Catch up, Happy Halloween

Ahh, the past week has been so busy! I can't believe I haven't blogged in a week and a half. Time to rectify that and let you know what I've been up to.

First, work's been crazy busy. It seems we never finish a project before another one is handed to us, so right now, I'm juggling a lot at work. And the one project I was just handed is NOT working at all. It's frustrating and annoying.

So my mental state is being pushed to the limit at work, and my physical state wasn't too great either. Two weeks ago I had experienced a decent pain in my right lower abdomen. After a lovely doctor visit I found out I had a decent sized cyst on my right ovary. Thankfully, after a follow up visit yesterday, I have found that it has broken up, but my doctor is still putting me on the pill to prevent the cyst from coming back.

Despite these problems, I headed to Lancaster for the weekend to visit my sister Britt and..... to see HANSON!!! It was great. The Chamelon Club is actually kind of small, it's basically a narrow old warehouse renovated to hold concerts and things. There was the lower level, where the stage was, and two upper levels looking down on the stage. Although Britt and I were in the back of the crowd on the first level, we were still closer that I'd ever been to the stage before. Close enough to read Taylor's T-shirt, which at first glance looked like it said "I love moving men." We were dying! Though we were fairly certain that's NOT what it said, so we kept trying to read it, and finally, I saw that it said "love movement" which made a little more sense. Anyway, they were great, they played more of their newer songs but three of the older ones (all of which I loved and could still sing every word to :) and I was so glad I FINALLY got to see them in concert.

And while I may think I'm a big Hanson fan.... many people beat me in that department. The girl in line in front of us not only drove 5 hours to get to the concert (from NY) but she's seen them 13 times previously and has a Hanson TATTOO! And I saw another girl in line with a Hanson tattoo as well. So you may think I'm crazy for still liking Hanson, but clearly, I'm not that crazy! :)

So tonight is my final bellydance class (at least with MainLine School Night) but my instructor has a studio right in Ardmore and I've been toying with the idea of signing up for some more classes. I really like it, it's been a great learning experience and tons of fun. I'm so glad I signed up for this class!

Anyway, this will probably be my last post for October, so have a happy Halloween to all! Can you believe the holidays are already upon us???

Gus Gus!

So when I was looking for my Elmo cookie pictures I came across some pictures I took of one of my really fat mice at work. I have two boys that were monsters at 8 months old. Amazingly, they're actually bigger now than they are in this picture, although they're almost a year old now. Well, only one mouse(I named him Gus, after the tubby mouse in Cinderella :) is in the pictures, but they are both big boys. I do love them, though. They are just so cute. All of my mice are special to me!

Corn chowder and Halloween sugar cookies!

Sunday was a great day! Since my aunt had a ton of corn fresh from the field, we took some to make homemade corn chowder. Yummmmm. I love it, but most of all, I loved the time I had making it with my mom. She used to make it all the time for our high school to sell in the snack bar at our football games.... it was always one of the first things to go. :)

After we made the corn chowder, we made sugar cookies! I love them, and it's a tradition in our house to make sugar cookies for the holidays. We have cookie cutters for Halloween, Easter, tons for Christmas, Valentines Day, and all the national holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Independence Day. It's so much fun making the cookies! And they are so delicious. For our halloween cookies, we made cookies in the shape of pumpkins, bats, and cats. We made little jack-o-lantern faces with sprinkles and icing for the pumpkins, and even for the bats. I took some into work to share and got rave reviews. :) And last December, I made homemade sugar cookies in the shape of Elmo for my former lab manager. They were for her son's preschool class to celebrate his birthday. That was quite an effort, since I had to handcut the cookies ( I didn't have a cookie cutter in the shape of Elmo) and I had to be very detailed in the icing and decorating so people knew it was Elmo. Thankfully, they came out great. :) In fact, here's a picture!


