I'm officially employed. I signed and sent back the Offer of Employment to the Red Cross and my first day is October 13. I'll have a week or two of orientation at the Durham Office which is conveniently right across the street and then have a 3 week training course in Charlotte. It's about 2 1/2 hours away so their putting me up in a hotel and I'll come home on the weekends:)

I admit I did a series of evil laughs when I added the New Moon and Christmas Countdown gadgets:)

The Duke Sleep Out

Here are some highlights of the Duke Sleep out. For those of you who don't know what that is I will explain. To give you an idea of the size of the Duke basketball arena the Marriot Center holds 23,000 people where as the Duke Stadium holds 9,000. The basketball players are celebrities, the coach is a God and all the fans are called Duke Crazies. Why you ask? The fans at the games are nuts!! They yell, cheer, jeer, cat call and stand the whole time. No one goes to the concession's, you don't leave to pee and if you sit down you might die! Therefore, the tickets to the games are hot and hard to get. So, because so many of the students want tickets they hold a lottery. For 29 hours the students camp out on school grounds and every so often a siren blares (also in the middle of the night) signaling the hoard of students to come check in. Sometimes there's a couple of hours in between, sometimes there's only 20 minutes in between calls and the lines are massive. You're only allowed to miss 1 check in, you miss 2 and you're out. Mike got a ticket:)

My bearded barbarian.

The air mattress was ours. He didn't know the tent didn't come to NC with us so under the stars he went.

Tent city! This isn't even close to showing how many people camped out. On the Hill lots of people stays in the back of Uhauls.

Free food? Yes ma'am. Mike took this picture while we were getting free burgers. The tent in the back ground is the check in tent and all those people are waiting their turn. Mikey was always fast. When the siren went off every person there ran full speed to the tent. It was nuts.

Mmmmmm...sweat. It was oober hot that day. I glisteneth.

Mikey and I love to dance!!!!!!!!!!! We really need to do this more often.

The freshman balla's (boy speech for basketball players) came to be introduced and everyone went crazy. When Coach K was talking everyone was pin dropping quite.

At just before midnight our friend Jared Ashworth (on the right) won the Guitar Hero competition with the largest score I've ever seen!

Lots of fun all around. Afterwards they had 3 check ins back to back. CRAZY!

I love today!

It's a little bit pathetic how excited I was getting on the blog today and finding that 6 people updated their blogs in the last 24 hours. I love it!!!!!!!! There were picture's and funny stories. It was like Christmas came before Halloween this year which doesn't happen often.

I like oatmeal. This may not seem interesting to any of you but my mom would be surprised. I hated oatmeal growing up and refused to eat it. The texture was nasty and it was gooey and all sorts of yuck. On the Matrix when they compare their nutritionally sound meal to a bowl of liquid snot I always assumed they were talking about oatmeal. But last night as penance for eating all the Sun chips at lunch I had apple cinnamon oatmeal for dinner. To my amazement it wasn't that bad. Now I'll have to come up with something else for penance but that's okay cause my breakfast needs can now be met with oatmeal!

So The Red Cross offered me a job. I tentatively excepted it but I'm still waiting to hear from UNC Healthcare. UNC pays a bit better but I think it's time for me to get out of chronic care. And with Mike having late hours at school and me having latish hours at Red Cross I won't be spending my free time pining at home:)

Bad news. I most likely won't be able to come home for Christmas. I may be able to come in early Dec. or in Jan. But I'm the lowest on the totem pole no matter where I work so I just see it happening at this point. Sorry gang.

On the bright side we'll be able to pay our bills!!! I think that is a cause for celebration on many many levels.

I made the apt smell like Christmas today:)

I don't know if any of you remember a short film with Roger Rabbit called Tummy Trouble but I thought of it when I was watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit last night. I just watched it and I don't remember it being this funny but now it is! So here it is for your viewing Pleasure.

Also one of my other fave's is For the Birds. It was shown before Monster's Inc. in theaters. Amanda and I laugh about this one all the time. Enjoy!

FREE!!!!

I went to pick up a bag of miscellaneous bathroom stuff from this nicey girl named Holly and when I go there she also gave me some tan flannel sheets for our bed and this!! A stainless steel H.T. Traders wok. It came with a glass lid and a large steeming tray. SO AWESOME!!!!!!!

Continuing the Countdown!

Ladies and Gents it is now 100 days till CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In honor of this special calendar day I have found a girl of unparalleled talent to sing one of my favorite CHRISTMAS songs.

Side note: I like a good portion of whats on the music seen right now. At least when Mike is listening to something new I generally like it. But. And this is a big But. I have noticed an overall lacking of anything to sing along to. You know that, "I love this song and I can't help but sing out loud in my car at a stop light even though people will stare and think I'm odd." kind of songs. Where's the Celine Dion's? And the Faith Hill's? And anyone else for that matter? The only people who are keeping the good Ballad sing along songs alive is Sugarland and Kerrie Underwood and their both country singers for crying out loud!! I can't listen to them everyday! So until the sing along comes back I will have to make due with Heart's 80's hits, Faith Hill oldies and the occasional Barbara Str.........I can't spell that but you know who it is!

