where is your coat?

The other day Cory's sister and I went out to eat for a late lunch with Corys mom. After lunch Kristi and I decided to go shopping and check out a new store down in Ferndale (a little town south from where we live) on our way down there we were driving through some neighborhoods, school was out by this point so kids were being dropped off at bus stops and running to their houses, I'm guessing it wasn't because they were excited to be home but because they were cold because none of the kids were wearing their coats! I never understood how one could leave their coats at school or on the bus in the middle of winter. Maybe its because I'm a girl (it seems like more often than not its the boys that leave their coats). But don't people think, oh hey, its snowing, it must mean its cold out so I need my jacket? or don't they go outside and wonder why its so cold out and then realize they don't have their coat?

I was thinking about this again earlier this morning and think that if a parent can get in trouble for sending a child to school without a coat, then the teacher/school should get in trouble for letting the child leave school without their coat if they went to school with one.

odd coincidence

Today I took the GMAT. I don't get my official score for 20 days because they have to have an actual person grade the written part. Needless to say I'm a bit nervous to get it. Anyways, this morning as I was getting ready I started to think about school and how academics are not the only important thing that you learn/need to learn in school and how the social skills that you also learn are very important. AND GUESS WHAT! That is what my second writing portion on my exam was on! I was pretty excited seeing how it was already in the front of my mind once today :)

A beggar? At church?

Cory and I have been trying out new churches the past few weeks. We've been talking about doing it since we've moved down here but have been putting it off and have ended up at Christ the Redeemer (where we got married) on Sundays. This past week went to a church close enough to to our apartment that we were able to ride our bikes there, which was really nice. the church was ok, we didn't realize that the priest was a guest that week until the end, which makes all the difference because the priest was the same person that married our friends last summer at another church and we didn't really care for him then either. We will most likely go back so that we can see how we like it with the regular priest.

When we were leaving church we saw something that we did not expect to see, especially at church. It was a beggar. She was holding a sign that read "I have 5 kids and have no job, need mone for food and clothes" (yes, money was spelled wrong) I was a little astonished because who holds a sign outside of church like that, AND on top of that, she had her kids stationed around the parking lot and at all the exists holding signs! I think there are much better ways to get money if you are in need of it then begging out side of church when everyone is leaving like going and talking to the pastor to see if he can help. I think what she was doing was almost taking advantage of all of the people leaving because she knew that they would be in a more generous mood and more likely to give money after church. oh and no, she wasn't there before mass started either.

a beggar? At church?

Cory and I have been trying out new churches the past few weeks. We've been talking about doing it since we've moved down here but have been putting it off and have ended up at Christ the Redeemer (where we got married) on Sundays. This past week went to a church close enough to to our apartment that we were able to ride our bikes there, which was really nice. the church was ok, we didn't realize that the priest was a guest that week until the end, which makes all the difference because the priest was the same person that married our friends last summer at another church and we didn't really care for him then either. We will most likely go back so that we can see how we like it with the regular priest.

When we were leaving church we saw something that we did not expect to see, especially at church. It was a beggar. She was holding a sign that read "I have 5 kids and have no job, need mone for food and clothes" (yes, money was spelled wrong) I was a little astonished because who holds a sign outside of church like that, AND on top of that, she had her kids stationed around the parking lot and at all the exists holding signs! I think there are much better ways to get money if you are in need of it then begging out side of church when everyone is leaving like going and talking to the pastor to see if he can help. I think what she was doing was almost taking advantage of all of the people leaving because she knew that they would be in a more generous mood and more likely to give money after church. oh and no, she wasn't there before mass started either.

Shopping at the in-laws

Yesterday I was talking to Golda and I realized something. About 2/3 of our furniture is from Cory's parents basement. lol. This past weekend Cory and I went "shopping" in their basement again. This time we came home with chairs for our dining room table (FINALLY!) and a computer desk chair. Other things that we have acquired from their basement include a coffee table, couches, and lamps. We've also acquired a book shelf and lamp from Cory's sister. And our table originally came from Cory's parents house too.

