HAPPY HALLOWEEN 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

I wish i could give you a story about how i dressed up as something exciting,

and strutted my stuff looking for free candy wherever i could get it...

but alas that is not how my halloween will go down.

In fact i've been studying all week and haven't even been able to enjoy the festivities...boo :(

This is my vocab list for Entrepreneurial Management....

it's over 120 terms....blehh

I just finished taking the test and there was probably....

6 terms from this list on the test.....annoying!

Apart from the studying i was able to decorate some pumpkins last week....

by decorate i mean i bedazzled and painted them...

I did not dig into them, no no that's not my thing!!!

Aren't they cute?? :) 

So since i have nothing exciting to share for halloween 
i decided to share one of my new favorite online shops that i'm currently addicted to.

I hope you find it beneficial, and i hope you don't go into debt now that you know about this dreamland of a clothing store ;) 

So while perusing through Pinterest i found a new store, a store that has stolen a lot of my money...

and by stolen i mean i gave it to them freely....

I'm addicted....

The store can be found here www.spool72.com 

I feel like they are very vintage inspired, which i love, which is why i throw my money at them!!

They have everything you could want except for pants....

which is ok because i'm not a big pants buyer...

I mean....i wear pants....ALWAYS....but i'd rather buy a fun dress or boots...you know???

So if you're just sitting here browsing away on the inter-webs then check this store out. 

You won't regret it.....unless you buy way too much and use all of your savings.

Which is called....drum roll please.....cognitive dissonance...AKA Buyers remorse

I just used one of my vocab words ;) 

I'm a genius!

But really look at how cute all of this is, i can't even handle the bag in the bottom right corner

so so cute!!!!

And that sweater and THOSE BOOTS....i'm reaching for my credit card as we speak....

Did i mention it is all relatively cheap...yea, now your reaching for your credit card too....

You're welcome :)

We love finding new stores so if you know of any please share 
so we can continue to be fashion forward & broke ;)

-Emily

It is that time of year again. The temperature is dropping; the days of one hundred plus degree afternoons are long gone. The thermometer steadily stays between eighty and ninety degrees, which is all you can ask for from fall in the South. The leaves are changing, football rules the airways, and pumpkin spice lattes are taking over coffee shop menus. As of September 22, fall graced us with its presence. 

I am from South Georgia: the land where wearing flip-flops and shorts until Thanksgiving is normal. At home, summer continues until November or so and then all of a sudden winter is upon you. And by winter I mean forty degrees. 

It is safe to say that I had never experienced anything remotely resembling fall until I came to Harding. 

Road trips in October and November never bore me because of the beautiful scenery. Who knew that leaves were other colors besides green (or brown because they have died.) I am sure I annoy my passengers with endless gawking at the red and orange leaves. I am sorry that I think they make the perfect backdrop against a clear blue sky for a drive through the countryside.

via

And what about fall fashion? I had no idea that boots were staple footwear.  Black, brown, knee-high boots, mid-calf boots, ankle boots, I was overwhelmed by all of the choices. And do not get me started on the idea that you could need more than one pair of boots at a time. Who knew? My fall wardrobe growing up consisted of summer clothes with a light jacket thrown on for the morning. 

Besides boots, I have whole-heartedly embraced the scarf and cardigan combination. So what if I own twenty cardigans now? That’s normal right? With as cold as they keep the Benson and classrooms, I make good use of sweaters year round, but now it is acceptable to wear them all day long without getting strange looks. 

via

My last, but certainly not least, favorite part about fall would have to be pumpkin spice lattes. It is like drinking your Thanksgiving dessert. The smell of pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg warms my heart. Even though you can secretly order this year round at most coffee shops, something just does not seem right about a pumpkin spice latte in July.

via

While the thermometer has not made up its mind yet, I will put on my boots, pour a steaming hot pumpkin spice latte into my favorite mug and go in search of a pile of crunchy leaves to jump in. 

via 

-Jess

Totally Recommend Both

Jess, Mutti, and I did something super high roller this weekend. We went to tons of Halloween parties, dressed up in amazing costumes, met billions of cute boys, and partied allll night. 

Jokes, people. 

We did, however, end up having so much fun on our double movie day this weekend. Yea. That's right. Double movie day. Say whatttttt? On Saturday, because Mutti is generous enough to share her free movie tickets with us, we ended up seeing Argo and Pitch Perfect. 

