aalksjidelkdh...update.

Hello. I am trying to blog, but honestly the Mitchmister and myself haven't done anything interesting. All we do is go to work, school, and hang out with Mufasa. We are just trying to get through these last days of school until Thanksgiving break. We both need it--desperately. I can't wait to see everyone, especially Joshua. AND EAT! Yay. This will be Mitch and I's first holiday debut as a married couple. haha. It's going to be great. But yeah, I've just been reading a lot lately. I've decided to go back and actually read all the books I "sparksnoted" through school. I'm halfway through Wuthering Heights, which I'm thoroughly enjoying..But I haven't decided what to read after that. There is a pretty long list of literature that I just skimmed through. Hey Mom, maybe I'll read Tale of Two Cities and learn all about the Jaques! :D Anyway--I have to go write a paper for my next class, so I'll blog as soon as I we doing something interesting.

Old post. I accidentally reposted. :/

Here, here. Now everyone can relax. There are the pumpkins from the competition.

First-Paige's dramatic Halloween collage.

Second-My last minute moon, stars, and cloud ensemble.

Third-Mom's BOO accompanied by friendly ghosts and bats.

Fourth-Mitch's preview of the true artist within. The stars are clearly a warning to look out next year.

So you can decided for yourself--did Mom get robbed? Or did I?

Any adjustments for next year? Time limit, new judges, stencils or not, how halloween should they be, and can you tell what it is from a distance? These are things to think about. This is obviously a serious matter. Also all those who are interested in participating in the gingerbread house contest--start thinking about it. Mitch and I will definitely be there to defend our title. Let's try for no Merry HOHO's this year. BYOC.

Ice Hockey.

So if Mitch and I had to get rid of cable, we are positive we wouldn't die of boredom. Mufasa goes absolutely bonkers for ice. It's the funniest thing ever. He'll fling it around across the linoleum until it melts or gets stuck under one of the appliances. In most cases, he gets the ice wedged under the fridge or stove, so I came up with a solution. I made bumpers! We never actually read our Sunday paper so I figured they should get some use. I was so proud of my brilliant idea--until the second I threw down the ice Mufasa looked at it and walked off. He wanted no part of it with the bumpers there. Apparently all the fun is in getting it stuck under things. He'll even pick it up and put it on the rug and fight to get it back out. Hilarious. He'll do this over and over for hours. Of course some of the ice gets lost under the stove and when I come in the next morning there is always a little puddle to step in. I'll have to video tape it and put it on here. I know you all aren't huge dog fans, but he's the only baby we'll have for awhile! So bare with us.

Odds and ends.

Yeah, yeah. I changed the background. I was being sweet to Mitch and showing some Bama pride. But it was difficult for me to see, so now I'm in the holiday spirit. I am still very excited about Halloween coming up--especially because I am going to kick butt at the pumpkin carving contest. :D Also, I'm excited about Thanksgiving and then CHRISTMAS! Yippy. I just can't wait any longer. Mitch and I bought our Christmas stuff last year for half price and we are sooo ready to whip things out.

I have also realized that I have created my own line of tupperware. The cottage cheese line. Hah. Apparently, I eat a lot of cottage cheese, but atleast it's provided a nice variety of storage containers. They are the perfect size for lunch sized leftovers. I love it. Anddd, I figured out we didn't have corn stickers after I made corn. Oh well, we're having fun with our random makeshift odds and ends. I guess we'll have all that random household stuff bought and figured out within another year or so, but for now toothpicks work just fine.

Yeah, so I guess it is a Blackberry thing! This is from Mitch's phone..this is disappointing. I don't understand why mine won't work because all the tutorials were show using iPhones. :( But who knows, maybe Mitch will become an frequent blogger.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Around the house.

