Legally Brunette

Big ol' wedding planning explosion

2011-02-25T10:11:00.002-05:00

For the past few days, my wedding planning has reached a fever pitch. I think it's finally hit me that the wedding is only about 3 MONTHS away- how crazy is that??? It's been this distant thing for so long that it's taking awhile to sink in that it's not that far off.

Now, thankfully, most of the big stuff was out of the way already. We had the venue, the caterer, the baker, the DJ, the florist, and everything for the ceremony. All we had left at this point was the attire for the men, the DIY projects I've signed up for, the invites, and accomodations/transportation. I am happy to report that after a few days of very intense planning and crafting, I have knocked everything but the attire off the list! I picked a hotel out of the 20+ that I ended up calling, and I'm happy we were able to find something that works perfectly. Bonus- the hotel was able to give us a fantastic deal on a shuttle, meaning that taking care of the hotel also ended up taking care of the transportation. Woot! Side note- for any Toledo brides-to-be, the Country Inn & Suites in Rossford (where we booked rooms) is just a wonderful deal.

I also took care of the majority of the remaining DIY projects. I was able to finish the cocktail table floral arrangements, the aisle decorations, and a big awesome slightly blinged floral monogram piece for our entryway. Hey, I needed a little bit of sparkle for the wedding! And as of last night, I have invites! I was able to meet up with my Aunt Mary, who is a wedding stationery, and picked out some lovely and unique laser cut wedding invites. I'm so excited to see how they look in our colors.

My one and only teensy concern after all this is: wow, we have a ton of DIY stuff that we have to set up at the venue! One of the things that I love, love, love about the Zoo is that they have an on-site coordinator who will help with setting stuff up, but I'm kind of worried that we may have exceeded an unspoken limit on the amount of stuff that they'll handle. Fingers crossed that I'm still ok. Then again, I could always just make someone from the bridal party do it for me. It can be my one and only "I am the briiiiiiide! DO STUFF FOR ME!" moment. :-P

Delightful Belgian brew time

2011-02-17T22:54:00.003-05:00

This evening, I got talked into attending a Belgian beer tasting on campus and I'm awfully glad that I was talked into it! I had heard of the BGSU beer tastings before, but I'd never gone to one. Apparently, each session features a different type of beer (winter brews, hop heavy brews, etc.) and this evening's selection was Belgian beers. We sampled small glasses of six different types of Belgian brews- three pale/blonde ales (my favorite was called Delirium Tremens- voted best beer in the world in 1998, apparently), a cherry beer called Kasteel Rouge (an oddly interesting beer/wine/cough syrup/soda hybrid- sounds awful, but it worked), and two darker ales.

Now normally I don't care for medium to dark ales at all, but one of them- Corsendank- was surprisingly good. It had a very light, smooth finish and none of the weird aftertaste that I normally dislike in darker ales. The other one, well, it was weird. That's not a very descriptive term, I know, but it's the best I could come up with. And in fact, that's what I kept saying as I forced my way through drinking about half of it- "Eww, this is WEIRD!" after each sip.

It was fun to try something new and maybe now I can be a bit more daring in my selections when I'm out for the evening.

Unremembered wedding dress

2011-02-14T10:58:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, Mike and I went up to my parents' place to visit because a family member from out of town was visiting. While up there visiting, I went and picked up my wedding gown!

I had gotten a call in January from the Wedding Bell, the store where I purchased the gown, letting me know that it was in, but I just hadn't had a chance to go in and see it.

The funny and scary part of it was that I actually couldn't even remember what the gown looked like. The picture on the designer's website was so washed out and crappy that you could barely make out any details and I'd forgotten to take a photo on the day bought it, so I was in the dark. I remember it was off white and I remembered the general silhouette, but that was about it. So, trying it on in the store was a pretty big deal for me- I had no idea what I was getting. But, I'm pleased to say that the dress is lovely!

Papers lead to Facebook

2011-02-08T15:01:00.002-05:00

I think I have paper-related ADD. Every time I start working on a paper, I find myself distracted by every little thing- I can't focus. Facebook seems to be the worst distractor for me. I start working and all of a sudden I need to know what is going on with everyone. Even people I don't really know. And apparently, I also become convinced that everyone's lives will change drastically within 2 minute intervals because that seems to be the maximum amount of time I can last before I need to check Facebook again. Thing is, I don't even really like Facebook anymore. Once again, they went and jacked it all up for no good reason. But man, is it ever a good time waster! This is a curse that I fear I shall battle for the rest of my days.

Doggy rescue

2011-02-04T13:34:00.003-05:00

I like to extoll the virtues of being a doggy foster mom, so I was kind of surprised when I realized that, to the best of my recall, I've never blogged about it. So here it comes!

The decision to foster was awhile in coming as both of us (Mike especially) were concerned about what would be involved. Me, with my tunnel vision, well I pretty much just saw DOGGGGGG!!!! But, we finally made the decision after talking to the director of a great foster group. We met her at an adoption event at a local pet store and she really relieved a lot of our concerns. Both of us worried about the time/financial commitment, the responsibility, the actual process, and other stuff but finally just decided that the joy and satisfaction of being able to help a dog in need would probably outweigh any frustration or annoyances.

Mike and I took in our first foster dog, an abused cocker spaniel/poodle mix named Barney, a few years ago. Although we'd both owned dogs in the past, this was different- Barney wasn't the typical playful dog. He was terrified of men and would cower against me whenever Mike entered a room or stood up. He didn't know how to play with a toy and acted as if he'd never seen a treat in his life (which honestly, he probably hadn't). He was reserved, nervous, but the sweetest and gentlest little guy ever. He found a permanent home after just a few weeks with us and although it was tough to see him go, I felt SO glad to know that we'd been the "middle man" in his transition.

On that note, the most common thing that I hear from people when I suggest they foster is "Oh, but I could never give up the dog afterwards". Having given up three foster dogs (we fostered a pair of black lab puppies after Barney and ended up keeping our fourth foster, Fiona, permanently), I can say that it is tough, but you can't look at it as "giving up" the dog. You're giving that dog a new and better life than it would have otherwise known. Plus, you're opening a place in your home for another dog in need! There are so many dogs in need- the foster agency we worked with gets daily requests, sometimes multiples per day- and once you realize all the good you can do, it becomes much, much easier.

The other reason that people give for not wanting to foster is that they think it'll be too much work or cost too much. I can only speak about the agency through which we fostered, but I can say that there was no hardship whatsoever. The foster group provided a huge bag of food, a leash and collar, a toy, and a crate for each dog and in the case of the puppies, a play pen. On top of that, they brought the dogs to us and also transported the dogs to/from all adoption events, vet appointment, etc. We only had to provide love, treats, and shelter.

Additionally, if you have concerns about the type of dog you'd like to foster, these will always be taken into account by a reputable foster agency. You will always get to choose whether or not to take a dog (you're not forced to take a dog just because you're on the foster list), and you can let the agency know if you have size restrictions (i.e.- our apartment complex limited to <40lbs), temperament restrictions, don't feel comfortable with special needs dogs, etc.

Overall, fostering is just one of the most fun and rewarding experiences out there. And if you're not a dog person, there are rescues for all different kinds of animals that would absolutely love to have you sign up to foster- cat rescues, bird rescues, horse rescues, etc.

Finally, if you're not able to provide a temporary home, consider doing transport. In the last few weeks, Mike and I have been lucky enough to serve on two different "rescue trains"- groups of volunteers who sign up to drive dogs from point A to point B in different shifts. A few hours of your time can help get a dog, cat, or other animal into a shelter or rescue that will help it find a home. Your local animal shelter, vet's office, or rescue can probably hook you up with rescue train coordinators or if you're around the Midwest, I can pass along contact info.

Wiley, the catahoula leopard puppy, who was the past weekend's rescue transport charge. He was SO CUTE.

Damned if you do...

2011-02-03T12:49:00.004-05:00

Every semester of teaching, I relearn the same lesson: your students will always be pissed at you for something. I consider myself a fairly positive and understanding prof- I try to help students as much as possible and design my courses in a way that I think fosters learning with limited stress. But inevitably, someone gets angry at me about something. This semester, with my 101 class at least, it seems that "something" is going to be my make-up policy.

I've found in the past that exams seem to cause an awfully dramatic rise in illnesses, car troubles, and deaths of extended family members (most often it's grandmas). Call me cynical, but I just don't believe that many people legitimately have to miss. Because of this trend, I've started instituting a make-up policy where I require documentation (doctor's note, etc.) It's in the syllabus, I remind students about it before the exam, and yet today, I've got a student who is all angry at me because I told him/her (s)he could only miss the exam for illness if (s)he provided a note from a doctor. I do actually believe him/her, as (s)he has seemed like an honest student so far, but I can't change the policy for one student. I tried explaining that, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

So, as usual, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. If I apply the policy uniformly, then I'm considered unfair and insensitive, but if I bend the rules, then I get stuck with a rash of students who take advantage of my generosity. Oh, the joys of teaching!

Twice the schools

2011-01-18T13:30:00.003-05:00

As of last week, I'm officially a multi-class instructor! I've taught my own class each semester since last fall, but always one at a time. This semester, I bowed to the power of the mighty dollar and took on teaching at Owens Community College in addition to my course at BGSU. So, now I'm teaching both 101 and introductory statistics. Thus far, it's not bad! In fact, I'm loving teaching 101. I know a lot of people find it to be a drag, but I like the fact that it's a new and different topic each week or each day. If there's a chapter about which I'm not super excited (i.e.- the parts of the brain), I know that I just have to make it through 1 class period and it's over. Not a bad state of things! Plus, on a non-class note, Owens actually has a faculty/staff locker room, so working out there is much more enjoyable. Plus, it's pretty spiffy to be actual faculty rather than just a grad instructor.

Other side of the table

2011-01-16T23:27:00.003-05:00

This evening, I had the opportunity to judge the Pride of Williams County pageant and what a fun experience it was! It was neat to be on the other side of the table- quizzing rather than being quizzed. Of the four age brackets, I judge the oldest girls (miss) and the second youngest group (junior miss). I was pretty darn impressed by the poise confidence shown by some of the younger girls. There a ridiculously adorable 6 year old in the youngest age category who just blew me away. She walked that stage like she owned it and introduced herself and answered her on-stage question like a pro. I was very tempted to stash her in my pocket and take her home! :-)

And to top it all off, I met some awesome people. I got the chance to chat with a current titleholder in the Mrs. America system and learned what it's like to compete in Mrs. pageants. I'm not sure I'll ever do them, but it was at least cool to hear the details. Plus, now I get to watch the Mrs. America pageant and say that I know one of the contestants! Two of the other women with whom I spoke at great length are directors for a different pageant in the northwest Ohio area. They ended up inviting me to judge for them in July, so now I get to do it all again. I'm pretty excited- this judging stuff is fun!

Things weren't quite all sunshine and roses, though. Unsurprisingly, there were some sour grapes over the results. Only one girl can win, and apparently, one of the mothers was not happy that her daughter was not crowned because she proceeded to loudly proclaim to anyone within earshot (including myself and some other judges) that the judges "don't know sh**". It didn't upset me because I knew that it was just out of frustration. But still, not a very good example to set for one's child!

Detroit

2011-01-07T22:16:00.002-05:00

At the moment, I'm holed up in a delightful little B&B in Detroit (yes, a B&B in the city of Detroit). The place I'm staying is called The Inn on Ferry Street and it's an absolute treasure right smack in the city. It's just around the corner from the Detroit Institute of Art and it's actually a series of three fully restored Victorian houses. Lovely!

But why, you might ask, am I in Detroit of all places? Well, the reason for my stay is much less interesting than the place I'm staying- I'm here for a 2.5 day seminar on a statistical technique called structural equation modeling. The funny thing- or funny things, actually- is that I've found both the seminar and the city of Detroit to be pleasant surprises. I'm shocked to find out that I actually like Detroit! Certain parts, at least. Like any major city, there are areas I definitely would not want to traverse by myself! But overall, it's much nicer than I'd expected. There are tons of little restaurants and shops, some truly amazing old houses and churches, and with all the holiday decorations up, it's actually quite pretty. Last night, on my shuttle ride back from the seminar, we passed an outdoor skating rink surrounded by trees covered in Christmas lights and I just thought wow, not what I would expect here!

As far as the seminar itself, it's not been anywhere near as boring as I initially thought it would be. In fact, it's actually been fun! The instructor's great and I've learned a lot. Funny story, though- the people in charge ordered exactly as many vegetarian meals as they'd need for the first day's lunch (it was a nice plated meal), but two non-veg people took vegetarian meals. P.S.- I hate when people do that! But anyways, they were out of vegetarian meals by the time they got to me, so I had to wait for them to make me a new one. I waited and waited and waited but when it was time to go back to the classroom, I still hadn't had lunch. The director of the program came over and apologized and said that he was going to have them bring it to me in the classroom. So, I ended up sitting there eating ravioli in the middle of a stats lecture. It was a little awkward, but we all got a good laugh out of it. And all's well that ends well, after all!

Polygamy

2011-01-03T20:10:00.002-05:00

No, I'm not going to be come a polygamist! I'm just going to yammer (that is a word!) on about it for a bit. Why? Well, Mike left for Cleveland on Saturday to dogsit for his dad, leaving me alone and bored for the next week. Being as bored as I was, I decided to clean the house and do the laundry. While folding laundry on Sunday, I ended up catching some episodes of the show about the polygamous family on TLC. I think it's called Sister Wives but don't quote me.

Now, I should admit that I went into this fairly biased against the whole idea. It's not that I'm violently opposed to it (I tend to have a "different strokes for different folks" attitude with it), it's just that I don't get it. I simply can't fathom how a woman could voluntarily allow, and even encourage, her husband to date, marry, and sleep with another woman. It's beyond my comprehension. So, I started watching the show with a clear "ick" feeling.

A few minutes into the first episode, I found myself actually surprised by how well-adjusted everyone seemed. The husband was a little bit of an oddball, but the kids seemed happy and healthy, the wives- three of them- seemed happy, and overall, I was thinking "Huh, not what I'd expected!". But then things shifted when it became known that the husband wanted to take a fourth wife. The current wives started opening up about their feelings and that's when I began to feel so sad for them.

I won't go into a full reiteration of what all was said and shown, but there were a few things that really stood out for me. At one point in the show, the second or third wife (I didn't catch the order) literally said that the inclusion of a fourth wife was breaking her heart. She had to leave the room at one point because she was crying.

At another point, the first wife admitted that with each new wife, she feels insecurities bubbling up and has to deal with issues of jealousy and hurt and so forth. That was the first thing that got to me. I just wanted to say to her "Honey, if it hurts you that much each time, you're NOT ok with it and it's not healthy!". But then it showed her trying to explain these feelings to her husband. She asked him (I'm not quoting verbatim here) "How would you feel if I were to date or marry another man"? To which he replied (again, not verbatim) "The vulgarity [that WAS his exact word] of you being with another man is not something I want to think about". So wait... It's ok for him to have four wives, and all of them are supposed to be perfectly happy with it, but the thought of one of them being with someone else is so "vulgar" that he can't even think about it? How is that not a double standard?

Plus, the first wife was dealing with issues of infertility, meaning that each time one of the other wives had a child (I think each of the others had 6 kids), the poor first wife had to face her husband having a child with another woman when she, herself, couldn't conceive. I kid you not, I actually teared up a bit when she was explaining that. I can't even imagine dealing with such heartache over and over and over.

I know that most women in plural marriages were probably raised to believe that it is the path to heaven, so the lifestyle is just the norm. And admittedly, it does show strength of character to put yourself through such heartache in order to support your beliefs. And I'm sure there are some polygamous wives who are truly blissfully happy and would pity me for not being part of their faith. But I just want to hug all those who are discontented and hurting and tell them that they deserve happiness, that they deserve a man who will love them, and them alone. I know I shouldn't question others' religious beliefs, but that show just really got to me.

Back to blogging

2010-12-30T01:46:00.003-05:00

It's over two weeks since I last blogged, but I promise I'm alive! It's break, so you'll have to cut me a little slack. I've been pretty much a slug since school let out, even (as you can see) abandoning my little hobby of writing about whatever is on my mind. But 'tis time to remedy that!

Break has been both good and bad thus far. On the negative end, I'm bored out of my skull most of the time. The gym's closed (boo, BGSU rec center!), pretty much everyone is out of town, and there's just not much of anything going on around here. Plus, Mike's going to be leaving to dog-sit in Cleveland for a week and that means I'll be even more bored and lonely. Sigh!

But on the positive end, I've had a few bursts of productivity that have made the break not entirely a waste up to this point. I finished a first draft of my dissertation proposal- huzzah!!!- and sent it off to my advisor, plus I finished the syllabi for both of my classes. I'll be teaching stats at BGSU and intro to psychology at Owens Community College this coming semester, so I'm trying to get the prep work out of the way prior to the start of classes. I also started reworking the paper that was, unfortunately (and in my mind, very unfairly), bounced from a journal. My hope is to have it cleanly split into two separate papers to be sent to two different journals before break is over. I'm still pretty pissed it got rejected, mainly because I found one reviewer's comments to be truly ridiculous, but I do think it will be better as two manuscripts. And two is better than one, right?

The gym

2010-12-15T20:00:00.002-05:00

Oh, the gym... Such a whacky place! In the last few months, I've encountered a number of funny and annoying trends at the university gym. And given that I haven't blogged for a bit, of course I'm going to share.

Starting with the annoying stuff first, why is it that people can't stay off their darned phones while at the gym? Two cardio sessions in a row now, I've had to listen to whiny girls yelling at their boyfriends on the phone. And I mean yelling, complete with cursing. The last time I was at the gym, I actually had to deal with two different phone chatters. First, there was the yeller but then when I switched to another machine (because I was actually done with the first one, not because of the yeller- I will not be chased off a machine!), there was a second girl on a phone, only this one was screechily yelling and laughing about what a friend did over the past weekend. Argh! I mean, come on, can't you stay off the phone while you're at the freakin' gym? Such a pet peeve.

Now, to funny (and disturbing). I recently encountered something truly strange at the gym. I was in the sauna, stretching after my workout, and when I turned to stretch my other leg, I came face level with the lower half of a 60+ year-old doing a naked backbend. I simply can't describe the feelings from that moment. It was... traumatic. Looking back, I have to give her props for being so confident in her body, but who does NAKED YOGA in a sauna at a university? And without giving any warning to the people sitting right next to you? *Shudder*

And now back to pet peeves. In what I am assuming is an effort to make money, BGSU seems to recently be hell bent on renting out its pool to high school-aged and younger kids alllll the time. This wouldn't be an issue except that unlike CMU, there isn't a separate locker room for recreational users of the fitness center and kids there for meets and classes. That means that the last half dozen times I've been there, the locker room has been filled to beyond capacity with screaming children or preteens. There's nothing quite like a wet little kid barreling into you at full force when you're trying to take a shower. Yup, super fun. I'm sure I'll get accused of "not understanding" because I don't have kids, but child-packed locker rooms are just the worst.

Annnnd back to funny again. A few weeks ago, I was on an elliptical which was situated behind the row of treadmills. This short little guy hopped on to one of the treadmills, started running along for a few minutes, and then bam! He went flying backwards off the treadmill for no apparent reason. He didn't seem to trip, he just went flying backwards! He got up, laughed, got back on the treadmill, and then a few minutes later bam! He flew off again! Believe it or not, this was all repeated a third time before he finally gave up. Sidenote- I feel ok calling this a funny story because he didn't actually appear to be hurt.

