Just Say No

• Read the "Safety" section of my food micro lab
• Write my lab write-up on eggs for my food chem lab
• Read about water
• Read an article about Food Microorganisms for my food micro class
• Look up my old resume to see if I could pass it off as new for my senior seminar
• Read my Food Toxicology Textbook

Each one of these things is something small, very small, that needs to get done. I should do some of them today. In fact I bet if I got on the ball and worked really hard I could get the majority of them done today. None of the assignments are too hard. The egg lab was pretty interesting in fact. The only problem is that I just don't want to do it. There, I've admitted it. None of them are due on Monday. In fact, one of them isn't due until November. Maybe it's my natural tendency to procrastinate here, but I would just rather go home and clean my apartment and sit around than do any of these things. The problem is that I don't have 3 hours worth of entertaining things and I have three hours to fill. Maybe if I get really despirate I'll read my food micro safety.

Perks, Yummm!

I start classes at 8AM everyday but tuesday. On Tuesday I get to start at the ripe old hour of 8:30AM. My husband doesn't start until 9 MWF and 11TTH. This morning the alarm went off and I just groaned. Not that I didn't get to bed at a decent hour, I did. I just DID NOT want to get up. Instead I rolled over and woke up my husband. He is so sweet! Instead of complaining he said he had actually wanted to get up with me today to go and study on campus. While I was getting ready this morning he made me pancakes! What a sweetie! Those were the best tasting pancakes ever!

PS. Have I mentioned yet that my parents are coming this weekend? I'm stoked! I'm going home after this post to clean my apartment and all that jazz.

So Few of Us Left

Today I was walking back to campus after having eaten a great lunch. I was in a hurry so I was walking a little faster than the people around me. I passed a guy and girl that came out of the dorms. I wasn't too far ahead of them when I had to stop to cross the street and they caught up. As we waited for the flashing man and beeping sound I overheard the guy say to the girl, "There are so few attractive redheads." I was so upset! So what that I didn't really do my hair today or really my make-up either!! That is no reason to say I'm unattractive! At least say it quietly enough that the redhead standing two feet from you doesn't hear it! I had the next ten minutes or so to think about it as I walked to the other end of campus. Then I had my lab so the comment was pushed out of my mind. After class I was walking along and started thinking about it again. He must have meant that there are so few redheads that are like myself, attractive that is. That may not be how he meant it, but I'm going to take it that way. So there man that speaks too loud in public!

Might As Well

Just so everyone knows my apartment is now completely set up. I painted the bathroom a green/blue color. It's really pretty. I want to paint just about every wall in our apartment, but since it has to be painted back white when we leave again my husband didn't want to paint any walls. Our compromise was the bathroom.

I went climbing for the first time. It was really fun, I was kinda surprised at myself. It does wonders to have someone that is completely confident in my abilities with me. I think I will go again...when my arms and back stop screaming at how crazy I was for making them work.

My husband is heartbroken about losing his Jeep. He has since spent much time online trying to find a four door car that he doesn't think is stupid. He's hoping that in a year we can get a used Mazda M3 that with the money from the Jeep. His first day of looking for cars just got him really depressed. Then he decided to broaden the price range and got a little happier. Today he went on the Mazda website just to look at the new cars and now he's in dreamland.

On Being Positive

Yesterday my mom surprised me by taking me back to school shopping! YEAH! I didn't expect it, but she said she could read through my jeans and thus they wouldn't last me at all during the year, so there you go. This made me so happy!

I was in such a great mood going to a friend's baby shower last night. Then this lady came in. When I got married two months ago I failed to give her a wedding announcement/"invitation" and I have not stopped hearing about how much it hurt her feelings since. Last night she came up to me in front of everyone at the shower and said, "Did you know you didn't invite me to your wedding?" When my mom replied that we didn't know where to send the invitation (which is true since she hasn't really lived in the house that was in our ward for two years now) she said, "Even my friends from Canada seem to have managed to track me down to get me wedding invitations!" Well, I figured it was best not to say anything since what I have to say to her isn't all that nice. Here is my response to this lady:

• We really didn't know where to send the invitation. We didn't have your address. If you're not good enough friends to keep in contact with us so we have your address, I don't think it is necessary to send you an invitation to my wedding.
• Miss Manners says I can invite anybody I want.
• My mom DID call you a week before the wedding and invited you personally to the reception. You had people visiting from out of town and didn't come anyway.
• If you feel you are good enough friends with my family to feel left out of the party unjustly, then you should also feel that you are good enough friends to know you can just come! That's what another lady did, and I was so grateful for her understanding.
• My wedding day is about me, not you. Now that you've made it about you I don't feel sorry for not inviting you.
• How could I not know I didn't invite you to my wedding, I've been hearing about how horrible I was for not inviting you for the last two months now.
• After all of these points if you're still upset about not being invited, you can still give me a present if that's what's bugging you.

