Time to put up the Christmas Tree?

Today started out nice. I went to work out at 6:30 a.m. and the sun was shining and the sky was clear. The foothills were so pretty with the frost on the trees. Then I came back to my house and holed myself up in the basement to work on my homework. When I emerged about 3:30, it was snowing fairly hard. Great... Tomorrow is the first day of May, and it's snowing outside. I was putting off getting better tires for my car until next fall, and now I'm regretting it. It is getting me in the mood for Christmas, though. Maybe I should decorate just for fun...

Summer's coming...I hope

It's April 29th...that's right, two days away from May. So why did I wake up to freezing rain and snow and have to scrape a sheet of ice off my car??? I really don't mind the winter. I mean, I love skiing and watching it snow and stuff, but I don't like it when it interferes with my summer. I guess it is a good thing, though. Now this weekend I won't be tempted to go out hiking or something, I'll want to stay inside and finish my paper.

Next Tuesday is the day, the last day of my class and the last day I'll be in school for a while. Yay!!! Then I can finally start unpacking and making my house my own. And I can start devoting more time to working out so I can be in shape for Bonnie's wedding. Oh, and for our program celebration at work, which is in June. I have to look good for that, after I looked so terrible at the one last year.

Mmm....candy

Talk about a diet-busting day... Tomorrow is the Take Your Kid to Work day, or as it's known where I work, Young Minds at Work day. My program is sponsoring an Edible Satellite workshop. So today I spent over 3 hours helping stuff goodies into their bags. Hot tamales, marshmallows (both big and small), peanut M&M's, jelly beans, Twizzlers, Reese's mini peanut butter cups...it was like open grazing. Plus, when we were done (we stuffed almost 400 bags), we had a ton of candy left over. There's half a big bag of peanut M&M's waiting for me in my cube tomorrow. And I also broke down and went to the cafeteria for a breakfast sandwich this morning. I've been working late and then coming home right away to work on school, so I haven't been able to work out much. Tomorrow is going to be a bad day on the scale...

Habemus Papam!

Ok, so I know that title will have been way overused by now, but I don't care. We have a pope! It's so weird, I still see John Paul II as pope and will for a while. So this other guy calling himself Pope Benedict XVI is a little hard to get used to. I'm so glad the area I work in gets Fox News. My friend Stefanie paged me right when they said white smoke was coming out of the chimney so I wouldn't miss anything. We were talking about who we thought it would be, I said I didn't think it would be Ratzinger (although I like him) and said I thought it would be someone we didn't know. But I also said that I thought he was going to name himself Benedict (I didn't know what number we were up to) because of the Malachy prophesies. And then he did! So that was kind of cool. It was just so cool to be a part of this historical moment.

I better get started on my homework....bleh.

Need Help

My sister has asked me to be the DJ for her wedding dance. I have a lot of songs on my computer, but most of them are country and aren't really "fun" dance songs. So...if any of you have suggestions, please post a comment with it. I'm gathering a list and then I'm going to go to itunes.com or something similar to preview and maybe buy them (I'm too paranoid to use the free file-sharing programs anymore!). Thanks for your help!

Sorry for the long absence

A lot has happened in the last few weeks, but most importantly...I moved!!! My sister and I moved into my new place about a week and a half ago, and didn't have internet for about a week. We unpacked the basics, but we still want to paint and I have some plans for the basement, so we're waiting until that's done to completely finish unpacking. I have a lot of work to do in school, so once that's over on May 3rd, I'll be ready to get started on the "remodeling."

Last weekend (Sunday) we got about 16 inches of heavy, wet snow. The only time I went out that day was to go to church, and getting home with my little car and it's crappy tires was very difficult in the slush. The snow even broke my antenna off. The mall that Stacy works in was closed that day, so luckily she didn't have to go in. Monday morning was a little hairy getting to work, but I made it. I passed a lot of cars that should have been better in the snow than mine that were in the ditch. Sometimes I'm glad that my car sucks so much in the snow, at least I take it slow and don't get overconfident and end up in the ditch.

And as all of you know, Pope John Paul II died, on the day that I moved. On Divine Mercy Sunday, the Sunday after he died, I went to mass at the cathedral in Denver. It was overflowing, and we barely got there in time to get seats. The following Wednesday was the actual memorial Mass, so I drove down there for that. I got there only 15 minutes before it started, had trouble finding a parking spot, and ended up standing in the back. It was so beautiful, it made me wish that all churches looked and felt like that. At the end of Mass, Archbishop Chaput mentioned how Cardinal Stafford (formally the archbishop of Denver) thought it was amazing how much the mourners in Rome clapped for JPII, so the entire cathedral broke out in applause for about 5 minutes. I had to choke back my tears at that point. I really hope the Holy Spirit guides the cardinals in the conclave to pick someone like JPII who will uphold the church's teachings and be a guide for all of us.

I'm supposed to be watching one of my lectures right now, and this entry is getting long, so I better go. Until next time!