From snow days to sunshine back to snow days

I hope y'all are staying nice and warm in this freezing cold weather. Although I do think that freezing is an understatement. In Cincinnati the wind chill is -19 today. Yeah, walking to class in this awfulness has been nothing but rainbows and sunshine. Out of my four years of college, I've had more snow days this year than ever before. Even durning my freshman year in Youngstown, with all the lake effect snow, we still have had four times the amount. Technically UC has had two full days due to that polar vortex. Seriously a polar vortex?? And this week they canceled every thing after 12 p.m. on Tuesday, class before 10 a.m. yesterday, and class before 11 a.m. today. I have been grateful for these days of comfort in warmth in my little apartment. My team and I got back from sunny Orlando Tuesday morning. Cincinnati's campus sits on top of a hill. Clifton, if you have never been here before can be quite the adventure (frustration) to drive in. Tight spaces and hills makes driving in the snow next to impossible. About a month ago I was driving back from work and was in tears with my father because I was stuck in the middle of an intersection. Haha. I was being a little dramatic but in my family's awesome, eight passenger van that's about twelve years old, and has countless amounts of mileage on it, you can see why it was terrifying. Once we got off the high way it took about two hours to get back to campus. After I received the text that classes were canceled when we got back from Florida, I made plans to make a home cooked meal. I had been eyeing this recipe on Pinterest for a while, mainly because it was a recipe made by the Pioneer Woman. It's called simple sesame noodles. It is very easy to make, but I didn't have a lot of the ingredients. Since driving wasn't an option, off to Kroger I walked. I gathered all my ingredients and a few others and started cooking. I highly recommend this meal if you enjoy Chinese food.

Oh yeah! Spring semester has started. I am taking 19th c. art, life drawing, intro to photography, and a class called professional practices. Professional practices is a class that all fine arts students have to take. My teacher is wonderful and full of experience. It helps us to perfect our cover letters, resumes, and how to use a blog (funny how things work out right??) to help get our art work out there. So far, so good! 

I also wanted to talk about something that I have learned a lot over the past month or so. I have learned that we are all fighting our own personal battles. Certain things and situations can lay heavy on our heart. Looking at a person we might not know that anything is wrong. The best thing we can do for each other is to offer them kindness. It seems to make those tough situations not seem so overwhelming. I read a quote that said, "Kindness makes a person attractive." Proverbs 16:24 says "Kind words are like honey -- sweet to the soul and healthy for the body." Your sweet words can be therapeutic to someone in need of them. 

I hope y'all stay warm & comfy! OH and Cincy basketball is currently ranked 15th in the AP poll….12th in the ESPN power rank…ranked above that school from Columbus :) We play UCF tonight at home with our student section sold out! That 6th man is crucial for games like this. 

GO CATS! 

P.S. I also want to give a huge shout out to the UC dance team for becoming national champs in the hip hop division. Beating out schools like LSU, Memphis, and the University of Kentucky. Ashley Herman, who I graduated high school with, has become one of my dear friends. She was on that team, and I could not be more proud of her! Watching someone you used to cheer with in the third grade win a national title, is a very memorable experience. Their hard work and dedication definitely paid off, representing the C with so much pride. 

My grandma happened to be in Florida the same time I was. Her mom (my great grandma) and other family live in Melbourne Beach, which is about an hour and a half east of Orlando. So we had a bit of time between events and she came over and we went to Downtown Disney together. Such a great day.

I love those giant turkey legs. Getting one just for myself was the mistake though. 

As a team we went to Hollywood Studios. In the Indiana Jones show, Indiana Jones actually used to cheer for UC. Which was pretty cool. He took us back stage to show us what goes on. It was a beautiful 70 degree day. It was also really cool for me because I would one day LOVE to work for Disney, helping design sets and displays like this. 

Yeah I stood in line for 20 minutes to meet Sleeping Beauty. Totally worth it. 

Our team got 6th place at UCA nationals. Which is the highest place we've gotten in about 10 years. I love the reactions from everyone in this picture! Also…check out those white uniforms. Pretty legit right??

Had to take a picture of my new Disney mug.

I wanted to add this picture because I recently stopped buying K cups and switched to ground coffee with a little cup that I fill myself. My mom has something similar like this at home and I loved how clean it looked. So I bought one for myself.  

While at the grocery I decided to finally buy the ingredients to make homemade coffee creamer. But I needed something to put it in…so I emptied a syrup bottle. But that wasn't enough. I felt the need to make it look cute too. But if you have never made your own creamer I highly recommend it. It makes your coffee taste like a version of a latte but with more coffee flavor. It really is perfection. Take 14 oz of sweetened condensed milk, 14 oz of heavy cream, and two  tsp of vanilla extract, shake it all together, and then prepare yourself to never buy store bought again. It's a little bit of luxury.

I had never bought these ingredients before. They were all in the Asian section of the grocery store. If Kroghetto has these ingredients I am sure you can find them anywhere. 

In my life drawing class we are drawing people. And let me tell you that is not my strong point.  I've never had someone pose for almost three hours and me just draw them. You should have seen my first couple that I did. They were absolutely horrible.  But this was my last one where I started to see a little baby light at the end of the tunnel.

I painted this during the polar vortex. It took about three days and I got paint  everywhere, including my measuring cups that I later found while making my sesame noodles. Haha.