Slow and Steady We'll Find a Cure

Elise from the Attic is a weekly infrequent blog post from my sister Elise who is currently kicking up her heels and studying her ass off in Kentucky. She is a fashionista and a lunatic, but we love her. Mostly. Here is this week's edition of:

It must be the season of kindness. I wonder about the percentage of Kentuckians on happy pills compared to that of Ohioans... because seriously, these people never stop smiling. I understand the weather is beautiful, and sure, I like to be cheery too but, it just isn't normal for an entire state of people to only show one emotion.

Back to it being the season of kindness though. You obviously know about Saturday, which I am just oozing with excitement about.

I'll probably never use the word oozing again, it kind of grosses me out now that I re-read it.

Last Friday Delta Zeta kicked butt at Relay for Life Lexington. Our team was 1/3 of the total number of walkers, with more participants than any other team. We raised the most money too, over $3,000! We stayed outside in the cold from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and loved every minute of it.

Delta Zeta's mascot is the turtle, which is why I'm doing that weird motion in the picture below. But we're proud to be the turtles, we think of cheesy quotes to put on our t-shirts for basically every event we attend. For example, our Dance Blue t-shirts said, "Shell We Dance?". On this one, "Slow and Steady We'll Find a Cure".

This year we were lucky enough to recieve the honor of most involved in Community Service award from Panhellenic, the governing body of all sororities on campus! So, I'm sharing this as our act of kindness, hopefully starting a trend so you all can share your acts as well because I think, if it's all my sister is asking for on her birthday tomorrow, it's the least we can do!

Mary Katherine Gallagher and Salad Without Dressing

Elise from the Attic is a weekly infrequent blog post from my sister Elise who is currently kicking up her heels and studying her ass off in Kentucky. She is a fashionista and a lunatic, but we love her. Mostly. Here is this week's edition of:

I am a superstar.

No, I don't mean I fancy myself amazingly fantastic (though I wouldn't be quick to argue with someone who did).

What I mean is, I am highly attuned to taste. Supposedly, a quarter of the population experiences the four basic tastes, sweet, salty, sour and bitter, stronger than the other three fourths of the population, meaning a high amount of any one of these tastes could be unappetizing. And I kid you not, the chemists who discovered this phenomenon named this quarter of our population, in which I include myself, superstars. And yes, while I was reading this in my biology textbook I pictured Mary Katherine Gallagher, down on one knee, smelling her hands, etc.

But back to my point, my favorite flavor is bland. It bothers my culinarily gifted sister, who did a half ass job of hiding her annoyance with me last weekend as she served me a salad, aka bowl of plain lettuce, no croutons, no vegetables, no dressing.

Look at it this way my dear sister, you can now officialy take my disliking of your flavorful creations as a compliment. 

Just don't hate me because I'm a Superstar.

Snow Bunny Extraordinaire

Elise from the Attic is a weekly blog post from my sister Elise who is currently kicking up her heels and studying her ass off in Kentucky. She is a fashionista and a lunatic, but we love her. Mostly. Here is this week's edition of:

I am not a very athletic girl nor am I an outdoorsy girl. I tried every sport that was offered in grade school, but mostly because my friends did.

I purposely avoided eye contact with my teammates in the fear that they would pass me the basketball. I couldn't move without double dribbling.

When I ran cross country, I often got tired during a race and proceeded to stroll along, picking dandelions until I finally reached the finish line.

My parents loved coming to my soccer games to watch me practice cheerleading moves and dances while talking to myself on defense, where the coaches threw me because no one from the other team usually made it that far.

In the summer, I lay outside for a good ten minutes before running for the air conditioned house.

I hate hot weather, cold weather, wind, rain, fog and humidity.

All this considered, I signed up to go on my sorority ski trip last weekend though I had never been, and boy was that a sight.

I woke up earlier than should be legal with quite a headache from the night before. The ski and boot rental area smelled horrid and the boots dug into my shins. It took me a good hour to shuffle thirty feet in the frigid air to the bunny hill, but I was a trooper. The biggest hurdle was learning how to stop once I got going, which believe it or not, was quite a problem.

