Tuesday, August 30, 2011



Is this in my future? Could I even handle adding another spinning plate? 
I  really hope so. 

Monday, August 29, 2011

Talking myself down..

I just got out of my first class and we were given our first assignment! It's a fun assignment but it also includes and essay and while it shouldn't really scare me since writing is a passion of mine it's kind of intimidating, not going to lie. It's a simple self survey but I think that the nerves I'm feeling are more about the essay part because I still think that my writing mojo is MIA, I have my moments but in the last four years I haven't been in this situation so I used my blog to keep my writing at least mildly intact and decent. 

I'm not sure why I'm so worried, I will probably do just fine I just don't want a repeat of my first college try..and I will NOT let myself get that way! 

I hate that we  humans tend to be our own worst enemies, hate, hate, HATE it!

xoxo

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Sparks-setting sketch-high school portfolio (1)

Like the hollowing out of a pumpkin on Halloween, visiting the lake house at the Lake of the Ozarks is a tradition every summer for my family. The cement moat around the house is covered in a mosaic of multicolored leaves and  the fire pit is gray and dingy with ash.

Over a hill as tall as a full grown tree distant voices and twigs snapping under foot can be heard. Then two blond teenagers come into focus, one is very energetic whole the other is a little standoffish. The boys gently climb under a wire that divides the two lots and begin to work their way towards the house where plastic chairs and a table are being noisily dragged across the cement. A spark of fire has been lit give the dull gray cement an orange pigmentation. Leaves are being thrown into the smoldering fire making the air around it smell more like autumn than summer.

A crowd of people are gathered around the freshly lit orange glowing fire and conversations are in progress. The two teenagers welcome everyone back for the summer and offer to help unload the bundles and packages from the overstuffed back of vehicles. In a chair set farther back from everyone a lonely girl sits alone with a thick novel reading quietly to herself.

One of the boys bringing up and overfilled cooler from one of the vehicles suddenly stops short and notices the ever changing color of the girl's eyes, after after nearly dropping the cooler on his foot he is brought back to reality and the girl continues reading. In  that split second of time, the world and everyone in it just stopped for the two of them and a spark was ignited between them that only they could feel the warmth of.


Thoughts? I wrote in it high school. New stuff is in the works between classes.

xoxo


Thursday, August 25, 2011

My first (of many) obligatory back to school posts.

Tomorrow I begin packing more or less every possession I have into my tiny car and Saturday morning I hit the road and begin the hour drive towards school.

The word 'exhaustion' is now exhausted from my vocabulary.

My brother is still not taking it to well and my Mom is just kind of dealing in her own way I suppose, she hasn't really said much to me about the whole thing. It's kind of sad especially since my brothers have football the day I move in and she can't help me move in but I gotta be an adult and do it myself.

I feel like I could puke.

I think that's all I have to say tonight, words are failing me due to stress and too much going on in my head. I hope you all have a great and significantly less stressful weekend than I'm about to, but I say bring it to allof the stress.

Monday, August 22, 2011

This isn't goodbye, not really.




Today begins the start of a very long week of a very long year for my family and I. With the news of my appeal going through and my elation to start moving and getting the hell out of Dodge I think that my youngest brother, whom I'm very close with may be taking this the hardest..well maybe we all are come to think of it. My youngest brother is spoiled rotten and mainly by me, we have little sister brother dates to the frozen yogurt shop and to lunch and to get a small toy now and then. So it's understandably going to be hard on he and I because that was our thing. It's not something 6 year olds can just forget about doing stuff like that takes time for anyone. I know that it's my fault that he's taking this so hard but he does know that his big sister needs to get out of the house and do better things with her life. Plus it's not like I'm going to be hours away, just one and I intend to visit every chance I get.

There will be a waterfall of tears comparable to Niagra Falls this week.


Friday, August 19, 2011

Breaking News

I don't have a lot of time to write this because I actually used my time semi productively at the library today because our wifi is out again. Surprised? Neither am I. But I went to the mailbox the other day and that letter that I have been agonizing and stressing out like crazy over for the past month or so came and while I shook like a leaf in a hurricane upon it's arrival I gathered my courage, opened it and well...they said yes! My appeal went through, though I have to do a few provisionary things but I'm still in and going and will finally get to meet my roommate and have everything else that I've been talking about in past posts happen!

