Librarian in Disguise

saturday's activity

off to dayton in the morning. then the fest with mom and dad.

new tunes...

i like what I hear

I could hardly believe it

Today as I headed up the stairs to my weekly Weight Watchers meeting I noticed something rather disturbing in the Macy's department store. Christmas trees! And not just Christmas trees waiting for decoration. They were fully decorated, as if Christmas were coming soon. Ahh! It's only week 6 of the semester and there are already Christmas trees in the department store. What is the world coming to? It makes me not want to buy Christmas presents. Maybe I'll make mine this year. Maybe instead of Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays we should just call it Happy Cosumer Days or Merry Consumption!

funny, ha ha!

Where is Engaged, Ohio?

Half way between Dayton & Marion, Ohio.

trader joe's

Since moving to Columbus I have enjoyed the delight of shopping at Trader Joe's. Before moving to Columbus I had only experienced it out West when my folks were living in Tucson, AZ. Just last week I found out an interesting fact about Trader Joe's, it's owned by Aldi. How very cool. That makes me like it even more.

Trader Joe's is on the way home from my weekly Weight Watchers meeting. Which lets me kill to birds with one stone. A lot of folks think that Trader Joe's is super pricey, but I've actually found it to be quite affordable, espeically for a single gal who doesn't make big meals, and their packaging isn't so big that stuff goes bad before I can finish it.

Horrah! For Trader Joe's.

decision making part 2

maybe yet another reason to stay in Columbus.

decision making

perhaps another reason to stay in ohio.

hilarious

thanks to my coworker Wendy for introducing me to randomshirts.com. This shirt just might end up in my wardrobe.

three

Season 3 of Grey's Anatomy is here. It's a toss up if I like the show more than the new music I'm exposed to.

the diagnosis

I've been having mild persistent ankle pain for over 3 weeks now. I finally got in today to see a doctor. The diagnosis, I have Tendinitis.
So no excercise for 2 weeks, motrin every 6-8 hours, and ice on the foot and probably a new pair of sneakers is in order. Boo! Just when I was getting into a good routine of exercising.

what's next...

It's no secret that in May my initial 4 year committment with the CCO will come to an end. I've been chewing on the question of what's next for over a year now. Should I stay on staff, should I stay in Columbus, should I move somewhere, should I move career fields. Oh my this decision making overwhelms me in waves and today it feels extremely heavy and overwhelming.

Maybe I should take a comment vote and see what the world wide web thinks?! Ha!
If only decision making were that simple.

Joining the Air Force has even crossed my mind. Not to worry I highly doubt that would ever happen, especially at this stage in my life!

a few of my favorite things!

It's rainy outside. And this is the perfect beverage for a rainy night in September. It gets even better the colder it gets outside.

will be finished

On my couch there sits a pile of fabric waiting to be quilted together. This thing has been pieced together for almost a year now. It's high time that it's finished! Tonight I meet with a student and then I'll pin it together so I can hopefully sew it up by the end of the week.

new music purchase

Just bought this soundtrack at trusty Barnes & Noble this evening. So far so good. Zach did such a good job on the Garden State Soundtrack I figured this one had to be good!

This weekend while in Pittsburgh I listened to Snow Patrol, they have a song on this soundtrack and one of their songs was used in the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. I really like their sound, I think I'll add them to my cds to purchase list.

$2.08

I returned last night after being away from Columbus for 4 days. On my way home I stopped just West of Columbus to fill up my trusty little Honda. I wasn't' quite on empty, but I was able to fill up for less than $20. That hasn't happened in almost a year. In fact last year on my way to staff seminar I filled up on my way out of town for $3 something. So it was exciting to fill up for $2.08. I remember a few years ago when $1.30 seemed expensive. I'm so thankful that my commute is simply walking down one flight of stairs.

Time to make the coffee and get ready for a new week.

and then i travel...again.

This afternoon I'm heading east on 70 and then north on 79 to go to Pittsburgh. I'll have dinner with my friends Jessika & Chris, spend the night and drive east on 76 to the first staff seminar of the school year. Then on Friday I'll go back to Pittsburgh for a few days. Maybe even catch a Pirates game on Saturday.

but first it's time for coffee.

p.s. the person pictured to my right is Jessika.

another milestone

Every Monday night I head up the Sunbury Road to Easton (the local pretend town center, which really just means big outdoor mall). My Weight Watchers meeting is at the Macy's there. We meet in the break room. Last night I reached another weightloss milestone, I reached my 10% loss goal. So exciting, it gets me closer to my new purse!

All that working out is paying off!

a first for me

This weekend my two very good friends Morgan & Shelby came for a visit. It is always good to be in the company of people who know me well. After dinner on Friday we decided that a good movie was in order. I suggested that we see Little Miss Sunshine. The agreed and I got to see this fantastic film for the third time. Let me tell you folks it only gets better with each viewing.

I've never gone to see a movie three times in the theater. I saw it almost 2 weeks ago with my friend and co-worker Chrissy, labor day weekend with my folks and most recently this past weekend. I think the reason it's so fun to see it over and over again is getting to experience different peoples reaction to the movie.

It's classic I tell you. If you haven't seen it you MUST!

Time now to get ready for church.

Fuller plays the drums...

football

OSU 24-Texas 7.

