Christmas

In my family we pick names for Christmas. This year I got my sister Stefanie. I had about a hundred ideas of what I could get her, but she told me all she wanted was clothes. Clothes are not conducive to a $100 dollar budget. I could maybe buy one outfit. So of course, I did the only logical thing: I bought a bunch of clothes from a thrift store and refashioned them. I looked at enough refashion blogs that you would think I could do this stuff in my sleep. Trust me, it is not as easy as it looks. After many hours and a few tears, here are some of the things I was able to put together.

I bought her a few things, and forgot to take before and after pictures of a couple items, but the present was quite a hit. Best of all, I stayed under budget. BOOM!

'Stache Attack

Men don't like mustaches on women.

 How did I learn this? David graciously told me so. In a not so gracious manner. I always thought my lip hair was blonde. Until he told me one time that I had a bit of a 'stache. I was flabbergasted. WHAT? I HAVE A MUSTACHE ! So that led me to one conclusion. I had to bleach it. That was about a year ago. This week I had a dream that I was taking a video of myself and I had coarse dark hairs on my cheek. But when the camera panned down to my mouth I had an unruly, very thick, dark, manly mustache. I woke in a panic. It was time to re-bleach.

I don't like the fact that I have a 'stache. I don't like the thick cream on my face. And I don't like the way it stings my skin. So here I am.

Misshapen

Reading is really good for you, but there are bad consequences if you read a lot. 

"That makes no sense!" is probably what you are thinking right now. But let me tell you, it does. So this little mishap happened just yesterday to me. It all started with a zombie 5K that I ran with my friend Kayleen and her sister Kerrisa. 

This run was so fun! There were zombies scaring us and running us off the path and there were a bunch of obstacles that we had to get through. We all really enjoyed it. Afterward I was telling David, my husband, about all the obstacles that were on the course.

 Note: Being the avid reader I am, I have a fairly large vocabulary. Most of it comes from reading books and seeing the words over and over in context. Sometimes I can even use words in the right context and not know what they mean, so I have to check with David because he has a larger vocabulary than me.

 I started to describe an obstacle that had a huge pile of overturned tires strewn all over the place that we had to climb over. This place was just asking for a sprained ankle. The word I used to describe the tires was "misshapen". David heard me and asked, "what did you just say?" to which I replied "they were misshapen." This probably makes sense to the readers, but the way I pronounced the word was mis-happen. It seemed logical. They use that word in books all the time. David responded "I think you mean misshapen (pronounced mis-shapen)." We went back and forth for a while arguing our own points when he burst out laughing. He said, "you are talking about the word spelled m-i-s-s-h-a-p-e-n right?" and then it dawned on me. We were talking about the same word. Of course I had heard the word misshapen before, but every time I encountered it in a book I pronounced it wrong in my head. I thought they were two totally different words! 

The worst part? This isn't the first time this has happened to me. Once he pointed out that we were talking about the same word I remembered a couple years ago when I came across the word "perused" in a couple of books. I read it as per-yused with a y sound in the middle. The first time I didn't think much of it. It was just a word I didn't know. The second time I thought, "really? Perused again? How has this come up twice and I don't know what it means?" but once again, I left it and moved on. It was the third time I read "perused" in a book that it finally dawned on me. PERUSED!! I had been reading it wrong! I know that word! It means to skim over, or to lightly read through. So silly.

Now I am wondering how many other words are there that I know but  pronounce wrong in my head?

That Awkward Meeting...

So I got a new job on campus at my college. I'm a research assistant for a biomedical engineering group that a professor runs. SUCH a good resume booster, right? I was stoked to get the job. Right now my project is working on football padding. It looks like this.

 My professor/boss man told me when I got hired that for the first couple months they would basically tell me everything I need to do and I would highly supervised. Cool. Then this is how the conversation went when I got my first assignment for making the prototype.

Professor : So we have some problems with the prototype.
Me: Okay
Professor: The foam is sticking to the mold and the polycarbonate gets bubbles in it.
Me: Okay
Professor: It is your job to fix this.
Me: Uhh.....

That is basically how this job goes. Moral of the story? Don't trust your boss.

Anyways, that is an intro to how this job works. I have felt over my head since the beginning. Plus, half of my co-workers are in grad school. Kind of intimidating. Now let's get to the real story.

Every week the entire lab gets together to discuss our progress at a weekly meeting. The meeting is in a room that has two entrances. Once entrance has no window and is right by the elevator, but it is always locked. To get to the other entrance you have to go through a couple rooms to get around back. Clearly the entrance near the elevator is the better choice because it saves me a whole 20 seconds of walking. The only problem is that it is always locked. I always walked around to the other entrance, but my co-worker Peter usually just knocks on the door because someone inside will open the door for him. One week I was walking towards the room with two of the PhD students that intimidate me SO bad because they are so smart. For the first time ever I thought, "Hey, I'll be cool and save time in front of these guys. It'll be great and then they will be so impressed." So I go over and knock on the door. Unfortunately, a different professor was having a meeting in there with his lab and they were running over slightly. He opened the door and when I noticed I didn't know anybody in there my face flared red from embarrassment. [Once my face starts to get red, I get embarrassed that it is red so it just turns more red. It is a cruel, cruel cycle.] The professor then tells me "We are almost done, you can come in." I replied, "Oh. No, that's okay." and he says, "No, really, come in. We will be quick." The whole time the grad students are walking past snickering. I sit in the corner of this meeting for maybe five minutes and they aren't ending. I get so embarrassed I just get up and leave without saying a word. I'm not really the "suave" type of person. As I exit, the two PhD students who saw the whole ordeal earlier were laughing and telling another PhD student about what happened to me. In my mind I thought, "Oh great, they will remember this for the rest of their lives and they will never be impressed by anything I do. My life is over. I can't pretend that that didn't just happen, so I guess I have to face it like a man," and then out loud I said, "I am so embarrassed." That was probably the biggest understatement that has ever come out of my mouth. They just laughed it off and moved on with their lives. But I am scarred forever.

Engagements

Sometimes when you are taking engagement pictures you don't look as natural as you think you do.

(I'm referring to David here)

And sometimes you accidently get an awesome shot because your fiance can't ride the bike when you are on the handlebars and you both think it is funny.

But if you choose a photographer you like, you are going to get some awesome shots.

DISCLAIMER: The people in these pictures do not look this good in real life.