Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's Eve!

Merry Christmas! Happy new year!

I'm watching a show from the travel channel called 1000 places to see before you die. It's rather interesting and makes me want to go back to Europe. The "hosts", though, are incredibly annoying... the woman especially.

Christmas was fun. Nidhal gave me a Kindle and my parents gave us some cool stuff, including money for a GPS.

It's Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve!

So far today, I've bought gas, eight croissants, a dozen doughnuts, two packages of mini pita circles, hummus, olive bruschetta, and tabouli. And all before 9:30.

Five Golden Rings

I can finally relax. Both grades have been posted and now I will not have any more nightmares about failing... because I didn't fail.

Today, I made my last (probably) cookies of the season: cornflake wreathes. I always liked the way they looked and I liked to eat them, too, so I made some. Success. There might be some sugar cookie making this weekend, but it's hard to say if it will happen.

"Most of them are just like you and me. Just wearing a different uniform." Saints and Soldiers is a good movie. Another good movie is Nordwand (North Face). It made me want to read Banner in the Sky again. I had forgotten about that book from my childhood.

Four Calling Birds

My favorite Christmas songs are:
-God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
-O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
-I Wonder as I Wander
-Maria durch ein Dornwald ging
-Carol of the Bells

There is a conundrum. What to do, what to do...

I had the weirdest dreams last night. One involved a person that I have not had any form of contact with in a long time, and another one qualified as a bad dream because in it, I failed one of my classes.

Three kinds of cookies have been so far baked this month. Cookie #1, coconut macaroons, were made solely for the hubs. They were a success, though not entirely what I expected. Cookie #2, mint flavored sugar cookie candy canes were great successes. Cookie #3, made today, are lemon ricotta cookies, but I substituted cream cheese for the ricotta. They do not look like the picture, but they taste pretty good and the lemon frosting is delicious. Next on the list for tomorrow or Wednesday are marshmallow wreathes.

Three French Hens

I can't decide if I'm grumpy or quite excited. The husband was acting weird this morning when I took him to work, and that made me grumpy. But then I got some great deals at Michael's and Kohl's, and so I seem to be oscillating between a grumpy bad mood and a very good mood. Hmm...

The laundry is in the drier. My toes hurt because I slipped on the water that leaked from one of the washing machines. My new phone is fun. I can now have a non-paper shopping list. However, the screen or what I hope is a screen protector keeps getting scratched up. I guess I'll have to ask for some screen protectors for my birthday. ...or I could just buy them myself.

On Friday, I made some candy cane Christmas cookies. One half of the batch was red and white with flavor and the other half was green and white with almond flavor. I prefer the mint. And the only reason I did green and white was because green is a Christmas color. It was NOT because of the university that I am currently attending or any university in this particular state. In fact, I thought about doing blue but decided against it since blue is not a Christmas color. I want to make some more cookies before Christmas... lemon ones and marshmallow wreathes.

Two Turtledoves

I'm so very tired. I want to sleep. But talking about myself is so much more fun. No, actually sleeping is more fun, but I need to wait for the hubs... and I saw this threes thing... and I like to think about stuff like that. What are my three favorite movies/books? What three books do I want to read? It's kind of like that one application on Facebook that I've stopped using because I ran out of interesting questions (it was pick 5 though). So I am going to do this one and add some more on the end.

The 3's:

Three names I go by:
1. Sarah
2. Sar
3. ??? nothing else, I guess

Three jobs I have had in my life:
1. gas station
2. Target
3. U of M ELI "undergraduate consultant"

Three places I have lived:
1. Au Gres, MI
2. Ann Arbor, MI
3. Freiburg, Germany

Three Favorite drinks:
1. Coke
2. Cold water
3. Apfelschorle

Three TV shows that I watch:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Desperate Housewives
3. Stargate

Three Places I have been:
1. Loch Ness (Scotland)
2. The Pyramids of Giza (Egypt)
3. The Eiffel Tower (France)

