so i actually do work...

so. a week in the life of rachel:

monday- call my mommy for her birthday, go to art class, try studying for a quiz, fall asleep for two hours and wake with just enough time to get to special ed class, call my mommy for her birthday again.

tuesday- take quiz that i didn't study for. (got 100. good job, God), go to psychology class, rush home and try to make my art portfolio. go to the BIG meeting. get home late (11:30?) and finish making my art portfolio late into the noche.

wednesday-inaugurate the new season of the fur bomber hat. turn art portfolio in, spend the class drawing in the atrium of the art building which has concrete floors that get really hard after sitting on them for 2 hours. go to diner with kate to talk to people. get home. make lunch, take out trash. sit on bed to study (BAD idea). fall asleep for an hour. freak out because i have a test tomorrow. ruin another pot (the second in two weeks) by trying to boil water in it, but forgetting about it. go to sam and james' house to print something, go to CSPAC library to study with james, go back to their house to study more. go home at 1:30-ish.

thursday (today!)-wake up late, make it to hearing and speech science on time, take the test (it went well, much to my surprise), get a paper back, go to the stamp, borrow this laptop, and sit here typing my boring life into a blog post.

week highlight: studying and laughing with james last night. definitely.

now, wasn't that boring and a pain to read? see, my life isn't all fun and games. it's boring sometimes, too.

i just had to clarify that i actually do school work, and that i accomplish some things down here at cp.

THIS WEEKEND is going to be FUN though! harvest party with the admin (yay!) and then babysitting for the purswells on saturday morning, and then 10:31 meeting.

BASICALLY THE MORAL TO THIS BORING THING IS:
i have a whole bunch of fun and funny things to write but the pictures take a long time to upload. and i just haven't had time.

our heater is broken.

so i sit here.

sweatered, vested, hatted and blanketted,
drinking tea (out of our famed shih tzu mug), and eating overcooked saltine crackers (which has absolutely nothing to do with the temperature).

there is only one redeemable aspect of this sudden domestic cold snap: i have the urge to do dishes: my dishes, kate's dishes... anyone's dishes, really.
water, you see, is the only heat-emitting thing in this house, at present.

thus, all the dishes are done.


oh, ok, and my blanket. well it's covered in the most hideous collection of cats that you have ever seen. but i don't have another fleece blanket, so it's almost constantly wrapped around my waist (since i am the coldest person alive). so the quote of the day is from a certain roommate who will (ahem!) remain unnamed:

"rachel! how can you be cold?! you have like a thousand cats wrapped around your butt!"

hahahhaaaha.

(i will add a picture to this later)

what's that again, stacey?

woena;sv;alsdnf asldkj fa;sldkf jaosid slkdfj asoin vwkej fs uuh huh laskjdofnas; dfoas lkj ;lskf i alksdf and... OH MY. you don't say.... aowenov;;lhag oaisdj;f ksd fjoain belk soib kle w . well i'll be... aosd;in;boinea ;dgajd ll kdfj aodk klsd foiyoiuw e,asdf asdfjoiwen,bcvnwerui a. d wekj alsd ... well isn't that so interesting... asoasn ;fakls9ibntoigng sd akweoibne akb ewoiwlknb wemsnd;oibnbelksmnag;kjd asadl;lkadoibn lkasd oians sdj onasldkjf oiasn g.oh and that, too. tell me more of your secrets....

stacey says i blog too much. and that i'm gonna start blogging every conversation i have with her. and not tell her about it. that i'll just be typing away while she's pouring out her life.

hm.

"goodnight george, see you next thursday!"

oh, and p.s. next week = a two tests and a paper.

so i'm probably going to be studying and not putting up pictures.

beauty

i just got home from a womens' meeting at church that was centered around the topic of true beauty. whenever i attend womens' meetings at church, i am reminded of two things:

1. how uncomfortable i feel in a room full of high-pitched feminine voices singing songs.

