A Roommate's Influence

Since moving out of my mom's house at the age of eighteen, I've had sixteen roommates (not including summer projects). While anyone can tell you that living with a roommate can be a great learning and growth experience, what I've noticed is that many of the things I think, do, or like I do so because of a roommate's influence. I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane and see just what kind of an impact they've had on me. Because of roommates, I:

• know how to stretch my pants before I put them in the dryer so they don't shrink
• think being a vegetarian is a good thing
• know how to fold fitted sheets
• believe that Democrats and Republicans can actually live together and get along (and Christians and atheists for that matter ;-)
• have seen every episode of Buffy & Angel more than once and can sing along to the musical episode
• own all available seasons of Friends & Bones and know that getting a random quote via text can brighten my day
• value getting up a little earlier to read my Bible and pray
• realize that "eye, pirate, snake" can also mean I.R.S. 
• am aware that one way to conserve water is to follow the motto "If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down."
• am still watching Smallville in its 10th and final season
• wrap my sandwich in a paper towel before I put it in a sandwich bag so that I always have a napkin
• can play scales on the piano
• know that I love bulgogi and Chapagetti but not kimchi (I also know that kimchi is SUPPOSED to smell and should not get thrown out just because it stinks)
• can find my pulse on my wrist (seriously could not do this before)
• can tolerate watching Project Runway. No wait, I still can't do that
• am hooked on Grey's Anatomy
• know what the Millennium Falcon is
• believe Arrested Development should have had more than three seasons
• can't eat a candy cane without evaluating whether or not the curved part really does taste different
• think every trip to Disneyland should include as many silly hat pictures as possible

These are just a sampling of the infinite ways that I am different because of all my wonderful roommates. Thank you all for making me such a TV junkie! Really though, I am so thankful for each and every one of you who have put up with my idiosyncrasies and chore charts and helped make me who I am today. I dedicate this post to you.

Jackie, Jenna, Leah, Tracey, Krista, Beth, Katie, Melissa, Tania, Celia, Laura, Dustin, Mark, and Sharn - I love you all! 

An Early Spring?

One can only hope. As February comes to an end, I start to look forward to spring again. This is the end of my fourth "real" winter since leaving Arizona and my second winter in Ohio, which means my second winter of asking myself "Am I doing this right?" every time I shovel snow from the driveway and sidewalks. It seems simple enough, and I think I do a pretty good job of it, but no one ever showed me how, so I'm left to wonder things such as "Should I shovel now or wait to see how much more snow will fall? Will this snow melt soon enough that shoveling is unwarranted? Is this the most efficient way to move the snow?" They may seem like silly questions to you, but this desert native feels self-conscious thinking that the neighbors are all peeking out their windows saying to each other "Look at that silly girl! Doesn't she know this snow will melt on its own?" or "What is she doing scooping the snow that way? She should know to do it this way!" But I don't know what "this" way is, so I'll just keep doing it my way.

One Good Thing About Mornings

Depending on where I'm teaching on any given day, I wake up between 5:40 and 6:30am and leave the house between 6:30 and 7:30am respectively. Often on days when I leave at 6:30, Michael is still sleeping (or snoozing, really), and I feel a twinge of jealousy, though I would never want to trade jobs with him. On days like today, when I leave at 7:00, he is usually in bed but awake enough to talk to me as I finish getting ready. These are the mornings I like the best. (You may think I like the mornings when I don't have to leave until 7:30 the best, but those are the days I have to go to an elementary school, so no.) Usually we spend this time telling each other our dreams.  This morning I told him that I had a very adventurous dream that involved riding snowmobiles through an icy, craggy mountain. Then, he tells me that he had a dream that I was in a relationship with Harry Potter.

Dreams and Cravings

No, I'm not pregnant. Okay, now that that's out of the way. A while back, I was totally stuck on pancakes. I made pancakes almost everyday for two weeks. I would eat them for breakfast, lunch, or snacks. I probably would have had them for dinner if Michael was up for it. I finally got over my pancake craving, but I've moved on to pudding. There was a pack of vanilla pudding at the house where I'm nannying this summer. I ate them all the first week of work, bought a replacement pack for them and ended up eating most of those too. Last night, I decided to make my own so I would stop cleaning out my employer. I was really happy with how it turned out, especially as it was my first time making pudding from scratch. Hopefully this craving doesn't last too much longer. If only I could move on to something like spinach or carrot sticks.

I don't know if it's all the pudding I've been eating, all the fiction I've been reading, or just another exciting night of sleep, but I had a dream the other night that the world was ending because of some crazy bet that Zeus made with Snape (kind of like God and Satan's deal with Job.). I think it was all going to end well though because Spider-man was there rescuing kids and stopping floods. I woke up before I knew for sure, but I would bet that your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man saved the day.

