day 180

My boss called me this morning and asked if I'd work on another project for him. I was reluctant at first but then he told me it involved making a bulletin board and I automatically said yes. Arts and crafts are my favorite, and I can always use practice making bulletin boards (since I'll be doing it for the rest of my life.)

It's Chevy's W.I.G. (Wildly Important Goals) board! Isn't that the most exciting thing you've ever seen? (that was sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell...)

Anyways I got a free meal out of it and got to buy all kinds of fun school supplies to make the bulletin board :) and my boss loves me now, so it's all good!

day 179

These beautiful friendship bracelets came in the mail today! They're the newest fundraiser for SHH; it's called Threads of Hope. The bracelets were made by a village in the Philippines for whom these bracelets are the main source of income. They mail the bracelets to the company in the US who runs Threads of Hope, and the company sends them out to organizations like us! The bracelets are $2 each or 3 for $5. Half of the proceeds go toward our fundraising, and the other half go back to the village in the Philippines.

They're so pretty and well-made, and they come in tons of color combinations. Let me know if you want one!

day 178

Today the University of Maryland opened 90 minutes late "due to inclement weather." I had a class canceled and the CYC was closed.

See that tiny bit of snow on the grass? And the perfectly clear sidewalks? Doesn't look like inclement weather to me!

Oh well, I'm not complaining!

Day 177

Today's picture of the day isn't actually a picture. It's a video! Today the official "Volunteer with SHH" video got released to youtube and vimeo, and I've already watched it approximately 27 times.

Everytime I watch it, I'm reminded of why I'm doing what I'm doing for SHH. In fact, I think I'll watch it again right now!

(the video quality is probably better if you click on the link on top of the video and actually watch it on youtube!)

day 176

Another entire day spent at Chevys. I'm not sure how many more/different pictures I can take when I've had a day like today, so this time you get my beautiful name tag! Everyone's nametag has a different little saying under it, and mine is a.k.a. Mango Rita. (some other ones are "fajita slinger" "chip addict" "salsa queen" and "guacologist")

I picked it just because I liked it, but it's turned out to be a great marketing tool! People will ask me what that means and I'll tell them our Mango Margarita is our most popular and delicious drink, and 8 out of 10 times they'll end up ordering one!

day 175

I had my FIRST yogiberry of the semester today! I can't believe I waited this long.

It was well worth the wait.

day 174

Today was another warm one, and the perfect day for an SHH bakesale! We had the music going, delicious baked goods, and lots of fun, energized people behind the table. We raised $100!

day 173

Today was unseasonably warm and beautiful. I think it got up to 70 degrees!

It's funny for it to be so warm and still see bare trees and dead grass all over campus. I managed to find the only sign of life though and take a picture :)

Here's to hoping that Punxsutawney Phil got it right this year!

day 172

Today was Don's birthday. (I won't say which one!)

I love birthdays in my house, and hate that I have to miss 4 out of the 5 family birthdays while I'm at school!

I'm not sure why we didn't think of this the first two years of my college career, but tonight my family skyped me in for the birthday festivities! Despite some audio difficulties, it was fun to be there for presents and cake.

Happy ??th Birthday Don! I love you :)

day 171

Today I was strolling the halls of my second home (aka the Benjamin Building) and saw this posted on the door to my advisor's office. It's an essay contest called, "This I Believe." Basically the instructions are to write an essay that starts out with those words, and then let the spirit move you from there! It does have to do something with diversity, but other than that the possibilities are endless. The winner gets to read their essay at Maryland's "Diversity Day" in April. I'm not sure that I actually want to win the contest (or even submit my essay) but I feel like this would be a really fun essay to write! If I ever get around to it, I'll let ya know :)

PS. This isn't a new idea, these "This I Believe" essays. In fact, there's an entire website devoted to people's "This I Believe" stories, and it's pretty inspirational. Check it out if you get a minute! www.thisibelieve.com

day 170

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I love....

....my family

....my friends

....Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

....babies and weddings

....people who read my blog

....following celebs on Twitter

....Students Helping Honduras

....when my apartment is clean

....you!

day 169

Katlyn and her family invited us to their house for their official "January/February Birthday celebration." Since so many people in her family have birthdays in January and February, they have one big party for all of them, and since it was Katlyn's 21st birthday, her mom invited all of her friends to come too!

day 168

I spent the day at George Mason University for the SHH Spring Summit today! It was a great day full of fundraising ideas, reconnecting with friends from the trip, skyping with the kids in Honduras, and a bake sale where we raised $100!

