Anyone? Anyone?

http://www.slashfood.com/2007/03/05/starbucks-coffee-break-march-15th
I can think of two people who might be up for it....

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Let it be known that coffee is not a substitute for food nor sleep. Last night I was extremely sleepy after work and working out, but we had Bible study. Oh, and also I was starving! But, no time to eat. I settled for a bit more than a cup of coffee, and then went through the various uncomfortable stages of drinking coffee after 6:30pm.

• The realization just after Bible study started that I had to pee really really bad, but wasn't in a position to get to the restroom without being extremely disruptive.
• Restless legs
• Toe tapping
• Darting eyes
• Laughing too loud
• Queasiness

And then after finally using the bathroom, extreme hunger pains. Then I wasn't sleepy when I was supposed to be, which makes my husband groan inwardly and roll his eyes ("Aren't you just a little tired?") I am a really hyper coffee drunk.

#14 - Go to another Monster Truck rally

Yay! We went to another Monster Jam over the weekend, this one in Raleigh. It was a bit bigger than Charleston, and Stephen almost had a heart attack when we found out Gravedigger would be there. I really can't describe it, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. And if you want the full experience, I'm going to try to post some videos as well. Edit: I only posted the shortest videos. That means you guys miss out on the Transformers shooting holes in each other with fire. But I didn't think that many people would be interested in that anyway!

#91 - cancel my Verizon account

Goodbye:

Hello:



After completing this task, I am very unhappy. Jenn heard my horrible, awful experience with Sprint at lunch today, and I can't even bother to type it all out. Needless to say, I really wish I could stick with Verizon at this point, but it's too late. I hope that Sprint will prove to me that they deserve people as customers.

New York, New York

In order to prepare for our upcoming New York trip, I have been studying one of my great Boone thrift store finds - "How To Love Yankees With a Clear Conscience." This book is so funny, and while I got it to tease Keely about being from northern Virginia, it's mainly about New York, of course. So, let the preparations begin...

Where else but in New York can you witness these everyday occurences?

• It starts to rain at 2:25 pm and at 2:27 pm the street hawkers have set up sidewalks shops and are selling umbrellas.
• An aged, over-the-hill boxer jogging in the middle of Broadway decked out in boxing gloves and shadow boxing with an imaginary opponent every third step, and winning.
• Signs on Manhattan parking garages all over advertising bargain rates - six hours for "only" $12.50
• Bumper-to-bumper taxis at war with bumper-to-bumper pedestrians, thousands of horns blowing to no avail.
• Office buildings that disappear into the sky - or somewhere.
• Hundreds of thousands of people walking to or from somewhere and staring straight ahead.
• Smartly dressed women, wearing expensive dresses, rushing frantically at 5 pm wearing sneakers and carrying their expensive high heels in their hands, trying to make it to the bus or subway.

New York. It is a city of tall buildings and short money.

#72 - Get a library card

I feel an addiction coming on...

Snow pictures finally

Not so great pictures from last weekend's snow "storm". I wish I had taken more, but you know how it is. You get caught up in the games, and food, and curling up by the fire!

I reaaaally didn't wanna go to work this morning:

Luckily, Jessie made fettucini alfredo for me and Stephen. (Mine is the bigger portion)

I guess we're the only people who go skeet shooting in the snow:

I can't stand the mouth part of dogs, but the shoes part is so hilarious! Make sure you watch the last video, if you watch no others!!! I bought her those booties a couple of years ago and it cracks me up everytime she walks in them!

1 to 100.

I love this video:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUHLa1qSy24

#68: Get up to level 42 on FreeRice

I kind of forgot about this one on my 101 list. Although, I'm not sure if you can see the level at the bottom of the picture. I realize there are people who say they are consistently about 45 on this website (it only goes to 50, and supposedly it's a very small percentage of people who even get there) but I ain't one of them! I thought this was pretty hard. But anyway, I'll probably keep playing for fun, because I think it's a fun, easy thing to do, but I don't care about going up any higher in levels now.

Will post snow pictures soon!

I'm a Toys R Us kid...

Well, my unwillingness to grow up has finally paid off at my job! Today there was a lady in the showroom with her little girl, who ran to me almost as soon as she saw me. She fired off a dozen questions immediately: What are you doing? Putting together a display. Why? To put these samples on. Do you like working here? ...... (What did she think I would say!?) What do you do all day? What days do you have off?