Anyway, after all the corn chowder making and cookie baking, we watched a home movie of Christmas in 1990. It's so funny seeing how people have changed since then! It was a great way to end my absolutely wonderful weekend. I had such a great time. And I can't wait for this weekend either, because the Hanson concert is Sunday! Can't wait!!!! :)

Zills

How could I have forgotten to mention how my bellydance class is coming along? :) At the end of last week's lesson, I bought zills (aka finger cymbals) from my instructor, with the instructions that I should put them together sometime during the week since we would learn how to play at the next lesson. While I did practice some of the bellydance moves this past week by walking around my apartment with a yearbook on my head while carrying a pumpkin on my hip (gets you to feel the natural movements) I managed to forget about the zills in my purse until an hour before I needed to leave for class. Whoops! Luckily they were easy to assemble. The most important thing is marking them so you know which finger they go on. They're placed on the middle finger and thumb of each hand, and since your thumb is fatter than the middle finger, you need to make sure you have the right cymbal fit for each finger! Because another important thing is making sure they're tight on the finger.... you don't want them flying off as you're dancing, that would not be good. :)

I was surprised to learn that there is more to playing the finger cymbals than I thought. First of all, you need to have them correctly on your fingers so that there is a 30 degree angle between them on the thumb and middle finger. This is so that they don't clomp together, like castanets. Correctly played, they sound like bells, which they should, since zills is the Turkish word for bell. Also, you want to play them by keeping your thumb relatively steady, while sliding the cymbal on your middle finger down over the cymbal on the thumb. Luckily, this is less complicated than it sounds! And the last thing is that you want to play most of the rhythms with your dominant hand. And so, with all this in mind, I can actually play the zills rather well! We learned how to play a very common rhythm found in bellydance that I'm practicing this week. The hardest part now is trying to play these rhythms while also trying to perform bellydance movements with the rest of my body. It's pretty funny to see, but as they say, practice makes perfect! :) I'll try to update next week on my progress!

Campfire!

So it appears that many of my blogs have been my raving about the wonders of fall (can you tell it's my favorite season? ;) and one of my many favorite things is campfires. Tonight my family gathered in the backyard for a campfire, set up by yours truly, the campfire making queen. Thank you, girl scouts. :P There were sixteen of us gathered around the fire, which was perfect and toasty warm for a cool autumn night like this. We had hotdogs to roast over the fire, along with chips and dip and maracroni salad, mmm. We also had boiled corn on the cob over the fire and then slathered butter and parmesan cheese on them. And of course, there's always smores! It was so much fun to sit around the campfire with friends and family. Later in the evening I went back up to my aunt and uncle's house to visit the kittens, who've grown a lot in the past two weeks! They're eating actual food now, they don't have to be fed from eyedroppers anymore. Newly christened Teddy (the chocolate brown boy, cause he looks like a teddy bear) and Pepper (cause she's all black) they came running to the door as soon as we walked in. They're so adorable, still so soft and fluffy with that downy kitten fur. They are precious. :) All in all, it was a perfect night. Yay for fall!

The beauty of Haverford College

Wow..... who would have thought we'd experience such gorgeous weather in the beginning of October?? Although I'm looking forward to the advent of cooler weather so I can finally wear the awesome new winter coat I bought recently at Target, I'm willing to put it off a bit to enjoy some last minute wonderful fall days! :)

Today was a free day all for me (though I fear those days shall soon be coming to an end, since I've been looking and applying for a part time job) so I wanted to use it well. I slept in, read a good book, ran some errands, and took a long beautiful walk outside to fully soak up the delightful weather.

