march madness?

I would not call myself a basketball fan. Perhaps this is a result of my upbringing, as I come from a state that lives and breathes football. Born in Kansas but raised in Nebraska, I'm a diehard Husker fan ... until March Madness rolls around. Then it's KU all the way! (And I'll readily admit that I cheer for KU because the Husker men's basketball program is ... rather pathetic. I just looked it up--the last time the Huskers made it to the NCAA tournament was 1998. And they've only been six times in their entire history ... but they did win the NIT once!)

There's just something special about March Madness. I don't watch basketball at all until the tournament begins, but then I can't get enough of it! I was bit by the MM bug in 1995, when I watched the UCLA Bruins win the National Championship. The fact that I still remember (a) the names Ed O'Bannon and Tyus Edney and (b) that the TV coverage of the event began with a montage of tournament moments set to "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" from the Lion King is perhaps pathetic, but it shows how much that game impacted me. (I couldn't tell you the name of any current collegiate basketball player.)

I fill out a bracket each year, but there's no science behind it. I have two guides that I follow (I wouldn't call them rules because I have broken them, but they're pretty constant): 1. Kansas will win it all. 2. Schools with cool-sounding names will survive the first round. Now, I'm no idiot--I know that most years Kansas won't win it all. But I'd sure like Kansas to win ... and if I pick them every year, then I'll be right in the years--like 2008--that they do pull it off. I also know that Gonzaga and Xavier probably won't go very far--though they have pulled off upsets in the past, and Xavier often makes it to the 2nd round--but I just love the names! For the other picks, I usually go with the higher-rated one in the first round, and after that it's kind of a crapshoot. Yes, I'm a girl about my picks.

This year, I've filled out four brackets, thanks to Facebook. I'll go with my family pool bracket as the official one, at least until the others start doing better :-) My final four pics are Duke, North Carolina, Kansas State, and Kansas, with Duke and Kansas in the final and (duh!) Kansas winning.

Who wins your bracket this year?

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superman, save me!

This is probably the closest I will ever come to kissing Dean ...

(We visited the Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson, Kansas, on Memorial Day. I highly recommend it!)

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thoughts from the couch

We're a week into the new year, and I haven't posted anything but book reviews for about two weeks. I have another book review finished, but I thought I'd give you a different kind of post first!

We are headed into our third snow day in a row. While we still call them "snow days," these days have been more like "wind and extreme cold days." I am so excited to be able to sleep in again tomorrow, and I'm hoping for Saturday's speech meet to be canceled, too!

Other things that have happened recently:

• I hosted a Holiday Bowl party where we watched the Huskers obliterate the Arizona Wildcats 33-0.

Janet shows off the easy chocolate cookies we made. She said she never bakes because it's too hard, and she was quite fascinated by my cake mix cook book.

Scott & Levi "throw the bones" ... or something like that! I believe it had to do with the defense.

• We finally made it to Kansas (minus Dad, who had to stay behind to make sure sidewalks were cleared for the beginning of school on Monday). We celebrated Christmas with Grandma, and she was feeling well and was in a great mood. 

Grandma inspects the family calendar we made for her. She loved looking at the pictures of her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids.

We had a great dinner and then watched a dvd of an interview done with my great-grandparents in the '90s.

Grandma & I pose with the yule log my uncle buys every year to go with our Christmas dinner. Because of our Christmas blizzard, he had to return to California before we could get to Kansas, so we had to eat the dessert without him.

In the evening, we went to Wichita--to Target (yay!), Panera (double yay!), and the Warren (triple yay!). We'd planned to see Avatar in 3-D, but it was sold out, so we saw Sherlock Holmes instead. It was okay, but I would have appreciated knowing that magic played so heavily into the plot before we went.

Mom savors her broccoli cheese soup. Why don't we have a Panera around here???

• Engagements abound! My cousin Jon just announced his engagement to Lauren. Not that he needs or wants my approval, but I give it completely :-) Lauren will be a great addition to our family!!! Also, dear friend and college roomie Jen just got engaged, and she's giving me the honor of being part of her special day! I couldn't be happier for her!

Jen and I were last together in October--I can't wait to see her again!

• I've done a lot of reading recently, and I've started reading my first Blogging for Books selection--Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris!!! You may recall that a few months ago I mentioned how excited I was about this book. I got so excited when I saw it was available through Blogging for Books! I started reading it in earnest today, and so far, it's excellent. I'm looking forward to reading more; look for the review the week of Jan. 18.
  

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it's been a while

I haven't posted in two weeks. First, nothing "blog worthy" was happening, then I went to Kansas for Easter, then I was really busy with work, then I got sick. Now I'm healthy and less busy, so hopefully I'll get some things posted soon . . . especially the snake pictures. I read another book review blogger book, too, but I still need to write the review, so look for that in the next few days. And I've started tutoring--I definitely need to talk about that. Just wanted you to know that I'm still alive, and I haven't forgotten about my blog!

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a week in whitewater

I’ve just returned from a week in Kansas. I anticipated a very relaxing week, and parts of the week were great. But other parts? Terrifying!