Huge duh moment

2010-12-08T17:32:00.003-05:00

Well, I had a huge duh moment this morning! To set this up, I wear contacts and I have two types of contact solution. One is just standard cleaning solution and the other is a peroxide-based cleaning solution. You have to use a special peroxide neutralizing case with the latter and I keep that on hand because it is fantastic at removing buildup. Unfortunately, it was that solution that led to the duh moment.

Apparently, I mixed up the solutions last night, submerging my contacts in the peroxide solution but failing to use the neutralizing case. Fast forward to this morning, and I blithely shoved a peroxide-soaked contact into my eye. Dear sweet heavens above, that hurt. Frankly, I can't even adequately describe the pain. My eye promptly screwed itself shut and no amount of tugging or prying was going to open it up to remove the contact. So for the first few minutes, the contact stayed in place, burning the living daylights out of my eyeball. Then when I finally did get my eye open, the contact folded in on itself and slid waaay up on top of my eye, requiring that I dig around in my already painful eye to find it. I finally removed it completely and then spent the next fifteen minutes or so dumping glassfuls of cold water on to my eye to try to flush out the peroxide.

I think the fact that the bottles differ only in the color of their caps may be partially to blame. Last night's tiredness and a desire to get to my new book make up the rest of the blame. But no matter what, a word to the wise: don't put peroxide in your eye. It hurts like nobody's business and will leave your eye swollen and red all day (yup, still all puffy and bloodshot!).

Turning 26

2010-12-07T20:43:00.002-05:00

It's almost my birthday, so I'm in the mood to reminisce about the past year and ponder what comes next. Beginning random thought process now...

The one thing that really stands out for me about the past year is that I actually feel like an adult now (for the most part). Crazy, I know! I always wondered if there would come a time when I would switch from feeling like a kid playing at being an adult to actually being an adult, and oddly enough, that seems to have happened. I wouldn't say I've grown up, just that I feel like I'm actually doing what I'm supposed to be doing and I'm on track- does that make sense? Probably not to anyone else, but it does to me. I still have my goofy, kid-like moments (and I hope I never lose those), but at the same time, I feel like I now have a legitimate career track, a solid relationship, some level of personal financial security, and other stuff like that.

Along those same lines, I'm proud as a peacock that I made my first real "big kid" purchase- a car. Last February, Mike and I went car shopping, picked out a vehicle, haggled (he did that part because I'm a huge pansy when it comes to that stuff), and payed for it, all by ourselves. That was a big deal for me and a great experience in year 25.

On a not so positive note, I feel like I'm slacking in the friendship department. I really feel like crap about it. I've let grad school become an easy excuse to put my friendships off "until later". Unfortunately, later often does not come. I did get a chance to see Elise a few months back and I was also able to go visit Amanda in D.C., but I hate myself for not keeping in better contact with both of them as well as other friends. Steph's in Iraq again and I haven't even sent her anything yet! Fail, Katie, fail. I can't even express how lucky I am to have friends who have stuck around when I've been so flighty and absent. This leads to my one and only official resolution for the coming year: I am going to be a better friend. I'm going to make time to visit people, send awesome care packages to Steph, and keep in touch with my high school, undergrad, and grad friends who now live away from me. They deserve it.

Back to positive: I feel like I should give myself a pat on the back for making the changes necessary to get myself back on track physically. I've got a long way to go until I'm back to a healthy, happy weight, but I've kicked my butt into gear and it feels good. I've lost about 15 pounds since my peak weight and I hope to lose another 15 or 20 before the wedding. I can do it!

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how this past year turned out. The wedding's almost planned, I'm getting myself back into shape, my research stream is finally reaching a point of legitimacy, and I know where I need to make some improvements in my life. 26, here I come!

More wedding stuff: the music

2010-12-05T18:09:00.002-05:00

Yes, this is another wedding-related post. I tried to think of something else about which to write, but the unfortunate thing about this time of year (end of the semester) is that very little besides work actually happens. It was this or talk about my dissertation. I do find my dissertation pretty interesting, but I didn't think that anyone who reads this would, soooo....

Wedding music! Ceremony music, to be exact. Mike was super sweet and volunteered to take over the task of finding ceremony musicians. Well, actually, he pretty much insisted rather than volunteered, and I was more than happy to hand over the reins. He's such a sweetheart sometimes!

I had originally been of the mindset that we should just have our DJ play for the ceremony. Mike, though, really had his heart set on actual musicians. I know, I didn't expect a guy to care about music, but I'm glad he did. Because he cared, we ended up finding a booking a fantastic string quartet who, wait for it, will play Queen for us!

Now, before you scoff at the idea of classical musicians playing Queen for a wedding, click on the link below. It's a recording of a string quartet playing You're My Best Friend by Queen. This is the song we plan to have for our recessional because it's "our song" and when played on strings, it's just plain pretty and fun!

Vitamin String Quartet playing Queen

I'm also considering walking down to the aisle to a classical rendition of All You Need is Love by the Beatles. I wouldn't really call myself a Beatles fan, but I do like that song, especially on strings. Here's the same group playing that song: All You Need is Love

And if you feel like checking out a music genre that's very rarely associated with classical musical instruments, check out this song Metallica- Nothing Else Matters and the many other fantastic metal covers by Apocolyptica. Again, I'm not usually a fan of this type of music, but it's gorgeous on strings. This group is coming to Flint in March and I'm strongly considering going.

No more decisions

2010-11-28T18:42:00.002-05:00

I've finally reached that point in wedding planning where I just wish there were no more decisions to be made. I wish that I could just snap my fingers and have all my proverbial ducks in a row. I'm still really enjoying the crafting part (I'll have to post pics of the bountonnieres I just made!), but all the little decisions that are left are getting tiresome. Can we just get married already?

The main thing I'm struggling with is what to do about ceremony music. Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to locate musicians who would be suitable for an outdoor wedding gig. Plus, the price for the people we've found is surprisingly higher than I'd ever thought it would be. That, too, adds another decision- is it really worth it to pay for live musicians? I'd definitely prefer live to the alternative (our DJ using outdoor equipment for the ceremony), but it just seems like a huge amount of money spend for what, half an hour's time during which they only play part of the time?

The other decision I'm waffling about is whether to use a videographer. Now that is one wedding-related thing that is mucho expensive. Have you ever seen the prices for videography? From what I've seen, you can't even get raw footage, shot with only a single camera, for less than a grand. That's a lot of money! But at the same time, it would be great to have a video of the day. I'm sure that sometime down the line, our kids would find it fun to see the actual wedding ceremony. There's only one chance to videotape it, and I'm worried that I'll regret not doing it. But so much money...

And finally, we now have to figure out something for the rehearsal dinner and I'm really bummed and don't know what to do. We had decided to have the rehearsal dinner at the Zoo in either the aquarium or the arctic area, but now that idea is shot. Apparently, the aquarium is closed for reservations because of planned construction and the arctic area is booked. So now we're back to square one. There's a third area in the Zoo that is available, but it doesn't have any of the "fun" factor of the other options- no animals or anything like that. I'm just not sure if it's worth having the dinner there if it won't have any excitement. But then if we don't do it there, where are we going to do it? I'm hardly familiar with any of the nicer Toledo restaurants, plus that would entail people driving to another area. And I'm sure if I ask people to do that, I'll get a bunch of gripes and complaints.

Ok, venting session over! I just wish that everything could be planned already. Argh!

Kalahari

2010-11-27T22:49:00.003-05:00

Now that all the craziness of Ollie's injury and the Thanksgiving holiday has died down, I took the time to skim through my blog and realized that I never discussed our Kalahari stay. Oversight! We had a great time and I feel like I owe it to the great staff at Kalahari to sing their praises to whomever will listen. Brief update before I do so, though- Ollie is doing quite well. He does, indeed, have an actual hole in his head. Pepper punched a hole through his nasal cavity and into his mouth. It was pretty gruesome but now he's back to being his usual cranky self.

Ok, so back to Kalahari. In short, GO THERE! In case you're not familiar with Kalahari, it's a small chain of resort hotels with indoor waterparks, spas, etc. As of now, there are two locations- including Sandusky, where we were- and a third is in the works. I was able to book a fantastic deal because we went during the week and also during the off season, so it was ridiculously affordable. We had a huge room with a whirlpool, champagne and chocolate strawberries, and even a birthday cake and balloons for Mike!

The really great part was the water park. I couldn't believe how many slides they fit into the space! There were body rides and tube rides and a wave pool and even a surfing school! Plus, best of all, an indoor/outdoor jacuzzi with swim-up bar. Yes, folks, you are reading correctly. They have a gigantic hot tub with an attached swim-up bar. You buy yourself a yummy frozen beverage, duck under a little doorway, and ta-da, you're outside reveling in the hot water while the cold Ohio wind swirls around you. Just awesome.

So overall, I'd suggest that if you have a chance to visit Kalahari, you should take it. Tons of fun!

Poor Ollie man

2010-11-19T19:37:00.002-05:00

Mike and I spent last night at Kalahari Resort in Sandusky to celebrate his birthday (wicked awesome, and I'll share about the park when I'm not bumming) and made it back this afternoon/evening. At first, everything was ok. Then at one point, I left the room and heard squawking and screeching and flailing from the living room- not surprising, given that the birds often battle one another. This time, though, it was not ok. Turns out Pepper bit Ollie in the face and took a chunk out of his little nostril area! Poor little blue man. He's acting fairly normal but still, he has to be in a ton of pain. It keeps opening up and bleeding and the little guy can barely open his beak to eat. The vet said I should wait and bring him in tomorrow, but I'm just so worried. :-(

Rent to buy

2010-11-13T18:49:00.002-05:00

Mike and our friend Scott and I are all fans of the PS3 game Borderlands. Now that the new expansion is out, we're all chomping at the bit to level our characters up. Yeah, I know, major dorkiness. But fasten your seatbelts, people, because I'm about to hit you with an entirely new level of dorkiness- we've decided to do a full-day epic gaming session tomorrow which will involve three TVs and three PS3s being set up in our apartment so that all of us can play together at one time. Did that just blow your mind with mega dorkiness? Because it should have.

The problem: there are only two PS3s among us. So, we needed to find one to borrow or rent. As nobody on Facebook was forthcoming with a loaner (boo to everyone!), we had to rent. The next problem: practically nobody rents game consoles anymore. The only place we could find that did rent them is Rent-a-Center. Mike and I went and picked one up today and as I was looking through the paperwork, I came across something truly astounding. Consider the following...

The cost for a PS3 120GB (what we rented) brand new is roughly $250, depending upon where you go, bundling, etc. The one we rented was already used, so let's say that it's value, if purchased used at a Gamestop or comparable store, is probably around $200, max. Now, let's consider that we wanted to not only rent this PS3, but rent it to buy. Take a wild guess at what the total cost of the PS3 would be if you rented to buy.

Got your guess? Did you guess $1200? Well if you did, then you are correct, give or take a bit depending upon the payment plan selected. If, like me, you never fathomed that the rent to buy cost would be SIX TIMES the max retail value of the item, then you were probably shocked by this.

Isn't that ridiculous? I don't understand why anyone would ever rent to own. Heck, a credit card with monstrous interest would still be cheaper, even if you took two full years to pay off the initial $200.

Thank heavens we're not renting to buy, because that's just plain old highway robbery if you ask me.

Great vegetarian cookbooks

2010-11-07T22:45:00.005-05:00

When I first became vegetarian (5 or 6 years ago), one of my biggest challenges was figuring out what to eat besides salad and pasta. To find my bearings, I started perusing cookbooks for yummy, healthy vegetarian recipes. Thanks to the interlibrary loan programs at my undergrad and grad schools, I've been lucky enough to sample dozens of cookbooks ranging from the basics to various ethnic cuisines. Those that I really liked, I purchased.

Recently, I realized that I was falling into a cooking rut where I made and re-made many of the same recipes week after week. So, for the past few weeks, I've been making a concerted effort to try new recipes. It's been a refreshing change that I owe, in large part, to the collection of cookbooks I've built up. I figured that tonight, as Mike and I watch the second episode of "The Walking Dead", I'd share some of my favorite cookbooks.

If you are vegetarian or just like to have the occasional meatless meal, these are great options!

Note: None of these photos are mine. The second photo is from Amazon.com and the others were found through random Google image searches.

Vegetarian Times Low-Fat and Fast
This book has a little bit of everything, and that's one of the reasons I like it. There are sections for appetizers, side dishes, main dishes, and desserts, and everything is fairly simple and straightforward to make. There isn't an over-reliance on pasta, either, which is nice. That was one issue I had with many cookbooks- too much pasta. I loooove me some pasta, but a healthy veg diet shouldn't be pasta for every meal. This book also includes "helpful hints" for most recipes and these help make the cooking process easier and more enjoyable.

15-Minute Vegetarian
Several of my most-used veg recipes (Mushroom Stroganoff is my absolute favorite) come from this little gem. While the Vegetarian Times cookbook only has 4 broad categories, this book breaks the sections down much more finely. There's a section for tortilla dishes, one for grain dishes, and so on. This makes it a cinch to find exactly what you want if you have something in mind. I have to say, many of the recipes I've used have taken a bit longer than the suggested 15 minutes, but they're still pretty quick. This is my go-to book when I need inspiration.

Buddha's Table: Thai Feasting Vegetarian Style
I love Thai food but most of the recipes I find online are either non-veg-friendly (lots of fish sauce and meat and whatnot) or very obviously NOT traditional. This book is fantastic if you want real Thai food that is veg friendly. Be prepared to visit an Asian food store or to order certain ingredients online, though. You can't have honest to goodness Thai without getting the good stuff. If you're willing to put forth the effort to find the few obscure ingredients that are needed, you'll love the results. Everything from appetizers to desserts are covered in here, so you could put together an entire Thai feast if you wished.

One-Dish Vegetarian Meals
The title of this one is spot-on: vegetarian meals in one dish. Most of the recipes in this book have shorter lists of ingredients and steps, nice for busy week nights. There's even a "super speedy" section at the end of the book that contains recipes that are ready in a flash.s

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
This one was actually given to me by an ex's family, and I'm glad I've held on to it! It's huge and literally has recipes for anytihng you could want. I find myself using the smaller books when planning the week's meals, but I reach for this one when I am looking for something specific. It's a really great reference to keep on hand.

Look what I did!

2010-11-03T16:55:00.005-04:00

Ok, time to show off some crafting! I've been looking around for a card box that matches our wedding colors/theme and I just haven't been able to find anything that strikes my fancy. Plus, all the boxes for sale are ridiculously overpriced (in my humble grad student budget opinion). So, I decided to flex my craft muscles and make one. I scoured the internet for pics of boxes that I liked and then smooshed all the inspiration together to create a three-tier, ribbon-tied stack of boxes that matches our black/white/apple green color scheme. And here she is!

Our homemade black, white, and apple green wedding card box.

Close-up of the top of the box. The bow needs some more poof, but I love the ring!

I still need to get some more ribbon so I can fluff up the bow on the top, and the lighting's not the greatest in the pics, but I think you can get the idea. The whole thing cost me about $20, and that was after splurging on the diamond ring topper ($5.00 from Hobby Lobby when they had their wedding stuff half off). Plus, the pattern on the boxes is pretty neat when seen in-person- it's slightly pearlescent and really pretty.

Yay for wedding crafts!

Our costumes

2010-10-31T19:44:00.006-04:00

I am very excited to finally be able to post pics of the completed halloween costumes that I made for Mike and I. He went as Kratos, the main character from the video game God of War, and I went as Emily, the bride from Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride.

I've never crafted fantasy armor before, so Mike's costume was a fun challenge. I also got to brush off my theater makeup skills from back in my middle school years. Woot!

I've been working on these costumes on-and-off for a few weeks now and it was so satisfying to see them come together as I'd envisioned. Plus, Mike got 2nd place in the costume contest for individual costume and I won 1st place, so that just made it all the better.

So, without further ado, here's the end result!

Mike and Scott engaged in one of their epic battles of the night.

Things I don't get about sports

2010-10-20T09:50:00.002-04:00

This past Sunday, I was watching the Browns game while on the elliptical and I got to thinking about some of the things I've never been able to understand about American sports. Not that I understand much of anything about foreign sports, because I don't. But as much as I've come to love most American sports, these are the things I don't get...

1. Why do we call it football when the use of feet in relation to the ball is so very rare? "Handball" was already taken, but what about "throwball" or "passball" or "body-check-ball"? All of these would more aptly represent what goes on in the game.

2. Why do basketball players so often miss freethrows? Let's set this up: a pro basketball player is paid millions to put a ball in a hoop. This can be challenging as one can be at varying distances and angles from the basket, may have other players jostling them or trying to block them, and there is little to no time to really think about the shot. But wait, with a freethrow, you are always standing in the same spot, at the same distance from, and angle to, the basket, and you know that nobody is going to touch you. You also have time to patiently dribble the ball and set up your shot and think happy karmic thoughts about your throw. So am I the only one who feels like there's really no excuse for PRO players to miss the most basic, elementary shots over and over again? It's their JOB and they miss the simple stuff.

3. How can football players stand to have long hair? As a long-haired person myself, I can confidently attest to how icky it feels when long hair gets sweaty and plastered against your neck. If I'm at the gym and my ponytail starts sticking to my neck, it's not fun. So I really can't understand how some players (ex: the Steelers' Polamalu) can stand to have their helmets pressing their hair down on to their necks and shoulders while they play. Now, I do know that Polamalu wears his hair long to honor his Samoan heritage, so I'm not saying that I don't know why some of them might wear their hair long. What I'm saying is that I don't know how they can physically stand it!

4. Why is curling not more popular? Now that is a fun sport to watch!

5. How do they come up with rankings? I understand ranking to a limited extent. But how do you rank teams that have never played one another and may have only played a few games total? I'm sure there is some awesome math involved, or maybe a sports genie.

Halloween for gals, take 2!

2010-10-11T20:44:00.005-04:00

I've been dutifully working my way through an article I'm writing and now I feel it is time for a break. And what better way to spend my little writing break than doing more writing! It's Halloween time again, so I feel that it is also time for a second commentary on "sexy" costumes that are very NOT sexy. Please click here if you'd like to see last year's edition.

Ok, so, the topic of this post essentially boils down to this: Who in heaven's name thinks these costumes are legitimately sexy? For each of the following, I would seriously have loved being a fly on the wall in the meeting during which some employee said "I have a great idea for a new sexy costume". And then someone, for some reason, said "That is a great idea! Let's mass produce it!".

Anyways, here they are: this year's oddball sexy costumes!

Deviant housewife: I guess I can kind of see where the sexiness is supposed to come in to play here. But the costume is just so BAD. Honestly, between the little apron/dress thing and the teeny weeny plastic utensils (and is that a jar of glitter on the right?), it looks more like a Fisher Price toy for a toddler. Plus, all you're going to pick up in this thing is guys with mommy issues. And who wants that?

Children's cartoon characters: These two just absolutely boggle my mind. First of all, there is NOTHING sexy about either Spongebob or Big Bird. Nothing. They're both amorphous, non-human, yellow MALE cartoon characters. I almost didn't even want to add commentary to these two because I feel like the non-sexiness is just so blindingly obvious. Deviant Housewife will get you guys with mommy issues, but these are only going to get you bi-curious pedophiles.

M&M: Since when is a rotund male piece of candy sexy? I just don't get it...