So anyway, there goes a whole night down the crapper. I was incensed.

On the plus side, when I got up today I got to put on brand new clothes.

A Precarious Perch

When I moved into the basement of my in-laws house the previous tenant, my sister-in-law, warned me of the huge spiders that also call the basement home. Let me first say I have nothing against spiders when they live in their natural habitat. When I encounter them in the great outdoors I simply give them their space and let them live their lives. When they are in my domain it is an entirely different story. Mostly when I happen across the two inch brown hairy monsters I just call for my husband to come kill it. (Two inches might be an exaggeration, but that's what it seems like when you're staring one in the face, eye-to-eye on the sofa. Well, my husband is gone.

Today started like any other day. I woke up way later than I thought I would, spent a small time in the morning with the ritual I have come to know and love. Feed Tigger, feed myself, let the dogs out to "go potty," read the funnies, take a shower. It was at that last step when it all went downhill. I get into the shower and start washing my hair when I turn around and see one of these mutant spiders INCHES from my foot. Instantly I climb up on one of the seats that are in the shower. I have no idea what to do. Do I call for help from my mother-in-law. Surely that would not do. With no help on the way I had to figure out what to do fast. Was it me or was that creepy thing following me up the wall to the seat? My nemesis is blocking my exit to get the toilet paper to send him swirling down the toilet. The tricky spider can't outsmart me! I just angled the water spray right behind him until he slid right down the drain. Success! I conquered that problem. Only moments after his body finally made it down the drain in the shower did my mistake really hit me. The drain is in the middle of the shower. RIGHT WHERE YOU STAND to get the stream of water. Now I have the possiblitiy of the spider climbing up the drain and right onto my foot. This would never do. I had to spend the rest of the shower on the seat bending over to wash my hair. Maybe that's also why I wont go to the bathroom in the dark. I'll have to think about that one. All I can say is that it is a good thing I am moving out on Sunday!

Some Pig

Last night I went with my parents to the Interstate Fair. I had so much fun! For those of you interested I ate: 1 corn dog, funnel cake, caramel apple, and hawiian shaved ice (the tropicalsno variety). If you knew me you would know that that's a lot for me to eat. I loved it. We walked the circut of commercial barns (daddy bought a mop and some olives) the auto barn, and the flower barn. By far the best part of the fair was again the baby pigs! They had some that were born August 30 and some that were born September 4. The smaller ones were playing like puppies when we got there only they were snorting. Sometimes I think it would be fun to own a baby pig, like Wilbur, but then I looked at "Big Mama" their mom and realized that she probably weighed twice what I do. Although she came when her owner called her and loved to have her ears scratched, I DON'T think I could handle owning a full grown pig. So that's about it for the fair. A fun time was had by all.

It's Official

Well, it's official, Tigger is my favorite dog. I decided to make it official this morning when I looked down at his ever watchful face. He loves to monitor computer use. Plus, yesterday mischief pounced on my foot giving me a big fat bruise that hurts really bad. (This is on top of peeing on my Physics textbook and deficating on my white pants.) I love Rommie, she has the best personality for a 13 pound dog. The only problem is that she's the biggest dog I've ever lived with. My guess is in the neighborhood of 100 pounds. For anyone who knows dogs, she's a Bernese Mountain Dog. She loves people and loves to be petted. When new people come though she barks at them just as much as my mom's little Quinn, well more now that we've trained Quinn not to. That big, low, gruff bark would make me thing she's about to eat me, not welcoming me in. I'll admit that it's pretty scary to have three dogs rush you barking to beat the band. I always feel like apologizing to new people that come over for the first time. Tigger, although he does bark, he quickly retreats when he finds out it's someone he doesn't know. Plus, he follows you quietly around the house. He's supposed to be a herding dog, not a people dog, but I think that since he's never been around any sort of herd he decided that the people are the herd and he follows you around just to make sure where you are. He can't jump really, but he's sneeky enough to get the food off the counter. Anyway, he's my favorite.

