A day at the beach: Lake Michigan

It was a beautiful day today. Very cold. Very windy. I didn't have plans for this afternoon and decided to take a stroll on the beach. (A very different kind of day than this day!)
As you can tell, the lake is frozen. I didn't go as far as that little kid, but it was pretty crazy! I've never seen anything like it in my life! And let me just tell you, every step I took scared me like crazy! Especially when your foot fell through a pocket of snow that was on top of the ice. Felt like I was going to fall through! Or when walking directly on the ice and hearing ccccrrrrraaccckkkk under your foot, now THAT is scary!
Don't worry, there were actually a ton of people out there today! I came across two separate families not from around here.
There were many ice-boulders out there on the lake.
Doesn't it just look incredible?
The little kids were having so much fun on the snow/ice/lake! I was scared that one of them would fall through into the lake, so I had to go back to solid ground and walk over to the pier. I couldn't keep watching them! Too scary!
Looks like frozen waves are pretty fun for sledding!
Here you can see a small cleft in the iced wave.
And this is a frozen wave!
You may not be able to tell, but this is probably about 8 to 10 feet tall!



I'm lucky to have gotten a this picture. It was so windy there on the lake, I had the hardest time holding the camera up, while keeping it all steady!
I just couldn't resist this picture! The water had froze on the railings and this was a frozen hole, perfect for peaking through! Definitely my favorite shot of the day!*

I had a lot of fun at the beach today... although, as I got in my car, frozen body, chapped face, and ready to go home and take a hot bath, I turned around in the parking lot and wouldn't you know it, I GOT STUCK! Yup... I noticed all the tire tracks and didn't think anything of it, until of course I couldn't go straight anymore. Then, I couldn't reverse either! I put it in neutral, then got out and tried to push. I continued this "pushing" with my car for about five minutes with no result. I would push, my car would move about an inch, then roll back towards me, where it was before, then I'd push again, and it would do the same thing. It was like pushing someone on the swings, (on a much smaller scale) it would just keep rolling back into place. It was so annoying! It didn't take much more time until a nice old man came over and started shoveling the snow from under my car, behind my front tires. Then another old man came over to watch. Then he started taking pictures! Then a few other young guys came over to watch the "show"! It got quite comical, you know. Then, to make it even better I told the guy to make sure he stand far back enough to get the whole effect, with the car, the snow up to my doors, and me, the blond that got stuck! Ah... a real life blond joke!

*I really wish I had a camera like either of my three sisters today! Umm... my birthday is in about 6 months guys! Hint. Hint.

Handicap Parking for non-handicapped people?

What do you think about when you think of the word handicap? When it comes to handicap parking, for some reason, when I see a car parked in handicap parking or someone pull into one, I want to make sure that they really are handicapped! I want to either see a tag hanging from their rear view mirror or a simple little symbol on their license plate. It might just be an obsession, who knows.
My friend from Texas was telling me this story of someone she works with: "I usually have to walk all the way across the empty parking lot to my car at the end of the day, but a friend of mine conveniently walks two parking spaces away to his car parked in a handicapped parking spot right next to the door! Mmmm... I wonder. Do you think that he left for a brief moment and parked there, right before leaving work to save time or hurry back to work? *rolls eyes* Or, maybe, do you think that he is handicapped? No... Well, do you think he just thinks that he can park there because he wants to and it doesn't matter if he parks in that spot, because there really is only one person that is truly handicapped in the entire building and there are 3 handicapped parking spots?" Either way, my friend was about to give that guy the benefit of the doubt, until she noticed his car was parked in that same spot for two weeks straight. As if it had "EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH HANDICAPPED PARKING SPOT FOR NON-HANDICAPPED PERSONS" sign in front of the spot?
Again, I'm not sure why this bothers me (or my friend) so extremely bad as it does, but it does!
Please. Please tell me that there are others out there that thinks this is wrong!

RAGTIME!

The first rehearsal went really well! The director gave an overview of the play and then we went over the many, many parts of the opening song. We were split into three groups: The New Rochelle Choir, The Harlem Choir, and the Immigrant Choir.
While my throat is a little raw from singing so much and more than I usually just sing, I am really excited about this play! I'm singing the alto/harmony part and I love it! Obviously there has to be a melody to a song but sometimes it's really the harmony part that makes a song a song, and with almost 60 of us singing from two to sometimes five different parts, the song is just powerful!
I'm one of the lucky ones that gets a book with all the lines and the music in it, because I have a small (very, very small) part of acting in the play. I'm also excited about being part of the New Rochelle Choir because they sing a total of 11 songs throughout the entire play! Not just the beginning and the end, but throughout the entire play and that is pretty cool.

