Graduation!

Well, I managed it. Somehow I have graduated from law school. I fully expected the Dean of Students to pull me away minutes from crossing the stage and tell me that I was a few credits short, or that I had flunked Income Tax. But it didn't happen.

The weekend started with a party at the law school Friday night. Paul and Sue came up for the party and of course Amzie's attendance was required.


And Saturday was the big day for the ceremony. Apparently my head looks incredibly small when I wear a graduation robe. The red cords mean they anticipate that I will graudate cum laude, which is the top 30%. They can only "anticipate" as opposed to saying for sure since my grades for this last semester aren't in yet. But I think I'll be ok.


My mom's best friend, and my friend, Judy came up for the ceremony too! I was so happy to have her there. She just brightens up the room when she walks in it and she always makes me feel good. Love her!


I didn't get many pictures with my friends, but luckily I got a picture with my wonderful friend Jen. She is brilliant and kind and it was such an honor to sit beside her in all my UCC classes and at the graduation.


After the ceremony my beautiful friend Danza invited us back to her house for a celebration. She made this adorable banner and those puff balls that look much cuter in person.


Here's Danza. She's pregnant and thus understandably excited about sitting down to eat the amazing food she prepared. That is her brother Justin beside her. He graduated from law school 3 or 4 years ago.


I just thought this picture was cool. It shows the spread after we made a serious dent in it. That's my friend Julie to the left. It was great to see her. She's pregnant too. I have given up drinking the water in Bloomington because it appears that pregnancy is an epidemic that may be in the water.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I'm having a party at Paul and Sue's house in Corydon this weekend to celebrate with more of my peeps. I didn't want them to have to drive up to Bloomington and go to a boring ceremony, so we're doing the party locally. More pictures to follow!

Scary time is here!

I haven't posted anything for a long time! I've been quite busy. For a while it was the Law & Drama Society Spring Play. Memorizing lines is a pain in the buttocks. And since then I've been catching up and getting ready for finals. Today is my last day of law school classes. I have a paper to finish and two finals to take, and then it will be finished.

The next thing will be the Bar Exam. Egads! This week some of my study materials showed up on my doorstep. Two gigantic books, and there are more to come. Here they are in all their glory...


And seeing them made me make this face...


Ok, really I'm not that scared. I am quite sure there will be unfun moments during bar prep, and certainly during the exam and while I'm waiting for results. But I've gotten pretty good at just spending my energy on the things I can control and not worrying about the results. So I plan to do the work and trust that the result I want (i.e. passing) will come. How healthy of me.

One very cool thing happened this week. I've been wondering how I could find someone that I love dealy but lost touch with. It suddently hit me that maybe she's on Facebook...and she is! So I found her! For all the nonsense associated with Facebook, I am not appreciative of it! This person is very special to me, so I'm quite excited. She sent me her phone number, and as soon as I have longer than 15 minutes spare time I'll be calling her to see how she is doing.

Otherwise, life has consisted of law school and bar exam related activities. Nothing too fun, other than the play, which was great.

Oh, well, I do have a song on a CD that a friend of mine made! This friend is a fellow law student and a talented musician and producer. Over the last 3 years he met a number of people with some amount of musical talent. People like myself went to his apartment, where he has a little studio set up, and recorded songs. He wrote the music on my track, and I wrote the lyrics. He played all the isntruments and I sang. Very cool experience. There are also several very cool tracks by other students, teachers, and staff members of the school.

Tonight is the Law School Bar Crawl. I, unlike my fellow students, will not be getting rip roaring drunk. I do, however, want to celebrate. So I've linked with some sober buddies and am looking forward to that. Silly pictures and post most likely will follow...

African Dance Class

Before Spring Break my African Dance class came to its end. Sort of. I took this class through Bloomington Parks and Recreation, and that has ended. But the instructor is continuing to teach the class elsewhere. So it hasn't really ended. But I have these pictures, taken by one of the Bloomington Parks employees, from our last class there.

Here are the drummers. They are AMAZING. The one on the far left works with Amzie. The guy in the middle, the black man with the hat on, is Dr. Djo Bi. He is from the Ivory Coast and he teaches the drum class that meets before the dance class. I can't even describe how amazing it is to watch and hear him play. His talent is astounding.


Here is another one of Dr. Djo Bi.


And here are the dancers! I'm in the left row, third one back in the green tank top. The instructor, Harmony, is the first one in the right row. There were several dancers that had taken African dance before, several who hadn't, and at least one professional dancer. So it was a nice mix of experience levels.


Here we are mid dance. I can't attest to why this picture is angled this way...


After the coreographed portion of the dance finished we form a circle and people can solo if they want. My friend Chloe took the class with me, so we did a duo. No picture of that, unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately...


This is the end. And these are our rear ends. I was a little concerned about the blood rushing to my head. I get quite red faced and sweaty by the end.


