Woohoo!

I didn't know that LSAC often sends out the LSAT test results early, so imagine my surprise on Sunday when I opened my hotmail account, and it was sitting there, and had been sitting there since Sunday at 4:15 pm! Later, I read up on it and apparently LSAC frequently sends out the scores a day or two or three before the deadline. So that saved me from the last anxious night of worrying. I'm pretty excited about my score. It puts me in the 88th percentile. Top 22%. Not too shabby for a non-pre-law student who studied for about a month before taking the test. It made me think I really could have aced it if I had more time. But whatever, the average score to get into Nashville School of Law is a 149, and I pretty much crushed that. A 149 is in about the 50th percentile. Anyway, I'd been preparing myself to score a few points lower than my lowest practice test: a 159. And telling myself that a 157 was fine. Because I really didn't feel good about my logic games section. So I was thrilled to get a point higher than my highest practice test: a 162.

So after I got my score I jumped around and stood on the couch and screamed and laughed. Yesterday was a very good day.

Adventures in cooking

For my birthday I made myself a grasshopper pie. It was delicious. The recipe includes heavy whipping cream, marshmallow fluff, a little sugar, mint flavoring, and green food coloring. And some butter to hold the Oreo cookie crust together. Pretty simple, really. Also: not really a part of my diet, but I decided for my birthday I could eat whatever I wanted. And since this pie lasted for several days longer than my birthday, for those days too.




Back in December I went to Marche artisan foods in Nashville with my dad for brunch, if you live in Nashville (Tim and Carissa) and haven't been there, you definitely should. They have pretty moderately priced food, with great fresh ingredients, and the menu changes according to the season and what's seasonal. I've loved every meal I've had there. Anyway, that time I got toast with poached eggs in tomato sauce topped with flakes of parmesan. It was fabulous. Especially for this non-egg-loving girl. So I've been craving it ever since, so I decided to try it. It was my first attempt at poached eggs, and they turned out fairly well, I suppose. My version was pretty good, but definitely not as good as Marche's. Still, it was worth a try and it was a change from our regular menu.

Our new bedspread

We got a new bedspread for Christmas. It seems very grown up. I like it a lot.

Christmas Cookies

Some new recipes I tried this year. Chocolate walnut thumbprint cookies with a cherry center and chocolate drizzle, and chocolate mint cookies. They were both really good.

Christmas Card

Here are some pictures that we took for our Christmas card this year. So Merry Christmas, you get to see some of the out-takes. Our tree was kind of short, so we had to get some perspective by putting the camera on the other side of the room, on top of the coffee table, on top of the ottoman, on top of two books, on top of a small decorative bureau, then we set the timer and ran around to the tree. It was fun.

Pictures from my mom's 60th birthday party.

Back in November we had a joint birthday party for my mom and my sister. They both had milestone birthdays this year - 30 and 60. So on a two day trip to Nashville I spent a day doing whatever my mom wanted. We watched some Christian female comedian on DVD while doing some crafts together - making beaded bookmarks, then met Christa for lunch and did some shopping. That evening we had a special dinner with friends. It was a good time. Here are some highlights...

At Shelli's

Here's Justin and Shelli when we visited them in July in Atlanta. Her apartment is super cute.


A family photo. Shelby is not especially good at looking at the camera. We have lots of shots of half of her face.


Shelli and Justin with the Loser's trophy.


The trade.


Us with the loser's trophy. Not looking real good here. It was about midnight. Right before the drive to Nashville.

Getting ready for the reception

Me, Christa, and our honorary sister, Leslie, getting ready for Christa and Wes' wedding reception/shower.



It's a little less nerve-wracking the second time around.

Our new favorite meal

My mom and Dino went on a vacation this summer and at some restaurant near Glacier National Park, Dino had the most amazing baked potato ever. So of course my mom tried to duplicate it, with fabulous results while I was visiting. So I made my own attempt, and we've been enjoying this ever since.



On the bottom: a baked potato. Then a combination of olive oil and herbs and seasonings of your choice (I use an Italian mix, cumin, fresh garlic, plus garlic salt and black pepper). Topped with sauteed vegetables of my choice: I like broccoli, onion, zucchini, and red pepper. Then on top, kalamata olives, grape tomatoes and feta cheese. It's pretty amazing, and very filling. No side dishes needed.

We had this for lunch today. Fabulous.

Unloading the camera

This is the new furniture we built. Kind of. A kit from Target helped a lot. It's nice to have a place to put all this stuff.

Zip line adventures

On Sunday of our Mexico trip we went to a place to go zip lining. The company was Canopy River, and if you're ever in Puerto Vallarta, I highly recommend them. We did some short training first, and then we were off! There were 12 zip lines, they went all over this river valley, back and forth, lower higher and some were very fast and some were slower. One of them the speed got up to 40 miles per hour. I came speeding into that one so fast I almost kicked the camera man in the face. The day before I'd gotten sunburned and was also kind of sick with Montezuma's revenge. (Yeesh) So Sunday I didn't eat a big breakfast, and didn't drink enough, and during some of the hiking between zip lines I started to feel overheated and sick and migrainy. So they let me skip two lines while everyone else went in, and I took off my helmet and drank some water. I started to feel better and was able to finish off the trip. The last two lines took us down to the bottom of the river valley and then we rode back up to the top of the mountain on mules. Never ridden a mule before. The mule in front of mine kept stopping to eat. And the guy riding him couldn't get him to start again. It was hilarious. Also, he only spoke Spanish and I couldn't really speak Spanish, so I just giggled. Anyway, despite the sickness we had a really good time. It was my favorite part of the trip. Here are some pictures of our adventures, unfortunately, no mule shots.