look at my beautiful fatheads!

i don't really have much to say. thanksgiving was alright, although it didn't really seem like thanksgiving. we stayed here. we had turkey with our bible study leader's parents. it was good food! i was very grateful to them for having us there!
and before dinner, while it was still daylight, adam and i played some tennis until i couldn't take our suckiness any longer. we STINK to high heaven. if we are having a good day (which rarely happens) maybe, just maybe adam and i can volley about 5 times in a row. like i said, we're terrible. most of the time we just hit balls that bounce into the net, over the fence or off into the far corners of the court. but what am i saying? that's if we even hit the ball! so i guess you could say we don't really play tennis. we play something i like to call "pong." the rules are simple. hit the ball in a way in which the other person is able to hit it back, add one point. miss the ball, or hit it in a way in which the other person cannot hit it back, subtract one point. serves don't count for points. we try to get to 100 points. we've only reached it once and it took FOREVER. on thanksgiving day i think we hardly made it to 20. and i've had tennis lessons!! but at least we both suck together. i would feel bad for adam if he were way better than me.

the day after thanksgiving, adam and i woke up at the b-crack of dawn and went to take part in some of that holiday magic that comes around once a year on black friday. target was offering a dvd ash wants for christmas for $18 that normally goes for ~$35. so being the great sister i am, i thought adam and i could get out of bed, run over to target, grab the dvd, and be back in bed before you could blink. i had no idea. the next morning we left around 6:30am withOUT our cell phones. i didn't think we would need them. we got to target and i was shocked to find that there wasn't a single parking place! not a single space! people were parking on the grass or making their own spaces at the end of rows. it was MADDENING! my gosh. i had NO idea how crazy it was going to be. i thought that no one in their right mind would be up so early shopping. i was SO wrong. i let adam out of the car to grab the dvd and thought i would keep driving around until a spot became free. i drove around and around the parking lot for what seemed like hours (probably only 10 minutes) and fumed over not bringing my cell phone. i had just about decided to leave the parking lot all together and drive down the street when suddenly someone pulled out and no one was already in line for the spot. i then ran into the target and rubbed shoulders with about 1000 people while trying to find adam. i looked for what seemed like hours (again, probably only 10 minutes), before i decided i would go and page him from the front of the store. but i finally found him waiting in the longest line i had ever seen. so about 1 1/2 hours later, adam and i returned home. gee. i like saving money, but THAT was CUR-A-ZEE. at least now i know how this black friday stuff works. there needs to be at least two of you and you MUST have cell phones! as much as i hate crowds and being up before the sun, i do love saving money. though, it looks like during the week after thanksgiving there are other sales going on as well. so is it worth waking up early to fight over all this crap?? i dunno. i hate to admit it, but i'll probably be one of those crazy wake-up-at-5-in-the-freakin-morning-to-catch-the-sale moms, if what i am specifically after goes on a crazy low sale. it's like the money experts say, never buy at full price.

i am proud to report that Dr. Nusbaum finished reading my lit review and he likes it! he said that it is very thoroughly researched and good. yah you bet this thing was thorough! i only spent like freakin forever on it. i should be an expert of fish immune systems now. but alas, i've already forgotten a lot, if not most, of what i wrote. such is life. you spend so much time and energy on something only to forget it.

adam and i might have to get my mini cooper sooner than expected. his silver bullet is dying. so sad. being the first borns we are, we're both afraid to touch the car with a 20-foot pole in fear it might explode because of its given death sentence. but i'm totally pumped about getting a mini. i'll make excuses for us to go driving all the time. my poor bike will grow neglected.

adam and i went to a seminar that taught us about buying your first house. not that we are anywhere remotely ready to buy one. sometimes i don't think we'll ever be able to afford a house here. they are SO expensive. and what scares me is that what used to be a $70,000 house last year is now close to $200,000. how do we know if it was under priced then or over priced now? and if interest rates go up, will the house market take a dive? PUH-LEASE i hope so! a $200,000 house is crap around here too. most of the nicer homes are over $250,000, but it's going to take over 2 years to even save 20% of that! which i guess means we really can't afford that price. oh well. i'm just having to learn about contentness. this week i thought i was going to go out of my mind living here any longer, but then we bought air fresheners and i'm MUCH better. i just hate that our apartment smells like stale smoke and dander. gross! but air fresheners help a ton. and hopefully when i get a job, being away from the apartment will help make it less annoying. i just have to keep telling myself "i can do anything for 2 years!" oh and i'm so sad. i was hoping to get a job that paid around $40,000 a year. i don't think that's too unreasonable. but maybe i was wrong. maybe i'll be lucky to make $30,000. one of my friends seems to think i'll make that much. i always expected more, and i guess that's wrong. but my plan was to buy a mini within a year and a half, and after i buy the car, use the money i was spending on the car to buy furniture etc. but i think adam would rather me not buy that stuff and save ALL the money. i guess though it's not wise to spend money before you have it. =) so i guess i'll stop my complaining. back to work for me!

