i'm afraid of the phone

I've had the same cell phone for 4 years now... total number of calls: 1371, total minutes used: 35:01:04.

*grin*

....

um... I guess I just don't have anything to say!

i can't wait for spring

I had a pretty quiet weekend. Skiing didn't work out so I had all Saturday to do all kinds of fun things. Like sit around. And finish "Knife of Dreams" finally.... that whole series took me almost two years! Craziness.

I started some flowers in my mini greenhouse in the shed loft. I'm pretty excited.
Sometimes when my dad goes to the store he brings me home super cool surprises- like the clamp light in the picture. (The fluorescent fixture is "borrowed" from the house)

The one downside... I have to haul water up these stairs.....so hopefully something grows.

Blessings.

Die Gruppe

thanks to Dalestyle for the picture...




on another note,
Happy Singles Awareness day! Shelly and I were singing that to the tune of happy birthday tonight... with great emphasis on the "many more" part. :D

the frozen north

So I had an excellent weekend. Two of my old roomies live in the twin cities, so a bunch of people with 709/champaign connections road tripped up to visit them. There were 17 of us plus a fly-in... it was a great group. I kind of miss people already. I'm pretty pathetic, I know.

We went snow tubing, and played games, and saw Amanda's apartment, and visited a conservatory and zoo, and went ice skating, and had a wonderfully random supper, and pretty much had a blast. I like Minnesota. I like how they don't hide in their houses when it's cold.

Some of my highlights:

• driving and discussing "A grief observed"
  
• Gab's iPod
• the flowers at the conservatory
• ice skating and playing tag under the stars even though it was 20 below zero.
• piling 14 people into a 7 passenger van on the way to church
• playing who, what, WHEN, where, why
• Seeing Bovee
  
• supper- I shared a picnic basket with Marcos... others weren't so lucky and ate from baby plates, flowerpots, camping cook kits, sand pails, and with marshmallow toasters... funny stuff.
  
• Boo-boo Blakey's car... which I may or may not have had anything to do with.
• Chilling with some super cool girls
• talking WOT with Sprout
• Listening to some random music lecture d.j. nicalicious found in the van
• having Natalie ride shotgun and Sarah explaining things
• the "Send Help" sign
  

Lowlights (few and far between):

• almost hitting Steffen's van
  
• my van not starting before church
  
• my van still not starting after church
• a completely frozen van
  

Although, even though thawing out the van was a hassle and annoying I think some of the guys were enjoying being mechanics for an hour. :) Props to boo-boo for taking one for the team and losing some hearing finally getting it started with ether.

My alarm went off way too early this morning. And it was a very busy day.
Blessings.

Cousins

Scott and Ned were in Champaign this weekend to visit Neal and Kim so Saturday morning Jake and I drove down to see them. Matt decided that they needed to experience Merry Ann's so we met them there for breakfast. That place is so greasy. Ned had The Stack and afterwards said he felt like he had eaten a brick. :)

We went to the Shaker after breakfast because the boys wanted to let their food settle or something... then we headed out to marriage hill at Orchard Downs to go sledding. It was really great- the temperature was perfect, the snow was packed, and it wasn't super crowded. We did have to avoid hitting a lot of little foreign children... but they were cute so it was all good. Scott and I could not keep the tobogon straight. Every time we tried it we would go sideways and then somehow end up in the snow. Most of our spills were pretty major; Ned rolled over me at least once, and I ended up under the sled another time.

So then we cleaned up and cooled down at the Shaker and headed to Neal and Kim's for the rest of the day. We played Rook and Wii and ate food and played with Cailer and Brock. Jon W. was there so there were enough people for two Rook games...Kim and I got trounced by Ned and Jake. It was bad. Kim and I had fun at subway trying to order 7 subs... they were a little flustered.

I didn't get enough sleep, as usual. The guys all stayed with Matt so I got my own bedroom and bathroom at Neal's. It was nice. Church in Champaign was good. The Hessel girls had ISU guests, so I got to see some girls that I don't normally see, and Dona. :) Jake and I left right after church for home, which was good because it started thundering/lightning/raining/snowing not long after we got back. I was having enough issues with his psuedo 4 wheel drive blazer on snow this weekend, I really didn't need to drive in any more of it.

Blessings.