Happy Halloween!

I worked last night on a fun little project. I made "Spooky Gloved Munch Mix" from the Kraft recipe website. I took food service gloves and put candy corn in the tips and then filled them with a mixture of popcorn, m&m's, and alpha bits cereal. I made 17 of them - one for each of the RAs and RLs on our staff. I love being able to do special little things like that for the students. Here's a photo of one of them...

Applesauce!

Last weekend Deanna and Denise came over to my place and we made applesauce. The Rissers had gotten some from their mom and I just have the freezer portion of my refrigerator in which to store it, so we made a smallish batch...maybe 15 quarts or so. Even though there wasn't a ton of fruit from our labor, it was a very fun time and the sauce that we did get is quite tasty! I've been serving it at each student meal that I've had since we made it....I only have a couple quarts left. I'll be sad when it's gone, but throughly enjoyed making it....and eating it!

I look forward to when "someday" comes and I have my own freezer so that I can make tons of applesauce and eat off my supply for more than a few weeks. Until then I'm just glad that we had this opportunity to make a little.

I stole these pictures from Deanna's blog....

me and Deanna cutting apples into quarters

me and Deanna making the applesauce in her mom's victorio strainer

The finished product!

Too hard? Not hard enough?

Too hard? Not hard enough? I've been to all of my Hermeneutics classes and to 2/3 of my Counseling classes. I'm also working on choosing my classes for next semester. In that process I've also been evaluating my experience thus far. I think my deduction about grad school is that is is not as difficult as I had imagined it to be, and yet a lot more work that I imagined it would be.
I thought I'd be overwhelmed and feel intellectually lacking in my classes. This has not been the case. I am learning a great deal and having my mind stretched, but not in a way that makes me feel ignorant or incapable of handling the material. I find that my favorite parts of the class are when we are having group discussions. I enjoy the sharing of ideas among a diverse, yet common hearted, group of adults.
The work load on the other hand has been the shock! I was able to get by in my undergrad with minimal study efforts. And, even though I saw Deanna study her tail off during grad school, I still imagined that I would be able to do grad school with minimal work. This is not the case! I find myself reading so much of the time! (I think that may be why I've been having so many headaches!) Despite these surprises, I am still thoroughly enjoying my school experience and am looking forward to more of the same In the months/years to come!

Time to post

It's not that my life has been boring per-say, but it's just lacking much "noteworthy" stuff. Here are a few things that might interest you...

-My brother, Jack, was in town for the weekend. I saw him (and Mom and Mike) several times over the weekend...usually during a mealtime! My family LOVES to eat!
-Sunday lunch was a group of students and recent grads with me at El Camino. It was a fun mix of people and quite yummy food!
-Sunday afternoon I went to the "Best Dam Neighborhood Association" neighborhood picnic and open house tour. I went with Rebecca. It was the neighborhood where the two of grew up (and met) for a good chunk of our childhoods. It was fun to walk around and reminisce about when we were kids. I spent quite a bit of time after that pondering how our friendship has grown through the years. I am very blessed to have her in my life.
-Sunday evening I went to Chicago with Deanna. Denise had been in Virginia with the GC volleyball team and flew into Midway airport around 8:00ish. So, Deanna and I went to pick her up. We drove up early and had a fun dinner together at Giordano's - tasty sausage, onion, and double mushroom deep dish pizza!
-Monday was lunch with Tracy, studying at the Brew, dinner at the dining hall, and studying/watching DVDs of the Gilmore Girls/playing on Facebook until much too late!
-Today I had lunch at Panera with the RDs and then came back here to study/watch DVDs of the Gilmore Girls/play on Facebook. I made a yummy dinner of oven fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and creamed corn....just for me! :)

That's all for now. Students come back from fall break tomorrow, so things should liven up a bit and then I go back to school on Thursday, so that should be exciting! Until later...

I finally joined!

Well, I finally joined Facebook. It is "THE" social networking site! Now that I am in grad school I hear how many people in my classes are on Facebook and the amount of connections that happen via it. So I decided to join! I really admire and respect the people that I am going to school with and I want to find more ways to build connections with them. Granted this is not the same as spending time with them. I do hope that with all of us living so far apart, this may be a good way to keep and strengthen the connections we make while in class. We'll see if that proves to be true.

I have always wanted to join Facebook (it sounded fun!), but chose not to join out of a desire to not "stir the pot" in my work environment. It was expressed by a group of students a few years ago that they felt like if the RDs showed up on Facebook it would be because we were there to "catch students." This was a reflection of the general mistrust that some of our students have of the administration here. That would not/ is not my motive for joining, but it just seemed easier to not join than to explain that to them.

