Special K and Coffee

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Pain...For a Good Cause

Paul and I both need to get in shape, we both fully admit that. He'd somehow heard about military guys doing this "game" involving a deck of cards. A red card is push-ups and a black card is sit-ups. You have to do as many push-ups or sit-ups as the card you draw tells you to, with Ace being one (to start until you get in better shape, then it's 14) and King being 13. The object of the game is to get through the entire deck.

Last night, Paul decided we were going to split a deck of cards and play this game. I'm sure you can all do the math. Even at half a deck, that's a whole lot of sit-ups and push-ups in one hour's time. It hurts.

Tonight we are dropping a car off at church and walking to soup supper and Lenten service. It'll maybe make us feel not quite so guilty about eating so much of Cookie's breads....we've gotten to be spoiled at that church now that he's the cook at the Beta Sig house.

And Saturday...Saturday looks just beautiful and I'm thinking it might be a hiking day!!

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Monday, March 20, 2006

Trip-O-Logue, Spring Break 2005: The Condensed Version

A year ago, Paul and I went on our first real trip together after not even 6 months of dating. Because I started a new job and found myself an apartment as soon as we got back, I never got to the Trip-O-Logue for that trip and I have had all the pictures sitting on this computer at work for a year now, just waiting to be shared. So here we go, as best I can remember.

College Station, TX

There actually aren't very many pictures to share from this particular location. It was the reason for the trip, however. The Student American Veterinary Medicine Association (SAVMA) held their annual symposium at Texas A&M University in 2005 and Paul "dragged" me along. ;-) It was initially Sharon's idea to go to the symposium and then spend Spring Break camping our way back to Iowa. Sharon ended up not being able to make it, so it was just Paul and me.

This is the view of College Station from our hotel room at the Hilton, as we were getting ready to leave.

For lunch, after driving around for a little bit, our ability for finding good restaurants off the beaten path led us to The Chicken Oil Company. Interesting looking building and really good burgers. And I just discovered that it's the same company as the Dixie Chicken--no wonder it's good.

Since we were there, we decided to check out the George Bush Presidential Library. The thing goes on forever, but is very interesting and we would recommend popping in for a visit if you're in the area. This is a sculpture outside the Library that is made of part of the Berlin Wall.

March 14: Galveston, TX

I had never been to the Gulf Coast, so Paul decided I needed to go. We figured out the closest point to drive to: Galveston, TX. On our way there, we stopped by the Houston area and had supper with Jason, a friend of Paul and his sister. At supper I had my first experience with sushi. It's really not that bad, though I prefer the more cooked kind and discovered I really don't like ginger aside from a dried, ground spice in things. Pulling in to the state park at the beach at Galveston several hours later, we learned that they run the camping at Texas state parks by reservation. We were confused by this and weren't sure if we could take a spot at that point, so opted for a hotel for the night instead. The next morning we set up camp, then went to enjoy the somewhat chilly and very windy beach.

One of us being crazier than the other, as usual.

I'd also never been buried in sand before.

This is what a campsite at Galveston Island State Park looks like. I'd never seen shelter things like that before. And, yes, that's the ocean just past the fence.

March 15: NASA

It was pretty windy the day before, and this morning was getting downright stormy. We had planned to leave there anyway and head up to Houston to visit NASA--somewhere neither of us had ever been.

We always knew he was different from the rest of us. ;-)

And I got to touch a moon rock! Except that I was probably almost entirely touching oils from other people's hands, but it was cool regardless. :-)

This is the mock space station (er...part of it anyway), to prepare astronauts for being there.

March 16: Huntsville, TX

Huntsville was a beautiful state park that we wish we'd had more time to explore. The problem was that it was raining most of the time we were there. So we headed into town, found a great cafe for breakfast, and discovered that Huntsville, TX, is one of the best places in the country for good antiques. Good, as in not glassware/tchotchkes/collectibles. Great furniture that we someday want to decorate our house with--when we have the house and the money.

