2015: told by the blog

I cannot believe that 2015 is nearly over. It's crazy to me! I've learned so much about myself this year. I'm happy I get to "write a new book" with chapter 1 being January. It's going to be such a great year filled with many new adventures.

I'm also happy that this year I started blogging again. In April, I was a freshman and even though I made new friends and was really involved, I still felt like I needed a place to come and be completely myself with all of my thoughts. So I came back, upgraded my blog design, and wrote out everything in my 19 year old mind. I made this blog in 2011 and while I've taken some breaks, I'm so so glad it's here with me.

At the end of 2012 I did a post about all my favorite blog posts I made that year, and I thought I'd do it again this year!

Go Do

Comfort

Missing the person you used to be

Boyhood, 2014

My Love Grows (NYC)

Hiking (Hawk Mountain)

A quote to think about

Thanks, Dakota

Positivity

Iceland!

Around the world

Snowy Reykjavik

Little Miss Sunshine, 2006

Cheers to 2016! I can't believe how fast the years are flying by - it's honestly crazy to me! Each year I think more and more about how grateful I am for this life, and this year is no different. Life is so amazing.

Blogger S/O

I was browsing the web and I came across a blogger that I actually went to college with. I want to throw him some love because I've been scrolling through his writing and videos for the past hour! His writing is wonderful and his videos are beautiful. I love his outlook on life and I want to pass it onto my readers as well. It's called Becoming a Dirtbag and it's very Eat Pray Love-esque, as it talks a lot about the simple ways to enjoy and appreciate life.

Here are some of my favorite posts!

Eight Ways to Live a Simpler Life

Deep Water Soloing

What it Means to be a Dirtbag

(Photo by Josh)

His space is a little new, so there aren't a ton of posts yet, but definitely head over and check it out. It's cool to say I went to school with people like this!

Christmas Tag

I found this and thought I'd do it just for fun! Hope you all are having a happy holiday.

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1.  What is your favorite Christmas movie?   Elf! Also Christmas Vacation!
2.  When do you start looking forward to Christmas?   November, probably. When they start playing music, decorating the stores, and coming out with all the peppermint treats in coffee shops, I can't help myself!
3.  What are some of your family's holiday traditions?   Opening gifts in the morning, chilling all day enjoying our new goodies, and then hosting a family Christmas dinner at our place! It's a calm, fun day. Usually my grandparents come, but they couldn't make it this year! Also, I always watch The Polar Express on Christmas Eve night - so fun!
4.  What is your favorite Christmas song?   Hmmm... there are so many. This is a tough one! I really love All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey. I like the Chipmunk's one too!
5.  Do you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?   Christmas morning, but of course!
6.  Have you ever built a gingerbread house?   I have! Not frequently, but sometimes with kids. I students taught at en elementary school a few years ago and they did those around the holidays!
7.  Favorite Christmas smell?   The first thing that comes to mind are all the Yankee Candle Christmas scents. My mom has a lot of the 'Christmas Wreath' scent around!
8.  Favorite holiday treat?   Sugar cookies! I make a ton of this every year. I also love egg nog!
9.  PJs all day or dressed up?   PJs all day and then dress up for dinner!
10.  Candy canes or gingerbread men?   Candy canes - I buy those and eat them throughout December. Have you had candy canes in hot chocolate? SO GOOD.
11.  Have you ever built a snowman?   Absolutely! We have a kit. When I make the move to Boston, I'm sure I'll be making plenty more ;)
12.  What is on the top of your Christmas list?   This year it was a heated blanket! I didn't get it... but ya know. I got good stuff!
13.  What gift are you most excited to give this year?  All of them, honestly! I ordered most of them from a website where you can personalize anything. So almost all of the gifts I'm giving are really specific to the person. It makes it so special! Plus I did a great job with wrapping this year, if I do say so myself ;)
15.  What do you eat for Christmas dinner?   SO MANY GOOD THINGS. Turkey, mashed potatoes, squash, string bean casserole, corn, stuffing... basically Thanksgiving dinner again.
16.  Any funny Christmas memories?   Oh, a lot! This is our first Christmas in our rental house (and hopefully out last), so this will be a memory. There are a lot of bad Christmas' that stick out. Like 2 years ago when everybody got a stomach virus that my sister had. That year, the turkey also didn't cook so we had to throw it away, and my mom had valuables in the dining room and they all mysteriously fell and broke. It was so weird and a terrible day! That one still sticks out to all of us.
17.  What is the best Christmas present you've ever received?  

