Asthma, Roller Blades, Austin, and Politics Class

Today has to be told in chronological order... because there was just so much in it!

MORNING

Politics Class...

The Teacher's Aid (who, if I have never mentioned it before, is Hawt with a W.) taught class today. Not only is he very attractive (Why yes, I am a teenage girl.) he is actually a good teacher too. He incorporates all sorts of fun into the class like clips from tv shows and movies. Today, he did both... AND said funny stuff. All of this made it a very funny class! Plus, at one point, he ran across the stage screaming 'I'm a naked cowboy!'... to prove to us that not all expression is free, and that the first amendment wouldn't apply to such an act.

AFTERNOON

I had a doctors appointment with my asthma doctor this afternoon... which, of course, required me to drive all the way to Austin (and back) today. I was actually looking forward to doing so, because I would get to mooch around Austin, even if it were just for the afternoon. So I hopped in my car around noon and drove to Duncan's office, where he promptly figured out what was sucking up so much memory!! It ended up being something that he'd installed that had two text files that were SO BIG that microsoft word wouldn't even open them. One was 24 gigs and the other 2.5... so THAT'S where the 30 gigs went!! I paid him in food. :D Ended up being $279 less than the Geek Squad!

From his office, I drove to my asthma appointment, which took all of 30 minutes to get in there, checked, and get back out. Going to the asthma doctor is always an experience. He pushes free samples on you left and right!


Above is the culmination of both the free samples and the full prescriptions... Yeah... Frankly, I still have a lot of LAST year's free samples, too!! He hands them out like candy.

NIGHT

I went to HEB to give them the aforementioned prescriptions (so I could get more drugs! Woo!) and what was supposed to be about a 35 minute wait turned into an hour and a half. >.< If it had gone any longer I would have yelled up something fierce, but the second time I went up to ask "What on earth is taking so long!?" The woman behind the counter was like "Oh, here you go!"

I went home (FINALLY... At this point it's about 7 and I've been driving around Austin for 6 hours) and played Phase 10 (The chosen card game of all of my mother's side of the family) and ate delicious hamburgers.

(Mom n' Munk!!)

Mom gave me an ACL tshirt and a cowboy hat (Yeehaw!!)


I also grabbed my favorite pillow to snuggle with. It's just lumpy enough to not really be a pillow... but it's perfect for snuggling.



I also picked up roller blades out of the garage and turned my car right around about an hour and a half later to head back to San Antonio.

The drive back was uneventful, except that they were doing roadwork right around San Marcos and for a good 5 minutes I was in bumper-to-bumper stand-still traffic while people were being filtered into one lane. Other than that the 45 minutes on either side of San Marcos was completely uneventful. I got to use cruise control when I hit 1604, cause there weren't as many people on the road. It made my feet happy. :)

When I got back to my apartment, Abby and I tried on the roller blades to see if they fit, and then we decided that we wanted to try them out before we attempted to emerge into public with them at all.


We put them on and I stood up and promptly fell right on my butt! I stood up and then BAM. Right on my bum. I spent a good five minutes laughing while Abby finished putting hers on and then we skated around the parking lot for about 20 minutes. I got used to the balance after about 10 minutes or so, and then things slowly came back to me... but Abby is still a little iffy on braking. I am glad that I have the rollerblades because they will make my commute a lot faster and will give me a different kind of exercise.

AND THAT WAS MY DAY.

Can you believe what you can sqish into about 14 hours?

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Tomorrow (well, actually it's today, but that's beside the point) starts October! In September, I walked 203,869 steps... which is approximately 6795 per day, which sounds pretty accurate to me. I didn't count 4 days because they were either so lazy I did not get out of my PJs or I forgot to wear the pedometer.

Here's to October. :D (White Rabbit, White Rabbit, White Rabbit!)

Good V Bad V Ugly....FIGHT!

The good: I finished a sock AND a hat today! I spent all day reading, watching movies, and mooching about my apartment. And I uploaded the last chapter to a piece of Fan Fiction that I've been writing for two years (and finally got motivated to finish. Thanks Siobhan!)

Here's the sock: (I call it"The Result Of Math Class"... Oh, I mean "Shelly". Doesn't it remind you of the color of shells?)


Here's the hat: I dub it... "I Can Knit That". (You can't really tell, but it's a leafy pattern.)


