Ice, Ice, Baby

Exciting, huh? This is the view from my front door. The hubs doesn't usually park in the yard, but our driveway is kinda sloped, so he made do. Also, you might be wondering why I didn't share a picture of our house {instead of the houses across the street}, well... what if there are killers reading my blog?! LOL

Hope ya'll enjoy the weekend! We don't know if we're going to Tunica, MS yet. {btw, we were/are going to the casinos and to eat at Paula Deen's again} Anyways, I'd also like to throw in a random tidbit.. this grad class is totally kickin my tail already! I had homework this week and it literally took me 5 plus hours to complete it. Ouch. Hope I get an A on it!

I Should Really...

Learn to keep my mouth shut! :) That was one of my NY Resolutions, right? Yep, I think I recall something like that. Well, last night would've been one of those moments.

The instructor from Hell asked me to answer a question - in a philosophical manner, yet this is a MIS class, but whatev, we'll roll with it - but before I could answer, he said "How do I know you?"

My response? "Well, I had you for COBOL in undergrad, but dropped you. Then, you were my advisor, but I switched advisors."

He then says, "So, did you only take this course with me because I'm the only one teaching it this semester?"

Me? "Yes, you could say that."

Him... "So, I guess we know where we stand."

"Yep."

In other words.... Hello Mr. Man that I can't stand. Yes, I took your course because you were the only one teaching it and had I the choice of taking a different instructor I would've. But, since I didn't have that choice, just know that you and I are not going to agree on many things, but I'm just going to do the best that I can to make an A in this course and move on.

Anyways, last night was a very agonizing 3 hours and it looks like every Monday for the next who-knows-how-many weeks will be the same way. To give you a little background on Mr Man himself, he has a PhD in Philosophy. I have no idea how he got into teaching MIS courses and I'd really love to ask the Department Chair that very question, but have decided it's not in my best interest to do so. LOL Otherwise, the man is near 70 and speaks so quietly that he usually has to have a microphone, but alas, that microphone is broken...so everyone was super quiet, turned off the air/heat, and strained to hear him. All the while, he's asking you questions...in which you answer...and he turns around and picks apart your answer. Sounds fun, right?

Case in point... (I'll shut up after this, I promise.).. One of the questions I got the joy of answering was this: The arithmetic mean of a classes' IQ is 100. Jon's IQ is 160. Would Jon's 4 siblings be less smart, more smart, or as smart as Jon? (Um, hello this is an MIS class, but we're rollin' with it...) I said less smart, since the mean is 100, then it seems that Jon has an above average IQ and blah blah blah... the probability of his siblings being above average is less since the overall mean is 100.

His rebuttal? I'm wrong of course, because I didn't take in consideration that genetics plays a huge part in a person's IQ - according to him, of course. And since the siblings have the same parent's...same genes.. yada yada.

So, long story....long... this is gonna be a long semester!

Have ya'll ever had a horrible instructor that you had to take? How did you make it through the semester?

Edited to add: Today's Bible Verse/Lesson on the Proverb's blog:

"The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences." Proverbs 18:21 (NLT)

Sign taken.

I Love Trace...

Instead of a weekend recap, I'm just gonna fill ya'll in on my new love... Trace Adkins! LOL

• Friday evening, my sister, stepmom, and aunt loaded up and headed to Carino's for some pre-concert drinks and grub. We enjoyed Happy Hour drinks, yummy pasta, and dessert!
• We thought we'd try a new route over to the concert venue... yeah, not a good idea when the person who is giving you directions has had a nice, big yummy drink! Needless to say... we think we might've drove through a drug deal in the making and took a nice little tour of the ghetto...all the while, driving a new Yukon... Um, not a fabulous idea by any means, but it presented us with many, many (albeit scary) laughs!!!
• Because of our little detour, we made it to the concert and Trace was already singing... Wouldn't you know it, the ONE concert that starts on time....and we're late! ha!
• We sat at our awesome seats. Read = very, very, very lower level seats.
• Then proceeded to watch the handsome man himself shake those wonderful hips. Sigh.
• We spotted a lady in the first row who flashed Trace...um, lets say she was white trash and didn't have the goods to be showing everyone....
• Anyways, blah blah blah, great concert! That was the BEST concert that I've ever seen! It could've just been the great seats and that handsome man.... :) But, Martina was pretty good too! She even did a few old songs from Journey and Bon Jovi! Love it!
• Since we were a little late, we forgot to take pictures of us, but I did get a few with my iPhone. My sister had her real camera, but I've not seen those pictures yet.

Our seats were right by the "pit," so we got to see Martina's kids and Trace sitting watching Martina's show. Yes, that is Trace's cowboy hat! I was about 10 foot from him - sitting right above him!!! Ya'll don't know how badly I wanted to ask him for a picture or autograph! But, I was good!



