"She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a servicable substitute for wit" W. Somerset Maugham

Quotes I love them!!
One English teacher (long, long ago) said using quotes at the beginning of a paper is a way to capture your audience. I took that to heart and start every paper with a quote. Now I just need to find one for my dissertation...

I love quotes!
Quotes can be perfect at different times too. I love this one for inspiration:
"I have learned to hold all things loosely, so God will not have to pry them out of my hands" ~Corrie Ten Boom
for knowledge:
"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you will go".
~Dr. Seuss
And for fun:
"It's a moo point. You know, like a cow's opinion. It doesn't matter".
~Joey Tribbiani (Friends)

All my vast readership :) what are your favorite quotes. I've started a quote book and want to fill it up. Give me some quotes!!

68 points on Quiddler. I got to make wist though!

Candy

Since we went to Rome during lent I was unable to sample their delicous candy fare. So Erik and I waited until today to taste the array of candies we got from Rome.
I've posted pictures of the candy that I got from Rome. Most of the candy had a hazelnut/chocolate combination. The kinder bueno white, kinder bueno ricco di latte, and duplo were filled with hazelnut cream. Mars delight was filled with flakes, tronky had a crunchy outside and was filled with hazelnuts in a chocolate cream. Kinder maxi was filled with white chocolate. Magnum infinity was filled with chocolate and hazelnuts, Cuneesi Rum (small round candy) was filled with dark chocolate and rum. Finally kinder sorpresa was egg shaped and contained a toy inside (see picture).

Erik and I rated the candy as follows. Gina's rating:

1. Magnum infinity
2. Duplo
3. Mars delight
4. Kinder Ricco
5. Kinder white
6. Tronky
7. Cuneesi
8. Kinder surprise
9. Kinder maxi

Erik rated them:

1. Cuneesi
2. Magnum infinity
3. Mars delight
4. Duplo
5. Kinder Ricco
6. Tronky
7. Kinder white
8. Kinder surprise
9. Kinder maxi

So now you know what candy to buy if you ever go to Rome. It seems that hazelnuts to the Italians is like peanut butter to Americans.

We were celebrating by eating the candy since I was accepted to the FIE conference in Milwaukee, WI on Oct. 10-13. Yipee!!! I'm so happy :). We also celebrated by going out to Red Lobster tonight -yum!

Since I can't post without some pictures or videos of Jenna, here's a video of her making soup for Dada.

I also have to post my Quiddler score: 79 points. I did make the word "earing". Which I am surprised I was allowed to make. I thought the word was "earring". Oh well :)

Food Porn: chocolate

Not that I really need anymore (see previous post). But I created two chocolate pies - one for Easter and one for some friends from Toledo. both had a chocolate cookie crust. In the first (the single pie slice) I put cream cheese, heavy cream, vanilla, semi-sweet chocolate and cut up reeces cups. It had a slightly bitter/sour taste but was very rich. In the second pie, I mixed heavy cream, powdered sugar, vanilla, and semi-sweet chocolate, then added some shaved bittersweet chocolate. The filling on this pie was much better. Light and mousse-like.

All this chocolate is making me hungry...

In other news:

1. I have started reading the short story: "The Call of Cthulhu" by H.P.Lovecraft. It is a classic horror story referenced constantly in the fantasy world so I have to read it!
2. I got 83 on Quiddler today and used all my letters - yea!
3. Monday I find out if I have been accepted to the Frontiers in Education conference (fingers crossed!)
4. I've used an exclamation point in each of these list items!!!!

A tisket a tasket

Happy Easter! A time to celebrate that Jesus has risen by eating candy and chocolate bunnies (what does God think about this??).
Here we celebrate Jesus who has risen from the dead:
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you." ~Matthew 28:1-7

This is the key of our faith - Jesus has risen!!

In celebration of Easter, Erik bought me numerous amounts of chocolate which you can see from the picture of my Easter basket. Here is the candy he bought me:

1. Cadbury Eggs
2. Reeses peanut butter eggs
3. Reeses pieces eggs
4. mini Cadbury eggs
5. Butterfinger Eggs
6. Peanut butter M&Ms
7. mini Reeses peanut butter eggs
8. Wonka golden creme egg

I like chocolate & peanut butter and cadbury eggs. (obviously!).
For Easter we went to my parent's house and Jenna searched for her basket. She had candy, a princess backpack, a bubble wand, and a stuffed chicken in her basket. All day today she has been using the princess lipstick. Her stuffed animals have gooey pink stuff all over their mouths.

