Drum roll please....

So, for those of you that haven't heard I got into the Master's of Social Work program here at UT at Austin (a.k.a. A&M's rival school).  After a little over 5 months I was finally off the wait-list and accepted.  I didn't tell people at first because I was worried that they would have accepted the wrong person and then tell me I really didn't get in, but now it's legit because I paid my fee and received my welcome packet.  To celebrate, Steve bought me these shorts.  So enjoy this picture of my pasty white legs (FYI, you don't get tan during the summer because it's too hot to be outside, so this is normal).  Also, I will finally attend a school whose color is my favorite.  In the words of Tenacious D, it was destiny.

The Longhorn mascot is really small on the bottom right of the shorts.

Megan's Arch Enemy

Megan's dreams/nightmares always entertain me. The only problem is that for some reason I am always the bad guy in them. The story usually follows a conglomerate of a dramatic scenario coupled with a dastardly villain that I inevitably end up aiding in his efforts to destroy Megan. The latest happened on Memorial day. Megan spent a while that day making a dessert she grew up eating and affectionately calls, "The Good Dessert". We had some friends over for dinner and dessert that day. The next morning Megan woke up frantic and distressed that "there was only one piece of dessert left". Apparently in the dream I invited over droves of people to eat all of her dessert and only left her one piece. It took quite a bit of assurance on my part to convince her that 3/4 of the dessert was still in the fridge. I almost went over to the fridge to pull out the dessert and bring it too her in bed to prove it. So there you have it people. In the deepest darkest abyss of Megan's mind her deepest fears coming to fruition: only having one piece of dessert left.

Here are some pics from a month or two ago when we went to the Texas A&M Vet School Open House which included a fistulated cow (hole in its stomach), petting zoo complete with kangaroo with a baby kangaroo in its pouch and a lama shaved like a poodle, creepy operating rooms for large animals that looked like something out of a horror movie, and much more.

Fistulated Cow. Pretty much a cow with a cork in its stomach and you can pull the cork and stick your hand in there (with gloves of course). 

Megan and some goats. They also had a llamas, kangaroo, a deer, and these weird ducks that looked like they had mohawks that you could pet.

This is not the greatest post in the world...This is just a tribute

Last night Steve and I were laughing about the things we got away with as kids, but our parents probably aren't aware of.  Sometimes parents catch you in the act and occasionally appear to in fact have two eyes in the back of their head.  But sometimes those eyes are legally blind.  Here are two stories to illustrate my point.

One day I got really angry at my mom.  I don't remember why, but I sure remember what I did.  I got into the coat closet by the staircase and stood straight up inside my dad's trench coat.  Because it was so long you couldn't see my legs.  The point was to make my mom worry enough to think she was a bad mom, but not long enough to warrant calling the cops.  So, I hear my mom asking my siblings where I was and then telling them to look.  One of my sisters opened the closet and said, "No, she's not in here."  I almost burst out laughing.  After a good 10 minutes or so when I could tell no one was nearby I slipped out of the closet and pretended like I had been there the whole time.

Growing up my parents would literally lock the TV up if we were watching too much or if we all got into trouble.  The entertainment center had two small handles that they slipped a chain through and put a padlock on.  But we were motivated to figure out to bypass this system.  At some point we realized that if we pulled the handles out there was enough give for me to slip my arm up and turn on the TV.  Eventually, we got tired of having to hold open the doors while watching through the small crack and we soon discovered that we could push the entertainment system away from the wall and flip the TV around as there was no back to it.  This maneuver required more time as it was heavy.  We would wait until my mom would leave and then listen for the car to pull up so we could quickly push it back into place against the wall.  To my knowledge she was not aware of it...until now.

And so to all you moms out there, Happy Mother's Day.

