Color Cravings: Posey Pants

I know I already posted about shorts inspired by skinnies but this is turning into an addiction. Printed pants have been in for the past six months, and shorts are a great way to incorporate more pattern into your summer wardrobe. Surprisingly, the floral crops I loved the most were also the most affordable. Jump on these before they sell out! Inspiration from Honestly WTF and Day Old News.

PacSun / Miss Selfridge /  Mikkat Market / Zara

Color Cravings: Green Jeanie

As I sifted through some style inspiration, I thought it would be helpful to post some ideas for colored jeans. I reconsidered this when I stepped out into the 90+ degrees here in Cincinnati. New plan: let's talk shorts!

My studiomate (and roommate from NYC), Amy, has been talking about finding the perfect pair of light green colored jeans for a few weeks. I love all colored bottoms, but I have to agree that there is something special about a pair of minty gams. In my mind, mint can be soft or saturated so I picked a few different shades for your browsing pleasure. Inspiration from See Jane and Wendy's Look Book.

H&M / AE / Zara / Loft

I'll be taking advantage of Memorial Day to stop by the mall and pick up the Parakeet AE ones tomorrow!

Have a great holiday weekend,
Kendranamo

Makeover!

I'm playing around with a different visual style for the blog. Nothing crazy, just something to match my resume, business cards, and Cargo site.

I'm using black and coral as my color palette. My typefaces are Walbaum Italic and Din Condensed. Sweet and simple, just like my aesthetic.

 Julie gave my hair a makeover too!

Yayyy design!
Kendrasity

Why I Want to Be a Camp Counselor

The past few days I've been writing books preparing for this summer. I have to fill out an application for Maranatha that requires lots of long answers as well as apply for my EEP (service quarter instead of co-op). Can you pray that everything goes through without a hitch for me?

brunch with Fay to talk about this summer.

she's so encouraging!

Application Excerpt: The few times I talked about wanting to be a teen counselor at Camp Maranatha instead of co-op, I got some funny looks. I knew in the back of my head that it wasn’t “smart” to miss my chance to intern at a job worthy of a Senior for six months. However, my head and my heart don’t always agree. You see, I’ve tried a few types of service/ministry in my life. And every time I hang drywall in a flood-ravaged house or look a hurting child in the eye and tell them they are loved, I know it’s the most real thing I could be doing with my life. Please, don’t misunderstand, I love design and have lots of creative aspirations. I want to work at a magazine. I want to plan and brand events. I want to free-lance from home once I start a family. But all those things revolve around my life. I don’t want to start adult life next year only thinking about myself. That would mean I would set down a selfish path only to be unsatisfied and miserable years later. To really understand how my love for design and helping people go hand-in-hand, I need to turn my complete attention to people for a summer. Sure, the teenagers who come to this camp will be paying to be there, not necessarily impoverished or starving. But they will come with baggage and be looking for answers like most young adults do. And I am so excited to share my life with them and love them for who they are. It’s been a gradual process since I began college four years ago, but I believe that I am growing into a passionate, confident young women who is finally comfortable with not having everything figured out. And I can’t wait for the opportunity to encourage other young women when they are struggling with how overwhelming life can be.

I honestly thought I was more excited than anything for my Senior co-op job. However, now I feel so eager for the summer to begin that I’m sure this service project is what I should be doing instead. I know it might have come across like I was giving up on finding a job a few weeks ago. What actually happened is that during the job search process my desire to be a camp counselor grew as my interest in getting that prestigious job offer decreased. It’s hard to explain how I am at peace with working somewhere I will make no money and gain no design experience. I just know it’s where I’m supposed to be, beyond a doubt.

Good Morning!

Sometimes I feel like nothing on the radio speaks to me. As a dancer and closet singer, uninspiring music can kill my day. But after making a decision about this summer I've been blasting my car stereo extra loud and dancing as I drive down the highway (yes, it's possible). There is an unexplained peace AND excitement in my life about this summer, and every song on the radio encourages and refreshes my soul. Lately I've been beaming smiles and blasting Jesus music with my windows down. I can feel the joy bubbling inside even as I type this. Oh no, I'm turning into one of those annoying people who is constantly on a God high.

I'm in the process of building the ultimate worship playlist for this summer but I thought I would leave you with cheer-er upper!

oh oh uh-oh ohh
Kendralala

Cotton Candy Head

A few days ago my best friend Christie was sending me ideas on how she wanted to color her hair this summer. I immediately thought of my violet hair phase from my freshman year of college. I believe it had something to do with leaving home and expressing myself as an art student, even though I wasn't quiet sure what an art student even was.
 

I was really cool back then

After that I stuck to dying my hair more socially acceptable shades like burgundy, ombré, and warm brown. But now that school is ending and I'm getting in the summer camp mood, I've been thinking...

