Lynchburg Living

Hello all! I realize that it has been a long 6 months since I last posted. The end of my senior year up until this point has been crazy busy between finishing my senior thesis, graduating from college, and moving to Lynchburg, VA. But I finally found a bit of down time on this chilly fall afternoon to update you all. As most of you know, I am currently the assistant cheer coach for Liberty University and next semester I will be enrolling in graduate school to study Sport Management with a focus in Administration.  I am really excited to start this journey come January. As if I didn't have enough changes! About three weeks ago Liberty played West Virginia University and while I was there, I realized how comfortable I felt in that game day environment. I talked to their sweet cheer coach for a bit and he knew my coaches from UC. (Hey Tabs and Tim!) I am also pretty familiar with the school since WVU used to be in the Big East with UC before all of the conference realignments happened. Girls and guys on the team ask me if I miss cheering, a question I had been asking myself all summer. I was actually scared of what my answer would be. After being an athlete my entire life, and doing a collegiate sport the last five years, I was uncertain of what life would be like not being an athlete. My biggest fear coming to LU and coaching was how are these kids not much younger or older than I am going to respond to me? Are they going to understand the culture that I came from? The culture shift between Cincinnati and Lynchburg have a lot of differences and I didn't know what they would think. After meeting these wonderful athletes my first day, all of those questions of doubt were put to rest. They have welcomed me with open arms and I am so blessed to be able to work with them. They have been so sweet and kind to me and I am so thankful for that. So when they do ask me if I miss cheering, I say to them that of course I miss it, but nothing can last forever, I had the best college experience I could ask for, but coaching has been a great transition for me. Although not a piece of cake, I am grateful for the opportunity.

Ok, so my cottage! Many of you have been asking to see pictures and I am happy to say that I finally have them ready to go. When I came to Lynchburg in June with my mom, grandma, and sister, we looked at one random apartment I had found on Zillow. Since I live alone my options were limited because it is more expensive to live by yourself. After living in Clifton for four years I was like "mom, I want something brand new with no problems." Although I knew I would be giving up the charm that I so love in older houses, I was ok with cookie cutter. Well, we take one look at my current place and fell in love with it. It needed a lot of work but all we saw was its potential. And did we put in the work. (forever thankful for my amazing parents who helped me with so much) When I moved here at the end of July I started three-a-day practices with Liberty so I didn't have much time to help them fix it up. It's located in the historic part of downtown Lynchburg and the area is filled with so much southern charm. The area is a lot like Hyde Park in Cincinnati. I always wanted (and want) to live in Hyde Park one day, so this is a pretty close second. Randolph College is located right across the street from me and for all my Ohio people it's similar to Miami University, only with more southern character, the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background, and is a much smaller school with about 700 students. I have an adorable farmers market about two miles from where I live as well as the CUTEST Starbucks in the other direction. Back home, my mom and I always used to drive around Oakwood to ohhh and ahhh at their houses. I am so happy that God placed me in a town where I get to do that every day driving to Liberty, which is about a 15 minute drive from downtown. It has been quite the transition moving seven hours from home but I just take it one day at a time, finding grace in every situation!

Keep scrolling for fall photos, these were taken in August!

 

I painted these paintings for my senior thesis project keeping in mind that I would need some artwork to hang in my new apartment. For my thesis I studied minimalistic abstract landscape paintings, color theory, and work from Cy Twombly, Charlinevon Heyl, Claire Sherman, and Sally King Benedict.

Spring semester & my anthropologie internship

Hello everybody! I hope you all are enjoying this beautiful spring weather. On days like this I give myself an extra pat on the back for surviving winter. Especially for getting through the five inches of snow we received in March. I am reminded that God's grace is sweet and He makes all things new! Campus has finally come back to life and all is well. I don't know how incoming freshman could come on a visit today and not be convinced that this is the #HottestCollegeInAmerica.