adam and i went to miami last weekend. it was fun. everyone and their dog speaks spanish there. i wish i spoke spanish. but alas, all i can say is "mi esposo es muerto porque una vaca loca lo comio." which translates into "my husband is dead because a crazy cow ate him." that doesn't get me far. in fact, it gets me no where unless i want to pick up other men, and i don't. now once upon a time, like in college, i did want to pick up men. so Sarah Howie taught me all this sleezy spanish to get guys. like i also used to know how to say "oo the new couch is very comfortable. come sit with me" and i'd say it while patting the couch and winking at a guy. but no good this spanish does me now that i'm married. now i need to learn appropriate spanish like "my husband is hot and better than you" or "this new couch is comfortable but please go away" or "i would like two spoons with that dessert please."

so while we were in miami, we ate at a restraunt called Versialles in little havana. i thought the food was amazing. i want to go to cuba and live there now. but i would have to learn spanish first. and that whole fidel castro thing could be a bit of a bother.

not much else is going on here. i'm really REALLY into collaging right now. it's my new form of relaxation. cutting and gluing. gluing and cutting. it's like an eye candy revolution baby.
so until next time, keep on truckin G.

so adam and i are now in florida. west melbourne, florida to be exact.
i love it here, even though i stay locked up in our apartment all day writing about the immune system of catfish. that says a lot.
i can't wait to get a job, though i still haven't figured out what to do with my life. i thought about going back to school and getting a BSN (nursing degree). but i don't qualify for in-state tuition for another year and out-of-state tuition is freakin EXPENSIVE. no joke. so expensive in fact, it's changed my mind and convinced me that i need to get a job. plus, i think the mini cooper bug bit me. i REALLY want a mini, which means i need a job so i can make some money and buy me a mini cooper.
elton john is speaking to me today. he sits on the roof and sings props to me while i edit my litreview. he's putting down in words how wonderful life is while i'm in this world. i actually feel special in a not so personal way. yup i'm his blue-jean-pretty-eyed baby dancing in the sand.
so HOPEFULLY, with beautiful elton's help, i'll get this litreview out of my hands in the next couple of days and start the actual thesis. i have this yucky feeling in the bottom of my stomach that dr. nusbaum thinks i'm sitting around doing nothing... and you know what? maybe i am. maybe i really am just sitting here doing nothing every day!
actually... i've been busy going to the doctor 7 times this month (thanks to United Healthcare!)
and i've become addicted to SU DOKU!!! oh my gosh i can't get enough of it! my personal goal is to get good enough to do the insanely hard level with no problems. right now i can't even solve the insane puzzels.
and i've read 4 books in the past month: first i finished Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy. it was alright. but i don't think i'm a huge fan of Thomas Hardy. there was too much old irish slang. it took a while to get to used to. and then there were several places that i could tell were supposed to be situationally funny, but they weren't. or not to me at least.
then i read Daphne DuMaurier's Jamaica Inn. It was ok. but it was written in the 1930's but supposed to take place in the early 1800's and you could tell that a modern woman wrote the book. not that a 1930's woman is modern... but a 1930's woman is a post-1919 woman of action. so the main character seemed a little too spirited in the whole book.
the next book i read was Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. it was good. i enjoyed reading it, though it was very similar to Anna Karenina, and i liked Anna a WHOLE lot better. maybe it was just the translation (i had a really REALLY old book from the library) but the writting tenses were weird making it seem awkwardly written. but i still liked it a lot.
the last book i read was Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie. i love this book. the last time i read it was 10 years ago. i was hoping i wouldn't remember any of it, but i remembered everything about it. it's amazing. i can watch a movie and love it, but i'll forget it in a couple of years. or if i read a book and like it, but not love it, i'll forget it as well. but if you give me a book and i love it, i'll never forget it. i'll carry it around in my head and make it one of my own memories lost in my head for forever. and someday when i'm crazy and old, i'll mix up all the old memories i've experienced, read and dreamed and live one trippy life.