May 2

I was slightly productive today....but only because I had to be. I spent all day working on my papers for Religions of the World. I even had time to spare when I got them done. Jen, Morgan, and Danielle all moved out today. Sad day :( Especially because Jen isn't coming back to UNI! What will I do without her.....

Highlight of my day: Getting a pedicure with this beautiful girl: 

Cristy! 

She's graduating this year, so I won't get to see her beautiful face at Relay meetings anymore :( BUT she's working on campus so I'll still see her at church :) 

I went to Hudson tonight for the last choir practice of the semester. A little sad, but not really because I'll be back in September :) 

I got to meet Katlyne's mom! I get excited about the weirdest things.....

April 30

Monday of finals week. What did I do?  Pretty much nothing academic-related. Zac drove up this morning for a visit. We went to lunch with my French class at MyVerona. Yum! And also, adorable. Flavia is so cute. We also went to Scratch with some Relay people (Emily D, Emily L, Lindsey, and Paige). We had supper with Jen and Lindsey and Katlyne. Then we went to the church because the Praise band had a lil' concert! It was awesome. I set up my computer and skyped with Mrs. T so she could hear us. It was awesome! So much fun. Here's me and Flav :)

April 20

Busy day. I was kinda all over the place! I didn't have class at 11, so I spent the whole morning packing some stuff up to head home. I went to lunch with Jen and Tiffany, went to class, and then was on the road again. (sung in an Eddie Murphy voice). I had a small heart attack when I had to fill my car up with gas. I had to stop in Fort Dodge to get something at Walmart (I seriously hate that place so much...), so naturally I had to make a stop at Tropical Smoothie Cafe. :) I made a pit stop out at the little store to play a game of cribbage with Berton and Linda and to talk to Linda about work this summer! I came back to town and spent some time in Trash to Treasures with Aunt Sharon and Diane. and THEN I sat up at Lynch's with my daddy for a while. I also stopped at the Pedersen household, although I only got to see 2 of the 4 members of the family. I finally made it to my house and unloaded alllll the crap from my car. I went back up to Lynch's with my parents to have supper, and then to Fort Dodge with Zac, Lance, and Haley to see American Reunion. (It was good. I probably would've found it funnier had I seen any of the American Pie movies....) Overall it was a successful day! I took my picture of the day up on the square of RC. They're tearing down an old building and it's kind of a sad sight. I can't share it though because my computer is being silly.....

April 2

Okayyyyy....I forgot to take a picture today. :(

I headed back to school this morning. After my classes I was productive! (kinda) I got some Relay stuff done. Katlyne and I worked out and then had supper with Jen, Morgan, and Tiffany. After supper I headed to the library to get some homework done. I had a committee meeting at 8 and an executive meeting at 8:30 for Relay. It's crunch time!! 10 days. SO EXCITED. But, I probably won't sleep much between now and then. So much to do!

If you want to donate...... :)

www.relayforlife.org/uni 

March 28

Hump day. About freakin' time. This week has been so slow. I forced myself to get out of bed this morning and work out. After getting ready for the day I headed to the campanile with the gallon of ice cream that I was storing my freezer. CAC had free Root Beer floats today because it's campus crusade. Hoorah. They were delicious. I went to class and then ate lunch with...get this...Christopher Gray. I always see him in the dining center eating at the same time I am alone. Usually I eat with Courtney but she had other plans today so I asked him to eat with me. We were civil, and it was actually kind of nice. After lunch I was planning on being productive but we all know how well THAT usually turns out. I went to the library at 3 to work with Katlyne on our geography project. We're in the same class with the same professor, just at different times. We have a travel guide project due in a couple weeks, so her and I are doing the same country. We headed back to the dorms later and had supper with Tiffany, Jen, Danielle, and Morgan. After supper we sat outside and Danielle painted our nails. What a nice gal! I had a team captain meeting for Relay at 7 (which took all of 30 minutes). I did some homework and took a shower and now I think I'll lie in bed and play Draw Something (SO ADDICTING).