She was unrelentless. So, in time, I embraced her as a project instead of an annoyance, which kids can sometimes be, you know. So I rattled off a few of my own... How old are you? 7. Where do you go to school? Vass. Do you know Mrs. Cameron? She's my teacher - do YOU know her? Yes, we went to school together. Was she your best friend ever?

It was extremely entertaining. Finally she asked if she could help me put samples on the display. Anyone who works here will tell you that's the most irritating part of new displays. The boards are heavy, awkward, and sharp. So I was certainly willing for her to help me, as long as she didn't get hurt and blame it on me. She did it very quickly!! So I gave her a Hershey's Kiss for a reward. Her reply: "Do you have any other jobs I can do? You don't have to give me candy for a reward every time." Oooookay.

We ended up playing with these mat pieces that are like puzzle pieces; you can fit them together. She really wanted to make a pathway around the store, but we ended up talking too much about Littlest Pet Shops and Webkins, and didn't get much else accomplished. When it came time for her to leave, she asked if I could please come home with her. Unfortunately, I could not. She offered to come home with me and clean my house, which I kind of wish I had taken her up on...

Anyway, it definitely helped with the monotony of the day. Thanks Olivia, you little unaware angel!

My name is Amanda, and I am an addict.

Okay, I admit it. I have become accustomed to "using" every day, sometimes twice a day. But it wakes me up! It gets me going! Sure, when it wears off it's a letdown. But it's just so good.

I have become a coffee drinker. It happened seemingly overnight. Well, it was overnight. I had a hard time sleeping, and trudged to work after almost two weeks of vacationing, staying up late, sleeping in... And there it was. Brewing in all its caffeinated glory. I thought to myself, "It wouldn't hurt to have half a cup. People do it all the time. I really think it could help!" But after that half cup of coffee with two hazelnut creamers and four sugars, mmmm mmmm. I wanted more, I tell you!

Okay, so maybe that's a little dramatic, but really. I now drink a half a cup of coffee every day. And sometimes I have a half cup in the afternoon too! Like right now, for example. I'm only coming out with this right now so that people know what to expect from me in regards to this in the future.

You can expect:
1) to see me with yellow or brownish teeth. That happens over time, right?
2) you might see me physically shaking. It's okay, I just haven't adjusted to all the caffeine yet.
3) I could have coffee breath at any point in the day that you see me.

Please don't expect:
1) That I want to have coffee with you. This is a work thing.
2) That I will drink coffee after meals. See above.
3) That I like the taste of coffee. I cover it up as much as possible, and chug it down, only for the sugar rush.
4) Don't even think to offer me decaf. This defeats the purpose of me drinking coffee. It's not for fun, people!

Isn't it sad that the only thing I can think to blog about is coffee?

My Boone pictures (the others were Mike's I believe)