Pictures from: Argo & Pitch Perfect

Both of these were so amazing and so different. Totally recommend both. But the thing that I really took away from the DMD was all of the movies I'm super excited about that are coming to theaters soon. 

The one I'm most excited about? Anna Karenina. It has Jude Law, Kiera Knightly, AND Aaron Taylor-Johnson. November 7th can't come fast enough!

So maybe I've watched the trailer like 50 times. It happens.

What movies are you excited about?

It was a normal wednesday.
We had class, chapel, class, class, naps.
Except this Wednesday was destined to be different.
In between Chapel and class something happened.
Iota Chi happened.

Now for those of you who don't know the story i will explain it to you.
At Harding we have social clubs,
which is sort of like sororities and fraternities......except really not like them at all.
anyways, so this girls social club called Iota Chi made a facebook page
for it's new club members/club sisters for the 2012 pledge class.
This facebook page was left open to the public.
What happened after that is all a blurrr.
When i joined the sisterhood we were 3,000 strong.
And it was exciting.
Now a little more than 48 hours later we have well over 50,000 members/sisters in the Iota Chi sisterhood.
We've gone VIRAL!!!!

We have schools from all over the country pledging themselves to Iota Chi.
Here's some of the schools i've noticed...
Harding
Lubbock
Pepperdine
Abilene
Lipscomb
OC
York
OBU
Freed
Faulkner
Miss State
OU
Georgia
UofH
OSU
Arizona State
UNT
Nebraska
Auburn
Tennessee
Alabama
Arkansas
UT
A&M
Berkley
Florida
Texas Tech
and really....the list goes on and on and on and on..

It's turned into a melting pot of amazingness that i don't think will ever die...
and we're all very grateful for that!

An even more amazing part of this viral facebook page story is that it's now being used to help an actual member of Harding's Iota Chi club who's been battling breast cancer.
They are selling t-shirts where some of the money is going straight to her to help her with this battle. So the joke, prank or whatever you want to call it, has turned into something quite beautiful.

So if your interested in supporting the cause you can go here and purchase one of the shirts for $8,
$3 of which will go straight to Meagan Burkhead!

This has truly been an amazing experience.
Here is some of the craziness that has come from our sisterhood!
Check it out..

#IXFORLIIIIFFEEEEEEEE

***If you like blogs then this is a good one to follow, just click on the join this site button!! 

Why should sparkle and glitter be reserved just for nighttime activities? 

Are we scared that the sun my glint too brightly off of a sequined sweater and cause a traffic accident? 

As I'm trying to transition into a more "age appropriate" fashion sens (ie no more t-shirts and nike shorts) I think I will retain a little sparkle during the day to keep things fun and not so serious. 

Enjoy your weekend! It's homecoming in Searcy, AR which means time for a musical, bonfire, tailgate and football. 

I'm naturally a nosy person. I like knowing what other people are doing. 

Is that so wrong?

Some might say yes. But they're just uninformed. Don't worry, y'all. I got your back. And since I know all of you are secretly nosy, I've decided to indulge you.

 I think a girl's true character is displayed in two places: the upkeep of her nail polish & her purse.So, due to the fact that my nail polish is currently beautifully manicured...uhmm..gross, I proudly present a look into my soul:

MY PURSE. 

MK Hamilton

I literally am so in love with this purse. I treat it like it's my child. It gets its own seat at tables; totally not kidding. I love having big purses because I always just throw everything in there. Plus, it's always awesome to sneak food into movie theaters with. Le duhh. Totally worth the price. & it smells like super yummy leather for at least 2 months. 

Inside:

1. Probably the funniest book. Ever. Everyone should have to read this.

2. Olddddd Fossil wallet. I probably got it for my 14th birthday. But I still love it.

3. Lilly Pulitzer planner. Basically has every detail of my life/I'd be lost without it.

4. Chapstick/Hand Sanitizer pouch. I go through Chapstick like nobody's business & I'm a slight germaphobe .

5. The best gum. Period. End of story. Trident Spearmint.

6. Cinnamon Roasted Almonds. I eat like 4 bazillion snacks a day. This just happened to be in my purse at the time.

I feel like we just became bffs now that you know what's in my purse. I kinda like it. 

Tantallon Castle: It's about a 2 mile walk from the bus/train station in North Berwick, Scotland.

You walk down a road, past a few shops until you find the information center.

There you will find a sweet little old lady with a big smile on her face and maps to hand out,

she will tell you to take a right [à droite] once you get to the edge of the road,

then you'll walk past a grocery store and down a long winding road...

until you end up here...Tantallon Castle...or at least the ruins of Tantallon Castle!

