Today I...

Today I filled out my ballot, got the required signature of a witness, and sealed the envelope. Tomorrow it will get dropped in the mailbox, and it will be counted by election day. Let me say that as an Alaskan, I vote in what is probably the state that matters the least as far as elections go, especially this year. If you live in a state that has more than three electoral votes or which is a "swing state," please go out and cast your vote! I'm voting, even knowing that Alaska is always Republican, whether I vote or not. So, if you are registered to vote in a state which fluctuates...cast a vote and exercise that right and privilege! If you don't...no complaining from you about whatever the next four years holds!

A Fair Day

On Sunday after church Shannon, my sister, brother-in-law, one of my sister's friends, and I all went to the State Fair. The State Fair is probably one of the highlights of the year for Shannon, because he gets to eat junk food. For me, personally, I have fun, but it's not the greatest thing about fall, in my opinion, although North Carolina does have a pretty decent fair. Anyways, Shannon had an Italian sausage, I had a chicken gyro, We shared a fried Snickers and a fried Oreo, and we got some ice cream and grilled corn. The food really is the main reason you go to the Fair, after all.

However, this year there was something that neither of us had experienced before: pig racing. And duck racing too. It was so funny...I'll let the videos speak for themselves.

Duck Racing


Pig Racing


Shannon eating "the best Italian sausage of his life."


Me and Shannon with a fried Oreo (not as good as the fried Milky Way from last year).


My sister, Rachel, and her husband, Lucas, at their first ever NC State Fair.


Shannon and myself at the pig races!

My Sweet Husband

Shannon surprised me with a subscription to Cooking Light, which I love. I checked the mail yesterday and there was my first issue, just in time for the holidays (and the end of all the insanity).


And...our apartment has absolutely no way to circulate air around: there's no hood fan and no fan in the bathroom. So, our windows get fogged up in the mornings when we take showers, or when I'm cooking something like soup that lets a lot of steam off into the air. The other night when, umm, my stomach was bothering me, this is what I saw when I turned around:

I think that Kari put it best: it's the little things that speak the loudest to my heart.

Unbelievable Ignorance

Like someone else said, people should have to take at least a simple test before being allowed to vote. Thanks, Marci, for the link.

Midnight Munchies

Shannon always thinks it's really funny that I get hungry so late at night. What can I say? I have a high metabolism. So last night I got myself a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats and settled into the warm bed to eat them. And Shannon laughed at me.

Survey Says...

So...I hate doing these when I get them as emails, but since I've been tagged (thanks, Jackie!) and I haven't posted in awhile, I figured I'd try it out. And, fyi, the countdown until the insanity of our lives ends is 7 days. Thank goodness. And, since I'm gathering that I'm supposed to tag people as well, I tag Marci, Thomas/Leslie, and Tara.

4 things I was doing 10 years ago:
That would be fall 1998...let's think...

Just getting involved in the BSM at U of I.
Trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life (ie: I knew that being a Dance major wasn't it).
Lamenting my singleness.
Getting ready to go to Florida (and Universal Studios) for Thanksgiving.

4 things on my to-do list for today:
Finish the story-set I'm working on for class.
Make Squash Soup for dinner.
Go to bed early.
Buy more bananas for my husband on my way home from work.

4 random things I love about my husband:
He always does the dishes and gets mad at me if I do them.
His eyebrows grow straight out and when I tell him he needs to shave them down he always obliges me.
He makes me take time for myself and relax.
He never yells at me or makes me feel stupid.

4 jobs that I have had:
Waitress (5 restaurants and counting)
Nanny
English Teacher
Fish slime worker...how do you describe the joys of working at a fish processing plant?

