Hello, Leon.

List of 6 Excuses 

(for why I haven't updated since November):

1. I'm a full-time college student and full-time college students are overworked, overcharged and overly-exhausted people. 

2. My creative well was bone dry due to an increased amount of stress and displeasure experienced during the last few months as a direct result of reason 1. 

3. My iCloud refuses to work properly and I refuse to spend more than 30 minutes figuring it out. I am stumped and have not a clue in the world how to talk my iPhone into sending my photo-stream directly to my computer beyond what I've already done. It just sits there and laughs at me. 

4. I've taken on yet another role. Go ahead and call me Intern Caitlyn again. This means I have to spend 120 hours of my little life working for the American Diabetes Association before May 3rd. It's fun but calculate 120 hours into real life and full-time college student status and (HELLO) you understand why this has made it to the List of 6 Excuses.

5. My French class is all-consuming. 

6. My babysitting business is starting to take off. One or two referrals and suddenly I feel like every Raleigh mom is giving me the once-over when I'm at the grocery store. But I love it- there are some stinking cute kids down here. And they call me Miss Caitlyn so basically I'm a fan. 

So there you go. That should clear things up. 

But if not, then you can kindly take your negativity elsewhere.

Yesterday was my 22nd birthday (whaaat?) and super-storm Leon made his big debut. 

I was really looking forward to celebrating on a nice warm day but Leon had other plans. 

Pushy. 

We did manage to make our way over to Whole Foods and got me a birthday cake. 

It's from Whole Foods so really it's like the healthiest cake we could've gotten, right? 

 

We got 2 inches of snow which isn't the biggest of deals but down here that's more than enough to call off schools and cancel classes and shut down businesses and hibernate for a day or two. 

So that's what I'm doing. Sort of hibernating. 

I slept way too long this morning and so all day I've been kind of groggy-stupid. I just want to go back to bed but I've gotten plenty of sleep and more would just make it worse. 

Why do bad things happen to good people? 

You know when you sleep too long in the morning and you're like borderline awake but then you have the craziest dreams? Or is that just a problem I have? 

Well either way, I had the weirdest dream this morning. 

Mary Catherine was our new kitten? 

She was human, but we treated her like a cat. 

And we let her outside but then we went to bed and accidentally locked her out. 

So she shacked up with a kind possum family that lived under our porch.

Then the next morning I went out to find her, my precious kitty, but I couldn't find her! 

I called her name over and over and then the neighbor told me she saw her go down the street to the hospital. 

So I made my way to the hospital and there she was, little kitty/MC curled up in the corner sleeping. 

I was warned by the nurse that she wouldn't act like a kitty because she was basically raised by possums. 

I figured it would be fine, she spent like 1 night with them, how bad could it be? 

But then I picked her up and she screamed some crazy, possum-like scream. 

Scared the crap out of me. Then I realized I was terrible and had really messed up my kitty-sister. 

I woke up crying. 

And no, we don't have a cat or a kitten, there is no possum family living under our porch, and there is no hospital down the street. 

I am also not implying that my sister is an animal or that she was raised by animals.

I conclude that I have a wild imagination and that sleeping past 10 is no longer a good idea.

Clearly 22 means that I can't handle all that sleep. 

Goodbye youth.

Want to re-cap Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks? Because I want to!

I'll go ahead and get all the puppy pictures out of the way first. There are a lot, brace yourselves. Shasta's just so photogenic and Iris is so stinking cute. 

Danny is Iris's favorite person. 

She's a stunner.

See? Shasta was born to pose. 

I taught Iris how to play Scrabble. She wasn't very good. 

Shasta got a haircut and we made fun of her, shame! 

And Baby Iris officially loves shoving her face into the snow. Good for her. 

I may be slightly obsessed with those two, but can you blame me? They're adorable and they are so cuddly and I miss them so bad! 

Winter in PA was lots of fun. We had snow more than we didn't have snow. Or maybe that's a lie, I can't really remember if I'm being honest. It seems like a life-time ago. 

 But we tried to play in the snow at one point. It was cold and windy and Iris was occupying herself so we didn't feel the need to stay out long. 

I do remember hanging out with Carli Sue a lot. We decided to decorate the guest-book at the Corner Coffee Shop over Thanksgiving break. She drew a lovely turkey with a coffee and I wrote an impressive list of what we were thankful for.

 

I'm thankful for her! 

I also saw old high school friends and we did our high-school-friend thing where we called someone and took a picture and tagged them on facebook. Because we're so creative like that. 

 Yu Qing was on the phone. True story! 

I took so many pictures of all the happenings. I mean, it was Christmas would you expect anything less? Also it was my last winter break. The last time I'll get four weeks off for Christmas because apparently that's not normal and real people don't get that. 

That's a serious bummer.

And Kyle isn't in many pictures because he was gallivanting in Ukraine! We were super excited to have him back home!

