i have been wearing pajamas for the last 48 hours

The meteorologists around here love a good winter storm.  After a while, you learn to take everything they say with a grain of salt flake of snow.  At the first sign of winter precipitation on the radar, they take over the evening news and tell the whole tri-state area to run to the store!  And buy eggs!  And milk!  And bread!  We might get one or even three inches of snow!  It is sure to be the WINTER STORM EVENT OF THE YEAR!! 

And then we get a few flurries.

Well, this past week our enthusiastic weather reporters mentioned a chance for a few inches of snow on Wednesday, but in comparison to their other BIG TIME HYPOTHETICAL WINTER WEATHER HYPE UP, they really downplayed this one.

And we got a foot and a half of snow.

It's safe to say that snowbody saw this coming.

On Wednesday morning poor Old Blue was snowed in, and the streets were covered in about five inches of snow.  Since Old Blue and I don't like to drive in the snow, I stayed home from work and called it a snow day.

Not to worry, Old Blue, Phil will be more then happy to don his pale pink headbead and sweep the snow off of you.

Since the rest of the family was at work and school, my brother and I spent a while shoveling, and it occurred to me that this was the first time we ever shoveled together where the shoveling didn't turn into fighting because YOU TOOK THE GOOD SHOVEL and STOP THROWING SNOW ONTO PAVEMENT I ALREADY CLEARED and I'M TELLING MOM IF YOU THROW THAT SNOWBALL AT ME.

I think that perhaps part of the reason for the peaceful shoveling experience was that Phil was wearing headphones and I was composing poems in my head.  That's something I have started to do lately, and I can't stop it or explain it.  I'm not even a poetry person.  Yesterday my poem started with..."Today Phil and I had to shovel.  It's a good thing we have warm glove....ls."  I know.  I'm a sure thing for poet laureate.

I suppose that another reason for shoveling in peace is the fact that we are 22 and 23 years old, and have matured a great deal since we were 12 and 13.

We woke up this morning to A LOT MORE SNOW, and poor Old Blue was covered again.

Luckily Dad was home and the snow clearing was much more efficient with him in charge.

After our morning o' shoveling, Phil made the trek to CVS on foot to purchase snow day essentials, aka a carton of eggs, some Reese's, and two bags of chips.

(This is going to be our Christmas tree next year!)

All day today the weather reporters just kept saying that the storm "really overperformed!!"

In my opinion, they dropped the proverbial snow ball.

So tomorrow morning I will have to change out of sweatpants for the first time in 48 hours.  It will be a sad, sad time.

However, the temperatures are dropping very low tonight.  So if it's cold where you are, and you go out in the morning, watch out for ice.

Vanilla Ice.

you know what they say...hindsight is 20/20

I got new glasses last night.

I love them.  They're called "Book Smart," so obviously, they were named for me.

It's a good thing they're not called "Humble."

I have been bespectacled (just making words up as I go here) since I was eight years old, and this is my seventh pair of glasses.  There was that blue squarish pair in fifth grade, and some maroon wire ones with snazzy cutting edge magnetic sunglasses technology in eighth.  There was the pair before this that I absolutely loved, and there was that cute plastic pair that mysteriously snapped right in half during college.  

I can remember which glasses I wore to my Confirmation, which ones I wore when I got my hair cut in layers for the first time.  I know which pair I cast aside when I got my first order of contacts, and  I know which pair I returned to two years ago when I found out I could no longer wear contacts.  If you name a period in my life, I can tell you which glasses I wore through it.  And it's safe to say that I’ve some a long, long way since that very first pair.

 A loooooong way.

Apparently, back in 1996, the name of the glasses game was the bigger the frames, the better.  You weren’t cool unless your frames touched your cheeks when you smiled. 

I must have been the coolest kid in third grade.

And if the gigantic glasses didn't edge me right on into the cool kid category, I'm sure my teal "Love Bug" t-shirt and floral high waisted shorts, matching sleeveless golf shirt TUCKED IN, please, sure did.

I wish I could use the excuse "I had poor eyesight, and knew not what I was wearing."  But obviously, that's a lie, because there's no way I missed a thing with those gigantic two inch lenses.

I hope that since it was 1998, everyone dressed like this.  Or, maybe I just didn't have the greatest fashion sense.

But hey, at least I'm book smart.

this makes me want to go order half a gallon of sweet tea

My family and I went away this weekend, and after a five hour ride home yesterday, complete with a lively game of 20 Questions and a heated debate about leather being an animal or a mineral, I came home to see this...

