Random Things

Yes, I know that I obviously have too much time on my hands if I think about this stuff but I’ve been driving a lot lately and have been afforded the time.

Two things I’ve been ruminating about:

1) I was dismayed earlier this week when, while using the restroom, my arch-nemesis co-worker came in and was going to use the same stall I was in. Not intentionally walk in on me or anything, but her natural instinct was to prefer this stall. I don’t like that someone I don’t like has things in common with me. Especially not my bathroom preferences. I like to pretend that she’s sour and nothing like me.

2) Now that I'm fully immersed into Christmas music I’ve been paying close attention to the songs specifically. As we all know, there are really just a few dozen Christmas songs in general therefore making “listening to Christmas music” really just “listening to different versions of the same songs over and over”. That being said, there are several songs that I consider the “original”. For example, I think that Celine Dion’s Ave Maria is the 'original'. I also think that Bing Crosby’s White Christmas is the 'original'. Not that some “remakes” aren’t really good. Josh Groban singing anything Christmas related is amazing…. It’s just not the “real” thing.

When we get Upstairs

Sometimes Jim and I talk about what we’ll ask God or his/her secretary when we get to Heaven. Jim is very intrigued, and therefore has perked my curiosity, of what we did better/more than anyone else in the history of the world. Now that’s a lot of people to compare yourself to. Jim suspects that the answer may be something like “Jim, you used the word 'or' while walking southwest in downtown Spencerville more than anyone else in the world”. He also suspects that each of us has dozens of things we’ve done something superior/more to others over the course of our lifetime. I think it’s probably stretching it to have even 1 thing you can claim that’s general in nature like that.

I do think that I’ll be able to specifically take credit for the following:
1) I probably harassed/will continue to harass Sarah F to move to Cincinnati more than anyone else in her lifetime
2) I have probably given Jim more kisses than anyone else in his life ever will or has

That might be it...

Weekend of 11/25/06

This weekend was a busy one! Thanksgiving was wonderful as there are so many things to be grateful for, one being that all of my mom’s side could get together in the first place to celebrate. Viki came in on Friday night and we spent all of Saturday afternoon together hanging out and catching up. Sarah F came into town on Saturday night just in time for dinner and girl-bonding time. Poor Jim was on his own for entertainment, but I'm sure he was happier watching Animal Planet than hearing us giggle all night.

Sunday was a very special day as my Godson, Alex, was Baptized at St. Luke’s in Dayton. While he wasn’t the quietest baby, he was certainly the cutest. We had a great party with Sarah & Danny’s family and friends that afternoon and lots of cute presents were given and “awww’d” over. Here are some pictures of the big day!

Finally, a special, warm, official welcome to my sister-in-law to-be, Lindsay, who was officially invited to join the family on Wednesday of last week. Check out her blog for details on my brother Mike’s proposal!

Ethnic Food Report

This is my official report on “FFG Tea” (special thanks to Viki R for bringing some for this review), a product consumed on Saturday, November 25 at approximately 12:30pm.

As you will note from the picture on the right, FFG Tea is an odd orange color, inconsistent with many traditional teas. Also, unlike traditional tea, FFG Tea is a powder mix that is a 3-in-1 combo consisting of tea, cream, and sugar all contained in one, single-serving pouch.

FFG Tea resembles hot chocolate in many ways including consistency, best drinking temperature, and sweetness. Literally, the flavor is simply “tea flavored hot chocolate”.

It was quite good, worth a special trip by FFG’s parents, and the effort of writing a reimbursement check to FFG herself. Now that the poor girl is canned, and Jungle Jim’s has been verified to not carry the product (how is that possible?!) I’m frustrated because I’ll probably not have the opportunity to have it again and truly did like it.

Side note, while FFG Tea is not available at Jungle Jim’s, several other entertaining products were, including (all descriptions taken directly from the product description on the package):

Black, Dried Fungus

Gelatinous Mutant Coconut Balls

Various fun Hot Sauce Brands (excellent packaging!)

