It's 2012 already?!

I know I said that I was going to finish up my 30 day knitting challenge, but I've been pretty swamped with school work lately.  I took astronomy as one of my electives, imagining that I would be outside with Ronnie's telescope gazing up at the night sky, contemplating the heavens and not doing much homework but sadly, it's nothing like that.  There is PHYSICS in the textbook, physics.  I'm also taking discrete math this semester which is a senior level class.  I'm trying to spend a lot of time with my text books because each class requires three chapters of reading a week.  I'd like to go back to my SQL class where I did almost all of the work in one day and spend the rest of the week knitting.

Speaking of school, I got nominated for the National Society of Collegiate Scholars:

What else?  I opened up my etsy shop that I posted about recently.

It's located here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/nuclearkitten  I don't have much in it yet, and I haven't made it look very fancy but I'm slowly working at it.

I'm the maid of honor for Sarah's wedding this year (so excited!!) and I ordered my dress this week.  They told me it should be here in April, but I'm thinking it will be a lot quicker than that.  Time is flying by and her wedding will be here before  I know it.  It's hard to believe that Jenda's wedding shower is already next month!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!!!

Happy Fathers Day!

Via thedisneyprincess

Happy Fathers Day to my Pops, my father-in-law, my Pa, my brother and my brother-in-law!  I love you guys!

America's Roller Coast

Sarah and I went to Cedar Point yesterday.  We lucked out and didn't get any rain, but it was pretty hot.  It was dead in there so the longest we waited for a ride (the water coaster in the front of this picture) was 15 minutes.  

I was starting to lose my voice when I woke up yesterday, but now it's pretty much so gone.  That's what I get for screaming my head off on the magnum. 

A life post

In December of last year I entered a contest through the Henry Ford to win a big giant Meijer gift card. I had no idea that there were any other prizes so I was shocked when I found out that I won a gift package to the Crystal Mountain Resort and Spa.  I won a two night stay and a $100 gift card that I could use on property. It's a ski resort, but we wanted to go off season so it wouldn't be too busy so we made the trip up there last weekend.  Since it was off season, there wasn't a huge amount to do but it was really fun to amble around the property and we even drove a little further up to Traverse City to explore around.

The view from our room of the ski hill.  As you can see, nothing going on

Either rental bungalows or some peoples vacation homes...

I decided to use the $100 gift card on a massage at the spa.
 
I should start this story off by telling you about the massage my mom and I went for around mother’s day. My lovely parents got me a gift card to a salon for my birthday so I decided to hold onto it until mother’s day where I thought my mom and I would go and get massages together. I called the salon and asked if we could both get massages at the same time, and they said yes as they had two technicians. They didn’t really ask me what kind of massage we wanted so I figured when we got there, we would get to pick. I guess I imagined us both going into the same room and getting our massages together. I’ve never had a massage before, but when I was looking at honeymoon things, I would always see these pictures of people all draped in towels getting their massage on. Granted, my mom and I weren’t on our honeymoon, but that’s still what I had in mind. As it turns out we had separate technicians in different rooms. My mom got a deep tissue massage, and I got a wat pho massage. If you’ve never heard of wat pho, don’t worry, I hadn’t either. It was a combination of yoga, some pressure on certain parts of my body, and being sponged down with this weird satchel thing. It actually was a very relaxing massage (except for the yoga stuff; that was kind of random) but it wasn’t what I pictured in my mind when I thought about a massage, which brings me back to last weekend.

They told me to get to the spa early so I could change into a robe and slippers and use the sauna, the steam bath or the outdoor hot tub if I wanted to. I was there by myself so I just changed into my robe and read a magazine in the meditation room. I did have to wander around and check out everything first though. It was SO NICE in there.

They don't let you take pictures because who wants to see people in robes, but here is one from their website.

I ended up getting a full body deep tissue massage, which cost every penny of my gift certificate and then some, but it was SO worth it. Not only did she work out all of the tension in my neck, back and shoulders, but she massaged each individual toe and finger. She even massaged my face! It’s been almost a full week and I’m still feeling great. Afterwards there was someone waiting to give me cucumber and mint water and a heated towel. It was great being spoiled for the day! Needless to say if we ever make it back out there, I’m getting another massage!

Will Rhymes.  He was my favorite Tiger, now he's my favorite Mud Hen.  sigh

In other news, we bought a Saturday ticket package for the minor leagues down in Toledo, the Mud Hens. The games have been really fun, but it’s been a pain in the butt making plans around them and trying to get the days off from work. The season started in April, but we bought the tickets in May so they sent us a few extra tickets that are sporadically through the week over the next few month.

School and work has been consuming the majority of my time.  I've been really bad lately about losing track of days.  I seem to just think of everything in terms of "I work the next two days, and then I'm off for two." or "I have a paper due tomorrow."

Here is how bad it's gotten:  I forgot Ronnie's birthday...

