Hair Spaghetti

The other night the boy got out of the shower with a very profound thought, "That conditioner you use is really just like olive oil." Umm, what? Yeah it made no sense to me either, so I asked if he could elaborate a little. "See you add olive oil to spaghetti to get the strands to stop sticking together. And you add conditioner to your hair to get the strands to stop sticking together. It's the same thing"

"I guess I see how they're similar, but that's not all conditioner does."

"You should still just save money and use olive oil in your hair," he replied back.

"That's crazy! It would make my hair all oily. They may have a similar function, but there are definitely not even close to the same thing. I would never want to put olive oil in my hair"

Do you know what he did then? Out came the conditioner bottle so he could look at the ingredients. Can you guess what one of the ingredients to my conditioner is? Wouldn't you know they use "Olive Fruit Oil" in it. The boy wanted to be sure I mentioned that he was righteously vindicated and that olive oil and conditioner are practically the same thing. However, I don't plan on taking olive oil into the shower with me anytime soon!

~Shoshanah

My Da Vinci Code

If you're new here, today's is a Where in the World Wednesday hosted by Classy in Philadelphia. The point is for you to share a picture of yourself somewhere in the world. It doesn't have to be foreign or tropical, just somewhere that you consider traveling. Today I'm taking everyone to...
The Louvre in Paris, France
These were taking on my study abroad trip in Summer 2005. We spent three weeks in class in Avignon, and at the end of the trip most of us traveled to Paris to spent a few extra days before flying back to the States. On my last day there I made sure we all went to the Louvre. This was technically my second time there, the first when I was just a year old. Which really means this is the only time that counts. I was so excited to be there and took tons of pictures of all the different artworks and sculptress. I've posted just a few of my favorites below.

Winged Victory

Egyptian Sarcophagi

The Crowning of Josephine

Miniature SphinxesAnd one last picture of myself posing with one of the pyramids outside.
If you're looking for more Where in the World Wednesday posts, be sure to head over to Classy in Philadelphia. Or if you'd prefer, you can see Where in the world I've been here.

~Shoshanah

Sweet As Candy

L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad
This book tells the completely fictional tale of Jane, a girl who just moved to L.A., winds up being discovered, and shooting a reality show with 3 of her closest friends. Except she never realized this silly little reality show would make her famous, and what being famous would be like.

But let's get real. Even though the start of the book includes a disclaimer that "characters and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as 'real,'" it's pretty obvious that the book is based on Lauren Conrad's experience with both Laguna Beach and The Hills. It isn't exactly what happened, but most definitely is based on reality. (Probably in the same form that The Hills is based on reality.) It's interesting to read about how Lauren Jane receives text messages from the producers telling her things like to repeat herself or to act more into her date. Or how they would have to wait enter or leave a place just so the production had time to set up. I get the feelings that these small things definitely happened.

It was also interesting to read in the book how the tv show set them Jane and her roommate Scarlet up with two other friends. I'm pretty sure that's close to what happened on the show as well. I was a little surprised that there wasn't really a Whitney character in the book. Instead Heidi seemed to be split over 2 of the casts members.

Overall, it was a fun book. I would definitely be willing to read the sequel.

~Shoshanah

P.S. And speaking of Lauren Conrad, I can't wait to see the season premier of The Hills tonight. I'm really curious as to how the whole reaction over Heidi's surgery is going to good. It wouldn't be surprised in there's pretty record high numbers this season with what happened, and it wouldn't surprise me if that was part of the reason why Heidi had her surgeries in the first place.

Monday Movie Review

The Losers
I'll let you know upfront that I didn't really want to see this movie, but there really wasn't a whole lot of other options. It's a pretty cookie-cutter action movie. A team of good guys gets framed for something bad and they have to get the bad game in order to redeem themselves. They do try to have a twist at the ending, but overall the movie still felt awfully predictable. There were a few funny moments (one especially right before the end of the credits) and a few entertaining actions scenes as well. For someone who loves action films they probably would have loved it, but for me it was more of an ehhh. I have a feeling The A-Team, which I'll probably be dragged to see in a few weeks, will have a similar feel but overall will still be a better choice than this one.

