Mawwage

Weddings, engagements, marriage.

I've been watching a lot of The Tudors - which is all about King Henry VIII who had 6 wives and how he acquired (and disposed of) those wives.  One of my favorite characters is the Lady Mary - Henry's eldest daughter by his first wife Catherine of Aragon (who later becomes Bloody Mary).  In the latest episode I watched, she quarrels with the current queen Catherine Howard, who claims that Mary is jealous of her because Mary is older than she is but is still unmarried.  This leaves Mary distraught and she lashes out at the queen and later cries with great sorrow for her fate.  And seriously, it's so sad that the grand life goals of the women in this time was to marry well.  So that's all about marriage.

Last night I watched a Twilight marathon - the first four movies alone in my apartment.  Was up stupid late finishing them but it was kind of fun.  Then today I went to see the latest movie, Breaking Dawn Pt 2 in the theater (again alone because everyone had either already seen it, lived too far away, or just refused to go with me). Anyway, those movies all lead up to the whole idea of a soul mate, someone to spend eternity with, etc and so on.

Then finally, tonight after I got home from the movie I received a phone call from my sister, informing me of her engagement. It wasn't a surprise, they'd been ring shopping and venue hunting etc for the past few weeks, but still.  It's happening.

That's really all.

I'm Gonna Wreck It!

I went and saw Wreck-It Ralph tonight and it was really fun!  It was funny, and touching, and an overall good movie.  Well done Disney!

I'm also updating so I can beat my record low posts of 17 last year.  That's right, I only posted 17 updates in 2011!  That's pretty sad, and with this post I'm up to 18 for 2012.

Another reason for this update is to avoid studying.  I have a couple of tests coming up, in Physiology and Microbiology, and I just don't want to study for them.  I'm not too worried about Microbiology - it's one of 4 tests plus we have tons of quizzes and homework projects to boost our grades and I did really well on the first two tests.  It's really Physiology I should be stressing about.

Here's the problem with Physiology: I don't go to class.  I know I should, but ever since I realized that he posts all the notes online and doesn't stray from that information for the tests (as evidenced by my first test - aced it) I've decided that sleeping in over that hour is far preferable to sitting in a boring classroom.  The notion would be that I would just teach myself the material from the notes as we go and show up and ace the tests.  But that's what the entire grade is based on - 3 tests.  Two of them (100 points each) are during the semester and the cumulative final (200 points) at the end.  I did well on my first test but the next one is coming up a week from today and I haven't gone over the material at all.  So while all my peers in the class are studying over the material I'll just be learning it for the first time.  Awful, I know, but it's pretty much what I did for the first test and I got a 94.  Just to throw that into perspective, the class average was 72.  Sigh.  Darn you procrastination!

Speaking of which, I still haven't even finished my stats!  I was supposed to finish it before my Micro and Physio classes started and when I lost most of my work due to a technological issue I just haven't felt like doing it.

Watching "Switched at Birth" and drinking hot Tang - I am just so lazy!

Went home this weekend (and took Addy with me).  Friday night went out to Applebee's with Megan and her friend Emily K. Stayed up late watching movies/TV and then got up early on Saturday to go to the free Cinemagic kid's movie with Megan (Happy Feet 2 - pretty good!). Out to eat at Beetle's (delicious but took forever) then back home for more TV and laziness. Sunday followed the trend - although Megan and I went and got our hair cut.  Mine actually got chopped - 8 braided inches donated to Locks of Love.  Was hard to pull the trigger (wanted to wait until summer) but Megan convinced me to.

Lame and horribly written paragraph about my weekend, but meh.

Go see the movie!  Good stuff.

Happy Halloween!

Yep, totally suck.  Didn't post a thing all September or October.

I'm starting to realize that my lack of posting generally happens when I have real stuff to talk about.  Not sure if that's ironic or just sad because it's when I'm bored that all my avid readers (heh, right) get the play by play of every day.