Dream Hunters

It's been awhile since I wrote anything.  I've been trying to get motivated to do a post for about 3 weeks and every time I sit down to do it I think, "Awww, screw it.  I'm going to watch Cupcake Wars."  True story.  That exact scenario has happened at least three times and the only reason it did not come to pass this week is because there were no new episodes of Cupcake Wars on Hulu as I have now seen them all.  And there's still another two days until Psych comes to Hulu.  Boo.  So here I am.

When I married Steve I knew he wasn't super into old movies.  And by "not super into" I mean not at all.  I really thought I could change Steve of his ways, but no such luck (you would think that if I was going to try and change Steve that I would choose something more worthwhile, but no).  More recently I've been getting Hitchcock movies from the library and Indiana Jones (Not an old movie, but Steve had never seen Raiders or the Temple of Doom all the way through.  I still can't believe we'd been married almost two years before I found that out).  Last weekend's feature was "Rear Window."  So I am sitting there reminiscing about how much I liked this movie way back when and Steve has to make one of his comments (that, FYI, make everyone but his wife laugh and I think you would all agree if you had to live with it 24/7).  It went something like this: "So, this movie is basically about Peeping Toms."  Thanks for killing a good childhood memory.

So, here's the thing.  I am a dream-killer.  I rain on people's ridiculous and far-fetched parades all the time (not to their faces, but in the privacy of my own home).  And this was no surprise to Steve when we got married because he had heard me do this long before we actually got married.  Plus, I had already informed him that I would probably kill our children's dreams (Let's just stop telling people to shoot for the moon when we all know they have no realistic shot).  But did you all know that Steve is a closet dream-killer? (I should be more specific.  It's my dreams he kills.)  Yes, it's hard to believe, but it is in fact true.  He doesn't do it on purpose, but that doesn't make it any less effective.  I keep telling him that there is only room for one dream-killer in this marriage and I already called dibs.  This did not keep him from almost ruining a perfectly good movie (even if we all know that what he said is true).

But the one dream he can't kill is being a chili cook-off champion two years in a row because it has already happened.

P.S. Steve was not offended by the publishing of this post.

Dancing with the Dead

The cake was made by two first year med students

Last Friday Steve and I attended the "Cadaver Ball" that was hosted by the medical school.  It was a magical evening where we danced with dead bodies dressed in prom dresses and tuxedos.  Psych.  That was not true.  But we really did go to the "Cadaver Ball."  It was a James Bond theme, so during my brief pit-stop in Utah on my way to North Carolina I picked up Steve's tux from the abyss known as his parents' basement (thankfully, they got it for me so I didn't have to actually sift through all of that stuff by myself).  I was originally going to dress up as James Bond's secretary (Miss Moneypenny), but as it turns out there was nothing distinctive about her clothing so no one would have know who I was.  Actually, as it turns out none of the James Bond ladies are distinct or have memorable dresses.  So, for the sake of saying we stuck with the theme, I am Vesper (which works out because Casino Royale is my favorite).

Steve trying to bring sexy back by wearing a tux

After we arrived I realized that Steve should have tried to dress up like a villain.  Think of how awesome it would have been if he wore an eye patch or carried around a stuffed white cat (the cat would have embarrassed me, but I would have been slightly supportive).  Or he could have worn a white suit coat or brought a gold spray painted water gun.  There was so much potential here and Steve dropped the ball on embarrassing me (which he is normally right on top of).

Steve selected our dinner seats right next to this lovely bar

Steve's favorite part of the evening (other than the nice free meal we got) was the candy bar.  You really should know that Steve is addicted to candy.  He puts my Corn Nut addiction to shame and that is saying something.  He filled up my bag about halfway and then filled up his ALL the way.  He ate almost all of it during Conference the last two days and I had to take it away because he was filling up on Hot Tamales and not real food.  They also had some fake casino games where you could trade in your chips for tickets and enter them in some drawings at the end, but of course Steve and I just couldn't make it to midnight so he tried to go waste all our "money" in Roulette (which he in not good at, he just broke even).  I wanted to play Poker because as it turns out I'm not too bad at it and I once made it through 5 or 6 rounds in a Texas Hold 'Em tournament at the "U."  Steve didn't really want to be supportive and sit by me while I played and I didn't want to sit by myself at a table full of men that I do not know.  So, as punishment, Steve will learn to play at  home with me so he can see that I was telling the truth.

