Life is calling.

So I may have barely hinted at this announcement with one tweet that you probably all missed or something, so let me just say: I've got an announcement!

Remember when I had it on my Weekly Wishes to study my Spanish because I might be moving somewhere where I'll need to speak it? Well, let's just say it's a good thing I didn't do much in the way of following through with that one. Because what I'm really going to need to be learning is ROMANIAN. If you've never seen Romanian, here's a hint: it's one of those languages that has so many diacritics that I've never heard of.... Needless to say, that part doesn't thrill me yet.

Wait, did I get ahead of myself? Why do I have to learn Romanian (oh, it also could be Russian..........)?

If you didn't know, which you probably didn't.. In the beginning of this year, I submitted my application to join the Peace Corps.

After months and months of waiting and waiting and filling stuff out and interviewing and checking my email obsessively and that darn government shutdown..

I finally got my invitation!

Let me back up again. Remember how I went to Emory this week to visit friends? Well, I was in my little's room with her talking about boys or something, when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number but thanks to the iPhone saying "DC, USA" underneath it, I did some internal freaking out thinking it might be PC.

AND IT WAS.

It was a nice woman from the placement office that had just a few questions for me about a change in departure date and a slight change in assignment, all of which I happily agreed to. She said she would be able to email me my invitation, probably Thursday, and asked if I had any questions. UH YES CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE IT IS?!

AND SHE COULD.

She said it would be Eastern Europe. Remember when my recruiter told me to learn Spanish for Latin America? Hahahahaha, so funny! So since I was with my little, I got to do a lot of jumping up and down and hugging, with a few happy tears of course because of my constant high level of emotion. It felt like one of the best days of my recent life.

Then on Wednesday, RIGHT BEFORE my friend and I went to get our palms read, I got the email.

June 2014. I'm going to Moldova.

Okay, I checked. Moldova is actually 5035 miles from me. But still.

Moldova, Eastern Europe.

Hope you're excited to come with me because Cat on the Wall is for sure coming too.

There it is, folks! Now you know! Now I know! Hootie hoo!!

[UPDATE: I'm currently serving in Moldova and blogging at Wining & Whining if you'd like to read about my experiences.]

Weekly Wishes #10

This Weekly Wishes post will be a place for me to share my goals for the week. Hopefully blogging about them will help them to actually happen!

This week I am featured in the "Celebrate" participant photos! So exciting because the picture from my big's wedding means a lot to me - it was truly a beautiful celebration and an enchanting day.

For today's "Creativity" picture, I picked one from my art show earlier this year, which is one of my biggest accomplishments as of yet. It fits well with one of this week's goals!

Last week I wanted to: Pack for Emory! I packed! I am here now, so if I hadn't packed I would be lacking a lot of things I need.

Have a lot of fun seeing people I miss. I am definitely doing this. Saturday was Homecoming and I got to see so many people I hadn't seen in a long time! It was a great day and it has been a completely fantastic weekend.  

Catch up on Everyday Happy. I was able to do a little bit of this, but not a ton. Which I am okay with! I'm just moving at my own pace at the moment. 

This week I want to: Help my friend with her art show. That is officially the reason I am staying here for a week when the event I was coming for was just on Saturday. She has to turn in 12 pieces at the end of the semester and some of it kind of requires 4 hands, so I'm going to be the other two! 
Take a risk. I don't exactly want to explain what this one is about right now (if I'm being honest, I may never explain it), but just know that I want to do it. It's funny when you're away from home and things happen at speeds that are not the way they would be in a normal setting.. So with all of that vagueness, I just want to see what happens here.
Continue having fun with my friends! Another easy one to cross off the list :)

Wish me luck on my goals this week, and I hope you accomplish yours too! Don't forget to link up to Melyssa at The Nectar Collective to share with everyone else!

The Sunday Currently...

Currently... 

Reading Sequel to The Maze Runner; The Scorch Trials by James Dashner. It's taking a long time, but I'm enjoying it!

Writing down what I did the past few days on my perpetual calendar.  

Listening to my friends study for a test they have tomorrow. 

Thinking about just how freaking nervous I am for tonight's first date.

Smelling Dunkin' Donuts - study food of champions! 

Wishing I could stay here forever.

Hoping I don't make a huge fool out of myself tonight. 

Wearing pajamas still (again, rather) because I haven't figured out what to wear for the rest of the day yet.

Loving being at my alma mater with my best friends.

Wanting the pictures currently being taken to never go online, since I look ridiculous with a towel on my head, hehe!

Needing to chill out. 

Clicking Smart, Pretty and Awkward.

What are you doing right now?

Weekly Wishes #9

This Weekly Wishes post will be a place for me to share my goals for the week. Hopefully blogging about them will help them to actually happen!

