Thanksgiving pt. 1

I really love Thanksgiving, but it's always hard to be away from home for it. I'd thought when we first got married that maybe we would do Thanksgiving in Atlanta and Christmas in Indiana-- Christmas means a lot more to Jeremy's family and Thanksgiving to mine. In the end, I think it's nice to switch it up, and this year has been particularly great with having a whole 9 days off to come up and really spend time with Josh and Sarah!

We drove up to Memphis first on Saturday, and I got to meet some of my amazing extended Alpha family and help out with KO's (my home chapter) elections! I got some great ideas from that to bring back to Gamma Sigma, so I'm excited to propose those for next year.

Andrea, my Great Grand Little! She's from the Atlanta area, so I'm excited to get to see her when she's home from breaks!

Maggie and Morgan are on either end-- they're my Great Great Great Grand Littles, and Sam is next to me in red, and she is their big sis, my Great Great Grand Little!

I love meeting my Alpha family, and it was so wonderful for them to be as excited as I was! They seem like really amazing girls and I can't wait to meet my Great Great Great Great Grand Littles next year!! 

Monday Monday!

OK, so back to Memphis for a brief period of time... Monday we got to spend time playing with Ana and having fun, we cooked lunch (my new favorite stuffed zucchini), and then we hopped in the car to head home.

Ana walked around the back yard with Grandma for a while 

Then she put on her new princess sunglasses and played with sidewalk chalk!

 

And then learned a little about badminton!

 

Then she hopped in the old car and drove around

 

We went inside to eat a mid-morning snack and Ana helped me make miso soup!

Then we made a funky alien headband with pipe cleaners

After that, she lint rolled Uncle Jeremy-- he was much cleaner after that!

Saturday

Saturday was also excellent-- I went shopping with Sophia and got a ton of cute stuff! OK, maybe not a TON, but a handful or two :)

The GAP outlet in Tunica is probably the best outlet I've been to-- I always manage to find something I really like at a great price. You would think the great price part would be guaranteed at an outlet, but not so mon frere! The GAP and The Children's Place were the only ones having sales, so I picked up some stuff for me and some stuff for Violet, then a couple of kitchen items we needed for back home.

Sophia and I had a blast at the shoe store where not only did we find jellies, but Sophia decided she wanted to try on the most ridiculous shoes she could find!

CLEARLY we were having a good day! I went to Target afterwards and found some shorts for Jeremy, then got my toe ran over with a shopping cart-- people are so rude! After getting it to stop bleeding, someone spit gum on it on my way to Office Max! Unbelievable.

We got home, got ready, and raced over to see Charles and Krystal-- the older kids weren't there, but we had some amazing lasagna, got to hang out with little Felix and hear about Charles's newfound place at the police academy. We ended the night by watching some Top Gear; how awesome is that?

Felix!

Jeremy teaches Felix how to play Angry Birds

Felix tries to help Jack with his sound mixing

Me and Krystal-- so glad she's back stateside!

Krystal and Charles were stationed in Japan for a while, but I'm so excited they're back in the states and I get to see Krystal now and again. It's funny, we were never entirely close at Rhodes, but I guess we just always got along really well and bonded more than either of us ever knew!

Friday, Friday, Friday!

Friday was totally low key, it was AMAZING! I did a little bit of work and then watched HGTV and a very cool show on the History Channel about acids! Jeremy and Marc went to Lenny's sub shop for lunch and brought me back an Italian which was sooooooooo good! I miss Lenny's a lot... definitely going to take advantage of the one up by Emmy's more often!

