Elephants on Acid

Okay, so I haven't even read it yet, but I've read all about it. There's this new book out called "Elephants on Acid". It's a review of some of the strangest experiments ever carried out in the name of science. I already think this stuff is fascinating, like the stanford prison experiment, or the one where people thought they were killing others, but did it because they were told to (both of which are in the book) but this book tells of so many that were even new to me! Here's a link to a preview :
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Top/experiments/P0

and just because it says museum of hoaxes, don't write it off. The guy who runs the website wrote the book. It was even on "Wait, Wait, don't tell me" the other day. So... It's really interesting and I can't wait to read it.

I'm also trying to think of ways to get more people to read this blog! I don't really know why, maybe I'm an exhibitionist (I don't think so much) but I'd like it to be read! SO! Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell strangers on the street!

In my life right now, I'm still wedding planning, stressing about you know what, and trying in between all of that to have fun! I've got everything done except for the invitations. It's sure coming up quick. I can't wait. OH! And there is a honeymoon change! We are going in March! We are going to Miami! We are going on a cruise!!!!!! It's going to be very awesome. More soon...

Eeeek!

It's been so long! I've been busy. This week and last, we have been moving the library. It's hard work, but it's fun to see everything go together. I've been doing a lot!
Wedding planning is taking up a lot of my time. We've decided on favors, so now I need to get to it. The caterers have a contract done, the dress is in (yay!, its beautiful) and the church is booked. The rehearsal dinner site is booked, and when I negotiate some with the florist, that will be done too. Our cake is going to be delicious. I've got all of the accessories for my dress except for the tiara, it hasn't come in yet. Jason went and picked out a tux! He's going to look so handsome.
This past weekend we got new furniture. We got a new entertainment center. It's so pretty. I was a little sad to get rid of the old one, Jason had made it and I thought it was cool, but this one is taller, which Jason wanted (wait, I'll get there) and is a pretty dark color that we are going to try for in the loving room. Jason put it all together like an expert. It is cool. We also went to see Michael Kelsey last night. It was a really good show.
Jason's car has really come a long way! It's all painted and he made a rear view mirror for it that is really awesome. He's good at working with his hands. There's a picture of me crashing it (okay, crashing my PlayStation Aston Martin) at the top. The reason we got the new entertainment center so soon is that the old one was too low to see the TV when we were driving the car.

What else? I don't know. This as all kinda been stream of consciousness anyway.

Knitting is hard!

Hello dear reader. This weekend was fun! On Friday night we went to see 3:10 to Yuma. It was good. Westerny. :) Then Saturday we slept in, and I was treated to a hot stone massage by Jason! Okay, he didn't actually do the massaging, but he bought it for me. It was soooo nice and relaxing. I love those warm rocks. mmmmmm. That night wen went to the Japanese Steakhouse. It was delicious as always. Then Sunday we went to the (superhot) renaissance fair at Conner prairie. We saw some fun stuff including a falconer. I asked him for info about coming to the library to do a presentation. He would be great. We went to BD's Mongolian BBQ and had some lunch then. Both of us managed to eat less than usual. Who knew we had that kind of willpower? Good for us. Usually I go home from there waddling. The rest of the time we just relaxed. It was nice.
Today I did a lot of wedding stuff. I've got my veil and tiara ordered, I'm deciding on shoes (hey' if you've got an opinion, let me hear it) and the dress should be in next month! We are seeing the florist and having a tasting at Piper's on Saturday. I think we'll try to see about cake in there somewhere too.
I like the wedding planning stuff. It's fun.

Oh yeah, plus Jason got me some knitting supplies and I am trying to learn!Picture is an oldie but goodie from the children's museum.

Letting it go

Well, it's out of my hands now. I filed for you-know-what this morning. I'm not typing it because I'm sick of seeing the ad on the blog. I'm still really scared about it. I signed the papers this morning, and my first and only meeting will be in November, she thinks. She doesn't think that there will be any problem. So, I hope that's progress. I always think of a million things that could go wrong.
Right now I just want to go home and sleep. Neither Jason nor I got any sleep last night. I think I kept him up. I was tossing and turning all night. I hope that I can learn to deal with the stress. I hope more that it goes away. She didn't think it would clear before the wedding, but said that that wouldn't be a problem. So, I guess I had better stop thinking about it. There's nothing to be gained from that.

Johnny Appleseed, Dogs, and Whirligigs

Boy, oh, boy have I been busy. This week at work, I've got 2 class visits tomorrow, both on Johnny Appleseed, who I know NOTHING about until this week, storytime on Thursday, and about a million other things to do!