WAY too much time

Well, as you all know my husband left on Wednesday for school and I'm not going to leave for another few days. On top of that my in-laws, whom we've been living with this summer, are out of town until tomorrow evening. I've been alone all week (OK so only three days, but it's been a LONG three days.) Plus, I had been waiting around to try and get a hold of the proctor for my test. Good news, I took the test today which means I'm on my way to the next one. Anyway, I've been bouncing around this house alone with the three dogs for a while now and I decided that I have way too much time on my hands here. I don't have anyone to take up my thoughts but me. Sometimes that's good, but not when you're lonely and you want someone else around. Grrr. I realized I needed a distraction when I sent out five emails in one day. (That may not seem like much to most of you, but I tend to keep my volume of emails at a minimum.) When I want to hear from people I just send out emails kind of like casting out the bait and then check my computer way more than I should just to see who I hooked. Today I was delighted to recieve an email from the lovely Mary. It was good to hear from her.

Tomorrow is my friend's wedding so that should be good. Plus, it's Saturday and my mom wont be working. That means I can hang out with her. It's so funny, but next to my husband my mom really has been my best friend here this summer. I love to hang out with her. She's so funny. Today we went to Luna's for lunch. It was delicious.

Two Inch Holes

Well, my husband is officially in our new apartment and moving all our stuff in too. No, I'm not with him because my high school best friend is getting married on Saturday and I wanted to be here for that. I'm following my husband to Corvallis a week from Friday. (A random thought totally unrelated to this post is where did my summer go? I think I lost a week in there somewhere and I can't seem to get it back.)

On Tuesday my Father-in-law and Brother-in-law thoughtfully decided to help us move our sofa up from the basement. This is where the first of the two inch holes appeared. They put a two inch hole in the fabric of my sofa. I was DEVISTATED. I called all my girlfriends all my female relatives (except Katie not because I don't love her, but because she never answers her phone. I wrote her an email instead). My mom luckily found some fabric in Boise that is the same pattern only smaller. I think the way we're planning on fixing it will make it seem not noticable at all.

Tuesday night we packed all our belongings up in the U-Haul. Turns out that now I'm married I own a whole ton of things. Looking at all our home furniture made me feel really grown up. I own furniture! Sure it's not the best furniture, but it's mine, well, ours. But still!

Wednesday morning came and my husband changed the tires/wheels on his Jeep (yes, you do need more than one set of these for different activities). He checked the owner's manual for his Jeep to see how to hook it up to the tow dolly on the back of the U-Haul. He did EXACTLY as the manual told him to. Well, this is where the second two inch hole appeared. Turns out the manual was wrong and the engine EXPLODED just after he left town. Yes, it ruined the engine. Pieces of metal went flying and that's what cut the two inch hole in his oil pan and his rear wheels locked up and the U-Haul overheated. It was a real mess.

Because I was the one that was responsible for us getting the auto insurance in the first place I was also in charge of calling in the claim. Hopefully the insurance will pay for the damage and my dad says he and his buddy will put in a used one he found for only $800. That way we can get the check from insurance and avoid having to pay the deductable.

Anyway, this move is becoming a bit of a mess now. My husband took my car down to school with him and left the Jeep here for me to figure out. I was planning on driving my car down to school so unless they can fix the Jeep pronto I have no car to get to school in. Mom and dad say it will get figured out though so I'm trying not to worry about it too much until after I hear from progressive.

Green and Sparkly

Well, to interrupt the commentary on physics I thought I'd let everyone know of the new vaccuum my husband and I recieved this weekend! My mom and dad were at Costco and saw a little vaccuum and, remembering me telling her I didn't have one, my mom bought us one! Isn't that GREAT?! It's just a little inexpensive one that I'm sure wont last for a long time, but the fact of the matter is that it's ours! It is green and sparkly and has a telescoping handle for easy storage! Plus, it doesn't have any bags to empty. When you vaccuum you can see all the stuff you're picking up! I'm such a dork, but I love this little wonder! It made my day! It was a nice rest from physics to put it together and try it out! I brought it home to show my husband and he said, "nice." I'm not quite sure why I love this so much. I mean if my husband had said he bought me a present and it turned out to be a vaccuum I would not be happy at all. As the matter stands right now it's a present for BOTH of us and I'm elated! We needed one and I love it! YEAH!

PS. Should I really be this excited over a new vaccuum? I don't know and I don't really care.

