What's to come

So we had a very interesting weekend, way more so than normal. I wish this week would be easy so we could relax a little, but unfortunately finals start this week! In two weeks I'll be done, but until then, I have a lot of studying, some papers to finish, and a lot of grading to do.


I will be telling you about this three-day weekend though. It included things like:

• Visiting the Walls Unit in Huntsville and seeing death row. Yes, that includes the death chamber.
• Visiting College Station to see our newly renovated Memorial Student Center (MSC), the equivalent to colleges' student unions, just 10X cooler
• Attending a dear friend's bridal shower
• Studying at two different college libraries (I know, thrilling)
• Watching one of the worst/most ridiculous movies ever made
• And eating amazing food, like our normal weekends

So yeah, that will be some of the things you'll be seeing soon. Until then, I hope you have a great beginning of your week! Here's a preview of part of the new MSC:

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What I'm Loving Wednesday

I am linking up over here for this week's edition of what I'm loving because I need to be reminded of the good things today. It has been a long week and it's only 7 AM on Wednesday. 

• I'm loving that I'm done with classes for the week. Just have office hours tomorrow and that's it!
• I'm loving this amazing weather we've been having! Beautiful blue skies, warm (but not hot) temperatures... so nice!
• I love that I got to have some amazing Thai food and delicious gelato with a friend last night. Yeah, we like our hodgepodge of international food!
• I'm loving that my presentation yesterday went well. I presented a research design proposal for class, and it will make up the bulk of my master's thesis, so it was good to get positive feedback on it.
• I'm loving what we have planned for the weekend. Road trip to Huntsville and College Station on Friday, bridal shower on Saturday, and movie-dinner date on Sunday sounds fantastic to me!
• I'm loving that the end of the semester is near. One more week of classes, two take-home finals, two papers, and one problem set stand between me and summer. 
• I love that I am quite happy with where I am. I like my graduate program, I'm happy with the opportunities it has given me, and my fellow grad students are quite a fun bunch. 
• I love that our one year wedding anniversary is coming up next month, including a fun anniversary trip. Wow... where did the past year go???

What about you? What is happy in your life today?

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An Interesting Week Ahead

This week will definitely be different. What is the old proverb- "May you live in interesting times"? Yup... that definitely appears so!


Matt has some stuff going on at his workplace that could prove to be interesting. We shall see how that goes. It could possibly mean a lot of overtime, a lot of stress, and a huge lack of sleep. Crossing my fingers we're OK!


I'm getting to the point in the semester filled with final papers and exams, so I really need to kick it into gear and get on that. It's just so hard to motivate myself right now.


On Friday we will be going down to Huntsville to visit the state prison. We will be visiting the Walls Unit, better known as the place where Texas holds its executions. That will definitely be an interesting trip!


And because we got up 10 minutes earlier this morning (PS, 5:20 AM is way worse than 5:30 AM) and I don't drink caffeine, I need pictures of happy things to wake me up.

Ah Schloss Neuschwanstein... such a happy amazing place!

:)

Have a great Monday! :)

5 Randoms

Today is a hodge-podge kind of day for me--it's been a rough week. A lot of late nights, early mornings and overall lack of quality time with my husband have made me very relieved it is Friday.


Due to those aforementioned factors, my brain is not capable of forming a coherent idea for an entire blog post, so this Friday you get to be privy to some random thoughts.


1) I registered for my classes this week for next fall. While there one was course I wanted to take but won't be able to due to my degree plan, I am excited about next semester. Two electives + starting my Master's thesis! Should be fun.


2) It's OK that I don't have this evening's date planned. Matt and I want nothing more than to grab a quick bite to eat somewhere, chill at home, and get a good bed time. That sounds just perfect.


3) I can't believe the semester will be finished in less than 1 month! First year of my Ph.D. program is almost complete and I'm kind of ashamed at how much I like it. Seriously- this will probably get a whole blog post on its own eventually, but I am very happy where I'm at. It's hard, yes, but it's worth it.


4) Our dishwasher is running and it's quite loud. Just thought you should know.


5) On a whim, we grabbed some Sonic milkshakes last night after dinner. I know this speaks to my apparently low-fat diet, but I don't think I can drink a whole milkshake on my own anymore- made my stomach hurt something crazy.


So, what about you? Any random thoughts you would like to share this Friday? Any fun plans for the weekend? Can you believe we're getting so close to summer??

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Oh World Market...

Over the weekend Matt and I stopped in World Market to take a look around and I wanted to share some of the... special things we found there. 


First we ran into this game. I imagine it's geared towards parents whose own birth dates were in the 19th century. But to be fair, it does look like a fun game!

"Let your children share in your favourite childhood memories
with this magical old favourite from the late 1800's!"

Our second thing was this delectable piece of chocolate. I like seafood and I like chocolate, but I'm not so sure these should be combined.

And of course, you can't leave out the bacon syrup. I think Matt wants this added to his morning cereal, don't you?

Ft Worth Food Park

This past Friday was Matt's turn to plan our date and he took me to the Ft Worth Food Park! Basically it's this little grassy alleyway where several local, gourmet food trucks come and serve delicious food. 

We had both heard good things about it, so I was very excited to try it and it did not disappoint!


Disclaimer- we had nice salads for lunch to balance out this dinner. And believe me, it needed balancing out.


We split two dishes from 2 different trucks. The first was the Ralph's Reuben Brat from The Butcher's Son. Oh my goodness, y'all- this did not disappoint. It was absolutely delicious! The sausage was beer-boiled, plus delicious sauerkraut, carmelized onions, and Russian mustard-- yum! 

