Sorry. It's been awhile.
I've been busy. Well technically this weekend, I wasn't busy at all. I sat on my couch pretty much the entire 48 hours watching Keeping up with the Kardashians. My kinda party. I was slightly productive. I indulged my new craft obbsession by purchasing fabric and my sewing machine. Should be here by Thursday. Ballllinnn!
But enough with the small talk, let's get to the meat and potatoes of today's entry: my. new. job. That's right ladies and gents. I started work today as the Sports Information Director and Athletic Advancement at Presentation College. I didn't sleep well last night cuz I was scared I'd sleep through my 7:00 a.m. alarm (which I didn't since I woke up every hour). Anywho, I got to work, filled out some paperwork, played with my new computer, did sports information type things, and had an all-around productive/exciting/overwhelming day.
Let me tell you a few of the interesting facts about the day:
-I have my own office. Its nice and big and I have a lap top as well as a single monitor that I can hook up to the lap top. There's some way to show two different things on each screen but I haven't figured that out yet. So today I sat there with two of the same screens. I tried to use my peripheral vision to see both screens at once while staring straight ahead. My head started to hurt.
-My office is mostly beige, with one weird colored orange wall. I don't know why someone would choose this orange, it's real gross looking. I'll paint it soon. Light green. And sew some curtains for the windows.
-There is a poster from either WWII or the Korean Conflict in my office. It's of a nurse encouraging other women to become nurses. I'm going to keep it and frame it.
-This is the big one: I'm a pioneer. That's right, I made history today. I am the first female sports information director in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference. Pretty fricken sweet if you ask me!
So yeah, I had a good day. I like Presentation, things are happening at a progressive rate, and the president is a woman from Australia. My kind of place!
Shout outs:
-My two Erin's: Thanks for gong home this weekend while I hung out with Kim and Kourtney. I'm a jelly.
-My dog Maggie: I hope you're skin allergies aren't keeping you awake at night anymore.
-Abby Oakland: Sorry I couldn't be at Northern today to talk about a whole lot of funny things. I'll see you in my best friend's class tomorrow.
-My roommate/sasquatch/awesome boyfriend: Thanks for turning my purchase of wrong ingredients into a really good homemade pizza. Sometimes you're a good cook. I'm still better.
-Bucky Covington: See you Thursday!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Zombies love you for your brain
That's a random statement. Similar to my life right now. I've been feeling random and a little out of sorts. But in a good way. Here are a few examples of my randomness.
Crafts
As of two and a half days ago, I've been obbsessed with anything handmade, homemade, refurbished and the like. I think this obbsession is stemming from my desire to decorate my apartment (see previous post). So for the last two days in the office I have been spending ridiculous amounts of time looking at the website, Etsy. Its a website of absolutely everything and anything made by real humans and not machines in factories, or small Chinese women (sorry, those are real humans too, my mistake). Anyway, they have really awesome stuff that I know would look awesome in my apartment. All this looking at handmade stuff gave me an epiphany: I can make that stuff too! So today when I left work I headed straight for the Salvation Army to find a wooden frame that I could put a piece of plywood and paint with chalkboard paint. Only, when I got there I completely lucked out: I found a wooden frame WITH a piece of plywood in it! Yahtzeee! One stipulation, someone had carved an illustration of two sitting pheasants into it. I tried sanding it when I got home, but I was just too lazy so I painted right over it. You can only see it if you stand at just the right angle (ok so that angle is straight in front of it-don't judge me). I feel accomplished now. I made something neato for my kitchen. Too bad I don't have chalk. I'll get some.
I also want to start sewing. I found a little sewing machine on Ebay for twenty bucks that I think will be a good investment. I want to make pillows for my couch and some curtains for my living room window, and a runner for my kitchen. I found a pretty easy looking pattern on some lady's blog today so I'll let you know how it goes.
