I can feel it

Just one month till school starts. One month, and so much to do!

I'm currently enrolled in French II and PE online, and I've literally done one lesson out of the two semesters worth of classes I need to take. These, along with my online Econ class I plan on enrolling in, will allow me to be at the district Technology Center all day, rather than my home high school.

I praise Jesus for letting that happen. Seriously. But I can feel school slowly closing in on me. Between now and the 27th of August, I've got DECA trips, Fish Camp (Freshman Orientation, for which I am one of the couselors), work, work, and oh, more work.

As I'm writing things down in my (brand new, Lilly Pulitzer) agenda, I'm literally just sitting there going "OH MY GOD I HAVE NO TIME."

Yes. You heard me right. My mother, or as I like to call her, Master Planner, after hearing my comment about Carly from The College Prepster having the cutest Lilly Pulitzer agenda, bought me one. I use my iCalendar for almost everything, but this is great for times where I'm on the phone, or want to have something open with my dates while checking my email.

August so far. Note that no work days have been added yet.

My personal favorite part of the agenda-STICKERS.

I had a heart attack looking at those three weeks in September. This is what I get for being homecoming chair!

There are moments where I regret taking so much on-when I miss events with friends or have to reschedule plans. But then I remember that it's what's going to get me places in life.

Speaking of life, I've had a recent development. I got-get this-a puppy!

One of my Faire Family members and her mother found a brother and sister schnauzer pair running across a major street near their house before a party they were hosting for July Birthdays  (IE, mine).

Everyone say hello to Lacey!

I took home the sister, and my parents are still hesitant about her, but I've been taking care of her while I'm at home (which is in the three hours I'm awake before work, and the three after). She's currently laying next to me on my bed, belly up with her feet straight in the air. I was told by a friend at the party that she is me in dog form. I sincerely hope I don't look like that when I'm asleep.

Things are about to get fun again around here. Sunday, myself and the rest of the Texas State Officers are going to the Rangers game, before we leave for the Emerging Leader Summit in LA Monday. Part of me is super excited to go back home to LA, but another is super sad because I won't be seeing any family or friends while I'm out there.

I have a round of back to school outfits I'll be posting pretty soon-when Mom and I went shopping we did a round of back to school stuff too.

PS: What do you guys think about the new layout? I find it quite fetching, if I do say so myself.

Till then, toodles,

Holly

Baking before breaking

So. I tried to bake last night.

After being cut from work and still having to stay another hour to bus tables and refill ice, I was in a fould mood, and decided to try my hand at baking some cupcakes for a birthday party I'm attending tonight.

It was, in two words, a fail.

Yeah. The double chocolate Reese's ones turned out fine. But like an idiot, I tried out this recipe I found on Pinterest for super rich Red Velvet cupcakes from a box.

Not to self-when recipe calls for milk, buttermilk may have gross tasting results.

Ridiculousness

Look at this.

This is what happens when Stephen and I try to take a decent picture. He makes these faces. 

This was the first of many hilarious moments at the Texas DECA Leadership Retreat for District and State Officers in New Braunfels this past week. Stephen, pictured above, is the incoming District 4 President, and a second time attendant of the retreat (he was an officer last year too). I got to bond with him, and so many more amazing people over the week. (You can find Stephen, a fellow internet addict and an amazing male blogger, at his website here.)

Elvia and Sophia trying to worm their way out of the ropes.

During the retreat, the 30 or so of us (25 District and 5 State officers) got to participate in some pretty fun activities, including trying to bust out of rope hand cuffs (above), and lilypad over alligator infested waters (below). All the activities focused on bettering our communication skills, and learning each other's strengths and weaknesses. We learned that the majority of us have large, loud personalities as well.

They also got to climb up some super tall poles and fly through the air on ropes (so called High Ropes by the camp). I say they, because, as I told my advisor, you get me more than ten feet off the ground and you may be saying hello to my breakfast and goodbye to my consciousness. But I did have a lot of fun cheering everyone on, and getting some amazing pictures with my advisor's camera (which I have yet to see).

Students prepping to jump for a gold ring mid air.

We also had time for some sillyness.

The males of the Texas DECA State Officer Team, and our coach, Curtis, in the background.

Caleb (State Sgt-At-Arms) and Brooke (D5 President) in our epic Rock Paper Scissors game.

And as any true DECA students, we had time for putting our big kid clothes on.

Hey look, Stephen and I in an actually decent picture! 

Myself and Kate, the State President. DECA Girls FTW.

Overall, it was an amazing experience, and the first of many for the 2012-2013 school year with Texas DECA. We're off to LA in early August for the Emerging Leader Summit as a State Officer Team, and I'm so excited to finally be going back home for a bit! 

All for now-

Toodles,

Holly

Stop the World

As if I can't say it enough, life has become insane!

I've literally worked almost every day I've been in town since the beginning of June-I'm beginning to think I'll never get the smell of BBQ out of my clothes.

