About Me
Hi, It's nice to meet you. I'm Holly, and I'm so glad you're here!!
The Basics
I am currently 23 years old, living in Lexington, Kentucky. However, I am from small-town Danville, KY, which is a super awesome town, voted #2 best small town and prettiest town, Money Magazine's fourth best place to retire, and home to one of the greatest colleges out there. It's a great place and I am proud to be from Boyle County! Before getting my job in Lexington, I was born, raised, and educated in Danville/Boyle County. I love the convenience of having any store I could imagine in the same city as me, but I miss the small-town life a lot. Also, even though there's every store I could ever want to shop at in Lexington, the one I might want to go to might also be 45 minutes from my house, so....
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| Danville's main street. Source |
Home Decor + Living
Speaking of my house, DIY projects and decorating are one of my favorite things to do. I love constantly revising my decor and turning my house into a home. I am currently renting, so I unfortunately can't do all of the things I want (paint the walls! paint/stain the cabinets!), but I still love it.
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| Yes, I did put those shelves up but there was no mantel and it was a tragedy! |
Education & Work
But back to my education: I graduated from Centre College with a B.A. in English and I am currently working on my Master of Arts in Education. I love working with kids and hope to work with upper elementary schoolers so I can make them read and analyze books...and fall in love with reading. I am so excited!
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| One happy graduate! |
I got the idea of being a teacher through working with kids. I have coached rec cheerleading for about five years now, and my second year one of my girls told me that I was a great "cheerleading teacher." I thought hmmmmm, that's an interesting idea, and signed up for some education classes the next semester. I didn't have time to finish up an elementary education degree while at Centre, so now I am an online grad student through the University of the Cumberlands. I am technically eligible for a temporary teaching license (option 6), so I could get a job working as a teacher next fall, which I hope to do. Until then, I'm working as an administrative assistant.
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| For privacy reasons, no pics of my rec cheerleaders but here's me when I was a rec cheerleader |
Animals
I absolutely love animals. I have loved dogs & cats since before I can remember. |
| Little me and Polly, my Granny's dog, in an early scrapbooking attempt |
I try to support cruelty-free companies (no nail polish is worth putting it on an animal in order to determine whether or not it's safe). I also enjoy buying free-range eggs and things like that to make me feel like I'm doing my part. If I was my Ideal Self, I would probably be a vegetarian, but I do my best to be a thoughtful consumer knowing that I do not wish to live a meat-free life.
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| Dasher, my cat |
I try to keep my house and my life animal-friendly. I pick out non-poisonous plants for the garden and be sure not to feed Harper any table scraps that could have something in it that's bad for her. I will avoid purchasing laminate flooring because Harper cannot get a good "grip" on the floor. I have not decorated my house with white furniture (despite my wishes) because Harper gets to sit on the couches and I do not want to wash couch slipcovers once a week. One day, a nice white leather couch will be mine.
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Harper was born on March 19th, 2013, and came home on April 29th, 2013
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| Harper today |
My Mister
I met Chase during our Freshman year at Centre in Humanities class, where I playfully insulted him because of his high school logo-wear. My high school, Boyle, which I have already mentioned was awesome, lost in the final four to his high school team (that he was on!), which went on to win the championship that year. My school won the next year, a fact that I was sure to point out to him the next year. We had a playful friendship but didn't start dating until after we'd graduated.
Hobbies & Fun
I enjoy writing in my spare time and would love to publish a novel at some point during my life. I discovered blogging when I was much younger, but I have thankfully since deleted the posts I wrote in my middle school days! I have probably blogged off and on for about ten years now, but this time it will stick!
One of my favorite hobbies is trying out new recipes. I have been baking since I was younger, but I didn't start cooking until I became responsible for feeding myself. I believe cooking is an edible art, and it gives me an incredible enjoyment to cook from scratch, although I will admit that when I'm cooking for one, I don't often cook from scratch. I enjoy trying recipes and tweaking them to make them perfect for me and Chase to eat.
I like taking pictures. I bought a Canon Rebel EOS T3i spring of 2013 and I love it. It took me over a year to start shooting in RAW but now I'm even playing with manual focusing.
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| long exposure taken July 4, 2014 |
A new hobby of mine is bowling. Last fall, Chase joined a bowling league and I joined him on the next session. My high score is currently a 133, which isn't particularly high and I'm not a particularly great bowler, but we love bowling together. We are currently aspiring to own our own bowling balls. I have some super awesome retro bowling shoes handed down from my mom and her bowling days, so I like to think I'm pretty legit.
Beliefs
I grew up in a Christian Church. I believe that to be a Christian is to be Christ-like and that one of the best things I can do for the church is to exude kindness throughout the world. I don't always do this, but I'm human. Chase shared his religious motto to me, "love God, love people." That is, if one loves God, one should love his people (i.e. all the people of the world). This stems from Mark 12:29-31: 29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”—NKJ version via Biblegateway.
