Kenzie Blogs Life: winter

Bright White Wisconsin

8:00:00 AM

While the state of Wisconsin spent the month of December in weather that is warmer than normal, January followed in with a blast of reality and weather that left me not wanting to leave the house unless it was an absolute emergency. While near the end of my winter break I had some errands to do, the weather wasn't so bad and my mom and I decided to venture out on a hike up the mountain. At the very peak is the ski lifts where they make the snow for the runs which resulted in these photos that were just too pretty to not share!

I hope that whatever weather you're experiencing right now is good! I hope you enjoyed this post, I didn't retouch any of these photos and I think they're lovely! Hope you're having a great week! Do you have any big plans? What are your favorite activities to do lately?

As always, thanks for reading and commenting! Make sure to follow my instagram or twitter!

Being Home

Being Home (as told in pictures.)

10:00:00 AM

I've been back in my hometown for nearly a month now on my winter break from school. That's the nicest thing about life after highschool. The homework and tests may be harder, but they give your tired brain a good chunk of time to turn all of the words that have been packed inside, a rest.

A really nice, five week rest.

While I haven't been on the schedule for work very often (hardly at all). I'm still enjoying my time being at home. Like many of you, I love lists, and I also love animated gifs that go with them. So let's take a look shall we?

1. "I'm finally home and away from my roommate!"
This is how I felt leaving the dorm room:

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This is how I felt when I walked into my house:

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2. A few things happen when I'm home alone..

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(I didn't actually bake a pie but I baked other things that smelled delicious!)

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While I do love being home, I also love detoxing from the internet and having days where I just relax and do a little baking or take a bath....or maybe binge-watch 4 episodes of the Kardashians. I've also enjoyed going for walks before or after dinner, and being able to relax.

Are you all home for break yet? Have you gone back to school? It's the last few months before summer guys! We got this!

I hope the weather hasn't been too terrible for you! It's really cold here in Wisconsin, and I haven't wanted to leave my house, or my fireplace for the last few days!

Thanks for reading! I love reading your comments, so make sure to leave one! :)

xx Kenzie

Christmas

Christmas Room Decor

9:30:00 AM

This is the first year I'm away from home for a Christmas holiday, which means it's the first year I get to decorate my very own small space! Like many of you, I love this time of year. Maybe it's the excitement of the upcoming month-long break from classes and spending time watching Christmas films in the living room with my mom and baking Christmas cookies, but decorating is always the number one step in getting into the holiday mood.

The dormitory I'm living in this year doesn't allow for very much space to put things. When I thought of what I wanted to bring back to the room to decorate with, I knew I had to keep it small and that I'd be taking most of it down anyway three weeks after Thanksgiving when I went home for Christmas break! Here are some of what I used to make my dorm room more homey and cozy for the holidays!

When a person walks into my room, this is one of the first things to greet them. Who doesn't love cute holiday themed owls? My mom surprised me with this when I was home for Thanksgiving and I was so glad to put it out in my room! While putting this blog post together, I thought I would offer up some tips for those who are looking to decorate in their own small spaces!

1. Use Command Hanging Strips: These came in really handy when I went about hanging my snowman who waves people in and my dream catcher that hangs on the wall beside my bed.

I also used command hanging strips to hang the two stockings above my futon!

2. Small Details are better than no details. Even though I was really limited on space, I still made room for my little wooden Santa and my stuffed snowman to sit upon my futon. Once these guys were out, I started feeling a bit more festive. The red blanket was just a bonus, that's always out! And using small decorations really helps you make use of otherwise plan, boring walls or shelves!

3. Every room needs a little sparkle. It's Christmastime, and without any ornaments or ribbons, my room still needed a little sparkle, something aside from everything else that made me smile. That's where this little light-up snowman came from! It's from Target, and my mom gave it to me as a little present! His little hat and scarf are so cute!

4.Where's the tree? Christmas cannot be Christmas without a tree right? You can always check with your parents if you have a small tree somewhere in a bin like mine had, and they actually had two. I made use of one of them and it sits in the middle of our desks. It hasn't got any ornaments on it, but I think it looks great the way it is.

Even though there might not be as many decorations in my room as at home, these all make me feel like I'm actually in the Christmas spirit and soon enough I will be lounging around at home drinking my hot chocolate in front of the fireplace and watching countless cheesy Christmas films, snacking on delicious Christmas goodies for an entire month. I cannot wait.

I hope you all are having a great time counting down to Christmas! What do you do to decorate your places? What is your favorite holiday decoration? Any favorite ornaments on the tree?

See you next time and thanks for reading! xx Kenzie

adventure

Exploring near the river

1:00:00 PM

If you've been reading awhile you may have read that I've moved. It's exciting, a little nerve wracking at first but hey, that's life I suppose. Being in a new town and on my own I decided to make sure to pack my new camera (the really nice one I got for Christmas and used for those Arizona posts).
Anyway, I decided to use my first saturday here by exploring. It's a beautiful campus, and it's covered with a little bit of snow, not as much as last year, which I am perfectly fine with. So I can only assume it's twice as pretty in the Autumn when the leaves are full of color.
My university is set on the river, which makes for some pretty nice photos.
The weather wasn't too cold, I did look ahead to check and see which day would be best to go.

The water was so still, it was really pretty.

I also wandered into a park, where there were twisting trees, it was also on the river. There were squirrels running across a branch and darted into a hole in the tree, they went too fast and I wasn't prepared to catch a photo of them.

