Ready? Ok!

Mkay, so I was thinking to myself... hmmm... what would be a good giveaway? I mean, what would really have me written all over it. After watching American Idol and seeing Alex Lambert's horrible mullet, I sort of want to give away a haircut. But y'all don't live near me and my hairdresser was way overbooked last time I went in (don't get me started on that), so I've had to rethink and go back to the drawing board.

The idea popped into my head though when I went to my favorite, favorite, FAVORITE store ever a couple days ago. What store? Target, of course. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. It was probably my favorite visit ever. For one, did anyone else know that Giada de Laurentiis has her own line with Target?! I literally said, "hot diggity damn!" when I saw it. My dear friend Jessica laughed and said we were too young to get excited over stuff like this. I mean, really. I will get happy over anything she cooks, wears, or designs. She's like my idol. Giada, that is.

Anyway. Recoursing. Comment over the next 4 days (I'll be working all weekend, that's why I'm giving such a long time) on this post and we'll see who gets a $30 gift card to Target in honor of my 300th post!

 Get happy! And don't try on rings at Target. Just sayin'. That's a whole other story for another time.

One post away....

from 300 :)

In the past year and a half (wow!) I've written this much and went from 1 follower to 25. I couldn't be happier. I'll have a contest for whoever decides to post on #300, too. Just a little heads up.

On that note, it's the beginning of a bittersweet week. I'm wrapping up all 10 days of my field experience with a class that I couldn't love more. I'm in the pursuit of a job there, it'd only be part time but it would definitely help out in the car payment area.

Oh! Speaking of, my new(ish) car and I are getting along perfectly. Okay, I've driven it whenever my dad's been out of town but she is officially mine. Her name's Chloe (the Civic) and the fact that I get around 30 mpg in the city makes my life happy.

In the meantime, I'm trying to persuade my dad to make my 21st birthday gift a weekend at the beach. Yes, I am aware my day of birth is four months away but hotel rooms seem to go fast in Destin during the summer... not sure why...

So keep checking your Dashboard (or stalk, whatever your preference may be.) I'm still thinking about what to give away!

Bloggy Award

Thank you, Angela for my award!

And now for me to list six things I'm a master at (this will be hard.)

1. going to Target with every intention to buy one thing that's at most $15 and walking out spending over $50 every.darn.single.time. I'm such a sucker for that place.
2. Baking. I love to bake. Give me anything and I can easily make it GF. Of course it's really simple, just substitute GF flour. Anyway!
3. Being up to date on all the news. Seriously, people just come to me for the news (what does that mean?!) And no, by news, I do not mean the latest gossip in the workplace. 
4. Fashion 911 tickets. Okay, so I'm not exactly Stacy and Clinton, but I can call fouls on fashion in a heartbeat. Yes, it is in my head, I don't say it to the person (although sometimes I think they need to be told.) It's sort of bad that my mom can figure out what I'm doing just by my face. I've been doing this since I was a kid and still do it. #1 pet peeve in fashion? Wearing hose with open-toed shoes. Every time I see it, I want to gauge my eyes out.
5. Sense of humor. I definitely have one of these. Of course, it might not always be quite on par with everyone else. My dad and I were "cut from the same cloth" because we always laugh at the same thing. I'm also known to go into fits of laughter over something and end up on the floor. One time, I cracked a co-worker up when we went to see Couples Retreat and laughed at a part no one else was laughing at. I don't remember what it was, but clearly it was funny to me.
6. Reading. I love me a really good book. I have a ton of favorites, but tend to gravitate toward Nicholas Sparks, Candace Bushnell, Lauren Weisberger, and Sophie Kinsella. I like fun books, not serious books. Although on second thought, Nicholas Sparks is sort of serious...

Anyway, those are six things I'm a master at! I'm passing on this award to a few of my favorite blogs :)

Meg @ Through the Roses
Hannah @ That [Officer's] Wife
Faith @ Faithfully Yours
Ashley @ {Let Go, Laughing}

Not Me! Monday

This morning, I did not tear up when my dad drove off with my car to go trade it in for his new car. Yes, I am excited about getting his Civic (aka Chloe) but that doesn't not mean that I won't tear up when my first car is gone for good.

I am not excited that I got my 21st 22nd follower this morning :)

I am not irritated that I woke up at 7 on the one day I had to sleep in, either.

I definitely have not been pigging out on Dove's chocolate nonstop for the past week, on top of everything else I haven't eaten that has sugar in it (Coke.)

What did you not do this week? Write your own post and go to MckMama's page and put the URL for everyone to read.

Valentine's

Even though to me this is the most commercial holiday there could ever be, I wanted to share how fun this holiday has been for me.

I've been doing field experience this last week at one of the schools around my house and I love it. I was majorly hesitant working with kindergartners because they have a majorly high level of energy, and let's be honest- I don't. But they've grown on me. Big time. So much that I get really sad when I think about how I only have six days left with this amazing class. I really felt special on Thursday though when one of the kids brought in a Hershey's bar for me. It melted my heart and gave me a sugar high all at once. Of course, all the other kids couldn't be outdone and I had to use my Target bag to bring my goodies home. It still melts my heart thinking about it :)

Then, because I did the gift swap that Katie held, I got a gift from Alyssa. Boy oh boy, I was excited for all of it! Especially my chocolate and cups! I got the picture frame that matches the cup, by the way :)

In fact, I think I'm sort of in love with this holiday. I noticed I have three cups that are Valentine's related (remember this post?) and I got carried away last week in Target's section (ooodles of chocolate, teddy bears, hearts, and roses.) Needless to say, it's been a very fun Valentine's Day, even without a boyfriend.