Danielle's beautiful work:

March 27

Well, I'm really lucky. For my religions class, we don't take tests. Instead, she gives us information to write essays and we have to turn them in by 5pm. On the day our essays are due, we don't have class because she has open office hours. Soooo of course, I don't ever work ahead. I'm lucky because my 12:30 class got cancelled, too. So after I went to my 8:00 and showered, I wrote my essays. I took a break for lunch and then started back up again. Surprisingly, I got them all done before my 2:00 class. Go me! I was pretty impressed with myself.

One would think that if we have a large number of people eating lunch together, we would choose a larger table. Of course not. I had lunch with Katlyne, Danielle, Morgan, Jen, and Danielle's friend AB. We chose a small table and all crammed around it. This is what the table looked like.....

Note to self: Get bigger table. 

Since I finished all my homework, I was in a particularly good mood, and ridiculously hyper. Jen, Morgan, Katlyne, and I played Clue. When Jen went to class, Tiffany joined us and we played Phase 10. (If you know me well enough, you know that I was REALLY EXCITED about this, because I love playing games.) We ate supper and then I went to St. Stephen's for choir practice. I was not there very long because I had a committee meeting to go to for CAC. When I returned from the meeting, Katlyne and I went to play tennis (because I was annoying her with my insane amount of energy, so she wanted me to burn it off.) It worked, because I was ready for bed by the time we got back. Successful day! 

Oh, here's a photo of my cute little trumpet playing friend, Rob. :) 

March 22

Note: One month from the date of the arm incident. The bruise is ALMOST all gone.
Another day of understanding math class. AWESOME. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I was somewhat productive in the afternoon...kinda. Then I went to the church for Praise and Worship band practice. Love Thursday nights. When I came back I hung out in Morgan and Jen's room. It was pretty pathetic because we all downloaded the app "Draw Something"-it's like pictionary and SO much fun-and we were all sitting in the same room, playing against each other. Jen got her hair colored and she hated it so this is how I had to see it...

Yeah......

March 21

Finally caught up! (Sorry for the lack of blogging until now.)

I intended to work out this morning. Instead, I finished homework. After class I was productive! I did some homework and FINALLY unpacked all my stuff from coming back after spring break. I rearranged my clothes to fit all my shorts and summer-y clothes in. One can actually sit down in my room now. :) I worked out (for the first time in 2 weeks-oofta!). It felt really good to workout again! I should not have taken 2 weeks off....I also realized that my arm is still pretty weak, even though the bruise is almost completely gone. (not that it wasn't weak before-ha.) During my workout, I started the 3RD HUNGER GAMES BOOK. I'm so excited. I'm going to bed early tonight so I can read for a while. :)

I had supper with Katlyne, Morgan, Jen, and Tiffany, and then headed to Hudson for choir practice. I got it all worked out so I can be home (well, in Alta) for Connor's 1st birthday party. Hooray. :) 

March 9

FRIDAY. Yes. I woke up at 6-not by choice (obviously). I couldn't fall back asleep so I decided to be productive. I got up, showered, and packed. I ate breakfast with Katlyne around 8:15 and then left to get my pedicure around 9. It was very relaxing. After my pedi I went to HyVee to turn in my pop cans. I'm donating my pop can money to Relay. It was only 50 cents but hey, it's a start! I then went to Scratch to get cupcakes to take home to the fam. No coconut love, though :( I came back to campus and had lunch with Jen, Katlyne, and Danielle. I went to my 12:00 class and then was OFF. On my way home. Finally. My low fuel light came on but I was brave enough to try and make it to the Grundy County gas station. I made it, and then used my whole paycheck to put gas in my car.How depressing. I grabbed a Dr. Pepper and some almonds and was on my way. It was boring-like usual. I got home around 2:45, unloaded my stuff from my car, and was on the road again-to Lytton. But first I stopped at Pedersen's to deliver their cupcakes. I stopped in Lytton to deliver a cupcake to Zac. and then I went to see Aunt Sharon. :)  We talked for a while and then I headed back home. And there they were, waiting for me. My boys (well, Lindsay's actually). Kaden gave me seriously the BEST hug in the entire world. He said: "Whitmee! Guess what I brought with me!" I said, "what?!" and he promptly replied, "CONNOR!" Hahaha. We played some Wii games and Tate came over to visit. Grandma came back from the store and we made some mac n' cheese for supper. Then I headed, with both boys, to Lake City to the SCC Dance show. It was not bad. They boys were VERY good throughout the whole thing. Kaden even helped the janitor clean up the programs afterwards while I talked to some friends. Scott was a big help with entertaining Kaden. I got to chat with some friends because Tori stole Connor for about 20 minutes(at least). She loves him (I think it's because he's so squishy.) We headed home, with Scott (because Michelle had to work). We got back in the house, ate some pudding, and headed to bed...but it was not soon enough...