In short, I love African dance. I've always loved dancing, pretty much all types. But I also love the drums. The only common thread in the different music that I like is that they typically all have a strong beat. And like I said, Dr. Djo Bi and the other drummers are super talented. And hearing it all in person is awesome. There's a fantastic interaction between the drummers and the dancers - they are playing for you and you are dancing for them. So, this is a wonderful new thing in my life that I hope to continue forever!!!

Ode to Amzie

I'm feeling really proud of my husband, so I thought I'd share. This is a picture I took of him a random day when I thought he looked really cute.


It's funny, because I can't really explain why I fell in love with him. I just remember feeling amazed. We would talk into the early morning hours, but I have no idea what about. I liked the way he looked at me. I thought he was very mature because he had a hairy chest. And of course we had great chemistry. I was so relieved when I found him to be a wonderful kisser. My mother always said she didn't like the way my dad kissed. And I could never imagine kissing someone your whole life when you don't like the way they kiss!

We did hit bumps along the way, of course. There were times when I was so afraid that my mom was right, that he didn't love me. Mom wasn't wrong a lot, so it was horrible for a while having that fear looming. But at some point I realized that she didn't have all the information, so it would have been hard for her to really know the truth.

Amzie always considered himself a Christian, but he got more serious about it at some point when we were dating. And he never worried that I wasn't a Christian. He believed I'd come around. I have no idea why he believed that. It amazes me to no end how he had so much patience to just wait until I found things out in my own time. If I had become a Christian first, I no doubt would have badgered the crap out of him.

Amzie has never met a stranger. He got that from his momma. He can talk a blue streak. But what's cool is that he always finds out something that interests the person he's talking to, and because he knows a little about everything, he can carry on a conversation that interests them both.

Galatians 5:22-23 says that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." That's pretty much Amzie. Sometimes I catch myself being annoyed with him because he isn't getting up early to read his Bible, or whatever. But you know, he's way ahead of me on that fruit of the spirit thing...

He has lots of hobbies, that's another thing about the Amz. He loves car racing, freemasonry, guns, cooking, and - more recently - gardening and canning. Interesting combination no? And we're taking ballroom dancing now, so maybe we'll have to add that to the list. He also loves Tivo. But most of all, he loves God and he loves me and he loves his family.

So, I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

Points, points, points

Amzie and I are embracing the beauty of POINTS. We have joined Weight Watchers Online!

I am not trying to lose weight, for those of you out there furrowing your brows. I am mostly doing this to support my dearest husband. But I also like their system for maintenance purposes, since it is very close to how I've lost weight and (for the most part) kept it off. It encourages you to think about the day as a whole, and know that if you splurge and have pancakes for breakfast you're going to have to take it easy for the rest of the day.

But in addition to your daily "points," you also have a pool of weekly points. So if you know you have a birthday party coming up, you can have extra points on that day by borrowing from your weekly points. Or if you want dessert every night, like me, you can borrow a couple of extra points from that pool every day.

And you can earn points with exercise too. There is a calculator online to figure out how many points a given activity earns. At first glance Amzie thought 10 pushups got you an extra point. But it's really 10 minutes. I had to laugh.

Amzie seems to be liking the system too. Today he was going out to lunch with work people, and he was already thinking about what to order this morning. Turns out they were going to a pizza place, so he said he would get 1 piece of pizza and eat a salad. Smart boy, I tell ya.

A Book Report: The Five Love Languages

Have I read any good books lately, you ask? Why, yes. Yes I have. I just finished The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. The book was recommended to me by my good friend Jen who is getting married very soon.



I am happy to report that the book is quite helpful. The premise is that we all speak different love languages, and if your partner isn't "speaking your language" you do not feel loved. For example, one of the languages is Words of Affirmation. So if I have a partner that speaks critically to me often, and rarely encourages and praises me, I won't feel loved even if he is trying to love me by doing things for me and spending time with me. The book can help you figure out your own love language and your partner's.

Amzie and I are both quality time people, but as Dr. Chapman puts it, we have different dialects. Amzie just needs for me to spend time with him, and do things with him. I need that, but I also specifically need some really devoted attention and conversation - no TV, no magazine in the lap, etc.

All in all we do a pretty good job of making each other feel loved. But the book has some concrete advice about how to give your partner all your attention - essentially how to be a good listener and a good conversationalist. Amzie is great at telling stories and he's never met a stranger. But if I want to talk about something that's on my mind, something that I'm trying to figure out or something, he doesn't really get how important it is to be a good listener. And if he doesn't know the solution to my problem he just says "I dont' know" and the conversation is over. Sometimes I want him to just brainstorm with me or something. So we'll see if this book can help him learn some things in this regard. I know he loves me and wants me to feel loved, so I have faith that it will.

So, in closing, I would recommend this book. And it's not only for people in relationships - it can explain how to be a better daughter, a better sister, a better friend.

Barrister's Ball

This past Saturday Amzie and I attended the Barrister's Ball. The Black Law Student Association throws this wonderful event every year, but this was our first one. It was held at the Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union, and it was quite lovely. Everyone looked so nice, and the decorations were very pretty. We sat with some friends that we haven't gotten to see much of lately, and we met some new people too. Perfect!