We also discovered that they really weren't kidding nor crazy when we were encouraged to go to the Texas Prison Museum there in Huntsville. You just really have to experience it for yourself, but it was surprisingly fascinating.

This was a really great campsite. We were, as you can see above, right by a lake with a lot of trees, and that's a screened-in shelter with picnic tables and a light. There also was a water faucet right there. Hopefully someday we'll go back and actually see the park more than a short walk around and sitting out on the dock at night.

March 17: Finding Nemo

I think I mentioned earlier that Paul and I have a talent for finding great restaurants off the beaten path--and even off the "off the beaten path." This is the smoker behind a little barbecue place called The Bunkhouse that we passed by the side of some road we were on, then turned around and went in for lunch. Excellent sandwiches that were carved up right in front of you.

Along the same road, I believe, we also stopped at a roadside outdoor "junk sale." After wandering around a bit, not interested by anything outside, we went in to this tiny little front room full of old guns and tools and things. The owner was in there working on something and Paul asked him if he knew of any place that he might be able to find a good set of longhorns to replace the ones he lost in the fire. We had found some pretty small ones at some of the antique stores, but Paul thought they were overpriced. The guy looked at us and said, "I've got some you might be interested in." Funny, we hadn't seen any around his sale, but he had us follow him through his cluttered, sawdusty shop, through a door into a closed roadside cafe. We hadn't even realized there was a cafe attached to the place! He stopped next to one of the tables, pointed at a beautiful set of longhorns that had probably been on the wall of that cafe for years, and said, "I'll give 'em to ya for $75." Paul didn't hesitate much before accepting the offer, and those horns are now decorating the living room of our trailer.

Dinosaur Valley, where we were hoping to spend the night, was entirely booked, but we sure enjoyed the footprints in the river. Amazing stuff.

Now no one can ever question that we found Nemo. :-)

For the night, we managed to find a bed & breakfast (Paul's idea), that would allow us to come in at 7 p.m., and that Paul talked around $70 off the price for. This was our room at the Iron Horse Inn in Granbury, TX.

March 18: Ft. Worth, TX

Our main stop in Ft. Worth was the stockyards. Cute little cowies.

We also discovered that they run this train around several times a day. It, however, is not a true, full steam locomotive, but with my love of trains, that was ok.

March 19: Lake Murray State Park, Oklahoma

This was our favorite. No reservations, no set campsites. We found the ranger, paid something like $5, and he told us to find somewhere in a certain area to tent, if all we wanted was a tent site, and down by the lake was fine, just make your own fire ring. It was beautiful, and we're pretty sure that the entire lake is state owned land because there wasn't a whole bunch of development around it.

This must be the time of year for prairie burns in Kansas because we saw one yesterday on the way home through Kansas this year, too.

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Trip-o-logue on the way....

Ya know, after we get the trailer cleaned up and ready to show this weekend. And then there are those stinkin' thank you notes. And I've got a newsletter to get done here at work. And Paul's studying for boards again, which kinda leaves me to get most things done again. And Paul's back to the wonderful on call/in house large animal schedule.

6 more weeks and he's free from that place!

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Monday, March 06, 2006

I'm getting too old for this

I hit the road Friday afternoon with an estimated time of arrival in Greenville of around 11 p.m., which is pretty typical for leaving after work. I was going along just fine, made it to Peoria a little before 9 and looped down around on 474 going a nice, steady, 65 mph, then came upon the junction with I-74 right before I-155 breaks off and I see a LONG line of cars and breaklights. Ten minutes later, I was still barely moving and my phone finally said 9:00, so I called Paul. Since I didn't know at that point what was going on up ahead, I thought maybe I could just stay in the far right lane and veer off on I-155 like I knew the road did. Well, came a little farther to see half a dozen cop cars up ahead and an ambulence blocking all but the far left lane and the shoulder. The accident was right before the I-155 turn off and I still could have made it over and gone down because other people were, but I was done and Paul had rightly talked me into driving only an extra 45 minutes to his parents' house. So I stayed on 74 and crashed on a nice comfy bed (which actually really made me miss Paul because it was his room--aka the guest room with its own bathroom) with a full night's sleep, got to see my in-laws, show my sister-in-law the professional proofs, and reclaimed a little piece of mind for my solo drive in the form of our jumper box/air compressor (it came in very handy on our last trip to Greenville) which had accidentally been left in Hudson.

