UCLA vs Cal

This weekend I kept busy by going to my parent's house to visit and going to the UCLA Cal football game at the Rose Bowl on Saturday with my family.  In case I haven't mentioned before, my whole family are huge UCLA football fans and most of them half season tickets to the game.  Since I don't have season tickets, I'll usually go to one game a season when someone doesn't show up and has an extra ticket.  This week a ton of family members were absent due to a wedding so my sister, my mom and I were able to go.  I am happy to report that we won 37 to 10 which still leaves UCLA undefeated for the season.  Anyone who keeps up with pac 12 football knows that's long overdue since we had a pretty big losing streak for a few years up until recently.

Anyhow, that's what I have been up to lately.  Also, I've been ecstatic that it actually feels like fall.

Some September Activities

Let's catch up on what's been going on lately.  We first of all let's just state the obvious, IT'S FALL!  Which means the heat wave in San Diego has officially ended and I can actually wear sweaters and boots without feeling like I'm gonna die.  I have been taking advantage of that this week by pulling all my cardigans out of my closet and putting them to good use.  My favorite fall outfit so far has been the one pictured in the middle.

Cardigan: Old Navy

Dress: Forever21

Earings: Forever21

Glasses: Warby Parker

Phone case: Ebay

Last week was my friend Miranda's birthday and we celebrated by going out to In Cahoots, a country bar in San Diego, for drinks and dancing. Happy Birthday girl!  Also, that was probably the most exciting thing to happen to me in a while because I NEVER go out.

Back to this week, although I'm excited about the weather, this week has been extremely hectic.  I had two midterms on Tuesday; French and 19th century European art history.  I worked Wednesday night so I stated up late studying after I got home then rushed to school early the next morning to study some more.  After a bit of a stressful day my work called later that evening to see if I wanted to pick up a five hour closing shift, which I couldn't say no to, need the money!  So I worked till about 1030, and let me tell you, after that day, I don't think I've ever been more happy to see my bed.  But then this morning I went back to work for a little shopping since it's employee appreciation weekend!  As you can see I got a lot of maroon colored clothing, 1. because its the perfect fall color and 2. because my manager says it's my color and she helped me pick out half of it.  Cannot wait to wear it though, with my new boots!

And in between all of the midterms and work this week I got a cute little snapchat from my sister, it made me smile.

Tonight, to relax me and the roomies ordered pizza, made some margaritas and started watching American Horror Story (which is crazy, have any of you watched it? Creepy and addicting right?)  

What have you all been up to in these first few weeks of fall?

The Autumn Tag

I saw the autumn tag on The Marvelous Flight of Cara's blog and I obviously had to do it.  It's a well known fact that autumn is the best season in the world.  Well, maybe that's more of an opinion...nope actually I'm gonna stand by what I said, it's a fact.  Changing seasons, new Starbucks drinks, and lots of scarves and boots! Yes please!  So here are some of my favorite things about fall in The Autumn Tag...

1.  Favorite thing about autumn.
The clothes.  Not sure who doesn't love wearing boots, scarves, and tights again.  Boots and scarves are definitely my weakness, I have a closet full of boots and I literally have two drawers in one of my dressers dedicated to scarves.  I also love the change in weather and being able to curl up with a cup of coffee and read my kindle, write on my blog, or watch some Netflix while its rainy and cold outside.

2.  Favorite drink
Obviously Starbucks's PSL, Pumpkin Spice Latte!

3.  Favorite scent/candle.
Of course all candles from Bath and Body Works are to die for, I love "Autumn Day" and "Pumpkin Pecan Waffle."  But nothing can beat those smells that have some nostalgia attached to it; the scent of thanksgiving dinner cooking at my parent's house or my mom's pumpkin surprise in the oven.

4.  Best lipstick.
I am a lipstick fanatic so this is a tough one, but MAC's rebel is perfect for fall.

5. Go to moisturizer.
I have really dry skin naturally so cold weather only makes it worse.  I use Cetaphil and Palmer's cocoa butter all year round, in fall I just use more of it.

6. Go to color for eyes.
I don't really have a go to color for my eyes in autumn, pretty much depends on what mood I'm in or what I'm doing.  However, ELF's baked eyeshadows really do remind me of fall.

7.  Favorite music to listen to.
A little Iron and Wine and coffee is perfect for fall.  Also for some reason Nada Surf's cover of "If You Leave" really reminds me of fall.

8.  Favorite outfit.
Dear lord I have to pick one? Impossible.  Just a couple of examples though are, a cute dress with some boots, tights, and a chunky sweater,;or black riding pants, boots, leather jacket, and a big scarf.

