Halloween!

I've always been a fan of Halloween, not because its creepy and scary but because I LOVE DRESSING UP!!!!! Yep I was that little girl with a dress up clothes chest and came up with a new character everyday so Halloween was like amazing because I could dress up even more! GAH!

My favorite costumes were a picnic table (complete with food) and a cheetah (mom made me a cheetah jumper and a cap with ears. It. was. awesome.). I never went trick or treating a ton though, we didn't live in a neighborhood, we lived out in the boonies, so we went to our "harvest festival" at school...I went to a Lutheran school. But as I got older friends and I would start meeting at their houses and go trick or treating in their neighborhoods. We trick or treated all through high school. I'm not kidding. I love candy and dressing up that much that I made my friends go every year! They liked though, don't let them tell you otherwise!

In college we didn't do a ton, our school would open all our dorms for the professors kids to come trick or treating through and that was pretty cute, but that was about all we did. Then I moved to LA. Halloween there is AMAZING!!!! We heard that Santa Monica Blvd was the place to be so were like ok we'll do that. We heard it was crazy, but didn't know that it was CRAZZZYYYYY!!!!! Seriously! insane. But so freaking awesome! All you really do it walk up and down SMB and see all the crazy and drunk people dressed up. But we had so much fun the two years we lived there!

The first year I was a bumble bee (by far my best homemade costume of all time), Heather was Hannah Montana and Ashlee was the Hulk!

That costume was so hot! It'd be perfect for cool weather Halloween, but not for a California Halloween! I had to take it off before we drove home, and by the way I had to have two people help me into and out of it. The first time I tried it on the girls were helping me out of it and we had the biggest giggle fit and couldn't get it off of me for awhile, I was stuck in my bee costume! 

Anyway last year our girls from Seattle came down to see the madness. Heather, Ashlee, Bethanie and I dressed up as the Jonas Brothers. Again, awesome. Jessie was Janice Joplin and the rest of the girls were roller derby chicks. We had a blast, it was great to share the craziness with our girls because its not something you can describe accurately! 

I wish I had pictures of Santa Monica Blvd, but the few we managed are too dark to see anything well. Just trust we it's crazy. If you're ever in LA for Halloween you have to go!!!

I can't wait for this Halloween, have I mentioned lately that my bff's are coming tomorrow? they are. It's gonna be so fun! I have no idea what its like here for Halloween, I've heard fun. So we shall see!

Hope you all have a good weekend! 

(Thursday are my Friday so that's why I'm a little early in saying happy weekend, just btw)

Happy Halloween!

Playing hooky

Sometimes in every school career you just need a day off. Today was that day. I've been feeling melancholy all weekend and just need a mental health day. I just knew I couldn't sit through two and half hours of class today. I think I'm really ready for this quarter to be done with and to be home for a while! But Thursday evening my bff's are coming for the weekend so I'm very much looking forward to that and to having people to talk to! But I'm missing my Seattle really bad, they're having the autumn storms this week that come this time of year and I'm stuck in gross 80 degree weather. But only about three more weeks! I can make it through this!

I miss fall color,

and real rain.

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LIZA!

Have I told you I'm gonna be Liza Minelli for Halloween? I was in a vintage store looking for a present for someone and I saw THE MOST AMAZING Liza shirt ever! Think red sheer and feathers! Oh it's gonna be fantastic! The only thing I haven't figured out yet is my hair. I'm blond and haven't seen a wig that works and don't want to spray my hair black...hmmm...I may just be a blond Liza. We'll see.

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just some days

There just some days when all this sustainability talk really gets me down, I literally cry about it! You can't talk or learn about sustainability without some doom and gloom, its just the nature of it. But there's just some days when it seriously hurts my heart! I ache for this planet and for the people of it and for the future generations to come! What have we done? And why? Didn't we notice what was happening to the environment and to the people and to society? How could we have missed it or overlooked it?

Can we really make the changes that we so desperately need to get our planet back to working order? Can our planet ever really sustain all the people on it? Does anyone really care? I mean do people care what's happening and what has already happened? Isn't it easier to just turn a blind eye to all the problems and not deal with them because we'll probably be gone from this planet before it's complete and total chaos anyway?

But then I remind myself that huge issues in the past have changed! The tobacco industries. Women's and African American rights. And those weren't easy fights. They took a long time. Sustainability or "green" or whatever you want to call it is going to be a hard fight and its going to take a while to change! And I believe we can do it! In fact I know we can do it! I wouldn't be fighting for this change if I didn't. God gave us one planet that sustains life for the people he created, and he left the care of it up to us, how can we not want to make it a better place than we "found" it?

I've grown to strong to ever fall back in your arms.

