InstaFriday / Friday's Letters

Dear Readers, It's been quite some time since I've given you any Friday's Letters to read, but today all that changes. Hopefully these letters will put Ryan Gosling's 365 to Rachel McAdams to shame. After all, if you're a bird I'm a bird. Love, MacK

Dear Muse Cafe, This was pretty much the best Ahi Tuna sandwich I've ever tasted in my life. Even though there's a good possibility that I've never actually had one before, I still think this is a valid opinion. It had ginger, herbs (I always forget which ones are which) and some sort of pinapple-horseradish sauce on it. The edamame salad and apple tart on the side definitely helped as well. I'm definitely going back here (It used to be called Veranda Gallery, be sure to check it out if you're ever in Ocala.. picking up horses or something.) Love, Big MacK

Dear Waitress At Muse Cafe, I know the food tastes good, but that doesn't mean I want you to sit next to me and watch me eat it. Also, next time you're making a personal call in front of customers, try not to yell into the phone about how poor your reception is. Sincerely, Kens

Dear Statistics Class, I'm so, so very over you. Last night when I should've been studying for your exam today, I made these dairy-free sugar cookies and researched jobs all across the country instead. Hopefully this decision will not be reflected in my grade.. Procrastinatingly yours, MacK

Dear Dairy-Free Sugar Cookies, GET IN MY BELLY!....Then go to the gym. Love, Big MacK

Dear Florida, I love that it's practically summer up in here, but this whole broken-air-conditioning-in-my-car-right-when-it-starts-being-90+-degrees-out-every-day routine is getting old. Step it up, Betty The Blazer. --Sweaty MacK

Dear Mark, Thank you so, so much for hiring me and making me laugh every day at work. Having this job has been a life-saver lately. Never underestimate the power of distraction, cash and a hilarious general manager (who makes it rain on them hoes). Love, Kensie

Dear Scout, You're such a beautiful, blonde beach babe. I wish you'd keep more of your blonde locks on your bod and out of my bed, though. Love, dog's best friend

Dear Biff, I love our Emoji conversations. They make me lawl all day, erry day. Love, Biff

Dear Boys, STOP BEING SKETCHY. Your girlfriends wouldn't appreciate it. And it makes me think you're gross. Just stop. Also, my window is down because my air conditioning is broken, not because I wanted to be hollered at. Just sayin'. -Kens

Dear March, It's amazing the difference one month can make in someone's life. It's been a crazy 30 days. I'm very interested to see how April goes. I can tell adventures are brewing. It's just a matter of time. Love, me.

Dear Jenni of Story of My Life, Thank you for sharing this fabulous salmon recipe with the world. It is amazing -- salty, spicy and drizzled with maple syrup. I highly recommend it. Love, MacKensie

Dear Readers, Lately I have been staying away from all meat except fish (I cannot give up sushi.. I just can't). Hence the plethora of meals revolving around fish I've been eating and photographing lately. The one of the bottom right is Mahi Mahi, which I'm not a huge fan of.. Salmon is my jam. But I added a lemon, butter (Earth Balance non-dairy butter, that is), garlic and caper sauce to it and it wasn't half bad! I still like this sauce better on salmon, but if you all have any great recipes or suggestions on how to make delicious Mahi, please do share. Thank you all so much for reading. I hope you have a wonderful, safe, super fun weekend. Love, MacKensie

Music Monday.. On Thursday

Some how I missed my favorite blog day: Music Monday!! So instead of making you all wait in suspense until next Monday, I'm putting together an Oldies playlist for you today. These songs are definitely not obscure, but they'll make you sing along and want to tease your hair, so I call that a win. I start it out with some Eddie Money because a couple weeks ago I won a radio contest and scored two free tickets to see him in concert this Saturday!!!! (Can you tell I'm excited?) "American Girl" by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers is also on there because I won the contest by identifying that song played backwards. I know, I have mad skillz. So without further ado, enjoy this here oldies playlist.

What I Wore Wednesday

Shoes: Target / Shirt: Volcom / Shorts: Volcom / Shades: Target / Watch: Ross / Necklace: INPink / Earrings: Betsy Johnson

It's a beautiful, bright day outside so I dressed accordingly.

This is the kind of day I want to be having:

Happy Hump Day!

Free Crappy Portraits

So I know this might be a little weird since we're not actually together anymore, but I submitted a photo of me and Austin to Free Crappy Portraits several months ago in hopes that it would be here by Valentine's day, but alas it showed up 2 days ago. So here is FCP's depiction of me and my ex boyfriend. Enjoy.

I think Ziggy looks especially stunning. If you want to see what you look like as a free crappy portrait, submit a photo and description of yourself on their website, sit back and watch your inbox for a beautiful masterpiece like this one. This is the photo I submitted:

That's a quality photo right there.

