Trebuchet that!

I feel like I've developed quite the working relationship with one of your favorite do-it-yourself stores, seeing as how I've been there two to three times a week for the past month. I can only imagine the pride swelling up in my father right now. And I can tell you that if you need more than 1000 #6 3/4" wood screws, you have to buy them one week at a time. If you need on the order of 3000, you'll piss of the hardware manager. He'll try to keep his cool, but that thick neck and reddening face just don't hide it. And if, by chance, you have a little run in with Ace Hardware over the fact they decided your order was too large to handle yet not call and inform you of this decision for two weeks, it's best to just walk out the front door and call them later when you have cooled off and found a more worthy distributor.

So, Thursday I will be constructing 160 miniature trebuchet bases. How many of you can say you've ever done that? Oh, and if you can stop by for a few hours with a drill and your own set of drill bits, I'll buy you an ice cream.

A little gift from me to you

I am probably the last person to know and use this website but I have just been introduced and it's my new best friend (sorry Dr. J).

http://www.rottentomatoes.com

Check it, check it, check it. This place has movie reviews ... but fantastically organized and easy to use. Pick from all reviewers, "cream of the crop" aka the well known reviewers ... you are looking for a tomato which in this case is a good movie. A green blat is a rotten tomato - a flop. Essentially anything that gets over about 70% is worth some attention. The percentages compile all reviewers as well as readers so less chance of being misguided by that pot-smoking reviewer that has nothing in common with me and my love of all things kitten. Also gives you heads up and all release dates of upcoming once they are confirmed.

www.kayak.com

And as a little added bonus, for my frequent traveler friends, I have also been introduced to the latest and greatest in discount fare searching. You know you love me.

Sweeps and a Sweep

You know how this week was National Turn Off Your TV Week? It turns out we were pretty busy lately (plus I've picked up a few healthier habits) but were the networks in on this or what? Was it just me or were all your favorite shows just really REALLY lame recap clips when they have already had a recap clip showing this season?? I think it's false advertising to say that the show is first run, but then have it be an hour long series of clips over the past two years. This is the saddest of ways to gear up watchers for May Sweeps.

On the other hand, I gave Dr. J a solid beating in putt-putt last week.

There's not really a short version but this is the gist ...

So beginning in August of 2006, I'll be teaching High School Physics.

You are officially hearing about it today because after many months of RI.DIC.U.LOUS amounts of paperwork, detaisls and studying for PRAXIS exams so that I can be admitted into an alternative certification program, it's all but done. I have one job offer on the table and will hopefully have another tomorrow and then it's just a matter of three years of teaching, classes, seminars before they give me a teaching certificate.

That's it!

It has been an arduous process but, honestly, I can't wait to get started. I "quit" the PhD program before this semester started (back in January) but I had to keep taking classes because I'm employed through it based on full time student status. All those papers this semester? Probably no long term credit. We'll see. So I've been very e-quiet because I was holding down my job, being a student, oh and I took on another job and have been trying to get certified.

Anyway, for those of you that are concerned, nothing has really changed. I'm still interested in Engineering Education but the program I had begun was still too much of an engineering degree (I don't need another one!) - basically I decided it wasn't providing me the educational experience I had hoped for. I want to get into K-12 Math/Science Curriculum in the future ... thus, I need teaching and an education degree. But that's for future worries. For the immediate future, I'm excited about starting teaching full time!!

It was never really a secret or anything, I just sort of wanted things to pan out before it was officially .. official.

Now there are two women of the house

Last night Dr. J and I had a scare. The little professor went out for her evening stroll and didn't come back. I know you won't believe it until you see it for yourself, but normally when I let her out she comes back in when I call her, whether she's ready to return or not.

We don't usually let her roam around once it's really dark so about 9 last night I called her

... and called her

... and called her.

Like true parents, we immediately started thinking the worst - our teenager was out there getting knocked up. I quickly remembered that she had been fixed and at least we won't be having babies before she can graduate from high school, but we weren't prepared for her to become a woman this early in her baby life!! About every 10 minutes or so we walked outside and called her, and called her, with no response. Maybe she fell out of a tree, maybe she's been hit by a car - the horrible things that went through our minds! Dr. J gave it one last try about 10:30 and I went out and called her twice. Nothing. As I turned to come in, I half-heartedly gave it one more shot and ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Prof. M runs by me into the house like nothing had happened.

She did look a little older when she returned. Walked a little more ... worldly. I'm not sure what happened out there, and I don't think I want to know.

And the game comes to an end

Today is the day when I give my Bingo Final Presentation and boy do I have some results. We are jazzing it up a little so it's more One Act Play than Class Presentation, so while it will be more fun and hopefully more interesting, it also is causing me quite a lot of butterflies. I like to think that down deep I'm really a great actress in the body of a mediocre engineer, alas, my two and a half minute Bingo Artifact Monologue is giving me the flutters.

Wish me luck!

