Bonus Birthday Video

As a long weekend bonus, I put together some of the video I took of W playing with my Dad :)



I took the clips on my usual camera, then edited it in iMovie. I wasn't sure how long I could record for, so it's a little short. I do like the idea of putting more clips up though, so I'll look into it a little more.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Memorial Day Weekend

Since today is Memorial Day, there was no school, and I had a lovely three day weekend. Better news: four more days until I'm off for summer. So here's how the weekend went:

Friday
I have been looking and looking for the bunny pictures from before, but I think they just disappeared or something. So in lieu of bunnies, I found one bunny on Friday:


Sadly, this picture isn't nearly as good as the last one :(

Saturday
Saturday was my cousin W's second birthday party. The theme was Sesame Street (or, as W calls is, "Sunny Day"), which called for a fabulous Elmo cake:


W could barely keep his hands off of it while we waited for the cake to be cut:



Sunday
Sunday we hung out at home. The plan had been to go to State Street, but since it was 90ish degrees, we decided that staying inside was a better idea. It gave Jon some time to investigate the inside of his computer (it's been overheating recently). Taking it apart:


What I found interesting:


Computers nom too!

C-c-c-c-combo!

Tuesday
These little caterpillar guys are EVERYWHERE right now. They're kinda cute, in a weird, fuzzy sort of way.


At least, they are right now. Give it a few more days and I'll probably be creeped out by how many of them there are...

Wednesday
Perry the Platypus!


One of my favorite gifts ever, my sister B made him for me for Christmas last year. Of course, I had to name him Perry after Phineas and Ferb's pet. He makes sure evil stays away from my stuff while I'm out, and keeps nightmares away when I'm asleep :)

Thursday
Because nobody seems to know what real people look like anymore, I decided to be daring and try a completely makeup free, untouched picture today:


It feels weird, but kinda cool.

Weekend update

Saturday
Saturday I was home again for a bit, with the exciting news being these twigs sticking out of the bark on one side of our house:


Of course, they're not just any twigs- they're actually baby rose buses. For Father's Day/ his birthday last year, my sisters and I gave our dad some money to start a rose garden, something he had talked about but hadn't really started yet. This spring, we all picked out a few different varieties that we liked, and now we're waiting for flowers :)

Sunday
Sunday was lazy and relaxing, and the last semi-cool day before we got hit with this ridiculous heat wave. I got a picture of yet another construction site on campus:


Luckily, this one is on the other side of campus from where I live.

Monday
Monday I got some really cute pictures of some of the campus bunnies frolicking around, but now I can't seam to find them anywhere! I'm afraid I may have accidentally deleted them, but I'll keep looking in case I somehow saved them elsewhere and forgot about it.

Sooo behind...

3 novels and a book of short stories later, here are the rest of last week's picture:

Wednesday
During a break from massive amounts of reading on Wednesday, I hung out with the boys. They played computer games and I tried to snap out of my reading coma. Eventually, while aimlessly looking around in Netty's room, I discovered this!


A troll doll! I have yet to decide whether or not I think he's cute or creepy.

Thursday
Back to studying. Although I suspect that the boys were playing computer games again...


At least Jacey and I got stuff done.

Friday
Once again, hanging out in Netty's room with the boys. This time I discovered his lifesource:


Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's the same as Ben's...

Lovely, lovely summer weather

Finally, the weather is beginning to act like it really is summer. Which is wonderful, since I've been dying to pull out some dresses and skirts and other summer clothes again. Because it was so nice, I decided to walk to the library instead of taking the bus yesterday. On the way back I stopped for a few minutes near the town hall building to rest in the shade. While I was there, I snapped this picture to show how nice and sunny it was:


Wonderful, yes?

Explanation

Ok. So. I realize I made the new blog rules so that I wouldn't get behind on posts again. But here's the thing: the class I'm taking these next three weeks requires that I have a new book read almost every day. Averaged out, it's probably around 200 pages of reading a night. So I'm probably going to be behind these next few weeks. Now that that's out of the way, here's monday's picture:


This was the original college building on campus, way back in the day. Now it holds things like academic services, financial aid, study abroad, counseling, and career services.

