A Look Back At the Firsts - Nostalgia Monday

Today is the first day of classes for my alma mater, Central Michigan University.  I had a great four years there, and I have no regrets.  I miss the wonderful people I met and I won't forget the great experiences I had there.

Andrew, chillin' in the ATEP lab

The cast and crew of Dead Man's Cell Phone

Some of the class of Irish Theatre History 2011 in Ireland, the night we did Caley Dancing

But I want to post a little nostalgia about the firsts for my that happened while I was there.

At Central I had my first apartment, that is now a parking lot instead.  Here, Adam gave me my claddaugh ring, as a promise ring.  I had my second apartment on campus too, and this apartment is where my wonderful boyfriend of 3 1/2 years proposed to me.

This building is also now a parking lot.  If you drive down Washington, through the center of campus, past the EHS building, the parking lot between EHS and Washington is where the two buildings I first lived in on my own used to stand.

While at Central I met two of my best friends, Courtney and Nicole.

Both of whom were bridesmaids in our wedding.  Melissa (one of my BFFs from my childhood) joined us when she came to CMU for grad school and Nicole introduced us to Lee.

Melissa (MOH1) and I on Adam's and my wedding day

L-R: Nicole, Courtney (holding Bauer), Me (please excuse my crazy eyes, I was trying not to blink) and Lee.  Our last Christmas with all of us in Michigan.

We used to have weekly breakfast gatherings where I would cook breakfast and we'd all hangout and eat and have a great time with friends.  This was a change from our weekly dinners we had the previous semester.

One of the biggest firsts while I was in Mount Pleasant:

Adam and I moved in together.

We moved in together the summer after we got engaged/summer before we got married.

And this summer we had to say good bye to it, two years after we moved in.

 Our tiny kitchen

It was remodeled about two months before we moved.

Looooong hallway that looked so nice when I decorated for Christmas.  I had a lot of fun with different things in this hallway.

The office

The office continued

We had so much closet space in this place.

First bathroom

connected by the shower/tub to 

the bathroom that connected to our bedroom

See? Seriously tons of closet space!

The room seems so much smaller without our stuff in it.

It was out this window that there was a great field where we played frisbee a lot.

Then we head back down the hall to our living room/dining room.

This apartment complex wasn't the best, but it was our first, together.  We came home to this apartment after our wedding, it was the first address we had on our drivers licenses that wasn't our parents' addresses.  We came home from our honeymoon to this apartment, and from our first wedding anniversary celebration.

So much happened here, it was hard to leave.  It felt like home.

Sorry for the quality, light was bad and I was trying not to cry until after the picture.

But today, I hope that even though the faculty is on strike, that every student's college experience at Central is as amazing as mine was and they have a lot of phenomenal firsts.  And I want to thank the Faculty for my experience. Though I didn't graduate with an ATEP degree, I learned loads from the ATEP faculty.  And the Theatre, Interpretation and Dance faculty made my experience with the theatre program one of the best times in my life.  I learned so much in class, working shows (whether I was crewing or in them), and about myself.  I loved every minute of my theatre major.  The friends I made, the people I met, thank you for my great experience at Central.

Fire Up Chips!

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Thanks to Katie, Tim, Nicole, Lee and Titus Photography for some of the photos in this post, the rest are taken by me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year I have so much to be thankful for, some of which I didn't have last year!

I am thankful for a wonderful husband, who is always there for me and felt like my husband well before the ink was dry on our marriage license.  He has been amazing and supportive through all of the changes that I have been going through the last year.

I am thankful for some amazing friends that I have, four of which (Nicole, Melissa, Courtney and Lee!) I will get to celebrate Christmas with early on Sunday.  They are there for me always and there is never a time that those four ladies ever are more than a phone call away.  Now that I've singled out those four, I'd like to tell you how thankful I am for the other friends that I have too.  New friends and old, life in Moore would be very boring without them.

I am thankful that changing my major didn't turn out to be a huge mistake.  I have never been so happy.  I have missed class like four times the entire semester and every one was because I was sick.  I have learned so much in the last year about myself, acting and theatre in general.  I love going to class, I learn so much and I love to study for the classes I have.  I am passionate about what I am learning and that is so important. 