Friday night, we went to a new restaurant in Hernando called Buon Cibo-- it was Panera/Atlanta Bread Company kind of food for the same kind of price, and it was surprisingly good. Marc had a Cuban sandwich (that he said was nearly as good as the ones he used to get in Miami) and a cup of roasted red pepper soup (which was delicious, and much less of a bisque than we expected!), Jan had a Chef's Salad, Jeremy got a ginormous meatloaf sandwich with house chips (also delicious!), and I had an apple/walnut/bleu cheese salad and a cup of coconut chicken soup. My salad was good, but I would have preferred for the apples and walnuts to be chopped so I was able to mix the flavors a little more, but it was sopping with dressing which is just the way I like it! Jan loved her salad because of the addition of pickled onions which were very well done! The whole thing was apparently started by a chef who used to run a restaurant in Memphis, and it's a nice little startup, so I hope it lasts. There aren't a lot of healthy, affordable options in the area and this is a decent alternative to Sonic!

To end the night, we decided to watch the original Tron which we got Jan for mother's day! It was a lot of fun since the Clarks hadn't seen it in ages and I'd never seen it! It was an interesting story line, and how awesome to see young Jeff Daniels-- The Dude was a suave looking youngster! I also got interested in the timeline from the original Tron and Tron: Legacy.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving Dinner was a hit this year and, as always, went off without a hitch! I know everyone has some exciting story about Thanksgiving, and I guess I do have one but it always slips my mind-- I'll throw that in after the pictures.

In addition to us, mom, David, and Casey, mom's friend Sharon and her son Alex came, as well as Michael and the kids and Emmy-- a fantastic crowd! We spent the day cleaning, cooking, and watching what ended up being a mini-Rourke marathon with Iron Man 2 and The Expendables. I cooked a sweet potato casserole (which everyone said was the best they'd ever had!), and did the turkey and stuffing/dressing, plus the cranberry sauce-- all of these were first time experiences for me and they all came out amazing!

Pictures, of course, for your viewing pleasure:

Belle perked up when she saw mom with ham

So we treated her-- it's Thanksgiving after all!

The tongs from the ham fell on the floor-- guilty much?

mom's pretty mantle. Even if the teensy lightshade is tippled...

Jeremy and Sharon work the logistics of getting the bird to the carving plate

VICTORY!

I carve the turkey!

Everyone waiting for dinner

Violet used my old records as weapons of mass distraction

"I can have some, yeeeeeesssss?"

FOOD! (without the sweet potato casserole, that was warming in the oven)

Pretty table

Violet instructs Uncle Jeremy on the finer points of what will eventually go in her belly

Michael's been beaten and Violet realizes that there's food on Aunt Meg's plate to steal now!

We shall see this mischievous look more than once in her life!

It was a great meal and great company, I'm so glad we all got to come together!

My fun Thanksgiving story, for posterity:

It was my first year at the airline and I was living in Memphis. I had to work the day after Thanksgiving, so I'd flown in to Atlanta a couple of days before and flew back on Thanksgiving day (fantastic day to travel, btw, business class was just me and another FA!). As the plane was taking off in Atlanta, I realized that I had not bought a turkey or even turkey breasts! When I landed, I called Amy to see if she knew of anywhere that would still be open and the only place we could think of was the Middle Eastern market so I went and got chicken breasts. We were having Jeremy and Ashley over for dinner, and I think Zac as well, and we'd been cooking up a storm when Ashley called to say she was there-- I went out to meet her and then Jeremy got there and I completely forgot about the chicken in the oven! It was sooo dried out it was nearly inedible, and we dug through the fridge and covered them with BBQ Sauce and Ashley opted for ketchup. It was still a great Thanksgiving, though!

Memphis and Analia

Of course I wrote about going to see Ana and Valerie in Memphis, but since I left my camera there I couldn't share any of the few pictures I got! There aren't really any pictures of her, me, and Jeremy which is what I really wanted, but you know...

"Come on, Aunt Meg!"

Jan and Ana

Ana and me

I thought this one was pretty cute

She loved eating the ice cubes out of Jan's mug

And playing with my Blackberry and Jan's iPhone!

She's such a sweet girl, I really wish we got to see her more often. Hopefully, Matt and Valerie will re-use their plan to leave Ana in the States when they go pick up the boys in Africa so we can see her some more!

