Musings

These are my random thoughts. I like to pretend to be very intellectual. Sometimes my posts are deep and sometimes they are about the weather, but they are always worth reading ;)

Monday, July 28, 2008

Thumbs Down

So last week I stumbled across Meg's Blog where she was talking about her dislike of tomatoes. It reminded me... I did 101 of my favorite things not long ago and I said I would make a list of things I didn't like. This list is considerably shorter!

1.) TOMATOES (yuck)
2.) Clowns (I freak out around clowns)
3.) Lightning
4.) Mosquitoes (if I get bit, it swells up A LOT)
5.) Any other type of bug (except lady bugs and granddaddy long legs, i can deal with those)
6.) Poor grammar
7.) Cheap air fresheners
8.) Fake plants
9.) Being cold (unless I'm sleeping)
10.) I can't find one of my pearl earrings :(
11.) My apartment doesn't get ABC Family or Disney Channel, among a lot of other channels we don't get there
12.) Elevators (I got stuck in one when I was little)
13.) Crooked pictures
14.) Raw mushrooms (I can eat them if they are chopped up little and are cooked)
15.) Forgetting my sunglasses.
16.) When it takes professors weeks to grade a test! (Seriously, I don't understand the ones that take forever... if some of my professors can post grades in less than 12 hours then everyone can do it in a couple of days).
17.) Having a craving but not know what you are craving.
18.) Driving in the rain.
19.) Bad music.
20.) When I need cash and don't have it... which is always!!

There we go a short little list of some things that get me agitated. I'm glad that it was relatively easy for me to come up with 101 things I loved but a good while to come up with only 20 things I don't like. I'm glad I'm not a really picky person or I would be constantly agitated.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Friday's Fun Factoids

So every Friday I'm going to give you 11 factoids about myself. Factoids are usually brief and trivial and that's what these will be. There are also known to be somewhat untrue. I promise you that at the time of post these are true. However, as the author I reserve the right to change the factoid. So if you are reading this a year from now, things could have possibly changed. Here go the first 11 facts.

1.) My middle name is Jayne.
2.) I share this name with my mom, my aunt and my cousin.
3.) One day my little girl will share it also.
4.) My birthday is Novemeber 2nd.
5.) The same as Marie Antoinette, Daniel Boone, Warren G. Harding, & James K. Polk.
6.) It's also the Day of the Dead. I know you're jealous.
7.) I lived in Columbia, SC until I was 11.
8.) 11 is my favorite number... hence, 11 facts.
9.) I like being very organized.
10.) My closet is arranged by item of clothing.
11.) And then by color.

So those aren't that fun but I need to work on this some.

And here's a random picture!

Of Syd!

She says have a great weekend!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

"Dancin', Shaggin' on the Boulevard"

You may have heard this song by Alabama and wondered about it. If you are not from the South you could be thoroughly puzzled as to what shagging is! I remember meeting two guys at the beach one time that were from Texas and they were videotaping their trip. They wanted us to talk about SC so me and my friends named of some things. When someone said shaggin' their faces were surprised. They had only heard of shaggin' in Austin Powers movies. I assure you it is not the British version.

The Carolina Shag is a dance that came out of Myrtle Beach in the early 1900's after WWI and is now our official state dance here in SC. I would describe it as a slower version of swing dancing. Usually shag is danced to beach music like "I Love Beach Music" and "Carolina Girls", however, bluegrass can be used also. Shag was such a hit that it has grown to huge popularity in the South. Now older people and teenagers enjoy the same dance. It is a rare thing in today's world to experience such a commonality.

When Northern students come to Clemson and sign up for classes, they are bewildered when they see that several levels of shag classes are offered in Leisure Skills classes. I took a class last year in the fall and I'm taking another this fall.

Here are some pictures of Max and I shaggin' a couple weeks ago. He's learning and is already better than a lot of guys my age.

Please ignore our clothes. Haha.


One...

Two...

Three! Closed position.

He was having so much fun! :)

Here are some Youtube videos that will show you a sample of what it looks like in motion.