Well, I went to town on organizing the other day. My class was cancelled so I went straight home and began to tear the closet apart. I cleaned for about 3 hours! I organized the entire closet, partially took the grill apart, cleaned out the coat closet, and the little "storage" space we have by our hot water heater. I am so proud of myself and everything is much easier to find. I was able to finally have my side of the closet and his side of the closet! Yay! And I sorted his side by polos, t-shirts (color coordinated), pants, athletic stuff, and dress shirts. My side is divided into the half of nicer clothes that I can't fit into, the two pairs of jeans I own, and the dozen t-shirts I always wear. I blame my mother-haha. Well, I do have my prom dress in there, a colder weather black dress, and a more summery black dress. Go me. But anyway, the only thing I didn't get organized is the desk. This is our "important pile" zone. Everyone has this area in their house--ours just isn't in an office with a door to close yet. ANDDDD..of course the grill is now in our den. Lovely.

Out of bed, out the window, down the tree, over the wall...

Definitely not getting out of bed now because Nana bought us one of those cool memory foam toppers! Mitch was ooooober excited about it. It really helps his back out. The only set back is--I can't get out of bed! haha. I'm not a morning person AT ALL. I just can't wake up. I used to never be able to go to sleep and stay asleep, but now I sleep like a rock. I don't wake up for anything. We have like 6 alarms set and I'm still always late. Now I really don't like to get out of the bed. I'm literally stuck in a comfy cloud of sleep. It's like trying to roll out of a 3 inch perfect mold of yourself. Mitch and I are seriously considering getting a Tempur-Pedic or Sleep Number bed one day when we are rich.

Note worthy moments.

I am super excited about having my camera back up and running. I guess the battery charger was part of a value pack or something. It had an extra battery, a wall charger, a car adaptor, some crazy fork looking thing, and a little 4 inch tripod! The tripod is hilarious, it's so random. But yeah, now that I have access to pictures here are some more pictures of the random things we've been up to since the temporary absence of the camera. :) And the about the bandana--I'm not much for humiliating animals, but this was precious. He freaked out when we first put it on him, but then Mitch and I fawned over him for about ten minutes and he thought the was something special. The rest of the week he acted like he was hot stuff--he was seriously posing. I had to take it off to give him a bath and he stared at it the whole time. Then I decided to wash it, and he freaked. He watched me put it in the washing machine and he sat in front of it until it was washed and dried. He's such an odd dog.

Paige & I headed to the Orpheum.

Mitch's first time to see the Wizard of Oz.

Hey mom! You're on the blog!

Mufasa's bandana. He thought he looked good, seriously.

Mitch & Mufasa napping. He's so weird.

Hmm, still don't know why the picture won't show up. I looked up tutorials on YouTube and everything. I'm doing it correctly. So I'm still waiting for my camera charger I bought off eBay to arrive. :( anyway, I love holidays. I am so excited about Halloween! I am fighting my temptation to go out and buy tacky decorations. My little ghost is cute though. He's more of a subtle tacky (by the way, it took me about five minutes to remember how to spell subtle--kept coming out suddle). But after it's over, ohhh it's on. Then I'll have lots for next year! Yay! Also I can't wait for Christmas music. I'm going to start rocking out on December 1st. I'm driving Mitch crazy with my stupid questions about decoration ideas and whatnot. But oh well, I only get to go on and on about tinsel once a year. Go holiday season! I hope we have an ice storm! I'd love to see Mitch and I trapped in our little apartment for a few weeks...haha!

Sent from my iPhone

Well, hold the applause for the picture. I really have no clue how to fix that glitch. Kat? Daniel? Someone more technically savvy than me...? HELP!

Sent from my iPhone

This is my desk! I just wanted to figure out how to send a picture also. So hah, now we're rolling. I'm considering buying one of those Big Dog t-shirts-- "Running with the big digs now!" Bahaha! Love it. :)



Sent from my iPhone

Hello! If you are reading this then I've figured out how to blog from my phone! Hip hip hooray.

Sent from my iPhone

Mess up.