Our apartment is slowly coming more together, we have also gotten a real TV stand from IKEA along with a really nice office desk off of Craigslist. There's one slight problem with the TV stand though. The one we got is just one section of an entertainment center and we didn't think about measuring our tv before we bought it. Because of this, we can't ever buy the rest of it because its 2 bookshelves, on on each side, and a little section that screws into the top of the bookshelves to connect it all together. Well, our TV is about an inch too big on each side so it wont work :( I think thats the one bad thing about having a huge tv.

Cory and I are pretty much moved into our new apartment now! YAY! We still need to get some furniture but we are slowing acquiring it. We have Cory's parents old couches and his aunts old coffee table which he refinished. Kristi also gave us an old lamp and book shelf too. we still need to get a stand for our tv along with night stands and furniture for our guest room. We're really not worried about stuff for the guest room at this moment though.... we'll probably wait until we know that we are going to have a visitor before we do. Here are some pictures of our new place.. I'm sure by the pictures alone you can tell that its quiet a bit larger than the old place!

Timberlea Village

In case you haven't heard....Cory and I found an Apartment!! AND it's 3 times the size of our current place!!! We went down state last weekend to go apartment hunting, we looked online to narrow down our search of places we wanted to look at before we left so we weren't overwhelmed. One of the places on our list was a place where a couple of our friends, Mike and Karly, used to live. We knew we liked it but wanted to look at a few other places just in case something was nicer. We ended up going with where they used to live.

We're moving on the 14th as long as the weather is nice, other wise Cory will leave a day or two earlier and then I will drive down by myself on the 14th because I have to work on Thursday. We're both starting to get excited too and have started the packing process. It's kind of hard to pack with a week and a half left because we doing know what we are going to need between now and then and on top of that we don't really have anywhere to put the boxes once they are packed.

Meat Loaf.

I don't work until 1p.m. today so I get to watch the tail end of the Today show before I take a shower. They're doing the "In the Kitchen" segment and making meat loaf. I think I'm a little snooty when it comes to meat loaf, as odd as that may be. The only meat loaf I like is moms, every other kind just doesn't taste good too me. Cory made some recently and it wasn't horrible, but it just wasn't quite there. I made moms recipe a few months back and I think I convinced him that that recipe is the only one to use. He literally acted like it was from a 5 star restaurant.. it was pretty funny. He now gets extra excited whenever I make that or meat balls haha! So, props to you mom for the best meat loaf! :)

Cory decided to go ahead and take the job downstate! He still hasn't received the official offer in the mail yet, but we do know that Mitch, the employer, has raised the starting salary by 4.5%. Because he hasn't received the official offer or anything yet (we're expecting it to come in the mail sometime early this week) we don't know when his start date is going to be yet, but it will probably be sometime mid-May or end of May.

Also, because of Cory deciding to take the job I started looking into transferring with the bank. It looks like I'm going to be able to. I've talked to one person I know in the H.R. department and she gave me the name of someone to call on Monday to talk to it about and has already sent them a heads up e-mail... she cc'ed me on the e-mail and told him I'm a keeper! :) As of right now I know that there are positions opened in Clarkston which is about 25 minutes NW of Rochester (where we will most likely be living) and one in Novi/Farmington Hills which is about half an SW of Rochester.

I'm excited!

Dear Wisconsin,

I hate you. I hope I don't have to come back for a long, long time. You smell funny, your residents don't know how to drive, move out of the way when they are standing in the middle of a parking lot and are rude. Also, you need to sell pants other than just sweat pants and jeans. People do also wear dress pants.

Good bye.

Reasons I hate driving through the U.P.

1. 90% of all the highways are 2 lane
2. 98% of the high ways are 55MPH, there is only about 20 miles between St. Ignace and the Soo that is 70MPH
3. U.P. drivers INSIST on going 52MPH until there is a passing lane and then they speed up to 65 and then slow back down once the lane is gone.
4. On more than one occasion when I was trying to pass someone in a passing lane the driver in front of me decided that it wanted to drive in the passing lane as well and cut me off.
5. This time of year they are always wet and full of salt/sand still so the tires of the car in front of you kicks up the grossness and covers your windshield.

