my garden after approximately 2 weeks

Above you can see the latest photos of my garden. It appears that everything is growing nicely. :)

My week with Adrian :)

The following is from some scrap-paper that I wrote on while I was sitting in a rocking chair of the front porch of our motel in Arkansas. :)

I wanted to write about Adrian's visit last week so that I could remember it. I like having a blog because it makes me think about journaling more. I've decided it's important to journal in order to remember events, and also, the random thoughts that I have. I suppose the only drawback to the blog is that is public - however, only a few people read it and I'm not sure that they even read it all that often or carefully.

So back to the main point. I was so excited to see Adrian, especially after the Friday before (that was when I had to give my scary presentation). Good news, though, it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I was super nervous, though. At one point, I fidgeted my ring off my finger.

Adrian flew into IAH at around 1 pm on Tuesday (10/04), but I had to wait until my lab was over to pick him up. It was their lab mid-term and I expected to be able to leave early. However (I just realized I use however a lot), I had a student stay the ENTIRE time and then wanted me to go over the problems with him. Sometimes, I feel like such a bad TA because I just want to rush him out (he always stays super late), but I always stay and try to act patient.

I showed up at Pearland at around 8 pm and finally got the hugs I missed. :) Christy emailed me this survey thing and one of the questions was, "Do you like hugs or kisses more?" Christy prefers kisses, but to me, hugs are what I crave more. Of course, I like kisses, but there's nothing like a full, contact hug where you are squeezed so tightly that there is no doubt that you are loved.

We visited with his parents and Patches for a bit and then had to get going, because I had an 8:45 class the next morning and a test after that. The next morning, I went to my classes, and Adrian just hung around at the house and played with Lucy. We made lunch and then I had to leave to go to Jane Long to see my HOST student that I am going to start helping. I really like my student. His name is Tony and he's a 7th grader. He seems really smart and polite. So far, we know that we both like Harry Potter and dogs. I was sad that I had to miss our first real day due to the mineralogy trip. I hope he still remembers me when I see him again.

While I was at Jane Long, Adrian took my bike to Best Buy and Barnes and Noble. hee, hee...my bike is pretty girly - it's purple with a basket. At Best Buy, he got me the latest O.A.R. CD. I'm so excited, because it turns out that Mariann also likes O.A.R., so we have a date to go see them in Houston Monday night. At first, I didn't think I'd find anyone to go with, but one day, we were talking and out of the blue, I asked her if she liked O.A.R. She kind of paused and said "....yes..." It was a great turn of events! On the mineralogy trip, I learned that one of the students likes them, too. I find it fascinating how music can travel by word of mouth, rather than the radio.

When I got back from Jane Long, Adrian and I went to Holze music to get new string for my guitar. While we were there, we ran into our mentor from the couple class that we took last semester. We had to explain how Adrian was just visiting from Wyoming and that we are not engaged...

After that, we ate at Jason's Deli and Adrian dropped me off at my Bible study, while he went to go visit with Bret. The study was funny last week, because it was the beginning of the woman as man's helper section. There were some disagreements among the graduate students over some of it; it was enlightening and entertaining discussion. Afterwards, I walked to Bret's and we all visited for a bit.

Usually, on Thursdays, I go to mineralogy lecture. have my help hours, and do whatever else I need to do in the lab. But this Thursday, I decided to take a day off and hang out with Adrian. It was great fun! In the morning, we went ice skating at Arctic Wolf. It was just us and 3 other people, so it was a lot of fun to have the rink to ourselves. The 3 other people were figure skater people who could do turns and such, so we felt a little dumb, but it was still fun. It's a very nice rink. I hope it is able to stay open.

Then we ran to the Sprint store and Wal-mart. While at Wal-mart, we went by the gardening center and saw some plants that they had for sale, including lettuce, herbs, and broccoli. So on the spur of the moment, we decided to start a vegetable garden. I already have a plot that came with the house, so went to Home Depot and bought seedlings of lettuce, broccoli, parsely, oregano. We also got some flowers for my flower bed: zinnias, gerber daisies, and daffodil bulbs.

The rest of the day was spent in the garden, digging up the plot and weeds. While we worked, we invited Dixie and Mason to come over to play with Lucy. It was a grand time. The dogs are so funny and are just like little kids. At one point, Mason picked up a stick in the yard and was lazily walking around with it. Dixie came up to him and just took it from his mouth. Then, Lucy tried to jump up and take it from Dixie but she was too short.

After it was getting too dark to work, we walked to Los Cucos to eat supper. It was so nice being able to walk everywhere. It was nice and cool and I had my boyfriend to walk with me. :) Then when we got home, Adrian presented me with the Cinderella DVD. So we watched that. It is such a cute movie. Funny thing is that one of the bonus features on the DVD is a collection of Cinderella stories as presented by ESPN. Adrian liked that. I guess they had to include something for the guys, too.

