Busy busy

As this semester comes to a close, and the best holiday of the year quickly approaches, I've decided to write my mere second blog post of the past few months. 

Here's a list of what I've been up to:

1. Rock climbing. 

(Tyler and I bought some annual climbing passes to the local climbing gym, Stone Age. It's pretty awesome and we try to go three times a week.)

2. School. 

(Oh yeah, that thing. This has surprisingly been a pretty easy semester and I've enjoyed it. I'm also really glad it's about to be over.)

3. Couponing.

(Yup, you read right. Little Miss Frugal has one-upped herself and started clipping, printing and running to my mailbox for coupons lately. Hey, I like it.)

4. Crocheting.

(I've crocheted seventeen Christmas gifts in the past month. I'm a crochetin' fool, man!)

5. Loving my boyfriend.

(Living with him is probably the best decision I've ever made. We're cute.)

Also, I've been putting up Christmas decorations, sipping hot cocoa, eating candy, watching television, hanging out with friends, wishing I had time to crochet myself a big chunky, scarf and doing a lot of Pinteresting.

I'd like to start making more items to put up on my Etsy shop, but in the mean time, the main priorities are school and getting out Christmas gifts.
Also, if you're bored, check out mine and Tyler's super dumb blog.

Happy December, ya'll!

Tour of our home!

The boyfriend and I moved in together the first of the month. I convinced him to help me clean house the other day and bring out all of his photo gear to take some nice shots of us in our new home. 

The apartment we live in is relatively small, but it's perfect for the two of us.

Here we are in our living room. This is where we spend most of our time when awake. We watch TV, watch movies, blog, read books, play Guitar Hero, etc. Tyler's desk area is also in this room, so he's in here quite a bit. In fact, we're both in the room right now! We're both blogging.

The next room I'd like to show you is the...

Dining area/kitchen. Probably my favorite room in the apartment. I never liked making food until I started living with Tyler. Now I make food every night and I love it! I'll be sharing some recipes sometime soon. Note the zombie portrait of Tyler on the far wall done by one of our extremely talented friends, Juli. There's also a Rolling Stone poster of Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart above our TV given to us by one of our high school teachers. We love it!

This is me in our kitchen making one of our favorite recipes, Chinese Veggie Noodles!

This is our hallway. It is lined with albums that Tyler either recorded or did the artwork for. He's so talented!

This is our bathroom. There's not really much to say about it except, "how jealous are you that you don't have an American flag in your shower?" A comment from one of our friends about the flag in our shower made me laugh hysterically the other day. He said, "It's gotta be hard to wash with one hand. You know, with your other hand over your heart the whole time."

This is our extremely crowded bedroom. Behind us is our closet and above our bed is a charcoal drawing I did a year ago. 

All of Tyler's clothes, photography things, camping things and rock climbing things are stuffed into this bedroom, along with all of my clothes and most of my crafting supplies. 

Like I've said before, what I love about my home is who I share it with. Tyler and I have been mostly patient with each other and it's worked out very well so far.

Have a good week everyone!

Albuquerque!

There's some new kids in Duke City. Home of the television show Breaking Bad, Balloon Fiesta, the Sandia Mountains and a butt load of hipsters, Albuquerque, the sixth fastest growing city in the US, is where Tyler and I have decided to reside together for the next three years (at least). I'm going to school in little over a week and I'm pretty excited about it. I have changed my major recently, as many of you know, to secondary education. I know what you're thinking. "Oh Elizabeth, I thought you hated children and ate them for breakfast?" Not the case. Of course I don't hate children; I will just never have any of my own. Ever.

Tyler and I have been going on a plethora of walks around campus. We've heard a lot of stories about the neighborhood and how not-so-crime-free it is, but we haven't experienced anything to scare us away just yet. 

My brother, sister and nephew visited us this past week, as they (my brother and sister; not my three-year-old nephew) went to a KISS and Motley Crue concert. Not exactly my cup of tea, but they seemed to have fun. After the concert, they came to the apartment with a huge McDonald's bag and yelled, "That *explicit* concert was *explicit* awesome! You *explicit* missed out!" If Jude, my nephew Tyler and I were watching, wasn't asleep at the time, I probably would have responded instead of angrily storming off to bed.

Today Tyler and I went bouldering at the base of the Sandias! It was loads of fun. I'm super weak and junk, so I sucked eggs, but it was still fun.

Here's a picture!

Have a good weekend!

Roadtrip!

