April 2, 2013

We went up to Michigan this past weekend for Easter, and took pictures because we were on vacation.  And as I started to share them on facebook, I realized I hadn't posted anything on here in a while.  However, I hadn't realized it had been *quite* this long.  In anycase,  I thought I would share some of the more interesting pictures/stories, and play a bit of catch up.

This is a picture of the birthday cake I made for my brother-in-law's birthday.  It looks kinda silly (the candle's are supposed to be arranged in his age, but you can't tell :/ ), but it was delicious, and we had a very nice afternoon/lunch with him celebrating his birthday, so it was a good day.   :)

A while later, I was working on  avoiding some homework, and found a youtube video on how to do a five-strand braid.  technically, I didn't take this picture; my husband did, but this is my first attempt at doing it.  Well, the first time I managed to make it down to the end of my hair at least.  The first few tries, I couldn't get all of my hair IN it.  It *is* kinda difficult to manage 5 different strands of hair like that. :-/

Over Easter break, we went up to Michigan for a big family event.  We stayed for a few days in Frankenmuth, and while we were there, we visited Bronner's Christmas store.  That place is mind-boggling-ly huge, but there are a lot of incredible sights there.  (For example, think of a standard size walmart, that sells nothing but ornaments.  Bronner's does that, but they sell other things too, like trees, and lighted houses, and stockings, and lawn ornaments...)  Anyways, in the lighted house displays, I was very excited to see a Williamsburg themed section, complete with Continential soldiers playing fifes and drums.  It was really neat.  Aside from that, we got to tour Frankenmuth some, a town nicknamed "Michigan's little Bavaria."  To be fair, we didn't get a WHOLE lot of time to sightsee there, but it was a really neat little place, and we had a good time seeing stuff, and more importantly, seeing some family.

Let's see, other exciting things.  Well, we graduate in ...31 days?  Just over a month, it's kinda ridiculous. It's kinda scary, too, as neither of have jobs lined up specifically, though we DO have an interview lined up for the week after graduation that we're pretty excited and hopeful about. So anyways, preparing for graduation and dealing with a full load of classes and work (while fighting off a mild case of senioritis), has kept me pretty busy, which is probably a LARGE part of why I haven't posted anything on here since the semester got into full swing.  Also contributing to that, is that through some unfortunate circumstances, my husband and I are now sharing "my" camera, and as he's actually taking a class titled "creative photography"...there's not really THAT much sharing going on.  but summer's coming, and hopefully soon after, larger paychecks, so maybe we'll be able to remedy that problem soon. :)

January 17, 2013

I think this picture is a fairly good summary of my day, or at least some of the highlights of it.  In the front, is a birthday card I received today from one of my aunts.  It's cool, 'cuz 1 - getting mail is kinda a big deal for college kids (especially when it's not junk mail! :D ), and 2 - ..face it, that's a kinda cool card.  It stands up on it's own, and looks like a tiered birthday cake.  in 3-D.  definitely pretty cool.  Just behind it is a candle we got for Christmas.  Aside from the fact that I'm having a mini obsession with candles, the highlight of my night is probably going to be waiting for it to burn out. I got to watch it's twin burn out the other day, and now I'm kinda excited to see it again.

Random side note, the plate the candle's sitting on is a plate my husband painted several years ago.  It has a paintball gun on it, with a paintball that says "splat."

Everything else on the table is basically just stuff that we need to take care of, but haven't yet. For example, there's some Christmas presents we haven't quite figured out what to do with yet, and several bits of homework that have yet to be finished.  Aaannd....that's a quiet Thursday for here.

Jan 16th, 2013

In my Literature class, we're reading Hamlet, and my professor keeps talking about how Shakespeare used words to paint a picture, so my plan was to do the same, but...I'm tired, and not that great with words.  All the same, no picture today, but I do have a funny story  (and I'll try to be a little wordier than I usually am, to make up for the lack of picture and be a bit more Shakespeare-an).

After a fairly long day of classes and homework, I went to the cafeteria for work.  As a student manager, I get to find out about all the weird things that happen during my shifts, even if I'm not in close proximity to those occurrences when they actually happen.   For example, today I heard one of the guys in the dish room start talking to my co-manager, and a few minutes later, my co-manager was holding a slightly bent food trap (that would no longer fit where it was supposed to), and asking where he could find a meat cleaver.  Not knowing where we keep the meat cleaver (and also thinking perhaps we shouldn't start beating a food trap with one, even if we could find one), I went and asked our boss, if that was the course of action we should take, and if so, where we could find a meat cleaver.  She said that we would have to beat the bend out, but she would use a hammer instead, and then told me where to find a hammer.

So, I go get the hammer and get the thing straightened out, and then go tell her that we did get it fixed and she didn't need to send in a work order or anything.  However, I think she may have slightly misunderstood me, and thought I meant that I had found the hammer, and was getting ready to go straighten it out.  she asked me, "Have you seen the Hobbit?"  and after seeing my nod, she told me, "Pretend you're a dwarf, making the swords and such."  I thought, "Oh, that would have been way cooler, I should have done that.   I mostly just thought 'wow, I'm making loud noises; this is kinda fun.'"

