New Beginnings...

I've been horrible about updating this.

With that said, I thought I'd give all two of your readers out there an update on what has been going on in my life recently. As of a week ago Thursday, I became a graduate student at the University of Kansas. I've yet to be converted into a Jayhawks fan, but I can already feel the pull of the dark side. Classes have been going pretty well so far, but it's just been really time consuming. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I leave the house around 10:15 and get home at 9:45 - 10:00. No, I don't go back in time, I'm really either on my way, at, or coming home from school for close to twelve hours. Then, when I get home, I try to straighten up the house, take care of whatever I have to get done that night, and read for another hour or two. Thursday I leave at 9:15 and get home around 7:30, so that's a little better, and I only have one class that day, which is at the Edwards campus in Overland Park. I've also been working at my usual stint for my Godfather at Oak Park Mall on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. What do I do in my free time? Ha ha ha...you're funny.

I am very excited that I've been able to get a head start on my thesis planning. I don't actually have to have a thesis to graduate since I'm already going to have to take the comprehensive exam , get 20 more hours of practicum, and take 15 more credit hours to gain licensure in the state of Kansas, but I'm an overachiever, what can I say? The reason I'm doing a thesis is because it will theoretically be impressive to the individuals that will someday be looking at my doctoral degree application...and because I'm absolutely fascinated with the subject that I'm planning to do my thesis on. I am so thankful for the professor that took the time on Wednesday to sit down with me and discuss the potential in the topic I had picked. He wasn't a professor of mine, and he's not my adviser...just an awesome guy and a really smart professor. He helped me sketch out a plan for data collection on my subject as well as to roughly work out how and where I'd collect the data. So, now that I know it's doable, I can start working on lit. review research to get that all lined up. I can get that part almost totally done before I collect the research, so that is nice.

Other than that, the bright light of my week has been the KU fencing club. I went to my first session on Wednesday and thought I was gong to be able to fence a bit. That didn't end up to be the case, except for a quick couple of points with Foster, another person that also had fencing experience. Instead, we did footwork, footwork, and more footwork. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, though. They were down an instructor, so even though it was my first time at the club, I was actually leading the footwork and teaching the newbies with Foster. It was an awesome experience, and I was really excited to be able to encourage some of the newbies like my instructor encouraged me when I was a newbie. The fact that he encouraged me is one of the big reasons I stuck with it, and I hope that my encouragement will do the same for others.

As for other things that are going on, I think some things are going to change within the very new future with me. I'll have to wait and see what happens and I'll post another update to let you know what happens!!! :-)

Everything else is truckin' right along - David's been getting in some extra hours since I'm never home, which is good because the deadline to bring a brand-new gigantic million-dollar company into existence got moved up by two months. So, essentially, we're both workaholics.

That's really all I have to update you guys on for now. I'll try to post some more pictures and stuff up soon!

Ode To Four Years...

Four years ago today, I was sitting on my couch with David sitting next to me. He had taken me on a date the night before to Olive Garden, a restaurant we both liked. We were watching a movie - what movie, I don't remember, but I wasn't paying attention to it anyway. I was busy thinking about a question I had been asked the night before...

We were both sitting on his easy chair (the movie was on a computer, so there was no real comfortable way to do it) watching The Prince of Egypt. I'd never seen it before, but had always wanted to, so we piled onto his chair and started it up. About halfway through the movie, David leaned forward and asked me, "Will you be my girlfriend?" It caught me by surprise, just like a lot of things had that night. It was our first date, and I still wasn't quite sure how I felt about David. He was handsome, chivalrous, and smart, but I knew how big of a question it was coming from him. Was I ready to date someone? I had gotten out of a relationship only a few months before and wanted time to focus on my relationship with Christ. I had intended not to date all summer, and had actively tried to stay away from guys for the most part, but I had ran into David while running through the parking lot at Wal-mart - the last place I expected to find a guy. There was also the fact that I would be returning to school. Did I really want to get tied down in a long-distance relationship when I was at a school full of "Christian" guys? So, I told him I needed to think about it.

