Pieces.

God will never give you more than you can handle. My whole life, that is something any good, loving friend or family member has told me. And they truly mean it. They truly believe it.

I have always held on to that belief, myself. I repeat it, over and over in my head. Things get hard, and that is the first thing I reflect on.

The last two months have been nothing short of a miracle. At the same time, they have taken my patience to a level that makes me doubt my longtime belief.

I lost trust in my family (and am working slowly on finding it again). My poor dog Dixie - literally the light of my life for so long - passed away in an episode that makes me cringe whenever I think about it. I've been meaning to dedicate a post all to her, to how much she proved to me pets truly can help us through the hardest of times. And yet here I am, dedicating only a couple of sentences to the pup that meant so much to me. (Sorry Dixie...I hope you aren't looking down on me from doggy heaven right now and giving me the evil eye...) On top of all of that, law school started and it's just as heinous as everyone will tell you it is. It's hard. It's stressful. It makes you question your own skill.

But despite things that were so hard on me, I found someone (a friend of mine for a while, actually) who took my world, flipped it upside down, and showed me what it really means to be loved. To have someone take you for who you are and cherish you, good and bad. This man makes me take every love song and every romantic movie and BELIEVE in them. We have talked about the future. About soulmates. About a connection between the two of us that is so strong it can't be denied.

But now all of that may be ruined so soon after I found it.

There is so much I wanted to say in this post. Writing helps me clear my head and get out truly what I want to say. But I don't even have the energy right now...

I'm prolonging my blog hiatus for a while longer.
I sure hope it's true that God doesn't give us more than we can handle. He must really have faith in me to believe I'm strong enough to handle all of this.

The end of summer and what I've been up to.

Only a few weeks left until I start law school (holy...mother...of...god), and I have had the best end of a summer possible. The last couple of weeks have been packed, but I would not have had it any other way! I'm one of those girls that tends to get very easily overwhelmed, so I was afraid that the end of summer was going to take a bit of a toll on me:

1) My close friend Missy got married on the 17th in Austin, and I was a bridesmaid. It was beautiful! Missy and I met working at Coach as sales associates three years ago, and she and I became like sisters in our huge Coach family. :) I had so much fun getting to see her again (she lives in North Carolina now), and catch up with her sisters and friends. And allllll of our former Coach buddies were at the wedding, so it was SO nice to have a big reunion.

The Coach girls at Missy's wedding reception.

2) I had a great time all week in Austin seeing as many friends as possible before Missy's wedding was over. I stayed with my bestfriend, and I hate to know that I won't be living in the same city with her probably every again. She will be getting married 10/10/10, and will more than likely end up in Virginia for her husband's job assignment.

Missy's bridal lunch.

3) After Missy's wedding, I spent a couple of days at the beach house to unwind a little bit and just relax with my madre.

4) I haven't gotten much sleep in the last several days because I've been having WAY TOO GOOD A TIME back in Dallas. And I could not care less.

In other news, HOLY SHIT TRUE BLOOD. I am absolutely loving this season. Also, cannot wait for Weeds to come back on either. TV - you make my life sometimes (and I don't even feel bad for it).

And I'm sure you've all seen Inception by now and got totally mindfucked like I did. It was a freaking BADASS movie. As if I could love Leo or Joseph Gordon-Levitt anymore that I already do...

On "the closet"...

I'm not sure I've mentioned this yet, but my move out of Austin and back to Dallas consisted of me...moving back in my with my parents. But you can all just bite your tongues, because this 22 year old soon-to-be law student isn't ashamed. Let's face it - for as long as this lasts, I never have to do laundry, pay for much of anything (HELLO NO RENT!), can whine to my mom anytime of day when my workload gets harsh (and hope that she will bring me some warm cookies or brownies with milk up to my room), and my mom's the shit anyway.

I'd also like to mention that while growing up, my room was the envy of just about everyone around. It's massive. It could be cut in half and STILL be worthy of the title 'room'. At half its size, it's larger than most dorm rooms could ever hope to be. And as an only child, it was my haven. It's practically an apartment, being upstairs. The only room next to it is a living room (full with huge TV, office space, and its own MINI BAR). I have my own living room for goodness sake, WITH ALCOHOL BUILT RIGHT IN. Who are we kidding here? MY LIVING SITUATION RULES. So before you feel sorry for me, wait a second while I walk three steps to my mini-fridge full of alcohol I didn't pay for to pop open a beer.

Okay, I'm back.

While growing up, the only thing I ever hated my room for was its completely inadequate closet. This thing is tiny. No matter where I've lived since moving from Dallas, any closet I had was bigger than this POS. I could barely ever tell what pieces of clothing I owned, and it's just dark and cramped in there. "The Closet", as my mom and I ominously refer to it as, has been the bane of my existence for a long time. I wasn't thrilled to be moving back to it. And as I've gotten older, I've only amassed MORE things. I have a serious shopping problem, y'all, so when I moved home, I spent days on a serious clean out of my clothes.

