I've moved!

Hello, dear readers! In case you don't follow me on Twitter, I just wanted to let you all know that I'm now blogging over at Go Team Brinn! I will be closing this blog soon, so I would love it if you'd come check out my new digs and change your feeds. Hope to see you all there soon!

What happens on blog break

...gets shared with the whole entire world when you come back from blog break.

Yes, I took a week or two to unplug from the blogosphere and just experience things. But I have not forgotten about my New Years' promise to document life!  Here's what's been happening around my neck of the woods:

At work, I made a felt hamburger tree and got REALLY excited about it.

[source]
I ate tater tots for the first time since high school. I was wondering if they would stand the test of time and the sharpening of my palette, but let me tell you... tater tots are magical. I wish I had some right now.

 I devoured some AMAZING British television: Sherlock and Spaced and Downton Abbey, oh my! Seriously, watch these shows. Then flail. Then e-mail me. We need to talk about how Benedict Cumberbatch sounds exactly like Alan Rickman, and how Tim just needs a hug, and how OMFG MARY MARY MARY.

I made this casserole -- it's like Hamburger Helper, but better because you use actual cheese instead of Mysterious Cheese Dust. It was perfect for a  cold and windy Sunday night!

[source]
I finally saw Titan AE thanks to the magic of Netflix -- WHO has seen this movie? Can we talk about how it's basically Joss Whedon's animated test run of Firefly??

Matt and I picked out and ordered our wedding invitations from a local stationery shop! I'm so glad we ended up going to a local business instead of ordering online -- but more about that another time. Disclaimer: our invitations look nothing like these, though these are really cute. They're just an example of the kind of products that were in the shop. I'll show off our actual invites when I know they've all been sent out/received by our guests.

I had a pizza night with my best girls (minus one). I would highly, highly recommend making your own pizza rather than ordering out. Every time I do it I'm reminded how much cheaper, healthier, and yummier it is than chain pizza. If you want to take it to the next level, make your own pizza dough. I bought some pre-made from Wegmans because the idea of making dough from scratch makes me quiver with fear. But maybe one day. Maybe.

What have you all been tasting/touching/hearing/seeing lately? 

You live, you learn

The first lesson we learned in the new apartment:

Flowers need water AND sunlight to live.

Happy weekend, dear readers. Stay hydrated.

9 things I'm wishing for

Why 9? ...Because that's how many things I thought of and I didn't feel like coming up with one more to make it an even 10. Honesty!

I'm pretty sensible when it comes to shoes -- it sort of comes with the territory when you work in a library -- but I have been ogling these pretties since they debuted on BHLDN's original line. They would be the perfect bridal shower shoes, you know, if they weren't 340 freaking dollars.

Seriously, Matt and I need one of these STAT. We've just been using the top rack of the dishwasher, which we promptly close, forgetting about the dishes inside forever.

Do I even need to explain why I need this thing? EVERY GIRL NEEDS THIS THING. 

I'd love this on the side of our fridge. I'm particularly keen on that mustard one!

I'm a little bit obsessed with Parsons desks in funky colors right now, but I cannot understand WHY 5 planks of lacquered wood are so expensive. This is $350. $350!!!!!!!

I'm quivering with desire at the sight of these. OMG. I don't know what I would do with all 8 of them, but I WANT THEM. 

This weekend I did a Back to the Future I and II marathon with Matt, my BFF Lindsay and her new boy -- blog moniker in the works -- and at some point I was like "I wonder if there's a flux capacitor that you can like, put IN your car." We laughed about it and moved on with our lives, but guess what guys? IT EXISTS!

I'm so flipping excited that Ree has come out with another cookbook. Her recipes are foolproof and I can tell you with utmost certainty that her Marlboro Man steak sandwich, mini orange muffins, and whiskey bread pudding are the reasons that Matt fell in love with me. Right, Matt?

I'm always looking for ways to bring color into our white box apartment since we can't paint, and ever since I found this rug on West Elm I've been pining over it. ::sigh:: Rug love.

