Rochelle's Blog ::: Subtitles Included

Or this post could have been titled “My Great Photography Fail.”

A long, long time ago…2003-2004ish, maybe, I hired my first real student assistant, Andy. He was a bit of a non-traditional student, who had gone half way through college and then joined the Peace Corps and did good deeds (and got Malaria. Twice.). When I hired him, he was back from his dutiful stint and trying to finish up his degree. We had good times, and we had bad times, as I tried to figure out my footing as a supervisor, which is something I continue to struggle with at times.

Anyway, he graduated and moved away with his girlfriend Kerry, who is now his wife, to New Haven so she could go to Yale for graduate school. These days, they’re living in Oklahoma. He’s a firefighter and has his own web design business, and she works for the parks service, or something like that.

So with all of that lead up, it’s probably obvious who I went out with last night. Andy made some strong connections with a lot of folks at ITS while he worked for me, and even played on our softball team. So we had a group of 18 last night that filled up an entire back room at the Walnut Brewery in downtown Boulder.

Andy and Kerry were great to visit with. They seem really happy together and are such nice, down-to-earth folks that there was no awkward haven’t seen you in a long time phase to break through.

My favorite part of the night was when Andy told me that the skills he learned working for me has made a huge impact on his life and he thanked me for it. I was so delighted to hear that! I always try to help my student assistants understand that their job with me is gonna be one that they can draw from for years to come. Sadly, I’ve had a couple students who never grasped that and chose to prioritize other activities and less meaningful jobs over their position with my department. They get it now that they’ve graduated and are coming back to me often for advice and references.

The biggest disappointment was that I didn’t take any pictures. No pictures, even though I had my camera in my purse, and even though I thought about doing it a couple of times. I just didn’t have the nerve. That is something I have to get over.

So when I came home, I had a little bit of fun making a picture to showcase the moment. Yay for Photoshop, Project Runway, and HGTV to take me into the wee hours of the night.

Rochelle, Andy, and Kerry in cartoon format.

My dear online friend Jen at True Confessions of a Scrapbooker has nominated me for a “Kreativ Blogger” award. Thanks Jen! You are truly awesome.

In the same spirit as Jen and the people before her, I’m going to nominate a few people I think deserve this award as well.

Ally @ Ally B Speakin. This girl is hilarious and lives in my own backyard. She’s writes truly hilarious posts and deserves this award for simply thinking of the topics that she does. She also treats her pets like children, just like me, and that is awesome.

Amanda @ Magnanimouse. A friend from real life that moved away to Seattle. Get this…she’s an actual artist (for real), an IT whiz, an amazing pastry chef, and a soon to be mom. She is also the queen of snark, and I love that about her.

Danielle @ My Blog, My Life. Another friend from real life that I knew in college. She’s recently started her own Photography business and is an amazing photographer! She’s also a kick ass stay at home mom to two adorable boys. She can also whip up a mean scrapbook page that makes me jealous and eager to imitate.

Jen @ McDougall Photography (A Day In the Life). Jen is my Project 365 hero. She stuck to the program so well and is keeping it up. She’s also one of the best digital scrapbookers I’ve come across. She does all this with three kids under the age of three and a part time job. She is also completely hilarious and I know her originally from my EJami life, where she can make the snarkiest and most hilarious comments on a television show that there has ever been.

Laurel @ A Year With the Yorks. A fellow Creative Memories scrapbooker, Project 365er, and over all fabulous lady. I love her site and to follow along almost every day. Her journaling is great and I love her pictures!!

