Recapping March .

Started March the best way possible, with my favorite person.

 Met the new neighbor-pup, Maverick.

 Ellie wasn't much of a fan.

 Celebrated Mandy's bachelorette party with wine & canvas...

 ... dinner in Louisville (Fourth Street Live)...

 ... and we ended the night playing games in the hotel.
Overall, a successful first bachelorette party.

 March meant Spring Break, which meant relaxing with these goobers.

 It also meant catching up with friends, 

particularly some friends that I hadn't seen for up to 2 years.

 And more time with these munchkin.

 By the end of March, Maverick had hit a major growth spurt.

 And on March 27th one of my best friends, Mandy, got married.
It was freezing, but we all had a great time celebrating.

 And I was so honored to be a bridesmaid for the first time.

 After the wedding festivities, it was time to get back to the reality of school, 

and bring my best furry friend back with me.

 And, to end March off, my roommate and I made a 21st birthday cake for our other roommate. Everything was fine until I started marking the "1" out of candles. We tried.

♥K

Recapping February .

It is currently 2:00 AM while I am writing this, so I am going to make this as brief as the month of February.

February, in Indiana, is always one of those months where you'll start to believe that it's getting warmer, and that the snow is over, and then out of nowhere it snows a foot.

Oh what I wouldn't give for a "two hour delay" in college.

Despite the snow, we caught our first few glimpses of blue sky again.

It all seemed so promising.

I also started seeing squirrels return to campus -- a sure sign that spring is bound to be here soon...

or that the squirrels were confused and made the mistake of coming back too early.

At least with the cold temperatures I had the excuse to get a hot beverage. 

And thanks to a gift card from Jake's family, I found myself experimenting with all different kinds of Starbucks drinks so that I could find my favorite.

I was on a "Skinny Caramel Macchiato" kick for a while.

One of my favorite things about February is that the mornings are beautiful. 

The sun is up early, which helps me get out of bed.

Then daylight savings happens and the mornings get dark again, so I try to cherish these simple moments.

I feel like January recap was seriously devoid of pictures of my dog.

I'm still obsessed with her. She still is not a fan of selfies.

Also, she's going to be 10 this year, which is crazy to me.

Yeah I know, more Starbucks. 

This time, a more spring-like beverage because I was honestly trying to will spring into coming sooner. I credit my roommate for getting me hooked on this drink -- Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher made with lemonade. Perfection.

Before I knew it, February was halfway over, which meant it was Valentine's Day.

And I received the sweetest gift from my Valentine.

These were seriously the most gorgeous tulips I have ever seen.

And even a few days later, even more beautiful.

I ended up having to separate some out, because the vase I had wasn't big enough.

Valentine's Day also meant forcing my dog to be even more adorable than she is naturally.

I swear she loves me.

Over the past few months I was on a serious reading spree.

I read all three Gillian Flynn novels, "The Beginning Of Everything", "Go Ask Alice", and then a lesser known novel called "Lucid".

Reading helps me relax and I feel as though it helps me be a better writer, which is especially good for my speech class. It's also a great way for me to kill the bus rides to and from campus.

We still have Ellie, and my roommate, Emily, has decided to keep her.

She's an incredibly well behaved cat but she also has a mischievous side. 

For the last weekend in February, I was lucky enough to have a weekend off of work so that Jake could come down to visit. As we know, I'm terrible at taking pictures of US when we're together, BUT these donuts are much prettier anyway.

And they were life changing.

I will alway remember February for introducing me to the best donuts in Indiana.

♥K

Recapping January .

January honestly seems like forever ago.
That's probably because I'm writing this in March.
I rock at blogging.

January 1st, aka New Years Day, Jake and I planned on going out to a fancy restaurant for dinner.

We were all but out the door to head to the restaurant when we decided to call and see if we should get a reservation. The phone just rang and rang and rang.
Eventually we came to the conclusion that, being that it was a "holiday" and all, the restaurant must be closed. We have incredible luck with restaurants.
SO, instead we decided to go to a restaurant that was less fancy, but just as reminiscent.

The thing I love most about this restaurant is that you can write your name on the walls/booths/etc, creating a semi-permanent mark of your existence. A sort of "we were here" kind of thing.
The first time we were there we managed to sign the booth, but this time we had no such luck finding space. We settled for signing out initials on crate that held the salt and pepper.

Also they have free peanuts.
And (not free) (but incredibly delicious) cheese curds.

The morning of the 2nd, we left Madison and headed for Jake's hometown.

(Spotted: a car shaped like a pig. Still can't tell if it's cute or scary.)

After 2.5 hours (ish) we finally made it and were greeted by this precious face (Rizzo).
Unfortunately I completely neglected to take any pictures from the first night, so I'll just briefly describe it:
The day we got there, there was no snow on the ground. And even the weather was bearable.
Given the circumstances, however, it was a perfect night to ice skate on one of the ponds behind Jake's house. Thankfully, I fit perfectly into Jake's mom's skates. Two of Jake's high school friends came over to skate with us and it was just one of those nights where taking pictures couldn't possible capture the moment. Pictures wouldn't do the memory justice. Not to mention it was night time and I'm sure the pictures wouldn't have come out that great anyway. The best part, however, was when Jake's mom brought us out a tray of hot chocolate and dessert bars. It's honestly one of those nights that I hope to cherish forever.

