Wii Fit

My little brother and sister chipped in to give Hal and me a Wii Fit for Christmas.

First of all, it's AWESOME. I have been using it nightly and have been having fun doing the games and exercises.

However, it is also not easy! My core is revolting against the yoga poses. Last night I was doing a half moon, which basically consists of leaning to one side, and I COULD NOT DO IT. I was breathing all heavy and my back and legs were shaking. Jeez Louise! The half moon of doom is a nightmare! Apparently I have the flexibility of a tree trunk. Sigh.

I also haven't enjoyed how my Mii blows up to epic proportions when I stand on the board. The first time I used it, my sister was cracking up. First of all, I stepped onto the board and the thing had the gall to say, "OH!" Then it made my Mii fat. So I'm kind of fighting with it right now.

But I will not let my fat Mii beat me down.

Overheard at Christmas

Jenn at Juggling Life recounts funny overheard statements, made usually by her family, every week. The past two days have been full of some good ones for us.
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Christmas Eve finds us opening presents one by one by age, youngest to oldest. My family all raised a glass during the space before my present, which is usually filled by my brother Donnie who is not able to be with us this Christmas because he is serving in the Army in Iraq.

The family: To Donnie!

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Tonight, discussing the funny things we (my cousins and I) did as children:

Mom (to Jennie, who was sitting next to her boyfriend): You didn't like to be naked. I hope that hasn't changed.

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The clue on the Catchphrase machine was for "Test Tube Babies."

Aunt Lisa: The little things that come from between your legs!

Everyone: WHAT?!

Aunt Lisa: Oh, like what you do when you get married!

Everyone: [Laughter for the next five minutes]

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My father was imitating my sister when she was little.

Dad: "My bucket huwts. I have dia-wee-a."

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My Uncle John likes to teach my cousins by calling their boyfriends and girlfriends by the wrong names. My cousin Jacob's girlfriend's name is Sarah. His grandmother's name is Shirley. (Walt is Jacob's dad.)

John: I'm glad Shirley isn't here tonight.

Dad: That's not very nice to say about Walt's Mom.

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Mom made drinks called a Woo-Hoo (also referred to as a Ho Ho in honor of the season) to give to the adults. My aunt Tami entered the room.

Mom: Tami, do you want a Woo-Hoo?

Tami: I thought I already had one.

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The uncomfortable Christmas present

When I was a youngster, I'm thinking around nine or ten, I ran downstairs on Christmas morning with my siblings, thrilled to see what Santa had brought us.

That year, my aunt had my name, so there were some presents from her under the tree.

In the midst of the present extravaganza, I opened one of these presents from my aunt.

The box under the wrapping was cube shaped. I don't remember exactly what it said, but I remember the sentiment exactly.

The box advertised a "maternity kit." Everything you need to have with you when you go to the hospital to have the baby (or when you bring the baby home, I don't remember). I can't pretend to remember what was advertised as being in the box.

I read that and felt my face flush.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

Why in the world did my aunt buy me a maternity kit? I'm 10 years old! I'm not having a baby! I'm not ready to have a baby!

I was horrified. So embarrassed, in fact, that I hid the box under some of my other presents, determined to forget that I ever received it.

My mom, though, didn't miss a trick.

"Hey," she said. "Did you open that present from Lisa?"

I nodded, silent.

"Where is it?" she said. "I want to see it."

I was beside myself. The only thing worse than getting that present at all was to open it in front of my mother and the rest of my family. I shook my head. I think perhaps there was some cajoling on the part of my mother to open it.

Finally, silently, heart hammering, I opened the box.

I reached inside and pulled out my aunt's present.

A beautiful art piece for me to hang up in my room.

And thus I learned not to judge a present by its box.

The Long Road Home

Hal and I set off for my parents' house today at 2 p.m.

It takes us about 2.5 hours to get to my parents house from our place in Bloomington.

Today, we arrived at my parents' house at 9:30 p.m.

We did drive carefully because there was some slickness, especially once we got on the expressway (which takes an hour and a half to get to itself!). But we got all the way tot the Kentucky/Indiana border and traffic was stopped. dead. on the expressway.

