Happy Tuesday!

Do you like Tuesdays? I'm not really a fan of them, but they're okay.  Not as terrible as Mondays, but we're not quite to Wednesday which marks the middle of the week (which means the week is then almost over...).

So for today, I thought I would just share some funny pictures/quotes I've come across in the past few days (all from Pinterest, of course!).

 

And I will end with my favorite....

Quote of the Week!

Seeing as this is my fourth and final semester as an RA, I think I've done my fair share of programming.  Last year, my big hit of programs was Midweek Games.  I did these every other week and my residents LOVED it.  There was always a wonderful turnout and I enjoyed having everyone sitting in the hallway right outside my room ready to play games such as Jeopardy or Bingo!

This year, it's definitely been a challenge with programming because my hall is kind of split into two, and there isn't a central lounge on our hall that we could use.  So, maybe my active programming hasn't been as great this time around!

When coming back for this semester, I came up with two new ideas for passive programming, but programming that will indeed keep me on my feet!

One is Residents of the Week!  I made a poster that I put outside my door that says "Residents of the Week" and each week three residents (randomly pre-selected before school started! :) are featured!  So far, everyone has loved it, an dI'm glad!

Secondly, I put up a Quote of the Week, and, good news, everyone has loved those too!!

So I thought that instead of only sharing my quotes of the week with my residents and other residents in the building (my room is literally right across from the front main door, so so many people walk by), I would share my quotes on my blog!  Every Monday, expect a new Quote of the Week!

Here's the first one for you!

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

-Steve Jobs

Longwood's going BIG!

If you haven't heard or seen on the news yet, it's been a pretty exciting week at Longwood!  There had been some talk about it lately, but on Monday it became official!

A press conference was being held at 1:00 pm on Monday in Blackwell.  Matt and I got there plenty early to make sure we had great seats for yet another awesome Longwood event.  It was at this press conference that P.Finn (President Finnegan) officially accepted the invitation for Longwood to become a part of the BIG SOUTH Conference!! Let me tell you, if you were there or weren't watching online, you probably couldn't even begin to feel the excitement there was ALL around.  Everyone was anxiously waiting for the exact moment when it would be okay to cheer; many people had their phones out tweeting about the event.....enough to get #BigSouth trending on Twitter!

It's awesome that when I go to the Longwood homepage, this is the first picture that pops up on the set of scrolling pictures!

 We were given these buttons as we arrived at the press conference.

And this is a shirt I will now have to be ordering from the Lancer Gear shop online!

A New Year brings New Opportunities!

I'm pretty sure this is the coolest thing to ever happen since I started blogging (over 3 years and almost 200 posts ago)!  If you use blogger like I do, maybe you can relate to part of this.  You're randomly searching through other blogs on the site, find some that interest you, you start following them and then you're regularly reading their posts? Or is that just me? Anyway.

A little over a week ago, I was going through my regular blog check and stopped at Simply Kelly for a while.  Why?  Because the post of the day wasn't a usual post displaying her personal home decorating makeovers or a post sharing her favorite things.  The post, instead, expressed her interest in wanting to see what other bloggers have found that they love (DIY projects, new recipes, goals, etc.) and if any of them would like to be a guest blogger!  When I finished reading the post, I kind of stopped for a minute, and went back and forth in my mind of why I should or shouldn't send Kelly an email and start talking about being a guest blogger.  I finally convinced myself that I should go for it and sent the first email.  Eleven emails later, after going back and forth about what would be a good topic to share, sending text & pictures her way, I opened up my email this morning to hear that my post was live on her blog. Seriously?! Coolest. Thing. Ever. (in my book!)

If you've been reading my blog for a while, or at least since summer, you may have already seen the post I sent her.  If not, here's your chance to see it! If you've seen it already, still hop on over to her blog, check it out, and leave her some love!

Thanks again, Kelly, for the opportunity to be a guest blogger for you!!

Matt & Mal : In the Kitchen!