Besides the first night, while in Wisconsin, I liked to take full advantage of picture opportunities, and thankfully, Jake is extremely accommodating to such.
He's much more adventurous than I am, but I am more than willing to take pictures of his adventurousness.

One thing I love about visiting Jake's family is that they live out in the country. Everything is so peaceful and wonderful there. Also, shoutout to Jake's brother for letting me take over his room.
And, shoutout to Jake because this room used to be his room in high school.

Day two of Wisconsin adventures included braving the cold to see the "famous" lighthouse.
The three or so times I've visited, we always talked about visiting the lighthouse, but of course we only got around to doing so when temperatures were below freezing. 

The views were ultimately worth it, but the windburn lasted for a solid half hour or so.

The third and final day that we adventured was the last full day I was in Wisconsin.
It was a spectacularly beautiful day (in retrospect it would have been a much better day to visit the lighthouse) and I told Jake that I needed to go somewhere picture-worthy.
We ended up driving for 20-30 minutes out to Point Beach State Forest.
The views were stunning.
The pictures didn't even need editing.

After exploring the "beach" part of Point Beach State Forest, we explored the "forest" part.
This was when it became excruciatingly obvious that I had under-dressed.
Since I wasn't sure where we were going, I didn't layer up like I had when we went out to the lighthouse. For the most part, I was able to bear through a solid 15 or so minutes, but any more than that and I was convinced I was getting frostbite on my legs. Still managed to get some pictures out of it though, and Jake captured a wonderfully majestic picture of me among the trees.

The next morning, I packed my things, said goodbye to Jake's family, and we headed out to the airport. But first we had to stop for one of the world's best muffins -- chocolate cheesecake.
I ate the whole thing, and still have no regrets.

Found Waldo on the way to the airport. I'm sure that's a tired joke to Wisconsin-folk.

For as many times as I've flown, this was no doubt one of the craziest flights.
First of all, I was flying out of Milwaukee, which I had never been to before. The airport was huge and you went through security based on your Terminal. Maybe that's a normal thing but it seemed really strange to me.
Secondly, I got there way too early. Then, it didn't help that my flight kept getting pushed back because, surprise surprise, snow/ice. Flying during the winter is such a gamble.
Right before my plane arrived, an announcement came on saying that if anyone was going to have trouble making their connecting flight, that they could try to arrange a later flight. I debated for about 5 minutes whether I should change flights because due to the late first flight I was only going to have about 15 minutes to get to my next plane (compared the the hour or so I should have had if it had been on time).
Long story short, I didn't switch flights because the next available flight would have had me doing a 5 hour layover in Chicago. All I wanted was to be home ASAP, so I wasn't really in the mood to hang around the airport for 5 hours if I didn't have to. When my first plane finally landed, I had 15 minutes to get to my flight. It took probably 7 or 8 minutes just to get OFF the plane. When I finally did make it off the plane I RAN, literally ran.
I felt like I was in a sitcom. Every two seconds I was getting stuck behind slow walkers or those airport trolleys (the ones that go MAYBE 3 mph). I was so sure that I wasn't going to make it in time, or that I was going to make it just as they had closed the doors. But when I finally came into sight of my gate, they were giving the last call for passengers.
It was a miracle.
And to make things better I ended up having a seat to myself.
That was the day I declared myself a master of connecting flights.

The day after I returned from Wisconsin, I decided I should start looking for my bridesmaid dress for my friend, Mandy, who is getting married in March. After an unsuccessful trip to the mall, I decided to visit David's Bridal "said yes to the dress". I ended up trying on a sampler dress in the size, style, and color that I needed, so it was nice to see what the final product would look like after I ordered it.

Thanks to a leftover can of icing from helping my grandma decorate Christmas cookies, I rekindled my love for a childhood treat my mom used to make me and my brother. I think we used to call them "Popeye Cookies" or "Popeye Sandwiches" and I can't honestly tell you why, but they're just graham crackers with icing and they're delicious.

There were about 2 days in January in which the snow completely melted and Spring seemed somewhat hopeful. I celebrated by taking my dog for a walk along the running path.
I'm pretty sure it snowed 6 inches the next day.
Oh, Indiana weather.

January also brought the latest addition to "The Cabin".
This is Ellie.

Our downstairs neighbors found her outside on their porch, just hanging out.
The bleeding-heart that I am, I brought her into the apartment (which honestly was probably not a good idea, for future reference) and rescued her from the cold.
We called our apartment office to notify them that we found this cat, and asked if anyone reported it missing. No one had.
We honestly did make an effort to find the owner; we posted on a "Lost Pets" facebook page, where it was shared numerous times, we told a local vet, we checked to see if she was microchipped (she wasn't), and in the end, no one claimed her.
I'm a strong believer in "fate" and that things happen for a reason, and I truly believe that Ellie coming into our lives' was no mistake.
(Also, it's worth noting that we bought her the collar and that she was not wearing one when we found her).

I also blame January for kick-starting my Starbucks addiction.
I've branched out quite a bit from my usual drink of hot chocolate, and I've signed up for the Starbucks Rewards Program. I'm only 16 stars from reaching Gold Level now.

To wrap up the end of January, I got to spend the day with some of my favorite people.
It was the day of my friend Mandy's bridal shower, and my friend Alexandra and I drove three hours to get there. We ate great food, reminisced on our wonderful experiences with all working together, and ultimately had a great time.

♥K