This little Amish lady made me smile. I don't know why, but I found her absolutely adorable. And I felt bad that she was walking to get her mail in the cold, rain. I thought someone should recognize and document on her behalf. 

2014's going to be great, isn't it? 

So much hope for this year!

Drives Me Crazy, Drives Me Insane

Oh bonjour! 

Dear anyone who is considering learning French because they want to speak the 'language of love' and all that good stuff, 

French is hard and sounds anything BUT romantic when anyone other than native speakers and people who have had many years of lessons use it. 

I sound like a mess and often use German words when I'm not quite sure which French word I'm looking for. 

It's quite the mashup, believe me. 

Just know what you're getting into- French. Is. Hard. 

And I have an exam in 3 hours. 

I decided it would be wise to wake up really early to study and clearly that was a good idea since I'm now updating my blog... 

So I was inspired last week and did this really wonderful thing. 

I created an iTunes playlist with all of my favorite lovey-dovey, daydreaming, futuristic, folky, singer-songwriter music. 

I listen to it pretty much non-stop. 

It's becoming a problem. 

Seriously one song is called 'Daydream' and when it starts playing I automatically stop whatever I'm doing and just sit with a big smile on my face. 

Then I continue to waste away 4 minutes and 1 second of my life just sitting and smiling.

I know what you're thinking- Caity that is NOT a bad thing to waste time sitting and smiling and possibly humming along to a song that so clearly defines your life! 

Yes friends, but it becomes a bad thing when I have a French exam in a few hours followed quickly by a Communication Theory exam, class until 7 and then the CMA awards show at 8. 

I just don't have enough of time in each day to allow so much of it to go by so unused on such a regular basis, you feel me? 

But I do love this playlist. Yes, it's playing now. 

Are you a daydreamer? Maybe a hopeless romantic who enjoys a nice fluffy song about the good things to come in life? 

My new favorites are Tori Kelly and Olly Murs. 

They make up a good majority of this new playlist. 

Ben Rector too- he's singing to me right now about how he likes me.

Thanks to my good friend Harry who sent this broke college girl 10 of his very own CD's. I am quickly falling in love with them all. 

Oh my, I just love Tori Kelly. 

So this past weekend was Cornhuskin' - the last one of my Meredith career! 

Since Friday couldn't get his crap together and refused to stop raining, the main event was moved to Sunday night. 

That meant the fam couldn't stay and watch. 

They got to see the parade though- the wet and rainy parade. 

Bathtub Ring rode on a "Tis the season to be corny" float. 

We had a bathtub with makeshift bubbles and we loved it. 

Then we all ran back to my apartment where we threw our wet clothes into the dryer and waited for either the rain or the dryer to stop. 

The rain never stopped, but the dryer did. 

The parentals were a bit bummed that they wouldn't get to see Corn and watch BTR perform afterwards so we decided to have our own private concert for our out-of-town families on Friday night. 

Dad proudly recorded every song we sang and started the waterworks during our first song (Wagon Wheel, or as he likes to call it- "Rock Me Mama"). 

Mom, Grandma and MC sat very ladylike and smiled along throughout.

Dan spent his time half listening because he was too interested in finding his blue-eyed blonde with a thick southern accent. 

Grandpa and Lynda sang along with what songs they knew- Lynda the more recent pop songs and Grandpa the old traditionals. 

After our first song Grandpa started chanting, "SING MORE, SING MORE!" 

And I said, "Grandpa, we will."

Carter was there too, sitting and smiling along like Mom, Grandma and MC but in a less ladylike way. 

Dad sent me all of the videos he took of us that night, then I promptly deleted them all because I think through my actions.

No, no I don't. 

Saturday we started off at the farmers' market.

MC and I weren't going to go, but then we wanted to be with everyone so we went. 

Boring.

Unless you're there to buy fruits and vegetables or maybe candy or strange pickled things... the farmers' market is boring. 

So MC and I made our own fun. We invited Dan, but again he was on the hunt for a southern lady-friend.

The trees were all such fantastic colors so we wanted to take pictures with them- duh. 

Too bad it was in a parking lot. We just had to get really creative.

We love fall! 

There were a lot of other fun things too, but I forget and I need to get back to French so details and specifics are going to be limited right now.

We're just going big-picture. 

Dan and Grandma were super cute...

And so were MC and Grandpa...

I was super annoyed because all weekend my phone decided to be stubborn and refused to take pictures. 

"Cannot take photo. Not enough space available." 

BUT YOU'RE AN IPHONE. MAKE SOME SPACE! 

So I took very few pictures. 

None of the parentals =(

and none of the pups. 

Shasta and Iris made it down but I failed to document any of that cuteness. 

But we did do some sibling selfies...

Aaaannd they might kill me for those. 

Then Sunday they all left and the weekend was over. 

