Weird, Wet Weather

No tornadoes came through here last night, but 'twas not the case in other parts of the state. There were a number of reported funnel clouds throughout central Illinois--the closest one to C-town was probably the one that was spotted in the city of Auburn which is about 80 miles west of us. I was reading today that they haven't had tornadoes in Illinois in January since 1950! Though there were no tornadoes in C-town, there certainly was a lot of rain. Alyson and I went to campus this morning to work out at the gym, and when we came outside after, we got SOAKED. I was wearing my rain jacket, but I was still sopping wet. We had fun at the gym today--Angie and Catherine were there too! We've all decided to start out the semester well, but we'll see how long that lasts :-) I went and picked up my text books today too. There are not as many as there were last semester, but there's still a pretty hefty stack of them. I have a number of riveting titles such as "The New Museum Registration Methods." That one will surely be a page-turner. I also went and visited Dr. Hardeman and Dr. Reid to tell them my big news and they are both very excited about "The Gregster," as Dr. Hardeman calls him :-)

Now I am back here at the apartment trying to get some finances, unpacking, and other miscellaneous things done that I didn't have time to do before school started yesterday. Dan has been bugging me about getting our museum exhibit website up and going--in fact he wanted to work on it today. BUT, the Tarble Arts Center lady said she doesn't want the website to go up until April, and we don't even have our Museum Exhibits class until February 12--so why would we work on the website now? We don't even know what to put on it yet. Dan is crazy. I think he is trying to punish me for not being in love with him. Oh well, I told him I'm too busy today. He seems obsessed with having all of his work done months in advance.

I haven't played basketball for a while, but for some reason I've really been wanting to lately. So today at the gym, after the elliptical machine and lifting weights, I checked out a basketball and shot some hoops. It was so much fun! I think that is a good way to burn off nervous energy--which will certainly accumulate in my system this semester. I hope Mitt Romney wins New Hampshire today.

Tonight we're having our weekly meeting and going out to eat in celebration of my half birthday. I told them I thought it was silly to celebrate my half birthday, but they're always looking for an excuse to go out to eat or something like that. So, I need to go finish some things before the evening's festivities. I don't think I'm going to have many free evenings this semester. I talked with Angie on the phone yesterday and we discussed some of the things we're going to do when I go visit her next week. I am SO EXCITED for a trip to Pennsylvania (for Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend)! She told me that she's going to need to take me on a very detailed tour of the Gettysburg National Battlefield to practice for when she has to take a Bulgarian general on a tour there in February. She gets to do weird, cool stuff like that for her job. The problem is that said general doesn't speak a lick of English. I told her I'll try to learn some Bulgarian words to make her practice tour with me seem more authentic.

Travel Delays and Tornadoes: Welcome back to C-town!

Today I had to face reality and, as they say, get back to the grindstone. Yesterday was quite the eventful travel day after having an eventful travel day on Saturday. I went up to the airport with Greg yesterday morning, and his plane left at about 10:00 a.m. Mine was supposed to leave at 11:30, and they even boarded us on time, but we sat there and sat there on the plane. Come to find out, they had shut down the airport AGAIN to clear off the runways (it was snowing outside again). So we sat on the plane for about two hours, then we got de-iced, then we got in line out on the runway to take off. Just when we were the next plane to go, our pilot got on the speaker and said, "Sorry folks. Our de-icing fluid has expired, and we need to go get de-iced again." So we had to go wait in line to be de-iced a second time, then had to get back in line on the runway. We didn't end up taking off until about 15 minutes before we had originally been scheduled to land in St. Louis! I was sitting by these really nice people from St. Louis (originally from Tennessee) who shared their chicken salad and crackers with me and talked with me about their grandkids for the entire six hours that we were on the airplane. :-) They were very excited to hear about my recent engagement. They were so cute, and when we finally got off the airplane, the lady gave me a big hug. Instead of getting into St. Louie at 3:00 p.m., I got there at about 5:30. Greg was nice enough to wait for me and drive me back to Charleston. We didn't get here to C-town until about 9:30 p.m., so it had definitely been a long couple of travel days, but I was glad to be with Greg and to make it back here before school started today.