(It's called that because this hat reminds me of while I was shopping in London with Siobhan... I kept on picking up things like this slouchy hat/berets, and scarves and things and saying "I can knit that." And see? I can knit that.)

(Oh, and look at my artistic photography? Although one could argue that it's artistic in a very Myspace kind of way.)

The bad: I think that we might have a little ant problem. I keep having to suck up ants into the vacuum and squash them with my FISTS OF FURY!! We called the maintenance people today and they should come out sometime this week. Oh, and our toilet broke, but not in any kind of awful way. Instead of using the lever to flush it (that broke, you see) we now have moved the top of the toilet to the side and are manually lifting the lever to flush the toilet. We called the maintenance people for THAT too.

The ugly: Suddenly 30 gigabytes of memory has just vanished off of my hard drive. I have NO IDEA where it went (poof!) and now I have less than 1 gig with which to work with. I chatted with Geek Squad, and they were no help at all (though they were very nice while being no help at all.) "Yes! We can fix that!" "Um... Can you tell me what it is?" "No. But we can send a guy out to your house for $300, and he can identify what is wrong with it. And he will fix it, if you want."

("NO WAY. He'll FIX IT too?! For $300?! HE BETTER FIX IT!!" is what I wanted to scream. Instead I politely said "I'm sorry. I'm in college and cannot afford that." while mentally saying "My brother is probably better than you and will do it for the price of a Quiznos sandwich and ice cream. That's like a grand total of $285 less than YOU.")

(Love you, Brother!)

A little bragging

Okay, I might have to brag a little in this blog.

The way that my English class is structured is, when an essay is due, the professor will come in the Friday before and read over the essays and tell you what you can do to improve it. If it's good enough, she'll smack a letter grade at the top and send you on your merry way to go to starbucks or whatever.

On Wednesday, before a timed writing in class, she said "Read the essay "We Are Not Immune" and write a response to it. Rough drafts due Friday and final drafts due Monday. They should be about 3 pages long."

So, being a good student, I read the essay on Thursday and spent all Friday trying to come up with a response to this essay... and I could not figure out a negative response. For the life of me, I could not come up with a different point to argue, so I decided to just agree with whatever the man said in the essay and put in a little slip of personal opinion in the conclusion.

I brought it into class today and the Professor started to read over the essay, and said "You know what - this is a critical essay."

("Oh crap...")

"But I was planning to have you write a critical essay over this essay next week. This will do nicely." And she smacked an A at the top. and put the paper to the side to put into her gradebook.

WHUH.

I wrote the wrong essay and still got an A.

(Wohoo!!!)

I'm going to Starbucks!

An update on classes

I realized something while reading an email from my grandmother: I never seem to talk about my classes... just all the other stuff. So here for you today is a little overview of what I think of my classes.

Monday/Wednesday/Friday

Freshman Composition: While the title of the class makes it seem like it's the Anatomy of a Freshman (1 part scum, 1 part teenage angst, 2 parts awkward noobie feelings), it's just an English class. I've been just floating on the surface waiting for things to get difficult, to be honest. I know that I am a good writer, and every essay I've written so far has come back with a big fat 'A' at the top. Strange enough, this disappoints me a little. How on earth am I supposed to improve if I sail through the class?

French 101: One of my most difficult classes, though that is the nature of any language class. Every day I walk in and am overwhelmed with the amount of learning that the professor squeezes into one 50 minute class. We had our first test today, and it totally didn't suck. I feel like I might have even gotten a good grade. The professor often doesn't speak any English to us, and as the lessons get progressively more difficult this becomes a little bit of a problem. However, because I took Spanish for so long, I have language study habits down to an art form, and am more familiar with the structure of the language than a lot of other people in the class.

Algebra: This is the class that I struggle to get off my bum and go to every day. I have two hours between French and Algebra and I usually go home and eat a light lunch, get some work done, and then walk back to the campus. This class is so beyond easy that I have to remind myself to to pay attention. Often, I listen to half of the lecture and then work on the homework for that class.

On Wednesday afternoons, after algebra I go to do my French lab. The French lab is work on a CD that you complete and then print out to hand into the professor. Every other week, we watch a short five-minute video and then take a 10 question quiz over the video. Usually it takes me all of twenty minutes to complete.