Enough of that.

So I went on a cruise at the beginning of September. It was awesome - went to San Juan, St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten.  We snorkeled with sea turtles, took ferries, saw dozens of jewelry stores (because that's what you do!), bought souvenirs, hung out on the beach and the decks, ate tons of delicious cruise food, went ziplining over the rainforest, and hauled our bags around San Juan at the very end.  It was a great trip, and I came home to find that Vicki had filled my closet with balloons (floor to ceiling, some of them are still around) and wrapped 24 random objects around my apartment (some still wrapped).

Early October Nathan, Chris, and I went to see Louis CK live - for Chris' birthday.  He was hilarious live, highly recommend seeing him. And yes, I realize I skipped the rest of September, but I think I spent most of my time finishing my vet school applications and sorting all of that out.

On Sara's birthday (19th), Nathan, Kory, Adam, Megan, Sara, I, and a couple other people went out to Buca di Beppo's for Sara's 21st birthday.  Great food, great company, and afterwards they went over to a bar.  If there hadn't been a cover I would have gone in with them but I'm cheap so instead I went home.

The next day I got up and decided to make beignets!  The French donuts from The Princess and the Frog!  My boss had gone to New Orleans and brought back boxes of the mix for us to try to make.  So I did!  They were delicious fresh, not so great the next day. I brought them over to Sybylla's and shared them with her, her mom, Monkey, and Vicki.  We spent the afternoon/evening watching movies, carving pumpkins, and playing games.  It turns out we carved them too soon because after a bit less than a week mine grew some gnarly mold/fungus.  Looked really cool but wasn't very sanitary so I had to chuck it.

No worries though because last night (Tuesday) I went over to Nathan's and he, Chris, and I all carved new pumpkins!  Mine wasn't quite as good as the first one I carved, but still good.  Especially since near the end of mine the carving knives broke - poor Nathan only got to do a tiny part before they were broken.

This past weekend I got to go to the dog park twice!  The first time on Saturday with Nathan and Jackie (dog) and the second time on Sunday just me and Jackie.  After the second trip I brought Jackie back to my apartment to hang out until Nathan picked her up, and I was expecting her to annoy Addy the whole time or for Addy to hide in my room.  Complete opposite reaction - Jackie spent the whole time sniffing around or watching Evaine (the rat) or curled up sleeping while Addy proceeded to chase her around, attack her tail, and bat at her from behind/under things.  It was adorable!  I think Addy felt good about it because she was on her own turf - and it probably helped that Jackie was too distracted to get down to kitten chasing.

Tonight is Halloween! Unfortunately I didn't really get a chance to celebrate it.  I worked and then had Microbiology lab.  Came home and watched TV and made pumpkin bars (delicious).

I'm planning on going down to Rochester this weekend - maybe go see Happy Feet 2 on Saturday morning for the free kids movie at the theater (awesome).

August fun times

So I started typing this up on August 7th and am just now finishing it up. I'm going to finish this post up to right before the cruise and hopefully write another one tonight but we'll see how it goes.

Last weekend I went camping with Vicki and Sybylla at Great River Bluff State Park near Winona. We drove down through Rochester and played "Cows Running" in the car. Basically it was a couple of super long lists of random things to find, and whoever found the most won. Sybylla and I were on a team against Vicki but she still managed to win by a landslide. We got to the campsite fairly late on Friday, started setting up the tent in the dark and soon realized that we were missing a piece of a pole. We decided to improvise with three sticks and a lot of duct tape and it worked!

At this point the rest of the weekend is mostly a blur - we ate a lot of pie ironed foods, along with a ton of delicious watermelon, went on some hikes and saw some pretty sites over the Mississippi river, and generally had a good time.