Speaking of school starting, it was kind of a long but good day. It felt really early when I went to Dr. Small's Architectural History in America class at 9:00--since my body is still on Utah time. There were many surprised classmates when they noticed the ring on my finger. A couple of them knew already, but most did not. Everyone was excited except for . . . you guessed it: Dan. He seemed mad, but what's new? I think that Dr. Small's class will be a lot of fun, but over the break I forgot how hard it is to sit through a two-and-a-half hour class. After class, Aly and I went to Jimmy John's for lunch since we hadn't had a chance to go grocery shopping yet and didn't have any food here at the apartment. Jimmy John's is a gourmet sandwich joint which originated here in Charleston in 1982. I guess it's becoming a national chain now because I saw one in St. George when Mom and I were there a couple of weeks ago. There are two things that Charleston is famous for: Jimmy John's and Tony Romo (the Dallas Cowboys quarterback who went to school here at Eastern).

After lunch I was so pooped that I went back to the apartment and crashed for about three hours. Then Aly and I went over to Wal Mart and got groceries. Unfortunately I have a Monday night class this semester, so we then had to go back over to campus. Our Monday night class with Dr. Barnhart is called Social and Cultural History of 19th Century America. I think it will be very interesting. One of our books is about religious revivals near Rochester, New York in the 1820s and 1830s--I know about that! Dr. Barnhart is a big Ohio State fan and wanted to let us out of class early so he could go watch the big National Championship game against LSU, but in typical Dr. Barnhart fashion, he ended up talking for the entire class period anyway, so he probably missed most of the game. I've never seen anyone be able to talk as much as he does--for two-and-a-half hours straight, he can talk nonstop!

After class I went over to Catherine's house to chat with her and help her administer some earmite medicine to her cute cats. I guess that the kitties picked up earmites somewhere (nasty!) so she needed to roll them up in towels and put this goopy stuff in their ears (which they did not enjoy). The best news of the century is that until February 12, I won't have any classes on Tuesdays--since our Museum Exhibits class this semester is only 2 credits. So I don't have to deal with transportation corridors until next month. Tomorrow I'm planning to work out in the morning, go pick up my textbooks, meet with Dr. Hardeman, and then have a meeting and go to dinner with the compadres here. They have decided that since we won't be here in June for my birthday, they need to celebrate my half-birthday which was on December 29, so I guess there will be cake involved tomorrow.

The weather here is seriously messed-up!! When I landed in St. Louis last night, they said that the temperature outside was 72 degrees--that is NOT normal! Today it has been in the 60's here in C-town, and it is very wet and humid outside. Unfortunately this abnormally warm weather is now encountering some normal cold weather, and some nasty severe weather has been developing. There was a tornado watch here in C-town earlier today, and tonight we are supposed to have severe storms. Weather.com said that "some storms may contain tornadoes." That's comforting. Oh well, I'm off to bed.

Home Again (for real!)

Soooooo, today was a very interesting day. According to my plan, I was going to be in Charleston, Illinois right now. But, . . . I am still in Orem, Utah--hooray!!! :-) I can't say I didn't try to get back to Illinois today, but it wasn't meant to be. Mom, Dad, and I left Orem this morning at about 6:00 and got up to the SLC airport by 7:00. I said my good-byes (which is hard for me), got all checked-in and went through the craziness known as the security check, found my gate, and was all set to go. It started dumping snow outside, and I asked the Southwest Airlines lady if our flight would be cancelled, and she said, "Oh, definitely not. We'll get out of here on time." Well, not so. At about 8:00 when I was supposed to start boarding, they announced that they were shutting the airport down for 45 minutes while they plowed the runways. I guess that the plane I was supposed to be on was coming from Boise and had to circle around while they plowed the runways. It started to run out of fuel, so it had to fly back to Boise to refuel, and then was going to come back to pick up the Chicago crowd. Unfortunately it took over an hour for it to get back to Boise and about two hours for it to get back. My problem was that I was planning on catching the CTA train from Midway Airport in Chicago over to Union Station to get on the 4:05 p.m. train down to Mattoon. With the flight delays, I wasn't going to get into Chicago until 4:00-ish, so that wasn't going to work with the train. The later train out of Chicago was booked, so I worked it out with the Southwest lady to get me on a flight to St. Louis tomorrow. This will work out splendidly since Greg is flying to St. Louis tomorrow too, and now he can just take me over to Charleston in his car--no more train tickets needed! It was quite the ordeal today though. One problem was that they had already put my suitcase with those going to Chicago, so the nice Southwest lady had to go out in the snow and round mine up so that it didn't head to the Windy City without me :-) Mom and Dad came back up to the airport at about 11:30 a.m. and picked me up. If only we had known--we could have slept in this morning!!

