Robe Day!

I am so excited about what i ordered today from the Robe sale!! So I got a black preaching robe like this:



mine is the black one, but I ordered it in a lighter fabric (for breathability and coolness) and i got black trim instead of red trim. I also got full pockets put in and a button hole on the right side above the pocket for a microphone cord!

I also got a white alb like this:



I also upgraded to the lighter fabric but got it lined so that it wouldn't be as thin (i.e. not see through - 'cause it annoys me to see a pastor's choice of loud patterned shirt under his/her alb) I also got the full pockets and microphone hole, and a white cincture ( rope like thing that wraps around the waist.

All that is going to be custom made for my measurements and will be sent to the store on campus in a few weeks! I'll take some photos when i get them in, if i remember to do so.

I also ordered my graduation hood and i got to take that home with me today which is so awesome! I got a free garment bag and stole because i ordered over a certain price. I got 25% off because i ordered today! So excited to see all my fun stuff for my future career, and preparing for graduation! I'm loving this because it got me through this week and it helps me keep going through the rest of the school year.

ok i hope you got to have an exciting thing happen to you today!!

Julia

bachelor thoughts!

wow two posts in a day! that's like almost a new record! it was a lot easier to do this time because i just wrote down my thoughts as i watched the episode.

Here are my thoughts on the hometown dates:

Gia's hometown: nice date, parents/family seemed really nice/open to Jake, no drama but no sparks either

Ali's hometown: sweet how she 'introduced' him to her grandmother. Asked for mom's blessing to marry her, that bodes well for Ali's chances.

Tenley's hometown: her dance was cheesy and awkward, but i think that he really dug it, he's a cheesy guy too. Asked for her parent's approval to marry her, bodes well.

Vienna's hometown: Went on a pontoon boat down the river. she seems really fake in many times on the date

then came the drama of Ali showing up on Jake's hotel room doorstep and telling him that she had to choose between staying on the bachelor or keeping her job back home. Sad day, because i love her and i think that jake and she are like perfect for one another! Basically I think she wanted to say "are you going to choose me because if not I can go ahead and go home." I mean i can totally understand her wanting to make sure that she had a reason to stay before she decided to go home or not. the previews of the episode on the commercials said 'there is no rose ceremony' that made me think that she was going home after i knew that was what the drama was this week.

She did decide to go home in the end, which i thought sucked. I mean i know in this economy she should really think about keeping her job above all else, but come on! if you really love him then you would have stayed Ali!

most of all i hated that it meant that Vienna was still there, i mean really Ali, take one for the team so that she'll go home. it will be interesting to see if Ali does the whole Ed/Reid thing from last season and comes back. AND the phone call scene from next week shows that she does something like that!!! drama, so much drama!!

ok i hope you enjoy my musings!

Julia

monday!

i hate mondays, going back to school each week just makes me cringe! so i have 38 more days of class left and i'm not loving it right now! i can't wait until spring break/ graduation!

i do have a few things to look forward to this week:
- the Bachelor tonight - um hometown dates! and hopefully Vienna going home!

- Robe day is tomorrow! that is when the bookstore has preaching robes on sale 25% off for the day. most people wear a preaching robe for baccalaureate and our hooding ceremony. So excited! I'm getting a white alb and a black preaching robe with a little red trim.

- this thursday Survivor premiers and i'm so excited, then you can look forward to my weekly thoughts/ musings about the episodes!

- this weekend in V-day!! yay! i look forward to valentine's day because Audie Rocks at giving gifts!! I however am not so good at getting gifts for folks, but you know we'll work it out, i'm expecting a run to target friday/saturday to get something. last year i did not do so well!

- also i'm so excited about the olympics! last olympics audie and i got chinese food (obviously) and watched the opening ceremonies, so fun! i haven't figured out what we'll eat because i'm not sure what is considered Canadian food so we'll see what we eat on Friday night, but i want to do a Canadian food theme!

ok i'm going to get dinner together so we can eat something.

Also: i was pumped that the Saints won the Super Bowl last night! i never want the same person/team to win multiple times so i like it that the team that had never been to the super bowl before won! and that quarter back guy and his little baby and wife were so stinking cute!!

ok done! love to all!

Julia

today's activities:

Included:

Finishing some homework.