Cherry pie: This thing just looks bad. It's so unflattering that it's hilarious. This girl is obviously fit and it manages to make her look like a linebacker. A costume that turns the "girls" into throw pillows? Not sexy.

Male toy characters: Ok, let me just sum all three of these up by saying that if a guy ever fantasized about hooking up with a Transformer, Batman's sidekick, and/or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, he's not batting for the team that you hope he is. He's not going to be that in to you. These are definitely cuter than some of the others, but they're still male toys. Seriously, go find a guy and ask "Hey, do you think Bumblebee is sexy?" and see what type of response you get.

Horror movie killers: Nothing says sexy like slicing and dicing! At what point did someone say "Hey, you know what would be sexy? Freddy Krueger. Yeah, let's dress women up as this dude and it'll be totally hot". Just what guys dream about!

Honorable mention: Chinese takeout I went back and forth on this one. At first, it was a definite non-sexy. A Chinese takeout box? Really? Not sexy at all. But then I mulled it over for a few and I realized that yes, this one would truly appeal to the male demographic. I mean, look at the wording and placement of the graphics on this dress. The inspiration may be entirely non-sexy, but the costume itself so unabashedly begs for ogling and salacious comments from the menfolk that I have to accept its inclusion in the "sexy" section of costume stores.

Class time fail

2010-10-04T22:30:00.002-04:00

Each year, grad student instructors in the Psych department have the opportunity to win an award for best teacher. I didn't last year (boo!), so I figured I'd try again this year. In order to be considered, you have to be evaluated by faculty members- it involves a class visitation and ratings and all that. Today, I had my first evaluation of the semester. Guess how many students out of 10 showed up today? Two. Yes, only 2 out of my 10 students showed up on the day that I was evaluated. Ugh! So, I lectured and did an activity with the two of them and tried to make the best of it. But I guess there goes the teaching award yet again.

Prepping for Halloween

2010-09-23T09:57:00.002-04:00

Halloween is just over a month away, so I figured that it was time for me to start prepping my costume. Mike and I kind of forgot about it until the last minute last year, and I don't a repeat of that. Halloween needs to be awesome! I have my costume idea, but securing one little part of it is turning out to be a bit of a hassle. The one thing that I've been searching for is a glove/sleeve combo, something that is fitted and covers from my fingers to my shoulder- like a satin dress-up glove but longer. Intriguing tidbit- I'm going to have it airbrush painted to look like something awesome!

Well, I'll have it painted if I can ever find such a thing! I'd make the glove/sleeve thing myself, except making anything glove-like is a pain. I don't like sewing with lycra and the seam allowances in the glove part have to be so small that it just drives me batty. So really, I need to find this thing on my own. I wasn't having any luck finding true shoulder-length, non-latex gloves (I need fabric, not rubber), so I figured hey, maybe I can get a catsuit or one of those full-body spandex suits like Charlie wore for "green man" in Always Sunny. But you know where you find those? Online stores for "unique" fetishes. Yup, I'm probably going to have to order something from a crazy sex store. And then I'll be in their database. Lovely.

Reminiscing #3

2010-09-14T12:32:00.002-04:00

After listening to Mike and Scott talk about how awesome Futurama is for the longest time, I've decided to watch it from the beginning. And you know what? It IS awesome! I can't believe I missed out on this for so long! The episode I'm currently watching made reference at one point to living on the sun and that reminded me of something from when I was younger. Thus, another reminscing post!

When I was in early elementary school, I went on a trip to an air and space museum. I can't remember what museum it was, and I can't remember if I went with my class or with my Girl Scout troop, but that's neither here nor there. What I do remember is that at one point in the tour, there was a machine that let you discover your weight on the various planets. You could stand on the scale and then push a button to select a planet and it would tell you what you would weigh on that planet. Everyone wanted to try it, so I had to wait in line while everyone else took their turns. As I waited, I tried to figure out which planet I would choose. I settled on Pluto but when I got on the scale, I saw that there was an option I hadn't considered: the sun. That changed everything! The sun was the most important and impressive of the options, so I decided to pick the sun. I pushed the button, the machine beeped and flashed, and then I saw this:

"You have been incinerated. You have no weight".

I was so disappointed! I asked if I could have another try because I didn't actually get a weight, but they wouldn't let me. It was time for another kid's turn and I had to move on. Sigh.

And now there are pics

2010-09-05T08:44:00.002-04:00

One of my fellow Holt HS grads recently friended me on Facebook and through the posts on her wall, I found out that TLC has posted pics from my episode of Say Yes to the Dress. The bad news: I don't think they could have found a weirder shot of me in the first gown if they'd tried. I am now firmly convinced that they are out to kill any remaining shred of dignity I have. The good news: the other pics aren't that bad! In fact, there are a few where I feel like I actually look pretty. Yes, I said it! I actually feel good about some of them! Hehehe.

But that first one- man! I can tell I was saying something at the time because I'm looking off to the side, so I'll just attribute the slightly palsied look to that. It's so odd I just can't help but laugh.

Don't take my word, though- check them out! Click here Just click to the right to see the others.

Rehearsal dinner awesomeness!

2010-09-01T19:06:00.002-04:00

After much debating, we've decided to hold our rehearsal dinner at the Zoo. At first, we thought we'd go with something more traditional (i.e.- a restaurant) but then we thought shoot, what's cooler than eating dinner right next to a shark tank while listening to Jimmy Buffett and drinking a margarita? Umm, not much! :-) So now we're booking the aquarium for the rehearsal dinner. Yay!

I'm actually getting more and more excited about it. I'm thinking of going totally cheesy with a tiki/island theme- you know, to match the fish and all. We can deck the bar out to look like a tiki bar, get everyone leis and tiki-style cups, serve mai-tais, and all that jazz. Limbo anyone? We're definitely going to class it up big time for the wedding itself, so why not have some fun with everything else?

Now I just have to make sure I find a hotel with a shuttle because I'm pretty sure some of us will be a little toasted... :-P

Anti-sleep conspiracy

2010-08-31T10:59:00.003-04:00

I've officially decided that the people within apartment complex are out to keep me from getting decent sleep. Three nights in a row of neighbors disrupting my snoozing has left me drained, crabby, and unable to concentrate. Ugh!

Last night, it was our upstairs neighbors who were royally pissing me off. I don't know what it is that those people do, but they are up all the time and somehow manage to very literally sound like a small herd of elephants galloping around their apartment. I truly can't fathom how someone can make that much noise just by striding. As I was trying to fall asleep last night, I kept being awakened by "bam, thud, stomp stomp stomp" from upstairs, and this would go on for minutes at a time- back and forth, back and forth across their bedroom. Finally, at about 3:00 in the morning, I was so on edge and angry about it that I grabbed my pillow and went out to the living room to try to catch some sleep. No luck there- apparently, someone in the apartment was also striding around the living room! Damn you, upstairs neighbors! So it was back to the bedroom to try that again. I finally was able to fall asleep sometime after 5:00, so now I'm just sleepy as can be.

The two nights before that, it was people outside our window that were keeping me up. On Saturday night, there were a bunch of girls sitting on the swingset that is directly outside of our window, screaming and laughing and filling our room with the smell of cigarette smoke. Of course, the sound and the smell woke me up, but Mike didn't seem to care what was going on and I was too pissed and tired to be confrontational, so I just got stuck dealing with it until they finally left. Then the next night, we had pretty much a repeat- a guy and a girl on the swingset, drinking and yelling and listening to music. And she was apparently trying to get with him becuase she laughed at every darn thing he said and let's be honest- no guy is THAT funny. Between the obnoxious laughter and the music, I was going a bit insane.

Apparently, though, someone else was equally annoyed because suddenly a cop showed up! We could hear what was going on because it was directly outside our open window (only a few feet away). The cop told them to leave but then he apologized to them and, get this, told them that he didn't know who had reported them but that "there's a window right there, so it was probably someone there". I can only assume he meant our window as our's is the only one "right there", so then I was pissed- don't apologize to the jerks who are being inconsiderate and who are trespassing (that part of the complex is closed after dusk) and definitely don't go telling the people that we called the cops on them when we didn't! Ugh!

Yes, I realize this is a crabby post, but I haven't had a good night's sleep in three days. So tired...

The show!

2010-08-28T01:44:00.006-04:00

Tonight, we had a bunch of people over to watch The Show (caps inserted because it was oh-so-dramatic an event). That was promptly followed by several hours of Rock Band, which explains why I'm completely wired and unable to sleep, even though it's almost 2:00 in the morning. So, I've decided that I'll kill some time and some energy by blogging!

Well, I made it through The Show and I have to say, I came out feeling not too darn bad about it! It wasn't as bad as I had thought they would make it. After we finished filming in April, I remember thinking to myself holy cow, there are a LOT of things that I said that could be cut to make me sound like an absolute crazy woman! They did that a few times in the actual episode (I am not nearly as insecure as they edited me to be), but it wasn't as much as I had imagined. I feel that they went a little too heavy on the angles of Mike being an ass and me being sensitive, but once again, it could have been worse.

With that said, though, there are a few things that I would like to clarify. I know that not everyone who saw The Show will see this blog (far from it), but I'd like to at least try to set the record straight for those who do.

First, Mike did NOT make me cry. The person who DID make me cry was Lori, the salon owner. The short version of what happened to cause the tears was this... Lori really wanted to make a sale. She wanted me to buy the gown that I was "leaning toward loving"- the last one I tried on. I was torn because I didn't want to rule out the sample I couldn't try on and her way of talking me out of that gown was to say the following to me while I stood in front of three cameras and everyone there: "Well, you wouldn't really like that one anyways because it's very fitted and it just shows evvvvverything." There was also a combination of facial expression, hand motions, and tone that went along with this that were NOT pleasant or nice. So basically, she played upon my insecurities to try to push me toward buying the one gown. THAT was when I cried- when I heard her call me fat, essentially, on national television. I felt so disrespected and it just pushed me over the edge.

Flo was fantastic. She was the sweetest person there and I really loved working with her. Hugs to Flo! You are awesome and you are the only person there who could talk about my "junk in the trunk" and make me feel happy about it rather than sad!

This is a very trivial point, but am I the only one that felt like the camera made my face look way too pale and my lipstick way too lady-of-the-night red? I mean, I know I'm very fair and I was wearing reddish lipstick but wow, I looked like a hooker who hadn't seen the sun in years!

Mike was nowhere near as negative as he was shown to be. He did critique the dresses, but he only did it because I had asked him to be honest and because the producers of the show told us multiple times that "If there is anything you don't like about a gown, voice it. We want to know the good and the bad".

In that vein, I was nowhere near as depressed as they made me seem! 90% of the time we were there, we were all laughing and having fun and joking around. I got a bit bummed when I couldn't try on the dress that I liked, I'll fully admit that, but it wasn't until Laurie kept pushing and pushing and pushing that I snapped. But man, they sure made me look like I was a Debbie Downer the whole time!

They cut out a lot of the reasons that led to me letting myself go. I can understand why they did this- to save time. However, I don't entirely like the fact that they made it seem as if my breakup was the only reason I gained weight. Yes, it was a contributing factor - it was what got the ball rolling, so to speak. Those were some terrible, terrible months from an emotional standpoint. But it was the unexpected deaths of multiple family members following that, plus some stressful situations at school, that ultimately led me to shut down and let myself go.

This also made the situation where I discussed my size sound wonky. In the interview I explained how the breakup led to me going from a pre-pageant 4 (I'm usually an 8) to a size 10, but it was the family situation and crazy school pressures that led to me going from a 1o to a 14. When they cut the last part, it left me as only saying I got up to a size 10. So on the show, it looks like I'm either in total denial of my size or flat-out lying about it. I'm not a fan of the fact that I look like I'm lying- my whole point on going on there was to show that hey, life happens and sometimes you're not your fairytale ideal self when getting married. That's why I was very open and honest about how I feel. I was a 14 at the time, it was the biggest I've ever been, I wasn't happy about it, but that's just life.

That is NOT my actual budget for a gown! I spent NOWHERE near that much money on my gown. Not anywhere close. My car isn't even worth that much!!! Even if I had that much money, I couldn't justify spending that on one piece of clothing.

Overall, I guess I'd just like to emphasize the point that there was a LOT of editing done. Just a ton of it. In fact, I'd say at least 75% of what was said/done by either of us in that episode was cut and pasted out of sequence. I'm not actually upset that they did this- I fully realized that this would happen when I signed up. That's how "reality" television works- it is edited to give the best and most dramatic view possible. I just think it's worth putting this down as a point for anyone who thinks that what was shown was really what went down.

In the end, I'm still happy I did it and I just don't want people feeling sorry for me. Yes, I cried, and yes, I wasn't entirely happy with my looks, but there was one thing I remember saying that day in my interview that I wish they'd included:

"At the end of the day, I'm going to marry my very best friend. And on that day, it won't matter what I look like because I'm just going to feel like the luckiest person in the whole world".

And that's truly how I feel.

Identity theft!

2010-08-25T19:12:00.004-04:00

If you're friends with me on Facebook, then you probably already know about yesterday's drama. But either way, I'm going to share the story now. :-)

Yesterday afternoon, I got a call from the fraud protection branch of my credit union. They said that they wanted to verify some charges that had been made on my card over the past day. The gentleman asked if I'd been traveling to Michigan recently and having not been there for about a month, I started getting nervous. Well, actually, I was already nervous from hearing the word "fraud", but now I was really nervous. He started listing charges and asking me whether I had made each of them. In short, someone had made a fake version of my debit card (it was still in my wallet) and run up around $1,000 in charges in the Detroit area in one day! He/she/they hit Bebe, Off Fifth, Forever 21, and a bunch of gas stations and restaurants, among other things. Oh, and a Coney Island restaurant which was clearly not me since I'm veg!

Needless to say, I was more than a little panicky at that point! I called my credit union right after I got off the phone and I have to say that they were amazing. The woman was super nice and really helped to put me at ease. She walked me through the whole fraud reporting process and get this: I had my money back in 10 minutes. Ten minutes! I've heard horror stories of fraud refunds taking as long as several months to go through, so I was pleased as punch that they cleared this up so rapidly. I love you, credit union!

I'm still a little freaked out by this, mainly because I have no idea how it happened. The card was with me and I hadn't been to Michigan for about a month, so it's scary to try to figure out how someone got ahold of my info. And in the Auburn Hills/Livonia area, nonetheless. Haven't been there for about 6 months! Crazy, crazy. But oh well, what's done is done, everything worked out in the end, and that's what matters.

The TV time begins!

2010-08-21T11:34:00.003-04:00

Last night, we saw the commercial for our episode of Say Yes to the Dress Atlanta! It's so real now! It seems from the commercial that they're going to frame the episode as Mike being a picky meanie. When we first saw it yesterday (because we've seen it half a dozen times since then), neither of us could stop laughing. It's basically just me standing there with different dresses on and Mike in the background making comments like "It's not flattering", "That dress sounds loud", and so on.

But now that he's had some time to think about it, Mike's kind of bummed- and I can't say I blame him. The poor guy's being made to look like an ass! So, I would just like to put it out there that Mike was NOT mean throughout any of the time we were there. Yes, he gave his opinion, but it wasn't done in a nasty way and the TLC people actually urged him to voice any dislikes he might have! That was one of the first things they said when we got there. They told Mike and Shuang (who was also there) "If there's anything you don't like, be sure to speak up. We want to know the whole story".

So if anyone out there decides to watch the episode, just remember that it is VERY very edited, there was a LOT of coaching from the TLC people, and Mike was actually very sweet that day.

But on the positive end, how cool is it that we're on TLC???? Ahhh, so weird!

Reminiscing 2

2010-08-18T15:58:00.002-04:00

Time for another reminiscing post! This time I'm going all the way back to kindergarten for a few little mini stories.

One of the things I remember from kindergarten, and one of the things that always makes me giggle at myself, happened one day while we were standing in line in the hallway waiting to go to recess. As the students from some of the higher grades went walking by, I remember thinking to myself that it was a bummer that they could say "When I was in ___ grade", but I couldn't. I have no idea why this crossed my mind, but it did. Looking back, of course it sounds silly, but at the time it was a big deal. So anways, I decided it just wasn't fair that they could talk about past grades and I couldn't, so for the rest of the day, I kept telling other kids (and I'm pretty sure I said something like it to my teacher!) about all the things I did "When I was in 2nd grade" or "When I was in 5th grade". Yup, weird, I know, but I always chuckle when I think about it!

Another little event that I remember from kindergarten was the day that we made pottery bowls for mother's day. The teacher was telling us how to create a bowl by rolling "snakes" of clay and then forming them into circles, one on top of the other. Well, I decided that I didn't need to do it that way because I knew the "real" way to make pottery. I just started trying to shape the bowl out of a wad of clay and ended up with this really sad looking lopsided thing that only vaguely resembled a bowl. That's the first time I ever remember getting my comeuppance for being cocky. Too bad the lesson doesn't always stick! :-)

Stupid Nintendo and its half books!

2010-08-17T10:13:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, Mike was sweet enough to buy me a Nintendo DS "game" that essentially turns your DS into a Kindle-type reader thing and gives you access to a bunch of books. It's called 100 Classic Books and, well, I think that pretty much explains it- you get 100 classic books. It seemed like a great idea for traveling since I can take a bunch of books with me without the bulk.

Fast forward to last night- I'm blissfully reading my through Little Women when all of a sudden, at the end of the first half, the DS says "Congratulations! You've finished reading Little Women! How would you like to rate this book?". And of course I'm thinking "DS, I have not finished this! I've got another half to go!" So, I went to bed cranky and figured I'd call Nintendo and give them hell this morning.

Fast forward once again to about 5 minutes ago- I called Nintendo and explained what was going on and asked what the deal was. The lady with whom I spoke told me this: the book that I was reading (Little Women) was originally published in two installments. Most people don't know this since it has been published as one book since then. However, for whatever reason, Nintendo decided to only include the first installment, or first half, of the book on this cartridge and they don't intend to release the second half for download.

Um, wtf Nintendo? I can't wrap my mind around how this is a legitimate practice. I get it- you're greedy and you want to make money with as little effort at uploading as possible, plus you're hoping for more money if you ever decide to release the second half for downloading. But come on! Giving people half a book is crap!

Travel day from hell

2010-08-16T12:24:00.003-04:00

Because I've been running behind a tad on my San Diego updates, my original plan had been to sit down yesterday and write about our final day in S.D. Unfortunately, due to jet lag and the day that became what I shall henceforth refer to as Travel Day From Hell (TDFH), I decided against blogging until today!

Ok, so before venting about TDFH, I feel like I should wrap up the S.D. posts by describing our final full day there, which was Friday. Friday was our day to attend the American Psychological Association conference (our reason for being out there), so we got suited up in the morning and hopped on the trolley to the Convention Center. As a first time APA conference attendee, all I can say is WOW. That conference totally blew our annual I-O conference out of the water. It was HUGE! On top of that, there was just such a crazy mix of people and booths there. You could buy everything from books to jewelry to mind training software. Plus, they had free 15 minute massages. How cool is that? SIOP, take notice! :-)

One we'd taken care of our poster presentations, we headed up 5th street to try out a little Thai place that my former advisor recommended. Yum! I'm such a pad thai fan and I enjoy trying different variations while traveling. Nothing has beat our local favorite, Bangkok Kitchen, but it's still deliciously enjoyable to sample! After that, we rounded out our meal with awesome frozen yoghurt from Pinkberry (darn you, Amanda, for getting me addicted to that stuff in D.C.!) and a nice long walk back to our hotel. Some work time and dinner in Old Town finished up our last day and then it was time to pack and sleep in preparation for the flight back.

