Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at our house. We decided to treat John's mom and step-dad to a roast.

John felt that it was necessary to slap the roast.




Post slapping, ready to be slow cooked. Well, almost ready.




We're about to enjoy our holiday meal. This is after we went to church with John's parents.




We had a fire. It seemed like a Christmassy thing to do.




I think the theme for our holidays this year was, "Relaxation". Christmas Eve and Christmas day were both a lot of fun. The day after Christmas we all drove up to Las Vegas. I wish I could say we won the jackpot but since I'm honest I can't say that.

I Can't Be the Only One

According to John, I'm very weird. I do weird things, I have strange thoughts... basically I'm just a big ole weirdo (not to be confused with psycho). Don't worry, he loves my weirdness. He thinks I'm cooky.

I can see some weirdness in myself. I eat cream of mushroom soup out of the can, I make to do lists based on feelings, I only do things in even numbers, I start to dance if anyone around me lays a beat, I have a SEVERE irrational fear of needles (and cats) and I WILL NOT go to sleep with a sharp object in the vicinity.




I think that most people have some weirdness to them. For instance, if you can't have your food touch, you're a little weird (you know who you are).

The picture above is weirdness for the Phoenix area...what is that gray matter in the sky?

You are Loved

I found this yesterday for my awesome mother in law. Well, one of my awesome mother in laws. I have two of them. Lucky for me they are both super cool. (John's parents are divorced...his dad isn't a polygamist).




Isn't that sweet? I love the inside too.




Our Christmas buddies have arrived. John's mom and stepdad just pulled their RV into the RV spot that we have at our house. Full hook ups and everything. I thought I'd write a quick post while they're getting situated.

I'm looking forward to a fun and restful Christmas with John, Pat and Greg.

Image of Peace

When I am thinking about a place that makes me feel peaceful and at ease I almost always think of the mountains. I always feel fabulous when I'm there. I also feel fabulous at the beach. I never, ever picture myself at places like a mall food court when I'm going for serenity.




I felt like looking at some beautiful pictures this morning and found this one.

I guess I cared more than I thought I did...

Tonight would have been the night that I graduated with my Masters degree in Special Education. I don't want to write about all of the drama on here but I didn't walk. I wasn't bummed about it at all until I logged onto facebook tonight and saw pictures of my classmates at the ceremony. I got a little teary. That's okay, I guess it just wasn't an experience I was meant to have.

On the upside...I'm finished with school and I now have my Masters.


, M.A.

Pitter Pat...

How do you load your Ipod or mp3 player? John thinks I'm very strange because I don't load full albums onto my player. Here's how I do it: I hear a song that I absolutely LOVE and then I load it. That's the only time. My mp3 player doesn't have songs I like on it. It only has songs I LOVE. How do you do it?

Here's a song I LOVE:


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Time for a Pattern...

I don't know if you've noticed this or not but in my old age I've given up wearing patterns. They just don't flatter me. In honor of the holidays, I purchased a shirt with a pattern.




There were many pictures in my lovely shirt to choose from but what better way to display an embarrassing shirt than with an embarrassing picture?

Enjoy.

So Embarrassing

When I was younger I had embarrassing moments quite often (like the time I walked to high school with my dress tucked into my underwear). As an adult I don't really have embarrassing moments anymore. I have awkward and uncomfortable moments pretty often but nothing that I feel "embarrassed" about. Well, yesterday I had egg on my face (literally).

I took eggs to school for our Science lesson. If you put an egg (without cracks in it) in the center of the palm of your hand and squeeze as hard as you can, the egg won't break. I did it for my kids, they all did it, my principal did it. The eggs were fine and everyone was amazed.

When I was leaving for the day I was walking out with one of our custodians. I felt like amazing him too. I said, "Hey Alfred, check out this trick." I put the egg in my hand, squeezed as hard as I could and the egg EXPLODED. The yolk went everywhere-on the sidewalk, my face, my hair and on my jacket.

He looked shocked at first. I don't think he knew how to react. I was completely embarrassed but I started to laugh. He laughed too and said, "Mary, I don't think I'll be trying that trick".

Oh well, at least I gave him a funny story to share with his family.

Friday

John and I spent our Friday after Thanksgiving not fighting the crowds. We decided that we would have a day of fun. Sometimes on these days we'll each write down 3 to 4 activities on a slip of paper and fold them up. Then we'll open them up and we have to do anything that the papers say to do. This always elicits fun had by both of us.