Thanksgiving is Upon Us

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we, of course, are off work. Friday too. =) However, we have a good start in on our Christmas shopping, so if I venture out at all it’ll be just to return a pair of pants I bought for myself a few weeks ago and to get Dad’s XYZ. Like last year, it’s my intention to buy as many things online as possible. So much easier and oftentimes the same price or less compared to going out to the stores, especially with free shipping offers from the merchants.

What I do look forward to, as always, is putting up the tree and all of the decorations. That will definitely be happening on Friday. I want the house to look beautiful for Viki and Sarah!

Your opinion, please

A scenario:

A tiger is rushing at you and you see him coming. The tiger leaps and swipes his arm to get you. You jump out of the way, barely missing the brunt of his efforts and quickly climb a nearby tree to safety.

Were you lucky?

Please comment with your initial reaction AND then if you come to the same conclusion as this first reaction upon further thought.

Fa La La La La

The debate has already been approached by one blogger but now that it’s a few days before Thanksgiving and not a few weeks before, let me officially say “bring on the Christmas music”.

On the way home from Columbus yesterday, Jim was a doll and let me listen to a Christmas station all the way home (2 hours!) and didn’t complain or make fun of me once.

Last year Tom P was nice enough to burn me like 8 Christmas CDs and over 650 individual MP3's to listen to at work and home. While seemingly no big deal, Tom is a scrooge and hates holiday music. It was quite a sacrifice for him to take the time to get me so many songs and I'm STILL grateful. I'm getting ready to re-download those onto my hard drive (got a new computer since then) so it can be fully festive in my office for the next 5 weeks.

Problems with the mirror

A comedian once joked that women get a bad rep for being vain but really, men are too. “A guy will always check himself out when he passes a mirror or a window that reflects his image,” the comedian explained. “That being said, a woman will look in any mirror, window, puddle, spoon, wine glass….”

This morning I had a very bad day with my reflection. Normally I plan what I'm going to wear while in the shower so I can be most efficient with my morning. While I did do that today, I couldn't find the turtleneck sweater I was planning on wearing once it came time to actually get dressed. I proceeded to put on not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 different outfits before I decided on what I was going to wear to work. Everything I tried on made me look like a house. Literally, my reflection was begging me not to wear the outfits I picked out. Result – I'm wearing black pants, a black sweater, and a striped shirt underneath. Bor-ing. I was also 9 minutes late to work as a result.

Cool events since I last blogged

A cool thing happened today – a student of mine wrote me an email and asked for information on a 20 minute video we watched in class about innovation a few weeks ago. She apparently works directly for AG Lafley (CEO of Procter & Gamble) and was talking to him about the company featured in the video. He asked her to get a copy of the video so he could watch it.

I'm blown away – 1) people were paying attention to the video I showed in class 2) I have a student who works for one of the most prominent CEOs in American business and 3) she’s talking about my class and what she’s learning to said prominent CEO. I'm quite happy!

I'm also touched by the cards that we got for our anniversary yesterday - Karen, Chuck, Mom & Dad, Jen & Tom - Thanks a lot! So sweet of you!

Weekend of 11/10/06

Today is my 2 year wedding anniversary! Yeah! I have the best husband of all time! I definitely "married up"!

The weekend was good. We hung out with Sean and Jess on Friday night- had Mexican (mmmmm) for dinner, I won at Shang-hai, lost in Euchre, bowled some scotch doubles (Jess &Y I took names!!!), and then got my butt kicked in Sequence. I really really really like that Jim is so fond of my friends. I think he commented 3X after we saw the Gardners how much he likes them.

We got up on Saturday and headed to Spencerville for the Eutsler family Thanksgiving (blessedly always celebrated a few weeks off the actual holiday). Jim did not have such a great time as there were many things done inefficiently from a timing and driving stand-point, but we got through it.