A place full of magical history that dates back to the 14th century.

Let me, first of all, introduce you to this part of our story.

We are free traveling...and to those of you not familiar with study abroad terms,

"free traveling'' means, leaving the group,

breaking into smaller groups and going out and exploring the world on your own.

This means booking your own train tickets, plane tickets,

getting your own hostels, deciding where to go,

what to see, when to see it, what to eat, and how much money do you still have left to do all of this.

Or the whole do i need to call my dad and have him wire me more money!

Spoiled...I know!

Our small group consisted of Jess, Sam, Clay (the boy) and myself!

We left Paris and flew to London, dropped off the bags at a "left luggage" station and hopped on a train headed to Edinburgh, Scotland!

We got in pretty late, found our hostel and started researching things to see.

[we used public hostel computers, because Emily (me) forgot her computer charger at the airport in her luggage, along with her phone charger...facepalm]

Anyways...we search for places to visit close to Edinburgh...

More importantly places with CASTLES! Because who doesn't like a good castle?

The answer:

Everyone likes castles....it's in your blood.

Your great great great great great greeeaaaaattttt grandpappy probably lived in one!

Point proven.

The google machine is how we found North Berwick and more importantly Tantallon!

So we took a train from Edinburgh to North Berwick the next morning.

None of this would have been possible if it weren't for our little friend BritRail pass.

Let me just say this before i keep going...I LOVE ACCENTS

and the Scottish people are oh so adorable! 

Love them and their cute voices!

Is my "I'm American" showing?

Also North Berwick...can you say gorgeous?

This is a seaside town and it literally took our breath away, such a fun place to visit.

We did some walking and finally decided to hunt down the information lady 

so she could lead us toward the Castle!

Just take a look at this beautiful town!!!

The nice information lady told us exactly how to get to Tantallon, gave us a map and told us that we should stop by the store on the way and pack a picnic for when we get there.

So that's what we did, we all grabbed a few goodies from the store and started walking!

As you can see we didn't hate the walk, because it was a gorgeous sunny day, and we were walking down the road in Scotland, things you normally only see in cheesy romantic movies

like P.S. I Love You....well that was in Ireland but you get my point!

  After the long walk we finally came upon this beauty, Tantallon Castle!

It was literally one of the neatest things I have ever seen, and what was so great about it was it had story boards placed all around the grounds, telling you all about Tantallon.

Just take a gander through these pictures

Entrance to the grounds

Castle on the cliff

 

Here's our friend Clayton....Clayclay....leppy...doing what he does best, the titanic pose....

Bless him, he was the only boy in our group of 4. He did so good!!! :)

Is this not the most beautiful place you've ever seen??? ah i love it!

For those interested, you can watch the video i made of our journey through the UK, which includes Scotland, Ireland and some of England if i remember correctly.

Also Hugh Hefner is in there somewhere, so keep your eyes peeled!

Looking back at our entire trip, this day, these moments, were some of my absolute favorite.

Scotland is in my top 3 places to go back to!
So what do you think of our Castle? Have you been to any Castles?
Let us know, so we can have more reasons to pack our bags and head back to this magical land!

-Emily

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend.

Mondays are always the hardest day to pull yourself out of bed.

Because of this, I thought I would share a few things 

to brighten your week. 

First, a recipe for what is sure to become your new 

go-to fall cookie. 

I present to you pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies. 

They will change your life. 

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

For the cookies:

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 3/4 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the coating:

1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Dash of allspice

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the pumpkin puree, then beat in the egg and vanilla.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir until fully incorporated. Cover and chill the dough for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liner. Mix the coating ingredients in a small bowl. Scoop equal dough balls and roll into the sugar mixture. Set on cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart. Dip the bottom of a flat drinking glass into water, then into the sugar mixture and use to slightly flatten the dough balls. Recoat the bottom of the glass in the sugar-spice mixture as needed.

Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes, or until baked through. Let cool on the baking sheets about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.

(*editor's note: wax paper is not the same as parchment paper. It will smoke up your kitchen.)

And the second thing which brightened up my day 

was recieving my new Fossil bag in the mail. AHH!

I'll save my love of snail mail for another post. 

For now I will try to convey my obsession love of Fossil.

The smell and feel of new leather makes my heart go pitter patter. No joke. 

Is this a problem? Perhaps. But it's one I'm willing to accept. 