Happy Wednesday! I know I'm late on this Weekly Wishes situation, but better late than never! 

The reason I'm so behind schedule with everything is.. well there are a ton! This last weekend I went to a wedding, which was more wonderful than I could have imagined, and that has been much of the source of my distraction these last few days. I'm also going down to visit friends tomorrow (I get to stay there a week, yay!) so I was scheduled for way more hours than usual since I won't be working for that week. 

Last week I wanted to: Mail my Snail Mail Collective gift. I finally did this, so now Alex can get my gift! Since I had already gotten both her gift and her postcard before I sent mine.. Oops. 

Get my big a wedding present. I did this! I got her something from her registry, and I also brought her a big container of candy corn to snack on, which was shared by many. Did I already say I had TOO MUCH fun at her wedding? Oh, right.
Do some work on my blog. Notice anything new? The fantastic Aimee at Dear Harper was so wonderful to do this for me! I am way more clueless than I should be on this and would have had to Google everything about 14 times to make it look this great. So a huge thanks goes out to Aimee. Let her know how much you like it!

I also wanted to keep reading for the Busy Bloggers Book Club, and I finished the book! Go read my thoughts about it, and then join us next month!

This week I want to: Pack for Emory! Yeah, if I don't accomplish this one tonight, well.. I have to, so. That's that.

Have a lot of fun seeing people I miss. I don't think this one will be too difficult, shockingly enough. Hopefully I will get to see a ton of people, because Homecoming is this weekend!  

Catch up on Everyday Happy. I am so behind it's not even funny. Like I said, my mind has been elsewhere. Okay, my mind has been at Emory. Or.. Near there.

Wish me luck on my goals this week, and I hope you accomplish yours too! Don't forget to link up to Melyssa at The Nectar Collective to share with everyone else!

You're My Other Half Of the Sky [#busybloggersbookclub]

This past month I read The Light Between Oceans with the Busy Bloggers Book Club with Allie over at Call Me Sassafras! (And Codi at The Art of Balance!)

I really enjoyed this book! Like Allie, I thought it was difficult to get into. But once I did, I couldn't put it down. I had to know what was going to happen with these families.

Ridiculously simplified synopsis from Shelfari: A childless couple on a lighthouse keep a baby found in a boat washed up on the shore.

Obviously there are consequences to this decision.

I did enjoy the couple falling in love in the beginning, because while it was awkward, I think it reminded me of my awkwardness and if they can fall in love, I probably can too, right?! "You're my other half of the sky." How great is that? I mean it would probably sicken me to hear from anyone who wasn't the right guy, but I totally bought it for this couple.

I dog-eared a bunch of pages that had stuff I liked (I know, sorry!) and a lot of it was the way Stedman described the world on the lighthouse rock. It just seemed kind of magical: "The oceans never stop. They know no beginning or end. The wind never finishes. Sometimes it disappears, but only to gather momentum from somewhere else, returning to fling itself at the island, to make a point which is lost on Tom."

"Existence here is on a scale of giants. Time is in the millions of years; rocks which from a distance look like dice cast against the shore are boulders hundreds of feet wide, licked round by millenia, tumbled onto their sides so that layers become vertical stripes."

Getting too emotionally involved in fiction (book, movie, etc.) is one of my.. Lovable quirks. So if you are anything like me, this book will make you cry. I was practically sobbing for the last 30-40 pages or so. Couldn't even see to read but I had to because I had to finish it! Otherwise I'd have to cry in two sittings? No thank you. I can't say that the ending made me too happy, but with a story like this, there would be no way for a happy ending for everyone involved in the situation.

Overall, I'd say that while it started slow, it did improve, and apart from all the crying, I did enjoy a lot of it. I wish more people in the book had had some common sense! I felt like they constantly thought of only themselves and couldn't really see any other options to their predicament. But anyway!

Some more quotes I liked:

"A lighthouse is for others; powerless to illuminate the space closest to it."
There's some symbolism in that that I just can't think about at the moment. But I'm sure it's there!

The memory of a conversation Hannah has with her husband, where she asks him how, with all the strife he has had in his life, he is always happy. His response: 
"'I choose to,' he said. 'I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.' 
'But it's not that easy.'
He smiled that Frank smile. 'Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things....We always have a choice. All of us.'"

"Izz, I've learned the hard way that to have any kind of a future you've got to give up hope of ever changing your past."

And one last quote that I hope to remember for my own life:

Join us next month! Head over to Call Me Sassafras to learn more!

Crafting for Zombies

I don't really know any zombies (does anyone?), but my sister plays Humans vs. Zombies at her college practically every weekend (okay, I might be exaggerating about the frequency, but in my defense, I sort of tune out the zombie talk). She is pretty obsessed. I know Nerf guns and bandanas are involved, and that it's kind of like tag.

