Encouraging meeting

Tonight I had an encouraging meeting with a group of 12 young women. Last Tuesday night we had an RA information meeting for those interested in applying for the job next year. After the meeting a few of my current RAs reported that their girls had come back to the floor saying that they didn't really feel that meeting had answered their questions. I didn't want to see anyone not apply because they didn't feel like they understood what the job entailed, so I invited the 15 women from my building that came to the original meeting to come to my apartment tonight for a more in depth meeting. I talked for about 30 minutes about what I felt the most important pieces of the job were and what some of my expectations of my staff are. We spent another 30 - 40 minutes discussing additional questions that they had. I felt like everyone left feeling more more informed and still excited about the position! I also think there was the added benefit that those that came feel a bit more comfortable with me now after hearing my personal goals for Residence Life here at Goshen.

The male applicant pool for my building is much smaller...only 4 guys applying for 3 spots. So I am going to start tapping some people on the shoulder that I think might be possible good candidates.

Men's basketball

I have followed the men's basketball team at GC more than any other sport...mostly because I enjoy basketball more than any other sport. My enjoyment of going to the games has increased in the past two years, as one of my RAs plays on the team and most of the team lives in my building. So instead of just a bunch of guys being out there, it's a bunch of people that I care about out there! The Rissers, my good friends, also really enjoy basketball and go to a lot of the games with me. We have fun watching the game and staying caught up on each others lives at the games. Plus I'm getting to know more of the guys parents and the other regular fans. It's been a blast!

Here's Coach Chupp talking to the guys during a time-out.

Today the Rissers both had plans, so I went down with two of my RAs - Julie and Ashley. We had fun cheering for the guys, despite their loss to IWU. Plus I got to see my niece, Kathy, who is a student at IWU. I visited with her briefly during the game and then I took her, a friend of hers, and my two RAs all out for dinner. It was a fun time hanging out with these wonderful young women!

Julie & Ashley

me & Kathy!

I had gone over tot he IWU side of the gym to talk to my niece, but she had to play in the pep band during time-outs. The gals I took with me thought it was funny that I was sitting there all by myself.

January fun with the RAs!

One would think that we'd ease into the semester and have lots of time to do stuff this month. Not true! The RA team and I have been very busy with tons of work, school, and personal time commitments. It's been difficult for us to find a time to get together to do something fun. Our original idea for this month's activity was to go to Pokagon State Park and go tobogganing. We had a date set and everything, but then one of the guys remembered that he had a choir concert to sing in that day and couldn't go. So, we ended up deciding to go out for milkshakes at Steak n Shake after night class on Thursday. Even though it wasn't a big "to do" like we often do, it was a great couple of hours of visiting and tasty food!

Jenna, Kelly, Josh, Jon, Bryce, Julie, me, and Ashley

On the way there I had all the women in my car and Jon had the guys. We went separate routes and we doing a little racing to see who go there first...until a cop going the opposite direction as me flashed his lights at me when I was going 60 in a 40 area. Thankfully I slowed right down and he didn't turn around and come back to give me a ticket! It made for a heart racing experience and a thorough beating in the who got there first contest! I figured my pride could take a beating easier than my wallet these days! :)

Baby Caroline!

My dear friend, Dawn (Rodman) Lupton, had her first baby last week!

Caroline Leeann Lupton
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
9:45 AM
7 lbs, 2 oz
20 inches long

Precious baby Caroline

Baby Caroline and her mommy

These are photos she sent me in an email. I'll have more to share when I get back from my trip out to see them at the end of this month.

Super Sloppy Joe Sandwiches

Tonight I made the first of my recipes from my Cooking Light Cookbook. I made Super Sloppy Joe Sandwiches. I thought they were delicious! I made them for my RA staff. I don't think they were quite as impressed as I was...likely because the sandwiches were full of veggies and this group tends to turn their nose up at things like mushrooms and peppers. I often cook to their taste buds, but sometimes I like to make what I think is yummy...tonight was one of those times! :)

Here's the recipe. I have recorded it here with the tweaks that I made to the recipe.