The Beauty Department / The Beauty Department / 
Park & Cube / Pinterest / The Beauty Department / Pinterest

Just a few ideas ;) There's so many ways to do it. (Bleach & dye, chalking, color conditioner, eyc.) I'm not thinking all-over color even though I'm automatically jealous of anyone who can pull off completely navy locks. I like the blue and peach tints over bleached hair the best, but I'm not sure the delicate color would survive Lake Michigan this summer. Tip dipping eas easiest because it can be trimmed off when it looks bad but it's easy to mess up in the first place. There's always the possibility of adding a fluoro peek-a-boo in the hair between my bangs and ear.

I have exactly a month to come up with something good. What do you think?
Kendropolis

Sunning in San Diego

As I mentioned, last weekend I flew to San Diego to see Adam. It was probably hilarious for my roommates (Carri and Emily) to watch me run around like a chicken without a head the days before I left. Like superwoman, I plowed through piles of homework, packed for any type of weather, and sent out Emily's shower invites.

 Kendra + R + Ms. = Kendrarms

Thursday: Emily dropped me off at the Cincinnati airport (conveniently located in Kentucky) and I flew three hours to Denver and another three to my destination. Almost straight from the airport, Adam and I headed to the Avengers premiere. Captain America, complete with gages stood in front of me at the concession line. I guess I should rethink premieres in California since we always get out around 6 am my time.

Friday: Adam planned a romantic date for us at the shooting range. It was pretty intimidating to stand between the two guys with shot guns but I managed to fire through the center axis of the target pretty consistently. Adam thoughtfully took me to Caffe Bella for some delicious Italian and the best Sauvignon Blanc ever. I ordered my all-time favorite, hand-made gnocchi.

 locked and loaded

Saturday: We splurged and went to the famous San Diego zoo for the day. They have skybuckets and double-decker bus tours to get you around the park! And the zoo has so many animals. We must have seen four types of flamingos alone. There's also a two-story outdoor escalator, not sure what happens with it when it rains.

 skyfari / leopard / zebra / flamingo

Sunday: After church, we drove out to Point Loma to see the old and new lighthouse as well as play in the tide pools. The view of the bay and city was breathtaking, we were so high up! The tide pools were a lot lower and very treacherous to climb down to. The tiny crabs and snails in the pools fascinated me and I wanted to stay forever.

 San Diego Bay / tidepooling

Since we had seen the island in the middle of the bay we wanted to check it out. We drove over a tall, curving bridge to Coracabo. Although it was way too cold to swim, the beach was gorgeous! The island is covered with adorable shops and restaurants as well as the most perfect beach houses. I will totally move to San Diego if someone buys me a million dollar beach house to live in. Hotel del Coracabo is like a palace, there's even a shopping concourse underneath. Luckily, we found a Mexican place in our price range with some cozy outdoor seating.

 Hotel del Coracabo / Miguel's

The weekend was crazy and I arrived home on Monday seriously jet lagged and behind on life. But it was great to spend time with my boy and see more of the West Coast.

 O' Hara, coming home

I didn't get much of a tan,
Kendrasity

Decisions

Remember how I was going to tell you my plans for the next six months ago last week and then I didn't? Well now I will.

The truth is everything has come together in the past 24 hours. I kept telling people that I wanted to have it figured out by Monday, then Thursday, then Tuesday...you know how it goes when I set my own timing.

Recap: I've been trying to figure out what I will be doing for co-op starting this June. Due to UC's conversion to semesters, co-opers from the class of 2013 are expected to commit to an internship from June to December. Usually co-ops are ten weeks so this was a new situation. Since I am about to be a senior (5th year), I was excited about being able to apply for challenging positons and getting lots of offers because of the experience I have over the underclassmen. The opportunity to work at a company for six months and then finish school is unprecedented and invaluable. In preparation I spent weeks on my resume and portfolio. In hindsight I put a lot of pressure on myself and overcompensated.

After my experience in NYC I wanted to try things on the West Coast. Since we didn't have any positions in San Diego (near Adam) I applied to a lot of jobs in San Francisco (also Seattle and NYC). As an afterthought I put some jobs in Cincinnati on my wishlist. I had so much fun working downtown at Landor last summer. The co-ops from LPK and Landor would meet up to grab lunch at Fusian or It's Just Crepes and check out the latest event or exhibit in Fountain Square.

After we sent out our resumes, I got interviews at Apple (San Fran), CityBeat (downtown Cinci), and Hyperquake (downtown Cinci). I could see myself at any of those companies but things worked out differently than I imagined in all of those cases. The funny thing is that I started to feel like maybe I wasn't supposed to get a job out of town, maybe I should stay in Cincinnati. Then after not hearing back on my interviews I thought about an email I got from Charly Sommers a few weeks ago. He was looking for one girl to join the team of Navs kids who would be teen counselors at Maranatha, a Christian summer camp.