This weekend was fun though. Saturday, we got up, thought we were going to the bridal show, and found out when we got there that it wasn't until Sunday. Oops. So we went to my Mom's house for some paid labor, and then went home to scrub all of the dirt off.

That night Jason took me out on a date! Yay! He's always coming up with nice stuff for us to do. I love it. What he didn't know until now (maybe) is that I'm content sitting at home with him, or playing video games with him, or taking a walk together. So going out on a nice date is just icing on the cake. We had borrowed my Dad's miata, and drove it over to Dawson's on main street. It's in speedway, and it's where we were thinking of having our rehearsal dinner. We had crab cakes as an appetizer. They were very good. Crunchy on the outside and very good and dense with crab on the inside. Delicious. Then I had "smothered chicken" it was chicken with a Dijon sauce, then on top of that, scallions, mushrooms, bacon and cheese. WOW. It was so so so good. The mashed potatoes were a little dry, but the green beans were good. I loved it overall. I really want that chicken again. I want the recipe. mmmmmm.

After dinner we went over to The Jazz Kitchen to see a band called "The Bad Plus". Jason had heard them on the (satellite) radio, and said they were good, and did lots of interesting covers such as "Smells like Teen Spirit" etc. Well, we got there, and they didn't. They played a couple of covers but nothing really up my alley too much. Their original stuff was interesting if hard for me to understand. I felt like they were too hip for me. BUT, I enjoyed it.

Sunday we actually went to the bridal show, and saw some interesting stuff. For instance, places that will preserve your bouquet. It looks really cool. We talked with a couple of cake people and have a couple of leads! Yay. Most of the stuff there was reception sites and photographers. Since we have both, we got through pretty quickly and headed for....

The British car show. I was excited to go, because my dream car, my favorite car ever, the best car in the world is British. This car would be the Morgan plus 8. (see illustration at top). Unfortunately, there were no Morgans at the show, but there were a lot of interesting cars to see. I like the MGs too, and there were a few jaguars that were really pretty. I got a tiny plus 8 and a Morgan shirt. Not half bad...

There was however, one car that stood out among it's fellows. It was not British. It was silver, well, stainless steel colored at least. It had gull wing doors for you to hit your head upon. You can probably already see it's picture at the bottom of the page. Maybe the best thing it had however, was a flux capacitor. YES! It was a delorean. Yes! It really did have a flux capacitor. When we got excited about it and said, "It has a flux capacitor" the owner of the car looked at me and said the words that made me love her, this stranger. She said, with a straight face "It's what makes time travel possible". I almost cried. Then we noticed that it had a license plate that said.... "OUTA TYME" YAY!!! I was so happy, and then her husband asked if Jason would like a picture of me behind the wheel!!!! YAY! See the result! It was severely awesome. I'm kinda embarrassed for getting that excited to sit in a car that didn't fit in at the British car show, but hey, I am who I am, thanks Popeye.

Movie Night

Last night Jason and I watched 2 movies. First we watched The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. It was confusing, because it was 3/2 stories all at the same time. One in the past, one in the present and one who knows where. It was okay, kind of frustrating to try and figure out, because there was a whole spirituality element that you were so unsure if was inside his head, in the book she had written, or in reality. It was very visually pleasing. I read about the effects on IMDb, and they weren't cgi, they were all done with photographic effects. It was okay, but not thrilling.

Then we put in half of the Quentin Tarantino Grindhouse. It was Death Proof. The concept of the first half of the movie was that this guy, stuntman Mike was a killer. He had a car that had been "death proofed" by stuntmen, so he could wreck it and live. I won't spoil the end but it was a little confusing. I'm not sure I can say I'm a total fan of Tarantino. I loved the Kill Bills, but nothing else so far has made me jump for joy. I still want to see the other half of Grindhouse.

Hello

Hello all, not much to say today, I have another appointment with the attorney on Oct 2nd to get things finalized. I hope it all goes well.

Wedding wise, we are still at a kind of standstill. Jason is still picking grooms clothes, and I've got to decide how I want to do flowers. Either order them pre done, order them as just flowers and do them myself, or go to a local florist. All of the bridesmaids have looked for dresses (I think) and we just have to order them. I'm going to set up a tasting at Piper's soon and we are going to Dawson's this weekend. That's where we think we might have the rehearsal dinner. There's no room rental fee like there is at brickyard.

We are going to have an engagement party at my Mom and Dad's house next month. Jason is going to barbecue half of the world. He's at home today. He's not feeling well. His nose has just been driving him insane. I feel so bad that I can't do anything to help him with it. It's not fair that he is so plagued by his nose. He's still awesome though, even with a runny nose.

