A walk in the woods

Today we went for a walk in the woods. The woods are beautiful here! Here are some pictures from our adventure:

I couldn't help but collect pretty leaves as I walked. Can you blame me?

Danelle and Jason walk across the new bridge. Ok, one last picture.

Old Italy Pictures

I was feeling nostalgic so I thought I would reminisce with some picture from my year studying abroad in Italy. These are some pictures that some of my friends sent me. They are lucky because they had a digital camera and I had a film one. That is why I am putting their pictures up here and not mine.

This is Lisa, Gilbert and I waiting for a train. McDonald's ice cream was only 50 cents a cone!

This is Bonnie and I on a beach in England. Miranda, Bonnie and I went on a road trip for spring break!! Woohoo!

This is us on our road trip being obvious tourists... And one last picture:

Bonnie and I on a scooter 1 minute (literally) before we crashed into that mini wall you see in the background. Bonnie still bears scars down her leg. I had jeans so I escaped with just a haunted memory! :]

An Onion Trick!

Are you sick of tears running down your face every time you prepare a nice meal containing onions? Do the old wives tales that have never worked get you down? Do you want to retire your onion cutting paraphernalia? Here is a picture of me before I found out the onion cutting trick.
Once you know the trick, all you need is a knife, onion and a smile!

The Trick:

• Cut the onion in half (quickly as to not let the venomous gases reach your eyes).
• Place onion halves in the refrigerator for 30 min. to an hour.
• Remove and chop!

No more goggles, no more handkerchiefs, no more slobbery matchsticks!

Fall is in the air

Just so you know, fall here is BEAUTIFUL! The air is crisp, the sweater inviting, the leaves falling, and the couples are snuggling! In fall here, the leaves all change color and you can't help but go on a quest for the perfect leaf. You can press it but it will never be the same as the first day when you find it on the ground and can spend half an hour just staring and exclaiming "wow".

Here is a picture of some leaves in Jason's yard. Behold beauty:

You know what would be a perfect living arrangement for me? Simply this: I would have not just a summer house but a fall, winter and spring house as well. Not that I have a summer house right now but anyway...

I could travel all over and find just the place I love the most in spring and live there every spring in house that was built to best represent spring. For fall, maybe I would buy a house in Vermont or Massachusettes where I could live in a small town where people still make their own maple syrup (do places like that still exist?).

That would be the life eh?

Oh, by the way. If you want to comment but you don't have a login or password, just click on comment and go to the bottom of the page and fill in the other circle. Then you can just write something, enter your name, publish the post and go on your merry way! Hope to hear from you all. Don't forget to click on my ads! Actually, I have found that I have been clicking on my ads a lot because they relate to the things I write about. "Cheap bridesmaid dresses"? I'll click away!!!

Interesting?..... I'll show you interesting!

Today I gave a speech on the first female physcian. Elizabeth Blackwell. How come I never knew that before? I mean, I am going into medicine. Kind of. And I am a woman. Ya know, there aren't that many things that you can say "The first male..." about and that is really too bad. No body thought anything of it when men did something like become a blacksmith (unless he invented blacksmithing or something). That is really too bad. People just expected men to do stuff so they never recorded it. When women, or other minorities do something, it is well documented. I suppose their are always exceptions to that. Anyway...

Elizabeth Blackwell is an intensely interesting character. I wouldn't reccomend using her as an informative speech topic though because there is SO much information to cover. And you want to include most of it because it is all so interesting. You could write a very good paper on her though. I would reccomend her autobiographies. She has a very interesting writing style and kept extensive journals. This is a picture of her late in life.

Speaking of speeches. Argh! I don't mind making speeches, it is writing them that KILLS me! Up until I am actually standing in front of the room speaking, I am convinced that I am going to flunk the stupid speech. Luckily that hasn't happened yet. I actually usually end up doing just fine. I do know that a much better speech can come out of the material I am speaking on and that is why I think I am going to do bad. Oh, well.

What's sensible about adsense?

Ya noticed how I have shamelessly included google ads on my blog? Well.....I get paid everytime someone clicks on them! So, along with commenting, you guys should really click on my ads. It is fun and everybody is doing it!! Really it is all the rage......

More picky about bridesmaid dresses than my own?