Connor was very content just hanging out on the floor during the show. 

March 7

Happy Hump Day, seriously.

I had absolutely no desire to get out of bed. None. I did, though. I went and worked out-and walked back in shorts and a tshirt. 62 degrees!! It was awesome. I grabbed lunch quick between classes from the Union. After class I quick changed clothes (& I looked super cute, by the way) and headed to work. It was so nice out! I spent the majority of my time in customer service because they were swamped. I finally got my break with about an hour of my shift left, ha. After work I went back to campus to eat supper with Jen and then headed to Hudson for choir practice. I got back to campus about the same time Katlyne did and we went to 23rd Street so she could get some supper. I really should do some homework now....we'll see how that goes. Photo of the day is the beautiful Jen, playing peek-a-boo. She's really 5 years old at heart.

March 6

Happy birthday to my best friend, Mollie :)
I am so behind.
Ok so it was a busy day...ish. Luckily Zac texted me at 7:30 or I would not have been awake in time for my class. Apparently my body did not want to wake up to my alarm. Anyway, I had lunch with Morgan, Danielle, Katlyne, and Jen. In French, we convinced Holi (whom none of us really like) to hold class in Seerley because students are having a study vigil as a silent protest to the changes happening here at UNI (Seerley is where Ben Allen's office is). We got there and talked a little about the assignment due Thursday. Apparently she had a big grad student test to study for, so someone said, "We can just study here on our own if you want to go study for your test." She said, "Are you sure?" Of course we all agreed. "yeah, yeah! Go ahead!"  so she left. and so did half of our class, haha. I stayed, however, because I had a class after so I had no reason to leave. Olivia made a sign to set up by us:

"We appreciate the value of foreign languages" 

There's a talk about cutting the French program which is REALLY frustrating, but I won't go into that. 

After my 2:00 class I met in the library with Eddie and Courtney to work on the listening part of our French workbook together. We do it together because it's really difficult and she grades really hard. When we finished with that Tiffany, Katlyne and I went on a walk around campus, where I found my new friend...

I skipped choir practice at St. Stephen's and instead went to Coldstone with Katlyne and Tiffany because it was our CAC fundraiser there. No word on how much we made, but the ice cream was delicious. I went to bed early because I was so exhausted. 

March 5

Countdown. 1 week until Spring Break. I can do this. I hope.

I worked out this morning before class (& I could definitely tell it had been a while. :S ) I went to my classes and then had lunch with Courtney. I worked 2-6:15 and then came back and had supper with Morgan, Jen, and Katlyne. After supper I went to the Union for bank night to turn in my money for Relay and then we had an exec meeting(which lasted way too long.) My photo of the day is of me with BOTH of my hands on my hips, because I can. Hooray for making progress!! :)

March 4

Happy Grammar Day! :)

I had to play at Hudson this morning so I was up at 7:45 to leave at 8. :) I came back to town and ran to HyVee quick. I went to my own church at 10:30, walked back with boy Morgan, and then had lunch with Katlyne. I took my time putting the clothes away that I washed on Friday and cleaning my room. I also got some Relay stuff done. I ate supper with Jen and Katlyne at 5 and then Rob picked me up at 5:30. His parents are in town and they wanted to hear our band, so we got together and played a few songs. Lucas's parents came from Adel, too. Liz's parents even got to hear us via Skype. It was lots of fun. :) I got back and hung out with Katlyne and Jen for a while, and then we had a fire drill. How annoying. I didn't do much today but I sure am tired......

