I am the Biggest Loser

So, the staff at school is starting a Biggest Loser competition. I'm pretty pumped about it. Everybody's chipping in some money and whoever looses the most gets the money. The competition will only last a month this time b/c of a long Christmas break coming up. The organizers are thinking of doing another competition in January. I feel a little out of my league. I'm not sure what to do about meals. Also, this is a lot different from this summer's detox diet. That only lasted for a week. I can do anything for a week. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep this up for a month. The excercise is not what concerns me, it's the food prep, and not being sure what's ok. This summer I learned it's all about portion size, so I'll take that little bit of wisdom with me. Luke is doing it too. Pretty exciting! I think I'm the only one who faithfully watches the show. I feel responsible to make sure everything is authentic. :) Some of my competition: Luke, Lori, Shauna, and Angie. I'll find out tomorrow if there are more! Exciting!

School Auction

Last night we had our annual auction fund-raiser for school. Luke and I were helpers. We ended up helping a lot more than we thought we would. We were busy all night, but still ended up taking away 6 tickets to "Peter and the Wolf," and a new lamp! I love my lamp! It was a total surprise from a Mom from last year. She is so incredibly generous. I was telling Luke last night how much I love it and that I finally felt like I have something nice. That's funny b/c we have many nice things, but this lamp just makes me feel classy. Weird, but true. The room that it's in right now gets used so infrequently, so I think it might be moved so I can see it more.
**Yes, those are Jeff Clement baseball cards.**

In "Reader's Digest" I read an interview with Tim Allen, in anticipation of his new movie: Santa Clause 3. Will it be the next Christmas classic? Probably not. Anyway, there was one question and response that I found humerous and pretty true, in my life.

"RD: What was it like growing up in a family with so many children?

Allen: Fabulous, although my mom wold probably disagree. I have an only child. She's so independent and good with adults. We didn't care about adults. They were in that other living area. It was like Charlie Brown: you just saw their feet walking around."

I thought this was funny b/c it's so true. I was the fifth child out of six. Maybe being so far down in the pack made it more true for me than the older ones. I remember growing up being so intimidated and scared sometimes when communicating with adults, even uncles and aunts b/c we hardly ever saw them. Hey, when there's so many kids around, there's no need to interact with adults, but boy, when you're forced to, it's the most nerve-racking thing. Could this be why during all my jobs in highschool there was so much discomfort when it came to realtionships with my bosses? I.E. T-Man??? As realized recently, I was not able to feel comfortable around adults until I had become one. So, since college, it's been good. I just thought this was interesting. The reference to Charlie Brown made me laugh because I always got so irritated that I could never see the adults' faces or understand what they were saying. It's funny to me now b/c I think they were making a statement that when you're Charlie Brown's age, everything adults say sounds the same, as well as unintelligible.

Whoa!

I was so sad tonight when I finally got to watch my taped episode of Dancing with the Stars. Yep, it's safe to say I'm a reality TV junkie. I will give every reality show a fair chance. Well, not every show. I have to draw the line at Big Brother. I've never given that one a fair shake. It's just not worth it to me. Anyway, this season I got hooked on Dancing with the Stars after I saw that last season they had Lisa Rinna on the show. I loved her as Billy on Days of our Lives. So, this season when I found out Mario Lopez and Joey Lawrence were on...how could I not watch? Every episode my heart swells up with admiration and appreciation for Joey Lawrence. He is such a family man and obviously adores his wife and daughter. He keeps saying how "blessed" he is. Who says that? I've only known Christians to use that word. He is so appreciative for every good score he gets. I mean it's almost embarrassing sometimes how often he says thank you. He's so incredibly joyful, and talks about praying on the show. I have to say I like the bald Joey a lot more than the long haired Joey. I am a Joey fan now. He has got my vote and my allegiance much more than he ever did when he was on Blossom. (Trivia: Joey co-starred with David Lascher on Blossom, who appeared on "Hey Dude." Just a throw-back to an earlier post) Well, now that I've made this post look like an edition of "Tiger Beat" I would just like to finally note the reason for this post: I'm extremely disappointed that Joey and his partner Edyta got voted out this week. I was cheering for him, but I think that Emmitt Smith's charm and hip movement won out. I guess now I'm going to cheer for Mario. One of the teen heart throbs has got to win.

You'll always be a winner to me, Joe.










Something extra: Joey had a short-lived singing career and I loved one song that he sung. I still listen to it every once in a while. If you'd like to listen to the song, go here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVg7il--C90
For some reason the video doesn't match the song, and it's broken up, but you get the idea.
If you missed Joey dancing this season, never fear, go here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhnYQ0anoMw
**I can't figure out how to make a word highlighted within my post like Holli and Miles do. I would like to just have it be highlighted so that you can click on the word "Joey Lawrence," for example, and it will take you right to the video. Rookie question, I know, but can anybody help?

This one's just for fun:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYCSCbqbdJA

Rare and Few

Not many people get to graduate from college with their husband. That's why I love these pictures so much. We sat right next to each other and walked across the stage one after the other. Deb first, then Luke. Luke cheered loudly for me. Yes, we planned it so our hats would point to each other while we were sitting among the rest of the Ed. Majors. We made it easy for our parents to spot us.

I also really like this next picture. It's an ad for Bleach. At the bottom it says, "Trusted for six genertations. All the rage since 1913." I'm not sure why I like it so much. It just really makes me think. What are they trying to say? I may be searching too deep for meaning...probably. It think it's saying that what was popular in 1913 was to be like the first girl, then in the twenties to be like the second girl, and so on. Until we get to today. So the question I ask myself is: Is it now more popular and noble to be pregnant and not working? (I can only assume not working, because the previous girl is obviously headed off to work in her pant suit.) Is that what is "all the rage" right now? My friend Micah came to another conclusion: "The ad is saying that there's way to much pregnancy now. They're saying while you used to see every popular girl in a working suit, now you see them pregnant." We laughed about this a little bit. But the question remains, is the ad speaking out about the nobility of being a mom and investing in your kids, or about promiscuity? You be the judge. Could be that this is not interesting to anybody but me...

Blanchard's fate will be decided in 5 minutes

I was looking at some old commercials and TV intros tonight while waiting to see if our school's superintendent won the Iowa Senate race. Barbara Blanchard, best of luck to you.

What I was mostly looking for was a specific Dunkaroos commercial where it says, "The long distance, dainty dunk!" I'm trying to prove something to an old friend on his birthday Nov. 20. I found every Dunkaroos commercial but that one. Ugh. In my searching I found the song intro for "Hey Dude." Awesome! I also saw the intro for "Kid's Incorporated." So funny. While I was watching the "Hey Dude" opener I spied something so totally amazing. Check out the name of the girl who used to play "Brad." Kelly Brown??? WHAT? haha. This is hilarious. One of my bestest friends used to have the name Kelli Brown, now it's Kelli Burrier, but sometimes I slip up and call her Brown. :) I thought this was great. Thinking of you tonight, Kel!

Now I know how you really feel...

Today I sat down to edit the yearbook for Luke. After an hour into working, I looked down at the mouse pad to find a friendly surprise. I'm not sure who wrote it, but I'm sure it's one really cool fourth-grader.


May you be someday be graced with the sweet compliment of defaced property; done out of uncontainable admiration for you.