Christmas Vacation!

This was my office this morning: 

I got to work my half a day today from home! It was fantastic! I did all my work in my pajamas while listening to Christmas music and eating my bowl of cereal. 

After that I worked out. Yes, I actually worked out. I didn't do a whole lot, but I did abs and squats and some push-ups. It was kind of rough. But I did it so that counts for something. Right? 

Then I showered and drove up to St. Louis to get a facial at Chris's work. I'd never had one before. It wasn't what I had expected, but it turned out better than what I thought it would be. It was really relaxing. And the table/bed thing I laid on was heated and that felt incredible. Since my workout my lower back has been bothering me so the heat was nice on my back. 

Now I'm at home watching a movie, waiting for Chris to come home from work so we can go to Pasta House for dinner. I'm so excited for pasta! 

Enjoy your weekend everyone! I'll be posting pics on Sunday of our puppy when we get her! :)

Happy Thursday

So last night I was extremely lazy. I came home and after attempting for the millionth time this week to change my payment method for our internet, I gave up, threw some ravioli in the oven, grabbed a beer, and turned on Gossip Girl. And that was my night.

We have HugesNet for internet and I've never hated anything so much in my life. As much as I hated Charter, I'd gladly switch back if I could. Unfortunately, as of right now, HughesNet is all that's available in our neck of the woods. Literally. There's apparently a state park or something behind our house.

Anyway, if I wasn't in school, I'd go without internet completely and just use my phone for internet when I needed it. But that's not an option right now, so I'm stuck. Blah. If anyone knows of any alternatives that aren't super expensive, I'm open to ideas.

Because of the "storm" or whatever this is, my boss decided instead of coming in for half a day tomorrow, we're just going to work for a few hours from home. Yay! I get to sleep in and not go anywhere tomorrow. I'm so excited. So since we won't be at work tomorrow we had our "holiday lunch" today.

We went to My Daddy's Cheesecake. Love love love that place. Although I have strangely never had cheesecake from there. I got the french dip sandwich and it was delicious. Much better than what I brought--leftover broccoli and a turkey burger (which will probably be my lunch tomorrow).

Driving home pretty much sucked thanks to all this wind. And a truck almost hit me. So that was fun. But I made it home safe and sound. I had to bring in the chair that was on our front porch which was no longer on our front porch. And I also had to go track down our trash can which ended up on the side of the house.

So now I'm just waiting for Chris to get home so we can eat dinner. Probably gonna watch more Gossip Girl until then.

Don't blow away! :)

Weekend Recap: Christmas Shopping

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I left work Friday and drove up to St. Louis to go to Hot Shots with Chris and a couple of our friends. We had a good time and met some interesting people.

We stayed in St. Louis Friday night so we could get our Christmas shopping done Saturday morning. We got most of it done at the mall and then went to Best Buy. That place was super crowded. Possibly worse than the mall. Not fun. We ran into my parents though and they took us out to lunch at Panera :)

On our way back home after lunch we stopped at Petco to buy our puppy a few things. Mainly chew toys, a leash, candy cane bones, adorable food bowls, etc. We get to pick her up on Sunday and I'm so excited!

One of puppy's new toys :)

Saturday night we stayed home (after a trip to Walmart--booo) and watched a movie and pigged out on pizza.

Chris had to work on Sunday so while he was gone I wrapped all of the presents. I hate wrapping presents, but they turned out alright. Most years someone else ends up wrapping all my presents because I just don't get along well with wrapping paper. I watched Miracle on 34th Street while I wrapped presents. I forgot how much I love that movie.

Presents wrapped and under the tree :)

Yesterday was kind of a crappy Monday, but it got a whole lot better when my boss told me that we're leaving at 4 every day this week, and on Friday, we're only working until noon. Woohoo!

So I got to drive home in semi-daylight (at least for part of the drive) and made pizza casserole for dinner. It turned out delish!

Tonight we're having turkey burgers and I have no idea what else. Dinner will be followed by sitting on the couch watching tv. I'm loving not having homework.

Speaking of school, I got an A on my final paper and an A in the class! Just waiting on my other class now to see what I got. I hate waiting for this stuff. But I'll be a very happy girl if I got A's in both of my classes for my first semester of grad school. :)

Hallelujah!

I'm officially DONE with my first semester of grad school!

Sorry for the brief hiatus I had to take to study and write my paper, but now I'm back! I took my final Monday night and I think I did pretty well. Except I'm almost positive I got a few copyright law questions wrong, because I always do. Blah.

And I turned in my final paper online yesterday. I reread it a dozen times, made changes and tweaks, had Chris read it, I reread it again, and finally, I decided I was finished with it. It was as good as I could possibly make it and it wasn't going to get any better, so I turned it in.

I spent most of my weekend studying. On Sunday we went to my parents' house for my mom's birthday dinner (which she cooked). It was fun. Chris got a glimpse of what Christmas Eve will be like. Organized chaos in my opinion. Everyone yelling and talking over each other. Oh and wine. There's always wine. :)

I only ran once last week. Finals kind of took over all my spare time. Now that I'm finished and have a full month off of school, I plan to start running again after work. Or maybe on my lunch breaks. And I get to start reading books for fun! Yay! I can't wait to finish Les Miserables.

And now for my most important news of all: We're getting a puppy! On December 23 if everything goes well at her vet appointment on the 21. It will be a chocolate labradoodle. But it's more lab than poodle. So it will have short hair and shouldn't shed much, but since it's more lab, we don't have to worry about grooming or anything. 

This may not be the exact puppy we get, but she'll look like this. 

Yay for puppies! And being finished with my first semester of grad school! Have a good one!

The Downside of Living with a Writer

Once they trust your opinion, they will ask you to read everything.