And now, TDFH. If I try to tell the full story, I'll just get all cranky and long-winded, so I'll sum it up in just a few phrases: endlessly screaming child, circling the airport for 40 minutes, delayed flight which was then cancelled 5 minutes before we were supposed to board, rerouted to Akron, very very very long day!

But hey, at least we're back now and all is good!

The Conference Center. Well, one half of it! It's huuuuge!

Complimentary seated massages. Why does SIOP not do this???

The Gaslamp District sign with the Conference Center in the background.

Not sure if this has a name, but it's a shallow pool with the sidewalk cutting through it and a bunch of these rotating sprayers on one side.

Exploring San Diego

2010-08-13T21:42:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, Mike and I started out by visiting Old Town. What a neat area! I really enjoyed learning about the history of San Diego, plus I was able to pick up a few odds and ends to bring home. Of course, we had to get Mexican for lunch, and then after that we headed to the Fashion Valley mall. There was actually only one place I wanted to visit there: Tiffany. There's no Tiffany within several hours of B.G. and I've been wanting to get a wedding band, so we both figured heck, we should stop by the place while we're here. And I found a band! Plus, wonder of all wonders, we actually weren't treated like total crap from the moment we stepped through the door. What is it with Tiffany and usually treating people like dirt?

But anyways, I got a wedding band and yay for that! Afterwards, we took the trolley to Little Italy for a bit more sightseeing and also to find a place with gelato. Mmmm.... gelato. Mike got strawberry and I got mint and it was yum yum yum. I love this place! And after that, well, we kind of just crashed. Yup, it was a bit lame, but walking 10 miles a day gets really tiring!

An epic journey

2010-08-12T19:08:00.002-04:00

We're in San Diego! Woot! We actually got in on Tuesday afternoon but I haven't really had a chance to sit down and write until now. We ended up passing out at about 7:00 California time on Tuesday because we were just so tuckered out from traveling and then yesterday we were just go-go-go all day. What ended up taking up a ton of our day was our trip to the San Diego Zoo. Sounds super fun, right? Well, the Zoo itself was awesome but the trip there- not so much. So here's the scoop...

Before we left for the Zoo, I used the transit system's website to plot out the best rail/bus combo to get us there. It suggested taking the rail first and then taking a bus from the stop to the Zoo. So we took the rail but then instead of getting on the bus, Mike decided that it was a nice day and we should walk from there to the Zoo. Now let me preface this by saying that I normally love a good walk. I pretty much walk everywhere that I can. However, what I don't like doing is wandering off in a strange city (no matter how nice- San Diego is very nice as far as cities go) when we have no freakin' idea where we're going. Mike kept telling me "It's this way. I saw it on the map. It's just over this hill". Very, very long and tiring and crabby (on my end) story short, the Zoo was not just "over this hill". Rather, it was over the hill, down the road, across a freeway, through a park, down 3 very long streets, up the hill from hell, along another street, and then across a huge parking lot. Basically, we ended up walking about 3/4 the perimeter of Balboa park-it's huge- before I got so tired of following Mike's "instincts" that I called our friend Scott to ask him to Google the directions for us.

In the end, though, things worked out- we got a ton of exercise, we made it to the Zoo, and we had a good time. The Zoo is really a blast. So much to see! Plus, they have lots of shows. We only saw one- the bird show- but it was a such a fun show to see. The following are a few clips that I recorded from the show: Bird bashing a toy and Parrot recycling a bottle I also picked up a bunch of really neat postcards to send to people through Postcrossing.

After we'd been back at our hotel for a few and had given our feet a much deserved rest, we decided to go get something to eat. A little Google searching led us to pick a place called Devine Pastabilities and holy crap, am I glad we gave it a shot! I can pretty much sum up the amazingness that is Devine Pastabilities as follows: carb heaven. Their specialty is something called a torpasta, which basically involves uber delicious pasta being stuff into a hollowed out garlic bread shell. Divine for sure! I only made it through about half of mine before the gooey, garlicky, carb-laden delightfulness conquered me. But that's ok- it just means I get to have the leftovers for dinner tonight! You can check out their website by clicking here if you want to get an idea of just how awesome this place is. We so need one in B.G.!

So that was yesterday's excitement!

Today was a good day!

2010-08-06T22:05:00.002-04:00

I take that back- today was a FANTASTIC day! I drove to my parents' place this morning from Ohio so that my mom and grandma and aunt and I could go wedding dress shopping. The weather was gorgeous and the traffic was practically non-existent, so that alone was a blessing. Once we actually got to the shopping part, the day got even better. We first went to the Wedding Bell in Okemos and my experience there was great. The consultant was so nice and she pulled some great gowns for me. I've lost some of the weight that I had while in Atlanta so even though I'm still not 100% happy with how I look, I was happier today (by far!) than I was while shopping in Atlanta. I found a gown that made everyone cheer and ooh and aah, but wanted some time to think before committing. After lunch at Olive Garden and a trip to David's Bridal to try on some other options, I knew- I needed to go back and get that dress. So I did! I HAVE A GOWN!!!!! Weeee!

The cherry on top was when I came home and checked my email to find a "revise and resubmit" message from the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. For those not familiar with this type of thing, this is awesome- basically, it means that they liked my article that I submitted and if I make the desired changes, they'll likely publish it. Weeee again!!!!

So yeah, today was pretty much the best! :-D

The end is near

2010-08-04T22:19:00.003-04:00

The end of the summer, that is! Every year, without fail, I get the same feeling at about this time: Holy crap, WHERE did the summer go? I don't know how this always comes as a surprise to me. I have the experience of 25 summers under my belt and a calendar to tell me what day and month it is, yet somehow I am still shocked to find that the hourglass of summer days is running out. Sigh. So now I'm in end-of-summer cram mode. All those things, big and small, that I'd planned to do over the summer need to get done pronto. I need to crank out another submission (in process!), get my first few weeks of class prepped, lose a few more pounds, and redecorate my office if I have any hope of feeling accomplished at once August 23 (first day of classes) rolls around. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Ducklings

2010-07-30T21:49:00.002-04:00

Last fall and early this spring, there was a pair of mallard ducks who would occasionally come up to our porch and eat the seed under the bird feeder. Well, nature must have taken its course, because now the female is coming around with babies! The male, however, has not been spotted. What a deadbeat! :-)

There are five ducklings and they are so cute. They come charging up in this little pack and just attack the food on the ground. A few seconds later, momma duck shows up to keep watch. Today was nice enough that I was able to leave the back door open and when they came by to eat (twice!), I could hear them making the most adorable little sounds.

I hope they keep coming back each year!

Reminiscing

2010-07-25T19:34:00.002-04:00

During my visit to D.C., Amanda and I had a lot of "Do you remember when...?" moments. It was fun to remember all the funny and weird things that happened during college. That got me to thinking that I should somehow make note of the interesting little stories that I remember from my K-12 and college years. So I've decided that occasionally, I'm going to share a story from those times so that everyone can have a laugh and so that I can be sure to remember them for years to come.

My first reminiscing post goes back to high school, my freshman year to be exact. It's the story of the one and only time that I can remember cheating on a test. Yes, dear readers, I, Katie Wolford, have cheated on a test in my life. *Hangs head in shame* But let me repeat- it was the only time! I swear!

So, to set this up, my very good friend Peggy Sue (name changed to protect the not so innocent) and I were in the same science class. Although both of us were "smart kids" and usually very studious students, neither of us had actually studied for a test that was coming up. I can't remember why- I think we just didn't care about the subject and kept putting it off. But whatever the reason, we were both a little unsure on test day. Before class, we came up with our plan to communicate with one another during the test. Here's how it went...

Whenever we had tests, we sat 2 to a table with a person at each end facing one another. It was supposed to discourage cheating (you couldn't see the other person's paper) but it actually helped us in the end. Our plan was that if one of us was stuck on a question, we'd sigh, signaling to the other that we needed an answer. The person who was stuck would use her fingers to indicate 2 numbers, the first being the tens digit of the question on which she was stuck and the second being the ones digit. So if I were stuck on question twelve, for instance, I'd flash ten then two. Then if the other person thought she knew the answer to that question, she'd use sign language to indicate the letter that was the correct answer. A flat hand meant "no clue". Now of course, we had to be very subtle about it. It's not like we could just hold up a huge "B" sign. And apparently we were subtle enough because we managed not to get caught and to do quite well.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not sharing this because I'm trying to gloat or anything. In fact (and this going to make me sound super dorky), to this day, I still feel a little guilty about this. It's just something that has always stuck with me and I thought it would be fun to share.

Still debating

2010-07-24T23:19:00.002-04:00

A few days ago, I saw an ad for the Atlanta spinoff of Say Yes to the Dress. I had two reactions. On one hand, I was relieved. I hadn't heard a peep about it and the lady at TLC that I contacted never responded, so I was starting to think the show had fallen through. Having gone through all of that hassle and drama for nothing would have been a disappointment, plus I'm sure that if the show had fallen through, people would have thought I was just making crap up- you know, lying about a show and saying I was on it just to sound cool. So I was relieved to hear that it actually was a go.

On the other hand, seeing the ad brought up the whole to watch or not to watch debate again. I have a feeling that I'm going to end up watching it, although I really don't want to. I don't want to watch because I don't want to pick apart everything I do and how I look on there, plus I'm not game to relive Lori, the owner, calling me fat on national television. Not the happiest moment of my life! But I think I'll probably end up watching it just so that I can set people straight on what really happened. Having gone through filming, I can tell you that there is NOTHING realistic about reality television. However, I know that many people believe that what they see on those types of television IS reality. So there will be people who see me on there and think that the edited story they show is actually what happened.

Going back and forth on this, I've found myself wondering a few times whether I should have even done the show. And although it's causing a bit of emotional upheaval at the moment, I have to say that I think I would still do it again. Of course, this could very well change after seeing the show, but for now, I'm contented with my choice. Yes, I cried, and yes, millions of people are going to get to learn about my insecurities over having gained a bunch of weight, and that's not going to be 100% pleasant. But I neither said nor did anything that I would be ashamed to say/do in person. I was just me while I was there and I'm glad that I can say that.

The other thing that makes me feel better about it is that there have to be other girls in my position. I know I'm not the only bride-to-be in America who is battling self image issues while trying to select such an important garment. I'm sure I'm not the only girl who has been made to feel badly about herself due to a casual comment by an employee. And if someone out there sees my breakdown and feels comforted to know that she's not alone in her situation, well then it was worth the hurt and the embarrassment.

Oh, and p.s.- if I do decide that I want to watch it, I'll be hosting a watching party at my place. We can all drink every time I have to shout "That is totally out of context!!!!". :-)

D.C. rocks my socks!

2010-07-19T23:52:00.002-04:00

So, um, D.C. kinda totally rocks my socks. Maybe it's just because I have a super awesome host and hostess (Amanda and Parveen are the bessssst!), but I just love this place! Ok, so now that the gushing is out of the way, here's what's happened so far...

I got up super early on Sunday and drove to Cleveland to catch a flight in to Baltimore. The flight itself was pretty good- short (about an hour) and right on time. I could have done without the five minutes or so of wicked turbulence toward the end, but everything can't be perfect. Once I landed, I texted Mike and Amanda to let them know that I was safely landed. I put my phone down for a second to undo my seatbelt and when I picked it up again to text my mom, it was all spazzed out. It had completely locked up and wouldn't do anything. So the whole time that I'm walking from the plane to the front of the airport, I'm trying to fight my phone into some semblance of functioning while also figuring out what the heck I was going to do to get in touch with Amanda. Argh! Luckily, she tried calling and my crazed phone was still able to connect incoming calls. So, we figured out where we each were and met up. REUNION TIME!!!!

Much girl talk ensued and we made it in to the city. Amanda actually lives in D.C. proper and the apartment that she and her bf share is GORGEOUS. I would take pics and post them except that feels a tad creepy and stalkerish. Suffice it to say, it's very, very cool and they have marble countertops and I hate them (in a very loving way) for it. :-) Parveen made us dal (yum!) for lunch and we vegged out until the evening, at which time I was introduced to the glory that is Ben's Chili Bowl. Best cheese fries EVER. You get what looks like a fully popped container of Jiffy Pop, except that when you peel back the foil, you are greeted with a loaf of fries smothered in delicious cheesy goodness. There was no kidding myself into thinking that this would help me regain my figure but hey, I had barely eaten anything else that day and it was a D.C. staple that needed to be tasted.

Today, I was a big girl and took the Metro all by myself so that I could check out wedding bands at Tiffany. I thought the Metro would be intimidating but it's not. It's very user-friendly, well-marked, and clean. I'm liking this whole public transportation thing. I met Amanda after work and we went to the Museum of American History. There were some neat exhibits there that I really enjoyed- Dorothy's ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz, several inaugural gowns worn by First Ladies throughout history, and some 300+ year-old violins, to name a few. After that, we had some delicous Mexican food at Guappo's, followed by a trip to Target to purchase no-bake cookie supplies. Just like old times!

Thus far, I've had a blast catching up with a great friend and exploring D.C. On tomorrow's agenda: International Spy Museum, purchasing (fingers crossed) some t-shirts from the fire station, a few more Smithsonian museums, as many of the monuments as I can fit in, and then dinner and a movie with Amanda and her friend. Woot!

Let us eat cake

2010-07-13T09:14:00.003-04:00

I've been a bit behind in posting this because I've been trying to catch up on other stuff, but we found a bakery for the wedding!!! This was the last big item on our list and now it's done. Woohoo!

We've had cake tastings at six or seven different places over the past few months and it's been a trip trying to select just one. There were just so many factors to consider- taste and texture of the cake, the fillings and the frosting (one place's frosting tasted like Crisco straight from the can- yuck!), size of slices, cost, and so on. Trying to figure out how to combine all those things to get one ideal choice was getting confusing!

Our last tasting was at the Zoo- they have an in-house bakery- and I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. We had our choices roughly narrowed down to 2 options: place 1 had great cake and absolutely amazing decorating skills but the prices was ridiculous (over $7 per slice!), while place 2 had fantastic prices but we weren't 100% confident that the decorating would be up to par. So going into the Zoo tasting I was thinking great, another one to add to the list.

Turns out, our decision was made super easy- the Zoo's bakery is AWESOME! Seriously, the Zoo is just getting better and better as this whole wedding planning thing goes along. The first thing that really impressed me was that they whipped up samples of a custom cake flavor just for us to try. We kind of have our hearts set on having one tier of the cake be coconut with lime filling and even though they don't have coconut cake on their flavor list, they made it for us. And it was soooo good. It even had yummy chunks of coconut in the cake. The rest of the cake flavors we sampled were just as good and their frosting was perfect- not too sweet, no fatty/greasy taste, and not heavy at all. To top it all off, their price for fondant cakes is unbeatable. Plus, their head baker is totally up for tackling either of the super unique cake ideas that we have.

So yeah, I'm a pretty happy camper! Now if I could just stop craving their coconut cake, life would be much better. :-)

Reaping what I sowed

2010-07-11T16:50:00.003-04:00

The garden has finally started yielding fruit! Well, vegetables, but you know what I mean. Thus far, I've harvested green onions, 2 heads of lettuce (the other 8 were eaten by the groundhog- see yesterday's entry for pics of the culprit), a cucumber, and a handful of little yellow pear tomatoes. There are several cucumbers, yellow summer squashes, and Roma and heirloom tomatoes about to come ready, so yay for that!

But what's really got me excited is that I have a baby bell pepper on one of my pepper plants!!!! Why is this the most exciting thing to happen in the garden thus far? Well, last year, I had 3 bell pepper plants and never had a single pepper. The plants put out tons of flowers but never any fruit. Ugh, I was not happy with those pepper plants. This year, I put in pepper plants with the understanding that it might be another fruitless year for them. For the last month or so, it seemed like history would repeat itself- I had lots of flowers but no fruit. So you can imagine my joy when this morning, I spotted this little gem…

YAY!!!! I don't even care if the groundhog eats it before I get to harvest it. The fact that the plant actually made a pepper is enough for me. Woot!

I would also like to share a handy little gardening tip that I learned this spring. If you grow cucumbers on a trellis, you save them from insects and slugs and whatnot and also keep them from having the yellow spots that can occur in the spot where the cucumber touches the ground.

See? Perfectly shaped and not a blemish in sight!

Pat Catan's rocks

2010-07-10T23:33:00.004-04:00

A little while back, while visiting Mike in Cleveland, I was introduced to what is probably one of THE coolest stores I have ever been in: Pat Catan's. It's a craft mega mall- basically Michael's but a hell of a lot cheaper- with the most glorious array of items perfect for the wedding. 100ish dollars later, I walked away with ribbon, supplies for all the cocktail table and cocktail bar decorations, and two awesome black eiffel tower vases with flowers for the buffet table.

I was so stoked to find those vases. I have been looking for something tall and slender to use as decoration for the buffet table and just couldn't find anything that looked decent but didn't cost an arm and a leg. So when I came across these, I snagged them gleefully. In fact, I'm pretty sure I squealed and did a little happy dance in the middle of the floral department. Yup, I was that person and darn proud of it!

Check it out- the pic's not that great, but you get the idea. The buffet table is actually 3 curved tables put together to form a wave and we'll have one of these in the center of the first and third tables. The middle table will have a cool black feather arrangement that's already part of the room's decor. Free decor- yay!

I also submit for your viewing pleasure a picture of Fiona waking up from a nap in a very awkward position, followed by a series of photos of the groundhog who is getting very fat off of the parsley in our herb garden. Oh, and he also ate the top halves off of every single one of my 8 heads of lettuce that were this close to being ready to harvest. Darn him- he's lucky he's so cute!

Ollie and his feathers

2010-07-03T18:07:00.002-04:00

I just don't know what to do about Ollie. I thought the whole feather chewing issue was solved once we got the diagnosis from the vet, but things haven't gotten any better. Far from it- they've actually gotten worse. He's chewed the feathers off his chest, legs, back, sides, and now he's starting in on his wings. He's even started chewing on Pepper's feathers (that's our Amazon parrot and Ollie's best buddy). Pepper has a bald spot on his head from Ollie's chewing.

It's as if he actually enjoys chewing the feathers. So now I am just at a loss. How do I stop this bird from doing something that is obviously cathartic for him in some way? He looks like an absolute wreck- like a sad little plucked chicken. He's behaving perfectly normally and seems happy, so I don't know what to do. I just want to cry every time I see his poor little shredded body. All this damage in one week.

This whole situation really breaks my heart. I always thought that when a bird picked or plucked, it was because the owner had done something wrong. Now that I'm in this situation, I can't help but beat myself up. He's always had tons of toys, a great diet, and all the interaction he wants, but I still keep thinking that maybe I could have done more. Maybe I broke him in some way. I want my healthy little blue man back!

:-(

Tree hugging

2010-06-30T13:55:00.002-04:00

Ugh, I have to rant for a moment! Our landlord cut down a bunch of trees last spring/summer for no apparent reason, and now she's at it AGAIN! Today, two of the biggest, prettiest old trees in the complex were cut down. It just frustrates me to no end because there was nothing wrong with any of the trees, last year or this year. And it's ruined the look and the feel of the apartment complex by having them removed. We used to have a lot of shade and they just looked so nice and now the complex is all open and barren. Grrr! I can hear them cutting down another one right now and I swear, it actually makes me want to cry. Few things piss me off as much as wanton, pointless killing of trees. I want to smack this woman sooo badly.

