Really Cool New Toy!

Yesterday, I was so fed up with my palm pilot that I just about threw it across the room.  This time of year is CRAZY for me and I need to be able to depend on something to keep me organized.  Needless to say, my palm has been anything but organized  lately!  I have missed dates, I haven't gotten reminders and well it has just added to my stress level.  Jamie and I have been looking at the iPod touch as a replacement for my palm for quite some time, so when I was ready to heave it across the room yesterday we caved and decided to go look at them in an apple store.

Well, I am sure you can see where this is going.  We went to the store and of course we came home with an 16GB iPod touch (happy early Christmas to me).  It is soooo cool!!  I feel like I should be in the in group at school or something because I have the newest coolest toy, it really is the "funnest iPod ever".  Today, we were walking with Piper and all I wanted to do was to go home and play with my new toy.  I even had to "make a deal" with myself as to how much work I would have to do today before I could play on it.  I finished the 4 stacks of grading that I had to do, so I get to play now.  The only disappointing thing in this whole venture is that I have bumped up an age bracket.  When registering it online I had to check the 25-34 year old box.  Man-o-man did that make me feel old... but it's okay- I may be old but I have a really cool new toy.

Sweet Dreams Piper

This video is really dark, but the audio is precious (turn up your speakers to get the full effect)!  Piper quite frequently has the cutest puppy dreams.  She lays at our feet while we work at our computers and often we will stop what we are doing just to listen to her dreaming.  I have yet to capture this phenomenon in all of it's glory (she wakes up when I go to reach for the camera) however, this one will have to do for now (you can kind of see her face in the video).  I know that these dreams are wonderful, I mean I am sure that in her dreams she is playing in some type of dog park heaven with all of her dog friends, eating all of the peanut butter that she can get.

Comfortable Kitties

In the new house Jamie and I have a little bit of extra room so we are "holding" a couch for his parents until either Nicole or Holly Ann have a place for it in their home.  Jamie and George moved the couch over here today.  It was going to go in Pipers room however, it wouldn't make it around the corner to actually get into that room.  So after a little bit of rearranging it has found a home in the guest room.  Moving things around in there pushed me to clean up a little bit; up until this point that room was just a holding place for all things that hadn't yet found a place in the house.  I didn't clean a lot but I did move some stuff off of the bed so it doesn't look like a junk hole anymore and it is clean enough that I will leave the door open.  Needless to say, the kitties were really excited to have the bed to nap on again.  This is how I found them tonight after dinner- they can really be cute sometimes.  Do you think they could be related?

The Naturalization Process

Well, for those of you that don't know, I started the process to become a US citizen about a month and a half ago.  I decided to take the leap and make this permanent, and well I wanted to be able to officially take my husband's name.  

This process includes a hefty sum of money, a ridiculously long application, and the patience of a saint.  The application is really quite long, about 15 pages, and actually asks questions like "Have you ever been a habitual drunkard".  I am not sure how many people actually say "yes" to that, but I guess there have been a few.  The application took a long to time to complete, but now that I have finished that I am at the mercy of the government.  I occasionally get these very "official" looking letters in the mail from the department of homeland security, they are printed on high-tech watermarked paper.  My first letter simply said that my application had been received and that not to contact them unless I hadn't heard anything within the next 365 days.  What- 365 days, yup only after a year of not hearing anything would they answer any of my questions.  I guess I will count myself lucky because I received my first follow-up letter about 2 1/2 weeks after the first one.  I was told to show up for finger prints on 09-11-08  at 8am at some obscure building off of 436.  If you don't show for that appointment they drop your application and you don't get your money back.  So, I scheduled off from work and left the house 1 1/2 hours before my appointment, just in case.  I was in and out of there in less than 1/2 an hour, I guess that is what happens when you are first in line and have been waiting for over an hour.

I do find it interesting that I had my first official appointment on 09-11, if that is not irony I am not sure what is.  I will be sure to keep you posted on this interesting experience.  Jamie and I will invite you all to the party when it's official (my name change and the citizenship thing) the menu will have to be hamburgers and apple pie, you know, American food :)

Football and Flowers

It has been awhile since I have posted; school has been sucking up all of my time.  This weekend Jamie and I had a wonderful work-free Saturday.  It was a wonderful mix of football and flowers.  Jamie and I spent the morning at Leu Gardens (Uncle Bob came too), enjoying the time outside and taking pictures.  We occasionally go to gardens in the area just to be outside and play with the cameras.  The rest of the day was spent watching football.  Southern Miss in the morning, and although they lost, the game wasn't a complete bust; they weren't murdered and they were playing Auburn who was ranked 9th.  After that we headed to Wing House to watch the FSU game; it was pay-per-view so we figured that we could have dinner and catch the game at the same time.  However, we were able to finish dinner and get back to the house before the game actually resumed play; they had a huge rain delay.  The game was worth the wait and the $30 spent to watch it- they won 69-0; a real confidence booster for Seminoles Fans.  Another game that I will mention, because it makes me happy inside, is the UCF one.  Yup, they lost in overtime to USF.  I would have preferred them to be killed, but a loss is a loss and I will take it.

Just as our day started with flowers, it ended with them as well.  Jamie's grandpa has a beautiful flower, the Night Blooming Cerius, that blooms for only one night and usually only one time throughout the year.  The flowers bloomed once back in August, so we were surprised to see that it was blooming again.  I have attached a few pictures of the flowers along with one of me in my mosquito proof outfit. You can laugh at me but they are ferocious right now!