2. how much i hate the words "beauty regimin"

[seriously, every meeting we go to has those two words contained therein. they just make me feel strange inside. like the words "chum", "undulate" and "nuptual". i feel like such a loser when i think about what i do in the morning as a "beauty regimin". ew ew ew ew ew ew ew.]

anyways, i just thought i'd share those.




oh, but i don't want you to think that i didn't enjoy the meeting today. it was very encouraging, provoking and inspiring.

man, but it's hard to apply beauty messages. the practical stuff about how much to eat or work out, or trying to uncover the motivation behind wearing makeup is confusing. geez.
one thing i do know, that i can solidly apply from the message today, however, is to "adorn myself with good works". that's pretty clear. maybe i'll concentrate on that part.

ok. i'm sleepy.

oh, and P.S. my mommy got home todaaaaaaaay! need i say more?

a flying phobia.

there is a rather interesting fact about me that few of you know:


I have an irrational fear of birds pooping on me.



I do.

I mean, I don't mind birds in general. in fact, I love them when they sing, and when they are quite poetically sitting on telephone wires in bunches.
I do hate pigeons in cities, though. they just seem so likely to poop on me.



ANYWAY, this morning I was walking to school and there was a lone bird sitting on the telephone wire above me. I walked to the other side of the street so that I wouldn't walk underneath it, for fear that it would poop on me. I was kinda laughing at myself, knowing that I was being completely irrational and silly.

SO, after I walked up the street and got to a crosswalk, I pushed the pedestrian button. I was standing there waiting for it to change when i see something drop SIX inches in front of my face. below me there is a white splat on a rock right next to my foot. when I lifted up my eyes, lo and behold, I observed a smug little bird, hopping around on the wires above with obvious disappointment.


I suppose that my fear is not so irrational after all.

joel is a sick-o-phobic

so, sickness struck again last week.

kate and i were coughing and sneezing and wheezing and sleeping.
i think it's that this house is damp and cold all the time. we're gonna look for a dehumidifier.

ANYway, joel came over and spent the entire time with his shirt over his mouth and nose.
it was funny.

why is admin is like the olive garden?

because when you're here, you're family!!

seriously. admin is like my second family. last weekend i was feeling a little homesick and missing my parents, but when i got to dave's house for admin, i breathed a sigh of relief.

it's hard to describe. it's like a place where they already know how dumb i am, so i'm never afraid to say something ridiculous. i gladly tell them my most embarrassing moments, because i love to see them laugh. they are the biggest group of goofy and hard-working people ever.

it's an honor to work with them. i love learning from them and just hanging out. most of all, i love laughing with them.

these pictures are horrible because i was trying to take them inconspicuously.

elise is like the admin mom. garrett's kinda the dad. ha.

dave is definitely the random funny uncle, who oversees everything.
but we all know that elise really runs it. ;)

and the rest of us? we're pretty much just minions.
hahaha.

lessons from a crab feast

the friday before last, i went to a crab feast with yuko in baltimore. it was so great. i love crabs so much, and i had not eaten them all summer.

not only did i get all-you-can-eat crabs for $8, but i learned two very important lessons for the future:

1. put up your hair before you start eating. or else it will be very crabby by the end of the feast.

2. don't wear a white shirt. that's just dumb.

yuko is great. such an unexpected friend. she came to be a grad student in my dad's lab, but i'm pretty sure she's on a secret mission to be one of the best friends in the world. she is so sweet and beautiful and funny and, overall, amazing. i love hanging out with her.
:)

oooh! so cute!

and this is baltimore:
(it was so beautiful that day)
(aren't the clouds surreal? beat that, salvador dali)

our happy little street

i intend to document the coming of fall.

this is our street about a week ago:

and there's gunther, too.
(he's my handsome car)

so green and lush.

but autumn is coming. about a week and a half ago, as i was walking to school i heard the most strangely familiar sound. it was dry leaves scuttling across the parking lot. they make the most delightful noise.
that's when i knew fall was coming for sure.


