busiest finals week yet

this week has been downright nutty.  i spent most of monday and tuesday grading stuff, updating grade books, and giving finals.  today i went shopping in madison with my awesome friend erin, which was really fun but also quite necessary since my family's christmas celebration is happening on saturday.  tomorrow i have two meetings,  need to give another final, and have presents to wrap and more grading to do.  then i'm hoping on friday i can finish up as many final grades as possible, make some treats to take home, finish up shopping, and then head to marshalltown.  i think i will definitely need a break after this week alone!  i still managed to take a few pictures with my trusty iPhone.

the first one was meant to demonstrate to people who don't live in the Midwest exactly how cold it has been lately.  it might be hard to see, but the frost on my windshield was on the inside of my car.  it was there in the morning and i'd hoped that it would be gone by the time i left campus at 4:00.  not so much.  if anything there was more of it.  the temperature also reads about 11 degrees, though it was colder than that with the windchill.  gotta love using the scraper inside the car.

the second photo is from my shopping trip with erin.  since we were going to be in madison, we decided to eat at one of our favorite restaurants...CHIPOTLE!  sure, we could have eaten some thai food or indian food or some other type of food that is likely better in madison than dubuque, but we opted for this instead and i'm glad we did.  it was yum-tastic and i had a coupon for a free burrito that i needed to use in 2009.  didn't think i'd be cutting it this close.  :)





finally, on our shopping trip we stopped in H&M.  i went to one for the first time when i was in san francisco and found very little that i would actually be able to pull off wearing.  the same was true this time.  not only did i feel not trendy enough (or young enough) to be in there, but then i saw things like the next photo which truly horrified me.  yes readers, those are elastic-waisted acid-washed jeans that are tapered.  if this style is back again, then i'm happy to not be trendy.  :)

okay, so these photos don't quite put me on schedule with the photo project.  things have been busy with grading (i'm finally done!) and our family christmas.  i'm heading back to marshalltown tomorrow though so should be able to catch up on blogging and photo posting.