Three of my favorite foods:
1. pizza with banana peppers, onions, mushrooms, and black olives
2. Tunisian brik
3. Doener

Three things I am looking forward to:
1. Christmas
2. moving to a bigger apartment
3. having money

Three pets I have/had:
1. Tweety the cat
2. Lily the cat
3. Blackie the cat

Three places I want to visit before I die:
1. Bern, Switzerland
2. Barcelona, Spain
3. The Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland

Sarah's additions:
Three favorite books:
1. Lord of the Rings
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
3. Pride and Prejudice
How unoriginal...

Three foods I want to make but haven't yet tried to make:
1. real croissants
2. Flammkuchen
3. an authentic Doener

Three things under $10 that I want the most right now:
1. a 1.5" three-ring binder
2. a lighter
3. a specific ringtone (March from the Nutcracker)

Three favorite TV shows of all time:
1. Friends
2. JAG
3. Stargate

Three reasons why I love Netflix:
1. way cheaper than Blockbuster and cable
2. instant streaming movies and TV
3. quick turnaround for the mailed DVDs

Three favorite songs from my late elementary/Jr. High years:
1. MmmBop (Hanson)
2. Real World (Matchbox 20)
3. Inside Out (Eve 6)

Three places I would like to live:
1. Freiburg, Germany
2. Vienna, Austria
3. Barcelona, Spain (for the hubs)

First three things I would do if I won $100 million right now:
1. pay off my student loans/credit cards
2. buy an Audi
3. find a better place to live

Three electronics that I want:
1. Blu-ray player
2. Kindle
3. Wii

Three chores that need to be done as soon as possible:
1. the dishes
2. the laundry
3. cleaning up the bedroom

Three classes I have hated the most in college (just undergrad):
Hmm... this is actually really hard. I didn't generally take classes that I didn't like...
1. well, I didn't like German 425 very much
2. Calc 2 was a pain
3. And I guess the Great Books classes weren't my favorites because I didn't like writing the papers or participating in the discussions

Three favorite classes in college:
Undergrad-
1. Ling 211 - intro to linguistics
2. Ling 315 - sound patterns
3. German 325 - German drama
Grad-
1. Ling 535 - discourse analysis
2. TSLN 520 - testing and assessment
3. Ling 525 - syntax

Three things that are not sports:
1. bowling
2. cheerleading
3. curling

Three previously broken bones:
1. collar bone
2. ankle
3. collar bone again

Three things I don't leave the house without:
1. cell phone
2. driver's license
3. chapstick

Three things I want to do right now:
1. sleep
2. find out my final grades
3. lay down in my nice, comfortable bed

...and that is what I'm going to do. Good night.

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

The new phone is here! It's exciting! Since it's just a regular phone and not a Droid, there wasn't too much to explore, but it's still fun! As cool as a Droid would be, the extra $30 per month just isn't worth it. We'd rather use that money for other things more appealing to us than being able to check our Facebook wherever we are.

The countdown to Christmas continues! So far this week, I've only made coconut macaroons. The plan is to make some candy cane sugar cookies today or tomorrow. I would make them right now, but I have to think of something to make Nidhal for dinner. ...Something that doesn't involve meat (because I don't have much time to thaw it).

The semester was officially over yesterday. I gave and graded the second final exam for my class. Now I just have to wait for the grades. I know I did well in the practicum, but there's no word yet on the other class.

I have this weird obsession with listening to every song in my iTunes library at least once every year. So every December, I find myself frantically listening to all the songs with 2009 in the "last played" date. I'm not doing bad so far... I've listened to almost two days of music since December started.

Anyway... no more procrastinating. I absolutely must find something for dinner.

Nidhal's Fortunes!

Not money fortunes, though that would be nice. My hubby Nidhal has received some very good news today! We're excited! I can't say yet what it is, but it's great!

