Quiz I took from Alicia's Blog

You Are A: Kitten!

Cute as can be, kittens are playful, mischevious, and ever-curious. Like you, kittens hate getting wet. Kittens are often loving, but are known to scratch or bite when annoyed. These adorable animals are the most popular pets in the United States--37% of American households have at least one cat. Whether it is your gentle purr or your disarming appearance, you make a wonderful kitten.

You were almost a: Bunny or a Mouse
You are least like a: Frog or a DuckWhat Cute Animal Are You?

I think Spring is here (finally) but Summer coming too fast

Well, I have new motivation for blogging now. The past few days I got comments from three people who don't normally comment. (you know who they are) So that was exciting. I have had a pretty good last few days.
Thursday at work we had a tasting (rich people come and taste our food and choose what they want). This one was for a wedding, so we had to give them two different tasting cakes. They are really small cakes. Anyway I was excited because I got to assemble both cakes, which is easy, but Melissa taught me how to ice them. Now it may sound like no big deal, but it was very difficult. You don't just slap the buttercream on and spread it around. You have to make it look absolutely smooth and perfect, no flaws. I probably spent over an hour on two little cakes.
Click here to see basically what I was doing. (it's easier than it looks.) It was fun to learn something new though.

Jonathan went to a philosophy conference to present a paper with his professor over in Illinois Thursday and Friday. It was the first time I've spent the night all alone. The house felt so quiet! I had to sleep with the hall light on because I am such a wimp. Jonathan had a pretty miserable time at the conference (he was the designated driver since everyone he was with drank their hearts out), but he did a really good job presenting his paper, and a couple big name philosophers there told him so.
Friday I had the day off so I relaxed most of the day, except that I had to re-take the science section of this standardized test the state requires. I failed it the first time because I ran out of time so just filled in the bubbles. I am awful at science so it was hard for me. The minimum passing score is pretty low, so I am thinking I have a pretty good chance.
Umm... Saturday was a wedding. I cut the cake and can proudly say I did a lot better than I did last time (I was still coated in buttercream afterwards) It was miserable though because the air conditioning wasn't working so the kitchen was about 80 degrees. All the guys were dripping sweat after the entree plate-up.
Also my PS2 game sold on e-bay for 71 dollars. Not too bad I'd say for a first time seller. Today I wasted hours playing a dumb computer game. I am thinking of selling it on e-bay so I won't waste any more time on it. It was 80 degrees today. Jonathan can't stand it so he turned on the air-conditioner on.
I talked to my family tonight. There is a Burkhart family reunion in New Hampshire this summer. My parents are trying to get us to go with them and I think it would be a lot of fun, but on the other hand I would like to visit Idaho in the summer, and I know we can't do both. Brooke and Ira aren't going to the reunion because the lucky ducks are going to Japan for 16 days. I am trying to convince my parents to stop here on their way to the reunion and visit us, but airline tickets from Boise to New Hampshire and Boise to St. Louis are about the same price. So it would be pretty expensive. What to do, what to do?
Oh goodness it is my bed-time.
Everything is starting to bloom so I'll try to post pictures soon of all the loveliness.

Just a quick post before class

Yay I am so excited! Erika left comments on my blog! That is so cool. Thanks Erika. You are the bomb. I need to e-mail you. Don't worry I will soon :) So I had a wonderfully long weekend. I ended up having Monday off as well, so I had a four day weekend! Yay.
Friday I cleaned the house (as usual.) And then worked on a bunch of stuff for my sunday school class, and ran some errands. Made pizza for dinner and then what I did after that escapes me. Saturday was really nice b/c we went to Northwest Coffee Co. Our most favorite coffee shop. Anytime we go anywhere else we are disappointed and end up saying, why didn't we just go to Northwest? We drank the best Americanos in town and ate pastries, and read MAD magazine (reading material was limited). Then we went to Good Will and St. Vincents, which are both just a couple blocks away. I found a super cute Old-Navy summer (brand-new) dress ($4.50), and J. Crew jeans ($4.00). I was hoping to find a Shamrock cookie-cutter so I could make Shamrock sugar cookies, but no such luck. I made sugar cookies anyway (heart-shaped) with green frosting. They were so good we ate them in two days. Anyway, then we came home and just hung out doing basically nothing the rest of the day. It was so nice because that is the first time we have been able to go to Northwest on a Saturday morning and do nothing all day, for a long long time. Plus on Saturday I was looking for a video-game on the Internet, and happened to find out that this game that Brooke and Ira gave us a few years ago (Marvel vs. Capcom 2) is worth a lot of money. So I checked it on e-bay and it was selling for up to 115 dollars! I was so excited. I know hardly anything about e-bay, but I put ours up for bid anyway, hoping to become rich! So far it is only up to $31, but there is still three days left to go. I doubt it will sell for much, but I am really hoping it will.