Sweet.

fuller talks

I'm giving Google Video a try. Let's see if this works!

i know what it is...

i was telling someone at a baby shower about the worm thing i'd seen outside of my residence hall the other day. low and behold she told me it was a tomato worm. who knew. i looked it up. read all about it here.

ick!

now my next question is what was it doing near my home?

running

Way back in high school during my freshman and sophomore years I ran on the cross country team. It started out that way sort of by default, I was cut from the volleyball team. And because we were living in Europe I had very limited transportation (aside from parental taxi services) and I couldn't have job. So there was no way I was going to get on the bus everyday and go home at 3. So I joined the only team that I wouldn't have to try out for--Cross Country.

I had never really run long distance before then. It was hard and I didn't always like practice, but I made some good friends--Ann and Sabrina. We had fun together and I successfully ran for 2 years. My first 5K took me almst 40 minutes if not more and my final 5k was under 28 minutes, not bad for someone who had never run much before.

Sadly thought when we moved back to the states the High School I was enrolled in didn't really have a cross country team and the women's volleyball coach, who was also technically the women's xcountry coach wasn't willing to coach just one person. So I got a job at Chick-fil-A intstead. And my running career ended.

At various times in life I've tried to restart my running career and frankly because I learned to run on a team I've never really enjoyed running solo. But with my recent push to earn that Vera Bradley purse (aka continue on my weight loss journey) I've returned to exercise. For about 3 weeks now I've been doing the elipical machine, much like running but without the impact. Today after 20 minutes of that I gave the treadmill a go. I jogged for about 10 minutes and did running intervals for 8 minutes. Running is hard work.

So here's the rest of the story. When I turned 25 I made a list of things I wanted to do by the time I was 30. Can't remember what they all were, I do however remember 2 of them:

1. Visit Alison & Nico in France
2. Run a marathon, who knows maybe this is the beginning of my training.

I'll keep you posted.

a little cheney humor...

Today I received a free copy of Paste in the mail, which was very exciting because with every issue you get a free CD & DVD with samples of music, film shorts and videos. I think I'll take the plunge and get a reduced cost subscription for the year. It's a fairly "new" publication (circa 2002) and I figure it's an opportunity to support a publication that is doing an excellent job. And I must say I appreciate that their ads aren't all sexually motivated (unlike other music mags). Anyhow let me get to the point of this post, there was a very funny letter to the editor that appreared in Issue 23:

"Best Ever Letter We've ever Gotten from a Reader...Ever"

"I was watching Johnny Cash perform "Folsom Prison Blues" on Paste DVD #21 when my 7 year old daughter idled into the room. She wasn't much interested until he sang the line, "I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die." She looked at him for a second and then asked, "Is that man Dick Cheney?" That moment alone was worth my annual subscription. "

--Ian Plenderleith (Bethesda, MD)

what on earth?

this creature was crawling outside of my residence hall today in the rain. any guesses as to what on earth it is? sorry the picture quality is not so great, what do you expect from a camera phone. I feel as though I should have a contest for whoever can tell me what it is, only I wouldn't know who because I don't know what it is.

Another Tuesday Monday

Today is Tuesday. Yesterday was Monday. But there was no work yesterday on account of labor day. Regardless of the fact that today is in fact Tuesday it feels like Monday. Short weeks like this always throw me off a bit. And next week will be even worse because I'm only on campus Monday-Wednesday and then its off to September Staff Seminar on Thursday & Friday.

Well even though the work week is starting a day late there is still work to be done. So off I go to get my day started.

life without an elevator

So normally the absence of the elevator doesn't really bother me. You see I live on the 2nd floor of a 7 story residence hall. So, when the elevator was shut off because of vandalism last week it didn't really phase me, until today.

My parents have been plant sitting for me all summer and my plants really grew this summer, lots of good rain and sun. So when I arrived back to campus today with all 5 of my very large potted plants I was mildly annoyed that the elevator was turned off.

Oh well all the up and down the stairs with laundry, groceries and plants made up for not making it to the work out room tomorrow. That comes tomorrow at 7am.

red door

Because today was labor day I had the day off from my normal routine. So I decided to head west on interstate 70 and visit Mom and Dad in Dayton. It was a nice visit, low key and restful. I saw Invincible on Saturday with Dad and on Sunday all three of us went to see Little Miss Sunshine. It was my second time seeing Little Miss Sunshine and again I tell you it was hilarious!! At one point Mom was crying she was laughing so hard.

One of the things that I did while at home was to take some photos of the red door for mom. She wanted to send it along to a friend in Germany. The door looks really cool, finished just in time for the Catalpa house to be on the neighborhood home & garden tour.

Sudoku

I started playing sudoku this summer while on vacation in Cape Cod. I stuck with it most of the summer, usually trying to do at least one puzzle a day. They are so much fun! I almost never time myself because if it takes me "too" long I feel defeated. The challenge for me is simply finishing a puzzle. I've never been a numbers person so getting through one of is extremely rewarding. Since I've been back at ODU I haven't really done very many of the puzzles. So I decided to take my puzzle book with me to Dayton, where I did a few and I just finished two this evening.

So I'll try to get back on track and do a few each week. They make my brain feel like it's getting a good workout. You should try them. I've heard there are a lot of places on line to do them, I even have a handheld electronic version. Truthfully though I enjoy the good old fashioned pencil and paper version.