Friday Round Up #6 and Some Big Changes

Hey friends!

You may notice things look
a littlea lot different around here. I hope you guys like the new design...it's very different but I absolutely love it, and think that it's much more suited to my personal style and vision for the blog. One change you'll notice is that I have social media icons on the side. Feel free to explore and send me a tweet! You've also probably seen the new tab: Virtual Assistance. I'll be updating that soon, so watch for that. Let me know what you think of the new design and features in the comments :)

Now it's time for the Friday Round Up! I'm linking up to a fun travel blog I read called Diaries of an Essex Girl. I really like this link up because the purpose is to share whatever has been happening during your week, even if it's just grabbing a coffee with your mom. Often times there's pressure as a blogger to only write about topics that you think will get readers, but it's important to share the normal stuff as well :)  If you're interested in linking up I'll put a button below.

Here's how my week went:

Monday: This week has been all about interviews, and Monday was the start of it. It was also my second to last day with my sister-from-another-mister Urshana, who is studying as an international student at my (now) alma mater. The rain was absolutely crazy that day too...it was a little scary driving home with torrential rain and lightning over my car, but I lived to tell the tale :)

Tuesday: Tuesday was also a busy day! I took Ush to the airport for her flight back to Azerbaijan, but before that we had to run some errands. Cue: shopping trip :)  My iPod Touch's home button had inexplicably somehow become stuck, to the point where I couldn't use it anymore, so I took the opportunity to stop by the Apple store. Unfortunately they didn't have any open spots at the Genius Bar for four and a half hours, but there's a  nifty tool called Assistive Touch that you can turn on (under Accessibility in General).  It brings up a little touch button that you can use exactly like the Home button. Just a little tip if you ever have that issue with your iPod or iPhone. I was sad to say good bye to Ush, but she hasn't been home since August, so it was probably about time she went back to her family ;).

Wednesday: Nothing to report.

Thursday: Thursday I had another interview. Also, after MUCH stress and desire to throw my computer off my roof, my new design was up and fully functioning. To give you a little back story, I was gifted a design of my choice by my parents as part of my graduation gift. Everything was fine and dandy until I tried to install it. My old template refused to go away and no matter what I did (see: several hours of searching on Google and trying solutions that didn't work) it showed up underneath the new one. When I was at the point of (almost) rage and (almost) tears, I finally let it go and decided to reach out to a family friend who's a web designer by trade, and he fixed it! HUGE shout out and thank you to Adam for gettin' it done!

Friday: Today has been pretty uneventful. My older sister Beth came over and we hung out with the puppy (who, though almost a year old, will always be a puppy to me), and now I'm off to spend some time with my parents and little sister, who's down with us on a weekend visit.

If you have a blog and are interested in joining the link up, click on the button below :)




And again, I'd love to read what you guys think about the new design in the comments below :)

That's all for now folks!

Emily

Graduation Day

Hey friends!

Guess who just graduated college? This girl! Graduation day was busy. The hustle and bustle of soon to be post graduates swishing about in their robes, the "will this one-size fits all" cap actually stay on top of my head? thoughts, and the undertones of anxiety excitement about the future all created an atmosphere of nostalgia that almost everyone was a victim to. The ceremony itself was, unsurprisingly, quite boring, as it was about an hour longer than it should have been, with three more speakers than was needed, and a muffled sound system that meant I almost dozed off lost concentration several times, but hey, it's all part of the process, right? It was lovely to sit with my classmates and walk across the stage to receive my diploma holder (the real deal won't appear on my doorstep for about two months), and seeing my family up in the bleachers meant a lot to me. Anyway, I won't blabber on. Here are some pictures from the special day.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. A brief note...you may have noticed that my blog name and address has changed. I have gotten to the point with my blog where I feel that Musings of a Middle Child (a name that I made up when I started up the blog yearssss ago) no longer reflected my vision for myself or for the blog. So from now on, it will simply be titled "Emily Jones." If you were following (or would like to follow the blog) via bloglovin', you will unfortunately need to re-follow by clicking the widget on the right side of the page. There'll be some other blog changes coming soon, but nothing that should require any work on you lovely readers' part :) Feel free to leave any questions or comments below.

xoxo,

Emily

In Recent News...

Hey friends. You may or may not have noticed that I've been a little absent as of late...sorry about that! Schoolwork in this last semester began to pile up and honestly, I was just so mentally and physically tired from doing homework/life that the idea of working on the blog wasn't as appealing as it usually is. With that in mind, I'll be back very soon with regular postings and fun. :)

To give you a glimpse into the future, I've got some exciting things in mind both for this blog and in life, and I'm excited to share them with you when the time comes. If you're so inclined please be praying that the Lord would continue to guide me as I graduate college (this Sunday!) and move on to the next phase of life, and that I would humbly follow Him wherever He leads.