And the best part?  It was addressed simply to "SONIC'S FAVORITE CUSTOMER." 

Finally, my allegiance and devotion and love of tater tots is paying off.  I have earned the highly coveted title of favorite customer.  Anything else from here on out is simply icing on the cake.

Or cheese on the tater tots.

emily, j-lo, and some questionable jewelry taste

I am fighting the urge to begin this post with “I don’t have much say today….”  It seems that whenever I do that, I end up going on and on and on.  And on.  And I have reason to believe that that will be the case today as well.

Anyway.

This week has been pretty quiet around here, partly because Emily has exams this week in school, and apparently my popping into her room to chat several times an hour between 6 and 10 pm is seen as a distraction from this crazy thing called studying.  Although, she did come into my room the other night during her study hours to ask me what the Latin word for sun is.  I'm not sure why she chose to ask me that question, since the extent of my foreign language skillz is asking where my pants are in Spanish. 

But, since she came looking for an answer, I had to give her one.  Sometimes I do this thing where I make up ridiculous facts and see how much I can get Emily to believe.  For instance, a few weeks ago when we were watching the college football bowl games, she asked me what TCU stands for.  I told her it stands for Texas Christian Univarsity.  Not uniVERSITY…uniVARSITY.  They are such big football people down there in Texas that they incorporated a sporty word into their very name of their school!  Can you even believe it?!  Now deep down, Emily knew I was fabricating the whole thing.  But there was an itsy bitsy sliver of her that thought maybe, just maybe, I was telling the truth.  So last night when she asked me the Latin word for sun, I told her that it was sun-ay.  And for about .75 seconds, she believed me.  Until she had me google it and my story was blown wide open.  Still.  It was fun(ay).

Yesterday I was suffering from a touch of the boredom at work, so I texted Em and told her to tell me something funny.  Her response?  Spoon.  I think it’s safe to say her exams and ALL THE STUDYING have worn her out.  Although she did get an A on her science exam, even though there were some questions about electrons, so I guess it’s paying off. 

We are going on a ROAD TRIP this weekend though and Emily and I have ten hours of sitting next to each other in the car ahead of us.  Hello, catch up time.  That is, of course, unless my dad requests that I sit in the front seat next to him to hold the position of Primary Navigator #1.  That probably won’t happen, because a girl ACCIDENTALLY gets on the turnpike and proceeds to make countless other navigational errors, tripling her travel time and causes great emotional distress among her family ONE TIME, and all of her navigational credibility is shattered.  NOT THAT ANYTHING LIKE THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME.  However, if it had, I would be willing to bet that was one LONG trip home from Gramma and Grampa's house.

One last thing.  Anyone watching American Idol this season?  Despite the changes in the judging panel, I decided to give AI a shot because watching my fellow spectacular vocalists being discovered is something I cannot turn away from.  Plus I love me some J-Lo.  Probably because I’m not fooled by the rocks that she’s got.  She’s still (she's still) Jenny from the Block.  She used to have a little now she has a lot.  No matter where she goes she knows where she came from (ooooo).

Last night I only caught bits and pieces because Stacy and I were getting our craft on and making these…

So cute, right?! 

I sent a picture to Matt and he said, "Oh cool, are they those shower things?" 

By "those shower things," he meant loofahs.  He thought I might wear a necklace and pin made out of loofahs.

Oh dear.

Anyway as we were crafting away/gluing our fingers together with hot glue (PAINFUL) Stacy said, "This is so making the blog."  So here's a shout out to Stacy. 

Alrighty, time to get ready for a weekend of Big Fun.  Maybe I'll even go wild and wear a loofah necklace.

i usually just pretend that the H stands up all the way

I bought these wall stickers at Michael's the other day.

You can't see the pale blue ones on the ends very well, but they say "dream" and "believe."

And the others?  Well, the three theological virtures.

Faith.

Love.

And hope nope.

Now I know why they were only $2.00.

there's nothing like coming home after a long day and pulling your bed out of the wall

My post about highlighter parties the other day really had me thinking about college, so today I decided to write a post about my favorite bed in college.  I’ll give you a moment to slide on back in your chair because I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat with all the anticipation!  And excitement!  Stay tuned because next week I’ll write about couches!

I was part of the largest freshman class ever at Penn State.  There were over 10,000 of us, which meant that you were only guaranteed on-campus housing for your freshman year, and after that you had to enter a lottery for a dorm room.  AKA the lottery that my roommate and I lost in the spring of freshman year.  Since we didn’t want to spend sophomore year homeless on the mean streets of Happy Valley, the two of us signed a lease for an itsy bitsy 340 square foot studio apartment. 