Eeexhausted

We're in Memphis, the drive up was nice and uneventful, and we found out that the other interested party at the Solarium dropped the date so we have a place for the reception now!!

The English Dept. isn't doing a reception tomorrow, so all I have is the AOII tea which should be fun since there are so many people who will be there that I haven't seen in forever! On the down side, the bridal shower we all rushed to throw together only has FOUR PEOPLE coming. I'm really upset. I set it this weekend because people said they'd be able to come and now everyone's saying they can't make it. GARGH.

I guess that's really about all. I just got bored and wanted to say something. Keep your fingers crossed that more people RSVP for this stinking shower so that we're not all just staring at each other. *sigh*

Or something?

So I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted in Memphis, which was sad, but c'est la vie. I got pictures with some of my favorite people, so that was good :)

Friday was good, I wandered around campus and ran in to a bunch of professors and friends, walked a WHOLE lot which was probably good for me since I kept bouncing from place to place with friend after friend! I do miss that about Rhodes-- if you're ever bored, all you really have to do is just walk around campus and you'll run in to a good number of people!

Thankfully, the sick went away pretty quickly after Wednesday night. My stomach was a little rocky for a few days, but I powered through-- nothing's gonna keep me from Central BBQ!

Friday night we went to dinner with Jan and Marc and then helped them pack, showed Jan all the stuff I picked up for the boys, and hit the hay!

Saturday morning I got up early and went in for an early lunch with Sophia at Central, then headed over to help out with Bid Day and ended up getting tons of balloons for them at Party City! It was great to see the girls again, and my friend Mary ended up going AOII!! I was SO excited! (still am, in fact) After that, I headed back down to Southaven and chilled out for a while before Wayne and Amanda came over. My back went out so we missed going to Sophia's birthday party and seeing Megan (my globe-trotting Watson Fellow friend; because two Megans are better than one), but it was really great seeing those two, especially Amanda since she lives in Seattle now!

Sunday we got up and had to head back home since there had been some issues while we were gone. Jeremy's birthday ended nicely, even if the True Blood finale was the worst season finale ever, and we went home to start our work week!

Here are some pictures, surely there will be more after this weekend's race and general friend hanging outs.

Balloons filling the Panda!

Me and my Grand Little Jill!

Me and the balloons in the Panda

Me and my Rose Buddy, Lissa!

Graduation '09

Well, all my little babies graduated yesterday-- it was a wonderful day and I'm so proud of them! I came primarily to see Caroline, Valisa, and Dustin and secondarily for T-bo, Barnish, and Lindsey. I just can't believe they all graduated already! It seems like just yesterday, Caroline was a senior in high school staying her overnight with me at Rhodes my sophomore year.

They're all off to do good things-- Caroline is going to Paris to teach English for a year, Valisa is going to take some much needed and deserved time off (the girl had her hand in sooo many pots!), Dustin's headed to DC to be an Economic genius, T-bo is headed to law school, Lindsey to DC, and Barnish back up to NY/NJ to do some financial type stuff as well. It dazzles me how much these kids have grown.

Because of eminent rain, they decided to have it at nobody's favorite rain location, the Mississippi Boulevard Church. I've been to one other graduation there and it was awfuuuull. The church gets *really* hot because so many people cram in to it, and unlike Fisher Gardens there isn't a breeze. Pretty much everyone agrees they'd rather get rained on in Fisher Gardens than stuffed in to MBCC. Plus, the lighting was awful, I tried to take pictures from the balcony and they all turned out like dark and fuzzy. And, the most fantastic thing? It never actually rained. The rain disappeared. They also forgot to announce honors societies and majors (Usually it would go, "Caroline Cancelosi, English Literature, Sigma Tau Delta" but yesterday it was just, "Caroline Cancelosi"), and they forogt to print the honors societies in the programs, and forgot to put in the Bonner Scholars' red Chucks.

