Finals Week Positivity

exam time + heat broken = dance party

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Song of the Month - October/November '10

We have a new Song of the Month here at the Stanford House.

We've been listening to & singing this one non-stop.

John Mayer (and some random dude he's singing with) "Celebration"

Thank you for listening with us.

"Please don't make fun of me,

I came home to a rotten squash!"

- Joanna

Funding

It is time for us to once again start collecting charitable donations for the "Stanford House Heating Fund." Please consider what the Lord might be calling you to give up today, this week, or this month, in order to keep us warm and healthy. The testimonials below, from some of last year's generous givers, provides a flavor as to what can be expected in the donation process.

I gave up my daily pumpkin spice latte. It was a no brainer when I really thought about it. Why drink pumpkin spice latte when there are beautiful girls suffering from the cold?

[Anonymous Donor]

For me the decision making words were definitely "future" and "investment." I remember hearing about the need, and just being so sure that I wanted to act on behalf of this cause. Youth like the Stanford House girls will be pillars of our society in years to come. I can think of no better fund in which to place one's dollars and plan to give to it annually.

[Gertrude Foxter - 5 time donor]

All donations are tax deductible.

We hope you will consider investing your finances in this worthy cause.

Please contact us with donations and any further inquiries.

Sincerely,

The Management

Time for Fall with Butternut Squash!!!

this delicious butternut squash was made by my own two hands.

well, technically i didn't make it…

but i DID cook it!!

and with the delicious smell wafting through the house, we were certainly reminded that it is the beginning of fall here in college park!! Time for leggings, huge sweaters, cups of tea, warm food and heartwarming wrestling sessions with Rachel (hint--if you're ever cold, this IS the thing to do; it warms you up in minutes!).

In celebration of Fall, Rachel is going to build a life-size scarecrow of herself to decorate our front yard!

Catch ya soon!

-J

PSYCHO DAY

hello.

i'm back.

i don't even remember the last time i've posted... but you know what? i'm not apologizing.

this is a fresh start from a fresh rachel.

today. was a psycho day.

actually, it wasn't psycho until i picked up joanna and lorena [our newwwww roooooooooommate!!!!!] from CSPAC (the clarice smith performing arts center, i.e. joanna + lorena's HOME).

when i brought them home, i was a little mopey.

so i was glad they were there.

and we were all hungry.

so, then we decided to create a FEAST!

FEAST!

and then joanna and i were making loud noises!!! and describing everything with large exaggerations!!

figure 1:

"Mandarin oranges are sooo good that i want to pounce on them like a tiger on a small child!!!!" - joanna

the menu was as follows:

sesame cabbage salad&

chicken lettuce salad&

rice.

and we were laughing and making louuuud noises while we made the salads. and lorena was a little creeped out. this is only her second week here, so she hasn't seen joanna and i like this yet.

then we made this video.

and it was good.

during the dinner, we mostly randomly shouted the name of my korean statistics professor, because it sounds like a kind of food (yung mi cho!) and then joanna and i would make straaange faces at one another while lorena wasn't looking and we'd make each other laugh, then lorena would look up and we'd both be looking at her laughing, and she'd think she did something wrong...

and then we settled down. now homework.

Cute. Yellow. Bike.

My cute vintage bike has proven to be quite the conversation starter. 

Almost every day i'll have multiple people come up and talk to me about it, i'll try to give some recent scenarios:

Scenario 1) Guy walking past: dude, cool bike. ....i think it's actually a guys bike though... Me: yeah, my Dad bought it for me; kinda explains a lot. Guy: Well it's pretty awesome anyways.

Scenario 2) Girl parking her bike next to mine: OMG OMG i LOVE your bike!! It's so cute! Love the yellow! Me: Aww thanks! actually my Dad bought this for me because he thought it was so ugly no one would want to steal it. Girl: Well i would totally steal it if i got the chance. Just sayin... 