I decided to document Friday's day of fun activities. Number one was going on a bike ride. I brought the camera with us. Just when I decided that we needed to stop for some pictures, a cat decided to come attack us. It was sprinting toward us so I decided the best thing to do was to keep moving. Cats aren't very fast.

While I was doing circles on the street to avoid the attack cat, John let it get close to him.




John let it get really, really close to him. I guess he wants rabies. After the cat decided that it rather lay on the ground and lick itself than to claw our eyes out, we rode passed the goats. They weren't interested in us at all.





Here's an action shot of me on our way home from the bike ride. We saw this one house where this man was putting out their Christmas lights. It looked like an insane amount of lights. I must go back at night to snap some photos.




Our day of fun then led us to the mall. I know, the mall. We had an agenda though. I needed some bare necessities and a book. John needed some cigars. We also needed some appetizers from Majerley's.






Our day of fun ended at our very favorite place around here, Farelli's Cinema Supper Club. We LOVE it. What's not to love? You can eat meals, drink adult beverages and watch cinema all at the same time. Even bad movies are fun to watch when we watch them here. If it ever closes I think we'll cry.

This mini break has been fabulous. I'm getting more and more excited for the big break next month. Bring on the winter holidays.

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was a small but wonderful celebration with John, Kita and our great friend Lauren. I knew this year needed to be a low key Thanksgiving because I knew I would be in need of a break right about now. I was so right.

So that's what yesterday was, a break from hoop la. Everything about yesterday was 100% fuss free. We enjoyed a delicious and relaxed meal. Here was our menu: Paula Deen's Cheesy Mac, green bean casserole, cous cous (prepared by Lauren), and a spinach and cranberry salad.

Here's our Thanksgiving turkeys:



John's turkey was chocolate chip cookie dough. Lauren's was mint chocolate chip and mine was chocolate chip. Our turkeys were delicious and free of the sleepy stuff. They were lovingly prepared for us by the good people of Baskin Robbins.

Thanksgiving was fantastic. Today will be wonderful too. We're going to have a day of fun. I hope your day is full of fun too.

Happy Thanksgiving

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More Cousin Pictures

This last week has been crazy (as most of my weeks have been lately). I'm all for the education thing but I'll be so crazy happy when this hoop la is over. I have soooooo many stories of frustration that I could share with you about this experience. However, it's a public blog. You never know who could be reading so I'll just leave it at that.

I'm back on my own computer so here's some more pictures from dinner with the cousins.

Here's a normal picture of my cousins and cousin in law.




Here's a normal picture of John. I told him that I was going to make this our Christmas card picture. That would sure teach him. Don't worry, that's just a joke. Who has time to make Christmas cards this year?




This is a surprise shot of C. I was hoping to get a funny picture of her but she still looks adorable.




I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving tomorrow.

One Picture

I have updates for you guys but I'm on John's computer. All of my updated pictures are on my computer. So I went to my facebook and copied a picture to share with you. When I get back on my itty bitty computer I'll post some more.




These two are my cousins both on my mom's side of the family. C is my aunt's daughter and T is my uncle's son. C lives in the valley as well but we couldn't live further from each other. So, we don't get to see each other very often. We try but things like to get in the way.

T lives many, many states away but work brings him to town every now and then. On Wednesday we all met up for dinner. John joined us. So did C's husband. I'll include their pictures when I'm on my computer as well.

Our dinner was so much fun. I love all of my cousins because they're the type of people that I would want to be friends with even without our family relation.

Retreating to Hermit Life Once Again

I sighed a big sigh of relief last week when the thesis defense was finished. Then this weekend I had a few moments of panic when I looked at the schedule of my online course. There's still so much to do and so quickly. Blogging will have to take a back seat once again. How sad.

I wanted to say,"See you later skaters" with a cute picture. I decided that I would show you the first picture on my computer that was cutie pie and you hadn't seen yet. Kita is definitely a cutie pie.




She was my shadow while I was making roast beef sliders back in October. In this picture she was staring at the treat she was about to get. For you veggies we can pretend it's tofu or something like that.

More Details

Last night marked the last major task that my cohort and I had to complete for our Masters. We did our thesis defenses. We still have one more class with some extensive work to finish and we'll need to do corrections to our thesis's. However, I think we all feel like everything left will be no problem compared to yesterday.

