Hello Break!

HELLO CHRISTMAS BREAK!

I have been on break since the 10th but I have just been taking time to relax and do some fun things. I have also been trying to organize this blog so that I can hopefully start blogging every week day (I know I keep saying this but it will happen! Please have faith and patience in me). 

Any way, this past week I spent about 4 days in Chicago with R. We had so much fun! Since we are kind of poor college students we tried to keep this trip as low cost as possible which is hard to do in the city. We did a lot of window shopping and exploring. We did take a trip out to Alder Planetarium. Neither of us had been there so it was fun to try something new. We did not go and see a show there unfortunately because it was really really expensive but we looked at all the exhibits and learned a lot about space. After that we popped over to the Art Institute because that is our second home. It was free admission so the place was packed. The museum was all decked out for Christmas and it was so pretty. I really enjoyed the miniature rooms because several of them were re-done for holidays, it was adorable!

One of the days we went down to the Magnificent Mile and looked at all of the really expensive stores. I have this goal that one day I will be well off enough that I will be able to go into those stores and actually be able to buy something instead of just drooling all over it. We peeked into the Kate Spade store, the Chanel store, and the Louis Vuitton store. Everything was packed with people buying Christmas presents, it was a little overwhelming.

We wrapped the trip up by stopping into Old Town and going to a cute little French bakery. While there I picked up some of the best macaroons that I have had since being in France. They were so good. Old Town was a little busy with people doing some last minute shopping but there was a whole bunch of holiday cheer. It made me very happy.

Instead of going out to eat all the time like we usually do we took this time to try and cook by ourselves. It was an adventure to say the least. I made tacos and beans for us one night which was really fun. Then every morning for breakfast we had eggs, bacon, and toast (breakfast/brunch is both R's and mines favorite meal). Then R made a really good green chicken chili in the crock pot! I ate so much of it I thought I was going to explode, haha! 

On Friday I got to meet up with some of my Blue Lake co-workers and it was so great to see so many familiar faces again. I missed all of them so much. It was great to see Rachel after her trip down to South America. I was so happy to hear about her wedding engagement and hear about all the plans she is cooking up. I felt right at home again and it made my heart full with love and cheer. This get together was the cherry on top of the perfect ice cream sundae.

Over all it has been a pretty great break so far but I'm sad it's going by so fast.

I have another great piece of news! Tomorrow I get to see one of my friends from when I was little! She moved out to Arizona with her boyfriend before summer started and I haven't seen since then. We have kept in touch and she has been very happy with the move but man I miss her like cray. I'm so glad I get to see her tomorrow and catch up! I can't hear all about how living in the desert has been treating her. 

XOXO

ZMH

The view of Chicago from the front steps of Alder

Me at the Christkrindle market

The Art Institute was all decked out

Miniature room

Another miniature room

R's view from the 16th floor of his place 

Kate Spade store

Hey there Coco

Insta-holic

I must admit, I am addicted to Instagram.

There is just something so mesmerizing about seeing all those nice square photos and double tapping your favorite one. Is this just me?

Well I thought since I spend so much time on Instagram I would share with you my recent activity on Instagram. I like to use the app as a way to update family and friends with what I'm doing and so that they know I'm safe and happy.

Without further ado here we go!

This past week our college had a challenge given out to all of campus by a visiting artist. Our challenge was to find one of these big pieces of green paper and create something on it. Our only rule was we have to keep it horizontal and had to keep it the same rectangular form. I am not an artist at all but I gave this challenge a try and I must say I am very proud of what came out.

Lately I have been missing all of my friends I made in Europe. I think it must be the travel bug in me getting restless but I my heart has been a little hallow lately. So I found the necklace my host family in Denmark gave me and proudly wore it a couple times this week. Having it on made me feel comforted and not as sad.

This photo came up earlier this week in my Halloween post but here it is again. My sorority mama (or big) and I went out with the rest of our sisters to celebrate and we had so much fun! Zoe and I also dominated a game of beer pong that night, we generally avoid this game because we are awful at it. I am however very good at flippy cup!

I have seen this blog planner used by some of my favorite bloggers and they fell head over heels about it. I decided to buy one for myself to help me get more organized with my blog and I must say it is working! I also announced to Instagram that I have a blog so that was a big leap for me since no one really knows I have this yet.

(Can be found at www.heartandarrowdesign.com)

And finally a shameless selfie. I really liked the green I had going so I thought I would document it and it turns out a lot of other people really liked it to!

Overall Instagram is my favorite time waster. I like to edit my photos and make them look really nice. My favorite editing app right now is Afterlight, so great! Other then that my captions are never the best but you can't be great at everything, right? 

Are any of you addicted to Instagram? Do you use other editing apps before you put your photos on Instagram? Who are some of your favorite Instagrammers?

XOXO

ZMH

Feel free to check my account out and follow me!

@zmhoover