FRIDAY! And what do ya know--a voicemail was on my phone straight away from Brian! Good thing I DID check it straight away because he decided that it was Adventure Day. It had been hinted at earlier in the week that he might randomly spring it on me when Adventure Day would be. Sure enough, the voicemail told me so. And so it was!
Not only was it Adventure Day, but it was a few other occasions, too. First of all, the CoFo Fun Team had deemed it 'Lumberjack Day.' This means that one should try and wear flannel, flaunt the No-Shave-November facial hair, and walk around with an ax. (Just kidding on that last one.) The unfortunate part of this special occasion is that I don't own any flannel! I don't have any facial hair to show off either. I felt so...unspirited! On top of all that, the shirt I chose was super-wrinkly.
The third occasion (and most important in my opinion) is that it was Aeryn's birthday! I had been waiting for this day for quite awhile actually because of the lil creation that I made to the left. It's a birthday coupon for me to cook for my favorite roommate--Dinner AND dessert! I'm excited for the occasion that she uses it; it's always more fun to cook/bake for people than it is for me to just indulge myself in yummy goodness (assuming that what I make is yummy in the first place!)
So yeah, I set out the birthday coupon on the counter (after getting all dressed and whatnot) and proceeded with the ever-so-exciting morning rituals. First off, I emptied the dishwasher (drama to the max!), then made my lunch with the delicious 15 Grain bread to the left (on the edge of your seat, aren't ya?), and finished off with the usual breakfast prep (quite the cliff-hanger ending isn't it?). Breakfast smoothie was the chosen sustainence for the morning meal, so in went the frozen banana into my lovely blender. One loud and obnoxious bout of blender-ruckus later and--BLAM! Breakfast smoothie!
And what is to accompany the breakfast smoothie? Tea, of course! (What else were you expecting me to drink at 7:30am?!) Breakfast foods were eaten as I read at my ever-so-slow pace from this month's book club book: The Screwtape Letters. I'm moving along in it quicker than I thought I would (progress feels good man!), but I really only read at breakfast time or when I'm not driving for carpool. So...I'm pretty limited on my opportunities to make progress on my reading in the first place.
Upon rising from my chair and traipsing to the kitchen after slurping down both the smoothie and the tea, I took a glimpse at the wall calendar. Tehe, I remember ages ago scrawling Aeryn's birthday on her special date so that nobody could possibly forget! And look, there it is below!
So I drove the carpool peeps to work because on one's birthday, one shouldn't have to drive to work, regardless of whether or not it is one's turn to drive carpool. (It's just part of the package deal that Aeryn gets for living with me, haha.) It was a pretty grey day out overall and once I got to work, I fully realized that...one of those mornings where all I really wanted to do was stare out the window and watch cars drive by on the freeway. (No worries, this was a short-term feeling, and I honestly don't have much of a direct view from my desk to car-watch anyway.
HEY! Remember how I said it was Lumberjack Day?! Well...Fun Team had posted the awesome posters to the right around the office earlier in the week, and I thought that they were cool enough to take a picture of one and share it with YOU! Good stuff, right? It really is too bad that I don't own flannel and couldn't be a 'LumberJill' as Ian coined the female participants. There was even a voting competition for the Best LumberJack/Jill and the Best Facial Hair. If you knew who I was talking about and/or if you weren't already there to hear the announcement, then I'd tell you the winners. But no need.
To the left is something miraculous yet not-so-miraculous: the END of a note pad of paper! I must have been taking some serious notes and doing some serious work, right?! Yup, gotta be true. PROOF.
Gah! Super grainy picture above! Boo to that! (Why don't I expect this more when I take pictures of screens? Ah well.) I was just excited to post the above picture of a corgi on my CoFo Facebook AND to have three students 'like' it! (Secretly, I do keep track of which pics my students tend to see and 'like'...although I suppose I don't give them many options of variety since I only really post corgi pictures anyway.)
December is typically a cold month. Well, not-so-much here in Texas. And this is something I'm ok with--EXCEPT when the air conditioning in the office makes my working conditions frigid! Might I add that I am very sensitive to cold and that I'm probably a big baby, but whatever. I wore my jacket and covered up with my office blankie and was then comfortable to buckle down and get to work. Better be warm than cold, that's what I say!
Then--lunch time hit! I munched away on my sandwich, and impressively enough, it's a shape! Maybe...a state? Haha, I'm so weird the way I eat my sandwiches. (Don't judge.)
