day 29

Mondays suck. There's no other way to put it. There's nothing worse than having the good feelings from a great weekend trampled over by the 8 am alarm on Monday morning. Especially when it's raining. Especially when you have a 30 minute walk ahead of you. Needless to say, I was not thrilled about being a functioning member of society on Monday morning.

But then, I got to the CYC. I got a huge hug and a, "HI MISS LEVINE!" when I walked into the classroom, and I got to eat lunch and discuss the merits of pb&j sandwiches versus just plain peanut butter. ("When there's jelly, it doesn't stick to your mouth so bad," in case you were wondering the 4-year-old philosophy on that.) I got to play UNO and Mancala. I got to help a table of kids write "stories" and watch them sound out the words they wanted to put down on paper. I got to watch their faces light up when they remembered how to spell a word that they didn't know how to spell last week, and listen while they proudly shared their stories in their "author's circle" when they were done.

Needless to say, my Monday turned out to be not so bad :)

p.s. I'm not really allowed to post pictures of the kids without written consent, so the backs of their heads at meeting will have to do!

day 28

"this world keeps spinning faster, to a new disaster so I run to you, I run to you baby"

- lady antebellum

On Sunday, I went to Sunday in the Country - a country music festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Minus the light rain at the beginning and the downpour at the end, it was a great day with great friends and great music.

(We got to see The Band Perry, Gloriana, Eric Church, Joe Nichols, and Lady Antebellum...what a line up!)

day 27

I was inspired by Christine's giant collage of her Australia pictures and decided I needed one of my own to hang up on our wall beside hers. I spent a good 2 hours sorting through my hundreds of pictures, arranging and rearranging them, and taping them down until finally I had this beautiful collage of my 7 weeks in the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Now I get to look at them every day!

day 26

Today I got mail from Spain! I mailed Rafaela (you can read about her here) a thank you note when I got back to the states, and enclosed my College Park mailing address. I totally forgot about it and was SO excited to get this letter.

There's only one problem: she has TERRIBLE handwriting. I feel like I'd probably be able to decipher the Spanish, if I could only figure out what in the world she was trying to scribble on the notecard. Oh well, it's the thought that counts right?

The note sent me into a spiral of going through Spain pictures and reading Maggie's and my old blog posts. Which ended up leading me to my picture of the day for Saturday...

day 25

Today I got to have dinner with Leah at the diner! I never thought I'd actually miss diner food, but once I got in there and had to choose between a buffalo chicken wrap, veggie stir fry, and the roast beef special, I realized how much I really love the diner :)

day 24

No picture for Wednesday, but that was on purpose! For my Journalism class, we were given the challenge to go 24 hours without ANY form of media/technology. No phone, computer, newspaper, ipod, camera - nothing. It was hard - but not as hard as I thought it would be! We had to post on our class blog about our experience during our 24 hours, so I thought I'd paste the last part of my post on here for you to read in lieu of a picture to look at :)

I was so happy to wake up this morning and turn my phone on and reconnect to the world. I was able to complete the challenge with out any major psychological consequences, and I drew two major conclusions from my experience.

1) Obviously, like Michael said, we rely too much on technology. We're overstimulated because there is just SO much information and media being thrust upon us 24/7. I went a day without seeing anyone's status updates or reading a single e-mail and I lived to tell the tale. The fact that I woke up happier and well-rested after not using my computer before bed was just proof that I probably rely on technology a little too much.

2) Given all of that, I think that this challenge was a little unrealistic and drastic. In today's world, it's not feasible to completely cut out every form of media from our day-to-day lives. Though there are some forms of media that we rely on too heavily (i.e. Facebook, texting, etc...) there are others that have significantly improved human communication. It seems silly to assume that we could or should go for any length of time without contacting other people - just because it's possible to last 24 hours doesn't mean we should.

day 23

first day of fall? i don't think so! today was 90+ degrees, and i don't see a single leaf turned orange or any falling from the trees. all i want is to wear jeans and sweaters and make apple crisp and turn off the air conditioning.

day 22

After a little too much fun on Saturday night, we ended up with a broken couch that I was sure could never be fixed. Obviously I was quick to doubt though, because on Monday night Sam came over with a fully charged power drill and some Home Depot parts and fixed that couch good-as-new! Thanks Sam :)

day 21

On Sunday, Cale and I drove down to University of Richmond to watch my cousin Taylor and the Ohio Bobcats beat Richmond in field hockey 3-1 (and Tay scored! wooo!) ALL of the Brown's were there, which is a pretty big feat, considering there's a whole lot of them! (front row is Kathy, Tay, Brynn, Emmy, Katie, Meredith, and Marley; back row is Ashley, Harry, Scott, Meg, John and Kevin....Bryan was there too, but he was gone by the time the cameras came out).

There's nothing I love more than being with my family - and while I wish it could happen more often, I realize how lucky I am to get to see so many different members of my family as often as I do!

day 20

I'm SO mad at myself for not taking a picture on Saturday....Caley came to visit and I had grand plans to get someone to take a picture of us together on Saturday night, butttt that never happened! I guess this is technically cheating, but it's my blog so I get to cheat if I want :) Here's another cute picture of us from this summer....just pretend I took it on Saturday night!

day 19

We had some time to kill between happy hour and actually going out on Friday, so obviously the only logical thing to do was go to yogiberry.

(ps. shout out to leah for that perfect looking one up on the left!)

day 18

I seem to always have trouble taking a picture on Thursdays... or I just have really boring Thursdays. Either way, check out these delicious late night snacks I made for Christine and myself. You just mix some of this "No Pudge Fudge" brownie mix into a tablespoon of yogurt, pop it in the microwave for a minute, and voila! A little brownie treat in a bowl! yummmm

day 17

I'd like to title this picture: "Andy and the Caterpillar Poop."

