Oscar nominations came out today. I never actually watch the Oscars, except for the last 10 minutes or so, but I still pay attention to who gets nominated. My mom and I always try to see the five films nominated for best picture along with some of the best actor and actress movies. Of course, the movie I love seldom ever wins, and I hate watching the actors give sanctimonious speeches, and a three hour show with only one hour worth of awards is ridiculous.

I am outraged that Jeff Daniels didn't get a Best Actor nomination for "The Squid and the Whale." He was absolutely amazing in that. How can he go from "Dumb and Dumber" to something as smart as "The Squid and the Whale" and not be recognized? The guy is amazing. I've only seen one of the movies nominated for Best Picture ("Crash") so I can't comment on that category yet. The category that I have seen the most movies in is Best Documentary: "March of the Penguins", "Murderball", and "Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room." I think Enron should win, but you know the Penguin movie is going to get it. I mean, it has penguins (cute), baby animals (no matter what species, they are always cute), family love and sacrifice, and snow. That is a recipe for Oscar gold. I liked the movie, it was a miraculous story, and the scenery was amazing, but Enron was smarter and edgier.

I love making lists. Here is one of important dates coming up.
Days until:
DoDDs interview- 2
D-Backs Spring Training Begins- 34
Graduation Ceremony- 100
Matt and Shannon's Wedding- 184
Leave for DoDDS (cross your fingers!!!)- 200
My 22nd Birthday- 238
Destini and Marc's Wedding- 332

Mi Familia

Here is a picture of my beautiful family. I have the most amazing family possible. They are three of the most loving, compassionate, caring, thoughtful, strong, witty, and intelligent people I know. My parents have been married a whopping 24 years! Almost unheard of these days. They set such an amazing example for my brother and I. My dad is always so thoughtful and loving in regards to my mom, and my mom is always telling how crazy she still is about my dad.

I see the same relationship between my brother and his fiance, Shannon, whom I love. Sometimes, when I am in a room with them, it is heartening to see how they only have eyes for one another. I am so glad that Matt has found someone like Shannon. I happen to think that my brother is THE coolest and sweetest guy ever to grace the earth. While I will probably always think that no one is good enough for him, I must say that Shannon is exactly who I would have picked if I had to choose a sweetheart for him. Of course, Matt didn't really give me much say in the matter. They are getting married in August and I can't wait to be Aunt Meg and spoil my nephews and nieces like mad.

Weddings, Weddings, Weddings

As part of my plan to get in shape I attended a total body conditioning class at the student rec center. That class kicked my butt. The instructor kept saying "On a scale of 1 to 10 you should be feeling about a 4 right now." I was always at a 7 or 8. But I stuck with it and I got a great workout. I felt so good afterwards, but today my abs are feeling the burn. Tonight is salsa/tango class. I feel like such an idiot during that class, but it's fun. And I'm sure everyone else feels silly too. My toes are always sore afterwards because the guys keep stepping on them. The dance instructor says that if the guy steps on the girl's feet it is the girl's fault. And he's serious! So I'll have to work on that. Schmidt and I have been practicing our fancy new dance steps since last class. We take turns being the guy and the girl. But I always end up leading, whether I'm the guy or not. That always makes Schmidt so angry. I can't help it. I have to be in control of every aspect of my life at all times. I'm working on that too.

I'm going to try and attend four classes a week at the rec center: total body conditioning, latin dance, kickboxing, and swing. In addition to this I try to jog on my own time, but it's not the right season for running outside. I have to get in shape for bridesmaids dresses. Two weddings this year, people. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Thank God! Neither of the brides (my best friend and my brother's fiance; just in case it's confusing, that's not the same person) has picked out the bridesmaids' dresses yet. One wedding (my brother's) is super-formal and the other (my best gal-Dest's) is super-casual. I have seen both girls wedding dresses though. Man, they are so beautiful. Both brides picked out dresses that suit them perfectly. Oh, man. I can't wait to see them both in their gowns with their hair done and the tiaras and flowers and music. I'm gonna bawl like crazy at both weddings, I just know it.