Next up on the work day agenda: do my weekly chore! At CoFo, there is a chore rotation schedule, so each coach will every so often get assigned a chore on Monday that he/she must then complete by the end of the workday on Friday. My chore this week: Take care of the accumulating mountain of cardboard recycling in the supply closet. Fun stuff. The pic below is actually only about half of it. It wasn't that bad though, just two trips outside into the sunlight (gasp!).
And yes! Tis true! I DID go out into the sunlight, back in the parking lot, allll the way out to where the recycling dumpster is. Before heading back inside after completing my chore, I caught a glimpse of Babs the Minivan chillin in the farthest parking spot out front. It's my favorite parking spot. Yup, I have a favorite parking spot. (Judging me again, aren't ya?) 
But I eventually made it back inside and after doing a bit of work, wandered over to Aeryn's cubicle where the Fun Team had worked their magic and decorated in her honor. The four pieces of computer paper posted behind her are the Fun Team contributions--the pink sheet is Aeryn's own handiwork for her name tag. Yup, that's my creative roomie!
Then on her desk were MORE decorations (although the Batman figurine is a recognition award...don't ask, it's a CoFo thing, haha.)
Oh. And below is Aeryn's Halloween Zombie portrait. On a balloon.
The afternoon was DRAGGING ON though! Seriously, I don't know what it was, but I wasn't feeling motivated to actually work (no worries, work had been done in abundance, just without motivation present to move things along pleasantly). C'mon, it was an epic Friday Adventure Day--what was happening?! Something that did help a bit was popping in Brian's CD he sent to me awhile back which I keep at work to keep the productivity flowing. I don't know what I would do without that playlist sometimes...
Fast forward through some of the 'boring'... Got the mail, got home, and... VOILA! Food stamps renewal GRANTED! AND my Women's Health Care plan! Woooo!
DINNERTIME! And I earned it! The green beans were an easy prep-serve-eat: threw em in a mug and microwaved with a lil water. The tricky part was waiting around for the *@%$ brown rice to finish cooking. It took half an hour for the rice to cook, and I hadn't even added/cooked the spices and the egg yet. Let's just say that the green beans were long gone by the time the rice was ready, and the rice didn't stick around for very long. |
| YUM! FOOD! |
At some point during the week (probably when I counted how many apples I had left and realized when I'd run out), I decided that Friday night would be Grocery Shopping Night. One of my favorite things is seriously grocery shopping. I'd say it was a successful trip, too. I usually bring three reusable bags with me into HEB--and sure enough, three bags left with me, each of them at least half full of food stuffs. Yay!
Next up: gotta go get bread! Haha, but really, I was assigned Breakfast Duty for the writing and scholarship workshop in the morning, and I was headed out to some random Panera in Austin to go snag the reserved donations for the event. (I scheduled the reservation myself!) I didn't get lost, but it did take longer than I anticipated to get there. (Probably because it was farther away than I thought. Makes sense, I guess.) Oh, and of course I used my GPS to the right. How else would I have found it?!
You better believe I was successful, too! Bunches of pastries and bagels were boxed up and put in the back of Babs the Minivan for me to tote to the workshop the next morning. I knew I'd be guaranteed a muffin for myself, so I snagged mine and set it aside for me to eat before I left in the morning--mmmm, cranberry muffin!
Arrived back home and actually locked the door behind me--Aeryn was away for the weekend with it being her birthday and all, so I double locked the door and got ready to tuck in for the night. No intruders gonna be waking up Ali P. during her Friday night slumber! You'll see that I also did a lil bit of work by reading over Tara Bell's grad school personal statement. It was draft number two, and I was quite impressed and excited to play a part in gettin my girl into a super-awesome program to fit her super-awesome skills.
One more lil adventure was to be had before I called it a night and went to bed: I was gonna BAKE! No worries, nothing intense, just these simple cookie dough balls that I'd been meaning to whip up and try. The thing is, I couldn't really form them into balls and couldn't sensibly turn it into even three 'glops,' so it just became one giant glop in the middle of the pan. But hey--SO YUMMY!
With a full belly and a frame of mind ready for an early wake-up to help high schoolers with scholarships in the morning, I climbed into bed and called up the boyfriend to have a lil chit chat before bidding good night and good-bye to my Friday Adventure Day. Looking back, I actually seemed to have done a lot, captured a lot, and accomplished a lot. I suppose it truly was an Adventure Day in that I did my best to make adventures of not-so-adventurous things. But hey--you be the judge of that! (Yep, I'm giving you judging abilities now! Go for it!)
The first December Adventure Day post will be coming soon!
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