A few times I flew past the designated stop area my instructor had given us and had to scream for people to move out of the way if they wanted their life spared.

There were toddlers trying to show me the correct way to stop, that wasn't at all embarrassing...

No worries though, I was a master at the bunny hill by nightfall, a small feat for some, but a pride worthy accomplishment for a indoors kinda girl whose favorite sport is shopping.


Until Next Week,
Elise from the Attic

DANCEBLUE

Elise from the Attic is a weekly blog post from my sister Elise who is currently kicking up her heels and studying her ass off in Kentucky. She is a fashionista and a lunatic, but we love her. Mostly. 

This is a repost of  her amazing first guest blog here.  If you're interested in donating $5, you can text "DANCE" to 50555.  All proceeds go to the Golden Matrix Fund at UK's Pediatric Oncology Clinic.  Follow DanceBlue on Facebook.

Please take a moment to leave a comment for her to lend your support, if only in a few kind words. 

I can not tell you how proud I am to be your sister Elise Noel.   

For those of you who do not know me, I am Elise. You may think of me as Michelle's sweet, innocent, adoring baby sister...who tends to be a little messy, and make less than perfect decisions. If you only knew the abuse I have endured at the hand of my older sisters, (being paid pennies to drink pickle juice or being rolled up like a burrito in blankets until I could not breathe, a "fun game" as my sisters would refer to it) you would understand why I am the way I am...mind you this was before I towered over the both of them.

Bear with me, I'm going to try my very best but I have never blogged before.

This fall, I began my freshman year at the University of Kentucky. The campus is beautiful and I hear the basketball team is pretty good, though I am the rare student on campus that adores the William T. Young library more than I adore Coach Cal. As I was anxiously searching my brain for a topic to blog about I started to think about the rep that college students get as being selfish, impatient, rude, and self serving. Though this is very true in some cases, I for one can atest that I have not begun to thank my parents enough for working their tails off and sending me to to this amazing school, 5 hours away from home..now that I read that over I'm thinking maybe they've gotten more out of it than I first realized. But really, I'll have you know that we are not all party animals who care about nothing more than cheap beer and our social calendars. I introduce to you, DanceBlue.

On my life list currently is the ever so vague "put others first". Now let me explain how I plan to do that this year. First of all, the week I came to UK we watched some sort of promotional video for danceblue that made me tear up. Tearing up for me is not exactly a rare occurance, this is a trait I share with my sister Michelle, but the emotion this video portrayed made me tear up a little more than the everyday Romantic Comedy. I was moved. I knew that day that I wanted to participate in one of the two largest events on campus, DanceBlue. What is it? a 24 hour, no sit, no sleep dance marathon that raises money for the pediatric oncology clinic on UK's campus. Each dancer raises three hundred dollars to participate. Yes, we pay three hundred dollars to dance for 24 hours..straight. Why would I do this you may ask? Because I can, and I'll do it with a smile on my face for 24 hours for those who can't.

My first attempt at fundraising was the UK vs. Florida football game. One of my older sorority sisters handed me a can and instructed me to politely badger people to fill it. Now if you knew me this would be humorous because I am not the type to be extremely outgoing, especially when it comes to outright asking people for money. I took a deep breath, smiled awkwardly and hoped to God that drunk people would stumble by and their money would just happen to jump into my can. I grew a little more comfortable and actually started speaking instead of standing there looking like a mute with a can.

This past year, with the help of 500 dancers and countless donors, DanceBlue raised $600,888.82. Not including the fundraising that has already occured this year, DanceBlue has raised over $1,300,000 since its inception in 2005. SO, the point that has taken me 4 paragraphs to prove is this: It is not the basketball team that is ranked 5th in the nation nor is it the gorgeous library that makes me proud to be one of those "selfish and lazy college students" at the University of Kentucky. It is that number, along with the devotion, compassion, hard work and selflessness that has made it possible. So wish me luck March 5-6, as I will be dancing my behind off, raising money for Delta Zeta's adopted family, which inclues a sweet little 6 year old fighter named Leah. I will not sit or sleep and it will most definately be the most rewarding experience I have yet to experience.

