Home Sweet Home: Our Little House

We moved! I'm pretty proud of our new little home, so I'm gonna show off with a bunch of pictures! Also, it's hard for my family and friends to get up here, and I'd like them to see my house!

This apartment is much bigger than the one we came from! Plus, there's actually rooms (our last apartment was a studio) and the bathroom and kitchen aren't carpeted. Ahhh...the simple joys. It's not completely put together yet, but it's getting there!

Oh, and some of the pictures are blurry. My bad...

This is our living room:

And this is our dining room:

Kitchen:

Bedroom:

We got some painting and decorating to do, but we already love it a lot. 

Portland-PSU Graduation

Taylor and I visited Portland this past week to attend his brother, Stuart's, graduation. It was a ton of fun and I'm really happy that we were invited to celebrate this day with family.

I'm proud of Stuart! I've only known him for about three years, but he transferred schools, got married, worked a lot, and graduated with Cum Laude!! That's really impressive. I've known people that find it hard to go to class with a relaxing part-time job, so it just goes to show that we limit ourselves. It's always inspiring to see people that don't.

Stuart taking on the world

Big Graduation! It's a big deal!

Taylor, Me, Jenny (Stuart's wife), Stu, Suzy (my mother-in-law)

Me and Taylor

We also got to explore Portland! We've been there a lot, and I always love it. It's my kind of town! Big, quirky, loud, weird...I just love it!

We went to this ice cream place called Salt & Straw. It was. . .very Portland. Organic and weird. I liked the atmosphere, but the ice cream flavors left much to be desired. Among their most popular flavors is peach and blue cheese. Sounds interesting and maybe good, but it's just gross. My ice cream tasted like bathroom cleaner and Taylor's tasted like alcohol. I think we both secretly liked 'em though, 'cause we ate it all.

Lavender ice cream

We ate at food trucks, hung out with family, went bowling, watched a lot of world cup games, and had a ton fun! Maybe we should go again next week? I wish!

Taylor...alone on a bench

He ate an octopus. 

Me being mean to Taylor's brother Ethan. Just poking fun. I like that kid!

Face

I'm joining the Best F Words link-up again for Friday's Favorite F Word. I think it's cute. There's a lot of F words out there that aren't the F word, but naturally our minds do NOT go to those words when we hear "F-word," so it's a nice change of pace.

Today's F-word is "Face."

So, of course, here's my face:

I decided to take this word in a different direction than talking about face care. I hope that's alright.. Mostly because my face care is minimal and make-up use is only slightly better...oops. Don't do what I do, and take care of your faces!

Every face in the entire world is different. Your face is unique. Even identical twins have different faces, different looks, different ways of snickering or laughing or crying. Our faces are 100% individual, and that makes them special. 

I used to hate my face. Many times unflattering pictures or videos bring back those feelings. But when I think about it, the whole thing is kind of silly. First of all, when I pose all cute and big-eyed (seen above), I like my face. But even in real life or bad pictures, my face is my face. How can you think something is adorable one minute and then hate it the next? And what if you always hate your face? In every picture or video or reflection...? In my opinion, there are no ugly faces, just ugly expressions. Smiles are beautiful if they're genuine, frowns can be tender and sweet. We can all twist our faces into shapes that are unsightly; some people seem to struggle with that more than others (we all hate those people, right?). I kid, I kid.

But at the end of the day, I love the variety of faces here on Earth. I love how magnificent it is that we seem to never run out of faces. 

And out of all of those faces, I picked one of the best to see every morning.

And that is one adorable post :)

Matt Walsh, Get Off My Internets

Most bloggers are familiar with "Get Off My Internets," or GOMI, a website dedicated to discussing blogs and bloggers that should get off the internet. Well, kind of. A lot of it is just a way for people to rant about things that annoy them when it comes to blogging. Quite frankly, I've only been to this site a couple of times when my blogger, twitter, and facebook feeds are all boring and I don't want to get off my bum and do stuff, but I appreciate the site. A little bit because I'm catty and a little bit because I think there's some funny stuff like, " Lifestyle Bloggers: You don't know how to live. They can help." It's just so snide! I love it. I don't have a GOMI account though, so I'm gonna write a GOMI post of my own dedicated to Matt Walsh.

Matt Walsh is a blogger trying to "slay truths" or whatever. It's fine. In fact, I believe that anything worth reading shouldn't be the sugar-coated nothingness that bloggers now-a-days tend to write in order to gain massive amount of followers without offending anyone. However, Matt Walsh hasn't mastered rhetoric, so he kind of just sounds like a ranting lunatic.

People share his posts all over my facebook feed to passively aggressively show an opinion they'd like to be not-so-passive about. The first time I decided I wanted this kid to GOMI was when I read one of his posts on pornography. He forgot, I guess, that sometimes people struggle with things that he doesn't fully understand. He thinks that just because he hasn't experienced certain things, he has earned the right to "know better." The logic simplified is this: I am a boy, therefore, I know better than to sit while I urinate. Sorry for the crass example, but that's basically what it is.

 He's very accusatory and just kind of beats his point over your head with an ax of sardonic English. He's a good writer, sure, but he's a terrible arguer. He doesn't write about the truth, as he so fervently believes. The guy simply writes his opinions in a rude way with absolutely no credit given to those that oppose him. Buddy, you gotta acknowledge the opposing side in an intelligent way. You can't simply say, "People that disagree with me may think this. But they're dumb. And I'm right." It just doesn't make for a good argument.