Tuesday/Thursday

Intro to American Politics: This is the class that I take the most notes in. The professor stands at the front of the lecture hall and lectures for an hour and fifteen minutes. I started off hand writing notes, but then I realized that at the pace he covers things, I should bring my computer with me. It will save me, I think. I type very quickly and can get down whatever is important a lot more quickly than if I wrote it longhand. We have our first test coming up next week and I am not sure how difficult it would be. The professor is interesting and I really enjoy how he lectures. Politics has the potential to be a very dry subject, and he really makes it interesting.

In between classes, Abby and I walk to the Roadrunner cafe and eat lunch and usually pull out our laptops and go on facebook... or we cram for whatever quiz we have in our next classes. (I go to Astronomy and she goes to Sociology.)

Astronomy: Next to French, this is the class that is the hardest, though they are hard in different ways. Occasionally, I do feel like Science is a completely different language! The class is fact-intensive and requires a lot of deductive reasoning. He doesn't require a lot of math (which is good!) but it is a lot of critical thinking, and we actually do critical thinking exercises during class sometimes. It's a fascinating subject that has always been on my "list of things to learn more about". I am enjoying the class, and am glad that I can get a science credit out of the way while learning about something I enjoy. He'll have in-class quizzes of one question that don't count for anything, too (which is also good!). The first day of class, he gave out these sheets of paper with "A B C D" on each quarter of the paper, and to answer the question we fold up the paper to whatever answer we choose and hold it up. He made a joke the first day of "Low-tech answer system for a high-tech class".

There you have it! Those are my classes. I'm going to go write an essay now.

Owie! Or... A blog ADD style!

Owie!

I think I did something funny to my neck, (perhaps too much weight on my shoulders from my backpack) because it's been hurting me and I can't turn my head very far in either direction. (Originally I had put 'All the way around', but then I realized that I am not an owl... or possessed.)

:(

It doesn't suck too bad. I've been icing it all afternoon (15 minutes on, 30 minutes off just like you said, Kerry-Lynn. ;) ) and it makes me feel like I'm being proactive in making it go away, but I am honestly not sure if it has helped too much. What I am really hoping is that sleeping will help. Sleeping just seems to make things better, don't you think? Or maybe I can get my roommate to give me a massage, haha.

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On other subjects of pain... My new piercings are healing well. :) They don't hurt too bad and they haven't gotten infected at all. Only when I touch them do they hurt at all. (I still totally love them. Best idea of mine in a while.)

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Abby and I saw that cat earlier today walking up our steps again. (Did he leave something behind?) I think he just likes to mooch about our complex and, from a short conversation with our neighbors, gives everyone the same inspection treatment.

Whaddaya think? Should we name him?

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I am currently obsessed with reading a book, and accidentally read until 1am last night (this morning? I didn't mean to...I started at about 10 and then suddenly it was 1am! I think my clock lies to me.). It's 9:30 and I'm done with studying, and I think that I am going to curl up with the book and an ice pack and have a real party.

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Step count (I have been keeping track. Just haven't been posting late enough in the evening) is 6797. As I said, I spent all afternoon in my bed with the ice pack, studying... it's hard to get steps while snoozing- I mean, studying.

Inspection??

We had an inspection last night, it's true. Someone came into the apartment, took one look, deemed it proper, and walked right back out.

Um... That someone might have had four legs, fur, and a big fluffy tail.

Yep.

Our house was inpsected by a cat.

There are these feral cats that live on campus that have been here for ages, people say. There are two that hang around our particular part of the apartments. One of them is preggers and will be having kittens soon, and last night, we opened our door to let Abby's mom leave and this one was just standing at the door waiting to be let in.


He (was it a he? I don't know.) sauntered past our legs and walked into Abby's room. He tried to walk into my room, but we wouldn't let him. He even walked into the bathroom.

(I can just hear him saying, "You call this clean?")

And then his business must have been done because he turned his little cat tail and sauntered back out of the apartment.


(Though he did try and come back in once. Abby picked him up and deposited him downstairs so he could go on his merry way.


"Hullo, Cat!"

(I hope he doesn't come back and inspect again. He was a pretty tough critic.)

Ear piercing excursion

Today...

(Yes, Today??)

Brandlyn and I went on an exciting excursion to the mall to get our ears pierced!!

We've been talking about getting our ears pierced together for years. For a while, it was "We'll go with my mom because we're under 18". And then it was "I'll take you, because I'm 18 now!" and then it was "We're BOTH 18 now... so let's just go!" And now, after many, many years of coercion (mostly from me. I had no problems with doing it again.) and planning... we have done it! (We were going to do it last weekend... but Ike got in the way!)

