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

Did August sneak up on anyone else?

So...yeah...how is it August already? Not only that, but how has a week of August already gone by? It amazes me how quickly time disappears. Also, it is HOT here. Not, "Oh, it's summer" hot, like "I think my skin is melting and I'm pretty sure I can swim through this air" hot...it's upsetting. Hurry up, fall!

Anyway, I don't have a tremendous amount to report from last week. I had a lovely weekend in St. Louis with my parents and family. We took my cousins to the Arch, the City Museum, and the Zoo (entertaining kids is exhausting!).

I got home late Sunday night and didn't really feel like I'd had a weekend before it was time to head back to work on Monday morning. The week went by quickly, though, full of Retail Link, Excel, conference calls and meetings.

I did have a little treat on Wednesday evening. We are blessed to have a great performing arts center in downtown Fayetteville - the Walton Arts Center. They bring in all of the big, touring Broadway shows, and on Wednesday nights, students can get discount tickets (in this instance, 50% off!). The theater is small enough that none of the seats feel very far away from the stage, so even with the "cheap" seats, you still have a great view of the show. My friend Lauren and I went to see Beauty and the Beast. It is my favorite childhood movie, and I've seen the musical several times, but no matter what, it always makes me smile and giggle like a little kid. Afterwards we grabbed a quick dinner at Kosmos (a cute, affordable little Greek place on Dickson). I love laid back nights with girlfriends - they make the occasionally boring work week go by faster.

Now it's Friday and this weekend is going to be PACKED! Two of my best friends are in town from Minnesota (Kevin got a job and took Vicky away to the frozen north last summer, so we rarely see them). We have all sorts of fun "Fayetteville" plans, so I'm sure I'll have a great "Life in Northwest Arkansas" post for you in a few days (which should involve, wait for it...a drive-through zoo! No, I'm not kidding).

On top of all of that fun, my internship reports are due on Monday, so that's going to add some unwanted "work" time to this weekend. We have to submit: an executive summary (how did the summer go, what did you accomplish, what did you learn type thing), a poster (a pictorial depiction of the summary), and a presentation. They are just drafts, but my perfectionist nature doesn't always understand the concept of "drafts," so it's probably going to take me longer than I'd like to get everything put together.

So, dear readers, I'm off to enjoy a few (unnecessarily warm) days with my favorite people. I'm sure there will be many, many pictures and fun stories to share, so check back (I mean, drive-through zoo, I KNOW you're curious...). 'Til then, friends!

Birthday Adventures

My birthday was on the thirteenth, so I decided to take a few days off and drive to St. Louis to celebrate with my parents. I left late Monday afternoon, and Gigi and I made the five hour trek through Missouri.

Upon my arrival home late that evening (following a horrid drive that involved cars going 35 mph, three torrential downpours, a nervous-crying-wiggly puppy, and far too much construction), I was greeted with some rather unhappy birthday news – Daddy was in the hospital.

Apparently he’d had chest pains earlier that day, so he’d gone into the emergency room and they made him stay for a whole gauntlet of tests. We found out the next day (my actual birthday), that all of the test were returning negative (i.e. good) results – no heart attack, no blocked arteries, no irregularities…

While that was all well and good, it just meant that we still had no clue what had happened to him. So, they decided to keep him in the hospital for another evening of observation.

We had a mini-birthday at the hospital – I opened presents and Mom and I picked up the cake Daddy had ordered (from McArthur’s). My favorite present? A new case for my Mac – it looks like an old, hardback book, which, if you know me, fits my personality perfectly.

The cake was yummy, too. Won’t show you the traditional “first bite” picture that Mom always makes me take…no one wants to see that…

That night, since he was still stuck in the hospital, Mom and I decided to drive up to Columbia, MO where one of my best friends from high school (Kate) is working this summer. I hadn’t seen her in about a year, so it was a nice birthday treat. We had dinner at the Pasta Factory – grilled Ahi tuna and pesto linguini – and dessert at Sparky’s – White Russian & Chocolate Orange flavored homemade ice cream. Wanna see pictures? Silly me, of course you do! Here you go:

We spent the next day at the hospital with Daddy (while they ran even MORE tests), but we did take a break that evening and grab dinner with my roommate. And I got more birthday presents! She painted me two adorable canvases - they're perfect for our new place!

After dinner we stopped by Ted Drewe’s. If you’re ever in St. Louis, this place is a must. Just don’t go after a Card’s home game or an evening when the Muny has just let out…unless you wanna stand in a line that looks like...actually, nevermind. Go anyway. It's an experience.

After the second round of tests and a third night of observation (yes, they kept him another night), the doctor finally found the problem. Apparently, his heart’s electrical system isn’t operating properly. During the night, he had several incidents where his heart didn’t beat for a few seconds (one was 7 seconds long!) If that had happened while he was awake, he would have passed out cold. So, the doctor decided he needed a pacemaker…which meant another day in the hospital. The surgery went fine and we finally got to bring Dad home on Friday morning.

Since we had kinda missed my birthday, we decided to celebrate Friday evening with dinner at Citizen Kane’s – it was wonderful. They even put a candle in my dessert…which was odd…since it was flan…

Unfortunately, I had to leave super early the next morning to make it to Fayetteville for Business Plan Boot Camp, day 2, but more on that in a later post. The week, though it didn’t go as I’d planned, was nice. I got to see Mom and Dad, spend time with an old friend, and got presents! Now back to the real world – packing, moving, work, and school. Boot Camp update to follow – thanks for reading!