Audie working and then getting home at 3pm. (which means that he's cheated out of like 30 bucks on his paycheck, but still has to work saturday!)

We decided to plan an impromptu super bowl party, invited five friends, two of which can come.

Went to the grocery store and Sam's to get groceries for the week and said party.

Decided that we are going to get each other Valentine's gifts this year (scrambling begins now! let it be said that my husband will come up with an awesome gift!) I know i may have thrown you off by saying 'decided' but Audie is planning a weekend off for us in a few weekends on the condition that i not bring one school related thing to do. I promised and then cried! SO i was hoping that would count as our valentine gift to one another because i suck at valentine's (and all) gifts for him! and he rocks at it which makes me really happy, yet depressed at the same time.

i started reading the archives of barefootfoodie.com, a new blog that amber told me about! hilarious, can't stop laughing or hitting the previous post button!

After a while i realized that i wanted to help out the fun at our super bowl party by making my pink lemonade spritzers ( citrus vodka, sprite and pink lemonade! yummy!!) but then realized that tomorrow is sunday and the liquor stores are closed, and they are already closed tonight, i guess we'll have to do with Mike's hard, parrot bay wine coolers, and the bud light my friend is bringing. well since it's only three of us drinking that should be fine!

realized that my house is probably too dirty to have folks over tomorrow, so we'll see if it gets cleaned before folks come over to watch the game/ really the commercials!!

i'm really excited about watching these commercials with DVR, so that i can rewind and watch the funniest ones again and again!!

Love to all!!

Julia

UGH!

Ok So i interrupt this day of homework to bring you a story from my day.

So i was up in the bed, reading for class next week, listening to the rain. (i know that's not a good study habit, but it helps the naps that happen when i read for class be better if i'm in the bed to begin with!) ANYway! So i'm having a really awesome dream, and then my phone rings, waking me up!

SO i reach for the phone ready to see what emergency meant that someone had to call me in the middle of the day! It was a number i didn't recognize but i answered it anyway ( probably because i'm on pins and needles waiting to hear about jobs from the hospitals, even though i won't find out until the 16th) When i quickly say hello, i hear the dreaded, "we have an important offer for you on the line, please stay on the line." OK so it's a telemarketer. in the second it takes me to think about hanging up i hear their 'important offer' speech begin. There is a sound like a bull horn, and then an offer of a cruise. OK so now i'm really mad! i have gotten calls from this particular group of folks about 4 or 5 times in the last few months. Usually i hang up right after the cruise horn, but this time they had woken me up from an awesome nap!


So i pressed 0 - hoping to get an operator i could tell to take me off the call list, if i got there quick they would be lucky enough not to hear me yell.

I got to a survey that they wanted me to take. after the question began i press 0 as my answer to it about 10-15 more times, finally it told me that i was now going to receive two tickets to Nassau and to stay on the line. I push 0 again, and then am told i will be talking to someone soon. after about a 30 second wait, a lady answers the phone by asking me if i would like to give her my full name.

I Promptly responded "NO, i want you guys to never call' click, automated voice: "You have been automatically put on our do not call list." Thank you very much!

End of story- unless they call again next month.

ok guys catch you later!

Cookies and Homework!

Hi ya'll I don't have much going on to update you on. Friday is homework day in my house so i'm trying to read up for this week. Audie and I are headed over to a friend's house for a game night party tonight, and i'm excited to get to have a ton of fun with them. Boo on the fact that Audie has to work tomorrow so we'll have to leave relatively early.

So in other news last night my friend, who is a youth minister, was telling me how stressed she is right now. Next weekend her kids are going skiing and they had a fundraiser dinner to make money for the trip planned for last weekend. Because of the snow they canceled and rescheduled for THIS weekend. She also was supposed to have a district lock-in tonight, the fundraiser tomorrow, preach sunday, and like a million other things. The lock-in was moved thankfully. So I asked her what i could to do to help and Last night i baked 50 cookies for her to use for desert for the dinner for tomorrow. The were really cute and "valentinesy" so i thought i would share them with you! ( you can also use hersey's kisses but the heart shaped chocolate is what makes them valentine)


Peanut Butter Cookies with Chocolate Candies

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated)
¾ cup peanut butter
2 cups Original Bisquick® mix
1 teaspoon vanilla
Sugar
About 36 heart-shaped milk chocolate candies or heresy’s kisses

•Heat oven to 375°F. In large bowl, stir milk and peanut butter until smooth.
•Stir in Bisquick mix and vanilla.
•Shape dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. Roll tops in sugar.
•Place sugar side up 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
•Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until bottoms of cookies just begin to brown.
•Immediately press chocolate candy into top of each cookie. Remove from cookie sheet to cooling rack.

