John Ruskin and made-up cuss words

This post is brought to you by dual sponsors Diet Coke and I-just-banged-the-ever-loving-shizzzz-out-of-my-knee. Why is Little Leah up so late on a school night when she knows she has an 8:00 class tomorrow? (And why is she typing about herself in the third person?) Because it's Sara Beth's 21st birthday, and I thought I'd splurge on a Diet Coke at Iguana Grill for the occasion. Now, I know how well my body tolerates caffeine, especially after about lunch time (read: I'll be up all. night. long.), but I didn't care; we were celebrating! (Happy Birthday, Slum!)

Iguana Grill was fantastic. The food has replaced *gasp* Jalapeno's as my favorite Mexican food, but the atmosphere was to die for! I drooled over the paper lanterns hanging from whimsical twine (ish) trees in the middles of the tables and the dangling star lamps were just... too cool. Mustn't forget the dozens of sparkling shaped-metal iguanas crawling on the walls. It was like we were outside...but we were inside. Very almost Dr. Suess...if he were an authentic Mexican.

And John Ruskin... Well, he appeared in the title of this blog post, but I'm sick of him. I'm reading about him for Dr. Dublin's class. He's an awesome teacher, but I'm just too tired to get all this reading in all the time. The rest of the class shares my sentiment. I did actually like the reading for tomorrow, but am dog tired so I'm heading to bed!

Jon and Kate!!! (no eight)

Alex, Heather, and I ventured off to Birmingham today to the Southern Woman's Show to see Jon and Kate Gosselin (of the TLC variety) speak. We left after class so we got there only a few minutes before they spoke and were in the back, back. I didn't get to hear them speak because Alex and I got in the autograph line when it was still short while Heather went to snap photos and listen. This is a shot zoomed all the way in from our place in line. Heather got much better pictures from her spot so I'll add them when she loads them. All we were able to hear was Kate saying they liked sweet tea and that they were moving to Birmingham (just kidding!!). Heather gave us a recap of the rest of the Q&A session when she found us again.

I don't know why I became so enthralled with the Gosselins and their show Jon and Kate Plus Eight. Maybe it's the absolutely adorable kids (okay, it IS the adorable kids!) and the hilarious things they say ("Hannah pooped....in Hannah's unnawears" -Leah) or the fact that I'm in awe that a woman could carry surviving sextuplets after twins or that Jon and Kate just make their lives work everyday! No matter what critiques I hear about the family or the show, I still love them! I think it'd be pretty tough for anyone to chase after eight kids, much less let the world have a glimpse of their lives every week.

I was so excited when we started to get close to the front of the line - especially after the security guard kicked the line-cutters out. Honestly, who teaches their preteen daughter that it's okay to cheat and lie by saying "WE WERE HERE! I don't care what you say, lady!" in front several people who clearly knew you weren't. None of the three parties claimed this woman as family although she tried to say she was in line with each group.

Anyway, back to getting to talk with Jon and Kate. We were allowed to take pictures of them but not with them, so we managed to get one of Heather near them! The plan was to have Heather snap a photo of me and Alex too, but we were so enthralled in our conversation that she forgot! That's okay, though, because I got a chance to tell them I'm called "Little Leah" just like their Leah. They chatted back and seem to be genuinely nice people! There's hope their Leah will indeed stay little forever, too, since Kate said, "Oh, and you *are* little!"

(Heather did get a picture of Kate talking to me. I'm just not in it.) Also, in my stuttering nervousness (I felt silly later. They're a normal family, not scary people!) I grabbed an autographed page off the edge of the table that read "& Kate plus our 8"....didn't give Jon a chance to sign. Whoops!

This totally made my day! I'm even more convinced that Jon and Kate really are fantastic people who care deeply about their family. And we kept remarking about how pretty Kate is, even more in person than on TV! Obviously, the only thing that could have made the day better was if the kids had been there, but I'd be worried people would get arrested for trying to "Grab A Gosselin" because they're all so stinkin' cute!!

A few other pictures from the day:

Jonkristjen left us a note on the car!

Alex's awesome pink glasses....what a disaster!

Me and Alex waiting in line

Jami lost the goose...and where I found it.

I hope Karl Marx will excuse me as I ditch his Consciousness Derived from Material Conditions to relay a story I find particularly amusing. (I reading quit at "orohydrographical," but preach on, brotha!)