Peace and love,

Elise

Maybe she's premed so she can take care of her geriatric booty call?

Elise from the Attic is a weekly blog post from my sister Elise who is currently kicking up her heels and studying her ass off in Kentucky. She is a fashionista and a lunatic, but we love her. Mostly. Here is this week's edition of:

Please don't hate me for bailing on you last week. I was stressed to the max and my brain was overflowing with evolutionary theories and sociological terms, nothing you would have enjoyed reading about, I promise.

While I was hitting the books hard at the library though I did allow myself the slight pleasure of a little good hearted eavesdropping. I didn't feel bad at all because the girl was in no way trying to keep her voice down though I was in plain sight five feet from her and the poor boy whose ear she was talking off. You can always tell the students who are just at the library for social reasons or doing some mundane work compared to those who are actually studying for an exam or a paper. I was obviously a member of the latter group; my hair was in a ponytail that I had thrown up three days prior, I was wearing blue sweatpants with the elastic at the ankles still in tact, black fuzzy socks and my off white moccasins. I hadn't even bothered to wash the scar cream from the previous night off of my forehead before leaving my room.  {Michelle here.  Allow me to interject just a minute... ummm the scar cream on her forehead was from a zit the size of Mt Vesuvius at New Year.  Dave named it.  Zeke.}

I know she noticed this at first glance but, she continued to talk about the man that she was secretly meeting up with and kept assuring this boy that he wasn't that much older. This poor guy had just thrown out a casual "hey" as he was walking past her to what I assume was the bathroom or the elevator. She intercepted him and then dumped her personal life on him and kept saying, "That isn't really slutty, right?" The guy nodded towards the book in front of her, I'm guessing he was trying his hardest to get her to go back to her studying but she just told him she was only studying bio, which according to her was just "like sooo boring". She proceeded to share that, after an hour she was going out to get hammered and drunk text her boyfriend wannabe, who I assume, isn't too far from collecting social security.

I was feeling pretty good about myself in comparison to this girl until she asked her friend what he finally declared as his major. He answered business and she literally went off about how lame he was and how only people who aren't even smart enough to be in college major in business and that sheee was premed.  I wondered what she would have said about me, seeing as I don't have a major... or any inkling of what it may be in the future. Then, I remembered this girl who was complaining about how totally lame bio was, planned on being a doctor. Apparently, only airheads study business and you don't have to enjoy, or have an interest in biology to be premed. I'm thinking ten years down the road if I find out this girl became a doctor after all I may boycott healthcare altogher.

Until Next Week,

Elise, From The Attic

The Butt Cake and The Attempted Robbery of My Converse Sneaker

Elise from the Attic is a weekly blog post from my sister Elise who is currently kicking up her heels and studying her ass off in Kentucky. She is a fashionista and a lunatic, but we love her. Mostly. Here is this week's edition of:

I am afraid to death of confrontation.

I avoid it at all possible costs. In fact, the things I do to avoid confrontation are quite irrational, and getting worse.

When I was little, I'd have my step mom tell my dad if I got a bad grade because I was afraid to tell him myself.

In Jr. High it elevated.

I once ordered a burger from McDonalds with ketchup only and when I got my burger with mustard, pickles etc., I walked away pretending to be satisfied before I begged my cousin to order me another. I don't know what I thought the less than meticulous McDonalds employee would do to me if I spoke up, but I was not going to take the chance.

My freshman year of high school, in French class we could make a dessert to share with the class for extra credit. I jumped on the idea and since it was Christmas time, asked my mom to make me the "Buche de Noel," a cake that had to be shaped and frosted to look like a log. She worked on this thing for hours and it was beautiful.

Well... I rode the bus in high school before I got my driver's license. The regulars of the public bus system I noticed, did not seem to be any more friendly than the McDonalds employee, as you can imagine. So I sat down, with the cake that my mother slaved over on a glass platter in a box next to me.