My elation cannot even be put into words let alone one emotional blog post.

Now I have 6 days to do what most people have had done for the past month or so...no pressure because I have an adrenaline rush that will last me til Christmas!

xoxo

Monday, August 15, 2011

I have a secret..kinda...

When I was sick with cancer about a year and a half ago I could barely eat, well not a lot of the food that I was supposed to eat while dealing with chemotherapy and all of the crap that that whole process entails. My nurses handed me a massive pamphlet about dealing with the whole process and while skimming it I saw that I could pretty much anything, anything that I could hold down, so I started to whip up my own semi recipes from magazines, the internet etc.




During the fall/winter and into spring (right before I went into remission) I was in the kitchen for about two month in between chemo sessions, I was baking of all things; cookies! Not to toot my own horn but my cookies are pretty freaking awesome, especially when my brother helps me and we both *secretly* steal licks of the batter and chunks of the chips. I'm a great sister. I made everything from your run of the mill chocolate chip cookies to butterscotch/white chocolate morsel cookies to peanut butter. Sadly I wasn't as deep into the internet and food blogs as I am now but I've been learning so much from so many wonderful people and their beautiful blogs out there. This fall since I may not be going to the school I intended to yet, because you gotta walk before you can run I'm going to start up my baking some more. That even includes baking up a recipe that my friend introduced me to the other day, it includes espresso and since I'm a coffee noob I was wired  and then tired once I had devoured my share, but it was so worth it.....

..and then...

my mom bought a jar of Nutella and my little brother and I have been on the hunt for some delicious recipes to avoid eating the whole jar with giant spoons. It's safe to say that I will be making a bakery's worth of cookies and other goodies in the coming months. I may have to turn my blog into a food blog for a couple of months but I'll be back to my normal random thoughts as soon as I can, that includes the writing portfolio.

Recipes on the board:

Nutella Pop Tarts!
F-f-f- french toast
Brownies anyone?
Fudge!
Cookies!?

I'm a bit of a sweet tooth :B


Procrastination

I had my last dentist appointment today (well until January) and I hate that I can't feel my face because I'm really hungry and Nutella toast sounds amazing right now. This week I have so much to do and I should be getting as much done today as I can I really don't want to and I really don't think that I should since it's so dreary and gross outside and I'm low on gas. So I think that today will just be a gloriously lazy day for me and my family, especially since my brothers start school this week and they should relax as much as they can before hitting the books again.

xoxo

P.S I'm going to be typing up my old writing portfolio this week and putting it up here :) I hope you guys like it.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

A manifesto of sorts

I've been in need of a long good has you in a fetal position on the bathroom floor for hours cry for quite some time now. So naturally I went to a movie to see if I could cry the well dry and ring out every last tear from my heavy eyes. Apparently I was wrong, my labors were fruitless and once again I felt defeated, Life-67767656565856 points Nicole- -4. I went to see the movie The Help tonight after work and by myself. I'm one of those strange types that enjoy seeing a movie by themselves every now and then and comes home and incorporates it in to a blog post. Sue me. I went in to the movie knowing that it would be sad but I wasn't aware of the magnitude of sadness because I never finished the book when I started reading it. I digress, I sat down ready to be inspired and maybe even have a good cry, the sad parts were sad and the happy parts were beautiful and the whole movie was really done well. But even when the saddest parts came on and everyone else around me was blubbering like a baby who's candy has just been stolen, my tears never fell. I think I'm broken. If anyone has seen that Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet movie where they switch houses for like a month because they're sick of their current lives and need a change and Cameron Diaz just broke up with her boyfriend but can't properly mourn the break up by crying about it, well then damnit just give me some blond hair and a hot body and call me Cameron, because I think I'm broken too! One would think that with all of the stress and sadness and anger in me at the moment that I would just be a teary faced hot mess (I kind of am right now, but that's a different story) but I'm just….. I don't know really, I think I might have known a while ago but now I'm not sure.