Day 2

Just so everyone knows, my wonderful sister sent me a link to a site that is basically some professor teaching me about the subject I was having trouble with. Athough it was very helpful and I was incredibly greatful it still did not help me answer the stupid problem. I came to the point where I decided that since it wasn't a question that had to be graded anyway I would just skip it and try to move on with my life (something that is very hard for me to do when I haven't figured out a problem that I SHOULD know). I have learned quite a bit today, but I think I'm still going to need another day to review the problems I did today and try and complete them in one go. Today I had to start each question over three times before I could get them right. Stupid algebra and physics. Anyway, at least I'm moving in the positive direction. Plus, today I was in a better mood about my life, which you wouldn't think had any relevance to physics questions, but it did somehow.

Physics

If any of you were wondering whether or not it is a good idea to try and teach yourself physics let me inform you of my attempt at it. I'm getting pretty frustrated at this point. Most of the material is fairly straightforward, but then there's always 1 or 2 sections per chapter that I'm just confused about. The chapter started off with an entire paragraph to tell me that emf means battery or something that produces a potential difference (to all of those that actually know physics and that I'm totally oversimplifying the situation, I only need this class to graduate and thus don't really care) Today the confusing section is the "branch-loop method" of solving problems in DC circuts. Also I'm struggling through the idea of RC circuts. I hope I figure this out soon, like today, because I need to be taking a test over this chapter and two more by next week! YIKES!

One of the things I think I missed the most about my home when I moved out for my freshman year in college was the music. My mom and sister and me dancing in the kitchen, my dad breaking out into song in the middle of the grocery store, or the little game of word association into song that my family plays with my dad that rubbed off on me. I love them all! I wanted that musical spirit to be part of my new home and family with my husband. I was worried, but honestly now I have no idea why. My husband is the one that will sing to EVERY song he knows on the radio. And even now, as I'm typing this I can hear my father-in-law in the kitchen making up a song. I think it's about one of his dogs. Probably Romie since that's his favorite.

Anyway, the other night I was really sick after eating dinner and I went down and laid on our bed. My stomach hurt so much it had cramped up and I was sitting in a ball in the middle of the bed. My sweet husband came down and was sitting with me trying to think of something he could do for me. I told him I wanted him to sing me a song while I was laying there. (I'll usually do that or have him read something in Spanish, I love the way that sounds.) He started to sing the Happy Birthday song, but I stopped him and told him to sing a hymn, since I figured those were songs he would know the words to mostly. He found his spanish hymnal and started singing. On the songs I knew the words to I started to sing along. Then he got me the english hymnal so I could get all the songs he wanted to sing. Sometimes we would sing together in english sometimes I would have him sing in Spanish alone. We would try to harmonize on some songs. We spent over an hour just sitting there singing. I don't know when my stomach stopped hurting because we kept singing for long after that. He doesn't even mind when I get the giggles because our "harmonizing" is pretty gross sounding sometimes. I love that man! He is so fun! He loves me so much!

Aargh

So I was thinking about health insurance, as I'm still sick and wondering about such things. I looked on the OSU website. When my husband told me that OSU charged $400 a term for ONE person for health insurance I thought he must have got it wrong. I went on just to check and it turns out he did get it wrong. It is $554 a PERSON a TERM. That means I would have to pay that much just to cover me for three months! That's crazy! The only way I would pay that were if I were preg-o or had a chronic disease!

T v. W

Well, I've been married a little over a month and have run full force into a huge difference between the two families. Here is the story:

I got sick on Saturday. I told my husband I wasn't feeling well in the morning during breakfast. He still really REALLY wanted to go to the gun & outdoors show so I caved and said I'd go with him. (Don't get me started about that last sentence.) Anyway, we went with his parents and left around noon. John, my father-in-law, decided he'd get us lunch and when we stopped at the place I was so sick to my stomach that the smell of the Mexican food was torture! (Probably a bit of an overstatement.) So everyone else ate while I just sat there. We went to the fairgrounds and found out that it was NOT as my husband had though and gun & outdoors show but merely a gun show. Since nobody was REALLY interested in paying the money just to go look at guns we decided to bag the whole idea. I was very grateful thinking that I would be able to return home soon. John had the alternate activity of going to look at the Saline (I'm not sure how to spell that one), which is some type of Mustang. I was perfectly happy with that since I figured it would be quicker than the gun show anyway. Little did I know what was ahead of me. I got SO SICK on the way to Coeur d'Alene that we had to pull over at the first gas station he could see so I could throw up in the restroom. Then we STILL MADE two other stops after having established how sick I was. I was so very upset at this I just made myself sicker. Plus, the motion of the car was making things in my stomach even worse. I was really glad at this point I had not eaten any of the Mexican food at lunch. I am still feeling a little under the weather six days later. I have calmed down and just realized that the reason my in-laws are acting like this is a basic philisophical difference between our families. I thought it was just because they didn't really think I WAS sick. I thought it might be because they didn't CARE that I was sick. No, no. The reason is that in my family the focus on a sick person is making them feel the best they can while on the road to recovery. You make sure they have enough blankets, you give them time to sleep and make sure they have the food they need. In my husband's family the focus is on making you feel as normal as possible to help you focus on BEING recovered. Therefore they treat you as much like you are not sick as they can. This means they don't really check in on you (this included my husband for a while) or anything of the sort. While neither way is wrong it certainly did hurt my feelings until I understood that I had to ask for any help I wanted. Now I ask and they are more than happy to help me. What a fiasco! Next time I must remember that I'm not with my parents before I get my feelings hurt.