Poor Chris. I had him read the first paper I wrote this semester, and he even helped me come up with a better thesis for it. Got an A.

He read the second paper and told me it was good. Got an A.

The verdict is still out on the third paper, but I feel pretty good about it.

Now I'm working on my final research paper which has to be at least ten pages. He read the four pages I had written last night. It was a little convoluted and confusing and my thesis was pretty unclear. So I decided to rewrite the whole thing. And asked him if he'd read it again. Of course, he said yes, because he's awesome.

I feel bad though. It's not like I'm really writing about things that are extremely interesting. I mean, I personally think they're fairly interesting, but not everyone will think so. And I'm sure he's probably incredibly bored whenever he reads something I've written.

Lucky for him, next semester there won't be any paper writing. It will be lots and lots of poems (hopefully good poems). If only I can make it through next Wednesday. Then I'm officially done for a whole month. I'm so excited.

I plan on working on rewriting some of my previous poems so I can submit them to some literary magazines. I also plan to read as much as possible. I'm going to finish Les Miserables! And also read The Hunger Games (possibly all three books?) and if I have time, I want to reread The Great Gatsby.

Anyone have any big plans for their breaks (if you have one) and/or holidays?

Weekend Recap

Friday night Chris and I went to see Wreck it Ralph. The movie was adorable. The Farmington movie theater? Not so much. I said it was a step up from the dollar theater in St. Charles (this one was cleaner). We had to butter our own popcorn. In what kind of hell do you go to a movie theater and butter your own popcorn?! Farmington, apparently. Chris had to go re-butter our popcorn just before the movie started because the butter didn't get to the bottom half. But like I said, the movie was adorable and I loved it and so that sort of made up for it. 

Saturday was a long day for me. I got up at 7:30 because I need to find and be at the DMV by 8:30 so I could do the registration nonsense for my car and whatnot. Well, I couldn't find it. I drove around for over an hour. GPS couldn't find it. GPS on my phone couldn't find it. I gave up. At some point this week I'm just going to go to the one in Cape because I know where it is. What a pain. 

In the process, however, I found the Farmington Mental Institution and the Farmington Correctional Facility. Fun. After that I went to Plaza Tire to get my oil changed. It took forever. I'm about fed up with that place. I think I'm going to go somewhere else for my next oil change. 

After that I picked up my prescriptions from Walgreens and then went to Walmart to pick up some things for dinner. Unfortunately, we forgot to get the roast out for dinner so it was still frozen. We had brat burgers instead. 

Saturday night after dinner we decorated our tree...which is covered in my ornaments. And we have no tree topper. Fail. And some of the lights don't work. Whatever. we also hung up some other Christmas-y things my mom gave me. And I have adorable penguin towels in the bathroom. :) And in case my grandmother asks, yes, Elvis is on the damn tree. Ugh. 

Photo courtesy of Chris, because his phone's camera is better than mine :(

Sunday we woke up and went for a run downtown. Chris ran about a mile and a half with me. I did a total of 3.14 miles. Then we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast (so much for that run). After that we did my least favorite thing in the entire world and went grocery shopping.

In between all this, I did homework all weekend long. It was not fun. Yesterday I turned in one project. All I have left now is my final research paper and to study for a test. So far I've got about 4 pages written and I need a minimum of 10. 

Last night we had race car chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and carrots. In case you're wondering, the dinosaur nuggets are way better than the race cars.  

This morning, my boss and I walked up to the campus health clinic to get our flu shots. This is probably the first time I've had a flu shot in two years. I know for sure I didn't get one last year because I was too sick all the time. My arm is kinda sore from it :(

Anyhoo, enjoy the rest of this rainy Tuesday and the warm weather while it lasts! 

Hydration

I used to hate drinking water when I was younger. I also hated milk and juice. I think I mostly drank tea or soda, especially in high school and a majority of my undergrad.

I'm still not huge on drinking juice, and I really only like milk with certain things, and when it's super cold. But I drink a TON of water now. As I've mentioned before, I drink at least 60 ounces of water a day. During the work week, I probably drink closer to 100 ounces a day (more or less). I'm not quite as good about drinking so much water on weekends, but if we go out to eat, I usually order water rather than a sprite or something else.

I tried that Mio stuff for a while. I like it, and the ones I have tried taste good, but I rarely put them in my water. Chris uses them all the time, but I find that I actually want plain, cold water. I crave it sometimes. There are days where I could have sprite or coffee or tea or whatever else, but the only thing that sounds good to me is water.

I guess after forcing myself to drink water regularly whether I wanted it or not has made me like it a lot more. I also don't feel as well when I don't drink enough water during the day. A lot of people say that drinking a lot of water helps with weight loss and stuff. I can't say that I've ever noticed a difference. Maybe it helps maintain my current weight, but I've never lost weight because of the amount of water I drink.

But like I said, the more water I drink throughout the day, the better I feel. And I usually have better runs when I've had a lot of water. Maybe the whole weight loss things works for people who need to lose more weight than I do. Or maybe it has something to do with your metabolism. I don't know. It could be purely psychological. Who knows? I've read so many different theories on what water does for your body and blah blah blah. I know the basic stuff, and obviously water is important, but I'm not sure about the weight loss theories, or the difference between drinking cold water and room temperature water.

All I know is that I feel better when I've had a lot of water throughout the day. Plus it breaks up the workday a little, getting up for refills (and going to the bathroom lol).

For anyone struggling with trying to drink enough water:
First, get yourself a bottle or mug that has the number of ounces on it. That helps you keep track.
Second, if you don't like plain water, put something like Mio in it. Try to make sure it's low-cal and low-sugar though, otherwise you're not really doing yourself any favors.
I'd also suggest trying to drink it plain every now and then. After a while, you'd be surprised at how amazing water can sound, especially in the summer.