I sure there are many other reasons I just can't think of any right now.

Last week was winter carnival and this years theme was "Games we know caught in the snow" It was a lot of fun like always with events going on all week along with seeing old friends. Unfortunately I had a really bad head cold this year during it so I felt like crap the entire time. My sorority didn't do a statue this year.... well, they started and just decided to give up on it. It was a bit embarrassing... The winners this year did Mario (fraternities) and Pretty Pretty Princess (sororities). Mario was Incredible! They had the flower guys that bite made completely out of ice along with mushrooms made out of ice and blocks and Bowsers spikes were all ice as well. I didn't take any pictures but here is the MTU website with some. http://www.flickr.com/photos/michigantech/ the pictures aren't great.

brrr it's cold in here...

This weekend started out with a horrible bang, but luckily finished up good. Friday, Cory and I went to Sault Ste. Marie because I had to take an exam for work. We had been planing the trip for a couple of weeks so it wasn't anything real spur of the moment. My exam was scheduled for 12:30pm and it's about a 4 1/2 hour trip so we decided to leave at 6:00am to make sure we got there in time in case we ran into bad weather. The weather channel had extended the winter storm warning for our area for another 2 days and was predicting 11-17 inches to fall in the Houghton area. We actually got on the road early and were on our way, kind of, before we left the driveway we noticed the heat in Cory's car being finicky again but decided that it wasn't that big of a deal and then we were on our way.

Bad. Idea. By the time we got to Baraga (half hour down the road) the heat would only work if I kept my foot jammed up between the under part of the dashboard area and where the floor slopes up. Believe me, sitting like that for another hour was not fun. By the time we got to Marquette the heat had stopped working completely. We stopped at 2 different auto part stores to see if the had the tools Cory needed to do a quick fix. They didn't so Cory just did a temp. fix. that lasted about another hour. We stopped at another store in Munising to get some more wires and parts to try to fix it again and it ended up braking even more. Have you ever ridden in a car for 2 hours with the heat not working at all and it being 2 degrees outside? Ya, not pleasant. Luckily, Cory had an electric blanket that plugs into the cigarette outlet of a car in his trunk. His dad bought it for him 7 years ago when he first came up to school and used it for the first time this weekend.

Finally, at 12:45 we got the the Soo and I took my exam. I happened to bring the number of the testing center with me so I was able to call ahead and tell them that we ran into some car trouble and they understood. Thank God I passed my exam. 4 hours of sleep and the most miserable 61/2 hour ride of my life weren't really playing in my favor. Cory was also able to get the heat kind of working so we wouldn't completely freeze and we had 2 blankets on the way home so we were able to stay warm.

Besides that, the weekend was good. Saturday Cory and I went to see Jeff Daniels in show up in Calumet. I had never been to the old Opera house up there until this weekend, it is beautiful in there! ground floor plus 2 balconies built in the late 1800's = wow. We sat in the front row and I ended up getting called on stage to do the "Big Bay Shuffle". Jeff Daniels wife is from Marquette, and he has filmed in the U.P. before so he is really familiar with the area. Big Bay is the name of one of the towns up here and the "Big Bay shuffle" is a dance that he saw in a bar one night when he was in Big Bay. It's essentially the dance that all 6th graders do awkwardly by not moving their feet and just bobbing. The twist is that you are holding a beer in each hand. He didn't give us beer though, I had to just pretend like I was holding them.

On Sunday, Cory and I went snow shoeing and ended up finding a waterfall that we never knew existed in Hancock. I want to go back in the spring to see it running with all the spring run offs, I think it will be really cool. I have pictures of our adventure, I'll post them later.

Oh Christmas tree!

Cory and I put up our tree last night! We even cut it down ourselves. I think that is the only way we would have been able to get a real tree small enough to fit in our house. We don't have very many ornaments and we haven't put on the lights yet so it looks kind of sad. We need to get an extension cord before we can put them up because there is not a plug close enough. Also, we don't have any room to put the tree on the floor so it's on our table :) oh! also, Cory made the star . we couldn't find a star small enough for the top so we bought 2 ornaments, but one in half and then glued the star to the tip of the other.