AND THE SEMESTER IS ALMOST OVER! I just have to edit a paper, write a paper, edit another paper, grade 11 exams, find all of my journals and lesson plans, go to a study session, give another exam, and grade 11 more exams and I'M DONE! It sure sounds like a lot more than it actually is. This is all for one class. At least I'm done with the other class, although I am rather scared about the results of that class.

Ok. I need a new phone. Absolutely. I wanted to get the LG Octane because it has everything I want:
- moderately good camera + video
- music player
- removable memory
- all the normal features
- ...is that really all I require?
Anyway, I prefer a flip phone, but Verizon doesn't have any non-ugly flip phones. However, there have been major issues and complaints about the LG Octane having an echo. Since I use the phone mostly for calling and for an alarm, having an echo on the calls would pretty much negate the use of the phone. I am not a texting person. (How out of date is Blogger if "texting" is considered a misspelled word?) So I've been looking at other phones. The LG Cosmos Touch seems to be a good phone, but the camera is sucky and there is no video. I don't want a phone that requires a data plan. As much as I want a Droid, I am not going to spend $15-$30 per month just to be able to check my facebook during class. So... should I take the risk of bad voice quality but get a pretty good camera (3.2 mp) or be on the safe side but have a bad camera?

Nidhal's Misfortunes

After the falafel last night, I made some crepes, and they actually turned out pretty well. Today, I made some Indian food... some kind of chicken coconut thing. It was delicious and actually tasted like Indian food. Unfortunately, Nidhal could only eat a little of it because it was too spicy for him.

Nidhal had a soccer accident last night and came home limping severely. This morning, he couldn't put any weight on his left ankle, and so we went to the doctor... and left with a pair or crutches. Luckily, he only has a sprain and he should be back to normal in a couple weeks. Good thing, too, because he sure has a hard time with those crutches.

The semester is almost over!

We printed some pictures at Sam's Club from our trip to Tunisia and it's amazing how great the pictures look when they are actual, physical photographs and not just displayed on a computer. My favorite one is the picture of the three camels on the Mediterranean Sea. Ah, I can't wait to print more pictures.

Great quote from Deb: "How do you spell torture?... T-E-S-O-L."

Adventures in Falafel

And the falafel adventure continues. Yesterday, I mixed the falafel and tried deep frying them, but they fell apart. So I searched the internet for a solution and ended up adding flour and more baking powder and leaving them in the refrigerator for a couple hours longer. Then I tried again and they did not fall apart, but when they were very brown on the outside, they were still not cooked on the inside. Delicious, but not cooked. Hmm, what to do, what to do.

Various internet sources claimed falafel as a healthy snack, but Nidhal and I could not imagine how something that had just soaked up half a cup of oil could be healthy. The logical solution is, of course, baking. So today I tried baking them, and it basically worked. They weren't crunchy on the outside or dry in the middle, but they were delicious.

And now I am continuing with a Harry Potter marathon. Yesterday was The Sorcerer's Stone and today is The Chamber of Secrets.

Happy December!

I've been watching Stargate Atlantis and, although I'm sure no one else knows what I'm talking about, I need to say that I am so sick of the Genii. They are like an annoying mass of mosquitoes that won't leave you alone.

On a less nerdy note, I'm very unmotivated to do the work for my classes. I need to finish up a paper/presentation for one class and do some grading and test writing for another class. But I don't want to. Bah humbug.

Whole Foods is the best store ever. Nidhal and I love to go there for the samples. And once we're there, we frequently end up buying something like olives, croissants, cheese, or fruit. The one on Washtenaw Ave is way better than the one on Eisenhower.

I'm in the process of making homemade falafel. Right now, they are chilling in the fridge before I make them into balls and deep fry them. I tasted them a little before putting it in the fridge and I think I'm going to have to adjust the recipe for next time. Currently, they are rather spicy. If they turn out good, I'll make them for Christmas. If they don't, I'll buy falafel from Whole Foods.