While out shopping with Destini for her wedding dress I found my dream dress. I might change my mind about this whole marriage thing just so I can get a chance to wear this dress. It's so beautiful. I love the the lacy sort of overcoat thingy. This will definitely be the style I go for if I ever do get married.

So to go with the dress I have also picked out my bouquet.

And my ceremony/reception site: Desert Botanical Garden.

I can't get the picture to load. Trust me, it's beautiful!

Any my wedding cake, except with southwestern/desert blooms.

And my wedding set.

And my groom: Gerard Butler. Woo hoo!

A Weekend in Flag

I hate staying in Flag over the weekends. Whenever possible I like to go back to the Valley where I can see my family, visit friends, and sit outside in the nice warm sun. It's about 160 miles from Flag to my casa, so I can't make the trip very often. That puts way to many miles on my car that already has more miles than it should. So Schmidt promised me that she would make the weekends fun for me if I stay up here. She's definitely following through on that. Yesterday night we went out to Collins Irish Pub where we met up with some of her coworkers (it was one of them's 30th birthday). I didn't know any of those people, but they were all really nice and I had a good time. Besides, when you are out shaking your booty on the dance floor it doesn't really matter if you are good friends with all the people around you. As an added bonus, Collins was filled with good looking fellas. So much cuter than the guys at the bar we normally go to. Then the whole group went to Denny's for a post-bar meal. I've never been to Denny's at 3 in the morning. I was amazed at how many other drunk people were there. Not that I was drunk, but some of the other people I was with were. Then today Schmidt and I went to lunch together and tonight we are meeting at her place for a crazy game of Disney SceneIt? Okay, that's not the coolest thing to be doing, but we are gonna have lots of of fun anyway. I love that Schmidt! She is such an amazing girl. I miss not living with her anymore. She takes such good care of me!!! I love you honey!

Speaking of amazing girls, it was Hensley's 21st B-Day yesterday. Happy Birthday Hens! She is way over in Kansas City so I didn't get to help her celebrate, but it sounds like she had a really good time and her friends there made it a special day for her. Hens, I love your new piercing. It's so not you, I don't mean that particular piercing, just piercings in general. But it looks so great, and I'm so proud of you for having the courage to get it done.

This is my Hens with her sexy new eyebrow piercing. This is huge people. Hens is so straight-laced and conservative. For her to have a piercing somewhere other than her ear is a big deal. She decided to do something crazy for her 21st birthday. Rock on Hens!


Hey Lyns, do you still have that picture of us in the snow? I just need to scan it for someone. Let me know.

The first week of the Spring semester is over and already I'm counting down the days until graduation in May.

SNOW!!!

We finally got some snow today. I know that snow is good for the environment and the economy, blah blah blah, but it sure makes my life difficult. It's cold and icy and gets my clothes all wet. The picture is of campus during the beginning of today's snowfall. My dorm is just to the left of what the picture shows.

I am addicted to the Vegan Lunch Box by Jenniferschmoo. That lady has so much energy and creativity. She comes up with these healthy and nutritious meals for her little guy to take to school for lunch every day. And she must have the most amazingly little boy in the world, because he is always super-excited to eat his vegan-veggie meals. I'm a grown-up, relatively speaking, and even I have trouble eating this healthy. My dietary intake today consisted of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and four cups of coffee. Lots of sugar, caffeine, and white flour.

I've started doing the POD challenge. So you ladies can stop nagging me now. POD means taking a photo a day for a month. It's a way to get the creative juices flowing. Unfortunately, I have an SLR and not a digital camera, so I can't post my pictures until I finish the roll. So next months you 2peas can look for my pictures. It's only the fourth day and already I am hard-up for things to take pictures of. I even took a picture of my running shoes yesterday.