This is the part in the play I have:

(Father returns from the North Pole. He stands in the front hall, bearded, rough-hewn, laden with exotic gifts. Brigit {that's me!}, enters with a dust mop.)

FATHER: "I'm home! Mother! Grandfather!

(Brigit screams at the sight of him.)

BRIGIT: Who the hell are you?

FATHER: Who in God's name are you?

BRIGIT: I'm Brigit! All right, that's enough, the back door for you, you brazen peddler.

FATHER: This is my home. I live here.

THE LITTLE BOY: Father! Father!

BRIGIT: Oh Holy Mother, it's the master!

(She runs out embarrassed.)
---

That's my part! That's it! Kinda funny, huh? I sure hope I can have all that memorized! Ha-ha! But you know, as minute of a part as that is, I'm sure glad I have a speaking part, because I may just want to do another play sometime! I'm very thankful that I have a speaking part because there were a lot of others who were great at acting during the auditions and they didn't get any speaking parts!

Musical Time!

Today is the first day of rehearsals for the musical "Ragtime". I auditioned with a friend who didn't make it, so unfortunately, I'll be there with 60 people, all of whom I do not know, so I'm either going to take a book to read* when I'm not needed, or I'll be real busy making friends fast!
I am playing a small role as "Maid Bridgit" as well as one of the singers in the "New Rochelle Chorus". I'm very excited to see what I'll be singing and wearing! I'm not an actor, but apparently I'm good enough!
If I can, I'll come back with pictures to show you guys of our first rehearsal!

Wish me luck!

*I'm currently reading "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak, recommended by my sister Rachael. The first book to read this year. I've just been reading a few chapters every night. While it's a good book, it's not one like "Twilight" that sucked me in and didn't allow me to do anything else but read its pages! But it is a pretty good book!

And the water just runs through...

I have a gallon at work that I fill with water every morning. My goal is to drink the entire gallon each day! I fill it up, then pour some into a water bottle and then mark the gallon of water for each water bottle so I can keep track of how many water bottles I have to drink and how many I have already drank for the day.

Well, yesterday was the day I got the closest to actually drinking the entire gallon! I started off good, by drinking 1.5 bottles of water (from the gallon) in the first hour and a half! Then came the potty breaks...

I had to potty all day long! And when I mean all day long, I literally mean, ALL DAY L-O-N-G! I didn't actually count how many times for the entire day, but I did count up to 9 times before I got off work last night (and I only worked 8 hours) so, I'm thinking that I went at least one time per hour that I was awake for the day (and I was only awake for 15 hours yesterday!)*

I try and not drink anything after I leave work at 6 p.m. so I'm not up all night long, but I just get so thirsty later in the day!

I don't think I'll actually drink a gallon of water every day, but it's pretty neat to have this as a goal and have water right at my desk and available if I get thirsty! Also, it's really cut down on my soda and coffee intake and I don't get head aches anymore due to caffeine with drawls!

You know when you water your plant too much and it starts leaking from the bottom the excess water that it doesn't need? Well, do you think there's any relation between that and drinking too much water? Just a thought...

*BTW: Sorry if this "potty" talk is a little TMI for people, but I thought it was really funny, and interesting enough to blog about! Thanks!

The Cat-In-The-Hat-Birdhouse!

This morning I noticed this birdhouse in the courtyard located in the middle of my work building. Isn't that just incredible!?!

The view out my window this morning...

single. females. cats.

I am a single female. Yes, I am dating Jason, but I'm not married, I live alone, and I have two cats. Unfortunately, I've also been noticing other single females that live with cats. I love cats and I don't have anything against them, but it does scare me a bit when I work around 30 and 40 year old single women that have pictures of their nieces and nephews (not kids) and they have a cat or two at home to welcome them home every night after work...

Mmmm...
So... while I'm on the topic, here are a couple pictures of my baby, Rocco last night, sleeping on my bed. Isn't he just precious???

Southern Style Cheese Grits

Jason took me to Cracker Barrel for breakfast/lunch today (I had breakfast/he had lunch). Okay, so we all know that Cracker Barrel is the place for home-made style southern food such as soft-melt-in-your-mouth biscuits and apple butter. But can someone please tell me why they serve instant grits? You know, the kind that tastes like it just isn't quite cooked all the way, because they probably ripped open the individual packet, put it in a bowl with water, popped it in the mic., stirred, and then set it before me with a slice of cheese on top! Okay, so I asked for a slice of cheese so I can have them the way I like 'em. But it just blows my mind that they would serve instant grits when they pride themselves for the home-made southern style cooking!
Alright, well, I'll step off this box, now. Just thought I'd share...

