My car almost wouldn't start

I was just talking to my brother on the phone. I was telling him that it is cold here so I looked up the weather conditions so I could tell him just how cold.

4 degrees.

But then I got off the phone with him and looked a little closer. With the wind chill drop that originally number 24 to degrees. Really it is...

-20 degrees.

Brrrrrr....
Did I mention that we get really cold wind here?

Arizona here I come!

'Then I'll huff and I'll puff...

...and I'll blow your house in!'
--Big Bad Wolf, The Three Little Pigs

So the wind is currently howling outside, kicking up dirt and smattering it against my windows. It sounds a little like the Big Bad Wolf wants in. But no worries, my house is made of brick (and a little vinyl siding) so I'm not too worried.

Now if I could just kick this nasty cold...

Surprise!

Surprise #1:

I walked out to my car yesterday afternoon to go to class only to find that someone had broken into my car. Well to be fair I had left my doors unlocked (which I usually don't do). My glove box was emptied onto the floor, change drawer pulled out and sitting on the driver's seat, console wide open etc etc. Thankfully I don't keep much in my car. So I after putting a few things away so I could drive my car I tried to start 'er up. Um nope! My night time friend(s) had failed to close my doors properly so the dome light had been on all night and my battery was dead. Lovely! It's ok because I really didn't want to go to statistics anyways...
After a phone call to a friend, some jumper cables, and some time spent standing outside in the freezing wind my little car was going again, just in time for me to make it to my second class of the day.
So while the $20 emergency money in my glove box was gone along with a bag of random change I'm feeling like I got away pretty easy for getting my car broken into.

Surprise #2:

So I have some very tricksy friends here in Indiana. It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and while one of them distracted me with Thai food, the others lay in wait to surprise me and wish me happy birthday. I wish we had gotten a picture of my face when they all jumped out, because I'm pretty sure it would've been hilarious. hahahahaha!



Who knew I look cross-eyed when I read!- - -homemade icecream cake--peanut butter and chocolate my fav!
(my little pony advent calendar--
haha! Thanks again to Kyle and Kaleigh)



Aaron, Maggie, me-- -- - - - -- - -- - --- -- -- -- -- - -- - -- - -- - -- -- - -- -Jacob & Joey


JonAnn and Kaleigh-- - -- - -- -- - --- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - -- -Joey, Brittney, Elizabeth, Caitlin, Amy




Maggie, me, Nathan-- -- - --- -- -- - -- - --- -- -- -- -- -- -- -Me & Nathan--the tricksiest one of all and ice cream cake maker extraordinaire

Winter Wind

Picture yourself outside on a hot summer day, the sun beating down on your face, as little droplets of sweat form on your brow. Just as you're thinking about how it is almost the perfect temperature out, but just a little too hot, a lovely little breeze comes wafting through, cooling your brow and you sigh with satisfaction at the perfection of the moment.

These are not the weather conditions I am currently experiencing.

No nice little cooling breezes here my friends. oh no. More like face freezing gusts of wind, that feel as though they were directly transported from the polar ice caps. North pole 1 second, hitting Katy full force in the face the next. Seriously, that saying 'don't do that or your face will freeze like that' has a whole new level of meaning for me.

It has been one the those days where you would almost concede to wearing a ski mask to keep your face from freezing, forever preserving your current contorted expression of shock, surprise, and awe at the abject cruelty of Nature. She has this amazing ability to make you feel like you are walking around naked despite the 5+ layers of clothing you have on.

But I digress. It isn't the chilly winter weather that has me wishing wearing an old school ski mask wouldn't put me on the top of every passerby's 'suspicious persons' list. It is the WIND! The temperature here (minus the wind) really isn't too bad. Add the wind {the straight from the North Pole wind} and I'm cursing: my car for not warming up faster, my building for not being closer to where I park, and myself for forgetting my gloves for the upteenth time.

I am getting to be a weather pansy in my old age. That and I have been spoiled in the last eight years of Idaho-free living. Freezing winter wind was a regular part of my childhood there. I said when I moved here I felt like I was living in farm country again (akin to my Idaho childhood) which I love. I should've known there'd be a catch.

But one thing I'm grateful to the wind for is the 10 minutues I spent thinking about ski masks today. Who actually wears those? I mean besides bank robbers and other hoodlums. Hmmmm maybe the manufacturers should rethink who is keeping them in business...

hahahahahahahaha!

Here's hoping your November is more wind-free than mine. And if not...my deepest sympathies to you. Bundle up!

Where I'm at

So I've hit that point in the semester where I begin to consume large amounts of chocolate and peanut butter, preferably in tandem and homework and sufficient sleep seem to become mutually exclusive. I think one of my friends might refer to such a low point as reaching your 'maximum freak out capacity.' I would have to concur. November is the bad month for grad school. It's when all your papers (the ones you've been procrastinating all semester) are due AND they are supposed to be well written. [Note to self: next semester begin working on assigned papers at the beginning of the semester in order to avoid reaching MFOC].