I know I can't take one more step towards you because all thats waiting is regret...
Who do you think you are running around leaving scars collecting your jar of hearts tearing love apart you're gonna catch a cold from all the ice in your soul...

where was this song when I needed it? haha!

cafe dreamin'

Heather and I started dreaming tonight of opening our own little cafe one day (I must graduate first, but that will be in August so not too far away)! I talked about how I want to open one a while ago and seriously I can't stop dreaming about it lately! I just think it'd be so fun! So I found some inspiring cafe pictures for us tonight. :)

Me and my big ideas...

As I was sitting in class today I was day dreaming (as usual) and I suddenly had this idea for my thesis project, which will be this summer. I would love to see if my home town in WA would be on board with the idea of me coming in as a sustainable facilitator to help create some new systems and come up with ideas to make the city more sustainable! I have no idea if this will even work, I'm going to contact city officials and see if they are even open to this idea and I'll think up some ideas to present just as a starting point. I just think this would such an awesome project to end this degree with because it'd be actually meaningful and make a difference! It'd also be hard and take a lot of perseverance to get people on board with it! But I think it has potential to be something that will work and make my home town a great model for others! We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Silly East coast.

Why doesn't the East coast have mountains? What is wrong with them? I miss my mountains, even LA has mountains! (betcha didn't know that did ya?) 

Its so strange to live somewhere where you can't see...well...anything. In Washington you always have a view of mountains or of the water. Same with LA, we lived right in the foothills so always saw the pretty...ok brown (except in winter)...mountains. But anyway I'm sick of not having any pretty scenery to look at! I want my mountains! Stupid East coast.

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And if you're an East Coast person don't try and tell me you have mountains, you don't. They are hills. They take less than 5 minutes to drive to the top! Seriously, until you've seen the West coast mountains you haven't seen mountains at all (well unless you've seen like the Himalayas or Andes or something but that's not the point)! Anyway, just another reason why West is best. End of story. Oh and guess what, only a month until I get to go home for winter break! wahoo!!!

Happy Monday!

What I Wore: blushing pink

I guess I have color themes happening this week!

I couldn't help myself when I realized how well my shoes and top matched!

Top: Target

Jeans: JCrew

Shoes: Linea Paolo

Necklace: JCrew

Missing LA.

I've been missing Los Angeles really bad the past couple of weeks! I'm not sure why, its just been on my mind lately. In about a month it'll have been a year since I moved away. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, and yet at the same time it seems like it was a lifetime ago.

My life there never stopped, it was a whirlwind of awesome Hollywood nights and work days in downtown and fun kid like days skipping all over Disneyland and sun soaked days on the beach.

I miss it a lot. I don't think anyone can truly appreciate LA until you lived there. There's so much there that you could never find or have time to visit on a vacation. If I ever lived there again I'd go back to the little town we lived in, Claremont. Or I'd want to be right in downtown, in one of the awesome art deco houses!

What I miss most at this moment is Pinkberry, the California beaches, Disneyland, Mani's cafe, The Grove, driving through downtown and seeing all the different types of people, Halloween on Santa Monica Blvd.,  and that gorgeous golden sun.

Disneyland

Love that skyline

Laguna Beach

LACMA

Hollywood (Grauman's Chinese Theater)

View from Griffith Observatory 

Halloween last year

The beach on Nov. 1

Disneyland in November

If you're ever in LA go here! Its so yummy! 

(just past Fairfax and Olympic)

Going home on the 10 freeway

sources: weheartit, myself and Ashlee

What I Wore: teal love

Shirt: Target

Jeans: Forever 21

Shoes: Nine West

Necklace: Forever 21

Getting into God's Stride.

This was yesterday's My Utmost For His Highest. wow. I love the last sentence.

The true test of a person’s spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening. A person’s worth is revealed in his attitude toward the ordinary things of life when he is not under the spotlight (seeJohn 1:35-37 and John 3:30). It is painful work to get in step with God and to keep pace with Him— it means getting your second wind spiritually. In learning to walk with God, there is always the difficulty of getting into His stride, but once we have done so, the only characteristic that exhibits itself is the very life of God Himself. The individual person is merged into a personal oneness with God, and God’s stride and His power alone are exhibited.

It is difficult to get into stride with God, because as soon as we start walking with Him we find that His pace has surpassed us before we have even taken three steps. He has different ways of doing things, and we have to be trained and disciplined in His ways. It was said of Jesus— “He will not fail nor be discouraged . . .” (Isaiah 42:4) because He never worked from His own individual standpoint, but always worked from the standpoint of His Father. And we must learn to do the same. Spiritual truth is learned through the atmosphere that surrounds us, not through intellectual reasoning. It is God’s Spirit that changes the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and then things begin to be possible which before were impossible. Getting into God’s stride means nothing less than oneness with Him. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don’t give up because the pain is intense right now— get on with it, and before long you will find that you have a new vision and a new purpose.

