Oh no…not again…

So after someone is sick like I was earlier this year, one would assume that it would take away your chances of being sick again for the rest of your life…or at least the rest of the year!  Needless to say, I’m cooped at home…and sick…again.  Not quite sure what it is.  I’m sneezing, running nose, some nausea, and lots o’ dizziness.  I’m sure it’s just a cold…thanks to this crazy weather we’ve been having.  Cold…then warm…then cold…then warm again.  It’s driving me crazy!  Just stay warm again already!  I’ve also decided that working where I do probably doesn’t help either.  Our office is hopping with current students and lots of visitors…every single day.  So germs are probably just loving our office.  One thing’s for sure…I’m getting a flu shot next year.  I don’t care how big the needle is…or how much it costs….I’m getting one. 

 In more exciting news…Jared and I had a fun night on Wednesday.  We headed over to O’Fallon…once again…to our favorite BBQ joint…17th Street.  They were having a party to celebrate their being on the Travel Channel that night…on a show called “BBQ paradise”.  We decided it sounded like a fun time that we didn’t want to miss…so off we went.  We started with a delicious meal and some yummy desert.  All the while…Mike Mills (aka. the BBQ legend) was sitting right next to us.  He’s the owner…and a huge name in BBQ…and of course Jared was drooling to meet him.  So there he was…and we actually got to talk with him quite a bit that night too.  He even gave us a BBQ calendar…which was fun.  So everyone there watched the premier of the show…which was quite entertaining…and even more exciting knowing that the star was sitting right next to us…just chatting away.  Good times!

Things that make you go hmmm…

So yesterday Jared and I decided to head over to O’Fallon for yet another delicious meal at 17th Street Grill.  After that we swung by Home Depot to pick up some waterproofing materials for the basement.  And then…we headed off to see a movie.  To start with, the movie started at 10:30.  I haven’t seen a “late” movie since college…I wasn’t sure if I could make it through the whole thing!  I did though…whew!  Anyway…so here’s the situation.  You walk into a movie theatre…it’s empty…and you pick out the best spots in the whole place.  (Higher up…since the screen is huge…and right in the middle.)  After you enter…another group of 3 guys comes in…and picks some seats up about 5 rows in front of us.  Then…another couple comes in….and looks around…and appear to also be looking for the best spot available.  Mind you…there are over 100 seats available…all with a great view of the enormous screen.  Needless to say….the perfect spot for them were the 2 seats RIGHT in front of us!  Who just does that?!  I was tempted to move…but we didn’t.  It was fine…but seriously…we must have smelled really good or looked really good…because they just had to sit right in front of us.  The movie was great though…”Run Fat Boy Run”.  Definitely a potential buy once it comes out on DVD. 

Still Here…

Whew…these past few weeks have flown by!  We had an amazing Easter…even though we didn’t get to travel back home to be with family.  Instead, we were able to celebrate our Saviour with our church family.  It was a great afternoon with food and fellowship…and of course, an Easter Egg hunt.  This past week I got the chance to stay over at my parent’s house on the way to a college fair in Peoria.  As always, it was nice to snooze in my old bed.  The college fair was really good too…always a bonus!  I stopped by my grandma’s house…where she had saved me a bag full of ham loaves from Easter.  (One of my favorite meals there!)  I was super excited to prepare them for Jared last night…since he’s never had them.  At first he thought the texture was a little strange…but then he gave them a thumbs up.  If you’ve not had ham loaves before…it’s almost like meatloaf…but with pork products and a tangy tomato sauce…quite yummy with mashed potatoes!  (Thanks grandma!)  On another note…since we’re still cleaning up the basement (thanks to the crazy amounts of rain in our area), we’ve been having fun camp-outs in the living room.  We pulled out the sofa bed and have been watching lots of fun movies.  Not something for every night…but definitely a fun little “retreat” for a few days.  It’s raining again here…and there’s more water in the basement again…so that will probably consume a chunk of our weekend.  Otherwise…I’m looking foward to sleeping in tomorrow…finally!  Adios!

rain rain…please go away!

