Craft 1/9

I finished my first craft project today. I know, it's the 28th, so I was cutting it close on the one per month deadline, but I did finish it. How many of you have lasted this long on your new year's resolutions, hmmm? 

To preface this project, I want to explain my reasoning behind it. The hubs and I have been together for a ridiculously long time, considering how old we are. To put this into perspective, we have been together 60 times longer than Kim Kardashian was married to...well, who really remembers his name, 486 times longer than Dennis Rodman was married to Carmen Electra, and 1,911 times longer than Britney Spears and the guy named after George from Seinfeld were married. 

Anyways, for those of you who are not aware, when you are together for longer than a celebrity marriage, you start to get comfortable with each other, and you stop shaving your legs every time you will see him, or start letting her pluck your eyebrows. This is great! You have made it past the eggshell stage, the "I just want them to be happy" stage, the "Of course I wake up looking this good" stage, to the "this is who we really are" stage. At this point, you can truly connect with each other...over the same dinner at the same restaurant, at the same time each week. That's right. Unfortunately, when you are SO comfortable with each other, life happens, and you get married and you both decide to go to school and get your masters AT THE SAME TIME and you work and you pay bills and you do homework and you pay bills, and you attend classes and do research and work some more, and you sleep sometimes and two years into your graduate programs, you realize that you can't remember the last time you went on a proper date that didn't involve sweat pants or cactus legs. (Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration...a couple of months ago we went out and it was great, and I am pretty sure he shaved his legs for the occasion, but that doesn't flow very well with my point, which is that sometimes, when you have been together long enough, your dates start to look remarkably similar.) 

So, how do you improve your (already admittedly pretty awesome) marriage? You can use the Better Marriage Blanket...

Or you can do an easy, cheap craft. I think we both know what the obvious choice is. 

Unfortunately, the marriage blanket is a bit expensive for me ($120!?!?!?!?), so I chose the craft. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the Better Marriage Date Night Jar Thingy:

So simple, so easy!

Are you tired of going through the same question on date night? 

Never fear, fellow decision avoiders! I have just the thing to solve your marriage-date woes!

All you need are colored popsicle sticks ($3 at Hobby Lobby) and a jar ($2 and some change at Hobby Lobby).  You should probably also have internet access, or a healthy dose of creativity. Me? I have the internet creativity, of course! 

Now that you have the required materials, all you need to do is use the internet your mind to come up with all kinds of exciting date ideas and write them on the popsicle sticks! I separated mine based on the color of popsicle stick. 

Orange popsicle sticks are free dates. For these, I have things like board game night, racquetball (free at our school, since we're students), a Wii sports tournament, and a blanket fort/popcorn/movie night.

Yellow sticks have dates that require little planning and are under $20. Some of the things I have listed on these are "driving range," "arcade," or "minor league baseball game." I also have one that requires us to go to a flea market, split up, and find a gift for each other under $10, and one of my favorites is the Bookstore Challenge, which I am extremely excited about. 

Red popsicle sticks list dates that require a little more planning, and/or will probably cost more than $20. These include things like a dinner cruise, going canoeing, and a progressive dinner, in which we get an appetizer, entree, dessert, and drinks from 4 separate restaurants. 

My hubs and I love to travel, so of course I had to include travel dates. Green sticks are for trips that require a full day, but little money aside from travel expenses. Some of these include a hiking trip in Arkansas, a trip to Eureka Springs,  and free activities in St. Louis, like the zoo, Science Center, and Grant's Farm. 

Blue sticks are travel dates that require (1) more money, (2) more time, or (3) more planning. These include things like going to an amusement park, camping, or my personal favorite, a nowhere trip, where you pick a random direction and drive until you want to stop. 

Finally, I only had two purple sticks in the entire pack, so I put one of our names on each stick. If we choose to draw a purple stick, that person has to plan an entire date on their own so the other person can be surprised. 

I am so excited to use this that I am having trouble waiting to draw a stick until this weekend, and I was pleasantly surprised by how many of the dates that the hubs showed interest in. Hence, I think that this project was a great use of my time, even though I probably should have been finishing my neuropsych summary. Oh well, carpe diem (That's YOLO in smart-people talk)! 

(Although I am so Pinterest savvy creative, I did not come up with this on my own. See here for the original project.)

Happy Year!