One thing I love about Matt living off campus is that he has his own kitchen! Granted, there are kitchens within the residence halls, but I just prefer going over to his place to cook/bake or whatever!  While he does a majority of the cooking, I'm learning and doing my fair share ;)

Thanks to Pinterest, I've been finding lots of yummy food and desserts that I want to try.  When we finally have a weekend night when neither of us is on duty (and because the weeks are too busy), we usually try to make something!  This past Saturday, we made Ritz Cracker Crust Baked Chicken and Parmesan Roasted Potatoes. Oh. My gosh. They were both DELICIOUS and I could not get over the fact that I helped make them (trust me....my family has too many bad stories of me in the kitchen, and I had just recently had a stupid mac-n-cheese incident with Matt!).

 Lemme just tell you, these potatoes were out of this WORLD. SO GOOD!

 Chicken coming out of the oven!!

If you're interested, here are the recipes for these yummy dishes:

Ritz Cracker Crust Baked Chicken
Ingredients:
 - 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
 - 1 sleeve of Ritz crackers
 - garlic salt
 - ground black pepper
 - 6 teaspoons of butter

Directions:
 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
 2. Run crackers through food processor or crush with rolling pin* until they are very fine.**
 3. Rinse each chicken breast with cold water, roll in the crushed crackers and place in a greased 13x9 baking dish.
 4. Sprinkle with garlic salt & pepper.
 5. Place 1 teaspoon of butter on each chicken breast.
 6. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until chicken is no longer pink inside.

*I definitely just put the crackers in a gallon sized ziploc bag and started smashing.
**We also found it better to have several big cracker pieces for extra crunch.

We also adjusted the recipe for just 2 chicken breasts.  I mean, obviously we were going to eat 6 in one night! ha!

Parmesan Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients:
 - 6 medium potatoes, cubed
 - 4 tbsp olive oil
 - 1/2 tsp garlic powder
 - 3/4 tsp salt
 - 1 1/2 tsp sweet paprika powder
 - 1/4 tsp black pepper
 - 5 tbsp shredded parmesan cheese

Directions:
 1. Preheat over to 400 degrees.
 2. Cube potatoes (about 3/4 inches). Place in a baking dish.
 3. Add the olive oil.
 4. In a small bowl, mix garlic powder, salt, paprika, black pepper and parmesan cheese.
 5. Sprinkle the mixture over potatoes and mix so cubes are covered.
 6. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes.  During baking time, remove potatoes 2-3 times to toss them and prevent from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Enjoy!

One more Christmas post (I think this is the last!)

The week after Christmas, Matt told me to pick a day where we could spend a lot of it together because he had a surprise for me.  I was very excited when the day came around and I found out we were going to Virginia Beach to see the Christmas lights. YESSSSSS!  I've been several other times and Matt and I have been once before, but every year I love it just as much.  We got down to the beach in the late afternoon so we wanted to go down on the beach first.  Once we had enough of the cold wind, we just went and got in line for the lights, but it was already starting to get dark anyway.  I was so anxious and had my camera ready and everything, but Matt told me I should just enjoy the lights for once and not take pictures of everything.  Did I end up taking some pictures? Yes, of course.  But I didn't take pictures of every. last. light. display.  After seeing all of the lights, we then went to Cheeseburger in Paradise for dinner! Yum! :)

 Yes...I was still obsessed with taking pictures of my ring.  Who am I kidding, I still do that now..

Walk!

So yesterday at Longwood was Walk!  Don't know what Walk is?  It's pretty much one of the most anticipated days of each semester to all of the Greek community, as well as the entire Longwood community!  Walk is when the men or women who are going through Recruitment finishing out the weekend by receiving bids from select sororities/fraternities, and choosing where their new home is!  The sororities don't know who has accepted their bids and they don't find out until the girls' names are called, followed by the sorority of their choice!

My sister went through Recruitment this year, and even though there were some long hours, she loved it and had a great time.  I just blogged about Walk on my Longwood Student Bloggers blog too, and I mentioned my sister's Facebook status from last night: "I woke up with one sister...going to bed with 56 more!"  Still not sure how I feel about sharing her, but I guess this is okay ;)

Emily & Alvin :)

When I became an RA, it was everything I hoped it would be.  I worked on a fantastic staff, I had amazing residents, and I put on some well attended programs for the hall & whole building!  What I didn't expect was to meet some of the greatest people in the whole and make some of the best friendships I could ask for!  Emily & I were on the same staff my first year as a RA, and by the end of the year, we were very close! I remember on one of the last nights of senior week last year, almost everything had been moved out of her room, and we just sat on her bed talking and eating ice cream :)  We both really wanted to be on the same staff again this year, but that didn't happen and I'm so glad to say that we've still remained such great friends!! :)

Last Spring, I took some pictures of her and her boyfriend Alvin, and I was so excited to see that she had some of the pictures framed in her room this year! haha! 