It’s been raining here in Greenville this week…a lot.  Thanks to what was apparently close to 10 inches of rain…we now have a soggy basement.  So lots of moving and soaking up water with the shop vac…and not-so-exciting things like that.  We’re having a guy come in a few weeks to give us an estimate on what it would cost to put a “dry system” in our basement.  Please pray that it’s affordable for us!  And now back to the cleaning up of our “swamp”…

Day O’ Nothing

So Saturday morning I had to crawl out of bed and work on campus for an hour or so helping out with a Free Methodist Bible Quizzing competition.  Did my admissions speal…gave away t-shirts…the usual.  I grabbed some yummy McDonald’s breakfast and was home early enough to crawl back in bed for a few more hours.  We slept in until noon or so.  After that…we managed to crawl to the couch…reheat our now chilled McDonald’s food (I had put it in the fridge)…and there we stayed until nearly 4:00 p.m.  Yes…we sat around watching crappy Saturday television for that long.  At 4:00 I got up and rented a few movies…ran to Value City (snagged some great new shoes) and came back in time to sit around on the couch watching movies for a few more hours.  It was seriously one of the laziest days I’ve had in a LONG time…and it was so great.  Nothing like sitting around in your jammies all day…cozied up next to your hubby…eating girl scout cookies…and watching movies.  Speaking of movies…one of the movies we rented was “Into the Wild.”  If you haven’t seen it…I definitely recommend it.  It was one of the most emotional movies I’ve ever seen.  It was so chilling towards the end…but it was so good.  I won’t go into more details…because if you don’t know anything about it…I don’t want to ruin it.  So that was our Saturday…and boy was it great! 

Weave me the sunshine…

Another beautiful day in Greenville.  Sunny skies and a high of 62!  It’s torture being stuck in my office all day!  I had a student visit today…so I made the tour extra long…hopefully they didn’t mind.  It’s been a great week…with lots of relaxing at this point.  The Dugan’s came over for some of my baked potatoe soup last night…which was a blast as usual.  I ate way too much soup and drank way too much sweet tea.  We squeezed in a game of trivial pursuit pop culture…which had some pretty crazy questions.  It makes me wonder who actually comes up with the questions for those games?!  Anyway…it was still great…and a fun night with friends.  Tonight we’re heading over for more fun with friends in Alton.  Pizza and game night with Steve and Nicole…which is always a treat.  I’m also hoping for the weather to hold out over the weekend.  Our yard could use some attention in a MAJOR way.  We’ll see!  2 hours until I can be outside again!

Silly Things

So last night a few fantastic (or not to fantastic things happened).  I had a college fair…same old same old.  Afterwords I felt adventurous and tried my very first White Castle burger.  It was bad…but I certainly don’t understand why people crave those things.  Either way, I brought a few home for Jared…who happens to be one of those cravers.  He was pretty excited about it.  After all of that we managed to watch this week’s American Idol performances.  I was especially excited about it this week…as they were singing Beatles songs.  There were some really renditions on some of my favorite tunes…but some of them were just aweful.  The worst for me was a country version of “Eight Days a Week.”  I’m pretty John Lennon was rolling over in his grave.  My favorite was a rocked out version of Eleanore Rigby.  Even though it was different…it still felt relevant…and I loved it.  Another crazy happening from yesterday was the removal of the filter from our cat’s watering fountain.  No…we didn’t remove it….the cats did.  They used their little feline paws and claws and opened the back portion of the fountain…heisted the filter….and hid it.  Jared looked in all of the usual hiding places…but it was nowhere to be seen.  So as we’re getting ready for work this morning…Jared found a little present sitting in the living room next to our coat rack and some shoes.  Jared’s pretty sure they were mad at him for no refilling the water at lunch like he promised.  Either way…we have some smart kitties on our hands. 