I just spent three days finally getting all of my clothes back from Austin and deciding what stays and what has to go. Trust me, I don't like to give anything up. These pieces of clothing are my babies. I carefully selected my precious bbs over the years of mall-treading, thrifting, and online-shopping. But after three torturous days of ripping my hair out and sweating beads over NEEDING to downsize (it was a sacrifice "The Closet" demanded...), I'm now left with 7 (YES. SEVEN.) trash bags full of precious items to be sold and donated.

Here is the conclusion of this sad affair:

YES Y'ALL. I STILL COULDN'T FIT IT ALL. AFTER SEVEN TRASH BAGS. What in the actual FUCK. 

As you can see, I have now resorted to using the shelves that have graced the top of my closet area for additional storage. It's kind of ingenious, if I do say so myself. I feel like I just turned a wall into additional closet space. As you can also kind of see, the only touch of my teenage years that remains in my room sit on those shelves - to the left, you will find a portion of my large snow globe collection that my family just one day decided I needed to begin (and I guess I just rolled with it? I now have more snow globes than anyone should ever have. Ever.). To your right, the shelf is topped with a variety of stuffed animals. Atop that shelf you will find TY bears, a pink rabbit, a blindingly neon green platypus, and two Furby demons (those things both creep me out as well as entertain me). 

I love this cabinet. When I moved back, it was full (and I'm not kidding here) of my entirely too large collection of Beanie Babies. Those bitches immediately went into storage, and now I've turned it into the Coach Cabinet. I love having a way to both display and protect my collection of Coach goodies. 

Feel free to come over and shop at my tiny Coach boutique.

Now that "The Closet" has been satisfied, I'm moving on to organizing my crafting space. I never use the vanity that is in my room, so I think I will instead turn that into my craft nook. I'll post pictures as soon as that little endeavor is completed. It is going to be quite a task.

I also need to get started on completing my college scrapbooks. Snapfish is about to receive a ginormous order from me tomorrow...

G'nite, y'all. 

xo.

On being productively lazy.

Summer always has this strange affect on my behavior. One day, I don't move an inch away from the comfort of my bed and laptop, bathing in the glow of sunlight that drapes through my windows. The next, I am full of energy, ready to leap outside and hit the gym/pool/river/run errands/name it. Though I will be honest...most days, I take the lazy way out. Today was another of those days. The only ounce of activity I did was with one of my Shape workout DVDs, and that only lasts for 20 minutes.

Y'all, summer is the bees' knees.

I spent several days in Austin, enjoying in both festivities with my friends as well as lazy days on the couch watching movies. The 4th was especially fun - I went to the Brew-B-Q in Buda, Texas with some girlfriends, after spending the afternoon by the pool engorging ourselves with the goodies that my friends Amber and Ashley prepared.

See those bacon-wrapped monstrosities of deliciousness in the background? I had about ten of them. 

We filled our bellies with all kinds of om-nom-nom goodness before laying out by the pool, and laughed after noticing that all five of us had conveniently placed towels over our tummies after sitting down. 

Other things filling my enjoyable time this summer:

Season 1 of Heroes \ Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica / the beach \ reading / setting up my crafting area now that I've moved back to Dallas \ discovering many fun new blogs / rediscovering my love for Twitter

xo.

Peace and Namaste, Y'all.

Hope you're blowing some shit up today.

And if you're not, you sure as hell better be from Canada.

The 4th of July is by far my favorite holiday. Red meat. Beer. Blowing stuff up. It's all just a magical time. I hope you all enjoy your day of food comas and beer bellies as much as I am.

xo.

One thing law school will teach you -- you're broke.

As a soon-to-be 1L law student, and in a bit of credit card debt, why WOULDN'T I want to do the 20sb 
Blog Carnival?! And with a Charles Schwab financial score of 43, who WOULDN'T want to hear my story on finances and advice? Ha.

If there's anything countless numbers of my loving supporters have thrown at me lately, it's the fact that right now - with the economy - law school seems to be a pretty risky investment (Thanks mom, thanks uncle, thanks barista at Starbucks...I KNOW THIS). You go out of school, three years later, $100K in debt.

For a long time, law school meant financial security. If you are a law student, you might as well waltz out of graduation day with a smile on your face - you're set.