It's safe to say that the most unique feature of our tiny little studio was the beds. 

Of course, the FLOOR TO CEILING (and we had ten. foot. ceilings.), WALL TO WALL MIRROR that covered our largest wall is some stiff competition.  I'm pretty sure the realtor installed it in an effort to make the room seem bigger, but all it really did was drive you to the very edge of sanity and sometimes over a teeny tiny bit, because EVERY SINGLE TIME you turned around, you were staring at yourself.  I am a lover of all things reflective, and that mirror was even too much for me. 

Another lovely feature was the fact that I could open the fridge while lying in bed.

Score.

Anyway, back to the beds.  During the day, our little (and I do mean little) beds were tucked into the wall, disguised as closets.  When it was time to go to sleep, we would simply move the coffee table up against the couch, pull the bed down down, pop out the little metal stand, and fall into a deep slumber a mere eight inches above the ground. 

 There was a "self-closing mechanism" that tended to spring into action-literally-if you curled up too close to the head of the bed.  You could say we learned that the hard way.  Other than that, we never really had a problem with our little (and I do mean little) wall beds.

Of course, if you were taller than 5'7'', you may have run into a little bit of an issue trying to find somewhere for the lower part of your body to spend the night.  And if you were Phil, well, you and your ankles would probably prefer to spend those nights on the mean streets of Happy Valley.

 We loved those beds.  When people would come to our apartment and ask where in the world we slept, we were so proud to pull those little (and I do mean little) mattresses out of the wall.  We even dressed our beds up for Christmas.  Do you know what's classier than a bed that gets folded into a wall?  A bed that gets folded into the wall, and is festively wrapped like a gigantic holiday present.  That three inch wide belt I'm sporting is also very classy.  HELLO, SILVER!

And that's the story of our little (and I do mean little) wall beds. 

Now I'm going to go make sure that lovely belt is where it belongs. 

Which would be in the garage. 

With the bike reflectors.

And my highlighter party t-shirts.

this post is slightly under par, and i do apologize.

I am of the opinion that the sky never looks prettier than it does in the springtime.  It's just so bright and blue, and the leaves on the trees are so green.  Lately though, I've been thinking that it can look pretty neat in the wintertime too.

 For a change, I don't have many words tonight.  This weekend was a good one, even though yesterday I walked into the Verizon store and the saleman convinced me that he could save me TONS OF MONEY and I walked out an hour later with this...

It has the internet and a GPS (holla) and can do pretty much everything but cook your dinner for you.  Although last night I could not figure out how to set the alarm.  I consider myself fairly knowledgable in the world of technology, but I could not FOR THE LIFE OF ME figure out how to turn an alarm on.  So I had to plug in my old phone and use that alarm.  Lame. 

Also, it is a touch screen phone.  My last phone was touch screen too, but for some reason my thumbs feel ENORMOUS when I try to type on this one.  Has anyone else had this problem?  Is it something you can get used to?  Can you make the numbers bigger?  Do I have abnormally gigantic thumbs?

i bet glowsticks would really liven up the party

When I logged onto facebook the other night, a red box popped up informing me that I had a notification.  It turned out to be of the event invitation variety (hands down the best kind of facebook notification), and it was for a frat party at Penn State tonight. 

In a sad twist, I was reading the notification with not one but TWO heating pads on my sore neck and back because apparently after you graduate from college, things start to decline at a frighteningly rapid pace.  I don’t even want to KNOW what age 23 will bring.

While I appreciated the invitation, it served as a harsh reminder that I graduated from Penn State in May and don’t live in State College anymore, THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH FOR THE REALITY CHECK, Mr. Social Chair of Sigma Tau Something.  Since I didn't really go to frat parties in college, had never even heard of this particular one, and didn't recognize any names, I can only assume that I got onto that highly exclusive 871 person guest list not because anyone in the frat knows me, but by a stroke of complete and total good luck.

Anyway, this wasn’t just going to be your average frat party.  Oh no.  This was highlighter party.  In other words, a chance to don a cheap white t-shirt, go to a house with only black lights, and proceed to spend the night being written on with neon stationary supplies.

In fact, the description on the event’s facebook page reads, and I quote,

"turn off the lights, turn on the glow. wear white t-shirts, bring highlighters, and WRITE ALL OVER PEOPLE."

I know what you’re thinking.  Sign. Me. Up. 