100 Reasons Why I Prefer My Sister Over Most People

1. Three words (approximately) - Chick Fil-A, Cook-Out, Sonic
2. She makes me feel like I can do anything I want with my life.
3. She commiserates with me over the ignorance of society.
4. Her spontaneity!
5. Her grammatical skillz.
6. We have tons of the same gestures and expressions, and tend to do them at the same time, which makes people laugh.
7. She's up for anything!
8. She can get along with anyone.
9. But she immediately dislikes anyone that I dislike.
10. She defends me.
11. She loves board games.
12. She's a great Trivial Pursuit partner.
13. She sympathizes with me no matter what it is I'm whining about.
14. She suffers through things she doesn't enjoy just to spend time with me (such as UFC!)
15. She makes the best baked beans (equal to mom's, really)
16. We can have long conversations consisting of The Office quotes.
17. She listens to hip hop with me.
18. She loves thrift shopping.
19. She loves reading.
20. She will watch me while I try on every pair of jeans I own and tell me which ones make my butt look great and which ones I should get rid of.
21. She's always honest.
22. When I'm telling her a story, she does everything right - rolls her eyes when she's supposed to, grab my arm when she's supposed to, drop her jaw and widen her eyes when she's supposed to.
23. Our perfect summer day - laying out, drinking wine (or something along those lines), reading part of the time, chatting and gossiping part of the time.
24. Our perfect winter day - by a fire, drinking wine (or something along those lines), reading part of the time, chatting and gossiping part of the time. And also cuddling under sweatshirt blankets.
25. She is absolutely brilliant.
26. She is completely stubborn.
27. She negotiates/haggles in a way that you just have to agree with her or else you're kind of scared she'll come after you in the middle of the night with a baseball bat.
28. She debates... well, see #27.
29. She remembers things. Maybe not birthdays, but other little, seemingly insignificant things.
30. She is so thoughtful.
31. She really and truly listens to me when I complain.
32. She's very open-minded.
33. She gives me all her hand-me-downs.
34. She doesn't get involved in drama, but she loves hearing about it.
35. We have the same motto - It never hurts to ask.
36. She's beautiful and she doesn't even try.
37. She found me a real hairdresser.
38. She gives great (and free to me) real estate advice.
39. She'll split a bottle of wine with me.
40. Family functions are more fun when she's there.
41. Road trips with her are never boring.
42. Snaps!
43. She is so incredibly crafty, even though she will probably deny that.
44. She hates paying full price for anything.
45. She agrees that daycares are sometimes a necessary expense, in order to preserve sanity.
46. She's on a quest for a great yeast roll recipe, as am I.
47. She's a faithful Tarheel fan.
48. We firmly believe that if we had a Target, Trader Joe's, and McAllister's or Fuddrucker's (or both), this town would be set.
49. We love going green!
50. She knows the difference between "they're", "their", and "there" and "it's" and "its".
51. She's involved in the community.
52. She loves '90's music including NKOTB and songs from people like Sinead O'Connor and Extreme.
53. We extremely despise the ignorance of people but give them the benefit of the doubt if they're over 60.
54. We can appreciate new(ish) cars because of the cars we drove the first few years we were licensed.
55. We can share sob stories about the years we were embarrassed by our family.
56. We can be grateful together that our family doesn't even compare to most people's horror stories.
57. We like sharing a bed.
58. We both know it's true that you can marry your high school sweetheart, and not just because you were together for so long.
59. We agree that there is no reason you can't use a towel for at least a week before you wash it.
60. We agree that just because you have a dishwasher doesn't mean you never wash dishes by hand. It does happen.
61. And if you leave them in the sink overnight, BIG DEAL!
62. She indulges me by letting me show her things like Dance Dance and Guitar Hero.
63. She scolds me and tells me I'm not selfish for just wanting to be alone with my husband.
64. She doesn't ever get a look of disgust on her face when she gets in my car.
65. She will go golfing even though she hates it, just for the company.
66. We love each other's butts and are not ashamed to squeeze them in public.
67. We never miss a chance to hug or say "I love you".
68. And if we hug, and say "I love you", and then talk for three more minutes, we'll hug and say "I love you" again... just to make sure that's the note we're leaving on.
69. We can speak in gibberish and actually understand each other.
70. We love farmer's markets.
71. Especially the one in Boone.
72. We cannot handle roaches.
73. But we're also slightly mesmerized by them.
74. Flip flops are a necessity.
75. We're addicted to silly things like Myspace and Facebook.
76. She's very humble.
77. We love artsy stuff, we just can't afford it.
78. We really want some sort of small tattoo, we just are way too indecisive for such a permanent mark.
79. We love pictures; taking them and starring in them!
80. We truly believe our parents really are the best. We're not just saying that.
81. We can sympathize with each other when we inevitably lose the March Madness pool every year.
82. We know the best places to get good sweet tea (Chick Fil-A, Bojangles, Zaxby's are among the top ones; funny that those are all chicken places.)
83. We roll our eyes when we hear advice on marriage from bitter divorcees.
84. We sympathize with each other when we constantly hear the question, "When are you going to have a baby?"
85. We can't wait to have babies together.
86. We love winning, whether it's a raffle, contest, or game that we've just played.
87. We are good at playing tennis together.
88. We both want children but we know we will crave alone time with our husbands, spontaneous trips, etc.
89. There's nothing better than spending all weekend doing nothing.
90. We both have had to learn to live without indoor pets, albeit for different reasons.
91. We remember growing up on Judy Blume, Ramona books, and Lurlene McDaniel.
92. Everything we learned about cancer and scoliosis came from teen fiction.
93. We believe it's okay to have a 10-year-old car if it's still in good condition.
94. I can't imagine living three hours from her ever again.
95. Strawberries deserve whipped cream.
96. She answers my calls when she's screening them.
97. We can have brilliant conversations every time we talk.
98. She inspires me.
99. She deserves every ounce of praise she receives.
100. We're just so alike!!

