Mary and Martha

Wow! Dumpster diving rocks!! Okay, okay, I didn't actually dumpster dive, but the house director put a big ol' box of unwanted (and disgustingly unclean) kitchen items in the lobby today and said, "Have at it." And boy did I ever. Here's what I walked away with: Two heavy-bottomed sauce pans, different sizes One frying pan One bread pan One 8"x8" pan One muffin pan One blender that's so old, it has wood paneling and the electrical prongs are the same size Whoo hoo! Sure, as I mentioned above, they were pretty grody (I think I'll have to soak the blender in bleach water before I actually use it), I got a good work out getting most of the items clean, and they're not the prettiest, matchy-matchiest of things, but they work, so it was totally worth it. Can you believe I heard one of the girls in the dorm say she looked through the box and, since everything was so grimy, she lost interest. Man, when EJ and I get married, we're not exactly goi...

I was talking to EJ last night (as we do every night - w00t for free Verizon to Verizon minutes!!) about what life will be like once we're married and settled in together. He seemed to really want to impress upon me the fact that any further schooling he may have might keep him away from the house for the majority of the day and that he'd be very tired and cranky when he got back in the evenings and he made sure to point out that I'd pretty much be the only one in charge of the house during most of the week and, when he walked though the door, he'd want me to look nice and greet him with a smile and have supper steaming on the table, because, no matter how tired I was, he'd be tireder (yes, I thought that word appropriate) and would want to just collapse and relax and be pampered. He seemed to think I might be averse to this, but all I could do was giggle like a schoolgirl and try to explain that that's what I've been dreaming of doing for so long now. Serio...

I went to the Eastern Orthodox church today. Coming from a non-denominational protestant church and even having attended a number of Catholic masses in my time, let me tell you - it was quite the change! To begin, there were only pews in the back and along the walls to be used by people with children or the elderly (though none of the elderly in attendance actually utilized them). The rest of the open space was covered in carpet, on which most of the congregation stood - yes, actually stood - for everything but the sermon. The alter was behind a solid, icon covered wall, accessible only through three doors (from what I understand, this is pretty standard). The liturgy was mostly sung or chanted (that will take some getting used to). There was quite a bit of crossing ones self and bowing and prostrating (though, by no means, was everyone doing everything at the same time. It helped me be less self conscious) and I wish I would have understood more of the significance of each of the acti...

So I'm taking Spanish 101 just for kicks and giggles this semester - and, surprisingly, it is actually affording me plenty of laughs. I've studied German for the past seven years and it's been rather difficult to break the habit of automatically thinking in German whenever *any* foreign language is brought up. For instance, we're learning numbers up to 30 in Spanish right now and some of the exercises include simple adding and subtracting. So, for a problem like 2+4=6, my initial thought process goes something like this: dos plus vier son sechs* Throw that into a translator and see what it spits out. >. * 'dos' = '2' (Span.) 'plus' = '+' (Germ.) 'vier' = '4' (Germ.) 'son' = '=' (Span.) 'sechs' = '6' (Germ.)