Friday's Letters Vol. 3

Linking Up With Ashley at Adventures of Newlyweds for Friday's Letters

Dear Austin Rivers and Miles Plumlee! Congrats on the Draft! We will miss you at Duke but are so happy for y’all! 

Dear Job Search, can I please get an interview somewhere?! 

Dear Elissa (ME), don’t stress out over money so much. there is being frugal and there is being anal. 

Dear GRE Vocab words, normal people don't use words like you in daily life. 

Dear 100+ weather, oh how i’d love you if I could enjoy you 
regularly in a pool or water. Good thing I’m going tubing Saturday! Shooting the hooch! 

Image made from pinterest picture. 

Life Thoughts

Ok this post might be a weird one. just bear with me. It'll be a little insight into who I am.

Life is weird. Sometimes It's hard for me to fathom. So many people, so many places. And the way they come together and function. For example, when I'm out and about sometimes it is mind boggling to me the number of cars on the road at any given time. I'm not talking about traffic, that's a different issue completely. I'm just talking about the crazy number of cars that drive on the road daily. On any given day (when out and about) I wonder how many people I come across. Not how many I talk to even, but how many I walk by in a store, or drive by driving home.

source:pinterest. searchword -highway

I'm just rambling I know. But i really wanted to try and get out how crazy I think life is. Even though I am sitting here blogging on my macbook, sometimes I think I was born in the wrong era. I don't know, I mean enjoy the pleasures of the 21st century but at the same time life is overwhelming. Passing so many people daily that you will likely never know or see again. Something that most of us don't even think about is something that definitely defines the time we live in. In the 1800s, heck even in the 1950s, people didn't pass by/encounter a countless number of people daily. Little things like that change the 'world' one lives in.

A bit of a rambling mess but some of my thoughts on life. anyone understand what I am trying to say? anyone else over-analyze life sometimes or am I weird haha?

This quote sums up who I am. when I get lost in my head. I think that is when I sometimes find a lot out about myself. 

Sometimes and Always Vol. 6

Sometimes the fact that pretty much EVERYTHING costs money freaks me out! 

Always I know that’s just the way it is and a fact of life I have to deal with. 

Sometimes It’s Crazy hot outside!

Always that kind of weather is meant for a pool day! 

Sometimes my Mom and I arrange her stuffed animals on her bed. 

Always I love little silly moments!

Sometimes I find something on pinterest I REALLY want to use later in life, like for my wedding or my future home. 

this picture from pinterest - taking a picture with your parents wedding pictures! 

Always I know that it’s not realistic to plan things that are not even on the horizon. nowhere near the horizon. 

That's all I got for today. my head is killing me and hopefully it'll stop soon! - ELISSA

Friday Letter's Vol. 2.

Late in the day again but I definitely wanted to link-up with Ashley for the wonderful Friday's Letters Link-Up! 

Dear Mom and Dad, I had a lot of fun with y’all today! Lunch at the Food Trucks @ Atlantic Station was definitely fun! 

Dear Buddy you are the sweetest dog in the whole world and I’m not biased at all. that’s totally a lie, i am but idk. 

Dear hair mask for thin lifeless hair, please work wonders! please and thank you :)

Dear job search, hopefully something will pan out soon! I had a positive, wonderful phone call this morning! 

Liebster

So this little tiny blog of mine got nominated for the Liebster blog award! Sweet Haley @ I Can Only Imagine nominated me! I have started blogging kind of regularly but this blog of mine is tiny and so it is super sweet to get an award! 

I am stealing the description of the award from Haley: The Liebster Blog Award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. The Meaning; Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome.

I really love blogging, it is a whole little world on the internet. I started my blog three years ago but only  started blogging consistently this past year. I have always loved people watching and the world of blogging kind of lets you people watch on a whole nother level. I love reading different bloggers posts and really being able to relate to someone I’ve never met! 

Well, so in order to get this award there are certain rules. 

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves. 

2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you plus create 11 questions for the people you've tagged to answer. 

3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post. 

4. Go to their page and tell them. 

5. Remember, no tag backs!

11 Things About Me

1.I am only child

2.I just graduated from LaGrange College and am going through the treacherous job search process

1. I love sports but am completely unathletic. Anyone who knows me would say that “Elissa is a huge Duke Fan” is quite an understatement. 
2. I am super self-conscious and confess the fact you don’t see many pictures of me on the blog is because I generally hate most all pictures of myself. I’m working on it!