Mitch and I were finally able to put our cell phone plans together and we got to get new phones--real high tech ones too. Mitch got the new Blackberry Curve and I got an iPhone. Mitch is so happy I finally got a decent phone. Everyone made fun of my old brick/fossil/out of date phone..whatever people liked to call it. But I am really excited about it, it does a lot of neat tricks. But I need to know how to blog from it like Katherine does. I attempted to at work, but it would only let me put in the title. So if anyone knows how to operate an iPhone, let me know. I'd love to be able to blog about every step I take like Katherine! :D haha. Atleast a large amount of funny pictures could keep people entertained. I do see some strange things throughout the day--like right now. I'm blogging from one of the school computers and this really gangster girl is beside me listening to her ipod. I can hear it and you would think it would be some gangster stuff, but no it's some old school No Doubt. Haha! I love it. Well, hopefully I'll have something more interesting to blog about next time.

Almighty tweezers.

As you know, I had to dispose of my tweezers at court a few weeks ago. Now I have come to realize that there is a whole entire world of odd jobs that only tweezers can do! There is nothing you can use to pull a wild hair out with besides tweezers. I haven't had a splinter in who knows how long, but believe it or not the moment I don't have tweezers--I get one. I really don't know how the world spun around its axis before the invention of tweezers. I just thought I would share my little revelation with you.

Also, I did make a second attempt at the banana pudding. It turned out awesome. Mitch and I ate it all in two days.

A Sad Moment in History.

Literally, I was in History today. It's World Civilization or something like that. Anyway, we were talking about the Persian Empire and discussing some crazy religion called Zoroastrianism. Well, in this religion they don't believe in burying or cremating the dead. Apparently after three days the spirit has moved on so they just leave the body outside and let the vultures have at it. Weird, so someone asked if Zoroastrianism was still practiced today--yes it is. Now here comes the sad part...The professor was trying to relate it better and said that there was someone famous we probably knew that belonged to this religion--Freddy Mercury. The entire class of 30 something people was silent. Nobody knew who Freddy Mercury was. Even the professor said she only knew because her father always listened to "crazy music." There are even older people in my class, people who were old enough to have been there and nobody had a clue. I started to explain to them who he was and they didn't have a clue until I mentioned "We will, we will rock you...!" Awful. Shameful. INCONCEIVABLE! Utterly saddening. When I got to my car, I immediately turned on my ipod and had my own little tribute to Freddy Mercury. 

Roll Tide Roll.

Mitch and I also got to go to an Alabama game at Tuscaloosa. We got up really early, but luckily his parents drove so I got to take an awesome nap. I am the worst company on a long drive to anywhere. Cars just put me to sleep--especially when it was dark and raining cats and dogs! It poured all the way down there. We walked around the University for awhile before the game and even with all the rain and muck, I fell in love with the University of Alabama. As soon as we got into the stadium and to our seats, it stopped raining. Amazingly, it didn't rain at all throughout the game. We walked around the campus some more and as soon as we got back on the rode, it started pouring again. The Crimson Tide kicked some major tail. North Texas didn't stand a chance. It was a great game, and we've decided to eventually move to Alabama. It's so pretty and I'd love to move somewhere. So Alabama seems like a good choice..hopefully we can move, get in state tuition and both finish up at the University of Alabama. Mitch has always wanted to go to school there and I'd love for him to really be able to. We'll see how all that turns out in a few years..Roll Tide Roll!

No Pictures.

Sorry, there are still no pictures. So I've given up and gone ahead and started posting. I didn't think it would be a big deal to go buy a battery charger for my camera. I was wrong. I guess Sony doesn't think anyone will ever lose a wall charger!? I finally found one at Best Buy and it was $56--for a wall charger. So I'm still trying to find one. I refuse to pay sixty bucks for a charger. Enjoy the stories for now, and hopefully I'll be able to provide pictures to go along. 

Go Braves!

