spring break: ern gone wild

This week is awesome. I love being on spring break. It means that after getting home from work at 5pm, I feel free to cook supper, go out with friends, read, watch dvds! Seriously, I am going nuts! Woo! I am not at all ready to return to the world that includes Stats and Yearbook.

This past weekend we went to Wichita for fun for the first time since January, I think. We met Reid and Grayce for the Passage to India buffet, went shopping for some stuff for Brian, spent some time with Reid, Grayce, and Madeleine at their house, did more shopping, went out for supper, and tried to do some more shopping. I did very well with my personal spending and only bought two books. We finally got the coupon from the government for converter boxes have been in desperate search of them ever since (NCAA basketball tournament time, folks! I like how it was this and not, say, tornado season that really got us going.). Every place -- and we've checked seven -- is either completely out and back ordered or they only have off-brand ones, and, I don't know, we just generally buy name-brand electronics. So the search continues.

Sunday after church, we were able to spend a leisurely time at my parents' house for lunch and the KU game, did some house cleaning, spent some time at Brian's parents' house for supper and visiting, and then watched Buffy with Ruth and Jesse. Just a nice, relaxing day.

In conclusion, I could not love spring break more. Unless I also did not have to work. And maybe if I went on some fun trip. But I am incredibly happy and thankful for what I do have, and really do not wish for much more at all.

two funny things from church supper

We were sitting with all retirement-aged people. First, this joke told by a 70-something medical doctor got uproarious laughter: An obstetrician decided he wanted to become a mechanic, so he took a class toward this end. When he got the results of a test requiring them to work on a car, he was surprised to see a score of 150%. Thinking this must be wrong, he called the instructor and asked him about it. The instructor said, "Well, I gave you 50% for taking apart the car well, 50% for putting it back together well, and 50% for doing the whole thing through the muffler!"

Second, people bring different desserts to go along with the main meal, so you might have chosen something different from your neighbor. One man at our table was eating peach cobbler. A woman began eating her sour cream / raisin bar, and said, "Mmm, this is sooo good!" Peach cobbler man said, a little bit under his breath, "Wanna trade?" The woman said, "Nope -- you're stuck with my peaches!" (i.e., she is the one who had brought the peach cobbler the man was trying to trade away) Oops.

shower in honor of my nephew

On Saturday I co-hosted a baby shower for my sister-in-law with Brian's aunt Mary. I loved, loved being able to work on some creative things and get into the kitchen (I've really been missing cooking since Stats took over my life). It was especially good after a week of hardcore studying for my Stats test, the in-class part of which I spent 2.5 hours on on Friday, and the take-home part of which I have so far spent 6 hours on. I am almost done. Anyway, the shower! I also loved shopping for baby items and seeing all the baby gifts. I've always loved baby stuff, and it's pretty sweet to have a reason to buy it now. First, games. What is a shower without some games? We did the "Price is Right" (guess how much this baby item costs), "Guess this baby food" (by smell), and "Unscramble these baby-related words" (I think that is self-explanatory). I got to work on the sheets for the last two games and had a lot of fun doing so. I used my mad PhotoShop and Quark skills to personalize them to match Shelley and Dave's Jungle Babies theme in their nursery. See here the word scramble and the guessing sheets stacked on top:





























Here is how I decorated the baby food jars:
















Of course, food is extremely important for showers (my favorite part, usually). One of my contributions was this cake I based off of the monkey from their nursery theme. It was great fun to work on, and I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.












Here is a pretty crappy picture of the full food spread. I mean, I don't really think it's necessary to spend the time stitching it together and adjusting for perspective, and I'm pretty sure I don't even know how to do that, though I would like to learn someday. But not for a picture of a food spread. It was also Shelley's birthday on Saturday! I cannot take credit for her birthday cake; I ordered it from the same woman who made our wedding cakes, and I think how she chose to decorate it is so cute.














A couple of the precious great-aunts (how cute are they?!):



















And here I am with the guest of honor and Brian's aunt Mary:






















I was convinced my pants are a straight brown, but put with this sweater, they seem to have green in them, and I am not liking these two articles of clothing together. Never again (maybe)!

something that kept me up last night

I think this probably started off as a dream, but at some point I woke up (perhaps only partway) and was very concerned about all of this: Not only was I taking Stats at 4pm, but I was also taking chemistry from someone I don't know at 10am, calculus from Lisa at noon, and a history class from Mark Jantzen at three. What was I thinking? This particular Monday was coming off of an incredibly busy weekend in which I had apparently gotten nothing done for my classes except for Stats. Then, for whatever reason, Monday morning I had to be in some sort of meeting with Monty Graber. When it was over, I discovered it was 3:30! I had managed to miss almost all of my classes and not completed my calculus homework or my history paper during the day like I was planning to. I was kind of freaking out. Like I mentioned, somewhere along the way, I kind of woke up, and this was keeping me awake. I tried to reason with myself that I was only taking Stats, that I'd never missed a class, and that I'm not at all behind in work, but it was still preventing me from sleep. Oh my.

ah, life.

Here is just a little update about life recently. Plus, I cannot stand seeing the awful teeth picture when I come to this page.

My life is currently focused on and consumed by Stats, which I am taking this semester. I am spending so much time on it (e.g., yesterday: five hours; last week three hours each on three consecutive days plus more later in the week). I do not see how people work full time, go to school full time, and have a family. How do they do it? Granted, I am being a much better student for this one class than I probably ever was for any class in my pre-degree days -- doing all of the reading, being very diligent about homework, asking questions. I just really want to do well, and I certainly don't want to screw up my GPA now!

In addition to the addition of Stats to my life, it is also yearbook season, which also adds a lot of work. Unfortunately one of my originally four-member class just dropped it, so I will probably end up doing all of his work in addition to what is required of me as adviser. Not yay.

While I usually have no time for myself, I did take time this weekend. Friday I met up with Kate at Pages for a Misguided Professors concert (of course, I did have to take a hiatus to turn in my Stats homework...long, frustrating story), which was fun. Saturday I took all of the daylight hours for myself and worked out, ate my weight in Indian food at the Passage buffet (so many good dishes that day!), and shopped. I found some good deals, but mostly loved shopping for baby items for the baby shower for my sister-in-law next Saturday. So adorable! Brian invited me to go out for supper with the forensics team, and then after that we both spent the night working -- he studying for a Zoology exam and I at work from 9pm - 1am to meet a deadline. Yesterday, as I mentioned, I spent most of my day on Stats and also helping Brian study. I went to bed much later than I would have liked and am quite exhausted today. I hope for an early bedtime tonight.

Incident I found funny last week: The cat was out roaming around the house and she started to chew on a houseplant, which she knows full well is unacceptable. I got up from studying to chase her away from the plant. Instead of running back into her room like she often does when she knows she's in trouble, she spotted the open door to the upstairs and bolted up there. I followed and shut the door behind me since she is faster and craftier than I and could probably get back down despite my efforts to catch her. As soon as she saw me upstairs, she took off back down the stairs and totally ran into the closed door.

again with the really scary white teeth, facebook!

How many ways will you try to get me to never want your product?

valentine's day lol

This is one of those things that will probably be funny to no one else, but on Saturday I was home alone and found myself laughing. A lot. Because I woke up, looked over the side of the bed and saw this:






















It was like the bear had decided this day was going to suck so he was just going to give up early and put himself in the trash.

While we're at it, this guy is new and could use a name. Because the name on his tag? Bubba Remus? No.