2012!

    Wow! Another year has come and passed. This year flew by in a blur of school, work, family and friends. 2011 blessed me with great memories, my first Warped Tour, a mess of new friends, a pet turtle, and so much more. As we speak my neighbors are setting off fireworks and families and friends throughout the US Central Time Zone are toasting, kissing, and celebrating surviving another year. 

    For me, 2012 looks like losing weight, somehow surviving Sophomore Review, turning 21, and a summer spent working, going to as many concerts as possible, and generally loving my life. I pray that you all find yourself as blessed as I am in 2012 and should we all survive 12-21-12, I look forward to welcoming 2013 with all of you. Now get off the computer and go be with the people you love!

Love, paint, and a little magic,

Larra

Packing

Or

Things I learned about myself while packing for Christmas Break

    So I've been packing for break for a few hours now and I've found myself really lost as to what I'll actually need. I mean, I'll only be away from school for three weeks, and I plan to be away from home with my friends and what not for at least 50% of that time, so I've found myself thinking, like, how much stuff do I actually need? I mean, somehow with the way my brain is reacting to my finals sleep schedule, no socks and 12 pairs of sunglasses seems like a totally logical way to pack for DECEMBER. Sure, Larra, yeah, whatever. 

    SO anyway, the good news is, packing has caused me to actually do some cleaning. My floor still needs swept, and if you're my Facebook friend, you may have seen that I discovered that between me and Morgan (my roommate from Freshman year) I was definitely the messy one. On another note, I'm hopped up on enough coffee that I'm basically tweaking out and nothing is making very much sense except, oddly enough, JennaMarbles videos, of all things. Basically I'm running around my room at 3:30 AM in a state of OMG WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY LIFE RIGHT NOW I NEED TO STUDY BUT I ALSO NEED TO PACK BUT I ALSO NEED TO CLEAN AND IM NOT SURE HOW TO PRIORITIZE ALL THIS. 

    But as I was saying, actually the truth is, I have no idea what I was saying and I'm way too lazy to read over everything I just typed, so I'll leave you with this:

Bangin' tesshirt-to-racerback tank tutorial.

So instead of sorting my laundry this afternoon, I started exploring DIY teeshirt recon.
This link from teresadoesit.com showed me how to turn a regular teeshirt into this bangin' tank top:

Fabulous, right? And I love that it's racerback, because I have such narrow shoulders that regular tank tops slide off all the time! Check it, out, it's great!

Happy Birthday to Me.

    Okay, so as I'm writing this it's not technically my birthday, not yet anyway. But it will be in 2 hours and 44 minutes, and I'm not totally sure how I feel about it. I feel like there's so much left to do, and 2 hours and change is not enough time to do it in. Tomorrow I won't have the "crazy teenager" excuse. Tomorrow I will have successfully avoided being a teen parent. Tomorrow I will go from  being a Teen to being a Twentysomething. It's all a little weird, I guess. 

    Birthdays in college are highly anticlimactic. You go to work and you go to class and if you're lucky you go out with some friends to get cheap food and talk about how old you feel. I remember so vividly being 7 or 8 or 9, thinking about how 13 seemed so old, and that 16 was practically an adult. 21 seemed forever away, and now it's right around the corner. Now I look back on thirteen and think, "I was just a baby." I look back on sixteen and think, "If only I knew then what I know now." I look back just a year and a half ago. I was eighteen, just starting college, thinking I was grown up, out "on my own." Oh, how little did I know.

    So now I'm staring twenty in the face, and it looks good. Twenty looks like losing weight and finding myself. Twenty looks like a summer full of music festivals and bare feet and happiness. Twenty look good, and while I'll miss Nineteen, I can't wait to see what's coming.

    2 hours and 19 minutes. Hello, Twenty.

How To....Turn a tote bag into a drawstring back pack.

    Let me start this tutorial by explaining what inspired it: I have a generally small frame which comes with inconveniently narrow shoulders. Because of this, tote bags, purses, or anything else worn on one shoulder constantly falls off of them, especially annoying when I'm running to class and I have to stop seven times to re-position it. I much prefer those light-weight drawstring backpacks that are popular with teens and twentysomethings. So, I decided to figure out how to convert my favorite tote bags into more functional drawstring backpacks!