Bowling
I found out today that Northern State offers bowling as an intramural sport! Now, I will be the first to tell you that my 84 average is nothing to get excited about, but I really like bowling. Last year, when my roommate and I had just kinda start seeing each other (real secretive and on the down-low like) we would always go bowling. Who ever lost would have to buy the other person a drink, so by the end of our night, I'd be poor and he'd be sauced. Since then, I've only come close to beating Michael two times-both at Liberty Lanes in Gettysburg once at three in the morning after the American Legion closed, and once when we subbed for some people he knew in Monday night league. Shout out to Brett Bauer, you run a mean bowling alley, and cook a tasty Red Baron pizza, friend. Anyway, since I found out there's intramural bowling, I've been trying to figure out a way I can get into it. If not I could always go on Monday nights here in Aberdeen when bowling is only ONE DOLLAR a game!
Half Marathon
I'm running a half marathon on May 19 or 20 or something in Fargo. This was supposed to be my first week of training. I haven't ran yet. I better tonight. More on that adventure at another time.
Leftovers
I have a lot of leftovers in my fridge right now. I like to cook too much and I always forget that I have perfectly good food from last night's dinner waiting to be eaten in my fridge. I think, after my run, I'm going to eat a bunch of them and take care of those leftovers. Ok, maybe not a bunch. Just some.
Shoutouts
My brother Patrick who I love dearly: Tonight Pat is balling it up in Maquoketa, Iowa against my mother, Mary Linda's alma mater, Dubuque Wahlert. Good luck fool. Maybe after you win you can text me and we can be friends again?
Megan Stadler, affectionately known as LMM: I think you should move to Aberdeen. Bring Ollie Cooper Dash Puff. Maybe not, I can't have pets here. P.S. Let's go to Scotland again.
Bucky Covington: Thanks for your consideration in choosing Aberdeen as a location for your tour. Your $10 tickets for next Thursday's show guaruntee that I will in fact be in the crowd.
Megan Betz: I hope you're ear infection is going away. Those are the pits.
Crafts
As of two and a half days ago, I've been obbsessed with anything handmade, homemade, refurbished and the like. I think this obbsession is stemming from my desire to decorate my apartment (see previous post). So for the last two days in the office I have been spending ridiculous amounts of time looking at the website, Etsy. Its a website of absolutely everything and anything made by real humans and not machines in factories, or small Chinese women (sorry, those are real humans too, my mistake). Anyway, they have really awesome stuff that I know would look awesome in my apartment. All this looking at handmade stuff gave me an epiphany: I can make that stuff too! So today when I left work I headed straight for the Salvation Army to find a wooden frame that I could put a piece of plywood and paint with chalkboard paint. Only, when I got there I completely lucked out: I found a wooden frame WITH a piece of plywood in it! Yahtzeee! One stipulation, someone had carved an illustration of two sitting pheasants into it. I tried sanding it when I got home, but I was just too lazy so I painted right over it. You can only see it if you stand at just the right angle (ok so that angle is straight in front of it-don't judge me). I feel accomplished now. I made something neato for my kitchen. Too bad I don't have chalk. I'll get some.
I also want to start sewing. I found a little sewing machine on Ebay for twenty bucks that I think will be a good investment. I want to make pillows for my couch and some curtains for my living room window, and a runner for my kitchen. I found a pretty easy looking pattern on some lady's blog today so I'll let you know how it goes.
Bowling
I found out today that Northern State offers bowling as an intramural sport! Now, I will be the first to tell you that my 84 average is nothing to get excited about, but I really like bowling. Last year, when my roommate and I had just kinda start seeing each other (real secretive and on the down-low like) we would always go bowling. Who ever lost would have to buy the other person a drink, so by the end of our night, I'd be poor and he'd be sauced. Since then, I've only come close to beating Michael two times-both at Liberty Lanes in Gettysburg once at three in the morning after the American Legion closed, and once when we subbed for some people he knew in Monday night league. Shout out to Brett Bauer, you run a mean bowling alley, and cook a tasty Red Baron pizza, friend. Anyway, since I found out there's intramural bowling, I've been trying to figure out a way I can get into it. If not I could always go on Monday nights here in Aberdeen when bowling is only ONE DOLLAR a game!