So for her birthday I decided to make her a t-shirt! Her birthday was actually at the end of September, but I couldn't find the t-shirt I had bought.. And then when I got ready to make it finally, I couldn't find my craft box!

Guess where it was, guys?

In my closet.

Which means that I put it away, and didn't think to check where it was supposed to be. Logical! So I continued my Ugly Betty marathon binge while I crafted.

One of the many lifelong skills I learned in joining a sorority is how to craft a t-shirt. If you don't know how, an easy way is to use Heat n Bond, shown here!

I think the most fun I had in making this was sketching it out! I haven't done any crafting or sketching or anything in so long! I did paint one painting around May, but since then.. Pretty much nothing. So I loved drawing the letters and that little zombie guy. I stole him from the HvZ website and kind of took some liberties, but I think he turned out pretty cute.

As you can see, I have tons of fabric that I will probably never use, but I wanted to be simple for this one (basically I want my sister and her friends to think it's cool) so I went with black for the letters and orange for the heart. I think I remember her squad or team or something using orange as a color..? I could be totally wrong about that though, haha! But also with the shirt in green, I didn't want to go with Christmas colors.

So if you're following along and wondering when I'm going to get to the next step, here it is! Trace your letters (or picture or whatever) onto the Heat n Bond paper - backwards! It has to be backwards otherwise it will be wrong on your shirt (or pants or blanket, etc). Don't cut out the letters, but cut around them so you've got a square/rectangle of Heat n Bond to iron onto your fabric. Put it on the "ugly" side of the fabric - this didn't matter for the black but did for the orange! It makes more sense once you've done it once or twice and you think about the process.

Once you've ironed the paper onto the fabric, cut out the letters/shapes. Peel off the back of the paper (now do you see why we needed to go backwards and use the ugly side?) and place your stuff in the right spot on the shirt. Now iron!

Sometimes (like when making sorority shirts with Greek letters that I'd wear a lot or that would get passed down to future sisters for years and years and stuff, I would use puffy paint around the edges to make sure everything stays on through washing, but for this one I just went without. I'll just advise her to hang dry instead of putting it in the dryer. I was going to use the puffy paint to draw the zombie guy in the heart, but then while searching for black, I found a black fabric pen and decided that that would work much better! And I was so right!



So here it is before and after the drawing - I wasn't sure it was going to look right so I almost left it off, but I sent her a picture and she loves it, so I'm glad I decided to add it!

This wasn't a very exhaustive tutorial, but I am happy to answer any questions you have about crafting your own t-shirt! You can buy fabric, Heat n Bond, plain t-shirts, and anything else you might need at Walmart! (Or craft stores!)

Happy crafting!

Weekly Wishes #8

This Weekly Wishes post will be a place for me to share my goals for the week. Hopefully blogging about them will help them to actually happen!

This week, the picture of Lilo and me was featured in Melyssa's participant art - so awesome! That's really exciting. 

I had a great weekend this week - I went to my first alumni event ever! I was, of course, the youngest one there by at least 8 years (not including people's children), but it was still fun. Then Saturday I had to work really early, but was done early, and got to visit an event at my old dance studio, and then go have a drink with the woman whose dogs I sit for. Basically it was a lot packed into two days. Whew! 

Last week, I wanted to: Craft (and blog about it). After decades of searching for my crafting box (which of course was put away.. Why would I even think to look in its spot?), I did make my sister's shirt, and it was fun! I sent her a picture and she thinks it's awesome. Did not blog about that, but look for a post to come! 

Find a good journal and get ready for Everyday Happy! I found a cute journal! It's bright red and on the front says in gold foil, "She makes the day brighter. She leaves a little sparkle wherever she goes." So it's adorable and perfect, and I had already bought it! Even better. I've enjoyed using it so far for the course, which has been great.

This week I want to: Mail my Snail Mail Collective gift. I am so sorry that I'm an awful partner, and I will not be doing this in October because this month is just too busy.. But did you know it's kind of hard to figure out mailing stuff to another country? And going to the post office when you're working a 9-5? Yeah, shocking, I know. So I need to get it out this week or else I will just continue to be terrible. 
Get my big a wedding present. I am SO excited, because my big is getting married to an awesome guy on Saturday and I get to go to the wedding! I even get to go the night before and stay with her and her bridesmaids! I love my big (another shocker, haha) and I haven't seen her in 5 months! So I should get to getting that present.
Do some work on my blog. I keep meaning to add buttons, and do some other little things.. But I've been lazy about it. So I'm going to hopefully do that! And maybe a post besides WW would be good, right? Ha.

And as always, I want to keep reading. I did read a LOT of The Light Between Oceans today. Once I start, I can't put it down.

Wish me luck on my goals this week, and I hope you accomplish yours too! Don't forget to link up to Melyssa at The Nectar Collective to share with everyone else!