Super Sloppy Joe Sandwiches

1 lb ground round
1 lb ground turkey breast
1 1/4 cup diced green bell pepper
1 1/4 cup diced celery
1 cup diced onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz mushrooms - chopped
1 cup water
1 cup ketchup
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
1/4 hot pepper sauce
8 - 12 hamburger buns

-Heat a large skillet over med-high heat.
-Cook ground beef and ground turkey until no longer pink - crumbling to desired consistency
-Add bell peppers, celery, onion, garlic, and mushrooms. Cook 7 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
-Stir in remaining ingredients (minus buns) . Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 - 25 minutes or until sauce begins to thicken.
-Serve on buns. makes 8-12 sloppy joes, depending on how much meat you like on your sandwiches.

Enjoy! :)
1 down and 51 to go!

Prize = Movie night!

I don't know if I mentioned earlier in my blog (and am too lazy to check back to see) a fund raiser that my residence halls did as a part of the "12 Day of Christmas" activities in December. We had a floor competition to raise money for our local food bank. The floor that raised the most money won a movie night at my apartment. The total raised was over $1,100! I was very proud of the generosity that these young people exhibited!

Anyway, the floor that won was Kratz One- a girl's floor. They came up with the movie and menu ideas. So on Wednesday evening we watched "Mama Mia" and ate tortilla chips with salsa cheese dip, pizza, and milk & cookies. It was SO much fun!


I had gone to see "Mama Mia" in the theaters this summer when it was released. I didn't love it that time, but this time I really had fun with it. It's interesting to me that when I saw the movie this summer I was with 2 friends that are 10 - 15 years older than me - I found myself relating myself to the young woman in the movie when I saw it with them. This time I was with a group of girls who were 15 years younger than me and I found myself relating more to the older women in the movie. I think that plus the fact that the entire room was singing along with the Abba songs this time is what made me enjoy it more the second time around.

Movie with the Girls!

Sunday (the 11th) I invited all the women from my Residence Halls to come to the matinee showing of "Bride Wars" the new movie starring Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson. I offered to pay $1.00 of their ticket price. Of the potential 100 women that live in my halls I expected that maybe 20 or so would come. I was shocked and amazed when 42 women showed up! We crammed into 6 cars and drove over to the theater in town. I didn't anticipate how crowded the theater would be, so we didn't all sit together, but those most were in clumps with their friends. It was such a FUN outing!


And the movie was really cute! If you like a good girlfriend movie I would highly recommend it!

Cookbook challenge

I was reading someone's blog and saw that one of their New Year's resolutions was to cook their way through a cookbook during 2009. I thought it sounded like a great idea and decided to do it too! This is the cookbook I have chosen...


It has 57 recipes in it. I have decided that I will make 52 of the recipes this year...one for each week of the year. Now, I won't necessarily cook one new one each week - life is sometimes too hectic to achieve that, but throughout the year I'll cook 52 of them. I'll try to report in on the ones that shine (and the ones that stink!) Maye we'll all add some great new recipes to our repertoire!

Puzzles Puzzles Puzzles!

I love to do puzzles...always have! I used to redo the same 5 puzzles over and over as a child. Now I buy as many as I can at yard sales during the summer for cheap and then put them together when I have chunks of free time or need a stress reliever. I did 3 puzzles at my house (1 more over at Mom's on Christmas Eve and another at Camp Mack with the family.) I took photos of the ones I did at home...

This is one I bought at the Relief Sale in September. It was 1000 pieces and took a LONG time to finish - several days working on it off and on!

My mom gave me this one for Christmas. It's a 1000 piece Thomas Kincaid puzzle. I put it together the day after Christmas...that's ALL I did that day...I stayed home and put together a puzzle, never once stepping foot outside!

