Its been ages...

I haven't posted anything on this blog in ages! I am officially a terrible blogger. There is no way I can update on everything I have done since the last time I was on here, so here is a laundry list of the things I can think of:

**Finished the semester with ALL A'S! (Woo-hoo!)
**Started my summer job at the DMV. (Driver's Licenses, Titles, and Stickers..oh my!)
**"Jumped on it!", did the electric slide, and YMCA'd at Matthieu and Lauren's wedding.
**Went on the CRUISE. (Hands down: best vacation ever!)
**Got a new puppy!! (Frank is the best, most ornery little pug in the world!)
**Enjoyed some tasty delights at the Sesser Homecoming (Corndogs...yum)

That is all that popped into my mind for now. But here are some upcoming events that I am looking for:
**A trip to Nashville to see Valerie! (Demo's...here I come!)
**Swim Bash '09 (The tans may fade, but the memories will last forever.)
**Holiday World (...anyone?)
**Starting my last semester of college as a student teacher! (Yay!)

Here is a photo of us at the beach in Coco Cay!


This is Brett and I snorkeling in Nassau, Bahamas.

Whooops....

I am not doing so well with my blog. It had been ages since I have written anything, but I have a good reason: I am so busy!!! Between classes, observing, working, and some more occasional working, I am beat! Sadly I haven't had any interesting things to blog about either.

BUT HERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS--

The cruise is only 2 months away!!! Yippee! I am ecstatic. Can't wait. I started tanning this week in preparation. I hope to be all tan and ready by the time the cruise gets here. I wouldn't want to get burned under the hot Bahamas sun. (So I am getting burned under the artificial UV lights, hmmm...)

Snow Dog...and some snow art!

My dog, Jake, does NOT like the snow. I made the mistake of putting a small lump of snow on his back and he HATED it! He ran over the the very icy part of the yard and started rolling all over it trying to get the snow off. I felt kind of bad... He didn't hold a grudge for long. When I brought the camera outside his inner-diva came out. He tried to lick the camera, as the above pictures show. Haha! I love it! He is such a cutie!

He sat and watched while me and Andrew made some art in the snow. We experimented with writing our names in the snow. For the first try I used the shovel to make a GIANT 'DANIELLE' in the snow. It took me like half an hour... and the result was definitely NOT worth the effort. For the second try, I followed Andrew's lead and just wrote my name in the snow with my finger. It was much prettier and easier to photograph! See the pictures....what do you think??

Snow Day Baking!

I have been so bored over the last two days, and I have conjured up a variety of baked goods to pass the time! Yesterday I made molten lava chocolate cakes. They were similar to the ones that they have at Applebees, just without the hard shell. Today, we made both chocolate chip cookies and M&M's cookies!. AND THEN, as if that wasn't enough sweet stuff, I made some homemade hot fudge sauce to go over some ice cream and the left-over molten lava cakes. I guess being stuck indoors gives me a sweet tooth. I didn't really eat much of it, but I just had the urge to bake! Bake, bake, bake! All day long! (I am so bored.)

Oh! I got some more of my free stuff today courtesy of UPS! [Apparently the regular ol' U.S. Mail is NOT braving the snow today. What ever happened to 'snow, sleet, and shine'? My credit card payment better not be late.....] McGraw-Hill sent me some anti-bullying supplies. Complete with a VHS tape and musical cd (which features, oddly, "Puff the Magic Dragon?" Am I the only one who finds that strange?)

Whatever, Alexis...

I love to watch The Martha Stewart Show. Yes, I know, that officially makes me a nerd. I like to watch her organize the linen closet and boil spaghetti to perfection. She also makes funky crafts, like today's napkin Valentine's Day heart rings. It is usually very interesting to watch.

USUALLY.

Sometimes, though, Martha gets a little crazy. Like right now for instance. Right at this minute I am watching Martha make "manure tea." What is manure tea? Basically you take horse crap, put it in a burlap sack, then let it float in a barrel full of water. DISGUSTING! (No..You don't drink it, you just use it to fertilize your plants. It is still gross. Organic, but gross.)

For comic relief, Martha's hateful, witch-of-a-daughter, Alexis, and her friend Jennifer watch old tapes of Martha's show and comment on the stupid segments like "manure tea." At first I HATED this show. I thought, what an ungrateful brat of a daughter! How rude to make fun of your mother on television!

...Then I realized that Martha Stewart produces the show. I finally got around to watching the Intro to the show, too, which explains that the show was Martha's idea. SO NOW, I love the show! Ha! Now that I have Martha's blessing, I feel better watching the show.

Admittedly, some of the segments are impossibly ridiculous. Today I watched a woman teach Martha how to do dishes properly. I've also seen her box up a house plant for travel. And do yoga with a dog.

Really? Are these things necessary? I just don't think so..
Check out the show anyway! It is actually pretty funny! I laugh.

OHH! Speaking of dishes, look at these so so so cute juice glasses my great-grandma Ninny Jo gave me! They are just the cutest! They are tiny little things with seahorses and waves on them. They might be hard to see, but they are just my favorite!

The Best Things in Life are Free!

I have TONS of free merchandise coming in the mail, and I am very excited about it. It's just a bunch of random teaching material, but I'm still psyched. Among the things I have on the way are:

-A Tiger Woods Character Building Kit (...already got it, and it is super)
-Abraham Lincoln posters, lesson plans, bookmarks, and a resource CD (Yes VAL, ABE Lincoln!)
-A lesson unit on railroads
-Mars vs. Earth comparison poster
-Comic books about currency, banking, foreign trade, and investing (How exciting is that?!)
-Sacajawea bookmarks
-....and tons of other things that I don't even remember!