Do you ever get temporarily obsessed with something when you find out or learn something new that is really cool? Well, that is how I get anyway. So I got into that obsessive mode after finding out our video-game was worth something. I spent all of Sunday afternoon looking up our junk on e-bay to see if it was worth anything. I even dreamt about e-bay all night. I dreamt I was at my parents house giddily thinking about all the stuff they have that I could sell. Now it has basically worn off, but that doesn't mean I am not checking to see if anyone has bid on our item 10 times a day!
That is how I was when I decided I wanted to start a blog. All I could think about was what I would write and what I would put on there and blah blah blah. Of course I had to convince Jonathan to get me Internet first. I think he got it for me just so I would shut-up about it. I am such a dork.

Since I didn't do much homework over the weekend, that is all I have done the past few days. For my children's literature class we have to read kids' books from different genres and then write a review on them and come up with a lesson to do with them. Anyway I have done 11 so far and I am getting so sick of it! The good news though, I got nine of them back on Monday and I got 100 on every single one. So I was glad about that. I had two due today, and I just barely got them done. Well I better go I have class in thirty minutes.

Instructions

So, I talked to my parents last week. They both said they read my blog. My dad reads it at work when he is bored (presumably) so that made me feel special. But they both told me they tried to comment but it didn't work. Since I am far away and can't show them how in person, I have to do this:

HOW TO COMMENT-

Click the link that says 0 (or a different number depending on how many comments have been left) comments below the post, then this screen will pop up.

No, I am not bored. I just like Paint.

Highlights

I am so sorry I have been neglecting all you faithful readers out there. I hope you have not given up on me. Last week was my spring break so you'd think I would have written more last week, but I didn't, due to two reasons-
1. Jonathan was working hard on school, typing a paper (so I couldn't use the computer)
2. I couldn't put down the book I was reading.

Okay, so then the weekend came and all the sudden I had to go back to school, and I had only done one out of the five assignments that were due on Monday. Yikes! I spent all day Sunday working on school, and had to get up at 5:30 just to finish an assignment. Monday I went to work from 8-2, then had to go to school at 4 and stayed at school until 9. Tuesday I worked, then went to tutoring for a couple hours, and then had to do more homework. Wednesday was the same as Monday. Today, I worked and then we went to some friend's house and watched basketball. The movies I checked out from the library are due tomorrow so I had to watch a movie, and now here I am.

Here are the highlights from the past couple weeks- You know me, I like lists-


*Read a really good book called The Kite Runner. I wouldn't normally have read this book, except it was last month's book club book. Unfortunately I didn't even read the book in time for the book club, so I didn't even go. But everyone said it was good, and I already had checked it out so I decided I may as well read it. I couldn't stop reading it. I read it in less than a week. Now I wished I could have gone to book club because it is the type of book you want to talk about after you have read it. If you are looking for a good book, read this.

*Saturday was a 250 ppl wedding. I cut the five tier cake by myself (after Becca taught me how). I was pretty proud of myself. It is not too hard once you know how to do it and get the hang of it. I was covered in buttercream afterwards. Yuck.

