Life in Denim and Flip Flops

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. It's been a bit of a crazy week since then. Gretchen came to visit for the weekend. We went to a Gala at my work, which was fun mostly due to the wine, food, friends and a couple of decks of cards. It was fun to get dressed up and have an excuse to wear heels. Something like this certainly helps to accentuate the age difference between you and the rest of the faculty/staff. But we found our place and carved out a kid's table and made the best of it. The rest of the weekend involved finishing up my holiday shopping. Usually I don't quite leave it this late, but I really feel like December snuck up on me this year. I still don't believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I forget how much I hate holiday shopping traffic, but having Gretchen along made it survivable. :) Monday I was back at work (a little late due to random insomnia night) getting ready for the fall semester and watching the impending weather forecasts with a close eye....

So for the past 3 years, I've been a nerdfighter and a fan of John and Hank Green . The last 2 years on December 17, they've launched the Project for Awesome to take over the YouTube most discussed and most rated pages for charity. People make videos and rate and comment and favorite those to the top, bringing awareness to those charities. On top of that John and Hank have put up money to the charities championed in their favorite videos. In the past, I've only participated in the commenting portion of the day. I've had some really great discussion in the comments with people I've met from around the world. This year I decided to change that. I made a video talking about the Kids Need to Read Foundation . an organization I'm donating to for Christmas this year. Enjoy it below. And don't forget to go to YouTube and search for Project for Awesome (P4A) videos all day, to do something good for charity.

I've got a bunch going on this week. I really need to get Christmas cards written and sent out. I send out too many, and they've been getting progressively later each year. I swear they will be out by the end of the week! Which reminds me, if I don't have your address, you should fill it out here . Even if you haven't moved recently, I seem to have lost some addresses in the new computer shuffle in March. I've also got to clean the apartment. Gretchen is coming this weekend to visit. She's going to be my date to the Gala. Someone's got to keep me company. Events are always fun with her, and besides one my coworkers is threatening to bring a deck of cards for entertainment. Hopefully we can both finish Christmas shopping too. (I'm also behind on that.) I need to decorate the apartment for the holidays. My penguins and Christmas tree are up in my office, but my other two trees haven't been pulled out of the spare bedroom yet. Oops. Plus I've got me...

I used to love recess. I went to a small K-8 school growing up. There were about 160 students total. My class hovered at about 21 students. 19 of those kids went to school with me all the way from kindergarten to 8th grade. Needless to say, we were close. And thankfully for the most part we got along. (Ok, I spent one year coming home crying after school, but for the story's sake let's ignore that.) We had plenty of recess time each day. We played basketball, football, kickball, dodgeball, and jsut about any other sport we could get our hands on the equipment for. But I think my favorite game we played was Sinissippi Trails. The game was a winter game, when it was way too cold and snowy to play anything else. Playing on the snow mounds and starting snowball fights were good ways to get in trouble, so we had to find some other way to entertain ourselves. I wish I could remember who's brilliant idea it was to do this, but I can't. The game was basically a tripped out vers...

Here's a short snow rant. I actually like things about snow and winter, I promise. But today the stuff I'm not so fond of. frozen eyelashes- I hate when you feel like if you blink too long your eyelashes will freeze to your face. Or when it melts against your cheek as you walk inside. I feel like I must look like I'm constantly crying. people that don't clear their sidewalks well-Whether that be by only salting and not shoveling, shoveling early so that a sheen of ice can form, or not shoveling at all, it's just not cool. people who drive too fast-I believe the motto "I trust myself to drive, just not everyone else." One person driving unsafely can cause problems for so many people. when snow becomes rock hard ice-If you get wet snow (as opposed to that dry blowing stuff) and then it get really cold you get solid hunks of ice that are impossible to shovel. cleaning off your car when its covered in ice- Ask my mom about that one. She helped with an epic ice...

You didn't think that was coming did you? I know that I promised a rant about getting to work. And you'll get it. Just not today. Today I'm gonna talk about a pair of cool new gloves I got. I mentioned them to Christina on twitter the other day. They're grey elbow length fingerless gloves with ruffles and a bow. They're so freaking cute. I wore them under a heavy red cardigan sweater. Our reference desk gets a little cool during the winter and my hands tend to freeze. My solution at home (to the same problem) has been to cut the fingertips out of those cheap 2 pair for a dollar gloves. Not exactly the most professional way to do it. My mom and sister found these new gloves at Aldo. I love them!! They totally keep my hands warm as well as my forearms without having to wear 2 layers of long sleeves! I told Christina I'd get her a picture. So here it is. Aren't they adorable? Now I just need them in a few more colors. Also, if you haven't seen Christina...

As of the writing of this blog, we are still on for class tomorrow. Most of the public schools in the area have canceled. I have this horrible feeling we'll be a last minute, early morning cancellation, which means I have to get up early and check my email or catch the radio at the right time. Either way I have to wake up at normal/early time. Boo. Anyway, on to the chronicling of the "blizzard of doom." Walking to work this morning wasn't bad at all. It was snowing lightly, and my only complaint was dealing with it snowing into my face. It continued to snow til about 11. Then we got a few hours of clear weather, but mid-afternoon brought the return of the snow. I snuck out a little early to mail a package. As my luck would have it, the wind had changed and I now got snow in my face on the way home too! The sidewalks weren't too bad if you took slow short steps. When I got home I took some pictures and decided to take them every 2 hours or so for comparison. This ...