I recently sent the following Facebook message to Jami:

So I had the weirdest dream last night. You were in it so I thought you'd get a kick out of this! It was Alabama Action meets Wesley Foundation meets Wathen family Christmas! All my friends from Wesley are sitting around at my grandparents' house with all my family as well as Michael, Phillips, and Trey. Random assortment!

Enter Jami Gates like a frantic mad woman. First you apologized to us for not making the Prater Auditorium Conference (party code name)...you'd have showed up if it weren't for all those freshmen. (haha!) But you said, "I'm here now, but there's a huge problem!" We're all still kind of looking at you dumbfounded when you come over and whisper, very seriously, "Leah, I can't find the goose." RANDOM!!! But you're searching high and low for some missing goose. Michael Emery guesses Grey Goose...but you say "No, a GOOSE goose." And then I woke up shaking my head. So...if you find the goose, let me know!

I found the goose this afternoon when Josh, in true Jim Carrey-starring-in-Liar, Liar style, fashioned me a goose from a crumpled sheet of paper.

I'm pondering these questions after the last few days:

1) WHY did I dream that Jami lost a goose???

2) Isn't is such a coincidence that Josh just happened to do the paper goose bit - we haven't done that in many months - the same day!?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhR126555NA&NR=1

Room Reflects Self

So I was talking to a friend tonight about the crazy school and work schedule I've been keeping lately, and she said "Doesn't leave much time to write, huh?" I haven't written just for me in over a year...maybe longer. That was the whole point of creating this blog - not only to keep with the the daily happenings around campus and in the life of Little Leah, but also to give me a space to ponder and muse and hopefully end up writing *something*.

I avoided writing my theatre critique until the last possible second (read: 7:30 so I could be in bed - having watched TV and read at least a chapter of He's Just Not That Into You - by 10. In the middle of my paper, I turned around to see my disaster area of a room which led me to remmeber a little theory I came up with sometime long ago...or last year. Room Reflects Self. Now the major, and obvious, principal of RRS is that the state of organization in my bedroom directly reflects the amount of homework, regular work, dishes, cleaning, errands, lack of time to get out the freakin' door...I have at any given point.

Observe Exhibit A: Came back after a weekend at home with an extra bag of winter clothes, a few boxes of shoes and a pile of untouched homework. I'll clean my room once I finish my homework and decide that taking my clothes out of the suitcase is worth the hassle of finding hangers to hang everything back up in my color coordinated closet (which is no longer fully color coordinated due to a little thing I like to call Closet Reflects Self, but you get the idea).

To further illustrate my point (and slyly show off my stylish new pad!!), observe Exhibit B: I had plenty of time on my hands and cleaned the whole joint last week!

These are just a few photos. I haven't uploaded the rest of them and am past my bedtime deadline!

Daisies and Ding Dongs

I decided months ago that I'd join the growing ranks of the bloggers, but couldn't find the perfect name for my blog so I quit thinking about it until...today. In the never-ceasing quest to fight the man and get by doing as little homework as possible, I found myself lounging on the back porch and decided today was the day to start my blog. But it still took me an hour to come up with a name.

So I sign up for this lovely blog keeping in mind my favorite things to incorporate into its title: daisies, sunny days, porches, Alabama Crimson Tide, fried chicken...ya know...Southern stuff. My roommate Ellyn (also avoiding homework by quietly clicking away on her Blackberry) and I tossed around a few possibilities:

The Musings of the Mildly Disgruntled Government Gopher (I'm neither disgruntled nor currently employed by the government...okay, I am employed by the government, but I like my job....) View From the Back Porch (taken...lame.) View From the Bluff (also taken...more lame since it was way better since we live at the Bluff). Typed in Magnolias and Moonpies for kicks since that's Chuskey's blog...and then Ellyn uttered this little gem: Daisies and Ding Dongs! Followed by Hydrangeas and Ho-Hos.

So I settled on Daisies on the Back Porch instead. Even created the blog. But then I was doing a bit of soul searching over the weekend and heard my favorite Carrie Underwood song, "Crazy Dreams." The song's about not giving up even when chances seem grim because somebody else out there has been through what you're going through. My favorite line... "Here's to you wild magnolias waiting to bloom..." And that's what I feel like these days. Magnolias are supposed to symbolize perseverance, and that's what I'm doing...keep on, keepin' on...best advice I ever got! Thus, Wild Magnolia Waiting is born!

Angela Cook, history teacher extraordinare, once said that maybe my life would go Seinfeld and I'd be famous. Here's my crack at it. Enjoy!