Birthday Celebration

Last night we had dinner with mom and dad, finally. It seems like forever that we started talking about getting together for a game night. They made us hamburgers and hot dogs (theirs are the BEST!!) and mom made a delicious three-milk cake for dessert. Very very light and sweet. We had two new card games to knock out, and we were able to play both of them. Fortunately, I didn't lose terribly - I hate to lose. I whupped everyone in one game, and the other I came in third. So if we were handing out medals, I would have gotten a bronze. Yay!

Mom and dad gave me my birthday presents last night and they were incredibly awesome gifts!! I am wearing part of it today; these beautiful pink breast cancer ribbon earrings and necklace. I love them, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to just give away my other breast cancer earrings now because they're really gaudy and ugly compared to these. They also gave me an awesome, awesome cookbook that has recipes for jar gifts. You know, like you give someone a jar with stuff already in it, and all they have to do is add one or two ingredients to make a meal? I loooove that stuff, and I used to do that kind of thing at Christmas. I already know what recipe I'm going to use for lunch with mom next week!! And lastly, they gave me money to start getting my bike back into riding condition (#64)!!!! I can't wait to get into that. I think it just needs new tires and a bit of dusting. Then I can start biking our neighborhood!

We had so much fun. I love game nights!

Learn To Be Lazy (take a cue from your cat)

6 a.m. Get up and demand an early breakfast. (Loudly!)

7 a.m. Go back to sleep. (You've been up for an entire hour!)

12 p.m. Sleep some more.

4 p.m. Wake up and stretch. (Think gentle, languid movements - you don't want to strain anything.)

5 p.m. Demand dinner. (Order takeout. Purring at your pizza is optional.)

6 p.m. Graciously socialize with other humans. (Call a girlfriend or a relative.)

7 p.m. Groom yourself (Time for a long soak in a bubble bath.)

8 p.m. Back to sleep (It's been a rough day - and you'll be doing it all over again tomorrow!)

#45 - Make a pocketbook

I have completed my first crafty project of 2008! If I can do this project, anyone can do this. I have made my very own cute pocketbook! I did it really quickly last night, not taking a lot of time to stitch straight or anything like that, I just wanted a model to show off. I'll make another one that's really done another time. This one only took about 1 1/2 - 2 hours to do, which is pretty cool. Yay, I love my new pocketbook!

I like quizzes.

17

1,842,540How Many Germs Live On Your Keyboard?

218 WATTS Body Battery Calculator - Find Out How Much Electricity Your Body is Producing -

#13 - Visit Boone again; #52 - See Rachel

Well, since we last talked, there have been many goings-on. Going ons? A lot has happened. We spent several days in Georgia for Christmas and New Years Eve. Then, January 3, Jenn and I left to spend a few days in Boone, having a reunion with some friends we hadn't seen in a reaaaally long time. I have the Boone pictures, but not the Georgia pictures, so I'll do a GA post later. Thursday night was just me, Jenn and Keely staying together. It was absolutely freezing that night, and we were just too lazy and cozy to leave the hotel, so we ordered in some Mellow Mushroom. Of course!! Our hotel had an awesome fireplace and we were really possessive over that spot all night. After eating ourselves silly and sitting by the fireplace for hours, I was completely satisfied with our trip already!

Friday we spent the day roaming around Boone, mainly King Street and the campus. So much has changed in the past couple of years. The old history building is now a parking deck. There were new sidewalks. You couldn't get to the bookstore as easily anymore. Lots of new stores were taking up residence on King Street, and some were getting bumped out of business. I got yet another sweatshirt blanket from Mast, but this one is black and gold, so I can have a little school spirit. I love those things. That night, we met up with Mike and Michelle (surprise!), Rachel, Chelsea and Ashley, and went to Makoto's for dinner. Soooo good. After that, we rushed over to Appalachian Ski Mountain to go ice skating. There were only 20 minutes left in the alloted ice time, so Jennifer and Mike fought the guy there tooth and nail until he gave us a group discount. He even ended up letting us skate almost 20 minutes past closing time, as well! So these pictures are all from our ice skating adventures!!

Oh yeah, we also sat around laughing at the skiers:

You have no idea how hard it was for all 5 of us to stand still on those dumb skates:

I was a little fearful of holding hands and skating, but Jenn and I were good at it!!

I'm a thug, apparently.

Not exactly Mike's idea of fun:

Well, we absolutely had a blast. Although we all had really sore ankles afterwards, and I had a very mild case of shin splints. It probably didn't help that we rushed through the process of renting skates, so they were either too big, too small, too loose, or we just skated incorrectly. It was still SO MUCH FUN and I can't wait to go skating again!!