Done today:

• Made one Christmas present for my friend, almost completing friend Christmas presents
• Started on Christmas presents for the roommates
• Choreographed 2 Spring Sing songs
• Cut 1 Spring Sing song completely
• Finished all Spring Sing formations
• Finalized Spring Sing music
• Bought fabric for a REALLY cute skirt

To do tomorrow:

• Practice piano
• Email piano students
• Bake desserts and find raffle prizes for LTC meeting
• Go to LTC meeting
• Finish all Christmas presents
• Pack to move back to the APT 
• Move back to the APT 
• Attend Pi officers' meeting
• Decide on more exciting blog posts so that I don't have to bore you anymore with to-do lists

Tomorrow's the day, folks! Karissa Explains It All becomes Karissa's Kacophony officially. See you there!

Dumb Dog

About two and a half years ago, my parents promised to get my sister a dog to help with the move. Now, when she was little, she was absolutely precious:

And we got along quite well:

 (She's the black thing that looks like a stuffed animal on the right.) I taught her everything she knew. Ok. Well I potty-trained her, at least. And played with her and loved her. It was great.

Fast-forward 2.5 years. We don't always get along. In fact, sometimes we rarely get along. She likes to wake me up in the morning by licking my face. She'll bark at me until I somehow understand what in the world she wants. She has now developed the habit (since the snow storm) of asking to go out every 10 minutes or so in order to lick the ice in the backyard.

But tonight we had some quality time together so I thought we should document it:

Pepper, I guess I won't try to sell you while no one's looking. Even though everyone in the family just yelled at you for eating the cats' food.

Grocery Store Paradise

Growing up (for the most part) in Arlington had its perks. Six Flags was a huge deal in the junior high stage of development. And of course Hurricane Harbor, the Rangers, Dallas, and Fort Worth. But one of my favorite parts about living in Arlington was this little bit of bliss.

Central Market. Just 15-20 minutes away. I've spent several New Year's Eve dinners here and I think my senior homecoming. I could go on and on and on about this place. They have a cheese aisle. More like a cheese room. And this is not your ordinary Wal-Mart cheese aisle. Oooooohhhh no. They make tortillas fresh every day. Well they make all their breads fresh every day. And then they have this really cool cafe place where you can buy food to eat there. In the summer/fall they have live music every weekend. Oh man oh man oh man. I love this place.

So here in lovely Edmond, there's not really anything that comes close to this. I mean, Homeland and Crest are alright, but not like this. Not at all like this. My family and I frequently talk about how much we miss Central Market. Frequently.

So imagine my delight when I find out that this summer I will be working 10 minutes from this:

Yes, sir! Central Market Houston. Excited might be a bit of an understatement. I can taste the quesadilla wraps now.

100th Post!!!

Yup. 100 posts. It only took me a year and a half. So for my 100th post, I'm going to tell you 100 reasons why I...

Just kidding! I wouldn't put any of you through 100 reasons of anything. At least not on the blog.

Today is all about prep. Prep for piano. Prep for Music History. Prep for Spring Sing.

Let's start with piano:

I've been playing piano since I was 6 or 7. The only times during that time that I haven't taken lessons were my mid-Freshmen to mid-Senior years in high school when I had a slight breakdown one Tuesday and begged my mom to let me quit. All you mothers out there: Let your children quit. I wouldn't be playing today if I hadn't. Okay. Back to the story. A year from now, I will be preparing to have my "junior" recital in Piano. This means I should be practicing, at the very least, an hour a day at this point. Am I? No. (Dr. Thompson, if you read this, don't worry I'm about to get back on track.) Starting today, I will dive into that Chopin Nocturne like nobody's business.

Next would be Music History:

Why, yes, those are 3 famous music sites in Europe. Thanks for asking. Unfortunately, though, my very brief, limited excursions into the world of European-music-sight-seeing does not exclude me from taking the dreaded courses known as Music Histories I, II, and III. Now I have MH II under my belt (with an "A" I might add), but that does not mean it didn't give me a run for my money. That course was the reason I pulled so many near-all-nighters. (Apparently, I'm incapable of an actual all-nighter.) The reason I had numerous meltdowns in the presence of friends and family. But also the reason I am more proud of my grade in that course than any other grade I've received (except maybe Bible Science). So my plan over the break was to read ahead for next semester. Is it going to happen? Probably not. But I can still dream.