You will need:

• A tote bag 
• Scissors (I used Fiskars Razor Edge, they're spring loaded, and amazing for crafting)
• A small knife (I used an X-acto) or a seam ripper
• A needle
• Thread in your choice of color
• Straight pins
• A safety pin, no more than 1 to 1 1/2 inches
• 3 to 4 feet of shoestring or other cord (I used the drawstring salvaged from some discarded sweats)
• Clear nail polish

Step one: 

Take your tote bag and remove the straps...SAVE THEM

So now you have this:

Step two:

Take the straps you just cut off, pin them to the bottom corners on the back of your bag:

Step three:

Take the loose ends of the straps and pin them about 2 inches apart on the inside of the bag (the closeness will prevent the straps from falling off of your shoulders):

So now you should have this:

Step four:

Stitch in a square where the straps are attached to the bottom of the bag. Small, close, tight stitches are the key to a strong seam.

Step five:

Stitch two lines on each strap where the straps are pinned to the top of the bag, one at the edge of the strap and one at the top of the bag. DO NOT stitch the lines vertically or you will not be able to put in the drawstring!

Step six:

Cut two slits in the front of the hem of the tote, about an inch apart, then apply clear nail polish to the cuts to prevent fraying.

Step seven:

Take the cord/shoestring and put the safety pin in one end.

Step eight:

Thread the cord through the hem of the bag.

Step nine: 

Put your stuff in your bag, put your bag on, be awesome.

Hope you enjoyed! 

-Larra

Chapped Lips and Melancholy

    Do you ever feel like you're all alone? I've been struggling with that lately. I have friends here, but the truth is, I don't really have a "best friend" at school. And now that I have a double single, it is all too easy to just lock myself in my room and watch TV or read a book. It's not that I don't want to be social, because I'm a very social person. Sitting alone in my room makes me sad. The problem is, whenever I text someone to see if they want to hang out, they're usually busy doing something else: be it work, homework, hanging out with other friends, etc. Then there's the ever nagging feeling of "I want to hang out with _____, but I don't want to seem annoying or invite myself somewhere I'm not wanted." Being at a small college doesn't help, where if you're not a part of the group, you never will be.

    Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but a lot changed over the summer. Many of my friends aren't here anymore and I'll admit that I'm not doing the best job of adjusting. I've honestly thought more than once about transferring to P-Land or the U of I at the semester break just so I could go back where I have people. 

     I guess I just need to pray a lot about what God wants for me, because I don't feel like I'm done at Blackburn, but I know that I'm not supposed to feel all alone.

A letter to high school seniors:

Dear Seniors:

    It's crazy to think that I was you just two short years ago. I know you feel so old, getting ready to graduate (hopefully!), realizing that you may never see your friends again after this year, freaking out about college, thinking about jobs after graduation; but the truth is, you are so young. There will never be another time in your life when you have as many options ahead of you as you do right now. This is the year of you. In that spirit, I have a few bits of advice to share with you.

• Don't sell yourself short college-wise. Apply everywhere you want to go. Have reach schools, have realistic schools, and plan for a fallback school as well. If you don't know if you want a big campus, small campus, close to home, or far away, apply to a variety. When you're making cuts and you have lots of options you will thank yourself for not tying yourself to one school that gave you crap for financial aid, has terrible dorms, or is in a town you hate.
• On that note, after you receive your letters, visit several schools that you were accepted to. I only visited one and I had been to another, and while I feel like Blackburn was a good choice for me, I also wonder if I would have felt differently after seeing other campuses.
• If you haven't picked a school by March, April, or even *gulp* May, DO NOT PANIC. Many schools don't require you to send in your acceptance of admission until mid to late May or June. I waited on word from my first choice school (where they ultimately had to close the waiting list) until just a couple weeks before I graduated. It was nerve-wracking, yes, but I would have been upset had I jumped to a choice and then gotten in to my first choice because I was too stressed to wait.
• ENJOY THIS. This is the last year where your education is free (or paid for by someone else). This is probably the last year you will be with most of your friends. This is your SENIOR YEAR.
• Get involved. Go to the stupid pep rallies and the sports events you never went to. Join the musical, get up stupid early for show choir, go to homecoming, go to the prom.
• Don't slack off on your classes. Seriously. I know how tempting "Senioritis" can be, but take it from me: had my GPA been .08 points higher, I could have qualified for a full-ride scholarship to my college.
• It's never to early to start networking in the field you want to go into. That guy who is in graphic design that you meet on the train could be your future boss.

    That's about all I've got for now, except for just one last thing: Don't ever be afraid to ask questions. At a point in your life when so much is changing, now more than ever you should be taking advantage of all the wisdom around you!

Love, Peace, and Chicken Grease,

Larra