My photo of the day is Danielle's unfortunate incident of the day....

March 1

White Rabbit.

I had a Math test this morning.....yikes. But I did better on it than I did on the last one. I had lunch with Morgan, Danielle, and Katlyne. After class I watched Ellen with Katlyne......it was Justin Bieber's birthday so she COULDN'T MISS IT. I worked on some homework during the show. We had supper at 5, I went to Praise and Worship practice at 6, and then we went to the hot tub/pool around 7. (We as in Morgan, Jen, Danielle, and I.) I headed to bed around 10:30. My photo of the day is the ever-so-proper Rob playing the piano at practice tonight. :)

February 27

Oofta. My weekend: Successful? yes. Productive? no.  We did a whole lot of nothing in my Writing class.  Soooo boring. In French Flavia filled us in on the changes happening with the budget cuts here at UNI. It was pretty interesting and a little scary. I had lunch with Danielle after class, took a shower, and then studied a little for Geography. I went at 4:30 to help with the Pizza Ranch fundraiser, but since I can't use my right arm, I didn't stay long. I went back to campus and picked up Jen, Morgan, and Danielle and we went back to Pizza Ranch to eat supper. When we got back to campus, Morgan, Danielle and I went to the library to meet the boy Morgan and study for World Geography. I'm in the Union now for my CAC meeting.......I'm so tired.

Here's my photo of the day:

February 25

Saturday! It was a rather lazy day. I slept in until about 9:30-which was awesome. I showered and then had brunch with Jen. I left around 1:00 for Cedar Rapids to visit my friend DJ. Once I got there, I sat in my car for 15 minutes because he didn't answer his dang phone. How rude (said in the Stephanie-from-Full-House way). He finally called me back and I figured out how to get to his room. We hung out there with some of his friends until his parents came. We went out to eat with them and then went to watch DJ's jazz band concert.

My photo of the day is of my RA's boyfriend, who recently won the "Mr. School of Music" competition. Some people from RC believe he looks like Josiah Simpson. I see it a little bit....

And unfortunately, I took ONE picture the whole time I was in CR. ONE!! and it's not even good. but here it is :) 

February 24

Friday. Faire la fête! We had another Up-Close day today so I worked that table with Lindsey again. Due to my injury, I didn't participate in the Interlude this time, but I did take a picture of everyone else doing it!

 

My French class was cancelled because of the snow-Flavia must drive from somewhere. I went to my 11:00 class, and it was really boring, like usual. I had lunch with Katlyne, Danielle, Chloe, and some of Chloe's friends. (different Chloe than P&W band) After lunch I was in my room all afternoon because we showed our room for the Up-Close day tours again. After that was over, Jen and I went to get Scratch cupcakes. YUM. We came back and I did some homework before we ate supper with Tiffany. After supper I got a Skype call from Kaden, Connor, and Lindsay. :) Kaden told me that Connor was being annoying. When Lindsay asked Kaden what annoying meant, he said "Annoying is when you drive people crazy." What a funny guy. I had to cut the conversation short because I had to go to the women's basketball game to hand out ribbons, etc. for the Pink Out game. I left at halftime and then hung out with Jen. We had a good time! 

February 23

'Twas a long day. I had lunch with Morgan, Jen, Katlyne, and Danielle. After French I sat in the Union with Olivia until my next class. World Geography seems to be going by much quicker these days... After class I watched Ellen with Katlyne while doing some homework. We ate supper  and then Rob picked me up to go to the church to practice Praise and Worship band. It was only Chloe, Rob, and I because Liz had a band concert and Lucas went to watch the band concert. We were there for about an hour, as my arm could only take so much. I came back and did a whole of nothing and then went to bed. It snowed again today, a lot. It was so pretty, but now it's just annoying.