BIG NEWS!!!

Remember my New Year's resolution to get to bed earlier? Well, I think I'll wait and start on that tomorrow--because it's not going to happen tonight :-) I know it says that I'm posting this blog entry on Saturday, January 5, but in my world, it's still January 4--because I haven't gone to bed yet. I've been busy packing and thinking about the BIG night I had tonight. So, here's the news (now don't go into shock--I will explain the events of the last few days that led up to today): I am now officially engaged to marry Greg Bowles!!!! For those of you who I haven't had a chance to tell in person yet, I apologize that you're having to get the news from the blog, but it's been so crazy with getting packed to leave in the morning (actually in about four hours from now!) that I thought I'd post the big announcement here so no one would feel left out. We've even set the date, so mark your calendars for Saturday, June 7, 2008, in the Nauvoo, Illinois temple. So here's how things went this week:


On Wednesday, January 2, Greg flew into Salt Lake from St. Louis. Mom, Dad, and I went to pick him up, but poor Greg got stuck out near the gate here in Salt Lake for about an hour on the airplane while the airplane leaving the gate worked out some mechanical issues. Crazy airplanes! Mom and Dad enjoyed meeting Greg, and he meeting them, and then we all took off for the Lion House in downtown Salt Lake to have lunch with Aunt Karalie. We had a fun time there, and then headed down to Orem. Greg and I went over to see his mom, brother, and sister-in-law, and then we had a visit from the cute Relief Society presidency here at the house. After that we had dinner with my good friends Emily and Nick, and then went back to his brother's apartment to watch TV. Greg was pretty pooped by the time he finally got to bed!


Day #2, January 3, was another full day of visiting. First we went up to BYU and saw Dr. Anderson and Jeanne from my old Winter Quarters Project days, and then we went over to Sister Black's house for a visit. She was so excited to find out that Greg likes genealogy, and he even got invited to enter the room of all rooms: Sister Black's personal library filled with all of the books she's written! We had a fun visit with her, and when we told her of our June plans, she checked her calendar, and as fate would have it, she is leading a tour to Nauvoo during the weekend we are planning to get married, and she said she'll be able to make it to the wedding! Hooray! After stopping at Sister Black's, we went and saw "National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets," my new favorite movie. Then we went over to Springville and had a nice visit with Grandpa T. and Grandma Cathy. After Springville, we came back home to have dinner with Mom, Dad, Lindy, Nate, Camden, Riley, Sidney, Sister Bowles (Greg's mom), Scott and Laura (Greg's brother and sister-in-law). It was a full-fledged party! We had a great time together, and the little girls were so funny. As you can see from the picture above, by the end of the evening Sidney and Riley had had enough. They were ready for bed and refused to smile for the picture :-) After dinner, Greg and I went up to visit a friend of the Bowles family, Blake Roney, who just so happens to be the founder of Nu Skin. President Roney asked me a lot of questions and decided he liked me, so he took Greg and me downstairs to see "THE collection." I have never seen quite so many cool artifacts all together in one place! He is quite the collector, and he let me hold an original copy of the LDS hymn book (from the 1830s), an original copy of the Book of Commandments, and an original copy of the Book of Mormon. President Roney also has one of Joseph Smith's hunting guns and a shackle that was around Joseph Smith at Liberty Jail. He even has an original Abraham Lincoln photograph taken in 1860!!! Wow--I was in history heaven and felt like I needed to be wearing cotton gloves to handle all of those cool things.


