randomness

i love the random happenings of life. the things that break up your day and make you realize that the world is small and life can be crazy.

on my second week of classes, i sat next to someone new and tried to start up some friendly conversation. not only do i find out that this girl is an athletic trainer (very similar to my undergraduate degree) and played volleyball, basketball, and softball in high school....but she also lives just one block from matt and i. we've gone by her complex tons of times, but it's just too bad that her job doesn't allow us to carpool.

in this very same class i have a professor that likes wholistic teaching which goes on tangents every which way......has no problem taking 2 hours to do class introductions in a class of about 20.....and a huge fan of the 10 second pause after everything she says. 3 1/2 hours of this at a time makes for a veeery interesting evening.

today i drug myself to the fitness center, feeling very unmotivated to work out by myself, doing the same old same old. i'm just about to push the start button on the treadmill and drown out the background noise with my headphones when i hear "lindsey?" behind me. instinctively i turn around and see....andrea van steenis walking towards me - a grade school and high school teammate and friend who lives very close to us but i've never seen since moving here. she just happen to recently get a membership to the same small, cheap fitness place and we just happen to be there at the same time of day. it was SO nice to have a work out buddy to pass the time away!!

ok...i have the full permission of my husband for this next one....

one of the students i tutor comes to our place. today when his mom picked him up, she noticed my newest crocheting project laying on the floor. she is a fellow yarn lover, in the knitting form. she then noticed the other blanket on the floor (property of my husband's working hands.) well, she was shocked that i would be working on 2 at once......i tried so hard to lie and protect matt from one of his students knowing of his new found habit.....but it slipped. the best part - i was totally redeemed when the mom told me that her son actually picked up knitting a while ago and made himself a scarf. we had a good time cracking jokes about the boys in our life taking a liking to yarn needle-work.

well that's about all. classes and work are going great and keeping me busy. i've been braving the world of trying new recipes, oh, once a week if i'm lucky. matt's still living, so we're all good! and it's still plenty cold for me to want spring to come more and more every day!

the haircut

i finally decided that it was time to bite the bullet and find someone to cut my hair. after depending on friends that are professionals and even friends that aren't technically professionals for so many years i was at a loss to know exactly where to go. so with coupon in hand, i decided on a quick, cheap trim from great clips. my stylist was phyllis - a greek woman probably in her upper 40's with a thick accent.....and brutally honest. it started when she combed through my hair and there was some left in her comb. "you don't rinse. just like my kids. you must rinse. this hair...this is because you don't rinse." like an obedient child i nodded and promised i would rinse better. five seconds later she got a look of awful disgust on her face. "who cut your hair last?! you see this? very uneven." lying through my teeth i said it was a friend. the truth? during my unemployed stint this fall i got bored one morning and decided to see how hard it would be to give myself a trim. i knew it wasn't salon worthy but i didn't think that it was that uneven. apparently it was. (tori...i'm so sorry. :) please do not be totally appalled.) i got the hint that a stylist is not my calling, and definitely not on myself, when she continued to mutter under her breath how uneven my hair was for the rest of the time i was in the chair. and to top it all off, i asked phyllis to give me some side bangs at the end, to which she replied "this short?! no no. it will not blend. you come back next time and we will cut shorter. trust me. i do not lie to you." i decided not to fight it. i was only paying $9 and the whole experience was actually quite entertaining. now my only fear is that if i don't go back in 4-6 weeks as instructed, another phyllis scolding awaits me. :)

happy new year!

new years eve was also our last christmas party for matt and i. being so busy with family and friends, we almost forgot about making time for it. but never fear....our lack of social options for the night allowed us to actually go out to eat for a date night, watch some great episodes of planet earth and the office (our gifts to each other), and enjoy greeting the new year together which really only involved watching a poorly hosted chicago station and then a rerun of the ball dropping. but here you have it, our first family christmas picture :).

we have also been enjoying the company of our guests since we returned from christmas travels. my sister kelli stayed with us for a few days after we returned. friday night nate and nicole stayed between their flight and driving home. and last night, my cousin justin stayed with us. it was so nice to see him and spend some quality time together.....since the last time that happened was the summer of '07.


a little update on my job. i'm starting to get the hang of what i'm doing, where things are, and what the procedures are at the oak brook club. although i'm still taking a lot of messages for the other two people in the office cause no one knows me and is probably still not sure if i know what i'm doing....but hey, i can totally handle that.....cause that also means that i don't have to deal with most problems either :). other than that i type up meeting minutes, sort out the mail, make the newsletter, and do some other organization project or whatever else is needed for the day. the days go by quickly and i'm enjoying it so far.

happy new year everyone!