Mitch and I got to go to the Braves game against the Reds. We drove down early that morning and got there in the nick of time. When we got there we stood in one line for about ten minutes and then was told we were in the wrong line. So we stood in another line for another fifteen minutes. Then we found out that we were right the first time and had to go and get back in that line. We finally got to the window and got our tickets. We had pretty good seats in the outfield for them being free. We got Mitch's favorite, dipping dots, and sat down right as the first pitch was thrown. The only thing we didn't think about was the sun. It never occurred to us to bring sunblock. Poor Mitch got burned. I just ended up with some bad tan lines. But it was still a good game, even though they lost. After the game we went to visit my sister, Katherine. We had dinner and visited for a few hours. Maddie barely paid attention to me, apparently she likes Mitch better. Not like it matters... Katherine gave Mitch more insight on Fantasia and the impact it had on our lives. Haha. It was very nice to get to see everybody and enjoy a Braves game.

My dog ate my homework, I mean ticket..

So, as you know I got a ticket for my wreck. Well, I went to court to try and get it dismissed. Last time I had to go to 201 Poplar for a ticket it was a disaster. I didn't have cash for parking, fifty cents for a locker (because you can't bring a camera into court), couldn't find the right court room. It was a mess, but I had it together this time. I had cash for parking and left all my electronics in the car. I get in line to go through the metal detectors, which are the serious ones like at the airport. They make you walk through and they scan your purse. So as I'm in line, I start digging through my purse to find some chap stick and I realize I have four box cutters in my purse. Dang it..I decided to just play dumb and act like I didn't know they were there. So I put my purse on the conveyer and went to walk through. As I started through, the security guard called me over and he asked me if I had any tweezers in my purse. So I ended up having to throw away my tweezers because they were considered a weapon, but walked into court with four razor blades! Crazy, crazy people. I finally got to the courtroom and got in line again. There are always a million people at Memphis court. Well, the guy finally called me up to discuss my ticket and asked me how I plead. I told him NOT guilty, so he had to get up and find their copy of my ticket and accident report. But turns out he could find their copy, so he asked me if I had mine. I just smiled and said I was hoping he wouldn't ask me that because my dog chewed up my ticket. He just laughed and said oh well, we'll just dismiss it this time. I was amazed that the "my dog ate my homework" excuse actually worked in traffic court. :) Nobody can top that. Haha. 

House.

Mitch and I have a slight obsession with the TV show House. Okay, maybe more than slight. We have seen every episode and have it all on DVD. We've always liked the show, but we really got into it when we first got married. We had our little apartment, but didn't have cable yet. So we started going through the DVDs and found the first season of House. We watched all of it within the week. Then we immediately went out and bought season two and three. It only took about two weeks to watch all of those episodes. When we got season four, we took a little more time to watch it because season five wasn't out on DVD yet. We preordered season five and had it sent to us. The high point of everyday was going to check the mailbox. Awful. When we finally got it, we ended up watching all 24 episodes in a day and a half. Insanity. We stayed up until about 2 in the morning to watch it, went to bed, and woke up at eleven to finish it. A very productive weekend. Now season six just started on TV. But sadly it's on Monday nights. I don't get out of school until 6:55. :( I guess we'll have to go find a VCR so we can tape it. Life is so hard sometimes.

A thick envelope finally arrived and it's, it's---HOUSE! Instant satisfaction!

Meet Murray.

Yay, Mitch and I got a new car. We decided to go ahead and trade in my Explorer and get something more dependable. Since my truck's trade-in value was only about $1,900, we decided it'd be best to go ahead and take the cash for clunkers deal. As much as I didn't want a car note, we thought it'd be better than waiting for my truck to blow up and really sink us in the hole. We looked around at smaller sedans and finally decided on the Nissan Versa Sedan. It's small, but not tiny like the Chevy Aveo and Toyota Yaris. And Danny got us the hook up at the Nissan dealership, so we got the nicest Versa with all the bells and whistles for a great price. It's black with tan interior, but it's the nice luxurious fabric. :) I also have the neat Bluetooth thing where I can talk on the phone and it comes through the car speakers. It's pretty sweet--Mitch loves it because now it's impossible for me not to hear my phone in the car. It has taken me awhile to realize that I'm not in a taller vehicle with a V6 or V8 engine anymore. That is all I've ever driven, so I've almost gotten run over several times pulling out in front of people. But oh well, we are very happy with our little coke can car which gets 30 mpg. We have named her Murray and she's the first "big purchase" Mitch and I have gotten to make as a married couple.