~Shoshanah

The Thunder Rolls

The weathermen had predicted that we were going to have some crazy weather this weekend. To the point that a few events that were supposed to happen on Saturday were canceled or rescheduled. But you know how it is with weather, you never know what's going to happen.

Well this time they were right. Friday night (or really early Saturday morning) the thunder and lightning were so loud that it woke me up. And I do mean the thunder AND lightening were loud. Yes, the thunder was defining, but the lightning was close enough that you could seriously hear its electric sizzle. I definitely don't' ever remember thunder and lightening this loud back in California!

I tried to sleep through it, until the lightening literally must have struck in our backyard. The entire bedroom lit up in this blue-ish tone, and the house seemed to actually shake. I jumped out of bed it was so ridiculously loud. I probably would have stayed up, except after checking my phone it was only 5:30, so I went back in bed hoping to fall back asleep.

I did actually manage a few more hours, until the crazy weather woke me up yet again. This time it was at least 8:30. Not a crazy hour, but still far before the 10am start I normally get on a Saturday. I figured at this point after the rain had already woke me up twice, I didn't want to try for a third time.

It poured throughout most of the day, and even when there wasn't actual rain coming down it was still dark and cloudy outside. And today?

Well, we have a complete 180. It's nice and bright and sunny outside. To the point that I'm now heading out there to get a few tanning hours in before the weather decides to turn once again!

~Shoshanah

Flashback Friday - Senoir Year

Check out my freshmen year of college.
Check out my sophomore year of college.
Check out my junior year of college.

The past few weeks I've been flashing back over my years at college. As you can tell from the links above, we're officially at my senior year. I had my digital camera this year so there's no shortage of photos to choose from.
I turned 21 my senior year, which meant most weekends were spent out at the bar. I never had a fake ID, so this was really the first time I was hitting up the bar scenes. Some of our favorite were on Thursday nights when ladies night was at one bar and dollar bottles was across the street.
Again I played on the soccer team for what as probably last season of my life.
This was taken on our Senior day. You can tell by the "We Love our Seniors" poster in the background. And the following picture was the team at our spring athletic banquet.
This year I went on my first ever (and last ever) spring break trip to the Florida Keys.
And as you've heard about in my previous flashbacks there were the college traditions such as Gala...
and GIG. This year in honor of the fact that we were all graduating we had our so-called future profession printed on the back. There was a bit of a fail taking this picture so you could actually read the back. But I'm the mathemagician on the left.
And as you'd expect with senior year there was graduation. (I'm in 0 in the '06.)
Looking through these old pictures has been a lot of fun for me, and I'm hoping fun for you as well. It's hard to believe this May it will have been 4 years since graduation, which means I've officially been out of college for just as long as I was in college. It's a little crazy considering it just feels like yesterday. Anyone else feel like life just flies by after graduation?

~Shoshanah

Show Us Your Life: How We Met

The week's edition of Kelly's Korner's Show Us Your Life is to tell the story of how you meet your husband or fiance. Well, I'm not married nor am I engaged, but I do have a boyfriend. This fall we'll have 4th anniversary, and if everything goes the we we've planned at some point several years down the line he might hold that title.

I actually started telling the story of how we met and started dating last year. I promised Crazy Shenanigans, that my New Year's Resolution would be to tell the next chapter of this saga. So with this week's Kelly's Korner theme I though this would be a great time. If you're new here be sure to check out the links to the first few chapters below.

For our fourth official date (or third from his point of view) we went to the race track. The boy's parents raise quarter horses, and this night one of their horses happened to be running. The plan was to place a few $1 dollar bets, eat some food, and watch a few races. He told me we might run into his parent's there, but we could try to avoid them. And sure enough there was a moment when his dad walked right by us not noticing.

Not too long after we were there, the boy's sister called asking him if he wanted to see a movie with her and her husband. The boy's always been a big movie person so people would tend to call him whenever they went, knowing they could always count on him to say yes. Except this time he had to say no. Since this was somewhat out of character for him, she curiously asked where he was.

"You're at the racetrack? By yourself?" I'm sure the response must have gone.
"No, I'm here with a girl."
Not too long after that, he handed the phone to me. "She wants to talk to you." Now, I honestly don't remember what we said. I'm sure nothing more than a hello, but clearly she was curious about this new girl his brother was dating.