In conclusion, this post has made me realize that I'm starting to develop scarily expensive tastes. Whats happening to me??

{sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}

our apartment: a (super mega awesome) work in progress

Welcome to my crib. 

Technically, it's Matt's crib until I move in after the wedding this summer. But we've been doing quite a bit of nesting to get the place ready before then. There's still a lot more we want to do in terms of decorating and maximizing our storage, but here's where we've gotten so far.

Quite a transformation, if I do say so myself! The couch is a hand-me-down from my parents and the desk is from Matt's old bedroom -- oh, and that desk lamp is from my college years. The pendant lamp, curtains, and TV stand are all from Ikea. Can I *tell* you how happy I am to have a reason to buy things from Ikea now? If you love our end table as much as I do (that is, with the flames of a hundred fires), you might be interested to know that it came from Target, of all places!

The kitchen is teeny tiny, but it's fully loaded with updated appliances including A DISHWASHER ::triumphant fist pumping:: No hand-washing dishes for THIS domestic goddess, THANKS. Since Matt moved in we tried to soften the overwhelming whiteness of the kitchen with some of our tchotchkes -- but we have grand plans for this room, my friends. Grand plans indeed.

Not too big of a change here except the obvious addition of actual furniture. The dining set is another hand-me-down from my parents; in fact, this is the very table where I ate dinner as a child. My parents have seriously been amazing in the past few months -- they not only gave us a couch and a dining set, they bought a ridiculous amount of kitchen essentials off of our registry and just GAVE it to us, like "no biggie, just fully stocking your kitchen for you!" Oh, and Matt's parents bought us a TV and a Blu-Ray player for Christmas this year. Seriously, how do you even begin to say "thank you" for gestures like these? By giving them grandbabies, I guess. Eek.

Anyway, back to the room. We're planning on installing some vertical blinds that my dad has lying around (don't ask), and eventually I want to get some hanging plants to flank that big window. I'll keep you posted.

These two photos are from the kitchen. Every single thing pictured (except those awesome red gerbera daisies) is a gift from a friend. The Yoda lollipop and mug are from Matt's co-worker, the brain salt-and-pepper shakers are from our friend Dru, the bud vase is from Scotty and Jewel, and the R2D2 cross-stitch? A Christmas present from my BFF Lindsay. Proof that we have the best friends ever.

It's really the little things that make a place feel like home. Clockwise from top left:

1. a stack of beloved books, watched over by a mini librarian (Matt got me a "librarian action figure" for Christmas one year)
2. our brand new, dirt cheap entertainment stand from Ikea (ok, not "little" in size, but this thing makes us feel like Proper Adults and it cost us less than $100)
3. the Pac Man chair! Which is actually an old butterfly chair (I got it from Delia's back in junior high) that I threw a Pac Man Snuggie over. Look how happy Matt looks sitting in it! 
4. the key rack that we installed right when you walk in. Jayne Cobb (from Firefly, in case you live a tragic life and do not know what/who that is) guards the door for us. 

I planned to take pictures of the bathroom and bedroom too, but the daylight started fading and everything came out weirdly blue-tinted, like an episode of CSI. So you will just have to wait for part 2! I know you will be on the EDGE OF YOUR SEAT until then, readers.

Of course I'm omitting a lot of the less appealing qualities of the new place; for instance, how the outside stairwell always smells faintly of cigarettes and garbage, or how it's so small that when you pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees you're basically preheating THE APARTMENT to 400 degrees (not a problem in this sucky arctic NJ winter, but probably not gonna be awesome in August).... but overall? This is pretty freaking sweet, guys. 

let's play a game!

First of all, thanks to those of you who graced my return-to-blogging post with your super-nice comments! It makes me so happy to know that you are out there listening. And I certainly hope you meant that, because I need a bit of a favor from you, my dear readers.

Today we're going to play a game called You Decide What I Write About Next.

