Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout

So my students have a bad case of the "I'm soooo over elementary school" blues.  You can imagine the groans as I told them we would be starting a poetry unit.  As I pulled out Where the Sidewalk Ends all I heard was "that's for pre-k", "are you seriously going to read that to us?", "you know we are going to be middle schoolers, right?"... yeah, yeah... I know.  It was hilarious to watch them laugh out loud and not care who was watching as I read all the funny poems.  How could you not?  Shel Silverstein is the best.

Thought you might want to take a trip down memory lane...

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout

Would not take the garbage out!

She’d scour the pots and scrape the pans,

Candy the yams and spice the hams,

And though her daddy would scream and shout,

She simply would not take the garbage out.

And so it piled up to the ceilings:

Coffee grounds, potato peelings,

Brown bananas, rotten peas,

Chunks of sour cottage cheese.

It filled the can, it covered the floor,

It cracked the window and blocked the door

With bacon rinds and chicken bones,

Drippy ends of ice cream cones,

Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,

Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,

Pizza crusts and withered greens,

Soggy beans and tangerines,

Crusts of black burned buttered toast,

Gristly bits of beefy roasts…

The garbage rolled on down the hall,

It raised the roof it broke the wall…

Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,

Globes of gooey bubble gum.

Cellophane from green baloney,

Rubbery blubbery macaroni,

Peanut butter caked and dry,

Curdled milk and crust of pie,

Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,

Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,

Cold french fried and rancid meat,

Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.

At last the garbage reached so high

That finally it touched the sky.

And all the neighbors moved away,

And none of her friends would come to play.

And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,

“OK, I’ll take the garbage out!”

But then, of course, it was too late…

The garbage reached across the state,

From New York to the Golden Gate.

And there, in the garbage she did hate,

Poor Sarah met an awful fate,

That I cannot right now relate

Because the hour is much too late.

But children, remember Sarah Stout

And always take the garbage out!

House Hunting!!

Just kidding... we are not house hunting.  But it is fun to creep on houses that are for sale and then gasp as the cost...

Here is a taste of what you get for a cool 1.3 million in Old Town Alexandria...

I heart IKEA

When my mom was here a few weeks ago, we went to IKEA.  I knew that I would have a great time, but WOW!  It has the cutest home furnishings at unbelievable prices.  They even have small apartments all set up so we got a few ideas for our tiny space.  I was on the hunt for a chair for our living room.  It was hard to find because we wanted it to be comfy, but it had to fit.  We found the perfect chair that we will be able to use for years to come.

I picked up a few of these baskets for $2 each.  What a deal :)

And this cute clock for our bathroom.  $4.... I know :)

And my second favorite purchase (the chair is a definite 1st).  They are little pots that hang off our balcony.  I am finally a gardener.  I haven't killed them yet....

We also picked up this ottoman... from Target (Thanks Grandpa for the gift card!!!)

Around Town

Chris is finally done with his first year, the weather is beautiful, and we have gotten to do a few things around town that we have been wanting to do.  Life is good :)

One day after I got home from work, we took a stroll in old town.  The last time we were in old town we noticed an awesome sailboat docked at the marina.  They were giving free tours, so we thought... why not?

The boat was beautiful, and just as Chris and I decided this would be a pretty sweet way to live, we realized the people who did live on it may have been involved in cult of sorts.  Not judging... just saying...  Not what we were expecting ;)  Of course Chris wikipedia'd it as soon as we got home.  Let's just say we are glad we didn't decide to give up all our eartly possetions and hop on. 

More "around town" pics to come....

Wrapping Up the First Year

Well, with the end of the semester my life has been a bit of a whirlwind and thus it has been a while since I posted anything to the old blog. I am now in day three of my two week vacation before I start my internship, and with the novelty of doing nothing beginning to wear off, here is yet again another random post of my life as a law student in DC. First, a quick rundown of my life’s events for the past month or so: read, write a brief, argue the brief (three times), read some more, take some finals, and read. I am sure Lauren has truly enjoyed my company throughout the past several weeks…

As these events are very un-blog-worthy, I will instead briefly give a rundown of the few things that managed to provide an escape from studying and thus have been invaluable in keeping me (mostly) a normal, sane person. These are just a few of the little quirks that have distracted me enough from the books to keep me from snapping and that have become part of my daily routine.

Starbucks

I am now a full blown Starbucks heavy user. Nothing fancy, just a grande coffee each morning, but my routine has become regular enough that when I walk through the door every morning at 7:50 they say “Good morning, grande coffee?” without me having to order and everyone looks at me like “Wow, I wonder who that guy is…” (this probably isn’t that abnormal for them to memorize such an easy order but as a bright spot of my monotonous law-school life, I like to think I am pretty special). I have even become a Starbucks gold member, which pretty much doesn’t mean a whole lot except for that I get to use a fancy gold card each morning to pay for my coffee.