Friday morning after my TA meeting with Dr. Popp, Adrian and I walked to Whataburger for taquitos, washed Lucy, and finished planting everything. I hope the garden works out. I'm not sure if I have a very green thumb - some of my houseplants have died.

In the evening, we met Amy at Rudy's and headed to the soccer game. We decided that somehow, we always eat at Rudy's with Amy. :) We lost in soccer in a most disappointing way. ISU scored a goal in the last 13 seconds. The rest of the evening was mostly packing and getting ready for the weekend.

Saturday, we woke up early to take Lucy to Schulenberg so she can stay with my parents while I am away these next two weeks on trips. It was sad to see her go. She's such a sweet, fun dog. She'll be the hardest thing to leave behind if we join the Peace Corps. Sometimes I wonder if I can give her up. After we dropped her off, an older man who was walking the track at our drop-off spot asked what kind of dog she was. He said that he just had to ask after seeing how happy and friendly she was. :)

After Schulenberg, we headed to the Houston area. At first, we had planned to go to Galveston to the beach and the candy shop, but we decided it was too cold for the beach and Galveston was pretty far. So instead, we went to Kemah. I love Kemah! I've only been once before with Adrian when we first started dating. It is very touristy. They have a boardwalk with fancy seafood restaurants, cute shops, and carnival rides. It has grown some since the last time we went. We rode two rides and ate at the Crab House, while we watched the boats sail by. It was a beautiful, clear day for an outing on the boardwalk.

After Kemah, we ran to Pearland and then left for...the Astros game! Adrian ended up buying tickets on ebay - only $35 for 2 tickets. It was such fun. Game 3 of the first round of playoffs against the Braves. I don't really enjoy watching pro baseball on TV, but being there in person is so exciting. The intensity and energy of the crowd is contagious. Biggio is my favorite. I've also decided that "Lights Out" Lidge is my second favorite. That is followed by Roy Oswalt (he pitched that game). All in all, it was a great day. I also have dead, purple flowers as a reminder. :)

On Sunday, we woke up and got ready to continue our sports filled weekend with the Texans game. It was fun because we met Mark Ricci, Bret, and Sarah there. It was good to get to visit with them. Our seats were the cheapest seats available and as such, they were impossible to find. We had to ask at least 5 people where our section was until we finally found the elusive elevators. We were in the last row in the end zone. The game was not too exciting. The Texans are not very good and the crowd did not seem that into it either. Right behind us, were TVs showing the Astros game. When Berkman (I think) made the home run to tie the game, everyone in the stadium started cheeing. I bet the football players were confused, since they obviously were not doing anything worth cheering for.

After the Texans game, they showed the Astros game on the jumbotron. At one point, one of the commentators of the Astros game said, "The count is 2-1. 2-1 is also what the Astros lead in the series." I thought that was a really funny segueway.

But after the 13th inning, they shooed us out so they could close the stadium up. We mosied over to the practice field to watch the rest of it. The practice field is in this weird, white bubble thing. When you enter, you can feel your ears pop with the pressure change. They had it set up for a little 5th quarter party after the game. They had the Astros game on big white screens but no sound (public broadcasting rules?). So the DJ decided to take it on himself to start commentating the game. It was quite awful. But we stuck it through to the end until the Astros finally won! Hurrah! Much cheering.

Monday, we awoke at 4:30 am to get Adrian to the airport on time. It was such a fun week; it was sad to say goodbye. It was weird going back to an empty house in College Station - no boy and no dog. I did have a lot of things to do, though, because (1) I didn't do too much with Adrian here, (2) I was going away Wed through Fri on a mineralogy trip, and (3) I was going to Norman on Saturday.

Phew, that is basically a pretty detailed account of Adrian's visit. On his flight back, he was super delayed due to canceled flights because of the snow in Denver. He ended up getting a free voucher to fly United Airlines anywhere in the continental U.S. But in the end, he ended up having to take a bus back to Wyoming, along with some of his other crew members that he ended up meeting in the Denver airport.

I am currently at Monica's pad in Dallas, relaxing after a busy, active week! Mon isn't here - she's with her man in Uvalde. They might get engaged this weekend! :)

I walked to the Cheesecake Factory to pick up my lunch/dinner for today. Yum! Stuffed chicken tortillas, black beans, bread, and of course, a slice of Linda's fudge cake! I ate almost half. It is a lot of food.

I am exhausted and almost want to go to sleep already but that would be silly. Wednesday through Friday I went to Arkansas on the mineralogy field trip. It was such fun! Yay for geology field trips - always a good time. And I got tons and tons of quartz! They are currently soaking in water to begin the cleaning process.

