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?)