I didn't make any new year's resolutions this year. I figured that since I do the "26 Things While I'm 26," I have enough goals that will very likely not be reached. Adding New Year's resolutions would just be kicking me while I am down. However, since I never shared my 26 things, I think the beginning of 2013 is a good time to do it:

1) Read 26 books (I've already decided which ones) and

2) Watch 26 movies (again, predetermined) 

3) Increase our savings account

4) Decrease our student loans 

5) Move out of this small town 
It's time for us to start a new life elsewhere...but where, we have yet to decide. It depends on if we are accepted by any PhD programs. Spontaneity: it's not for the neurotic. 

6) Graduate with my Masters

7) Do a pull-up, dadgummit! 
This was one of the failures of my list last year, and I am DETERMINED to make it happen this year. It would be helpful if my arm muscles were larger than a waifish Disney princess, but you have to start somewhere, I suppose. 

8) Stop cursing.
Contrary to what I would like my sweet grandma to believe, I sometimes catch a bad case of sailor mouth; this usually occurs comorbidly with my road rage. Unfortunately, as I will probably be having children sometime in the future, I should probably stop, as I don't want to rub off on them.

9) Blog more. 
Looking back on my past record of blogging, I have already almost accomplished this. Woohoo, productivity!

10) Go skydiving
The hubs won't do this with me. Anybody else up for it?

11) Take a road trip with the hubs
After our European vacation, I feel that we should take it easy for the next year or two, due to the lack of rubber band banks in our pockets. However, I love to travel, so giving it up completely is out of the question! YOLO, right? (Actually, I hate when people say that. You can use that excuse to justify any questionable behavior, like eating chocolate cake for breakfast, cheating on your hubs, or watching The Happening.) 

12) Cut out soda

13) Run a 5K
Another failure from last year. How depressing. Good thing I'm studying psychology! 

14) Complete a Tough Mudder
This one is probably unfortunately going to be downgraded to a Warrior Dash. I'm not pleased about this, but I can't get together a team, and this is an event that requires teamwork. My little brother seemed excited to do it, but you have to be 18. I tried to get the hubs on board, but he was less than enthusiastic. I guess the idea of exposing himself to 10,000 volts of electricity was a little discouraging. What a wuss. :) 

15) Go to Oklahoma
We live less than 100 miles from the Missouri-Oklahoma state line, and it's one of the states I haven't been to yet, so I want to go. I'm not really sure what we'll do there, as Oklahoma is one of the bottom 10 states on my personal "Desirable Locations" list (also making the cut are Mississippi and Idaho...I'm sure these states have some fantastic qualities, but when a state is known for obesity or potatoes, it doesn't seem to have a lot going for it. Granted, I live in Missouri, and I went to school in a town where there were houses with toilets and/or washing machines on the front lawn, so who am I to judge?). 

16) Go to City Museum in St. Louis

17) Complete my thesis (!!!)

18) Throw stuff away
I have a confession: I am a bit of a packrat. I still have all of the cards we were given for our wedding, I have items that I haven't used in years but have kept because it was a gift from someone I cared about, and I have old magazine issues that I have yet to read but believe that someday, it will happen. I also have about 349 Victoria's Secret bags. I have not reached Hoarder levels yet, but I do have a slightly cramped apartment, and my dining room/craft room/office/study is kind of ugly and unorganized. So, I'm going to try to loosen the strings of sentimentality and let some things go. I may have to call for one of those giant dumpsters...

19) Volunteer

20) Perform more random acts of kindness

21) Make a 4 or 5 course dinner
I love to cook, when I have time. On Pinterest, my recipe board is called "More Julie than Julia" because I am not necessarily a fantastic cook, but I try really hard.

22) Make one Pinterest craft per month.
I stole this idea from one of my friend's blogs. I am a little late in the game, because I just added this to my list today, but I figure I have nine months to do nine crafts. I'll try to document my results for my readers' amusement. I try to be crafty, but it ends up more like this:

                                          (Image from craftfail.com)

I think we all know which picture is most representative of me.

23) Learn to drive a stick

24) Do this:  

and

25) Start getting up earlier
I waste so much time sleeping! I hate that.


26) Watch the entire Star Wars saga on blu-ray
We got this set for Christmas, and although I have already seen each one, I haven't watched them subsequently. We just finished Episode II a few nights ago, and I will say that I was pleasantly surprised by Episode I (I actually enjoyed it, for the most part), but Episode II is still as terrible as I always remembered. (Anakin, stop whining, you big lard. Hurry up and convert to the dark side, because I am not a fan of your teen angst and bad acting). 

So, I have 9 months to accomplish this list. Hopefully, my success rate will be higher than last year's sad 52%. Honestly, though, if I can do a real pull-up, I will feel accomplished. 