Except it wasn't because we had corn all day on Sunday. 

ALL DAY. 

Not really, but it felt like it! 

It was all fun and stuff- seemed to go really fast! I even did some dancing guys! I know, right? 

Getting fancy.

And guess what? 

The senior class won! 

It's a big deal. 

That was a good day. 

And here is one of the songs Bathtub Ring did after all the festivities ended. We each tried to have a friend record one of the songs and this was the one I was responsible for. 

So here we go, Cigarettes and Whiskey for your listening pleasure. 

Apparently it's MC's newest favorite. She tells me that a lot- she must really like it.

I'm really disappointed in the lack of photos from this year! I did a terrible job! 

Last year I had SO many pictures, what the heck happened?

My phone got stubborn, that's what happened! 

Oh well. Maybe next year I'll get snap-happy again. 

Yes, next year. 

Oh Mary Catherineeeee! 

Study, study, study! 

Ready or not, here I come French exam! 

Only 20 days until Thanksgiving break!

Fall Break, Last Forever!

My class got out a good 45 minutes early and I have at least an hour to sit in the honors lounge until my next class starts so I figured I would go ahead and update my blog since I have one and all that. 

Can you believe we're already through midterms?

Well, can you believe that I am already through midterms? Because I sort of am.

Except for the one I have tomorrow morning. Who does that?

Midterms after fall-break? Bad idea dude. 

I wouldn't have studied for it anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter when I take it. 

Don't tell dad.

(So since I'm so great at updating and all that, I actually took the exam before posting this. One word for that exam: Easy. Aced it. You're welcome, Dad.)

We can tell dad about the random hockey game that I went to- that was fun. 

I went with a couple true hockey fans, so it made more sense this time. 

I went my freshman year too- remember that? I do. Good times. 

Anyway, this time we went down to watch the warm-ups and I was pretty sure I was going to die. Jennifer told me it would be fun though, so I was brave.

These guys were slinging pucks directly at my forehead which was 1. rude and 2. scary. 

I did a lot of ducking. But let's be real, I loved it.

Being that close to a professional anything is quite exciting in my opinion. 

Carter and I also got to meet Stormy. I told Stormy we wanted to have a funny picture so he promptly stuck his finger in his nose and motioned for Carter and I to do the same.

Nailed it. 

There were also some really chatty Charlies behind Carter and me. They had something to say about everything that was happening- from the new guy on the team to the opposing team's mascot. 

"What's a saber?" 

"It's a big sword."

"Oh, like a light saber?" 

"No dude, like a sword! Like with a sharp blade and everything!"

"Wouldn't it be cool if they had a buffalo holding two swords as their mascot?"

"Yeah, he could like skate out on the ice with his swords and wave them around."

"That would be sick!"

"They should make the buffalo a cartoon too. That would be so funny."

Go ahead and re-read that dialogue with a thick southern accent. 

Suddenly it's a whole lot funnier, isn't it?

Well Carter and I thought so too. We also wanted to see what they looked like without making it obvious that we were turning around to look at them.

So we took a "Selfie" which they gladly photo-bombed.

Mission accomplished.

What else have I been doing? 

You know, just hitting bullseyes and becoming an arching sensation. I had to make my own bow and arrow and with Carter's help, it actually shot straight and true!

Well, not so true... but it did go forward and therefore I passed.

I guess you could say I was pretty confident in my arching abilities, so when I was home for fall break I asked dad if I could check out his bow. 

65 pounds? No big deal dad, I got this.

Turns out 65 pound draw weight is actually quite difficult.

I couldn't do it.

Moving on...

Fall break sure was fun! 

Did a little negotiating, moved a midterm and skipped a class and made it home on Tuesday night! 

So fun. 

Wednesday morning I woke up before mom which was super weird. 

The neighbors have a hound dog who has a very peculiar bark. 

The dog sounds like a child who is in great distress. 

And he's loud! The dog... not the child (there is no child). 

So as Miss Neighbor is walking her hound dog right past my bedroom window, something happens which startles the moaning-child-like-dog and he breaks out in moaning-like-song. 

I was awakened on my first day of vacation at 7:45am. 

Ask me how pleased I was with this occurrence.

I WAS NOT PLEASED. 

So I figured I might as well wake mom and the dogs and start my Wednesday right!

Still super weird that we have dogs. As in plural. As in more than one. 

But I can't imagine home-life without Baby Iris.

Let's talk about how adorable she is because I miss her spunk and her sass. 

And yes, bottom left is Iris hoarding her toys.

Shasta is still the princess- naturally. She's just not as in-your-face as the little one. 

She does love having her picture taken though. Diva-licious. 

Anyway, we spent a lot of our time at home listening to Christmas music really loud, drinking coffee, eating baked oatmeal, and blowing our noses.

Mom and I both had really bad colds- weird. 