They came out really good! So i hope you enjoy, and have a great weekend folks!!

Julia

111

Today is my 111th post. I know it's probably more conventional to celebrate post 100, but i got behind and didn't notice i was in the hundreds until a few days ago. SO i have been blogging for almost a year and 1/2 but have only done 111 posts. Which means that the streak i have been on lately is even more impressive!! Be proud please!

So today i didn't have class until 2:30, usually i go in at 1:45-2 to get to my classroom and get settled before class actually starts. My three good friends, Meridith, Danny, and Sarah, all have class/ work on Wednesday morning. We usually try to find a day of the week that works for the four of us to go to lunch together. Wednesday is shaking out to be the best day for everyone but me. SO today i hauled my cookies to school 2 hours early for us all to have lunch only to have Meridith bail on us!! not fun! I mean she wasn't feeling well, but still she could have come out for us!!!

Anyway the real amazing part of the day was that i made it from my house to the meeting place on campus, the chapel in 15 minutes! I parked my car in a VERY slushy parking spot (i had to really work to get out because there were some bad people who basically parked right behind me!) Then i made my self walk/hike/briskly get up to the chapel in only the remaining 7 minutes. This is actually quite a feat, because i am the world's slowest walker! I usually take the walk in about 15 minutes (if i don't wait for the bus, which takes at least 10-12) SO it's good to know that i can book it to class next time i oversleep! (not for the 2:30 class, but the 10:00 one on tuesday/thursday) ANYway i was proud! But of course i was all kind of winded, glistening with sweat and had definitely had increased my heart rate! That probably means i should make the walk faster more often!!

Ok i hope you had as exciting a day as i did!

Julia

today!

Oh good! Durham Public schools and all the other counties in our area have their third day off of school for snow tomorrow! And did Duke give us ANY of that time off??? NOPE!! am i a little bit bitter??? YEP! i mean i know that each school has to do what is right for them, and i didn't have a hard time getting to school these last two days, but it still sucks.

In other news, not much is going on because of the snow. We're going to school and work like normal now. The snow that we had from Saturday is all icy and a bit mushy. This morning it began raining which did not help at all. So i had some real issues getting out of my parking space this morning and this afternoon, but the roads were fairly clear, so it wasn't bad driving.

In other news i got my first grade back on one of my papers due last week. I got a B but she did say that she was going to grade this first paper a bit harder than normal, so maybe that bodes well for my grade in the class. This was the class i was really on the fence about taking it pass/fail or not, so now i think i made the best decision.

Ok guys, going to watch Biggest Loser, Teen Mom, and Little Couple. Actually all that in being recorded so i have to do some homework too!

Julia

NO!!!

He kept Vienna! I wasn't really surprised based on how the show has been going. BUT i was pretty disappointed personally!

I'm hoping that the hometown dates will open his eyes to the fact that she's not ready to be his wife. I thought that her idea of marriage: Where you get up everyday and say "i love you!!!" was a bit immature. Not that audie and i don't love each other every day, but you can't expect yourself to be that kiddy kind of love everyday!

but i was so proud of Corrie for being really open and real about her choices about not having sex before marriage. I'm glad that she was honest about it to Jake. I'm sad that it didn't work out between the two of them, because i liked her from the get go!

Sorry there wasn't much drama this week, looks like there will be tons of drama next week. I'm not sure what's up with the no rose ceremony, and what's on the other side of the door that sets things off, but i'm excited about it!!

Ok girls (pretty sure you're all that is out there) I'll keep you updated on what's up!

Julia

Snow Day - Monday

Ok so Audie got today off, his boss called and told him that they would be closed today because of the weather. So Audie spent the day at home. We ventured out for chic-fil-a today. Mostly because we NEEDED to get out of the house and i wanted to check out the roads to see if i should go to class.

Audie decided that if i wanted to go to class he could drive me. So here i am. Waiting for my class to start. At least i have a chauffeur.

TTFN,

Julia