Force of Nature

My friend Brandon recently went on a trip to the beach for a month (what a lucky guy!!) and while he was there, he got to catch pictures of a rare weather event: a water spout!

I, personally, have always been fascinated with any kind of force of nature, whether it be tornados, floods, thunderstorms, whatever. I also tend to sleep through them, haha.

Of course, I'm sure y'all know that a water spout is basically a tornado over the water, but I am also pretty sure that most of y'all have never seen one, so I wanted to share his amazing photos with everyone!




Isn't that amazing???

Wednesday is for Randomness

As I am sitting here at work, coding the most boring information in that you have ever come across, I am simultaneously racking my brain for a post idea. So many things crossed my mind that could turn into a series of posts, for example, places I've lived or guys I've dated. Seriously, not kidding, either one of those topics would take me a very long time to cover. And maybe I will. . . eventually.

Until then, I have settled on getting you a sneak peek into the girl behind the blog, by giving you a random fact/story/whatever about me! Doesn't that sound fun!?!?

[All together now class, act enthused for my sake, please :) ]

This fact was actually inspired by my little project at work: seeing as I am entering names of study participants into a new database, I started thinking about [what else!] names. Why people name their kids some of things they do. . . . well that is a rant for a whole other day.

Sooooooooooo. . . . getting on with it.

Do you know someone who goes by one name to their family and another to their friends? Or maybe one for everyday use and another especially for work?

Here is the secret about me: I used to go by a different name. [Ohhhh, big shocker, Kayla, because I'm sure you're the first to do that, hmphh, hmphh]

I am not saying that I coined the idea, I'm just giving you a random fact about myself that I feel like sharing today, so just enjoy. . . .

When I moved to a new school in 5th grade, there were a freaking ton of Kayla's in my grade. And I wanted to be an individual, of course, because I was an idealistic dreamer of a child. . . right.

Actually, I kind of just had an obsession with Cover Girl model Niki Taylor. She was on all the ads on the backs of my teenie magazines and she was beautiful and flawless, in my opinion. In an effort to follow in her shadow, I decided to become "Nikki" for the remainder of my middle school years, until I made yet another move to yet another state. It wasn't too far of a jump from my middle name [Nicole] but there was enough difference from my idol's to feel like I was accomplishing my individuality.

See? I told you she was beautiful :)

Picture from here.

Loved and Lost

I failed to mention one event of the weekend in my recap post, and I did this on purpose. I felt that this certain detail deserved its own special post, and therefore, I am giving it one.

Sunday marked the 2 month anniversary of a friend's death. Her name was Kerri, and she was....something else. In a good way of course! She was nothing short of spectacular, and anything but ordinary. She crosses my mind each and every day, and I know she's probably yelling at me, "For God's sake, go lay out at the pool and get a tan! You're too damn pale!"

This post is dedicated to her and her family and friends. I hope she knows how much we miss her, and how much we always will.

Camping, But Not Really

The weekend recap:

We went camping! Not that you couldn't already tell that from the title, but still, I'm repeating it because it was so incredibly fun!

It was a little last minute (in fact, I was given 15 minutes to get ready) and it involved 15 of the best people I have ever met. Most of them are my neighbors here in the Polo Club (represent! jk), and a couple were some randoms that each of us threw in, but still an all-together amazing group. We stayed at my friend Ashley's, went swimming by the dam, ate an awesome dinner her mom made us, went sight-seeing, and then, of course, hit the booze.

We also all squeezed into 2 tents, after smooshing 7 of us in a Jeep for a little tour around the town, we looked a little funny, here is a pic for your own viewing pleasure:



As you can tell, it was a tight squeeze, and especially a little scary going around curves....the one thing we had going for us was we weren't hammered at that point. Just kidding, but really, we weren't.....yet.


And here is the whole gang:



And the amazing view from the famous fire tower (part of the New Deal, I've been told, but I can never be sure with this group).



Anyways, there aren't too many pictures from later in the night, but just trust me when I say, this group is absolutely crazy together, and I had a blast.

And I think it was a totally appropriate send off for my bestie Kim, who is getting on her one way plane to St. Croix on Friday!

Oh, and I cannot forget to mention the McDonald's with the fireplace in it! That's right lovelies, I shall tell no lies and if I'm lying, I'm dying! This was the nicest fast food establishment I have ever seen.....watch out world, Mickey Ds is stepping up its game!!

Open to Visitors

Welcome.

Welcome to my crazy-ass, topsy-turvy, upside-down, sideways, absolutely wonderful, and at times, completely enthralling life.

Welcome to the story of how I became amazing again.

Okay, enough welcomes already, you get the point.

My name is Kayla, and this is me:


I think, therefore I am. Just kidding. For real this time: I am 20 years old, a business student at the University of Georgia, and...and...and....

I think I'll let you decide the rest.

This is my 2nd attempt at a blog, and no, my first is not available. . . . I deleted it. [Insert evil smile here]. Simply because I want you to get to know me from this one, and, oh yeah, I'm not really a fan of flaunting my failures. Just kidding, once again, I just felt like it wasn't a very good representation of who I am or what I can do.

By the way, I say "just kidding" a lot. A lot. Mainly because, I usually am just kidding. I am sarcastic, and dearly love to laugh, so I crack a lot of jokes, even if they aren't funny :)

My best friend, Kimberly Julie, is why I'm here. She dragged me into this blogging mess with her cute and wonderfully addicting posts that I absolutely adore reading. Definitely go check her out. That is an order, by the way. She is about to move to St. Croix (in the Virgin Islands, for those of you who have never heard of it) and her life is about to be an adventure for the storybooks, so show your love and appreciation to the woman who is living the dream most of us, well, dream about.

She is patiently talking me through this blog world I am just entering, so if I screw up, we all know who to blame. Yes, you guessed it, I am just kidding.

Okay, so like I said, I am in Athens, GA, going to college, but I have lived all over the place. Not kidding here, lovelies. Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, and West Virginia. But not just in the same town while I was in those states, there were many involved in each. And no, I will not list them all, that would just be ridiculous and annoying, so don't even ask.

One of the things I look forward to the most about blogging is comments, and I dearly hope the comment thing works on this one, because it certainly did not on my last attempt and that was utterly frustrating.

So, please, please, please, with sugar and a chocolate-covered strawberry on top, leave me comments when you feel I'm doing something right, wrong, or otherwise. I probably won't fix it if it's wrong, because this is my blog, and if I like it then it can't be wrong, right? Anyone see my failure of logic in this paragraph? Yeah, me too.

Trying to end this introductory post has completely stumped me as of yet, and since I have no suggestions from the peanut gallery (uhmmph, cough cough, sarcastic humor again!), I guess I shall simply say, I'm open to visitors, so come visit me!

Oh yeah, and I should probably give some credit for the picture that I used for my header; I got this from my bestie Kim Julie, who acquired it from here. Hopefully this will be enough to keep me out of trouble :)