7 down. A thousand to go.

I feel like such a lady, sitting here in my vintage silk dress, pearls, and.. believe it or not.. lipstick. Nothing Marilyn Monroe would sport, mind you, but just a little color. Either way, it’s a pretty big feat for a girl who rarely even puts on chapstick.

So yesterday marked the first attempted marathon training day. If I learned anything at all, it’s that I need new tennis shoes. Sure, my good ole nikes are perfect for my normal 3 mile jogs, but about 6 miles in to my run yesterday, several parts of my body were reminding me that you get what you pay for. I have never run over an hour without stopping, but when I had sufficiently conquered 7 miles of tread, I felt really accomplished. I got home, and showed off my battle scars to my roommates: 7 new blisters. I’ve done a little research and other long distance runners, and I have been told that Asics are the way to go, and that I should have them fitted at the store. Currently, I’m debating whether my blisters or my phone that won’t hold reception are more irritating, in deciding what I should spend my money on. Hmmmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Here’s some more shots I like:

This picture makes me want to grab a big home-made quilt to wrap around me, and write a novel.

Cutest picture ever? I think so too.

annnnnnnnnnnndddd, (drum roll)..

This is probably one of the most creative/stunning shots I’ve seen in a long time. Definitely my temporary favorite.

 

Have a wonderful day, everyone. Tomorrow, I’m off to San Antonio. I know, I know, I just can’t sit still.

Don’t stop me now, cuz I’m havin such a good time- I’m havin a ball.

This has been such a wonderful week! This last weekend, I went to Del Rio (on the border of Texas and Mexico) with all of Clint’s family. His grandparent’s live in a house there, as well as having a ranch with horses and cattle a few miles away. His family is soooo active. It took us about 10 hours of driving to get there, and before I even have my bags in the house, it is decided that in the hour and a half before dinner is served that we are going to divide up in teams and play ultimate Frisbee, and then swim. Every minute was another opportunity to shove another intense activity into, whether it be playing double solitaire (an extremely high paced card game that took me until this trip to fully master), taking a walk, decorating a cake, or water skiing on the lake near his grandparent’s home. I loved the quality time I got with them, and very much enjoyed myself.

 Buffy and Michelle both moved in this week. Buffy is my actual roommate, and so I spent a lot of time in the last week trying to get everything organized for her to move in. Since she was gone in New York all summer, I took the liberty of spreading all of my things out in the entire room. Needless to say, it took me quite a while, and a few big Rubbermaid containers, to get it all shoved in my closet and under my bed. The energy has definitely picked up in our house with having so many loud, goal-driven girls in the house all at once. As much as I miss having my own room to go into, I like having my best friend back to chat with until we fall asleep, steal each other’s clothes, and play pranks with.

 As far as the beloved Alpha Delta Kappa is going; Rush has got us swamped. Our home is often dubbed the “unofficial ADK house” because everyone under our D7 roof is in an ADK leadership position, including my own roommate being the vice president. Our house is full of boxes of different things for rush, and we’ve spent many nights trying to get every last detail ironed out. As the merchandise/ marketing officer, I have been extremely busy designing everything from different t-shirts for every night of events to neon trucker hats with our Greek letters. I have a binder of ideas for next year that I have been keeping up, and took it to our sponsor today, and she was really excited about it, which I was thankful about (we’re always our own toughest critic). So in the next week, I’ll need to have everything price checked, ordered, designed, and on its way to our girls.

In other exciting news, I was asked to be in a promotional video for DBU to be shown during SWAT week, which is the week before school where all the freshman are provided events from morning until night to have a chance to meet each other and see what our school is all about. It’s such a crazy, fun week around campus, and I’m so happy to be a part of it. Filming is tomorrow, so hopefully all will go well.