This is an old one that I've done before - it's only 500 pieces and I did it one afternoon.

New Year's Eve

My home group and a couple others from church got together at the Beck's house for a New Year's bash. It was a fun evening full of lots of chatting, too much tasty food, and crazy games! It was a wonderful way to bring in the New Year! Here are some photos from our evening...

Eric wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Some New Year's love for Austin from Steve & Fritz
...some guys just never grow up!

Austin's black eye from the above love...just kidding it's from his wife...just kidding it's from playing basketball when you're over the hill - really it is!

Not a good shot of ANYONE, except Luke who's looking directly at the camera and smiling nicely! I tried to take a second shot, but my camera battery died, so this was it! LOL

Movies of Christmas break

I saw a couple of movies at the theater over break...something I LOVE to do! I find that movies seen on the big screen are SO much better than on my TV at home. Anyway...


I went and saw "4 Christmases." I know Vince Vaughn is known for being in really crass movies, but Reese Witherspoon is usually in movies that are sweet. My assumption was that rather than lowering the level of movies she is willing to do, that he would be in a classier level of movie. Wrong. I will admit that it was very funny at parts, but unfortunately it was funny in a way that made you laugh/cringe/sigh with disgust at the state of our world. Not a sincere belly laugh based on things that are good. Money wasted. :(

On New Year's Day I went and saw "Marley & Me"with the Rissers. I knew it was about a couple and a dog. I thought the dog played a small to add comic relief/insight to the couple's relationship. It did that, but the dog was no small part in this movie. He was a main character and added much humor and warmth to the movie. I appreciated that it was still a movie that an adult could enjoy - not just some silly kid's movie like "Homeward Bound." I'm not a big pet person, but I LOVED this movie. The ending was very touching and I was crying just like everyone else in the theater. If you love or even like animals I would HIGHLY recommend this movie! Money WELL spent! (Funny thing is that I used my Christmas gift certificate for this one, so it only cost me 50 cents...best 50 cents I ever spent!)

Sundays with Susie

Most Sundays during the school year are quite busy for me. I go to church and then after church the college students and I go lunch at someone from church's house. I come home from that, take a short nap and then work on making supper for my RA staff and prepping for our meeting that follows dinner. It's not a very restful way to spend the day, but I enjoy it, so it''s not a burden.

I do, however, really enjoy the Sundays when students are gone. I typically go out to lunch with a group of friends from church and then hang out with someone for most of the rest of the day. Usually that person is Amanda. She's a single gal from church that graduated from GC a couple of years ago. We have similar senses of humor and just really enjoying hanging out with one another. We had a particularly fun afternoon on the 28th when we went to Panera after church, shopped around at Barnes & Noble and then got Cherry Lime-ades from Sonic (MY FAVORITE) and I dropped her off at the airport. We had such a good time that she dubbed our fun days like that "Sundays with Susie!"

We took some silly pictures that day and I added some fun stuff to it with a little help from picnik.com...

Amanda and me!

Bluffton reunion

The day after Christmas I stayed at home all day. I received a 1000 piece puzzle for Christmas and decided that I would take the challenge of putting it together that day. It was a lot for one day, but I had fun doing the puzzle and watching movies and TLC all day/evening/night!

On Saturday the Rissers and I drove down to Fort Wayne to meet some of our college buddies. We ate a long lunch at Texas Roadhouse. Wendy and Jill were able to join us, but unfortunately our friend, Krisi, had other commitments and couldn't make it. It's been over 2 years since all 6 of us were together. Maybe this summer?!

