West 113th Street and Riverside Drive

Manhattan has been amazingly beautiful lately. It doesn't hurt that, aside from

the occasional cold winds, the weather has been equally perfect. I wore a sweater

outside the other day. A sweater! And no jacket! Bless you, Mother Nature.

But for now, I'm off to catch a train to celebrate Christmas with my family and my fiance.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful and happy holidays!

Spring isn't that great. Fall is the best season of all.

CoatsDonutsApplesPumpkinsLeavesOhMy!

Now go listen to this obligatory fall song.

Alma Mater

Oh Spring, you're such a tease.

Morning in Morningside Heights

I knew moving back there would be snow. But this?

This is not okay, MOTHER NATURE.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night

Image Via

I hope you're all having a lovely and happy Christmas. And I hope you're eating too much food, candy, pie, and all things gluttonous. Mostly so I'm not alone in my overindulgence.

A Happy Christmas from Burberry

Fallulah

Today marked the first real snow of the season, and yesterday marked the day I finally watched Elf for the first time since last year. Or in other words, IT'S CHRISTMASTIME PEOPLE.

Frost

It was warm, cold, warm, then cold again.

That, combined with the inversion and strange, lurking fog that's been in the Valley for the past few days, gives you something like this to wake up to in the morning.

Don't you just love New York in the winter?

Winter is miserable and cold, but when a coat of snow makes lifeless trees and dirty taxis look lovely it doesn't seem so bad.

Images via From Me To You

This isn't anything like Senior Prom

I don't have anything of substance to write, and the only thing on my mind is music.
Surprise, surprise.
There are other things that could warrant blog posts in the future, like my opinion on counterfeit goods and knockoff handbags or why my relationship with Mother Nature is a bit like Chris Brown & Rihanna, but once again the writing drive isn't there. And Oprah already dedicated a whole episode to the abuse fiasco. She always steals my thunder.
So until then, take a listen to this instead. It's lovely and completely fitting for my mood. I may like it even more than the album version.

When I was looking for a YouTube version of "For Emma" I found a video for "Flume," recorded at the 89.3 radio station. Take a listen. It'll make you hate yourself because you'll never be as good at life as he is at singing. But alas, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Another reason why I adore where I live

There are occasions when I wish I lived somewhere else, as I think many people often do. I doubt it's that we're unhappy with our lives or the place we are, but rather it seems like human nature to always want the unattainable, that thing that we can't have or can't have right now. Like Trader Joe's, which I think should be built in Logan. I mean come on, me and the hippies would be ALL over that.

This season in Cache Valley is not one of those times. If there's one thing I might miss about New York it would be fall, so it's pretty lucky that I get to live somewhere that is just as gorgeous as the area I grew up in.
My sentimental feelings about the Valley will maybe probably definitely change when the snow starts to fall and the snot in my nose freezes on my walk up to campus... but until then, I'm content.

Are you there summer? It's me, Nicole.

I don't dare say, but I think summer is officially here. And seeing as the high today is around 90 degrees I think it's here to stay.This past weekend was the first nice weekend in a while. No rain, no cold. It was perfect. It was Summerfest (it's basically a big fest with a ton of art and handicraft vendors and food) over the weekend so on Saturday we all trekked over to the Tabernacle lawn and walked around to the vendors. I was really impressed with some of the photographers. I saw some really awesome prints, and a lot of great landscape prints of around Cache Valley.Once we got hot enough, and had seen all the vendors, we headed back to the house. Because of a spur of the moment decision, and because it was way too nice to not be outside, we ended up at my friends grandparents house on the outskirts of the Valley, basically in the middle of nowhere. His grandpa has a lot of land, and shotguns, so we got clay pigeons and went shooting.

Me, plus a gun

And once again we come to an end

I feel like this blog is slowing turning into an angry weather report, but considering the insane weather as of late I feel like it's appropriate.

It snowed today. Yep, snow... and rain... and finally some hail. The weirdest part was that it wasn't terribly cold. Why isn't it spring yet? It was warm this weekend, and then it decided to go and get gross outside. Stupid cold fronts.