Jan 14th

Today's story is the newest installment to our story about getting internet at our apartment.  After classes, we went to the company's office to get everything straightened out once and for all. And in return, she just handed us a modem and let us put in ourselves.  Unfortunately, it's not cooperating with us for whatever reason, so we're STILL gonna have to have someone come out and fix it for us, but ...we're much closer than we were last week. :)



In anycase, the picture is of an old building next door to the branch office.  I thought it was really pretty (though, to be fair...I didn't actually notice it until my husband said something; I was a bit preoccupied with figuring out where I was supposed to park.), so I took a picture of it, and here they are.  One is of the whole building; the second is a close up of the largest window in the first.

January 13, 2013

Merry Christmas and happy New Year!  I should have lots of pictures from my break, as it was a pretty interesting on, but...I forgot to take my camera charger, so it might not have worked out for me to take many pictures anyways.  But now I'm back home, and that's not an excuse, so....this might work out a bit better now. Also, in attempt to kinda make up for the super long absence of any sort of post at all, I have two pictures/stories for the day.

In the school cafeteria, the napkin holders have special nutrition notes on the side of them.  Tonight at dinner, I realized that one of the current notes is this:

I thought this was kinda funny because it reminded my of a story my parents told me while I was home.  My brother suggested that they (my parents and brother) go out for Indian one night, and so they did.  Dad's not super into really hot, spicy food, but decided he'd be able to find something to eat.  So apparently, he goes to this buffet and eats everything (except for the mildest thing they served) and burns everything in his mouth at least twice.  And then it was time for dessert.  So he decides he likes pickles, so he'll try the pickled carrots.  Turns out, in India, they pickle carrots in peppers (I believe is what they said), so it was REALLY hot, instead of normal pickle flavor like he was expecting.  

This is the picture of the other story I have to tell.  I know the pictures on the TV screen are really kinda bad (but you try to take a picture of your TV.)  Anyways, there are two things you need to know for this picture to make sense, and actually be kinda funny.  One, I go to a Christian University, which one of the things I appreciate about is their standards for television and movies and stuff (which is to say, you could get in pretty big trouble for watching something really inappropriate, but they don't *really* care if you watch kinda inappropriate stuff in your room or own your own, but they won't like, endorse the showing of those television shows or movies or whatever.)  And the second is what this picture actually is.  In the student center building, they have two televisions in the main hallway, usually showing newsheadlines and stuff.  The TV on the left is showing CNN; the TV on the right is Family Guy (or something like it...it WAS Family Guy when we went into dinner).  Anyways, I just thought it was funny to have that be showing on the school televisions like that.

day 86

Today wasn't too terribly interesting.  We had two brand new people at youth group, as well as several people who haven't come in a long time, so that was really exciting and encouraging to see. :)  Even though there were many encouraging things that happened at our church today, our church is still going through a pretty rough time, so if you'd remember to lift us up in prayer (especially our pastor and his family), it would be very appreciated.

Anyways, on a much more personal, like, "my life" basis...not a whole lot has happened the past two weeks. Well, I mean...a lot has happened, but...how interesting is "our teacher didn't put the assignments up 'til late" or "I had a test today" really?  So I suppose, really...nothing particularly interesting has been happening lately.  Last weekend, I switched shifts (for the day) with one of my friends 'cuz he had a meeting, so I had to work through lunch, but not through dinner.  That was kind of an interesting change of pace.

And work last night was REALLY interesting.  I thought it was gonna be really crazy because we were short several people.  But somehow, it ended up being okay despite that; probably because we have a really good  crew on Saturday nights.  Of course, I didn't help things much by making a pretty rookie mistake, and feeling extra dumb for it.  I made some waffle batter, and put into the waffle batter dispensers.  BUT, i forgot to put the plug on the spout before I poured it in.  So, essentially, I just poured half a bucket of waffle batter on the counter. ...which dripped on the bottom shelf, and all over the floor.  Obviously, I didn't take a picture of THAT....but after I kinda sopped most of it up with paper towels, and kept it from making a bigger mess...I did take a picture of it.  So, please enjoy this picture of my oopsie:

...and you can't really tell, but I kinda dripped it all the way back to the sink. ..if you can't tell where that is...it's at the far end of that table.  ...it was fun mopping it up at the end of the night. :-/

day 85

This is what I got to look at on my way to work this morning.  I guess it's not the most unusual thing to see, but it's still not something you see everyday, and it was pretty cool to watch the fog (..or steam, i suppose) kinda roll across the lake.  It was a nice surprise to start my Monday. :)

And while today was not terribly exciting, there were still some other things going on to keep it from being just a typical Monday.  I got to have lunch with a good friend, who I haven't seen since near the end of last semester.  Technically, that's going to happen every Monday, but it hadn't happened yet, so it was definitely a nice treat for this week. :)  And then less nice, but I had to give a presentation in one of my classes.  I was really dreading it, mostly 'cuz I don't particularly like the class, feel particularly adept at what we're talking about, or like giving presentations.  But really, it went well, and we gave out cookies, and there were leftovers so...how can something that gave you cookies be that bad?  And then, it was really nice out, so we haven't had to turn on our air conditioner.  We just left the door open, and it was really nice.

The rest of my day was spent doing homework for tomorrow, and writing a paper that's due Friday (since I have two due on Friday).  Well, and trying to find other things to do besides do homework. Like, I cleaned our living room; pulled together one big box of trash and picked up all my books off the floor and couch.