Life comes at you fast...

You know, I'm tired. I'm tired of politics. I'm tired of coming home from school and having messages on my machine telling me who will be in town and that I should go join the rally. And yes, I received 3 calls about the same specific rally. I didn't go. Wanted to, but didn't. I'm tired that the majority of our mail these days are "vote for this" "don't vote for that" pamphlets. This is the first campaign I honestly remember all of the advertising, being bombarded almost constantly. (I know, the Obama campaign does have a lot of money, and is spending it on advertising. I'm sure that's a large part of it.) I'm just looking forward to next Tuesday evening, when the majority of the ads will end. I don't expect the election itself to be over. I expect there will be recounts, and the election will hinge on one or two states as it has in the past two elections. I'll just be glad to not have to worry about smear ads on TV.

On to other things. Last weekend we had our annual Halloween party with the JoKeRMob. Ok. Technically the JoeRMob, because the Ks weren't there. It was up at Steve and Kate's new house. What a great place they found! It made us talk about moving, starting over, with something that we could decorate on our own. Someday we'll have that. But for now we can only deal with what we have and change it a little bit at a time, a room and window at a time.

I also won some books last week from bookbrothel. It was a giveaway of 10 books from Hachette Book Group. They're all politically related, but that's ok. I'm really looking forward to reading them, and if I don't read them, at least skimming them. I'm sure there will be some interesting tidbits of trivia in them.

Well, I'm off for now. I recently updated my starting page on FireFox to iGoogle, and I need to customize it to get the feeds I want to see. If you haven't checked out iGoogle yet, give it a try! :) Have a great week!

A meme...

A while ago (a long while, I'm sorry to say) I asked to be part of a meme that has you commenting on fictional characters, all of whom have names that start with a specific letter. I was given the letter 'S'. Below you will find my answers (and below that the rules to participate, should you so choose).

1.) Scout (To Kill a Mockingbird) Definitely one of my favorite books and a favorite character too. You can almost imagine what a girl of her young age was thinking when the country was trying to deal with segregation. I know that even now it's hard to believe that such things took place. Scout is such a real girl, and you can totally feel like you know what it was like to sneak past Boo Radley's house, but yet to be fascinated by him at the same time.

2.) Severus Snake (Harry Potter series) - he's so annoying, you can't help but like him! I am a fan of the Harry Potter books, and I really enjoyed the role in which Snape had in Harry's adventures.

3.) Pomona Sprout (Harry Potter series) - There was something about this gal you couldn't help but like. I always picture her almost as a Martha Steward of the wizard world. She can grown anything!

4.) Snow White (Disney Princess) - As much as I'd love to say that she really exists, she's just a fantasy. I remember that Snow White was one of the only movies that I went to as a kid, my mom taking me to the theater after my grandfather had died. I like how her character causes girls to dream of being a princess, and of having seven short men helping you out-at your beg and call!

5.) Slightly Sane Georgie (Hat Full of Sky) - He's not a prominent character. He's a Nac Mac Feegle, and those little blue men just make me smile. The fact that his name started with S just was perfect!

(And because I had to)

6.) Jack Schitt (Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde) - He's an evil man, that Jack Schitt. He's caused Thursday's husband to vanish from the memories of everyone, even poor Thursday! He does such horrible things, it's no wonder he works for Goliath Corp! Definitely a character you love to hate!


Ok. So there they are. Better late than never! :)


Here are the rules to the meme, let me know if you'd like to play too!
1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters and post their names and your comments on these characters in your blog.
4. Have fun!

We've got spirit, yes we do...Or do we?!

Today was the first pep assembly that the school has had in a long time. Correction. The first pep assembly held during school hours. There is one for homecoming, but it's a community rally, and it's in the evening.

So anyway. There was a pep assembly today. I've never been to an assembly so quiet! The kids were just sitting there. Not yelling and screaming, excited for their school and their teams. They sat there. The emcee even had to tell the kids when to stand up and how to do the cheers! It was really a bit sad. I guess it shows that all of those years of telling the kids to sit down and shut up when there was an assembly paid off. They knew they had to be quiet or the assembly wouldn't progress. I'd really like to say something profound right now, but I've got nothing. I was just in shock. I've never been to an assembly where at times you really would've heard a pin drop. Strange. Hopefully as they start having more of these assemblies the kids will pick up what to do and the excitement will build. They really need to learn school spirit.

Cooking and updates

So Monday I decided I'd try cooking using the crock pot yet again. I've never actually put something in the crock pot, left for work, and let it do its thing. I know. I'm a freak. But, I decided it was worth a shot. So into the pot I threw pork chops (like 8 of them) and while last year I usually used chicken noodle soup, noodles aren't an option for me, so I went with a chicken and rice and vegetable soup. It was an organic soup that was new, by Wolfgang Puck. I came home, it smelled tasty. I was happy. Then, it was time for the true test, the taste test, about 2.5 hours later, when Joe got home.

Apparently...rice cooks away when left in a crock pot for about 10 hours. The wild rice curled up and reminded me of little snails. The white rice just kind of cooked away to nothing. All that was left was broth, carrots, 'snails', and pork chops. The overall taste wasn't horrible. It was just really bland. I need to get the seasoning thing down. I think next time I'm just going to use chicken broth, pork chops, and then about an hour before the food is done, I'll throw in some gluten-free noodles. I've got to think about the seasonings. Although a few days later, I'm not so sure. Joe wasn't too keen on the food. He says he doesn't like anything soupy. Even when we drained the broth away he just wasn't happy.