I really don't know how it is possible that I could be more picky about my bridesmaid dresses than I was about my own wedding dress. I found my wedding dress the 3rd day I went looking. And I thought that was bad!!! I have been looking for bridesmaid dresses for about, oh, 15. That is just counting the days that I have actually sat down and looked hard on the internet or gone to an actual bridal store to try some on.

I am in fact so picky that the two bridesmaids that I had around to shop with have now told me they won't go shopping with me anymore. So now, I am shuttleing Jason along with me until he gets bored (won't be long, might have already happened). Today I even had my mom drive to a bridal shop on her side of the country to sift through their shelves. I had her call me on the phone and tell me what the dresses looked like hoping that maybe, just maybe I would find the elusive dress that wasn't on the internet (I have looked at all of those, trust me) or at other bridal salons I have visited.

All the dresses just look the same to me!! They either look like this:






OR like this
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Can't tell the difference? Yeah, me niether.

They are either too plain, too hip ripple displaying, too strapless, too expensive, too fire engine red, too sparkely, or too cleavage revealing.

What is a bride to do I ask you? Anybody have any suggestions besides "stop being so picky?"

Photo tour?

Today my fiance and I went on a photo tour. We are on break for a couple days and we have a nice new camera. We also sell our photos online at istockphoto.com. I have already made $4.30!!! wooohoo!

Anyway, what was supposed to be a 'photo tour' turned into a 'drive along Lake Michigan looking for streets that are on our map' tour. I had printed out a driving route from the internet that was supposed to be good but mostly it was just small towns that used to be something but are now overrun by sculptors. I like small towns though so we had some good times! We stopped at a Swedish Bakery and bought a cranberry muffin and some apple strudel. So that we wouldn't get powdered sugar everywhere, we stopped at the beach to eat.

Here is me biting into the Swedish treat. Yummy! For those of you who haven't seen Lake Michigan, here is a picture of me on the shore of it.

It is actually quite beautiful! I never would have expected this in Michigan but I really think there are a lot of parts of Michigan that are extremely unique and scenic. Lake Michigan is cool because it is a beach with sand and waves but no salt!! And it freezes over in the winter! Crazy!

Well, I didn't really get any pictures to sell on istock but I got some to put on my blog! All in all it was a good experience. I would suggest exploring an area near you that has always been there but you just never made the time to go. It is especially fulfilling if you get lost a couple times!

Its official, I beat my last online record of three posts. Congratulations are in order.

By the way, when I spellchecking my post, it wanted me to replace 'blog' with 'bloc'. How is it possible that this blog site doesn't know its own name?

Whenever I open this page....

My mind goes blank. I think of all the things that I want to write while I am logging in and such but then when I get to the page where I am going to write, my mind goes blank. Blogging anxiety?

This is my second post. One more until I will have matched my previous record.

My fiance and I watched Madagascar last night. Yes it was at the dollar theater, yes we are cheap. By the way, does anyone know why the dollar theater costs $2? I mean, they should just call it "Cheap theater". Maybe I can get them on false advertising....

Oh, Madagascar. We decided we should see this movie because we are going to be spending a bit of time in Madagascar for our honeymoon. Turns out, the only thing that signifies the island as being Madagascar is the existence of Lemurs in the movie. People who don't know that Lemurs only live in Madagascar were probably wondering where the name came from.

It was an ok movie. I guess I have gotten used to animated movies that are advertised for kids but are really funny for adults as well. There were funny parts but most of the humor ran pre-adolescent. Ah well. It was only 2 bucks.

Blogs and Tachycardia

So, I have tried to do an online type journal thing before. I posted about 3 times. Let's see if I can at least beat my previous record.

A week ago, my fiance` Jason got a call from Loma Linda School of Medicine. "The admissions committee would like to offer you a spot in the medical class of..." Etc. This was quite the exciting moment. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to experience it with him. But I hugged him directly afterward and let me tell you his heart was beating quite profusely. Or as they will encourage him to say in med school, "The patient had severe tachycardia..."

Today, Jason sent his $100 dollar deposit to the school along with a "data sheet" asking him all kinds of questions like his age and address and other such redundancies which they asked in his application. As we were walking out of the post office, Jason turned to me and said "You realize I just sold my soul to Loma Linda..."

I am grateful that other people of a more menacing type haven't found out that all his soul costs is $100.

I am feeling pretty sick today. I wish I could post a picture that showed a picture of a very sick looking person so you could see the degree of sorriness that you should feel for me, but I think I will save the carazzzzy technical stuff for my second post.