Fundraisers, feathers, and foreign languages

2010-06-29T21:47:00.003-04:00

This past weekend, Mike and I went to Cleveland for participate in a Children's Miracle Network walk-a-thon fundraiser. It was really unique because it actually took place at the Cleveland Zoo. If you're ever in the Cleveland area and need something to do, I strongly suggest the zoo- it's goooorgeous! The grounds are huge and very beautifully landscaped and they have a great array of animals. My personal favorite was the jawfish in the aquarium. I know, I know- how can a tiny little fish (he was about 2 inches long) be a favorite out of the whole zoo? This little guy was picking the rocks up in the bottom of his cage and moving them around to make a burrow. There was something so fascinating about this teensy little fish reshaping its environment by moving around these big (compared to his size) rocks. Nature is awesome! The swimming monkeys and the seals were pretty sweet as well.

When I got back on Sunday (Mike had to stay for his internship during the week), I had a very unexpected and heartbreaking surprise. Ollie, my little blue Quaker parrot, had picked all the feathers off his belly, the fronts of his legs, and most of the area under his wings. If you're not too familiar with birdy behavior, this is BAD. Plucking is one of the worst habits a bird can develop and if it's an emotional thing, it can be almost impossible to stop. So needless to say, I was flipping out. I got him in for a vet visit the next day and found out that he has birdy pneumonia. The vet said he is just packed full of bacteria from tip to tail. So, now I have to force feed him 3 different types of medication twice a day. Ugh! But at least this means that the plucking should be treatable- it's probably due to the pain of the illness and not to an emotional problem.

And finally, the "foreign languages" part of this posting. Starting yesterday, I'm auditing a German class! I'm really excited about it. I took 3 years of German in high school and 2 years of German as an undergraduate, but I've forgotten a LOT of it after not using it for 5 years. I decided that auditing a class would be a great way to re-learn what I've forgotten. Plus, there's no pressure because I'm not actually receiving a grade. I can just learn for the fun of it. Jawohl!

Signatures

2010-06-21T23:00:00.002-04:00

I'm going to need to begin this posting with a bit of background info so that it makes some sense. Last November, a bunch of big agri-business folks got a measure passed in Ohio that amended the state constitution to say that only a small board of individuals could make decisions regarding farm animal welfare. The idea was to make it tougher for Ohio to pass laws such as those passed in MI and CA outlawing certain inhumane farming practices.

Ok, now fast forward to present day Ohio. With the backing of the Humane Society of the U.S. and a bunch of other animal welfare organizations, a group called Ohioans for Humane Farms is trying to gather enough signatures to get a new constitutional amendment on this year's ballot. This one would set minimum standards of care for the farm board (you can read about it by clicking here ).

The thing is, a minimum of 500,000 signatures is needed just to get the thing on the ballot for a vote. So that's where we are now- gathering signatures- and that's what leads me to my posting. I'm sure that if you know me or if you've read a decent number of my blog entries, you know that I'm very passionate about animals. I feel like if we're going to eat animals, we should make sure that they're at least treated in a kind and respectful manner before they are killed.

Of course, I jumped on board to gather signatures. But I've hit a hitch- I can't bring myself to approach people to sign the damn thing. Heck, I haven't even had the guts to approach the people I know at school! And the thing that really sucks is that this makes me beat myself up inside- I want SO badly to pound the pavement for this cause that I so strongly care about, but I'm completely terrified of rejection. Well, I take that back. I'm not afraid of rejection. I could totally handle people saying no (and actually, I did approach a few people at a signature gathering event recently and handle the approximately 50% "no" rate fairly well). I'm afraid of people getting nasty.

I think the reason why I'm so scared of being fought over this is that it touches so close to the whole vegetarian thing. I originally went vegetarian for ethical and environmental reason and I'd say that about a quarter of the people I told were just plain mean about it. I'm serious- some people were just downright mean and rude about it. My ex's dad actually made me cry! And it was really, really hard (and still is when it happens) to have people attack something that is so close to my heart. I've gotten so closed off about it that I actively try to avoid discussing my eating choices because I don't want to be belittled.

And so now with this whole signature gathering thing, which really is 99% the same issue, I'm stalled. I figured maybe by writing this all out it would shake me out of my funk. Here's to hoping...

Monotony

2010-06-17T14:01:00.002-04:00

Wow, so I've definitely been remiss in posting! I feel bad about it but there's not much I can do. This summer is just SO darn boring. Seriously, there is nothing going on, just weeks of monotony. I get up, I let the birds and the dog out, I do an exercise video, I work, I go to bed, repeat. I swear, there are times I just want to strangle myself out of boredom.

I'd love to take a class or do dance or riding lessons or something, but the problem is that all of that costs money. And when you make a whopping $0.00 per hour then, well, that just doesn't work! I've got the garden, but there's only so much weeding you can do in one day. I can't even start on wedding decor because we don't have anywhere to put it. Argh! I'm slowly going completely insane.

I'm tossing around the idea of auditing a German class just for fun, but I don't know if the prof will let me do it. It would be nice to re-learn some of the language. It's really disheartening when I write a Postcrossing card in German and realize that I can't remember certain words that I used to know without a second thought. It's kind of like when I picked up my flute a few months back and realize that I had to actually think about playing rather than just doing it. There's a certain sadness in realizing that you've lost part or all of a skill that you used to have. So who knows, maybe that will work out and it'll give me something to do for 2 hours every day- yup, every day! It's a Monday through Friday class. Fingers crossed!

One year countdown!

2010-06-09T13:46:00.003-04:00

I'm 5 days late in posting this, but I guess that late is better than never. On June 4, this past Friday, Mike and I had a one-year-to-go walk-through at the Zoo. I wanted to have a chance to see how the gardens will look during our wedding and to talk to the coordinator, Colleen, about the details- you know, get an idea of everything will actually work. It also gave us a good excuse to get our parents together. Mike's mom and my parents were able to attend, so not only did they get to hear all about the Zoo when we did, but they finally got a chance to meet one another.

It was great! Everyone got along swimmingly (yay!) and the gardens are spectacularly beautiful at this time of year. I swear, I have never seen bigger or brighter roses than the ones they have at the Zoo. Plus, Colleen gave us tons of information. She's so patient and fun- anyone who can put up with my badgering of questions and all the family questions and still be smiling in all that heat gets bonus points in my book!

Now that it's less than a year and I've gotten a chance to see how the gardens will look on the day of the wedding, I'm even more excited and I'm in full on planning mode. I just want to craft sooo badly! My list of stuff to do so far includes the card box, program/fan combos, drink umbrellas (yes, I'm making my own!), the manzanita tree for the entryway, some smaller entryway arrangements, and the aisle decorations. Yeah, I know, it's a lot and I probably shouldn't do all of it, but I can't help it. I looove to craft and it's such a fabulous excuse to go crazy with the glue gun.

Flummoxed by fashion

2010-06-01T19:55:00.003-04:00

Thanks to a trial membership with Netflix, I've spent the evening watching instant stream movies while working. I started with Julie and Julia (cute!) and at the present, I'm wrapping up a documentary called "The September Issue". The movie follows Vogue editor, Anna Wintour, and her pack of fashion obsessed peons as they struggle with the oh so life changing task of putting together the September issue of Vogue.

Yes, I realize that the last sentence was absolutely dripping with sarcasm. For anyone out there who adheres to the Vogue-ites' "fashion is life" philosophy, I'm sorry but I just don't get it. I have to say that my favorite moment in this whole thing was when Anna Wintour's own daughter said that she didn't understand how some people could make their whole life about fashion when there are so many more things out there. I just wanted to reach through the screen and hug her because her's was the only voice of reason in this whole thing.

I guess my issue with the whole fashion culture is that I just don't get "high fashion". Most of the stuff just looks unattractive, mismatched, and unflattering in my humble opinion. I mean, if the stuff can make a size 00 look like her butt is huge or her hips are nine miles wide, how in the heck is anyone supposed to pull it off? And then there are the simple things that somehow cost an arm and a leg- the $300 tee shirts and $1000 flip flops and whatnot. And why the heck do the models always have to look like they're pissed off and beat up?

To me, it's just clothes. I do love a pretty outfit, but I will never understand the life or death attitude of people in the industry, nor will I ever understand the people who drop tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on designer clothing. I guess I'm just not a fashionista!

Rain, rain, rain!

2010-05-31T20:02:00.002-04:00

I'm a huge fan of rain- it sounds beautiful, it smells good, and it saves me from having to water the garden. :-) However, today it's just out of control! The first downpour hit at about 12:30. It was sunny and almost 90 and then within ten or fifteen minutes, the clouds moved in and it started raining cats and dogs. I was surprised that it came up so fast! So it rained buckets for a few hours and then stopped, started again around 4:00, went on for a few hours, followed by a few rain-free hours, and so forth.

Like I said, I love rain, but I'm not enjoying the fact that the garden is flooding. I finally got everything planted and thriving and now the tomatoes are drowning. Sigh. But at least it's early enough in the season that if I have to replant, it shouldn't be an issue. I'm just super stoked that the garden is three times as big this year- yay for home-grown produce!!!

Polarizing pooch

2010-05-24T11:30:00.002-04:00

In the year or so since getting Fiona, I've definitely noticed that little dogs tend to be polarizing; people either think they're the cutest thing in the world or they can't stand them. The obnoxious part, though, is that people so often feel that they can voice their negative opinions when I'm right there. It's hurtful to hear someone make snide comments about her and I just can't understand what compels someone to do that. Yesterday, for instance, I was taking her for a walk in the evening. At one point, we had to pass by a house full of drunk people (annoying anyways) and a bunch of the guys started saying, really loudly, "What the hell is that?", "It looks like a fucking rat." and so on.

I'm not delusional enough to think that everyone is going to love little dogs- I know some people don't and that's just fine. I was never a little dog person until Fiona, either! What does piss me off is that people feel that it is ok to just say derogatory things at a volume that is very clearly loud enough for me to hear. It's just so rude and disrespectful. Later on in our walk, we met a group of girls in front of Dairy Queen who just fawned over her for 15 minutes or so (she looooved it). That helped to make up for the frustration from before. But still- can't people just do the whole "If you can't say something nice, don't say something at all" thing???

Lacing up

2010-05-16T21:38:00.002-04:00

Tonight, I laced up my running shoes for the first time in, well, awhile! I feel really good about having done it, but man, what a tough run. I set out to do roughly a mile, figuring it was better to ease back into running rather than to run myself into the ground my first time out. I did make it the whole way (yay!), but I just felt like I was fighting the whole time. I couldn't settle into my stride- I felt gangly the entire time and it really frustrated me. It was like I couldn't coordinate everything so that I could run smoothly and consistently. Grrr!

I ended the run with mixed feelings. On one hand, I felt really, really great for having gotten out there and for pushing through my first day back. I was proud that I did what I set out to do and that I didn't give up. On the other hand, I was sooo frustrated with myself. I don't like feeling awkward like that! But I'm going to end this on a high note and say kudos to myself for taking a first step toward getting back to where I was. Snaps for me!

Invasions

2010-05-12T19:18:00.003-04:00

Not one invasion today but two! The first invasion was of the plumbing kind. I noticed this morning that there was a huge, circular, blue-tinged water stain on the ceiling of our bathroom. It's right in the spot where our upstairs neighbors' toilet is and there was enough moisture that the paint was bubbling up. So I'm thinking great, the idiots upstairs have a broken toilet and they're not reporting it. They're not the brightest crayons in the box, so it really wouldn't surprise me if they decided to just ignore a leak. I had the maintenance guy come look at it this afternoon and he said to just wait to see if it gets worse. Great! Just what I like- waiting to see if a problem goes away. I swear, if the ceiling rots and crap (literally!) starts dripping down into our bathroom, heads will roll.

The giant ceiling stain. You can kind of see the bubbling, too.

The other invasion was a pair of rabbits who suddenly decided that the garden's contents are their personal snack bar. Now don't get me wrong- I love cute little bunnies. I just do not like cute little bunnies eating my baby lettuces. Grr! I went to Home Depot and picked up some organic rabbit repellent and omg, this stuff smells HORRID. Imagine a pile of feces that has been sitting out in the sun for a few weeks, getting all nice and ripe and acrid. Yeah, that's what it smells like. And it's a spray, so it wafted all over my clothes, making them smell like dung. Ick! Let's hope it at least works so it's worth the terrible smell.

Rabbit scouting out the salad bar...

He's so daring! Look at his impertinent little self being all "Hi! I'm here! I'm going to eat ALL your veggies!"

He almost made it to the garden but I shoo-ed him away. Fiona was no help in defending the territory. She was scared of the rabbit.

Housesitting

2010-05-10T22:00:00.003-04:00

Wow, so I fail at updating my blog! I'm at one of those points where there's just not much going on, so I find myself thinking "I'll update tomorrow- I can probably come up with something entertaining to talk about then". I can't promise this entry will actually be entertaining, but at least it'll be something!

For the past few days, I've been dogsitting for my parents in Holt. It's kind of nice, actually, to just get away from everything and do my own thing for a few days. I've found that a change of pace and place often helps to get me back on track. I haven't been totally lazy, either- I've written several pages of my current manuscript and picked up a few more supplies for the wedding. Here I'm actually close to a Michael's and JoAnn Fabric, so I hit up both and got more faux flowers to decorate the aisle at the ceremony. I'm so excited to get started on everything! Part of me thinks that I should wait until closer to the date, but another part of me just wants to craft like it's going out of style- and the latter part is winning! :-)

I did, however, have one major freak out while here. This afternoon, I left to meet up with my grandma and my cousin to have lunch. When I came back, I realized that there were things in the house that had been moved- a pair of pajama pants were in a different spot, the remains of a piece of foam that Gus had shredded as I was hurrying out the door were put in the trash can, and so forth. I flipped out. With my whole fear of someone breaking in, it just freaked me out royally to think that someone had actually been in the house. It took a few hours of calling around before I finally figured out that it was my younger brother- he had stopped by during a break. Phew! It definitely wasn't a fun feeling, but at least I know it wasn't a stranger.

Tiny scare and big scare

2010-05-05T09:43:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, when I arrived home from school, I had a Fiona scare. I had rushed inside rather distractedly, due to the fact that all three birds were literally screaming at the tops of their lungs and I was frantic to quiet them, and I must have been distracted enough that Fiona was able to zip out. I had no idea- I closed the door and locked it behind me as usual and went about quieting the birds. When that was finally finished, I realized that Fi was missing. I called and called and called but no answer. She always comes running when I get home, so this was unusual. I tore the place apart looking for her and finally went to the landlord to see if either of the maintenance guys had been in our apartment. I thought maybe she might have slipped out while they were here. They hadn't, and she and Keith (one of the maintenance guys- he's a great guy) came over to help me look for Fi. So Marlened, the landlord, and I are walking all over the house calling for her when Keith yells from the hall "I found her!". Apparently, when she got out, she ran up to the second floor and just decided it was too scary to come back down. Keith said she was just standing at the top of the stairs, wagging like crazy but not wanting to come down. The silly little thing didn't even bark when I was calling for her!!!

So, that was my little scare. Not little in the sense that it didn't really matter (because it did matter- I was freaking out!), but little in the sense that, well, Fiona is about the tiniest thing ever!

Now for the big scare! With Mike not here, I am admittedly a little on edge- every sound I hear at night is, in my mind, a murderer or rapist come to get me. Last night, around 2:00am, Fiona started growling really low in her throat and stalking across the bed toward the window. After a few second, I realized that I could hear voices right outside our window! We're on the first floor, so the voices were right outside. Of course, I was freaking out. I fumbled my way to the window in the dark and lifted a corner of the curtain to look out- it was two guys standing around under the swingset, about 5 feet from my window! Freaking out more! I tried calling the landlord, but no answer. I was waffling about whether to call the cops, which is why I called her first. The reason I was going to call the cops is that this isn't a very public area- our unit is at the back of an apartment complex, walled off from the surrounding complexes. So it's not as if they were just passing through. When she didn't answer, I went back to see if the guys were still there- they had gone. So, I didn't end up calling the cops. Gone or not, the damage was already done and I didn't get to sleep for another several hours.

Now I'm exhausted and even more firmly convinced that staying alone is terrible. Ugh!

More wedding stuff!

2010-05-02T19:15:00.003-04:00

Yay, more wedding stuff to add to the stockpile! On Saturday, Mike and I drove up to Livonia, Michigan, to visit the Midwest's biggest bird supply store and to pick up some wedding items from a wedding planner who was clearing house. We had originally planned on purchasing just some shepherds' hooks from her (to line the aisle at the ceremony), but then she brought out a ton of decorations in our colors and I just couldn't resist. We ended up with a huge faux floral arrangement (the first pic) a ton of extra faux flowers that match it (the second and third pic) and then eight large faux flower pomanders. The cool thing about the pomanders is that they split in half, meaning that we can use them either as balls or as domes of flowers. The last thing that we got were 31 satin table runners in apple green. I couldn't pass up the runners- they were $2 each and it'll save me from having to make them.

So yeah, I was super stoked about getting all of this stuff! It's so pretty in person (very realistic) and I just couldn't beat the price.

Candles and runners and more, oh my!

2010-04-28T22:14:00.003-04:00

There's so much stuff to organize during wedding planning! We've been making some good strides lately, though, so that's really positive- we recently booked our DJ and we're pretty sure we've found the person we want to use for our wedding cake.

Also, I've had some great finds at Hobby Lobby. A week or so ago, I stopped in to the B.G. store to see if I could find any of the elusive green frosted hanging candle holders. They didn't have any of the green ones in stock (blast!), but they did have two dozen frosted zebra candle holders (below). And even better, they were half off- only $1.50 each! What luck! So, I bought them out and a new Hobby Lobby hunting obsession was born. Since then, we've found several more across 4 different Ohio stores, plus my mom picked some up in Michigan.

I'm buying up the zebra candle holders to use as accents for the centerpieces. Half the tables will have low glass vases of varying sizes that will be filled with black river rocks and white and green flowers- like the flower pic below but with black rocks in place of the green fruit/veggies in the vases. I haven't decided on the centerpieces for the other tables (I want to do half and half for visual interest) but the zebra candleholders will be used as accents on each table. I'm also planning to make a runner of some sort for each table. I haven't yet decided on the exactly color scheme (which parts will be black, white, and green), but the pictures below are the inspriation I'm working with.

Planning this wedding is definitely a big job, but it's turning out to be really fun. I love the fact that I'll get so many excuses to be crafty!

Time to sew

2010-04-20T17:07:00.004-04:00

Too many hours spent watching The Tudors (which is AWESOME!) have convinced me that I need to finally make the Tudor court gown that I have always wanted to sew. Every year when Renaissance festival rolls around, I think shoot- I should've made myself an amazing gown! But then I never do. So I have decided, once and for all, to put forth the time and money necessary to create a truly spectacular gown. Oh, and Mike shall have matching garb as well. I think that he thinks I'm joking about this, but I'm not. He'll just look so darn cute in it that I have to make it!

As of now, I'm thinking that I'm going to model mine after the gown shown in this portait of Princess Elizabeth. I'm not sure about the color though. I waiver between wanting a red/gold color palette (like this one) or a blue gown with cream underskirt and gold trim. Choices, choices! The second photo shows another gown I like and highlights the style of French hood that I'm thinking I'll make. I've never tried my hand millinery before, so this should be entertaining.