(you had to be there!)

On Wednesday night, I got to go have dinner with my cousins Lori, Barry, Andy, and Jen, and my aunt Carol :) I love that I live close enough to family to get to see them on a random weeknight! There was lots of laughing and lots of delicious food!

day 16

Today I had training at my new job. I'm officially a server at Chevy's in Greenbelt, MD! Craving a mango margarita or some homemade guacamole?! Come visit me and I'll hook you up :)

day 15

6:40 pm is entirely too late to be getting home from class. Especially when you leave home at 8:30 am! Monday was just long, long, long, so I felt this was the best way to express that.

day 14

I got to end my week on Sunday with a grand finale of watching the VMA's with some of my best friends and a big 'ole dish of buffalo chicken dip!

day 13

GO TERPS! A picture of my pretty friends in front of Testudo before the home opener football game vs. Morgan State.

(side note: I obviously didn't actually take this picture. I had to decide if I could include pictures of the day that I didn't physically take but that I'm in....I decided yes!)

day 12

On Friday night, Kelsey and Kristen came over and I made dinner for the four of us. I hadn't seen Kelsey since last semester, so there was lots of catching up and laughing :)

day 11

Thursday night, Christine and I tried to drown out the sounds of our neighbors raging techno music and watch Avatar - which I had never seen before! It was a great movie...really thought provoking. I heard it came out in IMAX 3-D which I would loooove to see!

day 10

shana tova! and thank goodness for a jewish roomie :) emily broke out the apples and honey to celebrate rosh hashanah tonight - yummm. if only we had some challah....

day 9

my first day back at the CYC :) [that's Center for Young Children, for anyone who doesn't know]

I worked here all last semester, and am soooo happy to be back with these little guys. I'm working in the kindergarten classroom two days a week, and 3/4 year old rooms two days a week. lovelovelove :)

day 8

Terps won today!! And here is my roomie coming home and rocking her cute Terps uniform after she'd been gone for 12 hours working at the game.

day 7

I spent Sunday hanging with the vonTrapp's, everyone's favorite musical Austrian family! I didn't feel too well when I woke up Sunday morning, but thank God the Sound of Music was on to occupy my day. And then, imagine my excitement when it came on again as soon as the first one ended. That's right. I watched the Sound of Music twice. 8 hours of Julie Andrews, Captain vonTrapp (who is quite a cutie!), and 7 little Austrian kids running around in outfits made out of drapery. best.day.ever.

week one

welcome to my new blog!!

Fiestas y Siestas is no longer (though fiesta-ing and siesta-ing are still two of my favorite things to do!) and in its place is, "picture this!," a challenge I've given myself to take a picture a day, every day, for one whole year. I started on the first day of the semester, and I'm hoping that I can manage to keep it up for the next three hundred sixty four :)

It's harder than you would think, taking a picture every day! I got the idea from a website I stumbled upon, and here is what it has to say about "Project 365" and why you should do it!

WHY DO IT?

Taking a photo a day is a big undertaking with big payoffs. Here are just a few reasons why you should consider doing it:

• Imagine being able to look back at any day of your year and recall what you did, who you met, what you learned… (Often we find it hard to remember what we did just yesterday or even last night, let alone a whole year ago!)

• Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.

• Taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. Using your camera every day will help you learn its limits. You will get better at composing your shots, you’ll start to care about lighting, and you’ll become more creative with your photography when you’re forced to come up with something new every single day.

Sounds like fun right? Plus, I love that it has so much to do with a quote that I love,

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

- Annie Dillard

I hope you'll follow me for the next 365 days! Please help and hold me accountable for having a new, original picture for every day of the year. I can't promise I'll post my picture every day, but I'll try to do it as often as I can.

So, here are my first 6 days! Enjoy :)

xoxo Lauren

DAY ONE (Monday, August 30, 2010)

Monday was the first day of classes! I love this campus =]

DAY TWO

On Tuesday, all of my Spain pictures got delivered! (All 594 of them!) Now if I could just find the time to put them all into a scrapbook...

DAY THREE

Check out this work of art (aka, Christine and my closet!) I spent all afternoon cleaning my stuff off of the floor and the shelves and organizing my clothes. Let's see how long it stays this beautiful.

DAY FOUR

This frame is my favorite part of our living room! It's huge and has pictures of all of our friends. We spent the last few days adding pictures and making sure everyone made an appearance, and finally finished and hung it up tonight. I'm obsessed!

DAY FIVE

Ahhh, finally! I can't believe it took me this long to finally get to my favorite College Park eatery - YogiBerry! For those of you unfamiliar with this yummy locale, it's a frozen yogurt place with 6-8 different flavors at self-serve machines, and a TON of delicious fruit and candy to put on top. Needless to say, I'm in love. (Good thing it's also one of the cheaper places to eat!)

DAY SIX

On Saturday, I went to a barbeque at my friends' house. We were all hanging out in the yard, playing ladder golf, grilling, and soaking up the last rays of summer sun. It was such a great time - but the best part of the day was when we got to play with this little guy. My friends live in a pretty residential neighborhood, and across the street we found him playing outside with his mom. I went over when I saw Sam and Katlyn playing soccer with him, and it was definitely love at first sight =] We played soccer for a while and then brought him over to introduce him to our friends and play in our inflatable pool. He only spoke Spanish, which was probably another reason why I loved him so much (that, and the enormous smile he got on his face every time we splashed around in the pool!) I will definitely be making repeat visits to this house in hopes of playing with little Justin again!