We went to the mall this afternoon to do it. No shady downtown piercing boutique for us! Here Brandlyn is, looking pretty but terrified on the inside... pre-piercing.


Isn't she pretty?

And she decided to go first. She has never had her ears pierced (In her memory, anyway. Her mom had it done for her when she was a baby, but they got infected and the holes closed and that was that.) and so she was really nervous. I think that if she saw them pierce my ears first she would chicken out. And we would have none of that.

And here she is sitting in the chair looking even MORE terrified.


And... After!!




And there is her newly pierced ear!! She decided that she wanted to do her cartilage... and even I wasn't that brave. She said it didn't hurt very much, but the last I saw her she said it was beginning to hurt a little more.

But then it was my turn. And, as I said I wasn't brave enough to do cartilage (yet?) I went with my third holes. (I realized afterwards that I had my first holes when I was 10, my second at 14, and now my third at 18... Mom has forbidden me to go beyond 22, because that would be way too many holes. ;) The way that I see it, I don't think I'd look good in any other piercings, so cartilage is pretty much all I'd have left.)



Here I am before....


(I was nervous, but as I've mentioned before I've done this twice. I know how to handle myself. Plus... I couldn't show that I was nervous to Brandlyn. ;) I'm much stronger than that.) (...It didn't work. She reads me like a book.)

And there's me afterward.


See? 1-2-3 holes now.

Funny story time! Right after the girl shot my ear with the piercing and she put the earring back on she went to take her hand away but she had somehow pierced her glove to the back of my ear as well! She had to take off the earring back and get her glove off to detach herself from me. She kept apologizing and saying "This has never happened before... that's so crazy!"

Here for your vewing pleasue is one last picture of me and my BFF Brandlyn. (Lol. IDK my BFF Jill?) Because I don't think that you have seen enough pictures of Brandlyn and I yet.

(Love you, hon! I'm so proud of you.)

D'OH!

I think I'm kind of stupid sometimes.

I've been having problems charging my phone for the last few weeks. I would wrestle with the little plug for up to 30 or 40 minutes every night until I found the charge. I assumed it was because something had been broken in the phone and so I called AT&T help and went through some very nice technical support people (AT&T is good, and full of nice, friendly people. Isn't it great when you get good tech support?) and eventually we came to the point were the woman asked me to look into the little plug area on my phone and look to see if anything appeared broken. "No, I don't think so," I said. And then she said to have a look at the charger and see if that appeared broken. And I looked and said, "Huh. It does appear a little bent out of place." And the woman said "We'll send you a new charger and it will arrive in the next week. If it doesn't work, give us another call and we'll send you a new phone." (For the record, they were nice and didn't charge me for it!)

Well, the charger just arrived at my door and I had a looksie inside to compare the new one (Which works! Yay!) and compared it to the old one.

(Spiffy super close up photos are sponsored by Spiffy Fancy Nikon Camera...)

Old one:


New one:


(And you can see the little fuzzies on my jeans!)

Something was broken in it. See how the golden bits are pushed back? There's something on the side that is pushed in a bit too. I don't know how it happened, but it did.

And I cannot believe how stupid I was. I had a phone charger for my car that I have been using for the past week to charge my phone that works perfectly... so how on Earth could it have been my phone that was broken if it was charging at all!

(D'OH!)

For lack of a better word... BLAAHHHH!

My mother makes a lot of weird noises.

Often, those who get to know her at all can distinguish what noise means what. For example, there is the Spider Scream (which is high pitched and usually lasts over several seconds. This is her most frequent and memorable noise, which increases in decibels as the spiders get larger). There is also the Bee Scream (which is only distinguishable from the Spider Scream because it often involves sudden movement and is of a shorter duration. Also known as the Scorpian Scream.), and there is the Duncan Jumps Out From Behind A Door Scream... (Which is a short, loud, and very shrill scream... often followed by 'DUNCANNNNN!!')

Another weird noise she makes (and I dearly wish I could broadcast this through the blog... because this is a priceless noise) is the wailing sound she uses to make fun of the way I cried as a baby. It's this "BLAAAHHHHHHHH!!!" sound. (Think of the shrill Monty Pythonesque kind of woman noises, if at a loss.)