After wandering the park, I decided to go down an older street.

There was this cute little Fish made from scrap metal. I thought he was cute! Of course, he reminded me of my fish too. (Latte is currently enjoying his new life in college by the way.)

I did stop by a shop to grab a sweater that represented my university, as I actually had nothing, I'm not even sure why. But I am glad that I finally now have something.

The buildings on this street give it some character and actually make it look quite cute.

There was also a little bear statue along the way.

Isn't he cute?

After walking the length of the little shops that lined the street, the cold was starting to get to my fingers, though I didn't mind much. I do live in Wisconsin after all, and it hasn't been nearly as cold as last year, so I really shouldn't complain!
I did end up back on campus, spotting some ducks in the creek as I came up to a building.

See what I mean when I say, I can only imagine how pretty it is in the beginning of fall or even spring and summer when the grass is nice and green. I really can't wait to experience that. And besides, the sun would probably feel nice too.

I finished off the walk with my usual route back up to the dorm room, up some stairs. By some I mean a lot. It's a nice little walk back, and since I like doing things outdoors it was a nice break from homework and sitting in the room.

It also looks incredible at night here, and I promise when the weather warms up, I will take some night time photos for you, because they really should be shared.

I hope you like this post! Let me know what else you would like to read!

Have you gone back to school now? If you have, how is it? Do you have any difficult classes, or really fun ones?

I'd love to hear what you have to say in the comments!
Thank you so much for reading!
See you next time!

Kenzie

Adventures

The Good Bad and Ugly Winter

10:00:00 AM

Lately, I've been feeling as if this year’s winter won’t have an end. I want to go out and do things like wander the town or just enjoy a sit on the porch in the nice warm sun. Sadly, that rarely happens. I have moments where the walk from my car to my university is just pure torture. I have this theory that they refuse to salt or put sand on the sidewalk. I haven’t seen any since probably last semester. What’s up with that? Do they want me to break a bone? If they have salted it was two months ago. We've gotten some more snow since them. Basically I risk my life trying to go to class every day. Another gross thing about winter are the moments when the wind is so unbearably cold you can just imagine pieces of your skin turning blue, and the air is so cold you can feel it swirling into your lungs with a harsh sting every time you breathe. No, I’m not exaggerating it actually hurts! The sun, as nice as it is to feel, is not as nice when the snow is on the ground because it makes everything ten times brighter than it usually is! I feel almost blinded some days on my way to and from class. I've also recently been re-obsessed with oxfords and now I really do wish winter would come to a quick end so I can whip them out again!

(The extremely icy walk-way I have to endure). Also I would like to point out I have actually almost slipped and fell on my bum while walking on this path.

Although, there are some gross and disgusting things about the winter season I do enjoy a few things. Besides sweaters and scarves, winter also brings along some beauty, which I try to focus more on than the bitter cold. The snow is absolutely stunning when it sparkles, and when it gets to be above 15 it’s actually okay and sometimes, dare I say it, nice? (Remind me I said this in the summer time). Really it can be! A few days ago, Sadie and I got to go on our favorite trail, the one that’s above the river. There was not any wind and the sun was out thankfully. Usually the city puts salt on the ground at my mom’s house in the country but they sand the road near my dad’s in town. This being said, Sadie walks much better on the sanded road than the salted one as it doesn't hurt her paws as much. We walked to our spot, seeing that the snow banks have grown tremendously. I decided to pick her up and climb over the snow bank onto the trail. There wasn't much of a trail and I wasn't too surprised as I don’t think many people walk it. I liked this walk since Sadie didn't really need to have her leash held onto and the snow was too high she couldn't really get down in the trees. She did have fun sniffing and doing what dogs do as we walked along the trail. I took some pictures of it, below.

Notice how warm and sparkly it looks!

She did have to lift her paws to say "these are cold help me" (she isn't doing it in the picture above I was taking pictures of her running towards me) and I had to warm them with my gloves for just a few seconds but she enjoyed the walk. I was happy to find that someone had realized people still use the trail in the winter and had carved out some snow-steps for easy access to the road. Whoever you are, thank you!

The coolest part of the walk is seeing how amazing the lake looks with the mountain in the background. I do also like how the wind (when I can’t feel it) brushes just a bit of snow from the trees limbs. A few days later, we returned to this trail only to find that there was no way over the snow bank this time as it was too tall and I didn't wear snow pants and I wasn't wearing gloves at the time either.

It’s really pretty after it snows when it makes the trees look gray and after a while it just looks like a picture.

I would also like to add that I do enjoy taking pictures of wintry things, if only I could do them inside a nice heated bubble or something like that. Here are a few more I've taken this winter so far!

I do wish winter would hurry up and finish, I like looking at it and all but I'm more of a summer person and I can feel my skin itching to be warmed by some sunshine!

Adventures

Wiinterfest

2:49:00 PM

It's been so cold lately that there hasn't really been much to do and I sometimes feel like it's a nice break to have something happening in town.
This weekend, was Winter Fest, I went last year just for a little bit and got some amazing mittens.
It was a nice break from sitting inside by the fireplace.

They had amazing ice sculptures which were really cool! How can someone carve something so carefully out of ice?

This face one looked amazing when I walked by and the light reflected all of the parts of it.

There were also horse drawn carriages! Which I didn't take but they looked like fun!

After wandering for awhile, I had to go into my favorite sweets shop and grab some of my favorite lolly pops! Since I don't get downtown often, it was the perfect opportunity.