Day #3, January 4, Greg, Sister Bowles, Scott, and I went shopping at the mall and then had lunch together. I came back and packed for a while, then Greg came and picked me up to go to dinner in Salt Lake. He wouldn't tell me where we were going, so I was quite surprised when we stepped into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and he took me up to the Roof restaurant. It is the coolest place ever, and the food there was delicious. We had a perfect view out over the Salt Lake Temple, and we got an extra special treat with fireworks over the state capitol building. They were celebrating the dedication of the newly renovated capitol today, and had an amazing fireworks display that looked really neat from our viewpoint in the restaurant. It was already the perfect evening, but it got even better! Greg and I went outside and took a little walk around the temple (you can see from the above photo that it was a little windy and just starting to rain a bit), and then we started heading back towards the car. We were just walking past all of the fountains and reflecting pools when we decided to try to take some pictures of ourselves. We took some with Greg's camera and mine, and then when comparing how each turned out, Greg said, "Hmmm, something is missing in my picture." I was thinking to myself, "Um, no, they look exactly the same." :-) Then he pulled out a box and said, "I think that this is what is missing!" Then I realized what was happening and got very excited. He asked me to marry him right then and there, and of course I said yes. He truly is a wonderful man, and I feel so very fortunate to have ended up in Illinois where I could meet him. I love him very much and am looking forward to June!


In the meantime, I'll have to get back to the grindstone at school :-( I am scheduled to leave first thing in the morning to fly back to Chicago, where I'll meet Alyson, and we'll take the train back to Mattoon together. Sister Stowell will pick us up there to take us back to Charleston, and I am very much hoping that my car will still start after sitting for three and a half weeks. It is going to be really, really, really hard to go back to Illinois and school after having such a fun break and spending all of this wonderful time with my family, but like Dad says, the sooner I get started with the semester, the sooner it will be finished. And, since this is my last semester of classes for my degree, the end is already in sight, so I can do it! It's supposed to snow quite a lot here in Utah this weekend, so maybe my flight will be cancelled? :-) I wouldn't mind another day here. Today was a great day, and besides the fact that school starts on Monday and I have to leave my family for now, I am so happy (and I'm grateful that Greg will be back in Illinois)!

New Year's Resolutions

I used to write really long, elaborate lists of New Year's resolutions, but I think this year I can only handle about two. Okay, here goes:

1. Get more sleep (aka go to bed earlier at night)
2. Exercise more

By doing these two things, I think I could reverse the vicious cycle of exhaustion that plagued me last semester. You see, if I went to bed earlier and got more sleep, then I wouldn't be so tired in the afternoons, so I would have energy to finish my homework and go running before going to bed at a reasonable time. Then, I would have a better sleep because I always sleep better after I go running. So, this is my plan. It will probably only last for about the first week of classes, but I'll try to make it last longer than that. Hopefully if I got more sleep I wouldn't be so apt to fall asleep during my classes too! (Although, in Mr. Riccio's classes, it wouldn't matter if someone had gotten 3 or 13 hours of sleep--when he starts talking about light bulbs, you might as well just turn out the lights and get everyone a pillow.)

Today was a fun day. I got a lot of stuff done that I've been needing to do for a while, and Mom and I made some holiday visits to some of our friends. We went and took a gift to the Henrichsen family, with whom we have been friends ever since the beginning of time (at least since the beginning of my lifetime, but probably before that too). Their daughter Kallie and I were best friends all through grade school, Jr. high, and high school, and I can't believe that she's married and has a baby now! :-) It's crazy how quickly everyone grows up. It seems like just yesterday that she was talking in her sleep at one of our many sleepovers in the Henrichsen's backyard. (She talked in her sleep a lot.)

I also had to go get another little haircut today! I know that I just got one, but it was so weird because on Sunday, it was like all of a sudden my hair was super long again. It was the weirdest thing! It was nearly driving me nuts today because it was sticking straight down in the back and then curling up and out on the sides, and I had that crazy curl in front that makes me look like the little dentist guy in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." So I got another little trim, and it feels much better. I am getting very excited because tomorrow is the big day that Greg arrives in town!