Right now I am finishing up my thesis project and it will be ready to be installed by Tuesday of next week. I am doing a series of six paintings that are 11" x 14" on thick canvas. They are something I hope to put wherever I am living next year in Lynchburg, VA...I'll get to that in a second :) For fine arts student we have a thesis project that we work on throughout our senior year that will be shown in DAAP Works, as well as a thesis paper due. On top of that we have to submit a DVD of photos from the beginning of the year and explain our process that we used to come up with our actual thesis project. I am in the home stretch and I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

While I was in Louisville for the men's basketball tournament I received a call from Anthropologie and they asked me if I was interested in being their new visual display spring intern. Of course I said yes and they said I would start the following week! I had interviewed toward the end of January so I had thought they had found someone else, when really they were just waiting to get the green light from corporate. I am about to start my fourth week and I have already learned so much. Right now we're about to install our Earth Day window display. My days have been spent painting hundreds of sheets of newspaper various shades of green, folding them, and then hot gluing them to create giant banana leaves. The Anthropologie at Kenwood is one of the biggest Anthro stores in the country. Because we have such large windows everything has to be bigger than what we think. The higher the ceilings, the harder it becomes to hang things, as well as fill that space. My boss, Hiliary, is the Visual Coordinator for the store and she has been an amazing teacher to learn from. Most importantly she's very patient with me :) There is so much prep work that goes into creating their amazing displays and I am quickly realizing how much effort it takes to take the idea from paper to real life. I will be sure to post pictures after the final product is done!

My plans for next year...Back in October I had kind of been thinking about going to Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. My parents, aunt and uncle had all graduated from LU and had nothing but great things to say about it. But didn't understand how great it was until I visited for myself. Liberty is the largest Christian university in the country and that was very appealing to me. They're division I in all sports, also very important to me. I went on a visit and fell in love with the environment that they offered. It is one of those things where you can tell someone how great it is, but until you see it in person it's hard to realize what an impact they are making. The way they preach the Gospel in a non cheesy way is unlike something I've ever seen. They genuinely love God's Word but also have big picture goals. The campus is really growing and I am very excited to be a part of it! I'll be studying fashion merchandising while I am there. 

Well that is about it! By this point you have survived Monday, congrats!! 

This is where our rain forest inspired- Earth Day display will be going. 

These smaller leaves were dyed and dipped in wax for a display inside the store.

This was my first major project- a paper clay chandelier. The first one I made was going great until the balloon underneath it popped! So what you're seeing is my second attempt. 

December & 2015

The end of the year always comes out of nowhere. Especially from celebrating Thanksgiving to NYE. This is my favorite but busiest time of the year. Football, basketball, and nationals season all cross over and it creates controlled chaos. After anxiously awaiting where we would be going for the bowl game, I couldn't have been more excited to head to my favorite city- Washington, DC. With it being on December 27th we had to leave on Christmas evening. It was a quick trip but I wouldn't have wanted to cheer my last football game any other way. The Military bowl was in Annapolis, MD. One of the most charming cities I have ever been to. It slightly reminded me of my hometown- Germantown, OH. Home of the United States Naval Academy, I was very impressed with the harbor and historic architecture. The people of Annapolis welcomed us with such class and open arms! 

Throughout this busy month I somehow found time to go skiing! It was my first time and needless to say my sister and I had NO clue what we were doing. We pulled into Perfect North's parking lot staring at the slopes, wondering what in the world were we thinking. We celebrated the tiniest of victories from figuring out what size skis we were to actually putting them on. Luckily we had the nicest and most patient instructor to help us out. I can't tell you how much more respect I have for those winter Olympic athletes. I would compare it to swimming, few people realize how exhausting and hard the training is. You have to be on your A game every time- mentally as well as physically. It was a beautiful winter wonderland and I can't wait to go back. It's been one of my favorite parts of winter break!

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year! I hope your 2015 is filled with peace, love, and laughter. God's given us 365 new days, with 365 new chances.

My cousin's sweet little new born baby, Liam.

The ENTIRE Parks family. We have people from Toronto, Chicago, Michigan, & Texas. Needless to say my grandma's heart was full!

First pep rally of the day!

Pret A Manger was like an upscale Panera. It hit the spot!

Had the best time with my best friend in DC.

We had to be game ready at 5:30 a.m. We all complained SO much until we pulled up to the harbor and saw this view. God is so good.

Small victories people!

This South Carolina girl didn't know what to think of all this snow!

Had the best NYE in Cincy!