(Ask her to make that noise next time you see her. We could conduct an expirment and see how long it takes her to crack!)

And you wanna know something? Suddenly I think she might not be far off from the truth. Cause I was in Target (pronounced Tar-Jay, of course) today buying my fourth pair of sunglasses in as many weeks (-insert foul-mouthed mumblings here-) and I actually heard a baby making that noise.

Who'd have thought I would have a Mini Me?

Kitchen poltergeist?

Abby says we have a kitchen poltergeist. I say that it's the laws of physics.

Confused? Let me illuminate you.

I (or Abby. Can't remember who, exactly) did something silly last night. After we were done cooking, one of us put the glass pan cover over another burner on our stove... and then I did something equally stupid tonight: I turned on the wrong burner when I started to boil water.

And suddenly, I realized simultaneously two things:

1) The water was not boiling.

2) The burner under the glass cover was on fire.

Oops!

Nothing else caught fire and we were able to put the tiny little flame out, within seconds, but later on, when I was waiting for the rice to cook suddenly I hear this really loud noise and I turn around and see this! (You can see we put baking soda on the back burner that caught fire.)


(Physics lesson= When you heat up glass, it becomes extremely brittle, and my guess is that by the time it had cooled down, a fault in the glass caused the whole thing to go all topside. Abby thinks we have a poltergeist, anyway.)

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....Weather frog for today! Cold and blustery!

Perhaps the Frog is in Narnia today?

(Did anyone actually get that reference?)

PAJAMARAMA!

Today I didn't ever get out of my pajamas. And for the record, neither did Abby.

We spent the entire day being antisocial and mooching about our own rooms... watching movies and reading books and napping. Every once and a while, we would say "Hey, are you hungry?" and one of us would cook... the funniest thing is that we both had the same idea about not doing anything today without ever saying it aloud.

No step count today... because I spent all day on my bed knitting socks and watching movies. (I watched Zorro, Pirates 2, and Pirates 3... :D )

So that was my day... my pajamarama rockin day.

... As an aside, I finished The Singing today... I the bulk of it this weekend (the bulk of it being about 450 pages... the first 50 I read sporadically over the last week.) and found that, like the other books, once you get past the first few chapters, you cannot put it down... (Heidi can attest to the fact that every possible moment that we were not doing anything, I picked up The Crow, while I was in Denmark.) I loved every page of it. Most of me expected the ending to suck (Kind of like the epilogue of Harry Potter? Anyone else with me?) because there is no way you can write 2000 pages throughout four books and not have difficulty writing the end and wrapping it up... but the ending surprised me in that it was really good! The whole book was a culmination of how the main character has grown and changed and how at the same time the circumstances of the outside world have changed with her. Needless to say, the Bad Guy was vanquished, the World was Good Again, and the main character Fell in Love... but it was all in a way that really worked and felt original. I think that it will be a series that I read again, because I can't help but think that the second time through might be better, with the knowledge of what happens in the end. Perhaps not for a while, though. I have a lot of other books to read!

(So there's my review!)

Ike Ike Baby

Right now, the buzz in Texas has a distinctive ring to it. It swirls and is windy and it also carries with it quite a lot of rain. It sounds a lot like

IKE.

And it's heading right toward us.

Well, San Antonio and Austin and western Texas will just get a LOT of wind and rain. Galveston and Houston will be hit pretty hard.

Keep the people evacuating in your hearts, will you? They're quite literally fleeing for their lives... I mean, come on. Poor Galveston has to do this all the time. (Quite frankly [or Fred-ly?] I can't believe that city even still exists... but there you have it. We're crazy stubborn in THIS state.)

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This is the way the weather looks right now (Possibly threatening.)



And this is the way the Weather Frog looks like right now.


(Mike and Ike! Personally, I think it should be raining candy. Get it? HAHAHA. Mike 'n Ike....)

Butterflies

I almost didn't write this blog.

It's true. I really didn't want to blog about September 11th, 2001. Everyone does it, everyone remembers, everyone tells their story.

But then I read Barb's Post for today, and suddenly I realized that it's not about just verbally repeating the horrors of the past, reliving through it every year. It's about continually moving forward. Isn't it incredible that we've made it to this year? The dynamic has changed so much in the last seven years... so much that we aren't necessarily forgetting it, but taking on this attitude of rolling our eyes when we walk through the quad and see students holding signs that say 'Remember'. Because that's what I saw. That's what I did. Suddenly, I don't feel so cool.