Hope you enjoy some of them!:



I love this one :)



Get lost in a book!

Initially, I was planning on having the winter break of my senior year off. For the first time since I started at Longwood, I wanted an actual BREAK. No classes, no work, nothing. Mainly because that would be the last time I would ever get a break like that! However, as the Fall Semester came to an end, my advisor and I came to the realization that that would not happen. Sadness. I went from looking forward to lots of relaxation, to suddenly having to take 2 classes over break!! Looking back now, it really wasn't that bad. I did a lot of time management with the classes and even got ahead. On Mondays, I would do as much of my physics work for the week as I possibly could, and on Tuesdays I would usually finish up! Management usually was completed over the weekend, but I didn't mind. The schedule worked for me!

Because of time management, I was able to do something over break that I LOVE but unfortunately haven't had the time to do much lately: I read. And not because it was required. I went to the library, checked out a few books that I wanted to read. And let me tell you, it was wonderful. Here are the selections I made over break:

The first one I read was Skipping Christmas by John Grisham.  I'll be honest, the only reason I chose this book is because it's the book that one of my most favorite movies, Christmas with the Kranks, is based off of!  It was kind of cool to see what parts of the book were left the same in the movie, and how the movie portrayed some scenes differently.

 The second book I read was In Your Room by Jordanna Fraiberg.  It's a book about two families who do a "house swap" over the summer, and it's told from both the boy & girl's perspective, as they're living in each others' rooms.  (Honestly, I don't think I could ever do a house swap.  It kind of weirds me out thinking of having somone else living in my room! 

Finally, is The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski. I actually haven't even finished reading this book yet. I didn't finish it over break, like I planned, so I renewed it and brought it back to school with me! It's about a young woman who is completing a "20 Things to Do by My 25th Birthday" list. The catch? It's not her list.....you'll just have to read to find out ;)



Anyone have suggestions of other books to read?? Please share!

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - It's the final countdown!"

(Yes, the title comes from a show I love, The Singing Bee.  Check it out.)

Today was kind of a bittersweet day. Today was the first day of my last, yes, my last semester at Longwood.  I'm not even sure how that happened.  It feels like just yesterday I was at T.G.I.Friday in Midlothian, meeting my first roommate, Colleen, and her family, and planning out our freshman dorm room! Then, sophomore year, Jordan and I lived together and made a movie/tv/song quote wall in our room (that was also the year the building slightly flooded...sidenote).  Junior year was my first year as a RA, and THAT is the year that flew by the quickest!  Junior year was also the year Matt & I were finally at the same school again.  Then it came: Senior Year.  I came back as a RA again, but on a different staff.  I worried about being on a new and different staff, but we all meshed together so well and so fast! 

And now, my final semester.  I have probably the best class schedule ever and the lightest load credit wise, but I definitely have a few hard classes.  Because of that, I went inactive in Ambassadors in December.  There's only been one other semester when I wasn't Ambassadors, and that was my first semester at Longwood, and only because we weren't allowed to apply yet!  I was tapped into Mortar Board last year, and we planned an Amazing Oktoberfest for 2011, and I can't believe we only have about six more meetings left as a group! By then, the new members will have been initiated and will have begun planning Oktoberfest 2012! Crazy!

So, as this is the first day of the last semester, there's more than just the end of another year at the finish line.  This time, there's GRADUATION!! Which, if you're wondering, is 115 days away.  Yes, 115 days until I will be in my cap & gown, sitting on Wheeler Lawn, waiting to cross that stage and shake P. Finn's hand.

Also, Matt, if you're wondering, 479 days until your graduation!! haha!

Speaking of Matt, 116 days until our 5 year anniversary.  Yep, I'm excited, because I'm ahead of the game and already know what I'm getting for him ;)

And finally, of course, 507 days until Matt & I will be here saying "I do."

P.S. NO, I did not count the days myself...that's too much work!