I am still coughing up a *&%! storm. I feel bad for Jim who hasn’t kicked me out of the bedroom yet but I know I'm keeping him up with all my hacking. On Sunday evening I finished up my syllabus and schedule for the Spring semester, Jim did fantasy football stuff, and we watched Shark Tale to close off the night. Shark Tale (B) was an interesting title because it’s not really about the shark…. The main effort in the movie I think was to pack as many celebraties in as guest stars as humanly possible. It was cute but I'm more eager to watch Over the Hedge.

From a 73 degree Thursday of last week, I officially pulled out my winter coat this morning to wear to work. BLAH.

Finally, WELCOME DAVE to the blogging world! 3 posts already!!… can he sustain it!?

BOR-ING

I remember never being bored in college. If I didn’t have anything to do I could always IM any number of people who were also just sitting around. Or I could download music. Or I could go to work. Or I could hang out with my roommates or someone else’s roommates. Finding something to do was never a problem.

Now, as an adult, I have a much harder time entertaining myself. At work, for the last half hour, I’ve waited for many people to get back to me and I'm at a holding point until that happens. There is nothing online that I care to research, my co-workers are all busy doing their work, and I'm all caught up on my email. I see why people gain weight – I want to eat Skittles not because I'm craving them but just so I can get up out of my office and move around!

This sometimes happens at home too – I don’t want to bore myself with television, cleaning is never a joy, and shopping costs money.

Do you all see why I need you back in my neighborhood???

Thursday Morning

The office is now up to 6/13 sick people. Lamont came in today to ask what my symptoms were yesterday and they mirror his today. Blah! My voice is screwed up and I'm coughing but, after a full night’s sleep and a good catnap yesterday afternoon (I left work ill at 3:00) I have much more energy.

I was sorry to see that many of my friends dropped off the bandwagon of their blogging pledge yesterday and missed their post. : ( Hopefully they will atone for their sin and pick back up where they were on Tuesday. Ha!

Lastly, welcome Lindsay to the blogging world!! Note, 2 posts in 2 days! LOVE IT!

not... feeling... good

Uhhhhhhh I'm sick. I'm achy, have this phlegm ball stuck in the back of my throat, and have no energy at all. Last night I slept all of 3 hours (5.5 less than usual) and I feel like death warmed over. Even typing is strenuous. Worst part of last night was since I was up all night long I just felt growing and growing frustration and jealousy at my dear, dreaming husband next to me. Man… I need some OJ.

My XU class in the Spring

I am SOOOOOOO excited!! Enrollment for my Spring XU class, Professional Selling, started on Oct. 31 and I had 4 students sign up that first week. While I wasn’t overly worried about this quantity I did wonder why only 4/30 spots were filled.

One of my students told me in class this morning that open enrollment for the non-athletes starts TODAY so this is my first “real” chance to get some seats filled. I just went on and looked and I have 22/30 spots taken now! I'm especially flattered that I have 6 current students (3 of which are first-rowers) and my one withdrawal student (volleyball got in the way) registered. Maybe this means I'm too easy on them?? Who cares! I'm happy!

Weekend of 11/3/06

Yesterday was a very full day so I had no chance to blog about the weekend. Here are some highlights though:
1) Jim’s softball party at BW3’s on Friday night where I learned about noodling (see below) and the giant catfish that supposedly scared the Kentucky River scuba divers out of the water. I did some research on this and if you look up giant catfish you can find some national geographic and cnn pics of 300lb+ ones.
2) Saturday I did school work (I literally have EVERYTHING except 1 ppt. presentation finished!!) while Jim and his stock club collaborated over lunch. That night we went to Anne and Sean’s wine-tasting bridal shower which was fun because I got to love on Alex so much. What an adorable baby!
3) Sunday was a pretty fun day. Jim and I looked up some houses for sale on the West Side of Cincinnati and picked up my mom for a quick jaunt to 3 of them. All were nice but I didn’t feel like I saw my next home. We did, however, find a really great location that they’re just starting to clear out. It’s so new there’s nothing on the internet and there were no signs from any builder up yet. This gave me hope that our Spring relocation plan is still on track.

