toe tapping thursday.

i think i've finally recovered.

as i've mentioned in previous posts, this past weekend was the UNC Dance Marathon.

i was up for over 40 hours straight and on my feet for most of them. in the end, it was all worth it! these banners required us to get up on lifts in order to hang them...and this one fell at 5:30...less than an hour before the dancers were going to arrive. talk about a stressful 30 minutes!

the treasure chest (note those beautiful pearls that i spent the entire super bowl cutting out)

some of the 1600 dancers standing on their feet FOR THE KIDS!

more dancers

when the end of the 24 hour marathon rolled around the overall committee revealed the total amount of funds rasied.....$421,851.32 for the North Carolina Children's Hospital. some of the families that had previously benefited from the FTK fund were there when the final total was revealed...and seeing those children made all the pain and fatigue so worth it!!! after all, 24 hours is a really short amount of time in the long scheme of things, so why not help those that are less fortunate than me?!

i got home around 10:30pm on saturday night and i hadn't been home since 9:45am on friday morning, so needless to say, i was exhausted. i sat down on my bed and called kotr and after we'd chatted for a few minutes i looked down and noticed i had dried up liquid that had leaked from all the bags of trash i had carried on my legs. i told him that i'd have to call him back after i got out of the shower. once i hung up the phone i tried to stand up to walk to the bathroom and i literally could not stand. i know it's super gross, but i had no choice. ...but don't worry, after i woke up on sunday (at 3pm) i immediately washed my sheets! :)

i CAN'T WAIT for dance marathon 2011!!!!

where did the weekend go?

as most of you know kotr came to visit this past weekend. it went by entirely too fast.
while he was here, we did a whole lot of nothing and it was wonderful.

he got here on thursday soon after i got out of class. earlier that morning i had started taco soup in the crock-pot so luckily we had something warm to eat [and it was quick and easy...always a plus]. i also somehow found enough courage to attempt making some cornbread. it turned out great, but then again, how hard is it to mess up a box of jiffy cornbread mix? i had a meeting i had to be at for DM, so we didn't get to eat until almost 9:00. for those of you that don't know me, the hours between 9:00 and 11:00 on thursday nights are sacred. if there is a new episode of grey's anatomy or private practice don't call me because i won't answer, and if you text me i'll more than likely wait until the commercial break to text you back. whether kotr likes to admit it or not, i've got him hooked on grey's, so as soon as we noticed we were cutting it so close to 9:00 we had the bright idea of slightly rearranging the kitchen table and the tv. i'm glad kotr was there bc the tv in our apartment is pretty heavy. he got it turned around and we were able to have dinner at the kitchen table and watch a new episode of grey's all at the same time!

on friday we had leftover taco soup, store-bought vday cupcakes and rented public enemies. it was pretty good, but i feel asleep wayyyyy before it was over [imagine that].

saturday we slept in and then drove to greensboro to watch stretch play volleyball. we went to supper with my family at ham's and let's just say that i won't be going back there anytime soon. the hostess ruined the whole experience, she was rude, loud and obnoxious. the service wasn't that great either...oh well. we came back to chapel hill and called it a night.

sunday, aka vday, possibly one of my least favorite days of the year. i'm just not big on doing elaborate things on valentine's day. kotr and i decided to have dinner and see a movie. we started out the night by swinging by the movie theater to pre-buy tickets for dear john. we ended up going to carino's and got great service [like good enough to make up for the night before]. like dummies we bought tickets for the 9:40 movie and we were done eating supper at 7:00. since it was a sunday the mall was already closed, so there was basically no where to go. eventually we ended up ordering dessert to-go from the cheesecake factory. kotr ordered a piece of blueberry cheesecake and i ordered the red velvet cheesecake. both of them were wonderful. since there was no where to go, we still had nearly an hour to waste before the movie started. so we had a little photo shoot in the car.





and the sad thing is...those were the only pictures we took all night! i really wish we had gotten someone in the restaurant to take our picture. we both looked so nice and we even matched! ...i guess there's always next year! :-) and as for dear john....wayyyyyyyyyyy better than public enemies, but i'm sure kotr would disagree.

also, check out what kotr gave me me for valentine's day:
they used to be his grandma's. the picture doesn't really even do them justice. they're the most pretty pink pearls i've ever seen!

thank you kotr for a great valentine's day. i love you and look forward to many more!

toe tapping thursday.

also, KOTR will be here in 3 hours!

the next two weeks will be killer.

ahhh! i'm going into stress mode starting....NOW.

i just finished putting my assignments, meetings, work schedules, etc. into my day planner and got increasingly more overwhelmed. i'm not usually one to get too stressed out about things, but these next two weeks are a slight exception.

i have my first exam of the semester on thursday. i'm worried about it because it's for my western civilizations class....and i have absolutely no interest in ancient Greece or Rome. i really don't have any prior knowledge on the subject...which is definitely not normal for me in a history class. the professor emailed a study guide over the weekend, but there's so much material on it i almost think it would have been more helpful if she didn't give us anything at all. oh well...i'll get it done and i'll take the exam and it'll be over with by 12:15 on thursday.

