How 'bout those Packers?

Yesterday
Need I even mention that as a Wisconsin native, I was RIDICULOUSLY excited for the Super Bowl yesterday, and even MORE RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED that WE WON(!!!!!!!)? Yeah, I really do need to mention it. Because I am a Wisconsin native, and we DID win the Super Bowl.

Yeah. They went there. Anyway, no pictures from the game, because I wasn't there and I was too busy yelling at the TV to remember I had a camera.

Saturday
My sister Sophie turned 20! Which is not why we won the Super Bowl, despite her wishing for it (we won cause we're just that awesome!).

WURHA, one of the conferences that USRH goes to, is quickly approaching, and in order to lower the delegate cost, we're having a grilled cheese sale. Apparently they have a history of being quite successful. Of course, to have a grilled cheese sale, we needed to stock up on some key ingredients.


The people in line behind us weren't thrilled, to say the least. It probably didn't help that we were doing our shopping the day before the Super Bowl, when absolutely everyone was stocking up on snacks.

Friday
I should know by now that printing things in the USRH office is probably a bad idea. We have to buy our own paper, and of course we tend to use white for important/official things, or we run out. Which means that we usually have some kind of odd color in the printer.


And then you show up to class (with a SWEET Batman folder) and your notes look like that. Fun!

Thursday
Things have been pretty chilly in the Midwest (everywhere?) lately, as you may have heard. So after having classes cancelled on Wednesday, you would think we'd have a ton of snow, right?


Well, we did, but that was there before. Apparently most of the blizzard hit further South than Oshkosh. I've been staring out at this for what seems like forever now.

Wednesday
Regardless of the lack of promised snow, I don't think there was a single college student who wasn't excited to wake up to this email:


blah blah blah, State of Emergency, Chancellor Wells has decided to cancel all classes?!! Awesome!

Tuesday
Remember the Tome from last semester? I was so excited to get rid of it, right up until I saw the textbook for my Milton class.


According to my professor, the publishers refer to this as "the Brick." Oh, the joys of being an English major. Really though- my friend Kristin tells me that this would be considered small for an accounting textbook.

Monday
First day of Spring Semester 2011! And nothing will make you wish you had picked another major more than seeing this:


That's right. I have so many books this semester that they came in a cardboard tub. All 18 of them. The fact that they fit (quite nicely, even) on my bookshelf is a marvel.

Sunday
Time to get back to school, after finishing 6 weeks of winter break. I think I would have gone crazy if I hadn't taken that interim class. Going back to school isn't entirely bad, though- we stopped at my relative's house and got in some W time!


Dad was teaching him how to show off his muscles. Looks like the gun show is in town!

About those New Year's resolutions...

I may or may not have left my purse in the car when my parents brought me back to campus yesterday. Said purse may or may not contain my iPod and camera. And when I say "may or may not", I really mean "yes, this did happen, I am that distracted sometimes." My mom is wonderful and is overnighting everything to me, so I should have everything back tomorrow. But until then, I won't have anything to post here, seeing as my camera is elsewhere. Sorry!

Last-minute holiday madness

Today was the first day of break that Sophie and I both had off. Since we're both slackers, we devoted it to finishing off our holiday shopping. It. was. crazy. I didn't even think we were going to be able to get parking spaces at the mall or Barnes and Noble, but we ended up getting lucky and scoring spots close to the door as someone else was leaving. Then we got into the store.


And THIS was the line I got to wait in. Apparently Barnes and Noble was the place to be this afternoon. Everybody and their grandma was there. Absolute madness. At least there the checkers are pretty fast, so I didn't end up waiting as long as I thought I would. But man. I've got to remember this next year and try to get my shopping done before Christmas week.

Bonus quote of the day
Sophie, as we pass a decorative, light-up reindeer in someone's yard: Oh my gosh I thought that was a live giraffe!