We also went swimming. Here is a picture of Jenna and I playing in the water. She loves the water!! I do too. At one time I was swimming twice a week and was able to swim a mile (72 laps). Now I can swim about 7 laps before I feel tired. Jenna pretended she was a fish and a motor boat. Mom, Missy, Jenna and I all went swimming and had a fantastic time!

I finally finished the Belgariad. What an awesome book! I was so happy with the way that it ended. I love books with happy endings! It's obvious that he opened the door for the next series but I'm not sure I want to start on that. I've heard mixed reviews and I'm not sure I want to read a rehashing of the Belgariad.

I've reserved Stardust by Neil Gaiman as there is a movie based on that book coming out this summer. It sounds good so I'll see. That might be my next read.

I got 75 points today on Quiddler. They let me play za but not yeo. I don't understand it. I've head of yeomen. Isn't that a word? So shouldn't a yeo be part of a yeoman??

Short?

I received this post card from my brother-in-law. If you can't see it (the picture didn't come out that good), there is a man riding a horse in the snow and the caption reads "The Trouble with a Short Horse", implying that I am short. The problem with said post card is that I am NOT short! I'm not even vertically challenged. So I'm not sure why I received such a post card. It was a nice thought though :) :).

We had a playgroup at our house with 4 little girls today. Jenna, Rachel, Grace, and Hailey. Grace was born 1/13/05 so is only a week older than Jenna. You can see the two of them crammed in the car together. We also bought a wagon for Jenna which was a big hit with all the little ones. Jenna, Grace, and Rachel are crammed in the wagon here. Hailey didn't want to get in, and Jenna looks pretty comfortable on her side anyway.

Easter is almost here and with it is coming some pretty cold weather. Today it is 34 degrees and it is supposed to snow on Saturday - bummer. One good thing is that we have Good Friday off so I won't be teaching. Although I'm not sure what else I'll do. Prayer and fasting - and no wild parties :).

I tried to make the word "lego" today in Quiddler and I wasn't allowed to have it. However, xu is a word. Does that make any sense? Who knows what xu is as opposed to lego? Even Jenna knows what lego is! Got 54 in Quiddler (not a good showing since some people got 113!).

Happy Easter!

Easter Eggs and Go Bucks

The weather has been beautiful and it is a perfect time for Easter Egg hunts! We had an Easter party at our house with Jenna, Nicholas, Kael, Mclaine (not pictured - she's only 6mos old), Avery and Emma. They had a great time searching for eggs filled with hershey kisses all around our house. On Sunday, April Fools Day, we had a neighborhood Egg hunt. The Easter bunny showed up too. She kept saying "Eeter bunny hides eggs". So cute!! I didn't play any practical jokes on Erik. Instead I read this list of the top April Fools Jokes of all time. There are some pretty funny ones. My favorite is the taco liberty bell :).

Currently we are watching the Buckeyes playing Florida for the NCAA basketball championship. They are now losing but I know the Buckeyes, we can come back. I can't believe we played Florida for both football and basketball. I want us to win one of them at least :).

In other news:

1. I am almost finished with the Belgariad. I'm in book 5 of 5 and this series is Awesome! Someday I'll reorder my booklist and it will be high.
2. April 16! That is the day I find out if I am accepted to the Frontiers in Education conference with my paper on the Bioinformatics curriculum I wrote. The conference will be held in Wisconsin. Cheese....yum.
   
3. Less than a week and I'll get to eat candy again. That was a good thing to give up for lent. Tough, but good.
   
4. I'm working hard on my ASP.NET course next session. I've taught the course using ASP but moving to ASP.NET is a big change. Just one small . and a NET :).
5. I got 12 points today on Quiddler but that was partly because there were only 3 vowels!
   

The reason for Easter:
"then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" ~ Acts 4:10, 12