I'm officially old.

FREE!!!

The Craigslist Free section is so awesome!! So far we got Mike's desk and chair, and an entire car load of fabric and patterns for me to play with. Now we have a a 4 1/2 by 3 1/2 foot mirror for our living room. It's been painted forrest green but I can easily fix that. And a ladies desk for my sewing machine and crafts! The guy we got it from has already primed it I just have to get the paint! AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

Stake Women's Day

Was So Awesome! I took classes on Anxiety in Children, Farmer's Market How to's, and Mormons and Muslims. Each class was an hour long but each could have easily gone way over and I wouldn't have been sad at all. They were so cool! We had a Psychologist come and teach us how to recognize child anxiety and what could be done about it. I was surprised by how many of the women in the stake had kids with diagnosed anxiety problems.

The Farmer's Market class was great. This sister told us the best farmer's markets in the area and what places offered the best apples or cabbage or whatever. She explained about bottling and drying and food storage which might sound boring but she did it in such a good way! All the kids used to help Mom and Greg bottle peaches, beans, apricots and such so some of it wasn't knew to me but then again I know nothing. I will say that she kinda just through her corn in the bag and let it sit all lumpy in her freezer. We always had to lay in perfectly flat so it was organized and more fit in the freezer but I won't hold her lumpy corn bags against her.

The Muslims and Mormons class was interesting and sometimes I was a little uncomfortable. The sister who taught it was a convert to the church and had been a Muslim till she was 15. Her main objective was to give us a clearer understanding of what they believe and dispel any previous views that were incorrect. She did super well and was strait forward.

I really liked it! Best part is they do this every year with different classes. :)

JANE!

A few weeks ago I posted about my new best friend Jane Black. I think this is the right time to introduce her to all of you plus Dari requested a picture:)

And yes that's my man with the furry face.

A Yummy Side Dish

I made this tonight with Chicken and Mike liked it lots which made my soul fill with joy. The thing I like about this dish is it's simple, cheap and clean. You can taste the tomatoes but the vinegar and Olive oil give it some zing.

Did you know that Extra Virgin Olive Oil comes from the first pressing of the olives. It has more flavor and that's why so many good recipes ask for it. Some of the flavor is cook out when you use it in the pan so keep your really good or expensive stuff for drizzling or for bread dipping.

Tomatoe Salad

4 fatty tomatoes (I call them that cause they're big, juicy and red but they weren't beefsteaks)

cut into 6ths

3-4 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar

1 1/2 tsp dried Basil

coarse salt

Method: Mix Vinegar, Oil, Basil in bowl. Add tomatoes and salt to taste. Enjoy:)

A Kelly Fail Blog

This was very sad.

Bonuses for younger siblings

Some of you may have heard me say this before, but the best bonus of having siblings that were teens during the 80's is that I got to partake of the most awesomest of all music era's. I discovered today that you simply can't be blue while playing 80's pop. Doctor's should start prescribing regular doses of the 80's for all their depression patients. I mean honestly who can keep themselves from happily singing along to Erasure's Hungry like a Wolf?

Changing notes: I got an entire car load of fabrics and patterns from the free list on craigslist. I'm so excited!!!! I'll be busy until I can find a job and even then I'll still be a Sewing Machine! Ha That was punny! However, I was so thankful that my prayers had been answered that I tried to bare my testimony about it at church and instead cried so hard all my sentences ended on a very high pitch squeal. It was so bad it's now in my top 5 most embarrassing moments. I was however very popular for the rest of church when all I really wanted was to crawl under a rock and hide!!!!!!!!!!!!

My friend Bill.

My friend Bill is blogger of sorts with an occasional in-print article which appears in a somewhat popular sports magazine. Every year he gives a play-by-play travelogue of his annual Vegas trip. It won't be there long so get your fill. Ladies and gentemen, my friend Bill. Here.

Coolness!

This is Cirque du Soleil's show Quidam. Here is one of the acts from that show. I love it! Your mind will be blown! This one is equally cool. It's three contortionists from a different show.

Everyday Briliance

Save the plastic cups from single serve pudding's. Fill them half way with low-fat fruit yogurt from a bulk yogurt source and freeze them for a yummy, cool, healthy treat.

Also, buy fruit thats on verge of being over ripe (it's usually discounted), cut them up into small pieces and freeze them in single flat layers for another yummy, cool, healthy treat.

A few things

I have made a best friend!! She's really nice and she thinks I'm funny and we really like hanging out!........she's also 7 months old and her name is Jane Black. I picked her to be my best friend cause she has a comb over that looks nice in a barret.

Also, I waited 4 hours to take the driving test at the DMV and failed it.....The questions about the drivers license point system put me over the edge. It was a 25 question test and you can only miss 5. I made myself feel better by eating a bag of barbecue chips then when I went to girls night out I drank a whole diet coke and a cream cheese (thats to say I ate it and didn't drink it) danish and I have to say today I feel alot better:)

I did Pilots today (amanda talk for pilates) and cardio! That means I don't have to work out for the rest of the week.

We bought a scooter. We call it yip yip.