Not that I don’t sound busy enough or anything, but I have recently started training for a marathon. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and I was recently convinced into by Clint’s older sister April who is running one in the spring. We’re on a training program together, keeping each other accountable. Training is INTENSE. Just in the beginning months, you are required to log a minimum of 35 hours of running a week. That’s 7 miles, 5 days a week. (I know, Mom, you could do the math yourself.) I’d like to have all those outside, but the Texas heat is making it hard to get past a mile, even in the morning. I’m certain that if criminals were forced to run 7 miles in 102 heat every day, crime would be cut in half.

Clint’s been gone for over a month now, and I’m finally pretty used to not havin the guy around. Being able to talk to him (usually by sporadic emails), makes my day though. Definitely be keeping him in your prayers, though. If you want to read what he’s been up to in his own words, go to his comment on my last entry and click on his name, and it should take you there. It’s really interesting stuff, I’d advise you to check it out.

Well, I hope you all have been having a wonderful midweek! Gotta go lace up my Nikes and get to loggin miles.

okay fine; and a few things i love.

Sorry, I had to. This is one of my favorites of me and Clinton.

Name the song I have my blog title from, and you’ll get an official spot in my cool book. No google allowed. Dad, I know you can do this.

love, always. Kenny.

Well hiya there rollypolly face!

I’ve been a busy girl lately. It seems to me, though, that is how I best function. No matter how much sleep is constantly jeopardized when I’m busy, whenever all the buzz is over, the last thing I actually want to do is sit back and watch TV. I just like to be kept busy, and experiencing alittle bit of everything that life has to offer. Last week was fairly uneventful so my adventurous tick, that always starts knawing at me when I’m still for too long, left me with no other option than to plan something borderline ridiculous- and in a jiffy. So, I called up the girls, and in a general consensus of boredom and lack of money, we decided that camping was the best option. So, less than 24 hours later, we have my friend’s little navy blue jetta packed up and Austin, Texas bound. We were quite the sight driving down the highway, 3 young girls, hanging out of the open windows like dogs, blaring old banjo tunes,  and, thanks to Katie’s trip to the Alamo earlier in the summer, wearing Davey Crockett coon hats. What should have been a short 3 hours to Austin turned into 7 hours of stopping at antique malls, thrift stores, trinket shops, and – our personal favorite- the largest dog museum in the world. There were literally dogs doing everything from riding a bicycle to wooden dogs that you could smoke out of. We made it there right before dark, and managed to create a fire… 2 boxes of matches, bug spray, Wendy’s trash, a fire starter, and 2 hours later.  We quickly realized that simply starting the fire was the least of our worries when the wood that we had once thought was sufficient for a fire burned up within a matter of minutes, having us franticly running around in the dark trying to find anything that would keep our masterpiece going.  It was about this point, nearing Midnight, that we decided that we needed to put up the tent. (Why we didn’t think of putting that up first when there was… I don’t know… sunlight? Is beyond me). So, we constructed our tent solely by the glow of our cell phones, so proud of ourselves until we realized that we forgot bedding, except for one girl who decided to bring an air mattress. Being outnumbered 2 to 1, we decided that air mattresses were for pansies, and that if one suffers, we all suffer. So yes, we sure did sleep on pure gravel all night. Apparently someone, the victim has yet to come forward, had the genius idea that leaving the tent door open all night would somehow make it cooler in the tent.. (not that the vented roof would already take care of that or anything..) and we were woken up at dawn by one of the girls screaming because she was woken up by rolly pollys crawling on her face. As you can imagine, that was hilarious to me and Noel, and decided it was only necessary to make fun of her for the remaining duration of the trip. By 8 in the morning, we were already in the water falls that were on our camp ground. It was so amazing to be swimming in natural falls with my friends. It felt like something out of a movie or something.  We packed up and headed back later that day, our hair full of burrs, our clothes full of amber burned holes from our fire making attempts, and our bellies aching from laughing so hard.  I really can’t tell you how refreshing it was just to have a day out in nature and have quality time in the dirt with my best friends, even if we WERE a serious of unfortunate events.

We’ve already started planning our next camping trip in 2 weeks that might land us out by some salt water. I would sleep on gravel any night to have an adventure.

i’m obnoxious.