And now I’m supposed to tell you seven things about myself that you may not know. That’s part of getting the award. Although I’m not sure what’s left to share since I’m pretty out there already. I’ll give it a go…

7 Things:

1. I have a Snuggie and it is one the best things I got for Christmas. I freaking love it and feel bad for making fun of the concept for so long.
2. I once considered becoming a nun. Seriously. It was when I was younger and just entered college. It was actually rather sad and pathetic, and not for the best reasons. I essentially thought that I would never fall in love, so why not just love the church instead of dealing with that rejection.
3. My grandfather and I had a really special bond when I was a kid, and up until he died in 1998. I was unabashedly his absolute favorite grandchild, which was awkward for my siblings. When I think of unconditional love, I think of how he loved me. He also loved to write poetry, and I didn’t know that until after I was writing my own. Strange how things pass down.
4. My female intuition is pretty in tune. I can sense and predict things quite often that those around me don’t, particularly men.
5. Speaking of men, I love them! Not in a slutty way, but I tend to run with boys more than girls. Maybe that’s why I succeed where I work, but it’s always been that way. I am far more comfortable around men than I am around women.
6. That being said, I absolutely hate hate hate the division of the sexes. I do not like “Girls Nights”, or the fact that I can’t participate in a “Guys Night” because I don’t have the right equipment. This tendency in our society (and I’m sure around the world), infuriates me and is a huge point of stress for me.
7. I still have dreams where I have to protect my little sister from serious harm. I used to have nightmares about that when I was a teenager and she was just a little kid and I would have to babysit her a lot.

So like I mentioned in the previous post, I have been terrible, just TERRIBLE at my Project 365 this month. I mostly blame (besides myself) NaNoWriMo, which I’m using as an excuse for everything else I’m behind on (particularly cleaning). But for what it’s worth, here are some of the photos I did take:

November 14, 2009: Pumpkin Pancakes

I made these delicious Pumpkin Pancakes that I found the recipe for at This Week For Dinner. They were delicious and perfect for the season.

November 15, 2009: Penny

Just a simple shot of my dear Penny cat. She’s such a cutie.

November 17 2009: Water Spots

After a weekend of doing lots of laundry, I noticed these water spots on the ceiling. It freaked me out! So I worked from home and had a very nice maintenance man over, who told didn’t really fix anything but cautioned me from over doing it with my washer. Then he came back a few times to paint over it.

November 18 2009: Rochelle in Curly Hair Form

A self portrait, basically used to show my twitter friends about how I wore my hair curly. I can’t tell you how much I love my current haircut. It is one of the best I’ve ever had. And so for the first time ever I’m going to go back to the girl who cut it. I’ve never done that because I typically have such poor experiences.

November 19 2009: New Moon

Like I talked about in my last post, I went to the midnight show of New Moon with my sister and my friend Michelle. It was such a blast. First Twilight at 9, and then New Moon at midnight. The atmosphere was such a blast!

And that’s about it! Everything after New Moon was all about writing my NaNoWriMo novel!

So my friend Amanda has been doing some menu planning for her and her husband, and I’ve been so tempted to give it a try. Trouble is, I’ve found in the past that it’s sort of overkill for a single person. I mean, most nights I can just eat a bowl of cereal and call it good. Why bother?

But I’m going to try it this week so I can create some leftover scenarios for lunches. I love leftovers for lunch. I almost always want to eat it, unlike sandwiches and way more than frozen dinners.

So here’s my plan:

I already had the meatloaf and it was really good. I’ve been craving meatloaf for some reason, and yet I’ve never made it before and I eat it rarely. So I scoured the Internet for meatloaf recipes and decided on one. Well when I got to the store last night, I was looking at breadcrumbs and found a McCormick’s spice mix for meatloaf with a recipe. I ditched all the other ingredients I was going to buy and just went with that, and let me tell you, I’m so glad I did. It was cheap, easy, and delicious.

Obviously, you can see that I had mashed potatoes on the side, Bob Evans microwavable. Very good and easy. And then for dessert, I popped some Pepperidge Farm apple turnovers in the oven. Those are great. My mom used to make those for us all the time when I was a kid. I highly recommend them. You can find them in the frozen food dessert section. You could go through the effort of making your own, from scratch, but it’s seriously not worth it.

So I feel like I had a very Sandra Lee semi-homemade day.

My guests really liked it all too, so I guess you could say it was quite successful.