Afterwards, though, was really nice-- I saw Cord, who is a TOTAL goofball and will be at UGA next year, and Ian, who I knew when he first came to Rhodes after active duty in Iraq. We caught up with Dustin, Kate and Caroline, but hardly saw anyone else. Though I did get to say hi and give hugs to Rob Dove (the world's tallest hippie counselor) and Kenny Morrell (the world's tallest Latin professor) since they were the only people I could find in the crowd.

When everything had just about thinned out, Sophia and I ran in to Leonard (from our class) and went to Fresh Slices in Midtown. I like the food at Fresh Slices, but I'm not too sure I'll be going back. It took soooo long, they don't have lemons (though they insist that lime is perfectly acceptable for sweet tea), even though all their sandwiches are over $7 and most are over $8.50, very few of them actually come with fries, and have I mentioned it took forever to get our food? I know they were busy, but we sat with empty cups for a long time (which resulted in not getting anything else because they ran out of sweet tea which is what Leonard and I were drinking-- the waiter squeezed a little out for us, but I think it was mostly because we were a little grumpy. We were hungry!) and it took 45 minutes for Leonard to get a Caesar salad (lettuce, parm, croutons, side of Caesar dressing) and almost 2 hours for us to get the two Phillys and a pizza! When we finally did get our food, Sophia was halfway through her sandwich before she got her fries! Funny story, though, we DID run in to Lindsey again-- every time Sophia and I have gone out to dinner in Memphis the last two months, we've run in to Lindsey! Chili's last time I was up, Bosco's on Friday, and then Fresh Slices yesterday!

Aaaanyway, after lunch Leonard went back to grad-schooling, Fia left for home (Mobile), and I went to see Valisa. I'd just missed them at the apartment, so I hung out with Brian and Carrie for a while which was really great-- I miss those two, and I'm SO happy they got together, they're pretty darn cute. :) After that, I talked to Jeremy for a while, then went over to see the girls and change since I knew Caroline would be back. I helped them pack up a little and Caroline headed out to dinner with her parents, I kinda teared up a little sending her off-- my little headed to France! I finished helping Valisa out and helped her brother carry all the stuff down to the hallway. Her dad has a flatbed truck, so he'd built a big crate on it to put all her stuff in, which happened to be almost the same size as one of the ol' RJ bins! I hopped up and stuffed it all in with no problem and said my goodbyes to Valisa. And teared up a little again. I'll see V later this summer, though, when I go to Austin! It was nice to meet both of their families-- Caroline looks EXACTLY like her mother, I mean almost moreso than me and MY mom! There is absolutely no mistaking the genetics there! And, of course, Valisa's family is just as sweet and funny as she is.

After seeing them off, I went out with Wayne and Brunner for a drink (aka more sweet tea) and then came home and CRASHED. I just shoved everything off the bed, put on some Deadliest Catch and was out halfway through! Now, I'm going to go warm up the rest of my sandwich from Outback and settle in to watch a movie or something. I need to call AJ, but I'll give her a shout later-- I'm still a little worn out from this weekend, and I need to run up to Target to get some sunglasses and throat lozenges. Whatever I started catching, I kind of beat it back, but it's threatening to resurface!

Ciao for now!

Fooooooood is expensive

So I went to Whole Foods last week and found out they do sushi platters now! And they're reasonably priced, too! The only problem is that I keep adding more food and it keeps getting more and more expensive... my budget hasn't taken a complete nosedive yet since I only spent $100 on the dress (budgeted $300) and we'll get Jeremy's tux for free (budgeted $150) but still... Maybe I'll get lucky and find some of the veggies and stuff on sale that week. I'm also looking at doing breakfast for the wedding party on Sunday before everyone leaves, so we'll see.

I'm in Memphis for Rhodes' graduation tomorrow-- I can't believe Valisa and Caroline are graduating! It seems like just yesterday Caroline was a senior in high school! I'm really excited about the presents I got for them, and Caro will be able to take hers to France this fall when she goes to teach. All these people living abroad, what am I going to do?!