Another week goes by…

I’m just a bad blogger this past month or so…I guess I’m too busy!  (Our sermon at church this week was all about time…and to priortize…so this is a bit ironic.)  At any rate, things are good in Greenville.  After a busy week trying to finish up papers for class and one nasty final…I finished one more class on the road to my master’s degree…with an A…thank you very much!  It feels so good when one more class is done…if only they were all done…right now!  Friday night I cleaned around the house and got caught up on laundry.  Jared had his friend Steve over and they played games, ate pizza, and sat in front of the X-box until midnight or so.  It was great though…Jared and had fun…and I actually got time to clean aroud the house and get caught up on some tv shows.  Saturday morning came early…and it was a scholarship award day on campus…so it was early to work.  The day went well though…and Jared and decided to just sit around and relax for the rest of it.  We rented some movies and got thin mint blizzards from DQ (a local treat this time of year!).  We rented “The Darjeeling Limited” and “Michael Clayton”.   Both were great…very different…but great.  Sunday morning came way too early.  Time change plus early morning wake up to set up for church equals two very tired Smiths!   Church was great though.  I was up to sing this week…and for the first time…I wasn’t nervous at all.  A much welcomed feeling!  After a quick trip to Wal-Mart…Jared and I took our movies from the night before back and rented another…”Death at a Funeral”.  It was hillarious.  I even got ambitious and finally cooked for the first time in I don’t know how long.  I fried pork chops…made homemade mashed potatoes and gravy and biscuits.  I love cooking…so I get bummed when I’m too busy to do it every night.  Anyway…that was the weekend…early mornings and lots of movies.  Good times. 

Wonderful Weekend

So on Friday Jared and I took off for our churches yearly marriage retreat.  It’s always a blast…and this year was probably better than last.  It’s a great time to just get away from Greenville…and work…and to just focus on us and connecting with other married couples from our church.  Bill and Pam Farrel spoke again this year…and they are simply amazing.  They wrote the book “Men are Like Waffles, Women are Like Spaghetti.”  Anyway…it was great….and I completely recommend any of their books to marrieds or unmarrieds.  They have some really great things to say about relationships.  The retreat got over Saturday afternoon and we made use of the rest of the day since we were already in St. Louis.  Lunch at P.F. Changs (yum), shopping at the Galleria, picking up some new house goodies for the front porch at Gordman’s, Guitar Center (for Jared), and some oh-my-delicious sourdough french toast from Cracker Barrel.  It was just a really good two days away.  Yesterday church was really good.  Jared had the week of from praise band…and I was actually in a drama.  I haven’t done any acting since high school…so I was nervous…but ended up going really well….and I think the congregation enjoyed it as well and got something out of it (which was the whole point).  I took advantage of the AMAZING weather we had yesterday (nearly 70 out!) and finally got the last bits of Christmas greens and bows off the front porch.  I tidied up a bit and put up some new Easter goodies.  I also had a chance to run out to Value City (where things are finally getting cheaper…nearly 50% off most of the store now.)  Anyway…I limited myself to $50…and wow…I did good!  I got enough things to completely redecorate our guest room.  No longer does it look like my college dorm…it actually looks like a cozy little retreat for our guests.  What a blessing to find so many good deals.  Anyway…that brings us to now….it’s cold again…and rainy…but that’s ok.  It’s warm and cozy in my office.  Adios!

Snow.

Seriously, I’ve seen more snow this winter season…than I have any other year.  I live in Southern Illinois for goodness sakes…it’s not supposed to be this “wintery” down here!  (At least that’s what I’ve been told.)  Now don’t get me wrong…I absolutely love snow…and the fact that we have 4 very distinct seasons.  It’s just that the weather here right now is crazy.  One day it snows…the next day it all melts…then the next day there’s an ice storm…and then it somewhat melts…and then it freezes again…and then it snows on top of it.  I’m so ready for spring right now.  I never thought I’d say this…but I’d give anything for it to warm up enough so I could go for a long run outside.  I’m even starting to wish it was warm enough to ditch my coat and just wear a sweatshirt.  Until then…we’ll continue to curl up in our jammies night after night with a warm cup of cocoa.