5 posts tagged “joie”

My friend and Vox neighbor Heather recently (and not at all hypocritically) pointed out that I haven't updated in 3 weeks--and she's right!  I'm sure you've all just been lost without reading something from me in your 'hoods, so here goes a little update-age.

Life has mostly been pretty boring for me lately--thus the lack of posting.  Thanks to our slow but steady weight gain since living together (and my graduating--you really underestimate the exercise you get walking to class carrying 50 pounds of books), Brian and I have been utilizing our Wii Fit to try to motivate ourselves to get into shape.

If you haven't played this game before, it's a lot of fun--albeit occasionally a bit silly.  Activities are broken into categories of Strength Training, Aerobics, Yoga, and Balance (the last of which is probably the most useless and of course, the most fun).  The balance board ingeniously serves as the measuring device for all of these activities, as well as your scale.  You set weight goals for yourself and the cute little animated balance board coaches you each day.  Of course, my adorable animated balance board is disappointed with me: after setting a goal to lose 5 pounds in 6 weeks, I appear to have instead gained 4.  Shwoops.

Side Note:  If you're interested in Wii Fit and don't already have one, I'd recommend waiting for the newer version, announced at this year's E3 and coming out soon.

Besides failed attempts at improved fitness, I've been working hard to "train" Fritz.  (I put that in quotation marks because with cats, I think it's less training them and more requesting they behave differently.)

His playful aggression was getting to be way too much to handle.
Fortunately I have the wonderful and knowledgeable Ellie in my neighborhood, and thanks to her insight I'm happy to report that things seem to be improving.  Fritz's bouts of wildness are fewer--okay, not fewer, but less directed at my flesh.   :)  The challenge here is to be consistently firm with him when I really JUST WANT TO CUDDLE HIS WITTLE FACE:
Ellie's Vox is always interesting to read; if you haven't already added her to your 'hood, I recommend you do so.  And if you're looking for help with your animal companion like I was, definitely ask for her card!

Brian and I have also taken to nature a bit lately--with mixed results.  On the one hand, we're thrilled to have this lovely trail that starts at the park 100 yards or so from our apartment and winds through the woods and past a lake to another park about 2 miles away.  It makes for a great walk with some interesting sights.

Brian and I also went with a bunch of my work peeps on their annual Cahaba Lily expedition, something I've never gotten to experience before.  Unfortunately, I didn't quite understand just how, uh, nature-y this was going to be, and Brian and I were woefully ill-prepared clothing-wise to you know, cross water and hike for a bit.
Due to that and my ever-rising paranoia that we didn't have enough gas to get back, we had to leave early and unfortunately didn't make it out to see the lilies up close.  Still, I'd like to go back and check it out again soon!

A week from tomorrow we'll be leaving for California for Brian's family reunion.  I'm looking forward to some vacation time!  And what I'm (selfishly) looking forward to the most is getting on a plane knowing it's not taking me away from Brian for an indefinite amount of time.  Barf, right?

Besides that, I'm not sure what the summer holds.  Hopefully soon we'll have a shared YouTube channel where we'll feature our musical exploits--this is a project we've been talking about for awhile but are only now starting to take action on.  As soon as that's going, you can expect a link and shameless plugging via Vox.  :)

Hope all of my neighbors are well!  And I'll try to post more.  In terms of quantity of posts, that is.  In terms of length of posts, I'll try to post less from now on.  I'LL POST MORE AND LESS.

I leave you with Regal Fritz:

 

A conversation I just had with Brian after I went to take a nap and found my pillow missing:

"Where's my pillow?"

"Oh, it's on the floor, I threw it on the floor.  I'm sorry."

"Why did you throw it on the floor?"

"I didn't know what it was, so I threw it on the floor."

"...You didn't know what it ... What did you think it was?"

"Yeah, I didn't know what it was."

"...What did you think it was?"

"I didn't know.  I just thought, 'Get off my face!' and threw it on the floor."

"...How did it get on your face?"

"Well, I put it there."

"... Okay."

Remember this?

IT'S HAPPENING, PEOPLE.

Joie is going to see Wicked in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 22nd.

...Excitement cannot be put into type.  Except by saying, "OMFGZ I'M SO EXCITEEEEEDDDDD!!!11!1ONEONE!!!111!"

Courtesy o' my pal/brother from another mother Brian (the one that married my best friend, not the one I date).  And really, courtesy of a Mister Ludwig van Beethoven:

As you might expect, snow is not so common in Alabama.  At the merest mention of flurries, everything shuts down; school gets out, people run to the store for supplies, and Northerners make fun of us for how silly we're being.  We are silly.  But man.  It is MASSIVELY EXCITING  when we actually get a substantial (for us, anyway) amount of snow.

Everyone spent yesterday talking about the supposed snow we were going to get Saturday.  I checked at 11pm last night; no snow.  I checked at 3am this morning; no snow.  I checked at 5:30 this morning; no snow.

My mom called me at 9:45 and, lo and behold--SNOW!  Falling everywhere!  It was so beautiful, and so exciting, that I threw on some clothes, grabbed my camera, and dashed outside to enjoy it for a few minutes.  After taking a few pictures, I wanted to run back in and call my mom back.  I grab my doorknob and...

...realize that out of what is usually a very responsible habit, I have locked my door.  With my keys and my cell phone inside.  And the only person in Montevallo who has a spare key is Ashton... who has moved to Kentucky.

Big oops.

Fortunately, Ashton's old roommates were very nice and let me in to call the landlady, who was also very nice and came to let me in.  The snow was still falling hard and I couldn't resist taking more pictures:

Once the snowfall slowed, I decided to bundle up and take a walk around Montevallo to see how such a pretty town  and campus would look under pretty snow.  The answer, as you might expect, is pretty:
I know to a lot of people who live in colder climates, all this fuss over such a small amount of snow seems ridiculous.  But people here, myself included, love it, and everyone's just so happy when it snows; every person I passed on my walk spoke to me, talked about how beautiful the snow was, and smiled.  Granted, it's the South, so people are usually that way anyway.  But everyone was so giddy; it was fabulous.  I think the general mood was best summarized by Facebook; when I chose to look at recent status updates of all my friends, about 95% of them involved the word "snow" and had multiple exclamation points.

After walking around for a while, I bumped into a group of fellow music majors enjoying the snow as much as, well, everyone else.  More pictures as soon as I can steal some from Erin, but for now, have a little Heather, Erin, and Joie action:

Joie's Quote of the Day:  [on the phone with my mom]  "My car just pooped snow!!!"