Thursday, May 29, 2008

tales from the shoe rack

So...it's no secret that I've been taking advantage of the shopping opportunities available to me in the Bad News area. Maine has impressed me greatly with its lack of acceptable shopping venues. Recession or not, I still buy things every once in a while, but Old Navy, Gap, and Kohl's are really the extent of my options up there.

It's all been going so well, but last night there was a slight snafoo. Jessica and I went to Off Broadway and bought four pairs of shoes between the two of us.

We tried shoes on in the store. We moved the shoes we liked to another area of the store, tried on others, and debated our favorites. When we got to the register with our four, one girl took our boxes to check the sizes of the shoes. She looked at each one of them and then looked at the boxes and then wrote some sort of approving note on the shoe boxes.

Jessica and I made our purchases, drove home, and excitedly showed our new shoes to Mom and Josh. After Jessica and Josh left for church and I decided to trapse around in my new bossy red shoes that I discovered that they were in fact, two different red shoes.

I actually spent time in these different shoes and bought them both like it was no big deal. Ugh... Anyway, long story shorter, Mom and I went back to Off Broadway and traded the cheap-o MIA shoe for the classier, more fancy GUESS Left to match its old friend, Right.

Reunited, both Right and Left are feeling blissful and in love again.

And I have regained my faith in consumerism.

Yay for fun red shoes that are...you know...the same. :)

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Fun in the Backyard (?)


So...this all started as an attempt for wardrobe blog pictures. As you can see, we started quite normally. Lookin' good...




















Then Jessica moved to the ballet portion of the show.






















And encouraged me to join her. I do not have amazing ballet skill, however, I would like to think that this is not the best I can do.




















Then Jessica got all fancy and assured me that we could easily perform a lift that people probably practice years to perfect.



















And one time we just failed with the self-timer function on my new camera.






















But this was the closest we got to Jessica's original vision. It's not very close. You can ask her about the specifics in person.




















After I fell quickly following that last shot, we had to pose again immediately for the second self-timed shot. We are SO much better on level ground.




















This is the last shot of the day. I blogged our outfits on my wardrobe blog, and there were leftovers for the family blog too! A good first day. :)

Thursday, May 22, 2008

New Blog Option :)

Just in case you guys don't feel you see enough of me on the family blog, I am proud to offer you yet another option!

After reading several wardrobe blogs, www.whatiwore2day.blogspot.com being the best and most regularly read, I have decided to enter the fray myself.

A wardrobe blog is basically a blog daily updated with the bloggers outfit for the day. Now...I consider myself a pretty snappy dresser. Mine is not a textbook or even a traditional style, but I enjoy playing with clothes and accessories. So...I think it will be so very much fun to look at my clothing choices over time. I also think that blogging my clothes will encourage me to be more creative and more exciting in my everyday decisions.

Is it lame? Maybe...

Is it a waste of time? Some would say it is...

Is it vain? ABSOLUTELY!

Will you want to read it? Now....that is a question that I cannot answer for you. I have a written the introduction the blog and one entry for yesterday's outfit. Check it out. See what you think. Stop in every once in a while if you want. : ) If all goes well, I'll be blogging daily; you'll know where to find me.

ah, yes. the link. <- this link will take you to my new blog, or you can just click through my user name and profile. (If the previous language doesn't mean much to you, then just go ahead and click the link.)

Saturday, May 17, 2008

bowling and boo-boo's...

*on wednesday i went bowling with jen, anna, duck and deon.*
jen didn't do so well and thought we should take a mad picture.
i don't know if you can tell, but the seats are from an old movie theater.



*me and duck.* that's not a nickname, his name is actually duckenson.
so i guess it is a nickname, but it came from his actual name... get my drift?


on friday, i was at work and cooking on the grill.
well, a piece of hot, greasy food jumped up off the grill and landed between my glove and my hand. well, i didn't really realize it at first, but that sucker burned. i didn't get a chance to get it off right away either because i was in the middle of doing something.
*notice the result.*


it's quite a blister if i do say so myself, and rather annoying.


i took my friend, co-worker home and she let me borrow her burt's bee's stuff...
it's stinky, but it feels good.



alright, well i have 2 papers to write this weekend, so i guess i should get going on it.
love you guys. talk to ya'll soon.
<3 jecca

Friday, May 16, 2008

beware the fondue!

