I want to be Luna Lovegood.

I want to be her. Seriously. She's constantly in her own little world, and yet she's so considerate of others. She doesn't really care what other people think of her and she stands up for what she believes in. She's got a style of her own and nobody else comes even close to being like her. She's always mysterious, and seemingly crazy, leaving everyone questioning everything, but she's still fun enough to be a great friend. I want to be Luna Lovegood.

I have finals this week. I'm almost excited that they're here because as soon as I'm done with them, I'm moving straight on. I'm going to lead a completely different lifestyle, I'll have a completely different outlook on everything and I'm hoping that things start to become much more enjoyable. I'm ready to crank out an extreme to do list and live life better. I've been done with these classes mentally since the beginning of November so you can imagine how I feel about all of them now. It's going to be exciting when Thursday afternoon rolls around and I'm officially done with this semester. I'm not even going to obsess about my grades until they're up.

Sheep.

So on the way home from Phoenix today, my mom and I stopped at a Target store. We parked next to this truck that looked like it had one of those wired dog crates in the bed, and it was partly covered by a blanket. We wondered if there was a dog inside of it (and since we're dog lovers we had to check.) But there wasn't a dog in this crate. Instead...

A little sheep. Very cute, just chillen in the back of this truck like nobody's business. It was a very unexpected surprise.

So I learned this weekend that I don't really do well with last minute stressors. Especially something like last minute auditions. I definitely appreciate the idea of over preparing and preparing for a very long time before something like that. I definitely learned that I can't do anything very well if I'm in high anxiety. Something to definitely work on.

Keeping this in mind, I'm planning on starting my preparations for the next auditions I'm planning on ASAP.

Odd looks and Medical Records.

Although I'm pretty significantly oblivious about a good amount of things, the one thing I never miss is when I get odd looks from people. Especially groups of people when I'm by myself. I tend to get them a lot more lately and I'm not really sure why. I caught many of these looks this morning, so when I got home I looked at myself in the mirror.

This is a pretty normal outfit for me on yoga days. I usually dress really comfy, and even though I have bluish socks sticking out of my red plaid boots, I wouldn't say this looks too odd. Nonetheless, I had people looking at me like I was wearing a parrot on my head or something. Oh well, it almost makes me want to dress even more "crazy" since I'm already getting the looks for it. I enjoy wearing odd combinations of things. And I was super cozy today too. (Side note, yes, my room is super messy. Just the way I like it.)

I put together all of the paperwork and letters and such for my retroactive withdrawal for my first semester at UA. I just have to finish writing the summary letter, get a form from the registration office and then hopefully it won't be too difficult turning it all in. I'm going to go tomorrow right after my classes. On the website it says it takes 8-10 weeks to go through and have them email you with the results. I can guarantee you that I'm going to be checking that email every single day multiple times per day from tomorrow until I get it. I'm really hoping everything goes ok with it, I feel like I have more than enough paperwork and a legit reason to petition for it. I don't know what I'll do if they deny it. It's my only chance to march again with the Pride.

This is me swamped in my medical records from last year. Keep in mind, these are individual stacks of packets. Quite a bit of paperwork.

Anyways, I should probably go work on that letter or practice music or do something productive. :)

Winter Photo Shoot.

So yesterday while baking, I definitely burned myself pretty bad pulling a cookie sheet out of the oven. I think this is the worst burn I've ever gotten (thank God it's not really all that bad.) My skin is literally burnt to a crisp though it's an odd brownish color and it's already scarring right in the middle. It's pretty gross. It actually looks like a bruise I used to get playing cymbals. Which is kind of funny.

This picture doesn't do it justice.

Anyways, today I got to do another one of my photo shoots today, with two of the most lovely girls in the world. :) We went to Reid Park and had some fun just running around and doing whatever it was a lot of fun. I definitely needed to do a photo shoot, I had been itching to do one for a while, it's been a few months since I've had the chance to really put something together.

They're both wearing Tinker Bell gloves :)

I love taking pictures at odd angles. Straight on just seems really boring to me most days unless there's something crazy going on in the picture. I love color too. Although I think black and white is absolutely beautiful, I rarely turn my photos black and white. Instead, I use tons of amazing filters.