For four years, I have lived college life. A long time now, I've spent money thinking -- oh, I don't need to save right now. I'm going to enjoy city life, college life, happy hours, dinners downtown. THE WORKS. Throwing caution to the wind, and always counting on daddy to keep the bank account full (along with a little extra from my part-time job), it's been nothing but shopping, booze, and nights on the town. I own three credit cards that are maxed, and though I do save money each month (my savings account isn't too shabby), I never pay off my credit cards. In fact, I don't even WORRY about it sometimes. This is not the outlook I need to be having going into law school. The next three years will rack up the most debt I have ever encountered. I need to come out of the war zone that is law school knowing that I have a plan, and the responsibility to take care of myself and know I have the will power not to overspend.

This is not okay. Taking a look at my financial score, and my credit score, has given me a huge wake-up call into my spending habits. The main problem that exists in my life is my inability to decide between need and want.

Do I need to shop Gilt Groupe and anthro.com every day? Absolutely not. I WANT it. I need to find the balance in life between this need and want.

Let's take a look at my mistakes, and find ways to cut spending and start SAVING. These are all things I have a tough time doing. -

Kiley's 3 Easy Ways to Put Back Money in your Pocket:
1) Don't online shop.
Seriously. I cannot tell you how easy it is to throw money away online without even realizing how much you've spent. You can't actually TOUCH what it is you're buying. It almost makes it feel less real somehow. With just a couple of clicks, your credit card can take a real beating. It's easier to decide between want and need when you're actually standing in front of what it is you're deciding on.

2) Wait three days before you make a purchase.
If there is a fabulous new dress or pair of shoes you just HAVE TO HAVE - YOU'RE GOING TO DIE WITHOUT THEM. NEEEEEEEED THOSE SHOES...well, just wait a few days. Guarantee it, by the time the days go by, you'll have forgotten about that purchase. And you just saved yourself a wad of dough.

3) If you really can't afford another night out on the town with the girls, sit them down and have a talk about your finances. I have a hard time saying no whenever my best girls text me, "Suit up! Drinks in thirty!" *Friends can be the biggest reason our credit scores go down the toilet* How can you say no to such amazing people?! Your friends will understand if you cannot afford nights out one after another. Pick one night a week to go all out. Your purse will thank you. In fact, you may even be able to help your gal pals save some money of their own.

I'm going to take the rest of my summer to really work on these three areas. Guarantee it, my lack of following these three rules constitutes the majority of my financial problems.

What are your keys to financial security? And be sure to post by tonight to enter the contest!

Mad cat is mad.

After a couple of days in the middle-of-nowhere-Oklahoma, where time literally stands still, I feel like this:

The living's easy.

A few years ago, my parents bought a quaint house on the beach of Bolivar Peninsula. They've had a dream for years of one day settling down in retirement with the ocean waves crashing peacefully in their backyard. Hurricane Ike destroyed those dreams by tearing down our piece of paradise on earth - or so we thought.

They couldn't stay away very long - my parents bought themselves another home away from home, and I could not be more excited. I visited it for the first time over the weekend. It's beautiful!

Beach-wear: Dress- Anthropologie

I'm back in Dallas for the time being, but I will be returning to the waves as soon as possible. And most certainly on the 4th of July!

Mommy, wow, I'm a big kid now.

That's right boys and girls. I am officially a graduate of the University of Texas! The graduation festivities have been nothing short of amazing. I think I just partied for a straight week and a half.

Most of my fellow graduate friends have been hearing little gems from their parents such as, "Party's over...now go find a job." Lucky for me (or unlucky, considering who you ask), I'm going to be a student for another three years. Does that give me a free ride to do nothing but be a bum all summer long? Because for a week straight, I've been at the lake, Barton Springs pool, sleeping until noon or later, and consuming one too many cocktails. It's called summertime - hope you all are getting to enjoy it as much as I am.

PS. Hi Mom. Sorry, but I spent half of my graduation money on sales at the Domain Mall. Hope you don't mind.

Anywho, besides being a ~grownup~ now and spending way too much money, I plan on just using this summer to hang out with as many of my girlfriends as possible and having a helluva good time. Also, I have a stack of books just waiting to be read. 

Tomorrow I think I'll spend the day outside reading one of them. You guys have any good books you can recommend to me for my summer reading list?

OH OH OH. Also, my mom and I will be taking a couple of weeks to travel the east coast and do fun, touristy-type things. Museums, beaches, historical sites, tea in Savannah, Georgia...ah yes, I can't wait to write all about it.

Happy Summer, y'all. 

Hey Summer!

Graduation is almost upon us.

Today, I took my last ever final at UT. What a feeling! The downside? It was my math final. I should let you all know that math has and will never be my thing. I count on my fingers, for crying out loud. Everyone pray to little baby Jesus that I passed that class. Math may prove to be my downfall.

Today, I also got my car fixed (after I ran over a curb last weekend and shot the axle to hell...have I mentioned I'm also a great driver on top of being a brilliant mathematician?). AND I finally got a toll tag. Then it was beers at Little Woodrow's.

Yes, today was a very good day.