I've heard that interactivity is a Good Thing on blogs (am I breaking the blogging fourth wall here? OH GOD), plus I have a few ideas floating around in my head but I don't know what you, dear readers, would most like to hear about. Here are some of my ideas:

- an update post about wedding planning 

- a tour of the awesome little apartment where Matt and I will be living after the wedding

- a post wherein I reveal and explain a very difficult decision I had to make in regards to grad school

- a review of some of the best books I read in 2011 and/or the stand-out books that I'm currently reading

- a tour of the library where I work, and my general take/feelings on the significance of libraries in the current climate

All of these posts will probably be written at some point, but my question to you all is: what should I write about next? Go ahead and leave your thoughts in the comments -- just imagine the Jeopardy theme song is playing while you write your answer... actually, I'll do you one better:

And I'll just sit here waiting for your comments, staring at my computer with lemur eyes, refreshing the browser window every 15 seconds. No biggie! 

::taps the mic:: hello?

According to my blogger account, there are theoretically 27 of you out there who are subscribed to these posts. I hope you're really out there, because guess what?

I'm alive!

Hooray?

(Just go with it...)

For those of you who are new to my blog, let me take a moment to re-introduce myself.

The subject in her natural state

Name: Melissa
Age: 24
Relationship status: Engaged to be married to one of the coolest and funniest people I know, my awesome partner-in-crime Matt
Place of residence: New Jersey, but not the New Jersey you're thinking of. I live in South Jersey, which is a state in and of itself. We're the reason NJ is called "the Garden State." OK, I live closer to Philly than to any farms, but drive 30 minutes south and you'll find yourself in Hammonton, the blueberry capital OF THE WORLD (and my fiance's hometown!)
Career: Librarian-in-training -- I staff the Youth Services desk at my local public library and I run the teen creative writing club AND our teen services blog.
Education: I have a fancy piece of paper that says I completed a Bachelor's degree in English. Woo! I'm also currently in graduate school for my Master's degree in Library and Information Science. FUN.
Favorite movies: I love movies so much; it's hard to pick. But LOTR: The Two Towers tops the list, along with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Memento, and Carrie. You could say I have eclectic tastes.
Favorite books: See above. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass is a lifetime favorite; Paper Towns by John Green changed me; Transformations by Anne Sexton inspires me; and Coraline by Neil Gaiman terrifies and delights me.
Favorite food: All. My motto is EAT ALL THE FOOD. So, not the healthiest of mottos, but I think honesty is important in a blog.
Favorite cocktail: Malibu bay breeze (the girliest drink ever, I know, but hey -- life's too short to be self-conscious about beverage preferences!)
How long have I been blogging? Too long. Ten years now. I started up my "online journal" at Diaryland when I was fourteen and I've been blogging in some capacity, on and off, since then. Recently I've been "off." But one of my New Year's resolutions was to document life, so here I am.
What's up with the blog title? It's from this poem I love. But maybe one day I will change the name of this thing -- who knows?

To my old readers: I'm excited to be back. I appreciate all of you who have read in the past and hope you'll follow along this time around, too.

To any newbies stopping by: Welcome to my humble speck of the internet! Have a seat and enjoy the show :D

i've got something to tell you

I've been a bad blogger. I'm hoping there are still some of you out there reading, because I've been following along with your lives even if I haven't been commenting. As for me... my life exploded with activity after I finished classes, what with the cruise and my family trip to Myrtle Beach and summer classes starting up and ... well... there was this one thing...

It happened just about three weeks ago, on Wednesday, May 18th. A little bit of backstory: Matt and I booked a seven-night cruise to the Bahamas a couple of months ago. One of the ports of call? Port Canaveral. An hour away from Port Canaveral? Disney World, aka my favorite place in the world. I was reluctant to commit to a day trip at first, but Matt insisted we go to Magic Kingdom just for the day. And there's no way I'm saying "no" if someone says, "do you want to go to Disney?"

