It's true.  Where else can you drive 10 minutes and see this?

T and I drove up to the lookout point over Oahe Dam tonight.  It's lovely up there, isn't it?



















We enjoyed a bit of nature time overlooking the grand ole' Missouri.



















From looking at these pics, you'd think that things are still pretty brown up here.  Not so.  These hills are brown year-round.  I guess that's the prairie for ya.

I will miss this place.  Not just the people, but the beauty of the open prairie.  Thank you Lord, for creating beauty in the middle of nowhere.

I totally stole this from House of Turquoise, who stole it from her courtesty of HGTV.  God bless the internet.

We're currently trying to decide how to decorate our new house and where to put all our furniture, what we need to buy, what to paint, etc., etc.  I had to sit through 2.5 hrs of Talent Show auditions today and in between auditions I dug through House of Turquoise's archives of rooms with turquoise, black, and white.  I love them all.  I think I have found my house inspiration.  This one's pretty sweet too:

Yes, that really is yellow houndstooth linoleum.  We're gutting the kitchen.

There are 3 legal bedrooms, 1 bath, and something that T is calling his "gun room."  (It's a hole in the wall really, which will house his guns.)

Today I told my students that I was leaving.  Boy oh boy, there were tears.  Lots and lots of tears.  Somehow, I managed to hold it all together, but I think that if I would have lost it they ALL would have lost it.  It was really hard.  I had so many nice comments from kids afterwards and lots and LOTS of hugs.  They all even gathered around me for a ginormous group hug.  How sweet, eh?  I love it.  I love them.  After lunch I came back to my room with stuff like this written on the board:

"The Danger Zone is under construction"
"We were but lead and  you turned us into gold"
"We Love You"

and a poem that is just entirely too long to post here.  Man, we sure are praying that this is the right decision.  I'm gonna miss them like mad.

Today I decided that it would be nice to post about things that I love.
I love my job.  Yesterday we hosted our region's Large Group Music Contest.  We had about 12 different schools come to perform for a panel of judges, receive comments, and a rating.  All 3 of my choirs performed and they all received a "I" rating!  (That's the highest, with a V being the lowest.  I was soooooo proud of them!  We were aiming for a I+, but very few ensembles even received I's, let alone putting a + after it.  Phew.  I'm glad that's over, though.  There was a lot of stress leading up to the big event!  I'll post videos as soon as they're done uploading to YouTube.  Our internet is apparently really slow.

I love my kitty.















Nori and I spent all morning together, just chillin' on the couch.  This afternoon I opened up the patio door to let her experience the wonders of outdoor smells.  She's a bit of a fraidy cat, so she sat under the table for awhile first, but then her curiosity trumped her fear, I guess, because she's been sitting at the door for quite some time now.















Oh, Nori!  My mom bought her a fuschia cat bed for Easter that she has yet to use, but we're trying to convince her to use it.

I love my house.  This afternoon I baked banana bread, did laundry, washed my rugs, did dishes, and tidied up our little nest.  I just love living here.  It's tiny, yes, and it's not ours, I know, but I still love it.  Maybe because it's the first place T and I have had together.  Maybe it's the open kitchen.  Maybe it's the deck with the spring breeze wafting in, or maybe it's the overwhelming scent of fresh banana bread right now.  I don't know.  All I know is that this place feels like home.  Sigh. 


















EDIT:  Here are those videos I promised.  The weird clicky sound is my auto-focus.  Apparently it's really loud.






I'm so proud of them!!!!!

For $12, it's not a bad deal!  I told him to grab it and we could sell it on our garage sale for more than $12.

T and I are currently in Sioux Falls for the weekend.  Hooray for Easter!  We enjoyed the most moving of Good Friday services with my family last night.  I was in tears by the end.  It was the last song that pushed me over.  A good family friend sang a duet with our music director.  She used to sing duets just like this with her husband who just recently passed away.  It was a first time she sang a duet with anyone else besides him and all I could think about was how strong she was to keep praising the Lord in these difficult circumstances.  By the end it was all I could do to stay in my seat and not go comfort her, because by the end, she was streaming tears too.  Praise the Lord we'll see her husband in heaven someday!

I'm sick of people not being able to leave comments on here.  Stupid template.  Grrrr.

Will you do me a favor?  If you try to leave a comment and are unable to, will you send me an e-mail?  Just a note to say, "hey, this new template doesn't work either" would suffice!  emsensei{at}gmail{dot}com.  Julia from Hooked On Houses stopped by and couldn't leave a comment.  (I about threw up when I saw she e-mailed me instead!)  I'm such a dork...to be e-mailed by Julia!  My hero!

Okay, it's voting time.  I went thrifting today and brought home some treasures and found two awesome pieces that need rescuing:

an awesome dresser:

T and I picked up this antique Moonstone vase at an antique store a few weeks ago, and when I found this sort of matching candy dish at a thrift store, I just had to have it.  Paired with the sunflowers....ahh, it just makes me smile.
Then came the funky little yellow dish on far right bookshelf.  (Yeah, I know you can only see half of it...)  Then came the sunflowers, which I usually hate, but they just added to the whole yellow, black and white motif.  I may have a new favorite color scheme, folks!

T and I are currently watching "Life" on Discovery.  It's absolutely beautiful!  Tonight's episode is on fish. T and I being the geeks that we are, are totally enthralled.  The colors are so vivid and clear, and fish are just, well, really interesting!

Remember these flying fish guys from Super Mario?






