As I sat thinking to myself about how impressed my teacher would be with my extra credit, a man walked onto the bus. He was scary looking to say the least, dirty and scowling. And just guess which seat this man chose to sit his unclean behind on? The one that had been occupied by my gorgeous, time consuming, amazing cake, which was ON A PLATTER... IN.  A.  BOX.

I wish I was lying. Did I mention that there were MAYBE three seats on the bus that were taken? The man SAT ON MY CAKE, but the best part is...guess what I said to him?

Absolutely nothing.

We rode to school, twenty minutes, with this man sitting about four inches away from me on what was obviously not an empty seat. I was crying at this point.

My friends were sitting across from the man, the cake and I, laughing silently yet hysterically at the fact that I hadn't said a word and was silently weeping. The man looked over at me and said "Am I bothering you?" at one point, and I said no... I'm telling you, something is wrong with me.

{This is not my cake}

When we finally got to school one of my friends asked the man for my cake.  He stood up, handed it to her and asked me why I hadn't said anything... I ran off the bus. I had never laughed or cried harder in my life than when we opened that box as the bus pulled away to see a huge ass print in what was once a decadent log shaped cake.  Butt Cake.

I wish I could tell you that I was young and stupid, but the truth is I am now four years older... and still stupid.

A few months ago I was in the library, at a desk that sits four people, two on either side of a wall. You can't see the people across from you, but if you look under the desk, you can see their feet. Supposedly the two boys on the other side of the wall noticed me take my shoes off and thought it would be funny to take one of them.

I heard them talking about it and laughing but, I said nothing.  I didn't even move to see if I was missing a shoe until they left. I then looked over to my friend, who had been on the bus with me so many years ago, and explained the situation. She cried laughing as we searched the entire floor of the library for my shoe and eventually found it up on a shelf.

I would have walked back to my dorm shoeless before I would have told that shoe stealing bastard to back off my Converse.

As you can see, I am deathly afraid of confrontation and though it often puts me into unfortunate predicaments, I justify it to myself,  knowing that at least other people get a kick out of it. If you only knew my family, you would understand that I am the black sheep if there ever was one when it comes to speaking up.

I'm working on it.

Until next week,

Elise, From the Attic

The Fornification of Frogs

Elise from the Attic is a weekly blog post from my sister Elise who is currently kicking up her heels and studying her ass off in Kentucky. She is a fashionista and a lunatic, but we love her. Mostly. Here is this week's edition of:

I am questioning my sanity and the sanity of the Kentucky population.

First, my sociology teaching assistant, who moved here from China two years ago, went on for twenty minutes about how "our society puts us in chins" before I realized that he was saying chains.

As I was leaving that class, this guy stops me and asks me to point him to the journalism buliding. I guess he thought I looked nerdy enough that I would know where every class on campus is held... he was correct. But, as I'm pointing to a girl in the distance, using her as a reference in describing to him which way to go I said,  "See the blonde girl way up there?"   He responded with, "Oh yeah, the one with the hUGE ass? hahahahahaha," this guy was looking at me like I was going to laugh along and compliment him on his charm and wit.  It took every amount of class I have in me to restrain myself from beating him down right there on the sidewalk. He obviously did not look close enough to see the behind that my mother passed on to me.

The craziness does not end there my friends.

In Biology, my nut of a professor {who my friend and I have decided cannot possibly be married} decided to lecture on the fornification of species of toads and frogs. This, coming from a man who refers to himself as "rat bastard".  THE. MAN. CALLS. HIMSELF. RAT. BASTARD. PEOPLE! Anyway, before pulling out two large snakes from a bag at the end of the class to show us {for no obvious reason at all} he showed slides of frogs getting it on for an hour and fifteen minutes.

Is it creepy that I kind of found it really interesting though? If the answer to that question is yes, then I was just kidding.

But, to prove his theory that a frog will eat anything that moves and fits in its mouth and mates with anything that moves and doesn't fit in its mouth, he put his HAND in a pond in his back yard and watched three toads hump it for hours.... 6 hours to be exact. He said they would have gone for 12.

Naturally, he showed us the pictures.

I was beginning to think I was the only person on this campus with a semblence of sanity left...until I tried to pull the door open at the tanning salon for a good five minutes until realizing I was supposed to push. This is what I'm dealing with on a daily basis.....If I haven't lost my mind yet, it will undoubtedly happen soon.