We got back Friday at around 11 pm and it took me awhile to get everything situated so I went to bed kind of late. Then, I awoke at 7 to get back on the road to pick up my samples in Norman. My slough is so dried up and overgrown; it is kinda of cool how the environment can change so much with the seasons.

Now I am relaxing! It is kind of funny to be in the fancy area of Dallas after having been on a geology trip, but it is also nice. :)

While away, in Arkansas, I wrote about my week when Adrian came and visited me. I think I will type it here in my blog to remain on record forever, or at least until I have my blog. I shall start a new post. :)

i went to supper with Amy and her sis, Leah, at Margarita Rocks tonight. Somehow we got on the topic of feminists and how weird they are (for example, not wanting 1/2 price entrees for ladies' night). Anyhow, it made me think of the time when Adrian and I were hiking at Badlands and for some reason, at one part of the hike you had to jump across to reach the other side. Well, Adrian wanted to help me across, and I remember feeling kind of huffy and saying something like, "hmph, i can do it myself, i don't need help." and then of course, i did not make my jump and fell down. but instead of making fun of me and laughing at me, he was so sweet to me and helped me up. :) i think we had been dating for a little over 2 months at that point. but i think that was one moment where i thought, this is the guy i want to be with. he visits me in one week! that's the only thing keeping me from dropping dead before Friday, when I have to give my horrendous presentation in front of scary people that enjoy asking questions just so the speaker will have questions to answer. :(

where are the cool, crisp autumn days? According to my calendar, autumn officially began on the the 22nd. However, it is still hot and muggy as can be.

also, today was not a good day for me. My guitar "teacher" bailed on me, which I found most disappointing. I was so looking forward to the day when I could procrastinate by picking up the guitar and practicing. also, in preparing for a horrible presentation I have to make on Friday, I realized that I really should try and get out of school soon. School leaves me feeling most inadequate, extremely worried, and stressed. There is no joy in school and when that is what I am doing for the majority of my days, I am left feeling quite dissatisfied with my days and then with my life. And then I feel silly and ridiculous...and I'll stop this here.

effects of Hurricane Rita

So I try to go to church this morning, but alas, they were not having service! The sky was blue, not a cloud in the sky, but somehow Hurricane Rita caused Living Hope to cancel their service. Sooo, I mosy over to Grace, where they are having service, but there were so many people there that there wasn't room for us all. In the end, I just went home and watched Chris Osbourne on TV.

The second effect of Rita is that it has caused me to pretty much eat a whole package of Oreos in a space of 4 days. :( This is why I usually don't buy oreos, but the panic of Rita caused me to give in....

so, that's pretty much all Rita did to my world...it made me eat a lot of junk and gave me some Sunday morning church inconvenience....not exactly the excitement that I was ready for.

new post, new post!

A new post!

I have been going to a women's Bible study about the 5 aspects of woman. I am really enjoying it so far. So last week, we had this question posed to us: if you are married, is it your responsibility to have children? (this is not including those people who cannot physically have children. In that case, the question would be more like: do you need to adopt?)

whew! what a question! I never really thought about it before. There is one girl in the study who is very intelligent (well, they are all really intelligent). But she has a way of looking at things that is so - humm, I'm trying to think of the right words to explain. I don't want to say perfect. But she just seems to already have a very good knowledge about what a woman is and what a woman should be like. She is engaged right now, and you can tell that she will be the perfect wife and mother. Anyhow, she was saying that yes, especially as a Christian couple you need to raise children and that if you choose not to, those reasons are entirely for selfish reasons.

Then this question was asked: okay, what all is marriage for, then, if you don't have children? We didn't really explore this too much b/c it was off topic and we will get back to this much later in the study. But still, I was a little floored. And then I thought, well I don't really want to have children right this moment and probably not even in a year from now. But I still really want to be married right this minute....and I'm not sure what my point is, maybe I wonder why I want to be married yesterday even though I don't want children tomorrow. well, hee hee, I think I know why I really want to be married, and it seems to be such a silly reason, but I can't help it.

:( oh well, I guess my main domain right now is school, and I need to be tending to it a little better instead of wanting other domains...I think one of my main problems is that I often think about the future and what I want to be doing then instead of being satisified with what I have now and with what I'm doing now. And that's not very good. I'm not entirely sure how to change that though...

I feel that I haven't written in my blogger for so long that I am not sure where to begin...this week has been hectic, I feel.