Cold Weather and Good Food!

We've had some really cold and snowy weather this week. While at work, I took a picture of the courtyard in the middle of our building to show how high the snow is getting. Looks like about a food and a half or more on top of that table, huh? This morning when I parked my car at work, I noticed the sun was shining through the clouds and it looked absolutely phenomenal! Even though it was only about 7 or so degrees (and feeling like 7 or so degrees below zero) I wanted to take a picture of it! So, I reached into my purse for my camera that I carry around with me everywhere and all the time and of course, I didn't have it! I was so ticked! The one day I didn't carry my camera and I had an awesome shot! Throughout the entire day, I kept wanting to take more pictures of random things I noticed or wanted to show someone a picture of something I have on my camera and then I remembered, yet again, that I left it at home! SO ANNOYING!!!

Thanks to Rachael, I was able to make these spaghetti cupcakes for our food day on Wednesday! Everyone thought they were just so cute and cool! BUT for the fact that apparently some guys didn't want one because they thought that I had actually put REAL meatballs on top of cupcakes! Hello! Really? REALLY? Ha-ha!

A co-worker sympathized with me and told me that she had made a kitty litter cake! Even made it inside a kitty litter pan (brand new and clean) and used a litter scoop (also brand new and clean!) to serve with! It looked pretty gross! She's planning on making one within the next few months, so I'll make sure I take a picture, if I can!

Either way, the food day was a success! I was in charge and chose to have "haystacks", a yummy plate of layered chips, beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, olives, salsa, sour cream, etc. and that everyone else called "taco salad" and "nachos"! NO! THEY ARE HAYSTACKS! BECAUSE WHEN YOU'RE FINALLY DONE LAYERING EVERYTHING ON YOUR PLATE, IT LOOKS LIKE A HUGE HAYSTACK! Okay, so maybe it is an SDA thing, but at least I work with two of those and they were able to help explain it to everyone!

You know, I'm actually pretty lucky to still like haystacks anyways, because when I was touring with the choir in boarding school, the nice people that let us stay in their house on Friday night would make us haystacks for dinner! And then after church, the church members would make us hungry high school-ers a huge lunch of yummy delicious haystacks! Then we'd travel to another area in Washington, perform our concert in the afternoon and then the nice church members of that church would serve us a nice hot meal! And yes, they served us HAYSTACKS! It was a running joke anytime we toured around because we all knew we'd be having at least one or two meals be haystacks! But you know... I just love them!

Weekend Events

While my great aunt has been in the hospital, many family members have come from Tennessee, Georgia, and California to visit her. We've had a great time visiting with each other. Aunt Kate loved having all the family here!
I hadn't realized just how much I missed my cousin Nick and I'm glad we were able to hang out with each other! Actually, We all had such a great time going out to eat, playing games, and watching our other cousin Andrew play indoor soccer, which I'm sure we embarrassed him with all our hootin' and hollering for him!
We also gathered together for breakfast on Sunday to celebrate Dewayne's 43rd birthday before he had to leave to go home to California. Denise, Rick and Nick left tonight for Tennessee and Georgia. So sad to see them all go and can't wait to see them all again!

It's belated, but still super cute!

I just found this clip on my camera of Tony's birthday and it was so cute! So I wanted to make sure I post this before it gets too late!

My first Slide-show!

Tony, Lori, and I headed to the hospital tonight to visit with Aunt Kate and family. Aunt Kate is doing so much better! She's smiling! And I'm sure she's anxious to get home soon! Tony was the life of the party! Thanks to Lori, I got some good pictures to share with you all (she took the ones at the hospital and I took the ones at her house). Isn't Tony just a little cutie? (The super short video below the slide show is of Tony. At one point, while drinking his bottle of milk, he pushed it away, looked at me and did the little tongue-in-between-the-lips-and-blow-thing at me and it was so cute! That's why you can hear me say "do it!" because I wanted him to do it again, when I was videoing him, but of course I'm not that lucky! He was sure cute though!)

Happy Birthday, Kristen!

Today is Kristen's birthday!* What a cute little girl/pre-teen she is! Here are just a few pictures I have from the last couple of months...

November - Rachael's birthday

September - Lake MichiganNovember - opening presents the weekend after Thanksgiving

January 5th - the last day of her 11th year

I love you, Kristen!