Until next week,

Elise, From the Attic

Self proclaimed nerd.

Elise from the Attic is a weekly blog post from my sister Elise who is currently kicking up her heels and studying her ass off in Kentucky.  She is a fashionista and a lunatic, but we love her.  Mostly.  OK, sometimes.  Here is this week's edition of:

I am a self proclaimed nerd.

For example, I hoped and prayed that I would need braces and glasses when I was younger... until that day actually arrived. I'm that girl in class that gets a little too feisty when a professor decides to share stories of his weekend with the class, stalling the beginning of lecture. So bear with my nerdiness, because I am going to have to share with you my current college disappointment: Students come to class for all of ten minutes until attendance is taken, and then they retreat to their dungeons to sleep, Facebook, partake in mindnumbing activities, etc. After my sociology professor addressed the problem in class I started to think about how awful it is that education doesn't seem to be valued as much as it has been in the past.

I will admit that when I was a young, naive kindergardener who had not quite grown into the complete geek that I am today, my mother would ask me what I learned that day. I would give an annoyed groan, roll my eyes and maybe manage a vague answer. But, after seeing a quote that was something along the lines of "go to school, kids in China would love to have your job" years later, I realized what a complete ass I was for praying for snow/fog/torndados/water heater incidents, etc. every night before I went to sleep (after putting my pajamas on backwards and a spoon under my pillow). I realized that I was beyond lucky to be able to go to school. And although my mom hasn't asked me in years what I learned in school that day, I have since tried to make a conscious effort to ask myself.

I realize you're probably thinking why the hell should I take advice from someone who was arrested in an attic, but I encourage you to try to learn something new daily. It doesn't matter if you're learning a new recipe (this is just an example... NOT something I plan to actually take part in), one word from a different language, or how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

Ya know that saying that humans only use a portion of our brain? I was going to mention something about this, but out of curiosity I looked it up and we actually use 100% of our brains so there you go, your newly learned tidbit for today!

Until next week,

Elise, From The Attic

The Classy South

Elise from the Attic is a weekly blog post from my sister Elise who is currently kicking up her heels and studying her ass off in Kentucky. She is a fashionista and a lunatic, but we love her. Mostly. OK, sometimes. Here is this week's edition of:

I think I should start by thanking my lovely sister for finding such becoming pictures of me to include in the previous post. Needless to say, FJ will be allowed (if not encouraged) as many CapriSun lemonades as he can possibly down before bedtime next time Aunt Lisey babysits.

The before mentioned sister of mine has asked me to share my riveting life experiences with you weekly. Why, you ask? I wish I could say I live a quiet life as a sensible, level headed girl. But the truth is, my life is filled with these situations which tend to be rather funny anecdotes that I would love share at parties and other social functions if only I was not the subject of them. For example: I am currently using the library's computer because I reset the password to log in to my own and for the life of me have not been able to recall it. More examples include, but are not limited to, calling the cops on the paperboy at 4 am after watching him for an hour and coming to the conclusion that he was going door to door doing God knows what to my neighbors and soberly following a crowd of strangers up a set of pull down stairs into an attic at a party to hide from the cops. I dyed my hair dark two years ago to escape the ditzy blonde tag and am convinced that these mishaps are my previous hair color's way of retaliating.

But now, the collegy goodness I have for you this week.

Last night, I was dozing off after a few good episodes of Law and Order, until my ever so polite neighbors began arguing....about whether or not one peed on the others clothes...I fell asleep to the accused one screaming, "No, I did not piss on your clothes last night!!!...Or at least I don't remember it."  Classy southern belles, let me tell ya.

Oh, and an added bonus! As I write this in the library, a man sitting to my left who...how do i put this...doesn't quite look like the students (he's old) who usually inhabit the library said "you type dat fass??? daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn."

I love Kentucky.

Until next week,

Elise, From the Attic

Excited.

Well, hello.  Hi.  Howdy.  Hiya.
I'm excited. 