And also perhaps "why do Penn Staters have such strange capitalization tendencies?"  And to that I say, I don't KNOW, doesn't everyone CAPITALIZE some words and not OTHERS?

I will admit, there was a time when I greatly enjoyed the occasional highlighter party.  Hello, sophomore year.  I even had a designated “highlighter party tshirt," and if that doesn't scream cool but still somewhat nerdy, I don't know what does.

Anyway, I think my most memorable highlighter party was one I went to sophomore year.  A friend of a friend had asked me to go to a formal dinner dance with him late in the spring semester, and I agreed.  He thought we should hang out beforehand a few times so that when it came time for the formal we would have more to say than “wow, isn’t this formal?”  One weekend he invited me to a party, and since we didn’t know each other too well, and also because he was sort of an awkward kind of guy, I brought my roommate along to the party.  Turns out it was a highlighter party.  And the boy knew.  And just didn't tell us because "he didn't think it would matter."  Well, let's just say that to my roommate and I, and our yellow and fushcia shirts, IT MATTERED.  Oh, the horror.  Please take a few moments to picture that drama that ensued. 

Actually, you don't even have to picture it.  Because here I am, devastated, and sporting a yellow shirt in a black lit sea of white.

And then, that boy had the nerve to give me bunny ears while we were taking this dramatic picture.  Needless to say, we did not go out again after the formal.

And yes, that Juicy Juice was DELICIOUS!

Come to think of it, I don't really have any plans for tonight.  Maybe I'll pack up the car and head up to Happy Valley.  I'll just have to remember to stop at home for my highlighter party shirt first.  And some Juicy Juice. 

And a heating pad, just in case. 

no big events, but an impressive word count

I realize that the posting here has been infrequent as of late.  It's not that I don't have a lot to say (just ask Matt or my poor family), it's just that I don't think anyone wants to read about how I got up ten minutes early to iron my pants this morning or how many M&Ms I ate this weekend or how much money I saved by switching my car insurance to Geico.  Please don't tell Flo or that nice man with the deep voice from the All State commercials.  It's nothing personal, it's just that with the economy the way it is and my driving habits and Geico's low prices, switching to them made the most sense.  And also, the most "cents." 

Thank you, I'm here all week.

Just kidding.  My dad handles all the car insurance needs around here.  But maybe Geico will read this and offer to insure me for free! 

Dear Geico,

I am a great driver!  No accidents!  No tickets!  I LOVE SPEED LIMITS!

Anyway, after our big Monopoly showdown on Friday night, I sort of laid (lied? lain?) low the rest of the weekend.  I took a quick nap after church yesterday-not because I was tired, but simply because the opportunity was there.  I used to be a frequent napper in college, which only makes sense because going to class for three, MAYBE three and a half hours a day can really wear a girl out.  Perhaps if I hadn't napped so often I would know which tense of "lay" should be used in the first sentence of this paragraph.  Either way, I took the lesiurely schedule of the last four years of my life and all the sleeping opportunities it provided for granted.  Ah, youth.  It really is wasted on the young and well-rested.

Are you still awake?  I wouldn't blame you for wanting to lay (lie?!) down and take a nap right now.  I am almost putting myself to sleep.

Matt and I went out to dinner last night, which was Big Fun.  I wore one of those "not a really a shirt but not really a dress" things with leggings.  It was slightly outside my comfort zone and while it most certainly would not have passed the "put your arms at your sides, and if it's shorter than your longest finger it is unnacceptable" rule at my Catholic high school, I went for it because the edge, I live on it.

We went to P.F. Chang's and I really wanted to get the Moo Goo Chicken, because how often can you say Moo Goo in public without someone saying "God Bless You" afterwards?  Not often enough, my friends.  Not.  Often.  Enough.  However, I didn't like any of the ingredients so I went the mature route and got something that I knew I would enjoy as opposed to something that just sounded like a sneeze. 

In a sad twist of events, Emily's cell phone had an unfortunate encounter with a glass of water-ALLEGEDY-and stopped working the other night.  (I JUST KEEP GOING! Are you laying/lying down yet?!  I cannot stop myself.)  I found an old phone for her to use, but she lost all of her contacts and pictures.  It got me thinking that I better go through my phone STAT and save all of my priceless photographic memories, lest a similar unfortunate hydro-technological event befall me.

I did so Saturday night, and here is what I found.

Well, hmm.  I'm not sure anything I found falls in to the category "priceless photographic memory." 

Although, I did find THREE pictures of my hair and a major case of static electricity that Emily took when we were at the mall one of the fourteen times we went last week.