An unrelated anecdote:
I found a recipe for banana cake in Tyler's new cookbook and wanted to try it out. So I had my mother pick up some bananas at Kroger's like a week ago had to wait until they got all of those brown spots on them. Yesterday they were finally ready, so I made the cake. And let me just say, banana cake is NOT good. It is so thick and chewy...it was not good. I couldn't even finish the whole piece. Take my word for it, banana cake is not a good thing. (Andrew liked it...but he's the only one.)

I am usually pretty good at making cakes, though! I made an Italian Wedding cake for my mom's birthday earlier this month and everyone said it was delicious. I don't like nuts, pineapple, or coconut, though, so I didn't try it. But I think it was pretty! I'll post the picture.



Also
I've been getting my W-2's in the mail. (Finally!) Luckily, all of MINE were addressed correctly. This is more than I can say for a poor teenager in Australia. Check out this sad story... How awful is that?! :(

A Great Week!

This week I went to Red Lobster THREE times! On Sunday Brett and I went for dinner, on Monday I went with my grandma for lunch, and on Friday I went with my family and Brett for dinner to celebrate my mother's birthday. That is a LOT of Red Lobster, but it was so good. I ordered different things all three times, and all of them were delicious.

In addition to three trips to Red Lobster, I also went to Target three times! No trip to Marion is complete without making a stop at Target, my favorite chain store on the planet! They were having a 90% off sale on all of their Christmas items, so I just had to take advantage. I got over 350 Christmas ornaments for $7! Can you believe that? I have no real need for 350 Christmas ornaments, but how could I pass up that kind of a deal? Haha.

If you do the math, you would find that I saved $63! But really... I guess I didn't SAVE any money, because there is no way that I would have spent $70 on Christmas ornaments to begin with... At any rate, I have quite a wonderful collection of ornaments that cost me a mere $7. I am set. Now if I only had a tree... (Which they ALSO had on sale for $4.50 from $45.00. But I passed. Where would I store an entire Christmas tree?)

No internet access

A ten-hour drive from Florida to Illinois gives a girl a LOT of spare time. I have a computer, but sadly WiFi is not yet available from the interstate. Such a shame. At any rate, I have had plenty of time to write in Microsoft Word documents. The below posts are the result of one very bored chicka-rita. They are super-long, I know. That is the great thing about a blog, though; no one has to read it! Kind of like a public diary, really…(I just pretend people are actually reading it…Haha)

Oh yeah, Happy New Year!

I’m off to make a list of my resolutions…hopefully this will keep me occupied for a while.

Taylor Swift + Holden Caulfield = the longest post EVER

Hey Stephen,
I know looks can be deceivin’….

Okay, so this is the English language truly at its best…

…I’m only kidding; I try not to be the grammar-police. (mmmm, I can’t help myself..) But really, this is my #1 FaVoRiTe line on Taylor’s entire CD. It just makes me want to dance, baby.

We left on Wednesday for Florida. Before we left I told Brett that I would finish “Catcher in the Rye” AND “Of Mice and Men” by the time we rolled back into town. WELL…we are about 5 hours from home, its pitch dark, I’m exhausted, and I haven’t even cracked open the latter of the two. I did, however, finish ‘Catcher’ and I really enjoyed it.

The book begins with Holden telling (his therapist?) the story of “what happened last December.” From then on the entire book describes about 24 hours of his life. The poor kid has been kicked out of so many schools and doesn’t seem to care. He seems to have no ambition and hates “phonies.” I really loved the way Holden described things because started out by saying he liked something or someone (“I like him, I really do..”) and then gradually he started finding little things about the person or thing that annoyed him until he finally couldn’t stand it anymore. I liked it because it was so honest. So realistic. We are all guilty of that attitude sometimes, or at least I am.

You see someone you haven’t seen in a while and your memory fails. You can’t remember why you couldn’t stand the person six months ago. Then you spend some time with them, and everything slowly comes creeping back to you. All of the little things that annoyed you become obvious again. By the end of the conversation you just want to get outta there and avoid the person for another six months. Am I saying this from experience? No waaay… :)

But back to the book: In the end it becomes very clear that depressed little Holden has ended up in a mental institution. Probably due to a nervous break down. You feel sorry for the kid because he is so personable and believable. He’s just can’t seem to shake himself out of a rut.

In case you STILL aren’t enticed to read the book, consider the following highlights:
Holden hires a $5 (or was it $6?) hooker, chickens out, then gets beaten up by a pimp.
He helps some kids skipping school find Egyptians Mummies and their “tunes” at the Met and finds an obscenity written on the walls.
He crashes at a former teacher’s apartment for the night where he receives a cup of hot coffee, some words of wisdom, and a very inappropriate pat on the head as he sleeps.

It sounds strange, but it is a good read. Read it. You might love it. But be forewarned; it is a bit of a downer.

Edible Bouquets

I am riding home from Florida right now. The trip was….something. It is just such a sad thing, but his parents and sister were just amazing. I have only been to a handful of funerals, but I have never seen anyone be as composed and at peace as they were. And it was such an unexpected tragedy, too. I cannot even begin to describe how much support they had from the small community. I am sure that the effects of everything that has happened will really hit them when everyone leaves, though, and my thoughts are with them.


On a lighter note: Someone brought one of those edible bouquets to the house, and it was SOOO good. I’ve seen these things advertised on television here and there but never gave them much thought. I’m not a big fruit person. But let me tell you, the chocolate dipped banana was a-mazing. I have never used the word ‘delectable’ before, but I am sure it is fitting for this thing… Absolutely fantastic. I recommend it with two thumbs WAY up.