A lot of nothing

I'm writing this post because I have writer's block. I know this seems a little backwards, but I am working on PhD program applications, and I have finally reached the hurdle that I have been stealthily avoiding: PERSONAL STATEMENTS (Cue dramatic music). I hate writing these things. Unfortunately, I am applying to 12 (!!!) schools, which not only means that I am basically an ATM for education, but that I have to write 12 (!!!) personal statements. Sure, you can use some paragraphs multiple times, but most of mine require a section about why their program appeals to me, or what faculty member I would specifically like to do research with, which shuts the whole copy and paste bit down faster than Hostess. Besides, I feel like grad school has taken my writing skills down a notch. I can shoot out research papers, methods sections, and scientific nonsense, but my personal writing has become a lot more like my blog and a lot less like a personal statement to send out to a professional university that only accepts 6 people, although there are 205340843697 applicants (by 205340843697, I probably mean about 200. But it might as well be 205340843697). 

The personal statement is the only thing standing between me and a completed application for the 6 schools that have a December 1st deadline. Well, that and the application fees, but that's what credit cards are for (Hooray for high interest debt!). If I am anywhere but here next year, it will be worth it.

So You Want to Go to Europe....

Here I am, a girl who has been to Europe all of one time, and I want to give you advice. Obviously, you're skeptical. That's okay, I would be too. I have very little expertise to speak of. However, my credentials include three weeks in Europe, three countries, six cities, numerous museums, churches, and tourist attracts, and (this is the big one) spending less than two hours of the entire trip in lines. Altogether. In the entire three weeks. You will wait longer than that in line at the Louvre if you go at the wrong time. 
Our trip was FANTASTIC, and absolutely the best time of my life. We didn't get pickpocketed or sick, we only got the slightest bit of jet lag, and we got delightfully lost (which is a must, if you wish to truly experience Europe). It also did not rain during our entire three-week escapade. Granted, that was all luck. If you are visiting England for more than a few hours, you are usually guaranteed to get some rain. 
I'm sure I will post about our trip multiple times, but for this first post, I'm going to let you know what I think helped shape our trip into the Excellent Adventure it was. 

1) We bought a good travel book, but we didn't spend the trip with our nose in it. 
If you spend the entire day following your book, you are only experiencing what other tourists experience, because they probably have the same (or a very similar) guide. If you get off the beaten path, it will very likely enrich your trip. Not to mention that it's easier to soak up the culture if you're not surrounded by tourists in fanny packs and socks/sandals. 

2)  Take pictures, but don't view your entire trip through a camera lens.
If you go to the Louvre, you will see breathtaking pieces of art, but you will also see tourists who insist on racing through the museum, photographing EVERY. SINGLE. THING. You can try to do that, but the Louvre is ginormous. If you manage to get a picture of everything, you deserve a trophy. Of course, in my opinion, that trophy should say, "What a waste of time," but whatever floats your boat, I guess. It's perfectly appropriate to take a picture of a piece of art or a landmark that particularly holds your interest. See? 

I LOVE this picture. I looked at it for about 10 minutes because it was just so interesting. (That, and the comments were in French, so it took me about that long to deduce what was going on: "Is the man getting stolen away by the guy in the cape? What is the caped crusader carrying? Are the younger guy's wife and children trying to protect him from the flying demon man? WHAT IS HAPPENING? Oh, wait, it's called Le Déluge. That sounds like it means "The Flood." OH! There's a flood! I see it now.")
The thing is, you can take pictures all you want, but I can guarantee you that pictures will not do these sights justice. Enjoy them while you can.

3) Do as many tourist attractions as you would like, but don't spend all your time on them.
This kind of goes along with #1. Decide what's important to you, and plan a time to do it, but then spend the rest of your time walking around. Yes, just walking around. Your feet will get tired, and if you were not wise in choosing your footwear, you will get a blister the size of a hubcap and you will whine and the hubs will say, "I told you that you should have brought better shoes," and you will say, "THE LOCALS DON'T WEAR TENNIS SHOES." Ah, but the locals also don't walk approximately 28572324 miles per day. Ahem. I appear to have wandered off topic. Anyways, seriously, walk around and go into the little shops or a pub (especially in London), or get some gelato (especially in Italy) and just soak it all in. 

