I need clean money.

I meant to post this a long time ago, but I didn't.
The good news is, it's still funny!

I finally dumped my piggy bank out the other day (um, try three weeks ago?) and counted out the stash I'd been creating since school started back in August. It amounted to a rather large sum. I didn't believe I was capable of saving that much money, so I recounted it twice, and all I could think of was how gross the dollar bills are. People probably stored them in their shoes, gum-filled purses, sticky wallets and pulled them out to buy medicine when they had the flu.
I wanted to wash my money. And take a bath in hand sanitizer.
Hand washing wouldn't be effective, (It was a lot of money for a college kid!) so I giggled at the thought of washing it in the washing machine.
Isn't that called money laundering?
I really wanted to launder my money.
I still have no idea what money laundering really is, but I'm convinced it involves the sanitation of dollar bills.

Here are some pictures.
-Cat



I PLANTED A PLANT AND IT HASN'T DIED! Also, I planted five and only have one. But it's better than nothing? The pot is self-watering and matches my new accent color. And was $4 at TJ Maxx. Thrifty and allows me to not pay as much attention to the little guy.


Glass sale at Hob Lob! Just little splashes of the new turquiosey color.


Got this for $5 at the Hob Lob. The true inspiration for my new room, and I just love what it says. (When FB had that awkward white box under the profile picture, Brian's blurb had something very similar to this. Neato.)

This is Claws sitting on the bed I made him. On the bottom of the book shelf. The fabric matches the stuff behind the TV, the foam is from my hope chest bench project, and it's stapled onto the box from my new night stand. Thrifty, I know.

I'm adding the new turquoise color in little places — got this fabric from Hancock's and replaced the old red/black combo. It matches my hope chest cushion!

Yeah, there are 80 bajillion things on top of my hope chest and I said there wouldn't be, but the point is that I'm making the top into a bench! (I'm also switching out my winter/summer clothes since we skipped spring this year.)

Not a minute too soon

At exactly midnight, I ripped the month of February off my calendar to reveal what lies ahead in March — spring break, Saturday tours, college fairs, birthdays and assignments are waiting to be transferred from my daily planner to my monthly calendar. Instead of writing down these tasks in their color coded beauty, I decided to blog about it when I realized I was throwing away February at exactly midnight — completely unintentional, I might add.
I hadn't written a single thing down on my monthly calendar for February. It was blank when I wadded it into a ball and tossed it in the can. (No worries, Mom. My daily planner has a monthly feature that looks like this: )
Throwing away a blank calendar is a very physical reminder of the passed time that might have gone to waste or been left blank. I rather enjoyed February, what with its summertime temperatures and Nashville adventures. But it's officially March.
There are now only nine months until I graduate — 20 minutes ago it was still 10. I'm down to single digits. Whoa.
After doing some homework tonight I decided to try to simplify my room. Reorganize. Rearrange. Declutter. Feng Shui, if you will. This is partially due to the fact that Emily just rearranged her furniture, so now I've got the itch, but good GRACIOUS at all the stuff I have. A box of fall decor. A box of spring decor. Two plastic drawers of spring/summer clothes. A box of clothes to donate to Goodwill. A milk crate filled with craft supplies. A basket of blankets.
Oh my, my at the stuff. And all of this is under my bed! They aren't kidding when they say "out of sight, out of mind" one bit! I'm officially untempted to move my bed...tonight.
But that didn't stop me from trying to declutter. I stripped 30+ photos off my walls, mirrors and closet doors. I took down the paintings that lined the ceiling above my bed. I pulled the red towels off my bulletin boards.
Wait, WHAT?
Last weekend, after I got the email notifying me that the study abroad trip to Italy had been cancelled, I went shopping.
At Hobby Lobby.
And Hancock Fabrics.
I bought a blue ceramic bird. And gray ribbon. And fabric. And buttons to fix the curtains in the laundry room. I felt the need to add something other than red to my room, and I happily landed on turquoise. There are so many bold colors in my room, so I think I needed one to soften it up a bit, so here goes nothin'. I'm beginning to think about my next apartment and how the things I buy for it will go into my post-grad apartment. My post-WKU apartment. My post-everything-is-red-all-the-time apartment. Crazy. I'm starting to see in the very near future the Caitlin that is not in college, and it's a little intimidating. Especially that "very near future" part.
So where did February go? No idea. But I do know that I've learned a lot in the past month, both in my classes and jobs, but also away from campus. My education is wonderful and intriguing, but the closer I get to graduation, the more value I see in friendships. February was spent partitioning my time between the people I care about. I spend more time with the girls from HFC. I make efforts to hang out with my Thursday night group. I call my family and far away friends just to see what's happening. Sure, I get homework done (sometimes at work) and wind up staying awake past my 11:00 bedtime to cram for tests [actually, I've only had one test, sooo...that's kind of a joke. Pretend I said assignments!] but it's so worth it.
The most important thing I think I learned in February that life is going to happen no matter how I try to plan it. My plans are nothing compared to the Lord's, which is a fact I've known for the majority of my life, but one that I needed to be reminded of.
I've only got nine months left here on the Hill, and I have no clue what God's going to do in that time-frame, more or less after, so I've stopped freaking out and writing everything down in quadruplicate. (Seriously. Daily planner+monthly calendar+weekly dry erase board + daily dry erase board. It was bad, y'all. Real bad.) I'll write down the dinner dates and Bible studies and let the Lord fill in the blanks, because right now, we're 35 minutes into March and I don't have a single thing planned past bed time.

Goodnight/good morning/may God bless whatever time of day you read this,
Cat.

//Edit:
Just remembered that even my blog is red. Expect that to change soon, too.//