Mitch and I patiently waiting for them to get our loan approved--scary!

This folder was blank when we arrived, but I had to pass the time somehow--some of the salesmen wanted to frame it. :)

THE DESK, we waited forever to get here--the final stretch.

This is George, he introduced us to Murray--and was a super sweet man.

Goodbye Explorer, thank you for saving my life--we had a good two years.

There's Murray, she was sitting there waiting on us to take her home!

Welcome home, the Ivy's are a Nissan family..

Wreck.

Yep, I had another wreck. Luckily nobody got hurt and I didn't even get hit by the airbag. :)

So this is the story. I'm driving down Shelby Drive on my way to work. It's pretty congested and everyone is just poking along. Then I get behind a red Camry and we are chugging along at a nice pace. So we're in the far left lane, then change into the middle lane--and completely unaware that a cop has someone pulled over in the far right lane (because there is an 18 wheeler in the lane blocking the view)--the Camry changes lanes, I follow and in that same moment the Camry swerves back into the lane and almost hit me. I swerve even harder now that I am about to hit the cop. I cross over Shelby Drive almost to the other side and then back again, crashing through a fence into someone's backyard. I missed the cop by about 5 feet, almost hit several cars, almost flipped due to my complete over correction, and hit the fence about 30 feet in front of the cop. Basically I made a big U shaped maneuver across Shelby Drive and the cop was amazed I didn't get hit. Of course he thought I was crazy as I bailed out of thetruck and took off running--this is my usual reaction when I have a wreck. I'm always afraid the truck is going to blow up like they do in the movies and I didn't want the airbag to have a late reaction or something and get smacked in the face. But yeah, I made it out alive! It barely even did any damage to the truck! Thank the Lord. But the stupid cop gave me a ticket for "failure to maintain safe lookout." I almost wished I had hit him because there was a side street like 30 feet further he could have pullled the man over on, rather than on Shelby Drive in 8 o'clock traffic. But oh well--things could have turned out much worse.

Paper Mache Soup.

I attempted to make mom's banana pudding. I started to get out the ingredients, but had to send Mitch to get flour and sweetened condensed milk. I didn't even get to the 3rd step before I had to call mom and ask a question because the recipe doesn't say at what temperature to heat the milk and flour..it just says remove from heat on the fourth step. I'm one of those people that needs to have EXACT directions. As I mentioned earlier, it said to combine the flour and MILK together--this recipe calls for milk AND sweetened condensed milk. But considering I left the little can of sweetened milk in the Walmart sack, I completely overlooked it. Still unaware of my blunder, I began layering everything and realized I wouldn't have enough pudding. So because I'm a genius I grabbed a box of Jell-O instant vanilla pudding and finish off my layering. I made the meringue, which I was most worried about screwing up, and put it in the oven. As I am cleaning up, I find the sweetened condensed milk---$&%*@)#!---ugh. So when the timer goes off, I am totally not excited anymore. The meringue was perfect, but when I spooned some out it was nasty soupy muck. There is a reason that the pudding has flour and whatnot in it, instant pudding wasn't a good substitute. And because I didn't put the sweetened milk in it, the pudding was like paper mache! So Mitch and I ate all the meringue off the top and tossed out the paper mache soup. It took forever to make, made a mess of the entire kitchen, and turned out awful. Mitch and I were completely disappointed.

Hah, I would like to note that the first picture is quite ironic. I didn't notice until I uploaded it, but my "Anyone Can Cook" cookbook is a screaming contradiction as I am preparing the paper mache pudding--on top of a Domino's box because I gave up on making dinner the night before.. :)