Acting as any younger sister would, she immeadiatly called their mother to let her in on what was happening. If she wasn't able to met this new girl her brother was dating she at least wanted someone to. Which meant not long afterwards the boy received a call from his mom. Turns out that while we were standing at the track itself, his parents were the on the second floor of the building almost directly behind us. We waved hello, and since we were officially spotted headed upstairs so I could meet his parents for the first time.

We spent the rest of the night watching the races a table with his parents, one of the couple friends, and the couple's 4-or-5-year-old son. (If your curious their horse wound up losing its race that night.)

But that isn't the end of the night, because he still had to take me home. He took me back the apartment, and that night, the night that I first met his parents, we shared our first kiss. We said goodnight, and I went on-line eager to share the details of the night with my best friend. We were already chatting on AIM (remember those days?), when I heard a knock at the door. I opened it up to find...

Yes, this is how I'm ending this one. Don't you love a cliffhanger? Have you ever had your first kiss after you've already met their parents? If you're here from Kelly's Korner thanks for stopping by! Otherwise, be sure to head over to Kelly's Korner to here more "How We Met" stories. I had a feeling this is going to be a great week with some great stories.

~Shoshanah

Part 1:We Meet in Math Class
Part 2: We Get to Know Each Other
Part 3: The First Date
Part 4: We Start to Date

In the City that Never Sleep

For this week's edition of Classy Philadelphia's Where in the World Wednesday I'm bringing it way back to 8th grade. These picture were taken our our temple's 8th grade trip to...
New York City

We did all the standard touristy things like the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, and Ellis Island.
They even took us to see a Broadway play.The Diary of Anne Frank. Pretty perfect considering this was a trip through our temple, right? Here's a picture of the cast painted on the side of the theater.
At least it's most of the cast. Clearly my 13-year-old photo taking abilities weren't that amazing. But do you notice anyone familiar in that picture?
Natalie Portman started as Anne Frank! This was about a year before Star Wars: Episode 1 was released. So she had been in a few movies at the time, but she wasn't really that famous. But I can officially say I saw Natalie Portman act before she got famous.

Have you ever seen an actor before they got famous? Or what Broadway plays have you seen?

~Shoshanah

Professor Plum in the Library with the Rope

You can officially say that about our house now. Not that there's some type of murder mystery here. Nor because we know a Professor Plum, (but the boy is working on his Phd, so I guess you could call him a professor). But we do have rope, and we now officially have a library.
This is the view when you first enter the room. The wall unit was in my bedroom growing up. When my parents drove out here a few weeks ago, the wall unit was on piece of furniture that came with them. And what's that you see in the upper left corner?
Why yes, that is my American Girl collection from yester-year. There's a few items that haven't made their way from California, but these are all of my actual dolls.

Moving clockwise throughout the room, here's the end of the wall unit.
There's an almost empty bulletin board, and underneath are a few children's book and stuffed animals to hopefully distract the boy's niece from the AG dolls high above.

To the left is a window, closest, and another bookshelf.
We're thinking that at some point we might want to add a desk in front of the window. Are you curious about the blue square in the bottom right? It's actually a chair that folds out into a single bed.
Which brings us back to the door into the room.

Even though there are a ton of shelves in here, its crazy how easily we filled them. I tried to leave a little bit of room to add books, but it's a good thing that's a few places with doors, because you have no idea how many books are hiding in there! I did try to keep a least keep the books somewhat organized. The books on the left are the boy's fantasy books, and the right are my chick lit type books. You can practically tell just by the colors of the sections. The bottom shelves are mainly textbooks, and the boy really wants to turn the empty wall into a chalkboard that he can use to do math problems.

Overall, it's not perfect, nor is it completely finished, but I really like the way it turned out. It's nice to finally have a place to put all of our books, and I can officially say that I live in a house with a library. (Yes, you could call it an office, but I'd much prefer library!)

Anyone else have a library in your house? Or how do you store the books that you own?

~Shoshanah

Time to Kick Ass

Kick-Ass
When I first starting seeing previews for the movie I thought it was a kid's movie. After all their were kids in it, and with the bright colors it made sense. But luckily, I learned a little bit more about the movie before I saw it, otherwise I would have been in for a harsh surprise.