Scenario 4) Dude waiting at the same light as me: Sooo how do you like the gears on your bike? Me: uhh, they're...ok... [Dude rambles on about how he  loves my bike but thought it would be more effective with more gears. etc. Light turns green] Dude: Well have fuuuun on that bike!! Bye! Me: Oh i WILL. 

Quite a charmer, that bike of mine. 

a day in the life of us

hi. it's exam week. this is what our house is like: silent, but for brielle's softly playing music.

in other news, brielle and i blew the fuse to our kitchen. soo... no refrigerator, no microwave, no light.

our landlady doesn't know when the electrician is coming.

sigh.

i hope the milk doesn't go bad.

anticipating friday

my recommendation is to just watch lauren's face the entire time.

aaaand my painting looks much better in real life.

Tonight

... was a strange night. But a good one.

There were several reasons why this night was strange.

#1. I made a casserole.

I have never made a casserole. Hence, the creation of said rachel-made tuna noodle casserole was quite unique.

#2. Courtney came over!

Courtney has only been to our house once. So, her second coming (to use a biblical term!) was an event to be remembered. It was oh, so wonderful to see her pretty face :). I don't get to hang out with her enough.

#3. Our neighbors arrived demanding cookies.

Our neighbors are a bunch of boys living two houses down. We opened the door to our calm and peaceful house, and about 7 boys traipsed in, requesting cookies that had evidently been promised to them at a previous time. Apparently Lauren had told them that I was going to make cookies, and they came expectantly. So, we whipped up some good ol' chocolate chip cookies and fed those boys. It was a little bit of an odd atmosphere though... because they brought a couple guys with them that half of the girls here had never met before... So everyone didn't know everyone and there was a lot of nervous laughter and phone-checking. And so, we sat: 13 people in our tiny living room, laughing at nothing. [don't get me wrong, though. i loved having them over :) I thrive off slightly awkward situations. THRIVE. Hah.]

#4. We played spoons. With 13 people.

Self-explanatory. All the boys cheated badly. All the girls lost. It was bad. There were several spoon fights and we all discovered a new viciousness in Lauren.

#5. All of the boys threw cards around for about half an hour.

John, one of our neighbors, knows how to throw cards really hard. It's some kind of mutant gift. Soooo him and his buddies literally threw cards at each other across the room for a looong time.

#6. I told them the troll story.

I'll have to blog about this later. It is quality.

#7. Whitney and Josh arrived.

Bearing expensive instruments! Yaaaaaaay! We had a short, quality time with them.

#8. Everyone left.

And we picked up cards and did dishes.

#9. I sent an email to my boyfriend.

It is still a novel idea to me. :)

#10. I'm actually using correct capitalization in this blog post.

The strangeness of this day is complete.

bubble tea

It's been a while

Hello Readers,

I am sitting here and pretending to do work while I listen to the joyful laughter of my little roommates. We have all gotten our little dinners. Rach and Ellen had fishsticks. Delectable. Brielle made Parm Chicken. Even more delectable. I snagged some of all the delectableness. Anyhow. So this is just another normal life. Rachel is reading Ellen her pride and joy of all her past blog posts. While Ellen listens, while thinking all along about how she should be studying for a test. But Rach enjoys reading about tooting Asian men and dwarf sons at the mall. So she sits and listens and says, "that is amazing Rachel." Brielle is contemplating doing pushups. I can just tell. Oh Joanna. She has not moved houses. But she is practicing piano. And I am making a literacy center for all the little children in my class tomorrow. A sink full of dishes. Food everywhere because we all like to eat. Books out as if we are actually getting work done. Throwing out a whole trashcan of old food we found in the fridge. And then silence as we all do our little tasks. This is the life we live. The day to day. Wonderful life. And we enjoy EVERY moment of it... no matter how simple.

TODAY IS BRIELLE'S 18th BIRTHDAY. We love birthdays. You will see the sign I made for her this morning. She loves it. We all love Brielle here at the house. Today, I was at the gym with her. She JUST got her ID replaced TODAY from loosing it a month ago. And in the matter of a few minutes, she lost it again! Oh Brielley. A nice girl fbed her and found it. But really, Brielle has brought much joy to us all. I can honestly say I cannot imagine life without her.


