Good Milk

Illinois has weird weather--we've established that already. It also has no mountains. But, the state does have a number of things going for it like Abraham Lincoln and . . . milk. I have decided that Illinois has some of the best milk I've ever had. My family knows that growing up I was never a big milk drinker. I only really liked chocolate milk or regular milk if I had some chocolate to eat with it. But, I love milk now! Illinois has a lot of cows--fat, happy cows--and the milk that you buy at the grocery store is from local Illinois farms. So, I've decided that this must be why the milk is so good--because it is so fresh. It's so cool--the expiration dates on the milk are like two-and-a-half weeks after you buy it! My favorite brand is Prairie Farms milk, which is produced in Carlinville, Illinois--about 100 miles west of Charleston. It's declicious.

Anyway, today has been a good day except that it is really cold and snowy outside. Poor Stryder was carrying around about 100 extra pounds of salt and slush junk down around his tires, so I spent about a half an hour tonight knocking excess snow junk off of him. I think that this is the most it has snowed all year--there are probably about four inches or so on the ground right now. Earlier today we had to meet at the Dudley House to film that video we're doing for one of our class projects and for a university competition. My job today was to drive up in my car and walk up to the house like I'm totally cool--so all I had to do was act natural! :-) The next phase of our movie will need to be filmed at night sometime because part of the movie is supposed to be about the ghost that lives at the Dudley House, but I don't know when we'll do that. After the movie filming, I worked with Dr. Hardeman grading papers for the afternoon. He didn't fall asleep once! The funniest thing we read today was a student's essay about the 13 colonies. They were talking about different acts imposed by the British, and they referred to the "Currency Act," which, according to them, was England's way of saving the environment. The Currency Act, the student claimed, prohibited the colonists from printing any more newspapers because they were wasting a lot of paper. Actually, the Currency Act prevented the colonists from printing their own paper money--because everyone was printing their own, and all was chaos. Dr. Hardeman and I decided that the student who wrote that essay must be a big "green" person. It's a good thing that the British were so environmentally conscious back in the 1700s!

Tonight I'm going over to the local hang-out spot, the Panther Paw, to meet Catherine's new boyfriend Kevin who just flew in from Detroit. She is quite enamored, so I'll go meet him and see if I approve :-) Tomorrow it's off to Vandalia, Illinois to take some photographs for the upcoming exhibit. Thankfully Laurie is looking for something to do tomorrow, so she will be going with Dan and me. I really wasn't looking forward to hanging out with Dan by myself, so that will be good. Then Greg is coming in the afternoon, so we can hang out for the rest of the day! I love weekends!