Happy Fall!

I haven't blogged for a few days so I just wanted to update everyone on what's been up in the riveting life of Amelia. For the last couple days I've been very busy with crew dealings since we have two regattas in the next two weeks and numerous new rowers to accommodate. My inbox is like a sea of rowing emails (or a river or lake if you want to make a rowing pun). So I haven't been blogging much.
Crew is going spectaculary well! We had our first set Varsity 4 practice last night, with me as stroke, and it felt fast and strong. I'm really excited to see what happens this weekend in Des Moines. We tried to practice yesterday morning but the fog on the lake was so dense, even Rudolph couldn't see through it. We would have launched and not been able to find the dock, it was that bad. So we held off until last night. Practices with the novice are getting better and better each day, with the new rowers picking up new skills very quickly.
School has been going well. My first two tests of the semester went really well and I got A's on both. Let's just see if I keep up with this super student facade I've been putting on the last couple weeks. I've actually been reading for my classes which is completely out of the norm for me...
To update my last post, I found a bean bag chair for my sister for $15!!! It was like it was meant to be. They marketed the chairs as "Game Day" chairs so that's why they had the sale. It's like the corporate headquarters of Wal-Mart read my blog and decided to accommodate my need. I'm pretty excited for her birthday party on Friday since my mom will probably make some uber delicious dish and my other sister is coming home from North Dakota. The only thing that sucks is that the next morning I have to wake up at 3 am!!!!! in order to get to school by 3:30 to drive to the Des Moines regatta. I'll be feeling the cake and ice cream the next morning...
My money situation is pretty bleak because I haven't been able to work as much at Chang's, so I'm not making tip money and all of my last work study check went to bills and gas. What is in my fridge right now? The water jug, Light margarine, milk, and alcohol. I guess that's all you need in life! I had oatmeal for lunch the other day! haha
Once I do go grocery shopping, I'm going to buy like 5 cans of pumpkin. Fall is my FAVORITE time of baking (even more so than Christmas because Christmas baking is just such a daunting task) I love pumpkin flavored things so I'm planning to make pumpkin bread, muffins, bars, and perhaps a vegan pumpkin spice cake recipe I found. I have to gripe, though, that this Halloween I can't celebrate because we will be in the vans headed to the Witchita regatta. I absolutely ADORE Halloween, but maybe I'll make little treat bags for my team...
This has been incredibly long so I will stop for today! Here's a thought: If you had a lot of money to spend on a Halloween costume, and you had an awesome party to go to, who/what would you be? I would go all out on an Uhura from Star Trek costume complete with big hair, go go boots, and lavish eyeliner. Yes, I am a Star Trek nerd, get over it!

Creighton Rowing and Yumminess

I love going to a Catholic school where crazy holidays give you the morning off. Because of Mass of the Holy Spirit, I didn't have any classes today so I got to sleep in and just go to school for the Involvement Fair. I row for the Creighton Rowing Association so it was a good time to heavily recruit and hang out with my teammates.
We got almost three complete pages of potential new rowers so that was pretty exciting. We are a really small team and recruitment has been a huge issue for us for the past two years. We'll see how many of the people who signed up will come to our info meeting tomorrow night.
After the Fair, we had practice on Carter Lake, the murky toxic waters of your worst nightmares. It was pretty muggy today but it was still a productive and fun practice. I always have a great time when I'm on a boat.
We got out of practice pretty early so I got a head start on making the dinner I've been wanting to make forever...eggplant parmesan! I bought the eggplant at the Farmer's Market downtown on Saturday and I got the rest of the ingredients last night. I've decided that although it hurts my heart, I need to give up cheese for a while. Eating mass amounts of cheese is not helping me lose any weight. So I figured eggplant parmesan would be a good send-off to cheese. After this meal and the leftovers are gone, it's sayonara cheese! :(
It turned out so yummy and my roommate loved it too. I must be in a cooking mode, because I also have some banana bread in the oven as I type this, from a vegan recipe courtesy of a good friend of mine. The apartment is like 90 degrees from all the oven usage that has happened over the last 2 hours.
Time to go, I think the oven timer just went off. Peace!