Well to be fair, I knew that Ronnie's birthday was May 5th, but I had no idea that it actually was May 5th.  At around 2 that day I just happened to look at my cell phone and see the date and felt really bad.  We went to a Tigers game a few days before his birthday to celebrate so it turned out okay. 

We got really great seats. We were playing the Yankees that night and we were right behind the dugout. It was kind of weird seeing Jeter up close and personal.  It was even weirder when the guy behind us kept yelling "The Yakees suck and Jeter swallows!"  When Jeter would look in our direction I wanted to point at the dude that was doing it!

In the last piece of life news, I dyed my hair again.  I was on a mission to grow it out, but then I got a new badge for work.  I hate the picture.  I can't even describe how much I hate it and it's all because of my hair so I did what any good over-reactor would do and bought some dye to change it back to blonde.  I bought the John Freida foaming stuff.  Using the foam was nice and simple and the color came out pretty even despite how long my roots were, but the color isn't as nice as the Feria dye I used to use.  I'm such a sucker for marketing. 

A mother is the most wonderful person in the world.

via: the disney princess

 I guess my internet decided not to post this post yesterday, because I just noticed that it was stuck in my posts area.  :(

Anyway... Happy Mother's Day Mom!  No matter what happens, I know you will always be my biggest fan.  I love you!

Also happy mothers day to my mother-in-law, my mimi, my sister-in-law and all of my aunties who might be reading this!  I love you guys too!

Well would you look at that

I made the Deans list!  All the way down there at the bottom, but there I am!

Birthday Pictures

I don't have much to add to these except, what a night!

By popular demand

Alright, I know it's not a real action shot, but you have to admit the resemblance is uncanny.  :)

p.s.  those with a sharp eye can spot Ronnie's Mii watching in the background, he's the one in orange.

The hubby gave me my birthday present early

so sorry if you never hear from me again...

SO BUSY!

I know my posts have really slowed down over here.  I've been incredibly busy this month and haven't had much free time to do anything.  I had midterms on Wednesday, and my windows class ended on Thursday.  Yesterday I started a database class which is going well, but it's taking some getting used to.  This semester is half way over and I'm really glad that it's been going so well!

As far as my hobbies, I did finish knitting a sweater yesterday, I'm just waiting to get some buttons before I make a post about it.  I have been keeping up with my reading.  I've been reading a little each night before bed and I do still get a lot of down time at work so that's been a great stress reliever.  Earlier this week, Ronnie and I flew with one of our good friends and he twisted his ankle at the airport.  We had to go to the emergency room with him and needless to say I got to read until 4 a.m.  I finished a book and got a quarter of the way through another one. 

My 30th (!!!) birthday is in less than a month.  I was trying to make plans for it, but I kept getting more and more ideas of what I wanted to do.  I think maybe I was carrying the leftover excitement from planning my wedding into planning a birthday party.  Needless to say I can't afford a wedding 2.0 so I'm probably going to plan something small.

Lastly, we finally hung up some wedding picture this week, it only took us half a year. :)  

Misfits

I did end up making it out to the doctors yesterday after our big downpour of snow and as it turns out, I have bronchitis. I'm kind of glad to know that I haven't been whining over a regular ole cold, but I'm really unhappy to be taking prescription robitussin. It makes me want to be even more sick after taking it because it tastes like absolute garbage.

Since I'm trying to relax and get better soon I spent a good percentage of yesterday and today in bed watching the e4 show Misfits.  

via: chezlbb

I can't believe it's taken me this long to watch this show.  It's so funny! The show is about a group of teenage kids doing community service who get super powers. I loved the first season of Heroes on NBC, and this show is kind of the anti-Heroes.  The music, the cinematography and the storylines are all great and Robert Sheehan is glorious in his role as Nathan.  I hated his character at first but now he makes me laugh every time he's on screen.  

This show is on e4, so there is a lot of sex and swearing so this show might not be something you would want to watch with your mom.  The only other thing I can think of that might put people off is that their accents can be a little hard to understand sometimes but that's what the rewind button is for.  The very best news is that season 1 only had six episodes and season 2 only had 7 so if you want to watch it you can stay up all night, keeping your significant other up with your laughter.  All of the episodes are here on youtube.

Ellen is knitting a scarf

There is one thing I can count on every year - year after year and that's me getting sick any time the weather starts to change.  It was nearly 50 here last week which means I currently have the worst cold I've ever had in my life.  I can't breathe, all of my muscles ache and I'm just no fun to be around.  I'm going to the doctors tomorrow to make sure that it's only a cold but in the mean time guess what I'm doing with all of my sick time? 

What kind of evil professor gives you homework on a weekend?  Turns out, all of my online classes do.  All of my homework is due on Saturdays and Wednesdays but I think my math teacher particularly hates me because he has about 30 to 40 problems due every day on Fridays through Mondays.  Grr!  All I want to do is watch the Misfits and wallow in the fact that I can't get off the couch.  I was quite pleased that today's set of problems had a knitting question though.  :)  If only I could take a math class where every problem was knitting related, I would surely pass it with flying colors.