Durmstrang

Sometimes when I learn or discover something new, what I realize is how little of the world I really know. For example, there was a reference to Sturm and Drang in the book I'm currently reading (Cutting for Stone). At first I thought, That seems so familiar, but I don't know what it means. Naturally, I did what I always do when I don't know something: I Googled it. Apparently, Sturm and Drang was an anti-Enlightenment movement in Germany in the late 18th century, and it is commonly translated as Storm and Stress*. That, however, is not why it was familiar to me. I have not studied much of the various movements in music, art, and literature, not as much as I would have liked anyway. No, it was familiar because of Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling named one of the other wizarding schools Durmstrang. I'm sure it's not a coincidental spoonerism, and I'm even more sure that countless people realized this connection long before I did. But in case you didn't, I'm glad I could share my enlightenment with you.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_und_Drang

Not all things are made equal

Two years ago, when I was living in New York, the city became the first "in the country to implement a law forcing chain restaurants to post the calorie count of each food in the same size and font as the price"*. Based on that law, the new health care legislation includes a requirement for chains across the country to post calorie information on their menus and drive-through signs**. I completely support this particular aspect of the law. Sure, I can look up nutrition information online, as I did to get the numbers below. Nearly all restaurants post their food facts on their websites, but I like being able to see in the moment I'm about to order what it is I'm getting. One might think that a burger at one restaurant would be similar, nutritionally, to one at another restaurant. I had assumed that the new blended coffee beverages at McDonald's would be similar to Starbucks' Frappuccinos. I couldn't be more wrong. Out of curiosity, I did some comparing online and discovered the shocking differences between blended coffee beverages all over the place. Here are just a few examples:

Bruegger's Mocha Brueggaccino (16 oz.)

640 calories

29 g of fat

82 g of sugar

0% calcium (is there no milk in there?)

McDonald's Frappe Mocha (16 oz.)

560 calories (480 w/o whipped cream)

24 g of fat (18 w/o whipped cream)

70 g of sugar

25% calcium

Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino (16 oz.)

380 calories (260 w/o whipped cream)

15 g of fat (3.5 w/o whipped cream)

47 g of sugar

20% calcium

I could have TWO Starbucks drinks (w/o whipped cream) for fewer calories than either of the other two versions. Maybe some people prefer making uninformed decisions about what they put in their body. Ignorance is bliss and all that. Personally, I'm very much looking forward to calorie counts being posted as soon as possible.

*http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25464987

**http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/business/24menu.html

Peanut memories

* I wrote this post in October but for some reason never got around to posting it. Much later...

For his birthday, Michael received a peanut themed birthday package from my mom that included a jar of Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts. I'll admit, I am guilty of eating more of them. Whenever I eat these specific peanuts, it reminds me of my grandma. She has a ceramic peanut that she fills with dry roasted peanuts. I remember visiting her house as a young kid and always snacking on them. I don't know where she got the jar, but she still has it and I still love it.

(not my grandma's peanuts)

My cheesy quirk

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I love cheese. Okay, many people who know me know I love cheese. However, not many people know this. Though I love almost all cheeses, the one I eat the most is American cheese (so processed, so not good for me). It isn't because I like it the best; it's just cheap and easy. I don't know when it started, but as far back as I can remember, I've always had the habit of folding the cheese slice in half four times until I have a stack of sixteen tiny little processed cheese pieces. Then I eat them one at a time. It's weird, right?

Yum!

The Old Fashioned Way

I love getting mail, at least the kind of mail that isn't junk or a bill. Who doesn't, right? So, when a personally addressed envelope arrived yesterday from my grandma, I was quite excited. It's not even my birthday or anything! I opened it up, and inside was a newspaper clipping. It was an article from her local newspaper about redecorating in stages. I have to admit, I laughed out loud, not because I didn't appreciate the article or the thought behind it but because of how old school it is to send a person a newspaper article in the mail. I love my grandma, a woman who doesn't know what YouTube is. I am part of the generation that is killing print newspapers. I get all my news online, and if I want to share an article with someone, I email the hyperlink or post it to my blog or Tweet about it or post it on Facebook. I love that there are still people, like my grandma, who take the time to cut an article out with scissors, put it in an envelope, address and stamp it, and send it to a loved one. Hopefully, for her generation's sake, the print newspaper industry lasts a while longer.

Michael vs. Amber

A little illustration of one of the differences between my husband and me....
We had to pack up the van with all the wonderful wedding gifts as well as all the stuff that I still had left at my mom's house in order to take it all to Columbus with us. The item he got excited about: the Crock-Pot. The item I was excited about: the DustBuster :)

for Sara or Cheese Nips vs. Cheez It

I went to the store on the way home from work to pick up some snacks for my fellowship group. I wanted Cheez-Its but only saw Cheese Nips, so I grabbed them. Then at the check-out counter, I found the Cheez-Its. I was inspired to get them both and conduct a taste test. I remembered liking Cheese Nips growing up, but I've only eaten Cheez-Its for so long, I didn't know which was really better. It turns out that I prefer Cheese Nips, but I seem to be the only one. Everyone else picked the Cheez Its. Which do you prefer?

R.I.P. Heath Ledger

You probably know by now, but two days ago on January 22, 2008, Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment. He was only 28 and left behind daughter Matilda Rose Ledger (2yrs).


I was shocked and saddened by the news. Not that I wish it on them, but had it been Lindsay Lohan or Brittney Spears who died, I would not have been surprised. I did not expect this though. Heath hasn't been splashed all over the news for drug use or reckless behavior. He didn't look like the picture of bad health. So, I was just very taken aback. Someone said that Heath might be the River Phoenix of our generation, and perhaps its true. I have such fond memories of him in 10 Things I Hate About You, which is one of my favorite movies of that genre.

It may not be an Oscar-worthy role, but it was my favorite. He's been in many good flicks (Brokeback Mountain, The Patriot, A Knight's Tale), but 10 Things is by far the best in my book, with A Knight's Tale following a close second.

I don't know what else to say (since I didn't know him personally, I can only talk about his movies), but my heart and prayers go out to Heath's friends and family.