So this is what I have been thinking...they want grad students to be TAs so that in case we are interested in being professors, we can learn how to juggle research and teaching at once. However, I was thinking about this and I started realizing that some of the best college teachers I had were not in fact professors that did research. Instead, they were either lecturers or else did not seem to do research anymore. And the professors I had that were very active in research were not good teachers. However, there are exceptions to this observation. For example, there is a professor in my department that is an excellent teacher and a very active researcher that is constantly publishing...BUT he is not married and it truly seems to me that his job is his entire life...

so, I'm not sure what my conclusion is, probably that I don't really desire to be a professor, because I would just hate to be a bad teacher. But it is so time consuming to be a good teacher that there really isn't that much time to be a fabulous researcher concurrently - unless you are one of those super people who have no need for rest and relaxation. I am clearly not one of those people.

that is all for now...

extreme sadness + stress = much more future grey hairs...

today i spent a great deal of time in the mineralogy lab trying to reacquaint myself with the blocks. i actually remembered lots of stuff. i just hope that i am a good mineralogy TA. i enjoy working with Dr. Popp. he's a strange one, but very helpful and encouraging in his own way.

hummm, I've looked at my blog and saw I had five comments. Well, I was all excited until I saw that these comments were really a way for people to advertise. Talk about annoying. So, alas, I have changed the settings on my blog so that only registered users can comment. This is somewhat sad as Amy is the only one who has commented lately and she is not a registered user. But I suppose it is only fair, as I cannot comment on her xanga.

questions, questions

So, this question came to me whilst I was uselessly perusing the general board of Texags: What makes a girl hot?

Apparently, from someone’s comment, a very pretty girl does not necessarily a hot girl make. So we are left with the original question: what does make a girl hot? Is “hot” more a state of mind? Can a girl who isn’t pretty be “hot”? Or is hot a subset of pretty? Is “hot” a quality that comes and goes, sort of like good hair days? Or is a hot girl always hot regardless of circumstances?

These are just some questions that I have about the whole hot girl topic. Another thought: once you use the word “hot” a billion times in one paragraph, it begins to lose meaning…

well, I talked to Mariann, Monica, and Justin (Monica's bro) about this the other night. I don't think I got any real answers though. Justin tried pointing out some girls that he considered "hot". It seemed the common thread was skimpy clothing. oh, well, I guess I must not really be the "hot" type.

Dixie and Lucy

Dixie and Lucy have now played twice since my last post. It is quite comical. Dixie is sooooo tall with long, long legs. At first when they meet to play, Lucy looks at Dixie and thinks, "Whoa, you're big." But then they start playing. Lucy runs around and Dixie chases her. Sometimes, Lucy gets tangled in Dixie's long legs and goes tumbling. She always seems to get dirty after playing with Dixie. I may sound like a mean dog mom but I think getting roughed up a little by Dixie is good for Lucy so she can understand what Kiley felt like back in our Sara Drive days.

I'm back in my office, attempting to get something done, but not being too successful....

I am officially moved in! I really like my cute, little house on Foster. I almost have everything situated. Monica is coming this weekend and says that she will help me decorate. So hopefully, she can tear herself away from Jeremy long enough to help me out. (just kidding, Mon...)

Lucy and I met the Great Dane that lives next door. Her name is Dixie and she's really sweet. Perhaps, she and Lucy can become friends. Also, the girls that live across the street from me came by to introduce themselves. They seem really nice, and they are graduate students. Two are grad students in education and one is in math. Horrible thing is that I forgot the girl's name who is a math grad student! Hopefully, we will meet again.

Ugh, that reminds me of Mariann's cousin in Bishop. hee hee. For some reason, she thinks my name is Amy and she has thought so for so long now that I can't really correct her at this point. So, I guess my name will just always be Amy to her. It's kind of funny but awkward all at the same time.

And guess what? Next weekend, Adrian is coming to visit me! I'm super excited! I have lots to keep me busy until then, so the time should pass quickly. :)

Purple Room!!!

The Purple Room is complete! I'm very pleased with it; it's beautiful! I now have a Purple Room, a Green Room, a Red Room, a Yellow Room, and a Blue Bathroom. :)

Well, I was proud of myself for figuring out how to post a picture for my profile, but now I see that it's super small. I don't really have any close-up pictures of my face - but perhaps that's for a reason.

I am somewhat tired after today. I went up to Halbouty again, but this time I got a lot done and was able to talk to my advisor for awhile. It seems that I will be looking through a microscope at my samples for hours and hours and hours on end. I'm starting to feel overwhelmed when I think about my project and how much I need to DO to finish...

Amy and I have made fabulous progress on the room that we are painting. It already looks so much happier than dark, depressing, enveloping midnight blue. :)

oh well, I guess this won't be a post of witticisms, off to read statistics...

ugh

So here I am sitting in my office in Halbouty...doing absolutely NOTHING! I came here thinking I would get tons done, but alas, I am just sitting aimlessly wondering hmmm, what should I do?

Also, I lugged my laptop across campus to get lots of work done on it but haven't accomplished anything. This laptop is quite heavy. I am not looking forward to lugging it back to my car. I am hoping to get a basket on my bike that will accomodate my laptop because pathetic as it may sound, I really cannot keep carrying it around.

that is all...