Not that anyone had any doubts of my obsession with John Mayer, especially after my complete post dedication to him last time, but I have news that may just tip my fan status into stalkerish in the near future. Seeing as I’m not the only JM obsessed girl out there, my favorite serenading hunk’s concerts are usually quite a hit to the wallet. Lucky for me, one of my friends had an open ticket within a discounted group rate, and ladies and gents; I fully plan on sacrificing my ability to speak for the entire next week in my intentions of out-screaming any and all other fans through every song.  September 4th, get here already. I’m slightly considering permanently tattooing “I love JM” on my forehead, or really.. anything… necessary to land me a backstage pass.   Someone suggested us mowing his face into a cornfield. I’m sure he’d appreciate the originality.

Hi, I’m in Jr. High.

I just needed to share this information with the world.

I think I’m going on an adventure this weekend, but I’ll have to update you when plans are concrete.

Now, go put on “Three More Days” byRay Lamontagne and forget about the long Thursday you all just had.

love, always. kendall.

simple, in the words of jm.

Simple;

By John Mayer

I wish that when I was younger I could have met my current self. We would have sat down at a coffee shop so that I could explain life to young me in terms that only we would understand. It would have saved me a lot of hardship.

You can listen to all the sage wisdom you want, but things only make sense when you can explain them to yourself in your own words. For instance, I’ve been told for three years that Breaking Bad is the best show on television, but only after I watched it was I able to tell myself exactly why everyone was right. Other truths I know now that I can explain them: that I’m not missing any crucial information and that poker really isn’t all that fun; that heartbreaks do fade but they take about a year longer than you expect and by the time they do you really don’t care about it enough to notice; and above all else, life is simpler than you think.

I used to think that life was an intricate series of levers and pulleys, buttons and switches, Mexican standoffs and hostage negotiations. As I get older I realize that life is more Netherlands minimalist than Jackson Pollock. The problems don’t get fewer, and in fact they grow in number, but the way I index them in the database is different. More problems get filed under fewer category headers.

Things are getting simpler, and it’s making life better. Here’s the cheat sheet:

People want to be liked. We all crave attention and affection and we all reject shame. When we get embarrassed we send a thug version of ourselves to the forefront to do our fighting for us. We’re at the top of the food chain just under fear.  We don’t want to be in a relationship to hear the words “I love you,” we want to be in a relationship to say the words “I love you.” We want to feel needed, and exceptional and we hate feeling insignificant. We want to ace a hearing test. We are binary creatures; if we’re the plaintiff, we want to win every dollar. If we’re the defendant, we want guard every penny. We want to make more money than last year. We don’t want to get cancer or die in our cars and we want the same for our loved ones. We go out on weekends to try and have sex while trying not to get punched in the face. We drink so we can be ourselves and not mind it so much. We’re desperate to be understood. We want to know someone else has felt it, too. We hate being judged unfairly. We want to make the person we heard wasn’t all that into us change their minds and admit they had us wrong. We want sunny skies with a chance of killer tornadoes, just to keep music sounding good. We take hours upon hours to admit to self consciousness. We don’t know exactly how to pleasure each other. We just want love. In any and every form.

See? It’s simple.

I’m no literary critic, but..

It seems as if the rain clouds are taking a little vacation from Seattle, and have unwelcomly settled themselves over the dfw for the last week, with only the promise of more ”angel tears” to come. It is in this time, when simply going outside ruins my favorite pair of shoes, that my relationship with the smell of library books rekindles.

I decided to highlight a few of the books that I enjoy the most. Some for insight and knowledge, some for pleasure, and some for simply experiencing inspiring aesthetics.

1. The Poisonwood Bible- This is my all time favorite book. It is about a missionary family who travels to the Congo in hopes of saving the unenlightened natives.  This book is so diverse, as each chapter toggles between the viewpoints of all the women in the family. It is such a real, genuine book, allowing the reader to create an intimate bond with each character involved. Every person I have talked to who reads this relates to a certain character as their extremely diverse personalities unravel.  Although I can confidently say that I finished the last page, having gained several life lessons, do not be fooled into thinking that the presence of “bible” in the title and the plot surrounding a missionary family merits this work anything religious-affiliated. In the contrary, one must go into the book with a strong religious backbone because, as a christian, it will challenge your belief system. All in all, I would suggest this book to anyone.