I am thankful for my family.  My Mom and Dad, Matt, Zack, my parents-in-law and my sister-in-law Liz, extended family and all of the puppies in both families.  I won't get to see everyone over the next four days, one of my Uncle's and his family are moving and another Uncle's family is going to Chicago, but I am thankful for such a big family, even if it is a wee bit stressful at times.

I am thankful for all the other exciting things that are going on in my life right now, which I can't go into detail here, yet.  But as excited as I am about right now, I am even more excited for the future, including graduation.

I am thankful for all of you who come here from Marriage Confessions (You are amazing, Katie, and I am so glad I found your blog!), Fat Cyclist, Wide Lawns (congrats on your wee one being brought safely into this world!) and other blogs I comment on.  And those of you who come from Twitter or Facebook, thank you for reading and putting up with my links.

I hope you all have a safe, wonderful, Happy Thanksgiving, from my little family to yours.  See you Monday!

P.S. Go vote at the Pepsi Refresh Project for the Williamston Theatre!

1700 Points....

.....and I made a rice bag!  Well, two actually. We have an MSU themed one that I think Adam's Mom got for him, but it's a tube and not really useful for backs or other wide areas (like my ass) so I had been meaning to go to Joann Fabrics and get some fabric for a wider one.

Then Saturday after a five hour rehearsal Friday night, I awoke to muscle soreness in my back (new!) and a pulled hamstring (which I knew about 10 minutes into the rehearsal).  Then my procrastination at getting material became a serious lack in judgement.  As I'm laying there, I think WAIT!  I have a ton of left over material from my previous projects! Why get new material when I have some I can use already?!?  So I stumble my way out of bed and picked out a purple handkerchief print I used to make my shoulder bag (and my lunch bag) that I had purchased the rest of the bolt because it was half off (and I loved it!)  I cut out a big section and started sewing.

We didn't have any rice.  And I had to go to rehearsal with Jenny.

Sigh.  My heated relief had to wait.  There was an upside though - the driver's seat in the car is heated!  So that held me over.

I rehearsed with Jenny and I went to the store to get rice.

Lee had a pillow she wanted me to fix, so after I did that, we sat and chatted whilst I finished my first rice bag!  I haven't seen her in weeks, so I was really glad we could hang out for a little while.  She's graduating in a few weeks and moving out of state so we have to get our happy visits in while we can - flights are expensive, even within the U.S.

Anyway, I only made one with Lee there and I made the second one much faster after we watched The Kids Are Alright (I'll write about the movie later).  I was planning on doing a tutorial for those who wanted to make their own when I made the second one, but I forgot.  Ooops, sorry!  So I will make more and remember to make a tutorial the next time!  I have all kinds of material and rice is cheap :-)

And now you're probably wondering what does 1700 points have to do with rice bags?  Well, nothing.  But, I use MyView Survey to earn points towards rewards and I am 1700 points away from a $25 Gift Card from Amazon which I am ridiculously excited about!  Then I get can some of the things on my Amazon Wish List!  I have too many things I want, and sometimes I hate that about me.  But I also really want to expand my sheet music library, book collection and I need heavier weights and a heart rate monitor for when I'm doing P90X.  But the fact that I have four lists separated into "categories"kind of irks me.  Ugh.

Anyway, I only need to do 1 1/2 more full surveys to get the gift card and I can't wait!  Woo!!

**EDIT** I now only need 850 points :D

30 Days of Truth - Day 20: Your Views on Drugs and Alcohol

I personally have never experimented with drugs.  I have taken drugs prescribed to me for various things and some of those have been... interesting... but I have never purposefully taken a drug - legal or illegal - for a high.

Alcohol is fine in moderation.  I enjoy an alcoholic beverage now and again.  I think some of them are rather tasty.  There are others however that are not so tasty.  The tasty ones are the ones you have to watch out for.  I have been drunk - really, really drunk once.  And by really drunk I mean I have thrown up once from drinking.  Nicole's birthday of this year (2010) Lee made Piña Colada martinis - never again.  I had fun up until I drank too much, then it wasn't fun anymore, everything was fuzzy and moved way too fast.  Never again.

Anyway, I'm not here to judge, but drinking just to get wasted and forget is not the way to go.  You know how you forget when you do that?  You kill brain cells.  Bad news bears.

Also, please, if you choose to get effed up on alcohol and/or drugs, don't get behind the wheel.  Save a life and take a cab. 

And eat Cabin Sticks - YUM.