My Valentine.

I have always loved Valentine's Day. Call me a sucker, a fool to the "Halmark-created holiday", so be it. Why not welcome an excuse to be extra nice, do things for your friends and loved ones and who doesn't love an excuse to go out to eat?

This Valentine's Day definitely goes down in the books as one of my favorites. My Valentine this year was Mike, who just so happened to be my Valentine for the past 3 Valentine's Days.

On Valentine's morning, I dropped off a little present, an eclair and a note on his doorstep.

I was a little too cheap to buy real wrapping paper so I grabbed a Daily Universe from campus, luckily I had ribbon.

I made these cards for my roommates and had to snap a picture of Mike's suave friends as they were on their way to their V-day "mandate" to P.F. Changs.

Can you guess which card is for which roommate??

Right to left: [Natalie] this Selena Gomez song is mine and Natalie's jam, [Meegan] I make tons of cookies and David always jokes about how they're a temptation, [Nicole] my diet coke run partner for life!

Ladies, all these men are single, let me know if you want in. 

Mike told me to dress up all fancy and that he'd pick me up at 6:30, other than that I had no idea what we were going to do. He'd been super secretive the last few days running "errands," and I was just dying to know what he'd been up to. We had to run by his apartment really quickly because "he forgot something," and I walked into the most perfect dinner setting.

Mike and I love to go out to eat, it is one of our favorite things to do together. We go out so much that this was the perfect way to switch things up. We had the apartment to ourselves and I have quite the chef of a boyfriend.

How cute is this table? He did it all by himself! He found real China at D.I., the fancy goblets, bought a table cloth and a runner, folded the napkins like a cruise director and set two spoons and forks. He is just the cutest. 

Mike's always been a good cook, but his recent obsession with Chopped has thrown him into Emeril Lagasse status. He made a "Jenna Meal," as he likes to call it: artichoke dip, ranch chicken, and butter cake topped with Haagen Daz ice cream. After the meal we watched The Bachelor together (his suggestion!) and played scrabble together, my favorite game. 

I'm not a chocolate girl so flowers are definitely the way to my heart. Over the last 2 and a half years, I've received a lot of flowers from this boy. Last Valentine's Day I wanted to return the favor so I came up with the idea of "man flowers." I got gift cards to some of his favorite places to eat and taped them to green pipe cleaners and tied a bow around them. They've been a hit! I highly suggest the idea. 

Mike made these bouquets himself. He bought all the flowers individually, even the greenery, and put them together! 

I just have to take one minute to brag. This is too good not to.

Most boyfriends/fiances/husbands want to make their girl feel special on Valentine's Day so they buy her flowers and do things that she likes to do. Mike brought me two bouquets of flowers, cooked me dinner, learn how to set a table, watched The Bachelor and played Scrabble with me - this is some pretty fancy courting if I say so myself.

However, that is not even the best part. Mike bought my roommate and his sister a bouquet of flowers, a huge cookie, balloons, a basket full of candy and a homemade card. Who does that? Mike does that.

He is the sweetest boy I have ever met. He is so in tune with other people's feelings and wants everyone to be happy. He's the greatest guy I know and I'm glad there is a holiday that gives me an excuse to show him how special he is to me. 

happy birthday

Friday was this crazy girl's 15th Birthday!

I have the spunkiest, most talented, funniest little sister around. Since she is almost 7 years younger than me, I have been able to watch her grow up. It has been the best kind of treat. She is my best friend who puts up with me annoying her mercilessly, she always keeps me laughing - seriously this girl's sense of humor is like none other, she is incredibly smart, is the biggest social butterfly I know - her social life is literally 8x busier than mine, is really mature and wise, and is the most talented person I have ever met. Don't believe me? Watch this: 

http://www.twitvid.com/RII0Q

Carly was Annie in her musical theatre company's production and from what I heard (unfortunately I wasn't able to go) was unbelievably incredible. I knew she would be, she's been singing ever since she could talk. When she was three years old we were getting our hair cut and she had the whole salon silent (over 15 hair cutting stations) while she performed the song "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid.

I love Carly so much and am so grateful to have her as my sister and best friend. Happy Birthday! 

**I'm just glad it's her 15th birthday so I don't have to worry about dating and driving just yet. Phew! 

something disturbing.

This guy fits into my clothes. 

He enjoyed it, I laughed but was crying on the inside and secretly contemplating fasting for a month. 

