Today was my first volunteer outing with the Kappa Kappa Gamma Advisory Board and House Board for the Emory chapter. We spent the afternoon at a place called MedShare, where they organize, box and ship medical equipment to needy places around the world (Columbia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, etc.). We first began boxing up respitory supplies - ventilator tubes, oxygen masks, tracheotomy equipment. All sorts of things that looked very technical. It was a good feeling knowing that you were helping needy patients around the globe get the necessary things they need to recover. We then moved on to the urinary category and were sorting catheters and leg bags and all sorts of things that I wasn't too sure about touching at first. However, I guess like doctors do, we got a bit immune to it all after a while. Overall, it was a very fulfilling day! They take volunteers every weekend from 9-12 and 1-4, so I'm thinking I might head back over there another weekend. Or use my community service day at work to help out there.

Oops, I Thought It Was Real!?

Okay, I'm not sure why I'm the only person in America that actually believed that Britney could actually sing and dance - both at the same time. But, apparently I was wrong. If I had shut my eyes at the concert, I could have been driving down Dekalb Ave in Smokey rocking out to the SAME music. And the dancing, which totally could have swayed this opinion, was only minimal. However, the experience of the concert was not lacking. What Britney lacked in enthusiasm, all her fans picked up and ran with. It's something that I'm glad I did to say that I did it, but don't plan on doing again.

Oops, I Did It Again!

Tomorrow is not Thursday, but "Brit"day. I'm going to enter into total loser status, but I'm going to see the Britney Spears concert with three friends from work. Stay posted for details - and photos! ;)

03 x 03 = 09

Square root day is a humorous holiday celebrated on dates where the day and the month are both the square root of the last two digits in the current year. For example, the last square root day was March 3, 2009 (3/3/09), and the next square root day will be April 4, 2016 (4/4/16). The final square root day of the century will occur on September 9, 2081. Square root days fall upon the same nine dates each century. These goofy holidays can also be referred to as "Squared Day," as the date written out is like a mathematical equation. 03 x 03 = 09 (03.03.09)

One suggested way of celebrating the holiday is by eating square radishes, or other root vegetables cut into shapes with square cross sections.

I ran across www.goop.com over the weekend and am sort of intreagued by it. It's Gwyneth Paltrow's website, and while some of it is a bit over the top, there are some interesting bits of info. The most recent is about a book called, "Spent", detailing a theory about why we feel tired and worn out all the time. While I can just tell you without reading it that my problems have something to do with wine and deadlines, I'd be intereted to hear what an expert has to say ;)

So, while we were all sleeping off our wine on Saturday night, the SNOW clouds were moving in! I can't even begin to explain how long or how intensely I have been wishing for snow. The most intense pleas usually come on Christmas Eve. However, hope for a snow day with hot chocolate and snowmen any time of the year is a close second. Given that it turned March on Sunday, I had given up yet again for Winter 08/09. Little did I know what Sunday had in store for us.

After a restorative breakfast at Sun In My Belly, we all headed back to the house in amazement that the flakes were still falling. And they were HUGE!

Once we realized how much had actually accumulated - and that it was sticky snow - we didn't have much choice other than to build a snowman and throw an occasional snowball or two :)

It was a wonderful day of peaceful snowfall. The only thing that would have made it better was a snow day on Monday, but I'm going to be thankful for what I could get.

This weekend was the 7th Annual Oakhurst Wine Crawl. Cole and Nicole came all the way from Nashville for the event - and Rebekah and Jason all the way from Vinings (just kidding RT).

The original goal of the event was to get residents to familiarize themselves with all the retailers in the area. That being the case, there are tastings at some unique places like the hair salon, dog groomer, cleaners and auto parts store.

While it had been raining all day Friday, the weather cleared up for us on Saturday and let us enjoy the wine without a raindrop in sight.

Some of the highlights include:

• Wine tasings at Napa (not Valley) and the laundry mat
• Devising Cole's strategy to "lap" the route at least twice
• Pizza tasting at MoJo's Pizza
• The Fur Bus trip from Okahurst to Wahoo!
• Learning that gourmet dog treats not only look good - but are edible
• That I have, indeed, had Italian cheese before (That was from the farmer's market trip earlier in the day, but I had to include it.)
• Having such wonderful friends to help make such fun memories!