Ten on Tuesday: at Target

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I have a confession to make: I have spent the past few weeks throwing my entire closets worth of clothes on the floor in frustration. Poor Trevor has had to toss sweaters and leggings aside in an effort to find a pair of socks, Buddy has made himself comfortable in a nest of scarves and tank tops.

Moving from a place where it is winter nine months of the year to a place where it is sunny and seventy daily has meant a severe wardrobe challenge. While I should be wearing sandals and dresses, skirts and summer hats, my closet is only filled with sweaters, sweaters, boots, and more sweaters.

Last week I even spent three hours shopping. Three hours at four different stores.
If you know me, you know this is an accomplishment.

I went in hopes of finding some new tops suitable for graduate school classes and my project assistantships. Instead, I left with new black leggings, two skirts, two pairs of jeans, a pair of hot pink pants, and a pair of floral print leggings. While I may have gotten the deal of the century (I only spent $50!), my wardrobe is still suffering because, well, the sweater problem hasn't been solved.

If you know of any fabulous and summery tops for sale, help a girl out.
I'm dying over maxi skirts and cropped tops this season, but who isn't?

After my failed in-store shopping trip, I thought some online browsing was in order. While I was looking for tops, I got a little distracted and instead put together this Ten on Tuesday list for you. Everything pictured here is from Target with much of it sold in stores. Lately I've fallen in love with some many items pictured on other blogs.. only to realize that they are much out of my price range. I can't be the only one who can't afford a $350 tote, right? 

Oh, and confession number two? I still haven't bought sunglasses (though you can enter to win a pair here).

Other items on my wish list right now include wedge sandals, scarves in every color and some bold jewelry. Plus, I need a new bag to carry books and binders - after all, I'm starting school in three weeks. 

So tell me, what is your favorite trend this season? Any favorite stores or sales I should know about?

I want:

I want to serve you filet and champagne for dinner, just because.
I want to never stop having picnic lunches.
I want to write you love notes in neon ink on our kitchen white board.
I want to plan your perfect birthday weeks before it happens.
I want to drive around on Sunday mornings to look at hot air balloons.
I want to hike mountains together.
I want to duck inside unaffordable furniture stores and dream.
I want to rub your hands while you fall asleep.
I want to decipher the poems you write.
I want to photograph you in every spot we visit.
I want to sit at our kitchen together every morning.
I want to argue about how to decorate our home.
I want to drink coffee and tea together at your favorite spots.
I want to embarrass you with lists like this one.
I want to bring you home heath bar ice cream on bad days.
I want to scrub the stains out of your dress shirts.
I want to be always be your baby doll.
I want to fight you for blankets every night.
I want to eat our way through Santa Fe and laugh at every celebrity we see.
I want to leave my bobby pins everywhere for you to roll your eyes at.
I want to take videos of every adventure we take.
I want to never stop taking adventures.
I want to read novels filled with your handwritten notes.
I want to go for late night drives.

I want to love you, always.

It's official!

I am officially a University of New Mexico Lobo.
I even took the uncomfortable school ID photo to prove it.

Over the past few months, I have mentioned graduate school in this space only a handful of times. I worried that sharing details or dreams to soon could perhaps jinx the application process, the waiting, the assistantship interviews. While I hoped that I wouldn’t be disappointed in my graduate school outcome, I worried even more about disappointing those of you who have kept your fingers crossed for me over the past few months.

Now that I am officially enrolled, registered and simply waiting on assistantship contracts to be drafted, I thought I could share a little more of my excitement with you. After a month of interviews, held breath and wishful thinking, I can say that I am going to be completing my master's degree with full funding. I still can't believe it. 

Though we lived in Montana at the start of my graduate school application process, I chose to apply to schools scattered throughout the country. The hardest part of the process was knowing that I didn't have the resources needed to visit most of the schools on my list.

As the acceptance letters began to arrive, I began to feel worse and worse. Decision making has never been my strong suit and as I tossed over options, I grew frustrated. Next came the assistantships, the stipends, the scholarships - funding for every single school I had applied to except for this very university. Worse yet, I was carefully warned that assistantship funding was most often reserved for those who earned their BBA at UNM, for those who were in the second year of the program. I took a chance. I turned down great offers (like a funded PhD) for intuition.

Despite wanting to move back East to friends and family, despite loving Flagstaff and Northern Arizona's campus, something drew me to New Mexico. I knew that we couldn't stay in Montana and with a month's notice, we moved nearly 1100 miles - from the snowy mountains to the vast desert.

When I received an e-mail asking me to interview for an IT based assistantship, I nearly replied saying that I had already found a full-time job position. After the first interview, and talks of CSS and HTML5, I was terrified. Then, I spent hours preparing a design portfolio and a week worrying that I had blown my chance at funding. But somehow, I was hired as the newest project assistant for the Web Development Team for the Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico. (It's a mouthful, isn't it?)

I have so many thoughts to share with you, thoughts on moving, on New Mexico, on trusting your self to make the right decision - too many thoughts for one post. I just couldn't resist sharing my news with you, sharing my excitement for a new opportunity, and my satisfaction for having made the right decision. Over the course of this summer, I hope to share more details on the MBA application process. A timeline to follow, tips for choosing a school. The process was terrifying but already so worth it.

I hope you can understand why it's been a little quiet here. I've been well, distracted. That being said, I have a feeling a lot of things will be changing over the next few weeks.

I hope I can keep up.