Self stirring mugs and bacon pillows...these are a few of my favorite things.

Usually, in my blogs I talk about what is going on in my life; however, my life is involving projects and finals. I just don't want to think about it right now. Solution: examine bazaar possible gifts my loved ones might receive if I become loopy enough from lack of sleep+ energy drink consumption.

 

Okay, I actually find this one useful. A self stirring mug! 

First of all, there seems to be this fad of being obsessed with zombies. While I normally try to stay away from anything that says "band wagon" on it, I decided that this was too weird to not share.

That's right, folks. We are even providing mints for those that will eat us. Or perhaps this is a prevention tactic some are using. If someone who is of the undead is telling you they are craving brains, just whip this sucker out and you will live another day.

 

Don't want to leave the vampire lovers out. That's right folks, pass on your creepy obsession to your babies.

  

I might get this for my boyfriend. He made a power-point of bacon when he was in seventh grade. Listen, I appreciate bacon as much as the next guy, but I don't think I am comfortable enough to start cuddling with a pillow version. I am just not ready for that commitment yet. Oh, in case you were wondering, this jewel costs $20.

You can't have bacon without eggs...or...egg

Sally: Hey Harry?

Harry: Yes Sally? 

Sally: What should I get my friend Bob for Christmas?

Harry: Well, Sally what is he like?

Sally: Well, Harry. He misses his childhood, has a sense of adventure, gets cold easily but hates it when he can't use his hands!

Harry: Sally, I have just the solution for you.... listen to me carefully.... Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Snuggies! 

Jewelry

I had to create a whole section for these lovelies...

Here is something for that special someone who is into ghetto-fabulous things.

Have a friend who is constantly complaining about their lack of 'fierceness?' Slap these babies on them and no one will be able to compete. Nothing says 'friendship' like ridiculous jewelry.

Here is a gift for a friend that loves tea way too much.

This puts a whole new meaning to 'saving your food.'

So folks, there you have it.  Why settle for something boring like books or movies, when you can show that you love your family through trashy jewelry and food-obsessed pillows? If you truly love your family, don't you think you should start thinking out of the box?

Ring by Spring

It seems that a ton of people are getting engaged right now, which is not that surprising because I am a college upperclassman. The people I know are no longer doing that whole one week puppy love thing.

 

On a side note... what exactly does "Ring by Spring" mean? What spring are they talking about? If there are no limitations on which spring it could be, then technically anyone could follow that saying; they may just have to wait a year for the next spring. I guess traditionally, people graduate in the spring. Although some people graduate in winter, or even in the summer. So I think if we want to be politically correct (which is something I'm DEEPLY concerned about).

 

This blog is actually not about engagements and happy couples. Well sort of. This is talking about the expectations of wives of the '50s. I found this treasure while facebook stakling someone. I hope they don't read this. That would be awkward.

Supposedly this was in a 1955 article of Housekeeping Monthly, it might be fake, but it's a good representation of how things have changed.

• Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have be thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.  
• Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
• Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
• Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dustcloth over the tables.
• During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
• Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
• Be happy to see him.
• Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
• Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
• Don't greet him with complaints and problems.
• Don't complain if he's late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.
• Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
• Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
• Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
• A good wife always knows her place.

Comments are not necessary for this one. The humor is found within the article. All I have to say is, no wonder the '60s happened.

 

 

 

 

With Every Season...

With the risk of sounding like every other college student out there, I feel like I am in this perpetual state of sleepiness. I am sleeping a regular 6-8 hours every night so I am not entirely sure why. I guess college is just meant to be exhausting, which is probably why the average age of college students is between 18-22 years of age..That and the whole going right out of high school thing. I got my schedule for next semester (three reading, an education, and an elementary music class). I only have a year and a half left and than I have to actually look for a real career. That terrifies me. Okay, this blog is really making me sound like a normal college student, which is something I try to avoid at all costs. Wait.... wanting to be different than everyone else is what everyone else is trying to do too! Oh no!! I am actually normal?! What has college done to me?

After I graduate from college, I will no longer be dependent on my parents. At all and that terrifies me as well. Okay, as I am typing this I realize that there is a verse that covers all of this anxiousness I am feeling. So before I carry on....
Matthew 6: 25-34
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?



“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Sometimes I get annoyed when people throw bible verses at me. (You aren't allowed to get offended, this is my blog...I say what I want and I want to be honest).  I appreciate the thought because verses can really help but it is also good to talk about what you are going through.

Basically, I read this verse, and I have read it before, but I need to really believe it. I believe what it says is true but actually applying it to my life is the difficult part. I am on the verge/ have been in the midst of a whole lot of change. If you know me at all, you know that I appreciate the consistency in my life and I struggle every time there is change. So it is something I need to pray about/ need prayer on- being content wherever God puts me.