5.My dog Buddy, was my 12th birthday present. He just turned 10 years old!

6. I have sang at 5 funerals. 4x The song the Hymn of Promise and 1x Jesus Loves Me

7.I had an emergency appendectomy when I was 14

8.Honeysuckle is my favorite scent

9.I love a good tv obsession. my current one is The Bachelorette

10.I wanted to be an interior designer when I was younger and can’t wait to design my house one day! 

11.I am kinda anal when it comes to spending money. I hate spending money and even if I want something most of the time I just tell myself I don’t need to spend the money. 

Haley’s Questions for Me:

 1. How many cellphones have you had in your lifetime? hmm. i think 4. or maybe 5. but never a smart phone. 

2. How many states have you visited? Ever been out of the country?

 15, but 2 i just stopped in on a road trip. 

 And I went to Europe 5 years ago on a People to People student ambassadors trip. I went to France, Switzerland, Austria,Germany, and Italy. I really want to go back on my own!

3. Around what age did you switch from taking baths to taking showers? good question! I think 11. 

4. Japanese, Mexican, or Italian food? I like them all but if I had to choose I would say Italian. 

5. French toast, or pancakes? again like both. but pancakes.

6. Your all-time favorite restaurant? hmm.i’m gonna go with Olive Garden.

1. How many times a day do you brush your teeth? I’ll confess a lot of the time I only brush my teeth once a day! 

8. Do you play an instrument? nope. took violin in middle school for a semester. 

9. What were the colors and mascot of your high school? maroon and gold. and the tigers.

10. What's your ideal outside temperature/weather? 90 degrees but NO humidity. oh in my dreams. 

11. Favorite all-time song to jam out to? I’m gonna go with a 90’s classic. MMMBop. 

Ok, well let me just say this was kind of an awakening to the fact that pretty much all the blogs I follow are kinda blog famous. So I scoured the blogosphere for neat baby blogs to nominate and start following! 

These are the lovely ladies I nominate: 

Kristen @ Hope. For More Than A Name

Erin @ A Heart For Missions

Nessa @ The Absurd Tales of Casa Braaflat

Ashley @ Calmly Chaotic

Megan @ Every Day Leaps of Faith 

Grace @ Her Umbrella

Kassie @ Things I Love

Sarah @ All About A

Amy @ Sweet Home Santa Barbara

Ashley @ This Beautiful Life

Ali @ Life according to Ali

The first 2 of these ladies are real-life friend of mine, and I hope the rest of you become new blog friends! 

 Here are my questions for you:

1. If you have graduated from college, what did you do right afterwards? Did you have a job ready? 

2.What are your pet peeves?

3.Favorite Beauty product/tip?

4.What is your favorite vacation?

5.If you watch the Bachelorette, who is your favorite? If you don’t what’s your favorite summer show?

6.Do you have any nicknames?

7.What kind of cell phone do you have?

8.What’s the last book you read?

9.Artist/Band you have been listening to lately?

10.how old were you in your oldest memory that you remember, not that you remember being told about?

11. what’s something in your life- an event, class,time period,etc. that has shaped who you are? 

Sometimes and Always Vol. 5

Sometimes- I hate going to yard sales and rummage sales with my dad, and sometimes I get bored really easily and don't find anything

Always- I get super excited when I find neat things at rummage sales like two weeks ago when I found this mason jar mug! It's perfect for iced coffee! I got this one and its twin for $1 !

Sometimes- I realize how much I like Television. : / Like last night my friend were texting about The Bachelorette and we had a realization. 

Always- I know it's silly reality television, but a big part of me can't help but rooting for it to work out ! I'm a huge hopeless romantic. And I admit there is def another side of me that makes fun of different parts of the show, for sure.

Sometimes- It's really hard to stay positive during my job search! 

Always- I know that God has me where I am right now for a reason. And hopefully he will reveal more of his plans for me soon! 

Andy Grammer, Colbie Caillat, Gavin DeGraw and a RAINSTORM!

Last Wednesday night, my best friend Erin and I went to the Colbie Caillat and Gavin Degraw concert at Chastain Park. Monday afternoon, I checked my phone and had a missed call and voicemail from a number i didn’t recognize right away. So i listened to my voicemail and it was Q100 ( a local radio station) letting me know that I won tickets to the Gavin Degraw concert and could pick them up at their office. I was so surprised, I entered the contest on facebook the week before and had practically forgotten about it. So I called Erin and she didn’t have any plans and we were excited because we hadn’t seen each other since graduation! Well if we weren’t excited enough, late tuesday afternoon I got ANOTHER call from Q100.  They congratulated me on winning the tickets and I thanked them and then they told me I also won a meet and greet with Gavin DeGraw! So now we were even more excited. 