Angry wind advisory

It's really windy today. I mean, it's usually windy on campus, because it somehow manages to act like a wind tunnel. But today, we have a high wind advisory. When I woke up and checked the weather this morning, this is what I saw:


I wasn't very excited. Then I went outside, because I had to get lunch.


And this is how I felt when I got back. All and all, I've left my dorm twice today, both times because I needed to eat. You have no idea how glad I was that I didn't have to walk to class today. Although, maybe the weight of my backpack would have helped me not get blown around so much?

Random things

Sunday
Ok, I admit I took this picture last minute and when Sunday was almost over and I hadn't yet taken a picture. Anyway...


Meet Tattoo, the blank white sock monkey. Like most of the animals in my room, my sister Brenna made him for me. Eventually I'll get around to decorating him, at which point the name will fit better. Until then, consider this a "before" picture.

Monday
Let me tell you about Mondays. They're not fun. I have class from 9:10-10:10, 10:20-11:20, and 12:40-1:40. And really, none of that would be too bad, IF I didn't also have Foundations of Literary Criticism from 3:00-6:00. It's only slightly more interesting than it sounds. Check this out:


This is ONE of the three texts I have for this class. We semi-affectionately refer to it as "The Tome." In case you're wondering, it's open to page 702. And it's what, MAYBE a third of the way through the book? Yeah, this class rocks.

Tuesday
I only have one word: ew.


Not the most flattering picture, is it? But Jon thought it would be funny to make me wear his hat around. He REALLY laughed when he put it on backwards. Apparently I'm not much of a hat person.

Wednesday
Today I took a walk downtown with Jon, ad it was lovely. Perfect weather for a nice walk, and the leaves are starting to change colors, so it was quite pretty.


I really do love the fall. It's probably my favorite season. I love the food and the clothes and everything :)

Nemo? He's not here right now.

A couple of Christmas's ago, B got a fish tank. Freshwater fish, of course. Apparently salt water fish are a huge pain in the butt.


Right now, there are only four fish- a sucker fish for the algae and three others. This is due largely in part to a bloodfin tetra we dubbed "Jaws," who had a nasty habit of eating the other fish in the tank. In case you live under a rock, here's a brief (30 second) summary of the Jaws movie. Plus bunnies. If you like it, more ridiculous bunny reenactments can be found here. Hope you enjoy it!

Family Stuff

This morning, Dad ran in the Madison Mini-Marathon (13.1 miles- half a marathon). To celebrate, we got lunch at the Great Dane. Quite delicious. Then, we went to my grandparent's, to celebrate my Grandpa Jim's 75th birthday. They made an excellent dinner for everyone, and most of Mom's family came, along with Grandpa's sister and her husband. It was really nice to see everyone- there was a lot of sitting around and talking.


Unless you were W. Then there was running around and falling over and dancing with pink flip flops and all kinds of other ridiculousness. Here he is dancing around near the stairs and being a goof in general. What a cutie!

Words, words, words.

You know how sometimes people get songs stuck in their heads? Well, I get words stuck in my head, too. Yesterday, it was the word "reticulated." I don't know why. I don't know how. It just popped in there. I knew I had heard it before, but not where or in relation to what. I don't know the definition of the word. Just the word, and a faint idea that it was somehow related to animals. So I googled it, and found this:


I figured I must have spent enough time at the zoo this summer that at some point or other, I read a sign in the reptile house or near the giraffes. So I googled to find out what kind of pythons and giraffes the zoo has. The first thing I found? No reticulated pythons. Just a green tree python. So that's out. But they do have reticulated giraffes!


It took Jon and I close to an hour to figure out where the word came from. That's probably kind of sad, but it did keep us occupied and our minds off the heat for awhile.

(ok, this picture is not from yesterday- it's from the weekend we went to the zoo with W, back in the Dub Day post. But the screenshot is from the conversation yesterday.)

Yay Dad!

Well, I tried getting my camera to work again after I charged the battery, but it still wouldn't turn on. I took the battery out, and the memory card, and blew on them to make sure they didn't somehow get gunk on them or anything. I put them back in. The camera still wouldn't turn on. Then Dad told me he'd take a look at it after dinner. He did the exact same things I did. Or course, it worked when he did it.


