Cabin in Pinecrest and Disconnected
This past weekend Dave and I hung out with our good friends Adam and Shawna. Shawna’s family has a cabin in Pinecrest, CA and we stayed there for a night. This cabin was the cutest little house ever! The whole thing was made of knotted pine and it was recently remodeled with beautiful tile floors, granite counter tops, and modern bathroom. It had one bedroom and a loft. I could easily live there if it wasn’t so far away from normal civilization. We had a great time and so did our dogs. Adam and Shawna also have a dog, Lucy, and she is quite the little princess. It irritated her to see our dogs play with each other.
A Day at the Park
Yesterday, I was home alone all day without a car. So instead of sitting at my computer for the entire day, I decided to walk Ally and Epsilon to the park in a nearby housing development. It was such a beautiful day for it too! Ally got to chase a lot of squirrels and Epsilon rolled on random stuff… good times. Anyway, I brought my D90 along and wanted to share some of the pics I got.
You may notice that Epsilon got a haircut and I left his mustache. I’m not too sure how I feel about it. I think it’s funny, not necessarily cute 
Vacation!
So this is just a quick post to share the video I made of our vacation and share a Flickr link to photos from the lake trip. Our vacation was at Lake Oroville in California.
We had a lot of fun! My sister and her boyfriend were able to show up a few days into the trip. My brother wasn’t able to come 
We have another big vacation in August though and he should be able to make it to that!
Enjoy!
Flickr
School, Blogs, Pies, and Travel
So it has once again been too long since my last blog post. This past month has been pretty busy. So the 2 of you who read my blog, I’m sorry :/
I am now pretty much finished with the school year. I have a few more labs to grade and a “final” to attend at a nearby bar. Yes, you read that correctly, instead of a final, our class will be hanging out at a bar. My professor’s email informing us of this was so awesome, that I just have to share it with you:
Folks,
We will have our last presentation Wednesday. I will also return some homework and the midterm, and make some comments on the latter. Then we will do evaluations.
My habit of long standing is to retire to a nearby bar for a little socializing in lieu of a final exam. This is a celebration of the completion of two quarters of hard work learning about automata. I see no reason to break this tradition, but if you have objections, now is the time to air them. In the absence of such objections, I propose we meet at Jordan’s at 6:30 on Monday, the day of our scheduled final exam. (The final is scheduled at 2, but that’s too early to drink beer, and [name removed] said she had a final at 4.) Kindly let me (and everyone else) know if you’d like to make other arrangements.
Is that not the most awesome thing ever? Even better was that in the next class I got my take-home exam back with a grade of 85/85!! I about had a heart attack trying to contain my excitement.
Much of the free time I’ve actually had to spend away from school has been at The iPhone Blog. I have recently started writing reviews for them as well as moderating their forums. I have a lot of fun doing this and love the group of guys that run the site. TiPb also had a video contest recently and I won! I spent quite a bit of time making this video and was so excited to win! I really wasn’t expecting to.
Chocolate Puddie Pie
A recent “hobby” I have started is baking. I have long wanted to bake for my husband but never really have. So I bought a Williams-Sonoma Pie & Tart cookbook and have baked 4 pies: banana cream, chocolate silk, cinnamon apple crumb, and chocolate pudding pie with cookie crumb crust. All of them came out wonderfully except for the chocolate silk. I think it actually came out ok, the recipe was just way too rich for Dave’s or my liking. I’m quite proud of myself for sucessfully making all 4 of these pies because food preparation has never been one of my strong suits. I’m the girl that took 3 boxes of Mac & Cheese to get it right. I may not be able to cook, but I’m discovering that I can bake! This makes me happy. I feel like a better wife after each pie I make! 
Dave and I will be driving back to CA soon. In fact, we’re beginning our journey on June 3rd, my birthday. Kind of a lame birthday, huh? I figure it’ll be fine, I’ll make it fun. I’m planning to make a mini travel vlog out of it. Also, Sims 3 will be out for both Mac and iPhone, so I will have plenty to keep me busy during the drive We’re planning to make a slight detour through 4 corners just for the heck of it. I know it’s not something that exciting, but what the heck, why not check it out?
Well, it’s 2am, so I’m going to bed! More blogging to come!
Don’t you love how elegantly I always end my blog posts?
