Quick Update

-The semester is coming to an end. My studio final review is next Thursday. I am excited because I really like my project this semester.

-I still have a few loose ends to tie up for Design Thinking...the never ending class.

-Side story: when I was talking to my Argentine professor I asked him about my board and what I could do to improve. He shook his head, touched his forehead and said in his little accent "Oh, Cassandra. Cassandra. Cassandra. It looks like an accountant did it."

Now, two years ago I probably would have been crushed. This year I just laughed because I knew my board was not up to standard, and really an accountant?! It's humorous. Sung Ho once said my project looked like a pregnant worm and during my final review for 318 I had the critics tell me twice that my plans looked like bad contractor plans (I then started crying and hyperventilated.) I've had to grow a pretty tough skin and now I find the humor in the absurd comments and metaphors, and actually appreciate the creativity.

-I have an assignment and quiz tomorrow for my Climate and Light class. The professor is this ~70 year old guy who is the driest funniest grandpa guy in the world. I actually really enjoy his class.

-Life is good. I still don't know what I am going to do this summer. Wish me luck in figuring it out.

-That's all.

Warning: this blog is lame

So I really only have 2-3 people who read my blog so I feel as though I can be more candid on this forum than on others. So here it goes...

Hello, my name is Cassie and I'm a sugaraholic.

I have had a sweet tooth for as long as I can remember, I think it may have even started in the womb. I know candy and sugar is horrible for me. I know it. But there's a little devil that lays dormant on my cravings organ for 27 days of the month. The rest of the time he raises hell and turns me into a monster, kind of like the one in Men In Black that can only be satisfied by consuming a large amount of sugar. It's horrible.

But since my last relapse I have stayed off the wagon. Holiday candy proves way too tempting for me! I love holidays (see my last blog) and the candy is half the fun! For example I am eating Starburst Jellybeans right now that I found in the Easter section and they are delicious.

I have said this time and again but Peeps are the reason holidays were invented. Forget religion, culture, and tradition; peeps=holiday. But for some reason I don't buy peeps unless it's a special occasion or if I'm going to share them with somebody. I think it may be because to me peeps seem worse for me because they don't even try to hide the fact that it's sugar. Whereas other forms of sugar mask themselves as something slightly less poisonous like Starburst jellybeans, they are FRUIT flavored.

Okay I've had enough of this ridiculous blog.

Oh yeah and who swears at FHE? Apparently I do in front of my entire group while we are playing a game. I'm getting pretty good at sealing my fate as a spinster.

Holiday Madness

When I was younger my mother would always do something fun for every holiday. For example practically every Valentines Day she would leave five matching shirts (old banana republic animal shirts) folded in the kitchen with a little note or treat. Easter baskets were always fantastic! Peeps, peanut m&m's, jelly beans, humming bird eggs, and usually socks or tights.

When I was a teenager my mom kind of stopped doing those things because we the two oldest were out of the house and D,E and I were little brats that didn't appreciate it. She's kind of picked it back up as much as she can even though we are all pretty much out of the house. She sent me some Halloween window stickers to help decorate my desk at school (I web it every year.)

NOW I LOVE holidays and birthdays. I love to make birthdays special for others. It kind of started in High School when I bought 18 balloons for my best friend and had the office aids deliver a couple per class period. In college the more memorable birthdays was when I threw a little surprise dinner party for my really good friend. I love to decorate with crepe paper and make things as cheesy as possible. I also like to buy the number of balloons the person is turning, so they have a ridiculous balloon bouquet in their house.

Oh and don't even get me started on decorating cookies! I love decorating sugar cookies. It all began with Grammy Lou, sometimes she would have my sisters and I over to swim and make sugar cookies, my favorites were the dinosaurs.

Today I have a set of 100 cookie cutters and a bunch of others that I have collected along the way. When I bake sugar cookies it turns into a huge 2 day production. I usually set up a special work table (Dina HATES it when I do this) and I custom mix all of my colors, have toothpicks for detailing, and gels and sprinkles galore. I love to make weird ones, for one of my friends who's in med school I made a bunch of severed fingers, pussy bleeding feet, people with broken limbs, etc. I think I may have scared him, amongst other things.

One year I made chocolate covered cookies on sticks and then decorated them with colored chocolate Halloween style. I made mummys, Frankensteins, black widows (legs and all), ghosts, and scary pumpkins. I gave them to everyone at Dr. Bowen's office, oh I miss him. I really hope I have a picture of those somewhere because they were pretty dang cute.

These days I don't have the time to do stuff like that anymore...hopefully someday I will. I just know when I have kids I'm going to go crazy.

In conclusion, I really appreciate holidays and I know that a lot of it stems from my mothers example. This is just another reason why I love her and think she is wonderful.

Crap, when is mothers day?

Jordan, this one is for you...

So I went out to lunch today with a really great person that I know through church and I mentioned that I was going to make more of an effort to go to institute. She said something like "Oh yeah, I read that on your blog." I was flabbergasted, how in the crap did she know I had a blog?! She then informed me that the link to it was on my facebook info section. I just about died. I think I put it on there when I was in Finland so people could check out what I was doing and I forgot to remove it!

Who in the hell knows who's seen my crazy rantings and depressing tales of my life!

So THANK YOU Brittany for informing me of that little detail.

Moving on...

My friend and roommate in Finland, Jordan, said that I need to write more blogs when I'm happy and not when I hate people. So Jordan this one's for you!

I love school. So far the semester has been going relatively well. I really like studio so far and am learning how to trust my decisions a lot more.

I've been working out and feeling good.

I had some friends from my school life and church life over for dinner this last Saturday night. It actually turned out really well, even though my church friends were outnumbered 3:1. Everyone really liked the guys from church, maybe I'll invite them to do more things.