To watch or not to watch?

2010-04-17T10:46:00.002-04:00

"To watch or not to watch" has been my question about my Say Yes to the Dress episode pretty much since filming. Going into it, I had little doubt I'd watch it. However, after seeing how artificial many parts were, and after the way that they probed for dramatic answers from both Mike and I, I've got my reservations. They're requested pageant pics from me, so I know without a doubt that they're going to run with the whole "pageant girl gains weight and then isn't happy" thing. Basically, I'm just not sure that I want to see how they spin my story to make it seem worse than it is.

Pros of watching:
1. I'll know exactly what they edit and what they leave out which will allow me to explain what really happened to friends and family.
2. My curiosity will be satisfied!
3. I will get to see how I looked in all the dresses, making it easier to decide whether I really do want the Lazaro that I fell in love with (but refused to buy there because the store owner basically called me fat on national television and you do NOT get my business after that!)

Cons of watching:
1. I'll know exactly what they edit and what they leave out which will make me feel terrible because of all the people I can't reach who will buy the story they spin on there.
2. I'll probably feel bad about myself. It's reality TV- they're going to cut and edit and splice things together to make me seem like a very exaggerated and unrealistic picture of myself. It's going to, undoubtedly, make me feel like crap to think that I'm that person.

In theory, I should choose to watch because there are more pros than cons, but I can't help but wonder if the cons dont' outweigh the pros. Then again, that curiosity one is pretty strong! At least I've got several months to make a decision!

Trip wrap-up

2010-04-13T11:13:00.002-04:00

The following is a general wrap-up of the highlights of our trip to Atlanta...

Lunch at the SunDial- Awesome! This restaurant is 72 floors up on the top of a hotel and the big attraction of it is that all the seating is placed on a moving circular floor that rotates 360 degrees around the outside of the room. It was so neat to sit there and watch Atlanta go by.

Coca-Cola Tour- Not worth the money. We all went into it expecting a tour guide to take groups of 20 or 30 people around the factory and museum and really explaint he history of Coke. Not so much. It ended up being a "self-guided tour" of about 100 people per group. They herded us from room to room and let us "self guide" through everything- we ended up waiting in lines for ridiculous amounts of time. Not to mention, they spent the whole time running advertisements and promos on the TVs. I got so sick of the "Coke is awesome! Buy Coke" crap. I just wanted to learn about the company, not be marketed at!

Georgia Aquarium- Insanely cool! I love aquariums in general but what made this one insanely cool was the absolutely massive fish tank in the middle of the building that had whale sharks. Freakin' WHALE SHARKS! It was incredible. They had a viewing room where you could sit on bleachers and just watch all the animals swim by. Besides the whale sharks in the tank, they had other sharks (hammerheads, black tips, etc.), thousands of fish, manta rays, and so forth. It was just really, really neat. And on a funny note, I almost got in a fight with a woman in the cafeteria. It was a good thing that Jen was there to distract me because I was just in one of those moods and if the woman hadn't shut up, it would've been ON! :-)

Dinner at Vortex- This place was fantastic. It's difficult to describe the atmosphere at Vortex. It's sort of a voodoo/biker/hip vibe. I don't know, I guess you have to be there- but whatever the vibe, it's great! They're most well-known for their Super-Stack Heart Attack Burger. It's a double burger with 3 grilled cheese sandwiches in place of the 3 buns, topped with 2 fried eggs, 8 slices of cheese, and 10 strips of bacon. I honestly thought Mike was going to go for it but then he showed a rare glimmer of restraint and did not order the biggest, baddest-for- you thing on the menu. :-)

The drive back- Ugh. Long day. The drive back from Atlanta was around 9.5 hours and even though it was an absolutely beautiful ride, it was still very loooong. We did, on the bright side, find a great little Thai place around Cincinnatti at which we ate dinner. Yum!

Now it's just back to the daily grind with an added bonus of trying to catch up on everything. That's always the bummer of going on vacation- you have to come back and recover!

Tv show

2010-04-08T16:27:00.002-04:00

This morning was the filming session for the Say Yes to the Dress- Atlanta show. It was definitely an experience. We got there around 9:00 and the crew got us going right away. Sidenote- the crew members were all amazing. Everyone was so friendly and so fun to work with! If anyone from TLC happens to read this, your crew deserves some kudos!

The first thing we did was to film pre-recorded interviews. Myself, a sound guy, a supervisor, a camera guy, and the interviewer were in this little teeny room with a camera and a ton of lights. For about 20 minutes, they asked me all sorts of questions about everything from what I am looking for in a dress to how Mike proposed. Mike went next, followed by Shuang, and this was all before the actual trying-on of gowns! After interviews were done, we were mic-ed up and filmed the introductions between us and the consultant, our entrance into the gown area, and and the three of us looking through the gown racks- each of these a few times. That was one of the things that most surprised me about the situation- we re-shot things so many times!

Then I got into the actual dress shopping. I tried on four dresses, all of them very different. The first was a full A-line gown with a very stylized single-shoulder bodice by Amsale. I liked it, but it just wasn't right for me. The second gown was really unique. It had a ruched dropped-waist bodice with tulle flowers all over the skirt. I was suprised by how much I liked it! The third was a ball gown with a sweetheart neckline. It was white with tiny beaded floral embroidery all over. This was another one that surprised me- I didn't think I would like it since I'm not a ballgown person, but I actually did like it. We ended up ruling it out, though, because it was hot. Even just standing on the pedestal, I was getting sweaty. Definitely not what I want for an outdoor June wedding! The fourth gown I absolutely looooved. It was a simple lace and chiffon gown by Lazaro and it was just perfect.

I was completely sold and ready to close the deal when drama happened. There is one gown that I have been thinking about for several months now. In fact, I'm pretty sure I blogged about it on here. They had the gown there, but the sample size was so small that I couldn't even get it over my tush. It really got to me- to not be able to try on the gown I had been eyeballing for months due to my size made me feel horrible. I ended up having a small breakdown in the dressing room because of it. Don't worry- you'll get to see all of it! :-)

My conundrum was that I adored the one dress, but the fact that I couldn't try on the sample of the other dress just kept bugging me. I felt like without trying it on, I couldn't rule it out. If I did, the thought of "Well, what if it actually DID look better than the one you bought?" would always be there nagging at me. So, I left empty-handed. Sadness!

However, I have a sneaking feeling that I'm going to end up with that gown for my wedding. I just liked how it looked so much. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on when the show is airing. Then you can all watch the drama unfold!

We made it!

2010-04-07T21:29:00.002-04:00

We made it to Atlanta! Our national conference is being held here this year, so we had to make it down here today in order to attend. Due to the very pressing matter of the burrito eating contest last night, Mike and I were stuck driving down all day today. 10 hours in a car... ouch! Actually, the driving part wasn't that bad. The scenery was GORGEOUS. Seriously, Kentucky is breathtakingly beautiful at this time of year, especially the Lexington area, as is Tennessee. I wish I had kept my camera with me in the car because there were some fantastic photo ops. When we were driving through Lexington, for instance, there was one farm we passed that was just picture perfect: rolling green pasture, bright red barn, white fences, blue sky, and a herd of beautiful horses scattered across the landscape. So pretty! And all the way from lower Ohio to Georgia, there were flowering trees with blooms in a striking pale pink/purple color that were just lovely. Sigh!

Not everything was perfect, however. When we were smack in the middle of Kentucky, about halfway through our drive, we blew a tire. I have to give props to Mike- he had the tire off and the donut on in almost no time! Thankfully, the next exit was only about 3 miles away, so we were able to limp the car there to look for a tire shop. We ended up at this place called Parsley's and they were fantastic. Everyone there was so nice and they had the new tire on in about 15 minutes. If you're ever in London, KY and need auto work done, I'd recommend them! Great people.

After that, we pretty much just slogged through the ride. We made it into Atlanta and then missed our exit. Drats! It just came up so fast and there was no way we could make it across 5 lanes of traffic in time. Thank heavens for GPS units!!! If we hadn't had our GPS unit with us, I don't know how we would have found our way back through the maze of criss-crossing one-way and dead-end streets. But we made it here and after a brief tussle with the front desk over a lost reservation (which I had confirmed not one but TWO times!), we had everything squared away.

Now we're just sitting here waiting for overpriced pizza to arrive so that we can eat and veg out. Need beauty sleep before tomorrow's TV appearance! :-)

Don't get birds if...

2010-04-05T13:18:00.002-04:00

Having dealt with a particularly taxing morning of bird behavior, I have decided to write a blog entry that I've been thinking of for awhile. This entry will, in short, be my list of reasons not to get a bird. Don't get me wrong- I love birds and I definitely love my birds. However, birds are a HUGE commitment and I know from experience in volunteering at a shelter that many people don't think about the negatives before they buy a bird. Failing to do your homework can lead to you being miserable and your bird being homeless.

So before you get a bird, think about the following things...

1. Don't get a bird if you can't stand messes. Birds are messy. VERY messy. If you get a bird, you will find feathers everywhere. Feathers are like sand- you will constantly be asking yourself "How did this stuff get tracked into HERE???". Then there's the food mess. In the wild, birds make a mess of their food and this is actually good for the environment. It means that seeds and nuts get spread far and wide. In your house, this can be a huge hassle. Seeds and pellets and portions of treats will get all over.

2. Don't get a bird if you can't stand noise. Even the littlest bird will make noise and if you are considering a larger bird, plan to be driven out of your mind on a regular basis! When I worked at the shelter, I would often deal with people who got a bird because they thought it would be fun or cute to have a talking bird. What they didn't consider is that talking birds never stop talking. Birds are like toddlers who have just learned to speak- it's really cute the first few times they do it but then you find yourself thinking "Please just SHUT UP already! I need a few minutes of peace and quiet!". You will not get that with birds. They are vocal creatures, especially the parrots and conures.

3. Don't get a bird if you aren't willing to pay for what it needs. Please, please, please don't get a bird if you are going to be stingy in purchasing a cage. It always pained me to see a bird brought into the shelter in a cage that was too small for him/her. If you get a conure or a Quaker, be prepared to spend a minimum of $250 for a cage. Getting a parrot? These birds need a LOT of room, so plan to fork over $500+. After the cage is purchased, there's still the issue of food and toys. Birds are intelligent and need a lot of stimulation. If you plan to have your bird spend any length of time in its cage, it will need toys. And it will destroy its toys regularly, requiring you to purchase new toys. Consider yourself warned!

4. Don't get a bird if you plan to leave it in a cage for long periods of time. Birds are flock animals. They need interaction and attention. If you buy a bird, you become its flock. It is unfair and cruel to a bird to cage it for 8 or 9 hours a day. Think honestly about your work/school schedule, as well as how often you travel- can you commit to spending enough time with a bird to keep him/her mentally healthy?

5. Don't get a bird if you don't want to be bitten. If you have a bird, you will get bitten. It is not a question of "if" a bird will bite you but "when". Even the sweetest bird will, at some point, nip you out of fear, frustration, playfulness, etc. This isn't so much of an issue if you have a small bird (like my cockatiel), but if you get a parrot, be prepared for pain and possibly blood. I once watched a macaw bite a girl's lip in half and it was not pretty! If you're going to flip out as a result of being bitten, then don't get a bird.

6. Think hard about getting a bird if you have small children or plan to have children. Birds generally are not as tolerant as dogs or cats. If a child grabs a bird and startles or hurts the bird, the bird WILL bite. Birds will also get jealous if a new baby is receiving all the attention and the bird is being ignored. In these cases, the bird will probably take to screaming and/or biting. Keep this in mind when deciding whether to get a bird.

7. Don't get a bird if you can't commit long-term. Birds live a long time. For instance, our cockatiel's life expectancy is 15 years while that of our Quaker and Amazon are, respectively, 30 and 80 years. We will have to put Pepper (our Amazon) in our will. Birds develop deep emotional bonds with their owners and if you dump your bird because of a life change, that bird is going to suffer. Before you buy, sit down and seriously think about the different life events that could reasonably occur for you during that bird's lifetime. If you have a new baby, move to a new home, retire, etc., will you still want to have that bird around? If the answer is no, then don't get the bird in the first place. You wouldn't just dump your child when it became inconvenient to have him/her around, so don't do it to a bird.

So those are my reasons for NOT getting a bird. My main point here is that you should plan ahead with a bird. Birds are extremely demanding when it comes to the money, time, attention, and patience to keep them happy and healthy. Having a bird can be so rewarding, but I strongly encourage people to think before making the commitment.

Recurring dreams

2010-04-02T09:56:00.002-04:00

Having just had one of my recurring dreams last night, and having had a good laugh comparing recurring dreams with a friend recently, I feel like sharing some of these dreams on here. From talking to people, it seems like most people have at least one dream that comes back to them, in one form or another, pretty regularly. I have several that make the rounds, all of which I find quite amusing, so I figured I'd share!

Recurring dream #1: The "Please take my baby" dream.
This dream always has the same general premise: I am holding a baby, I know the baby's mine even though I don't remember ever being pregnant or having given birth, and I am trying to get people to take the baby. The baby is always really cute, and I don't dislike it or anything, I just don't think that I can take care of it properly and am therefore trying to give it away to friends or family members. Problem is, nobody will ever take it. They just keep saying "No, it's your baby. You have to keep it!".

Recurring dream #2: The "You need to come back to high school" dream.
In this dream, I get a call from my high school saying that they made a mistake way-back-when and I actually should not have graduated. In the dream, high school Katie was apparently 1 class short of graduation requirements, so I have to go back to high school to complete that class. If I don't, I'll have my diploma and all subsequent degrees revoked. High school awkwardness ensues and this dream generally also involves me being unable to find the classroom.

Recurring dream #3: The "Crap, I forgot about that class!" dream.
This dream started cropping up in college and it goes like this: it is the end of the semester and I suddenly recall a class that I had signed up for but never attended. Oh no, what shall I do? Being that it is the end of the semester, I try desperately to find said class so that I can take the final exam and hopefully get enough points to pass. Alas, I can never find the room.

Recurring dream #4: The "Crap, I forgot about that play!" dream.
This dream is pretty much the same as recurring dream #3 but in this one, I have forgotten that I am in a play until it is opening night. I don't know what part I play, I don't know my lines, and yet they keep telling me to go on. Usually, the dream involves me running frantically around the backstage area in a futile effort to find a script so that I can read along. Nobody ever has a script. Sigh.

Recurring dream #5: The "Oh no I'm naked!!!" dream.
This one can be set in several different locations but has the same general premise: I am naked in some public place in which I definitely do NOT want to be naked. Not that there are public places in which I would actually want to be naked, but there are definitely those which are less appealing than others. The most common locations for this dream are high school or on a pageant stage.

So those are the recurring dreams that I tend to have. I've often thought that it would be great fun to have these dreams analyzed. I see the makings of many great metaphors for things in my life. Anyone out there have any good recurring dreams to share?

April challenge to myself

2010-03-31T22:56:00.002-04:00

I have decided to issue a challenge to myself: beginning tomorrow and continuing through the final day of the month of April, I will step outside of my lazy-college-student style rut by doing two things: first, I will wear my hair in a different style each day and second, I will wear a hoody in public no more than once per week.

I know, it probably sounds silly, but it actually is a challenge for me! I'm so used to just sporting a ponytail and a sweatshirt each day and I'm tired of being so predictable and boring. I need to actually develop a style and dress like more of a professional. Basically, I need to act like I care for once.

So that's my challenge! Let's see if I can do it...

Postcrossing

2010-03-30T12:40:00.003-04:00

Thanks to my advisor, I found out about a great little website that is just too much fun. The site is called Postcrossing (click here) and the point is to send and receive postcards to/from all around the world. How fun is that? It's completely free, other than the cost of sending the postcards, and you can get started as soon as you sign up.

Basically, you request an address, you send a postcard, the recipient registers the postcard once it arrives, and then your name is given to someone else so that you can receive a postcard. Then the cycle continues so that you're sending and receiving postcards from all sorts of people.

How fun is that?

Yesterday was a good day

2010-03-28T11:53:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was a good day! The greatest part was just knowing that I didn't actually have to do anything. With prelims over, my time is mostly my own again- it's just research and teaching now. So here is what made yesterday awesome.

1. I slept in. I didn't get up until I actually wanted to get up. Lovely!

2. After getting up, I sat around on the couch watching TV for a bit. Just sat and watched. Didn't do anything.

3. Thai for lunch!!!

4. Shopping! Found super cute hanging tea-light holders and paper parasols at Hobby Lobby to use in the wedding. Then went to the mall to hit up Sephora in hopes that they still had the Cargo Blu_Ray sets on mega clearance. They did not, but it was certainly not a lost trip. I mentioned to a sales associate that I was going to be on the Say Yes to the Dress spinoff and wanted a camera-friendly foundation and boom, I had a fan club! I ended up with five different sales associates playing around with my makeup and trying different products on me. It was super fun! And there's a decent chance I ended up buying an airbrush makeup system- but if you break it down by the different important functions for which I'll be able to use it (TV show, bridal shower, bachelorette party, wedding, and so forth), it's really a great deal!

5. Went ice skating. Good part: I did not fall. Bad part: I almost fell a few times and during one almost-fall, I almost took out a little kid. Oops! But it was a ton of fun, even despite the hoardes of squealing pre-teens. I haven't ice skated in years!

6. Got Dairy Queen after ice skating. Mmm... Blizzard!

7. Came back here and watched "How I Met Your Mother" episodes until bedtime.

Yup, that was the day and it was great! And all I really need to do today is work out and make a Powerpoint for tomorrow's class, so that's not too bad. I'm liking this no prelims thing!

Done!

2010-03-26T22:25:00.002-04:00

I am DONE with prelims- woot! Well, I do still have the oral defense, but the really awful part is over. Helllll yeah! This second day went pretty much the same as the first- there was one question which I definitely couldn't answer, one question that I was so-so on, and then three that I knew I could totally do. Plus, I managed to beat both my time and my length from yesterday's test, finishing with 20 pages and 20 extra minutes to go! Mad skills, I know.

I can't even begin to describe how relieved I feel. I plan to sleep in tomorrow morning and then spend the day watching TV, cleaning out the garden, maybe heading to the mall for some window shopping, and just generally wasting time sitting around doing nothing. Ahhh, doing nothing- it sounds so awesome!

1 down, 1 to go!

2010-03-25T15:21:00.002-04:00

Day 1 of prelims is over. Woohoo! I have to say, it went better than I had thought it would. It didn't start out too hot, though. My plan was to only look at the first question and answer it before even looking at the others. My reasoning was that by avoiding reading all the questions at one time, I could avoid overwhelming myself. Well, that seemed like great reasoning except when I read the first question, I had no clue how to answer it! I could have written something about it, but I didn't have a single source on my list to cite. So then I moved on to the next question. It wasn't bad, but I definitely didn't feel super confident about it. By that point, I'm thinking crap, I'm totally screwed. Then I see number 3 and I though aha! I can totally take this one down! So I cranked out 4 pages on that one and chugged along. Once I got rolling, it wasn't bad at all. I ended up with 19 pages of writing AND 15 minutes to spare. Heck yeah!

Backing up a bit- yesterday, Mike was a total doll and surprised me with a couples massage to help us relax before prelims. Bliss! And that got me thinking about some of the funny and not-so-funny stories and I've decided to share.