What I Wore: Monday blues

This week is full of homework! I have a midterm project/presentation due next Monday. I was sick over the weekend so was feeling pretty sleepy and out of it and decided to just throw on an easy outfit. Its also gotten hot again here, its back to the high 80's so shorts are coming back out. I miss real Fall weather! (please excuse the messy room, I haven't had time to think about tidying up for awhile!)

Shirt: Men's Hanes v-neck

Shorts: JCrew

Shoes: Converse

Bracelet: by an artist in Whistler, BC (present from mom)

no clear path

Sometimes I think I should have gone into a medical profession! Or into something like teaching. Learning how to work in one of those professions has a formula. You know what you need to learn and what you're going to learn and there is a definite end goal in sight.

Sustainable design has no formula for learning. None of us doing this degree have any idea where its going to take us when we finish in a year. Its a scary scary place! We come into this degree and think we know what sustainability is...but we don't. We have learned so much new stuff that our heads are going to explode! And the problem is there isn't much to see from what we have learned. Being that this area is so new there aren't always things to see that have happened. People have been working to open the doors of sustainability, but its been for the past twenty years, and even way beyond that. So those of us who are going into the world of sustainability have to now figure out what the hell we do with these open doors! What does it actually mean to be sustainable? how to we get average Joe to respond to this crisis? how can we make people see that its not just a trend that the world and future generations depend upon action? And how do we apply all this to our area of expertise in design? There's so many questions in this area that can't be answered but by just getting your hands dirty and doing it and hoping to God it doesn't fail! But I think in sustainability we are all going to fail, we are all going to come up against a lot people who don't understand what we are doing and who will "slap us around" as my prof put it so eloquently today. But we're also going to push the envelope of what design can do, of how design responds to people and what design means for people!

Somedays I still think though, wouldn't it have been nice to have gone into a degree where you more or less know what to expect! Where you're studying things that have been studied for decades and centuries? No one thinks a medical person is crazy or a teacher is super liberal hippy just out to save trees. And they can say oh I'm a teacher or oh I'm nurse and everyone know exactly what they are. When people ask me what I'm studying I say I'm in designing for sustainability and they just look at me and say oh thats nice. So I have to say you know the "green movement" thats kinda sorta a little bit of what we are doing. And they say oh so like recycling.

yeah. recycling. thats what we study.

total meltdown.

It was one of those super stressful weeks and it all suddenly came crashing down on me tonight. I had to order a new power cord for my computer, it came today and of course it doesn't work! ARGH! It was the straw though that broke the proverbial camel's back, I had a total sobbing couldn't breathe melt down.

So I'm putting myself to bed early (I'm starting to get sick too) and hopefully I'll wake up with a new outlook (and no more sore throat) in the morning! The stress isn't going to stop anytime soon either...presentation next week and a midterm presentation the week after that, along with a book/journal thing due the same day. oi vay.

But then, soon after, I'll have a mini vacay when Ashlee, Heather and Janelle visit for Halloween! I am so looking forward to that weekend! I can't wait to have friends here, people to actually for real talk to! It'll be amazing! And we're staying at a swanky hotel, so it'll be like a pamper weekend! yay! I hope you have a nice weekend, I have to go to Design Ethos all day tomorrow (had it today too), its a sustainable design conference my prof put together. Anyway, happy weekend!

Somedays...

I'm in such a food rut lately. Part of the problem is this kitchen in this apartment is designed so horribly. You'd think a design school would do a better job! Anyway, there's no storage and as any gluten free person knows you need lots of storage for flours and other random goods. I have two shelves to myself, I even had to put food in my room because I ran out of space! Also its a horrible kitchen to cook in, it just doesn't lend itself to its most essential job! There is absolutely no counter space, and any counter space free has drying dishes on it because apparently my roommates don't believe in using a dish washer!

Somedays I dream of dropping out of school and opening a small cafe/bakery, all gluten free and vegetarian of course! It'd be so fun to come up with new recipes and different versions of old ones! But considering I only have a year left of school (so silly not to finish now) and no money it won't happen. Wouldn't it be funny if after all this education I ended up opening a place like that?? My mom says she can see me doing that, like the girl in stranger than fiction. It would be a lot fun, also a lot of work. I just think it'd be so nice to have to cook everyday for people, sounds weird, but seriously then I'd have to be creative and I wouldn't eat the same thing all the time! Maybe someday I'll start a little cafe of my own. Jen's Cafe? Jen's Place? And it'd so cute, either super modern or very vintage feel...considering I'm an interior designer I don't think I'd be able to help myself. Also it'd be totally sustainable...after all I am getting a degree in sustainable design...but not just design but the food would be sustainable as well. Local and organic!

Hm. Could be fun. Ok well, enough day dreaming, back to homework. Happy Wednesday!

Morning walks at Forsyth Park