I'm really sorry I've been such a terrible blogger lately. I haven't been cooking, exercising, crafting or otherwise doing cool things worthy of blogging about. I've been serving people Japanese food and eating fried rice. I certainly haven't been the healthiest of people. I am promising, right here and now, to be better in April. This funk I'm in will pass and I will be ready for my marathon at the end of June. Also, I promise to be a better blog follower as well. I will start leaving comments again instead of simply looking at all your pretty faces and rushing off to do something else mid-paragraph.

Thank you all for being patient and wonderful and reading my blog in general.

InstaFriday

Top left clockwise: The AMAZING birthday cake one of my mom's coworkers made for her. So flippin' cute; I have this weird habit of going to Applebee's with friends lately.. Sounds so strange to me, but you can't beat 1/2 price appetizers; Sometimes these outings result in Arm wrestling matches..

This week has consisted of working, babysitting and schooling, so here I am lounging by the pool watching my nephews pretend to be whales and eat "fish".. aka leaves.

That's all I've got for you today since this week has been pretty full of non-photo-worthy things. Maybe next week will be better. The good news is I found a new (to me) band to be obsessed with. Check it.

Also, my friend Liz sent me this Thought Catalog and it made me cry.. So hopefully all you other twenty somethings will be able to relate as well.

Now I'm off to work.

Happy Friday!

Linking up here:

Throwback

"You got it, dude!" This is me as a babe. I've always been a thug, obvs.

Yesterday I was searching through my mom's photo albums to find cute pictures to frame for her birthday and I ended up finding quite a few share-worthy pics. Here's the photo I gave to my mom:

I also came across some pretty hilarious ones of my siblings and I, unfortunately I got the veto for posting them.. (Some people are so touchy!) but let's just say it involved my sister flicking off the camera with a skeleton hand and me with no front teeth at all.

I'm such a diva.

Me hugging my sister, Brandy, before she moved to Montana

I'm just taking a snooze with our old family dog, Red, who helped me learn how to walk.

Happy Thursday, friends!

Song of the Day (compliments of Anna):

WIWW & Happy Birthday, Momma-Lou!

For this week's edition of What I Wore Wednesday I'm going to attempt to show off the outfits worn during SB12. I say "attempt" because all these photos were taken by drunk people in dark bars on my phone, so they're not of the best quality. But at least it's easy to see we had a great time. 

Thursday was spent in Gainesville at Beef O'Brady's Penny Wine night. Yea, I'm talkin' 5 glasses of ridiculously low quality wine for a nickel. Doesn't get much better than that. You can't see much of my outfit, but..

Shirt: Target

Necklace: INPink

Skirt (not shown): PacSun

Shoes (not shown -- unfortunate considering I actually wore heels..): Nine West

Shirt: F21

Skirt: Dillard's

Necklace: INPink

Shoes (not shown): Borrowed a super cute pair from Emma

Friday night Liz and I drove to Orlando to be reunited with our Cardinals and crashed a philanthropic social event. One of my best guy friends from high school, Brent (top right), told us to come drink for the kids, so we joined him and his fraternity brothers for some libations. Not only did we feel good about where the money was going, but we also got to watch Brent compete (and do really well in) a dance off. Fact: His opponent (a male) did a full-out split at one point. VERY entertaining.

Shirt: 6dollarshirts.com

Skirt: PacSun

Then Saturday, St. Patty's Day, was spent laughing, dancing, singing, drinking and becoming best friends with Anna (top left). She is amazing and I will most definitely be sharing her blog with you as soon as she starts it. Also, they photos were taken by her. I just stole them from Facebook. 

Speaking of Anna, she made me this CD on the top left and I can't even describe how awesome it is (I mean, even the title is great). So I have many new favorite songs to share with you all thanks to her. Top right is a drawing on a door at Graffiti Junktion (that's where Aubrey works, so if you're ever in Orlando be sure to check it out!). Bottom left, Jessica and I ran 4 miles together -- slowly but surely. Bottom right, I found this gorgeous beaded dress at a super awesome thrift store in Orlando called Maggie's (unfortunately it was too expensive for me to get it though). It's named after the owners' dog and they popped popcorn in an old fashioned machine, offered us some and Emma even scored a beautiful beaded dress that I'll show you photos of as soon as she does an epic photo shoot in it (it's gonna happen!!).

Overall it was a really fun trip and I'm so glad I got to spend time with my best friends.

Today is my wonderful mom's birthday.

 I love you so much, mom. 

Thank you for always being so supportive, loving and understanding. 

And for always reading my blog (remember when you were the only one?!)

You're the best and I'm so lucky to have you.

Happy Birthday!

Linking up with the pleated poppy:

& 

Rae Gun Ramblings:

Irish Music Monday

6dollarshirts.com

Sometimes I model t-shirts.. Sometimes I make playlists.. 