Fast forward to the next day sitting on the couch - I looked up at him, and had an impulse. For those of you who know me well, you know that for me, impulse = BIG trouble. But, I didn't realize that then, and thought, "Oh, what the heck. Why not?" So, I said, "David, I have an answer to the question you asked me last night." He looked at me patiently while I tried to find the words I wanted to say. After searching for the right words for a second, I suddenly blurted out, "Yes, I'll be your girlfriend." He grinned and thanked me, and kissed me...and I thought, "Oh, crap. What did I just get myself into???"

Well, four years later, I have an answer for that question too. What did I get myself into? I got myself into a marriage with a man who, although isn't perfect, is kind and tender with me. I got myself into a love that is real, and strong, and something that I can trust and depend on. I got myself into a life that is better than I ever could have dreamed - into a place of safety, security, and encouragement; a place where I can be myself while still being challenged to be a better person, where I can explore new ideas with the help of someone who will check and gently help to correct the weak spots in my dreamer side. And, I got myself into a friendship with a man that is honest, faithful, and better for me than any other man I've come into contact with.

Bottom line, I got myself into something really, really good.

Why I'm Glad I'm An Insomniac...

I'm an insomniac. Always have been and probably always will be. Typically, I don't mind other than the fact that I'm perpetually tired and easily irritated by stupid people (maybe that's not from the insomnia, now that I think about it...); and typically I'm more creative late at night. So, being an insomniac has its' perks sometimes.

Last night, I discovered another one of those perks. Being married, I sleep in the same bed as my husband. Yeah, I know, that's a shocker, but it's the truth. As I was sleeping in the same bed as my husband, I was woken up by a tiny little kick coming from my husband's side of the bed. I groggily opened my eyes and looked over at him with an annoyed look on my face, but it was completely wasted because he completely missed it. He was dead asleep. As I was laying there looking at him, I could feel the bed shaking slightly (don't worry, this is a G-rated story) as his legs continued to twitch.

Now, in my half-asleep thought process, I attempted to process what was going on. I remember thinking, "Oh no! Does he have Restless Leg Syndrome? That'll be a big problem!" For some reason, my brain gets dramatic when I'm half-asleep. As I lay there pondering the possibility of RLS, his head twitched and I tried to think again, asking myself if they had a RHS (Restless Head Syndrome) but the thought was cut off before it really took flight. The reason why? As I was laying there pondering these deep thoughts, I was startled by a resounding "WOOF!" from my husband. Not a "WHAA" or a "WHOO", but a definite "WOOF!" I sat up in bed and leaned over him, asking, "Sweetie, are you okay?" The only answer I got was another bout of his RHS and I lay back down silently chuckling to myself. Out of all the humerous things that I've done in my sleep, I've never barked that I know of...

See? Not sleeping well really does have it's perks. I now have blackmail on my husband.

A Hairy Situation

So, I was thinking...What if I cut my hair? Now, this doesn't mean that I'm actually GOING to cut my hair any time in the foreseeable future, mind you - but I thought it would be a cool thing to play with digitally. So tell me - what do you think? So I thought I'd put it up to a vote. What do you hate? What do you like?

(Click on the picture to enlarge it...)

Soap Operas...

It's pretty common knowledge that right now, I'm a bum. I mean, I have some responsibilities like laundry and the strenuous responsibility of doing the dishes - which actually can be a significant chore as my husband likes to cook. And when I say "likes to cook", I mean he wants to be a chef. Now, I'm not complaining - I'm pretty proud of him for all the creativity he puts into food, I'm just used to the four dishes a day that I used in college on a daily basis. I mean, sometimes I'd get creative and use a skillet, but typically I ate from the kitchens of Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice, who were kind enough to supply disposable trays for their food.

Well, as I've been a bum over the past month or so, I've started to watch more tv than I ever thought was humanly possible for me. I'm not proud of this fact, I'm just stating the truth. One of the shows that I've started watching semi-consistently is General Hospital. Maybe it's a hereditary thing - my mom apparently watched it when we were kids so that means there's just something in my blood that attracts me to the neurotic hospital crowd.