Last night, I got in and went to dinner with Sophia-- we went to Bosco's and split a few things and only spent about $15 each! (Bosco's, for those of you who aren't familiar, is frickin' expensive. You know, the type of place with $10 appetizers) Then, on our way out, we ran in to some people we knew from Rhodes and talked to them for a while, and then went and got a beer with Ashley and her friend Ryan. I came home later than I intended, but it was a really good night and once I finally got to sleep, I slept pretty well. I thought I was coming down with something, but so far it hasn't caught up with me so I'm hoping I caught it in time.

Tomorrow is graduation and whatever Caro and V want to do after their families head back to Jersey and Texas, and then probably hanging out with Brunner and Wayne tomorrow night. I don't really have much planned for Sunday, then driving back on Monday... I need to leave early as I forgot to put work shoes in the back of my car so I could just go straight in. Oh, wells.

Ciao for now!

Driving Rain

As in, "Brings new meaning to the term..."

A LOT has happened in the last few days, I'm so exhausted I'm falling asleep, so I'll just post about the drive up on Thursday which was way less eventful than the last two!

I left at about 11a on Thursday, which was an hour later than I had intended since I wanted to get here early afternoon, but there had been a totally wicked storm on Wednesday night/early Thursday morning so I decided it would be better to sleep a little late and therefore miss the rain since it was supposed to blow through-- the radar looked totally clear when I left... SURPRISE! I got to Irondale (about 20mi outside Birmingham) and there was a mini monsoon! I could see about five to ten feet in front of me so I kept on going, but I didn't get out of it until I hit the city limits. Thank goodness I didn't have to go 20 through B'ham in that-- it's crazy enough on a clear day, and even worse on a rainy one!! Once I got through Birmingham, it was pretty clear sailing

...

Until I got to Tupelo where the rain was even WORSE! It got so bad, I pulled off and sat at a gas station for a few minutes to let it pass (and it just so happened I had to use the restroom and re-start my iTunes), it was so strong when I parked my car in front of the door that I couldn't even see the door from where I was sitting. Absolute insanity. Oh, and that was about 350mi of straight driving without stopping. I am a god.dess.

I got back on the road and filled up again past Pontotoc, and was totally stoked to see that I got at least 37mpg on the trip up! Yeah 12 year old beat up station wagon! I probably could have gotten 40mpg (I have once or twice before), but since the exits are a little inconsistent between Tupelo and Olive Branch on 78 I decided it was better safe than sorry.

Got to Southaven about 430p, which was just over 6 hours including the stop in Tupelo-- totally awesome time. I talked to Jan for a little while and got my stuff out of the car, then went to pick Sophia up to have dinner with Caro and Valisa. I got on the interstate and talked to Jeremy for a few, and then some nasty lightning started up over Olive Branch and then the rain came. More torrential rain up to midtown and all the way to Buffalo Wild Wings, but I did get to catch up with my babies which was really exciting! Also, BWW was totally yummy. I miss it. Though I have to say the service at the one in Southaven is WAY better. Mine and Fia's Blue Moons weren't served with an orange, and then when I asked for orange slices, the waitress thought we wanted them to snack on before our food got there or something. I told the manager on the way out; I don't care how snobby it sounds-- if you're going to serve premium beer, you need to serve it properly. Plus, it takes forever to get food there, the servers are almost unintelligible, and the last time Sophia was there, the waitress didn't bring them forks and when they did get someone to bring them silverware... she brought them one fork! For three of them!