on another note, something i've been thinking about recently is the fact that we shouldn't spend our lives looking at the ground. this came to me when i was walking home from school on the glorious day on which the above pictures were taken. i realized that my whole trip to and from school was spent looking at the ground. but why? when i decided to look up at the huge trees and the sunlight and the beautiful sky and the people passing me, the walk home was so much more enjoyable.
we can spend life like that too: looking at the next step, but not getting the big picture. God has all the little details worked out, and "he will not let your foot slip". we forget to look at the big plan that God has for our life- to look at the the grace that he's given and the beauty of his sovereignty. then the walk through life becomes drab and ordinary, or even stressful or depressing.
it's when we focus on ourselves, and get distracted about what WE have to do and what WE have to accomplish that we lose sight of the beauty of the life that we have in Christ.

kinda obvious analogy, but it's just something i thought of the other day.

friday morning prayer

most friday mornings you'll find a few faithful fellows (and fellow-ettes) at our house to pray.

the last one we had, it was FREEZING.

our heater doesn't work, i don't think, although kate said it was getting fixed today, because we apparently had swarms of workers clattering through the house this morning.
i didn't see them. and nothing seems different, except for the faint smell of paint.

i think kate is making things up again.

stalker pictures of jimjim and marbar

soooo. james came over for a little dinner. it was the leftover "honey baked chicken" from the night before. he obviously didn't mind that mary had got confused between a ham and a chicken, because he seems to be enjoying it immensely in all of these pictures:

i was hiding in our room and captured them candidly chatting.

so i pretty much decided that it was time to do A LOT of homework and stayed in my room all night. it was just better that way.

:)

the family dinner trilogy

it's kinda like the star wars trilogy except it has fewer freaky-looking characters and has (a little) less action.

mary made honey-baked chicken.

i was under the assumption that if you're going to "honey bake" anything, it should be a ham.
i guess she got confused.

it was delicious anyway.

the megordens are the best!

in the morning, mary informed me that mr. and mrs. megord-o were gonna come down to do some housework. whose parents do that? :)

mr megorden is an amazing carpenter. check this out (and jimmy, take notes):

he refinished this dresser for mary:

he made us am-ma-mazing towel hooks (aren't they breathtaking?!), and installed them:

AND he made this desk for mary from SCRATCH. it, like almost anything else made from scratch (for example: cookies, pancakes, muffins, cakes, and pastries) is so much better. this is no "betty crocker" desk. this is the real deal:

it even has a foot bar, for dear-ie mary.

the other day...

i found a lamp in my cup.

weird, right?

the epic mike benson

also titled: the wakeforest game/afterparty.

do i even NEED an explanation?
it's mike benson.
...
juust kidding. hahaha. those umbrella pictures just look really cool to me.

another lost monster. ^

aaaand the dance party that ensued, after the game was a little rained out.

cooking lessons with rachie rach

number 1: sometimes if you put all of your favorite things together, it makes something beautiful and delicious. for example, the warm tuna, cheese, corn, lettuce and salsa wrap that i made the other day. when consumed with cranberry juice, it was delectable.


on another note, if there's one thing this whole "living away from home" thing has taught me, it's that i can actually cook. and take care of my room. and get my homework done a week ahead of time. oh that's three.

but it's been a very reassuring experience, overall.

UMD CRIME ALERT: attempted manslaughter.

first it was just stacey. every time she went in the back room he would be waiting for her. she described him as 1 1/2 inches tall, clothed in dark brown, and with a sinister disposition and a squeaky voice.

i aprehended him in the kitchen, trying to steal our food, and placed him in a tupperware on the floor. i left him for dead. little did i know that kate was secretly in league with this tiny fiend. she kicked over the tupperware and pretended it was an accident. ha. i can see beyond her facaide.

the following scene unfolded: stacey squealing on top of a chair, expecting the little guy to jump up and get her. mary was scouring the area. i was in my room. i had washed my hands of the situation.

