Weekly Gratitude

1. I am thankful for my parents for listening to me complain about the coming week. It's homecoming week here at USC and is very fun, but I'm a homecoming chair, so it's also very VERY stressful and intense. Major props to Brandon, Jenn, and Sara who have all been in my position in the past.

2. I am thankful that this week will be over soon enough. See above point ;)

3. I am thankful that I've found two GREAT fall nail colors to choose from on Sunday! Check them out:

Geranium

Size Matters

4. I am thankful for the WONDERFUL employees/volunteers of Charleston Fashion Week! They have been SO helpful with rescheduling with my schedule and both friendly and flexible. I imagined they would have been rigid but instead CFW was great! (My manicure will occur after the audition so a potentially bright nail color isn't distracting!)

5. I am thankful for the retreat I was a part of on Saturday. It was so nice to be away and out of Columbia in the cool weather as well as on the water. Water and being close to water helps calm me and I believe does wonders for the soul.

6. I am thankful that it's really starting to get cold here in Columbia!! I can transition into full-blown tights and boots and dresses! It's so exciting!

7. I am thankful for all the exciting events coming up before the semester ends! I'm also thankful that this semester of tough lectures and tougher exams is coming to an end. To think that first semester of my junior year of college is almost over BLOWS MY MIND!

8. I am thankful for all the new candles in my room. I find it relaxing and calming which is ironic because my Momma HATES candles! I can't think of very much she hates more than candles!

9. I am thankful that I am almost done using my BlackBerry!!!! I hope I can get an upgrade over Christmas break or after the new year and I can say sianara (how do you spell that??) to this stinky phone!

10. I am thankful that I get to see some of my cousins this week! I haven't seen them in a few months and they'll be spending some time down in my neck of the woods from New York!!

xxKatie

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN!

Happy Birthday to my roommate Megan!! She's 21 today!

Working on this banner we became friends!

Aly our fabulous friend, Megan and me!

She's very short so I was squatting to match her...go Carolina!

Dear Katy Perry/Sooki, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! SEE YOU SOON!

xxKatie

CRAZY for Carolina!

It's that time again everyone, homecoming! I tweet about USC Homecoming a lot, and the whole week is crazy. There is just about something to do every night! Monday was a free stuff day, Tuesday was the Homecoming Showcase, Wednesday was an event called Spurs and Struts, Thursday was a big pep rally (I didn't attend though because I pulled an all nighter Wednesday studying for an Accounting test) and Friday was a massive step show put on by the NPHC sororities and fraternities.

Although very blurry, this was one of the acts from Showcase! How cool? One of the male contestants for King attempted the act from America's Got Talent and did a great job!!

This is Steve Spurrier from canned creations. I built his visor and was very proud. He was part of our newspaper-making design! One of our newest ambassadors was photographed for the South Carolina state newspaper!!

Flashback to Wednesday night if you will. Spurs and Struts is a huge part of the week. All the different teams competing toward Homecoming have to choreograph a 5 minute dance that has to do with your organization, work with the theme of homecoming and have all kinds of other parts. This was our team:

Here's our small but mighty wonderful team!! I couldn't be more proud (WHO ARE YOU, AK-47, THE bromance, I can Transform ya, me attempting to dougie and body roll and everything else I was horrible at, snacking, dancing, I SEE YOU D GUETTA, stripping...Grace, booty poppin', awkward hugging, y'all I could go on forever!!) We danced to Follow Me Down by 3Oh3, Crazy by Britney Spears, Club Can't Handle Me Now by Flo Rida, All I Do is Win by DJ Khaled, I Can Transform Ya by Chris Brown. It was mixed by the wonderful Laura (second from the left on the bottom row).

It was a crazy few practices (we apparently "only had 3" wink wink to all my dancers) that we had and I wouldn't have changed anything. I had a great time with all of you and loved getting to know everyone an a totally different unique level. Who would have ever thought I would have been dancing in front of our student body. I thank Georgia, Jonathan, Joe, Elizabeth, Patrick, Adam, Jade, Laura, Katie, Grace and Megan for the rockin' time we had!

xxKatie

Koozie Kollection

During this past week, my koozie collection has just about doubled! Here's part of the collection that I could track down:

I'm loving the colors in this!

These two are thanks to my fave Lilly stores: The Pink Crab and Pink Sorbet!

These guys are my southern collection: Southern Tide, Coast, High Cotton Ties 1, Vineyard Vines (my most recent acquisition from a trunk show at Britton's of Columbia) and High Cotton Ties 2

These are all my koozies from school! I'm missing one from Homecoming last year that I loved because it had nautical flags of USC because our theme was Anchors Aweigh!

What does your koozie collection look like? A lot? A few? Have a few faves?

xxKatie

Outfit of the Day: First Day of Jeans

September 20 by letsbepreppy featuring sterling silver jewelry

Monday was the first day I wore jeans to class this year! I thought that today might be less hot (notice, I don't say cooler...it won't be "cooler" here anytime soon...) so I figured that jeans might be a nice choice. I've also been seeing some of my fellow classmates in jeans as well, so I thought that there had to be something to it...until I saw a friend's facebook status that said something about having a high of 98 degrees  Monday. I sank in my chair and promptly checked the weather and saw this:

Oops. Lesson learned for the week: keep rocking the Lilly skirts and crew neck T's for a little while longer. It's nice that we still have a lot of hot summer weather, but at the same time I'd love a little bit of fall thrown in there somewhere. I hope it's not like last year where we had summer and then it felt like the wintery temps were right around the corner! Plus fall means cozy sweaters, fall boots (oh hey Skyler...look for a post from her soon), the state fair, blankets, Halloween, more football games, Homecoming (are YOU crazy for Carolina?!), Thanksgiving (that's rather far down the road, really), and all kinds of fun stuff! 

I guess I shouldn't complain since the weather isn't too too bad, but I'd like to see some eight's or maybe seven's and dare I even as for a six (that's completely wishful thinking and I know it) as that front number. For all my Southern readers, we'll just have to wait and be patient! Maybe next week will be more appropriate for jeans and cardigans!

Be sure to enter the giveaway for this week provided by The Posh Palm!! It ends Friday!!

xxKatie

Ta-DA!

Well, after much thought, I decided to go with a name change! I agree with Meg (from...your blog is private, I'd love an invite!!) that I can always change it back, so here it goes! If I'm on your blogroll and my name doesn't change automatically, I'd really appreciate it if you could do a quick name swap! This week is also Homecoming week at USC and everyone is super busy! The Homecoming King candidate from my organization WON! It was huge! We have a real chance at winning the whole thing now. I worked super hard on the banner this weekend, over 16 hours! It will be judged soon and I can't wait to see the results! It looks great stacked up against the competition!



Now I've got to go study for 3 tests this week...yikes! Hope everyone has a great week and BEAT VANDY! Thanks for all the new name support!

xxKatie