In this video, they are just doing basic steps and moves. Most people know how to do this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9zYP_oirDU&feature=related

These guys can dance really well and a really advance. I definitely can't do this! Maybe someday but these guys dance professionally and compete.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaUWs63iBz0

Here are some kids shagging. They are really good also!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hel4aZ_4af0&feature=related

Ok this is the last video. You might want to turn off your sound because it's very crackly. But this is a good example how everyone shags a little differently and with their own style. I'm not really sure what the boy in the middle is doing but watch everyone else around them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGJx1mI-wns

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Back to School Joys

As the time for school draws nearer, there is one particular aspect of going back to school that has always made me very exuberated. That is shopping for school supplies. Now I love shopping for school supplies at all times of the year but at the end of the summer it is a huge deal. Stores set aside special displays for all of the crayons, folders, and glue sticks. Target always has a very pleasing set up with bins of pencils, erasers and anything else you could need. I don’t know why but the sight of a hundred pounds of mini staplers just makes me so happy.

I am always interested to see what new stuff they come up with each year. This year I was pretty fascinated with the No-cap Magic Markers. They just twist up and down like some pens do. I like this idea so that you don’t lose the cap and the marker dries out.

My favorite school supplies include the following: Post-It notes, fine point pens, highlighters, calculators (because I’m terrible at math) and markers (I had over 100 at one point in high school that I kept in a gallon Ziploc bag).

I also like looking at the new bookbags. At my high school pretty much everyone had a L.L. Bean bookbag… I had a navy one for a while. Northface bookbags were also popular so I got one of those senior year and still use it. Now I use big bags mostly to carry around my books but it still makes me happy when I’m walking around campus and I see someone in front of me with a L.L. Bean book bag with their initials monogrammed on it.

We also put games on our graphing calculator. I handed down mine to my younger brother since I don’t have to take anymore math classes ever (can I get a hallelujah!). But I still miss games like Home Run Derby (which I was very good at) and Black Hole (which I was not) and countless other games that we played at inappropriate times.

A few school supplies that I don’t miss from high school are bookcovers for one. I hated putting them on my books. Mainly because there was always someone that put the exact same cover on that you had put on a particular book.

I look forward to the day when I get to take my kiddies shopping for fun school supplies. My kid's school supplies are definitely going to be better than your kids. :)

And we have a new poll to the right. Check it out! You have till the 29th of this month to vote!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Spring Cleaning... for my computer

So for the last six months or so my laptop has been having a lot of problems... running really slowly, overheating, shutting itself off. I haven't even used it in the last three or so months because it wasn't worth the pain to be on the computer. I figured I had some really bad virus or something.

So Thursday, Mommy Dearest and I took my laptop up to Best Buy and I explained to them the problems I've been having. I've been very stressed about my computer for the last few months, thinking there's no way I can afford to buy a new one right now. So the nice man from the Geek Squad was like it sounds like you might have a problem with your fan. He was like it takes a while to replace a fan but that he could do it.

He went in the back and came back out with a can of compressed air. He proceeded to spray it in the side of my laptop. Well, I think enough dust came out that could cover every surface in my room if I didn't dust for a whole year. He was like "wow, that's you're problem!" He took my computer in the back and reversed the flow on a vacuum and stucked out a lot more dust bunnies.

So, I have my computer back now... running fine. I got a can of air so I can "dust" my computer out every month. I'm very happy that I don't have to get another computer(although I would like a Mac) and the Geeks told me that I have an "awesome" computer. Hopefully, my "awesome" computer will behave much better in the future now that it's clean.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Neville's Story

On August 19, 2006, the sun was just coming up in Columbia, SC when the family stopped on the way to Tigertown at Lowe’s to buy some moving necessities. On the way out of the store Neville was adopted. An unnamed plant was also adopted and they left Columbia on their journey to college. Neville and his unnamed sister were placed in the back in between all of their Mom’s boxes and a chair. Neville was named after Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter because Longbottom loved Herbology, the study of plants.

When they arrived in Tigertown and began to unload Mom’s life out of the back of her mom’s van, the plants were placed on top of some boxes right outside the new dorm room and watched all day as everything was put away. At last all the clothes were in the closet, the bed was made, and the books on the shelves. The plants were brought in and hung, one on each side under the bed that had been lofted five feet in the air.

There Neville and his sister hung up there for several weeks, watching new friends come and go. They saw the late night studying and heard the sounds of people talking loudly in the bathroom across the hall at all hours. After about three months, Neville’s sister became very sickly of unknown causes and shortly after was buried in the fifth story garbage shoot on the other end of the hall. But Neville thrived and grew up, anxious to see the action that was unfolding before him.

