birthday delight!

This Saturday we had my roommate Meggan's little sister Ginny's 9th birthday party at our apartment. 19 little girls were invited over for the surprise pary, and all of them showed up. It was so fun to see her joy as she walked in to her friends running out from every corner of the apartment! But one of the happiest parts was when, five minutes after everyone else had run out, her big brother, Phillip, who had come home from college for her party, ran out and yelled "SURPRISE!" [She didn't know he was going to be there!] I almost started to cry!

This little girl is so wonderful! The only things she asked for for her birthday were to go to Meggan's apartment and watch "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" with her family and to get donations to give to the poor children in India. What a little saint!

She is also so joyful with life. She loves making little pictures or peoms for people as presents and gets so happy when you make a big deal about them. Yesterday Ginny and I spent almost an hour playing "keep the balloons in the air." It was a good time.

Jesus, thank You for Ginny and her witness of love and charity! Please bless her ninth year of life and bring her to an even deeper holiness! You are so good!

best dad ever [part 2]

In case anyone was wondering who the best dad ever is, it's mine.

So this Friday I was on my way to a friend's birthday party and I stopped by my parent's house to get a few things (I also used the opportunity to drop off some dirty laundry to do at a later occasion).

Well...I ran out of time to do lanudry in the weekend because of events I will discuss later. So I got a call from my dad yesterday and I imagined he was going to ask me when I was going to do my laundry, but he said that he'd done it for me! As if that wasn't good enough of him, when I came over to get it today I picked up the bag and felt something cruncy at the bottom...he had gotten me a little prize!

[My dad loves giving my sister and I prizes.]

He had gotten me some toffee covered peanuts and hid them in the bottom of my laundry bag!

I love dads! [Especially mine!]

Jesus, thank you for my wonderful family, especially my wonderful dad! You're the best ever!

whooooo!

Hello all! Here's a fun little ad from our parish bulletin! (True story!)

busy busy

So life has been crazy lately. When I moved into my dorm, it only took one day, but this move has taken a week and the apartment is still not fully set up!

Things have been pretty good for me lately, though. It was my dad's birthday on the 23rd, which was fun. He picked out all of his own presents and even bought some for himself for us to wrap up for him. (He must not like surprizes!) We got him a birthday apple pie...he was concerned that he'd drip wax all over and then catch the house on fire with the candles in this photo:

Christmas was good. My parents were originally going to buy me a bed for Christmas, so they weren't going to buy me very many presents, but then I got a free bed from Jesus, so they gave me money to spend on myself. This, however was spent on gas, groceries, prescriptions, and a haircut. Welcome to the adult world, I guess.

My apartment is starting to feel more like home now. At first it was really weird. I felt like I was moving someone else in, but then I was left alone to realize that this was my new home. Crazy. But I have been cooking some meals there and we've all been sleeping there now that Christmas is over. It's pretty exciting to be at this new stage in life, but also more uncertain and with a lot more responsibilites.

I still also have a lot to get done before I go back to school. We are having an apartment warming party on Sunday, there's a Youth2000 retreat next weekend, I have to get the rest of my school books, and still have to get all of the paperwork filled out to get my LPN license. But at least I have things to do. I'm ususally bored on breaks because I just sit around.

Well, I'd better be off now...those groceries aren't going to put themselves away! ;)

God bless!

even colder

I finally have started moving into my new apartment!

...but the temperature is between 60-68 degrees. We have it set on 90.

Yeah...need to get that fixed.

But now I'm tired...and need some sleep in a nice [semi]warm house.

Oh wait! I also got a free bed, thanks to Jesus and Amy! I didn't have a bed, and I asked Jesus to give me one! And He did!

Jesus, thank you for helping me grow up and get this apartment! And thank You for the bed!

bloody noodles

So this is kinda gross, but today I cut a chunk out of my finger when I was making linguini with vegetable ribbons. The meal was good, but it was kinda hard to get everything made with only one fully functional hand as the other was being wrapped in a towel in an effort to stop the profuse bleeding.