Tuesday I decided to branch out and cook tacos. I've never done that before. I chose to use turkey meat instead of beef. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't the greatest either. I have 3 containers of meat left over. And you all know how I feel about leftovers. Blech! I'm learning to like them, yes, but they totally aren't my thing! Wednesday we went out to eat. I wasn't in the mood to be creative with food.

Other news...Joe has become the hunter extraordinaire! I can't go into details, but let's just say that I'm quite impressed! Be sure to ask him what he's been doing. It's a fun story, and depending on the mood, it might include bad words! (Ok, it would from me, that's just me though!)

That's all the news on the home front. We're going biking on Saturday. I haven't actively been on a real bike (the exercise bike doesn't count) since college. Should be interesting. I'll let you know how that goes!

Little Punks!

You know, it's 10:33 on a Thursday night, and I'm supposed to be in bed. But NO. Little idiot punks have to come through and nail our mailbox with a bat. Now we're waiting on the sheriff so that we can file a report. I'm all for having fun, but when it involves damaging property of somebody else AND keeping me awake, I am NOT a happy camper. I sure hope the sheriff nabs the bugger!

UPDATE: The sheriff never did show up on Thursday night. Turns out they never officially entered our call into the system! So I had to call them on Friday and have someone come out. It sure is interesting to see the amount of attention your house receives when it has a sheriff cruiser sitting in the driveway! After Joe got home we drove down the other streets in the neighborhood to see the damage, and the one street looked as though almost every mailbox got hit-even the plastic ones! We learned our lesson-no type of mailbox is baseball bat-proof, so we bought the $9.99 special at Wally World. After talking to my dad, the mailbox that was damaged was about 6 years old, so hopefully the replacement will last that long too.

Fall is Finally here!

I know, officially it was here a few weeks ago, but for me it's officially here now. I have been able to wear a hoodie for the past few days (either after school when I got home) or as my choice piece of clothing when I drug my buns out of bed. I am so happy! I love my hoodies! The one I'm currently wearing is in honor of Kent State. In the summer I had to go back up to campus to get yet another copy of my transcript, and I realized that as an alumna, I did not have a KSU hoodie. The horrors! I have Army hoodies and OSU hoodies, but no KSU hoodies.
So, I remedied the situation. The one I purchased is similar to this in design, but the colors are different. I went for the grey with navy letters and gold outlines. I must say, the shirt is tres comfortible! (Have I mentioned that I love hoodies??)

I also know fall is finally here because I had to turn the heat on. I didn't want to do it, but even when dressed in layers, the house was showing it was 63 degrees, which is about 2 degrees less than what I would want it to be. So, I caved and turned it on.

Yet another sign? I'm drinking hot tea instead of iced, and I've turned to soup as one of my main meals for the day. Today I had a bowl of chicken chili that I found at Raisin Rack. It was premade, frozen, and best of all, gluten free! It was SO tasty! I'm planning on going back to Raisin Rack tonight to get some more, as well as to get some fresh baked gluten free goods. (I hope!) There's a bakery in Alliance (Kathy's Creations), and her food is un-be-lievable! I had the snickerdoodles and bear claws last week. I was so in heaven! I had forgotten how things like donuts/bear claws could be so tasty. But, her bakery is completely gluten free. I was beyond excited to find the items last week. I'm looking forward to what I find tonight! :)

Ok. Back to trying to stay warm. I'm thinking I might have to have some warm apple cider soon. Doesn't that sound yummy?

Wii had fun!

So yesterday was the annual corn maze event for the JoKeRMob. For the past 3 years (this makes 4), we've gone out to Amherst and split up guys against girls and navigated the maze. We also try to pick apples when we can, and yesterday we did that too. (I LOVE Jonagold apples that are fresh picked! So much better than what you get at the store!)

The theme for this year's maze was baseball and the 1948 World Series. The maze was of a baseball player. The girls all 'talked' before hand, and our plan was to use the Maze-o-vision glasses that Lynn had, along with copies of the maze printed out to find all of the stations within the maze. From what I understand, the boys 'talked' too, and pretty much got caught up on the trivia as well as printed out copies of the maze to navigate. Jim went so far as to change his email password so that Susan couldn't read what the boys were saying. Hilarious!

The weather yesterday wasn't perfect-it was drizzling and a bit on the chilly side. But being the JoKeRMob, we went ahead. (Whether rain, sleet, sun or snow, the JoKeRMob events are always a go!) We navigated the maze to the best of our abilities, and I must say, that we ladies did much better than we have in the previous runs. We were able to find all but 2 stations before the men were on the bridge mocking us. Next year is our year, girls!

After the maze we went back to Brian and Lynn's for pizza and entertainment. They have a Wii and they decided to show us what it could do. It was fun watching and playing the different games. Who knew that cow racing could bring Lynn to tears?! It definitely was a fun evening. Joe's claiming Wii elbow today. It's not my fault he had to rematch against me in bowling!

I'm thinking that a Wii might be on my list of things to purchase someday. It really was a bunch of fun, and I could see us using it a lot more than our PS2 or XBox. Probably because the games were much more amusing to me. Don't know. Just a guess. Before yesterday I was really wanting a touch iPod, the games on that can be fun, and it would be nice to listen to fun music when roadtripping to Nashville/Hopkinsville. Cassettes of hair bands just don't cut it for me. I need a mixture of music! I suppose an iPod still might be on the list, but I'd probably take a Wii first. Now if only I had a 'real' job so I could purchase these!