But I am finding a little more free time. I got about 4,000 words into my book that started as a NaNoWriMo (that's National Novel Writing Month for you non-nerds) project a while back when I hit an inspirational spike last night while closing up at work. Yay for having mind numbing tasks where you can think about other things!

In short, the book is about a school for girls with special powers (yes, similar to X-Men), which has to make some serious changes when their all male brother school burns down and they have to house the boys for a year.

I always picture the clique from the early seasons of Gossip Girl when I'm working on it.

It's been a pet project since I was 12, originally a short story, but it's since expanded to this crazyness that's barely 3 chapters in and over 12,000 words long.

I'm also trying to find a way to start getting really into my summer school classes. With the way my schedule worked for this upcoming year (Seniors '13, woot woot!), I'll be at our local Technology Center all day, rather than my home campus, so I'm trying to find a way to fit in all the classes I still need before graduation. At the moment, I'm in the middle of a ridiculously hard online PE class (my Travel Tourism class counted for one semester, now I'm just trying to get the second semester done without getting gross in public) and have yet to start my online French II course, both provided by Texas Tech ISD-two things I never thought I'd see together; my name with any Texas school.

I did recently stumble across an adorable site/blog called College Prep, and it's not what you might necessarily think. It's actually this really cute blog run by a college girl named Carly who seems to be as pearl obsessed as I am! I love finding people who manage to be awesomely smart and stylish at the same time. I'm adoring her use of Lily Pulitzer sticky notes and Kate Spade agendas-if all my paychecks weren't already being allocated towards DECA, I might invest in both!

Carly's super cute agenda. I have a similar one from Walmart in Tiffany Blue.

But alas, I'm sticking to being a high school recessionista. I will always love my designers, but for now it's Dollar Tree and Walgreens for me as far as school supplies go.

I'm also managing to catch up on my TV shows while cleaning. I'm on Season 5 of Eureka, Season 2 of Game of Thrones, and Season 5 of Mad Men. I'm still trying to catch up on Degrassi, but I can't get myself to sit down and actually watch. I know, a former Degrassi Die Hard, saying she can't watch Degrassi. I'm just having issues loving any of the plotlines in the later bits of this last season-Dave kind of annoys me, Clare/Eli have gone a bit stale, and Fiona needs to go back to curly hair!

That's all for now, I think. I'll probably do another post tonight about my recent Leadership Retreat with the officers of Texas DECA, but for now, I've gotta go get ready for another rousing night of serving BBQ to crying children and elderly couples.

Toodles,

Holly

Life is a Maze

It's a blessing to have a few minutes to breathe this summer.

When school let out, I had a few of those "Oh, thank God, I can actually relax," days. Until I was told "No, you need to get a job."

I'm not going to say I wasn't mad. Because I was. As spoiled as it may sound, when I decided to run for Texas DECA office (which I won, back in April, thanks very much), there was a kind of mutual unspoken promise between myself and my parents that they wouldn't heap anything else onto my plate. With Scarborough (that has now come to an end with a tear filled, amazing closing weekend), school (and now summer school), DECA and friends, it was a miracle if I got 5 or 6 hours of sleep.

Well. So much for that.

So, here's to my new job as a waitress at a local BBQ joint. Sure, I have to wear the same tee shirt every day. But I make it my own (teased hair and all).

And to finding a few spare hours to dress up and go out with the best friend of almost 8 years (so weird to think it's been that long since I started in the public school system!).

Dress from H&M, Necklace and belt from Forever 21

I still have my moments to be a closet fashionista, at least. If I were stuck in the same jeans and tee shirt every day at work, I'd probably die of boredom! 

Pinterest has also captured my attention as of late. I'll admit-I've found myself endlessly scrolling though peoples boards in the wee hours of the morning after I get off work. You can find my boards here. 

The last thing I have to fangirl about at the moment is the recent release of Disney's Brave, which I saw the Saturday after it came out.

I will freely admit that when asked what I would want my medieval dress to look like should I go to a medieval faire (earlier period than renaissance), I said "look at anything from Brave." 

Being that I'm a huge history nerd (no shame), I dragged le best friend to see this. The theatre we were at actually had one of their employees-poor girl-dressed up in a dark velveteen dress, with her hair dyed bright red, holding a bow and arrow and posing for pictures with small children who were also there to see the movie. Being that I spend 16 days a year in 100 degree heat in full Scottish garb, I expressed my sympathy to her as we passed, and asked if she felt like a character at Disneyland yet.

I absolutely adored the movie. It was a little slow paced towards the end, but the ideals and the plotline was well thought out, and the accents were AWESOME.

I will admit, I fangirled quite a bit as we left. Best friend even cried.

That's all for now. I expect there'll be more later on this week.


Toodaloo for now.


Holly

Title lyrics C/O "The Show" by Lenka.