Well, there are actually real fish that fly!!  No, really, look:

(image found here)

From what T and I can tell, they jump out of the water and then fly/float with their extra-long fins.  And here we thought Nintendo was just that creative.....hmph.

In other news....T and I broke out the grill tonight!
























Yummmmm!  We had chipotle cinnamon rubbed chicken and grilled potatoes with onions in garlic.  Oooooh man, you should be jealous.  We had nearly 70 degree temps!  I actually swept out the garage today and got rid of all the winter grime.   Yesss.  Spring cleaning!

Our chair is done!  We finally finished it tonight, after it had been sitting in our garage "drying" for a week.  (I use the term "drying" loosely because really it was just taking up space in our garage, forcing me to park outside and scrape my windshield all week.  I'm sure it probably only took like 4 hours to actually dry.)

Here's the before pic:

Ooooh....

Lovely Little Nest is doing a giveway for really really cute planner and noteblook sets.  I'd enter if I were you, but hurry, it's over at midnight!

I love the blue geometric print...so springy and graphic.  Totally me.

Dear friends, meet our new kitty, Nori.  She's officially survived the first 24 hours in the Danger house, and she's adjusting fairly well.  About as well as can be expected, that is.  She's the most affectionate cat, always nudging and loving on every human in sight.

Spring hasn't fully sprung here yet.  We're still waiting on some stubborn snowdrifts to melt into oblivion.  However, I did get to enjoy some sun on our deck after donning my sweatpants, fleece jacket, and flip flops.

Other exciting spring things:

New tablecloth and centerpiece!  I picked up this vase ages ago at an antique store.  LOVE it now!

We're working on a Rachmaninoff piece in choir right now, and we're singing it in Russian.  We had an excellent rehearsal today that just made my heart happy.  It wasn't the best rehearsal ever, but they made music!  I love it when that happens.  I just thought I'd share.

In all our wallowing over med school, we decided to talk to our landlord about getting a cat.  He was pretty reluctant (according to T) but he said yes!  We only have to pay an extra month of rent as a security deposit.  I don't really understand this though, because he told us he was replacing the carpet after we leave.  I suppose he just didn't want the cat stinking up the place too badly.  Whatever.  We promised him we'd get an adult, litterbox-trained kitty.  :D

So, we did what everybody in our shoes would do, we went window shopping for kitties in the middle of a snow/rain storm.

Awww!  I think her name is Kadyn, from what I can tell on the Humane Society See, our local Humane Society is located in a downtown storefront, so when we get bored, we like to go look at the kitties in the window.  They have free reign over the place because all the dogs are in "foster care".

So, I guess we're getting a cat as soon as we can russle up another month's rent!  Ha....ha...ha...

Well, the day the letter actually came was sometime last week while we were in Minneapolis.

The answer was.....

No.

T's not going to med school at USD next year, and we're dealing with major disappointment right now.  We were both ready to pick up our lives and move.  We had a house picked out, a job for me figured out, everything was planned.  Then God told us, "nope."  We're not very happy creatures right now, T and I.

We're surviving, trying to learn what happened, but mostly we're just shaking our heads in disbelief.  Surely this was supposed to be our year!  Surely all the hard work would have paid off!  Nope.  Not yet, at least.

T is going to meet with the Dean of Students to see what insight he can gain from his file and see if its worth trying again next year.

We're trying to learn to be content no matter what the circumstance, but it's really freakin' hard.  Really.  Hard.

Today was foggy and gray.  Yesterday was foggy and gray.  I am so sick of winter, I can barely stand it!  The Student Senate actually held an "I Hate Snow Day" last week where everybody dressed in summer clothes and played outdoor games in the atrium during lunch.  Now thats a dress-up day that I completely support!  I donned my fuschia sun dress (with a little cardigan, naturally), painted my toenails to match, and dug out my polka dot flip flops.  What a happy day, despite my freezing toes!

Example: SNOW up to your chest!
This is my sister on V-Day.  Yes, the snow was really that high.  Oy.

Example 2:  you can't drive anywhere to relieve your cabin fever because of the SNOW.
I took this picture driving back to Pierre after Valentine's Day.  I was supposed to leave the day before, but couldn't.  Guess why?  Blowing SNOW.  UGH.  I think 2010 wins for Worst Winter EVER.

Forgive my rant, I'm really wishing I lived somewhere else right now.

Part of why I hate winter is I just get sick of everything, including my hair.  I usually get a new cut about this time every year, this year was no exception!

My mom and sister have been begging me to post new pics of my haircut.  I haven't quite gotten used to styling it yet, so don't judge!

Last one is a bit blurry, yes, sorry, but you get the point.

To compare, here was my hair at Christmas.  You add 2 months of growth to this to get how much hair I just chopped off!
Yes, N, I stole your picture.  ;)

I was soooo not looking forward to doing laundry and cleaning my house this weekend.  I have yet to finish the cleaning part, but don't worry, I still have a day and a half of weekend left!  Most of all, I was dreading the overflowing sink of ginormous pots and pans awaiting me.  Then, I remembered these!

They're called gloveables and T's mom got them for me for my birthday.  It's much more fun to do loads of dishes when you have fun accessories to help and keep your hands silky soft!  (I just did an exfoliating sugar scrub this morning....)  I donned my gloveables, lit my all-time favorite candle:

and put on my favorite Pandora station (based on Debussy, Ravel, and Britten), and dug into my mountain of Calphalon.  I almost forgot that I hate doing dishes!

By the way, these were taken with my new svelte cherry red camera.  Not too shabby, eh?

Currently waiting for the tsunami to hit Hawaii.  Watching live feed on Fox News...