I did have fun seeing his inner model come out during the photo shoot. 

America's Next Top Model, watch out. Daddy Long Legs is coming for you. 

My View.

This has been my view all week.

Sitting on my bed, or chair, or library desk, staring at my computer.
I guess my view has never really been my hair, unless I had some crazy Spide-y vision. But this has also been my hair all week. On the top of my head. I've only put heat on my hair twice in the past week and a half. Not because I'm trying to keep it healthy or anything, nope, not at all. Just because I've been busy and lazy.

While we're giving out beauty points, in the past week and a half I have gone 3 days without wearing an ounce of make up, 2 wearing only mascara. 

In case you were wondering or worried, I shower every day. Although I may not be cute, I'm always clean. 

I decided to get dressed today so that at least these cute rays of sunshine would be part of my view.

Disregard the messy dresser, my room is actually much more clean than this picture lets on.

Happy Midterms! 

Art Therapy

When I was in London, I learned that I absolutely love art. Last Friday, I learned that while I love to look at art, I am certainly no good at making it. 

This past weekend, my roommate Nicole and I decided to follow through with the artistic plans we had been dreaming up for months. We went to the dollar store to buy a brush set and Walmart for the paint and canvases (3 canvases for only 6 dollars!). The entire night only cost each of us a $12.03!

 I promise Nicole wasn't posing for this, she's just that darling all the time.

 My paintings
excuse the hair on top of my head and the Zermatt shirt my dad didn't want. At least I have the excuse I was painting, sure didn't have that on my Cafe Rio excursion the next night. woops! 

Our finished products.

These were very amateur, to say the least, but it made for such a fun night. We got in old clothes, turned on Sleepless in Seattle and went wild with a little art therapy. I definitely recommend it. 

Confession

Oftentimes, I only wear my glasses to hide the fact that I'm not wearing makeup.

Like when it's Saturday night, you haven't done your hair or makeup all day, but you really want a Cafe Rio taco. 

Just slides those babies over your ears and you're good to go. Meet my Saturday night.

Yes, I am aware that this is a Myspace shot. I just thought it enhanced the sexy librarian vibe, no? No.
I promise they are actually prescription glasses and I'm not going hipster on you.
Hope your Saturday night was as relaxing as mine.

Oh my gosh, we're back again

***props to all who caught the Backstreet Boys reference in the title.

So January always seems to be about New Year's Resolutions, lucky for me, I found a way to knock out a couple of my resolutions in one shot.

Enter: the blog.

I started this blog when I went on a study abroad to London in Fall 2010, and it hasn't been touched since. Maybe because it pained me a little to take down the last remnants of London, maybe I was a little lazy, maybe I felt that my life wasn't interesting enough. Well, things are changing, friends. I'm turning my old blog into a scrap book and trying to be a little less lazy (nevermind that I am in sweats and no makeup at 6:00 on a Saturday night). As for the third, my life hasn't become much more interesting, so sorry if this blog becomes a little mundane.

How is this blog going to help me with my resolutions you ask? Considering the fact that I am horrible at taking pictures, since coming home from London I have taken 8 pictures on my camera - 2 were blurry, 3 dark, I decided I need to do better at documenting my life through pictures. And we all know long blog posts without pictures can be hard to read. - resolution number 1: check.

Side note: speaking of resolutions, look how cute my New Year's date is.

Resolution #2: write in my journal. Thank you blurb.com for making it so easy to print out your blog. check.

Resolution #3: keep my room clean. I decided to take before and after pictures of my messy room, thereby forcing me to clean it. Don't worry, logging on to find pictures of Jenna's cluttered and unkempt bedroom wont be a daily ritual, it just jump started the whole process.

Before:

 I may or may not have tidied up my room just a bit before this picture. Mama will be sad to see this but at least it means I'm busy living, right? 

After:

Too bad you can't see the vacuum lines in this picture. Actually, you don't want to see them because I've never been able to get them to be perfect triangles, but lines are on the floor, perfect or not.

Unfortunately, this blog wont help me with my posture because I don't think you want to see cell phone pictures of each time I slump throughout the day. And it certainly won't help me be better at budgeting my money because you definitely do not want to see the meager amount of money I make as a TA. However, you may enjoy a good laugh at how I spend it: Burger King diet coke runs, new shoes that I don't even have room for in my closet, food that I let expire.