I had suspicions, but no real evidence, that Matt was planning to propose. I was, I'd say, about 90% sure. And that's a dangerous place to be. What if he hadn't proposed? I would have been incredibly confused -- and devastated, for sure.

When we got to the park, Matt said he had to go to the bathroom, and I took the bait. I knew something was up because he knew exactly where the bathrooms were despite the fact that he hadn't been to Disney World since he was 13. I went to the bathroom too, taking my time, assuming that he was probably taking care of some logistics -- moving the ring from his backpack to his pocket, taking it out of the box, maybe. I came out to discover that Matt had disappeared. This is hadn't expected. I waited for about a minute and a half, and then my phone started ringing. This was it.

"Hey, I found Mickey! And I found someone to take our picture with him! Walk towards the flagpole and make a left, I'm right here!"
"Matt, there are literally hundreds of people all around me right now. I can't find you."

"Just do it!"

And then he hung up on me. I was really nervous now. My heart was pounding, my pulse whooshing in my ears. I scanned the crowds, caught his eye, waved. 

Before I even had time to think, he was down on one knee, presenting me with this sparkly little disco ball set in platinum, and a park photographer was snapping pictures, and people all around us were clapping and saying "congratulations!" And at some point, I started bawling. Just all-out bawling, like a child.

Eventually I managed to gurgle out, "OF COURSE," and the crowd prompted us to hug, kiss, and put the ring on my finger. 

Later on, after I called my parents and my sister and my best friends, I got the whole story out of Matt. After I'd entered the bathroom, he sprinted out into Main Street, USA and started searching for someone to be his accomplice. He chose well -- the two older women who he begged to help him turned out to be park workers in plain clothes! They hooked him up with a park photographer and grabbed his camera, too. By the time I got out of the bathroom, they'd set up an ambush. 

May 18th, 2011 was probably the best day of my life. I was in Disney World, I was in the middle of an amazing cruise to the Bahamas, I had just come out of a tough semester of grad school with a 3.8 GPA, and I was engaged to my funny, generous, smart, and kind boyfriend. Though I guess he's my fiance now. WEIRD.

I wish I could bottle up that day and keep it on a shelf, and take a shot of it when I'm feeling low, in the future. For now, I'm trying to keep the feeling going for as long as I can. 

I got it from my mama

My lilliputian stature (She's 4'10'' and I'm 4'11'' -- so all you 5'3''-ers who think you're short can just stop right now).

My laugh.

My temper.

My dry skin issues.

My tendency to raise my voice to its ultimate decibel level when I'm [drunk] in a big group of people.

My flair for the dramatic.

My devotion to my friends.

My appreciation for footwear.

My compulsion to go straight for the sales rack in any store.

All my best qualities, all my worst qualities, and everything in between.

**

Happy Mother's Day to my mama and yours!

on strange obsessions and the best friends who fuel them

Last night, at 10:53 PM, I submitted my final assignment for the spring 2011 semester.

I'M DONE!!!

I've never been so relieved to be finished with a semester of school in my life. This finals week was pure agony, right up until the last second -- and I really mean the last second. The biggest thing that motivated me to get through it was the fact that I am going to New York City today with my very best friend Lindsay, to see a Broadway show and roam Times Square and be unabashedly touristy (one of my favorite things to do in the whole world)!

We're seeing Wonderland, a modern-day musical adaptation of Alice In Wonderland set in New York City. I'm not sure if those who read this blog know that Alice in Wonderland is basically my favorite things of all time. Before I was a Joss Whedon geek or a Star Wars geek or a LOTR geek, I was an Alice geek. First of all, I take the book way, way too seriously and consider it my own personal property (so much that I'm hostile towards almost everyone who says they also "love" the book). I have been collecting Alice-y things since I was 13 (especially White Rabbit stuff, Red Queen stuff, anything with the original Tenniel illustrations, and reinterpreted illustrations). I read The Annotated Alice at least once a year. I make it a point to try and write a paper on Alice every semester. And I've seen almost every single adaptation of Alice on the big screen, small screen, and now, the stage.