Denise, Deanna, Wendy, Jill, and me

Denise, Deanna, and Wendy

Jill and me

After lunch with the college buddies we drove down to Jefferson Point shopping mall and did some post holiday shopping/looking. It was fun. AND we got to eat dinner at Chipotle which was delicious...as always! :)

We were still kinda full from lunch and the burritos as Chipotle are mongo-huge, so the Rissers and I shared a buttito.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day is rather anticlimactic when you are single and in your late 30s. At least for me it is. We do the big family bash down at Camp Mack so that the rest of the family can do "their thing" with their kids on Christmas Day. I think that is very cool for them and don't be-grudge them one little bit. If I ever have a family of my own I will also be doing my own thing on Christmas Day. It just makes for a somewhat ho-hum day at Mom's place. It's usually me, Mom, and my brother Johnny. Some of the otherfamily members make brief appearances, but it's still pretty lame, oops I meant tame! :)

We start the day with our Christmas socks and some present opening. Here are a few photos from the present portion of Christmas Day...

Johnny with his Camp Mack shirt.

Mom with a new "generations" frame that included a photo of us all in our shirts down at Camp Mack.

Me with a snowman mug and mug warmer.

Then we do a yummy Christmas dinner. Megan and her kids, my nephew Jake, and my brother Mike were there for the meal. Here's a glimpse at some of the meal prep...

Jake and Mom working on potatoes.

Careful not to chop of your finger there, Jake!

And some cute shots of the kids during the afternoon....

Lily concentrating hard as she works a puzzle.

Lily and Gavin hanging out with Uncle Johnny!

Gavin and Jake wrestling.

Megan - texting.

Lily loving on Aunt Susie

Christmas with the Rissers

On Monday, December 22 I celebrated Christmas with the Risser twins. We went out for dinner at the Lux Cafe here in Goshen. I had a tasty stack of apple cinnamon pancakes....yummmy! I forget what the others 2 had - it probably wasn't as delicious as my pancakes, so it doesn't really matter! :) LOL After dinner came back to my place to open presents and play some games

Deanna smiling pretty.

Deanna with her new Christmas tree skirt.

Denise with her movie and Panera card.

Deanna bought me a new piece of art for my apartment - a Megan Bonham original! And Denise bought me a beautiful purple/metallic pashmina!

More Camp Mack photos

I downloaded my mom's camera on to my computer so that we could send her photos to the store for processing. She had a couple of fun ones from Camp Mack that I wanted to share...

Me opening a new snowman for my collection surrounded by some of my girlies - Daisy, Betsy, & Lily!

A good photo of my brother - Gary smiling.
Daisy hanging on his shoulder.

Mom at breakfast - like her penguin pjs?! :)

LOVE this photo of Lily & Gavin, though she'll likely hate it some day!
I think it is hilarious!!!!

Hanging out with friends

My smiley friend Denise! :)

The day I came home from Camp Mack I took a long nap and then I went over to the Rissers for a game night. Our friend Cara was in town from Texas. We had some yummy treats and played some games. You can see that we were playing a very intellectually stimulating games of Chutes and Ladders!

Me sharing a chair with Coki during the Chutes & Ladders game - which I lost BIG TIME!

Camp Mack t-shirts

Some former GC students recently started a business that does logo design and imprints the design on various products. They have done several t-shirt designs for us at the college this fall. They are super easy to work with and gives competitive prices for their work. After they did our Res Life shirts this summer I got the idea in my head that I should have them design some t-shirts for my family's get together at Camp Mack this year! I gave them some info on what we do while we are there and they came up with a fun design that featured a caricature of my mom on it! I bought a shirt for each member of the family that was at Camp Mack and even got them in each person's favorite color. Here's a photo of all of us showing off our cool new t-shirts...

front row - Josh, Daisy & Betsy

middle row - Brenda, Gavin, Angela, Kathy, Jake, & Lily
back row - Debbie, Wilbur, Mike, Gary, Zac, Linda, Jacob, Mom, Megan, & me

This is a close up of the logo design.

Just in case you are looking for someone to do some logo design or shirts of any sort, here is a link the Springer Design's website. I HIGHLY recommend them!

www.springerdesigninc.com