The second thing we ordered we were very glad we split because wow, it is a monster. It's called the Back Breaker and it's from Lee's Grilled Cheese. If you can't tell from the picture, here's what's in it: mac 'n cheese, melted cheddar cheese, & BBQ pulled pork. Yup, delicious, cheesy, and the ultimate comfort food. 

If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend stopping at the food park! The trucks rotate regularly and the website has a calendar with what truck will be there. It's also BYOB so we are looking forward to going back with some friends and just chilling out. 

If you're not from the area, do you have anything like this? Gourmet food trucks seem to be popping up everywhere and I think I love the idea.

Why We Are Waiting

Last night Matt and I had a discussion about our future, encompassing career & family plans. 

Apparently Matt has grand plans for us that include book-writing. Good to know. He also plans on our children walking by 3 months and winning a Nobel Prize while we're still alive. 

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So as my creative husband said, my book topics are quite obvious with the whole criminology thing. However, I asked him what he would write about. He decided he would write a parenting book from the perspective of an engineer. 

Now, ignore the fact that neither of us have any parenting experience and are not even thinking about having children until I earned my Ph.D. With that said, he came up with some titles I wanted to run by you for your opinion.

• Child-Rearing: An Engineering Approach
• Fundamentals of Child Dynamics
• Applied Parenting Analysis
• Kids++ Primer Plus
• Children: A Kinematics and Kinetics Primer
• Parent Mission Analysis and Design

So what is your favorite? I honestly don't know if I can pick. 

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Easter Recap

This Easter was quite different for Matt & me. Neither of us were with our families for the morning & for Easter service, which was definitely a little weird. We anticipated this though and planned to make our own brunch and though we didn't make each other baskets, we may have bought a couple of the delicious Reese's peanut butter eggs! 


First in the morning, we made some cinnamon rolls. Well, we didn't really 'make' them in as much as pop open the can and bake them. But, to our defense, we didn't need a dozen cinnamon rolls. That's why we didn't make them homemade...


After the service, my brother came over and we made our own Easter brunch, complete with baked ham, nicely cooked carrots, and croissants. It was delicious! And sorry, no pictures of the food. 


Following brunch we decided it was time to dye some hard-boiled eggs. I honestly could not remember the last time I had done that and I'm so glad we bought the little kit! It was a lot of fun! The guys enjoyed it too, though I still think my eggs were prettier than their's!

The one in front is my favorite :)

Also, as a special treat, I want you to see my brother's fish. Aren't they huge??? They started out about as small as goldfish but as you can see that's no longer the case. 

Now they eat goldfish... it's quite a terrifying meal, really.

I hope all of you had a good Easter! 

This Morning

 ¹ After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

 ² There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴ The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

 ⁵ The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

 ⁸ So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Matthew 28:1-10 (NIV)

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Too Much?

I'm not sure if you have heard about Google's recent endeavor, Project Glass. If not, watch this short video:

For those that didn't watch the video, basically Google is working on these glasses that you would interact with. Calendar appointments, text messages, phone calls, weather, directions, and all other things Google would be projected on your glasses at the command of your voice (and perhaps buttons on the side, not sure).


I have skimmed through some of people's reactions to this and there is definitely a mix- those who thing it is the coolest thing ever as opposed to those who think it will make our over-stimulated society even more so and really hurt the end-distracted-driving movement. 


Personally, I'm in the second camp. I think it is cool that we have this kind of technology, but should we go that far? Should we be able to see little icons right in front of our eyes, without even reaching for our phones/planners to see our appointments for the day? A few studies have shown that the overuse of the internet changes brain structure similar to changes seen in alcoholic's brains. Addiction and over-dependence on technology really does not seem like a safe place for our society to be moving. I know WALL-E is an amazing Disney/Pixar movie, but sometimes I see such real-life parallels that I get somewhat anxious about our society's reliance upon technology. 


We all know those people, you know, the one you hang out with and they cannot put down their iPhone because they're playing Words with Friends or don't want to miss a text message. We get so fixated on these little devices that we miss out on the actual interactions going on around us. Having actual glasses that we wear seems one step closer to complete immersion in this digital world, one where we communicate solely through the internet and miss out on real, in-person communication.


I know I'm not the first to have these opinions and I know there are benefits to the revolution in technology we have seen in the past 20 years. However, Google said they posted that video to start a conversation, so that's what I'm doing. 


What do you think? Would you want those glasses or are they going too far? 

A New Addition

Matt and I would like to introduce you to are newest addition to our little family, Adele.

Yes, she is a succulent. We water her weekly and turn her pot a quarter turn every other day. If we didn't turn her, she would start leaning towards the window. 


We bought her at the lovely Swedish store of all things decorative, IKEA. She is named after the singer. Why? One of her songs came on the radio when we were driving home & we thought it fit. 

We figure if we can keep Adele alive, there is hope for us yet in terms of higher-level organisms. You know, like a fern or something. Or a dog. 


{Wanted to say a special hello to Mary, who has been requesting this post :)}

A little something to brighten up your Monday

And we are faced with another Monday. Why must they keep coming? I also cannot believe it is April. Where is this year going? I know these videos helped me to put a smile on my face. They are a little different from one another, but I figure at least one of them should make you happy.

First, since I imagine most of my readers are of the female variety, here is a little cuteness: And if that doesn't quite do it for you, here is Bohemian Rhapsody like you've never heard it before: Which one did you like better? Amazingly precious polar bear cub or the highly intoxicated Queen's fan? I honestly don't know which one I would choose...