Life is Better With Friends!

This past week I have been pretty busy and not quite in my element so blogging wasn't really on my list of things to do!  

Last weekend was amazing though!! I had solo much fun!! I went to Minneapolis to visit one of my best friends, Darrin!  Darrin and I met our freshman year at Iowa State and bonded over Avenue Q (it is an awesome musical, if you haven't already you should definitely check it out!!)!!  Over the years we have had a lot of great times!! We've seen many movies, we've eaten A TON of food, we've done some damage shopping, we've gotten kicked out of a mini golf course, and we've had so much fun!!

We've failed at taking pictures together recently! This is from the beginning of sophomore year.

I arrived in Minneapolis around 5 on Friday, I don't like traffic, I'm not used to it, it makes me nervous, but I survived! ;) After my arrival Darrin showed me his apartment (it's like a hotel, it has so many amenities!!).  Then we went to Target because I wanted to see a two story Target (I'm kind of lame/in love with Target!), it was massive and I loved it! After Target, we went to the grocery store and liquor store (I never knew liquor stores had to be separate from other stores in Minnesota!).  Then we went back to Darrin's apartment and snacked a bit before dinner (...I told you we've eaten A TON, I wasn't lying!! We enjoy our food!).  For dinner I decided I wanted Italian (best. decision. ever.) so Darrin took me to Bar La Grassa.  After some not so great service (they forgot we were waiting for a table...) the food was AMAZING!!! We got three half dishes to share: fusilli col buco with lamb meatballs, pappardelle with veal ragu and cavatelli with braised rabbit (the rabbit was definitely my favorite!!).

On Saturday we got up and went to brunch at this really cute little place, I don't know the name but it was good!! Then we went to Ikea.  It is a good thing that we will never live together because Darrin and I have very different tastes with home decor, apparently I like really girly things and he doesn't! :)  We did get him some bamboo for his apartment though! And I can't leave out his artist figure model! After Ikea we went across the street to the Mall of America and spent a lot of time walking around talking and shopping!!  After the mall we went to a birthday party that one of Darrin's friends was having.  Turns out Darrin and I aren't very good at socializing and meeting new people but we are good at eating junk food! :)  So we left the party early and went to see Silver Linings Playbook.  I was not super impressed with the movie, it moved really slowly.

On Sunday Darrin to me to St. Paul and ate at a Neapolitan pizza place.  We each got a pizza and shared a salad and it was very tasty!! I love wood fire oven pizzas!!  Then we took a walk around Pier 1 and got some coffee at Caribou Coffee.  Once we got back to Darrin's apartment I finished packing up my things and headed to spend the night with Kathiah, one of my other best friends, and her wonderful family!!  It was great to spend the evening with them!! In the morning I drove Kathiah's sister, Aubrey, to Iowa City and met one of my other best friends, Thao, for lunch before heading home.  

I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends!!  Some of us have had our ups and downs along the way but we've moved past that and now I have families away from my family. 

Game Board Shadow Box

I love craft time!! I have pinned many, many crafts on my Pinterest page! My friend Emily and I love to get together to do crafts and I think that a craft activity can be an excellent way to spend time together and save a little money if you plan ahead, use coupons, and do a craft project that is useful for you!! Also, when you are getting together to do crafts not everyone has to do the same thing! It is fun to see what everyone else comes up with and maybe it will give you inspiration for a future project!!

My dad is so difficult to shop for! I never know what to get him for birthdays, Father's Day or Christmas  (or any other gift giving occasion!)!! This year for Christmas I decided I was going to make his present and this is what I came up with!

My dad LOVES word games!! Boggle is probably his favorite word game but he definitely enjoys scrabble.  

I had two sources of inspiration for this project:
1. Pinterest (because everything I know these days seems to come from Pinterest!) has several projects that use scrabble tiles but nothing really appropriate for my dad, he doesn't really need coasters, he definitely doesn't need any scrabble jewelry and ornaments aren't really his thing!!
2. All of the pictures in my Dad's office are at least 8 years old!! Time for an update!!

