Notes and Cards

I simply love getting notes and cards. Even if the note simply says "Hey! I went out to pick up groceries. Be back around 5." I know, I don't really have a need to get excited about notes like that, but I do.
The other day I got a letter/card in the mail from Jill. Being the crafty woman that she is, she created it so perfectly and with such pretty colours I nearly squealed with delight. Yes, squealed. Although it's not usually a word that people use to describe hand-made cards, I just did. As you can see, it's very pretty. Thus, the squealing.

Lucky me, I've also received several letters, cards, and notes during this school year from various people. Some of them are friends who live on campus, other who have come to visit, friends from last year who did not return, and people from home. I've enjoyed each and every one of them. It lets me know that people are willing to spend not only the time to write the letter but the .59 cents (or whatever stamps cost now) on me, which obviously gives me the warm fuzzy feelings inside.

The other great thing about getting letters is that it inspires me to write to others and I actually do this quite often. If you're wondering "where the heck is my letter than?" don't worry. I've probably written you one, it's just that I'm terrible at actually sending them out!

Counting down

I'm counting down for a lot of different reasons these days.
1) Only 11 more days until I'm home for Easter and Rachelle and Jack's wedding.
2) Only 19 more days until classes are finishes and exam studies begin.
3) Only 32 more days until I've finished my final final exam.
4) Only 32 more days until my parents drive out here to pick me up, meet my friends, and see where I've been living for the past year and a half.
5) Only 36 more days until I need to have a job lined up and can begin working.

All of these things hold great excitement and some of them stress, but I'm looking forward to them all in a special way.

Midterms...dun, dun, DUN!

Is that what you would write for scary, looming music "dun, dun, DUN,"? That's the only way I could think to write it. Maybe a "da na, da na, da na," would have worked better, but the "dun, dun, DUN," seems more frightening in my mind.
Anywho, I have three midterms this week. One, or possibly all three of them may be tomorrow. I don't really know because I had to reschedule two of them and I haven't heard back as to when they are going to be.
Because I have three midterms, tomorrow-ish, I really should be studying right now. Instead, I walked through the Assinabouin Forest (something I don't regret at all), spent the afternoon at Joe Black's coffee shop with wonderful friends and wonderful food (another thing I don't regret at all) and an hour or so on the phone with my family (and yet another thing I don't regret at all). I did get a fair bit of work done while at the coffee shop for my one midterm, but really should be practicing piano right now. I have to put together three folk songs to play and master that silly figured bass...sometimes it royally confuses me. Which is silly; it's not that complicated of a concept. So, away I go, to practice, to become a successful keyboard skills student! Farewell!
Oh, and I have really nice fingernails right now! I know its random, but for a girl whose never had nice fingernails because of the NASTY habit of biting them off, this is a real achievement! 7 out of 10 are near perfect!

I follow better than I lead

I love following other peoples blogs. They say the most interesting things. They have the most unique lives. They love to blog.
And, I get to snag really great blogging ideas off of them.
Like my friend Jill. She has this wonderful little thing on the side of her blog tallying all the couples that she know that have gotten engaged this year and also, all the couples she knows that have been married this year. So far it 4-0 for the engaged couples, but we all know that will change in time.
I figured, "I like this idea so much! Why not do it on my blog too" So I have. Only I had added an additional element to include the soon to be parents that I know (feels like there is a lot of them) and then, of course, once the little ones enter the world I've got a box for that too.

I have nothing to say

I'm sorry, but I really have nothing to blog about. How boring, I know. But there is honestly nothing happening right now. Other than a lot of time in the practice room here at school and trying to figure out how to analyze music in theory class. Sad day.

Vinyl Record Bowl

Today my friend Sue and I were browsing a jewelry website when we stumbled upon vinyl record bowls. They were awesome looking and since we both had a few extra records kicking around we figured, why not try and make one ourselves?

 

Thanks to handy, dandy Google we were able to find basic instructions and some ridiculous videos on how to make them.

I don't have any pictures of the process, but making them is really simple. All you do is preheat your oven to 200-250. Place the record on top of an upside down bowl (you can use any size of bowl depending on what size you want your record bowl to end up) that is placed on a cookie sheet.  Leave them in the oven for two-five minutes (basically until the record starts to fall down around the bowl it's on top of). Take it out of the oven and mold it into the shape that you want. And you have an amazing record bowl just like that! Sweet eh?

(I know I look like a nerd in this picture, but I was super excited about what I had just created and I couldn't contain my over the top smile.)