When I was little I wanted to be a teacher so badly and my parents got me a whole teacher set. It was the best ever! That was when I was about 6 or 7 and I remember it really vividly.

Merry Christmas!

Enjoy your day!

(We Heart It)

Have an awesome holiday with friends and family! I can't believe this day is here after another year has come and gone. Merry Christmas!

xo, Katie

Link Love

Can you guys and gals find the panda among all of the snowmen? ^ I'm happy an artist was trending on Facebook yesterday! Check out Gergely Dudas' work here!

I love Adele!

This iPhone 6 case is so cute! I like how it's see-through so you can see the gold color of the phone.

I love this Instagram! This guy lives in Iceland - the pictures are so amazing. How awesome would it be to see these views everyday?!

Can you believe these are a real thing?

How cute are these guys?! This is awesome, what they're doing. I agree - we all need an experience to test what we can do.

This is my new favorite Twitter account! So funny!

Lately my new favorite thing to do is look up really expensive homes on Zillow (I can't explain why?) and look at this one! WOW.

This tweet is awesome! I really needed that to end off my year.

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I'm so happy to be back in PA! I feel like my fresh start is already beginning. This next month will go so quickly, but I'm going to start taking in each day rather than looking forward to the next!

Cheers to you! 2 more days until Santa comes down our chimneys!

Little Miss Sunshine, 2006

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I had to write about this movie the other day for my abnormal psych class. 9 page paper! I had fun writing it though - it reminded me how much I love this movie! So, so great.

Top 5 Holiday Movies

I've been seeing everybody doing this! I wanted to join in myself. Here are my top favorite holiday movies:

Elf

This one is the best! I've talked to some people at school who haven't seen it and I just stand in awe. It's so funny! I can quote the whole thing.

Christmas Vacation

This is another funny one! I can probably quote this one too, if I'm honest. Aunt Bethany is my favorite.

The Polar Express

Classic! Except I'm weird because I can only watch this on Christmas Eve. Is that so strange? I don't know, I just feel like it's the perfect Christmas Eve movie and I don't like watching it a whole lot. When I watch it once a year it gives me chills.

White Christmas

Another classic! I love old shows and movies. You know that about me if you read this blog a lot. This movie makes me so happy! I love all the songs.

A Christmas Story

I just saw this one for the first time a few years ago! It's so funny. I wasn't expecting much out of it, but I was crying laughing during some parts. So good!

I can't wait to get home to watch all of these by the fire!

6 more days til Christmas!

(I got these pictures from Google - sorry about the quality!)

Goals (literally)

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Recently I've been getting bigger and bigger goals. It's great - I feel like I have dreams that many people might think are stupid and that will never happen. I found this tweet and it really made me think:

I tell some people the things I want to do and how successful I want to be. I tell my roommate and my advisor and they all just laugh. My roommate has no goals at all and it's just so funny to tell her all the things I'm going to do when I move to Boston.

I'm proud of myself for taking steps towards my dreams and really doing things to achieve those dreams. Do you feel this way? Do you have huge goals? If not, set some for yourself! Don't do something that doesn't make you smile everyday! I get that we all need to make money and sometimes that means doing things we aren't 100% in love with, but still just make a list of your dreams and overtime try to achieve them.

Happy Friday! 2 finals today, a paper to write tomorrow, packing on Saturday, then back to PA! Woo!

PS. It's my dad's birthday! Happy birthday, daddio - love you!

Icelandic Apts

So I'm sitting here in the library, trying to muster up the dedication to study, and I start Pinterest-ing Iceland. One thing led to another and now I'm looking up apartments in Reykjavik. And can I just say that Iceland has the cutest/chicest apartments EVER?! Here's one I found that's downtown, right in the heart of Reykjavik.