But I'm always down for celebrating St. Patrick's day.

Obviously the theme is IRISH songs.

Our St. Patty's Day festivities began around 2 p.m. and we were totally those troopers who partied for 12 hours straight since the bars closed at 2 a.m. Win.

Needless to say, it was a top-notch March 17.
More details from this past week to come.
Be sure to check out the rest of the playlists here:

SB2011 Part II

I know I left you all waiting in anxious anticipation the past couple of days, but I got distracted by Orlando adventures. SB12 has treated me pretty dang well, but that's a story for a different day. For now we're discussing Spring Break 2011. The first stop on our cruise was Grand Turk.

This is where a woman in a Chiquita Banana getup traded us a bottle of rum for the t-shirt Sarah is wearing above. See, the writing on the shirt was in Russian so naturally we had no idea what it said, but Chiquita knew and she thought it was awesome. This is also where I got to drink in Margaritaville, see my very first wet t-shirt contest (the 60-year-old woman who entered as a joke totally won by the way) and I got to participate (and flail around like crazy) in simulated wave riding.

The next stop was a beautiful private island called Half Moon Cay where I documented unnecessary quotation marks for editing class purposes (yes, I'm guilty of being a grammar nerd) and rode on a horse in the ocean. I have no photographic evidence, however, because Sarah opted out of this excursion, but I can promise you it happened and there was an unfortunate amount of horse poop floating all around us..

The next stop was by far my favorite: Atlantis.

I went on every single water slide there. It was so fantastic. Yes, I am a child. There was even an underground aquarium. Everything about this place was unbelievable. I was in awe.

The rest of the trip was spent making friends (lots of FSU frat boys were there which was definitely entertaining), singing LFO karaoke, boozing, eating, gambling (ish.. I played the slots and that's about as far as I got) and dancing. Without a doubt, SB11 was the best spring break ever.

How did you spend your favorite spring break ever?

SB2011 Part I

This time last year I was on a cruise to the Bahamas with one of my coolest, most hilarious friends ever for Spring Break 2011. Meet Sarah.

Unfortunately someone broke my camera prior to the excursion, so pretty much all the photos are fuzzy.. But I think the epicness pretty much shines through anyway.

So our cruise ship left from Miami, which is about 5 hours away from my hometown. I picked up Sarah and she produced the awesomest neon watches (to which I immediately claimed the green one) so we wouldn't miss the ship when our cell phones didn't work and we were a long, long way from home. From there we proceeded to tell each other stories about our lives, everything from getting put in time out in the 5th grade to all the times we've peed our pants. 

I don't think I've ever laughed so much for such a long time period. 

From there we started exploring the boat. It was intimidatingly huge. We didn't know where to start, but most people ran for the bar.. so we followed suit. Then hit the top deck, where dudes brought us fruity blended drinks with umbrellas and fruit in them already. Yes. It was heaven.

We spent the next 24 hours boozin' while on the water, floating to our first stop. We ate so, so many wonderful things. I can't even describe the amazingness that goes into free, gourmet meals every single night.

Check back tomorrow for the first stop of our journey. Here's a little taste:

;) Happy SB12!

What I Wore Wednesday

Today's What I Wore Wednesday is a compilation of all the outfits I've been wearing out lately (and I mean out to bars because I wear t-shirts and flippy floppies and/or a bathing suit everywhere else). They were all taken on my phone and mostly in front of my dirty mirror, so please forgive the awesome professionalism that is this post. I would start off by showcasing the outfit I wore out Sunday night in Gainesville, but alas, Liz and I took one picture the entire night and it was a very uncute photo taken inside of an incredibly grungy bar bathroom. Win.

 So Monday night it is:

All of the clothes in these photos came from the closets of Sarah (white dress) and Skipper (pink shirt). They were awesome and let us steal their clothes for the night, but unfortunately I don't know where any of them are from.

Are these not the coolest earrings you've ever seen? Yea, they're Sarah's too. (Thanks, friend!)

Dress: Express

Shoes: Target

Belt: Target

Necklace: INPink

Earrings: Betsy Johnson

This outfit was actually worn in downtown Ocala on Friday night. That was an adventure..

Dress: Target

Belt: Target

Shoes: Gift

Earrings: INPink

This one was also worn in downtown Ocala last night, actually. 

(PS, don't judge me. I'm on Spring Break!)

Top: PacSun

Bottoms: VS

Margarita Epicness: Margaritaville

Which reminds me.. This photo was taken last year on Spring Break in the Bahamas at Margaritaville (sigh). I am including it because I've been wearing this bathing suit a lot this week as well. It's 80 degrees here. You can be jealous, I will allow it.

Also, I think since this time last year I did not blog... I will go ahead and do an epic recap of SB2011 some time this week. Get excited.

Linking up with:

&

Happy Hump Day!