9. Favorite autumn treat.
Pumpkin pie and my dad's party potatoes on Thanksgiving.

10. Favorite place to be.
In bed, at my parent's house, or at a UCLA football game!

I tag all of you to answer these questions!

Let me know what you favorite things are about autumn.

Catching up After the Move

So, long absences are a trend for me on my blog and I am through apologizing for them.  I wish had I had the same disciple that so many other bloggers who write everyday or a couple of time a week do, but I do not.  Instead I'll just have to catch you all up on what I did in-between writing.  First of all, as I had been saying, I did in fact move.  My new place feels so much more like home than my old one; although there will always be a certain bit of nostalgia that I hold with that old house, it was my first place away from home besides a dorm room.  While we all know renting in your 20's is far from perfect I am happy to say that I am moving up.

I'll try and post a mini room tour later on.  Also look foward to a post about how I revamped an old TV tray and made it into a cute side table (right) as well as a post about my new friend Reed the Deer.

Besides moving, I have also been working and I started school once again.  I am happy to report I am taking two classes for my major instead of just a ton of transfer catch up classes, hopefully that means I won't want to kill myself this semester.  In the span of two months I have also gotten new glasses, finally visited the San Diego art museum in Balboa Park, watched the entirety of Friday Night Lights, (I recommend it) started looking for a second job, and bought a candle the smells like cinnamon donuts.  Pretty sure those are all of the important things that have happened.

4th of July Weekend

This past weekend was the 4th of July, as I am sure you are all aware.  This is my first full summer living her in San Diego which is pretty cool.  San Diego is obviously a pretty big city with a lot to do and it's a pretty big tourist spot in the summer.  I always wondered what it would be like to live in a popular city where people would come from out of town to vacation, now that I do live in one I can say that it's pretty awesome.  I love San Diego; I would love to live in other places just because I want to experience new things but right now I am loving where I am at.  While I do spend plenty of days inside watching TV and such just like any other person it is nice to live in a place where there is no shortage of things to do; not to mention the beach is about ten minutes away from my house.  I have been trying my best on my limited budget to take advantage of the many things to do hear in SD and 4th of July weekend is probably the time that I had the most success with this.

On 4th of July day Arpi and I woke up and drove down to Ocean Beach which of course was packed.  So packed that we actually almost just left because we could not find parking.  We ended up finding a spot pretty far and just walking which was fine, it was a nice day and there were tons of people walking around in the area and BBQing and having parties.  After laying out for a couple of hours down there we had dinner at Fashion Valley mall and then headed towards downtown and Seaport Village for San Diego's famous fireworks show that can be seen from several spots in the city.  We ended up staking out a perfect spot on the Broadway pier near all the Navy ships and watched the show with about a million other people, honestly I'm surprised we were able to park at both the beach and downtown for the show that day, we definitely got lucky.

This is was in someone's front year in Ocean Beach, I obviously was not tall enough to reach the hole.

Our view of some of the buildings in downtown from the pier.

Waiting for the show to start

The USS Midway was all decked out in red, white, and blue.

Fireworks went off on three different boats in the harbor, we could always see the fireworks show from Sea World from where we were.  You may know this show after it was in the news last year for ALL of their fireworks going off at the same time, that did not happen this year, thank god.

That Saturday my family came down to SD to spend the day at Sea World.  We went for a little but but because it was the holiday weekend it was obviously packed so we didn't stay for too long.  We ended up going to Seaport Village and walking around and then going to dinner near my house afterwards.

A very proud California Sea Lion after being fed his lunch

This picture is self explanatory 

View of the bay and the Coronado Bridge from Seaport Village

An old restaurant in Seaport Village, I'm kind of in love with this old building

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend as well.  This was kind of my last ho-rah since my job started this week.  Yes my friends I did finally find a job; in retail at my local mall, YAY FINALLY!  I'll be busy the next couple of weeks working and MOVING!  I'm staying local just moving to a new little townhouse with Arpi and another roommate.  I've got a few DIYs for the new house and I'll be sure and blog about the move.  

June Madness

First of all I would just like to say that the Blog Everyday in May challenge was a hell of a lot easier when I was in school and trying to find reasons to put off studying.  As soon as I was free to do whatever I wanted writing a post about my favorite childhood memory did not seem as fun as going to the beach.  But honestly, I really have been busy.  See...!

