Daphne

The Tenney family got a dog. :-) Her name is Daphne, she is a beagle and she looks like the most adorable little thing, especially with Maddie and Will. Aren't they cute?

Rain

Tonight is one of those nights when I cannot deny that I am my mother's daughter. I worked for the orchestra concert and the afterglow which followed, I came home and watched part of the OLD Pride & Prejudice, I cleaned and closed the Kappa kitchen during which time a bolt of lightening caught my eye and now a pleasant rain storm, of which there are very few in Hillsdale, MI, has descended upon the evening. So what do I do? I get back to my room to read and study until I go to sleep, I open up Itunes to listen to some music and instead decide to open my window for the first time all semester and listen to the rain, exactly like Momma does at home, except for the thunder storms in Georgia are much better. :-)

Martha Stewart

I was looking through a Summer 2005 Martha Stewart Weddings magazine and came across an article titled "50 ways to trim your budget" and I found a few that I like. For example:

18. While most popular bridal flowers are available year round, some traditiona ones, for example - peonies and lily-of-the-valley - can be difficult to find and expensive out of season. Seek your florist's advice before deciding on your flowers. (Roses, they're pretty standard.)

19. Mix berries, pinecones (for winter), and other economical nonfloral embellishments among costlier blooms to fill out bouquets and displays. (I want holly and berries in the bouquets.)

37. Borrow accessories from family and friends instead of buying them; this can also provide your "something borrowed." (My wedding dress is borrowed...)

42. Eliminate reply cards and have guests hand-write a note instead. You'll save on stationery and postage, and the responses will be great keepsakes. (Momma convinced me of this one a while back, but it's still a good idea.)

43. Prioritize aspects of the wedding that are most important to you. By compromising in some areas, you can afford to splurge on others. (This seems a little bit obvious...)

44. Use a personal car rather than a limousine to get to and from the reception. (Momma called this one a while back too...)

47. Pay wedding costs with a credit card to earn frequent-flyer miles toward your honeymoon. Just make sure to avoid incurring interest charges by paying the balance in full each month. (I never would have thought of this, but it's an excellent idea.)

50. After the event, donate your flowers to a hopital or nursing home; it's a thoughtful thing to do and also a tax deduction. (This sounds like an excellent idea, especially since then you know that someone is enjoying them and you don't have dozens of flowers all over the place and then you have to throw some away because you have too many.)

The strangest thing...

The strangest thing happened yesterday. My cousin, Julia, and I wore the same color shirt! Now, I know some people may think, wow, this girl is silly, that happens to people all the time, but not me and Julia! And to "top" it all off, it was the same color PINK! It was just crazy. Too bad we didn't take a picture...we may have to get a shirt out and lay them out on a bed or hold them up and make silly faces or something, but it was just crazy! :-)

Schedule

So here's my schedule for this semester:

Voice Lesson, 1 hour a week with the lovely Melissa Osmond
Biology 102: M-W-F, 1pm and Lab Tuesday from 8-9:30
Introduction to Western Religion: M-W-F, 9am
History of Opera: T-Th, 9:30-10:20am
Roman Civilization: M-W-F, 10am
Greek Mythology: M-W-F, 3pm
Choir: T-Th, 4-5:30pm
Chamber Choir: Thursday, 4-6pm

A total of 19 hours. It's going to be crazy, but I'm going to love it. :-)

New babies!

Yes, babies! In the Kappa house that is. :-) Formal Recriutment is over and the ladies of Kappa Chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma have 17 new members! Here they are: Ellen Berlucchi, Becky Holland, Megan Howard, Beck Tourison, Betsy Stone, Laurel Santo, Anna Johnson, Nancy Hankel, Amanda Gill, Colleen Davis, Cara Goggins, Elizabeth Helms, Shannon Webb, Elizabeth Howes, Heidi Schroeder, Kate Lundberg and Christa Scharp. I apologize if I misspelled anyone's name, but at least I remembered them all! Congratulations to all of you lovely ladies!

Snow!