I took a nice, leisurely scenic drive down to Greenville on Saturday because I knew Mandy had Core 401 that morning and that Melissa and Shannon were still on their way from Nashville. I decided to see if I could, by chance, find the cemetery that I, unfortunately, visited last May. It was surprisingly easy considering the fact that I wasn't personally driving it before. It is perhaps the most beautiful setting I have ever seen for a cemetery. If it were a more logical location, I'd say I might like to be buried there someday. I only wish that I had a picture to show you why it's so pretty. But, alas, I don't have any pictures from this weekend.

I tracked down Mandy, but she had a scholarship competition thing to do (which she didn't know about until 30 minutes prior to it), so I wandered around and saw some people I hadn't seen in a while, but wasn't necessarily all that good friends with. Still, it was fun to chat for a bit. During that time I also ran into my favorite professor--who couldn't make it to the wedding. It was fun to see her on campus on a Saturday. I wasn't expecting that. So Mandy and I finally got together and went for a walk around town and were walking down Durley Street past the dorm I lived in my senior year when a car slowed down like they were doing a double take--it was Melissa and Shannon! So they stopped and we chatted for a little, then planned for Melissa to come over to Mandy's apartment to find something more "wedding appropriate" to wear. For those of you who don't know or have never met Melissa--she doesn't dress girly, like, ever--unless it's for a costume. So we sent them off to the wedding, then hit up Chang's for some Chinese, then killed some time at Scott's Package Liquor before Melissa's concert at 9:30.

It was a small crowd for the concert and pretty much everyone was "with the band," but that makes it fun. :-) I, however, was photographer with Melissa's camera and, as soon as I can, I will share some pictures with ya'll as those were the only ones taken this weekend. The concert was wonderful, of course. You sometimes forget how great someone is until you hear them again and then think, "why in the heck has no one signed this girl yet!?" Following the concert, a bunch of us went out to Pokey. Pokey, for those who don't know, is the nearest 24-hour food to Greenville (excluding the McDonald's drive-thru, which became 24-hour in my short time there and it was a big deal! ;-)). Pokey is a truckstop just off I-70 in Pocahontas, IL, called Powhatan. We were enjoying our time there and I had noticed some alums (around 2003/2004 age, with me) at the next table over, but none of them were people I really ever knew. They got up to leave and a guy who'd had his back to me the whole time turned around and it was Bill Osmun! Bill, as some who have followed my life for a while may recall, is a really good friend of mine from GC. He transferred in from the University of Iowa, was in COM, and was just a really good friend. I went to his New Year's Eve wedding last year up in Chicago and he was really bummed he couldn't make it to mine this year. He didn't have long, but it was good just to see him. He had actually considered coming to Iowa this past weekend because his wife has been gone, too, but we were both glad that he'd decided on Greenville. Funny how those things work.

So following Pokey, we headed back to Mandy's apartment for some Gilmores. These were some of the founding members of the Gilmore Girls lounge parties on 2nd Burritt Annex. We didn't get very far into one, though, before we were all asleep because it was, um, way later than I should have still been up.

Sunday morning, I was the only one up and around before 9 when Shannon and Melissa woke up and said goodbye because I was headed to church and they were leaving before I'd be back. It was really amazing experiencing the new church building as a place of worship and not just a soon-to-be-place of worship. I have to admit that I was rather distracted during the service. But, as always, everyone was excited to see me and hear about married life. The pastor and his family had me over for lunch and to look at wedding pictures and I left a bit later than I'd hoped to, but that was ok. I got on the road and called Paul, who I knew was meeting with a chaplain about starting a dairy farm in NW Iowa (long story), and he finally picked up on my second try and was still meeting with the guy, so I let them alone and told Paul to call me when he got done. I was ready for him to call on the whole duration of I-74, but he didn't get away until I was even past Iowa City and coming up on Exit 201 (aka FREE ICE CREAM!). And by that time, I was really ready to just crawl into bed and fall asleep. It was not cool, but I made it and I slept and I'm still trying to catch up on sleep.