The following weekend I drove up to Heath's Resort (had to drive past Crow Wing State Park again!) with Kory to spend a long weekend with the Coughlin clan. Again, very foggy memories, but I had a really great time with my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins! We played volleyball in the sand, ate delicious food, went fishing, tried tubing, swam in the lake, and all sorts of fun activities. I was sad to see it end but it reminded me how fun it was to hang out with my family.

Man this going back and trying to remember things is just reminding me how I need to be more consistent with my updating.

A couple weekends later I drove down to Rochester and spent Friday night shopping for clothes for my vacation. Sara and mom played dress up with me and I walked away with a bag full of clothes. On Saturday morning we drove over to Lanesboro where we met up with the Koenigs. Spent the day floating on tubes down the Root River and hanging out at their campsite. Another good family day.

The last week in August was a very busy week. I had my first Microbiology lab on Wednesday and it went terribly - it was stupid easy but the other people at our table were morons and had no idea how to work a microscope - and the professor did not help at all. Before I left for lab, mom stopped by to pick up Addy to watch her for the next week and a half while I was on vacation.

On Friday it was of course my birthday :P (I feel so old at 25!). Went to work but left a tad early. Walked from work to Sara's apartment where I met Nathan. We then walked to the bus pickup on our way to the State Fair! Once we got there we met up with Vicki and Sybylla and spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at the fair. Eating fried food (got a free deep fried candy bar from Sara), watching lumberjacks, and just having a good time with good friends :)

Saturday morning I volunteered at Como again and afterwards Megan, Sara, Kory, and Adam met me there and we went through the zoo (I had done a similar zoo trip with Sybylla and Vicki two weekends before... the last time I'd volunteered there). Afterwards we drove to Har Mar Mall (very slowly through all the State Fair traffic) and met up with Nathan at Old Chicago. Ate more good food, then went home and cleaned my apartment and packed.

Sunday morning Nathan and I got up at like 4am and walked our luggage to the light rail station. From there we went to the airport and started our vacation!

I probably won't manage to update the cruise stuff tonight, but hopefully I will before too long...

30 Chihuahuas!

I'm running out of creativity for my post titles - so this is one is based on the Animal Hoarding episode currently playing. The guy has 30 chihuahuas, 1 cocker spaniel, and 1 shih tzu. There's poop everywhere and they never stop barking...

In other news, it's been a month since I last posted, which is bad on me. At some point it gets hard to bring yourself to catch up on all that's happened so it's just easier to not.

Alright so here goes nothing. The last weekend in June I helped move Megan back from Madison to Rochester. I drove down to Rochester and then dad and I drove to Madison. We stayed there Friday night and then loaded up the U Haul and headed out Saturday morning. We had to wait forever for her stupid subleaser to finally show up to get the keys and then I was tasked with driving Megan's car back to Rochester. About 5 minutes into the drive is when I discovered that the air conditioning wasn't working and it was in the 90's temperature wise. I couldn't even easily roll down the windows because they were all hand cranks! I eventually couldn't take it and left the slower vehicles behind and hauled ass to the KFC where we'd planned to have lunch. After lunch I switched vehicles and let Megan drive her own car. Got back to Rochester, unloaded, and hung out the rest of the night. Back to Minneapolis on Sunday.

The 4th of July was pretty laid back - for the most part I just went over to Nathan's where we grilled out and set off cheap small fireworks at the end of the driveway. The following Saturday was my first time volunteering at Como Zoo. I basically stood outside the ducks/flamingos and told people about them and answered questions. I think it went pretty well.

Thursday the 12th I came in to work early for a biometric screening - all my numbers look good and in the acceptable range (hooray). At lunch I went over to the VA and had cafeteria food with Joe. Got caught up on our news and had a nice lunch just like old times. Afterwards I went to Bldg 49 and met with Dave (the vet at the VA). We had a nice long chat and he agreed to write an evaluation for me - another hooray! The next weekend I drove down to Des Moines to meet my cousin's twin boys. Hung out at the aunt and uncle's, went fishing on the pond, ate good food, and had a nice time. On Sunday I met up with Hannah at the Des Moines Art Center. We chatted, got caught up with our lives and our goals, and questioned the artistic value of colored water in empty plastic pop bottles. That was really fun, and I miss having her around to hang out with.