*Tutoring went really well this week. I am thankful for the opportunity to work with Ariel, because honestly, I have not worked with kids older than the age of 3 that often. If I am going to be a teacher, I need to know how to deal with kids, and this is definitely giving me needed learning experiences. Ariel is up and down. One week she is really ornery and doesn't want to do anything I have planned to do and throws a fit. The next week she is really sweet and compliant. Because of my inexperience a lot of times I don't know how to respond to her behavior. It isn't good because I am not always consistent with her. I never know if I am being too firm or not firm enough or what. I mean, what am I supposed to do when she doesn't want to do what I ask, so hides her face and won't talk to me? I can't tell if she is just having a bad day and feeling sad, or if she is just plain trying to get her way. It is totally worth it though. Not only for the experience it gives me but just the joy of having a relationship with a sweet girl and trying to be a Christ-like figure for her. Sometimes I feel really tired after work, and I just don't want to go at all. But afterwards I am glad I went.

*I went grocery shopping for like four hours, because my fridge looked like this (there is nothing in the drawers either):

I absolutely despise grocery shopping. Ever since we left Win-Co (I love you Win-Co) all the joy is gone. I went by myself, which is always a bad sign. Jonathan has to go with me to keep me in check, or else I am like a kid with ADD in a toy-store. I have a very planned out well-organized list before I go, but once I get there I get distracted and I think of new things I need and I have to look at everything and I can't make a decision for the life of me. I feel like I get trapped in the store. It's horrible. I feel bad when I take him though because he has better things to do than grocery shop, plus he also hates it. It is better than last semester though. The only time we were able to go was Friday night. We tried to convince ourselves it was like a date. That was like the last thing I wanted to do on a Friday night. Anyway, it feels so good to finally have food in the house again! I could probably go on and on about the whole grocery shopping thing, but I better save it for another day.

*Today I made marshmallows at work. It was kinda cool. I tasted them before they were set up and it tasted exactly like marshmallow creme. But better.

Okay so that is all the interesting things I can come up with. The weather was really nice at the beginning of the week but I didn't even get to enjoy it. Now it has cooled down. I am so excited though because I have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off. I haven't had a Saturday off since we got back from Idaho in January. I am going to try to get all the junk I need to do done on Friday so I can enjoy Saturday with my to-do-list all crossed off. It's ambitious, I know, but there is no harm in trying.

Just for fun I'll leave you the cool card I made for my mom's birthday (yeah I know I was like three weeks late in giving it to her)

Not a great picture, I know, but isn't it cute?

Stuck inside these four walls....

Oh my word, it is finally warm outside. Sunny, nice temperature.. and I am stuck inside doing the homework I put off all week. Dang Procastination! More posts to come, but for now much too busy.

Weekend Update

Okay, I didn't have an ultra exciting weekend, because I am not an exciting person. In fact my life, as some may see it, is quite boring. I don't mind so much. Jonathan keeps telling me that I married a boring man so I guess I am stuck being boring. But, I am going to tell you about my weekend anyway. First a side note. My blabbing about being boring reminded me of my conversation I had with the weird guy on Thursday.

So I went to school, thinking I'd be in and out in a few minutes because I just had to drop off an assignment. As I was walking out of the Educ. dept office, this guy asks me if he can ask me a question. Annoyed, I say "what?" He then proceeds to ask some really vague question about how social classes view each other. Hoping to get out of it and go home, I just said "I don't know". He kept prodding me though, but I wanted to know why he was asking. Apparently, he had just got out of some Sociology class and was testing out what he had heard his professor say. He stopped me because I am white (he probably figured it was his only opportunity since white females are far and few between at my school) and he wanted to know, how white people view black people, and how they are different. I am afraid I wasn't much help to him though, because I was caught off guard, am shy with strangers, and so wasn't too excited about engaging in a conversation with this guy. We talked for over and hour though, and it was pretty interesting because we found out how opposite are lives are. I am from Nampa, Idaho where it's news at the dinner table if you saw a black person that day, and he is from a Chicago neighborhood where white people aren't seen for miles. He thought it was the most amazing thing that I don't have cable, and have never had cable. He said he has never met anyone that has never had cable. Oh well. He wanted to know what I did for fun. Ha! I am sure he thought I was the most boring person alive. He said he had done more than I've done my whole life by the time he was twelve. I finally was able to pull away. We didn't come to any conclusions on the race issue (no surprise there). When I told Jonathan about it, we tried to decide if we were racist or not. I think everyone has their own biases, and I know I have plenty. But we both realized that more than anything we are classists (no I don't know if that is actually a word). Yes, we are biased towards poor people. (poor as in really poor, not fake poor (like us)) We try to avoid them, and look down on them whether we realize it or not. Yes it is shamefully sinful, especially since the Bible is always talking about how we should love and care for the poor. You can think we are horrible people. Because we are.