As I've watched the show over the past month, I came to realize something - soap operas are so incredibly slow!!! When I first started watching it, a guy got killed. Now, after a month and a half of watching this unfold, his dad just learned about his son's death. I mean, on the show, it's only been a weekend or so...but I mean, come on. It took this long to show a time table of three days?! Sometimes I wish that life was like that - I mean, imagine sneaking a cookie and your parents not finding out until a month and a half later...They wouldn't be mad any more - unless they thought that only three days had passed. But then there would be bigger problems at hand than sneaking a cookie.

Or, we could just not ever sneak cookies and watch our girlish figures...

From the Mouthes of Babes...

So last night, I was volunteering with David at a camp for children with diabetes - it was something that we got to do through his work at Sprint. We were working the octopus-like ride...you know, that kind of ride where you could spin the seats like a teacup while you swung around...that kind of thing. Well, it was getting pretty late in the night - close to 9:00 and there weren't many kids wanting to ride the ride any longer. I decided that I would take a turn riding to balance it out as there were two kids on the direct opposite side of me (the truth, I promise!). As I was sitting there, some other kids came to ride and I asked them if they liked to spin really fast. The first turned me down, but there was a brave little guy that was around 8 who decided he'd brave riding with me. I warned him we'd go reeeeeally reeeeeeally fast, but he said, "Bring it on."

Right before we started going, I said something to David, who was the ride operator that time around, calling him "Sweetie". The little kid looked at me funny for calling him that, and I explained to him that David was my husband. That cleared up his confusion, and the ride started going, and I started spinning. And spinning. And spinning. The kid looked at me and said, "My face is starting to spread out!" And, sure enough, it was! Just for fun, I started spinning us faster.

As I continued getting faster and faster, the kid's amusement turned into awe, then horror. Afraid I was about to make him sick, I decided I shouldn't make it go any faster, but as I kept spinning, he looked at me, then at David, then back to me and shouted, "HOW DOES HE LIVE WITH YOU?!?!"

Sometimes, when I spin David around in our office chair, I ask myself the same thing.

Technology...

I realized tonight what a wonderful thing technology is...

Earlier tonight, I was using the restroom at my apartment. When I went to reach for toilet paper, I realized that I was 100% out. There was none under the sink, there was no scraps on the cardboard; nothing. For guys that's not always a huge issue, but for women? There's just no way around it. As a woman, you can't not have toilet paper. Now, usually I have a purse with a little stash hidden away for emergencies like this but I'm not in the habit of carrying my purse with me wherever I go in my apartment - it's just not something I do. So, I try yelling for my husband to help me. It was no use. He was in the kitchen cooking up a storm (which I'm completely okay with!), which typically means that he had the exhaust fan above the stove sucking up smoke as fast as it would go, various things sizzling in a pan, the hall bathroom fan trying in vain to rid the house of the smoke the stove exhaust fan couldn't get, and the TV on and turned up so he can hear it above all of the other competing noise. This in turn meant that I could scream for him to rescue me from my paperlessness until I got hoarse - it wouldn't do me any good. I'd just be out of toilet paper AND a voice. So, as I sat there, I tried to think creatively. What could I use? A magazine? No, that wouldn't be absorbent. The cardboard from the tp roll? Nope, too rough. The middle eastern habit of using one hand? No, too gross for this American girl. Then, it dawned on me. I had a cell phone.

Now, I'm not one of those people who talks on a cell phone while they use the restroom. I typically find that rude and I wouldn't want to hear someone else's bodily functions if I were talking to them, so I don't do it to other people. The reason I had a cell phone is because I had just happened to stick it in my back pocket as I was walking into my apartment. So, I picked it up, dialed my husband's cell phone, and prayed he'd answer it from two rooms away.

"Why in the world are you calling me?" was the answer I got. "Could you bring me some toilet paper," I asked. "I would really prefer to not have to use a page from Newsweek..." I heard a sigh, and he replied. "Just use one of the Kleenexes in there - you know the box you put in there Sunday night?"

Thank goodness I had my cell phone.