I'm super lucky to have a best friend who feeds my strange obsession, so much as to gift me with the opportunity to see the only version of Alice that has existed on Broadway to my knowledge. And she'll be here in about 10 minutes, so I'd better get my act together. 

I wouldn't want to be late. For a very important date.*

Hee hee!

*From the song "I'm Late" sung by the White Rabbit in the 1951 Disney adaptation. The White Rabbit never says this in Carroll's book. He does, however, say, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" which does not rhyme.**

            **I told you I was an Alice geek. It's insufferable, I know.

breaking my silence with -- what else? -- a list

First off, I'd like to apologize for my unannounced absence. I've spent the last two months alternating my time between freaking out about school, freaking out about work, and freaking out about when Matt might propose (SQUEE WAITING IS SO HARD). I've been slowly accumulating levels of stress/anxiety only previously seen in certain Cathy comic strips.

But the next two weeks are going to be hellish beyond imagining. Those of you who have endured/are currently enduring higher level education can understand the panic and terror that comes along with the last couple weeks of a semester. Finals, term projects, research papers, presentations... after I graduated with my BA I swore that I was done with this world, but this semester I am eating my words. I have SO MUCH to get done before I am home free, and so little time to do it.

To get myself through this, I've been compiling a list of everything I get to do once this is all over. Behold, 

THE THINGS I SHALL DO WHEN I AM FINALLY DONE WITH THE SEMESTER

1) I will get a haircut. My hair is a shaggy horror right now. I need a good two or three inches off the ends, and I want to get my awkwardly-growing-out bangs cut into some sideswept bangs for the summer. Cause I'm not going to try to maintain blunt bangs in NJ humidity. I'm just not.

2) I will play The Sims 3 for as long as I damn well please. 24, maybe 48 hours at a time-- who cares? I WILL HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITIES BITCHES.

3) I will allow myself to obsess over every pre-planning detail of my upcoming cruise with Matt. I LOVE getting ready for trips. I find it almost as fun as actually going on the trip, because I am a big weirdo. But as of right now I'm trying my absolute hardest to not fixate on the cruise when I have so many other things to take care of. But as soon as May 6th rolls around... we're talking itineraries, packing list spreadsheets, new bathing suits and dresses, potentially even new luggage. Okay, I need to stop talking about this because I'm starting to get a little too excited about it. Whew.

4) I will hang out with my friends every day that it is possible for us to hang out. Enough said, I think.

5) I will blog every day. I'm serious. Every day between May 6th (the day the semester ends) and May 15 (the day Matt and I leave for our cruise), I solemnly swear that I will post daily. I have a lot to make up for :)

So there you have it. Right now I'm just a busy girl with dreams of being not-so-busy. I hope I'll be able to check in again before finals hell is over -- my birthday (which is also my blog's first anniversary) is in less than a week, so I'll try to post then. I'll see you on the other side! 

Hi, it's me.

Three weeks in Blog Land is like a lifetime. Do you know what kinds of Things can happen in three weeks? Big Things. New Job Things. Tiger Blood Things. Tsunami Things. Supermoon Things.

It feels like the world's gone all tilty and fisheye since my last post. Suddenly everyone is worshipping Charlie Sheen and there's been a horrible natural disaster and a song like this has gone so viral that I've willingly watched it at least ten times to date.

And also I've been thinking more and more about 

gulp

writing a book.

It all started when I re-discovered some of my old writing from college. Most of it made me cringe, but I happened upon this super-short story I wrote back in sophomore year, and... I don't know. This crazy thing happened where I was able to read the piece outside of myself, see the potential in it. Hm. There's an actual voice here, I thought. There's a story in here somewhere, too. Hm.