My dad, fixer of all technical difficulties and strange camera malfunctions in our home. Victory tootsie pop!

Boys

I spent Saturday and a good portion of Sunday at Jon and Ben's apartment, and I have learned several things from that stay. Saturday, I learned that boys can't make a shopping list, because is will end up looking like this:



On Sunday, I learned that Jon doesn't do dishes so much as he plays with the bubbles...


Yep, this is him doing dishes.


At least he was having fun, right? And the dishes did get clean.

Technical Difficulties

Hey everyone! Pictures from this weekend and today will hopefully be up tomorrow. Right now I'm having a little bit of trouble with my camera- it's refusing to turn on. I've got the battery charging now and hopefully that will fix it, but it should have still had a few days in it so I'm not 100%. Either way, I'll do my best to get them posted sometime tomorrow.

First Day of Camping, 2010

Sunday was the first day of our annual family camping trip/mini-reunion. During a walk around the lake, my sisters and I found this:


Someone else must have made it on the beach earlier, and I thought it would be a great way to start off this year's camping pics :)

We started out the trip by celebrating our arrival at the campground, and the fact that we got a pretty sweet site.

Side-bananas are by far the best way to celebrate something.


More from our walk around the beach :)

Silly sisters shopping

Yesterday, the weather finally seemed to get a little nicer, so my sisters and I went to the mall. We were going completely stir crazy after having been stuck at home during the storms. Of course, we don't really go to the mall to shop. We kind of just try on whatever weird things we find and then take pictures of them

Example: my sisters found some floppy hats at Gap


Sometime we try on cute accessories, too. Like this headband that B found at Francesca's:


Stay tuned- once prom season hits we'll be find some interesting dresses, too! lol

Vanity Plates

I think vanity plates are ridiculous. Seriously. I once had a friend whose mother drove a Jag, and the license plate said something like "purrrfect." Dumbest thing ever. Just saying. So imagine the fun Soph and I had when we saw this driving home today:


We first ran into it at a stoplight, where we spent a couple minutes debating whether it was a reference to Harry Potter or Neo. Then, as the light turned green and they started to drive away, we decided that it should be the picture of the day, and tailed them for awhile trying to get a clear picture. Lucky for us, they were going in the same direction and we hit another red light :)

Pink Poodle

Yesterday was rainy and gross, yet again. My youngest sister, B, got to go to an indoor waterpark while Sophie and I entertained ourselves. We ended up at the Pink Poodle, a local consignment store. Some of the things we kind of cool, but mostly we just found weird stuff. Like these strange fish shoes:


Yeah. Cool stuff, right? When the shoe moves, it looks like the fish move. Another great find? The Ruby red hooker heels. Which, for right now, aren't uploading correctly. So perhaps you can see them later.

Edit:
It finally looks like I can post the ruby red hooker heels, so here they are in all their sparkly red glory:


Alternatively, they'd probably also work well in some type of Rocky Horror Picture Show-inspired costume.

We're going to have to work on this...

This is why there are very few pictures of Jon and I together:


Indeed, we're very happy looking. But we're also missing most of our bodies and heads. Eventually we kinda got the hang of it:


I guess we need more practice or something? I also just discovered that my camera has settings for different types of pictures, self portraits and a two person self portrait included. Something to look into for next time, I suppose.

The Family Pet(Peeve)

Behold, the most ridiculous dog on the planet!


This is the family pet, Trooper. His hobbies include barking at squirrels, birds, and the neighboring dog, being allergic to everything, and napping in strange places (like near the bathtub). For all of his annoying habits and health issues though, we still love him (most of the time). How could you not? He's just too cute :)

Also, as a bonus, here's a picture of me in the Ridiculous Hat of Ridiculousness, which I found at a local JC Penny's (in case anyone is interested in purchasing one)