So my dad decided that he wanted to drive me and pick me up so I wouldn’t have to worry about driving back from ATL late at night and getting out of concert traffic ( How Sweet, right?!) Well so my I met Erin at Lenox a little after 2 and we window shopped at lenox for a couple of hours, and then we went down the street to a target and publix. We picked up food at Publix and headed over to Chastain. We wanted to get there early because of parking and we got there an hour before we were supposed to be there for the meet and greet. I had read up online about where to park and so we parked at a middle school nearby the amphitheater. Well we get out of the car and it is literally 100 yards from the amphitheater's $15.00 lot ! We then found a little secluded picnic table behind the ampitheatre and ate our food. Erin had gotten some Sushi and I got a ham and cheese sub sandwich. 

After, we were through eating we stood around will-call waiting for the lady in charge of the meet and greet. We got wristbands and then waited for a while. We actually ended up waiting in line for the meet and greet during the opening act! ANDY GRAMMER was the opener and he was fabulous! I’d only heard “Keep Your Head Up” by him before, but I fell in love with his music! He also just really seemed  like a really great guy! 

He even got off stage and went all around the amphitheater singing! 

Well So right when he was done with his set was about the time we went backstage for the meet and greet. There were only about 12 radio winners for the meet and greet and there were a lot of people who paid for VIP tickets that included meet and greets that went before us. It was basically say hey and take a picture but Gavin was really nice! 

So after we met Gavin and were heading back out to find our seats, it was raining hard. And it turned out that we hadn’t missed any of Colbie’s set because of the rain. So Erin and I decided to just go back in the back where they were selling merchandise and get under cover back there, it was kind of like a long covered hallway in the back of the amphitheater. A lot of other people had the same idea, and as the rain kept coming down it got more and more crowded back there! Chastain Park is a real unique concert venue and people bring all kinds of food and wine, etc. They really go all out! So some people had all their stuff in their hands while waiting for the rain to stop. The man next to me had a bottle of wine and a wine glass in one hand! It is really a neat venue. Erin and I commented it would be a fun thing to do for a birthday! But back to the rain, it kept pouring harder and harder, and the lightning strikes were really close. 

We really thought they weren’t going to get to go on at all! But a little bit after 9:45 colbie finally was able to go on! She was absolutely amazing! For the first couple of songs of her set it was still raining and lightning a little bit. But after that it actually quit! We just sat in some empty seats right near where we had been standing during the rain! Colbie’s set went until almost 11:00 and she sang ELEVEN songs! We were really impressed that she sang that many with the rain! 

One of the best pictures I got of her! I think this might be “I Never Told You”! 

Colbie brought Andy out to sing “Lucky” with her. So good!

Colbie’s last song was “Bubbly”!

Gavin came as soon they set up the stage for him. He opened with Sweeter, the title track of his new CD. He sang 9 songs and then came out with a 2 song encore. The first song of the encore was one I wasn’t familiar with and we were disappointed because we thought the encore was going to be “Over You” but that was simply the second song of the encore! 

Gavin opening his set with “Sweeter” 

 Gavin at the Piano! 

Despite the POURING rain, It was absolutely an amazing concert! All three of them have such beautiful voices! 

Elissa

Friday's Letters Vol.1

So I know I said i would write about the concert today but i didn't have the time. But I have enjoyed reading the Friday's Letter's Linkup for the past several weeks or so and so I decided to do linkup today! 


Dear parents, I am so sorry y'all are going through hell with the mortgage right now and wish there was something I could do. I know that there isn't and that you don't want me to worry but it's hard not to now that I am back living at home! 


Dear summer, I love you but you don't feel like normal, because I know that I have graduated and am not going back to school in the fall and so as the days pass I feel more and more pressure to find a job.


Dear sketchbook, I got such a great deal on you and can't wait to fill you up with wonderful quotes and lots of venting! 


Dear Andy Grammer, you were absolutely amazing wednesday night. Besides your awesome musical talent you just seem to have an awesome personality! 