A solution for loneliness

If anyone hasn't seen this yet, I HIGHLY recommend it. This is the cutest thing I think I've ever seen. It makes me want to knit a one-armed sweater for Mona.

Tree Sweater

A Toasty Mona

A Toasty Mona
Originally uploaded by missyajg.

This little kitten is plagued with the same disease as every other cute kitty in the world: she cannot let an opened door or an unwatched bag go unnoticed. Here we see her basking in the warmth of the dryer, exhausted from hours of rummaging through my purse and backpack.

Dee dee da duuuum!

Long time on hold listening to saxophones and flutes moan out a little elevator music ... ...

...

...


...



sigh.

Hey, but we did get grass planted this weekend. So that's good!

(dee dee daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa da doooooooooooo ... deeeeeeeee da de do .....)

we are now plus one mower and one rubbermaid storage unit

In the event that our grass decides to gestate and oh, I dunno ... grow, we are now fully prepared. Over the last couple months, Dr. J and I have compiled quite the collection of fertilizers, rakes, hoses, sprinklers and small garden tools, all of which have lived happily in the 3 ft x 3 ft covered concrete space just outside our side door or happily stored underneath the sink in the guest bath. However, with the addition of Moe, the mower, the scales finally tipped in favor of a rubbermaid storage unit. This has been quite the challenge for lawn care rookies, such as ourselves. I'm sure it comes as a surprise to no one that neither Dr. J nor myself has spent much time slaving in the garden.

We are now in full on attack mode in a very determined effort to make the "contractor's sod" either take or begin proactive medicinal lawn treatments. We live mere blocks from some of the most beautiful lawns in Columbia, which doesn't do much to console our frustration that our sod is a strong gust of wind away from loitering on our neighbor's lawn. I think I saw a tear well up in the corner of Dr. J's eye as we drove by The Perfect Lawn this afternoon. Hang in there, J. Our labors are not in vain.

I am proud of all of you, but that doesn't mean i don't think you're crazy, cause I do

This weekend, I have two friends in the St. Louis Marathon, one (maybe two!?) in the St. Louis Half Marathon, one in the Paris Marathon, and one in the Ironman in Arizona. Good luck to you all!!!

Wow. You'd think with all those good examples around me, I'd be a pillar of athleticism and good health.

You'd be wrong though. Dr. J and I have decided we are going to split a pan of turtle brownies and then take an absurdly long nap on Sunday in your honor.

Run like the wind!!

Dance to the Bingo

My life of late has been primarily composed of three things: The Girls (now in Season 5 L&L are together!!), Weeds, and Bingo. The weather here has been beautiful lately so I can't complain about the weeds, I'm actually enjoying it! I kept meaning to go into more detail about the Bingo side of life, but I just spend SO much time with Bingo and related activities that I haven't gone much into detail.

B-i-n-g-o isn't the cute song you used to sing or game you played in class to win the cool #2 pencil. No sir-ee, it's a lifestyle. I kid you not when I say that most of the players at my hall* are there between 4 and 6 days a week, some even 7! I did an interview this past week with one of the players and found out that she Bingos about 5 days a week had a mental spending limit of $60/day. Ummm, can you say really nice mortgage?!?! She also travels to play the big pots, and big in this case is somewhere between $50K and $100K. But before you all jump off the couch to join her, it costs $380 to enter.

The game itself, however, is UBER fast-paced and quite challenging. I've been playing for a couple of months and have never had the guts to call Bingo because I'm so unsure of when I won. And no, you don't win with only 5 across, up or down. I even have myself a small collection of Dabbin' Fever Daubers, a bingo-ist's most important tool. And if you ever decide to find yourself a Bingo Hall, be warned, the rules of behavior are many and newcomers are noticed and unwelcome.

This has been an education unlike one I've never had and yes, all those papers that I've been writing this semester that I've complained about on this site, during which time many of you received ridiculous forwards in my attempts to avoid writing, were all about Bingo. Thank God the end is near though, I've had about all the bingo analysis I can take. So Hooray for only two more papers and a project,

* my research team picked Bingo Halls and each of us went to one Hall once a week for two months for data collection

DST

I'm always the one that either finds out about this just before bedtime the night before or I'm reeeeealy late to church. I found out 5 days in advance this year and there's no reason for us to all miss the fun, so ... everyone ... Spring Forward one hour this Saturday!

The wild days

This morning, Dr. J and I woke up with a sack of wheat hot dog buns on the floor in our bedroom, unopened but with a few scratchy places. Apparently this sack of wheat hot dog buns had visciously attacked our precious Professor during the night, from its normal resting place atop the refrigerator. I was actually more amazed that she hadn't actually had herself a wheat feast than that she had scaled a 10' fridge to rescue some wrongfully imprisoned bread. We've been very strict with the no human food with her, and it's really been paying off. Back in the day, we'd come home to Daisy lounging beer belly up with her paw in a sack of cheetos.

And I hate it when people eat my cheetos.