What about the Pilgrims?

So I was at Wal-Mart today, like usual, I typically go there almost every other day it seems like these days, mainly because that is because it's pretty much the only store in town. Anyways, while I was there I was looking around and noticed all the Christmas stuff that was out already. They already have the fake trees up, candy out, along with wrapping paper and ornaments out. I think this is wrong. Firstly because it's still 2 months until christmas, and secondly because I didn't see a single decoration for thanksgiving! Not one little turkey wearing a pilrgram hat, one single indian fether, or "Happy Thanksgiving" sign! This saddend me because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. ever. There is nothing better than eating copious amounts of food and enjoying the afternoon with your family, and pretending that you care about who wins the football game. After I thought about it for a while, I decided that I can't be too sad about not seeing any Thanksgiving stuff because that just means that Corporate America hasn't gotten its nasty, dirty, little paws all over it like they have with every other holiday. I think that is why Christmas isn't my favorite holiday. People these days don't seem to care about the true meaning of Christmas, or really any holiday really, they just care about selling as much as they possibly can.

Ok. I'm done with my negative nancy ranting about corporate america. I came up with a new game. Here is how you play: go to any store and while you are shopping just smile at people and see how many people smile back. It can't be a creeper smile though, nothing really big either. Just a simple smile. thats it. It's not really a game, but it's fun to do. And it makes me happy when someone smiles back. My statisitics show that mostly elderly people smile back, and it almost seems to make their day, people between the ages of about middle aged people fall in the middle, some smile back, but it's normally jsut one of those I'll smile to be polite, and others give you a funny look like why are you smiling at me. kids between the ages of 12-18 don't really count becasue they only care about themselves so they are most likely not paying attention. And then little kids just think you're smiling at them because they think you think they are cute. Yes, I left out people in their 20s and 30s, thats becasue I don't have enough data on this age group yet to show any real statistics. Anways, it's fun and I think you all should try it!

cold piggies

I think our house is backwards, or confused. We don't have a timer on our thermostat or anything like that and we don't ever touch it, but it's always really cold during the day and WAY warm at night. It wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that I work from home so I have to deal with it. I generally end up sitting on the couch (because I don't have a home office, or table) under a blanket to stay warm. I'd go to campus or somewhere else to do m paperwork but I'm afraid to go somewhere with more work space with EVERYBODY in town with the flu. I think the count of people I know is up to 6 and a bunch of the public schools have been closing for a day or two because of it. and all the people I have been meeting with for work have been talking about it and saying how they have someone out with it. I know I could just go and get the flu shot but I'm not going to because it always seems like whenever I get a vaccination shot it ALWAYS makes me sick. So, I'd rather take the chance of getting the flu rather than getting the shot and knowing that I'm going to get sick.

Top 10 reasons I love fall

1.) The gorgeous colors the trees turn
2.) New seasons of tv shows
3.) The crisp weather in the morning.... there is nothing else like being bundled in your jacket and the cool breeze!
4.) Sweaters can start to be pulled out of the closet again!
5.) Scarves and pea coats... I'm weird and I like the smell of wool pea coats. yes, they have a smell.
6.) Pumpkins!
a.) picking them out
b.) roasting the seeds and eating them
c.) carving them
7.) The first snowfall
8.) The first snowfall that sticks
9.) Thanksgiving!
a.) delicious food
b.) family and friends
c.) just an all around good holiday!
10.) Being able to bundle up under a blanket and drink hot chocolate and not get funny looks! :)

I just noticed, these are pretty much in order of how Fall in Houghton goes too! haha :)

Our little home

Here are a few pictures of our house... It's kinda messy but I figured I'd do it while it was on my mind because I'd probably forget to take them after I tidied up. The first one is the bedroom view from the bed, and the second is from the other angle in the bedroom. The third is our little kitchen and the last one is from the front door... on the other end of the couch is where our table is..unfortunately there isn't enough room to sit at it...we just use it as a mail table and have a bunch of stuff under it for storage. Notice our HUGE TV that take up half our house.

