The Study of My Engagement

I've spent the last week in West Virgina/Ohio with JJ and April(my sister). We have been visiting JJ's dad, and step-mom. I will be posting about that trip later, but for right now lets talk about the best part of the trip.

On Saturday, July 28th @ about 9:30pm eastern time JJ said,

"Ash, let's go for a bike ride to that place I almost drove off the road and killed us the first night we hung out."

I said, "Okay. Try not to kill me this time."

So,we both put on our helmets and road JJ's step-mom's purple bike (more on this later) to South Parkersburg on a road called, "Lost Pavement Road". I didn't die, or almost die this time. :-) Afterwards, we road to the highest point in Parkersburg called, Quincy Hill.

On this hill is where me and JJ spent the first hours of hanging out with each other. Where we go visit everytime I'm in Parkersburg. It's "our spot".


So, we sat on a bench on Quincy Hill on July 28th. After sitting on the bench for about an hour, at 11:30PM JJ handed me this:




How about another view:



How about a photo of me posing with it?



Isn't it pretty? It's just what I wanted too.

Then, he popped "the question".

"Will you marry me?"

After I was done crying, I said, "Yes, I'll marry you."




I am the luckiest girl on the planet. I'm going to marry the cutest, sweetest boy ever.

:-) :-)

The Study of My First 5K

After much pushing and shoving from JJ, (and staying up until 2am so I could get a copy of THIS) I ran my first 5K, Saturday July 21st at 7am, for Draper Days.

Here I am at the finish line, being Gene Simmons.

See any resemblance?

GO ME!

The course actually went in front of my parents house. My Mom, Dad, and sister were out in front of their house, cheering me on at 7:15am (it was about the 1.5 mark) and JJ was at the end taking photos.

It was the awesome. Here's to the first steps, soon it will be a marathon. SOON.

P.S.

You're probably wondering what happened to Monday Reviews? Well, it's been postponed. I wanted to talk about this, and I will be out of town this week. I'm on my way to West Virgina from Tuesday-Tuesday with JJ and Ape.

I'll pop in with a post, if something exciting happens. *wink

:-)

The Study of Things You Shouldn't Say

I got a speeding ticket back in the cold month of December 2006.

I fought it in court yesterday.

I lost. But, I almost won.

I'm not going into the details of the case. However, I did learn something.

Whenever you get pulled over by a police officer, NEVER, EVER, EVER admit that you were speeding, or tell the officer how fast you were going. Just a simple "I don't know". Plead not guilty from the beginning. This was the deciding factor in my case yesterday. So, listen.

Also, I am glad I fought the case and didn't just give in and give them the total cost of my fine. I made them WORK to get my money. If I ever get a ticket again, I will always fight it.

One day, I just might win.

By the way, the snake came back. :-)

Further Studies of My Cat

Just when I thought Yzma (my cat) had brought in all the creatures she could, I have something new to add to the list of creatures.

Here is the list:
-Dragonfly
-Numerous Katydids
-Earthworms
-A Mouse
-Baby Bird

JJ was home yesterday, and while I was at work he IMed me to tell me of her latest catch.

THIS:


JJ was so excitied!

A New Pet!

So, he stole it from Yzma before she could kill it. If he didn't, she would have killed it, and left it on the kitchen floor for me to see. Good thing he did. That is the last thing I would want to see hanging out on the kitchen floor, thank-you-very-much.

I told JJ to either kill it, or set it free. He said, "Nope, too late!". He was going to put it in the empty fish tank, and let it hang out in the computer room.

He must have been joking.

He gave it a name too, "Amzy" (that's Yzma backwards).

Oh great, now he's given it a name, now he's attached to it. A SNAKE!

So, JJ started reading online what to feed it. "Hey Ash, are you watering the lawn tonight?" I said, "Probably, why?". He said, "Well, if you see any worms that crawl out of the lawn, will you pick them up for my snake?"

"WHAT! Have you gone mad?!?! I'm not picking up food for your snake! I'll go buy you some worms at the store and never touch them, if you want me to do that instead."

So, after listening to JJ talk about the snake (and he was acting like an excited little kid) I decided it wouldn't be so bad, if it stayed in it's cage and I never had anything to do with it.

Now, wouldn't it be awesome if I had a photograph of this snake in it's new home? (Which, I'm not excited about... at all)

It's already loose in the house.

Time for the cat to go hunting again.

The Study of Eating with a Large Group of People

It seems my blog has turned into negative rants. I'm sorry. I'm really not that negative.

But, I do complain and try to figure out the ways of people alot.

Here is what happened last night:

I went out with a group of 17 people, for my friend Lindsey's birthday. 17, 25-30 year old people. Yes, ADULTS. Anyway, we went to Buca di Beppo. If you've never been there, they serve large dishes, and everyone shares their food. Kind of like a Chinese restaurant with Italian food. Me, Carrie and Jake decided we would share our bill. So, the table ordered, the food came, and we all SHARED it. I mean, when you have a lazy susan on a huge round table with food rotating on it, and the pope staring back at you who wouldn't want to share?

Yes, there was a statue of the Pope trapped in a glass container staring back at our group in the center of the lazy susan.

Anyway....

The bill came and the total was $304.00. Everyone was trying to figure out how much they owed. What a mess. So, I'm sitting back watching everyone. Now, I hardly knew anyone at the table but Lindsey, her boyfriend and Carrie. I've have been to a few bbq's with these people, but don't really "know" them. So, anyone that knows me, knows I hate being the center of attention and I don't really take charge. So, as I was watching (we already figured out how much we owed) I said "Hey, why don't we split it for the whole table?"