4 movies I have watched more than once
Big Fish
The Shawshank Redemption
Little Women
Fried Green Tomatoes

4 favorite albums:
Red: End of Silence

David Crowder Band: Sunsets & Sushi

Goo Goo Dolls: Dizzy Up the Girl

Norah Jones: Come Away With Me

4 places I have lived:
Kenai, Alaska
Moscow, Idaho
Rzeszow, Poland
Wake Forest, North Carolina

4 places I've been:
Hong Kong
Rome, Italy
Belize City, Belize
Prague, Czech Republic

4 places I want to visit:
Egypt (the pyramids)
India (Taj Mahal)
Australia (scuba diving!)
Moscow, Russia

4 TV shows I watch via DVD:
LOST
Friends
Alias (used to...not recently)
Heroes (haven't started yet...will once Shannon gets them for Christmas)

4 of my favorite meals:
Eggplant Parmesan
Pizza

Hearty Bean and Barley Soup

Chicken Bruschetta

4 things you may not know about me:
I can touch the tip of my tongue to the tip of my nose.
I lived in Europe for 3 years.
I love to cook.
I'm almost 30 and can still do a cartwheel. :-)

Oral Learners

For the class I'm taking this week our assignment tonight was to read a book about oral learners. I learned some interesting facts. I'm not going to quote the numbers from the book since I can't get their web address sources to work, but I did find a survey that was taken back in 2002 called Reading At Risk. Anyways, here are some stats for 2002 I bet none of you knew:

*Only 46.7% of all American adults had read at least one book in the past 12 months.
*Only 37.6% of these adults were male.
*Only 37.7% of high school (with no college education at all) graduates read at least one book in the 12 months prior to the survey.
*63.1% of college graduates read at least one book in the past year.
*95.7% of adults watched at least one hour of television per day (on average).
*46.2% of adults watched 3 hours of television per day (on average).
*Only 42% of Southerners had read a book in the last year.
*Between 1992 and 2002, the percentage of 25-34 year-olds who had read a book in the last year decreased from 23.1% to 17.6%.

Aren't those statistics crazy? I love to read...I can't imagine people not reading at least one book per year! And 3 hours of television per day? We don't even own a TV! The whole point of this is just to show that people are getting more and more of their information through oral means: television, radio, podcasts, and so on. People aren't reading as much as they used to. So this is why we need to start being able to verbalize things that for so many years have only been in print. We need to rethink how we educate. Oh, and one more statistic: 4 billion of the world's people are considered illiterate. That's two-thirds of the people in the world. 4 billion people are oral learners. 4 billion people would understand an oral story better than a 1-page story that was written for them. 4 billion. Wow.

The First Day of Fall

Sorry for the long absence from blogging. Our lives have been insane. In the past 3 weeks we have had the usual classes and work, but we've also had multiple meetings, a wedding, a funeral, birthday celebrations, a book review to write and a midterm exam (we both had these), another book review to write (mine), and weekly quizzes in our other classes. Actually all of the midterms and book reviews have been in the last 2 weeks. So we've been a little busy with school. We have 3 more weeks of school insanity and then the semester should be cake. By October 24th we each have another midterm, a presentation on a country of our choice (Tajikistan for me and Uzbekistan for Shannon), weekly quizzes, a book to read, and 45 hours of class next week with quizzes, two exams, and homework. I'll try to be good about updating, but I won't be surprised if I forgo the blogging fun to focus on school.

I know that today is not the official first day of autumn, but it is at the Scarbrough household. Let me explain. Today our fall wreath that I made last October went up. Today our sweaters are being pulled out of storage and all the tank tops and shorts are being put into storage for the winter. The down comforter is on the bed. And baking will commence later this afternoon, after I've made Butternut Squash-White Bean Soup for lunch. I've worn my hat and gloves this past week. My Yankee fall candles are being lit more often. And we're officially on Fall Break, although since we're taking that intensive class so we don't actually get a break from anything except for work. But we're caught up on our other classes' work and today is a day of relaxation after the last 2 weeks of insanity.

Tomorrow my sister and her husband are coming down for the day. It's a real mark of the busyness of our lives that we only live a little over an hour away from each other and yet we see each other less than once a month, on average. So tomorrow is a catch-up-on-life day, and maybe we'll play some fun games too.

Shannon and I are in the process of trying to make some major decisions about life after we graduate. Please be thinking of us as we try to make wise decisions and get everything finished that we need to.

It's off to a day of baking, running (after my coffee is not still sitting heavy in my stomach), grocery shopping, filling out application forms, and later Shannon's going to watch the Auburn game while I have dinner with some girlfriends. After 9 months I still absolutely love having Saturdays off.