Today when I walked through the parking lot to my apartment, I was swarmed by these butterflies that are about the size of a quarter. They duck and swirl and fly together yet apart, never sticking to the same route. They have a little delicate existence that is just a wonder. When I see the butterflies, I smile.

Isn't it incredible that even in this world full of hate and war, there is always something beautiful?

Correct me if I'm wrong

I went to the campus bookstore today to pick up scantrons and note cards (because I'm a good student and I study like that! ...And because I have an astronomy quiz tomorrow and I have to get the scantron.)

As I was checking out and the lady was ringing up my stuff, she put some free samples into my bag... because who doesn't love free samples?!


She put in some Garnier Fructis shampoo and conditioner samples. This would be more nice, except that I already have this shampoo. See?


I have a lot of it. (And there's more in the shower!)

But then she tossed this into the bag.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't I supposed to be underage in this country or did I miss something?

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Step count (not final, as it's just 9pm, but close enough): 10654

Blah

I'm wondering if it's worth blogging at all today, because nothing terribly interesting happened.

I did mount sheer brown curtains over my window, so you can't quite see the ugly blinds now. (Sale at Tartet! Yaaay!)


As for the rest of the day, it's been stinko hot and humid and it NEARLY rained on me. I was inside by the time it started, but then it made it even more humid and yucky. And I played Mario Kart 64 with Abby and was TERRIBLE. And now I'm eating ice cream. :D

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Step count: 11,134

Collage!

No, I didn't forget how to spell 'College'.

It means that today I finally made that $34.28 that I spent on printing over 200 photos at Walgreens worthwhile!

Check out my walls now.




Aren't they fantastic? (Though I don't think they look as good when they're photographed like that) It's so much fun to look around my walls and see so many wonderful memories. Most of the photos are from this summer, but a lot of them are just assorted things from over the years... Really great photos and such.

It took me about an hour and a half to do. I bet I annoyed some people if they could here me hammering away at the tacks. :D They'll be easy to take down at the end of the year, though!

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In other news... I relented. It took me a few years, but finally someone wouldn't get off my back and I gave up. (Ahem, SIOBHAN.)

I made a facebook.

I sent out a bunch of friend requests and have had a steady stream of accepted requests/friend requests/writings on my wall/etc for the last few hours. I think the first whole page of my email is facebook stuff right now.

Oh look. Another email hast just popped up.

Day of Awesome

Today was awesome.

Dad, Pippa, Tom, and Duncan came and visited me!!! (And sat on the ugly couches.)



I gave Tom his 12th birthday present. (Ninja effects. Because he can't be a ninja unless he has the stuff to go with it. ;) )

I gave them a Grand Tour of the university, where Dad would ask questions that I didn't know the answer to, and I would evade the question. Hey, I've only lived here for like 2 weeks!


Then we all went out to lunch/dinner (it was like 4pm... what does that qualify as?) at a cool place where you eat peanuts and throw the shells all over the floor. We had a good time making a mess of things.

After that, Abby and I decided that a trip to Build a Bear was in order! We have been talking about it for the last few days and decided that we both needed little furry friends to sleep with. We went in and both made rabbits, but different ones. We both got two outfits and giggled like dorks the entire time we were there. (Yay!) When we were at the register, the woman practically offered us jobs there... I was sorely tempted, to tell the truth. Will let college set in for a bit before I even think of that, though.

This is Abby with her bunny (in semi-matching outfits) Isabella. (Ironically, I had no hand in helping her name her.)

And this is my bunny, Clarice.


And this is what came in the mail for me on Labor Day, but mom sent with Duncan today.


It's the last book in a series of four that I started three years ago while in Europe, when I read the first two. The third book came out two years ago in Europe, but in America last September. I tried to read the third book when it came out here, but alas. I couldn't do it. It had the wrong cover, and it didn't match the other three. So I bought the third book while I was in England and read it while I was traveling around.


The fourth book was released on September 1, in Europe... and will be released next MARCH in America.

Needless to say, I couldn't wait that long. So I ordered the book off of Amazon.co.uk in July and am SO HAPPY to have the last book in my paws... (And it matches the other books. And look at the color? Isn't it pretty?)

Today was so much fun...

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Step Count: 10,003

Deep Clean Day

Today is deep clean day.