I'm not used to uploading on the home computer, so you'll have to bear with me. :)

Yesterday, we had a big day of baking and melting and general failures. I wanted to make this brilliant topsy-turvy cupcake cake with lots of colored frosting and goodness, and mom wanted to try out the new fondue pot.

So..we started early with the cake. The cake and cupcakes turned out beautifully and the icings are...well...you can see them...gorgeous. Now to the stacking. :)



The stacking is brilliant in theory, but nearly impossible in execution. There was too much of the gooey stuff to make any real bond between cupcake and cake, and we didn't level the layer cake...so the sliding began immediately. Here is a picture of me being ridiculous and kinda scary.


Now to the disaster that was our fondue. If you'll notice - the fondue melted superbly. The ingredients came together in such a nice way. The cheese melted, the spirits simmered, the guests' mouths watered. Then...we tried it. Sadly, we don't like Swiss cheese. Turns out Emmenthal cheese is very strongly Swiss. Ugh...fondue is out.

Here are some of quotables that popped up around the fondue pot.

Teresa: "I'm going to get the ketchup!"

Josh: "You don't have to pretend you like it, Anita."
Anita: "Well...I figured out a trick. If you put the cheese on this part of the bread and put that part up in the roof of your mouth..."

Keven: It is NOT good on broccoli."

All that said...we dumped the stinky ass cheese fondue and made a second with salsa, and some leftover shredded kraft cheeses. It was good...observe:


So...lessons learned:
1. Expensive cheese is not always where it's at.
2. Cupcakes do not have much of their own strength. Icing is much more powerful.
3. In most cases, stick to what you know.
4. If it ain't fixed, don't broke it.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

hear ye, hear ye!


I'd like to thank you all for coming tonight for the 2008 State of the Blog Address. It's been a big year for us with the creation of the family blog, and I want to take this opportunity to remind you of your own (or lack of) progress in the blog world. :)

So without further ado...the blogstats.

Several of you are holding up the wall on the right there. Just know that i see you. We'd love to hear from you in the blogworld, but we can all appreciate a little blog-fright. :) However...some of us (as evidenced by the following numbers) enjoy an audience, so keep reading and do comment!

Holding it down with 1 awesome post and possibly the most interesting blog name: Old Poop!

With 2 sweet picture posts (and hopefully more to come? :)): [little] Anita!

Bumping it up to a round 14: Trresa!

Keeping us up-to-date on the Craziness that is her Life through 19 posts: Christina!

Breaking the twenty mark with 25 posts: Anita!

Keepin' it real street in the 'hoods of Pennsylvania in 34 posts: Jessica!

And finally, demonstrating my true addiction to the blog world with 54 posts: Umm...me :)

So...what of this recount? This isn't Florida; we aren't making decisions or recommendations based on these counts. BUT as the self-reflective person that i pretend to be, I think it's good for us to step back and take a look at our performance so far.

My conclusion: YAY BLOG! YAY US!

My resolution: More posts from more bloggers!

We can do that, right? :) See you around the blogworld!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

my day yesterday...

so yesterday i had to drive back up to philadelphia to check-in to my housing for summer classes. not a big deal. i make that drive all the time. sometimes it goes better than others... this was not one of those times.

first of all, while i was still in newport news, i stopped at mcdonald's to get an iced coffee. i waited in line for ten minutes only to get up to the window and have the guy tell me that it was going to take a long while for them to make the ice coffee. i said forget it, and just got on the interstate.

so then i was driving near D.C. and kept seeing these signs saying that exit 170 was closed. well i didn't pay any attention to this because i don't know exit numbers, i just know where to turn... well, i needed to turn at exit 170. great. so i just kept going on the road i was on and took 495 towards tyson's corner, md. fine and dandy. until i needed gas and i needed to pee. so i turn on my gps (daniel) and have him take me to the crown petroleum station in calverton, md.