And onto Spring Sing:

This is last year's Spring Sing and the bottom one is Freshmen Spring Sing. Please notice my expressions in both of them. Jubilant. Ecstatic. Joyful. Freshmen year all I had to do was remember the dances and lyrics I had worked so hard to learn. And not mess up while in the front row. Last year was a breeze. I wasn't even in my club's Spring Sing show so all I had to remember was the music to Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" since I was in the back-up choir. Cinch. Sway in time with the music. Hang out backstage with the band. No problem. This year is a completely different story. When idiots decide to run for Spring Sing director, someone should really take them aside and explain to them everything they are going to be in charge of and see if they still want to run. (Of course, my parents probably would have done just that which is why I didn't tell them I was running until I had been elected. Oops.) But we have made a lot of progress. The budget is just about done. All of the known expenses are on there and have been approved by our treasurer. The studio is booked. The lyrics are written. Although, I'm not entirely satisfied with a lot of them because of my stupid type-A thing. The lyrics will probably be rewritten soon. Choreography is done for 2 songs. One costume is made with plans for more. Music is almost taken care of. So you see? Progress, my friends. Progress. Now I just need to not think about the rest of it so that I can actually go to sleep one of these nights. I was complaining to my dad about how the show is 2 months away and I'm already tossing and turning thinking about it. His reply: "You know who you are? Your mom." Bingo! I am exactly my mom. But I can't think of many, if any, women I would want to be like more.

Karissa's Kacophony

Hello faithful readers!

As always after my month-long hiatuses, there's probably only 2 or 3 of you still reading the blog. And that's ok. As you can see, I've made some changes. In a few days, the site name (or whatever it's called) will change, too. So everybody change your sites from www.karissaexplainsitall.blogspot.com to www.karissaskacophony.blogspot.com. I'd been feeling the need for the change for awhile now, just because of some life changes and to get rid of my feeling of monotony.

So welcome to Karissa's Kacophony! And why did you change to this name, you might ask. Well. As most of you know; I love music. I study music. I play and perform music. But sometimes my life itself is far from melodious. It's a cacophony of stress, harsh words, poor sleep, lots of homework, friends, and numerous other things. But God chooses to make my life a symphony in his own time. For completely unfathomable reasons, he chooses to refine me and love me, eventually smoothing out the edges and making me his. And I wanted this blog to reflect that.

I should warn you that from now til March, most of my posts will be about Spring Sing. As uninteresting as this might seem, some day I want to be able to look back on the chaos that will be the next 2 months and laugh. Or cry. Depending on the outcome. Ha.

So keep stopping by and in 2 or 3 days, stop by my new site. And leave comments. Hope you all have a great week!

Remodeling

As should be obvious by the unfinished look of this blog, I am in the process of remodeling. And I can't for the life of me figure out how to add text and pictures to my header. If anyone knows, help would be GREATLY appreciated. I'm also soon changing the name (you might already be able to see it, I don't know) and location of my blog so stay tuned for that. Oh yes, and blogging. That will happen soon, too. As for now, it's lunchtime.

Maybe it's that the semester is almost over. Maybe it's that it just hit me this week that these girls will be graduating in the spring and next December. Maybe it's that I'm pretty sleep-deprived which makes me even more emotional. Whatever it is, I am feeling overwhelmingly thankful for these people right now and just wanted to share with you why.

So here is the list I have composed over why these girls are amazing friends.

Amazing friends...

• Stay up with you til all hours of the night to have dance parties to Miley Cyrus.
• Cry with you when you don't really know why you're crying.
• Sit in a hot tub with you for 30 minutes to talk about life, boys, and God's plans.
• Take pictures of the boy you like (bear with me on this one) then email them to you because he's dressed up that day and you won't get to see him.
• Know exactly what's bothering you even when no one else does.
• Stay awake til 4 in the morning making cupcakes over spring break.
• Are okay when you happen to know their secret before they've told you.
• Forgive you when you say "I think I know what you're going to say" and really you had NO idea.
• Help you fix the car window of the borrowed car you drove to Sonic and accidentally broke so that the owner of the car will never know.
• Call you when a certain person is at a certain party so that you can happen to be there, too.

Amazing friends...

• Put off doing homework so you can all pray together.
• Talk seriously about how to become more Godly people.
• Encourage each other daily over tests, homework, relationships, and everything else.
• Really care about what's happening to everyone else in the group.
• Love you no matter what you've done or said.

So I do apologize for the sappiness of this post. But I thank God almost every day for blessing me with such a wonderful group of friends. We have our ups and downs as any group does, but this is a group of people I know I could go to for absolutely anything and I feel so blessed to call them my friends.

Abigail, Kaylee, Lisa, Bailey, Laura, and Kayla, I really don't know what I would do without you.