on my way home.. finally. much to do & a short time in which to do it. 

to bloomsburg i go

jeremy and i have returned from robinson, where we browsed barnes & noble for quite some time- each returning with several books and new journals for both of us! 

we also went to ikea and i got some things for our new apartment, such as a rug for our living room, picture frames, salt & pepper shakers, & other odds & ends. 

the best purchase of the night was flannery o’conner’s complete stories. dr. szabo made every 2005 freshman at geneva fall in love with o’conner when we were in dr. szabo’s writing class. i miss dr. szabo- what a genius. the cover of the book is beautiful, as is the cover of my journal made of himalayan paper…

i woke up this morning to the doing of more dishes. of course. i still have about 50 pieces of silverware to do. it’s my least favorite of the dishes. yesterday, jeremy & i spent about 2 hours cleaning our cars. me, cleaning the glass in all the windows, erasing all the smudge marks from my feet when i stick them on the windshield when jeremy’s driving, jeremy, literally cleaning out all of his school books, a garbage bag full of papers, napkins, food, drinks, unnecessary things found in cars. the car is clean, perhaps obsessively clean & just needs to be taken to the car vacuum place to get the rest of the debris out. 

saturday i made cupcakes! they are delicious & now i’m in a baking mood. i’ve also started a wish list of things that i’d like eventually for our new apartment. also, my birks are on there. maybe i should work on getting a job before i add more things.. but for now, some pictures of my cupcakes, all yummy & frosted.

today the weather was warm, almost too warm for long black pants. i woke up around 9 and wasted time online looking for new birkenstock sandals. there are 2 styles i really want, but can’t really get them yet… partly because i refuse to believe that i have to pay 45 euros per pair. i found some on ebay for $45 plus s&h so maybe i can grab them sometime soon. i need to dig out my clogs out of the storage and relish in them again. 

i did more dishes again today, we have a lot of drinking glasses but it seems like i wash 10 every day. i wish we had a bigger sink or a dishwasher. i think i’d like to make some funfetti cupcakes tonight. last night, jeremy & i raided the vegetable section at walmart like a farmer’s market (because there is no farmer’s market in beaver falls =/) grabbed lots of vegetables, myself some fruit (blackberries, yum) 

i bought some cardboard jewelry boxes last night to store my earrings, and painted them today.. one a periwinkle color and the other a lavender. i found some rub-on decals to put on the front to decorate them… and here they are! 

it cost me about $5 total including the boxes, paint, and decals. i also bought a dahlia tuber and a larger pot to hopefully plant the flower. i love dahlias, so hopefully it’ll be ok in a pot. 

last night’s dinner i made tuna casserole & southerwestern corn. the corn was a lot better than i expected.. it tasted really sweet, too sweet that i had to put crushed pepper in it. tonight i made chicken strips & mexican rice. (i think we’re on a south-of-the-border kick). the rice was rather tasty, i’ll have to pick more up the next time we go grocery shopping. 

those are my dinners =) well, just the corn in the first one. jeremy & i just woke up from a much-needed nap. now we’re watching the office & i’m downing some starbucks coffee ice cream with chocolate-covered espresso beans. 

it’s been awhile. the busy-ness of the end of the school year has ensued & jeremy is running around with projects, tests, presentations, papers, etc, etc, etc to finish before he graduates. we are moving in less than 2 weeks! the countdown has started. i can barely contain my excitement for the new house on the coveted washington street with the glorious mansions and library not even 800 feet from my own house. the huge library, at that. so many ideas are swirling in my head for decorating the new apartment, with its high victorian ceilings and big windows and hardwood floors throughout the whole house. 

i’ve been thinking of some new things i want to start doing. yesterday, while meandering through target (how i will miss thee when we move), i found a beautiful little turquoise pot.

i’ve decided that i wanted to start a small-ish garden on the porch of the new place. nothing big, of course, just several potted plants, maybe a hanging one here & there… but i don’t really know anything about gardening so i’m not really sure what kind of plants to purchase that will grow in warm maryland weather in a pot. any advice is more than welcome. please. also, hopefully, once our schedules start cooling down, i’ll be able to cook more often.. actual meals, instead of bird’s eye family frozen cheesy chicken and hamburger helper. i think when i read martha’s magazine and real simple i get in these very “housewifey” moods and want to fill the kitchen with cupcakes and beef stroganoff and homemade lemonade and want to hoist our new neighbors together and form a community garden in the backyard of the gigantic house we all live in, just like they have in bloomsburg at the park. 

