What's better than writing a book report?

I have to write a report for This book. It's a good book. I would just rather do so many more things. (It really is a good book, about women in Greco-Roman history.)

But per the title of this post, what is more fun?


LOL Cats. They are always more fun.

updates!

I had a good birthday. I turned 27 on Wednesday. It wasn't as traumatic as my 26th birthday- I got a lot of love this year in the form of cards and online greetings and Dennis took me to a really really nice restaurant (Hawaiian fusion!). My Dad actually sent me flowers. They are gorgeous and moved me, considering the fact that Dad rarely even sends me a birthday card (he has a new girlfriend and I surmise that she is pretty awesome). Unfortunately said flowers have given me serious hayfever and allergic reactions. But I love and cherish them and am really really sad that they can't stay in our living room. (They are hiding in our guest room/office right now because I can't throw them away! My Dad bought me flowers!!)

I did break lent for my birthday but I had already decided that you can't blow candles out of an apple. You can't tell from this photo, but it's a chocolate souffle with a candle. And bananas foster on the side. (I can't even just have a little sugar on my birthday.)

On an unrelated note, we are still seriously talking about moving to Monterrey, Mexico. Don't anyone freak out because it highly depends on Dennis getting accepted to the PhD. program that he is applying for. I think he has good chances. Things like this have increased my stress level and I wonder if I might rename my blog to "ERIN FREAKS OUT ABOUT EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME-BLOG!"

So I'm trying to figure out how to get caught up and organized for life. Right now, school is a priority (one reason my blogs are few and far between and always end up like updates!) I need to make a resume. I registered the other day for my last classes in this degree that has taken FOR-EVER to finish and that was kind of a strange feeling. I imagine that I am not done with school yet, as I have started thinking about getting another degree (in what? not sure!).




Can I put LOL-speak on my resume?

The Invasion...

Of the Cold/Flu Bug. Our whole apartment complex/church/community bubble has it. Dennis has been sick for about a week and I'm full of mocos myself. I promise I am trying to wash my hands more and I washed our sheets today to get rid of any germs. Alas, this is a tough bug to beat.
My dear husband, bless him, is consequently unable to sleep at night. He refuses to take benedryl because they make him sleepy. But last night for example, he was on his blackberry or channel surfing or touching my face all night. It was cute, endearing, pathetic, and annoying.
My cure for the cold: cup o' noodles (ramen), liquids (not always good ones but nonetheless we try), and lots of wasting time on the internets (aka facebook games instead of studying).


this is my reason for post- Dennis citizenship ceremony blog hiatus:




*common cold plush doll via Cool Stuff Express
*Passive Aggressive Note about coughing via Passive Aggressive Notes

With one minute to spare...

On an unrelated note, I have discovered that there is a problem with my body clock. One week ago, I was able to without a clock, wake up at 6 or 7am. Now, because I have to be in class at 8am, I am automatically exhausted and cannot wake up on time. I woke up at 7:59 for my 8am class today. I did not wear my pajamas. Exactly. (I wore jeans and a sweater).


And here is a blog post you should read as it had me thinking about our daughters (our collectively as a people, but also Dennis's daughters and the girls that I teach in Sunday school and see around at church): Real Girls, Real Pressure. Let's not reinforce old and bad habits, mmkay?

AKA my Dad

Seriously. Crazy Lady= Female version of my dad. Except that one of his two cats just died in a car accident. But the crazy cat part totally describes him, bless his hippy soul. My dad calls me to tell me when he hears a Grateful Dead songfest on the radio.

vacation is ending :(

Winter break always goes by so fast! And this is probably my last one as a student! I've spent most of the break blissfully doing nothing and school starts back up this Wednesday. I have a few tasks to do before things get crazy (i have to write some fundraising letters and there are like 3 greeting cards that need to be composed and sent to Japan and Chile).

As mentioned, I was sick for most of the past few days (since Christmas). But today i felt pretty good (pretty normal) and I really don't have any excuses. I'm still in pajamas and all but I really don't have any excuses for not going out. It's a good thing that I didn't resolve to go to the gym (I make resolutions I know I can do).

But yeah, I've been getting out of bed in stages.

another reason to buy oreos for the church potluck

Another reminder from Passive Aggressive Notes about why I should not try new recipes when cooking for our upcoming Church potluck! (When in doubt, store-made rolls always work!!)

Do the dishes!

once again, thank you Passive Aggressive Notes for making me laugh. Illegal indeed.

Now Dennis is all American...

Instead of just "south american" or "north american".
Dennis is a flag ceremony away from being a citizen of TWO countries. He passed the US citizenship test at 100% and had a harder time finding the immigration building than actually taking the test itself.

My husband officially knows more about the United States than I do. We did have some fun bedtime discussions about who Patrick Henry was or why it took about a decade for the US constitution to be officially adopted by the 13 states... My old history professors might be proud of what I still remember. Or they might cringe.
In other news,

Cindy, I am really addicted to Pet Society. Thanks!!!!! (There are times when I'm trying to catch a frisbee that Dennis just cannot talk to me!)

internet banalities...

I don't think I will ever stop loving LOLZ cats.

In response to Angelina hate...

Touche.

Thanks to Gallery of the Absurd and my dear friend Sarah

Facebook in real life

Three things I know to be true:
1. I love facebook.
2. The British have yet again proved to be very very funny.
3. I will not un-tag or remove photos of friends just because THEY think they look bad. Tough. They are MY photos and my memories. (I've actually had a request to take a photo down from my young angst-filled emo nephew who is horribly embarrassed that I have a photo of him on facebook where he is smiling and looks clean and normal.)