Something was ignited in me that day. Something that I've been trying to shake as I've been struggling to balance work and school and the rest of my life over the past few weeks. Because I can't want this right now. I have another dream, another life goal that's even more important to me and almost in reach: becoming a librarian. I should be focusing on finishing school, developing professionally, and finding a job. But I'm sitting here right now, consumed by the notion of writing a YA novel.

For the first time in several months, I'm really, really confused. Am I just looking for a distraction from school, which sucks (sometimes)? Is this the final phase of my quarter-life crisis? Or is it just residual effects from the Supermoon?

I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.

how i learned to stop worrying and love the oscars

So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to throw an Oscars costume party. I made the Facebook event and promptly never thought about it again. Until Sunday morning, when I realized I AM HAVING A PARTY IN 7 HOURS AND I HAVEN'T DONE SHIT. So here's what my Sunday was like. I:

1) played the piano at an 11:30 AM Catholic mass that ran late.
2) went to AMC movie theater to buy two $10 gift cards (these were prizes.. more on that later)
3) went to the supermarket to buy $25 worth of snacks plus popcorn and movie candy (for prizes).
4) went to PetSmart to buy food and bedding for Huxley the hedgie.
5) waited in the car listening to Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson while Matt went into the liquor store to buy beer.
6) cleaned Huxley's whole cage (which was really overdue for a cleaning, so it took FOREVER).
7) haphazardly wrapped up the prizes
8) de-cluttered, dusted, slightly re-arranged, and vacuumed the family room (OK fine, Matt vacuumed while I took a shower).
9) had a crisis when the super cute Oscar ballots I was going to use turned out to be printed in the faintest of gray inks (WTF were they thinking?) and so I had to use a less cute (but highly readable) ballot from Moviefone.com.
10) scrambled to put together my costume at 6:00, which ended up being comprised completely of garments that were either too small or too big for me.
11) ordered the pizza at 6:30, only to find that Matt had called the wrong restaurant branch (the right one is 4 minutes from my house, the wrong one is ...50 minutes away) and so the pizza didn't actually show up until like 7:30.
12) started to get really nervous that the party would bomb and we would all be sitting in awkward silence and my friends would pelt me with M&Ms at me at the end for wasting their time

But that didn't happen, fortunately. The point of this complain-fest is that all of that stress was negated by pretty great night. The ballots provided us (or at least me) with more of a reason to be invested in the winners, and we talked about movies almost the whole time, which is one of my favorite things to do. I'm so grateful to have friends who are willing to debate the distinction between sound editing and sound mixing.

Oh, shut up and just show us the costumes, you are saying. Happy to oblige, my friends. Happy to oblige.

Matt as R.P. McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Best Picture Winner 1975). Or MAYBE as Joe Pesci in Home Alone. The jury's still out on that.

Me, looking FLY as Frodo from LOTR: Return of the King (Best Picture 2003). Do you see THE PRECIOUS? That's my sister's earring.

Linds as Maria von Trapp from The Sound of Music (Best Picture 1965). She also brought crisp apple strudel, a brown paper package tied up with string, and some fake edelweiss-looking flowers. Unsurprisingly, she won the prize for best costume. (Do you read her blog? You should probably be reading her blog.)

Hey! It's Cait of Finding My Balance as one of the six merry murderesses from Chicago (Best Picture 2002). She also pwned all the rest of us in the Oscar ballot with 14 CORRECT PREDICTIONS. What the how does that even.

Cait's boyfriend E as Sargeant Sean Dignam from The Departed (Best Picture 2006). A very merry Sgt Dignam, if I may say!

Scotty as William Wallace from Braveheart (Best Picture 1995). This party MAY have been an elaborate set-up designed to get him to wear his kilt again. Kilts are awesome.

Jewel as Arwen from LOTR: Return of the King. Her costume is so rad. She has the Evenstar (which you can kind of see here) and a cool hooded cloak (which she took off for this picture) and everything.

Mara as Maggie Fitzgerald from Million Dollar Baby (Best Picture 2004). I have a few pictures of her pretending to punch things but I didn't think she'd appreciate me posting them for all of the Internetz to see.