I'm not sure if I've written about it here, but if I did, I apologize because I'm going to say it again- Haverford College, which is literally a block from my house, is a gorgeous campus and a veritable treasure trove in terms of the beauty of nature. I'm constantly amazed and awed by the beauty that is there, since it's an island of serenity amidst the chaotic busy-ness of the urban jungle that surrounds it. The entire campus is lovely, and I truly explored it today for the first time. All the buildings are stone, (the pic to the left are buildings on their campus) and have such an old feeling to them when you see them for the outside. I felt like I was walking around castles and fortresses of ancient times. They even have lamposts with lamps that you would have seen in colonial times! I walked past their library- Magill Library, I think it's called, and I would have loved to have gone inside. (I would have loved to see it from the inside to determine if it was nicer than the library at Mansfield University... I LOVED that library.) From the outside, it looked like a cathedral-castle, tucked into the trees the way it was, with high arches and barred windows.... the entrance to get there even had a stone curving bridge-type walkway that gave me the feeling of approaching the entrance of a castle. (See the picture below). It's also a much larger campus than I first thought. I walked around a for a good hour and I don't think I saw the entire campus.

The nature trail is a bit of heaven for me. When I walk it, I feel at home. If ever I'm feeling homesick for Berks county and my parents house, that's where I go. It feels like I'm back there again, walking on the beaten dirt trail covered with leaves and erupting tree roots, as you follow the path of the creek that's there. I love it so much, and today was no exception. It was so nice to just walk under the trees with the warm sunlight filtering through, listening to the birds chatter in the trees above me, feeling like I was at home. This picture to the right isn't of the nature trail, but it's of a scenic spot next to the library. It sort of reminds me of something out the "The Secret Garden." :)


On college ave, (pic below) the long entranceway leading to the campus from Lancaster Avenue, there's a huge elm tree with a bench underneath it. In the spring and summer, when the leaves are there, you could sit under the tree and no one would even be able to see you. It's pretty close to the duck pond that's at Haverford, and sitting at the bench today made me nostalgic for Millersville. Millersville also has a beautiful campus, with a lovely pond in the middle of it (nicer than the pond at Haverford, since it's centrally located and has much much lovlier landscaping around it). I used to sit on a bench under a gorgeous cherry blossom tree that grew next to the Millersville pond, the one that sat a few feet away from the gazebo that was there. It was tranquil and wonderful. I loved to sit there a few moments when I found myself especially stressed from school. It was fun to watch the ducks and the antics of the crazy, fearless squirrels (which I noticed Haverford has in abundance as well!) and just to take the time to think things through. We also had some huge shade trees surrounding the pond that reminded me of the Elm I sat under today. Sadly, Millersville had to cut down the one tree because it was so old it was in danger of falling over. I was sorry to see it go.

Anyway, it was a wonderful time today for me to reminisce and just enjoy the scenery around me. I hope everyone else took advantage of the gorgeous day today! :)

Bellydance

I signed up for a 4 week bellydance class through mainline school night, and yesterday was my first night. I got a little lost getting to the school (I really didn't realize that Conestoga high school in Berwyn would be so far off the beaten track, sheesh!) but once I got there, I was ready to try out the magic of bellydance!

My instructor is incredibly talented. She moves so smoothly, like liquid. Watching her makes me believe her bones are made of rubber, and compared to her, I look like a mummy, so stiff and stilted. :P It's much harder than it looks! She explained that in order to do the moves correctly, you really have to understand the history behind bellydance and the culture it comes from. Understanding the women of the middle east, and how these moves are completely natural for them, helps to visualize and feel the movements. I've been trying and practicing and it has gotten a little easier, though I definitely need more work!

I think one of the reasons it's hard for me to catch on to the movements is that bellydance is an expression of sensual femininity. It's embracing and celebrating who you are as a woman. I don't know how to embrace that feeling, really. Growing up in the U.S. it's hard to embrace yourself fully as a woman, because everywhere we turn, we're faced with people telling us we have to look and act a certain way in order to be beautiful. That we need to be a certain size, a certain shape, wear certain clothes, do certain things. Day after day we see and hear people telling us we're not good enough, but we should do this or that to become better. I try not to listen to that, but it's so hard. It's hard not to believe that.

More than anything, I hope this class helps me to forget what the world says about who I should be, and start accepting myself as I am.