Through phone calls, the radio, and some internet on Hal's phone, we discovered that the bridge -- which we have to cross to get to Kentucky -- was closed. Why, we're not sure. For how long, we don't know. I do know that we sat without moving for an hour and a half, and then decided we were hungry. We jumped off the expressway and found a place to eat.

We ate for about an hour and 15 minutes and then went to get back on the expressway. The bridge was still closed. I decided that the road we were on, Route 50, had to connect to downtown Cincinnati at some point. Since it was about 8:30 at this point in time, we didn't think we would be caught in rush hour traffic (the reason we didn't get off the expressway earlier).

So we traveled down this road and, indeed, we ended up downtown. We were able to cross a bridge there to get to Kentucky, and we finally arrived home (although I slid the worst when I got off the expressway about 5 miles from my parents' house!).

But we're here safe and sound! I'm ready for Christmas.

Tomorrow: A childhood Christmas present that confused and frightened me.

furious preparations

We are furiously preparing for Christmas. I will post soon! :)

A Day in the Life (Saturday, December 6)

My sister and my cousin came down to IU for my sister's volleyball tournament. This was incredibly exciting.



Kayla and I get a little breakfast. Jennie had already gone to play her first game. (Kayla dyed my hair the night before!)

After breakfast, Kayla, Hal, and I got to watch a lot of this:



It's a little early for me still.


Jennie is gross. She and Kayla are roommates!


The three of us smile pretty for a picture.


After more of this, we require Jennie to come to lunch with us. We needed to get out of the gym!


Jennie and Kayla rejoice in finding IU's famous Sample Gates.


It took several tries to get this one.


Kayla tries to take a picture of Hal and I for our Christmas card. It is epic fail, everything in this picture is in focus BUT us.



This one could be cute -- but what's going on with my hair?!



Hal has fake smile.



Cute. And fuzzy.



Kayla is confused at the Noodle place.



Distrustful of the table number. (We're apparently 10 years old this weekend, by the way.)


Sisters!


Mac and Cheese


Then more, much more, of this.



For hours.



Until we finally get to go to dinner. First time for Jennie and Kayla to have Turkish food! They liked it.



And then a trip to the grocery store results in a Santa sighting.

After this, we all went to bed. :)

Ornament

I squinted my eyes, puzzled, at the line gold ornaments in the Target Christmas aisle. There hung an ornament of gold block letters.

That can't possibly be right. Surely not. Why in the world?

Who buys an ornament that says whore?

And who buys an ornament that spells whore incorrectly? It says HORE! What does that even mean?

I scooted a little closer, turning my head to the side to see if my eyes were deceiving me. My eyes that the eye doctor declared unchanged in prescription when I had my check up this week.

Oh dear.

The ornament says HOPE.

Caught!

I think I have talked briefly about the beautiful new Kroger. And the Dunkin Donuts within it.

So last night I went to Kroger to get a baguette and I stopped at the Dunkin Donuts and got a cinnamon donut to eat. (This was allowed because I was down an entire pound yesterday morning after swimming the 300 pull of disaster on Tuesday night). The girl working the cash register was very lovely and cheerful and I left with a smile on my face.

Tonight, I had to go back to the store to pick up some sandwich bread because we were going to have sandwiches for dinner.

Let me tell you about my day. So you can understand my donut desire.

I set my alarm for 9:15 AM so I could catch the 11 AM bus and meet my friend Laura at the book fair in the student union.

My alarm didn't go off. I woke up at 9:45 and realized that my alarm had been set for 9:15PM.

I shoved my feet in some slippers and went to take the dog out. On the first or second step, my feet went out from under me and I fell down the whole flight of stairs, bruising my arm and backside.

Once I got up, the trauma of the event hit me with a wave of heat. I overheated and had to sit in my t-shirt and pajama pants in front of the open back door. As often happens when I overheat, I felt like I was going to hurl, so I found myself on my hands and knees in the bathroom, where I never did actually puke, but I stayed until I cooled down a bit.

I had been awake for less than 15 minutes.

Then I almost missed the bus because I couldn't find my cell phone so I had to run to catch it.

Needless to say, it was NOT a good morning. The rest of the day was better.