2. Crazy Love- Being at a private Baptist school, being greeted with “so, what has God been doing in your life lately?’ is about as common as a hand-shake and hello. As much as I love my Godly surroundings, I needed something radical to read, that was alot more cut throat than telling me that with God, “everything will be just fine”. This book really did change my view on God’s love for me. It’s very real, and relevant to anyone that wants a book that reads like a conversation with a good friend who’s honest enough to tell you what’s up. 

3. Influence- As embarrassing as it is, I’m still in love with Mary-kate and Ashley Olsen. I have followed them through their full house day, to their disney series of mystery movies in their tweens, and now, this book has made it to my favorites in their 20′s.  Both girls have their own book, with the other as a co-producer of sorts, that lets Olsen stalkers like myself into what inspires them, and what all they have accomplished. Many people are unaware of how well-rounded and accomplished these 2 carbon-copies are when they aren’t behind the flashing lights, or gossiped about in the tabloids.

4. Vogue- What can I say? I’m a young American girl who dreams of couture. Fashionista? That sounds like a label that should be strictly reserved as an obnoxious catch phrase displayed on the seat of some 12 year old’s sweat pants. But lover of self-expression? Guilty as charged.

5. The Kite Runner- I’m sorry for all of you who watched the movie without the pleasure of getting your nose in the print, because this really is an intimate work that film couldn’t quite do justice to. If this rain continues, I suggest you experience it yourself.

6. Domino [the book of decorating]- Santa, add this to my christmas list. This is the one of the single books that I never, ever, ever get tired of reading and re-reading. This book is everything I could ever want or hope to create in my own home someday.

Happy reading, loved ones.

God bless America, land that I love.

It’s only 9am, and I’ve already taken down 2 cups of coffee and a diet coke. Do not be fooled though, after allotting myself Monday and Tuesday off of work, I can’t tell you how wonderful my extended fourth of July weekend was. I got to let my social butterfly free for a few days, catching up with highschool friends, making new DBU friends at different dinners and movie nights, spending quality time with my family, and getting, always treasured, time with my momma too, as I fried myself by her side at the lake all one day. If you can imagine, I also managed to do all of my laundry, repaint some furniture, redesign my living room, deep clean my bathroom, made cards for all my friends off conquering the world, and put Mr. Cupcake in brand new water (poor thing was wallowing in about 3 inches of muck).

One of my very good friends and room mate, Buffy, has been in New York interning with a fashion company who works directly with Vogue and other high fashion media. It’s been such a dream for her just to get there, and just recently, her aspirations reached the extraordinary. Out of all the interns, her boss just offered her a full-time job there for when she graduates this next year. She’s excited, but still tinkering with the idea of what to do, so please pray for her that God’s will for her future will be revealed to her, in New York, or anywhere else.

In other news, I heard about a website you can go to where you can send letters/ care packages to soldiers that are fighting. So I decided, in the spirit of Independence day, to make an American flag out of different types of paper, and write a letter on it to a soldier in Iraq. You should check it out, and send some gratitude to all those men and women out there keeping you safe;

www.opgratitude.com

My roomates are moving in soon, and I’m so happy to have some more spice come into the house.

That’s all;

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th.

all I’m saying is..

if I didn’t have to spend my entire summer paycheck on rent, I would buy this.

I would give any given appendage on my body to be able to get one of these babies. I’ve been lusting after it for about 2 years now, perusing through flickr on a regular basis to admire the craftmanship of other photographers.

Someday, someday.

 Also; I just bought a delightful little cupcake stand that arfully displays the result of my newfound baking skills. yay:)

That’s all for today, folks. Thank you for the continual visits.

LOVE;

Kenny!