So as stated in a pervious post, I’m going to be consolidating my Project 365 posts into one weekly post. Here are my photos for the remainder of last week.

Friday October 30 2009: Matthies Halloween Party

So I am still tracking down a picture of me from the party. My costume turned out great and so I’m eager to see a photo. For the time being, here’s the representation:

Saturday October 31 2009: Happy Halloween!

I helped Marissa get ready for Halloween. She was Jackie Kennedy!

It’s Halloween weekend and that means there’s going to be some festivities.

First off, tonight I’m going to rush home and get ready for the annual Matthies Halloween party. Last year was a ton of fun, and I’m expecting the same this year. Like I said in an earlier post, I’m going to be Cleopatra. I’m really looking forward to this costume. Hopefully, I can get the head piece worked out.

Then on Halloween itself, I get to stick around home and relax. Since last weekend didn’t feel much like a weekend all, but instead felt like work, I look forward to just bumming around and doing whatever. Hopefully, I won’t be totally lazy.

Then, at the stroke of midnight, I can begin writing my novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I’ve been waiting to participate in this all year, and I’m so excited. The gist, is that you have to write a 50,000 word (150 page) fictional novel between November 1 and November 30. You would be surprised how many people participate in this. There are at least 780 people in Boulder doing it alone. So I’m super psyched!

The work itself is going to be a mystery. I’ve never written mystery before, but I’ve read plenty. It’s going to be called “The Four Mansions on Lambert Bay” and it will have a female tow historian/librarian protagonist that solves it all.

Before it’s all said and done, I’m going to make some calzones on Sunday. Thanks Amanda for the recipe tip!

Last night I got my Halloween costume in the mail! I’ve decided to be Cleopatra. The concept has always been on my list all these years, but it usually got supersceded by something else. Well this is the year for it. I have the perfect hair cut, now all I need is some black eyeliner. Speaking of eyeliner, I actually recently finished a pencil. I’ve never done that before. I sharpened it and sharpened it until there was no more. So I’ll get to wear this to the Matthies Halloween Party next Friday. I’m looking forward to it.

Today at work, it was another crazy day of getting as much done as I could for IdM. I stayed until 5:30, and then went to a birthday dinner for my friend Matt. It was a nice time. I was going to go to the after party at a bar, but just couldn’t make it that late. This week has officially kicked my ass, and I still have so much work left to do over the weekend.

You know you’ve had one of those weekends when you’ve run the dishes three times and yet there’s still dirty dishes piled up on Sunday night. The kind where you eat really comforting food with people that you care about and they all stay quiet for a moment and say mmmm under their breath. The kind where you tell lots of funny stories that start with “remember when…” The kind that has football, and clean towels out of the dryer, and too many cups of coffee just because you can. The kind of weekend where you feel like you’re coming off a busy week, month, season, and you can finally reset. Reset your routine and reset your expectations. And the kind of weekend when you make new plans, set new goals, and finish the night feeling rather satisfied. Not completely, of course, because there’s still so much to do, so much to worry about, and so much left to desire, but more satisfied than usual.

This was my weekend.

A picture is worth a 169 words.

Yep, it snowed today. Not a whole lot, but enough to postpone the Rockies game and it was really super cold. So I pretty much stayed inside with friends today. I got the crock pot out. Caught up on a lot of my favorite shows. And played an epic game of scrabble. It may not appear epic, because we’re not that smart and it took forever. But we scored about 600 points and used all of the letters.

I did "quiet" and "zoo/or" back-to-back, for like 75 points!

Every now and again I get together with some of my college friends. This night was scheduled long before my trip, and so I was happy to see that it was still on when I got back. I had to miss a couple of these get togethers this year, and I was very excited to see my friend Meredith, who is having a baby! So I met up with them at the Kona Grill. We had lots of appetizers and a couple of drinks. We had a great time. I was glad to see them.

Meredith and Katie

Here I am with Kim and Candice.