Ok, so the funny massage story first- When Mike and I were in Puerto Rico being all bored and stuck in our hotel with nothing to do, we decided we needed a massage. Unfortunately, the spa in the hotel was, of course, insaaanely overpriced. As in about $120 a PIECE. So we took a cab into Old San Juan and booked a couples massage at this pretty little spa (in a nice area!). Things proceed as normal until we get on the table. Now, normally, you get a sheet to cover your body while you're lying there but we got towels... hand towels... as in little towels that barefly covered everything. But I'm thinking hey, they're female masseuses AND it's only $80 for both of us, so I'll deal with some overexposure. So they start the massage and the next thing I know, the girl is massaging my upper thigh. And I do mean UPPER thigh... Really, really upper thigh. Apparently, in Puerto Rico, they massage "everything but". Yeah, it was a tad odd! But then Mike and I had a good laugh afterwards.

Now the not so funny story. When Steph and I were on our cruise, we signed up for a spa treatment that included a free "detoxifying massage". Let me tell you, that was the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life. They called it a "lymphatic massage" and it involved the masseuse digging her fingers into my lymps nodes super hard. If you want an idea of how it feels, stick your thumb in your groin, really, really hard, and then slide it down your inner thigh, really, really hard. I mean, push until you feel bone. And then repeat that about ten times on each leg, move to your armpits, and do the same thing with your lymph nodes there. It was AWFUL. I ended up bruised. I literally had finger marks all over my armpits and inner thighs.

So there you have it! My funny and not so funny massage stories!

'Tis the eve of D-day

2010-03-24T15:04:00.002-04:00

Well, it's the eve of prelims! Tomorrow is the first of our two days of written preliminary examinations. *Shudder*. Basically, this is the bar exam equivalent in I-O Psychology. We have two days of testing and each day, we are required to answer four of five essay questions that we are given. Both days, we're given 4 hours- we start at 8:00 in the morning and are required to finish by noon. The first day is the general day- we can be asked questions about anything in the field of I-O. The second day, we are tested on our specialty areas.

It's weird- on one hand, I'm extremely glad that it's finally here and I can just be done with it. I'm tired of it looming there and I'm completely burned out on reading. I can't even study today because I'm just so over it. On the other hand, I'm freaked out about taking the test. Apparently, outright failure is very rare, but I'm still terrified that I'm going to get in there and find myself thinking "Holy crap, I can't answer half these questions!". It's so daunting...

On the positive side of things, and totally unrelated to prelims, Mike and I have started setting up cake tasting appointments. Yay! It's going to totally undo all of my weight loss efforts but who cares- it has to be done, so really, it's like I'm forced to do this. :-) We have three appointments so far and I'm hoping to have another two or three prior to the end of the summer.

You want to know how nerdy we are? We're going to be selecting our baker and the flavor combinations mathematically. We'll have at least two people come with us to each tasting so that we have four ratings for each place and then we'll compute a formula that weights our criteria (taste, texture, price, etc.) to produce a score for each option. Then voila, choice made for us! Yup, we're dorks. Huuuuge dorks.

Skechers Shape Ups : My experience

2010-03-20T18:12:00.002-04:00

As the title of this blog entry implies, I am the proud new owner of a pair of Skechers Shape Up shoes! Yeah, I know, it's not that exciting- they are, after all, just shoes. But they are pretty popular right now, and I have had a lot of people asking me how I like them, so I figured I'd add my experience to the plethora of consumer information available at the moment.

I purchased the shoes a few weeks ago because the stars aligned and Kohl's had them on sale at the time that I legitimately needed, and was looking for, new walking shoes. I tried them on in the store and they were comfortable so I figured what the heck- even if they don't work, they're still good shoes.

So how do I like them? A lot, actually! Before I launch into my reasons for liking them, I will say this- I think a lot of the claims that Skechers makes about these shoes are bogus. According to the box and the DVD (yes, they give you a freakin' DVD with the shoes), they're supposed to work pretty much every part of your body, including your core, your glutes, and so forth. I definitely don't think they're working nearly that much and there's certainly no way that these things are going to turn anyone into a super model.

That said, here are the reasons I like the shoes. First, they DO make your calves work and they make them work very hard. The first time that I wore these on a "real" walk (about 3 miles), they made my calves burn like nobody's business. Now that I'm used to them, I don't get as much soreness in my calves, but I can really feel my lower legs working MUCH harder in these than in my regular shoes. My second reason for liking them is that they force me to walk with proper form. I have a problem with rolling my feet to the outside when I walk or run, and these are the only shoes that have ever gotten me to walk in the correct manner. It made my ankles a bit sore for the first few days, but I can already feel a difference in my stride when I walk in normal shoes. My final reason for really liking them is that they encourage me to walk more. When I walk now, I feel like I'm getting a little bonus workout. That makes me feel like I'm doing more for myself and it really reinforces the idea of getting out and walking for an hour or so.

All in all, I'd say that if you're looking for a comfortable shoe that gives you a little extra fitness boost, I'd totally recommend these. Just be realistic and don't expect them to make you a superstar overnight.

Unsurprisedly unimpressed

2010-03-17T22:20:00.004-04:00

I have this thing about not knocking something until I try it (within reason, of course), so after months of knocking the Twilight crap that is everywhere, I decided to try it. I've been walking a lot lately and I downloaded the audiobook to listen to while walking. I figured that way, it wasn't actually taking up any usable time in my life and I didn't have to feel bad about it.

I am four chapters in and thus far, I am less than impressed and less than surprised about that. I went into it not expecting much, so I guess that could help or hinder how I see the book; my expectations are low, so it should be easy for the book to surpass them but then again, your expectations often shape your experience.

Ok, so why do I not like it thus far? There are a few reasons. First, and foremost for me, the main character (Bella) is obnoxiously unrelatable and frankly, quite pathetic. She's all "Oooh, my life is SO HARD. I dont' know how I even handle dealing with my divorced parents and all the boys who want to date me. Ugh, so difficult". She's like the ultimate emo kid, thinking her life is so much more dark and difficult than everyone else's and nobody can understand her and blah blah blah. I just want to smack her. And on top of that, the author makes her seem so pathetically incompetent that I don't even WANT to root for her. If I have to hear about how shy or clumsy or cowardly she is one more time, I may just stomp all over my Ipod (not really, but you get my point). Grow a freakin' backbone, for crying out loud!

Then there's the fact that she's basically the posterchild for angsty teen girls who want emotionally distant men. I get that guys who are dark and brooding and mysterious are supposed to be desirable, but Edward just goes too far into that. He's an ass and frankly, seems like he probably has a personality disorder. And yet, Bella's all infatuated with him. If I didn't know this was supposed to be a vampire love story, I'd think this was the start to a Lifetime movie where the girl falls in love with some guy and after being emotionally abused for awhile, decides she's had enough and, well, you know how all those Lifetime movies go.

Like I said, I'm only 4 chapters in, so maybe I'll change my tune. But at this point, I'm just not feeling it. I want to get everyone in the book some counseling, not hear how their love story develops.

Absurd endurance

2010-03-14T13:51:00.002-04:00

On Friday, I received an email noticed from the library saying that some books I'd requested for prelims had come in. It was such a beautiful day that I decided to walk there to pick them up rather than driving. Mike didn't want to come along (he had video games to play, after all!), so he suggested I take Fiona with me.

I knew that she could go quite a distance because we had taken her for walks of about 2 miles before, but I wasn't sure she could make it the full 4 miles round-trip to the library. She loves her walks and for such a little dog, she's got a ton of energy and pep. Well, long story short, she DID make it the full 4 miles and even more than that, she ran circles around the living room once we got home! This teeny little 3-pound dog has absolutely absurd endurance.

She and I had a lot of fun on our walk. She is doing very well with her leash training (we're working on getting her to stop pulling and practically strangling herself) and she's just the cutest thing with her little legs flying along. Once we got to the library, I had to figure out what to do with her since I couldn't take her in. I had two options: tie her outside the library while I went inside or put her in my totebag and take her in with me. I figured she'd flip out if I left her outside, plus she's very tiny and abduct-able, so I opted to pop her in my bag. She did beautifully! She didn't make a peep the whole time; she just chilled until we were back outside and then boom, she was ready to go again.

I swear, Fiona is like having a giant dog in a teeny little bundle-of-energy package. Love her!

Game release party

2010-03-09T21:37:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I experienced the dorkiness that is a video game release party . To preface all of this- Mike pre-ordered the new Final Fantasy XIII game and it came out today starting at midnight. Because he preordered, he was invited to the "release party" at the GameStop in town. Basically, all the video game nerds who just have to have their copy of the game at midnight come out and wait in line for like an hour just so that they can get their copy, speed home, and spend hours trying to be the first to beat it. Oh, the dorkiness.So anyways, Mike and our friend Scott and I went out to Dairy Queen for ice cream to kill some time and then around 11:30, we headed for GameStop.

The scene: Darkness. A parking lot lit by the glow of a dozen idling cars' headlights. The silence of a late winter's night broken by the gleeful murmurings of twenty or so trenchcoat-clad gamer dorks. The dorks mill about restlessly, unaccustomed to the fresh air and anxious to return to their dwellings once they have obtained their coveted prize. A lone GameStop employee mans the door to the store, single-handedly controlling the flow of the precious life-sustaining games. The clock strikes midnight- the first two are allowed in to the store. They emerge shortly thereafter, triumphantly displaying their prize: a small plastic case holding a CD apparently worth a whopping $59.99. They are victorious. Now all must wait their turn to bask in the glory of the Final Fantasy.

Yeah, it was terribly amusing! But my beloved gamer dork got his copy, so I guess it was all good in the end. And we did experience some amusing drama while there. While we were standing outside, waiting for Mike to be allowed in to the store, some dude came walking up to the employee manning the door and got all angry. He was griping about how an employee had been allowed to purchase a copy of the game before this guy had been allowed to do so (mind you, everyone there had preordered, so they were guaranteed a copy; it's not like there was any chance of them running out). That wasn't the funny part- the funny part was that the guy got all angry when the doorman told him he had to wait and started yelling "This is bullshit. I'm calling the cops cuz this is discrimination!". Hehehe. These guys are serious about their Final Fantasy!

Oh, boys and their video games!

Bouquets and springtime

2010-03-07T15:30:00.003-05:00

The past few days have just been delightful, at least as far as weather goes. The sun has been shining, the birds have been chirping, I've seen bulbs popping up in multiple places, and it's been significantly above freezing all day. It's that time of year when you can just feel spring in the air. Now don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no doubt that there will be at least one more terrible snow dumping session before spring actually arrives. It is, after all, Ohio. But even though Mother Nature may choose to dampen my spirits in a few days or weeks, the point is that right now, spring is in the air and in my blood. All I want to do is go outside and wander around!

So now that it's getting to be a bit nicer, I'm feeling the itch to plan wedding stuff. A lot of the major stuff is out of the way, so it's just the details at this point. I LOVE the details! I just love picking out little tidbits here and there to tie everything together.

Today's detail of choice: bouquets! I have a general idea of what I want, but I need to pick out the specifics. The pictures below are pretty much what I'm deciding among at this point. I know for sure that I want the predominant color to be pale green, I want to incorporate green and burgundy cymbidium orchids (because they are the whole inspiration for our color palette) but there are subtle differences that I need to iron out.

So what do you think?

I like that this one is all different shades of green, from the very pale green roses to the darker green spider mums, but with touches of burgundy from the orchids. Very monochromatic and pretty!

This one is a good balance of green and ivory, although I would ask for roses that are more opened. I like the more lush appearance of blown roses as opposed to buds.

How fun are those monkeytail ferns??? This one really brings out the idea of the apple and burgundy color palette. I would probably replace the calla lilies with pale ivory roses, but that's just me. Overall, though, I think this one is the most "fun" of the bouquets.

Talk about classic bridal! Now this one doesn't have the orchids that I was pretty set on having, but there's just something that really appeals to me about it. I could always have the orchids incorporated into the bridesmaids' bouquets in order to tie in the burgundy.

We found a car!

2010-03-03T20:17:00.004-05:00

Congrats to us, because we found a car! We ended up buying a 2007 Ford Focus SES from a dealership here in town. The guy that we worked with was really nice and the best part was that they didn't try to screw us over by jacking up the price after we agreed to buy. Fancy that!

The car is really nice. It only has 30,000 miles on it, gets great gas mileage, and has power everything with heated seats. Mmm... warm tushies in the winter! Plus, it's a hatchback, so it has a lot of extra space for storage. The only downside is that it's white, the color at the bottom of the list for both of us, but hey, you take what you can get when it comes to used cars!

The photos below are from the dealer's website but they're of our actual car. Check it out!

P.S.- If you're looking for a car in/around the B.G. area, I would highly recommend you check out Bowling Green Lincoln Mercury. Their selection is great and the sales staff are really nice people. And they're not shady!

Blooms!

2010-03-02T14:20:00.002-05:00

First of all, I have to ask pre-forgiveness for any excessive typos that may occur in today's posting. I managed to slice out a chunk of my left pinky finger last night, so I'm trying to type without using that finger and, well, it's weird!

Now, for the blooms part- I saw bulbs coming up on campus today!!! I wish I had brought my camera with me because it would've been nice to have evidence. That is always one of my favorite sights each year- new flowers just peeping through the snow. It gives you hope at the time of year when you really need it! Fingers crossed that maybe this means an early spring. I hope, I hope, I hope...

Unfortunately, the bad thing about it being March is that it is now officially the month of prelims. Gulp! I don't know why I seem to be such a wreck over this. Mike's being really chill about it but I'm just about to tear my hair out. I think I'm just stressing myself out too much by assuming that I have to know everything. I can't help it thought- I just keep picturing myself sitting in a little room, reading through my questions, and not knowing the answers to any of them. Yes, I know, it's catastrophizing, but it's a huge deal! I don't want to be "that person" who fails and then gets pitied by everyone else! Argh!

But back to hope: spring is coming, spring break is next week, my students will have their second exam tomorrow, meaning I don't have to actually do any prep work or show up to school early. So those are the positives! Must remain upbeat...

Oh you silly auto dealer!

2010-02-26T10:58:00.002-05:00

As I said a little bit ago, Mike and I are in the market for a car. We have tried out a few thus far and yesterday, we decided to just go with one from a dealership in town. The price was a little bit higher than we'd originally planned to go, but we were willing to swing it because the car was a good deal. We called them yesterday, said we were ready to buy, and were planning to pick the car up Saturday.

Then this morning, Mike gets a call from the dealer. According to said dealer, the manager had raised the price on the car. And get this: they'd raised the price 1 THOUSAND dollars! What the hell??? So we were both really pissed. Do they really think they can jerk us around like that? We're freakin' psychologists, for crying out loud- we KNOW all these tactics!

Mike went over there to (politely) tear them a new one and we just got another call from them. Apparently, they want to "help us out" by bringing the price down $700. So basically, they are trying to make us feel like they are doing us a favor by charging us $300 more than we had originally been quoted. Umm, I don't think so! Thus, no car for us.

The nice thing for us is that we are definitely in a good position as buyers. We don't need a car; there's no pressure for us to buy. If we get one now or we get one six months from now, it's no real biggy. Plus, we plan to buy outright, so it's not as if we have to deal with a bank and financing and whatnot. I'm just peeved, though, that they tried to pull this stunt with us. Stupid Thayer auto!

I'll be on TV!!!!!!!!

2010-02-24T21:32:00.002-05:00

Can I just say HAPPY DANCE??? Yay! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's what happened...

The Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology has a huge conference each year that pretty much everyone and their grandma attends. This year, it's going to be held in Atlanta, Georgia. I figured that while I was down there, I should take the opportunity to check out some bridal salons. There's just not that much around here, so I figured I'd have some super fun girly time and window shop while there.

So a month or so ago, I started scoping out Atlanta bridal salons on the internet. One that seemed very promising was "Bridals by Lori". From what I saw online, it is pretty much the Kleinfeld of Atlanta, and that's the kind of experience I wanted. While trolling their website, I noticed a sidebar ad saying that they were looking for brides-to-be who would be in the store this spring and would like to be on a new "Say Yes to the Dress" spinoff show for TLC. I figure what the hell, I should go for it and I provided my info.

Fast forward to today- they called me and they want me on the show!!! I am so stoked! This is going to be such a fun, memorable experience. Ahhh, so excited!!! :-D

Please don't buy fur!

2010-02-23T17:32:00.003-05:00

I'm going to take a few moments to write a more serious blog entry, much like the one I wrote about puppy mills several months ago. If you know me or if you have read some of my blog entries, you probably know that I am very passionate about the humane treatment of animals. I think that if we are going to force animals to live in captivity for our enjoyment, then we have a moral obligation to treat them as the living, breathing, sentient beings that they are.

So today, I'm blogging about the fur industry. The short and sweet message: no matter how "cool" you may think it is, please don't buy fur. The simple truth is that the fur farming industry is cruel and barbaric. Most people don't want to know what goes on because they don't want to have to think about it, but the fact is that animals raised for fur endure pure hell. They are raised in unsanitary, cramped, and dammaging conditions for several months before being forced to endure painful deaths. And all of this is the name of fashion.

It infuriates me to hear celebrities and socialites talk about how wearing is fine because it makes them happy. Take, for instance, Adam Lambert. In a recent interview, he went on about how he thinks fur is ok because he didn't kill the animal; he doesn't agree with animal cruelty but he thinks it is ok to wear fur. Umm, you can't have it both ways! (You can find the interview by Googling for it or by downloading it at http://www.wbli.com/). Fur farming IS animal cruelty. Just because you choose to ignore the unpleasant side of it doesn't make it go away.

If you still don't think that there is anything wrong with wearing fur, I suggest you do your homework. Look into what REALLY goes on in a fur farm. Check out the "recommended" methods for killing the animals in order to preserve their pelts. View one of the many videos on Youtube that expose the truth about fur farming around the world. And keep in mind that even though a garment may indicate that it was made in a European country, chances are very high that the animal was raised in China. Why is this bad? Because China has absolutely no regulations on the fur farming industry of its nation. Animals are generally skinned alive by Chinese fur traders. I simply can't imagine anything more gruesome and horrifying; If that isn't enough to convince you that fur is a bad idea, then I don't know what is.

Be an educated consumer. Think before you buy and choose fake fur!

Monday poll

2010-02-22T22:22:00.002-05:00

It's Monday, my readings for the day are done, I taught my class about some super awesome z-score stuff (I lied- it's terribly, terribly boring) and now I'm going to steal a blog post idea from my sister-in-law-to-be, Lisa. You may check out her beauty-focused blog by clicking here if you would like. Ok, so the Monday poll...

1. Mood: Stressed and anxious. Prelims have got me really freaked out and it doesn't help that I have two birds waging an epic battle on my shoulder at the moment. I swear, Pepper's gonna take me ear off at any moment.

2. A beauty product you couldn’t live without? Lip gloss. My obsession with lip stuff of every kind is probably diagnosable.

3. Socks with high heels — Nay for me but I think it can look cute on some people. I'm just more of a traditionalist myself.

4. Today’s morning beverage? The first thing I drank today was a Diet Cola with Lime (Kroger brand for the win!), but it was with lunch, not in the morning. No actual morning beverages were consumed.

5. Eyes/lips/cheeks: Everyday Minerals "Autumn Afternoon"/ Benefit Posietint/ Milani Mosaic Blush

6. What makeup do you have in your purse right now? Powder and around 10 different lip glosses/lipsticks. Noooot even joking.

