Etsy Shop Now OPEN!!

Hey everyone! My Etsy shop is now open. There are only a few things in there right now but I'm working on a lot more!

Check it out!!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/HellloKelly?ref=pr_shop

there's an app for that.

i promised a Top Apps post and here it is!

for the longest time i was completely opposed to Apple products. i was on the Robotics PR team in high school and the desktops that we had to use were Macs and i HATED them. looking back now, i guess it was because they were old and the programs were outdated and thus, difficult to understand and use.

but i got an iPod when i was 16. pretty much because i had way too much music and it was the only reliable mp3  player that i knew of at the time. despite that, i still hated iPhones. but now that i realize their awesomeness as a productivity/multitasking/organizational tool, i love mine! of course the first thing i did was seek out the applications that would maximize my phone's potential to be this type of tool. most of them were pretty lame, though. i like to have my schedule written out. BUT i have found some pretty cool apps that i use on the regular. most of them probably aren't that great to other people and some are just games but i wanted to share!

so without further adieu, here are my Top 15 Apps! (these are just my opinions and i am in no way affiliated with the following applications or Apple Inc. products.)

 foursquare. i love love love this app. it is what started the whole checking-in-on-facebook fad. except here, you get points and become the "mayor" of places where you have been the one to check-in at the most. it's excellent for exploring new cities. you can search for specific types of venues and other users can leave tips or "to-do" items about dishes to try, etc. some venues even run specials for mayors or first-time check-ins. you even get cool badges when you meet certain check-in criteria. like visiting 10 pizza places or shouting "Go Steelers" when you check in somewhere on superbowl sunday. i currently have 1923 check-ins, 21 badges and i hold 18 mayorships!

 urbanspoon helps you find restaurants nearby! i haven't gone anywhere new since i downloaded it but it looks neat and i can't wait to try it. you can search for specific foods or prices. it even has a feature where you shake your phone and it spits out a random city nearby, type of food and price range that will show you restaurants that meet your parameters.

 instagram is by FAR the best photography app i have ever downloaded. it has awesome filters to pick from. black and white, old-school 70's-looking, grainy, over-saturated, etc. you can add friends and see their photo stream, as well as linking it with flickr, myspace, facebook, twitter, and so on. HIGHLY recommended!

 foodspotting allows me to do what i did everywhere anyway; take pictures of the food i love and display it for the world to see. it's kind of like foursquare in that you sort of check your photo into the restaurant that it is from along with what it's called and a review of how it was. this is also linkable to all social media outlets.

i'm a nerd, i love scrabble. so when i discovered words with friends (although i was somewhat late on finding it) i was elated. it is just was it sounds like, digital scrabble that you can play with almost anyone. as you can see, i had over 11 games going at one time. it seems like everyone ELSE has discovered words with friends and twitter and are jumping on the bandwagon. it's too overwhelming and not fun to have that many games at once, though so i resigned from all but like, 5 of my games and those 5 are my favorite people.

i'm not going to lie, i'm REALLY obsessed with this game. the original is call reMovem. i have the original, christmas and halloween is my favorite. you have to try to get rid of all of those little circles. you can only remove them when there are two or more next to each other. eh, i'm a dork!

 obviously angry birds would be on anyone's top apps list. i love it. i've got seasons and the newest, rio, which i downloaded last night and played until like 4 in the morning. it's so addicting. also, go on YouTube and look up angry birds peace treaty. it is the cutest and funniest thing i have ever seen. almost.

i pity everyone who doesn't have an iphone and cannot use these! they're essentially just emoticons, but there is food, items, symbols...using them is really fun and sometimes completely lewd.

cover your ears, boys. this app is called period tracker. i love it because i never know when it's going to happen because i'm so not on schedule ever. you can keep track of several things like cravings, cramp intensity, mood, intimacy dates, and also temperature and when you're fertile if you're trying to get pregnant.

 smartsync syncs all of your facebook friends to your contacts. it adds profile pictures, birthdays, places of employment, etc. it helps your contacts be "fuller".

of course twitter is on here. i'm obsessed.