My First Blizzard
On Thursday, Denver (and most of Colorado) was hit with a Blizzard. All the schools shut down, so I also had my first snow day
My husband was supposed to teach a class at 8a and didn’t realize school was canceled. He found it odd that the building was locked, but just let himself him. He went to class and wrote all his intro stuff on the board. While waiting for students to arrive, he checked his email: “The University of Denver will be closed today due to high expected snowfall”. He got home around 8:30a and I flew out of bed with excitement of the news! But then I couldn’t help but laugh at him when I checked my phone.
The University had sent a text message and left a voice mail in addition to the email. You see, my husband and I are always arguing (playfully, kinda) about how he never has his phone with him, or it’s off, or it’s lost, etc. If I didn’t make him, he wouldn’t even have a phone. Well, since he ignores his phone, he wasted his time going to school that morning and I got a good laugh
I know that this blizzard was mild as far as blizzards are concerned, but I was amazed by it. Remember, I’ve lived on the cenral coast of California all my life, I’m still getting used to snow in general, let alone blizzards!
Well, Ally absolutely loves the snow and she couldn’t get enough of it. She’d be out there shivering but still not want to come inside; She just continued to wag her little nub and look at me with that happy little face. Epsilon, on the other hand, found Thursday to be a rather terrible day. He was cold and miserable. Since he’s so little, it was very difficult to find places for him to go to the bathroom without him drowning in snow.
Anyway, here’s a video I put together of our blizzard experiences. Enjoy! (yes, I know I’m a dork).
A Bad Week
Disclaimer: This is a bit of a rant and not very interesting… continue reading at your own risk.
I generally have a happy, good life. But these past few days have been torture for me . I have had some good times too, but over all… bad. I’m sad and bored as I type this.
I procrastinated all last week and had a lot of work to do on Monday for an assignment that was due. I woke up at 8a and spent 8 hours working on that assignment to turn it in by 4p. Turns out he gave us an extra day anyway. But I didn’t eat at all during those 8 hours and barely squeezed in a shower. I had class from 4p-8p and felt like I was about to die by the time I got home. I was so tired and hungry and in a horrible mood.
Tuesdays I have to be at school at 8a to teach a business calculus lab. I was tired and passion-ridden as a result of the previous day. I always feel bad when I don’t give my all to my students. At least most of them finished early. After this, I had to start studying for my exam in Automata for Wednesday, then head off to our Mathletes basketball game at 7p. The game was actually fun. I was extra aggressive because of my mood, but I also missed like 80 shots. So that was a bummer. After the game, the team always goes out for drinks and food. We chose a bar that was doing trivia and we won a pitcher of beer! I drank a little too much that night.
I woke up on Wednesday with a headache and began more last minute studying for my test. When test time came, I spent 45 minutes getting nowhere on one of the 4 questions. So I was feeling pretty low when I turned it in. But then I went to where all my friends were… wait… what’s that?… there was a BACK SIDE to this exam?! WTF? But there was like 6 inches of space at the bottom of the page… WHY DIDN’T HE FILL UP THE FIRST PAGE BEFORE USING THE BACK PAGE?! So there was actually 7 questions to the exam… I answered 3. I was able to hold in the tears until I got home. It turns out that at least 2 other people didn’t see the back page either. That makes 3 out of 8 students… hopefully he realizes it’s not entirely our fault?…
Now it’s Thursday. Another day I have to be at school at 8a. But on Thursdays I don’t go home til 6p. Long day for me. Teaching lab went ok,; so that’s good. It’s just so nice outside that I want to be out there! I’m in my office hours right now. I normally grade labs during this time, but I forgot the answer key. So that’s a bummer. Now I’ll have to grade over the weekend. Not fun.
I haven’t had a chance to work-out this week either… so I feel fat.
My Dog Poops Diamonds
My Ring
So I recently got my wedding/engagement rings repaired and buffed. They’re super pretty and my diamond looks extra big now! Yay! Anyway, having been thinking about my ring lately, I remembered an event that happened a little over a year ago and thought it would make a wonderful blog post.
My husband and I lived in Rohnert Park, CA at the time and we were getting ready to drive to Salinas, CA for my uncles wedding re-dedication ceremony thing. It’s about a 3 hour drive and we were planning to stay the weekend with my parents. Well, my two dogs get really excited when we go on trips. They know they’re going when they see me pack their bag. They start running around the apartment playing, growling, howling, and crying. It’s quite a show.
