Archive for January, 2005

admin January 31st, 2005

Ok, so it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. Basically work’s been insane and therefore I haven’t had time to update this wondrous blog. Anywho…last week second semester started for students and I’ve had a line outside of my office since my new students moved in. It’s way cool to be in charge, but wow, it can certainly burn you out too. Michael told me I could take a day off and relax and just get away from work…so I’m pretty sure I’ll be taking advantage of that tomorrow. In other news, the apartment is looking great. Every room is put together except for the office. We had people over for soup last week so that we’d have a reason to make sure everything was put away and in order. (It worked!) I really do love this place…it’s just so darn cozy. I can’t wait to get some furniture for our porch so that we can sit outside and chat. I really want like a double-rocker or something….that’d be great to curl up on. I certainly can’t wait until we get a house of our own, but for now this is perfect. (I love not having to pay for utilities!) This weekend we went back to Emden/Bloomington because my mom had a surprise birthday party for my dad. It was great to see so many friends and family. We stayed overnight and went to church at Vale in the morning. We had yummy Monicals pizza for lunch…which is one of the things I miss most about central Illinois. Before we headed back home we stopped to see Jared’s mom and he got a haircut and she took us to get Sam’s Club memberships…woohoo! Now we can buy everything in bulk…or something like that. So yeah…that brings us to this morning. I have somehow contracted a nasty cold and work’s pretty boring today thus far…but life goes on. I’ll try to update more this week! Adios! :-)

admin January 21st, 2005

Ok…this has been one of the craziest weeks ever! Seriously, work is about to kill me. Spring semester starts next Wednesay, and me being the readmit and transfer counselor, most of the new students are mine. So I’ve been busy getting dorm rooms together, schedules finalized, financial aid packages dispersed…and a whole host of other things. Needless to say, I’ll be glad when the end of today gets here and it’s finally the weekend! Oh yeah…I also have this woman who hasn’t been accepted here…who shows up in my office almost every day. It’s driving me nuts! Where do these people come from? Anyway…the apartment’s starting to come along quite well. We bought a few new pieces of furniture for our bathroom and they look super cute. We’re also acquiring a new couch in the next week or so. We’re hoping to have everything put away by the end of this weekend…so we can finally relax and stop looking at boxes. Our previous landlord is still being a butt…he refuses to let us out of our lease until someone else moves into our old apartment. (Which in all honesty…who would want to move there?!) Needless to say…he’s making us pay rent for the next 4 months unless someone else moves in. BOGUS! I started to cry in his office (cause yes…I’m a wuss from time to time)…and he could have cared less. Mean people should not be landlords…especially him. Anyway, I’m going to finish this up…it’s a been a stressful week if you couldn’t tell. I’m excited for tonight though…Amy and Kyle are coming up to St. Louis this weekend, so Jared and I get to eat with them. I never get to see my high school buddies anymore…so when I do…it’s awesome. But yeah…gotta go slave away at work! :-)

admin January 17th, 2005

Wow…what a weekend! Friday night was filled with last minute packing and preparing for the move. I was up at 5:30 Saturday morning…blech! I had to pick up the juice, flowers, balloons and a few other things for Scholarship Competition. (An Admissions event.) I was there until 1:00…when I finally got to see everyone who had come to help us move. My mom, 2 brothers and Stephen (Jared’s brother)…all came down to help us out. They had most everything moved when I got there. It’s a amazing how much stuff you can fit into a tiny apartment! Anyway, they sent me over to the new apartment to start unpacking everything. There were so many cabinets in the kitchen, I didn’t know where to even start! We got a lot done though…including the shoving of our new massive tv into our old tiny tv cabinet. Miraculously…it fit…with barely 1/2 inch on either side. Everyone stuck around until after supper (yummy pizza). It was so much fun to have everyone down here…makes me realize how much I miss seeing my family all the time. After everyone left we spent a few more hours unpacking and organizing and finally settled in for a long night of sleep. Sunday was spent trying to find new places for all of our stuff…things are really starting to come together. My favorite part so far…is the fact that we get to have our china and china cabinet in our new place. There wasn’t room for it before. We were amazed to see our landlord scooping the snow off of our porch and our steps that morning….something we weren’t used to. Anyway, hopefully things really start coming together in the next few days. We’re so blessed to have found such a nice apartment with nice landlords. (Now if we could only get rid of that old place….) Hopefully everyone else had a great weekend too. Adios! :-)

It’s time!!!

admin January 14th, 2005

WE’RE MOVING TOMORROW!!!! YAY!!!!!