Auntie Day Care

On Wednesday I got back from visiting/helping out family for the last two and a half weeks.  Five children under the age of six in the same one-story house wasn't our best idea.  What I learned: having children of my own is not even remotely close on my horizon.  Also, my gag reflex is bad enough that changing my own child's poopy diaper would probably constitute me hosing them down outside while they sit in the gutter.  Everyone tells me it's different when they are your own, but to me poop is still poop.  I do, however, have some funny stories.

My niece Sara is almost 2 years old and she's too smart for her own good.  But her personality makes her entertaining to babysit.  One afternoon when she was particularly grouchy we decided to put her down for a nap.  This did not sit well with her and when she realized where she was headed she kept screaming out, "I DONE!!!  I DONE!!!"  While I found this hilarious, it did not convince me that she was in fact done.

She also loved driving the Powerwheels Escalade around my sister's yard once she figured out how the gas pedal worked.  I quickly learned that she would required constant supervision as she tried to tear through the daffodils (she did this more than once and thought it was so funny) and reversed it into Kristin's car (don't worry, I checked and there were no scratches).

I have another niece, Mary, who is a goofball.  Some of her favorite things included singing "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow," driving Sara around in the Powerwheels car and hiding from us when she may have not made it to the bathroom in time.  My sisters and I happen to enjoy doing puzzles and Mary happened to be will us while working on one.  Mary repeatedly passed gas, but since a puzzle is one of those things that is hard to move we were stuck with the smell.  My sister Emily looked up and noticed that even Mary thought it stunk because she was covering her nose with her hand.

Oh, Come on Charlene

Seeing as how I am sick at home with laryngitis and I did a whole lot of nothing yesterday, I figure that it's time to blog.  As some of you have heard Steve and I SORT OF have another cat.  I say that only because we don't officially own her (we don't even know if it is actually a girl as she wouldn't cooperate when Steve tried to check, but she came with a hot pink collar so I made a Sherlock deduction).  She showed up one day curled up in my flower pot on our porch when it was a very cold windy night (I assume she is the culprit for why my lily won't grow this year).  I know it sounds like I made the weather part up, but it does occasionally get cold and that night the temperature was going to drop into the 30s.  I felt so bad for the cat because she was obviously very cold, so I made Steve create a small warm house using Charlie's cat carrier.  We thought that she would be gone the next day, but no.  She was sitting on our porch the next morning waiting for Steve.  Our neighbor happened to mention later that she sometimes feeds the cat because she thinks the previous owners moved and LEFT THE CAT BEHIND.  Who does that to a pet?!

So I told Steve I would try to figure out where we could take her.  She is such a sweet cat and is VERY affectionate (deep down we think Charlie feels threatened by the new cat on the block).  We have also seen her scale the tree outside our apartment in pursuit of a squirrel and was about 15 feet up.  I was impressed and wished that she had been hanging out at our house last spring when all those pesky birds came back.  Maybe this year...Anyway, it appears that either her tail was run over or maybe slammed in a door.  The end result is a broken tail that healed in an L-shape or sometimes a question mark when she curls it up.  All  that did was make me feel even more bad for her.  Here is a picture to prove that I am not making this up.

Steve keeps claiming that we don't own the cat and she doesn't live here, but guess what?  She waits for Steve to come home EVERYDAY and she follows him to the car when he leaves.  He named her Charlene (against my wishes), bought her a food dish and feeds her twice a day, but then he says we are not keeping her.  Also, he has made no effort to call a shelter.  So whatever Steve tells you, he is LYING!!!!  Here is some video footage of our cat getting mad at the one outside.  Steve now thinks it's funny to put him in the window just so he can hear Charlie's pitiful growls and hisses.