Yes, I know it's been eons since I last updated, but here is one for my family back in Georgia. Here are a few pictures of all the snow we got last night! I think someone told me it was at least seven inches. Enjoy and know that I'm looking forward to warmer weather at home. :-)





(As a side note these were all taken while standing in my slippers on the back stoop at the Kappa house, probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, but I got some good pictures. )

Homesickness and Jealousy

So I called the fam tonight. I'm missing them WAY too much for my own good. I think it may have something to do with the whole being engaged thing and not seeing my parents until 3 and a half months after the fact. It was nice talking to them and I can't wait to see our beautiful house!

On a more jealous note, I was reminded that my lovely 18-year-old sister, Vivian, has officially received a PAID singing position BEFORE her older, music major sister. (aka me...) Needless to say I am very jealous but am very proud of little bibby-ibby. Hopefully one day I'll get paid to sing... :-)

night night

It's over!

My "life" has been returned to me! SAI Province Day is over! I will be posting many pictures shortly to share my adventures from the last couple months. I hope you're all doing well!

YAY!!!!

All I can say right now is go here:

http://deansimmer.blogspot.com/

Summer is over...

I've determined that it's harder to post over the summer, and I have a hard enough time posting during the school year. Anyway, now that summer is OVER...it's back to the grind. I'm not much more tan than usual...sadly. I may have to do something about that before I go back to school, it's a little sad when you come back the same color you were when you left, especially when it's a three month span. We'll see. I was actually productive this weekend. Didn't have anything crazily busy to do, so I hung out with my next door neighbor, Joni Tenney and her youngest child, Will. ("my baby", he was born on my birthday last year) I also did about 4 loads of laundry and folded the gajillion towels that were clean as a result, but the best part of folding them was that my wonderful Daddy installed a loverly mirror door in the girls' bathroom to replace the old broken one. Now you no longer see all of our towels and the closet itself even looks semi-nice since I folded all the dang-blasted towels. :-) Tomorrow it's another solo/duet in church (I sang a solo at All Saints' Episcopal Church last Sunday) and then The Cheesecake Factory on Peachtree for Margaret's birthday dinner and a visit to Grandma Jago in the hospital. Poor Grandma has been having atrial fibrulation...I think...that's about all I've gathered. She's feeling pretty crummy about the whole thing so us girls and Momma and Daddy will go over and try and cheer her up. :-) That's about it for now. T - 7 days until Margaret and I return to Hillsdale. I've got so much work to do before then! Ah! bye

Memorial Day Weekend

I've decided I should write a post about something so I'm going to write about what an absolutely hysterical time Memorial Day was in the ATL.

The festivities took place at Kingsland, my mother's parents house on Kingsland Court in Vinings, GA, and BaaBee, my grandmother, decided she would invite lots of friends. So who was there? Well, Momma, Daddy, Giles, Margaret, Vivian, and PeggyDee and BaaBee and DanDan, of course. Now the company included Becky, her nurse Shwana, Joan Palmer, who went to high school with BaaBee, her daughter, Gail, who owns the Pottery Shop and Doodlebug in Symrna, and cousin Karen. Let me just say it was quite a crowd. For those of you who have ever asked me how people are in the South, especially women, this was the epitomy of Southern women. Everything relates to a story and oh, did you know so and so and it's the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life, it addition to hoping in some odd way that I'll turn out just the same. A Southern woman who has seen her fair share of history, had some adventures along the way and just happens to know some incredible people and many of them well known, famous or only so in their own mind. :-)

I got to hear about Joan's "home," MLK, Jr.'s secretary, stories from the first female air traffic controller to Hartsfield Airport, learned about some new connections of friends who sing for the MET and conduct, stories of playing for Robert Shaw, discovering penicillin in Alabama before it was discovered in London and the list keeps going. The amazing thing is that it all comes from people in my family. Isn't my family cool?! I love family gatherings, they're so hysterical, you hear great stories and you manage to learn something along the way.

Anyway, that was my weekend in a nutshell, in addition to a voice lesson Saturday, singing in church and several times over again Sunday evening at church and for the lovely Tenney family and getting back to work at NGPC this morning. :-)

I hope everyone's having a wonderful summer!

Procrastination!