(Sam was still a little tired from Katlyn's birthday festivities, as you can see...)

day 167

happy 21st birthday to my beautiful friend katlyn :)

we celebrated at her apartment and then moved the party to c-stone...this is already turning into a year full of fun 21st's. can't wait til I join the ranks!

day 166

After a month of e-mailing my landlord back and forth about our broken dishwasher, a new one was installed early this morning! I'm trying to ignore the fact that it's black and doesn't match the rest of our appliances and just be grateful that we have it!

day 165

I drove to the SHH meeting tonight, and after being inside for only an hour, my car was covered in snow! Unfortunately it didn't stick to the roads, but there was still enough for Ashley to decorate Ruby's back window :)

day 164

Christine and I spent over an hour and a half in Target tonight. We decided to just put everything we wanted to buy into the cart, regardless of whether or not it was practical/we could afford it. Needless to say we had a very full (and very Valentine-y) cart. We narrowed it down to the essentials by the time we got to the check out, and this is what we ended up with...

day 163

Tonight I made 2 of these change buckets for SHH. We're going to put them on the counters of local businesses and hope that people will drop their change in there after they pay. My friend John said that he did this at a local Subway last year and got close to $500! I've got about 16 buckets, so we'll see how much it raises!

ps. speaking of raising money for SHH...click here!

day 162

I went to my friends' house to watch the Super Bowl, and am super embarrassed to say that I didn't take a picture there :(

So this one of Fergie during the Black Eyed Peas halftime performance will have to do. I was a little underwhelmed with the whole half-time show, although I did loove the "Where is the Love" part & the part with Usher!

day 161

I worked my first-ever Saturday night shift at Chevys and look what I came away with! A $100 bill!

And as if that wasn't good enough, my friends came into the restaurant tonight from some margaritas and delicious food! All-in-all, it was a great shift.

day 160

Emma made a spontaneous visit to College Park today! It was so great to see her :)

(for the record, I hate this picture of myself, but it's the only documentation I have that she was here, so...here it is!)

day 159

I sneakily took this picture from my seat in Ed Psych today. I looove this class. The professor, Patricia Alexander, is amazing. She's a distinguished researcher in the Human Development department, she wrote the textbook that our class uses, and she's already had to miss one of our 4 lecture periods to fly to New York and speak at the Gates Foundation. I've gotten the impression that she's kind of a big deal.

On the first day of class, she surprised us (and kind of freaked us out) by knowing every single student's name. She must have studied the pictures and committed them all to memory - but it's a 200 person lecture! I couldn't believe it.

But on top of all of that, she's hysterical. She's so fun to listen to, and I can only imagine that she has a ton of interesting stories to tell from her past. The other day she told us, "You guys have to call me Dr. Alexander. I make my undergraduates and my ex-husbands call me Dr."

Anyways, I'm rambling. But I love this class and love this professor, so I'm hoping these are both signs that there's an A in store for me at the end of the semester!

day 158

Tonight we watched Maryland basketball lose to Duke, but to be honest I only half watched because I was busy making that webpage you see on my computer screen! It's my "mySHH" fundraising page, where (if you're so inclined...) you can donate a couple dollars to help me and my SHH chapter reach our goal of raising $10,000!

Even if you're not going to donate, check out the page! I wrote a little blurb about the fundraising and there's pictures of some pretty cute kids :)

oh, here's the link!

day 157

So maybe the 2nd week of classes is too late to be organizing all of my folders and binders and notebooks for my classes, but like Emily said, "better late than never!" I'm shocked it took me this long, since school supplies are approximately number 4 on my list of favorite things in the world (I'll have to publish that list sometime in the near future...). Anyway, aren't my folders pretty? Don't they scream, I'm going to get straight a's this semester? We'll see :)

day 156

This is my new favorite food-of-the-minute... strawberry&spinach salad! I'm pretty proud of myself for branching out and trying spinach. My general philosophy on lettuce is, "If it looks like you pulled it off of a tree or out of the ground, I'm not eating it." But thanks to a yummy recipe from my momma, I tried it and loved it! Her recipe has a delicious dressing and sliced almonds, but I had neither of those in my kitchen, so it was just spinach, strawberries, and some Ken's raspberry pecan vinaigrette. Yummmmyyy!