Half Marathon
I'm running a half marathon on May 19 or 20 or something in Fargo. This was supposed to be my first week of training. I haven't ran yet. I better tonight. More on that adventure at another time.
Leftovers
I have a lot of leftovers in my fridge right now. I like to cook too much and I always forget that I have perfectly good food from last night's dinner waiting to be eaten in my fridge. I think, after my run, I'm going to eat a bunch of them and take care of those leftovers. Ok, maybe not a bunch. Just some.
Shoutouts
My brother Patrick who I love dearly: Tonight Pat is balling it up in Maquoketa, Iowa against my mother, Mary Linda's alma mater, Dubuque Wahlert. Good luck fool. Maybe after you win you can text me and we can be friends again?
Megan Stadler, affectionately known as LMM: I think you should move to Aberdeen. Bring Ollie Cooper Dash Puff. Maybe not, I can't have pets here. P.S. Let's go to Scotland again.
Bucky Covington: Thanks for your consideration in choosing Aberdeen as a location for your tour. Your $10 tickets for next Thursday's show guaruntee that I will in fact be in the crowd.
Megan Betz: I hope you're ear infection is going away. Those are the pits.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
soap
I'm sorry, I'm going to climb on my soap box for a little bit. Today's topic: grad school.
I'm almost half-way through my first semester as a graduate student at Northern State University. I like NSU; nice people, laid-back atmosphere, athletics, you get the picture. But there are two things that are bothering me: the curriculum of one of my classes, and a teacher that speaks English as a second language.
Step one on the soap box: curricula.
So today in my 10 a.m. class we were discussing the APA style of writing. Helpful for me because I've never used APA format before. However, after going through a few slides we had to write examples of topic sentences. Now, I'm 23, almost 23.5. And I'm in grad school. So are the people in my classes. My question is, why are we talking about topic sentences, something we were taught from first grade on, in a graduate level class? Couple things about this bother me. A) Why am I spending money to sit in a class and do something I did on my parents' money way back at St. Joseph's Elementary School? This class is a two credit course, which at NSU is costing me about $600. Six-hundo and I'm learning how to structure a paragraph. Another thing bothering me about this is B) Why do we have to go over this in a grad level class? Where along the way did people not pick up on sentence and paragraph structure. Like I said before, I've been drilled with topic sentences since I came into this world, so where have we failed ourselves and not learned how to write? How bad has our society become at stringing words together to form sentences that express our ideas. This is mind-boggling to me, folks.
I'm almost done complaining, I swear. My second on the soap box: professors who speak english as a foreign language.
Earlier I mentioned I pay $600 for a two credit course, so with my great math skills, I've figured out I pay $900 for three credit class. Once again, I feel like I'm wasting my money because one of my professors uses broken English. Let's call this professor, Dr. Deadleg. Now Dr. Deadleg has done his work. He has his doctrate, so he's been around the educational block a time or two. So he probably knows what he's talking about, problem is, no one else does. The other day he was describing a "heartattack," or so I thought. Luckily from his broken English powerpoint slides I could tell he meant "hard tax." I did not know that all citizens of any given town must pay a heartattack. That's unfortunate. So back to my money. Northern State is paying this professor to teach students, yet, every student I've talked to has gotten nothing from his class. The state of South Dakota is facing a ten percent budget cut, the education system included. I'm sure Dr. Deadleg will keep a job, students will still waste their money on a class they don't understand and in the end, be the ones getting the short end of the stick.
All right, I'm done venting. Sorry about that.
In other news, I've been trying to decorate my apartment for my roommate (Michael) and myself. He has done a great job of helping me. Nailing things to the walls, voicing his opinion, and my favorite, hanging his own decor, beer signs (including one neon Budweiser sign) in our living room. Lovely. Does anyone know how to make a Miller Genuine Draft sign look country chic? Any help would be much appreciated.