Our Little Place

We've basically settled into our apartment in the basement now. Thanks to great friends we managed to add a bright lamp and a red chair to our furniture. It's nice to have an extra seat for when there are more then three people wanting to sit in the living room area (I don't even know what to call it because it's such an odd space).
Here are the pictures that Jill's been begging for. Enjoy!

The lovely red chair that has my sweet green light that Jill got me above it (yes, it's the glowing orb). This is to your left just as you walk in the door. We're still waiting for someone to come and get rid of that desk that is sticking into the left hand side of the photo.


And here is what you see when you walk into the living room area after coming in the door and ditching your shoes in our broken closet.

Messy kitchen area. I promise it was clean this morning, but I made some lasagna this afternoon and haven't quite cleaned up yet. 

Kitchen table and Kylie's desk/work space/where we put stuff we don't know what else to do with. 

And finally our awesome half bath. It's so nice not to have to go down the hall to brush my teeth before going to bed at night.  

 

I would have shown you a picture of our room, but the clothes monster has strewn stuff everywhere and there is no hope of ever finding the floor again.

The painting

Here's a picture of painting I was talking about previously. I'm going to paint again tomorrow with actual acrylics which will be nice.

Painting

Last night, for the first time in a long time, I sat down at my kitchen table (I can say that now that I have an apartment) and began to paint. Unfortunately the only paints avalible at the time were water colours (water colours and I just can't seem to make things work). Even though I think water colour paintings are beautiful, I cannot seem, for the life of me, to make a decent piece of art with them. So instead of painting nicely I sqeezed the paste onto the tray and painted with it, without actually using that much water. Think acrilic paints with a watery feel to them.
The results didn't turn out too shabby either. Once I figured out how to mix the colours properly and not dab too much water onto the already curling cardboard, it was actually quite fun. It's refreshing to do something creative that doesn't actually count as a credit on your transcript.

An Apartment Odor-deal

Since the beginning of this semester my roommate Kylie and Ihave been trying to move out of our teeny-tiny-dorm room into the basement apartment we had been promised last semester. The day I had arrived on campus, we were told that the current resident, commonly referred to as "the Asian man," (because he isn't a student here none of the students know his name and have simply resorted to calling him that) would be moving out that night and once the room had been cleaned we could move in the following evening.
The next evening, when we had the resident RA open the door for us to our new place, both us and the Asian man were unpleasantly surprised to see eacho ther there. According to what he had told Kylie he wasn't moving out until the weekend. So we were sadly required to stay another few nights in our dorm room.
Eventually, as in last Tuesday, we were able to move in. For whatever reason though, there was a  smell in here that was more than we could bear. So we set to work on what became known as the Deoderizng Oder-deal.
First off, and maybe even most importantly, we wiped down every flat surface with our lovely smelling melon and cucumber soapy water. When we were finished and the smell still continued to linger in the room, we vacuumed, washed curtains, wiped even more stuff down, washed floors with bleach water, burned multiple sented candels, and left the windows open 24/7 in order to attempt to distinguish the smell.
Although the smell of the apartment had imporved dramatically, odors from the previous resident (and possibley residents) still lingered. So we did the only thing that one can do in a situation like this: cover every square inch of the carpet and couch in baking soda. The key to using baking soda to remove oders, as Google has so willingly informed me, is that one must leave it on the odor filled surface for as long as possible. So for 24 hours or so the apartment was lightl dusted with fake snow (I feel this is a better visual than it looking like we had a bag of cocaine explode all over the place).
After vacuuming it up the following day, an amazing smell filled the room; the smell of nothing!

Lovely Christmas Break

Okay, so I may have forgotten to blog when I was at home. Or maybe, more accurately, I chose not to blog while I was at home. You see, I was just having too much fun being at home and didn't really feel up to sitting down and being on my computer. In fact, I sort of avoided the computer at all costs. It reminded me too much of papers, research, and hours wasted avoiding homework. But, I am writing now, so that makes it all okay, right?
My Christmas break was definitely needed. I loved the fact that there was no nipping wind blowing in my face while I walked outside and that I didn't have to trudge through the snow to get out to our newly installed hot tub. It was perfectly delightful.
I enjoyed some well deserved rest in my beautiful bed, read through Jew and Improved (which I would strongly recommend reading), cooked delicious meals, visited with my family, took the first set of professional family photos we've had done in years, baked some Christmas baking, engaged on an epic snowshoeing hike up Mount Washington, talked about news, the world, the 2010 Olympics, and so much more with my family, visited with missed friends, visited my church family, and did some very rushed Christmas shopping due to the fact that I arrived only a few short days before Christmas. There was so much more that happened in that time, but those highlights were certainly wonderful!
Here are a few photos that Agnes Mitchell Photography took of my family and I thought you might enjoy!