A Little Too Close to Home

In the past week, more pain has been put on the Huntsville area than ever necessary. We had a shooting in a middle school last week, in a town that was ranked as the second best place to raise your kids. All because some kid was obsessed with a gang and was a wannabe.

Then today, a professor at UAH (where I went my first year of college) flies off her gasket just because she didn't get tenure? Tenure. Permanent job security. You kill three people and injure three others because you didn't get tenure. It just doesn't make sense to me. Tenure was created for good reason, and I'm all for it. But I am sick of seeing people expect it to be given to them just because of the length of their employment.

I won't lie, I really honestly thought that one of the engineer students went crazy because UAH has a crazy program there that is really tough. I thought a student had his fill and decided to go take care of it once and for all. But a professor? It's just... crazy.

So just pray for the area because we need it.

One of my friends put this in his status tonight and it put the money on how I'm feeling.

I have witnessed the best and the worst of public education and society in general in the past week. Unspeakable violence. Parental failure. Abuse of tenure. Schools and teachers that truly educate their students and schools that employ degreed babysitters. I saw only the good last semester and ...it is good for me to get the reality check I knew was coming, but that doesn't keep it from hurting.

I confess- I read people.com more than I read the news. However, I'll also confess I did a double take when I saw this picture. I thought this was Adam Lambert with a guy and a girl. But I was taken back when the person on the end (see red arrow) was actually... a girl guy. I hate when guys wear outfits that are more feminine than my own! Semi-cute top though. Apparently tie-dye is the trend for spring.

Dreams are the Topic of the Day

Clearly, last night was the night for women to have weird dreams, since Hannah had one and so did I.

First off, I had a dream night before last that when I went to get my gloss treatment at my salon (which will happen in real life next week) they were mixing this horrid, horrid orange color to permanently put in my hair. Lord knows I flipped because all I though about was that I would look like Bozo for sure. I'll spare a picture because clowns freak the crap out of me and this is a no clown zone, ok? Actually, I thought I would look like a regular customer we get at Jason's that looks like a clown. She really does. But I'll stop before I go further. Needless to say, for me, that was a nightmare. My #1 asset to me is my hair.

So last night, I dreamed about field experience. This would probably attribute to this event beginning tomorrow morning. I had the same teacher I had in the fall (we're back on the dream) and we had our girl talk. Only I got a nasty phone call from the certification office at Athens regarding the fact that my observing professor couldn't get a visitors pass because I gave one to the very cute maintenance man the night before... okay... I'm not sure what's the weirder dream, but I always have odd dreams. My friend tells me that I have the most realistic dreams she's ever heard of... I'm an odd one.

My town

Taking cue from MckMama, I thought I'd introduce y'all to my town.

No pictures are included yet... be patient!

My town has less than 40,000 residents. It's right next door to Huntsville. Almost everyone in the town is an engineer (no joke... okay, slight exaggeration) since we're located near the second largest Research Park, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Yeah... we're kind of a smart town. If only Huntsville City's School System had these smart people. I digress!

Yes, Madison is a small town. I love the downtown area even though there's nothing to do. We have two Publixes, a second Wal-Mart is due to be built in 2011, and we have a Chick-fil-a... oh and, we have a STARBUCKS. Heck yes, that does put us on the map, thank you.

But our town is bursting at the seams... there's one very overcrowded high school, two middle schools, and a few elementary schools. In fact, a couple of the schools are named after a shuttle (Columbia, Discovery) and there's even more in the area like this. The school where I'm doing my field experience is Endeavor... nice, huh? I think we had some brainiacs on the school boards. Again, I digress.

Needless to say, Madison is growing quite a bit. I expect a Super Target to be built in the city limits in the next few years at the most. Another high school is to be built by the 2011-12 school year. And maybe we'll even see a 2nd Starbucks!

The one where Jeffrey Donovan comes to mind

I'm having one of those days that every person looks forward to- sitting around on the couch, pigging out on everything and anything unhealthy for you, drinking a coke (or Sierra Mist in my case), watching the Frasier season you Netflixed (yes, I just made that a verb), and taking a two hour nap. This nap had me feeling hazy for a good 20 or 30 minutes. When I woke up, I thought it was 7:30 on a Friday morning and I had class in 30 minutes.

Then I went through the classic thought process... did I go to work? I don't think I went to work? What about Grey's? Did I see Grey's? No.... well.... shoot... what's today?... oh yeah, it's still Thursday. Anyone else ever have those thoughts? I kid you not, everytime I take a nap, this is how it goes. But I knew I still had stuff to do but couldn't remember for the life of me what it was exactly that I had to do.

Opening Ruby reminded me... ahh yes, emails about field experience and tutoring, looking at cars because mine's been declared terminally ill (poor Maggie), having work at 5, and picking up dad at the airport after that. Oh vey. Only then did I walk away from my computer to the freezer for Peet's and then to the coffee pot for a nice, strong brew.

The fact that I work this weekend is frustrating. I, personally, want to see Dear John this weekend.It's so hard to not tell people what happens in it because I'm a bookworm and read the book last summer. Some people haven't read it yet. I don't understand why people read a book after they see the movie. For me, it annoys me to no end when I do that because I like to imagine the characters and such. When I read Dear John, there's no way that Channing Tatum popped into my head. I dreamed about Jeffrey Donovan or someone like that.... speaking of, is anyone else addicted to Burn Notice like I am? It's not as bad as Grey's but when Michael and Fi got together last week, I was happy.

That's another that I tuck into a Thursday night that I clearly didn't miss.