2 more days!!!

admin January 12th, 2005

That’s right…2 more days till we move! Could I be any more excited?! Packing’s been going well so far. Lots of boxes and our current apartment is a mess, but it’s so worth it. We got our new tv last night too. It’s soooo much bigger than what I’m used to. We got these cool cable things that make the picture better…they’re cool. I also picked out some fun new bathroom furniture for the new place. It’s this cute little bathroom hamper bench and a towel cabinet. It’s so much fun! (Seriously…can you tell that I’m excited to be moving!) Other than that, things have been going well. Work’s been crazy as always, but I love it. Tonight’s a new night of Alias, which is equally invigorating. I’m far beyond obsessed with that show….I will cry for days and days if they cancel it before my obession subsides. Anywho…I’m gonna finish this up….it’s time to go home! Adios to whomever actually reads this. :-)

Weekend Good Times…

admin January 10th, 2005

It was a relatively good weekend for Jared and I. Friday night was spent sitting around and not doing much of anything. We went to bed pretty early and slept in Saturday morning. Well Jared got up around 9:00, but I managed to sleep until 11:30. (I was aiming for noon!) We sat in front of the tv watching movies and eating cereal until I finally decided to take a shower. I felt all clean and ready to do something after that, so we went to O’Fallon to see “Spanglish” (which is wonderful!) and we had Steak-n-Shake (for the second time this week). I don’t know why I love Chili Mac so much…but it’s so darn wonderful! We also went to Bed Bath and Beyond to use up some gift certificates. We bought some things for the new apartment…which was exciting as well. Oh the thought of never hearing that woman snore again is magnificent!!! But yeah…we bought some things for our new bathroom and kitchen. Sunday we tried out yet another new church. This time it was the Free Methodist church here in Greenville. It’s the college church, and suprisingly, I’d never been to a regular Sunday service there. It was actually really good and is probably the most like Vale out of any churches we’ve tried down here. After church and lunch, another couple was supposed to come and look at our apartment…so we had it looking perfect. However, for the third time, Mr. Marti and the guests never showed up. What’s the deal here?! I’m getting really nervous that nobody wants it…which I don’t blame them. Anywho, we ended up going to see our buddy Jamie in Salem for supper. He made us tortellini and other good stuff….like brownies and ice cream. We got home late, but I still took some time to take down our Christmas decorations….only to find out that the tub we got for our tree is far too small. We got a lot done though, and tonight we’re going to get more boxes and start packing up more things. Packing is never fun…but new apartments are! Yay! Ok…gotta get back to work. Adios!

admin January 6th, 2005

So Tuesday night Jared and I braved the crazy monsoon rain and drove to Fairview Heights to pick out our new tv at Best Buy. We took our time looking, carefully inspecting various makes. Then we saw it…lo and behold…there was the tv we needed. A 32-inch flat screen. Maybe that’s not huge to some people, but I’ve never had anyting more than 19-inches. So needless to say, I’m quite excited about this new addition to the Smith household. It will arrive next week some time…just in time for the move to the new apartment. Speaking of that…we’re set to move next weekend on the 15th. Our family is helping us move and we couldn’t be more excited. No more listening to the crazy lady above us snore all night long!!! WooHoo! (Side note: please pray that someone will want to move into our apartment that we’re leaving…so we don’t have to pay rent on it until our lease would have run out.) We have to start packing things soon, which I’m really not looking foward too, but it’ll be worth it. Different subject…Alias…best show ever! If you’re not obsessed with it, then you should be! Watch it! The season premier was last night…and was oh-so-magnificent. I’ll end on that note…and get back to work.

Christmas Recap…

admin January 4th, 2005

Ok, this is going to be a long one, but so much happened over Christmas break. In effort to keep myself from rambling…I’ll cut this into more managable bits and pieces.

Dec. 23rd: This was my birthday…and a great one at that! Jared and I went out to eat and went to see “Meet the Fockers.” GO SEE THAT MOVIE! He also got me Sirius satellite radio. It’s so awesome! I love music…and now with the help of this amazing new technology…I can listen to 80’s music ALL DAY LONG! Woo-Hoo!

Dec. 24th: Jared and I awoke early this morning to celebrate our first Christmas together as a married couple. It was so much fun to open our gifts in our pj’s in our own home. This Christmas we decided to get each other smaller gifts, and then to get one big gift for us to share. So I got him a thumb drive for his computer, Napoleon Dynamite, Mitch Hedberg dvd and a few other little things. He got me new fuzzy slippers, 3rd Season of Alias on dvd and Value City money for myself (for new shoes…which I bought yesterday…way awesome Steve Madden boots). Anyway…after gifts we had our own Christmas dinner. I made us cheesy potatoes, briscut, buttery corn, rolls and peppermint ice cream. After all of that we packed up the car and headed to Emden. We got there, changed and went to Christmas Eve service at Vale. Afterwords we went to Olive Garden for our ritual Christmas Eve dinner with my mom.