But dinner got made, at it was delicious. Come rain, shine, blood, or guts.

I feel so domestic!

Speaking of domestic, my friends Ruth Ann and Joe are getting married tomorrow! Please pray for their marriage. I know it will be holy and Christ centered, which will be challenging in today's world.

Also I move in two days! We were all approved for the apartment and will be moving in Sunday! It's really exciting.

And I'm thinking about joining a really tough exercise class to help me get in better shape. It's pretty expensive, though. I'm debating between just getting a membership at the YMCA and sigining up for this class.

Hmm...I'll have to think about it.

But for now I have to get going!

Have a wonderful day!

college grad

I now officially have graduated from college! Yes, you are, in fact, reading the blog of someone with a college degree. (Ok...it's just a diploma right now, but it will be a degree in a year!)

I graduated last night, which was fun. It was an informal ceremony (no caps/gowns), the formal one is in May. Here's a photo of me getting my diploma cover from Dr. Robert Denson, the president of DMACC and Senator Doug Shull.

We just got the diploma cover because it's finals week and they have to make sure we all passed our classes first! ;)

Anyways...that's all for now! Have a merry day tomorrow!

life goes on

Yes! I am [almost] done with school for the semester! I only have one more test tomorrow, but it isn't graded - just an indication of how we're going to do on the NCLEX-PN.

And I have managed to maintain my GPA, which I am the most excited about!

Now I just have to concentrate on Christmas [and the inevitable buying of presents] and moving.

Here's a typical "me pose" from the past few weeks.

I'm sitting at my favorite homework spot in my pink hat, my favorite greet slippers, and a blanket. [Remember my house is still sixty-four degrees.]

It is very very good to be [almost] done! I can finally breathe, even if it's only for a few weeks!

Jesus, thank You for the strength and grace to get through this semester! Please help me to do well next term and to do all for You! I love You!

my pyramid says i need to run more

If you are interested in the new food pyramid and a diet/exercise analysis, go to mypyramid.gov! It is really neat! You can register and login, and it will save all of your information on the website. There is a food and exercise diary as well as an analysis of each individually and together. It's really interesting! Try it out and see what the government says about your health regimen!

wipe that winshield!

A couple of exciting windshield stories from this weekend:

1. So for the past couple of weeks my widshield washer fluid has been frozen since it had the summer stuff in there (the kind without anitfreeze). This was really bad because driving around in the snow/melting snow was causing my windshield to be smeared with dirty water so I couldn't see. But I couldn't fix it because it was below freezing. Well, this weekend it got up to 35 degrees or so, barely above freezing. So my dad and I pumped out all of the old fluid, poured warm fluid in, pumped that out, poured more warm in, pumped that out, and poured new fluid in. We figured it would work, but alas! So my dad took the entire tubing thing apart, and it was clogged with dirt and such, so he cleaned it all out and it finally worked! Then he sprayed all of the washer fluid out through the newly-cleaned sprayers and filled it up one last time with antifreeze that can last until 20 below! (Hopefully it doesn't get that cold!) ;) My dad's the best!

...and now story number 2!...

2. I went Christmas shopping with my friend Maria today and we noticed that her windshield wipers were in shreds, so we went to Wal-Mart to get some new ones. We took the old wipers off so we could find the size she needed in the store. We determined that she needed one 22" and one 21". The only problem was that they did not have those two sizes in the same brand. So we went to Target and they had some, but they were about 4 times as expensive. But we got them and we decided to have a little adventure by putting them on ourselves without help or directions. ;) Have done this before, I decided to show here how to do it. I got the first one on after a bit of struggle, but it was worked. After that Maria tired to put the other one on, but couldn't get it. So I tried and got it on, but somehow managed to do it horribly wrong so we couldn't get it off again! Now, mind you, it was very dark and we just had a little flashlight to guide us, plus we didn't really know what we were doing. So we decided that one windshielf wiper would have to suffice and Maria went home to get her dad to fix it. God bless dads!

All in all, it was a wonderful windshield weekend!