PS. I can't wait to be better. I'm so tired of being sick at the moment.

Pure Green Comfort

Just so everyone knows, my mom and dad are getting a new leather sofa this afternoon. The important part of that is that my Sweetie and I got the old one. It is pure green comfort. We moved it into the basement and for some reason Daniel thought I could carry half of it from the driveway around the house to the back basement door without needing to put it down. He's crazy. I got a rug burn on my wrist. And we had to take the door off the hinges to get it inside. Now it is set up under some windows and I love it.

Pretty OK

Just so everyone knows this post will be mushy.

My life is just one rolling stress ball of things that I have yet to get done. The other day I was particularly wound up about everything. I was worried about having money for school (a big one since we are about $8000 short right now). I was worried about needing to call Brother Shelby to ask for help filling out my FAFSA ( I looked at it with Dan and got physically ill because I have no idea what I'm doing). We don't have a place to live at school, which I shouldn't worry about because we will eventually have one, but we don't right now so I'm a little stressed about that. Also, I haven't yet got everything moved into our place in the basement-everytime I go down there I just get overwhelmed with all the stuff we have ALL OVER the place. We still needed to go return things at Macy's and also we have a four page list of people to send thank you notes to. I have to make sure I have everything for work. I have to go to the bank. And on top of that I had just done my first real day of working on my Independent Study physics course. Just so you know my goal is to get it done in 7 weeks and now I'm thinking that maybe when I made that goal I was INSANE. Well, I was working on physics when Dan came home and we had dinner. John, his dad, had been asking me about all our financial stuff and it just made me realize that we really have no idea what's going on there. It would be nice just to know, you know? So I was pretty upset by the time that dinner was over. Dan said that instead of going down and cleaning the basement or going to the bank or checking anything off my list we should just go and watch a movie in the basement together. I am so glad that he did that. I just had time to relax and be with him. At one point in the dark room I turned and looked at him and my love for him just washed right over me so strong. I love how calm he is! I love his sense of humor! I love his eyes! They are so beautiful. Did you know he has a freckle on his ear? I love that too! He works so hard and I know that he loves me too! I love being cuddled next to him and making it so hot that he is sweating buckets. He never says anything about the heat. So I decided that night that I like my husband pretty ok. Boy am I blessed.

Super Powers

I have had a kid in my classes for two weeks now. The first week he went the full day, which includes two classes then a lunch finishing off with two more classes. The second week his mom only signed him up for one class then lunch then the two classes to finish the day. He came into class in the middle of the second week and declared I was his favorite teacher. Then he said, "Do you know why?" I told him no. He responded by saying, "Because this week you made lunch come sooner." I have now found my super power....controlling lunch.

A to Z

I have had TONS of funny things happen at work this week. The only problem is when I get home to write them down I've completely forgotten all of them! DRAT! Anyway, the only thing I can remember right now is from my "Fun From A-Z" class. The other day we were doing the letter V. I asked what begins with V. Apparently none of their parents have made it this far in the alphabet because none of them knew what begins with V. I told them vegetable begins with V. Our project was doing a vegetable garden. The first vegetable we did was a carrot. Because of this they were hooked on the carrot the WHOLE time. I asked them several times, "What does V stand for?" They would all shout back to me, "CARROT!" I was SO nervous when the moms came to pick up their kids. Then while I was walking down to lunch I overheard one mom ask her son, "V is for...?" And he made my heart soar when he said to her, "VEGETABLE!" I was so happy! Nevermind I had heard, "V is for carrot" about a billion times before. At least one kid remembered.