I've also come to the realization that as internships and graduations looms on the horizon, 

I need to seriously consider investing in a "business casual" wardrobe. 

Can someone please define business casual, because I am at a loss.

Hope you are off to a fabulous Monday! And if you aren't, well, the weekend is only four days away.

-Jess

I think it's normal to have bad days. In fact, yesterday was one of those. On top of the huge test I have today, my car battery decided to die. And did I mention I'm going on a road trip this weekend? Awesomeeee. So after making the 2 hour trek to the closest dealership, Jess & I stopped at Chipotle and things started looking up.

So, on this last day of the week, I'll leave you with 5 things that always cheer me up!

Un. Singing along to Colbie Caillat's "Brighter Than the Sun"

Deux. Sonic Happy Hour. Especially when you have a gift card.

This was like freshman year. Stop judging me.

Trois. Take a nap. Always a good option.

Quatre. Paint those fingernails a snappy color. Like Essie's Turquoise and Caicos. It's like an instant tan.

Cinq.  The Office bloopers. Ain't nothing better.

Did I mention my car broke down on the way to get fro-yo? I'll take that as a sign that I need to seriously cut back on my addiction. Haha.

What cheers y'all up? 

So I have a huge favor to ask of all of you. 

You could say that my educational career lies in your hands, 

but that might be a slight exaggeration. 

I'm a public relations major, 

and I also serve on the newspaper staff as web editor and a class writer. 

We launched a new website design this semester and 

it's kind of amazing.

You should check it out:

thelink.harding.edu

This is where you lovely readers come in: 

We are trying to see whose article gets the most hits this week

and the winner gets a week off from writing. 

All it takes is one simple click on a hyperlink (it takes like 0.2 seconds)

But if you would like to read my article while you're there,

well that would be mighty nice of you too. 

click here to lessen my homework load

If you've made it this far in my plea, thank you. You're the best. 

-Jess

Tis the season, the scruff season!

First step...Denial

I do not have an addiction to scruffy men...

Second step...Acceptance

I totally have an addiction to scruffy men ...

Third step...Learning that this is acceptable

see what i did there???? I accepted my problem only to find out that it's completely acceptable!

In recent weeks I have noticed myself gravitating towards scruffy men...
It used to be a complete turn off, I mean lets face it....kissing is deffinitly not pleasant when their facial hair is attacking you...am I right??
Rest assured I finally learned the error of my ways...

scruff is Hot...like burn your hand on the stove hot!!!

(girly sigh...)

let it be known that I do not have relations with any of the men above...

in fact we just met via pinterest....do i wish i did...well sure i do, i'd be crazy not to!
But I imagine that whoever they are, there is a lucky lady enjoying those faces!!!

Now, who's ready for no-shave november????

THIS GIRL IS!!!!

But there is a line to be drawn here....scruff is hott....mountain man is not hot...not hot at all!!!

I think i'm way too excited about man scruff...and i'm ok with that ;)
what's your opinion, scruff or no scruff??

-Emily

The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain, which captures the remarkable period of time and the love affiar between two remarkable people: Earnest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley. It follows their life across the Atlantic as Earnest joins the likes of Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald in Paris.

When I first picked this book out to read this summer, I was giddy with excitement about counting all of the places mentioned in the book that I had been. There were more than I realized. The life of the ex-pats living in Europe during the 1920s seemed so glamorous, however 'The Paris Wife' does not try to sugar coat the struggles Hadley went through being the wife of Hemingway on his rise to fame. 

What I wouldn't give to join the ranks of ex-pats and pack up my suitcase and move to Europe. But alas, for now, I am stuck behind a desk writing papers and dreaming about the afternoons I spent strolling the boulevards and eating Nutella crepes while walking along the Seine. That was the life. 

Here  are a few of my favorite quotes from the book. I highly recommend it, especially if you've been to Paris, are in love with the 20s or just enjoy a good read.

“But if you want to do any serious work, Paris is the place to be. That’s where the real writers are now. The rate of exchange is good. There are things to do at any hour. Everything’s interesting and everyone has something to contribute. Paris, Hem. Give it some thought.”

“Not everyone believed in marriage then. To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past, too- that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up.”

“But thinking this way got me nowhere. Nowhere but back to the whiskey, that is, so I put my thinking down with the stack of letters and walked to the Musee du Luxembourg instead, to visit the Monets. I stood and looked into the brightest patches of his lilies and the lovely purpling in the water and tried not to see anything else at all.”

