am so in love with the housing/dorms here at school!
c) vintage umbrella: When my Grandpa died I inherited all of his late Aunt Rosie's stuff (including some cool jewlery) I also found this neat umbrella (get this, it comes with a matching head scarf, is that too cute or what?)

new semester

today was my first day of classes for my second semester! Wow! The first one went so so quickly, I just cannot believe it!

so last night I got extremly stressed over $$ issues, and *trust* me on this (b/c no, I don't feel comfortable baring all on here) it's been let's say... challenging? That's the nice word for it. I guess I could stay up all night and lament over things I cannot change. I tend to have a hard time with issues that take more than 24 hours to deal with. I of course I couldn't fall alseep last night and didn't until about 3, but since I was already nervous for my writing class at 9:30 I popped out of bed at 7:45- raring to go...

much better day today : )

I got to connect with dad today, and I'm feeling like I'm sort of "bridging" that rift...

writing was very interesting. Our professor had us go around and do a series of memory writing exercises. Basically, this class is about memory and writing from our pasts while weaving in how to write good fiction : ) Just my kinda thing!

so in response to Katherine's question about transfering I thought I'd go through a few of the reasons why I'm doing this:

-My family (there's more to this than it seems, but I am very much needed near home right now, to say the least)
-$$$ (such a huge burden and my school doesn't have any merit based scholarships)
-Matt (too far away, he's planning on transfering down to CA if I do so we'd be close)
-Academics (I don't feel challenged here, really, it's way easy and I'm not kidding)
-Not enough diversity (I know that the schools I'm looking at aren't full of AAs, but at least there's some more political and religous diversity)
-Chance at getting a job after graduation (is very slim, most of the students here go RIGHT on to grad school, I want to get focused and get a major in something at a decent school where I will graduate with a job and not 5 million in student loans)

okay...

schools I'm applying to:
-USC
-Layola Marymount University
-Stanford (pressured by dad and my professor ahhh)

alright and without further ado here's the picture of the day:

Like my other blog buddy Emily Kate I like school supplies and getting organized makes me feel good, too : ) Here's my desk right before I went to bed last night: notebook for class laid out, thank-you notes to go out (the visible one is for my grandma), and pencil case (isn't it chic?)