Anyways, enough about my new love (yes, hubs knows that I have a thing for Trace now...). Thank you for all the comments on my little project that I've been working on. I have Photoshop Elements at home, but I'm not that great with it... So I use Picnik to edit most of my photos.

Btw, yes I did take pictures of Martina...but honestly, she looks like a troll doll in them! :)

Also...tonight is my first class at Grad School!!! I didn't sleep very well - I kept having dreams about binders! ha! Wish me luck - I'm gonna need it! The class I'm taking is called Decision Modeling in Information Systems....

Something I've Been Working On...

Ya'll may not know this about me, but I LOVE to edit photos. LOVE it. So, I've been working on a project/gift for my sister for a while now. Here's a little sneak peak:




I wish I could tell ya'll more, but I wont be able to until it's completed and in her hands. Ya know, just in case she reads this thing.
What do ya'll think about the picture? In case you couldn't tell, they're standing in the hallway of an Old Navy dressing room.

I'm Doing A HAPPY Dance!!

I know, I usually don't post twice in one day, but this is a cause for celebration! I took my Biometric Screening, that work provides, this morning.

Here are last years results:

Total Cholesterol: 179 (Below 200)
HDL (Good Cholesterol): 87 (Above 60)
LDL (Bad Cholesterol): 76 (Below 100)
Triglycerides: 81 (Below 150)
Glucose: 94 (Below 100)
Blood Pressure: 111/74
Height: 5 feet 7 inches
Weight: 143
Body Fat Percentage: 27.3%
BMI: 23.1
Flexibility: 17 inches

This years results:

Total Cholesterol: 139
HDL Cholesterol; 71
LDL Cholesterol: 56
Triglycerides: 58
Glucose: 72
Blood Pressure: 110/61
Height: 5 feet 7 inches
Weight: 141lbs (dressed) (I'm still carrying that 5lbs from the Holiday! ha!)
Body Fat Percentage: 25.7%
BMI: 22.1
Flexibility: 18 inches


HOOOOOOOORAAAAYYYY! I'm so happy guys! This truely made my day! I did well last year of course, but this year I did better than before! I'm really happy about my body fat percentage going down! I wonder what it was in October, right before I went on my running hiatus!?

Wordless Wednesday

Dear Mr. Weatherman,

Can we please bring back 70 degree temperatures a little early this year?

Thanks,

Cold Hating Chick

Take a look at what Beastie said this morning:




Yes, that says 16 degrees!!! That was at 5am this morning. The sad thing is, it's suppose to get colder this week! Also, we had a tad bit of snow/ice yesterday. They're calling for more later this week. Hello, Mr. Weatherman - this is Arkansas. We don't get THAT cold here!! I'm a wimp ladies and gents. A huge wimp. There aren't many things that I hate more than being cold.

Oh, and btw, we've been bringing our boys inside at night and they love us for it. I let them out for 30 mins this morning while I got ready for work and poor Rocky just sat there when I opened his crate. His look said "I promise I'll be a good boy if you just don't make me go back outside, Mom." But, not to worry, I let them back in. Gotta make sure they do their business outside, ya know? Anyways, so my kitchen has turned into a dog crate place - you can barely walk around the crates and our kitchen was small to begin with! I'll make sure to grab a picture this week of it all. And, don't even get me started about having outside dogs in the kitchen. Ew.

2010 Resolutions

Like almost everyone else in the world, I'm making some New Year's Resolutions. Here's the quick and dirty:

• Make an A in all my grad school classes this year (and next).
• Make it to Spin Class 2 days a week (hopefully Tues & Thurs).
• Run atleast 2 times a week. (I haven't ran much since my half back in Oct.)
• Run a total of 350 miles this year (look at the sidebar, this will be the most miles ever in a year for me).
• PR in a 5k race this year. This shouldn't be hard, as I had gotten faster this fall, but never ran a 5k race while training for my half...
• Continue to work on reducing my body fat percentage. I've slacked the last few months; it's time to pick it back up! Which btw, means losing the now 6lbs I've gained over the Christmas celebrations. After losing the 6lbs, we'll re-evaluate then.
• Continue to work on saving money and paying off debt. We are doing great in this area already, but I would like to continue doing so!
• Move. The hubs and I have been working on the thing above because we would really like to move this year and not carry any other debt with us. We're not sure which area (it will be nearby), but we're ready to move.
• Continue to work on biting my tongue while at work. I'm the type of person who will voice my opinions, concerns, and vent way too much. I'm afraid that I'm becoming known as someone who is a tad bossy and a little too outspoken. Eek.
• Read 10 books for fun. I love to read and I need to make more time to do so. But, I'm picking a number of 10 due to Grad School. I have no idea how much time will be eaten up by working on this degree. Double eek.
• Read more of The Bible. As silly as this may sound, I've added an app to my iPhone to help me do this. So far, it's working!

So, there you go! There are my resolutions for 2010!