So, instead of dividing it by the 17 people that had a plate of food, we did it by 14 (Cause, there were a few that only had dessert.... etc) So, the total for each person was $21.72.

We started to get complaints.

"I'm not paying $21.72 for my pizza!" then me saying "Yes, but you ate the appetizer and some of the pasta I ordered". "We cant afford that much!"

Me, Lindsey, Carrie and Jake were trying to convince people this was the better (and less stressful way to go).

4 against 13. Yeah.... you do the math on that one and see who won.

So, us 3 figured out how much we owed, and put it in the stack. I know for a fact that we our group probably overpaid. I should have counted the cash before it went to the waiter. Because, when the waiter came back he didn't have the change, nor did he even count how much money was there. But, that's another story.

Lessons learned:

If you go out with a large group of people, decide BEFORE you order your food how the group will pay the bill. Especially, if the restaurant you are going to eat at, does not do separate checks for large parties.

Make it easy. Just split the bill all evenly so you don't have to waste time figuring out what the total of your meal is. Again, figure out what you are going to do BEFORE any of the food comes. Set a price limit!

You will save about an hour arguing and trying to figure out what everyone owes.

So, after all the headache I've come to the conclusion to just have a dinner party if you want to eat with a large group. Bring your side, meat and drinks. I'll even host it!

No one complains about prices when there is a collar full of beer, and alcohol in the fridge waiting to be drank.

The Study of Hunting

You know what hobby I do not understand?

Hunting.

Waking up at 4am in the freezing cold to track down a deer? Hanging out all day in a tree hoping an Elk passes by? Trekking through swamps just to shoot some ducks?

And, then IF by chance these things actually happen:

WHY do hunters feel its necessary to pose with the dead animals?

Like this:



"I know! Lets all gather around and show off the DEAD animals, that we KILLED! We are so awesome!!!"

Maybe I'm just being a jerk about it cause I REALLY don't like killing things. I'm also glad my dad isn't a hunter like his brothers are. He has guns, but they just hang out in the closet. From time to time he goes and shoots clay pigeons and raccoons that come in the yard (and then I cry about a rodent being killed...haha) But you know, I guess what ever makes them happy, but still. Why not just knit a sweater or read a book?

The Study of Weekly Reviews

So, since I'm having the hardest time keeping this thing updated, I have decided something. Monday's here on, The Study of Narcissism will be devoted to reviews.

Yes, you read that correctly. I'm going to attempt writing reviews.

Books, Movies, TV shows, makeup products, you name it. Now, I'll warn you I'm probably not the best reviewer on the planet. But, I do try to have opinions about the things I see/read/participate in and I try to have some sort of reasons to back them up. So, take my advice if you want it. Otherwise, just skip my Monday posts!

So, without further ado, a book review.

I warn you that it might contain spoilers. Read at your own risk!

Thanks to my sister April and our recent trip to Barnes and Noble, I picked up the following book:



I actually heard about this book at a family reunion a month ago. My aunt and cousin were raving about how fantastic it was. Then, my sister said, "OH! I've heard such good things about it". Then, at Barnes and Noble while me and April were standing reading the entire new, Post Secret Book (which, sorry to get totally off subject, I suggest you read this Post Secret Blog every Sunday), the guy that was helping us reserve the new Harry Potter and The Dealthy Hallows said, "OH. Twilight. That book, is so excellent!" Even my friend Lindsey said she was reading the book, and was enjoying it.

So, I had very high hopes for this book being, well, excellent.

It was a disappointment. My review 2/5.

This book is filed in the Young Adult section. I enjoy Harry Potter so I didn't factor that in if I would enjoy this book or not. I'll admit that I like a little teen drama from time to time(in movie form), for some odd reason. So, I had high hopes that I was going to enjoy the book. But, basically it was just 300 pages about how this girl falls in love in two days with a hot Vampire guy. 300 Pages of her trying to figure out what he was (turns out he is a Vampire..which is not a spoiler, it tells you that on the back of the book). 300 pages of her blabbing on and on about how hot he was, and him telling her how good she smelt and how much he wanted her (duh, Vampire?). Him always trying to save her life in the most melodramatic ways. Sometimes I wanted to gag with the stuff I was reading. Like, him being so in love with her, but he can't have her because well, he's a Vampire! He might kill her! Who knew? The other thing that I did not like, was the author tried to make Vampires "good", and not the mythical creatures they are. For example, we all know that Vampires can't go out in the sun or they will burn and die. Well, in this book if they go out into the sun, their skin glows and they become god like (glowing, and magical). Yeah, right. ICK! If I did not get such a good reviews from everyone around me, I would have stopped reading this book by the third chapter. But, I kept hoping that it would get better, so I just kept reading.

Now, if you can survive the melodramatic, cliche drama this book beholds, then the last few chapters (and i mean, few) have some quite intense parts. Which, makes this book actually a good read. For a while. Even that whole drama is little bit too cliche for me.

Until the last chapter were it goes back to cliche love drama.

Would I recommend this to anyone else? Probably. If you like cliche romantic novels, with very basic characters. Which, I personally, do not. I like when the author lets me get to know who I'm reading about. Maybe Young Adult books do not do this. This one didn't, and it took me 3 chapters to get a clear image in my head what the main character even looked like.

So, if you like Vampires falling in love with people they can't, well read this book. At your own risk!

The next book I am going to start reading is this: My Sisters Keeper. April likes this author alot, so I'm going to give this novel a chance. I hope I enjoy it.

The Study of Nothing

HI. I'm still alive!!

I'm just slacking with my blog (what's new?)

Just keep your patience, awesome things are coming.

Promise.