From these photos the most apparent thing I did these past two weeks was discover the app A Beautiful Mess along with the rest of the world.  I also stayed at my parent's house for ten days, and in that time period we celebrated just about everything.  Our family friends threw a memorial day BBQ/surprise graduation party for a friend who just graduated from cosmetology school, my sister had her baccalaureate AND graduated from high school, two of my cousin's got married, although I was only able to attend one wedding due to the fact the other was the day of Molly's graduation.  The one we did go to was the night before.  My parent's had a graduation party for Molly at our house and just about everyone we know came.  Needless to say I was exhausted after that weekend.  I didn't even get to watch the new season of Arrested Development until I got back to San Diego this week! Ridiculous!  However, I did some other pretty cool things since school has been out like eat In n Out, buy an overpriced candle that smells like cookies, go to the beach, celebrate national donut day, and I bought some mugs at the dollar store.

Now that I'm back in SD the days have slowed to about the pace of a snail. All of my roommates have been working or are out of town and my job hunt still continues.  Hopefully I find something soon because to pass my time I've had to spread out my errands just so I can get out of the house more than once a week, I've also been spending any days at home cleaning the house although there's only so much I can do.  I'm pretty sure I've watched the same Keeping up with the Kardashians episode five times (is that all that that channel plays?) Dear god, what is the deal with my life?  I really need a job.

Blog Everyday in May: My Happy List

I'm back after a couple of days off for finals.  Today was my last one though, it's officially summer!  Today's topic is ten things that make you happy.  Seems easy enough right?

This picture is not necessarily related except it also makes me happy.

1.  My parents, Molly, and Cash
2.  The beach house
3.  Christmas time
4.  Coffee
5.  Watching Friends in bed after a bad day
6.  When summer changes to fall
7.  Old friends and old memories
8.  Football season
9.  Doing something I'm good at
10. Songs that remind me of specific times in my life

Blog Everyday in May: What I Miss

Today's topic is What do you miss?  Instead of writing about it, I thought I would just post some pictures of a few things I miss.

When nothing matter but my three best friends in high school.

Cheerleading in junior high and high school.

My best friend

And of course whenever I'm not there I miss the beach house.

Blog Everyday in May: 10 Words

I skipped the last two days of Blog Everyday in May because I had my very difficult French final today and a final paper due yesterday, school comes first y'all!  But I'm back for day 11!  Today's prompt is, "Sell yourself in 10 words or less."  I'm a little unsure of how to describe myself so I asked friends and family to help out, here are the ten best adjectives I got...

Sassy
Witty
Sparkly  
Small 
Stylish
Strong-willed
Creative 
Strong
Tenacious 
Busty

Thank you to my family and friends for those words.  Sorry Molly I did not use "slimey" and Regdor I did not use "whimsical."

Blog Everyday in May: Things I'm Afraid of

Today's topic for Blog Everyday in May is "thing(s) you are most afraid of."  Honestly, I'm afraid of a lot.  Two days ago I found a spider ON MY BED, I'm afraid of that happening again, only the spider bigger and hairy and it eats me.

I am afraid of spiders, and heights and Jello (nothing should be that consistency).  On a serious note though, I am afraid of not doing all of the things I want to do in life.  It is very easy for me to get comfortable or give up, unfortunately it's just my personality.  I am sure it is everyones to an extent.  It's easy to become comfortable and not push yourself to do new things or meet new people.  A lot of times I am scared that I will never get married or have a family of my own, because cliche as it may be, it is what I want.  I get afraid that I'll never see the things I want to see or live the places I want to live and I'll regret it.  In general I am just afraid of my future.  I hate change but sometimes I get restless and want it; it's a very conflicting way to live, I wouldn't recommend it.

Also, I am afraid that I won't pass French 100B.

Blog Everyday in May: I am 22

I consciously made the decision to not blog yesterday because I needed to stare at my books and think about studying.  Only after I do that, can I actually study.  So any who, I'm back today.

The questions for today is, "If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question, 'what do you do?'"

The fact is that at the moment I am an unemployed student.  I have had odd minimum wage jobs and I will be looking for another one once finals are over but like most twenty two year olds, I do not have a career.  As of right now basically what I do is figure out what I want to do!  That's kind of the cool and scary part of being in college.  You have your whole life ahead of you so I still get to figure out what it is I want to do for the rest of my life.  I really don't know exactly what that is going to be, I may not even necessarily use my degree in art history, as much as I love it.

Being my age I often get people hounding me about what I am going to do with the rest of my life, like I should already know and have a plan.  I think they are just jealous that I am young and can still chose whatever path I want in life.  Honestly, you can do that at any age, it is just that as we get older and more comfortable it gets harder and it gets scarier.

As for right now, I go to school and learn about what interests me, I blog and make things in my spare time, and I stress about the future.  I spend money I don't have, I have fun with friends and roommates, I don't do laundry as much as I should. I eat grilled cheese for dinner almost every night, sometimes I drink more than I should, and I sometimes I watch too much TV.  I am twenty-two, that is what I do right now and you know, that is fine for now.