So, anyway, I paid for the sandwich bread at Kroger and then approached the Dunkin Donuts counter. I was going to get some munchkins for breakfast for Hal and I. I look at the workers.

And there is the lovely little girl from the night before.

Oh jeez, I'm thinking. She's going to be like, "Here's that girl AGAIN! She's the last person who needs a donut two nights in a row."

So I finally get up to the counter, and I blurt out, "I was here last night; please don't judge me!"

The girl behind the counter looked befuddled for a moment, and then started laughing.

"Oh!" she said. "That was my sister. You just told on yourself!"

I was greedy -- and I lost.

Since Linens and Things is going out of business, I've been watching their website to try to get some cool stuff for cheap.

I discovered that they had our china pattern. The only pieces they had left were accent plates (which were awesome) and a sugar bowl.

I watched as the accent plates went down in prices. Finally, this week they were half off. Then they added a free shipping discount a couple of days ago. I rubbed my hands together in anticipation. I added 12 of them to my shopping cart knowing that as soon as they moved again, I would buy them.

I went back yesterday, after reasoning that the free shipping discount would result in the same price as if the plates were $2 cheaper, and my shopping cart only had one plate in it.

There is only ONE plate left.

I lost the game. :(

Nose

Last night Hal and I put up our Christmas tree for the first time in the apartment. Last year we spent from Christmas to New Year's at home and so we didn't think it would be efficient to put the tree up here and then have to take it right down. But it's nice to cram all of our Christmas stuff into our apartment (although not all of it fits). We're enjoying the festive feeling all the lights and ornaments bring!

Of course, while we were doing this, we had a bit of an accident.

I was playing with Layla on the floor. She was facing away from me and I had kind of picked her up around her stomach in a playful way. She decided she wanted to get out and pushed off the floor as hard as she could.

She slammed her skull into my nose.

CRACK -- went the nose.

Holy cow, that hurt. And still hurts. We were worried for a bit that it was broken, but there was very little blood and I don't have black eyes. It's very painful to touch and is aching as we speak.

I guess that teaches me to play rough with the dog.

In good news, my sister and cousin are coming to B-town tonight! Jennie has a volleyball tournament here tomorrow, so they are staying with us. I'm so excited!

Ha!

I ganked this from Kyle's facebook page. It's brilliant.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/7/30schmelling.html

In other news --- who says ganked anymore?

Paper time!

I'm stuck under a pile of grading 165 papers high.

I also have my own paper to write by Monday.

Sigh.

Classes!

Today was very exciting because I got to register for classes.

I LOVE registering for classes. I once left a class I was in so I could walk down the hall and call in my registration -- I didn't want to wait the extra hour. It goes along with loving to shop for school supplies. It's one of my favorite things ever. There are so many possibilities and so much promise to the new semester.

This coming semester, my first in the doctoral program, required planning craziness. I wanted to balance some of my interests while keeping in mind the requirements for the program.

I am enrolled in three classes. Only one of the classes is a journalism class. I'm taking a class about new media -- issues that come with the new media technology. I'm also taking a class in the religious studies department. It's a religion in American culture class and it focuses on illness and healing (which goes into my health focus). My third class is in telecom and it's about the cognitive responses to media content stimuli! I looked at the class schedule and it said something about MRIs -- which is so super awesome.

So, as usual, I'm pumped for the new semester. I didn't expect to end up in the telecom class. I was thinking about taking a law class for my law concentration, but couldn't find one that worked with the rest of my schedule.

My job is to be the research assistant to my thesis adviser, which is going to be full of good work and experiments. I think it will be a busy and difficult but good semester. It's only more of an incentive to finish my thesis before it starts (I have to finish it by Jan. 31st).

Today

Well, today was a good day.

I finished my presentation for my Sex in the News class. I signed my contract for next semester, where I will be a research assistant for my thesis adviser. This is a good thing.

But we also found out we didn't get the house we wanted to rent. The people who own it have decided to try to sell it instead of keeping it for an investment. It was a nice big house and we were really excited about the possibility of renting it. So we have to find a new place. Bummer. But that's okay, because there are many places out there we can look at now!

We are now relaxing after watching the most recent episode of Boston Legal. I'm really sad that next week is the season finale.