I don't have pictures of the various steps (not that you really need them) because I didn't know I was going to make a blog when I was creating the project.  But I don't really think this project could be any easier!  I also think that if you have another board game that has special meaning to you, you can create a similar project with that game!! You just need to use a little creativity!! :)

Supplies:
1. Glue gun
2. Double stick tape
3. Pictures
4. Scrabble board and tiles (we had multiple Scrabble games around the house so I used one of the extras)
5. Wooden squares-the number needed depends on what you want them to spell out (I just used the ones you can get for about 25 cents at craft stores)
6. Permanent marker
7. Shadow box
8. Black card stock
9. Pictures

Step 1:
Gather the pictures that you want to add to the shadow box.  I didn't choose too many because I wanted to keep it a little more simple and feature the scrabble board and tiles along with the picture!

Step 2:
I attached the black card stock to the paper that came in my shadow box (if you don't want to use card stock you could get a black poster board).  The black just created a nice background for everything else and the card stock combined with the paper created a nice weight background for the project!

Step 3:
Just saying, I took the lazy way out, there are much neater ways to write the letters on the wooden squares.  I freehanded the letters with pencil on the squares and filled the letters in with permanent marker.  If you want a neater way of doing the letters you can find out how on Pinterest!

Step 4:
I laid out the game board and wooden squares where I wanted them on the board.  Once everything was in place I used a glue gun to attach the board and the squares to the background.

Step 5:
I chose the words I wanted to spell out on the board and arranged the tiles in the center of the board.  When I was choosing which words I wanted to use I kept in mind how they would fit together on the board.  Just a reminder (because I messed up on this) make sure your letter is right side up when you are gluing it down!  Of course, if you mess up it is hot glue so it should peel up pretty easily! It may take some of the paper off of the board game but hopefully you are putting the tile right back where you pulled it up from! Otherwise just put a picture over it! ;)

Step 6:
Put the pictures on the board! I used double stick tape for the pictures hoping that it would make it easy to change the pictures! When my Dad unwrapped the present one of the pictures had come loose so I had to apply more tape but it seems to be doing well now! 

"I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday"

So, I'm not doing very well at this whole blogging thing but I'm working on it!

It's Thursday and that means that there are only 5 days until school starts again. :/ It's time for a new semester filled with managerial finance, marketing management, and entrepreneurship.  I'm working on my MBA with the hopes that one day I will be able to open and run my own boutique.  For a long time I thought it would be awesome to have my own store but I never really thought it would be possible, I just didn't think it was something that I could do.

That all brings me to my Thankful Thursday.  This thursday I am VERY thankful to my friend Tia!  Tia owns Ayden Lee in Ames, IA.  Ayden Lee offers stylish and affordable options for Women's and Men's clothing.  Starting the summer in between my junior and senior years at Iowa State University Tia let me do an internship at Ayden Lee and I loved it!!

I learned a lot from Tia, I saw some of the struggles of owning a new, small business and also the joys!
I am so thankful for the experiences that I had and the insights that I gained.  Working with Tia gave me the motivation and the desire to start my own store!  I've started planning what kind of store I want to open (products, location, price point, and so many other plans!) so now I need to keep working on those plans and working on my self so that I can be as prepared as anyone can be when it comes to opening a store!

Along the way I also made a new friend!  Tia is so much fun and I love getting together with her!  I can always talk to her about what is going on in my life, she is great at listening and she is always very encouraging of my goals.  Thanks, Tia! Love ya!

Tia and Me at another place I am thankful for, Della Viti! ;)

Thankful thoughts, always a good way to start!

Hi everyone!

I've decided it is time for me to start a blog! I've thought about it for awhile but I wasn't sure that I had much to say. Well...now I've just decided that I am going to share my thoughts and you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to read it!

We'll start with a Thankful Thursday message!

Today I was able to Google Hangout with two of my bestest friends, Krista & Rachel!! I've been friends with Krista and Rachel since my freshman year at Iowa State when we all lived in Maple Young! Krista and I were both freshman and Rachel was our CA (community advisor)!  I originally had wanted to live in a different dorm but ended up choosing Maple because that was where my learning community was for my major.  I will always be so grateful that I ended up living in Maple because in addition to Krista and Rachel Maple is where I met many of my closest friends from school!

The adventures (concerts, road trips, nights out, mini golf trips and so many more...) that I've shared with each of them provide wonderful memories and always make me smile!

Freshman year at a Rascal Flatts concert :)

Iowa State Football!!

We took a road trip to my house!!

Even though we may no longer live with each other, or even in the same areas, I know that I will have lifelong friendships with Krista and Rachel!  It always feels great to catch up with these girls and we always have fun when we get together!  I feel so lucky to have them as my friends!! ....Plus, they put up with my moodiness and I'm sure that takes patience! ;)