This movie answers the question of "What if one day you just decided to become a superhero?" Say you're an average teen, but you decide to don a costume and fight crime. Sure it sound good in theory, but think about what would happen the the real world if you tried this. All those awful things you imagine do actually happen in the movie. I was cringing practically the entire time during the movie, almost hiding behind my hands. The isn't just a case of action movie violence, instead it feels like real life violence with real people (kids even!) involved.

Even though parts of the movie were a bit unsettling, I still really enjoyed it. But the high point for me was Chloe Moretz as hit-girl (who was also in The Diary of a Wimpy Kid recently). As much as I enjoyed her in the movie, I'm also a little sad that they had to put an actress that young through everything in this movie. But after her performance I do see big things coming for her. She could easily be the next Dakota Fanning or Abigail Breslin.

This was definitely the Kick Ass Start of the summer I've been waiting for. It's only April, but after this I feel like I can officially say summer movie season has begun!

~Shoshanah

Getting to Know You

I'm doing something a little different today, and I'm participating in Manland5' Getting to Know You Sunday!

1. Mens chests..hairy or hairless? More on the less hair, but not to the point of shaving or waxing.

2. How often do you run red lights? Very rarely, especially since living in Louisiana where yellow light are ridiculously long.

3. If you could raid any celebrity's closet..whose would you raid? As awful as it sounds, I really don't pay attention to clothes or fashion. So I really can't come up with one celebrity or another whose look I really like.

4. Would you rather have more followers/friends on Facebook, Twitter, or your Blog? I've been on facebook since college, and back than I made a point to add absolutely everyone I had ever met. So since I already have so many friends, I don't make a big deal about adding new ones. With twitter (@shoshanahg) I tend to add blog friends, or friends I'm particularly close to in real life. I'm not a huge fan of random strangers following my twitter since I haven't yet made it private. And so my blog, I love having new followers. SO I guess the short answer is my blog.

5. What makes you feel sexy? I love Victoria's Secret underwear. Especially anything from their very sexy line.

6. I get excited when...........? When it's warm outside and I can lay out and tan. Unfortunately it's a little too overcast for that today.

7. Are you the "outdoorsy" type or more "indoorsy"? In general, I'd say indoorsy. But I have my outdoorsy moments.

8. Would you rather have your dream home or a million dollars? Considering my absolute dream home would be worth over a million, I'd say dream home.

~Shoshanah

Sookie Stackhouse #5

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris
The start of this book has Sookie's brother Jason dealing with the consequences of the evnts in Dead to the World. (Talk about trying to avoid a spoiler with that line.) The big mystery in the book, it that someone is shooting "shifters" (a.k.a. people who can change into animals), and since a lot of Sookie's friends are shifters she wants to get to the bottom of it all. Also this book introduces us to a pirate vampire, and in the midst of it all the werewolves are electing a new packmaster.

I did really enjoy this one, but this is the first time that I haven't felt this book was the best of the series. Not to say I didn't enjoy it, but that it wasn't my favorite out of the books in the series. I don't think the book are going to go downhill from here, and do think it's possible to find a new favorite by the series end. But right now, I'd still list Dead to the World as my favorite.

While the end of the book wrapped up the main mystery (as all of these books do), part of the ending was really sad. I wouldn't go so far as saying I was disappointed with the way it ended. But I do hope that things turn around for the better with the next book in the series!

~Shoshanah

Flashback Friday: Junior Year

Check out my freshmen year of college.
Check out my sophomore year of college.

In case you missed it, the last few weeks, after being inspired by Amber, I've been flashing back over my years at college. You can catch on on the first two years with the links above. Which brings us to Junior Year!
This year I started hanging out with a big group of girlfriends. I had known them all since I started college, and had hung it with some throughout, but this is the first year we started all hanging out together. This is a bunch of us at one of the first parties of the year.

My favorite part of Junior year was easily our off-campus housing. We were technically in campus housing, just across the street from school. It was a bit of a pain not having a car, but because so many students lived in these off campus they set up shuttle service to campus that I used quite a bit.
This was taken in our apartment's kitchen Halloween. And the following picture was taken in one of the bedroom's following an indoor water fight. (We had two bedrooms in our apartment, this one was shared by me and one roommate. The second was a single room for our third roommate. And while there's 3 people in this picture, only one of them was actually my roommate.)
But my favorite part of the apartment was the living room. One of my roommates' parents sent us a living room set. These were pretty much the most comfortable couches ever, and I still miss them. But unfortunately I don't seem to have any good pictures of the couches or the living room to share with you all.