And finally, my friends Katie and Kevin came dressed in all green in a satisfyingly meta if somewhat literal interpretation of How Green Was My Valley (Best Picture 1941). Unfortunately I don't have blog-worthy picture of them :(

So the moral of the story is: parties are a lot of work, but you should still have them because they're almost always worth it. Especially if you get to see your friends dressed up in funny outfits.

fridays are for filling blanks in

(I am seriously loving the chevron in this graphic, not to mention how well it matches my blog design 0_0)

1. I am currently obsessed with engagement rings. It's sick. I stalk the diamond stock at Blue Nile at least twice a day, and I've built my own ring more times than I care to mention. At the library where I work, I literally STARE at female patrons' engagement rings trying to see what they look like. I realize how creepy this is but I can't stop. I JUST WANT A DIAMOND RING IT'S A LIFELONG DREAM!

2. Today I am impatient  because Matt is waiting to hear back about a job offer (it's down to him and one other person AHH) and I know that as soon as he finds out, he'll call me. So instead of doing work or getting dressed I have just been sitting and staring at my phone, WILLING it to ring.

3. The age I am is 23 (24 in 2 months) and the age I feel is directly related to who I'm with and what I'm doing. When I'm with my younger sister and we're carsinging Taylor Swift songs, I feel about 15. When I'm at work answering reference questions and ordering around the teen volunteers, I feel much older than I am. When I'm with my friends and we're talking about our lives I feel like I'm exactly as old as I should be. But as soon as I hear about some distant friend getting engaged, I get anxious about moving forward to the Next Level.

4. My favorite place is Disney World. Yes. You read that correctly. I've been to Disney five times and I'm going again with Matt this May, when our cruise stops in Port Canaveral, FL. It's gonna be awesome because he hasn't been since he was like, 11, and the only thing better than going back to Disney is going back to Disney with a n00b.

5. Something I have been procrastinating on is um, everything? Grad school work, getting my eyebrows done, getting my ends/bangs trimmed, depositing my paycheck, writing an encounter for the Serenity RPG I'm running, putting together my costume for my Oscars watch party. I really am an expert procrastinator.

6. The last thing I purchased must've not been very exciting, because I can't even remember. OH. Yes I do. It was my mom's birthday present. Her birthday's on Tuesday!

7. The thing I love most about my home is that I get to live here for free. That's not to say that I don't love many other things about my home (my family is here, my doggie is here, it's 10 minutes away from my workplace, it's situated in between Philly and NYC, etc.), but the thing I love MOST about my home is definitely that I do not pay bills.

Wanna play? Pay Lauren a visit and link up.

a quick note about ZOMBIES (and charity)

A few of you mentioned that you were interested in reading Zombicorns, esteemed YA author John Green's NaNoWriMo project. I just wanted to let you know that you can actually read it for free by downloading it from EffYeahNerdfighters.

However, the book was originally only available for download with a donation of $25 to the Harry Potter Alliance, which is this amazing charity that "fights the Dark Arts in the real world" by teaming up with non-profits that promote human rights and literacy. I care deeply about both of those two things, so I encourage you to donate if you can. But in either case, you still get the book :)

what i'd rather be doing besides schoolwork

learning how to make jewelry

watching Futurama

reading Anna and the French Kiss or John Green's zombie novella

baking brownies in a muffin tin (BRUFFINS)

browsing/choosing shore excursions for the cruise that Matt and I are taking in May

playing with Huxley the hedgehog

taking Pilates classes (or maybe yoga!)

playing The Sims 3

daydreaming about having a literary-themed wedding 

DIY-ing details for my Oscars Watch Party on Sunday

(sorry, IRL friends... my party isn't going to be as cute as Twig and Thistle's)

ANYTHING!

Alas, I am floating in a sea in post-graduate assignments. And I must tend to them. Sad face.

Indulge me: what would you rather be doing right now?