I have decided that I don't think I'm going to try to pretend that I'm still in undergrad again. As much fun as I may have, I really like sleep. And I really like my husband, which really doesn't have a lot to do with this, but I just thought I'd make sure ya'll didn't forget. :-) Oh yeah, and thunderstorms are wicked cool, too.

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Wednesday, March 01, 2006

I count it all as time well wasted

And for all my wonderful well wasted time, I have decided to take on the daunting task of spring cleaning our 1000 square foot trailer that I'm not sure has ever been "spring cleaned" since Paul moved into it in Fall 2002. However, I discovered this a necessity when I began to tackle cleaning and organizing the second bedroom/office. The whole place needs to have everything pulled out and asked the question: "do we really need this?" Like, for example, "do we really need this huge empty hat box that is just taking up room on the shelf in our closet--room that could be used for bedding and such?" It is by no means in perfect shape, but it's starting to look a lot better than it did and I have been getting rid of a ton of stuff. Every week for the past two I've brought at least one load of items to donate to the rummage sale here at Collegiate. And by a load I don't mean just one trip from the car into the church. :-) I only wish I had more time to concentrate solely on this task, but even so, I am getting the job done.

So my time well wasted during these 5 weeks without my wonderful husband around has included the following:

1.) Visiting Meg in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. She's a good friend from Greenville, made the cake for my wedding (which she agreed to do even before Paul proposed ;-)), and, two days after I saw her, she moved out to Montana. I'm going to miss that scenic route back from Greenville the times I decided to see her on my way home, but I hope she finds all the amazing things I know God has planned for her out in a state that I plan to use seeing her as an excuse to visit for the first time. :-)

2.) Took a 3.5 day weekend to visit Paul.

This is filed under "Things I Really Wasn't Planning To Do." But I am oh-so-glad I did! It was so fun to see his surroundings and explore some of the area with him. Plus, I just really, really liked seeing my husband. :-) For those who don't know what we did, click the picture and go down to February 19 for his posts (with pictures).

3.) Free Bowling. Seriously, how can you pass something like that up? I'd been working all day on the house and Sharon called me because they needed another two people for their bowling team, so Sharon, Angela, Jon, and I all went bowling for free at the Memorial Union. It was a ton of fun. At one point we had to switch lanes because the one we started on decided to just quit working right. And I started off with the highest score of the night: 106. I ended with the lowest score of the night: 60. I'm the coolest ever! I even took a class in it. Bowling, that is, not being cool. :-)

4.) Reliving my college days. I'm looking forward to this one. I leave right after work this afternoon.

Not only am I staying with Mandy, but I'm getting to see Melissa (far left) and Shannon (far right). I only wish Ariane were going to be there. That would mean I'd get to see all my 2BA girls who really helped me keep my sanity my senior year. Well, ok, I'd be missing Erin Donelan, but I've at least seen her since I graduated. I haven't seen Melissa or Shannon since my graduation party in May 2004 because they moved to Nashville the next year and couldn't make it to the wedding. That is what is truly exciting about this weekend--plus seeing Our Redeemer's new building and attending services there! I've just got to remember not to go to the old church! I had a thought the other day that I could walk to church for old time's sake, then remembered that that will now be a fairly long walk--not that I've never walked out there from campus. Heck, I've walked out to the lake and back from campus! OK, for fun, here's the lovely Greenville, IL, from Google Earth with markers for where these things are. Greenville is one of the places on Google Earth that doesn't have good satellite imagery. :-)

(Yes, I started this on Wednesday and they took away my ability to change the date and time of the post. I'm not sure why.)

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