Each year I've shared a picture from Gig, and this year is no exception.
We all went out and bought matching sweatshirts and ironed on our superheros on the back. It's kind of hard to read, but I'm Elastagirl on the far right.

Junior year I also finally got to participate in another of our college's big traditions.
Without any Sorority's or Fraternities at our college, their weren't a lot of random formals. But the school did sponsor the prom-like Gala. It wasn't just for upperclassmen. However tickets were first sold to Seniors, then Jrs, and so on. So unless an upperclassmen bought tickets for you, most years it was hard to go if you were a sophomore or a freshmen.

I was still playing soccer for the school.
I realize this is a slightly dark photo, but I wanted to share since you can almost see our locker room here. Here's a slightly better picture of the team taken at our end of the year athletic banquet.
Notice anything about that last picture? It's digital! A big milestone of my Junior year was that I got my digital camera. A camera that made random photo shoots a Coldstone's possible.
And overall seemed to change my picture taking habits.

I hope you've been enjoying these flashback Friday posts. If I'm being honest, I'm going to be a little sad to see them end with my senior year post next week. But till then, what was your Junior year of college like? And when did you get your first digital camera?

~Shoshanah

More Nanny Diaries

Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
I loved The Nanny Diares when I first read it, and was so excited to hear that they were coming out with a sequal. Except most of the reviews haven't been very good, so I've been putting off reading it. I just didn't want to be disappointed. But I finally sucked it up, and started reading. I'm really glad I did because despite all the reviews I loved it.

Nanny Returns finds Nan (turns out that's her real name!) back in NYC 12 years later with her husband Harvard Hottie (real name Ryan) after traveling the world. She's opened some sort of consulting company, and winds up getting a job at one of the elite high schools in town. And as you would expect in this sequal, she winds up mixed up in the X family's (a.k.a the family she used to nanny for) drama again.

It's been several years since I read the first, so there was a lot of details I couldn't quite remember. Considering this book does take place 12 years after the first, it seemed to make sense. But I also think that might be one reason I enjoyed the book. I do think it's possible that if I remember the first book a little more clearly this might not have lived up to my expectations.

But it so clearly did. Every chapter seemed almost like a cliffhanger for me. At the end of each it was really hard for me to stop, and most times I found myself saying "just one more," after all I read the book in less than a week. Part of me wants another sequal, but I do think that by the books end there was a comforting amount of finality between Nanny and the Xes.

So even though the reviews might not have been very favorable, I'm still a big fan. Maybe if you've been trying to decide to read it or not, this will give you the little nudge to make it actually happen!

~Shoshanah

Just Beachy

It's another Where in the World Wednesday, and I'm continuing my beach crawl. This week finds us at...
Bolsa Chica Beach, California

This was taken Summer 2006, only a few days before I moved to Louisiana.

One of my favorite aspects about this beach is that there's bonfire pits on the sand. There were many times growing up where we'd head to Bolsa Chica for a bonfire. You'd normally get there early in the day to enjoy the sun, but after the sun went down you'd hang out around the fire roasting marshmallows in sweatshirts. In general, the fire pits were in high demand, and this day in August we didn't quite get there early enough to stake out our own pit. But even without a fire, we still had a great day at the beach.

If you're looking for more Where in the World Wednesday posts, be sure to head over to Classy in Philadelphia. Or if you're curious, you can see Where in the world I've been here.

~Shoshanah

Calling All Gleeks

Anyone else excited that Glee returns tonight! I can't wait to watch it! Along with all of my other shows tonight. Somehow Tuesday night has turned into my prime tv watching night. I don't own a Tivo, or any other live recording device, which means I'll be trying to flip back and forth between as much shows as possible. I had gotten it down to an art, knowing to change the channel during Biggest Loser work-out scenes, and that by listening to one judge on American Idol I pretty much knew what they all said. But adding Glee into the mix, changes things up a bit. But at least it's a change I'm excited about! Here's my schedule, so you can try to follow along! (All times central, since that's my current time zone.)