The rest of the semester Neville surveyed out the window the crowd that appeared on Saturdays for football games. The people in orange must show up sometime in the night because when he went to sleep they weren’t there and in the morning the whole campus was booming with tailgating. The dorm room had a wonderful view. Neville could see the top of Tillman Clock tower, the top of Death Valley, the edge of Lake Hartwell and the mountains in the distance.

Here, Mere, Kiki and Prissy are tailgatin'... getting ready for the FSU game last fall.

He also saw the first failed test and the first A. Neville meet Kiki, Peach, Hunner, Dustbunny, Prissy, Lucky Lime and Pony Girl. Neville saw his mom’s 19th birthday and he saw the computer crash. The first semester exams went by and second semester came.

Neville had the dorm room to himself with his mom after the other girl who lived there left. Spring semester brought better grades and more new friends. February also brought snow. It was the first time he had seen snow and it was beautiful covering the campus outside the window. Neville was excited that there was no class that day. He watched the people outside slide down the dam and build snowmen.


This is Bowman field... it sits at the front of the school, just before you get to downtown(which is to the left in this picture). This was about 6:30am the day it snowed.

As spring went along, Neville saw less and less of the girls in the dormitory. They were drawn outside by the baseball games, the nice weather to lay out in and the spring break take his mother to New York City.

Here are Henceforth and Mere in Times Square... it was very cold for a spring break! It even snowed while they were there.

Then one afternoon, Neville watched as the first eight months of his life was packed up in boxes and taken back to Flowertown for the summer. Neville was happy to be home and sat in the big window all summer. But pretty soon it was time for another move. It was August again and Neville was moving in with his mom, Kiki, Prissy and Peach into a town house.

Neville took his place on top of the fridge in the new home where he could take everything in and scrutinize the cooking of the girls that lived there. Cooking was the only thing that went on in that kitchen. He met Miss Moon and D. Neville watched as people came over for dinner and saw mom’s 20th birthday come and go with a party. He saw the frying pan catch on fire. He saw the girls dance in the kitchen and laugh the fall semester away. He missed the dorm's fifth story window where he could see the school, but was very happy to be in a quieter place.


This is Prissy, Mere, and Kiki at their townhouse. It's football season... notice the record on the fridge.

Neville went home for Christmas with his mom and there had surgery that was very successful in producing another plant, Luna, for Henceforth from a long appendage. Neville wanted to go back to school though and pretty soon took his place back on top of the refrigerator. Poor Neville lost a few limbs after being shut in the freezer and having to have more surgery to remove the frostbitten appendages.

Neville enjoyed watching the people come and go, wishing them luck with their classes and missing them on weekends when they left to go out of town. In March, Neville was very excited to hear that his mother was accepted into nursing school and celebrated with everyone. But once again the weather got warmer and the girls were drawn out of the house with baseball and to the pool across the street.

This is Peach, Prissy, Mere, Kiki and a friend on Kiki's birthday in April. Neville is watching the girls taking lots of pictures like they always do.

Now Neville is in Flowertown again for the summer. Sitting in the big window and waiting for fall to come. Neville is waiting to see what will happen this year.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

101 Things I Love

I've decided to summarize myself in 101 things that reveal my personality somewhat. I promise to be quick :)