Ilovegraduatschool, ILOVEgraduateschool, ILovegraduateschool (this is what we like to call 'positive self talk')

Seriously though I have (for the most part) really enjoyed my first semester of graduate school. Now to finish those papers...

IcansurviveNovember, IcansurviveNovember, IcansurviveNovember.....

Things my education has ruined for me

So while I sit waiting for my hot chocolate to cool to something less than scalding I thought I'd write about a realization I had today.

Getting educated ruins certain things. No longer is ignorance bliss, because, well... you aren't ignorant any more. I should add that I do not see this as a bad thing in any way. I rather love it so with that said here are a couple things my education has ruined for me:

1) the vast majority of love songs

Case study:

Today I heard this Michael Buble song called something like You'll Never Find...
It goes as follows:

"You'll never find, as long as you live
Someone who loves you tender like I do
(And You'll never find, no matter where you search)
(Someone who cares about you the way I do)

And no I'm not braggin' on myself, baby
Cause I'm the one who loves you
And there is no one else!"

While others might swoon at the combination of these lyrics and Michael's dreamy voice all I could think of was a paper I read at the beginning of the semester about intimate partner violence. It goes as follows:

"part of the control that a typical intimate terrorist exerts involves
convincing his partner that even if she does not like the situation, she
cannot leave—because the situation is not so bad, because she will never find
a better situation, because she will suddenly realize deep inside that she needs
him and at that point he will not take her back, because he has promised to
change, and so forth."

Are you seeing the connection?

hahahahahahaha!! Oh I probably shouldn't laugh, but I just found the connection amusing. Seriously, picture me in my room getting ready this morning with Michael crooning away in the background and all of sudden thinking ' wow this should be called 'The Domestic Violence Song.'"

I should add I didn't like this Michael Buble song to begin with and now am very happy to be validated in my distaste.

So sorry Michael if you were going for 'dreamy'---'scary-scary-run-away' was all I heard.


2) Also, most Clark Gable movies. How many times has that man shaken, slapped or otherwise roughed up his romantic interests on the screen (usually when they are in a fit of hysteria)? Way too many times. I'm happy to say that I see very little intimate partner aggression romanticised on the silver screen these days.

Well I intended this to be funny post and it turned out a bit more serious. I hope you saw the humor in the moment. Hmmm... I think my hot chocolate is just about the right temperature...

4 men and a little lady

So I got to go to the Chicago temple this past weekend which was a really cool experience. It was a relief society stake temple trip, but they invited both the elders and the sisters from our single's ward to go. Ironically, the turn out from our ward ended up being 4 guys...and me. We had a really good time though. Plus, serendipitously we ended up meeting up with a friend of ours who was recently baptized and going to the temple for the first time and got some pictures with her. It was nice to get out of West Lafayette for the day and get to see the temple. Maybe someday I'll actually make it to downtown Chicago...

Halloween Fun

So Halloween is sort of a big deal out here which is funny to me. Our church group had a murder mystery dinner/costume party on Halloween which was a lot of fun. It has been a while since I really dressed up for Halloween so it was kind of fun to get the creative juices flowing---a little more awkward to wear the finished product in public--hahaha! But really it was fun. Here are some pics of the costumes from the party. I was way impressed with people and it ended up being a really good time and LOTS of people dressed up...this is just a fraction of the fun costumes.



Granny-------------------------------------------- Flower in pot and Jolly Green Giant




Man in the Yellow Hat --------------------------He's a Lumberjack and that's ok


o
Boxer, Man in YH, Flower------------------------------------------------ Human Error


Flower, Vampire, Fairy -------------------------------------------Mario Brothers

Pumpkin Carving

So it's pretty much been forever since I posted--at least it feels that way to me :)

A couple weeks ago I carved pumpkins with some friends which was really fun. We decided to do movie themed pumpkins.



My hands got a little dirty in the process--I used a washable marker to sketch out my design [note: this does not work well unless you like your hands looking perpetually dirty for a few days]



Here are the finished products. I apologize for the less than stellar pictures. It was raining outside when we finished so these were taken in the bathroom with the lights off.

Mine was 'Sleepless in Seattle'



Nathan did a series of play on words--see if you can guess what movies are on this side of his pumpkin* {note: arrows point to the movie title objects}



Erika and Jacob did 'Batman' which turned out really cool.



Good times all around.

*The two movie titles are 'Hook' and 'Big Fish' in case it was bugging anyone :)

More Fall Wonderful-ness

You no doubt are getting sick of seeing pictures of Indiana in the Fall, but I just can't help myself. I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the earth---a manifestation of God's love...