4) Learn some of the language. 
Really, why are you so pompous and pretentious that you would expect the locals to speak YOUR language? Especially since we're from 'Merica, where we expect everyone who comes into this country to speak "Merican" (which, by the way, isn't even a language). I read horror stories from tourists who complained how rude the locals were, but while we were there, almost everyone was perfectly polite and very helpful. Any time the hubs and I ate at a restaurant, we greeted the waiter/waitress and tried to order in their language. Most of the time, they could tell that we spoke English, and they immediately switched over. Yes, you will probably cringe at your terrible accent, and yes, you will probably mispronounce many many things (my rule of thumb is that you only pronounce about half of the letters in just about any French word). But you will leave feeling like you conquered something, and that feels pretty good. 

There are so many more things I could go on about, but considering my post history, I probably should save them so I have something to write about from time to time. I guess the take-home point is don't be a typical tourist. Don't wear a fanny pack, don't yell when you're talking (seriously, I could always hear the American accents over everything else. Why do we talk so loud?), and don't buy food from places that have their English menus displayed outside (spoiler alert: their food is not very good, and their prices are very high). Try to live like a local, and it will be the trip of a lifetime.  
 

Sunday Scripture

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

Sunday Scripture

I've decided, in an effort to motivate me to post more regularly, that on Sundays I will be posting a Bible verse that is meaningful to me in some way. We'll see if it works, or if I just get distracted and forget. I know that would not be surprising to anyone, as you all know that I am about as easily distracted as--hey, there's a flock of white pigeons outside my apartment (There really is. It started as one and now there are about 12. It's weird.)! Seriously, readers should be thankful that I do not blog my entire train-of-thought, because it frequently derails, and getting any semblance of a point across would take about 57 times longer than it already does. Anyways, before today's scripture, though, an introduction:

I'm still working on my 26 things list, but I have decided that one of my to-dos is either a Warrior Dash or a Tough Mudder event. I'm leaning more towards the Tough Mudder, because holy macaroni and cheese, Batman, how cool would that be? They SHOCK you. With electricity. Plus, you run through a fire maze and immerse your body in 30 degree water, which is almost cold enough to freeze Leonardo DiCaprio. This is something I need to accomplish in my life, and considering that my next few years may involve pregnancy, and I'm not sure 10,000 volts of electricity would be good for the baby, I feel like now is the time to do it.

The closest Tough Mudder is coming my way next April, so I started my training today. It's a good thing I started so early, because I barely made it through the weakest workout of the Tough Mudder bootcamp. I discovered that, contrary to popular my belief that I can, in fact, do push-ups, it turns out I can do a push-up before converting to the girly version. This brings me to the scriptures that I will be using as a crutch to carry me through: 

Isaiah 40:29-31
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak (that's me, guys). Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. 

Happy Sunday, everybody!

25 Things

So, it's been awhile. Sorry about that. You see, while on this exciting adventure that is my life, I decided to start a grad school program, and that has been taking up approximately 120% of my time. So basically, I'm in the negatives as far as free time goes. Also, I still feel really narcissistic writing about myself, because I feel that it's a bit pretentious to assume that people care what I have to say. That being said, this entire post is about myself, as will any others that may eventually follow, so if I want to keep up with this blog, I'm going to have to immerse myself in conceit.  So here it goes...

If you know me, you might know that last year I wrote a list of 25 things that I wanted to do during my 25th year. It was all based on this quote that I found that said, "To live, rather than exist." This inspired me to create yearly goals for myself as an attempt to live life to its fullest. 

Unfortunately, I did not complete all 25 things. You would think that given an entire year, doing 25 things would be a breeze, but life happens. However, I wouldn't say that the year was a failure. I was able to have a lot of amazing experiences, and I can look back with no regrets, and when it comes down to it, that's what I really wanted in the first place. So, without further ado, here are my 25 things:

Read 25 books
I love reading. I learned to read when I was four and I haven't stopped since. Sadly, most of the reading I do now is about psychopathology and ethical conflicts in psychology. Let me assure you, there is very little on this earth that is less interesting than ethics in psychology. It is about as far from 'reading for fun' as you can get. Unless, I guess, you are an ethical expert, in which case I would say to you, "Your life sucks." As you might have guessed by now, I did not complete this one. I did not even get halfway. I read 11 books from my list, ranging from Life of Pi (fantastic book!) to Love in the Time of Cholera (Not so excellent...I'm sure some like it, but it I am not one of those people). I'm supposed to read 26 books this year...we'll see how that goes.

Lose 7 pounds
Why 7? I don't know. Because it seemed like a good number. I almost completed this one. I was down 5, and then the school year started and my cortisol levels shot through the roof. Also, my hips apparently decided that I am hibernating this winter, and have started looking less Little Mermaid and more Jessica Rabbit. Rawr.  On a bright note, I still weigh 1 pound less than last year! PROGRESS.

