saturday!

It's SATURDAY! I love this day.
This weekend Jason and I are in Walford with my parents, and I love it. He's busy taking his coaching authorization classes so I'm spending the day with my mom and dad. This morning mom and I went to Coralville where I picked up picture frames, a mirror and a fake plant... along with some other things. I get to make our apartment more home-y. Wahoo!
Jason's only stipulation was no palm tree. So I think the little plant/tree I got will suffice.
Now I'm just lounging around watching the ISU game (go state!) and my parents are working on replacing ceiling fans in the living room. It's a glorious life here in the Droessler house.
Tonight consists of pizza and the UNI basketball game. Go cats!
I love this life.
I'll catch ya later - I may have a big post tomorrow!

writing, writing, writing

Writing.
Some people hate it.
Some people love it.
I've always loved it.
I don't really know when it started or how, but I absolutely love writing. I have a few guesses on how it started. Perhaps it was the fact that I loved was addicted to practicing my handwriting in elementary school and I got excited about the worksheets we got to use when we were learning cursive. When we took computer class in elementary, I loved typing. I more or less loved typing because I felt like I was 20, not 7.
Not to mention, I was pretty good at it.
I am guessing that since I practiced handwriting daily and wrote my name hundreds of times in a week to perfect the size and curvature, that's where it may have started. Pure guess.
I kept a diary. Granted I drew lots of hearts back then, I also wrote a lot. I kept a journal of every trip I went on with my family - which was quite a bit when I was growing up, thanks to my brother playing on a travelling baseball team. I kept a journal of my "love life" back then. I kept a journal of how school was going and what I thought I'd do with my life when I grew up. And yes, like all girls, I wrote notes to friends as we passed them from desk to desk.
Growing up, writing was fun. In middle school, high school and even college, writing was considered a chore, to most. Not me.
Sure, writing a book report about The Iliad and The Odyssey isn't the most fun thing to do as a sophomore in high school, but it sure beat taking a test about all those hard-to-understand books. Am I right?
In college, writing was different. It required multiple sources, multiple pages, and often times multiple days. 
But when the chances came to write about something that you enjoyed and a topic you picked, it was like glorified freedom. I still remember the day I picked my topic for my undergraduate thesis. I walked into Dr. Bunker's office at UNI (he was my thesis advisor), sat down and then he asked me what I want to do with my Sports Marketing degree and what I was passionate about. 
I told him my interests were in athlete social media, youth initiative in sport, and the equality of men and women in sport. With that said, my topic for my undergraduate thesis was going to be about athlete social media and I was going to showcase examples and research on how it helps and hurts athletes. I got started that week, granted my topic was picked a year before graduation.
After taking classes upon classes in my field during my time at Towson, I became quite opinionated about the pay for play idea in college athletics. I called Dr. Bunker and told him I was changing my topic and begged for approval. It didn't take much begging, he liked that idea better anyway. Well okay!
I wrote that bad boy like it was my baby. It's still the paper I am most proud of. Perhaps because it was the last college paper I ever wrote, or the fact that it was my choice and I could do what I wanted.
It was is MY thesis.
College ended and school was over. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to be done. But I miss writing. No, I don't miss writing school papers for grades, I just miss writing in general. Thus, a blog was born. This blog was born.
Side note: While at UNI, I took Digital Advertising - a class where we had to have a blog that represented us either personally or professional. Mine was Sports and Social Media. I loved this project probably more than anyone that has ever taken the class. Sure, the tests kind of sucked and the group projects were nagging, but the blogging was fun for me! With my hard work and passion put into my blog, I was noticed by multiple people in the sports field and even had articles written about me in the Des Moines Register (see photos below) and on the UNI homepage (the photo above is what it was. Click the link for the article). All for a class assignment. So that was neat. :)

 

monday montage - week of 12/30

This past week meant I was back to work after having the week off for Christmas. It was hard to get back in the routine of work, but of course it was nice to have Wednesday off for New Years Day. That means this week will be the real test! Weeeeeeee! So what happened this past week?

1. I had a handful of work meetings with potential partners that went really well! Always a good thing!
2. I had my first official quote in a Girl Scouts publication! It was about Journey the World - my first BIG event, taking place on March 8th.
3. My apartment complex got new toilets. Apparently they're energy efficient, so THAT'S exciting! It was really exciting when all the plumber men tracked mud and snow into my apartment. Sarcasm.
4. I got to spend all day Saturday with my mom! She came to Davenport to visit and we went to see the Princess Diana exhibit at the Putnam Museum. It was WAY better than I thought it'd be. So worth it! We got to go to lunch and to Target, too. Always fun!

So here's this past week in pictures. Enjoy!

STAY WARM!

diy - glitter state art

Have you ever walked into a craft store and saw something that you knew you had to buy but had no idea what you'd use it for?
If you answered no, you need to live a little! If you said yes, you're my soul sister/brother.
Before the holidays, I walked into Michaels to pick up about 40 pinecones and 10 packages of pom-pom's for the Christmas craft that I was in charge of leading for all the little cousins. FYI, this is what we made - pinecone trees:

Well when I walked into Michael's that day, there was a piece of shiny, lovely, glittery paper staring me in the face begging me to pick it up and look at it in all of it's glory. So I did. Geesh, I'm such a pushover. Once I held it, I knew there was no putting it back.
In the cart she went.
So what do you do with one single sheet of glitter paper? Ya get creative, folks!
When I bought this, I was in the middle of doing the picture mural wall behind the TV in the living room, so I decided to use it in one of the photos that would be part of the mural/collage. To make a long story short in the way Jason and I met... we met in Cincinnati, OH. It's a city that we both love. So why not celebrate that?!
With that said, I now present to you..... the Glitter State Art DIY!