- (colbie and gavin were pretty great as well, I promise I will recap the concert away, I just want to do it justice! )



- Elissa

Limbo

SO I went to the Andy Grammer, Colbie Caillat and Gavin DeGraw Concert last night with my best friend Erin. It was absolutely amazing even though it was pouring rain most of the night and we thought they weren’t going to be able to perform- BUT they did and were AMAZING- But that recap will be tomorrow! 

For now I just have some thoughts on life lately!

• I’m kinda getting frustrated being home. Erin and I talked yesterday about how we would LOVE to move out on our own but know it makes much more sense to save money and live at home! Being home is just weird. For me, my parents are dealing with stuff with the mortgage on our house and it’s stuff they don’t want me to worry about but it’s hard not to when I am here, while they are dealing with it. And then my frustrations over my life being in a sort of limbo make me think of my job search and then it gets frustrating that it seems like I have applied for a lot of jobs but haven’t even gotten an interview! Right now patience and perseverance are key in my life. 

• To deal with this time in my life i really want to get a  

  sketch-journal for a sort of catharsis for all the feelings and   

  emotions and thoughts I have going on in my head! If anyone   

  knows of a good unlined journal that would be good for  

  doodling/journaling my thoughts and feelings let me know! 

Elissa

You Only Live Once

 I went to North Carolina this past weekend for my cousin’s high school graduation. The senior class president had an interesting quote in her speech, she said “ A wise man by the name of Aubrey Graham once said ‘You Only Live Once’”. 

That’s right she quoted Drake. This quote has become wildly popular recently but the proper meaning has been lost. I think what the quote should actually mean and what the senior class president at my cousin’s high school was trying to say was essentially- make the most of your life, carpe diem each and every day. But many people today have taken the quote to justify partying and any crazy behavior because you only live once. However in actuality the quote should deter people from living life frivolously because you only have one life to live so you should make the absolute most of it. When talking to my dad about this, he likened it to people who worry about the end times coming soon and worry about making the most of their days, however regardless of when the end times come we should always make the most of each and every day because these are the ONLY days we have. This is not to say that I don’t believe in lazy days, or party nights, I believe both of those every now and then can be extremely beneficial and even necessary!

What are your thoughts on the quote- YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE? 

Applying for Jobs and Family Visits!

        Life has been a weird mixture of lazy no plans summer and crazy job applying summer. I am really trying to stay on top of things! I am still holding out for the job at Duke but not sitting around waiting for that to happen either. It seems they really want to hire an internal candidate for the position but they just don’t have one or else they would have already filled the position, right?! well anyways one of the associate SID’s up there said that not much has changed regarding the position and they are still waiting for things to fall in place elsewhere. So that’s the news with that. 

So while that seems to be at a standstill I have been applying for other positions. I applied for a 10 month sports information internship at GCSU (Georgia College & State University) and a 10 month marketing and promotions position at UTC (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga). I also just applied for an Athletic Communications position with the Southland Conference in Frisco,TX and a Administrative Support position with the Men’s Basketball Team at UNCC (UNC-Charlotte). So I’m hoping that I get an interview or two and really hope that one of these positions pans out! But I’m leaving it to God to put me in the right place! That being said though I am not just sitting idle- I am trying to put my best foot forward to get a job! 

So that’s what I have been up to lately. However, I have had some good family time. This past weekend I went up to my grandfather’s in Waynesville, NC and my cousin Whit who I hadn’t seen in a little over 4 years came to visit. It was good to see him, and he brought his new girlfriend, well actually he came more to see here. She lives in Charlotte and he flew out to see her and kind of the rest of us too. When he got to Charlotte they made the trip over to Waynesville and we went out to dinner. We were celebrating my Aunt Lynne (his mom)’s birthday. The whole family really likes Amy his new girlfriend! She is really nice and fit right into our family and he seems really happy! 

Now tomorrow my parents, our dog buddy and I are all leaving to go to Fayetteville, NC for my cousin caleb’s high school graduation. I am excited mainly because I like going on little road-trips and we are going back to NC sooo that means we get to go to COOKOUT! If you don’t know about COOKOUT you are really missing out! It’s a fast-food relationship based in NC but they have expanded to a few stores in SC,TN and VA. BUT they desperately need to come to georgia. They have all the food you would have at an actual cookout- hotdogs,hamburgers,chicken fingers, hushpuppies, etc. And they have about 40 flavors of absolutely amazing milkshakes! my go to is the peanut butter milkshake and I add oreo and it makes it DIVINE! I also love the strawberry cheesecake milkshake! Sorry about that rant, I kinda love COOKOUT! 

-Elissa