DC Sports Teams

Moving to a new city has allowed me to adopt all the local sports teams and thus (much to Lauren’s dismay) I have a whole lot more events to watch to distract me from studying. During finals, this provided a break from outlining by pulling up Slingbox on my computer and checking all the scores. I first started watching the Capitals, DC’s hockey team, in the Stanley Cup playoff. Of course, since I jumped on the bandwagon they promptly lost and left me with the Nationals and Royals to distract me from my studying. Having two baseball teams to watch has dramatically increased my win percentage, as only four times since opening day have the teams lost on the same night.

Dictionary.com

Dictionary.com has this little speaker icon that you can click on and it will say the word to you out loud so you know how to appropriately pronounce the word (this is highly addictive). Every time I come across a tough word in a case book, I take a little study break to have the nice electronic man on dictionary.com tell me the appropriate pronunciation. “Vior dire,” “stare decisis,” “comparable,” no problem, I know how to pronounce all of these (okay, most people probably wouldn’t have trouble with that last one, but spelling/vocabulary is definitely a weakness of mine).

Fantasy Golf

A carry over from our fantasy football league, I am part of a twelve man fantasy golf league. As there isn’t quite the hype surrounding fantasy golf as there is surrounding fantasy football, in order to compete you truly have to do your research. During the semester this obviously was a low priority, and thus I was holding solid in 8th place for most of the year. However, this has been a great escape from studying for finals (notice a pattern) and thus over the past five weeks of the spring season I have finished in the top three four times, now sitting in second place overall. My starting lineup for the Player’s Championship this week: Tiger (I think he’ll bounce back), K.J. Choi, Camillo Villegas, and Charl Schwartzel (my dark horse for the week).

Lauren’s Support

While these all provided an escape from hours of reading, I truly couldn’t have gotten through my first year without Lauren’s support. Every time I became overwhelmed (which seemed to be too often) Lauren reminded me to take everything one day at a time and I managed to weather the storm. And while I became a hermit over the past month, Lauren pretended it was no big deal that I was blatantly ignoring her. I had many quirks to keep me sane throughout the year, but without her support I truly would not have made it. Thanks Lauren, I love you!  And goodbye 1L year!  You were, ummmm, memorable?!

Chris Has a Job!!

This post is long overdue, but I wanted everyone in our blogging world to know that Chris landed an internship this summer!  He is way to modest to ever say anything, so I am bragging about him... and I totally can... I'm his wife ;).  I'm going to leave the name of the firm out of the post for privacy reasons (I am learning things everyday from my law-school hubby) BUT it is an intellectual property firm that has some pretty sweet clients.  One cool one starts with a N and ends with an IKE.  The firm is downtown and he will still ride the train everyday.

But Lauren, what are you doing this summer? (you may ask yourself).   Basking in the sun, going home for a few weddings, and traveling to Seattle with my mom.  I know.  I am a huge slacker... but super excited!  My last day of school is JUNE 25.  ughhh.  Who goes all the way through June anyway?  That is just crazy.
 

Houseguests

Recently we have had some visitors in our neck of the woods. It was so fun to show everyone around and share some of our new life with them.

Our first visitors were my dad and Marilyn. Joel is doing some training in DC for his new job and Hannah was visiting while everyone was here. We were able to meet Joel's family before their wedding day, which was so great! My dad and Marilyn loved Alexandria and even bought a beautiful trunk at the farmers market. Still figuring out how I am going to get it home to them :) We were able to try out some restaurants in old town that we were wanting to try and we found some great ones. My dad really loved all the history down-town and they were in town just in time for the start of the cherry-blossom festival. There were so many people in town and that made it really festive and fun. And of course, a trip to DC wouldn't be complete without homeless people asking you for money and then screaming at you after you give it to them. We were convinced my dad had "sucker" stamped on his face :)

The White House (Michelle said next time I could get a picture from inside the fence... :)

 The kite/cherry-blossom festival

Washington Monument

Later that week, the Moore's came to visit. They stayed at our tiny apartment, but they didn't seem to mind and we they got to try out our new blow-up mattress we got for our wedding. Andrew and Ali were troopers and we did A LOT of sight seeing. They both really liked just being outside around the monuments and soaking it all in. I think Andrew's favorite part was pub crawling around old town. One night, we ate at Old Ebbit Grill and went to the Big Hunt for drinks. Ali almost got hit by a woman that was very preturbed by a man selling oils on the train. Long story. Note to self.... don't take visitors on the train late at night. You never know what might happen. On Saturday we headed to Philly to check it out. We did all the normal touristy things. We even got a famous Philly-cheesesteak. That was Chris's favorite part of the trip... hands down. I got a few pics from the weekend, but Ali's are awesome! Click here if you want to see them. Andrew got her a new camera and her pictures turned out so well.

 Metro ride with Ali

Oh Abe...

The FIRST  National Bank - Philly (we took this one for Norman Dawson)

Betsy Ross' House - Philly

The Liberty Bell - Philly

Independence Hall - Philly (Where it all went down)

Rocky - Philly (That felt good...)

If any of this looks fun to you, come visit us! We never get tired of doing the touristy things. We learn something new every time :)