During French we did a "show and tell". This is my friend Olivia playing a little piece on her clarinet for us :)

February 22

February 22, 2012, is officially deemed as one of my least favorite days, EVER. We'll get there later. I went to the Union to work out.. I read while I'm riding the exercise bike. I'm SO CLOSE to being done with the Hunger Games. However, I have a page-long to do list for this week so I should work on that before I finish it. It's killing me though. During my writing class I finished our assignment that is not actually due until 11:59pm of the 23rd. Hooray for not procrastinating! After class I had lunch with Courtney and then came to my room and buckled down. I got so much done! I went to donate plasma around 4:00. This is where it gets ugly. I drank A LOT of caffeine on Tuesday, which is not good for donating plasma. They encourage you to be very well hydrated. I didn't even think about that when I was drinking my 2 glasses of iced tea. So I was having trouble the whole time because the needle kept moving. I finished my last return and the saline solution started going in. I knew something wasn't right. I had an awful pain in my arm. I called the lady over and told her that the cuff felt really tight. She said it shouldn't be inflated at all because the saline was going in. Little did I know that it felt tight because my arm was swelling up like a balloon. Apparently the needle got moved again and the saline solution was going into the tissue of my arm instead of my vein. They didn't tell me that right away, though. So I'm crying because 1) it hurt so bad and 2) I thought I was going to die. They took me into an exam room and a nurse had to help my take my shirt off so she could look at my arm. It was huge. Probably the size of my calf, no joke. They told me what happened and they said my body would eventually absorb it, but since it had stretched my skin out it would probably leave a pretty good bruise. I guess we'll find out. So after that incident I came back to campus and grabbed supper. I then headed to Hudson to play at the Ash Wednesday service-Jen went with me. It was slightly difficult to play with my arm but I managed it. I dropped Jen off at the dorm and then drove to St. Stephen's because the choir was ministering at mass. After mass, Rob followed me out to the parking lot where I parked my car and then drove me back to my dorm because he's such a nice guy. Katlyne helped me get undressed and into my pajamas. I took some painkillers and headed to bed.


The weather today was ridiculously bipolar. It was fine when walking to workout and on the way back. While walking to my 11:00 class, it snowed. HUGE snowflakes. It was soooo pretty!

The picture doesn't really capture the beauty, though. When I left to donate plasma at 4, it was sunny and 40 degrees. Crazy! 

February 21

Happy Mardi Gras! I hope everyone indulged one last time in what they are giving up. I know I did. I'm giving up chocolate.....I hope I can do it.
It was just another confusing day in Math. I sure hope I pass this class. Religion exams were  due today so we didn't have class. I came back to my room and finished one essay before lunch with Katlyne, Morgan, and Jen. I showed up for my 12:30 class...there was a huge misunderstanding. The grad student that teaches our T TH class is very disorganized. She told us in advance that she couldn't be in class today, but she gave Eddie a movie that we were to watch. Except, no one was there to unlock the door for us, and when we asked another professor, he wouldn't open the door because he didn't want us to be responsible if anything went wrong the technology. So, as directed, we waited ten minutes and when no one showed up, we left. We decided to work on our workbook activities together in the library. We did that until some of us had to go to class at 2. My 2:00 class was interesting, as always. My friend Rachel(not my future roommate) took a tally of how many times our professor said "And so on down the line". He was up to 10 after just a half hour. After class I finished my religion exams and turned them in. I was working on some homework when my phone rang. It was my beautiful friend Mollie! What a splendid surprise. We talked until about 5:45 and then I went to supper with Tiffany and Katlyne. After supper I finished an assignment for my writing class, spent some time with Morgan and Jen, and then watched Parenthood at 9. love, love, love that show. This episode was slightly predictable, though. I won't spoil it for any of you who haven't watched it yet. :) It is time to do some reading and head to bed!

It's a western themed customer appreciation week in the Union. Courtney and I took advantage of this lovely opportunity. :)