Erin Writes

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

I seriously need time to slow down, or days with more hours in them or something…I seriously love my job, and I love my second job (the college teaching thing), but entire weeks go by when I barely have time to breathe, let alone blog or read a book that’s not school-related. I see everyone posting about NaNoWriMo, and I get a little wistful…ah, maybe someday I’ll get there again.

So anyway, here’s a bunch of random stuff:

• Rand and I went to a couple of Halloween parties last weekend, and here’s what we looked like:

• I very much enjoyed this article, from The Onion. (I’ll spare you my rant about reading and literature and Cliff notes…or at least save it for my rarely-updated teacher blog.)

• I found Ben & Jerry’s Pumpkin Cheesecake ice cream at BJ’s, which made me the happiest girl in the world. It did not disappoint.

• OMG, I love Modern Family. We got the first disc from Netflix, and finally started watching it last week. Before finishing, we ordered season one on Blu-Ray. Unfortunately, when we got them, we discovered that we need an update for the player before we can watch them. Grr…have to wait for a disc from Sony. Double grr. Since I’m talking about this, can any of you fans out there tell me how important it is to watch the episodes in sequence? (like, can we watch the current episodes before seeing all of season 1?)

• Enjoyed a celebration of the invention of the flux capacitor (which is what makes time travel possible) Friday night at the house o’Lehnen. Much laughter was had by all.

• And with that, I dive back into the pile of grading. ‘Night!

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

In easy, bullet-point form.

• Over the weekend, I purchased this book. It is chock full of low-fat, low-calorie recipes involving PUMPKIN! WHEE!

• As of today’s “Biggest Loser” weigh-in, I am down 5 pounds from the weight that so horrified me and prompted me to join the competition. That’s nearly halfway to my target, so yay.

• Eden just invited me to a Facebook event that brought this song to my attention. I was amused, so I thought I’d post it here. (It’s a Steeler fan parody of Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies.” Darn it all, that song is catchy.)

• Eden and I chose and notified our Dead of Winter contest winners. Yay!

• It is mid-term/Regents week at school, and the marking period closes Friday. That means I have no classes to teach this week, but I have a TON of work to do. Tomorrow and Wednesday, I proctor exams. When I’m not doing that, I’ll be grading or entering grades.

• Rand and I decided to attend Trinity @ 7 last evening. We enjoyed it, and will probably be back. What makes it even more enticing? Completely randomly, we ran into his cousin Paul and his girlfriend Tyra there. Tyra was reading! Small, small Buffalo world.

• I want to buy these boots.

• Have not yet located a Wii. I just need to sit down and make phone calls one of these days.

• Chatted with my dear friend Stephanie today. It had been far too long! So thanks again, Stephanie, for pinning me down.

• Through a serendipitous series of events that led to me being online friends with Jessica (aka miss_shortskirt), I got to read an ARC of Ally Carter’s upcoming book. Squee! I *heart* this series.  I’ll have to post a review.

• Since I was a slacker and didn’t really post last week, I forgot to mention the inauguration. I got to watch for a bit at school, and I thought it was incredibly moving.  Yay, President Obama!

Is there more? Probably, but that’s all I can manage for now. Toodles!

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

I’m tired. And cold. Brrrr…

Tonight is yoga night, which is good…class was cancelled last week because my instructor had the flu. However, I’m feeling highly unmotivated to get up off the couch. Bleh.

I’ve been feeling like it should be Friday all day. Wishful thinking? Maybe. But alas, it is not. One more day.

Hmm. I must have had a point in mind when I started this post, right? Because I couldn’t possibly have opened up a post just to say that I’m cold and lazy and wish it were Friday, right?

Um, yeah. If I did have anything else, it’s gone now. Perhaps it will come back to me later. Or not.

Stay tuned!

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

And happy anniversary to my good friend Eden.

As for me, I’m just happy it’s a Friday. Now where did I put my rum?

I’m back, to post a silly pirate joke:

A pirate walks into a bar, and he has a steering wheel sticking out of the front of his pants.

The bartender says, “Hey, do you know you’ve got a steering wheel sticking out of the front of your pants?”

And the pirate says, “Arrrr, it’s drivin’ me nuts!

Thanks, folks…I’m here all week…

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

The Breast Cancer Site (an associate of The Hunger Site) is trying for 8 million clicks this month. It’s easy…go on and click!

(While you’re there, you can click for hunger, literacy, the rainforest, children’s healthcare, and animal rescue…)

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

So, as we prepare for our big move (will be happening sometime this month…), we’re clearing out clutter and giving away/selling/throwing away lots of stuff.

I currently have a bag full of movies on VHS. Many of them are Disney movies. Some of them are unopened. I know I can’t sell them, but is there anyplace that would take them before I just throw them in the garbage? Lemme know if you know of anything.

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

So last weekend, I ordered two pens from isellpens.com. This was the first one:

It’s a Duke pen, and it’s really, really pretty. The photo doesn’t do it justice at all. It also came in a snazzy case:

It came with a converter and also takes cartridges. Right now, I have a black cartridge (that came with the AldoDomani pen I bought at OfficeMax. It’s a medium point, and I don’t really care for it) in it. I like the way the pen feels in my hand, and it writes quite nicely:

The other pen, which I neglected to take any photos of, is a Hero 328. I like the way this pen writes, but it has a squeeze (bladder) converter, which is kind of a pain. I didn’t have any bottled ink (I just ordered some), so I filled it by cutting open one of my Sheaffer cartridges and dumping the contents into a bottlecap.

I have discovered that the Sheaffer ink cartridges don’t fit into any other pens. Bummer. I ordered one bottle of purple ink (I love purple!) and some black and blue cartridges, which should be here soon.

I did get those Pilot Varsity pens I ordered…and they’re fine, except that they claim to be fine point and I don’t think they really are.

And that’s my pen report for today. Whoo!

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

Reasons why today is a happy day:

1. The SUN! Okay, so it’s still cold outside, but SUN!

2. Belgian waffles with raspberries and real whipped cream.

3. Good news from friends!

4. Packages from Amazon–Rand ordered Enchanted for me. Yay! I also ordered a couple of cheap disposable fountain pens that arrived today. (I’ve caught the fountain pen bug from Emma…I bought one at Office Max, but it’s a medium point pen, and I really prefer a fine point. I’m looking at a couple of other inexpensive options, but I need to do some more research on things like ink option, and cartridges vs. converters for bottled ink, etc.).

5. Having the day off.

Happy Easter to anyone who will be celebrating this weekend. I’ll be heading to PA for dinner on Sunday, spending the night, and going for my *first fitting* on Monday. Look for more details on that over at the wedding blog!

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

Is anyone interested in a ticket to the World’s Largest Disco? There’s an extra in my party, and I figured I’d post it here before trying to pawn it off on completely random strangers.

(This is for the WNYers , of course…I don’t really expect anyone to make a last-minute trip!)