Shout outs:
The woman on TLC's What Not to Wear right now: If you just described the shirt you put on as "something my grandmother may have crotcheted while drinking," please don't buy it.
Erin : I hope D-Day went well and you took my clothing advice, by that I mean the nice sweater and Bulldog brooch. Jokes. But seriously, I hope you wore my suggestion.
Wilbert my landlord: Please get rid of the no pets rule. While the roommate may look like an Irish Setter with that ungodly beard, I would like an actual dog. Thanks.
Derick Stanley: Good talk on Saturday. Thanks for fighting the fire at Bosch's. Please tell Reese he has my vote for Citizen of the Year.
Mumford and Sons: How did I live before your music?
I'm almost half-way through my first semester as a graduate student at Northern State University. I like NSU; nice people, laid-back atmosphere, athletics, you get the picture. But there are two things that are bothering me: the curriculum of one of my classes, and a teacher that speaks English as a second language.
Step one on the soap box: curricula.
So today in my 10 a.m. class we were discussing the APA style of writing. Helpful for me because I've never used APA format before. However, after going through a few slides we had to write examples of topic sentences. Now, I'm 23, almost 23.5. And I'm in grad school. So are the people in my classes. My question is, why are we talking about topic sentences, something we were taught from first grade on, in a graduate level class? Couple things about this bother me. A) Why am I spending money to sit in a class and do something I did on my parents' money way back at St. Joseph's Elementary School? This class is a two credit course, which at NSU is costing me about $600. Six-hundo and I'm learning how to structure a paragraph. Another thing bothering me about this is B) Why do we have to go over this in a grad level class? Where along the way did people not pick up on sentence and paragraph structure. Like I said before, I've been drilled with topic sentences since I came into this world, so where have we failed ourselves and not learned how to write? How bad has our society become at stringing words together to form sentences that express our ideas. This is mind-boggling to me, folks.
I'm almost done complaining, I swear. My second on the soap box: professors who speak english as a foreign language.
Earlier I mentioned I pay $600 for a two credit course, so with my great math skills, I've figured out I pay $900 for three credit class. Once again, I feel like I'm wasting my money because one of my professors uses broken English. Let's call this professor, Dr. Deadleg. Now Dr. Deadleg has done his work. He has his doctrate, so he's been around the educational block a time or two. So he probably knows what he's talking about, problem is, no one else does. The other day he was describing a "heartattack," or so I thought. Luckily from his broken English powerpoint slides I could tell he meant "hard tax." I did not know that all citizens of any given town must pay a heartattack. That's unfortunate. So back to my money. Northern State is paying this professor to teach students, yet, every student I've talked to has gotten nothing from his class. The state of South Dakota is facing a ten percent budget cut, the education system included. I'm sure Dr. Deadleg will keep a job, students will still waste their money on a class they don't understand and in the end, be the ones getting the short end of the stick.
All right, I'm done venting. Sorry about that.
In other news, I've been trying to decorate my apartment for my roommate (Michael) and myself. He has done a great job of helping me. Nailing things to the walls, voicing his opinion, and my favorite, hanging his own decor, beer signs (including one neon Budweiser sign) in our living room. Lovely. Does anyone know how to make a Miller Genuine Draft sign look country chic? Any help would be much appreciated.
Shout outs:
The woman on TLC's What Not to Wear right now: If you just described the shirt you put on as "something my grandmother may have crotcheted while drinking," please don't buy it.
Erin : I hope D-Day went well and you took my clothing advice, by that I mean the nice sweater and Bulldog brooch. Jokes. But seriously, I hope you wore my suggestion.
Wilbert my landlord: Please get rid of the no pets rule. While the roommate may look like an Irish Setter with that ungodly beard, I would like an actual dog. Thanks.
Derick Stanley: Good talk on Saturday. Thanks for fighting the fire at Bosch's. Please tell Reese he has my vote for Citizen of the Year.
Mumford and Sons: How did I live before your music?