Went window shopping with Sophia at Shoenami and Old Navy, then we went up to the brand new Target by Emily (the one I went to brunch with last weekend) which is big and shiny and RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME. I mean, we all know I love me some Target, but this one is probably the best of all Targets put together. Even if it doesn't have a cart escalator. (I was going to put up these pictures of Dill as exemplary photos, but the internet is being slow so I shall just link them one by one) I picked up Oceans 13 for Jeremy (which we saw like three times in theatres right before we started dating), The Essential Journey for myself (because if you don't love Journey, or at the very least "Don't Stop Believin'", you're just not human), and I found serving platters for the wedding on sale for $4 off!! There were only two, so I went ahead and grabbed them, though I should have picked up a couple of rain checks to make sure I could pick up two more if I wanted them... maybe I'll see if they're on sale at the Southaven Target tomorrow.

I dropped Fia off after that and headed home. About a mile from the house, my battery light and brake light all of the sudden came on and my steering got really tight, I pulled in to the driveway and turned the car off, and turned it back on to make sure it was still working and it was-- the solution to that will come with Friday's story. I also realized that I was supposed to go over my resume with Amy on Friday but had forgotten my jump drive with the whole kit and caboodle on it at home, but I had it somewhere in Gmail (love the search feature! and the saving of sent mail!) so I tried to get on the wireless... only to realize that even had my computer not crashed and wiped all the wireless settings, I had actually never USED this computer here. I left Jan a note to see if she had the wireless key and Marc a note about the strange lights in my car and headed to bed.

Coming Up: I cancel an appointment, shell out $140, and apparently manage to dodge death and stymie the JiffyLube boys!

Catching Up

Well, the last week has been pretty interesting and full of stories to tell! It didn't start until Thursday, obviously, but that night we had Strike Out which was a huge hit! The girls did a really great job organizing it (they did a bowling tourney) and it went off without a hitch. Lizzy and I went and hung out for a while, kept an eye on things, but bailed early since they obviously had everything under control and we had things to do in the morning.

Friday, I went out to Stone Mountain to meet with India, Becky, and Danielle to check out the potential venue for formal! I'm really excited, I can't say anything because we haven't announced it to the chapter (and I think some of the girls check my blog from Facebook, at the very least have the opportunity to!) but WOW it's going to be great!! I'll put up the picture of me, India, and Danielle with all the details as soon as it gets announced because I am super pumped. I do get the joy of checking names at the door, and imparting the severity of misbehaviour on our night of frivolity, but it should still be a blast.

We went out for lunch afterwards at Applebees (first time ever at an Applebees) where I had some not-half-bad hot wings. After that, I went to the PO and got all the rest of my baby presents shipped off and picked up postage for save the dates, which got dropped at the PO tonight. I also went by Target and found my wedding invitations! They're really cute, flat white invitations with a black ribbon that go in to little silver pockets. I'm very excited-- they're about $15/pack more than I originally wanted, but they're definitely the style I want. I'm really excited!

Saturday was the super exciting day-- it started with a Foundation breakfast at 9a (ungodly time for a Saturday breakfast, IMO) to which I drove in the pouring, nay torrential, rain that we got all day long. The breakfast was nice, and I met some really great women, and the food was tres magnifique!

After the breakfast, I went for brunch with some of my old high school friends who are still around. Emily (who went to Rhodes with me, we actually didn't get along at ALL in High School), Catherine, and Meg (who just had the baby) met me at Carpe Diem and we hung out for hours. Catherine and I got there first, and thought bottomless mimosas would be an awesome idea...

To the right, there is the regular mimosa Emily got... in the foreground, the first of mine and Catherine's drinks. We had four. And over at Carpe Diem, they make true to their name-- we probably drank at least a bottle of champagne each!! It didn't quite hit us until the third round that there was way more champagne in our drinks than OJ or peach (since I switched to bellinis) and we had about two to three times the drink Emily did! The food, of course, was freaking awesome. Carpe Diem's a little on the pricey side, but it's always worth it. I only had a biscut and some grits since I'd eaten at the breakfast, but I munched off of Catherine's french toast and Emily's head-sized omlette (Meg didn't have leftovers... that whole breastfeeding mom thing!) so I still had plenty to eat. We all felt like old ladies by the end of it because all we talked about was babies, birth control (Catherine's going to start trying to get pregnant in June!!), weddings, and toddler poop. We passed baby Vi around before she fell asleep, which she did quickly and quietly-- I know she's only a month old, but she's so easy, we were all impressed. Meg says she barely cries, just kind of chills out and eats like a good little girl! The waitress to a picture of us all for posterity, it's probably one of my favorite recent photographs!