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

PS:

POKE!!!! Juan Manuel, I will never ever ever remove this photo! One day when you find that Mormon girl you want to marry and have loads of kids with, you will thank me!! You look normal and handsome here!! (Plus, you CAN untag yourself from photos. duh.)

Why Angelina Jolie hate?

So apparently, no one likes Angelina Jolie! I'm a little surprised! (A little.) I think that Brad is kind of annoying personally (actually he does a lot of good things). I just don't like him because to me, This is a massive cop-out. (Or a massive win for Brad, who has the cow and the milk for free).

Anyway, this is me today. I'm not sick just completely tired and unmotivated as far as school. It's just a lack of energy- I don't want to wake up for the 8am class I'm auditing and I don't want to read for my other classes. This will lead to panic in the coming weeks as two papers are due before thanksgiving which is approaching fast.


On a side note, Dennis and I are working with two other guys who may go with us to Japan next summer (fingers crossed that the timing works and we all have the ability to do what we are planning!) We made dinner and talked about it tonight with them and things look really good but I realized that once again I have a big mouth and I am very intrusive. God, I'm such a girl. I hope that we can work as a team without me interfering as an annoying female who wants to know marriage plans and medical histories. I know that Dennis, rightly so perhaps, says that I talk to much and I probably embarrass him. I've never met someone who is so closely the epitome of a meddling chatterbox, as I am myself.

*On another side note, this is like the 4th time this semester that Dennis and I have had a dinner for students/undergraduates. We are very old married couple mentorly aren't we. :) It's not heavy cooking- I made a frozen lasagna tonight.

The fallout.

These are ghosts?

Thanks to Cake Wrecks for this ghost-cake. AT least I think these are ghosts. Now I know the trick to drawing ghosts that look mysteriously phallic.

Happy Halloween!!

Question of the day: Is there a bear? What?




PLUS: One alternative to the halloween costumes you know you will see this year (the joker and Sarah Palin):



kudos to BWE and Passive Aggressive Notes for today's spooky/cute/aggressive material!

Stay with me a little longer please...

Alright. I feel like I should apologize in advance. Posting so much political activity on my blog makes me feel like I'm either a "liberal" blogger that thinks Karl Rove is the devil and has a laundry list of examples and quotes and knowledge... I don't. I know what the Democratic party stands for in theory- "socialistic" government, anti-war, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro- a lot of stuff that means taxes, especially on the rich, so that poor people can get more welfare. And I know that I run the risk, albeit quite slight as I'm not exactly a celebrity blogger, of someone who is voting Republican commenting on my post(s) with their FOX news rhetoric/information to prove I'm wrong/naive/ignorant myself and that I'm certainly not "fair and balanced". Stay with me here, I promise that this will all be over soon and it will soon be filed into my archives to collect internet dust and I can look back and for my own personal reasons, remember what I thought about this election.

The tongue cartoons just don't stop. Ok. They totally will after November 4th, I swear. And look, I have an Obama cartoon too. I know it isn't entirely fair but it's a little more fair.


My Aunt, who is young enough to be open to voting for a democrat and old enough to still be freaked out by democrats, has been anti-McCain all summer. But she sent me an email today saying that she's having second thoughts because of all the campaign funding Obama has received. Fair enough. Obama has a lot of campaign funding.

Maybe I should make things clear. Just because I think pictures of McCain's tongue are HIlarious doesn't mean I completely think that Obama is a Messiah. I voted for Hillary. Obama isn't a perfect guy. He's a politician. They change the clown but the circus stays the same. I just... I can't even put into words how ready I am for this political season to be over. I'm tired of thinking that my Republican family members and friends are terrorist voters or worse that they are ignorant or racist. And I'm tired of the whole argument for or against. A lot of what Obama says IS rhetoric. And he is really green as in inexperienced. And he does have a lot of campaign funding and he is totally loved by the media. This happens to me every election year. I wish I could remember what it is like to not care about who will be elected.


But McCain did pick Sarah Palin... I really think he would do anything to be president, even if it meant picking a good-looking governor with a short resume (so she's more maverick) that he didn't even know earlier when he could have picked other token women to better help him out. And even though a lot of Obama is rhetoric, his rhetoric and the way he interacts with the camera is moving and compelling. I don't know that I can relate to Obama 100% but I know I can't relate to McCain.









At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who I vote for- I'm in California and it's probably going to swing to Obama. And my aunt- she lives in Texas. I'm guessing that her vote will get canceled out by the gazillion of McCain voters.


BTW: if you are down here still, google "tired of politics". I'm not the only one, apparently who is basically blogging the same thing. (I liked what this guy had to say).

Osmosis.

because I've been pretty exhausted for the past five days or so. not studying as much as I'd like....

(Seriously. I've noticed a new self-diagnosed ridiculous monthly body symtom. I'm comatose for 5-7 days. I have NO energy. I slept more than I was awake this weekend!)

Halloween Spirit.

Oh they keep adding new photoshop photos!! Nice :)

Most unproductive day ever.

Ever. I did not do a single thing today.
So, all I have to offer is this:
Photoshop Contest
That weird photo of McCain that was on the Chilean news site? The internets have blessed us with improved versions.





Our favorites (well, we have many. including the Godzilla-McCain's). Dennis especially likes the one of McCain from "The Christmas Story".