Monday, February 21, 2011
Only the good die young
I think Billy Joel was kinda wrong, especially when it comes to the case of my grandparents, Bob and Milly Feeney. Those crazy kids are tied and true saints if I’ve ever met any. But you know what? They’re nowhere near young. I wanna say Bob and Milly are about 85, give or take a year or two, and they are two of my favorite people in the entire world. Here are a few reasons why: a) they are my grandma and grandpa so naturally they have to spoil me and tell me I’m great at everything and they are just so proud of me blah blah blah, b) they are hilarious! For example, when I got my gun for my birthday I called Bob and Milly and Bob just laughed and laughed and laughed, but Milly got on the phone and said, “Oh dear, I’ll pray for you.” Or when my Great-Uncle Bill passed away a few years ago, Bob and Milly had all the family and friends over after the wake. At one point when everyone was talking and laughing and enjoying each others’ company, Grandma Milly leaned over to my Aunt JoJo and said “I don’t think these people are too sad.” Grandma Milly has such a dry sense of humor you have to be real quick to catch it. Another time was when we came to visit and Bob had been shooting squirrels that climbed on the deck and on the bird feeders. One came up and he was gonna shoot it when Milly screamed, "Damnit Bob, I told you to put that gun away!" Those two, they're perfect for each other.
And finally c) Bob and Milly are the coolest people in the world because they don’t act old. When I was on my to Gettysburg for Sandy’s birthday celebration (and fire at Bosch’s, get-together at Lucy’s, and getting stuck in town at Quiett’s for just my third blizzard of my life) I called Bob and Milly to catch up on what was new. Grandpa said that it was going to be a pretty quiet weekend, but yesterday they had some adventures. Grandpa had a big coin show to go to in Dubuque, “It’s a pretty big one, people from Minneapolis and Omaha and all over come to it.” And Grandma had to go to “work”, which really isn’t work, but Grandma goes to the riverboat casino every Sunday to play keno. More often than not she wins at least $500 dollars which then gets put in her “fun money” fund. So it kinda is work, because she’s earning money to have fun with us Weasley-family, look-alike grandkids. I appreciate her work, and I’m following in her footsteps as I refuse to play anything but Keno on video lottery.
Here are a few more examples of how my grandma and grandpa refuse to act old:
-Bob volunteers as a tour guide at the aquarium in Dubuque. A few days a week, he gives elementary school kids and senior citizen tours of all the cool animals and fish and alligators and stuff at the aquarium.
-Until Bob was about 75, he did RAGBRAI, which, for those of you who don’t know, is a week-long bike excursion from the western boarder of Iowa to the eastern boarder of Iowa (I know people my age can’t even do that)
-Bob and Milly still drive west every year for Easter. They usually go to New Mexico and Arizona and California, and drive the entire way, all by themselves. I’m sure they listen to Danny O’Donnell in their big white Cadillac too.
So maybe in a way, Billy Joel was right that only the good die young. But “young” can be defined as how you act. Bob and Milly are still alive and kicking in their mid-eighties. And they act as young as me and my friends. Rock on Bob and Milly!
Shout outs:
Tim and Michelle Evans: They just found out they are going to be the proud parents of a baby boy AND baby girl! Congratulations, guys, I’m really happy for you!
My brother Patrick: Sorry I sent you a plant on Valentine’s Day saying “Happy Valentine’s Day, enjoy being single, love, aimee.” It wasn’t meant to be mean, and meant in good fun. Can we be friends again yet?
Erin Jo: Congrats on the wins in ‘Bama. Thanks for the picture of the poisoned trees. Next time remember the SPF. Go Duggies!
My gay husband Ben: Sorry about those mean people at State Forensics. SMSU Forensicators are number one in my book!
Mom and Dad: Hi guys, I miss you.
Friday, February 18, 2011
firsties
I'm a copycat. My best friend Erin Jo Schlotfeldt started a blog (to view, click here )awhile ago and I really liked reading it so I decided I should write one too (in hopes that maybe others will like it). So here we go.
