life update | goodbye to my worst semester of graduate school.

HELLO SWEET PALS OF MINE!

I am officially done with my most difficult semester in graduate school and gooooood lawd did that one put me through the ringer. I won't bore you with all the details, but long story short, I am thrilled to be taking a month off from school (certainly not work...I'm scheduled six days next week - YIKES!).





It's supposed to be cooling down this week...like we may actually have lows in the high 30's on Sunday! I'm not sure I could handle this type of weather full time, but I absolutely love these random cold spells around Christmas time. Between the stress of finals week and 80 degree temps, it has not felt like the holidays. But I'm kicking off the season with a little wreath making today, a Christmas party next week, and a holiday baking day with my girlfriends next week.

My plan is to gear up some content for the next month while I'm out of school, but in the meantime, here's a teensy update on life:

I busted my butt in public.

I've been splurging lately & getting gel manicures way more often that I have in the past (except for this past month where I allowed myself to look like a hood rat for far too long...like 3 gel nails still holding on, overly grown out, 7 naked nails).
As a "post-finals" treat to myself, I went into a nail salon up the road from my apartment for the first time. I wasn't familiar with the plaza, and I didn't realize it had four sides and 39248 stores. I thought I would walk into the parking lot a little more to get a better look of the store front names, and stepped on to a concrete parking bumper. Next thing I know, my ankle twists and I go to catch myself, suddenly realize I can't, and I think to myself "oh shit, I am actually going to fall." And I did. Like both hands on the ground, skinned my knee, purse flew over my shoulder...like a damn child.
In that moment, I actually wished someone else was around so I could laugh with them about it. Alas, I was alone, so I picked my pride up off the ground and moved along.

Taylor Swift tickets are in hand.

If you couldn't tell from my last post, I am obsessed with Taylor's new album, so there wasn't even a question about going to her reputation tour. We scored bomb tickets for a halfway decent price (by Taylor Swift ticket standards, anyway). We reallllly wanted to splurge and do the VIP tickets/pit tickets/etc. but we didn't know the price range until the day we received our promo codes to buy tickets...$1,500?! I think not, Tay Tay.

Our new neighborhood is the bomb dot com.

Aside from noisy neighbors who play beer pong until 3 a.m. on a Sunday going into a Monday. AKA a work week. AKA WHAT DO Y'ALL DO WITH YOUR LIVES BECAUSE I NEED TO KNOW. But aside from that hoopla (our new Amazon Echo helps with that - Alexa plays us "ambient rain sounds on loop" most nights now), I really do love it here. The dogs go on longer walks, I take myself on runs around the pretty neighborhoods, yummy restaurants are just a few steps away...even better, I can go almost three weeks without having to fill up my gas tank. WHAT A LIFE.

Plus, my parents came by a few weeks ago and helped us hang everything up, clear out all the boxes, etc., so now our place looks like we actually live here, not like we just moved in. Since it's a whopping 650 square feet with not a lot of storage, I'm also learning to be very conscious about what I bring into our new little space. No more impulse buys for me! (LOL kidding, that will never happen).

How's the start to your December so far? If you're in school - are you done with finals yet? If you're not, what are you looking forward to most about the holidays? Let me know in the comments!