Z is for...

Zeal is what we met the month of April with. We were quite the slackers before, but with the help of this massive A-Z challenge we hit the month head on. We blogged with passion and a desire to finish a challenge! Thank you again to everyone who came by each day to see what random story we had to tell. We had a blast!

Now, I welcome the month of May!! :D

<3 Katrin

Y

Y is for You, all the people who take time to read our blog.
Thanks for stopping by to see our posts. Whether you just stopped by via A-Z or have been a regular follower, I hope you have enjoy reading our blog.
Since most of you are new and found us from A-Z, feel free to continue to stop by if you enjoy a random story now and then about the room mate life. We'll try to write more often as we were kinda slacking from January-March.
And as I am now done with A-Z I bid it a farewell, it has been fun. Hope you enjoyed our letters.

X is for...

X-Men. I'm a fan of the whole series, but really I'm a huge Hugh Jackman fan. I'm not typically one of those girly types who drools over any attractive man, but Hugh Jackman is my exception. Just ask Joy. It can be a little creepy for her when I see him on TV. I just can't help myself.

I'm not very good at science. But I do know there are lots of smart words that start with an x. I however don't like to use them because I have no idea what they even mean. For example, xenogeneic is "of a disease, derived from an individual of different species." There's some useless education for ya.

W

W is for Wii.  When things get boring, Kat and I often turn to the Wii.  We mainly play Mario Party 8, get a some wii sports in (we're pro bowlers), and have recently cracked out the Wii play (Kat loves racing the cows).  We do team battles in Mario party which of course led to the name of our blog since our Yoshi and Toadette team was named Flutter Friends.  We like to make fun of the other team and are really rather mean about it. You have never seen two "grown women" get more upset about losing or even coming close to loosing a silly little video game.
W is also for the Warblers.  They are a glee club on the show Glee (which I love. Yup total Gleek.) I love the group and of course bought their CD to go with the rest of my Glee music collection.  But I'm a little concerned they may not be on the show anymore since one of the lead characters is no longer in the club :(
Kat also insists that W has to be for wasted. Because somebody went out and had a pretty good time Monday night.  And somebody else might have just been in bed until 2 pm.

V is for...

Victory! I'm nearing the end of my long undergraduate degree and the end is finally in sight. This morning I gave my final presentation in my senior seminar class. Congratulations to me. Now I just have to sail through these next 2 weeks of having nothing to do. Yeah, I think I can handle that.

Us

U is for us. And here we are... 

Here's an old school pic of us back in the dorm days

 Here's us recently out on the town

And just a fun pic of us from Halloween a couple years ago

Things to Think About

I have a job. I work, they pay me.

I pay my taxes, and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit.

In order to get that paycheck, in my case, I am required to pass a random urine test (with which I have no problem).

What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test.

So here's my question: Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them?

I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet.
I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting on their butt-doing drugs, while I work.

Can you imagine how much money each state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check?

I guess we could call the program: "URINE OR YOU'RE OUT!"

Just a thought, but all politicians should have to pass a urine test, too!

*I did not right this, but I wish I were that clever! All credit goes to Joy's Menard's mailer.

S is for Spidey

This is Spidey. My spider plant that I have had for about 4 years now. I started growing it in a shoe but eventually it got too big and needed a larger pot.  As Spider plants grow they also reproduce little plantlets (as you can see a few hanging down).  Since Spidey already has these and I have no need or want for them when another branch starts sprouting for the plantlets I would break it off and throw it away.  This made Kat quite upset, she didn't like it and claimed it was like plant abortion. She'd try poking the suckers back in soil.  But I'd just go back when she wasn't around and break them up and throw them away and hide them in the garbage.

Well, as you can see Spidey has once again needed re-potting for some time now.  I finally took on this task on my day off Tuesday.  I needed more pots and some potting soil, so I had to go to Menards, which is real annoying, I hate it when I decide I need stuff from there on my day off. But I went and got my supplies and took on my re-potting project.

The roots were just ridiculous and very root bound. I split the main plant into two and gave them each a large pot and put the three babies in their own little pots.

Check out the roots on that thing!

 Now I have a whole little Spidey family, but the problem is which one gets to keep the original name of Spidey since he was split in two?


I really am content with just one spider plant the other four are up for grabs. Hint hint clue anyone in RF reading this.

R is for...

is for really?

Do you ever have one of those moments where after something crazy happens you just sit back and say, really?! I've actually had a couple of those moments just this week. Sometimes people's reasoning skills confuse me and innocently enough or not, I get confused. Such is life though.

My most recent moment happened about 5 minutes ago. I'm sitting at work which for those of you who don't know happens to be at my university's student center. I sit at a desk, answer questions, and try to do enough work to earn my keep. I rarely drink soda, however I happen to have some Pepsi throwback (with real sugar) that I put into one of those stainless steel water bottles. I'm sitting at work talking to my fellow desk worker and go to take a sip of the good stuff. Not realizing how low the contents actually were, I of course tip it real far back spilling it in my hair, on my lap, on my work shirt and my white shirt underneath. Really?! We laughed hysterically over the whole incident. After I gained some composure I had to soak up a rag and wet myself even more...ok, that sounded bad.

Q is for Quiet

is for quiet.  Usually it's what I want Kat to be when she is yakking my ear off about something or nothing.
But really I don't like quiet.  I always need background noise in my life. Probably the result of growing up in a household of 8 people and a zoo of pets.  As if that wouldn't be noise enough we always had a radio or TV on.  There was literally a radio in every room in our house.  So nowadays the silence just gives me the willies and I always have music or the TV going to keep me company.
I can tolerate it when I'm laying in bed though.  It doesn't creep me out at night (prolly cause my mind is too busy thinking and keeping me awake to realize the silence). And a couple weeks ago I even remember waking up one morning, feeling really peaceful because I felt like I couldn't hear a sound, not even the fridge or those annoying birds right outside my window.  But of course once I got out of bed I probably turned the TV on.

Words That Start with P

To be honest, poop candle was one of the first relevant P words to our roommate lives. Need I say more? However, I know we're a judgy culture so to show we're truly educated people I will give a lesson on fun P words.

Psych - If you've never seen the show on USA you should! It's one of my favorite shows and I've literally watched the episodes a million times over. One of the lines in an episode was about pterodactyls. Who knew it started with a p?

Pterodactyl - Not only is it a fun word to say, but it's one of those words that makes you wonder what crack head developed the spelling for it. Anyways, when I was discussing words to blog about I mentioned pterodactyl. Joy didn't realize it started with a p. I told her to google it and google we did. By the way, I don't recommend googling anything right before you need to go to bed. You may be up for hours. For some inappropriate but hilarious humor, we selected about the 4th search down under pterodactyl. If you google it you'll know the one we're referring to. Check out The Oatmeal. Fair warning on this one. Some of the content is just MESSED UP, but some hilarious. I recommend checking out "6 Reasons Bacon is Better Than True Love."

Back to some education courtesy of www.dictionary.com.



Pixilated - 1) Slightly eccetric or mentally discordered, 2) amusingly whimsicle, prankish, silly, or the like.
Plethora - overabundence, extra.

O

When I asked my friend Melissa for an o word to blog about she came up with over can be followed by another word such as oversleep.

So I have to share my recent oversleeping story with you.  A few weeks ago I had closed at work (til 10 pm) on Tuesday then had to be back at 8 am on Wednesday. Well I went home showered, set the alarm for 6:57 am, and went right to bed.  But I couldn't fall asleep.  This is a problem for me sometimes.  So I was awake until like 4am.  Then I woke up and looked at my clock. It was 8:04, I thought well gee, my alarm should have gone off  like 5 minutes ago, I must have just shut it off.  oh well it will go off again.  Well 8:20 rolls around and I look at the clock and I think oh shoot its 8:20 I'm suppose to be at work. I heard music and thought it must have been my radio cause of my alarm but then I realized it was my phone, work calling telling me to get my butt to work.  I got up, got dressed and headed to work, punched in 45 minuets late.
Well then the following Sunday I was suppose to work (filling in for a co-worker on my weekend off) at 7:30 am. The alarm went off as scheduled at 6:57 again.  Naturally I snoozed it, then got up and looked at the clock its 7:25. Whoops. Twice within a week.  Got to work twenty minuets late, but my manager said being late was just a good way of filling in for the guy I was working for.

In other news we are Overjoyed to have a new washing machine! It's actually pretty nice. I finally did my laundry, it was getting pretty bad in my room.

N is for...

Nasty Weather!  I feel that only the Midwest would have to 2 weeks of very nice weather and then BAM! Put the flip flops and shorts away and put on your coat because we have snow. Granted it's not very much, but still kinda cruel if you ask me. Last Saturday when I came into work I was hot and it was 70 degrees. The sun was shining and I had to pull out my capris. That is a big deal for me because I usually walk around the house in my plush bathrobe all day just to stay toasty. Today, I put on my coat and yes, even gloves. Dear weather, please send your snow away and bring back the sunshine!!!

Today's Blog is Brought to you by the Letter M

Today M is for Maurices Mainstreet Model Search
My best friend Rachel entered in this modeling contest you can check out her profile and vote for her here:
http://www.mauricesmainstreetmodel.com/4965/rachel-rahmlow

L is for.....

With our numerous posts on bad appliances what else could I possibly relate the letter L to besides for Laundry. Our washer is a fantastic hunk of metal to say the least. It loves us so much that is decides to pay us back by stopping mid cycle, or leaving a pile of soaking clothes at the bottom. Basically, sucking slowly but surely at our utilities budget. Doesn't it know how long of showers we like to take? I guess not. We are now to the point of having to go to the laundry mat. Well, Joy is because I still have a closet full of clean clothes and a drawer full of clean unmentionables. Anyhow, our landlord is supposedly on this task of finding us a "new" washer. by "new" I'm referring to the refrigerator incident of the Fall of 2010. Just to recap, our new fridge was supposed to be "newer and maybe a little bit bigger". Of course it turned out to be smaller and older. There I go again about that darn fridge...

Katrin

I'll make it short and simple

Kooky
Addicted to coffee
Talkative
Reads too many assigned readings
Intriguing  <-- is that the word that boy used?
Nutrition freak

J is for...

J is for Joy! I warned her in advance that J was obviously going to be reserved for her. You already know from all of our adventure stories that we always manage to have a fun time. Whether it's my arranging the house when we move in then leaving for the weekend so she can't find anything, talking her ear off, visiting local establishments, or breaking applicances, we have an odd, but great relationship. I love Joy (in a non-lesbian way) and I feel very blessed to have known her literally forever (5 years)!

J is also for Jesus. I'd feel like a horrible person if I didn't give a shoutout to Jesus here. Afterall, he did die for us and all. But on a serious note my faith is one of the few constants in my life. I don't pretend to live a perfect life, but without Him we wouldn't have a purpose. I know not everyone is religious, so we might have to agree to disagree on this one.

Intexticated

I couldn't think of anything great for "I" so I went to Urban Dictionary clicked on I, closed my eyes and clicked. This is what I came up with:

  

Intexticated

1. Describes people who drive while sending text messages on their phones.

 

"Dude, what was THAT?!"
"Probably just some intexticated highschooler."

"How did she get in a car accident?"
"She was intexticated."

 

2. A state in which someone attempts to walk and compose a text message at the same time. Lack of attention paid to the walking portion causes stumbling, loss of direction, and pedestrian collisions.

 

 John was so intexticated that he didn't see where he was going, and slammed right into his boss.

 

3. When someone becomes completely deaf to reality while texting on their phone.

 

Guy: What do you want to eat tonight
Girl: *no answer*
Guy: Oh yeah, I forgot, you're intexticated when you pick up that phone

 

4. The art of text messaging while intoxicated, usually at bars or parties.

 

example: woman trying to text friend to pick her up as she is intexticated after imbibing large quantites of ETOH:

Can u flocs get me 1/2vhour 93 2 pz
PL (. God ce ne pic menup at 13 poop.
Fyked up??????helpp

 

Dude, sorry what I said last night, but I was really intexticated.

H is for Health

This past week's beautiful weather has encouraged my health routine to start kicking in. I'm not always the best eater or most active person, but a nice day inspires me to go for a jog if I'm feeling really ambitious, or at least a long walk. I can't wait for all the fresh produce that will be around too. Especially strawberries! But don't worry, I'm not going to give a lecture on boring health statistics and why you shouldn't eat cookies for breakfast (Joy!). Instead, try to enjoy the gorgeous weekend by taking your mind off of work and the every day stresses of life!

Let the Good Times Roll

G is for the Good Times...

Like when we go out on the town and lie our faces off to boys (who honestly look like they are about 19) trying to hit on us. Kat, I mean Natasha, is a 4.0 student who is going to law school next fall.

or when we are playing darts and Kat has no idea how to and she thinks getting bust is a good thing
       Joy: I busted
       Kat: thats good isn't it
       Joy: No, you don't want to bust (looks at Kat's chest) well maybe YOU want a bust

or when we went bowling

or when we go ice skating and nearly take out small children on the ice

and the time we went to happy hour walked back home to get a coupon for supper then went back downtown for supper and more drinks

and when we had some peeps over to play loaded questions

and of course you can't forget our apartment hunting adventure

...to name a few.  There will prolly be more and thats exactly why we began our blog.  To share them with the world!

F is for Food

F is for food. I love food so much that it only made sense to write about it and I'm sure out won't be the only one out there. In fact as I'm writing this I'm eating my breakfast before I have to go to class. I'm not the frosted mini-wheats kind of girl however. Generally I try to eat healthy. This morning I lightly fried up some broccoli, cauliflower, onion, and green pepper and scrambled up two eggs, then melted swiss cheese on top of it. I love it and it's great that I get a serving of vegetables first thing in the morning (with my coffee of course!). I'm not always this healthy though. Every now and then I have those days where I devour everything in sight and never feel satisfied. But let's be honest - who doesn't have thsoe days? I actually used to hate cooking and had a terrible complex about it. This past year I began to cook more and try new things. Some things are a success such as this brown sugar glazed meatloaf recipe I found. A semi-failure includes a sweet curry chicken with homemade mango chutney. It was a slow cooker recipe and let me say, I'm not a fan of slow cookers. Maybe for things like chilis and soups it makes sense, but not for recipes using meats such as chicken that needs to be cooked through all of the day. Long story short after 4 1/2 hours I had to put it in the oven to cook it the rest of the way. It doesn't taste all that bad though. Fortunately for Joy I also enjoy baking. I haven't had a lot of time for it lately though. One of my favorites is a 3 layer devil's food cake. Another is a recipe I found for peanut butter filled chocolate cookies. They taste amazing but take a long time to make.

I think later I'll share a recipe or two. For now I have to be on my way to class.

Earth Day

Since it's April, I'm going to make E about the earth. After all Earth day is April 22nd. In case you didn't know.  Personally, I love the earth, not in the "tree hugging hippie" kinda way but like the "why the heck are you putting that in a landfill and not recycling it?" or "stop littering kinda way".  I've even been known to pick up litter on my late night walks home from local establishments.  I don't really understand why people want trash just laying all around the world.  I think earth day is just a good way to step back and remember how much we should appreciate the earth whether you plant trees (like I did while student teaching last year), participate in a roadside clean-up, or just breathe in some good clean air that the earth's atmosphere is providing.

Here are some Earth Day facts I dug up:

• Earth Day was first observed on April 22, 1970 in Wisconsin. An estimated 20 million people nationwide attended the inaugural event.
• Earth Day 2007 was one of the largest Earth Days to date, with an estimated billion people participating in the proceedings.
• Earth Day is now observed in 175 countries, and coordinated by the Earth Day Network, a nonprofit organization founded by the organizers of the first April 22 Earth Day in 1970.
• In many cities, the Earth Day celebrations are extended to Earth Week, an entire week of activities related to the promotion of activities related to the preservation of Earth. The Earth Week usually start on April 16, and end on Earth Day, April 22nd

By the numbers...

20 million: Number of people who celebrated the first Earth Day

200 million: Number of people who celebrated Earth Day in 1990

500 million: Number of people who celebrated Earth Day in 2000

175: Number of countries worldwide that celebrate a designated Earth Day 

3.7 billion: World population in 1970

6.7 billion: World population in 2009

65.2 million: Number of Google hits for "Earth Day"

146 million: Number of Google hits for "Green Day"

 

D is for Demanding

Today's letter is D. I say demanding because that is the best possible word to describe the relationship Joy and I have. We're fortunate that we picked each other to live with because our personalities are rather similar. We have this quid pro quo type of relationship. For example, Joy previously mentioned all of the hot chocolate we consumed this past winter. She wasn't lying. It was a lot! I would be in the kitchen making myself something to eat and Joy would yell, "Hey, where's my hot chocolate ho?" Pure love right there. Last week I made homemade spaghetti and meatballs. I was rather proud of myself. I had about one serving left and I made that for lunch yesterday. Joy came upstairs and said something like, "What's this?" Me: "My lunch. This was the last of it." Joy: "So...." Actually there was one meatball and some sauce and she helped herself. We'll also demand/guilt the other into getting a water refill, making cookies, dinner, doing laundry, getting the mail, going out and pretty much anything else you can think of. That's just how we roll.
D is also for duh! There are so many routes I could take with this one, however I stick with what we've been blogging about these past few days. As Joy mentioned, I am guilty of turning the wrong burners on and I have to admit that this again happened last night. I was wondering why the water was taking so long to boil. I don't know why I do this. Joy was standing right next to me and she caught me red handed. I announced that "D is for duh!" and I knew I had to blog about this moment.

C is for Addictions

Now, I know many of you are thinking um, addiction starts with A not C.  Let me explain.  Kat and I both have an addiction to a C word.  Hers is coffee, and mine chocolate. 
Kat starts off each day with her cup of coffee and continues to drink it throughout the day.  Personally, I can't stand the stuff.  I can drink flavored cappuccino as long as the flavor and creaminess hides the coffee tastes (Holiday gas station's is awesome, Kwik Trip is okay).  One evening Kat was whining to me about this awful headache she had all day. And I asked her well did you drink coffee today? and she said actually I haven't.  I told her well there's you're problem, you have a caffeine headache cause you're used to having it everyday.  So now she knows better and will not go without her coffee again.
Chocolate, what can I say? I love the stuff, eat it pretty much everyday.  I usually keep a stash in the house, though I have been slacking lately.  A bag of little goodies (Dove with caramel, mini candy bars, etc) just doesn't last me very long though, only a day two.
And when you combine the two (a hot beverage and chocolate) you get hot cocoa.  I'd tell you how much hot cocoa we drank this winter, but I don't even know other than it was A LOT.  I usually made Kat make it for us (she's good at serving me food and beverages).

And of course who doesn't love cookies? and the cookie monster! We make cookies from time to time.  But Kat doesn't get to eat many cause I tend to devour them pretty quickly.

B is for Beautiful!

Yup, I made that.

I've been thinking really hard about what to write about for B. Of course there are many topics but none of them interested me all that much. Today I went for a walk on this gorgeous spring day and I was inspired a little. There were spring buds, families for a stroll with their babies, dogs playing with balls in the yard, people riding bikes, and bugs (unfortunately!). I went for a long walk by the river and took pictures. There's so much beauty in spring that I decided to share some of those pictures. For today, B stands for beautiful!

The Swinging Bridge

The River

There you have my adventures from the day. I hope you enjoyed them!

B could also stand for.....boob punch! This is in honor of Joy and our times together. Her sisters will also appreciate that this tradition lives on. For those of you who aren't of aware of what this means, it's basically when you're with your girl friend and you're supposed to say boob punch because you joking (but actually) punch them a little in the boob. I however, am very bad at saying this before I punch Joy's boob. I think she's just accepted that I will never do this technique properly.

Today's Blog is Brought to you by the Letter A

At our place A is for Appliances.  We have mentioned them before but don't worry they still don't fail to give us more to talk about. Today, I'll give you the full tour of our appliances.
First, the oven.  As you will recall from a previous post I yanked the oven door off.  It is fixed now, however, the light no longer works inside. Our other stove story is Kat's ability to continually turn on the wrong burner.  I haven't noticed her do it lately though (but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen).  The oven is in good condition though other than the damage I caused.
Next up the microhood.  Probablly the newest appliance provided.  The only real problem with it is the light to light up the stove top.  If you hit it just right you can get it to stay on for a while, but usually I find it's not worth the trouble. Otherwise it works great, the microwave heats nicely and the vent works well (it's just a matter of remembering to turn it on).
Then there's the fridge.  You've heard about the fridge right? How we had one, it was leaky, so we got a new one. Kat loves it.  Well, other than the fact that we really don't have enough space for all of our food, the top shelf sometimes falls down.  It's a real pain in the butt. And as if a small fridge that falls apart wasn't bad enough we have it set below one (on a scale of 1-5, five being the coldest) and we still have ice forming in the back. Stupid fridge.
Now, the newest appliance troubles.  The washer.  It doesn't properly run the spin cycle which leaves clothes still soaking wet.  But we got the landlord on it.  He came and looked at it is going to try to fix it (good luck buddy, I'm pretty sure it is one of the first washers ever created)  or just get us a new (used) one. Can't wait to see how this turns out...
Finally we have our dryer.  I don't believe we've had any problems there.  It works, gets the clothes dry, nothing to complain about.  It's just a little ancient like the washer.
So there you have our appliance tour. Well except I have a small chest freezer- only a couple years old and works fine.

A can also be for application- as in job application, Kat and I are in job hunting mode these days.  I just completed my first teaching application! How exciting!

That's it for today. Adios.

P.S. I know no one ever would have seen that title coming and I'm sure nobody else doing the A-Z challege would use such a title.  I couldn't help it though, I love sesame street!