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that those moments are forever captured.

Although I could keep going and going, Energizer style, I will end this for now.  Please go lie or lay down for a while.  You deserve it.

if only rent was six dollars in real life

Last night we were watching the evening news.  As the camera zoomed in on the anchor (a very serious man in his mid-sixties) and his black and white striped suit, my dad said, "Oh look, Jim wore his gangsta suit tonight."

Friday evening was off to a fantastic start.

After we ate dinner, my dad announced that he thought it was the perfect night for a game of Monopoly.  Matt even came over to join in on the board game night o' fun.

 Phil started out confident and strong, and talked a big game.

But, thanks to some poor investments and not one soul landing on Baltic or Mediterranean, things took a serious nosedive to the south.  Phil was the first one out of the game.  After a little while Emily decided that making vanilla pudding would be far more entertaining than figuring out a way to mortgage her properties and save her last few dollars, so Phil played in her place.  All he had to work with was a handful of mortgages and eleven bucks, so it would have taken a monopoly miracle for him to come back from that kind of financial ruin.  After a few rounds, he went out for the second time.  

Then, he mourned. 

After Phil went out (again), Matt started raking in the the cash money, and I started losing it.  People were landing on my properties left and right, but a $6.00 rent will get you nowhere fast.  I'm looking at you, Oriental Avenue.

 Oh sure, my parents may be laughing in this picture, but make no mistake.  This was one cuthroat game.  There was no mercy.  My mom had to keep saying "It's just a BOARD GAME!"

 

I'm sad to report that if you spend eighty percent of your time in jail, only pass go twice, and collect a mere fifty dollars total in rent, there is no way you can win Monopoly. 

Ask me how I know.

I have a little bone to pick with the Parker Brothers and the exorbitant amount of go to jail cards included in this game.

About two and a half hours in, Matt was hanging by a very thin, financially insecure thread, my dad was holding steady, and my mom had more money than the bank.  Eventually, and I do mean eventually, my dad was victorious.  He was thrilled to claim the title of Monopoly Champion.

 He also told us that he wants to make this a weekly event, which means I have exactly six days to learn how to become more fiscally savvy in the world of board games. 

And also to locate and destroy every last "go to jail" card.

this doesn't happen to our other nativity scenes

In our kitchen, we have this cute greenhouse window above the sink.

And for the past month, this simple little flowerpot nativity scene has been displayed in the window. 

It's one of my favorite Christmas decorations.  Jesus is sleeping peacefully in his flowerpot manger. Mary looks so happy and content.  And Joseph isn't letting the fact that he seems to have lost his left pom-pom arm stop him from singing.  When I think about how the Holy Family must have feeling during the emotional days that followed Jesus' birth, this is exactly what I picture.  Except, I always picture Joseph with both arms.

However, for a few weeks, something suspicious was happening with this nativity scene.  This is what it would look like when my mom came down each morning...

It seemed that every night, after my family went to sleep, Mary turned away from her husband and son! 

Now, the other members of my family have a history of rearranging the decorations in the greenhouse window and then waiting to see how long it takes someone else to notice.  It's like a game around here.  I know what you're thinking.  The OhLauraDarling family is a wild bunch.  Yes, yes we are.  The difference is, the decoration rearranger always owns up to it so they can take the credit!  But this time, no one admitted to turning Mary around!

The Christmas decorations are being packed away now, and we will probably never know who turned Mary around each night, or why.

In Church today, our priest told us how Jesus had human emotions, just like we do.  He got mad and scared and sad.  So I'm thinking that maybe Jesus was cranky at night for those first few weeks, and poor Mary just needed a little break. 

Of course, she also could have been looking for Joseph's left arm.

a giveaway winner, and holla 2011!

First things first, the winner of the giveaway is Kathryn!  Congratulations, Kathryn!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's!  Last night Matt and I went into the city for New Year's Eve.  We met Michelle and her boyfriend at a bar called Brownie's.  I'm sad to report that there were no actual brownies to be found, so that was a bummer.  The ceiling, however, was made completely of mirrors, and as a big fan of any and all reflective surfaces, I enjoyed that classy decorative touch.

Then we walked to the riverfront to watch the fireworks! 

My sadness over no brownies at Brownie's disappeared when Katy Perry's song "Firework" played during the fireworks.  The good news is that it appears that someone in the city still enjoys stating the obvious.  The bad news is that the city spent so much on colorful explosive devices that there was no money left in the budget for snow shovels. 

Perhaps the mayor should have entered my giveaway...

Happy 2011!!