Also on Sunday, we saw the movie Invincible with Mark Wahlberg. Eh, it was another underdog sports movie just like Hoosiers, Rudy, etc. Good acting though. B. Bowling went well – we won 4/4 games and I bowled a 115-182-139. That 182 is now my new highest ever score! Slowly but surely my bowling is coming around. My average is up to a 131! Dave bowled a 244 the first game – way impressive!

And that’s all, folks! I get my Sales text for the Spring semester after class today and I'm meeting with the old prof tonight for her notes and project ideas. I'd like to get out there and vote but I have to go to Colerain to accomplish this and I'm not sure if I'll get time. :(

Noodling

The old adage goes “learn something new every day”. Yesterday’s thing to learn was about the practice of “noodling”. Being a city girl, I have had the privilege of fishing in some private ponds through the years. I’ve never gone to a river or a stream or anything to fish, hence I’ve never seen noodling done in real life, and was therefore fascinated when it was described to me.

What is noodling you ask? It’s a method of fishing where you stick your arm into a mud hole and actually use your body as bait for catfish who hang out in said holes. Once the fish bites, you grab onto it from the inside and yank it out of the hole.

Imagine the size of the fish that would be looking for something to eat the size of your arm. Yeah, the fish that are caught using this method are between 40-150lbs. There’ve been cases too where people have had such a large, strong fish bite that they are actually drug underwater and eventually drown.

Think too about what else other than a catfish could be lurking in that hole… that’s part of the extreme of the sport that makes it so much “fun”.

Here’s the wikipedia site for more formal information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noodling

Funny story about a guy’s first noodling experience: http://www.cabelas.com/information/cabelas-field-guides/Catfish-Techniques/Noodling-for-Catfish-The-Ultimate-Thrill-in-Fishing.html

Good evening for my self-confidence

I had a nice little ego trip last night. I met with the Club 960- my classmates that battled alongside me through that awful professor we ultimately ousted- last night at The Pub for a happy hour. Very big topic of conversation was me teaching. You know, I think it’s really great that I'm getting to do this and I'm not ignorant of what a great opportunity and privilege teaching at XU is. My peers though went on and on about how great it is and how proud they are of me. I felt really special and the “wow, I'm a professor at 27 and I should be proud of me too” really kicked in.

At one point we were discussing how my current employer is not permitting me to teach “regular” hours next semester. They were shocked, as I was, at the reason. One friend told me that I was “big time” and that there were lots of opportunities to seize if I wanted to. It’s really nice to be able to have self-confidence you think is merited, but I was really struck by how much it meant to hear someone else genuinely validate it.

OK, enough bragging. :)

One last shout-out to David P. who’s a long-time friend, recent reader. Welcome to the blogging world, Dave!

Greg's Idol is Retiring

Updated:2006-10-31 19:08:18
Bob Barker Retiring After 50 Years on TV
By SANDY COHEN, AP

LOS ANGELES (Oct. 31) - Bob Barker is heading toward his last showcase, his final "Come on down." The silver-haired daytime-TV icon is retiring in June, he told The Associated Press Tuesday.

"I will be 83 years old on December 12," he said, "and I've decided to retire while I'm still young."
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To kick off his retirement, Barker said he will "sit down for maybe a couple of weeks and find out what it feels like to be bored." Then he plans to spend time working with animal-rights causes, including his own DJ&T Foundation, founded in memory of his late wife, Dorothy Jo, and mother, Matilda.

He said he'd take on a movie role if the right one came along, but filmmakers, take note: "I refuse to do nude scenes. These Hollywood producers want to capitalize on my obvious sexuality, but I don't want to be just another beautiful body."
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