so, we set off into calverton and daniel starts taking me down all kinds of roads (i became very familiar with old gunpowder road and powder mill road. arg.). i finally end up in a neighborhood and daniel is telling me that this gas station is on the right. well, it's not. plus, he won't stop telling me to make a u-turn to get back on the highway. ARG. so i decide to try a different fuel station, i chose 7-11 from the options that daniel gave me. i finally get to the 7-11 and it's there, but there's no gas. jiminy cricket, daniel, are you serious?! so now i just want to get back on the interstate, but daniel doesn't... he takes me down so many neighborhood roads and actually has me making a right down a road that is a dead-end... needless to say, i had some choice words for daniel and banished him to the glove box for the remainder of the ride.

i finally make it back out to 95 and back off somewhere else to an exxon.

so, it's not a very big exxon and the fueling lanes are not big either... so i'm waiting for this guy to pull away (because he's done fueling and just sitting, or paying or something)... well he doesn't do this for like 10 minutes, so i reverse and finally get to a pump and get out and pump the gas. SURPRISE, SURPRISE... when i get back in the car from pumping my gas i hear a crunch.

yes indeed, those would be my absolute favorite sunglasses i have ever had in my entire life (and just bought 2 days before for $5)... and yes, they are missing an arm... great. i felt like crying...

oh but wait.... there's more... shortly after this i had to sit in traffic for over an hour... just sitting.
BUT there was this really nice car to my right and they cut in front of me (well they wedged themselves in between me and the car in front of me, so i let them over to my left). i couldn't help but stare at this car because it was the hottest car i had ever seen. it was white and shiny and had nice rims and had a miami heat license plate from florida that i had never seen before. well i guess the guys in the car saw me staring and pulled up next to me and opened their window to talk to me (i couldn't see inside their car before this because their windows were so heavily tinted. hott.) so the guy driving was like: "you don't like miami heat, do you?" i said i didn't really care. then he asked what part of VA i was from and i said N.N. He said he was from NN too and then asked me how old i was. i told him i was 21 (i don't know why i answered this question, but it's done now...) and he said that we didn't go to school together then. i smiled and then it was time to move forward. we kept passing each other for a while but i couldn't get up the nerve to say anything else to them and so i kept looking forward, but i was grinning like a little child because i felt like he was famous and i should've known who he was...

ha. according to my research, i probably should've known who he was... there was another guy with him in the car and he was much bigger than this guy that i should've known, but i could tell that they were both extremely tall... they kept their window open for a while but when i didn't say anything after a few moves they put it back up...

ok fast forward to about 8:30 that night. i had just got back from target, picking up some things i didn't bring or that weren't here already. i got a mug with a lid and i was excited because REWIND (to when i was packing to come home:) my big mug fell off my bed and the handle broke right off of it (like this... it's not actually my mug, but an accurate portrayal)

... back to the FAST FORWARD... i am carrying like 6 bags of stuff and my fingers are being cut off by the weight of these bags so i set them down but one slips... and guess what happens.... you're right... the HANDLE off of my NEW MUG breaks right off... geez, louise!!!
FAST FORWARD a little more and i am unpacking my the rest of the bags and everything is a little wet. i had had a cold drink from starbucks so i thought it might have just been sweat from the cup... until i get to my gallon of water...

wow, you guessed it again... when my mug broke, a sharp piece from the handle punctured my gallon of water that then proceeded to trickle water all over everything and onto the floor. it wasn't as much as the jug above (also not my gallon of water...), but it was just enough to make me mad.

ok now, FAST FORWARD one more time to this morning around 6am. that's right, i worked this morning in the cafeteria at 6am on my first day back at school. i realized i had a cut on my thumb knuckle (if that makes any sense at all)... how could that have happened? oh yea, from the dumb sharp piece that broke off that dumb mug...

that's where it ends. mom asked me to blog about this because she thought that people would get a kick out of it. it just made me mad again though, having to re-hash everything... but i will laugh about it all eventually....
<3

Thursday, May 8, 2008

josh's and my trip to the beach.