finally somone caught him in the tupperware again, and he was placed behind guitars, so as to not be "tripped over" again.

suspect has therefore been aprehended but, after interrogation from the honorary reverend megorden, he repented and was freed on the front porch. whoever knew a criminal camel cricket could mend his ways?

why i kinda feel bad for my future husband....

so stacey can pretty much do killer impressions of each of our morning routines. so this is apparently how i am at about 7 in the morning (after i've taken a shower, so "i" have the towel on my head):

walk groggily to the kitchen, groggily get my bowl of cereal...

groggily plop down on the couch, possibly covered by multiple blankets, and read the Bible.

kate always laughs at my white robe and calls me the morning angel, even though i am hardly angelic when i first awake.

the other thing that they make fun of is how i put my hair up so it doesn't get in the way when i'm gonna wash my face. the other day i put it up in a particularly peculiar way and considered it picture-worthy:

da boyz

they came over for homework and dinner on thursday... i think it was two weeks ago.

oh, why do i love them so much?

p.s. notice the stuff in james' teeth. it makes the picture that much better.

not an uncommon occurrance.

at any time, for no discernible reason, stacey may be found on our living room floor with a scarf over her head. no one knows why. for a while we thought it was that she just wanted attention, but when she persisted even after being disciplined, we have given up all hope.

have any of you experienced similar behavior issues with your young ones?

we would appreciate your prayers and advice.



-
-
-

(note: for stacey's sake i will admit that this is not actually an accurate representation of reality. i just thought it was funny. in fact, none of my posts ever promise to be an accurate representation or reality. if you are reading this, you are probably reading lies ALL the time. haha. juuust kidding..... maybe.)

criminology

mary was reading to us from her criminology book and we discovered that, for various reasons, both stacey and i were extremely likely to commit a horrible crime.

apparently if you don't sweat very much, you are more likely to be an axe murderer.
don't blame stacey. she doesn't know any better.

coming soon:

• my crab feast with yuko on friday
• stalker pics of mary and jimmy on a date
• how youth admin is like the olive garden
  
• bloom: the unusual grocery store
  
• mr. and mrs. megorden are the best
• i found a lamp in my teacup
• more lost monsters at the soccer game/ umbrella-ed men
  
• cooking tips from rachie rach
• camel crickets and the ruckus that they can cause in a house of girls
• stacey impersonates me in the morning ( also titled: why i feel sorry for my future husband)
  

i have a huge project due tomorrow, though.

aaaahhh. prayers appreciated.

i am becoming my mother.

seriously. i am. today i found myself laying in my bed, propped up by pillows, with a full cup of tea resting on my tummy, reading the bible. that is how i've seen my mommy every morning since the beginning of time. it made me laugh.

it's not just that, either. i've been eating whole wheat toast, and fruits and veggies. i've been drinking tea like it's nobody's business. i've been walking a lot, i've been cooking and cleaning and doing laundry. i've been using all the little tricks that she taught me like sprinkling clothes with water and then blow drying them, when i don't have an iron. i've even been hosting prayer meetings.

hmm. that's really cool. there isn't another person who i'd rather imitate. my mommy is the best mommy in the entire world; she loves the Lord, she meets with him every morning, she has a pasison for prayer, she uses the gifts that God has given her, she lives as an instrument of Christ in the world, she's a wonderful wife and the BEST mom, she keeps our house in a very orderly state (as evidenced by her present absence....), and she is, quite simply, worth imitating.

sigh... but i have a long way to go.....

anyways, i am missing her tons and tons right now.... i just wanna sit and talk with my most favorite person in the universe!

oh, and if you read this, my beloved and far-away mummy, come home soon!

new contributing author... (Kate)

Stacey came home today with her.. slightly altered.. Starbucks cup. I thought it picture-worthy.

[it reads: We proudly Brew Starbucks Coffee,
filled with addictive powers to keep you coming back]