So on to the actual purpose of this post. Our weekend:
Friday

• worked for awhile
• made home-made pizza
• watched TV
• practiced piano, got frustrated and depressed so went to bed

Saturday

• worked
• made vanilla pudding for Jonathan (home-made not the powder from a box)
• went to some folk's house from church for a game night, ate pizza (again) and played Settlers of Catan. (I was not named Lady of Catan unfortunately)

Sunday

• church and sunday school
• nap
• lunch
• watched dumb movie on tv
• laundry
• went on a walk with Jonathan

So there you go. This week is my Spring Break already. I have a ton of homework though and am working a full week, so I won't being doing anything fun.

If you are bored, go here and type in your address. I would give you mine so you can see my house, but I don't want all my stalkers out there to find me.

And a picture for those of you who only read books with pictures.

Our house (we live on bottom) in the summer. So green! Can you tell I am anxious for spring?

In Response to Mom2

Yay! I just barely found your comment today! It made me very happy that you left one. To answer your questions, I did pretty good on my ambitious list. I got about 75 % of it done. Unfortunately we didn't go on a date like I hoped because Jonathan was still sick. I don't always stay up late and write, just when I don't have to get up early the next morning :) We miss you!

One more post for the night

Just wanted to say:

Please spring come! It was almost here today.

A couple pictures to get us ready:

One more thing... don't let me forget to tell about the weird conversation I had today with some guy I never met... It will have to wait for now.

Take Note

Just wanted to point you out to my recent additions. The hymns you need to hear are a few of my favorite songs we sing at church. I like them so much I wanted to share them with all of you. So please click on a couple to listen. It doesn't play the whole song unfortnuately (and the singers aren't that great) but you get the idea. In the future I'll try to add more, and find better recordings of them.

This week's corporate confession is a part of our church's liturgy. I encourage you to read it some time. It is one of my favorite parts of the service, because so often it is able to put my own thoughts and feelings into words much better than I can. You can click on the link at the bottom to learn more about our church too, if you would like.

Piano practice log is strictly for my benefit. For some reason it has been easier to keep track by posting it on here than writing it down.

Also, I updated my profile so you can check that out if you would like.

And for you fellow bloggers-
does anyone know why I can't get my profile picture to stay viewable? After awhile it just shows a red x in the box so I just took it off. I don't know what's up. It is annoying.

SLEEP

Well... I haven't much to say recently, but I know all of my readers are dying for a new post, so I will try my best to indulge them (you'll let me know who you are right?)
I'll start out by confessing my bad habit. Sleep. I love sleep. I think I have a minor addiction to it. If I don't have to be somewhere in the morning, it is extremely difficult for me to get out of bed before ten o clock, even if I went to bed early the night before. On a normal day, when I work, I have to get up, so I don't have a choice to stay in bed. But when I have a day off, I can sleep all morning, and then take two naps during the day. It is ridiculous. I always have high hopes for getting all kinds of things done the night before my day off, but in the morning all I want to do is sleep and I don't care about the long list of things to do. That is kind of how it was today. I got up at 8, which is pretty good, but I went to bed at 10, so I had already gotten a good ten hours. But then, later on I fell asleep three times.
I just love it. When I am sleeping I feel peaceful, like I am floating in a happy place. Even if I have bad dreams, I still like it. The other night I scared the heck out of both of us when I woke up screaming at the top of my lungs. Ugh. It was weird to hear a blood-curdling scream come out of my own self. The silly thing was that all I was screaming at was a big spider that was falling on me (in my dream). It was so weird. Poor Jonathan. One time at camp, I scared the crap out of my whole cabin especially my counselor, Kelly, by screaming in the middle of the night. Also, I scared my family one night by screaming in my sleep at home too (two different times, I believe).
Anyway... enough of my boring sleep speech (it's making me want to go to bed).