“We called Paris the great good place, then, and it was. We invented it after all. We made it with out longing and cigarettes and Rhum St. James,; we made it with smoke and smart and savage conversation and we dared anyone to say it wasn’t ours. Together we made everything and then we busted it apart again.”

-Jess

I've spent a lot of time thinking recently about my future (t-minus 13 months until graduation, people!), and do you know what my biggest realization was? 
BIG. DRAMATIC. PAUSE.

Here's a funny picture to build suspense.

I want a nickname. Like a fun, catchy name that my bffs call me. Not the ones I already have like Sam or Sami (gag). Nope. I have higher aspirations than that. You know on The Office when Andy calls Jim 'Tuna' because he brought a  tuna sandwhich for lunch on the first day of work? Something like that.

Creative and Catchy. I like it.

Two of my very best friends have creative nicknames. Our dear friend Dillon's is 'Chimmy' (short for Chimichanga) and Emily is affectionately known around here 'Mutti" (German for Mother). In fact, I couldn't even remember the last time I called Emily by her real name. It's always Mutti or Mutts (pronounced Moots- rhymes with boots).

Jess, Mutti, Chimmy, and I in Paris.

And now it's time for my #humblebrag. My sister, Baby Watzles, was named Homecoming Queen this weekend!!! I don't know about where you're from, but back home in Texas, this is a HUGE deal. Like bigger than The Dallas Cowboys winning a  game Super Bowl big. So naturally I had to go home for this and was promptly named the "Official Baby Watzles Photographer of the Night". 

She's so stinkin gorgeous.

I'm so proud of her. My little Baby Watzles is all grown up (: 

Not much has changed.

I'm open for suggestions on the nickname thing. Did you see that even my sister has a fun nickname (Baby Watzles isn't her real name, obvs)? Do you have a nickname with a funny story behind it?



PS, you should follow me on Instagram: @samanthakate24
I take awesome pictures. And not just of food.

We found out about the color run while we were still studying abroad in Paris. 

I saw the video and was so excited about it that i told Sam and Jess right away.

They thought it was pretty neat so we decided that we would all do it once we got back.

Fast forward to the future...

Now back in the states we tried to find the closest location to our school in Arkansas...

Which ended up being Memphis, Tennessee!

The cost for the run was $35 but if you wait too long it jumps up to $45-$50, 

so if you want to do it, sign up early!!

Jess and I had signed up but Samantha forgot and by the time we reminded her the price had jumped, so Sam decided to just be the picture taker at the race! :)

In the end Sam wasn't even able to go 

because of some BIG news she will share with you in her next blog.

Keep an eye out for that!

So we get to memphis early as stated in the blog earlier, you can read the start to our day here:

There was so much excitement in the air, we were all jumping around and so excited to get it started.

To give you an idea of how many people were there...they had us start the race 

in sections of 1500 people at a time! 

Yes, that's a LOT of people. I think the final tally was over 10,000...but we think it was more!

The run took us around a few blocks in the memphis area, there were cars driving around us, people staring, and people clapping for us. Which kind of makes you feel super important when people are lining the streets cheering for you...

Or they are cheering for their people but you pretend they are cheering for you.

Take a look at some of the pictures from the day!

This is before the color, look how clean we are!!!

So clean.....squeaky clean!!!!

And this is after the color

not so clean anymore

We are completely colorfied

Notice a mustache in this picture....because i totally had a green mustache...

and a unibrow under my glasses...

the color run will make you look cool until you take your glasses off....

then you just look like a freak!!!

So what do you do after being completely covered from head to toe in color????

Go out to eat...duhhh!

We went to the famous BBQ restaurant Corky's after the race, and we go some strange looks considering there were about 7 of us in head to toe color, mustaches and unibrows were present!

Our waitress was HILARIOUS...she asked us if we had running water at home??? and she basically made fun of us the whole time, it was so fun!!

 

 

Did i mention they put us back in a corner booth behind a wall....haha

Not sure if that was on purpose or not.. 

I mean look at us, we are beautiful....

There you have it, the "Happiest 5K on the Planet"

And their not kidding around.

If you haven't watched our video of the color run go here:

We already have almost 200 views!!! :-)

If you get the chance to do the color run you should do it

No skill required, you do not have to be a runner.

We walked half the time.

YOU CAN DO IT...and you SHOULD do it!!!! :)

Any color runners want to share their story with us??? We'd love to hear it!!

-Emily