New book!

This weekend was lovely. The weather finally started to warm up a little, I hung out with my friends, got to sleep in, and my family came to visit me yesterday.

Saturday
Saturday was a pretty lazy day- I slept in, got lunch with my friends, and we played some Magic. The evening was kinda boring, cause most of my friends went out, and I'm quite 21 yet. It was ok, though. I finally caught up on Diggnation, and I rediscovered that I absolutely love this tea:


Sunday

Sunday, of course, meant more sleeping in. Or, would have, but my parents called at 10 and told me that they were going to come up to visit. Which is a fair trade. B came with them, and brought me a sweet surprise:


I loved the Percy Jackson books, so I was really excited to find out that the author was writing a new series based on Egyptian mythology, as it's my personal favorite. It's really very good- I read almost the entire thing last night.

Interim

Finally, finals week is over. Sadly, I still have 3 weeks left of class since I signed up for spring interim. Miss Tiffany, however, did not. While I was sad to see her go, it's kind of nice to have the room to myself.


As you can see, I've already started to take over the empty side. lol

Hulking out

This book. It causes such rage.


Firstly because it's Spanish, and Spanish and I did not get along while I was taking those classes. But it mostly fills me with rage because when I tried to sell it back yesterday, the TROLL working a textbook buybacks wouldn't take it. This book cost $120. Selling it back would have got me an entire $21. Which, really, is enough right there to be upsetting. However, this is not why I'm hulking out. No. I'm hulking out because of the sad, pathetic reason she refused to take my book. She went through the entire book page by page, not even just flipping though, but page by page, and found SEVEN PAGES that I had inked on. Please keep in mind that these are USED textbook buybacks, and I have bought used books from campus in far worse condition. At least my scribbles are useful- not random doodles or something. ugh. It makes me want to pull my hair out.

Self portrait

Yesterday, being yet another day of rainy boringness, did not provide many opportunities for a picture. So I made a face and snapped a picture of myself.


It's ok, although the flash on my glasses makes it look like my eyes are two different colors, which is kinda weird. I did get an idea while taking it though, so over the next few weeks I think I'll try getting some good picture of my friends and family to post up here, possibly with mini-bios or something. We'll see- just stay tuned :)

Finals

Evidence that it's finals week:

Exhibit A- Last week's schedule (with notes)


Compare to Exhibit B- this week's schedule (also with notes)


And now back to slaving away over my last paper...

Finals

This week is finals week. Which means that the library is open 24/7 and is completely packed (along with any other available place to study). I however, dislike studying in the library because it's unnervingly quiet. So yesterday after dinner, I met Jon in the student union so we could get some studying done there. Along the way, I noticed these purple spikey flowers:


Anyone know what they are? Cause I think they're pretty cool, but I have no idea what they are. Anyway, I met Jon at the union and we spent a good 2-3 hours like this:


There were so many other people walking around looking for an open place to study that when we decided we needed a snack break, I picked up drinks for the both of us. It was ridiculously busy, and it's only going to get more chaotic as the week goes on. On the bright side, I had 2 of my 3 finals today, so I've only got to take 1 more. And write a paper. But that I can do :)

Mother's Day Weekend

First off, there's no Friday post because I was sick. So moving on to the weekend...

Saturday
Since it was Mother's Day weekend, my sister Sophie, Jon, and I all came home from school. Mom made us a REALLY good breakfast on Saturday: carmel sticky rolls and an egg/hashbrown/ham/cheese dish. Then we went to the Farmer's Market, which was fun but kinda cold. Of course, I somehow forgot to bring my camera. All is well though, since I got a picture of Sophie before we left:


Yes, she let me take this picture. And yes, she told me I could post it.

