lunch with kayla

in what seems like a new tradition, kayla and i went to a locally owned business for lunch this week. this time we tried roanoke's first food truck! (aw)

we both got the lunch special: half of a chicken quesadilla and half of a nutella/strawberry crepes. nom nom.

i really love these little dates that we take. i rarely go out to eat these days, and it's fun to try new places with kayla. we got to eat in the middle of downtown and people watch, chat in the sunshine, and ... eat nutella crepes. hello.

and don't forget about the part where kayla has the cutest stinking kitten in the world. aka, i come SO CLOSE TO TOUCHING HIM EVERY TIME EVEN THOUGH I KNOW IT WILL MURDER MY EYEBALLS AND MY LITTLE NOSE. but seriously look at him:

it actually took everything that i had to not snatch him up. stupid allergies. i'm not even a cat person at all!! but chipper kills me every time.

in summation: kayla rules, trying new food is really cute, i don't like cats but i love chipper. <3

FREE CAKE

last week, i got to spend a few hours with my friend kayla, seeing her PERFECT new house (seriously, my standards for our next place have raised exponentially), meeting her sweet new lil kitty, and walking around her neighborhood.

we watched some tv after she gave me the grand tour. mostly we talked about how weird drew carey is as the host of the price is right, and she schooled me in some of the games.

it wasn't long til we started getting pretty hungry, and it just so happens that she lives about 3 blocks from my favorite restaurant in town, wildflour, so we were excited to take a little walk to get something to eat. it also just so happened that everyone getting lunch that day would also get a free piece of cake! this may have had a little something to do with it being our restaurant choice. ;)

even though both of our sandwiches were so good and filling, we couldn't turn down dessert (especially free dessert.. obviously). this place had SO many options, though. it took us pretty much our entire meal to decide which cake to get. eventually, we made our choices: i got key lime cake and kayla got strawberry cake. mine had little stripes of key lime pie filling and kayla's had surprise walnuts! but they were sooo good.. i've literally been thinking about going back EVER SINCE.

after our bellies were full, our walk back was a little bit slower, so i snapped a few pretty pictures of the neighborhood.

i always think my neighborhood is the end-all, be-all of quirky, pretty, and homey neighborhoods in the area, but kayla's is giving mine a run for it's money!

and, even though i'm not a kitty person, little chipper melted my heart.

i'm looking forward to spending a little more time on this side of town now! <3

lucky in friends

unfortunately, i think sometimes i forget how lucky i've been when it comes to having a really great group of people surrounding me at any given time. my friends are a constant in my life, and i'm forever grateful for my luck in that respect.

most of my best friends have moved since we first became close, but i still consider them important pieces of my life (and generally assume i'll see them again someday). :)

even these days, with everyone being SO busy, and usually knowing that we won't see each other for a few weeks at a time, we continue to keep up with one another's lives, and i'm super thankful for texting in that respect. ;)

as i looked through my facebook for these pictures, i noticed how many of my friends i haven't been so good at keeping up with, which is sad. but i know that those types of things happen, and i'm so happy to have had those people in my life for as long as i did.

i've been seeing so many blog posts lately about how hard it is to make friends, and i wish i could collect all of those people and share my friends with them, because i can't even put into words how obsessed with my friends i am.

<3

trying to welcome summer

even though i'm now officially a documented summer-hater, i did a couple of things that scream summer on my day off this week. kendall has been taking little avery to the pool every day, and i've been soo jealous. i finally got to join them!

i love those sweet ladies. <3

(she had something to add to my conversation)

i stayed as long as i could, until i got a distressing call and had to leave for a couple of hours. it was probably just in time, though, because in those couple of hours, i got sunburnt. :( i really, really do not tan (if you can't tell..), my skin turns bright pink and then i go back to being stark white. i'm okay with it, because i'm going to have awesome skin in my later years, but the recovery time super sucks. you have no idea the amount of editing i had to do these to make me not look like a vampire.. and i still kind of do.

after i took care of some car business (that ran upwards of $150! - does anyone else think cars are the number one biggest waste of money? ugh), i met back up with kendall and avery, with kayla in tow!, for some frozen custard from a cute new place in town, chillypop.

she was clearly into taste testing everyone's custard.

obsessed with this picture.

by the end of it, my cone was perfectly avery-sized! the parlor was a tiny space, so the four of us kind of took it over while we were there. avery was acting like she owned the place. ;)

i have to be honest, if summer can keep offering up sweet get togethers like these, i might change my tune. <3

i get by with a little help from my friends

the past week has been really, really hard on me. i've been incredibly stressed out over some fairly important things, and, to make things worse, i'm not entirely sure of the best way to handle them.

three notable things have been helping me through this little blip of unhappiness:

can you tell this is actually a picture from last summer? whoops.

my best friend becca is in town from chicago. and last week, we took a spontaneous road trip to charlottesville. we're known for our quick (usually a few hours, tops) trips out of town, and this one was similar to the rest: a little bit of shopping, huge slices of pizza, and getting lost.. even with two gps's.

i'm consistently broke, but i treated myself to a couple of little trinkets. good for the soul, you understand. ;)

aziz is bored

last night, austin (finally) bought the online aziz ansari stand-up, dangerously delicious. i actually generally hate stand-up (with the exception of mitch hedberg), BUT i honestly do not think that i have ever laughed that hard, for that long, in my entire life. i highly recommend it.. $5 is nothing compared to the quality of the entertainment. ;) i had to hide my phone to keep from live-tweeting my viewing, haha! i just wanted to share the jokes with eeeeeveryone.

another old picture (obviously). i have no shame.

another sweet girl in my life took me out for ice cream this week. kayla and i hadn't seen each other in weeks, and she just graduated college and is about to become a police officer (whaaaat!), so i want all of the time with her that i can get. we walked from my house to a cute-as-can-be ice cream parlor down the street, and chatted away while dripping ice cream all over our hands. it was so nice to see her, she's one of my favorite confidants.

i work roughly 60 hours a week, and get very (very!) little time with my friends. seeing two of them in one week was almost indulgent. :) they really helped me in my sorta serious time of need. <3