Yum!

Mister and I decided to celebrate the beginning of the weekend with some homemade cookies (and the purchase of a stand mixer with which to make them). These cookies to be exact. They have a secret ingredient, vanilla pudding mix, and they are magic. We were going to give some to our neighbors, but decided that they’re too good to share. That’s how it works right?

Happy Friday!

Randoms–The My Life is Boring edition

*I was moved into a new French class on Monday. This class is a much better fit for me. My teacher teaches the fundamentals in English and will go over each point several times until she’s sure everyone gets it, and when she brings up an important rule, she tells us “This is important, write it down.” I’m still not a confident speaker (or even a semi-confident one), but I think I’m actually learning stuff now. I am convinced that if I had been in her class from the beginning there would have been no embarrassing public meltdowns.

*I discovered last week that we are supposed to arrive at post one week sooner than I thought. I know one week doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is when it involves moving to the other side of the world.

*I’ve been thinking about it though and you know what? We’ve known we were moving to Guinea since September. I kind of just want to get it over with already.

*Not that I want to go sooner. I’m just saying, if they made us come earlier than we’re planning, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

*I’m not running these days. Training has been painful (even on rest days), so I’m giving my poor calves a rest.

*We’ve got several weekend trips to look forward to in the next few months. Arlington (TX), some beach in NC and I’m meeting the girls in my family in San Francisco.

*I’m probably just as excited to eat Blue Bell ice cream and Chuy’s Tex-Mex in TX as I am to see my friends and family there.

catch-up...ketchup...catsup

What do those have in common? They sound the same, or as my French professor says (VERY FREQUENTLY, to my frustration): même son. When I last posted, (several weeks ago), I was busy crying in French class. Well, a few weeks have passed and I am proud(?) to say I've only cried in class once since then. It would have been two, but my professor thought that my non-participation in the dialogue portion of class would be better than having to witness another meltdown.


The French department makes changes to the roster fairly often, and the first shake-up took place last Friday. I was chatting with Mister and one of his classmates at the end of the day and they mentioned that their class was being broken up and Mister would be joining me in mine. WHAAAA???? C'est impossible!! They told me during orientation that they would NEVER  put spouses in the same class. So, I marched over to the bulletin board to check for myself. Yup, same class. I have heard horror stories about couples being in class together and spent all weekend dreading it. Mister, of course, was super excited. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about. You see, we have different strengths. He has a pretty good grasp on grammar and how to piece sentences together, but his pronunciation is choppy. I, on the other hand, don't know enough words to have a conversation, but the words that I do know (and the sentences we read in class) are pronounced (more often than not) perfectly. We've been told that native French speakers care more that you speak the words properly rather than using the correct grammar. So I guess I win. :)

letters from angry birds

If you are a fan of the time-sucker officially called Angry Birds like I am, please read this. It's hilarious!