Advice from 4th graders

Last year a graduate from Hardin-Simmons who now teaches at Wylie had her students become pen pals with some college students. It was a big hit so she is doing it again and my reading class got chosen. So here are four letters filled with advice from Wylie fourth graders (no editing will be added). 

Dear Future Teacher,

When you are a teacher I hope you are nice to your studetns like our teacher is. I don't think you should give homework on Wednesdays. I think that you shold make learning fun like instead of paper use dry erase boardsto save trees, and it's fun. I also think that if you are teaching for 4th grade you should make recess for 30 min instead of 20 min. I hope you will be a lot like our teachers. You have to have an open mind. I think you should teach science because I think your students will not be bored.

Your friend,

Will

Dear future teacher,



Hi. I love to write letters. I have blond hair and I have Blue eyes. My favorite color is lime green. I think if you want to be a teacher you should be creative, fun, and nice. You should give homework that isn't that hard though. Try to be so so nice and fun. I hope you will be a great teacher! If a teacher was not nice I would not like it. In my class we have 22 students! Make your room fun and your students will like your roo alot. I love teachers that are nice. When I grow up I hope I can be a teacher! My teacher is very nice. Her name is Mrs. Smith.

Love,

Mae

Dear Future Teacher,

Here are something you would need to know about teaching. First you need to decide what grade you want to teach. If you are giong to teach a grade with two class or more class you have to choose what you want to teach. You can teach Language arts, Science, Spelling, Writing, Math, Reading, and Social studies. I am in 4th grade and my home room is Language Arts, Science, spelling, and writing. Then my second class is Math. Then my last class is reading and social studies. You also need a class room theme. You also need to pick what school you are goign to teach at. Here are some room themes Dots and animals. there is some theme but I don't want to write that many things.

Your Pal,

Lauren

Dear Future Teacher,

Whut is it like at colige. i bet it is hard rele hard. how many students (?) you have. do you want some adzice if they gret loude turn off the fights then wait. pass out home work if you get a pramethian do a lot of fun things on it

your frinde,

Hunter

Dreams October 8

So even though everyone dreams, just not everyone remembers their dreams, I think the fact that I watch T.V. to go to sleep helps me have vivid dreams. I'm going to tell you my dreams from last night. But first... 10 interesting facts about dreaming! (from http://listverse.com/)

1. Blind people dream.
 Although they don't have images in their dreams, they do use senses such as sound, smell, touch, and     emotion.
2. You forget 90% of your dream
Within five minutes, half of your dream is forgotten. Within 10 minutes, 90% is gone. Robert Louis Stevenson came up with the story of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde while he was dreaming. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was also the brainchild of a dream.

3. Everyone dreams (except extreme cases of psychological disorders)
Men tend to dream about other men while women dream equally about men and women.
4. Dreams prevent psychosis.
In a recent sleep study, students were wakened at the beginning of each dream but still allowed 8 hours of sleep. All experienced difficulty in concentration, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis after only 3 days.When finally allowed their REM sleep the student’s brains made up for lost time by greatly increasing the percentage of sleep spent in the REM stage.
5. We only dream of what we know.
Our dreams are full of strangers that play out certain parts. Our brain never makes them up! We have seen hundreds of thousands of faces in our lives so the evil killer in your dream could easily have been the janitor at the gas station you stopped at in Reno that one time.
6. Not everyone dreams in color.
12% dream exclusively in black and white. People also tend to have common themes in dreams, which are situations relating to school, being chased, running slowly/in place, sexual experiences, falling, arriving too late, a person now alive being dead, teeth falling out, flying, failing an examination, or a car accident. It is unknown whether the impact of a dream relating to violence or death is more emotionally charged for a person who dreams in color than one who dreams in black and white.
7. Dreams are not about what they are about.
It is deeply symbolic.Your unconscious mind tries to compare your dream to something else.
8. Quitters have more vivid dreams.
Those who have quite smoking reported to have more vivid dreams than before they quit. 33% of those who quit have reported dreaming of smoking at least once.
9. External stimuli invade our dreams.
This is called dream incorporation and most have experienced this. We take a sound that is happening in real life and make it a different sound that applies to our dreams.
10. We are paralyzed while we sleep
This is to prevent us from acting out the dream. Glands send out a hormone that induces sleep while neurons send signals to the spinal cord which cause the body to relax and later become essentially paralyzed.
Dream 1
Okay in the first dream I was in this auditorium. Everyone was in chairs facing forward but no one was on stage talking. Eventually I turn to someone on my right and say I need to go to the bathroom. When I come back, I realize it is a dream. So I start running to boys and start kissing them. * One boy turned me down. The audience was going crazy. They were wondering why I was running around and kissing everyone. I exclaimed "It is a dream! It doesn't matter! You can do what you want!!" Just then, people were running around taking their clothes off and lighting my hair on fire. While I was smooching with this one boy, he kept kissing me in three. (Muah Muah Muah).