 

There are a few things I do know for sure though;

- I'm over this overly sullen and gloomy happy masked face girl that I have been lately.

–I'm sick of being in this seemingly perpetual creative rut, and I want the spark for writing that I used to have to come back like fire from a blow torch.

-I want to continue my education, work my ass off and get to a better spot in my life. This life is not one that my Dad or stepmom saw me having before they passed away.

-I want to be happy more than anything right now momentary happiness isn't cutting it for me anymore. Sorry John Lennon but I'm about to do away with my "waves of sorrow and pools of joy" even if it kills me!

I've started to contemplate on my Plan B if my school rejects my appeal and says that I can't study there because I may be "too much of a risk for them to take", though I'm thinking all the positive thoughts that I can and am praying like crazy that they say yes and give me the chance that I so desperately need/want to make a positive change in my life and make my Dad and the rest of my family proud. I am ready for it, I'm hungry for it and I have total confidence in myself that I will do great, even if a little help is needed in between. But just waiting for an answer is agonizing. I've decided that if I'm rejected that I'm going to go back to the community college here in town because I want to fill my head with more than just what my regulars at work order and I'm going to at least get my Associate's and eventually work to getting back to the University to finish everything up and go from there. I'm also going to seek out the help from my friends because I have to get out of this house and off of my mom's leash. I love her but I'm done raising kids. I'm probably a terrible selfish person now for saying all of that but I'm 22 years old and I have a life ahead of me that I'm losing sight of every day. I can't and I won't let that happen because I'm not getting any younger and life's not getting any easier for anyone but the least I could do for myself is to save myself from following someone else's foot path when I could blaze my own trail and travel the road less traveled.

Monday, August 8, 2011

STRESS!

This waiting for an answer is killing me, just tell me "yes" and let me start the school year!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Why I want to change my name...

It has started and no I'm not excited about it,unlike the rest of America and my family and more than half of my Facebook friends. I've considered changing my name to my middle name.

Monday, August 1, 2011

The World Through a Bibliophile's Eyes

Today I was out with a friend of mine trying to beat this 100+ degree heat, our methods included gorging ourselves on delicious and copious amounts of frozen yogurt and driving in his air conditioned car to a hot spot around our part of town. We ventured all around to our usual favorite shops and as usual I dragged the poor guy to Barnes & Noble because people with addictions usually can’t be stopped. We started browsing through the genres and reading various blurbs in the YA section and it kind of hit me that the fantasy/sci-fi section is getting kind of ridiculous these days.(Though I have to admit that the rest of the YA section is pretty awesome.) At least to a point. I don’t have much room to argue this because I do enjoy a good sci-fi/fantasy novel now and then like anyone else and I’m a Harry Potter and The Hunger Games fan so the point that I’m trying to get at is nearly moot. I sought out feedback on this issue through Twitter at the time but no one felt like talking about books I guess.

As we moved along we hit the reference aisle and though I wasn’t really looking for something, because that’s not how I shop for books I happened to fall into the Writer’s reference aisle and I came across a series of books that are either going to make me seem really nerdy or dumb for even mentioning them but if I cared why would I be sharing? * The amount of books in that section is ridiculous and in a totally good way, because I couldn’t help myself I bought The Constant Art of Being a Writer: The Life, Art and Business of Fiction because it just seems to fit the place that I’m in now. I am very well aware that most of my writing lately has been shitty and it scares me that my writing skills may have peaked in high school. Wouldn’t that suck? Can you imagine a girl that is related to Mark Twain (in the faintest way) can’t write anymore but it’s pretty much the ONLY thing she wants to do in life, besides a day job?! Oh the madness!!

I’ve been thinking about picking up writing short stories or poetry again just to stretch my writing muscles but my writing prompts just turn into tangents about my own life. Which I only do here, I’ll only carry that over when I’m writing my autobiography. As for now I need to find the words to draw out my stress and ultimately clear me from this perpetual writer’s block that I’ve been in for the past few months. It’s beginning to get ridiculous.



What kind of books do you like to read/wish to write one day if you’re the type? Also how do you get out of a writers block??

*I tend to go on random tangents now and then, hints the name of my blog.

xoxo