This hardly seems real

Get the kiddos out of the room. You don't want to be giving them any ideas.

READ.

This is probably one of those you-had-to-be-there-s

So a couple of weeks ago when Erika was here we went outlet mall shopping, like any good girls would do. We got a bit of a late start and swung by Panera for a little b-fast around 9 a.m. (I normally chug my target imitation slimfast shake around 6:30, so this was pretty late) sooooo ... about lunch time, we really weren't hungry, opted no lunch in exchange for more shop time. Clearly the way to go.

However, by the time we finally left the outlets it was a little after 4 and we were getting pretty hungry. As any decent outlet, it's located out in BFE (which isn't hard to come by here) so we had to drive to the next town to find a restuarant. Ever the good hostess, I stopped at the first IHOP available dreaming of loading up on the largest combination of breakfast food on the menu. I can't remember exactly what I ordered, but we got essentially the same thing: 2 eggs, sausage, bacon, hashbrowns, and 2 pancakes. Delish.

And I'll tell ya, those IHOPers, they get yer food to ya in a jiffy!

So we were talking as fast as we could eat, or eating as fast as we could talk, I don't really remember. Inhaling food as quickly as we did is much akin to being drunk (not that I would know, mom). A few shovel fulls into my hashbrown and eggs Erika warns me that I had egg (or something) on my chin. Frustrated for having to slow my eating, I slap it clean with a napkin, and proceed to devour plate #1 in three breaths. Plate #2, the pancakes, were saved for last.

I wish I could say I started to slow down, except that halfway through the slaughtering, Erika stops in mid-sentence long enough to say, "Missy. Now you've got syrup dripping from your hair."

I can't even write that without bursting into fitful tears of laughter. The best part is that there are a handful of you that read this that have probably preached something similiar to me in the past. I think I would have eaten with as much etiquitte if the waitress had just brought us a trough.

I don't think I've laughed that hard since Jr. High. You'll be happy to know that the laughing and cleaning slowed me down enough to make me realize that, indeed, I was actually full.

To my faithful readers, both of you

I do apologize for not posting much. I can't decide if I should hang onto this thing or not. On the one hand, it gives my friends a place to know what's going on with me and feel as though they never have to email me back, on the other hand, I've been so busy lately that it's hard to keep up. I have a long list of excuses lined up behind me - I've even had a ton of things I wanted to post, but never the time. Sigh.

So, does anyone know anything about planting grass? We are going to go the seed route and not the sod route, and we are definitely looking for advice, we are getting conflicting information. Oh, and I pulled weeds all day Saturday and my body is in screaming pain. By "all day" I do mean for about 8 hours. Pulling. Yes, there were that many weeds. Hence the need for some grass.

this doesn't make me a basketball fan, but i do love the ags!!

I was listening to NPR this morning and I hear something about Texas A&M on the radio ... any mention of Aggieland within earshot of me makes me perk up. I ask Dr. J what they said, and he says something about them winning a basketball game.

Whaa?

Texas A&M is in the NCAA tournament?!?

How do I not know this? Granted, I'm not what you might call a basketball enthusiast, I consider the winter months and early spring as the break between football and baseball. Maybe it's because I grew up in Dallas in the age where you couldn't pay people to go to a Mavericks game (I remember a joke about someone's car getting broken into where someone left a pair of Maverick tickets on their dash) and the pale skinned, vertically challenged Aggies that composed our basketball team while I attended was supported, they are Aggies after all, but they definitely weren't considered a serious competitor, more like an excuse to go somewhere with that cute guy in Chem Class. While I was in the Midwest, I was often accosted by people with attacks that the Aggies had lost so Ha! Ha!! And I'm all, it's February, you mean like women's rugby? And there's certainly no way I'd get news here beyond how Carolina and Clemson are doing unless I go hunt it down myself and like I said, it's March, so why would I?

So, way to go Ags!! Way to surprise the hell outta this Aggie!! Good luck in the tourney!!!

Let's ... go to ... the movies!! (pauses to emphasize the tune of the Annie song)

CNN has an article that says,

Theater operators who have felt the pinch of a lingering decline in movie business have a ready solution to turn things around: Studios need to make better films.

Seeeee ... now I was under the impression that recycled plots were sufficient as long as the explosions were more extravagant. Better films. What a novel idea! Do you thinik they will actually hire screenwriters instead of just modifying character names, throwing in an extra sex scene, and adding a white knuckle car chase that just barely misses colliding with an infant's stroller?* Now there's a reason to buy the large popcorn.

*Spiderman III, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII are excluded from these accusations.

Somoa S.O.S.

I'm seeing on other's blogs that it's Girl Scout Cookie time, but I have yet to see any of these alleged Girl Scouts out and about here in ColUmbia. My experience living between two states tells me that they sell them at different times of the year, depending on where you are ... but how do I find out?! I don't even want to imagine a year without the Peanut Butter Sandwiches or Somoas!!!!

Help!?! What am I to do?