We took several shots trying to get this right. It wasn't a matter of catching the leaves in the air in the shot, it was the brightness level, or the colors blending too much.

I love the very unnatural orangy red against the more natural setting behind it. These girls are crazy, they were climbing all over all sorts of things. Just the type of models I love. :)

I love playing around with photoshop and discovering what nifty things I can do with it. Sometimes I'll go online and find tutorials teaching new ways to make your pictures look amazing on photoshop and I do my best to give them all a try. If I love them, I usually try to take pictures in my next photoshoot that would work with a cool idea I've discovered. A while ago when I was looking through these tutorials, I actually thought of my own idea (one I'm sure many others have done, but I'm proud to say that I personally came up with it on my own in the case of my own work.) I thought it would be cool to take a series of pictures of one person in different places in one setting. For example...

The three on the left are all Erika, and the three on the right are all Nikki. 

One day when I learn how to make tutorials, maybe I'll post some on here. It's so much fun to do unique things with your photos and it's really fun to impress your friends with what you can do.

Baking day.

So today was Christmas cookie baking day. My mom, sister and I always have a day at the beginning of December where all we do all day is bake and decorate cookies for the holidays. We make a TON and they last us all through December (well most of December anyways.) It's a lot of fun, we put on Christmas music, turn on the Christmas lights and even though there's no snow it starts to feel a bit more like the Christmas season. I've always had such a problem with the fact that it doesn't snow here.

My favorite part is always the decorating. Although I like cutting out the cookies, decorating is the time when I get to be a bit creative with the cookies. Our cookies usually turn out a bit odd, they definitely show our quirky styles. 

This is my sister and her carrot cookie. 

This is my L cookie, complete with my neon lime green frosting (my favorite color!)

Aaaand my <3 cookie. *shout out to my BFF*
After baking day, the kitchen is usually a complete disaster and the last thing my mom wants to do is cook dinner for us. So we ordered some Pei Wei (you can do it online, it's so bomb.) And my sister, the dog and I went to pick it up.

My kiddie teriyaki chicken meal, complete with starfish chopsticks. Yum.
Now we have plenty of cookies overflowing in our kitchen and I think I'm ready for the Christmas season finally.

I need to go Christmas shopping soon. I have a great idea for what to get all my friends, and I can't wait to put their gifts together. Only two more weeks of school left until Winter Break! I'm so excited.

Wish me luck.

It's funny that I know all of these facts on how to make my life better, but instead of incorporating them into my life, I sit around and continue to complain about everything that isn't going right. Because that makes total sense right?

I read a post from http://smartprettyandawkward.com (which is my new favorite blog to check out everyday) and it said something about how you can't just sit around day dreaming about what you want to do with your life and how you need to act upon it to do any good. That's something I'm definitely bad at. I sit around picturing myself being an amazing cymbal player or working at my home run photography business or just being happy, and then I don't do anything about it. And the problem isn't that I don't know how. I'm just incredibly lame and lazy. My one problem in life is that I don't know how to push myself. I don't have motivation.

Which is weird when I want some of these things SOOO bad.

Anywho, negatively talking about all of it won't do me any good, and talking about what I plan to do to improve seems to be the only thing I write about, so I'll write about what I plan to write about in the future (I'm gonna kind of mix up the style of my blogs... I hope). Then if I don't show improvement, those of you who actually read this can smack me and yell at me to shape up. :)

First of all, I've realized that I need to take more pictures and make use of them. I want to take a few pictures everyday at least to post on my blog. Pictures of things I did, pretty things I saw, people I like, whatever. Everyday. I know I see picture opportunities everywhere, so I need to take advantage of them.

I need to stop wasting time. That seems to be basically all I do. I sit around and do nothing in particular, and it's just not a very good way to go leading a life. So that means less time on the computer and more time doing other things that are significantly more productive. (That doesn't mean less blogging though, I still plan on doing that, just after I do some of those productive things.)

I need to actually get healthy. I'm definitely healthier there's no denying that, but I'm not as ship-shape as I could be and definitely not where I want to be. I want to have more energy, look a little better, feel better, sleep better, whatever. So I'm gonna cut caffeine, stop eating junk, and work out like my life depends on it (...oh wait...)

That whole living life to the fullest deal? Yeah that might be worth a shot.

Wish me luck.