Can you say swoon? Let's just ignore that fact that it's $380 USD a night to rent :( I'm not really sure how much it is to buy... we can dream, though.

I'm going to find more Icelandic homes to post because they're so pretty!

Finals

Welp, this is about how my week is going. My school is so weird! (But please go retweet ;)

Hope you're all having a great week! It's going by pretty quickly. I have a lot to do, but I'm getting it all done pretty quick! This time next week I'll be wrapping gifts by the fire while I sip some hot chocolate in our new house :)

Happy Wednesday!

Etsy Print

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Positive print by Anna See, on Etsy

Whine about it

Here's another video for your Sunday! Have you heard of this guy?? So funny!! I've been watching his Whine About It videos for BuzzFeed non stop. They're hilarious! This one is my favorite:

His Twitter is also super funny! Besides him, I could sit and watch BuzzFeed videos all day long... anyone else?? They crack me up and they're so interesting!

Anyway, have a good one! 1 week until I go back to York! Outchya ;)

MC - BB Talk

Ok, brace yourself. I'm thinking not everyone here is a Miley Cyrus fan, but I'm proud to say I am! I just love how she's so herself. She just came out with a new song today called BB Talk and believe it or not, I'm obsessed. I just think it's so unique and fun!

Check it out if you want ;) Have a good Saturday! I have to chaperone a bus trip to the outlets... not complaining! I needed a day away from final papers.

Happy

“When you feel happy, really happy, it somehow seems that you’ve always been happy and that you’ll always be happy. The same is often true when you feel sad, or lonely, or depressed, or broke, or sick, or scared. Something, perhaps, to remember.” 

—Notes From The Universe

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I've been reading Eat Pray Love and this kind of reminds me of a chapter I read. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Anyway, my roommate has been driving me crazy and I'm just really excited to transfer. Whenever I think about where I'm going to be next semester, I just get so excited and happy. I found this quote somewhere online and had to share!

Have a happy day :)

Swiss

Bern, Switzerland

This picture is so beautiful. BRB while I look at more pictures of Switzerland for a few hours.

Taken by Tiffany, a travel photographer. Check out her blog!

5 happy things

I was reading though some blogs and I got to one that I follow, Catarina! She did a post about a list of happy things and said she's going to make it a series every month. What a good idea! I kind of want to do the same. Just like I do a monthly 'currently' post, I think I'll start a monthly 'happy' post!

So here we go... here are 5 things I'm happy for right now!

14 days left of the semester

Words cannot describe how ready I am for this semester to be over. I won't go on about it again since I think I've brought it up 1000 times on this blog, but let's just say I'm ready.

Exercise classes

At this school there are free exercise classes everyday and it's awesome! I love classes because they tell me what to do and motivate me to go. There are so many options too - usually on Mondays I do ab lab, Tuesdays are yoga, and Wednesdays are cycling and restorative yoga. It's great!

New adventures

I've also said this a lot, so I'll try to keep it short. I feel like a broken record, sorry! My parents are officially moved into the new house and that's so scary to me! Crazy that Christmas won't be spent in our home. My friends and I are trying to plan our 'girl's night' Christmas and it's tough now that I won't get home until the 23rd and have to also drive to get to them! However, I'm thankful that next semester I'm going to move to Boston and live up there. I'm so so ready to move on from Springfield.

Christmas!

Duh! This should have been #1, honestly. I'm done Christmas shopping and now all that's left is to wrap them all! I'm so excited! It's so fun seeing Christmas lights and trees and hearing Christmas music all the time. I just love it. I wish, so badly, that I was going back to PA sooner, but I guess we can't have it all!

Best friends

I'm so thankful for the friends in my life. I love that we've all been friends since elementary school and we continue to get together as if we were never apart. I'm so glad that we will always be there for each other and spend all major occasions together. I miss them so much while at school, but at least we talk all the time and sill be back together soon!

What are you happy about lately? Send me links - I'd love to read! Thanks again to What Cat Says for this post idea!

