Land of Oz.

Mini-recap of life, generally.

Recent clothing additions. I might like neon a little bit. 

• Officially accepted my summer internship at a major hospital's human resources department. So excited!
• Registered for my last fall semester of college. Wait, what?!
• Ran out of hangers in my closet... for the fourth time this year. Oops.
• Discovered The Americans. Um, all I want to do is sit in my room and watch every episode.
• New Mexico lost. To Harvard. Byeeeee bracket, nice knowing you! Woof woof.
• Turns out if your cowboy boots have holes in the bottom, and you wear in the rain, you will soon be walking with an inch of water - inside your boots.
• This is the best granola ever. I'm eating it for every meal forever.
• Disney GIFs + college = this, which is uh, truth.
• If I don't get some color soon, I'm going to turn translucent. Sun, where you at?!
• I can't tell you how many times I've played this song. This is just as catchy as anything from T. Swift.

Play me some mountain music.

Spring break is over and it's back to the real world (although this week has honestly been a great breather with no big assignment/exams/projects for the first time in a long time). Everyone else came back tan (or sunburned) from the beach and I just came home with a sweet little sunglasses time from a little too much time on the slopes and little less sunscreen than needed. Mostly I'm now just missing early mornings on fresh powder and that wonderful mountain smell. (Not missing: legs so sore I can't walk, not being able to catch my breath at 11,000 ft).

Colorado mountains.

Final run of the trip

Of course, since I've been back at school the temperatue has bounced between 70º and sunny, and days like today (40º and rainy) where it doesn't even feel like spring at all. 

Done with chapter visits for life.

Now that I'm two weeks out and have recovered (mostly... I'm not sure you ever do), it's time to recap the ever-famous, campaign week.

I was so blessed to be a campaign manager for a Miss Auburn candidate this year and what. a. week. it was. Campaign weeks are an Auburn institution - we go all out and campus becomes a giant central headquarters. T-shirts are worn, buttons/handbills/nametags/pens/cookies/koozies/puppies are handed out (well, not the puppies). We sorted hundreds of handbills, emijays and bottle openers. We pinned safety pins to 800 nametags. We stuck stickers onto what felt like a million rice krispy treats. We did somewhere in the range of 30 chapter visits - a week ago I could have told you the exact numbers.

I don't know how to walk around without a clipboard anymore. I feel like I need to know six peoples' whereabouts at all time. It's scary to not have my phone in my hand, and my life suddenly feels empty without our campaign GroupMe blowing up. I haven't sent an e-mail at 3am in two weeks. I suppose these are signs I'm finally rid of that ailment I refer to as 'campaign brain'.

I could go off and be super sappy about life and love and the amazing people I met and our incredible Top 5, but I've cried enough already and really don't need to open those waterworks back up. But in short, it was easily the most incredible week at Auburn. Frustrating, exhausting, and at times impossible. There were many moments it wasn't fun, but so many more that made each of those worth it. We didn't win at the end of the week, but it didn't even matter, because this was one of those weeks where the experience was worth even more.

Happy surprises.

A few days ago I got an unexpected package notification and when I went to pick up my box I was pleasantly surprised to find a box of fun things. Best pickup for a week of too many tests and too little sleep.

First up? Definitely the Not Your Mother's Beach Babe Texturizing Sea Salt Spray.

In two words: I'm obsessed.
I have straight, thin, fine hair that doesn't hold texture or volume unless I empty a bottle of hairspray into it. Clean hair, dirty hair, dry, damp - a couple spritzes of this stuff and I looked like I should be back in the Keys, in a swimsuit, on the boat. Don't I wish. Not to mention it smells like a dream and didn't leave any residue in my hair after I brushed it out. (And dare I say I think it works better than the Bumble & Bumble version - at a quarter of the cost...)Winner in my book.



I also got to try out the new Secret Clinical Strength Stress Response Deodorant. And even though I cannot believe I am talking about deodorant on the internet, I have to say - this stuff is great. How can I attest? Well, for starters I'm probably the most stressed out roommate of our four (aka six when you throw in the best friends/neighbors who basically live with us). The last three weeks have been a challenge, to say the least. It's to the point where I have developed an eye twitch. Let that sink in. An eye twitch from stress. That's weird. I am weird. Okay?
Things that stress me out (an incomplete list): driving at night, driving in the rain, driving on 85, driving in traffic, uh, driving, interviews, deadlines, tests, campaign week, when my room is dirty, chapter visits, and about 438 other things.
To sum it all up - this works great, it doesn't irritate my easily stressed out skin, I am stressed, but now nobody can tell except for the fact that it's all over my face and I'm yelling. Can they make something for that?


I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.

The power of pretty.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm managing a campaign for upcoming SGA elections on campus, or it could have something to do with the fact that suddenly I'm interviewing for internships this summer and graduation is becoming this real event with a date, instead of an abstract idea years in the future, but lately I'm feeling full of grown-up responsibility. My chosen method of coping? Buying lipstick.

I'm newly obsessed and I don't ever want to take it off. Hey, if it keeps me going through the next week and a half (we are so close to election kickoff!), I'm all about it.

Estee Lauder; Dior; NARS; Dolce & Gabbana

Shhh, don't tell anyone - I'm wearing it right now to sit in my room and write a paper. That's girl power or something equally cheesy, right?

Only got four minutes.

On the theme of Fab Feb, take four minutes and forty-one seconds out of your crazy-busy-hectic life (c'mon... it's Saturday...) and watch these.

One will make you smile. One will make you cry. (But that just might be me because these days I miss the pretty princess pony and cry anytime someone says the word 'trot'.)

After the Jan Funk? Fab Feb.

I survived the January Funk. Only to get hit by freaking February.

Two years ago, Katie did something called Fab Feb. As in, February can be stressful and cold and first tests are hitting and let's just be honest, it's not the most fun month of the year. But we decided two years ago that February was not going to be freaking february, and two years later, it still isn't. Yeah, yeah, I know this is cheesy and when it's raining and you're not ready for tomorrow's econ test, it's hard to say that this is so fabulous.

This might be the most stressful month ever for me yet in college, with the combination of upper level major classes, internship hunts, and a giant campaign resting on my shoulders. There's been so much stress I've literally developed a twitch in my left eye - it's really cute.

I should be dreading February and welcoming it with kicks and screams, but instead, I'm gonna wave it on it with a big ol' smile and cup of coffee. There's no month more pink or full of glitter and other pretty sparkly things. Making this month about fun instead of drudge doesn't mean you have to cut off all your hair or do anything else drastic. It just means give yourself a little extra love - wake up five minutes earlier so you can drink a cup of coffee in the quiet before everyone else is up, write in pink pen, read a chapter in that new book you've had sitting on your nightstand for three months. Find something small and fabulous about every day.

A few ways for me?
Wake up earlier and run before class in the mornings - nothing gets my day kicked off the right way quite like it. Make cookies because baking settles my head when everything else seems incredibly complicated. Write out a list of everything I need to do and come up with a plan of attack. When there's a list - life's under control.
I'm going Fab Feb for '13 because college is too short, months are too short and after this? Time goes double-fast from March forward.

And I'm really not ready for that.