Dec. 25th: Christmas! We got up and opened presents with my mom and dad…which was great. Jared laughed at us because we always videotape the whole thing…and this year he got to experience that. We had lunch and Christmas at Grandma Cox’s house that afternoon and we also opened gifts with my brother’s and their wives and my nephews. That evening we headed over to Kristina’s (Jared’s sister) house for that family Christmas. Supper was awesome and we had a blast. We got so many nice things from everyone in both sides of our family…we are so blessed to have such caring people who love us. Best gift of the day….Jared’s old Super Nintendo which our niece, Sydny, re-gifted back to us after having it in her room for several years. Super Mario…here I come!

Dec. 26th: Went to Vale for church and then ravaged Bloomington-Normal’s day-after-Christmas sales. We got greens, lights and bows to decorate our porch next year. I’m so excited to decorate…and it’s a year away! We made it back to Emden that evening and my friends Amy and Karyn came over to exchange gifts. (It’s a tradition we do every year.) It was so great to see them and have time to just sit and talk. We don’t get to see each other much anymore, so times like that are special.

Dec. 27th: Mom and I decided to spend the day together. We went back to Bloomington and shopped some more. I got more Christmas decor at Hobby Lobby and Michael’s. Perhaps I went a little crazy…but it was so darn cheap! We will have one fancy Christmas house next year! I also got some new work clothes with my Christmas money. Spending time with my mom is great. Living 2 hours away means I don’t get to see her all of the time…and I miss having her around to hang out with. We ate out at Monical’s Pizza for lunch and went to see The Polar Express later that night. (Which was awesome by the way!) Jared got to hang out with his brother Steven for the day, which was exciting for him. I’m pretty sure they played with computer stuff the entire time, but hey, that’s what they like.

Dec. 28th: Got up, watched Alias, ate cookies, watched Alias, ate party mix, watched Alias, thought about showering, didn’t shower, watched Alias, mom made pork chops for dinner…yum, watched a few more episodes of Alias and then finally went to bed.

Dec. 29th: Replay Dec. 28th and insert Steak n’ Shake for supper. Oh yeah…we managed to pry ourselves off of the tv for a few hours and my mom took us to Peoria to see the Festival of Lights. Jared had never been to see it before…and it’s something that my mom ALWAYS took me to see. So that was fun. When we returned, we of course watched more Alias and went back to bed. (Addicted much?! NEVER!)

Dec. 30th: Went to Marseilles with my parents to have a late Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Sparks. As always, Grandma Sparks made WAY too much food…and we, of course, ate all of it. (It was worth it….her gravy is so darn yummy.) Later that night, we once again went back to Bloomington to hang out with Nicole and Steve Cox. They were in town for the week and it was great to see them again. Lots of fun with Mario Kart and Culver’s Custard.

Dec. 31st: Around 5:00 a.m. I awoke to find that it was apparently time for me to puke my guts out once an hour for the next several hours. Needless to say…the flu found me and took me down. I spent New Years Eve day curled up in the fetal position in my bed…hopelessly trying to make the pain/chills/fever/puke…go away. I slept for most of the day, and when I wasn’t sleeping…Jared took good care of me. My mom left some chicken broth and noodles before she left….and some jello too. Ah yes, the staple sick foods. Let us not forget the many cans of sprite I consumed as well. Anyway, later on that night I managed to take a bath and go downstairs to watch Elf with Jared. I made it through that and through the ball drop. Happy New Year!

Jan. 1st: Much sleeping and tv watching. I sent Jared off to Bloomington to see his mom since I was still sick. I watched TLC for most of the day…since stupid Greenville cable doesn’t have it. I also did some laundry and my mom helped me get everything packed up. We also went through the rest of our wedding gifts that we never had room for in our current apartment. Since we’re moving soon…we’ll get to have all of those things at our new place. It was like opening presents all over again.

Jan. 2nd: Got up and went to church at Vale, ate lunch at Quizno’s (YUM!) and went to visit Jared’s brother Steven on his last day of work at the Vision Center. By that time I was feeling icky again, so we got back on the road, stopped through Emden to pack up our car, and then made it back to Greenville.

So there you go…our Christmas break and vacation. We’re both back to work now. I’m back in the office trying to get schedules put together for my Spring semester students and Jared’s working on some project with Prof. Cole for interterm. Good times! Hopefully everyone else had a great Christmas too. :-) (Sorry for the novel!)