Despite the fact that my two year old is sitting there crushing chips in his {now greasy} little hands and making a huge mess. 

So excited.
 
Even though my house is a little bit like a disaster hit, a whole lot more like a tornado came through.

I'm dancing around like a maniac, in fact.

It isn't even because the Davester and I got to spend a blissful night having a date.  A real live date that involved copius amounts of pinot noir. 

Well what is it then, you ask?

Because of her.  {Go on, click on the link, I'll wait.} 

My littlest {even though she towers over me} sister, the author of this post and subject of many, is joining us once a week here on So Wonderful, So Marvelous.  Oh yes, all of the collegy goodness you can handle every Friday starting tomorrow.  Lord knows what she's going to talk about.

I'm excited and proud to introduce you to

Now we just have to settle on a profile pic...

I hope you're as excited as I am.

Heartless, Selfish College Students? I Think Not.

Hello!

For those of you who do not know me, I am Elise. You may think of me as Michelle's sweet, innocent, adoring baby sister...who tends to be a little messy, and make less than perfect decisions. If you only knew the abuse I have endured at the hand of my older sisters, (being paid pennies to drink pickle juice or being rolled up like a burrito in blankets until I could not breathe, a "fun game" as my sisters would refer to it) you would understand why I am the way I am...mind you this was before I towered over the both of them.

Bear with me, I'm going to try my very best but I have never blogged before.

This fall, I began my freshman year at the University of Kentucky. The campus is beautiful and I hear the basketball team is pretty good, though I am the rare student on campus that adores the William T. Young library more than I adore Coach Cal. As I was anxiously searching my brain for a topic to blog about I started to think about the rep that college students get as being selfish, impatient, rude, and self serving. Though this is very true in some cases, I for one can atest that I have not begun to thank my parents enough for working their tails off and sending me to to this amazing school, 5 hours away from home..now that I read that over I'm thinking maybe they've gotten more out of it than I first realized. But really, I'll have you know that we are not all party animals who care about nothing more than cheap beer and our social calendars. I introduce to you, DanceBlue.

On my life list currently is the ever so vague "put others first". Now let me explain how I plan to do that this year. First of all, the week I came to UK we watched some sort of promotional video for danceblue that made me tear up. Tearing up for me is not exactly a rare occurance, this is a trait I share with my sister Michelle, but the emotion this video portrayed made me tear up a little more than the everyday Romantic Comedy. I was moved. I knew that day that I wanted to participate in one of the two largest events on campus, DanceBlue. What is it? a 24 hour, no sit, no sleep dance marathon that raises money for the pediatric oncology clinic on UK's campus. Each dancer raises three hundred dollars to participate. Yes, we pay three hundred dollars to dance for 24 hours..straight. Why would I do this you may ask? Because I can, and I'll do it with a smile on my face for 24 hours for those who can't.

My first attempt at fundraising was the UK vs. Florida football game. One of my older sorority sisters handed me a can and instructed me to politely badger people to fill it. Now if you knew me this would be humorous because I am not the type to be extremely outgoing, especially when it comes to outright asking people for money. I took a deep breath, smiled awkwardly and hoped to God that drunk people would stumble by and their money would just happen to jump into my can. I grew a little more comfortable and actually started speaking instead of standing there looking like a mute with a can.

This past year, with the help of 500 dancers and countless donors, DanceBlue raised $600,888.82. Not including the fundraising that has already occured this year, DanceBlue has raised over $1,300,000 since its inception in 2005. SO, the point that has taken me 4 paragraphs to prove is this: It is not the basketball team that is ranked 5th in the nation nor is it the gorgeous library that makes me proud to be one of those "selfish and lazy college students" at the University of Kentucky. It is that number, along with the devotion, compassion, hard work and selflessness that has made it possible. So wish me luck March 5-6, as I will be dancing my behind off, raising money for Delta Zeta's adopted family, which inclues a sweet little 6 year old fighter named Leah. I will not sit or sleep and it will most definately be the most rewarding experience I have yet to experience.

Peace and love,
Elise

Follow DanceBlue on twitter!

http://twitter.com/ukDanceBlue