dance marathon, the largest contributor of my stress will not be over until around 9:00pm next saturday. for those that don't know dance marathon is a 24 hour stand for the children of the NC children's hospital. [yes, that means that i will be standing up for 24 hours straight] i know i can stand and stay awake for 24 hours because i was a dancer last year, but this year is different. the committee that i'm on requires us to handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that actually makes the marathon function. i'm worried that i'm not going to be rested enough and i won't contribute to the committee like i should. i'm trying to get as much sleep as i can now since i know i won't have any time when it's marathon time. next thursday i have to help set up for the marathon from 6pm until 2am...and then be back at the site by 2:00 or 3:00 on friday. the marathon actually starts at 7:30, so all the dancers will start arriving and that's when the stress will really set in. at 7:30 pm on saturday all the dancers will be able to sit down [and i will too!!], but we'll still have to clean up...which i have a feeling will be a lengthy process. i'm nervous and excited all at the same time!!

on a better, more positive note, kotr will be here this thursday!!!!

however...a large chunk of my weekend will still be dedicated to DM. we have a meeting on thursday at 6:30, a date auction at 11:00, and i have to assemble decorations for the marathon on sunday. oh well though...it's FOR THE KIDS!

rain, rain, go away, come again another day.

that goes for wintry mixes too.


as you can see, the southern part of heaven has already had it's fair share of snow. we got a good amount of snow last friday night/early saturday morning. all of us in the above pic had spent a good part of the morning sledding down the hills in the parking lot of our apartment complex.


the snow was a lot of fun, until i actually had to go to class. monday morning the university canceled classes until 10. that's great for everyone else, but i don't have class until 2:00. the part that stunk the most was my professor didn't even show up and didn't even send us an email. oh well. it's not like i had anything better to do.

as you know from an earlier post my tuesdays and thursdays are no fun. my apartment complex has chosen not to scrape the sidewalks and the parts of the parking lot that i have to use to get to the bus stop, which would be fine if i was a little more coordinated. luckily i didn't have any problems within the complex on tuesday morning. i had on my boots and trekked through the snow and ice like a champ.

thursday was a different story.

i got a little too confident and decided to wear my sperrys yesterday. as most of you probably already know...sperrys don't have ANY traction. as soon as i step down into the parking lot [on what i thought was a pile of semi-melted snow] my right leg started to fly right out from underneath me!! i had to grab onto the cars that i was walking in between and i nearly lost my coffee and granola bar i was in the process of eating. had i not made that excellent recovery i probably would have given up and attempted to ice skate my way back into the apartment because i would probably have had a concussion and a broken tail bone.

i spent the rest of the day walking around on campus like i was 80 years old because i didn't want to risk wiping out in front of the entire campus.

needless to say, after my near-death experience [ok, ok, maybe i'm being a little overdramatic] i decided that i really don't like snow, ice, or anything else that comes along with winter. it was so pretty and so much fun to play around it when it first got here, but now it's just causing problems....and what do you know....THEY ARE CALLING FOR A WINTRY MIX ALL WEEKEND. that's it, i'm transferring to the university of hawaii.

PS king of the road will be here in 6 days!! yay! [so i'll wait to transfer until after he makes his trip down here ;-)]

toe tapping thursday.

i decided that it might be neat to share a song with y'all once a week...and what better day to do it than thursday!



yes, i realize this song is highly inappropriate, but i haven't been able to get it out of my head!!

the tim tebow explanation.

as i was listing my classes for this semester, i told y'all that i wasn't tim tebow's biggest fan.

i acknowledge the fact that he was a great college football quarterback and i admire him for being so deeply grounded in his faith. i think his ability to stay to true to his values and beliefs says a lot about a young man that is constantly in the spotlight.

BUT i don't necessarily agree with his decision to appear in an advertisement during the Super Bowl.

it is rumored that tebow and his mother will appear in an ad for focus on the family, a non-profit agency. that same advertisement is also rumored to be an anti-abortion ad in which tebow's mother will give a brief description of her fifth pregnancy--apparently while on mission work she got very ill and doctors advised her to abort the pregnancy. she chose to keep the child and within a few months....tim tebow was born.

you might have the same question as i did when i first heard about this little situation: where the heck did a non-profit get $3 million to pay for a 30 second commercial during the Super Bowl?!?!?! well, lucky for you, i have the answer. private donors financed the project.

regardless of my opinion on the abortion debate i think it is simply atrocious that such an issue is being brought to light during the Super Bowl. i believe that each side of the debate should be presented when discussing such a matter, but the main reason i believe the commercial is such a terrible idea is $MONEY$.

i think it's wonderful that a few rich country club goers have tons of money to throw around, but i think they could have used their money in better ways. focus on the family's mission statement is: "Focus on the Family is a global non-profit Christian organization with a vision for healing brokenness in families, communities and societies worldwide through Christ. The purpose of the ministry is to strengthen, defend and celebrate the institution of the traditional family and to highlight the unique and irreplaceable role that it plays in God’s larger story of redemption." couldn't those private donors have put their money somewhere where it would directly benefit broken families? couldn't they have helped to finance marriage counseling for couples that want to hold their marriages together and would like to have outside guidance, but simply can't afford to seek that guidance???? or even counseling teenagers and helping them make the right decisions during those oh-so-awkward high school years??? focus on the family should rethink their decision and do more to directly influence individuals.

i'm sure there's a lot more that could be said about this, but i've said everything that i feel is most important....so i'll get off my soapbox now.