Jack-o-Lantern Crazy!

Midterms are over. Some stress has been relieved. Pumpkin carving to come.
I love pumpkins, like previously mentioned. And I love to carve pumpkins.
Jack-o-lanterns are one of my favorite things to do, I wish I could carve them year round.
When I carve my pumpkins I usually don't go for the average toothy smile and triangle eyes.
I usually like to express my creativity through my jack-o-lanterns.
One year I carved my pumpkin into a haunted house, complete with ghost in the window.
Another year I carved a old knotted looking tree into my pumkin.
And almost every year we get trick or treaters wanting to take pictures of our masterpieces.
This year, I was thinking about doing something original, but I'm not quite sure what I should do.
This year I bought 5 pumpkins total, so I was looking into maybe a theme. But I'm not sure of anything yet. I'm hoping to get some consistency through out my pumpkins. I also thought about including some gourds into my carvings. Whatever I end up carving I'll be sure to post some pictures of the process and the final product.

Stress level rising...

Stress.
I hate stress, and lately I've been experiencing some serious levels of it.

I can't seem to get away from midterms, assignments, quizzes....

But to be honest those aren't the things that are causing my heart rate to quicken.

It's the marks.

The marks, the averages....they are everything.

The other day I got a letter from my university stating that I had made it on the Dean's list.

I was very happy, but this just added to my stress.
Now I have to keep up my marks, and make sure I make the Dean's list next year.
I can't wait until next Tuesday, no more midterms and the idea of Jack-o-lantern carving are in my future.

Fall. Fall. Pumpkin!

I love fall.
Best season ever, by far.
It's not sweltering, there's no snow...usually.

And of course there are pumpkins.

I love pumpkins, love them.

I love them so much that one year I begged my mother to buy me pumpkin plants so I could grow and care for my very own pumpkin .

My love for pumpkins is only out weighed by one thing. Finding the perfect pumpkins.

The other day I was looking through some fliers (yes, I now I'm an old lady) and I was so excited to find that my local grocery store had pumpkins for sale.

So I grabbed my keys and rolled on down to get me some pumpkins.

When I arrived I was so disappointed.

They were all big and round, but they were all green. Green! It was a knife in my heart.

I panicked, I had to find a place that give me my much needed pumpkin fix.

So I thought. where can I get pumpkin, an orange pumpkin?

It hit me, my local garden centre. They would be expensive, but you can't put a price on a good pumpkin.
I got to the garden centre, and I saw them; a giant crate full of small, orange pumpkins.

Immediately I picked out two of the most beautiful round, fat, perfect pumpkins and staked my claim on them by putting them on the front counter. I soon moved on to a lovely crate full of gourds. Now, I still think of pumpkins as my favorite, but gourds... gourds just make me immensely happy. So I picked out about ten or eleven gourds perfect colourful strangely shaped gourds, and put them again, on the counter.

Then I saw them. Big beautiful pumpkins. I looked up and down the tables of pumpkins feeling their hard, cold, smooth skin. Carefully picking them up by their green prickly stems.

And then I saw him, he was beautiful.

He was tall, and fat. He was the perfect shade of orange, not too light not too deep. I looked over his strong figure,and checked over his skin for any major imperfections.

He seemed perfect.

I picked him, grabbing his stem first and noticed that he was very heavy, so I grabbed his bottom.

I was crushed. My perfect pumpkin was almost completely soft underneath.

So I slowly put him back, saying my last farewell and sauntered up to the front counter completely depressed.

While I was paying for my lovely little pumpkins, I realized that this shouldn't be a sad time.

I should be excited that I still have the pumpkins that I picked out, and that I still have the thrill of picking out a big beautiful perfect pumpkin another day.

I have still yet to find the perfect pumpkin. The most immaculate pumpkin is just in my reach, I can feel it...

Biology love.

When I first registered for the course Biology 203, I expected a boring course about the environment and bugs (my professor is a bug fanatic), and that was exactly what I got.

For the lab I assumed it would be just an extension of the lecture, but I was wrong.

I love this lab.

It's so interactive. Last week we went to the beach and collected specimen that we later had to identify, and it was actually extremely interesting.

This week we donned hip waders and headed out to the stream behind the school, where we used a kick-net to collect aquatic insect larvae. And I loved every second of it!

Even though my hip waders were four sizes too big, and a little leaky, it was so interesting. We collected all sorts of bugs and when we got back to lab we had to identify them and classify them. I live for this stuff. I can't wait for next week, I hope we're doing something eaqually as exciting.

No, I just want tea!

I like to think I'm a simple girl with simple pleasures. One of those pleasures is enjoying a good cup of hot tea. Most of my friends despise it, but I think of it as liquid gold. If I don't drink my cup of tea first thing in the morning, the rest of my day is down hill from there.
Today, like everyday I woke up and went straight for my pantry to get a tea bag, but to my disdain I had none. From that moment I knew my day was going to be rough.
So I shuffled my way to school, cranky and tea-less.
My car, was freezing and because I'm a genius and wore a dress I froze for the first 10 minutes.
On the highway some guy was riding my bumper all the way to school. I just wanted to scream "it's a highway you can pass me!" but I refrained. I was no longer just cranky, I was cold, cranky, full of road rage, and tea-less. By the time I finally got to school my out look was pretty bleak, that was until I spotted our campus's coffee shop. My heart flew, I had a few seconds to grab a cup of tea and then scoot off to class, my day was saved. When I got to the counter I was faced with almost a dozen different types of tea. All of them sounding rather fruity or flowery for my liking so I grabbed a non-threatening earl grey tea bag and filled my cup with hot piping water.
I paid the smiling woman behind the counter for my tea and scurried off to organic chemistry. I got to my class, sat down in my regular seat, and was finally relieved that the moment I waited for all morning had finally came. It was just me and my cup of tea. I took a careful sip, and instantly knew something was wrong.
Rose hip.
The sweet sticky taste of a rose bush was in my mouth and I couldn't get it out. I could have cried I was so upset. Who in there right mind would think that adding rose hip to earl grey tea was a good idea? Who ever they are, they now have a new mortal enemy; me.
Needless to say the rest of my day was pretty horrible, and after school I made it my mission to get some actual earl grey tea bags, sans rose hip.
But tomorrow will be a better day, I'll have my tea and my life will be simple again.
And hopefully, I won't have to worry about roses' and there digusting hips.