Oh. And our kitchen table and chairs are getting taken away. No comment about how we feel about this point. We are saddened. Deeply saddened. This table has been the center of much fellowship and fun. We love our table. Donations are welcome for a new table. Because we are all poor college students.

Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой

lydia brought my attention to this gem of modern musical videography.
it is worth every second and is HIlarious.

computer snatcher

i am presently seated at footnotes cafe, reading psalm 52.

a guy just ran up to where i'm sitting, said "oh man, i'm such a jack***. i can't believe i left it here" and promptly folds up my computer and starts to take it away.

seeing my confused expression, he said "oh... oh.. is this yours?! oh i thought it was mine. i just lost mine. oh. ah." and ran away.

that's just a snapshot of my day today.

the rest of my day shall consist of class and studying.

Stacey is getting MARRIED TODAY!!!!

and so.

stacey is getting married today.

wow.

:)

and we're all getting ready at her house, listening to pandora's love songs station, and singing at the top of our lungs.

dang i love that girl. and she's gonna be a wife by the end of today. aaaaah happy.

Hi,

Andrew.

told you. :)

INTRODUCING.....

... JOANNA the AMAZING!!

ladies and gents, we have a new contributor. her name is joanna.

she is my cute little sister.

and, i believe that the little stories and parables about her life will add greatly to the completeness of our blog.

you see, we have only really been capturing life from my and lauren's perspectives. now i have invited briellega AND joanna to join.

while i have yet to hear back from briellega, joanna has obliged my fancy and agreed to come on board.

on the blogger board, that is.

so, please join me in welcoming....

JOANNAAAAAA!

Why hello there...

So.... in celebration of my commencement of becoming a blogger on this here blog, i have decided to share a very delightful and inspiring story...

So in my geog class (that's what i prefer to call it.... geog... mmm i just love the sound of that resonating on my vocal chords. well actually i am just thinking it, but i am thinking that the sound of it resonating on my vocal chords would be a very good sound..... BUT this is besides the point).... where was I? Oh yes, so i'm in this geog class which has a lecture of several hundred students, and every so often a student will send an email out to everyone, literally EVERYONE in our class asking them to give them our notes. This young fella had a particularly inspiring excuse...

And i quote,

"Im sorry to bother you guys but I couldnt attend last lecture cuz I had a major case of diarrhea which lead to overflooding my whole hall, so I was wondering if someone was willing to email the notes. Thamk You

P.S Also I just wanted to notify you guys to sit away from me in class for a few weeks since I now tend to let out nasty gas"

ewwwwwww.

I hope i don't accidentally sit next to this guy in class...

Well, hope that story edified and inspired you!! :) I sincerely hope you and I never have to use this excuse.

That being said, I feel I should go.

Goodbye dear readers.

(p.s. are you really out there....?)

i am currently sitting at my table, listening to distorted classical music being played over the speaker phone of my cell.

i am on hold for the CVS pharmacy.

i just finished a delightful meal. breakfast for lunch, to be precise. however, this breakfast for lunch will probably serve as my dinner, for it had so much delicious protein and carbohydrates that i will probably only have a little snacky before going to the big meeting tonight.

it was an infamously delicious ham, cheese and egg bagel. i ate it with relish. that is, i relished it, not that i put relish on it.

i relish relish. do you relish relish?

i do.

but not on ham, cheese and egg bagels.

on another note, vignettes are funny. i'm in a vignettey mood.

so, i am just sitting here, facing the window. and wondering at the mystery of our neighbor. apparently there is a old vietnamese woman who lives next door. in all of my years in this house, i have seen no sign of her, apart from the light in the window across from ours which mysteriously turns on and off. never have i seen a person in the room, even when the blinds are wide open.

i bet she's dead.

i bet her grandson killed her.

and there's a timer on the light in there.

oooh.

that would explain some things.

oh, speaking of neighbors, we have a neighbor lady who is a psychiatrist. i affectionately refer to her as "the psycho lady".

examples:

"oh look! the psycho lady is at our front door! uh oh!" [this happens once every few months]

"oh, the psycho lady is taking out the trash! that looks heavy!"