7. The highlight of your weekend? Car shopping! I'd say the mall, but I didn't get to shop at all because Mike was with me and he gets all antsy.

8. When was the last time you went window shopping for makeup? Sunday while I was in Sephora to make a return. I gazed longingly at all the racks as I passed them by.

9. Outfit: Jeans, white button-down, baby blue v-neck sweater, black boots

10. Weekly goals: Finish my reading on IRT, finish writing my students' next exam, prep 2 chapters of lectures, work out at least 4 times, get a haircut, clean out the refrigerator

Super yummy fruity salad

2010-02-21T13:38:00.003-05:00

I'm sitting here eating a super yummy fruity salad for lunch and it made me think that I should share this super yumminess with the world. I used to think that the whole fruit on salad thing was weird, but boy am I glad that I overcame that stigma! It's a delicous way to get a ton of vitamins in one dish. So, this is my favorite fruity salad concoction...

1 bag ready-to-eat spring mix salad (I'm lazy)
1 can (10.5 oz) mandarin oranges in juice, drained
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, thinly sliced (about half a container of strawberries)
1/4 cup Craisins
1/4 cup slivered almonds

It's really simple and if you have a strawberry/egg slicer like this one, slicer , then it's very easy to get everything prepped and throw together. If you want dressing for this, I'd suggest Ken's Fat Free Raspberry Pecan. It's available at Kroger and it's just fantastic on this salad. Bon appetit!

Cars and castor oil

2010-02-20T19:55:00.002-05:00

I have been a neglectful blogger as of late! Bad Katie! Just like everything else in my life at the moment, I blame it on prelims. Not only am I busy with all the reading, but my life lacks any semblance of intersting-ness because of it. I have, however, tried my darndest to drum up something worthwhile about which to write today. At least it's something!

Today's first topic: cars. More specifically, the first topic is that Mike and I are in the market for a car. I decided that I like my car too much to give it up and because Mike's car is pretty much a death trap on wheels (and literally illegal to drive because of the many non-working/missing parts), we'll be keeping mine and replacing his. We've visited a few dealerships thus far with positive but very limited results. The problem for us is that because we don't want to take out a loan, we're stuck with a narrow range of cars that are fit our financial limits as well as our requirements (newer in years, less than 60,000 miles, decent gas mileage). Our top choice as this point is a super cute black Ford Focus that we found at one dealership. It has 41,000 miles, is still under factory warranty for some parts, and actually has some extras (power doors/windows/locks, heated seats, etc.) That's pretty darn good considering that the next most desirable option on our list cost just $500 less and didn't even have cruise control!

Today's second topic: the status of my non-soap cleansing stint. It's been a full week since I've used any sort of soap on either my hair or my face and I have to say, the results have been surprisingly positive. I was really worried that I'd end up greasy and broken out, but the opposite is true. My skin looks and feels better than it ever has and the same can be said for my hair. Granted, it's been a little weird to get used to hair and facial cleansing sans soap. Both require much massaging and a lot of patience. But for the results, it's worth it! I'm still experimenting with oil mixtures for my face (current blend: 60% castor oil, 40% safflower oil), but it's going well. My next goal is to make my own conditioner, facial moisturizer, and sunscreen from natural ingredients. I feel so earthy! :-)

So that's my 'cars and castor oil' post for the day. Now I get to go learn some more about validity of tests. Yay.....

Avian naughtiness

2010-02-15T23:00:00.003-05:00

My formerly sweet little blue birdy man has turned into a nutjob lately! I guess I should've seen this coming because he is around the age of maturity, but it still caught me off guard. First, there's the noise. Oh good heavens, the noise... Most of the time, he does this warbling little high pitched squeal thing that just grates on my nerves. And I can't exactly get upset at him because it's not an angry bird noise. But holy cow, is it awful. Imagine a squeaky toy going "squeaka squeaka squeaka" over and over and over for about 2 hours. Yeah, that's what it's like around here. And whenever he gets started with his happy talk, he gets Pepper all worked up and then it's just a cacophany of terribleness. Ugh.

But on top of that, Ollie's been trying to behave in an...ahem..."adult" manner lately. And he's "behaving adult-ly" on anything that he can find. It's both horrifying and amusing. The worst part, though, is that he's taken to trying to be "adult" on Pepper. And believe me, Pepper wants NOTHING to do with it.

The other day, Ollie kept presenting himself to Pepper and then as soon as Pepper would so much as look at him, Ollie would tear around behind him and try to maul him with gay birdy love. In fact, he was so forceful in his advances that he had poor Pepper (who is about 3 times his size) down on the ground on his back, flailing his legs to try to fend off Ollie. I'm not even joking here! If I hadn't been laughing so hard, I would've video taped it. Then again, that would have seemed very dirty.

So, basically, what I'm left with is a very noisy gay rapist bird. Great....

Cleanin' up

2010-02-13T13:49:00.003-05:00

The title of this blog is actually meant both literally and figuratively. First, I really "cleaned up" (figuratively) at the mall the other day and second, I found a new way to (literally) "clean up".

First, the mall. On Thursday, Mike and his buddy Scott decided that they were going to head up to Toledo to get haircuts at this place called Lady Jane's Haircuts for Men. It's a men only salon with recliners and big screen TV's playing sports and all sorts of other man-friendly stuff. Also, the women are supposed to be cute and fun, although that part only sort of came true for the boys. So anyways, they decided they were going to head up Toledo-way for that, so I figured I'd tag along and have them drop me off at the mall (it's about 1 block further down Monroe). I have a good tax return coming, so I decided to treat myself!

I stopped in to Sephora first and that's where I got some really amazing deals. I got what is usually about $300 of makeup for about $50! I was super excited. The items I purchased are all things I've been itching to try but have avoided because of cost. Given the sales, though, I couldn't pass it up. Then I went to Macy's and purchased some non-sale perfume, but hey, I never do that, so it's ok to splurge every once in awhile. Finally, I made it to Williams Sonoma. Ahh... W.S..... How do I love thee? Let me count the ways! I didn't buy much there, since I already have a TON of W.S. stuff, but I did pick up some little odds and ends to enjoy.

Turns out, though, that leaving the apartment might not have been a good thing. I've been battling a fairly epic case of what is probably bronchitis... AGAIN... and going out just seemed to make it worse. But, I digress...

Back to cleaning up- The literal part of "cleanin' up" is that while wasting time to avoid prelim readings yesterday, I came across an interesting article about how to care for your hair and skin more naturally. It suggested that if you have curly hair, a la moi, you shouldn't use shampoo to cleanse your hair (because of the drying sulfates). Instead, you should use conditioner to "wash" your hair. Basically, you just use a little bit of conditioner and really rub it into your scalp with your fingertips. The friction is supposed to loosen and remove any oils without stripping your hair like detergents do. I was skeptical but decided to try it out today and I must say, I'm shocked by how well it worked! My hair feels soft and bouncy, my scalp isn't dry and itchy like it normally is, and I think that over time, this could really work out well.

I have yet to try the natural face cleansing ( you use a blend of oils) because I can't make it to the store to buy one of the ingredients, but I'm kind of stoked to try that as well. I'm all for natural methods over chemical-based ones, so this is kind of a cool little experiment for me. I'll keep you posted on how the soap free cleaning goes!

Evaluations

2010-02-10T22:19:00.002-05:00

Ok, so, the teaching award evaluation- it went well considering that I was sick and half drugged out of my mind on decongestant. I've learned from past experience that decongestants and I do not mix well. I can't even take the behind-the-counter stuff with pseudoephedrine because it makes me feel extremely drunk and out of it. I can, however, take Mucinex with very few issues, and I did that today; in fact, I took a double dose and that might not have been a good thing. :-)

But aside from being a little foggy and making a teensy little mathematical slipup toward the end, I think it went well. I won't know for several months, though, and I'm not holding my breath; chances are, they'll give it to one of the upper year students. Don't get me wrong, I really do hope that I get it! I love teaching so much that it would be fantastic to be reinforced for it. But I'm realistic enough to realize that it's probably a slim chance. So I'll just keep my fingers crossed while also keeping my hopes from floating too high.

Holy snow

2010-02-09T23:21:00.003-05:00

Can I just say, holy snow! I'm serious- we got about 2 FEET today! It's ridiculous. It was quite pretty, though, because it was big old fat flakes falling from the time I got up...And it's still going... Yup, we're getting buried.

The one thing I'm hoping is that they get the roads cleared well tomorrow. I was able to hole up in the apartment today but tomorrow, I have to teach. Come to think of it, I could really go for a snow day tomorrow. I'm supposed to be observed for a teaching award tomorrow and, well, I'm hacking up a lung because of what is very likely yet another case of bronchitis. Trying to be entertaining and interesting while teaching stats is tough enough but I won't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting that award if I have half a voice. Le sigh...

But, on a positive note, can I just say that I have the best fiance ever?! He knew I was feeling under the weather so he went to Kroger and got me SunChips and a cupcake (I love the former and had been craving the latter for a few days). How sweet is that? :-)

482 days

2010-02-07T22:29:00.002-05:00

482. That's the number of days that Mike and I have left before our wedding. Why is it that this huge number seems to ridiculously small when I start thinking of all we still have to do? That's one-and-a-third years and yet I feel like we have almost no time at all. We still need to find and hire a D.J. and a baker, I need to get a dress, I need to find dresses for the bridesmaids, we need to figure out what we're doing for decorations in both places, we need to select the different appetizers and entrees and whatnot... Argh! The list goes on.

On the positive side of things, we have one more vendor to add to our list of "things that are officially taken care of": the florist. We will be working with Jennifer Cummins of Beautiful Blooms by Jen and I'm super stoked. She is really creative and fun and it seems like she really gets what we're going for. Of course, I have no idea how many arrangements we need, no firm decision on my bouquet, etc., etc., but at least I have a person! :-)

Squared away

2010-02-05T22:44:00.002-05:00

I almost don't dare say anything out of fear that I'll jynx myself, but all this turning 25 crap seems to have gotten squared away at this point. I finally have health insurance again, so does my car, and I can legally drive once again. I now realize just how easy I had it. Sigh.

On a totally different note, holy snow! Everything was totally normal until about 4:00 when it started to snow very lightly. Fast forward an hour and there was so much snow coming down sideways that you could barely see. And it's still coming down like crazy. Our screen door is even covered in white! So, Mike and I are just holed up for the night, eating Cookie Jar delivery and watching a string of episodes of 30 Rock- which, by the way, is an awesome show! I can't believe I only just discovered it!

Alrighty, back to 30 Rock and cookies!

Direction

2010-02-02T14:49:00.002-05:00

I'm pretty excited at the moment because I finally have a dissertation topic! I've been struggling for awhile to find something that was not only a "good" topic, but would also interest me. I figured that if I chose something about which I was excited, I might not completely hate it by the end (like I did with my thesis topic). So woohoo for that!

And on top of that, I found out that I do get to teach again next semester and that I get to teach a "special topic" course. I get my choice of Quality of Work Life (things like job design, climate, stress, etc.), Personnel Selection (recruitment and hiring, hiring laws, etc.), and Psychological Testing (test development, types of tests, etc.). Now, I just have to pick one. I'm really torn on this because I find all of them interesting and all of them have different perks: QoWL would be more "fun" than the others, selection would look best on my C.V. for business programs, and testing would look best for psych programs because of my measurement specialty.

I don't know what to do!!! The upside is that I'll be happy no matter what. I just have to make a decision among some very enticing options. And hey, at least this time I'll have more than one week to prep AND I won't be taking prelims at the same time as teaching. :-D

My Miss America review

2010-02-01T21:03:00.004-05:00

Ok, so if you don't care about Miss America, you should probably just skip this post. Seriously, don't even bother reading it if you're not into pageants because you're just going to be bored and confused.

With that out of the way, I figured I'd take a few to post my feelings about this year's Miss America pageant which took place this past Saturday. So here are some of my thoughts...

Opening number: I liked it! I now understand why they put the girls in such low heels. With all the jumping and moving and whatnot, the lower heels made sense. Plus, I thought the intros were cute, even the ones I didn't actually get.

People's choice: I thought the girls voted in through people's choice were spot-on. Granted, I would have preferred to see Erica in that group but if she had to be excluded, those are the three I would have put in instead.

The top 15: Many of these girls were "duhs" for me (i.e.- I had no doubt they'd make it). But on the other hand, there were definitely a few wtf's. My reactions to each...
1. Oregon (the girls' choice)- Cute, not a total surprise, but not expected.

2. Indiana- A wtf for me. I was very surprised that other girls didn't make it in over her. But then again, she had the IN prep team behind her, so I'm sure she had a stellar interview.

3. Arkansas- One of my favorites going in!

4. Oklahoma- LOVED her. I wish she would have had better posture (she had this head jutting forward thing that annoyed me) but she was cute and bubbly without being annoying.

5. Colorado- A major wtf for me. God forgive me for saying this, but I could NOT get past her nose. Every time she came out, I saw nose and then girl. Plus, her evening gown made me want to go into seizures.

6. Texas- She looked like 40 year-old hot mess all week and dammit girl, what was up with that Bumpit in your hair all night? I did not "get" this girl at all.

7. Nebraska- I liked her until talent. That routine that she tried to pass off as "dance" was just straight up sad. I've seen pageant-bots on Toddlers and Tiaras do more complex routines. I am beyond shocked that she made it into the top 10 with that talent. I would have put many states (MI, OH, PR) ahead of her just based on how elementary her "dance" was.

8. D.C.- She was really pretty and wow, is that girl ever tall! Her opera sounded wonderful to my relatively untrained ear. I didn't think her gown did her justice, though.

9. New Mexico- She was a pleasant surprise to me because she was really cute. Her walk seemed a bit stiff to me, and I would have put Oklahoma ahead of her (even despite the stumble in gown), but I didn't have an issue with her.

10. Hawaii- She wasn't on my radar at all prior to the show, but I found myself really liking her! She was very real and very cute. Plus, her gown was to die for. Very red carpet.

11. Kentucky (4RU)- The classic bubbly blonde. I liked her!

12. Louisiana (3RU)- She really didn't do it for me. The fake boobs were way too much and those puppies were up to her chin from the moment she stepped on stage. I have nothing against boob jobs, just against boob jobs that are way overdone and fake-looking. Just like I couldn't get past Colorado's nose, I couldn't get past the massive flotation devices she was displaying.

13. Tennessee (2RU)- I thought she looked like an overdone drag queen in her pre-pageant pics but I really came to like her during the pageant. She was the bombshell of the pageant and I would have been happy if she'd been crowned.

14. California (1RU)- I don't know... I just couldn't get into her. She was good all around but I just didn't connect.

15. Virginia (Miss America)- She was definitely more telegenic than photogenic. She was very solid overall, so I wasn't that surprised when she won.

Omissions that really surprised me:
Puerto Rico- Seriously??? No PR??? I heard her talent was passable, and I'm sure that her interview was good due to all her coaching, so I guess I'm just confused as to what could have kept her out.

Ohio- Yes, I'm biased, but I really thought that Erica had a good shot.

Michigan- Good swimsuit, good evening gown, great talent, and you know the Michigan team prepped her well for interview.

Survey time!

2010-01-29T23:07:00.002-05:00

This is not so much a blog posting as it is a request. I'm starting a new survey study and I need respondents. In short, I'm trying to pin down how employees' fitness behaviors affect their experiences at work. Everyone talks about the important of exercise, the obesity epidemic, and so on, but nobody has ever looked into how it affects people at work. And considering that the average adult spends the largest portion of his/her waking life at work, I think this is really something that should be investigated.

And that's what I'm doing! I'm hoping to reach as many full-time employees as possible from many different locations, job descriptions, etc., so that I can get a really good picture of the "American worker".

So if you have a few minutes and would like to help advance scientific understanding, please click on the link below and complete the survey. It only takes about 10 minutes, is completely anonymous, and is fully approved by the Human Subjects Review Board at BGSU.

One more request: Please forward to friends, family, or coworkers who might be interested! The more info I get, the better!

http://psych.bgsu.edu/fitness.htm

Thanks!!!

Pet sitting

2010-01-27T23:19:00.003-05:00

I'm back in Michigan! My parents are out of town (in Vegas, darn them!) and my grandma didn't want to watch the dogs the whole time, so Mike and I are staying here for a few days to watch them. Thankfully, we have friends to watch our apartment, so that makes life easier.

We headed up here after I got out of teaching this evening and, well, it was a bit of a nervous ride! My car isn't the greatest in the snow, and Michigan's not the greatest at plowing its roads, and that doesn't make for a very good mix. In fact, when we merged on to 96 from 23, the car started fishtailing all over the road! But thanks to Mike's wicked awesome driving skills, we survived. Phew!

Then, once we had finally gotten off at our exit, we got pulled over. Thankfully, it ended up just being because one of the headlights was out, but still- getting pulled over is never fun! The guy was really nice, though, and Fiona kept trying to climb out the window to love him. It was cute.

So now we're back at home, camped out and getting slobbered on by my parents likely retarded German Shorthair Pointer. Actually, at the moment, he is wedged in between me and the couch, draped up along my back, with his drooly face hanging over my shoulder. This would be super cute if he weren't so... moist. Ewwww...

Life is not fair

2010-01-26T21:46:00.003-05:00

Life is not fair! It's Miss America week and my parents are in Vegas while I'm stuck here in B.G. Sigh. I keep subtly trying to encourage my mom to swing by Planet Hollywood to pick me up some Miss America paraphernalia, but I'm not sure if my hints are working. Come on, sparkly crown-covered apparel!!!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for our state's girl, Erica Gelhaus, because I think she's got a really great shot at the title. I met Erica during the year I competed at Miss Ohio and I can say with 100% certainty that there is not a mean bone in that girl's body. She's just the absolute sweetest, most kind-hearted person I've met in a long time. Her talent (opera) is really impressive, at least to my relatively untrained ear, and I know that she'll do well in all the other areas of competition. So here's to hoping that Miss America 2010 is Erica!

And hey, as a bonus, it would be pretty cool to say that I know Miss America. :-)

Internship decision

2010-01-24T19:10:00.002-05:00

I have made an executive decision: If the internship at the Toledo Zoo doesn't work out (which I'm assuming it won't since I haven't had any luck getting a response lately), I'm not going to do a summer internship. Decision made!

The whole internship thing is pretty much an issue of tradition in our department. Pretty much everyone seems to get an internship during the summer between their third and fourth years. So why did I decide to buck the trend?

First, it's a huge source of worry that I really don't need right now. Trying to study for prelims, prep and teach a class, run experiments, AND figure out where to intern over the summer was just getting overwhelming. And really, the internship thing was stressing me out more than anything. The reasons for this were purely practical. There just aren't internships around this area; the closest one would be Pittsburgh. So if Mike and I both got internships, we'd have to figure out how to pay 3 rents (his internship area rent, mine, and then our rent here) and, more stressful than that, we'd have to figure out what to do with 3 birds and a dog. By voluntarily avoiding an internship, I solve all these problems!

Second, it's much more important for Mike to have an internship than for me to have one. He is going applied, I want to teach, so he needs the internship while I need publications. By this summer I'll have six studies that I need to write up. Devoting my summer to teaching and submitting pubs will help me a whole hell of a lot more down the line.

So although my decision might be looked down upon at school, I think this is really the best way to go. Plus, there's always next summer since Mike and I are both figuring we'll be here for 5 years. I'll just worry about an internship then! :-)