I finally decided that this was something I was going to do even if it brought about negative feedback for me among students. Facebook is so far beyond this campus. Ive been amazed by the number of college friends (esp from my undergrad experience), and former church friends are on it! It's so fun! If you aren't a member yet, you should really join! Just be warned...you can waste a lot of time on it - though I've been told the excitement wears off after a few weeks and doesn't occupy nearly as much of your time after the initial curiosity wears off.

I love grad school!

I am finished with day two of my three day Hermeneutics class. It's been another great week of learning from Dr. House. I'm amazed at how much clarity comes to what I've read when I listen to him lecture and then do the group worksheets. I think I could almost do the worksheets just based on what he lectures, but I don't want to try that! He announced today that he's going to drop the final exam! WooHoo! It was going to be a take home exam, so I think I would've done well on it, but it will be nice to not have to put the time into it. This way I can spend more time on the exegesis project and the 600 or so pages that I have to read before the end of the November! (Not to mention the work for my counseling class!)

Rather than stay at my brother's place this time I got a cheap hotel for the two nights I am here. It's been an OK experience. I have gotten LOTS of reading done for my counseling course, but I do miss interacting with other people. I think I may stay at the monastery in Huntington sometimes this winter. I think that might help me focus on studies, but there will be other students there that I could do dinner with or something. We'll see how it works out. I still want to stay some at Gary's cuz I love hanging out with them. I just need to use some of these evenings to fully focus on class and I don't want to wear out my welcome at their place.

I want to give another round of kudos and appreciation to my fellow RDs - Chad and Alex! They are so supportive of my pursuit of this degree and have been so willing to pitch in during my absences from campus. They truly have no idea how much their support means to me! I don't think I could do this nearly as well if I didn't have them in my corner! What a blessing! Especially Chad - who had to be up at 2:00 this morning cleaning up a prank in my supervision area...especially when he HATES pranks! Chad rocks!

Well, I've been at a coffee shop studying since class got out- studying and consuming lots of caffeine! I think I'm going to sign off and go find some dinner....probably at Panera...before heading to the hotel for the night. Later!

Recipe of the week!

A local radio station around here has a recipe section on their website and takes new recipes each week. On Fridays they draw a "recipe of the week" and that person wins a $25 gift certificate to Martin's Supermarket - a locally owned grocery store. Earlier this week I sent in my favorite fall recipe - Pumpkin Bars - and I won! :)

The web address for the radio station's website is www.ilovemyfroggy.com. On the left side of the screen there is a "Cooking with Katie" section. Click on it and you will be directed to the recipes.

Bratz doll feet

Have you ever seen those Bratz dolls? They are kinda like Barbie dolls, but a little more urban looking. Plus rather than changing their shoes, you actually pull their feet off and put new feet on the doll with shoes to match the new outfit. I'm sure you are wondering why a woman of my age is babbling on about some silly Barbie-esque doll. Well, I've decided that I want to be a Bratz doll! Not because I like their uber trendy clothes or want to live on the floor of an eight year old's room, but because my feet ache so bad right now that I'd like to pop them off and replace them with a pair that don't ache...preferably in some cute soft slippers! :) I catered a dinner for the alumni board tonight and was on my feet for about 7 hours straight. I had on a cute little sleeveless shirt, so I wore my tan sandals...not a good idea when you are going to stand for that long and have crazy Lambright nearly flat feet! So, since I'm not a Bratz doll, I'm going to go wash my feet, slather them with lotion and head to bed....before 11:00 PM! Night! :)

Cooking, cooking, cooking!

Cooking - that seems to be what I have been up these past few weeks. I've had company at least 4 day a week the past two weeks. I am working hard at connecting with students over the dinner hour on the weeks that I do not have any classes - so there have been folks here Sunday thru Wednesday for the past few weeks. It's been a lot of fun.

Typically I go to the grocery store on an almost daily basis to get ingredients fresh for whatever I am making that day. In an effort to preserve my time this year I've been making a weekly grocery list and trying to get all my shopping done on Saturday. This is how most of the people I know do their grocery shopping. It is more time efficient, but I actually miss the way I used to do it.

I miss the grocery store - weird, I know! I LOVE walking the aisles and looking at the food - wondering what new dish I could create, comparing prices between the various stores in town, and running into all sort of people I know. Plus I miss the checkers at my favorite grocery store, Aldi's - I liked seeing the regularly and being able to give them an encouraging word each time I was there - something you need when you do a job in customer service.

Welp, that's all for now. Hopefully I'll have a more exciting post next time!