Kittens!!

Sometime last week I discovered that my aunt, uncle, and cousins had discovered and are now carrying for two orphan kittens. They were so tiny that my aunt and uncle have been feeding them every couple hours with kitten formula and an eyedropper, because they were too young to even lap up milk yet. So Sunday afternoon, Britt and I went up to see them.

They are SO CUTE!!!! One is all black, and one is a chocolate brown color. They both have pretty blue-gray eyes. I checked them out and while it's still a little early to tell, I'm pretty sure that the black one is a girl and the brown one is a boy. They were just adorable. At one point, I was holding the black one, and she started sucking on the neckline of my shirt! Kittens will do that if they're separated from their mother too early. It's a comfort thing. It was so cute, though, and I felt very maternal holding such a tiny helpless kitten. After sucking on my neckline for a while, she curled up on the side of my neck and fell asleep. :) The brown one had passed out in Britty's arms a few minutes earlier. After a while they woke up again and were ready to play - they are very curious and playful, watching them is a trip. :) I so wish I could keep one of them, but I don't think Chico would appreciate that very much. They're pretty harmless to him now, but once they're grown, they won't be so harmless! I love them though, and I think my aunt and uncle are going to keep them, so I'll at least get to visit them every time I go home. :)

Fabulous first weekend for October!

Ahh, it's officially October! Definitely a good month. :) One of my favorites! And I rang in the beginning of the month in a totally awesome, fun-filled way!

Thursday night, my mom, aunt, and cousin Dee came to visit me (and because Dee was going to shadow me at work the next day). We went out to dinner at a sports bar in Ardmore that I love called JR Monahans. They have really good food, a great atmosphere, and FABULOUS desserts. Thursday night was no exception. My aunt and cousin split the resees peanut butter tower, and my mom and I split the toll house cookie dessert. It was a big toll house cookie all warm and delicious topped with ice cream and drizzled with fudge. It was soooo unbelievably good. :) Later that evening Dee and I watched "Last Holiday" a cute romantic movie starring Queen Latifah and L.L. Cool J.

Friday at work went really well, Dee did a great job and we went over a lot. Like me, seeing the mice was her favorite part. :) As a treat we went to the King of Prussia mall after work, and had a blast! I mostly window shopped, but did find a great pair of jeans for only 19.99 and since I could use a new pair, I bought them in a hurry. Before coming home we stopped at the ColdStone Creamery in the mall.... their ice cream is so good. I got the cake batter ice cream with fudge and brownies.... delicious! I love cake, I can't resist it. Ice cream is a very close second. So give me ice cream that tastes almost exactly like cake batter, and I'm in heaven! :)

Saturday it was heavenly to sleep in. Dee and I lounged around in the morning and watched "Forrest Gump" and then I had a quick interview for a part time job (which went well, yay!) and then, Dee and I headed toward Allentown to meet my mom and sister at Dorney Park! I got two free tickets for Dorney from Ben F.M. for doing the radio commercial, so that's why we went. We had SUCH a great time. It was gorgeous weather and the park wasn't too crowded, so we didn't have to wait too long to get on the rides. I haven't been there in a while so there were two new roller coasters- the Talon and Voodoo- that I hadn't tried before. I liked them but Steel Force is still my absolute favorite.

Now that it's October, starting 6 p.m. the park starts "Haunt" for halloween. There are actors dressed up in scary costumes wandering around the park, and there are 3 indoor haunted house type mazes and 3 outdoor ones. Kill hill, a scary clown based indoor maze, was definitely the best indoor maze, and cornstalkers was DEFINITELY the best outdoor maze. They're more startling than scary, and there were plenty of times when I was expecting someone/something and nearly jumped out of my skin! The neatest thing was that the park has fog machines set up, so it really gives the park a creepy ambience as you're wandering around. We stayed till 11 pm and had a really fun time.

Overall, it was a fabulous weekend and a perfect way to start October! :)