Some small things

We've been getting a lot of snow here in good 'ole Michigan. I had three snow days at work last week so you would think that I would have posted more, but that just didn't happen. There are a few small things I wanted to update about so here they are.

Ronnie and I made a snow bear the other day.  It was supposed to be a snow Mickey, but the ears got smashed down a little too much and we were too wore out to fix it.  Making a snow man is a lot harder than I remember!


I loved this blog post by the New York Public Library.  Do you judge a book by it's cover?  I'm admittedly very bad about this so I think this is a fun activity.

I finished the Jessica Darling series this month.  I think the last book was even better than the first.  If you have a Kindle, you can get all 5 books for $9.99 here.  It's still 56 bucks for the Nook.  :(

Where are all the pictures of my piggies?  I moved them to tumblr so that you guys won't have to scroll through them all the time.  I can't promise I won't still talk about them, but you won't have to be assaulted by their cute faces all the time.  You can see their pictures here at ziggiepiggies.

Plymouth Ice Festival

Well, my first class of the semester is finally over.  I think I mentioned it before, but just incase I haven't, it was a class about how to take online classes. It didn't matter that one of my credits I transferred was from an online class,  I still had to take the class anyway and let me tell you, it was kind of a pain in the butt.  To get you used to what taking a full course load was like we were given a LOT of work to do.  I had 2 or 3 papers to write a week.  My next 2 courses start on the 17th of next month so I have some down time to catch up on my knitting and all of my posts here about the few things I did manage to finish knitting.

I meant to post these pictures earlier, but all of my papers about time management got in the way.  So without further ado, here are a few pictures from the Plymouth Ice Festival that I went to with my mom, my pops and Kevin.

Cold Penguins.

Reindeer.  I think?

ICE DINOS.  OH YES!!!

CHAINSAW BEAR.  BEING CHANSAWED IN FRONT OF MY VERY EYES!

As you can see it was cold, but very awesome.  After walking around and freezing our butts off, we went to have pizza.  Kevin and I got an all cheese one, but my mom and dad got some weird sausage and ham one.  Kevin and I rated the cheese pizza a 7 out of 10, but Kevin said that our parents pizza tasted like 'the meat was from Kroger.' 

And because it's not a post if I don't post a picture of my always hungry piggies :D :

Kirk and Spocks New Home

About a week ago, Ronnie ordered the piggies a new C&C cage. I've been stalking the mailman and the FedEx lady everyday and today it made it! It took us (or I should say Ronnie) about 20 minutes to get it all built and ready to go. As you can see, we also decided to go with fleece bedding. I think in the long run it will be less expensive and easier to keep clean. I ordered 2 so that we could have a fresh one ready while the other one was in the washer. We ordered ours from piggybedspreads.com.

This cage has a LOT more room than the one we got for them at the pet store and they were thrilled about the space. I think they ran laps for about an hour. Here is a cute video of Spock popcorning like crazy. Now you know why he is the wild one!

The guinea pig post.

It's been a few days since I've posted, because I've been very busy being a guinea pig mom! Ronnie and I went out on the 1st of the year and picked up our first joint pet, Kirk. We brought him home and put together his house and I started doing a bunch of research about being a guinea pig owner. One of the things I read, was that guinea pigs are very social and it's good to keep them in pairs so we went BACK to the pet store and got another one, which we naturally named Spock. :) When we went back to Petsmart, the lady who was getting the pigs out of their cage said "Another one?!" when she saw me. Yes, I'm the crazy guinea pig lady.

Kirk. Oh sorry, wrong one.

Kirk.

Spock. His crazy hair matches his crazy personality.

After today I think I'm going to take a short break from reading all of the tips online, because I have been going a little crazy. If I told everyone the amount of things we've purchased since getting the piggies you would all think I'm a little nuts! We did order them a large open top cage today and I think I'm going to focus all of my energy on that for a while.

Did someone say fleece bedding? Good God, I don't need another thing to obsess over! (image source

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Isn't this Christmas card that our wedding photographer Amy Boeve sent us so cute? Can you spot Ronnie and I?

Yep, there we are in the bottom left hand corner!

Here is the promised picture of Sarah in her knitted goody and as a bonus you can see my Christmas presents too! The oh so awesome 'Don't stop believing - Triceratops' shirt and the 'Queen of **cking Everything' Mug. Ronnie told me this morning he wants to commandeer the mug and use it for his tea. haha!

I hope everyone is having an excellent Christmas. I didn't burn in church but I did get a migraine so I'm slowly getting ready to visit with the family today. First stop finishing dads 2nd knitted Christmas gift, next stop, shower.

I'm a little late but...

My little baby boy turned 7 on the 14th. I guess he's not really a baby anymore! Happy birthday little man!

A day in our lives.

Me: "I KNEW someone was smoking in the hallway! I just found cigarette butts on the steps.'
Ronnie: "Did you also use clues from the science of deduction website?"


Yes, we are nerds.

Also. mmmm Benedict Cumberbatch