At the end of the day, people that agree with Matt on every point will continue to follow him, but he's not convincing the rest of us that he's right. So, it seems to me that the whole blog is pretty pointless.

Matt, I commend you for writing posts that are controversial, but please, get off my internets.

The Photoshop Craze

(Warning: This is a rant post. There's probably some grammar and spelling errors...)

If you think I'm going to write about how unethical, terrible, and negatively influential excessive photoshopping is, you're wrong. This post is not about the Photoshopping everything craze, it's about the sharing videos of how people photoshop everything craze.

I am a big big fan of Tina Fey and her book Bossypants, and I agree with her," Do I worry about overly retouched photos giving women unrealistic expectations and body image issues? I do. I think that we will soon see a rise in anorexia in women over seventy. Because only people over seventy are fooled by Photoshop."

I just saw another link on my FB feed to a site filled with celebrity before and after Photoshop photos. Who cares? Kristen Stewart's waist is actually three inches bigger? No way! That matters to me! In my opinion, if we all know that pictures are photoshopped, then what's the harm? We all know that people dye their hair, and we don't get upset because our hair is less yellow than theirs (again, I'm a big Bossypants fan).

Maybe I'm just sick of seeing articles, lists, photos, and videos fill up the internet with the evils of Photoshop. Is it possible that we watch these because we like to compare ourselves to more realistic images of beautiful people rather than unrealistic ones? Comparing is comparing. Is it really better to give ourselves uglier things to compare ourselves to so we feel better? I don't think so. I think it's just as damaging. Our generation already has inflated egos, and I don't believe we should rely on comparisons to increase injured self-image.

A healthy self-image comes from within. It comes from loving ourselves inside and out, and not caring about the little things. Not caring about the little zit. The little gush. The big zit. The lottle gush. Maybe this is the Yogi within me, but we should focus on serving others and finding peace within ourselves. When we do that, slowly our self-image woes disappear. Self-deprecation, low self-esteem and low self-image don't magically go away, and we probably all have those kinds of thoughts, but there's a better way to fight those feelings than seeking out the truth behind photoshopped images.

Also, Photoshop can be pretty cool! See?

College Plans-Short

I'm finally really getting into my major. If you examine that sentence, you'll see that I have a bit to go. In twoish years I will have a BA in English and a BA in Theatre (if all goes according to plan). After that, I'll be on my way to *drum roll* MORE SCHOOL! My plan is to keep on schooling it up until I get my doctorate in...something...English related...

Often times, students stop being students after getting their bachelor's degrees.There's nothing wrong with that, but quite frankly, an associate's degree is the new high school degree. SO, a bachelor's degree is the new associates. By the time, I've gotten my doctorate, it'll probably be the new master's and another degree will have been invented. In any case, I will be Dr. Rios, and I like the way that sounds.

Purple Hair 2

I wrote my last post mainly so that the "Share the Real" post wasn't the first thing you see when you come to my blog. I hate that picture. I hate it. I understand that writing another post to push that one down the screen defeats the purpose of the "Share the Real" post, but at least I can admit it. However, my last post lacked substance. It was the only thing I could think of at the time, and I wanted to show off my new hair.

However, there is something to purple hair. There is a real reason I dyed my hair purple. So, this is Purple Hair 2, the post on purple hair that actually has something to it.

My style, if you call that, is unique. Mostly because I like to dress a certain way, but I try to avoid getting labeled. I'm not a girly girl. I'm not a punk. I'm not a tomboy. I'm not a sophisticated lady. I'm just Nikole and I dress different all the time because I like it. However, there are things I like to remain consistent with my style.

1. White Skin.
My skin is so white, it's practically translucent. I've tanned before and I liked it at the time, but Taylor just loves my pasty, pale, white skin. I used to really hate it. I mean, I'm so white that my skin is barely different than my wedding dress. But now, I see beauty in it, and I don't really want to change it. And white skin offers a pallet for all sorts of fun looks. I guess, every skin color does, but I like my skin pallet being super white. So, I won't tan on purpose, and I'll dye my hair crazy to see the contrast against my skin.

2. Feathers
My nickname used to be Quail in high school. No matter what kind of outfit I'm sporting on any given day, feathers can, and should, be included. I don't wear feathers every day, and thinking about it, I'd like to wear them more often, but the fact remains that they go with everything. And I love them.

3. Inconsistency 

Yes, it is the surprise ending to this post that we all knew was coming.One of my style consistencies is that I like inconsistency. I get bored. I get bored with my clothes, my shoes, my jewelry, and my hair. I don't think I should stick with any style just because people think that I should. All of those quizzes online that tell you what your style is are weird. Why do you have to have a style? Why can't we all just wear what we think looks good and that we are comfortable in? Why is purple hair so weird when completely changing our hair to blonde, brown, or red isn't? Why can't I love black jeans and dark makeup one day, and then a floral dress the next? I can, and do, love glitter and purple and Tim Burton AND black lipstick. I think everyone has different tastes like that. I think that we just pretend we don't so that we can have an identifier. Belonging to something feels good, but we don't admit it. We like being girly or dark or whatever. We love it, but we pretend we don't. We pretend we're unique by loving everything we think the group we identify with loves. It's odd and confusing and I don't do that.

I belong to group inconsistency, and I love whatever the heck I want to.