Danica was funny last night. She came and laid on my arm for the longest time and tried to sleep but couldn't get comfortable. So, I got up to go to bed, and she followed me. I picked her up and she wanted to sit on my arm and shoulder and just purr. She was so sweet. I laid down and she didn't move, even though she was laying on my neck at that point. She's the only cat I've ever seen that WANTS to be picked up. She stops in front of my feet and arches her back. I found out this weekend that she's outgrown her little green coat :(. I'll have to get her a new one.

Monday and More!

It's Monday. Sure is. My fingers are FREEZING! I don't know why I'm so cold this morning. It's supposed to really start heating up around now. I'm here at work after a fun (and busy) weekend.

On Friday night, we went to see The Nanny Diaries. I loved the book, but I didn't like the movie. None of it had any depth, and I was kinda bored. We should have seen Balls of Fury instead. The acting was fine, and I liked the nature guide kind of asides, but the movie in general was just, eh. I'd give it 2 out of four stars. I didn't actively dislike it, but I didn't enjoy it either.

The last book I read (okay, listened to) was Mister Monday by Garth Nix. I really really enjoyed Lirael, Sabriel, and Abhorsen, but this wasn't as good. It was good, I listened and I liked it, but not his very best work. I felt the same about the one before that, The Prophet of Yonwood. I liked the two previous, City of Ember and People of Sparks, but this one wasn't as good! I'm looking for the next one, someone recommend me something!

So, back on track, Saturday, we got up early and went to get my new wheel. We got it, they took the old one but didn't give me anything for it. Then we took it to the tire place. While we were waiting for it to be done, we went to one cake shop, and freaked the woman out with our pictures. She said she would have to "think a lot about this one". Yeah, we're not going back. For those of you that don't know, we want our wedding cake to look like the original pagoda at the speedway. (look up) I think it might be a little hard to find someone to make it for us. We are going to a bridal show this weekend. Maybe there will be someone there to do it.

After the cake shop, we went back to the tire place and picked up my car! It's all better. Yay!!!!! Then we went to the grocery. Bought stuff for us, and stuff for a barbecue! We got home, and then went right back out to go to goodwill and walmart looking for a table. Goodwill had NOTHING that was appropriate and cheap enough, but we found one at walmart. Then we got oil for the cars and went home!

Larson came over and he and Jason changed the oil in all of the cars. Steve, Rachel and the boys came over. Then, we fired up the grill and had:

corn
grill fries
bacon wrapped stuffed jalapenos
giant shrimp
beer brats
chicken
all kinds of random stuff
smores

I'm still stuffed. It was really good.

Sunday we went over to my Mom's and cleaned out gutters. Gross. I hate those gutters.

Still surviving

I'm still all nervous about all of it, I think I will be until it's over, but it's better now. I don't want to spend all of my time talking about it. So!

This weekend we went to the last race of the season in Chicago. To start off with, the weather was PERFECT! It wasn't hot or cold, and we were in the shade in our seats. Vitor was going to come to the pre-race party, but had to have a meeting. He said he'd be at the banquet tomorrow night though. I really hope he has a better year next year. His was the second (after marco) wreck of the day. Something broke on his car, and he hit the wall so hard that he broke the safer barrier. I say that makes him cool. I know I'm out of order, but with your favorite having such a hard season you have to put it out there. So, the race was really exciting. I don't know why it's so much more exciting to me to see the teams running together, but it is. It was cool. We were right there when Dixon ran out of gas sooooooo close to the finish line. This time Dario does "see the checker" and it was cool, but will be much less cool if he goes to napcar (cuz it makes me sleepy) next year.

So, great race. Going to the banquet tomorrow. Last night we chopped up a tree covered in poison ivy. At least that's what we thought it was. We still aren't quite done, but it was really hard work. It's awesome to have such a great fiance. He's handy and hardworking. Now we have a big pile of kindling.

I survived

My meeting with the bankruptcy attorney was yesterday, and I survived. It took 3 hours! I do qualify to declare chapter 7, but it's so frustrating that I have to. I have to liquidate some stock I've had since I was born, and they could go after Mom for the tax refund I gave her this past year. They will also get my tax refund for this year. I still think that this is better than having the MC garnish my wages, and take all of my money. So.... I have to do a couple more things, like credit counseling (online) and send a couple more things in, but it's going.

I can't believe it's come to this. I don't have ANYTHING to discharge other than the condo. I don't have any credit card debt, my car is current on payments, my student loan is current, and can't go away anyway, and I don't have any other debt. I worked so hard to get to that point, and now it's all for nothing. If she could have just told me straight up that she really couldn't afford the house anymore, before the liens were placed, we could have done a short sale and been done with it. I know she said I never picked up on hints, but that's definately something she could have been straightforward about. So.... Everyone, I think it's going in the right direction, but until it's over, don't forget me!