 ...and facebook, too. i'm basically just a social media advocate. i love their practical uses for business, networking, advertising, etc.

 i NEED my scorecenter to stay up-to-date on all of my teams. it allows you to add your favorites and sends you game updates based on you preferences.

 ahh, yes. texts from last night. my guilty pleasure. i remember freshman year of college, someone told me about tfln and i thought it was stupid and not funny. either i was too drunk to understand or not drunk enough to think it was funny but i LOVE it now. people submit their heinous, rude, scandalous, and just plain stupid texts, well, from last night. i love finding ones in my area code.

SHAZAM! a looooong time ago i saw a commercial for this app and was instantly pissed that i didn't have the proper cellular device to support it. music is my obsession and i love finding new music. so this app is perfect for me!

st patrick's day!

i've decided on doing decor posts on every holiday. i love decorating and a part of me has always wanted to be an interior decorater. for every season we have little things that we always get; a small something to hang above the stove, a centerpiece for the counter, dish towels, a doormat and door hanging, and jellies for the sliding glass door. it's too dark to take pictures of the shamrock door jellies, but those are simple. so now i will share our st patrick's day stuff with you!

and here's one i took of mollie this morning with her green collar, just for good measure. i was trying to show that she was obviously on my lap while i was driving, so excuse the poor photographership.

do you go all out for the holidays?

linked up!

so i finally figured out have to make linked pictures available and i'm so excited. i'm working on some other ones, so keep an eye out! & add the html code to the left to your blog for me, pretty please!

new additions.

joe and i have obviously added some new additions to our apartment since february. so here's a look!

some cute spring cookie cutters.



i want to start gardening this year. we bought planters that sit on our railing on the balcony and i'm going to put these stones in them.

this GIGANTIC coffee cup is sitting on our bookshelf right now, but come spring, flowers are going in it!

this is my first sewing machine that is all mine!

my nikon film camera, which is essentially the first "nice" camera i've owned, aside from my polaroid that i got when i was 8. which i STILL have to find!

these are the two cameras that joe's mom gave to me along with a camera bag and tripod.

this monster is one of the lenses she gave to me to go with the canon.

and this is the desk that joe constructed for me. (wow the picture quality is terrible!)

i love it!

my last new addition is a very exciting and serious one for me. i am a sister of delta zeta. in april of 2009, one of my pledge sisters passed away at the age of 20. she was with her boyfriend back home instead of being at initiation for our newest baby turtles. they were at home watching a movie when she tried to say "i feel like i'm going to pass out." but before she could get the words out, she fainted. he tried to give her CPR but she was already gone by the time the paramedics got there. i don't know what we would have done if this had happened at initiation. i think we would have been scarred for life, even more so than we are now. i'd never seen so many people at calling hours before. there was a line wrapped around the block almost. Jessica Mayle was the nicest, sweetest, kindest person i have ever met and probably will ever meet. she was so grateful for anything and everything in life and she loved delta zeta more than anything. so i guess it was fitting when the autopsy showed that she had died from an enlarged heart because she truly did have THE biggest heart. she was amazing. when we had recruitment that spring, she introduced herself to all of the new girls like this, "HI i'm jess mayle, i'm FABULOUS, don't be alarmed."

so for forever i'd wanted a tattoo in memory of her and her fabulousity and i finally got it on friday!

it looks so FABULOUS and i will never get a tattoo anywhere but BAREKNUCKLE!



handmade hero.

i've always been a very crafty person. since i was little, i've known how to knit, crochet, sew, cross stitch, etc. so why not put it to good use? i want to open an etsy shop, and i don't quite have enough items yet but i'd like to share what i have so far!

the last two are brooches. i'm working on a little owl. i'd like to do a few more with buttons, small twitter-looking birds, penguins, MAYBE flowers. as for the pillows, i'd like to do more owls but in different colors, a checkerboard, and iphone homescreen like with apps, maybe an angry birds theme, and Kelli wants me to make one with a beagle.

i'm thinking about trying to do coasters and iphone/ipod/blackberry coozies, too!

baked.

SOO. i baked my chocolate-peanut butter cookies and some cupcakes today. the first batch of cookies were waaaaayyyy over-cooked because it took me so long to be ready to put them in the oven. but the second batch was better.

i LOVE the cupcakes. i found STRIPED frosting at Jo-ann's and some really super awesomely cute liners there, too!!!

i figure it's best to update everyone about my life one post at a time instead of a hurried mish-mash of pictures and rambles in one post.