Blog Every Day in May: Things that Make You Uncomfortable

I am trying to think of what exactly I can write about in this post.  I do not tend to dwell on uncomfortable or awkward situations, it's really not that big of a deal to me.  I actually kind of like them sometimes; is that weird?  I am that person with an odd sense of humor, and I like giving answers that no one really expects, even if I am not serious.  I mentioned in my last post that when people ask me what I plan to do with my major I have said, "Probably work at Starbucks." And when someone has asked me if I am liking school I simply have responded with, "no."  Those are both really good ways to end a conversation if you don't mind it being a big awkward for a few seconds.  

Anyway, situations don't really make me uncomfortable as much as they annoy me.  Like most of the time I really do not want to hear about your sex life. I am not a prude and I get that girlfriends talk but I really do not want to know the details and I have no idea why some girls do.  Again, if someone is hard to talk to and connect with it's more annoying than uncomfortable to me.

So, this is gonna be a very short blog because I obviously have nothing to say on the topic. Guess I'll see you guys tomorrow.

Blog Everyday in May: Art History

First off I would like to say that I am writing most of this post on my iPhone. I have a two hour break between classes, I have forgotten my laptop and my kindle is dead, so here we are. Today is day two of the Blog Everyday in May Challenge and the prompt is to write about something you know a lot about. I know a lot about very few things in life but one thing I kind of have to know about is art history. Art history is my major. Majoring in a subject is weird, you have to pay to dedicate 4+ years to learning about a topic of your choice. Most people chose to major in something that will gain the approval of the average society member and potentially earn them a steady income. I on the other had have no interest in pleasing my conservative family so I switched my major to art with an emphasis in art history.

San Francisco 09 visiting the art in Golden Gate Park. Clearly excited.

When I tell people my major I almost always get a confused or condescending look followed by the question, "So, what do you plan to do with that?" It's really not a question though if you have already decided in your mind that my degree will be useless. I have started surprising people by answering with exactly what they are thinking, "I'll probably just work at Starbucks." Now, I do not plan to work at Starbucks all my life, but seeing the look on their face when I say that is priceless.

However, I digress. I am going to write about three things you should know about art as a beginning art historian or appreciator of art. I am just an undergraduate so I would not say that my knowledge is extensive on the subject but in my opinion these three things are essential to understand when studying art.

The first thing you need to know about art is that it is universal. Every culture in every time period creates or created art. Making art is an innate human ability; it is a common thread everyone shares. I am willing to bet that every single one of you had some type of drive to create art at a young age. If a child is give a crayon and a piece of paper he will draw something on that paper, art. There are only a select few of us that continue to expand on this artistic ability but it lies in all of us.  For this reason, art is important.  Unfortunately, many people do not see it that way; many parents see their children experimenting with art the same as experimenting with hard core drugs.  This general disregard for art is a phenomenon that is definitely apparent in the United States.  Most other countries have a cabinet-level official in charge of the arts and culture, we do not.  Most other countries hold art and culture to be much more important and I think a huge part of that is because it is so universal.  Realizing that about art makes you appreciate it a little bit more.

The second thing you need to know about art is that it is subjective.  This is obvious, I am sure everyone could have guessed that there is not really a right or a wrong to art.  It is not math or biology, it is not black and white.  Although it is obvious, it is important to realize and accept before criticizing a piece or really learning anything about art and its history.

The third thing I think is important to know and accept is that art is fucking weird.  People often say they do not like a certain type of art because it is "weird."  They say, "I don't get how that's art!"  You probably don't get how it's art because you just don't get it period.  Before you say that you do not like something, learn about it.  You cannot dislike something you know nothing about.  The fact is that even if you study it and appreciate a piece for what it is, it's still pretty weird.  I think it's great that art is weird.  You need to remember that the people making art were usually that weird kid in the back of the classroom that sculpted things out of the deformed crayons and he probably had a pet snake or something.  Again, I think that's great; let your freak flag fly.  Basically what I am trying to say is, educate yourself about a piece or a movement before your criticize it, it's not gonna make a blob of animal fat on display, or Yoko Ono letting an audience member cut off her clothing any less weird but you're also not gonna sound like an idiot when you talk about it.  The fact is that art reflects religious, social, and philosophical issues so there IS more to them than you think. There IS a point.

I hope you learned something or at least were slightly amused for the few minutes it took you to read this.  Now anytime I say that I have been busy with school just know that this is what I am doing...

or this..

or this..