Mona's Blog

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

June is Crazy....

I have no freakin' idea how I ended up doing this, but my June is going to be insane. Let's see now, starting next week, my after-work schedule will be as follows:

Monday - Guitar lessons
Tuesday - Softball (I'm the "coach"!)
Wednesday - Belly Dancing
Thursday - Karaoke Night (also rain-date for softball)
Friday - The weekend fun begins!

In addition to all of this, I'm taking a trip to Denver from the 24th to the 28th. Oh, and I'm turning 30 on the 16th. Oh man.....can't believe it. Guess I better hold on for an adventurous June!!

Monday, May 22, 2006

Ooooo, pretty guitar


So, on somewhat of a whim, I decided to buy a guitar a few weeks ago. I never really thought of myself as a guitar player, but I do love to play a musical intstrument, I do love music, and I do really enjoy singing. My violin lessons a few years ago flopped and so I decided that I would try something a little easier than violin. Isn't the prettiest guitar you've ever seen....EVER!? It's so pretty.

But now I feel like Phoebe on Friends when she got her new bike from Ross. She had never had a bike before but always wanted one so Ross bought her a new bike. It was this awesome bike with a banana seat, streamers on the handle-bars, etc. She wore a bike helmet and bought lots of accessories for it. She loved the bike and admired it all the time. Ross noticed that she never actually *rode* the bike however. Turns out she didn't know how to ride a bike. So, that's what I'm doing. I bought accessories and I admire my pretty guitar, but I have no idea how to play. Lessons start this week or next. YAY!

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

New Car?

So, after many, many years of driving the Geo around, I've been kicking around the idea of purchasing a new car. I'd like to either purchase something a bit bigger, or at least more versatile than the Geo (which isn't all that hard to do on either counts). I still want good mileage and I'd like to keep the price below $15,000 if I buy new. Buying used is an option, but I'm not certain that's the way I'd like to go.

So, I've been looking at different models online and these are the models that I think I'll take a look at in person....the listing is completed in no particular order:

- Pontiac Vibe: OK, it's a Pontiac, which has me wary. But it's so cute! It's mileage is 30/36, which is decent. Buying new it would cost over the my limit, however.
- Toyota Matrix: It's basically the equivalent to the Vibe. Not as cute, however. Mileage is 30/36 with a price of $15.2 new.
- Honda Fit: I think it's smaller than the two mentioned above, but it's supposed to be very functional with it's interior (everything fits in your Fit!!). It's mileage is 33/38 (nice) and has a base of $13.8.....which is decent.

I also looked at the Toyota Yaris (too small, I believe) and the Dodge Caliber (mileage is sort of sucky). Any thoughts or advice on these cars or others? :)

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Belly Dancing....Alluring or Dumb?

So, my friend Terralyn and I are taking Belly Dancing classes. The class is one night per week for the next 6 weeks. I had my first class last night and I'm not sure how I feel about it. As I drove to the lesson last night, I was hoping that it would be an interesting way to get a different workout. But as it turns out, I didn't break a sweat and my stomach muscles aren't even sore today. In addition to that, as I looked around the room of women doing all the "sultry" and "sexy" moves, I decided that belly-dancing doesn't make any of us look sexy whatsoever. We looked more like a group of women trying to synchronize swim....except, of course, we weren't actually swimming. And come to think of it, we weren't in synch, either. Ok, I take it back....we looked like a bunch of women dancing really badly. But perhaps I just need to give it more of a chance. I just find it hard to believe that me trying to shimmy my hips around is going to turn out positively.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Campus Fun!


Yesterday was 'Campus Sweep'.....volunteers went around and cleaned up the campus since it's the end of the school-year. I got the fun task of using a push broom to sweep the gutters of the entire portion of this back road leading to the campus gardens. It was tough, lemme tell ya. Then, after that was the faculty/staff picnic. The theme this year was a Hawaiian Luau. The picture here is of me and some peeps from my department, Jeremy and Tyler. Jeremy (left) hates to have his picture taken, can you tell? I was wearing the center piece from the table.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

NewsFlash! Bagged Lettuce Causes Severe Farting!

Ok, not really.....but I was talking to my sister on the phone yesterday about something that made me laugh. When she was at the grocery store the other day, she put some bagged lettuce in her cart. Some random lady came up to her and said "I guess you hadn't heard on the news." My sister, confused, asked her what she was talking about and the lady responded with, "About the bagged lettuce." And then proceeded to walk away. UHmmmm.....what!!???!?

So, Leila was asking me if I had heard anything about bagged lettuce recently. I hadn't, so I looked it up today and apparently back in September of 2005, there was some stuff about Dole bagged lettuce being linked to "an E. Coli outbreak." An "outbreak" meaning 11 people got sick and then a bunch of lawsuits started flying around over it. So, as I was telling my sister, this lady still has her panties all in a bunch over some situation that happened a year ago! And her panties are so incredibly bunched, causing such discomfort, that she felt the need to warn my sister about it. It's just so funny to me how people get so panicked over stuff sometimes.

UPDATE: OK, so apparently me not watching the news that much makes me uninformed sometimes. Apparently there is a new bout of E. Coli from the Dole bagged lettuce that was reported yesterday. I still stand by my opinion that people tend to over-react. :)