Because the top drawer of my dresser is full of craft supplies, I had everything on hand to get started. I just needed to print a map of Ohio. Easy peasy! So you'll need the LOVELY glitter paper, a state map of any state you want to do, a ruler, scissors, tape and a piece of paper to put the glitter state on. It'd be really cute on a big black/white stripe piece of paper. But because of the living room colors, I went with turquoise.

Step 1: Cut out your state. This would be ideal if you're doing Colorado, Wyoming, Utah or New Mexico. :)

Step 2: Place the state cut-out on your glitter paper just to make sure it's the size that you want. Don't tape it down or anything, this is just for a visual!

Step 3: Turn the piece of glitter paper over. Sad day, glitter has to look at the carpet.... but once you flip the glitter paper over, tape the map to the back. IMPORTANT: When you tape the map, tape it so that the front side (where there may still be outline showing) is facing the back of the glitter paper. Like so. Then cut away! The piece you cut out makes a great stencil!

Step 4: Once you've cut it, turn it over and let the glittery shine, shine, SHINE! Love it. At this point, I just wanted to put this on the wall. But I knew I should finish.

Step 5: Place the glitter paper on your colored background sheet to make sure you still love it. You will. The next part is completely optional. I wanted to highlight the city of Cincinnati as the rest of Ohio doesn't really hold any significance to us (except the fact that I lived in Cincinnati for a few months and we loved visiting the Columbus Zoo and Cedar Point in Sandusky...). But you get the point. Cincinnati is a significant city to us because that's where Jason was lucky enough to meet me! ...And I was lucky enough to meet him. Blah blah blah. So I decided to cut out a little heart in a darker turquoise color so that it'd pop a little on the map. Check it out below.

Step 6: The next step is preparing to tape the bad boy onto your background! The ruler is necessary if you want to make sure that your map is actually in the center of your page. If you're not anal about that stuff like me, you can just slap it on there. 

Step 7: Tape, tape, tape! I would suggest using double sided scrapbooking squares instead of tape, just a personal preference!

Step 8: Put it in your frame and Ooh and Aah for hours. And hours. And hours. And then send a picture to your significant other and frown at the fact that they're not as excited as you. 

I personally loved how it turned it and I love that it adds a pop of turquoise to the new wall collage that is filled with black and white pictures, a modern clock, and a pop of red. It's just so nice.
Here it is on the wall.

I'd like to send a special shoutout to that shiny piece of paper that begged for my attention that morning at Michael's. She's now one of my best friends.

second sunday this week

Today is weird. It's Wednesday but feels like Sunday... I guess it's because I only had one day off and I'm back to work tomorrow. Hopefully today and tomorrow go quick so I can get another weekend ASAP. I like weekends. :)
Oh, I forgot to mention- HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Now I have to try and remember to write 2014 on all my papers at work. Yikes... this has always been difficult for me. Especially because I didn't figure out how I wanted to write my 4's until I was in high school. And it still changes some days.

It used to be this.... now it's the 4 that has a tent thing on top. How the hell do you explain that?!

Back to NYE. Obviously Jason and I are huge party animals (sarcasm), so when NYE rolled around we knew we had to go big. Fancy dresses/suits, high-end champagne, fancy bar, etc.
Joking.
We threw a party at our apartment. 
The catch? It was a party for just the two of us. We are awesome. This party consisted of us in our pajamas (well Jason in sweats and me in hot pink sweats and fuzzy socks), the TV on some college basketball and some yummy appetizers on the dining room table. 

We had the typical meat/cheese/cracker platter, beer bread, homemade chicken nuggets and homemade fried pickles

I had to get a close-up of the fried pickles I made because they were AWESOME! Jason said they might be better than BWW but I'm assuming he was drunk by that point (JK, we didn't get drunk - but I don't know what he was on!)

Oh, and I forgot to mention the champagne that we drank out of Iowa State glasses. Classy! I also quickly realized that I do not like the taste of champagne. Ew. 

Clearly this was taken before I tasted the awfulness that is champagne. Disregard the food on top the fridge- dad is in the process of building me a food storage shelf contraption thingy. :)

Once 10:00 rolled around I was struggling quite a bit to keep my eyes open. Cut me some slack, I worked all day on NYE.
By 10:15 we were laying in bed watching the Texas A&M football game.
By 10:30 we had our "New Years Kiss" and I had fallen asleep.

I guess sweats and the comfort of home will do that to ya... yaaaaaaawn

With that said, HAPPY 2014!
Today was supposed to be a lazy day full of relaxation as it was snowing pretty hard outside and it was a day I didn't have to worry about doing anything work related. Well I saw that Salvation Army was having a 50% off sale so I decided to drag Jason along as we looked at discounted used merch. Didn't find anything worthy.
Came home, read my book under a blankie and felt satisfied with the day. :) Then Jason mentioned making crockpot soup for dinner. I immediately thought of my friend's blog and to make her cheeseburger soup. Yummo! But it required us to go to Target and pick up olive oil and kosher salt. Worth it, it was super tasty!

If you know me, you know I LOVE bacon cheeseburgers. So, naturally, I added bacon to my soup. :)

And now I get to lounge on the couch in my PJs and watch UNI kick Bradley's bottom in basketball. Go panthers! Wooooot!
One last thing. I met Miriah a little over a year ago when I was visiting Jason at BV and Jason and I decided to go out that night with some of his friends. And when I met her, I seriously thought she was such a doll. And she's hilarious because she will tell you how it is. Which is also what I'm like. I get her. Anyway, when she messaged me the other day telling me she was going to start blogging because she enjoyed reading mine, my heart melted. I love hearing that! And I got to help design her blog- which I also love doing! She posted for the first time today, and I LOVED her post. So please go check her out! Yay, Miriah! Welcome to the blogging world!