Fun in the Sun

Words of wisdom: When your university gives you a day of cancelled classes to attend senior thesis presentations, go somewhere fun, A.K.A. anywhere BUT school.

Hooray for planning ahead.

 Thank you, school, for having confidence that your students are responsible enough to care about their fellow classmates’ life works. Sorry to disappoint.

Biff and I graciously took this opportunity to hit up the beach. It’s been much too long.

On my way there, I had a gigantic Tupperware full of overnight oatmeal.

Looks horrible, but tasted like heaven.

 While at the beach, I munched a simple lunch.

Pear, turkey rolls, and pickles, also horrible-looking. I'm two for two.

Gorgeous view.

We posed for a photo op.

A little squinty, but I'm ok with it.

The avies mask the squint.

 Later on, I ate some more snacks, all of which are not pictured. The sun makes me too happy to care about snapping shots of my eats.

After 4 hours of bliss, we headed back to Collegeville so that Biff could finish up her thesis. Although I wasn’t looking forward to driving home, I was looking forward to this summery dinner.

Toast with cottage cheese and tomato slices, and cucumber with hummus. Beautiful.

 The second half of my day was spent as the first: doing nothing and loving it. However, I did take a few minutes to peel my butt off the couch to whip up some almond craisin biscuit/scones. They will be featuring in tomorrow’s breakfast photo. Apparently, they are delicious. Or so I would assume, since my Mama mumbled, “Wow, Miguel is such a lucky man,” as she stuffed her face with them. I’m excited. Productivity is going to happen tomorrow. Balance, people. Balance.

So close, and Yet So Far

I am writing this post while devouring the last bit of strawberries and dark chocolate and watching Little Fockers, which may end up going down in my personal comedy hall of fame.

I have spent the entirety of the day working on my thesis. Literally, I have not left my room except to walk for an hour and eat these 4 delish meals:

Oats with extremely ripe banana and peanut butter

Spinach and asiago cheese chicken sausage, toast with hummus, and carrots.

Pear with cottage cheese

Grilled chicken breast, asparagus, and a pickle with a nice glass of red wine.

Yesterday was significantly better than today. It got started rather late. So late, in fact, that I didn’t eat breakfast. I don’t remember the last time I didn’t start my day with some eats, but since I knew I would be having an early lunchtime with Mama and several home school kidlets, I managed to go two hours on only coffee.  

We hit up the local Puerto Rican restaurant for some cultural fare.

Mons and her empanadillas

Side salad

Carbolicious grease-covered yumminess.

Black beans, rice, and platanos maduros

Cuzzo with a ridiculous amount of food

Afterward, Mons joined Biff, Megaleg, for fro yo at our favorite joint.

Sugar-free vanilla almond custard for me, mint chocolate chip for Mons.

Following our sweet adventure, we hit up the school pool for a mini layout session. It was unsuccessful due to the fact that the sun was hiding behind clouds.

Afterward, we headed home and I spent the rest of the night having some much needed down time. No photos were taken of the rest of the days’ food, but there was some major snacktion. Here’s the low down:

• cucumbers and hummus
• sweet peppers
• a pear
• almond milk protein shake.

Sunday promises to be just as dull as today, at least for the first half. I have resolved to finish my thesis by tomorrow night. Monday will also be filled with academic tasks. I’m not excited about it. But the hard work is going to pay off. I just have to keep trucking along, knocking out one assignment at a time. Only 5 major assignments to go before being  done-zo.

Five-Year-Old Antics

Can I just say that last night was ridiculous? Not as in, “We got CRAZAAAY!” ridiculous, but as in, “We are a bunch of five-year-olds.” Yep, I’m talking about me and my girls. When we get together, nothing ever goes as planned, yet we always manage to have more fun than we did the time before. But before the nonsense rolled around, a typical Thursday was in order.

I woke up at an ungodly hour and began my day with a hot cuppa de café, as usual. After all my junk was packed up and ready to head to Biff’s app, I had breakfast.

Tan-colored breakfast: chocolate banana protein shake and cinnamon oatmeal.

Then I proceeded to awaken and make breakfast for my Biff, who spent the night and whose alarm clock was apparently ineffective.

We headed off to Collegeville and I spent the next 4 hours in academic misery.

Luckily, the clock struck 1 PM, and it was time for my lunch.

Rots, yogurt, and Betty's Lou's Nut Butter Ball.

The ball got crumbled into the yogurt.

 Since Florida’s weather has been so unpredictable lately, I though it fitting to take advantage of it while the getting’ was good. Biff, Beccs, and I chilled out on a sheet in the middle of the quad like a bunch of hippies, eating our health food and talking about serving the community (our shared community service org).

Beautiful landscaping. Deeply philosophical conversation, to be sure.

Cutesies.

 It was fantastic. My happiness, however, was cut short by my need to go over my senior thesis, which I would be defending to my professors at 4 PM.

After lunch and review, I headed to my fourth and final class of the day, which was spent outside, again, on the quad. Being at a small school where you’re friends with the professors makes school just a little bit better. You can convince them it’s a bad idea to waste perfectly good weather sitting inside in a classroom. With my classmates and me sitting in a circle around my cross-legged professor, it was like a scene from Classical Greece- or the 60s, sans the chemicals. Either way, I was really feeling the love.

My defense reassured me that I was on the right track with my life’s work, and I felt much more at ease, except for the fact that I was starved. I came back for an early dinner before Zumba with my Biff.

Sweet potato with sauteed onions (a whole onion, to be exact). This is a magical combination.