1.) My family
2.) My friends
3.) My baby pillow(can’t sleep w/o it)
4.) The beach (how generic)
5.) Monograms
6.) Text messaging
7.) Bobby pins
8.) PDAs (don’t have one, want one)
9.) Photography (my camera is currently broken)
10.) My piano
11.) Palmetto trees
12.) Grey’s Anatomy (I started watching that show the first season only because the girl’s name was Meredith)
13.) Mascara
14.) My Costas
15.) LemonBerry slushies from Sonic
16.) Kickboxing
17.) Running
18.) Online banking
19.) Peach colored roses
20.) Cooking desserts
21.) Watching baseball
22.) Boston Red Sox
23.) Football season
24.) Clemson!!
25.) Moos from Moe’s
26.) Dave Matthews Band
27.) Tervis Tumblers (you should get one or two or three)
28.) Post – It notes (pink ones)
29.) Cool showers in the afternoon on a summer day
30.) Really old pictures
31.) Watermelon
32.) Zalads from Zaxby’s
33.) Mandarin oranges
34.) My brown Rainbows
35.) Ceiling fans set to medium
36.) Neapolitan Dynamite – Ben & Jerry’s
37.) Cape Cod Chicken Salad on a croissant
38.) Yorkies (I WILL have one one day)
39.) Weather.com
40.) Gone with the Wind – book and movie
41.) Panera
42.) When I have Tigerstripe money
43.) Crème Brulee Cheesecake (definitely suggest trying this)
44.) My iHome
45.) The fact that I don’t have to wax my eyebrows
46.) Coors Light
47.) Scientific or medical terminology
48.) The way the bathroom smells after my daddy shaves
49.) Facebook chat
50.) Bibles with a concordance
51.) My earrings
52.) Drag-n-drop
53.) Knowing the words (or at least most of them) to a rap
54.) Trying to randomly (and fluently) speak in Spanish
55.) To-Go cups
56.) When the radio plays exactly the song I want it to play
57.) The fact that there are songs on my iPod I’ve never heard
58.) Chocolate Lovin’ Spooncake from McAllister’s
59.) Broadway (even though I’ve only ever seen one show, I loved it!)
60.) The feeling of Friday at lunchtime
61.) Sitting in the middle of the couch between the cushions (that’s my spot)
62.) Charleston Chews(vanilla)
63.) Discovering a new band
64.) Walks on the beach
65.) Apples to Apples
66.) Croakies
67.) The fact that I know all 50 state capitals (I’m working on national capitals now and African countries)
68.) Things that smell like vanilla
69.) Kitchen stores
70.) The pineapple water fountain at the waterfront park (see picture in previous blog)
71.) T-shirts (I have well over 50)
72.) Pandora radio
73.) Getting all the green lights from Azalea Square to my house
74.) Black nail polish (no, I’m not emo)
75.) The smell of the ocean as you get closer to the beach
76.) Parentheses (if you can’t tell)
77.) When you have a wonderful waiter or waitress
78.) The smell of an indoor pool
79.) Proper grammar
80.) My mom’s polish pottery
81.) Iced sweet tea
82.) Sweet emails
83.) That it only snows one time a year at school and never at home (I’ve come to learn I’m not really a huge fan of snow, it’s just exciting because it rarely happens)
84.) Magnolias
85.) When the leaves fall in autumn.
86.) Breaking a $20
87.) Studying on the first floor of the library(which is 3 floors underground) in the back = no cell service
88.) Organization
89.) Peanut Butter
90.) Tailgating
91.) The fact that I carry my life in my purse
92.) The smell of gasoline
93.) Wedding shows
94.) InStyle magazine
95.) My plant. His name is Neville.
96.) Art galleries
97.) Nightgowns
98.) Hand sanitizer.
99.) Harry Potter
100.) Shagging
101.) Zicam

These are in no particular order, just the order I thought of them. I hope you didn't get bored by #23 and stop. I tried not to say generic things like "shopping, music, shoes" blah blah.

Maybe soon I'll do a list of things I don't like. Not tomorrow though, too soon. Tomorrow is Neville's story so come back and read it. It's going to be good. Have a wonderful Thursday!!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

ETA: 31 days

One month till the move back to school happens. I have most of my stuff in my apartment still but we will have to move all of Henceforth's stuff into her dorm room. Although this has been a long summer, time is now flying by and things need to be done. I still have to get my computer fixed, get books, buy a car, move my clothes back before we move in Henceforth.

I am very excited that I will not have any classes on Friday and my only class on Monday is Intermediate Shag. I took 8am classes everyday both fall and spring semester last year and it was terrible! I don't suggest doing that if you can help it. Give yourself at least 1 day that you don't have to get up early.
Here are a few things I'm looking forward to about going back to school:

1.) I can take naps again which I can't do now since I work all day.

2.) Having a pool 100 feet from my front door.

3.) Football season.
FSU Season Opener - Labor Day 2007

4.) My own bathroom.

5.) No humidity.
More football! Homecoming Game 2007


Here are a few things I'm not looking forward to:
1.) Nutrition at 8am on Tues/Thurs.

2.) Terrible cable/internet... the internet works 50% of the time and we don't get very many channels especially ABC family and disney channel.

3.) Walking to class in 95 degree weather the first couple weeks of school.

4.) The water tastes gross (my hair likes it though).

5.) Standing in line for football tickets.