Schmidt and I, and hopefully Ms. Lyns, will be heading to B-dub's tonight for some boneless wings. I look forward to Thursdays all week long.

Classes Start Today

2peas Meme Challenge #18

If I didn't have to do it perfectly, I'd try...

* painting a canvas
* writing a novel
* to throw a dinner party
* to run a marathon
* to become a professional photographer

That was harder than I thought it would be, but only because I had way more than 5 things.

Ugh... Classes started today. I so enjoyed being a lazy bum over the winter break. I only had two classes today, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

First I had BME 430- Methods and Materials in Second Language Teaching and Structured English Immersion. I have that class with the lovely Ms. Lynsey. Although it doesn't seem like a very exciting and glamorous class, it should be pretty helpful. Arizona is such a diverse, multicultural kind of place. I'll definitely need to know how to reach ELL students.

Second class of the day was AST 180- Introduction to Astronomy. This is the last liberal arts class I have to take. I haven't been in a non-major course in a while. There were so many freshman in that class. It's a whole different experience from my major-focused courses. I predict this class being a lot of work, but I found the stuff we went over today to be so fascinating, so it should go well.

For some reason, my television remote stopped on the Spanish channel and I watched Rebelde for an hour. I didn't have a flyin' flip of a clue what was going on, but I watched anyway. Mainly because those actors were so dang good-looking. Every last one of them was beautiful. I was hypnotized by the hair extensions and glossiness. I may have to watch that show everyday now. I tried googling the show to try and figure out what's going on, but all the websites are in Spanish. I tried to have the pages translated, but that doesn't seem to be going so well.

Lyns- I hope you get better soon, my dear. Get lots of vitamin c, water, and rest!

I love the smell of Windex in the morning.

Hum dee dum! Just sitting around in my dorm room, waiting for classes to begin tomorrow.

It's too cold to go outside (we finally got some snow flurries yesterday!). So I'm stuck inside trying to entertain myself.

I just realized last night that I have a lot of STUFF in my dorm room. And I have a lot of STUFF in my room at my parents' home. I have way too many things. Most of which I probably don't need. Both of my closets (well, two closets here and one at my parents' home) are jam packed with clothes. I mean, really, how many t-shirts for working out does one need? And how many pairs of pajama pants will I get before I decide I have enough? Belts, sweaters, jackets, camisoles, jeans, cords, tanks, blouses, skirts, shoes. I have an abundance of them all. Sheesh! It's sick. Oh, but I love them all so. It's hard to get rid of stuff and it's even harder not to buy the stuff in the first place.


Well, I really need to organize my closet anyway. It has to be
sorted by style and color. Why? Because I have issues. So
maybe while I'm organizing I can weed out some of the unneeded and less worn items. Okay, I probably won't throw things out right away. I might just put them in a bag on top of the wardrobe and see if I can go a week or two without wearing them, and then I'll throw them away. Baby steps! See, isn't the closet on the right gorgeous? Oh man, I can't believe I'm lusting after a closet.

Man, I love to clean. I think I'll spend some time doing that today. My sink and mirror are looking a bit dodgy. And my counter space is littered with paper scraps and thread from my quilt. Nothing else really needs to be cleaned, but that won't stop me.

Woo Hoo!

I'm about a year behind everyone else on starting this blog thing. I love reading the blogs of others, so I might as well start my own. I don't really get how this whole thing works, so it may take me awhile.

I hooked up my new printer/scanner/copier. It is so great. I have been scanning and uploading tons of layouts onto twopeasinabucket.com. It's a little nerve wracking to have my layouts out there for public viewing. I'm not in the same league as most of the gals there. My layouts look so plain and uncreative compared to theirs. I'm going to try to not let that bother me though. My layouts have meaning to me and they are documentation of my life and my memories. Maybe someday when I have more time and definitely more money (scrapping is so dang expensive) I'll be able to grow as a scrapper. Until then I'll have to be satisfied with my simple layouts. Below is an example of one of the layouts I've added to twopeas: