Marscapone Mania - Lately it has been a little bit crazy in Maghanoy.com world, I've been busy flunking midterms, dealing with backed-up plumbing (AGAIN!) etc. etc., you know pretty much par-for-the-course small scale disasters. But thankfully to break up the drama, there were some guest stars this week to stir up some Maghanoy.com Madness.

Here is the first special guest and I engaging in some inappropriate restaurant activity. Note to self: Choose more flattering poses when fake-knife fighting with your brother at a fancy restaurant.

My younger brother Wes is a lot younger than me, so most of my friends remember him as being a toddler but it seems I'm getting old because my baby brother graduated from college last week. I think Justy put it best "Isn't Wes like 10 years old?" Unfortunately no, he's not 10 anymore, he's 20 which makes me..... older. :) Anyways, he came up last week to celebrate with his gf Katrina. Katrina and I are blogger friends, from like forever, or last week. She brought me cupcakes.

They were lemon iced with a marscapone-strawberry filling. So obviously, Katrina is now my new best friend. Note to readers: Maghanoys our easily won over by offerings of food. After eating cupcakes we spent the week engaging in Maghanoy family traditions such as eating copious amounts of food and ganging up with Katrina against Wes! As usually family time is used for "sympathizing" with Arnold about all my less desirable qualities, I did enjoy the opportunity to cap on Wes with Katrina. Apparently Katrina's sister enjoys this game too, she likes to compare Wes to a fictional "BMW guy". As in "I don't know Katrina, maybe you should've gone with BMW guy"

Another advantage of visiting guests is the opportunity to be decadent under the guise of "celebrating". On this trip we were celebrating Wes' graduation and Katrina's straight A's. These are big accomplishments, so it was pretty much mandatory that we go get European hot chocolate at Ginger Elizabeth's. Wes allegedly is not into sweets, but two days later he said "I'm still thinking about that hot chocolate." To which I reply "So am I Wes, so am I."


I don't know, they're pretty cute together? Katrina, maybe you should let BMW guy down gently and stick with Wes.

HopeThursday night there is an important service that kicks off official Easter celebrations for the Catholic church. It's the commemoration of the last supper and the start of memorial of Jesus' three days of death. At our church there is a very beautiful service where each attendee washes the feet of another person to remind us to serve and love one another. For me, this is one of my favorite times of year. I love new beginnings and starting over, it is an important part of Christianity and has always been the saving grace in my life.

Last year at this time, Arnold had just been in a very serious car accident and we attended the service with my parents who had come up to help. I had also just started the job which would lead to they "Cymbalta period" that would occupy most of 2008. Also, around this time last year Nabil Garas died. Last year was definitely a period of mourning losses, of dealing with things one day at a time. I live in constant dread and anxiety anticipating moments like that Thursday last year, when things are going badly. I'm essentially a positive person, but constant anxious worry is a family trait that I can't seem to quit. That's not to say that last year was negative, I was actually quite happy to have my parents visiting and happy just to have Arnold alive in an accident that could've been much more serious.

But this year at church, I am remembering to be hopeful too, because it is not just the bad that is lurking in the future, the good is waiting to surprise you too. The day after that Thursday service last year, Arnold and my parents found our house. And this year around, my family has a lot to celebrate, Randy's great success, my cousin Heidi's finalized adoption, my younger brother graduating from college. On this Easter weekend, I feel like celebrating the possibilities and remembering that life brings joy as unexpectedly as pain.

I feel hopeful. :)

A little while ago, I was in a job situation that was very stressful. I like to call this period "Cymbalta Emily" because I would watch Cymbalta commercials and spontaneously burst into tears. Well, in addition to Cymbalta commercials I watched a lot of other tv because tv numbs your soul against troubles. It is like free Cymbalta for low-grade non-clinical depression.! Anyways I was watching tv in some hotel room somewhere in the US (aforementioned job required a lot of travel) and I found this awesome CNN show called the "Big Idea with Donny Deutsch". The whole show is about telling the story of how people have become successful. The first episode I watched talked about how Matt Lauer was fired 3 TIMES before he got hired for The Today Show. Obviously this story had a lot of appeal for me as I was contemplating my employment situation. Anyways, since that night I have always liked to hear about people's journey to success, whether it be in career or whatever. Now that there is absolutely no way around describing myself as an adult my peers are starting to make names for themselves. One of my high school friends is dating a guy who invented a website and sold it for 37.5 million dollars! Since we don't know him personally, we call him the 37 and a half millionaire. (Hey, I said I am an adult, I didn't claim to be mature!)

So, what's with the contemplation on success? Most of you know that my cousin(sort-of) Randy invented a very cool coffee machine. Well, today Starbucks bought his company! I mean, some people can only imagine inventing something like that! It's huge! And it has me inspired, we should all be passionate and dream big like Randy did. He is obsessed with coffee but like five years ago he didn't even care at all about coffee at all and look what he did with hard work and passion!

You don't need to invent a coffee maker or be a 37 and a half millionaire to be successful, you can think big in any way. Run a triathlon(Ahem, Sage) Learn to paint. Ask that guy out! Switch careers. Become an artist, go to chef's school! Whatever it is you are really excited, just go for it! Congrats Randy! We are proud of you and thankful for the inspiration!!!

I'm really bummed. After working for two months to run my first race this Sunday I'm having to drop out because I have the FLU! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! I am so dissapointed. I've been spending a lot of time whining to Arnold about how dissapointed I am. He understands and all, but between fixing me theraflu every four hours and attending to my dissapointment I think he is ready for a new topic of discussion. But I'm not, so I'm taking my whining to the great equalizer that is the internet!

I know that this is not the big race that I am training for and all, but it was going to be my practice for my 10K in May and I was really psyched to see if I could run it in 1/2 hour (My best time preivously was 30 min 8 sec) but now I'll have to wait until May to see if all my training will pay off. Meanwhile, I'm going to keep chugging the Theraflu and stare longingly at my forever-unused runner bib. :(

Photo journal: A week in the life of Maghanoy.com

When we saw this, it was kind of a bad moment. I basically said "Arnold there's a problem in the backyard" and then I left to go grocery shopping. Needless to say Arnold was kind of grumpy by the time I got back. That's when I threw some pocky at him. Marriage Tip: When your spouse is grumpy, feed them something, preferably something either high in a sugar or fat content.The rest of the backyard looks awesome though! It's a Camellia forest!

Also, just so you know, this is what happens to greedy little squirrels who gobble up pb sandwiches left for skunks!

And, finally, things are getting serious! I'm running a 5K this Sunday, I got new shoes and everything!

8-8-08

I learned from my Chinese culture experts (Justina/Alanna) that 8 is a very lucky number in Chinese culture. That's why the Olympics are scheduled to start on 8-8-08. Well, 2008 seems to be turning out quite lucky for Arnold and I as well. We(+Debi) are going to China this summer. I KNOW! I can't believe it either. CHINA! It seems so far away as to be unreachable. Our friend Emily has lived in China for the past 4 years so we are going to meet her in Lanzhou and travel the silk road. Then we'll head back to Beijing by way of Xian. We'll be coming back two weeks before the Olympics start but by the time we are in Beijing many of the athletes and delegates will be in town. I can't wait it's going to be so exciting. To prepare I've been trying to learn a little bit about China's history and culture. The tricky thing is that China is a freaking old country so I'm contenting myself by learning little things, like the aforementioned Lucky No. 8 tidbit and some rudimentary Mandarin.

Also I've been reading books. I just completed my last one last night, it's a travel memoir called "Don Quijote in China". I found it very entertaining although the author does have an annoying Asian-Woman fetish, but I tolerated this as he also has an MA in Asian studies and speaks fluent Mandarin. From this book I learned a lot of train travel tips. 1) DO NOT get the bottom bunk on a hard sleeper. 2) See tip No. 1 Also I learned that when Chinese speak about themselves they don't point to their chests as we do. They point to their noses. I cannot WAIT to see someone does this in China. I love to read about things and then see them in action. Until then, I think I might start using this particular gesture just to weird people out.

Maghanoy.com 2008 Presidential Debates

This weekend Grandma and her namesake Dora clarified their positions on the Democratic presidential candidates.

1) Dora explains why she's voting for Obama, he's her hero!

2) Gma works on getting Dora on board the Hillary train.

3) Dora shows why the young can sometimes be fickle voters


I think I'm sold on this Hippopotamus character. Vote for hippopotamus!