Paper Towns, 2015

I'm a little late in the game! But over the break I rented Paper Towns and watched it with my friends. SO GOOD. I wanted to watch it again the next day. I, of course, thought the book was better, but they did such a great job at sticking to the plot. 5 stars!

Have you seen it?? What were your thoughts? I should also say that I'm in love with Nat Wolff, so that contributes to the love of the movie a little bit ;)

Ps. Tonight they're calling for the worst storm to hit Iceland in 25 years! Thinking of this beautiful country tonight. Stay safe Icelandics and travelers!

Snowy Reykjavik

Aren't these pictures taken by Óli Haukur Mýrdal so fantastic?! My want to live here grows even more. I'm swooning so much. You can read more about the pictures too!

Christmas time in NYC pt. V

It's that time of year again! I actually forgot about doing this post! Today at my school there was actually a trip to NYC but the sign up sheet filled up way too quick. That's ok though, my friend, Alexandra, and I want to go back over Winter break and do what we did this Summer. I'm just so in love with this city during Christmas time. Boston is also beautiful during this time of year as well! Maybe I'll have to start doing a 'Christmas time in Boston' post too :)

This year I switched it up a little and instead of getting random pictures from all over the internet, I got them from Travel Channel's website! 

Anyway, have a great Saturday! I'm currently sitting by a huge fireplace, listening to Christmas music, and trying to find the determination to write some papers for school ;) Only 2 more weekends until Christmas!

Other 'Christmas in NYC' posts: part I, part II, part III, part IV

Currently

I can't believe it's already been a month since I did a currently post! Time is going so quickly!

Loving: The fact that things are looking up! This school year has been so, so rough for so many reasons. I don't really want to get into all of it, but I'm so glad that it's uphill from here. Once the 22nd of December hits and my dad comes to pick me up, everything will start fresh and I'm immencely grateful for that.

Watching: Gossip Girl! Can I just say that having Netflix back and working again is a blessing. I watched the first season of Gossip Girl many moons ago but I kind of forgot everything that happened, so I started it over a few days ago and I love watching it before bed!

Reading: Eat, Pray, Love. SO GOOD. When I first started reading it, I thought it was kind of relatable. Just a little! I kind of have a lot going on and feel the need to get away. I think if I replaced all of her locations with Iceland and Boston, it would be pretty on point!

  

Anticipating: Christmas! Moving out of Springfield! Going home / to school in Boston! So much! I really just can't wait for this semester to be over. I'm going to enjoy it while I'm here but I have so many things going on around me that I can't wait to just start fresh.

Listening: Adele 25! Who isn't? (Plus Christmas music, obviously.)

 Working on: Hmm.. so much. Getting Christmas gifts for people is a big one right now. I'm ordering most of them online because I don't get back from school until the 23rd. It's pretty hard! I'm usually really good about Christmas gifts, but this year I've been struggling. I'm also working on my health. Just simple things like going to the gym and not over-eating during meals. I think I've been doing well!

Hope you're all feeling really great right now! Send me a link to your 'currently' posts - I'd love to read them all!
Thanks to Dani from Sometimes Sweet for this post idea!
The picture is from my Tumblr.

Link Love: Hello Giggles Edition

I notice that when I do link posts, I link to a lot of Hello Giggles articles. So I thought this time I would just dedicate the whole post to Hello Giggles!

Selfie Shaming.

H&M Balmain - I wish I could have snagged something!

Anxiety of making Friends. It takes me so long to open up to people and friendships are tough because I'm never sure whether we have a ton in common. Are you the same?

I always pictured an office to be like The Office! Crazy that in reality, it's not that entertaining.

A letter from this 30 something self to her 20 something self.

Meet the winner of the National Dog Show!

This restaurant gave free meals to people eating alone on Thanksgiving.

Gilmore Girls relationship goals. (#JusticeForLane)

Have a great Wednesday! This week is going pretty fast, I'd say.

Kylie FTW

Ok, have you guys seen Kylie Jenner's new photo shoot for Interview Mag? I'm actually obsessed! She's owning it!

Hope you're having a great day!