Josh and I enjoyed an afternoon at Yorktown Beach on Tuesday. As you can tell by the pictures, we went with zero tan and came back with maybe 1% tan. The water was WAY too cold to swim. I thought it was going to be warm already, but I guess not. Oh well... we had a fun time anyways. Josh took all the nice pictures :)





Tuesday, May 6, 2008

jack the ripper: menace to society

disclaimer: this story is extremely bizarre but entirely true. kids, get an adult's permission before reading this story. it contains nudity, violence, and mass murder. not even kidding.

hopefully some of you remember that i taught english 101 this semester through reading and analysis of jack the ripper writings. at the end of the semester, i had students create ripper letters. for those of you who are not versed in ripperology, the ripper (or people claiming to be him) sent over 600 letters to the metropolitan police in 1888 and the years following. these letters were full of taunts aimed at the incompotent investigators of the ripper murders and they were quite the spectacle. regularly published in the newspapers, these letters are only used as evidence by very few ripperologists, but they are intriguing for study nonetheless. many of my students wrote interesting papers about the letters during the semester, so most of my students chose this option for their final project.

i, of course, encouraged my students to be really creative with this project. many of them did get creative and turned in really nice fraudulent ripper letters and i loved looking at and reading all of them. i regret not having taken pictures for you, but i still have the letters, maybe i'll do that soon.

anyway, one student really outdid herself putting together not just a ripper letter but an entire ripper parcel. she wrapped the fairly large box (think wider shoebox) in brown paper and addressed it to the whitechapel police and even drew a fancy 19th century postmark on the corner. inside the box, i was surprised to find a bloody mess. (it was perfect!) she had smeared red acrylic paint all over the inside of the box and the enclosures. there was, naturally, a letter included, but beyond that she had also made and enclosed a ripper-like knife, a peice of earlobe crafted out of tofu wrapped in a bit of tissue, and...a bloody breast made out of some sort of baked clay or dough or something.

we ooh-ed and aah-ed over her project for days. the class was really impressed as were my officemates, other tas, and pat.

i kept all the ripper letters, as i mentioned before, but since this one was so large, it sat on the floor in the corner beside my desk.

well...fast forward a week to the present. i was sitting at my desk trying to work on my last paper of the semester, when i suddenly find myself very much bothered by a fly. i opened the windows earlier, so i'm not too surprised, but still a little bit annoyed. i shoo it away and it comes back. i shoo it away and yet it comes back. i finally get it out the window and breathe a sigh of relief as i sit back down to work.

but...hmm...what is that noise? i guess it's my chair settling or just a general 'neville noise'. wait. i think i heard it again. then it hits me.

the boob. it must be edible.

well...now i'm nervous, but i decide that i have to look in the box. i slowly pick up the parcel addressed to the whitechapel police and notice a hole has been eaten through the corner of the box and there are ants all over the bottom. oh man.

well, it was violent before, but now it's just wrong inside that box. not only are all enclosures present, but the bloody breast now has ants climbing all over it. are you kidding me?

so, i set the box down again and consider my options. evan and i are cleaning the office top to bottom on saturday, so i could always just put this off until then. but, what if the ants start enjoying their new home? i still want to keep this girl's amazing project, so i don't even think about dumping the box. so what did i do? i texted matt. :)

matt tells me to throw out the boob and cut my losses. i had realized that i would have to do this, so i've already begun taking phone pictures of the box and its enclosures (including the ants) before i have to unceremoniously chuck the breast.

in my brilliance, i put the box on evan's desk (the only empty one) to take the pictures. naturally, this just spread the ants around. i now have to go into rambo mode and kill many ants very quickly on evan's desk before they are able to leave the surface and multiply. i did this first round of killings with a simple napkin-smoosh technique.

i then dropped the anty boob in the trash can and placed the box (boob-less but still ant-ridden) in a second empty trashbag to hopefully kill the ants through deprivation of oxygen. i'll check on it saturday, perhaps.

now, the box (and the disaster i caused at evan's desk) are taken care of. i decide to sanitize evan's desk (read: ant killing ground) with instant hand sanitizer and a new napkin. this works wonders and everything smells quite fresh.