This week I went to a Vet School Application Prep Seminar at the St. Paul Campus. It was incredibly helpful, but it meant I have a lot of editing to do on my application. I've been working on that for the most part. I went to see Dark Knight Rises on Friday night - it made me cry. Yesterday was another Como day - although a morning thunderstorm took out the power and caused me to wake up late. This weekend has been pretty lame - haven't done much other than stuff on Netflix and eat food.

I'm now on a new episode of Animal Hoarding and this woman has 84 cats and man is that place nasty...

I'm so full...

Random title, I know, but I ate at Fat Lorenzo's with Vicki and Sybylla for supper today and it was sooo much food! My stomach isn't used to being stretched out so far in one sitting anymore.

Well we went camping (Nathan and I) at Crow Wing State Park. Got a late start but made it there with some daylight left. When we arrived and checked in we learned that, due to recent flooding and excess stagnant water, the mosquitoes had multiplied to threat level cloud. That's right, clouds of mosquitoes were everywhere, a thick fog of bloodsucking menaces. Got to the site, and (after applying as much DEET as we could get out of the cans) started attempting to assemble the giant 2 room tent. Unfortunately, the stakes were nowhere to be found, and the tent refused to go up without being staked down. So we got in the car and drove to the Walmart in Baxter and bought some fresh bug spray and some stakes. Back to the campsite and of course it's dark so we used the headlights from the car and got it set up. We may have made a fire, but I don't really remember.

On Saturday we slept in, then built up a fire. Breakfast/lunch (not brunch, we opted to rename it brench, for a more even distribution of the letters in each meal) was delicious cheesy hot dogs over the fire. We read for awhile (while digesting) and then attempted to go on a hike. We first headed down the steps to the Mississippi River, only to find the usual landing completely underwater. It was also extremely cloudy. As in, clouds of mosquitoes attacking our flesh. So we tried to hike down another trail but eventually gave up and headed back to camp. Unfortunately, with the lack of campfire smoke, the mosquitoes were intolerable at the campsite as well, so we jumped in the car and drove to the movie theater in Brainerd. I know, we were there for camping, but the bugs were just awful. The movie we decided to see wasn't playing for a few hours so we ended up taking an hour and a half hike on the Paul Bunyan State Trail (see - hiking!). We saw 7 garter snakes during our hike and I made us stop and take pictures of some of the pretty wildflowers growing alongside the trail. Got back and saw Prometheus - it wasn't great but it wasn't horrible either. Mostly it was just confusing, the plot went every which way and that made it hard to follow what was actually happening. Went back to the campsite and started up a fresh fire for pie iron pizzas (dinner!). Then just hung out, reading, stoking the fire, and eventually making smores until bedtime.

On Sunday we again slept in (I didn't think it was possible to do that while camping, but apparently my sleeping skills have grown tremendously) and had leftover hot dogs and pie iron pizzas for brench (that's right, I'm making it a thing). Read some more (good books!) and then made dessert pie irons (peanut butter, chocolate, and marshmallow for me, the same minus peanut butter plus graham cracker chunks for Nathan). Delicious. Eventually of course we had to pack up the camp and drive back to the cities.

The rest of this week has most just been long and painful. Mostly because last week was only a 3 day week for me with two vacations, and then a full week with not much to do at work. Enough of my whining. Monday was meeting at the Animal Humane Society and then dinner with Nathan (Bosco sticks!), Tuesday was strength training, Wednesday was WW (25lb total!) and dinner with Vicki and Sybylla at Fat Lorenzo's (so good). So I started this blog on Wednesday and am finishing it on Thursday (today). Nothing much happened today either, other than strength training again.

