Turkey Hangover

Just got home from St. Louis...Thanksgiving break was great (it's possibly my favorite holiday - I love family gatherings, and this one is usually the biggest for us), but the Sunday after break is probably my least favorite Sunday all semester. I tend to get "holiday vision" (kinda like tunnel vision, but lined with twinkle lights and snowmen), and coming back to school for a measly two weeks after such a short time at home is icky. My brain does its best to ignore those two weeks and pretends that once I hit Thanksgiving break, I'm done for the semester...I'm not. I got back to Fayetteville and opened my to do file, and this is what I saw:

Yeah...*sigh*

I look at this...and I KNOW I should start working...but I'm overwhelmingly unmotivated. There's Christmas music on the radio, and hot cocoa in the cabinet, and twinkle lights EVERYWHERE, and a Christmas tree in my car just begging me to bring it in and set it up (I'm very VERY motivated to do that...)

So, new plan: I do an assignment, and I get to put up a piece of decor. This will totally work...right?

In other news, the Razorbacks won and are now #7 in the BCS (FINALLY, some recognition!). Also, I got a new camera this weekend! A Cannon SX130. It's beautiful and has 12x optical zoom (and I got it for $150 off!). Expect many photo-ful uploads in the future. Til then. 

UPDATE (10:30 PM): ...the tree is up, I have hot cocoa, and none of those aforementioned assignments has been done...oh well

The phrase "War Eagle" and I have a love-hate relationship

Every year, on the third weekend of October, northwest Arkansas is flooded with scads of crafters. There are (at least) three HUGE craft fairs that happen – with War Eagle being the original (and best, in my opinion). My “Tutu” lives up in Rogers, just a little ways from War Eagle Mill, so we almost always go together. The setting is just beautiful. This is the mill:

See all the people on the bridge? It gets crazy. Oh, while we're at it, how bout a view from the bridge?

The fairs start on Wednesday or Thursday, but I normally drive up to Rogers on Friday evening and Tutu and I make the rounds on Saturday morning. We get up super early (like 6 or 7), drive out to the farm and have breakfast at the mill. Now, there is a strategy to this early start. If you don’t get out to the farm before 9am, you have to sit in traffic for about two hours just to park. Then you have to wade through the thousands (yes, thousands) of people who got there before you in order to see anything. If, however, you are War Eagle experts like me and Tutu, you: get there early, park relatively close, have a freshly made, whole-wheat buttermilk biscuit with sausage, then wander the tents without having to move like you’re on a Tokyo subway car.

Now, you may be thinking “Why are there that many people at a craft fair?” This is a legitimate question if you are imagining the fair as a little area of a few tents with people peddling things like marshmallow guns and homemade candles. If that’s the case, you’re half correct…in that way that there are a few vendors with homemade candles. Otherwise, you’re way off. These fairs are gigantic and the vendors come in from all over selling everything from, yes, marshmallow guns to handmade wooden benches and gorgeous artwork.  

With War Eagle in particular, the fair is divided into “hobby” crafts and “professional” crafts. The professional section is grouped together on one side of the river and is judged. The hobby section is on the other side (and is a bit less organized). We normally start with the judged tents (there are 4 tents and a barn, each with four rows of about 15 booths). This year one of my roommate’s friends was in the judged tents. Her name is Autumn and her stuff is really cute…see? After a couple of hours, we head back across the river to briefly peruse the hobby tents. I have one tent that I visit every year, Vega Pottery. I buy one piece each time and I’ve built up quite a collection (Tutu got me started, my first few pieces were graduation presents). This year I also got Gigi some biscuits (with flavors like Blueberry and Steak and Mashed Paw-tater…she could care less what they’re called).

After the fair, Tutu and I normally have lunch. We opted out of fair food this year (everything from funnel cakes to Indian tacos to strawberry crepes) in favor of a tea room down on the Rogers square.

I then collected Gigi and we headed back to Fayetteville to meet up with some friends for the football game (we played Auburn) and Dickson St. Oktoberfest. This is only the second year they’ve done Oktoberfest, so it’s not very big yet, but there was a semi-entertaining brat eating contest (semi-entertaining…semi-really gross).