Well, the dogs are always the last to go into the car and at this point Ally, my mini schnauzer, was jumping up all over the place in excitement. She’s like a little kid bouncing up and down yelling “don’t forget about me!”
Back up for a second. I should give you a little info about my ring. It’s a solitaire with a very high setting. There is just about as much space under the diamond as the diamond is tall. It makes for light creating beautiful brilliance, as well as giving plenty of space for things (like teeth) to get under.
Ally - Miniature Schnauzer
As you’ve probably just figured out, during Ally’s episode she jumped up on me and just happened to get her little tooth hooked under my diamond! I immediately looked at my ring then went strait for Ally’s mouth. I pried it open and searched in there for a few minutes with no luck. My husband and I searched the carpet within an 8 foot radius of the incident… still no luck.
We concluded she swallowed it! Wow, first my ring gets destroyed and now I have to search dog poop to get my diamond back! We did figure out a nice clean searching method though.
How to retrieve diamond from dog poop:
- Purchase appropriately sized zip-lock bags.
- “Wear” zip-lock bag inside out.
- Pick up poop.
- Zip-lock the poop in.
- Smash up poop while it’s in the bag.
- If diamond is found, bring it to the top, near seal.
- Push the rest of the poop to the bottom of bag.
- Rub diamond with bag until as much poop as possible is removed.
- Fill a glass with hot water.
- Open baggy right above diamond.
- Drop diamond into water filled glass.
- Let diamond soak.
- Throw away poop filled bag.
It took Ally 3 DAYS to finally poop out my diamond! I have never been so excited about dog poop in my life!
In conclusion, 3 days of agony, stress, poop and $200 later. I had a beautiful diamond ring back on my finger and the ability to brag that MY DOG POOPS DIAMONDS!
Does yours?
Goals for 2009
Yes, we’re already 6 days into the new year and I’m barely blogging about my goals for the year. But hey, I’ve been busy driving halfway across the country and starting school
First I wanna look back at 2008… great year! I went to the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego. I graduated with distinction from Sonoma State University with a BA in math. I turned 23. I was a groomswoman. I moved to Denver (to a bigger, nicer place). I started grad school. I have an office at school. I got a MacBook. I made new friends. I started working out. — Great year indeed!
Now it’s time for another great year. Here are my goals:
- Read my Bible more – I feel so guilty about never reading my Bible. I remember when I used to read it every day! So my goal for 2009 is to reach that point where I’m reading every day again… even if it’s for only 5 minutes! I don’t read because I don’t want to, but because I forget.
- Get in AWESOME shape by June - I’m not just talking about reaching my ideal weight… I can do that in under 2 months. I’m talking about being beautifully toned with a perfect tummy and adorable butt. We’re going to Costa Rica in June and I want to look stunning in a bikini! I haven’t felt awesome in one since I was 20, and I’m ready to get there again! I may sound vain, but whatever, every girl wants to look drop dead gorgeous half naked (and naked) whether they want to admit it or not.
- Keep a budget - I know, I’m a mathematician, this should be easy! And it is, I just get lazy. I have created a nicely complicated spreadsheet with Numbers on my Mac and have done great these first 6 days. I want to continue with this and not give up. Between my spreadsheet and Spend app for my iPhone, this should be a simple goal to keep.
- Save money - This goes with keeping a budget. I want to save a decent amount of money in prep for buying a house one day and hopefully buying a Mini Cooper in two years. I would also love to be able to buy a Nikon D90 sometime this year as well. I also have about $1500 of credit card bills. I’ve been very good about paying them off and believe I can have those taken care of soon. The other reason I need to save brings me to my next goal…
- Get pregnant - That’s right! I’m ready for the next huge stage of my life. But this goal is tricky because I have a very small window. Since I am in grad school and plan on staying in grad school while starting my family, I would prefer not to deliver a child during the school year. This means I need to get pregnant sometime during September-November in order to deliver during the summer of 2010. This would be perfect because I will be getting my masters degree that June and beginning the part of grad school that requires less time in the classroom and more time on research. And if it turns out that I can’t handle raising children and doing school at the same time, I will have already received my masters degree which is something I will be very proud of achieving.