Friday, July 11, 2008

TGIF


Today is July 11th. Today is Max's 12th birthday. Today is Friday. Today is not off to a good start. It is only 9:30am and the day is not going well. First of all, Steve(the red Jeep) would not start and is currently at the auto shop getting fixed. It's also probably one of the most humid days we've had so far this summer. It's drizzling also... not enough for an umbrella but enough to be annoying.

On the fourth, my girlfriends Lucky Lime and Miss Moon came to visit and we went to Dave Matthews and spent the day in Charleston.


It was brutally hot but we toughed it out and had a wonderful day full of shopping and history.

This is one of my favorite spots in Charleston. The pineapple fountain at the waterfront park.

We ate at Mellow Mushroom before heading over to the concert and we met a drunken pseudo-racecar driver who autographed our to-go boxes and told us it would be worth $2 one day. He was very interesting and his "crew chief" gave Lucky Lime his number. Then the highlight of the weekend was of course the man himself, DAVE MATTHEWS. After standing in a rowdy line for about 45 minutes we finally made it inside the stadium and pushed our way to the opposite side where our seats were. The stage is out of the shot to the right.
We got there and untied Miss Moon's camera from LL's undies (our solution to the no camera policy). We were a bit disappointed we were so far away but then it dawned on us to try to get on the field. AND IT WORKED!! The nice old security man didn't even look at our tickets and told us to enjoy our night... I think he made a lot more people than us happy that night.
We are very excited to be there!! There were a couple of ridiculous people around us. One guy was soaking wet (we couldn't tell if it was from sweat or the fact that he was giving everyone a shower with his water bottle) and he kept dancing around and bouncing in to LL... much to her dismay.

The sun went down and surprisingly it just got hotter not cooler. This is about as close as we got but it was a lot better than where we were supposed to be sitting.

Here is the man. It took a lot of effort to get this shot. I think the two tallest people in the whole place were standing in front of us at one point!!

Yay for Dave.

The rest of this week has been rather uneventful. Wednesday Mommy Dearest and I took Bruddy up to visit some friends around Tigertown and I went to my apartment and took a few clothes and things I'm not going to use until I get back to school. The countdown is at 36 days till Henceforth and I move back to school.
Hopefully, the weekend will not be like my morning. G00d thing I drank some coffee this morning. :)
All photos of Dave are courtesy of Miss Moon.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Solid CO2

So today I stayed home from work to clean up the house a little bit in anticipation for the arrival of Lucky Lime and Miss Moon from Flo. We got a UPS delivery which was very exciting. Frozen burgers and franks from Omaha, YUM. The best part though was underneath all the meat was a package of dry ice. I told Max I had a surprise for him and when I gave him the bag of ice he was not very thrilled. I told him it was dry ice and his reaction was "so?". I told him it was cool ice, no pun intended. So we started playing with it and pretty soon Bruddy joined in the fun. Here are some pictures of our different "experiments".

First thing you do is take a small piece of dry ice and pour water on top.

TA-DA... "smoke".

Then we put dish soap in it...

The bubbles were frozen...


So when you popped them they turned smoky again.


Bruddy got a pretty tall stack but it broke in half shortly after this shot.


Notice the concentration :)


Then we decided to put Germ-X(one of my favorite things) in on top of the soap. This is what happens... bigger bubbles.


The thin dark piece is the dry ice.


I think this is baking soda and vinegar but I'm not 100% sure.


"NO, Bruddy!" (*Please do not eat or inhale dry ice*)

Closed off.... and OPEN!

The little scientist


Here is a view of all the "experiments" going on... Bruddy is taking videos on his phone.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Infinite Vocabulary

Have you ever learned the meaning of a word or phrase and then it was used by someone later that day or the next. This happens to me all the time although I can't think of a specific instance at the moment. Why am I all the sudden so aware of the word?

It makes me wonder before I knew the meaning of a word my mind completely blocks it out or skips over it when I hear or read it. Or is it because is is fresh in my mind that I am so much more aware when the word is used.

Which ever is the case, I am always amazed when this happens because it makes me wonder about all the other words out there I don't know yet. I am also equally amazed when its seems like everyone but me knows the definition of a word. I guess I didn't pay attention to Word Within a Word quizzes as much as I should have.


Here is Noah Webster himself. Can you imagine being his friend or collegue and trying to carry on a conversation with someone that possesses such an extensive vocabulary?

Also I've added a link on the right side-bar that allows you to subscribe to my blog so you don't have to keep checking back for a new post but it will be delivered promptly to your email.