*well, I wrote this on the 5th, but waited until 12: 10 a.m. on the 6th to post it so I could say it was "today" but blogger wouldn't change the date for me! Thanks to Elle J, I got it fixed now!

A January Sunset

The view on my way home from work tonight:

Ben's concert

When I was at Rachael's house this morning, Ben wanted me to hear one of his favorite secret songs. I headed up to his room to hear his favorite song. He was so funny! He started singing along and bouncing on his bed while he sang this song "Emmanuel" but Ben pronounced it as "He-manuel" because of "He-man"!

Ben's little singing voice is so adorable and cute! And I can't wait to use this as one of those annoying auntie things when his future girlfriends are around! I'm sure they'll think he's just so cute, too!

(Notice how good he is at knowing all the words too!)

Ice-Capades-Ish

Last night Rachael asked me if I would go ice skating with her and the kids. She was just going to take Kristen, but if I went, then she'd bring all the kids, so I agreed. Natalie was also in town so she went too. Rachael's in-laws and Lori, Todd, and Tony came so we had quite the group. Tony was too small to skate and with a baby in her belly, Lori wasn't getting on the ice, so they left soon after they figured out that watching us skate in circles wasn't that entertaining!

The rink is just around the corner but it's been probably 4 or 5 years since I've been ice skating (I believe it was for Kristen's birthday).

Natalie had the great idea to stop and get hand warmers to stick inside our gloves so we got a pair of those and headed to the rink.

I was a bit nervous about being on the ice at first and then to make it even worse, I dropped one of my hand warmers on the ice and had to bend over to pick it up off the ice without falling! Luckily, I'm very flexible and didn't have to bend my knees or else I'm sure I would have a wet butt the whole time!

Jack was using one of those metal handle things to help him skate and after a while, it looked to me like it was making it worse, so I pulled him into the middle section of the rink and we skated back and forth. Natalie came over too and we got him skating without help and did pretty good! Later on, we were trying to help Katya do the same thing. I think it helped her a tiny bit, but she was still falling down with all limbs out (picture Bambi on the iced-over lake). It was funny sometimes, but she'd get right up and at it again. A few times she started crying so I started telling her that the hardest part is getting yourself up after falling on the ice (which is true if you fall down!)
About 20 minutes into the skating, my legs were killing me! The skates were digging into the backs of my legs, just above the ankles, and they're still killing me! At least I didn't fall down like Katya, because her knees are all bruised up! And you know how bruises like that hurt worse than they look!
We had a lot of fun! When I went over to Rachael's house this morning, I asked Ben why he didn't go and he said, "Why would I go there, when I could stay here and play DOMINOES!" Sounds like Derrick and Ben had a Domino tournament or something! (Sounds fun, too!)

New Years Eve in Chicago!

We had a lot of fun this year for New Year's Eve! Jason and I headed to Chicago with four friends and we had so much fun!We took the train into the city!Steve and BetsyRob and KymmBetsy: AKA the Orbit gum lady telling us to "clean that dirty mouth!" with Orbit gum!
I'm sure they're laughing because I said a super funny joke!
Jason pretending to be an asleep bum.
Here's a picture of the train station where we had to wait for the train to come in. Man, was it cold out there! I heard it was like 12 degrees or so but with the wind chill, I'm sure it was single digits (maybe even in the negative!)

We were pretty lucky! All the CTA train rides where just one penny! What a deal!

Jason and me

This is my "I'm shocked!" look!

We arrived to the train station and there was an ambulance and a fire truck in front, so we took a few pictures, then headed inside to catch our train. One of the cops told us they were there because of a Bomb Threat! But he was joking and started laughing at us for believing him! Apparently, some guy fell asleep in the middle of the waiting area for the train so they had to call in all these guys for that!

We tried to get the cops to take some fun pictures with us, but this is all we got from them.

Here we are taking an escalator in downtown Chicago.

Close up picture of me and Jay.

We had a really fun time! We ate at Miller's Restaurant. Their food was amazing! We're definitely going back, too! When we left, we gave our leftovers to a few homeless people outside the restaurant. I also had a few of those "hot hands" things that I had left over from a football game and gave those out to a few people. They last for about 10 hours! They were very happy about those!

We then headed over to another venue and listened to some jazz, featuring those two guys that were on the movie "Adventures in Babysitting"! It was pretty cool! Didn't get a great picture though, but it was neat just to see the guy that said "Ain't nobody leaving without singing the blues!" and I've had that "babysitting blues" song stuck in my head ever since!

After the countdown, we went back to the place we ate dinner at and just sat around and talked until forever!

Happy New Year Everyone!