7:00-9:00 - The Biggest Loser
7:00-8:30 - American Idol
8:00-8:30 - 19 Kids & Counting
8:30-9:30 - Glee
9:00-10:00 - Parenthood
9:00-10: - 16 and Pregnant (Although this repeats immediately after, so it might make more sense to watch it on the second airing.)

Anyone else planning on watching any of these shows? Or even maybe them all?!?! And of course, whose excited to watch Glee tonight?

~Shoshanah

The Unofficial End of Winter

This past weekend was my first time laying out in the new backyard. This was made possible by the fact that while my parents were here, they gifted me with my very own lounge chair. Which means we now officially have lawn furniture. So both on Saturday and Sunday I headed out to the backyard with the necessities to catch skin cancer the natural way.

The necessities being 3 magazines, 1 book, 1 cellphone, 1 ipod, 1 Vanilla Coke, and 1 box of Cheez-it. What? Are those not quite what you consider necessities? Please ignore the dead plants in the background. They have noting to do with my poor gardening ability, instead the cold winter killed them.

Speaking of a cold winter, this has really been the first weekend where it's been warm enough to lay out and tan in the backyard. And there were even a few times where the clouds would cover the sun, and it started to feel a little chilly.
Compared to this post last year, when I had already laid out by February 7! Over a 2 months difference!

But warm weather is finally here, and even if it's a little late, I will definitely be taking advantage of it! Anyone else experiencing bathing suit weather yet? Or is it still not quite warm enough where you are?

~Shoshanah

It's Date Night

Date Night
I feel like with the warm weather outside, we should be starting to get into the summer blockbusters. But while the movie was enjoyable it wasn't quite a summer blockbusters. (But some of the previews! The new Sex and the City 2 trailer came with this one! Now that's a summer blockbuster.)

Back to Steve Carrell and Tina Fey. While it might not have been a huge event movie, it was still really enjoyable. A couple whose somewhat scared their marriage has gotten a little too predictable decide to change things up for their normal date night. Except their date night changes a little more than expected.

The were, as expected, a lot of hysterically funny parts. But how could their not with these two actors. Besides the two leading actors there were a few good cameos as well. I really enjoyed Mila Kunis bit. The best though, was Mark Wahlberg who spent the entire movie shirtless.

All in all it was an enjoyable movie. But I think, after seeing it I'm more excited about movies to come in the next few months than this movie itself.

~Shoshanah

Flashback Friday: Sophomore Year

Check out my freshmen year of college.

I'm back with another Flashback Friday, this time bringing it back to my sophomore year of college! A big memory of this year was our success on the soccer team. My freshmen year our record was horrendous where we didn't win a single game. But this year we wound up finishing over .500. We actually had the biggest turn-around in the NCAA that year.
Here's a bunch of the soccer girls watching the men's team playing.

While our conference was one where everyone made it to the end of the season tournament, this year we actually felt like we had a chance of winning. Our coach arranged for us to go away for the weekend, which made the the game even more exciting. The plans we to leave for the game on November 1st. We had actually missed Halloween the night before due to a game, so instead the entire team showed up to the dinning hall for our last meal before leaving in costume, on the day after Halloween. (I'll be really impressed if anyone can actually find me in this picture!)
Yes, we wound up winning this game. Although we lost the following game in the conference semis. But it was the furthest the team went all four years I was playing.
Here's one more picture of the team at our end of the year sports banquet.

I posted a little about GIG last week, our big school wide field day. Its the type of day where students actually start drinking in their morning classes, and all the professors know exactly what's happening. So with all this craziness going on, there's bound to be pictures.
This is a relatively tame shot, compared to all the debauchery that can go on, on such a day.

This is me in my dorm room on my 19th birthday.
I'm posing with flowers my best friend sent my while she was studying abroad in London.

Speaking of which, I was actually able to go to London over Thanksgiving break to spend some time with her.
Here we are on my first night there, in some English pub.

Last week I wrote about how close my roommate and I become freshmen year. While we didn't live together sophomore years, we were next door neighbors, and stayed close throughout all the ups and downs of the year.
This was actually taken the very last night of freshmen year on the roof of our dorm!

I hope you're all enjoying the trip down my memory lane, but I'd love to hear some of your memories as well. What do you remember most from your sophomore year of college?

~Shoshanah