My Summer

So I know that summer has been over for a few weeks for some people, but I feel like it's just ending for me. Reason number one is because it's finally cooling off again here after the late summer weather we got. And number two is because of the time of my honeymoon I feel like it extended summer even longer because I was way to see everybody start back up at school.

Because I haven't posted in quite some time I figured I would write about my summer as a whole..mainly because when I was in elementary we never had to do a "What I did on my Summer Vacation" report. I feel jipped. So here it goes...I didn't feel like my summer was super eventful but looking back on it now I think it was. First off I graduated from college (YAY!) but I still had to take summer classes to actually finish and get my degree (BOO!). Summer classes where only 7 weeks long so it didn't take up all of my summer time. During this time I also landed a job locally (YAY) but then the Friday before I was supposed to start work I got a call saying that funding fell through so they could no longer hire me (BOO!) Then, in my last week of classes I ended up having to have surergy to have my appendix removed (another BOO!) which ended up making me take 2 incompletes in my classes that I was taking.. I was able to make up the work once I had recovered a bit so that I could actually finish up and graduate...I still have yet to recieve my diploma though...I think losing the job I had gotten was a bit bitter sweet because I was actually able to enjoy the rest of what was left of summer for me and not have to worry about work or school for the first time in 4 year. However, the money would have been nice.

In July Cory and I went to a friends wedding, and did a lot of my own wedding planning and thats really it. In August Cory and I went to a tubing trip with a bunch of friends from school down state. That was nice because most of the people that go on it are already graduated so it was a good time to see everyone again. After that it became crunch time again with wrapping up wedding stuff making sure everything was falling into place. I also landed another job (YAY!), this time with Aflac as a Sales Rep. Before I could start though I had to get my state licence to be able to sell insurance which consisted of having to take a 3 week course all about health insurance rules and laws and then take the state exam. On top of it all Cory and I also moved. twice. So you can say it was a very stressful time for me that month.

Then came September, the first few days of the month I was downstate getting all the last minute details in place for the wedding. Thankfully Betsy came up from Luisianna to help me with it all! The 5th cory and Igot married ( YAY! YAY! YAY!)! It was a blast and people don't lie when they say it goes by SO fast...it really does. After the wedding we went to Niagra Falls (the canadian side) for a few days and then to Toronto for our honeymoon. It was a lot of fun and some much needed relax for both of us. It was the first time in a while for both of us where we had a break where we didn't have any commitments what so ever (every other break we've had lately we've still had wedding plans to take care of or homework to do, or something). While in Niagra we went on a Jet Boat ride through the rapids of the falls. It was a blast! Although I did think I was going to drowned at one point in time. We went though class 5 rapids down stream from the falls and got soaked. The only way to explain what it's like is by imagining getting sprayed in the face with a fire hose for 5-10 seconds, now repeat 5 times. In Toronto we went to Cirque de Solie which was incredible! If you every get the chance to go, go. It's a bit pricey but it's definately worth every bit of it. The act we saw was called "Ovo" which is "Egg" in french, the story line is about a fly that brings an egg back to the "bug town" and him and the mayor have a battle of wits as to how is going to win the egg and get to eat it...all the other bugs were on the mayors side. Also in Toronto we went to see a filming of "The Hour", which is a Canadian late night talk show which Cory watches everynight. It was fun too, but not really what I expected. The only portion of the show that they film with a live audience is when they are interviewing the guest.

After that we went back to Lake Orion for a few days to pack everything back up that we had at Cory's parents and headed back up to Houghton. Cory's back in School and I have now started trainging for my job and summer is finally over. But thats ok, because I love fall...something about the leaves changing and the crisp air in the morning. I just love it.

Bad news bears

I'm watching the Today Show right now and they're talking about health issues for women when they start to get older.I decided I don't want to get old. I already have to get up in the middle of the night every night to use the bathroom.. Maybe I can somehow just stay young forever.