"hi, psycho lady!!!"

"hi, psycho lady's husband!"

ANYways, when we had the GIANT snow storm a few weeks ago, parking was very hard to come by on our street. innocent little lauren took said psycho lady's husband's parking spot. i just happened to be shoveling outside when the happy couple discovered lauren's car.

what followed was a stream of expletives and this note, which is now posted on lauren's bulletin board in her room:

and that's all for today. i have to go and buy things for stacey's wedding, like shoes and tights and.... relish.

not.

i leave you with this:

bye.

peaceful wednesday night happenings

"we keep having this problem... people get married, and we still get their mail!"

- lauren

no but seriously, kate and stacey get more than any of us combined... and it ALL comes here. and it's ALL about getting married. we have SO MANY WEDDING MAGAZINES.

OH, and speaking of getting married, lauren and i split a year-old wishbone yesterday.

well, i suppose that's not quite "speaking of getting married," but let me explain...

i have had this wishbone for over a year. i have been keeping it on my desk, waiting for the day that i have a good wish. SO, yesterday i decided that it had been sitting there long enough. i called brielle in and we decided that whoever got the big end of the stick would get a boyfriend this year. and then we decided that lauren was older, so she should participate instead of brielle.

so, we went and found lauren and explained to her the importance of this wishbone. as soon as she heard the stakes, she did not want to participate. brielle and i convinced her that she could make a dumb wish, so lauren decided that she was going to wish that a guy would ask her out the next day. but brielle and i really still knew what it would mean if she won. :)

SO. we braced ourselves, pulled the ends and..... POP, the middle part of the wishbone FLEW into the air, leaving both lauren and i with pitiful little sticks!!

we all stared in amazement for a second and then BURST out laughing. i guess there's always next year!

and here is the accursed thing! replete with our valentine's day decorations!

anyways, in general, life has been good and sweet.

there is a bouquet of beautiful valentine's day roses on our table, from our caregroup's guys. that makes life a little sweeter. :)

this evening i got home from my class, ate a warm cookie that lauren made and cuddled on the couch with joanna and talked about life and school and friendships and God, while i scratched her back. meanwhile, briellega peacefully slept on the other couch.

then lauren came in limping from a pulled muscle.

then we all sat around talking and laughing and procrastinating some more.

then ellen arrived from her late class and we talked and laughed some more.

now i'm sitting on the couch, blogging and listening to elvis's "only fools rush in".

i love ellen.

and now, i have to go perform my chores (vacuuming and sweeping the floors).

i'm hoping to get to bed early tonight, so i can awake early to read my Bible.

i am terribly sorry that my life isn't more amusing right now. it's just peacefully progressing onwards.

and i like it just fine :)

Prediabetes and Drew Brees

Today I ate an unusually great amount of sugar. I will not even list it all. After I consumed this enormous intake of sugar, I started thinking that I should cut back. Diabetes has been the topic of many recent conversations and so it has already been on my mind. I started to think that I might have prediabetes. So I researched it. Dr. Oz and WebMd are awesome resources. Here are some symptoms. I excluded a few:

What Are the Symptoms of Diabetes?

Common symptoms of diabetes include:

• Excessive thirst and appetite
• Increased urination (sometimes as often as every hour)
• Unusual weight loss or gain
• Fatigue
• Nausea, perhaps vomiting
• Blurred vision
• Dry mouth
• Slow-healing sores or cuts

Anyhow. I really think I am going to get checked. But for now, I am going to cut back on the sugar.... This is a sad day. A very sad day.

ANNNNDDDD. In other news, Drew Brees. I'm wondering if he is a Christian. He is now my favorite football player.