Deep clean day is a magical day that occurs every other Saturday (The Saturdays in between are just 'Cleaning days') and they consist of all of the following:

-Scrubbing the bathroom
-Sticking everything in the dishwasher and cleaning them (I don't trust hand washing for that long. It's good for a while, but we can't possibly get everything.)
-Vacuuming
-Febreze-ing the ugly couches
-Making the beds and straightening rooms
-Journeying to Abby's house and using the laundry machine (This may just be an every Saturday thing, but we'll see how that works out)

So far, only one cleaning day and one deep clean day have occurred, and so far things are going well. Everything is clean and everything is in its place. I even made my bed (!). I would have taken pictures, but then I realized that it would look exactly as every other photo I've taken of my apartment.

We went grocery shopping today, too, and bought more food. (:D) Slowly I am starting to infiltrate the kitchen with vegetables that I can cook with and make interesting things with. I am looking forward to winter so I can make Stone Soup. (Thanks, Brandy!)

We also bought a ladle, which if you look at a lot of the weather frog days, it says 'ladle' in the corner. Speaking of the weather frog, he's been the same for the last few days (standing on his tippy toes to reach the martini on a table), because the weather for the last few days has been the same: Hot and sunny. I got another mild sunburn which cleared up within a day or two, but the weather has just been fantastic. It seems that the rain has decided to go follow somebody else.

So Abby and I have just been mooching about her house (her old house?) all afternoon, doing laundry, studying, and eating the food here. It's been a good day.

(Thus is the tale of Deep Clean Day.)

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Step count (not final tally, but close enough) 6474

(Did I mention I spent all day mooching?)

Best of times... Worst of times

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... and all of the time in the middle was just so boring, it's not even worth mentioning...

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This morning I woke up to my alarm, and promptly turned it off and rolled over.

"It's Saturday," I said, "Why is my alarm going off? I'll sleep for a few more hours."

Most any other person would have been able to roll over and go back to sleep and forget that it was not Saturday... I, however, realized my mistake five minutes later and grumpily slumped my way into my kitchen to make coffee.

Isn't that a great way to start the day?

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At 9, my roommate came back from a club meeting and brought another girl home with her so she could grab her utsa card and check if the cafe was open... turns out it wasn't... But we wer eall really hungry, and we decided that going to Sonic sounded like a BRILLIANT idea and so we drove out to it and got really hyped up on sugary drinks and carbs. YUM... As we were driving home, the sugar had gotten to us so much that we were just giggling at the most stupid comments coming out of our mouths.

It was one of those moments where it was just girls... and we were having so much fun it hurt to laugh.

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Step count today: 10,781

Some KNITTING.

I feel like through the course of the last few months, I have done many good things to this blog. I've changed the banner a few times, I've added a little bit of fun to the side bar every once and a while, and I've documented my journey through the life-changing year that I've had...

But for the last few months I've really neglected one particular subject...

YARN!!!

(Oh come on. You knew it would come back to this at some point.)

I would like to introduce you to the Spring Beret. (It is in baby stages at the moment.)


As far as notes... I've had to alter the pattern a bit because of the weight of my yarn... I also used slightly smaller needles (7 and 8 instead of 8 and 9). The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport Solid in natural. It's some of the yarn that I usually dye.


It is proving to be a relatively easy knit, but something that challenges me enough to improve my abilities. I'm looking forward to seeing how this knits up.

While I was in the shower tonight I realized how "close" it is to Christmas again. I will have to sort out what people will be getting soon, if I knit them gifts.

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Step count for the day: 8814

Dum, dum, dee dum...

I feel bad that I have been failing Kerry-Lynn over the last two days and not posting my step count now that I have my fancy little "Walker Thing" (thanks, Mom! I will continue to quote you on this for the rest of however long I remember) ...But I've been blogging before the day is done!

So here you go, Kerry-Lynn.

Yesterday: 10,771

Today: 11,792

Don't want to jinx it, but I've done all of my work already and I don't know what to do except waffle about in my room reading and watching youtube videos. I've been doing my work in the afternoons... perhaps I should procrastinate more. ;)

Walk with me a little longer

Today is perfect. A little on the hot side... probably around 95 degrees, but it is perfect. For once, there are no clouds in the sky. Not once. Zip. Zilch... and it's lovely.

So I decided to take my fancy camera for a walk today... and now you all can see pretty pictures of my campus. :)