Sunday
Sunday was Mother's Day of course, but since all of the Mother's Day pictures were taken during breakfast, they're not getting posted. Everyone is chewing in them and it just looks funny. So around 10:30 last night, Jon and I went to visit Ben in the arts and communication building, where he's been slaving away all weekend. This is what he's accomplished:


Just kidding. He had done a bunch of stuff for his screen printing class and was just starting this for an oil painting class. Plus there was a mess of freshly painted watercolors on his bed when we stopped by the room. I think art classes probably aren't something you should procrastinate in...

End of Year Party

During the week leading up to finals, my school has an end of year party. Last year I accidentally won a Wii. So it's pretty cool. This year's party wasn't quite as cool (no accidental raffle winning), but it was still pretty fun. I met up with some of my wonderful friends from last year, one of whom came all the way here from Green Bay for the fun.


Lindsey and Jessica :)

New Rules

I feel like I need to introduce a new set of rules for myself, so let's start with that. Here's what you can expect from this blog from now on:
1. I will take at least one picture a day.
2. That day's picture will be posted the following day.
3. Saturday and sunday will be combined into one weekend post, likely posted on sunday but possibly on monday.

I think this will solve my frequent late posting problem, since I mostly take picture in the afternoon/early evening and then forget to post them because I've had a group meeting or something. Now I can post the previous day's picture in the morning before I go to class, and hopefully all will be well. We'll see.

So, today's picture (from yesterday!), is quite pretty, and will eventually be more pretty! Ben is in a watercolor class this semester, and last night I saw the start of one of his projects sitting out by his desk.


Posted with permission, of course. Hopefully I'll be able to get a picture of the finished piece, too.

Tornado warning

This evening, we had a tornado warning. Shortly before, I snapped this picture when I noticed the sky was getting dark and funky


I was going to go outside to get a better one, but that's when the tornado warning went into effect, and the sirens went off and we were all shuffled into the dorm basement. Once the warning was over, I ran over to the bus shelter across from my dorm (it was raining) and got some after pictures, because the difference looking either way was incredible. When I looked to the right I saw this:



But to the left it looked like it was clearing up...


I guess the storm was moving rather quickly. After, it continued to rain for awhile, but the sky was wicked blue, so I took one last picture from the Student Union:


Apologies for the reflection- I didn't want my camera to get wet taking a picture outside.

The Birdcage

I am always wicked excited to see a new netflix envelope sitting out on Jon's desk, so today I got really excited when I saw this:


The Birdcage! (imdb page here, yahoo! movie review here) My friends and I discovered this movie over break one morning, but sadly didn't get to finish it since it was a museum day and we had to go. Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend you rent it. It is absolutely wonderful.

Combination weekend

The pictures for this weekend were going to be two separate parts, but I was out late last night so I figured I might as well combine them today. So, here we go:

As part of the Earth Day activities on campus, a bunch of random things were taken and made into statues on one of the lawns.
Part one, Saturday's picture, was this big metal bird. I think they used different chair legs and such to make him.


The second part, today's pictures, were the big island construct they made from everything from recycling bins to file cabinets, to more chairs.


I also got a close up of one of the littler pieces on the island. I really liked these little orange flowers :)

I don't think we're in Wisconsin any more...

This afternoon, it was really gray and stormy. Good news for people with allergies, bad news for anyone who wanted to be outside. Even the nice pink tree looked dark and sad:


For awhile, we were even under a tornado warning/watch thing. This, of course, led to a Wizard of Oz discussion with one of the boys. I had been lamenting the fact that I couldn't go for a walk, because I didn't want to be Dorothy. Que talk about creepy flying monkeys that scar kids for life. But it got me thinking about various fantasy worlds, so when I was walking back to my dorm this evening and saw all of the lampposts, I couldn't help but think how fun it would be to wander into Narnia.


I apologize for the somewhat poor picture quality- my camera is pretty basic and I'm not very photo-savvy as it is. Still, this is pretty much what the lampposts look like to me if I'm not not wearing my glasses, so it's somewhat accurate. lol