I also got to check out the Corner Coffee Shop, where little MC is now a full-functioning barista! I got my pumpkin spice and was happy. 

We also ran around Kitchen Kettle because MC wanted to take pictures of trees. 

Turns out the trees she liked were in the parking lot and were not nearly as pretty up-close. 

So we just walked around.

We almost got run over by Alabama while he was trying to back into a parking space right in front of where we were standing. 

He passed us later on in the afternoon and gave us a friendly toot- weird, but it was friendly.

You'd feel bad too if you nearly ran over the three Martin girls. 

We also waved enthusiastically to the pickle-guy. Well... I waved enthusiastically to the pickle-guy. MC was embarrassed because she was convinced she probably knows him. 

Mom wasn't looking at him because she was looking at someone's gardens or something probably. 

But for real- does anyone know who the pickle-guy in Intercourse is? Because I think a lot of people would like to figure that out.

Any information regarding the pickle-guy would be appreciated. 

I also met up with Carli Sue-lee-loo while I was home =) 

We chatted like 12 year old girls while we drank our seasonal coffees. 

She's one of my absolute favorites and I was so glad that we could make a coffee date happen so last minute! 

She calls this her Asian face. I call it her adorable Carli face. 

MC and I did a lot of giggling and all that too. 

Tuesday night when she got home from work, she came immediately to my side and started telling me story after story of school, youth group, and work happenings. 

One of my favorite things she said was this...

"Caity, Mrs Scheuer says I need to apply to colleges before Halloween. She told me that in her office and I was all, 'Yeah, okay-sounds good' but really I was freaking out because I don't know when the heck Halloween is! Do you?" 

So I giggled and told her it was October 31st and her eyes got real big and she said, "Oh shoot, it's in October?! I DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME, CAITY!" 

Classic though- since when do the Martins celebrate Halloween? She really had no idea. 

That might not have been all that funny, but believe me when I say that it was hilarious. She's really the funniest person ever. 

She also asked me this, "Caity, what's that movie with the grinch? Oh! It's called The Grinch!" 

I just love her. 

Then just like that we headed off to Cardinal Hill for a weekend of bargain hunting and fall-foliage viewing.

It ended up raining literally all day on Friday, so our bargain hunting was moved to Saturday. 

It was so fun though- the whole Martin family, minus Kyle and Maria, was up. 

As for bargains- I didn't find anything particularly interesting. 

Except two DVD's which I completely forget now. 

Dan was even there- he was all giggly and fun. MC and I forced him into a dan-man sandwich and took pictures, much to his obvious delight. 

We missed you Kylie! You clearly would've balanced out each of our photos. 

We also went out for a drive on Friday because MC wanted to find some colorful leaves. So mom, Grandma, Aunt Melanie, MC and I packed into old grey and drove through the mountains of PA and took lots of fun pictures. 

Just farmland, mountains, and pretty leaves.

Oh and some cows because mom was positive, "This isn't a driveway, it's a road and it connects back to another road!"

It wasn't a road. It was a farm lane. 

Right now I'm listening to Brett Eldredge and I'm kind of dying inside. He's just such a fantastic country singer and I love him. 

Don't tell Tim Tebow. He doesn't need anything else to worry about right now. 

Seriously, don't say anything to him. He would be devastated. 

Anyway, Fall break couldn't last forever so Saturday afternoon we packed up and headed out.
Grandma loaded me up with some "Driving snacks".

"No grandma, those are peanut chews and I don't need more than 3" was my response.
10 peanut chews in my pocket later, we headed home.
And soon after arriving home, I drove even further south to Raleigh.

Fall break can't last forever.
So before I left, we all gave hugs and said sad goodbyes.
"Goodbye, dad. See you in a few weeks!"

"Yeah just hold on a second. I want to see this last drive."
Don't worry, I didn't take it personally.
And to be fair, it was a big play and I'm pretty sure the Eagles got a first down.
Speaking of Eagles, I'm really praying that their game will be broadcasted down here today.
Eagles v Cowboys- that has to happen today.

Today Mom, Kyle, Liz and I had a long conversation on facebook about how we want to visit The Netherlands real soon. So all afternoon I've been daydreaming about Europe and how awesome it is. 

Like seriously, I know we discussed a theory in Com theory but I couldn't tell you a single thing about it. And I just came from that class. 

I might actually have problems focusing.

And Liz guess what? In my next class my professor actually spent a good 20 minutes discussing the Netherlands! I'm not sure what he was saying, but I know it was about your people.
The class is about Mozart and Vienna, so the whole Netherlands thing really confused me. But I didn't ask questions!
I probably should have...

Freaking daydreaming- why must you be such a great escape?? 

Oh guess what? I got a little bit of a haircut. 

Remember that hair-obsession I used to have?
Yeah, me too.

Here's to hoping that it's not December before I post again!