as i sit around here, i look at everything i still need to do. yesterday i did laundry and put new sheets on the bed and one load of laundry got pushed to the floor.. unfolded. so i have about 3 loads to fold & put away, an entire sink and a half of dishes to do, i need to run to the pharmacy and salval to drop off some clothes and vacuum the entire apartment. i don’t know how much stuff gets on the floor, but i can usually rely on my trusty small sweeper to get everything. it’s going to be a pain to pack up this entire place in 2 short days. we actually have a lot of stuff… :-/

some other lovely news- i will be home for mother’s day this year & can go to the mother-daughter banquet at our church on saturday night! i love those and i’m also really excited because gracen will be home that weekend as well! gracen’s a friend from church, really a friend all my life since we grew up together, she being 3 years older than i. i haven’t seen her in a long time since neither one of us is home very often. she’s getting married in july and hopefully (fingers crossed) i will be able to make it to her wedding at bob jones. luckily, jeremy’s sister lives in north carolina, so we’re going to attempt to gather some vacation days and use them to visit both states.

finally, my last bit of updating before i run off and start folding everything in sight- jeremy has been offered a job at timbrooks, the car dealership where both of his parents work. he’ll be a service writer for either the GM store or the Kia store- we’re not sure which yet. tbd. but, it’s a job and he has the opportunity to be promoted, which is good. that burden is off of our shoulders- now it’s on to the task of getting me one. i applied to a coffee shop about 3 blocks from our apartment and i would love to work there. i haven’t heard anything in about a week so i should call there today and see if the owner got my application. also, this week is the last week jeremy and i are both receiving paychecks, so what we have is all we’ve got til about june. it’s going to be a rough month, but i sincerely trust that God’s going to provide for us and we’ll be happy no matter what. everything’s worked out thus far, so i have to trust on this one. 

here’s my darling hubby on his way to the poli sci debate.. how dapper. =)
 

this weekend has been trying. i’m not feeling well. everything seems to be going wrong.

please listen to “you’re the one i want” by jets to brazil

so jeremy has been thinking about getting a small bike for when we move to cumberland to save money, i.e. bikes get more mpg, his car costs a lot to operate per month, and since it’s warm, he could ride the bike for about 6 months out of the year. 

he was looking at this bike, called the “rebel” and it’s top speed is 45mph. in all seriousness, this bike wouldn’t be a bad idea, but these are the jokes that i thought of for the bike being called the “rebel” and only going 45mph:

• it should be called the “daisy” not the “rebel”
• i’m going to get jeremy a basket with flowers for the front of it and tassles to hang off the handlebars
• i’m also going to get jeremy a little bell so we can hear him coming at us 45mph fast

and my best joke:

• does it have training wheels?

i’m having so much fun thinking of funny jokes for this bike. finally, my wit put to good use.

The Office Videos

the trip to cranberry was successful. 

i love barnes & noble, but was saddened by the thought that that particular b&n doesn’t sell music. i was looking for m. ward & zooey deschanel’s new cd, she & him. 

ok, so here is what i got:

• the economist (for jeremy.. like i read that)
• nicholas nickleby
• hard times
  

let me just stop and say that i love charles dickens. i’m working on collecting all of his works, and now am 2 closer to the full collection (!!)

• howards end
• far from the maddening crowd
• night and day

i decided awhile ago that i’d like to start reading more virginia woolf. i’ve only read orlando, so i purchased night & day. i think i’ll start that one first. i don’t feel like i have to cook something now, but i do wonder what i’ll make for dinner tomorrow night. today’s day off was heavenly, i dread going back to work tomorrow. 

which brings me to my next point of contention, my cellular telephone. i got a new phone the first week of february, i believe. my old phone was a razr, and pretty much broken in every aspect. needless to say, i was very excited to get a new phone. so i did. i got a motorola Q, with a full qwerty keyboard, the internet, pretty much everything. it’s a computer on a phone. i got a great deal on it & i love it. it’s been working perfectly for the first 2 months, then last friday, my phone just froze. i tried to turn it on, and it wouldn’t go past the “verizon wireless” beginning screen. i took it to the verizon store & they just gave me a new Q.. and last night it froze again, but i got it working. on my way to cranberry tonight, i made the mistake of turning it off again to charge it and now it won’t turn on again. i’m so frustrated because i love my phone, but i’m so mad at it!

jeremy is home so i’m going to spend some time with him & eat my honey roasted peanuts, drink my coffee, & watch duplex. 

i’m having this uncontrollable urge to cook something & to read a book. 

i want to bake a pie and go to barnes & noble. 

i think i’m going to start a book list, i desperately want to read, i haven’t read anything in such a long time. maybe the cooking thing should be approached slowly, with much caution. 

i’m off to barnes & noble, hopefully i shall return with something joyous to read…..