Side Note: The awesome thing about co-op is that you get crazy real-life experience, school credit, AND money. Normal internships don't always work that way. The tough thing about co-op is that I'm "in school" all year 'round. I didn't know the Navigators had so many mission opportunities until I had already spent my one free summer between Freshman and Sophomore year at home being a nanny. I've really wanted to do something missional with my summer for a while, but it's tricky to skip out on co-op and go do work for God. For one thing, we're required to co-op at least 5/6 quarters; we can't graduate if we don't. For another, it's hard to explain to your adviser why you want to pay to dash off to a remote African village rather than gaining valuable experience and earning money at P&G—no matter how truthful you are about your faith. (When I picture the situation I envision a stern board representative raising their eyebrows and asking, "And just WHO is this 'God' person?" Terrible, but I'm sure it happens.)

Back to My Plan: If I'm 100% honest, when I briefly considered being a part of Maranatha (a Christian summer camp in Michigan) in December, it sounded more exciting than any job I could ever score. But a voice in my head told me that I was stupid to miss the opportunity of a six-month internship during my senior year. Obviously that voice was wrong.

I dove in the job selection process once more this spring, but a small part of me thought about how being a counselor at Maranatha is so me. However, my pride and my polished portfolio wouldn't let me give up my career dreams before I started. But as the interview process went along the doubts continued and I decided to make a little ultimatum. It sounded something like this "God, I really want to feel like an sweet designer and get my dream internship this summer. But, maybe this isn't your plan for me. I'm STILL not sure. So if you want me to co-op, help me get that job I want. And if you want me at Maranatha, don't let me get a single job offer for summer."

Woah. Right? That was a scary prayer to get out of my mouth. Because as a designer, you are what you do. And a senior without an internship screams, "You are doomed for the rest of your design career!" I knew it would be tough for me to get an offer and then hear from God that I needed to walk away. So as a tiny mercy I just asked him to do it all or nothing. Maybe this only makes sense to me...

I discussed my dilemma with my friend Fay one day. She got really excited about the possibility of us working together at the summer camp. Her enthusiasm alone was encouraging because I felt a lot of unspoken criticism whenever I expalined my "backup plan" to people. I love her even more for boldly saying, "I'm going to pray that you don't get a job! You need to go to Maranatha." I can't express how much I value honesty and conviction from friends. (I know I'm terrible about being honest with people I love, and I'm even worse about lying to myself.) Her words were from the Lord because they resonated in my soul.

The most hilarious thing to me is that as I prepared for small group this Tuesday I read James 4. This chapter is chock-full of great things, but the last few verses leaped off the page:

"Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it." James 4:13–17

So. Convicting. I knew it so I better go do it.

Fast-Forward: In the past 24 hours I have:

• Found out that both Cinci jobs I interviewed at aren't taking UC students. No offers, check!
• Gotten "rehired" at Landor for the fall (the easiest interview I've ever had: "Jeff, I need a job." "Okay, see you in August.") Job for my return in the fall, check!
• Somehow convinced my adviser that working in Maranatha this summer counts as a service co-op (She is awesome! Not at all like my assumptions.) Fulfill co-op requirements, check!
• Been accepted as a teen couselor at Camp Maranatha in Michigan from June to August. (I talked to Charly, he made a call, and that was that. What!) Figured out what God was saying all along, check!
• Lost my hearing in one ear after calling Fay to tell her the news. Deciding last-minute certainly is exciting. Reaffrimation on my decision, check!

So that's it folks. I have a plan. God has a plan. If you see me in the next month and I'm smacking my head against the wall it's only because I'm so thick and the Lord is endlessly patient with me. I'm sure there will be lots more of that this summer. Stay tuned kids!

KA-blam (My mind being blown.)

Look at that. I'm so good with kids.
Definitely Maranatha material.

Flying to You

Today I'm flying to San Diego to see the boy. We decided that we would try to see each other every five weeks while he and I live in separate cities. Although sometimes I just want to see him NOW, I truely believe that long-distance has been great for us. We have good conversations on the phone, silly skype dates, and send each other the occasional gift. (He sent me a huge box of chocolate when he realized you can order food on Amazon.) When we can see each other every night feels like date night and we plan quality activities rather than just staying in with dinner and a movie.

 an oldie but a goodie

Our plan for the weekend is to see The Avengers at midnight (2 hours after I land), go to a shooting range (I have no idea how to shoot a gun), visit the famous San Diego Zoo, and explore the beach. We'll go out for a nice dinner and also cook some meals together. I'm excited to see what he loves about California and meet his friends from church and work. This mini vacation is more than welcome after my past month of portfolios, intervies, and tedious animation projects.

While I'm tanning on the sand I'll think of you,
Kendralala

Dress Code

Emily took these photos of me a few weeks ago at her house when the weather was between cool and warm. I've been trying to wear lots of brights this spring but the day just called for neutrals. I think I should take pictures more often in Emily's backyard because they have this convenient vintage ladder!

Indian scarf / H&M sweater /  F21 trench /  F21 necklace
/ AE shorts / Target leggings / Target boot socks / Target boots