I just finished a collection project for my American Folklore class, so after that class tomorrow I officially have no school until next Thursday when I take my one and only "official" final. Don't you just love project-based classes? It's probably good that aside from work I have nothing until Thursday, because now I have a few days to find a home for two days. Uh huh, that's right. I'm homeless. Okay, not really, but kinda.

Conveniently, my contract ends on a Saturday but my house contract move-in date isn't until Monday. We have our fingers crossed that our new manager will let us move in on Saturday (considering all the current ten

ants are graduating) but we won't know for sure until Monday or Tuesday. Luckily, a few poor saps have taken pity on me so I know I at least have somewhere to put my stuff in case of a no-home-for-me-and-my-other-roommates situation.

So, today I had a presentation and our group decided to all dress up, especially considering our topic was McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and censorship in the media, and pants were just not acceptable in 1954. Can I just say, I have never had so many people be so nice to me. I'm thinking about wearing skirts with fishnets and heels to classes everyday. I guess it really does pay to show a little leg. (Just kidding Dad! I would never.)

Countdown

Days Until home: 21

Days Until Amy's Wedding: 22

Guggenheim Museum ceiling - Summer '07

Isn't it spring yet?

Seriously? You have got to be kidding me!

It snowed last night. Not just a few flakes but enough that my car had a dusting and the grass was white this morning. Wasn't the first day of spring last week? Oy gevalt. Mother Nature needs to get with the program. Doesn't she know I'm quite ready for spring? Well, if she doesn't know, I am.

I wish I had something cool or exciting to write about, but I don't. I made a really good ham sandwich today for dinner (seriously, it was so good!), but that's not very exciting to write about. Plus if I actually dedicated a whole post to my ham sandwich and how good it was I would look like a weirdo, and I already look like enough of a weirdo, I don't need help adding to it.

I guess I can salvage this waste of a post by saying that the New York Times' Thursday Styles section was particularly good today. You should read it. (Note: We get the Times free on campus and due to this I've become a newspaper junkie. It's actually kind of gross because now I walk around with paper ink residue on my fingers until I get a chance to wash them. People probably think I just don't shower or something. Don't worry, I do. Usually.) It had a few really good articles. The first was about Thomas Maier, the creative director for Bottega Veneta. Once again it hit on the fact that his bags, shoes, etc. are consistently priced higher than most luxury goods brands, but the interesting part was the analysis of why that is and it's more than just making a bigger profit. Basically, they spend longer on each product, adding to the labor costs, and they also are marketing to a different group than others. His bags haven't been fed to the brand-wolves and turned into something akin to a monogramed towel, thank goodness. Don't get me wrong, some of them are cute, but overall, minimalism is cuter than showing off to the world who made your bag. Obviously this is not really relative to many considering that most people don't plan on spending over a thousand dollars on a bag, but the underlying theme is a good one. Buy quality once instead of quantity multiple times. And quality isn't to be confused with price, because I've seen some pretty crappy clothing in nice stores. Very expensive clothing, but still crappy nonetheless.

In other news, I cut my hair. It's short again. If my memory serves me right I'm pretty sure I told her to keep all the length she could and just clean up the back, but I somehow ended up with pretty much the same haircut she gave me the last time it was cut. Ehh, oh well. At least I like it. I think. Okay, I'm getting used to it. I went in expecting it to stay longer. On the bright side, with it being shorter I can hawk it up again!

Who drank the manishevitz?

Happy belated Easter everyone! Hopefully yours was wonderful and fun and all those good things.

This Easter was pretty laid back. I spent most of the weekend with Taryn and Liz in Centerville. It was so fun being in a home and having all the chaos around that holidays entail. Even though it wasn't home (don't worry Mom, your Easter's will always be best), I still had am awesome time. We ate too much candy (Mrs. Cavanaugh chocolates!), played on the Wii too much (I bowled a turkey in bowling!) and overall just had a good few days relaxing. On Easter Sunday Taryn's family always goes to SLC to Music & the Spoken Word at the LDS Tabernacle, and this years performance was amazing. And the Orchestra was there so it was extra cool. There was an amazing baritone soloist who sang "If a Man Die, Shall He Live Again?", from Robert Cundick's The Redeemer, and they ended it off with the Hallelujah chorus.

In other news, Spring is starting to creep in and warm up Logan!