In my dream I was being waken up by my mother and a little girl that  looks just like me.** The little girl was saying, "Chelsea! up! Chelsea up! Chelsea up!" Both the little girl and my mother were ridiculously cheerful and were telling me that I was late for school. When I asked them what time it was, they replied 8:32. I panicked and told them that school starts at 8!

Well when I get to school, I'm in high school again, all of the teachers are like the characters in Coraline. If you haven't seen Coraline it is directed by Tim Burton. That should tell you enough about how weird it is. Basically all of the teachers are very sweet. But sweet in the way of they are offering candy to children on the side of the road to entice them to come into their car. Nothing else happened at school except that my classroom looked like my room back home.

* I constantly have dreams where I am cheating on my boyfriend. One time it was with a guy who looks like a combination between Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

**I guess this counts as a second dream but it transitioned into this one so I'm just going to keep it with the first one.

Dream 2
In my Child Development class, in real life, we are doing a group presentation over different subjects (obviously on child development). My partner and I are doing one over Preschool Development.

In my dream, instead of giving our presentation in front of the class, my professor decides it would be a good idea to present it to Mike Leech*. The room we were staying in was like a big version of my grandma's living room. Our groups are split up-- one girl goes to Group A and another goes to Group B. Each girl in the group presents her topic while Mike Leech asks questions. The group that gives the best presentation wins. Mike Leech is on this big screen. My group goes first. Naturally, I go first in my group because it is my dream. So I bring up my first topic, he asks me questions and I answers. We were about to go on but the screen went blank and so he wanted me to repeat my first topic, I guess this is being timed. I threw my first topic notes away and for some reason couldn't remember what I was talking about. My group tried to help me remember but I guess they couldn't because they brought up the topic of Christmas lights. They gave us sometime to get our thoughts together. The room we were in had bookcases of books that were half the size of me. My group kept making me go back and forth, grabbing those giant books for them. One book was about Michael Jordan. I woke up before we could get back to presenting.

*Why am I dreaming about Mike Leech? In my dream he sounded like Cotton Hill.

It's not right for women to read. Soon she gets ideas and starts thinking.

I am not good at being lazy all day. Being sick has done that for me. (It's not the flu). I hate being home alone because it forces me to think/ reflect pn my life. Which I hate because it makes me have to be honest about how I'm doing.

In high school I really wanted to come to a Christian uuniversity. I was scared to death that I would go to college and turn into this party girl. So I was really shooting for a university that would most likely have people that would keep me accountable. Well I chose a school that has a fantastic education department and a town that has a billion churches on every street. So I am covered. I have gone to a Christian school my whole life. I considered going to public school when I got to high school but I really felt that God wanted me to stay at RRCA because there were people there that needed to be reached. Well at Hardin-Simmons there are people that need to be reached here. To be honest, I don't feel like I have really put forth the effort to reach them. I have been so focused on my walk with God and coming up with my life plan for the next five years. I enjoy hanging out with my cChristian friends, going to my bible studies, helping out at church and eating my christian mints (just kidding, I don't have those things).

When I was a senior in high school, ready to embark on my new adventure as a college freshman, I was so sure I would change the world, or at least Abilene. Two and a half years later I realized that I haven't even tried. I can't honestly say I have made the effort to get to know non-christian people. I realize that I have not made a difference here. That to me is tragic. I do have a couple of years to make up for it. It's terrifying putting this into words because now it means people need to keep me accountable. Words seem pointless unless you put them into action.

P.S. The title for this blog come from Beauty and the Beast. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with this blog but I just really like that movie.

My Rebuttal

In my last blog post, I titled it "The Beatles Control My Life." Or something like that. Actually I am too lazy to look it up but I am sure it was something along those lines. In short, I take it back. I was watching the History Channel and one show was focusing on Jonestown. You know, the one where a cult committed a mass suicide by drinking cyanide Kool aid. The other show focused on Charles Manson. (Yes the one Marilyn Manson got the Manson part of his stage name from. He got Marilyn from Marylin Monroe. His real name is Bryan Hugh Warner.) That was also really interesting but I fell asleep towards the end so I am not really sure what happened to him. I could look it up but laziness has won the battle yet again. The point to this whole blog, yes there is one, is that Charles Manson was obsessed with the Beatles. He felt that their songs encouraged his belief that there would be a battle between the black and white people, Karma would set it and the black people would take over and then Charles Manson would rule over them. So although I do think the songs of The Beatles were beyond amazing and they changed music, they do not control my beliefs.