Thanks for your patience, I can't wait to get back to lovin' on this blog very soon!

Sincerely,

Em xo

Texas Part Two: Food Trucks, Farmer's Markets, and Cowboy Towns!

Hey friends!

Ready for part two? This one's going to be a bit more of a random conglomeration of pictures. You might want to get yourself a cup of tea, because there are a lot of pictures in this post! Got it? Ok. Hope you enjoy :) PS: If you haven't read part one yet, click here!

One of the really fun things we did while we were there was take a vintage train to historic Fort Worth. 

Spot the tourist! ^

Once we arrived it felt like we were in the Wild, Wild, West!

 

Of course it's a total tourist trap (see ^ bull you can pay $5 to sit on), but it's worth it for the experience and the opportunity to see a modern day cowboy town.

Next we stopped into an old timey sweets shop.

Abi was....very excited ;)

How could you not be?

The next day we decided that it was essential for us to have as many authentic southern experiences as possible...so we went to a waffle house!

It was delicious AND cheap...every college student's dream.

After that we skipped over to the Dallas Farmer's Market. Apparently a lot of things are closed on Monday, including most of the farmer's market. It was a bit of a let down, but the produce was beautiful.

And we made a little friend!

After our visit to the farmer's market, we popped over to Klyde Warren Park, a neat spot right in the center of Dallas.

That corgi was a wee bit aggressive with the black dog, but man was it cute!

We also had our first food truck experience!

Yum!

If you made it to the end of this post, ten chummy points to you!

As always, comments and questions are welcome.

Until next time,

Em xo

Texas Part One

Hey friends!

It's time for pictures from Dallas. As you may have read in my last post, Abi and I went to Dallas for our Spring Break. It was a lot of fun exploring Texas with my sister and getting reacquainted with the family friends we stayed with. I was going to put everything in one post, but while I was going through my pictures I realized there were way too many to fit into just one, so this is the first installment of several. Hope you enjoy!

The first place we visited was the Dallas Museum of Art which, yes, is on a hill.  We both thought it had a good mix of modern and traditional art, but by the end of it we got a bit phased and decided that food was very much needed. Where did we eat?

Torchy's is a Texas joint that was recommended to us by our roommate Ellie. Since we were down south we knew we had to try it!

They had a lot of really creative options which made it quite difficult to choose! We both ended up getting the Trailer Park, which has fried chicken, green chilies, lettuce, pico de gallo and cheese on a flour tortilla with poblano sauce. I decided to “get it trashy", so they took off the lettuce and added queso.

Not particularly pretty but oh man, it was flavorful! While I don't tend to go for spicy food, I really enjoyed it and would definitely return. One thing I will say is that the salsa was a bit of a disappointment since it was burning hot despite the fact that we ordered mild, it was VERY busy, and it's not always clear how you can customize (aka, make things a little less spicy) your order. Overall though I gave it a 4/5.

After so much spice we decided that we definitely needed something sweet, so we headed to La Madeleine, where we got hot cocoa, cheese cake, and sacher torte.

Very nice :)

After that we went out into the very windy city and decided to check out the Galleria. The Galleria is a massive mall, rumored to be visited by celebrities such as Tom Cruise, among others.

Here we are looking quite windblown.

What's that you see behind me? Yes, it IS an ice rink!

That's all for part one, tune in for part two, coming soon!

Girls Night At Five Guys!

Hey friends!

So you know how (in my last blog post) I said I loved cheeseburgers? Well...Ellie, Abi and I had an impromptu girls night out at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. I'd only been there once before and Abi had never been, so we decided that it needed to happen ASAP. Five Guys is an interesting place. A "little" burger is a single patty, a regular is two, and there are free peanuts for all! Additional toppings are free, and there are plenty to choose from.

We started out pretty normal...

 

Then the food came out and things went downhill from there.

 

 Ellie had a cheeseburger with mushrooms, lettuce, onions, ketchup and a little bit of mayo.

I had a cheeseburger with grilled onions and ketchup.

Abi had a "little" burger with tomato, onions and ketchup.

 

And of course, the fries. Cajun AND regular, cause that's how we roll. My official food critic thoughts? The food was great! That being said, if you're looking for a luxury dining experience you won't find it here. What you will find? Juicy burgers, pillowy burger buns, a 50's vibe and lots of options to change up your burger game.

 

It was so fun to spend time with my sister and our roommate; these two are such a laugh and always bring a smile to my face :) It's hard to believe Abi and I will be on spring break in Dallas in less then a week, we're definitely ready for some sunshine! Thanks for reading, get ready for a lot of pictures from a (hopefully) sunny week in Texas! 

Until next time,

E