Studying, That's about it!

I am studying, studying, studying! We had a nice 4th of July and are back to the routine, today. I totally meant to take some of my free time, edit some photos, and write a nice blog post over the four day weekend (Fri-Mon), but that didn't happen since I was either studying or outside.  It's been time well spent, and I've got a third exam this Thursday.

On the random chance that anyone has any useful tips about learning chemical reactions, I'd be more than happy to hear them. :) This evening, I'll be hunkered down with my notecards learning the 70+ reactions and mechanisms we've heard in class the past few days.

Keep cool, everyone!

Busy weekend!

Phew!  Our Friday went like this:

9:00 Leave for the north DMV
9:30 -10:10 DMV stuff {holy cow, we were not expecting it to go this fast! 40 minutes here vs. 4 hours at the other place!!}
10:10-2:00 We had to take the car to get inspected, then the mechanic fixed the car, and reinspected it so it would pass.  We paid a bunch for it and in the meantime we ate lunch {sushi} and browsed around the nearby mall.
2:00 - Left the DMV/mechanic/mall area for campus
2:30-3:00 I got my picture for my new student ID card, got the campus parking sticker for my car, and bought books. That also set us back a few bucks.

We had a little downtime to have a smoothie and relax before heading out again.

4:30 Left for some organized bowling. I'm pretty sure we drove through some ghettos, and made it there late, but alive. GoogleMaps estimates of driving times through cities is about half of what it actually is. Ugh.
5:10 BOWLING!  We bowled and the Mr. scored 147 then 145.  I bowled 109 and 112.  We bowled until
7:30 left the bowling alley, taking a different way back, making much better time than before
8:00 got back to the apartment
8:15 headed out to the movie theater to meet up with another couple to catch the
9:10  showing of THOR. I thought it was a pretty fantastic movie. It lasted until
11:10 at which point we drove back and basically fell straight asleep!

I've gotten so used to going to bed around 9, that I was honestly surprised that I stayed awake after such a busy day.  I even kind of tripped on the escalator since I am so nimble on my feet {har har har}.

On Saturday and Sunday we did more necessary paperwork and chores.  Today we went on a walk through a protected forest area, and that was pretty interesting.  We also planted some seeds, so hopefully those will turn out well!

I hope everyone else had a fun, relaxing weekend!

Weekend Walk

Hello, everyone!  I hope you all had a fantastic weekend!  It was gorgeous here both Saturday and Sunday... I couldn't have asked for any better weather for the weekend.  The sun was out, it was 65-70*, slight breeze...verrrry nice weather. 

On Saturday, the Mr. and I walked to the library to get our cards and check out some books. It was a rather forest-y walk there, which was nice to enjoy.  The only downside was that there was no sidewalk the entire way there, so I'm not sure if it would be feasible to walk there when it's wintertime and snowy.  There was a nature-type expo going on at the library, which included naturalists from the area, a local photographer/journalist for the capital region newspaper, wildlife experts, and the local boyscouts.  Everyone wanted us to take their calender of events, and it was pretty fun hearing everyone so excited about their neck of the woods. Which, as it turns out, is also our neck of the woods, now, too. :)  So, we'll have to look through several pages of events, and pick out a few things that look fun and interesting to us.  Some of the events were stargazing, cutting out invasive species (which we could use as an ingredient in pesto), and several hikes through the area. 

Anywho, after we visited the library, we trekked on over to the YMCA to check the place out and look at their rates.  We're also pretty interested in continuing with a martial arts program (taekwondo and/or hapkido, preferably).  There are a few dojangs around the area, and the Y's martial arts program looks decent.  For now, though, our apartment complex has a basic workout area [2 treadmills, 1 elliptical, 1 bike, multipurpose weight machine] which should be able to get us through the warm months.   After the Y, we ate lunch on the balcony and did some necessary paperwork, before heading out for a walk which ended up with carrying groceries back from the store. We rested up a bit, and went out again, since it was so nice, and played Frisbee.  I had worn the pedometer on Saturday, and it said we walked 5.4 miles. HOLY COW! Cardio= walking, strength training= carrying groceries back from the store, short burst activity=frisbee.  Needless to say, I slept well that night.

this is what it looked like for most of our walk to the library

we also saw this on our way to the library

At the library- I'm not really sure who this book is trying to appeal to. But it looked weird enough, so I took a picture of it.

Sunday, even though it's {obviously} more recent than Saturday, kind of eludes me.  I know we went for two walks and ended up buying some seeds {basil, green onion, yellow squash, green peppers, tomatoes, marigolds, snapdragons} and pots to put them in. The pedometer said we walked 3.3 miles on Sunday, by the end of the day.  I think being out in the sun made me more tired than usual, since it has been almost constantly rainy here.  It's turned everything green pretty fast!  Looks like things will either get 'greener' or 'soggier'- the forecast for the week is:

Mon-  Showers

Tues-  T-Showers
Wed-  Rain
Thurs- Few Showers
Fri- Partly Cloudy

We saw that plant a bunch of times on our walk.

could it be wild rhubarb or something else?

white, flowering tree.



I was surprised how well these pictures came out, btw.  I snapped these with the Mr.'s camera on his phone, and they turned out surprisingly well, if not as good as my camera. Happy Monday!

Going places, doing things, and paying everyone along the way

This is what our Friday and Saturday consisted of.  A narrative may or may not follow, depending on whether or not I can put all of my lovely thoughts into words or not.  Until then, this is the gist of what we've been up to yesterday and today. It seemed like lots of fun colored crayons would be more helpful than trying to explain it. And if it looks confusing, that's because it was.  VERY.

If you click on the picture, it will become larger (I think). This evening, it was 7:00 by the time the Mr. was back from the store.  Luckily, supper turned out well, and one of my two highlights of the day was finding pesto on sale: so we had pesto shrimp and spaghetti. Yum. 

Part of a nice day...I'll take it!

Saturday was rainy and pretty crummy here... There was a high wind advisory with the rain, so we stayed inside and got lots of necessary paperwork done.  Sunday started out chilly, but warmed up in the afternoon.  We got the majority of our pictures hung up, for now.  We ran errands Sunday afternoon, and were able to go for a walk and enjoy the brisk spring air.  The blooming plants sure are nice to look at, but I'm pretty sure they're the source of my allergies right now!  Via the Internet, you can see what I saw, sans the sneezing and sniffling. :)

budding tree

I'm not sure what kind of flowers these are. If you know, I'm curious to find out.

The Outdoors

Hopefully we can spend some time outside this weekend.  The high for today is 51 with a chance of afternoon showers, and the high for Sunday is 58 with a sunny afternoon.

View from our balcony. Picture taken 4/15.