then, eureka! the sanitizer! with a renewed taste for blood, i move back to my ant-filled corner and begin to squirt, squirt, squirt the ants with the instant hand sanitizer, and do you know what?! it works! and fast! the ants are frantic, but i'm worried they will run from their exit point and into other parts of the room so i begin moving the brown paper the box was wrapped in (had i been thinking calmly and rationally i would have used something else, but i can still salvage the address part) with my foot in order to spread the sanitizer to a large area and effectively kill all the ants immediately.

by jove, this worked too! so now i'm getting excited. i lifted up my poster tube to find at least 20-30 more ants. no problem! squirt them away! i decided to use more napkins to spread the stuff this time, so no more harm to my student's project.

only problem - i'm by this time quite close to the battlefield since i am no longer using my foot but my hand to kill these suckers. there is much alcohol in this sanitizer so i'm feeling a bit spinny, but this is crackers compared to the annialation i am bringing to these intruders!

finally convinced of my victory over the tiny creatures, i set down the hand sanitizer and texted matt to tell him all is well.

and then, well, i blogged.

i guess i should get back to work. this was the best paper writing break ever.

***update***

i came into the office this morning at 9am for a meeting with evan and mike. this story came rushing back to me in a flood of remembering, so i excitedly told evan about my conquests. then. it dawned on me.

the box was missing.

apparently our lovable janitor ray mistook its garbage-bag wrapping for an indicator of worthlessness. i'm really quite sad.

HOWEVER i did manage to put her letter and the box wrapping in my desk with the other ripper letters when everything was happening. all is not lost, but some. and i do have those phone pictures.

life goes on. but jack the ripper? still a menace.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

i like to think that i'm a ballerina

i also like to instill this thought process in others.

this picture was the cutest, even though both josh's and my eyes were closed. oh well.

a little better, but my bangs are in front of my eyes.



i was amazed with josh's natural abilities.



i get by with a little help from my friend (or brother).


he's not heavy, he's my brother (and he jumps like a gazelle).

more jumping pics of josh. we were having too much fun.




the only thing that could've made this photo session better would be amanda.
(i love you and i miss you <3)
the end.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

when i should be writing...

i usually end up doing other things. such as...

1. blogging. duh.

2. shopping. today i ended up at burlington coat factory, where i snagged this cute shirt:
Photobucket

and this cute sweater:
Photobucket
both tommy hilfiger, of course. the only thing to warrant a trip to the clothing section of burlington usually.

i have also relented and decided to stop fighting my eye color. it has become apparent that on most days, my eyes are green. fine. that's close to blue, i guess. anyway, here is some recent proof (also note the rosie o'donnell 'had it' head scarf that i bought when i should have been grading papers several weeks ago):
Photobucket
undeniably green, right? so, when i went to target today to buy an eyelash curler (my last one dropped in the toilet this week and i believed that to be a deal-breaker for something that works so close to my eye.) i also picked up some green eye-enhancing eye shadows. observe:
Photobucket
pretty cool, huh?

disclaimer: (i know this should really come before the post, but i thought it would really deflate the post.) for some reason, i failed at both being photogenic and being an effective photographer/photo manipulator. so...ya know...don't fault me.

i still blogged. :)

Friday, May 2, 2008

may 2, 2008



that's right...it's almost over.

today i returned portfolios to my students and gave them their final course grades. i also recorded their grades with the university, so my 101 class is officially over.

now i can focus on my own papers and close out this semester with a smile. hopefully. :)

Thursday, May 1, 2008

ch...ch...ch...changes....

i started going through my clothes today in preparation for packing and coming home. i came across this shirt and thought it was cute:



don't let it fool you. i was actually holding it in the back in the picture above so it would fit. this is actually what it fits like... and it's buttoned.


so here's another set. i was trying to show how far it goes past the buttons...




these were my absolute favorite business pants. they were even hemmed at the bottom WITH THE CUFF cuz i liked it so much.

as you can see, i put them on over my jeans... and there's still a little room left over.



i actually have two exams tomorrow (doctrine II and personal finance). i decided it would be more fun to try on my old clothes than to study :) oops. but i got to study with friends and we're going to review in the morning also, so i should be all set. hope ya'll like the pictures. i will see ya'll in 3 days!!!!
<3