Go to Europe
SUCCESS. I did this. It was one of the best times in my life. I will probably be posting about it at some point, because the hubs and I did Europe really well. The French were polite (with the exception of one man that YELLED at the hubs in French...it was the sexiest telling-off I've ever heard in my life. To be fair, the hubs did do something pretty stupid. But that is for another post!), we waited in line about 1 hour total during the entire three week period, and we spent less on our entire trip than some people do for lodging for 5 days. I don't care what your excuses are for not visiting Europe. Throw them in the dumpster and GO. It will be worth it.

Complete my Literature Review
Another success! I am completely fascinated with my study, but I realize not everyone else is, so I won't bore you with details. However, this was a huge hurdle to overcome, and I'm so thankful that it's behind me.

Run a 5K
This was the year to complete this task. Every weekend, someone else had run some sort of race, whether it was the Color Run, or the Zombie Run, or the Iron Man, or whatever, and posted their pictures to Facebook. They were on my newsfeed every day, taunting me. "You have the lung capacity of a 90-year old smoker," they mocked. "Your knees and ankles are ruined from years of being thrown around by them in cheerleading," they teased. And they were right. I stink at running. It is very likely that someone on crutches could beat me in a race. So, I didn't run a 5K this year. Someday...

Do a pull-up
I have never in my life done a pull-up. Have you seen my arms? They are the size of a 8-year-old boy's (although you might have noticed my fondness of hyperboles, this is sadly not an exaggeration). Another one that I didn't complete. 

Give up red meat
This one actually stems from the documentary "Food, Inc." I can't even eat cornish game hens, because they look too much like animals, so when I saw this documentary, it broke my heart. So I stopped eating red meat (I still eat fish and chicken, but it's because I can't cut out meat entirely. Plus, I'm scared of fish, so I have no sympathy for them). I did do this one, although my father seems determined to quash it out of me. Almost every time we visit, he grills some sort of cow or pig. And of course I usually eat it (I have no willpower to speak of). But I have not had sausage or bacon in over a year, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times I had red meat this year. COUNT IT. 

Keep a plant alive for an entire summer
I had "grow an herb garden" but the hubs felt it was too ambitious. He was right. I didn't even buy flowers this summer. On the other hand, I saved a plant by not buying it. So I'm counting this one. 

Learn 3 Beatles songs on my keyboard
Haha, no.

Start sleeping on a grown-up schedule
What was I thinking? I'm in grad school!

Watch 25 movies
This was pretty fun, but I didn't finish it either (only 13/25). However, I have now seen the glory that is Monty Python and The Holy Grail, have been inducted into Fight Club (and just broke the first rule...whoops), and had Breakfast at Tiffany's. Overall, this one went pretty well.

Buy a really nice pair of jeans that fill well
This is harder than you would think, because I am pretty skinny, but I am also curvy and short. Jeans fit ok, but never well. This year, though, I actually found a nice pair of skinny jeans though that fit perfectly, so this goal was achieved! 

Learn some French
Oui, fin. Trés bien!

Get all A's in my classes this year
This was one of the hardest goals of my life, and is probably the reason I did not accomplish more on this list, but yes. Success!

Try a Maine lobster
Achieved! This was one of the more fun goals, because we took a trip to Maine last fall. It was beautiful and is now on my list of places I should live someday. You should all go. 

Finish redecorating my living room bathroom dining room ENTIRE APARTMENT
We have lived in this apartment for 3 years and there is still no cohesion to my place. The bathroom is a mix of birds and lighthouses, the living room is a blurb of globes and other random things I find at flea markets (like a Bach statue and a microscope), and the dining room is an area that is not used so much for eating as for storing all of my craft things and my sewing machine (which I am still not sure how to use). There is no organization to my life, but if you have read my previous posts, you would already know that about me. I have all these great ideas for my apartment, but they live on Pinterest. Maybe someday I will have both the time and the money to complete them. Hahahahahahahahahaha....haha...ha. 


Obviously I've only listed 16 of my 25 goals, but the post was getting pretty long, so I'll leave it at that. I only completed 14, but when I reflect on how incredible my year was, I have no regrets. I definitely recommend doing this; it's like a much more achievable (and therefore more satisfying) Bucket List. I'm currently making a list for 26, and I'll post that at some point. If anyone reads this and has any suggestions, let me know!