After that, we went to Catherine's and met her puppy, Bruno, a miniature pinscher who is absolutely adorable. I mean, terrifying... yeah, terrifying, right Caq? She and Emily went to see her family and her old, sick cat, and I went home to take a nap.. thanks bottomless mimosas... I ended up sleeping for four hours and missing the staff meeting, but it wasn't that big of a deal. The only painful part was the champagne catching up to me... I don't drink it often enough to really remember that I don't get along with champagne... at all. Not even the really good stuff! Prosecco for me, thank you very much!

Sunday, I went down to Columbus, GA for a Foundation talk at the new chapter down there-- it was really exciting to meet a chapter who hadn't even taken their membership exam yet, I've never been to one that young! They also just had their first Strike Out and raised over $1100 for Arthritis Research!!! Gooooo CSU AOII! On my way back, I picked up an adaptor for my laptop plug so I could listen to music while I drive (since it's only $30 and a new radio/cd player is like $150+) and jammed all the way back up 85N!

Thursday morning, I'm leaving for Memphis to go to Heather's birthday dinner, and the hockey game, and see some of my friends up there. I'm really excited, as much as I dislike Memphis, I really do miss my friends a lot. Next Thursday, I head down to Florida to see Jeremy!! Yaaay! I'll have two good bottles of wine and I'm going to pick up some fish when I'm down there and make a delicious dinner for him.

Now, however, it's time for bed. I'm up about three hours later than I meant to be... I gotta stop snacking before I go to bed-- I spend too much time eating chips and salsa!

Ciao for now, dears!

Heee

The upside of the starter being dead is that I didn't have to take dad to the doctor this morning (he rescheduled for April anyway, for the eye embolism thingy) so I've been all over BSG all day long. The marathon goes straight through to the series finale tonight, so that's just about 12 hours straight! It's been fun because I have a few other friends doing the same thing so we've been talking all day and laughing at some of the funny little things they do.

Where my wisdom teeth were is hurting really badly, like it did before I had them all taken out, which was supposed to fix them. The oral surgeon was convinced it was my molars (all four of my back molars need to be crowned thanks to that horrible horrible dentist from back in the day) that were causing the pain, but it's more of an ache. It throbs and stays with me, I really dislike it. From what I hear, if it were something to do with the roots or nerves, it would hurt a lot worse than this, it would require major painkillers. This feels better when I chew gum or something, kind of like when you have an itch that feels better when you scratch it.

Also, there is a preview for Fast and the Furious (4) which will come out next month... I'm thinking Jeremy and I might have to break our no movies rule and go see it when I go down to see him at the beginning of the month! I did get my tax return today, so I'm going to let it sit and earn interest for a short while, then leave some there, pay off completely one of my credit cards, and buy my ticket to Austin to see Dill this summer!! Whatever's left will go back to savings to sit there for the wedding and moving.

Congrats for making it this far, I know my tooth pain and penchant for cheesy movies is totally what everyone wants to hear about. I have been considering going to grad school if we end up in Memphis next year. I don't know much about U of M's graduate programs, but if we're in Memphis it's because I couldn't find a job, so going to grad school would be something to do and it would help defer my loans further so we could pay down Jeremy's (which has the higher interest rate). I've been considering a lot of different graduate programs, but I think I'd really like to study linguistics. It's a subject that's always really grabbed my attention, something that I think is at the root of everything we analyze and are confused about in the world. I'm sure there are other things that would be fun, journalism say, but I think linguistics would really challenge my brain and I would really enjoy it.

Oh, well, off to make dinner. Ciao for now!