- Visit Kansas City and Chicago - Now that I live in Denver, it’s only about an 8 hour drive to each of these locations for me. I would LOVE to visit them as there is sooo much of this country I haven’t seen. I have a friend who I play video games with who lives in KC that I would love to meet (yes, I know I’m a geek) and I have always wanted to eat lots of great food in Chicago Dave and I are discussing visiting KC this march during spring break and we’re going to shoot for Chicago in the summer.
- Blog at least 3 times a week – I’m a horrible blogger and I want to get better. I don’t care if I don’t have a following or anything, I just want to blog for my own personal enjoyment. I used to write in my journal everyday and I would like blogging to replace that. I think it’s cool when I see that I actually had some views to my blog and an occasional comment, but it’s not my purpose for blogging. I just like having my own little corner of the internet that I can’t to use as I please.
So these are my biggest goals for 2009. I believe they are all reasonable and accomplishable. Well, I guess getting pregnant isn’t entirely up to me. It’s not like I’ll have let myself down if I don’t get pregnant. If I don’t, it’ll just mean that it’s not the right time yet and I’ll be able to accept that.
I’m having a hard time deciding how to conclude this post, so I’m just gonna stop…
What are some of your goals for 2009?
It's Been Awhile
Well, I haven’t written a blog post in quite some time. I keep telling myself I’m gonna get back into it, but get distracted by other things. But today is the launch of WordPress 2.7, so I must make a post! My initial reactions to 2.7 are quite positive. The look is nice and everything just seems better organized. I’m just hoping that now that they (WordPress) has completed 2.7, they will focus their time and energy in upgrading the iPhone app. Now if the new update for iPhone is as good as I’m expecting, then I’m sure I’ll be addicted to blogging all over again!
Well, since the last time I’ve posted quite a few things have happened. One of the greatest being that I got a new laptop! And not just any new laptop… a new MacBook! Oh, this machine is beautiful and I LOVE it! It took a lot to convince my hubby to let me spend the money. I am SO glad that he did! I have been so good and haven’t really spent any money since getting it. I am also going to spend lots on him for Christmas so that he can build the gaming PC he wants to build. I’m pretty sure he’ll have all the pieces he needs under the tree on Christmas morning. I’m so excited!
Also, my husband and I have completed our fist quarter of grad school! Yay! I got a B in Functional Analysis and an A in Set Theory. Hubby got an A- in Functional Analysis as well as an A in Set Theory. Normally, I’d probably be a little bummed about a B, but this class kicked my ass. I technically should have taken about 3 other courses before taking Functional Analysis, but had no choice. I had already taken the other classes that were being offered and I had to have at least 2 courses in order to fulfill my requirements as a GTA and to qualify for health insurance. I’m just glad this quarter is over, and that I passed! Next quarter should be a lot more fun since I’ll feel adequately prepared for BOTH my classes. I will be taking Automata 1 and Rings and Modules. I know my husband is very excited about Rings and Modules because he loves algebra.
Since the break between fall and winter quarters is so long, my husband and I made the drive back to California for the holidays. It was an absolutely horrible drive, but that’s ok. It’s good to be home. It took us about 11 hours to get to Vegas, then another 9 hours to get to Salinas. Our poor dogs were soooo bored. But now they’re happy because I hardly leave the house now, so I’m home with them all day
Anyway, it’s getting late so I’m gonna head to bed. Watch out WordPress… llofte will be posting more! Hopefully future posts will have a bit more of a purpose than this one. Maybe I should create a separate diary-like blog… Hmm, I dunno, probably not.
I'm Not Good at This
So, I have been pretty horrible at this whole blogging thing. I get so busy with school and life, that I just don’t have time to blog. Usually I have an idea of what I wanna write about, but I know it’s just going to take too long. I need to figure out a way to manage my time better. I really like blogging, I do. I have the WordPress app on my iPhone, and I think I need to start using it more to work on drafts.
I have many iPhone app reviews that need to be updated, and many new ones I need to write. I have noticed that many of my hits come from people looking for reviews on iPhone apps, and I feel bad because my reviews are old since the apps have since then been updated. I think once I finish my homework today, I’m going to update my reveiws that need to updated. That’s my first project. Then maybe I’ll get around to writing a new post.
I’m currently saving money for a new macbook (I think I should have it in about 2 months) and I’m sure my blogging will greatly increase once I have it =D I won’t wanna put my macbook down and will just type away!