My boyfriend and I took a trip up to Grand Junction, Colorado last week to visit his family. It was an intense trip, in that we were either driving, hiking or sleeping. We went to Moab, Utah for a couple of days, camped and visited the arches. We hiked a few miles to the Delicate Arch, which was probably the toughest hike all week. Even though it was only a few miles, it felt like more -- many, many more. I took over ten breaks just to catch my breath, but Tyler didn't have the same problem. I'm so unhealthy and I'm not exactly the fittest girl around, but I managed. When we got to the top of the mountain and saw the arch, the wind was almost blowing me away. I couldn't even stand up or walk without being knocked down. After we were done in Moab, we went back to Grand Junction, took showers and went to a restaurant called Tequila's. I ate some red, cheese enchiladas that were, in my opinion, muy delicioso. The next few days, we ventured in the mountains of Colorado, searching for fun hikes. At first, it was snowing and cold; then it was blazing hot. All in all, though, we had a fantastic time and ate a lot of food. 

Here are some pictures from our trip.

Freshman no more

While I've been lounging around with my boyfriend for the past couple of days, I decided it's time for a new blog post. I've been preoccupied with finals and writing papers, so I'm sorry for the delay. I'm officially done with my freshman year of college and I couldn't be more stoked. I got As and Bs!

I'd like to revisit some memorable moments:

1. The time I broke my nose.
I was sending a message to Tyler on my phone and walking simultaneously on the first Thursday I had lived in Albuquerque. I happened to get lost while I was typing away, so I lifted my head and realized that, to my surprise, I had walked pretty far off campus. How? To this day, I still have no idea. Anyway, I started walking towards UNM again and began to read a message from Tyler. When I was replying to his message, I walked face first into a street light pole. I was in so much pain. My eyes immediately started to overflow with tears and with my luck, the two bus stops that happened to be right next to me were full of people. I was so embarrassed, but luckily no one laughed. I ran away and checked my nose in the mirror -- it was black and blue already! I took some pain pills, bought an ice pack and called it a day. A couple of days later, I visited my cousin. We played basketball, but decided to stop when the ball hit me in the face. I saw a doctor on campus a couple of days later and got an x-ray or my face. She showed me the x-ray, said it was broken, prescribed me some extreme pain pills and the rest is history.

2. The time Tyler and I went camping.
Tyler and I drove for what seemed like hours. We finally arrived to a campground and that's when we realized it was labor day weekend. There were no open spaces, so we decided to camp in an unmarked spot not too far away. When it was time for bed, we aired up the air mattress only to find we hadn't packed a cap, so the air kept escaping from it. We slept on the ground, and it was the worst night of sleep I have ever experienced, but I still had a wonderful time.

3. The time when my refrigerator was my only friend.
That was pretty much all this past semester, unfortunately, but that's okay. I studied harder this semester than I had the one before, and if my social life had to be punched in the gut for it, I'm okay with that.

4. The time Tyler sent me roses.
January 19th was mine and Tyler's six monthiversary. I had received a call from an unknown number, but answered anyway. It was a woman from a flower shop looking where to drop some flowers off. Tyler bought me three roses in a vase and had them delivered to me. How romantic!

And many more times...

Now I'm lounging around watching Desperate Housewives while Tyler edits videos and takes pictures.This summer going to be stuffed with working at the paper, sewing, mine and Tyler's one year anniversary, my birthday and having fun. Have a nice summer, everyone.

Day 26-30! Challenge defeated!

Day 26: Things I like and dislike about myself.

I like my dedication to things, the diverse things I'm good at, my height, how focused on the future I am.

I dislike how much I love chips, the amount of time I spend worrying about things.

Photo: Something old.

This picture, obviously. Oh, how I miss my long hair.

Day 27: A quote I try and live by.

"Get your homework done now so you can watch reruns of Friends without regret later."

Also:

"All that really matters is that we live a life that is meaningful, joyous and purposeful. The rest are just details."

And I can't forget:

"Aut mori carpe diem desideraretur" which literally translates from Latin to "Seize the day or die with regret."

Photo: After dark.

Day 28: Somewhere I'd like to move or visit.

Well, I know I don't want to live in Albuquerque for the rest of my life. I know I want to live somewhere in the mountains, surrounded by a plethora of trees. Colorado, maybe? I also know I want to visit every state in America before I die, along with many other places around the world including Dubrovnik, Prague and Cape Horn.

Photo: Daily routine.

Talk to this guy.

Attempt to take notes without falling asleep.

Write awesome papers.

Day 29: Five weird things I like.

1. Tyler.

2. Spanish novellas on Telemundo.

3. Ferrets.

4. Hummus.

5. Saving my receipts.

Photo: Purchased.

This awesome shirt.

Day 30: One thing I'm excited about.

Well, I'm definitely excited about my future, but that's too vague. I'm really excited about pursing the dream of mine to open a part consignment store - part store where I sell things I make myself. I don't know what to call it, really, but I also don't care. I just really want it to be realistic, and if I set my mind to it, it will be.

Photo: In motion.

I know the challenges are over, but I'm going to post some extra pictures that not many people have ever seen before. Pictures that remind me of happy times.