 Sadly, when we reached the gym, Zumba was nowhere to be found for the third week in a row. So I hit the treadmill for 45 minutes of interval walk/running. With almost with 4 miles behind me, I was feeling good. Sometimes, you just need to go for a run. Exercise is my drug of choice. I’m addicted and I’m not afraid to admit it.

When I returned to the app, it was time for us to get our groove on. To our disdain, we realized that the place we usually go would be filled with bubbles for a slippery dance party that sounded like an accident waiting to happen. No thank you. The verdict: stay inside and entertain ourselves with our own antics.

Taking a picture of taking a picture.

I'm not really sure what this was all about...

Snack #1

Hot

This is my Biff's secretary.

My Biff unhappy with her employee.

Snack #2

Biff with the lip. Me with the crazy eyes. What a pair.

"I'm singing, I'm singing!"  Name That Movie!!!!!

This would have been so great if not for the blur.

Throwin' up gang signs. My mother would be proud. Holla to my pookey (you know who you are).

This is where we spent 2 hours- in the hallway, on the floor.

We are so good at photo coordination.

Spending 2 hours sitting on the floor chatting about girl stuff and acting like giggly kids is arguably just as fun as going out on the town. I was completely satisfied with our change of plans. It’s one of the best parts of life, and it’s times like these when memories are made.

Back to School

Ashley here, with a full report from first day of the last few months of school… OF MY LIFE!!! Woo hoo! Unlike several of my colleagues, I have absolutely no interest or desire to further my formal education.  As a general rule, I dislike school very much. I do, however, love having deadlines and tasks to complete, so school will have to do until I get a job. 

As you should be well aware by now, I am not one for staying in all day and doing nothing. I have to be occupied at all times, or else my mind comes close to melting and turning to mush. Wednesday night, insomnia crept over me. I tossed and turned throughout the night, managing to snag bits of sleep here and there. By 4:00 AM, I was completely awake. I hate to admit it, but I am fairly certain that the cause was my pre-school excitement. I was like an ADHD kid hopped up on Red Dye #40 the night before a trip to Disney.  I forced myself to lie in bed for the next hour and 15 minutes until I could no longer stand the agony. I awoke ready for the day.

I  am not completely certain if I was more excited  for school or for my beautiful, chocolate scones. Tough one.

Black coffee, chocolate chip scone, and an orange.

 I had my morning fuel, got ready and made my way to Collegeville at 7:20 AM. My first class was not until 10, but thanks to the school’s new, screwed up financial aid policy, I was forced to schedule a 9 AM meeting. After I got all of that out of the way, I waltzed over to mi primero clase of the day- The Glory of Greece. 

Enter teacher #1: Dr. F.H. This teacher is possibly the most overly excited professor I have ever come across. I think she stood on her tippy toes for emphasis at least 30 times a minute, waved her arms incessently, and spoke with with a vocal inflection that had the range of a dog howl. I realized all of this 10 minutes before class at even started. I knew it was going to be a long one, so I grabbed a snackkie. 

"Berry" delicious.

After a 30 minute syllabus explanation and power point presentation in which the word “beautiful” was used approximately 486 times, I was ready to get out of there. On to American Consumer Culture.

Enter teacher #2: Dr. M. Typical hippie-esque, environment loving, feminist professor. Totally chill, humorous, and extremely intelligent. I found that I was extremely entertained by her class, and look forward to going again. Interesting classes make for fun learning. Approved. 

By 1:00, I was seriously starved and had to scarf down my lunch in between classes. 

Rolled turkey, carrots, and GF cracks. Could've gone for another carrot.

Biff and I with our between-class meals.

 Enter teacher #3: Five minutes late, as per usual. R.K. Yes, just R.K. Not only have I had umpteen communication classes with him, but he is also the head advisor for all of the communications senior research and theses. No introduction needed. I knew exactly what I was in for. Class was bada-bing, bada-boom, and we were outta there. Basically, there is not much teaching to be done when you are dealing with several individual, in-depth research projects. That’s completely fine by me.

Biff and I had time to snag some coffee and run an errand before the final class of the day- Philosophy of Communication.

Enter teacher #4: McFarls. This is my favorite professor of all time. The reason behind the fondness is the fact that he and I are pretty much the same person. I would sum up our life motto as, “It’s fiiiiiine.” He has a nack for structuring a class in such a way that it seems to have no structure. Love it. I appreciate fluidity and learning that is guided by the students. He also spends the majority of the class drawing crappy stick figures and coming up with the most outrageous analogies you have ever heard. Happy times.

Class finishes for me at 3:45 this semester, which means I head to Journey’s End at 4. No breaks. Workin’ hard for the money (or the education). Seeing as I only had 15 minutes to get from point A to point B, I wolfed down some cottage cheese. I gotta figure out a better eating system. I hear scarfing down food greatly increases risk of choking.

Biff and I basically hung out with Flo-Rida for the next 2 hours since there wasn’t much to do around the place. After our “work”, Biff gave me my long awaited Christmas present.

Does she know me or what?

Little known fact: My nickname (according to my Biff) is Robester. This comes from the Greek word roba, meaning “one who is always wearing robe”. 

By the time I got around to eating dinner, it was 8 PM. Phew. It was long awaited. And scrumptious.

Eggs on onion/garlic bagel and a HUGE helping of cauliflower.

 I am optimistic about the weeks to come. I am going to be super busy, but it’s what I love. Busyness that is (school, not so much). 

Friday I will be joining my Grandpa-pa for RV 101 at the Tampa RV Supershow. Should be a blasty. There will be no post coming your way until Sunday… possibly Monday. Have a fantastic weekend!

Word to ya mutha.