I was called to the activities committee at church. I am not quite sure how this is going to work out. I am kind of an eccentric person and like to have activities where people dress up as lucky charms and give out clues at various checkpoints around the city and have a person dressed up as a leprechaun with a pot of gold at the end or project movies onto the side of a building and have movie theater popcorn from an actual popcorn machine. Oooo or one of my favorites was a Cinco de Mayo party with virgin margaritas! I like to go all out on things like this and I'm not sure how receptive this group is going to be to my ideas. We'll see. (Oh, sorry Jordan, that was not very optimistic.)

Ummmm....what else....I look forward to getting up everyday now. It's been a long time since I've really felt that way. In the past I have been so stressed out that I want to sleep. I think auditing one of my classes is really helping with that. I don't need the credit and I'm taking the class just for fun, why not audit and not have to do the papers and instead spend my time in studio or sleeping or actually trying to have a social life? Oh the possibilities are endless!

Holy crap I need to go to sleep.

One more thing, I've been watching, really only listening, to Tough Love season 1 on VH1.com. Jordan you should check it out! The host is pretty cute and awesomely brutally honest with some of these crazy chicks. I give it two thumbs up on my list of reality shows.

Well that is all or tonight...or today...

I love people, even the a-holes at the ticket paying counter at City Hall. Yes, I love that douche bag in some way.

Good night, stars. Good night, moon.

Good night, Bowser.

Short Randoms

-I just purged a bunch of numbers from my phone. Very therapeutic. Now I don't ever have to see those names again when I'm searching for someone else.

-I am really annoyed with a particular person who despite my efforts to be friends with has proven unfruitful. Which doesn't make sense since we get along so freaking well...but seriously I can't tell if this person has major social skill discrepancies or just doesn't want to be friends outside of our infrequent interaction.

-I made my bed this morning and it made me sad because I remembered how much I really want to share my bed/life with somebody.

-I rediscovered pandora today. I love it.

-Went to NY to visit Anika and co. for nearly a week when I really only had to be in NY for two days for our studio trip. I have a lot of work to make up but I loved every minute of it.

-Otto painted my fingernails when I was in NY. He is my special buddy.

-I braided Milo's hair a few times. It was cute and Anika said Milo liked it.

-I have a recording of Clio saying "Cassie answer the phone" as my new ringer. I love it!

-Anika made me the perfect scarf.

-Some people in school can really suck. Lazy, selfish, and vindictive are all words that come to mind.

-Briana and I are on the same crappy boat, but it's nice to at least have company.

-Today I did laundry, went grocery shopping, went to school and worked, worked out at the gym, and I woke up before noon! :)

-I've never really put this in writing or told very many people but I really want kids...freaking biological clock.

-I am going to make fajitas this week or next weekend and invite people over. I am going to be more social.

-I really like my studio professors: Jared Della Valle and Andy Bernheimer. So far it's been good and I really like the fact that this is more of a self driven studio and I have to make fast decisions and be confident in those decisions.

-I don't like being so spread out from all of the people that I like at school.

-I have been going to bed between 12 and 1 for the past week. Tonight is an exception because I am writing this. I need to go home now.

-Oh and Peter and I found my celebrity doppelganger tonight...Ginnifer Goodwin.

-Last night I put on the new duvet cover that my mother made for me over Christmas. I found on the bottom where the button holes are she stitched an "I" and then sewed on two buttons one of a heart and the other a "C." So it said "I" (heart) "C." I cried. My mom is so good to me and I love her so much.

-I have had a head cold for the past week and a half and today I have had an awesome pressure headache. I also didn't know that my body could produce so much snot. I hate being sick. I feel it going to my lungs a little bit.

-I went to institute on Thursday. I am going to make an effort to go now that I don't have class Thursday nights.

-I really need to go to bed now.

An example of my brilliance...

So I'm walking into Smiths the other day with my dad and he turns to me and says "Man it's colder than a whale-diggers butt!"

I laughed then said "Dad, I've never really understood that saying...what is a whale-digger? Does it have something to do with the whaling industry and the ocean being cold?"

My dad looked at me and said "No, Cassandra it's not WHALE it's WELL. A well-digger."

Oh to sing my little sister to sleep...

Here I am sitting on the floor of my 25 year old little sister's room playing on my computer waiting for her to fall asleep. We watched a pretty scary movie the previous night that gave her nightmares. So naturally tonight she was a little reluctant to go to her room in the basement alone. So here I am and I was reminded of the following story:

When we were little Dina and I shared a bedroom and a bunk bed (I had the top bunk) and I took my role as an older sister very seriously. One night Dina asked me to sing to her when it was time for us to fall asleep. She told me that it was because she thought I had a pretty voice. Me being the proud older sister that I was obliged and "gifted" her with my supposedly angelic voice. In the middle of my third or fourth song my older sisters in the room next door began to yell at me to be quiet and shut up, but I paid them no heed.

After what I'm sure was nothing short of a full on concert did I finish singing and to my surprise Dina was asleep! I was so mad. It took me forever to fall asleep that night because I had the knowledge that I was the only person awake and I was scared.

Well night after night of ballads and primary sings with my older sisters yelling from the next room I continued to fall for the same "you have a pretty voice" line over and over. And every night I would get mad that she was asleep before me. (Who knows how many weeks this went on for, it could have easily been months!)

Not until several years later did Dina actually confess that she had no interest in my vocal abilities but in fact she asked me to sing to her because that was the only way that she was guaranteed not to be the last one awake. Nice, huh?!

So here I am 20 some odd years later sitting on a dog bed on her bedroom floor. And even though my little ego was bruised so long ago I am more than happy to keep her company as she falls asleep tonight, with no singing involved.