For me, the preparation for my thesis defense and then the anxiety I always feel before public speaking are the most difficult aspects of the entire thing. Actually doing the defense wasn't hard at all. As soon as I started speaking I felt like I was just speaking about my experiences throughout my program with friends. I felt very supported.

My awesome co-teacher was there to support us as well. She took pictures (very discreetly) during our presentations. Here's some action shots.










Afterward we went to dinner with everyone in our cohort and our Defense committee. We could bring a guest so I brought John. When our program director came to our table one of my friend's introduced her to her husband. I introduced her to John. Instead of being a normal person and saying something like,"Dr. K, this is my husband John", I said, "Dr. K, this is John. I met him on my way into the restaurant." Ay Caramba. At least she went with the joke. She told him that he did indeed look like a streetwalker.




I was very happy to have my streetwalker there to celebrate with us.

Consider me Defended

Tonight I did my defense of my thesis. All I can say is woo hoo, woo hoo, woohoooooooo!!!!!!!!

Here I am in the morning before my big day. (I wanted documentation).





Here I am right afterward...




Much more relaxed don't you think? What a difference being done with public speaking makes.

It's not quite over...

Last week I met my rough draft deadline...yay. Now I'm making corrections to it and preparing for my defense which is next Wednesday.

I think this process has taught me a lot. Besides the obvious educational value, it's taught me that I will stop here. No doctorate for me. Unless I start taking the crack.

Ugly Betty and Creepy Piggy

Last night John and I went to a Halloween party at our friend's house. The hosts said that dressing up was optional. While I was opting to be boring and not dress up, John was saddened by that option.

Since I like to make John a happy John, I dressed up. To those who knew there was once a show called, "Ugly Betty", they knew I was Betty Suarez. To those who didn't know of such a show I was thought to be a tourist or an old lady.

Here I am in my Betty Suarez glory. For the party I wore a skirt because that's something Betty would do. I also ditched the teeth for the party. They're not very comfortable.




John decided that the pig mask from Saw would be a great costume. I'm scared of any Halloween mask but I thought Mr. Pig Man was especially scary.




We had a great time at the party. It was really nice to just have fun and not think about school for a night. Last week was pretty busy and slightly stressful but I finished my thesis rough draft on time. Yay. I'm almost at the finish line.

October Hasn't Been the Best Month for Blogging...

I'm not done with blogging. I love blogging. It's been great with keeping my people who want to know, up to date. It's also good for my good ole memory. I periodically go through my old posts and say things like, "Oh yeah. I had forgotten about that."

I also love to read my people's blogs.

I just thought I needed to let you know what's up for me so you know that I'm not fizzling and then gone forever. This Friday (Oct. 29) my rough draft for my thesis is due. On top of that I still have an online class to work on, online posts to do (for class) and work stuff to do. It takes up a crazy amount of time.

On November 10th I have to defend my thesis. I finish everything up for my Masters in December. I promise to have lots of posts after December.

I'll post when I can but I think for the next few weeks or so I'll be much more likely to read your blogs than to post one of my own. Unless I write really, really short ones. I could do that.

Happy almost end of October.

Beginning, Middle and End

The beginning of my Saturday included what all great Saturdays in my life include...a trip to Dunkin Donuts to get these little cuties. They didn't last very long. My only complaint was that they all weren't chocolate. That would have made me love them even more.




The middle of my day included a fun, fun, fun, pumpkin carving party at Natalie's. She wrote a great post about it. You can check it out here.




The end of my day included the lighting of my pumpkin, a late night dinner that I made and a huge compliment about my culinary skills from John.




I made us roast beef sliders with blue cheese crumbles and a little Ranch dressing, then put my own flavor (sauteed onions, garlic and seasoned salt) in some Tositos queso and served the queso with some Tostitos chips that I cut into the shape of footballs. Just kidding. I bought them that way.

Here's the compliment: "This meal is definitely worthy of calorie day."

Why is that such a compliment you ask? Well, Saturday is the one day a week when we get to eat whatever we want. The rest of the week we're pretty healthy. So our Saturdays usually don't include home cooking because especially John feels that home cooking can never quite be unhealthy enough. Until last night. I must say, I was pretty proud of my sliders and my doctoring of processed cheese.