TITANIC

hi. this is rachel.

i have a pleasant announcement to make. tonight, in just a few minutes, i am about to see TITANIC for the first time. the very first time.

this post is really to appease lauren, who has threatened to not post anymore, if i don't say anything.

i don't know why, but i have been so unmotivated to blog recently. zero motivation. i just haven't been seeing things with "blogging eyes", as i like to call them.

for example, i could have done a post about brielle's pushups, which will (and i quote) enable her to rescue large men who are about to be flattened by trucks.

"rachel, stop making fun of me for doing push-ups. if you were stuck on a road and were about to be run over by an 18-wheeler, wouldn't you be glad that i did enough push-ups to carry you to safety?" "uh, yeah... sure, brielle."

or i could have written a post about the freakish display of black birds yesterday, while i was driving home from school. now, if you have been a faithful blog follower, you will know that i have a phobia of birds. luckily, this time, i was safely in my car. but, there were about four or five hundred black birds in the trees at a particular intersection, frantically flying to a bush on the other side of the street to eat berries or something.

it was weird.

anyways, hopefully i'll be in more of a blogging mood, or else lauren will boycott blogging and the world will be deprived of an irreplaceable and essential blobber.

haha.

i mean blogger.

ha. but blobber is funnier.

ok, now i'm off to watch titanic!

SNOWWW

We got snow this morning! Once everyone woke up, we sat around the table, just like a cute little family, and had pancakes. Then we got on our computers and enjoyed the fact that school was delayed. It's been a wonderful morning. YAYYA.

We ARE back.

Hello blog followers.

Much has happened since we tuned in last time. The semester has begun and we are all adjusting to this new half year. I'll provide you with a brief intro.

First. We have started the semester off in layers of sweatpants, socks, slippers, coats, and gloves. Why? Our heater has failed us. It is about 50 degrees in our house at all times. I wake up thinking that I just finished a night outside. But I shouldn't complain. There are people who really do wake up outside. But it is cold. And we are trying to get our landlady to fix it. And to fix our water. It's lukewarm. And to fix Rachel and Joanna's light in their room. It blows a fuse every time we turn it on. Man. Talk about the fact that all these things don't make buying a house look exciting.

Second. Our schedules are very different this year. We are all up early every morning since we are have morning classes. Ellen (she is the Third point) and I have to get up at insane hours for work and placements. Coffee will be one of my best friends this semester. In spite of these earlier schedules, everyone in the house (except me, the grandma) goes to bed at wee hours of the morning.

Third. Ellen M. (cannot mention last names for safety reasons). She is gorgeous. And she is our new roomie. Stacey has left us to get married (YAY) and Ellen has brought in a bed to replace Stace's. We will be posting some fun facts about Ellen later. But here are the basics. She is gorgeous. She is godly. She gets along with everyone. She is able to run very many miles. And she has more of a social life than anyone in this house. More to come on this wonder woman.

Fourth. 3 of us in this house are 21.

Fifth. No mouse sightings as of yet.

Sixth. BRYCE H (no last name) came over last night and secretly shoveled and salted our stairs outside. Seriously. THANK YOU BRYCE.

Seventh. This house is going to be so much fun. I love every girl in here. Who knows what this semester will bring. God has much in store. We are all making our plans, but God has the last say.

"Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."
Proverbs 16:3

We are committing this semester to him. Thanks readers!

BW IPT VGL BHM WTR to C FTTB. DF.

official classified abbreviations:

BW= beautiful woman

IPT= is partial to

VGL= very good looking

BHM= big handsome man (not to be confused with Bald Headed Man)

WTR to C= willing to relocate to Charlottesville

FTTB= for the time being

DF= drug free

cleaning with fee

[this blog post dedicated to casey somerville: may all of your cleaning be as fun as mine.]

my parents get back from uganda today.

therefore

i need to clean the whole house, so it is nice and pretty for them when they arrive.

i have strange ways of motivating myself to do things. this video demonstrates one of them- i.e. record my progress on something.

another one is timing myself. but that's for another time.

p.s. i love how, in this video, NOTHING looks any different. haha.

the end.

interpretive dance part 2

:)

oh celine. oh celine.

i love katie

this week katherine has come to stay with me whilst my parents and brother are away.

we have had some wonderful times. including the following: