We our keeping Tom's parents' dog while they're on vacation. He's a white poodle puppy named Push. He's actually adorable! He walks like his back legs are a lot longer than his front. He knows what "no" means, and he's crate trained. So far it's going pretty well. We're also using this as a trial to see how we (including Sasha) would like having an extra dog.

I know the pictures aren't great, but this dog doesn't sit still for long!

Sunday Afternoon Update:
This dog is a maniac! He has endless energy, and he bounds around like Tigger instead of walking. Our poor animals don't know what to do with all that excitement. Goku hangs out on the couch with an alarmed look on his face, and Puddin', who always looks alarmed, looks outright panicked. And Sasha is a sad case. She mopes around with her ears back and her head down and hides in the corner waiting quietly for Tom to give her attention. Push is very cute and lovable though. He is so clumsy and runs into the wall all the time. He always steps on my feet when he's trying to walk with me. He's a pleasant enough visitor, really drooly though.

I've been itching to go to a concert lately (other than Jonas Bros), so I've been surfing around every week or so trying to find a decent show. This is no easy task when trying to satisfy both mine and Tom's tastes in music. I'm a little bit country, he's a little bit rock and roll. Not really, but whatever, our tastes differ. We share fanship of the Misfits and got to see them last day-before-Thanksgiving in Dallas. And lo and behold, they're coming here again, day-before-Thanksgiving! Woot!

Tickets go on sale tomorrow, and I'm not afraid to tell you that, because last year, I made Tom stay up til midnight thinking that seats would sell out immediately. We were the only ones to buy seats that night. LOL There are only a few seats at the Granada and they are all on the second level. We had two right in front. It was perfect - close to the bar and great view of the shenanigans happening on the floor. Last year, I really liked the opening bands. When the Misfits came on, they would let people climb up on stage and jump off, but then they started staying too long, and the lead singer guy (I should know his name...) would just push them off. It was amusing. Clint went down there and I kept waiting for him to get on stage, but he never did. It will be a moment of glory indeed if he gets up there this year.

Last year it was freakin' cold. Isn't it encouraging to know we're looking at cooler weather sometime in the next few months?!?

www.yearbookyourself.com FUN! Sorry these aren't in any order!

Tom 1990


Tom 1994


Tom 1998


Tom 1978


Tom 1980


Tom 1974


Tom 1982


Tom 1984


Amber 1990


Amber 1994


Tom 1950 hahaha!


Tom 1960


Tom 1974


Amber 1964


Amber 1966


Amber 1982


Amber 1986


Amber 1990

http://www.yearbookyourself.com/

I didn't do anything stupid in my classes today. The last two semesters, I went to a wrong class on the first day of school. LOL I didn't today. I am pretty happy with my classes so far. I still have one more I haven't been to yet, I'll go tomorrow night. No research papers yet! I know there is a research paper for my "experimental methods" class, but the whole semester is a progression toward the final product. I have abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, the psychology of marital adjustment (LOL), experimental methods, and an intro to special ed. Anyway, I am impressed I didn't do anything dumb today, I met some people, and there is even another McNair scholar in one of my classes. *thumbs up*

I am planning a big canning adventure coming up the weekend of Sharkathon. Which, BTW, is a man trip. Tom feels guilty when I talk about this, but I think it's hilarious, so here it is. Last year, all guys went to Sharkathon. This year, I was planning to go along with some other females, but we figured we would stay home and do something more civilized. Well, here's what happened:

Tom: Amber, look, Sharkathon has a women's division this year!
Me: Cool! ..... Maybe I should go.
Tom: Yeah, you could go.
Me: Would you yak my baits out if it's too wavy for me?
Tom: *sigh* Yeah, yeah.
Me: (exit Tom's office, go into mine, and proceed to get excited about Sharkathon)

Later that day...

Me: I'm really excited about Sharkathon.
Tom: I want you to understand that we're going to be on "guy time".
Me: ???
Tom: Well, we aren't going to be on a schedule. So if things aren't planned out the way you want, you can't be upset.
Me: What do you mean?
Tom: I mean, we're not going to have a schedule, and I know you like a schedule.
Me: Well, isn't there a time you have to check in, and a time you have to submit your entries, etc? What other schedule could there be?
Tom: I'm gonna need to make sure it's OK with the guys if you come.
Me: (completely offended, huffing and puffing, I head to the kitchen)

So I decided that I would not go ANYWHERE I needed PERMISSION to be. LOL! So I am not going to Sharkathon this year, but I will be doing some canning.

Which brings me to the topic at hand. What would you can if you were pretty sure you wouldn't have time to can anymore until the semester is over, but were planning to commit a whole weekend to it?

I'm thinking salsa, pickled okra, and more peppers. But I want to do something sweet too. Maybe a pie filling or cheesecake topping. Because something like jam or apple butter is just begging to be put on a non-South Beach friendly piece of bread.

I talk "Kalyn's Kitchen" all the time, but if you find education interesting, Joanne Jacobs' blog (in the list to the right) is an easy, enlightening read. She posts news links relating to education, sums it up in her blog, sometimes makes a wise comment or two, and that's that. I find that I never avoid her blog because I can read it with minimal brain power, and I don't know how she leans politically, but I tend to agree with her opinions.

I'm still at two jobs. It's getting old. I am being such a turd about it too. I know I owe my old boss big time for being such a great boss, but I'm tired of being pulled in so many directions. Like today, if I had worked, I would've only had two productive hours until I had to go to class. It wouldn't have been worth much. She left it up to me, so I stayed home. I might go in Friday, but again, I'll have to leave early for a meeting at school at 3pm. Anyone want an easy temporary part-time job??

Today, though, I feel like a "real" college student. I slept in til 7:30, with no alarm waking me up! My classes don't start til 12:30. I'm drinkin' coffee, laying on the couch, and I watched Saved by the Bell (now I'm watching the news). I'm sure this "real" college student thing will get old, as I have class until 9 tonight. LOL Oh well, I love night classes. Not because they're at night, but because they're 3 hours long and only meet once a week. LOVE it.

Could my schedule be better though? Work 8-5 Mon, class 12:30-3:20, 6-9pm Tue, work 8-5 Wed, class 6-9, class 12:30-6 Thursday, and nothing on Fridays except a monthly McNair meeting. Not bad!

I saw Mamma Mia twice this weekend. It's THAT good. I think the last movie (and maybe the only other movie) I saw twice in the theater was Spiderman II. Mamma Mia is adorable and hilarious.

Tom left for Amarillo today. They'll spend the night, finish getting stuff out of grandma's house, and turn over the key to the real estate agent so we can rent that baby out. And I'll be all lonely here in this house with the animals.

So that's what's up with me. Have a great week!

Well, this is sort of in response to a question from a long-time online buddy of mine, Kim, who lives in New Orleans and asked me if South Beach was as easy as I made it seem. I can't vouch for its ease if I lived in the French Quarter where food really is part of the culture, with eccentric eateries on every block. But, here's a little more about our experience and pitfalls thus far.

Have you ever tried a low carb diet? I tried Atkins once, and I literally felt like a sausage after the first couple of days. I ate so much MEAT! I won't claim to know about Atkins because I probably wasn't doing it right, but I love that I can eat lots of veggies on the South Beach diet. Technically, it's not a low-carb diet, it's a low-glycemic diet, so most of the foods on the "don't eat" list are there because they change your blood sugar and make you crave more bad food. Healthy stuff like corn, carrots, and watermelon are on the bad list. Sometimes, I'll notice the sugar levels in some of the good food, like cabbage, and panic for a minute thinking I've been sabotaging myself this whole time. But cabbage is on the list, and I can eat as much as I want. Trust the book, not the labels.

I would suggest starting the diet on a Friday evening, or sometime when you have a couple of days to lounge around. Our bodies were a little pissed about the sugar deprivation, and we didn't hesitate to lounge around the whole weekend as our bodies adjusted. It would've been harder at work. Once you get through it though, you're fine! About day 3, we were totally adjusted.

I make something for breakfast on the weekends. Check out Kalyn's Kitchen (link to the right in my blog list), and navigate to her breakfasts. There are plenty of options there. I am a little egged out by now, but if I just prepare them a different way, it helps. I made her egg muffins for a few weeks in a row, but now I think I'll just cook up an egg casserole and cut a piece out in the mornings, because it's a little easier than the muffins. Now that we are on "phase 2", I switch up breakfast a little with South Beach bars about every other day. This doesn't seem to have affected my results.

You're supposed to cut back on caffeine, but I shamelessly drink it up. I read that the reason is, caffeine makes you crave more sweets. But I was doing fine even with the caffeine, so I allow myself to have my thermos of coffee with sugar-free creamer, my diet DP, and my splenda-sweetened tea. I might quit caffeine one day, but not in school. LOL

After the first two weeks, "Phase 1", we celebrated with a bottle of wine, and I felt exhausted the next day. I have said it before, and I'll say it again. Getting out of the swing of drinking wine regularly is probably the best benefit for us so far. We feel better, enjoy the extra energy, and don't feel so much like drinking. Does that mean that I'm not going to sneak mini-bottles of wine into the theater when I finally see Mamma Mia? No, but we definitely don't drink regularly anymore.

You might feel hungry. Even after I eat, I have this feeling like my stomach is having to eat itself. I suppose I want my stomach to eat my body! The feeling doesn't make you want to eat though. I can't explain it. It's a skinny feeling. It makes me feel like drinking water and exercising. It's this feeling of not having eaten so much that you're miserable.

That's not to say that you can't eat as much as you want though. As long as I am eating South Beach food, I'll let myself eat as much as I want. I want less though. You can find us on a weeknight struggling to finish one grilled pork chop and a salad with fresh veggies. Seriously. When we used to shake n' bake em, we could put away 2 chops or more along with some instant taters.

Like any diet, we struggle when we are unprepared. The week that followed our camping weekend was difficult because I hadn't done any grocery shopping or meal planning. I just had to go to the grocery store on my way home a few days to keep us in business. But we got right back on the saddle this week no problem.

Being at school isn't a struggle because I can eat salads from Chick-fil-a or wherever. I try to pack my lunch as much as possible, mostly because I'd rather work through lunch. And when you're done with Phase 1, you can pick the carbs that are important to you and add em back. We had whole wheat pasta one day, but I made sure to only cook 2 servings of it, when in the past we would have cooked the whole box. We are having burgers tonight in whole wheat pitas instead of buns. You can make ranch dip and have a "veggie tray", which is always delicious and you don't have to feel bad when you dip as much ranch possible onto the tinest veggie piece you can find.

When have we cheated? We had rum and tortilla chips on our camping trip, we had a fried ice cream blast from Sonic one day (which we'll probably have again tonight!), we had potatoes at my boss' birthday party the other night. It's not that we aren't indulging, it's just that most of the time we don't want to. And the thought of "earning a cheat" isn't what keeps me motivated, it's the fact that I'm losing weight and fitting into my clothes.

So anyway, I think it's been about 5 weeks and we're still going strong. Whether it's easy or not I guess is subjective, but we are definitely loving it and would highly recommend it.