I'm currently living in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I work at Northern State in the Sports Information Department, but starting Feb. 28 I will be the Sports Information Director at Presentation College, the small Catholic college in town. I'm pumped for a number of reasons: a) I got a big girl job! b) I'm doing exactly what I want to do with my career. 7) I'll be making moolah.
I'm going to see my boyfriend's family this weekend. It was his mom's birthday earlier this week (Happy Birthday, Sandy!) so we're going to celebrate. Those folks in Gettysburg sure know how to celebrate. Anywhoo Michael (the bf) got me a pink shotgun for my birthday (remington 870 pump action with mossy oak camo) which was way back in november. We still haven't put the gun in my name so I have to take the blushing beauty with me tomorrow so we can take care of that business. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever own a gun in my life. And now I do. Crazier things have happened I guess.
In related news, I have to become a resident of South Dakota now. I'm torn by this fact because I love being an Iowan (52742, holla!). There's just something about the place that was once referred to as "Heaven" (Field of Dreams, 1987, "Is this heaven?" "No, its Iowa.") that I have trouble parting with. I will always be an Iowan, speciffically Eastern Iowan, at heart. BUT, now that I will switch my driver's license from Iowa to Sodak I can get an in-state hunting licsense for a fraction of the price I would have had to pay as an Iowan. Now, many may say, "Aimee, you don't hunt!" but the truth is, I think I do. I mean I own a gun, I've shot it seven times, maybe eight, and when I went with Michael and his father, Mick! Mick! The Bull Rider!, I actually enjoyed it. That's another thing I never thought I'd say. Sooo yes, I'm gonna get a hunting license, and then I'm going to shoot some roosters. Until then, I'm gonna practice my accuracy on Big Buck Hunter in the living room.
Shout outs:
Jacque Scoby: my boss. It's her birthday. Happy Birthday.
Erin Jo: Roll Tide
My sister Erin: Don't lose your wallet today.
My Mom: Hi, I miss you.
Garth Brooks: Please go on tour again. Thanks.
I'm currently living in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I work at Northern State in the Sports Information Department, but starting Feb. 28 I will be the Sports Information Director at Presentation College, the small Catholic college in town. I'm pumped for a number of reasons: a) I got a big girl job! b) I'm doing exactly what I want to do with my career. 7) I'll be making moolah.
I'm going to see my boyfriend's family this weekend. It was his mom's birthday earlier this week (Happy Birthday, Sandy!) so we're going to celebrate. Those folks in Gettysburg sure know how to celebrate. Anywhoo Michael (the bf) got me a pink shotgun for my birthday (remington 870 pump action with mossy oak camo) which was way back in november. We still haven't put the gun in my name so I have to take the blushing beauty with me tomorrow so we can take care of that business. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever own a gun in my life. And now I do. Crazier things have happened I guess.
In related news, I have to become a resident of South Dakota now. I'm torn by this fact because I love being an Iowan (52742, holla!). There's just something about the place that was once referred to as "Heaven" (Field of Dreams, 1987, "Is this heaven?" "No, its Iowa.") that I have trouble parting with. I will always be an Iowan, speciffically Eastern Iowan, at heart. BUT, now that I will switch my driver's license from Iowa to Sodak I can get an in-state hunting licsense for a fraction of the price I would have had to pay as an Iowan. Now, many may say, "Aimee, you don't hunt!" but the truth is, I think I do. I mean I own a gun, I've shot it seven times, maybe eight, and when I went with Michael and his father, Mick! Mick! The Bull Rider!, I actually enjoyed it. That's another thing I never thought I'd say. Sooo yes, I'm gonna get a hunting license, and then I'm going to shoot some roosters. Until then, I'm gonna practice my accuracy on Big Buck Hunter in the living room.
Shout outs:
Jacque Scoby: my boss. It's her birthday. Happy Birthday.
Erin Jo: Roll Tide
My sister Erin: Don't lose your wallet today.
My Mom: Hi, I miss you.
Garth Brooks: Please go on tour again. Thanks.
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