We went to Hog Haus to watch the massacre that was the football game (Auburn isn't THAT awesome...the dumb SEC refs just made it look that way...besides, they're schizophrenic, what does "War Eagle" have to do with Tigers anyway?), then spent the rest of the evening listening to an 80’s cover band at Jose’s. 

Long day, but good times with some of my favorite people. I should probably do homework now…*sigh* 

Weekends? What are those?

Um, so this weekend was Bikes, Blues, and BBQ - I try to convince myself each year that it wasn't so bad last year and that I might even enjoy it this year. I'm always wrong.

It was also our second India class - more about that later.

In other news, the Hogs didn't play this weekend. Bama did. They won...again...but the way they played made me feel much better about last week.

Yeah, so, I have an accounting exam on Monday. And a paper due tomorrow. And a memo to write. And no clean clothes. Don't expect an update 'til at least Tuesday. Happy DayThatWasSupposedToBeAWeekendButWasn't.

Wondering where I went?

Confession: I have been a bad blogger…I’m sorry. I promise to do better from now on.

So, as you might have guessed from the lack of updates, I’ve been a bit busy as of late. In order to give you a better picture as to what has kept me so busy, I’m going to give you the hi-lights in this post, and further elaborate in subsequent posts throughout the week. Good plan? I thought so, too.

Okay, highlights:

¨      First India class

¨      First Professional Development Class

¨      Supplier Joint Business Plan Summit at Walmart

¨      Internship Experience Presentations, Round One

¨      Networking Lunch with the Arkansas Executive Forum

¨      FOOTBALL

¨      Forest Gump and Pancakes

¨      Internship Experience Presentations, Final Round

¨      Farmers’ Market and Ozark Harvest Food Festival (oh, and more football!)

So, any of the above have you intrigued? Even if it doesn’t, you should check back tomorrow. Plenty of fun-packed posts to come. ‘Til then, readers, and welcome to September!

Razorback Relief

So much for a relaxing Saturday, but days like today are one reason I love Fayetteville.

I started out at the Farmers' Market down on the square. The main "wares" for sale now have gone from flowers to veggies, which always makes me wanna buy bags and bags of produce and cook a week's worth of yummy, fresh meals.

After the market I went to help out at Razorback Relief. A group called Numana organized this gigantic marathon of meal-relief-bag packing. They started last night (June 24th) at 7pm and packed bags for 24 hours straight.

Here are a couple of links with more information:
http://www.acumenholdings.com/razorback-relief/
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/razorbackrelief
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBEIBVYJaQ8&feature=player_embedded

I arrived about 10 am and I was shown to one of about 60 tables in our indoor track center. At the table were four huge tubs (one with vitamin powder, one with chicken flavored soy granules, one with dried beans, and one with rice). We were to measure out specific amounts of each into small bags, weigh them, seal them, and pack everything up in a box. The bags not only had cooking instructions and nutritional information, but this entire section on how to avoid scams. They said stuff like "Always know where your children are and who they are with," and "Remember: No one can force you to work in exchange for food, water, or drugs."

Here's a shot of what the insanity looked like:

I stayed for about 4 hours and our table alone packed about 2,000 bags. The atmosphere inside the arena was awesome - we called the hogs twice, sang the fight song, watched a competition between a table of Razorback football players and group of girl scouts (the Razorbacks won), and did a few rounds of Backstreet Boys sing-alongs (not our music choice...but fun still). While I was there we went from 800,000 bags packed to over 1,000,000! When we crossed that million bag mark the entire room erupted. It was a great four hours. (The last time I checked they had broken the world record and were headed towards 1.4 million meals! Go Hogs!)

 

After Razorback Relief I headed home. I had several loads of laundry to do, meals to make for next week, a puppy to check on, and a WORLD CUP game to watch.

Regarding said game - SO MUCH STRESS! Did you watch it? Oh, if the ball barely missed the net one more time, I think I might have had a heart attack. And I can't say it enough - Landon Donovan is WONDERFUL! We may have lost, but Uruguay will destroy Ghana in the next game, so all is well (and honestly, as long as Spain is still in it, I'm happy).

Now, I'm cuddled with the puppy on the couch, watching a movie on Netflix, trying to figure out which room to tackle next - the roommate and I have found a new place to live (yay!), so we're slowly starting to pack up the apartment.

That's all for now, dear readers, more to come this week (I promise I'll finally blog about New York...and give travel tips!) Check back soon!