I arrived at my grandma's house on Sunday night and hooked up the digital converter box I'd picked up at Wal-Mart. The house is close to Wichita, so I figured I'd pick up lots of channels. Not so. I got the NBC, ABC, FOX, and CW stations. The next morning, I also got the CBS channels (one regular and one weather) and MyNetworkTV, but very rarely could I get all the stations at once. With the digital signal, "fuzzy" stations don't come in--you either get it well or not at all. I'm thinking my parents, who don't live that close to any stations, are in trouble.

Grandma lives in a nursing home near her farm. She hasn't really felt like getting out much lately, so I hoped that I'd be able to convince her to go out some. She seemed really good on Monday, but she didn't want to go anywhere. I mentioned that I'd like to get some ice cream at Braum's, and I thought we could go on Tuesday. Then I called her Tuesday morning. She said she wasn't feeling well . . . and each morning for the rest of my trip was the same. On Thursday, we talked about going out for lunch on Friday. She actually sounded excited about it. Then Friday morning rolled around. I called her at 10, and she wondered if I would get there soon. I took this as a good sign. When I arrived, we kept talking about where we could go for lunch. But when it was actually time for lunch, she decided we should eat at the home. Can we say disgusting? We had chicken nuggets, mac & cheese, green beans, and yellow cake. The nuggets were edible but not good; the mac & cheese was mushy and fakey (and not in a good Kraft Mac-N-Cheese way—for some reason, I love that stuff!); the cake itself was fine, but the frosting tasted like Lemon Pledge; the green beans were the best part of the meal, and I generally wouldn’t choose to eat a green bean unless forced! (I should note that I used to work in dietary at this nursing home; I remember serving really good meals—perhaps this was just an off day!)

Now for the relaxing part of the week. I made a trip to Wichita to go to Borders (where I picked up the Singin’ In The Rain soundtrack and a tobyMac cd with a gift certificate) and meet up with a cousin. Once a year or so, she goes through her family’s closets and gives us a bunch of hand-me-downs. Pretty much all the Rittas have access to this stuff. None of the clothes work for me, but we do have the same size feet, and she buys some really cool shoes :-) I also made cookies and bread, played the piano, cross stitched, drank lots of coffee with Tiramisu CoffeeMate, and watched tons of What I Like About You. I brought lots of movies and a season of Lost, and What I Like About You is the only thing I watched. I started with season two, and it was like I just couldn’t stop! Season two? Check. Season three? Check. Season four? Check. Pathetic, I know! (For all you Full House fans—Scott Weinger, who played Steve, has a bit part in season four. Sadly, he has not aged well!) I taped the episodes a couple summers ago, just as the WB and UPN were about to form the CW. Remember the annoying CW song? If you don’t, count yourself lucky. “Get ready, ‘cause here we come!”

Besides relaxing, I also dealt with some fears—one that I knew about, and one that I didn’t. I’ve never been afraid of being alone at night before, but being out here by myself at night kind of freaked me out. No matter what time it was, I was OK if I was up doing something. But the second I’d try going to sleep, I’d hear noises and picture ways that a prowler might break in. Then I’d plot out ways to escape if someone did break in. It was pretty much terrible. Plus, I had to deal with that other fear . . .

SPIDERS! I’m so glad I never watched Arachnophobia. I saw about five minutes of it once, and that was enough to give me a nightmare. Last week, I was living that nightmare. Grandma’s house has had a spider problem for as long as I can remember. I can’t remember the problem being this bad, though. In the first 24 hours, I killed 3 spiders. It was all downhill from there. I think I’m becoming a little obsessed with this blog: I took pics of almost all the spiders so I could post them and you all could know how brave I am to have resided in the same house with them and, in most cases, killed them. The first spider was on the wall by the grandfather clock. I tried to kill it, but when I whacked at it, it jumped behind the clock. I think I hit it, but I don’t think it died. Then, I went back to the bedroom I was staying in, flipped on the light, and looked directly at the spider’s twin brother! This one, I did kill. And I switched rooms. The next spider (spider #2 in the slide show) was literally inches away from my foot. I glanced down from my cross-stitching, and there it was! (For reference, the little squares are 1-½ inches, and the big squares are 3 inches.) Then the last one. This was the creepiest one. On Friday, I vacuumed the entire house to get rid of all the bug carcasses. I started in the basement, which we’ve long considered “no man’s land” as the spider problem has always been worst down there. I opened the closet in the bedroom and saw this “little” guy. Now here’s where my sanity left me—I actually hollered, “STAY RIGHT THERE!” and sprinted upstairs to get my camera. You know what? The spider listened. But after I took the picture, I wasn’t sure what to do—what if I tried to hit it, missed, and it escaped? Fortunately, there was some spider spray in the basement, so I sprayed the living daylights out of the sucker! I also encountered two other nasty bugs—one was large, red, and cricketlike, and the other was gray and looked like a spider with cricket legs. Ewwwww!!! I also killed several wasps and little, black, fuzzy spiders outside. I am SOOOOOOOOOO thankful my apartment doesn’t have a spider problem!

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