So in life news I've been working on my vet school applications. It's mostly through one common site (VMCAS) and it's pretty intense. It wants you to recall every activity you ever did from high school on, which is a bit difficult when it's been so long since high school (over 10 years since freshman year - I am so old...) So far I've managed to get two evaluators, but still need to get a couple more, plus at least one if not two vets. I'm planning to spend an afternoon with the vet from the VA and I'm hoping he'll be willing to write one for me. I'm also hoping that volunteering with Kindest Cut at the AHS (they spay/neuter animals at shelters) will put me in touch with another vet who may be willing to write one for me.

I think that's pretty much it for now, other than my statistics class is going well (working ahead a lot) and today I got an email from my physiology professor (taking it in the fall) who changed the textbook, meaning I had to resell the one I bought last month. On the plus side the new textbook is optional and I already managed to sell my old one for the same price I bought it for. Win?

June is escaping!

Seriously, I can't believe it's already been almost 2 weeks since I took the GRE - it feels like it was just yesterday! Speaking of which, I finally got my official scores: 165 Verbal (96th percentile), 165 Math (93rd percentile), and 4.5 Writing (72nd percentile - ouch). So yay overall for that.

So on Friday night I drove Addy to Nathan's where I dropped her off (she stayed with his roommate Chris for the weekend) and picked up Nathan. We drove to Breezy Point Resort (with a stop at Taco Bell along the way - the Dorito taco is freaking delicious!) and met up with my parents.

I honestly don't think we did anything that night but I could be wrong - I just don't remember! On Saturday we tried to go tubing but it was really windy and the tube sucked. We spent hours reading - on the beach and on the porch of the condo. Dinner was burgers with the parents' friends and later that night we tried night fishing - the bobbers glow! But we didn't catch a thing.

On Sunday we had a big delicious breakfast and then hung out indoors a lot (it was rainy and windy out). Lunch was hot dogs and macaroni & cheese - delicious. Later, Nathan and I went to see Snow White & the Huntsman. All I can say is that it was pretty to watch, but oh my word the plot was terrible. I'm pretty lenient with judging movies and books but this one was just bad, it was a let down for sure.

Monday we went fishing and didn't catch much (some, but no walleyes yet). In the afternoon Nathan and I went to Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf. Nathan and his family used to go there when he was a kid so it was a fun nostalgia thing for him and a fun "I suck at mini golf" thing for me. On the way back we stopped in Nisswa and visited the Chocolate Ox (yummy candy store) and the Rainy Day Bookstore (this is the store that I preordered the sixth Harry Potter book from years ago and forced my family to drive me there that summer during our vacation and then of course read the entire book in a day). We ate dinner that night at The Commander - great food but the waitress was terrible - kept forgetting us and it took almost an hour to get our food.

Tuesday was the last day of vacation :( We went fishing in the afternoon and I caught 13 perch while dad only caught a couple and poor Nathan didn't catch any. We also played golf (the card game) and ate leftovers. Eventually we had to drive home.

Yesterday was WW and I was seriously considering not going - I hadn't tracked all weekend and ate tons of cookies and candy and chips etc. But I eventually decided I had to go, and I even made myself walk there. To my surprise I only gained 0.4 lb! So that was a relief.

Today was a super long day. I woke up and it was dark and scary looking outside so I made the weird decision to drive halfway and walk the rest into work. It's about a 20 minute walk plus the drive time makes it much longer than my usual bike in. Didn't get rained on too much on the way in, then had a semi-slow day at work, then worked on my statistics homework, then went to my weight training class. After that I was starving but still had to walk back! I didn't get home until 8:30 pm, only to discover that Addy had tried to pull the cat toy off the mirror and instead managed to pull the full length mirror off the wall, to shatter on the floor. UGH. So I cleaned that up, fed her, had dinner, finished my stats homework, and I still have to pack for camping tomorrow!

I'm so tired, I hope I manage to get it all done.