Avoiding everything I should be doing right now... :-)

The Wonderful Women In My Circle

Adrienne sent this to me. Sorry about the funky text. :-)

THE WONDERFUL WOMEN IN MY CIRCLE
-----------------------------------------------------------------

When I was little, I used to believe in the concept of one best friend, and

then I started to become a woman. And then I found out that if you allow

your heart to open up, God would show you the best in many friends. One

friend's best is needed when you're going through things with your

children. Another friend's best is needed when you're going through things with your mom. Another when you want to shop, share, heal, hurt, joke, or just be. One friend will say let's pray together, another let's cry together, another let's fight together, another let's walk away together. One friend will meet your spiritual need, another your shoe fetish, another your love for movies, another will be with you in

your season of confusion, another will be your clarifier, another the wind beneath your wings. But whatever their assignment in your life, on whatever the occasion, on whatever the day, or where ever you need them to meet you with their gym shoes on and hair pulled back or to hold you back from making a complete fool of yourself... those areyour friends. It may all be wrapped up in one woman, but for many it's wrapped up in several... one from 7th grade, one from high school, several from the college years, a couple from old jobs, several from Church, on some days your mother, on others your sisters, and on some days it's the one that you needed just for that day or week when you needed someone with a fresh perspective, or the one who didn't know all your baggage, or the one who would just listen without judging...those are good girlfriends/best friends. I thank my girlfriends, those who honor intimacy, those who hold trust, and those who hold me up when life is just too heavy! The special bond we share is unique. Thanks for the words we've shared. The prayers we've sent up. The laughs, the tears, thephone calls, the emails, the shopping, the movies, the lunches, the dinners, the talking, talking, talking and the listening, listening, listening.... So whether you've been there 20 minutes or 20 years, you are special to me!

Pass this on to the women that God has placed in your life to make a difference.

__________________________________________________

Back in GA!

Hello. Just wanted to say that I'm back in my beautiful home state of Georgia. Don't know that I'll be able to see many people other than my family and co-workers this summer but hopefully that will change. I'm working at the North Georgia Pain Clinic again as a receptionist, making money, saving money. That's about it. Off to work! :-)

Kim Kallianos

I know you'll probably never read this or even know how I found this out, but I'm really proud of you and glad that I'm able to call you a friend, even though we haven't seen each other or talked to each other in forever. Love you!

http://www.distinguishedscholarships.unc.edu/2005_Goldwater_recipients.html

It's been a while...

Hi everyone. So I'm posting something really short just to complain about how many random little things I have to do and I really don't know where to start! So I'm currently avoiding everything and writing a post...okay...1...2...3...here I go!

Junior year is almost over...scary...

Saturday Night in the 'dale

These last few weeks have truly been crazy, this past week included, but I was truly grateful tonight to be able to go to dinner with cousin Julia and her roomie Jen, Kris-Twin, and Dean at El Cerrito, get ready to sit desk, have the first part of sitting desk include eating ice cream and hearing Dr. Reist speak to the honors students and then Have Kris-Twin come over and watch a movie and work on her art project with me watching over her shoulder. Dean is over at his house having a guys night, I think they're all watching pro-wrestling; it sounded like they were going to have a great time. Relaxation for us both is good. I'm almost ready for another busy week hoping all the while to get everything finished that I need too. I hope all the guys and gals at KKG formal had a good time! night

SAI Sword of Honor

The Sword of Honor, a tiny jewelled or plain gold sword, is given for outstanding fraternity service, or for exceptional campus or community leadership, providing the member has maintained loyal support of fraternity activities. It is awarded upon a vote of the chapter secured by secret ballot and the approval of the Province Officer. The recipient must be in good standing and have fulfilled all chapter responsibilities in superior fashion.

I feel special because I got one at the meeting last night. :-)

What is Opera?

According to Dictionary.com opera is:

A drama set to music; consists of singing with orchestral accompaniment and an orchestral overture and interludes; theatre where opera is performed.

I would also like to personally add that opera is meant to be a little longer than a typcial play or musical and it is also usually scandalous, pretty vulgar and VERY showy. That's how opera is and how it has always been.

Le Nozze di Tutti has finished it's world premiere and first run here at Hillsdale College. It was lots of fun, I'd do it again in a heart-beat and I hope this campus learns a little about different types of art other than their own. :-)