Here is Mr. Cutie Pie and me. Yes, the purple dress made another appearance. I have a new haircut too, but you can't really tell much in this picture.

Left to right, we have my friend Chloe (with whom I am taking my African Dance class), me, and my friend Chris. These are two of the most fabulous women I've met in the law school. Both incredibly smart, kind, funny, and interesting.


This is my friend Mindy. She will be working in an Indianapolis firm as well, so I'm thrilled I'll get to see more of her after graduation. She is also a fantastic woman that I've met in law school.



Here I am with Raza and April. Raza, sporting his 'hawk, is from my same home town. We met each other on the first day of school, because we instinctively understood that the other was weird enough that we could probably be friends, and were surprised to find this fact out. April is awesome - so funny. She is in the law school play with me. She plays a very amusing ax murderer.

Simplicity

Whenever I see pictures like this of extremely simple design, usually with pale neutral colors, I just catch myself longing for this type of simplicity. This is also featured on Apartment Therapy.


My house is crammed with so much stuff. Certainly some of it is mine, but a lot of it is Amzie's too. That's one of the few things that irritage me about being married - you have to put up with your spouse's stuff. He has magazines stacked everywhere. He built a shelf for them, but I fear it will soon be overtaken.

I may be deluding myself, but if Amzie would go for it I really think I would love to throw away 75% of our possessions and live in a tiny house in the middle of a lot of land. Oprah did a show on simple living in small spaces once, and it was just so attractive to me. I feel choked by all the things in my life, sometimes. It's hard to breathe with stuff everywhere! And I've gotten rid of a lot, but the feeling of too much stuff persists.

I just had a thought - maybe I need to make one room the way that I want it - nearly barren. Surely I could get Amzie to agree to giving me one room...

Closets

Look at this closet, shown on Apartment Therapy, but it is a Container Store creation. It is a thing of beauty! This is a freestanding closet on an open wall. Hmmm.

Here is a huge closet. In a house with an extra room that's too small to be functional for something else, this could be a great way to use that space. Again, I saw this on Apartment Therapy, but it is originally from Easy Closets. I love that there's even a pretty rug in there.

Sweetheart's Dance

Last week was a ball, this week was a dance. It's been nice for making February a little less dreary than usual. Saturday was the Sweetheart's Dance at the Stone Belt Shrine Club. Shrine Clubs are little offshoots from the larger Shriners organization. There are only Shrines in the bigger cities, so there are clubs in small towns so that the members can more easily connect.

The tables had very nice bouquets of roses on them, slighly less lovely because of the ribbon tied around the vases, but still nice.


Here we are. Amzie looked very cute in his brown corduroy blazer.



Here are Paul and Sue, cute as usual. When Paul came downstairs ready to go, I said "I like that shirt!." Then I realized I had bought it for him. Hehe. You may notice how swollen his eyes look in this, and every picture. He has a condition that caused this. He's actually in surgery today to have the extra skin removed.



Anyway, we had a nice time at the dance. I danced with Amzie this time, having gotten over my agitation from the Ball. See earlier post. :) Oh, and I sang Bobby McGee with the band. I didn't really want to sing, wasn't in the mood. But once they put me on the spot, what was a girl to do? It went ok, I think.

Valentines Day

Today is Valentines Day, which is not a huge deal in the Wenning household. But I figure I will take any excuse to do something nice for my husband and have him do something nice for me. So, I asked the Amzinator to pick out a fragrance for me, because I don't have any nice perfume that I want to wear on a daily basis. I have Chanel #5 that I wear if I go out in the evening, but it's pretty serious for the daytime. So, we picked out Sarah Jessica Parker's Covet.


Amzie, on the other hand, was given red meat. And I do not mean that we went out for dinner. He gets a catalogue in the mail that sells very expensive steak. He's been bugging me about it for months, so I told him to order some for his present. Unfortunately we couldn't have the fancy steak tonight, because he has an exam and I have play rehearsal.

I will also use this day as an excuse to say how much I love my husband. He has that perfect but rare blend of kindness and strength. Look up the phrase "quiet strength" and there's Amz. I've had the honor of watching him grow up over the last decade, from a sweet but sometimes oblivious boy to a Godly man endowed with more wisdom than I'd always like to admit. He has integrity. He is dead sexy. And he makes me laugh.

Happy Valentines Day baby!

Oh, and for laughs, PRESS PLAY. It is short and worth your time. Thanks Cute Overload.

My favorite professor

So, I am nearly finished with law school and I have had a number of fabulous professors. But my favorite professor has been Roger Dworkin. He was my Torts professor first year, and I took Biomedical Advances with him in my second year despite the fact that I wasn't particularly interested in the subject matter. Of course it ended up being an intensely interesting class.

Here is a fuzzy picture of him, taken from his bio page.

While in his classes I wrote down some of the more amusing things he said, in addition to my class notes...These may illustrate to you why I think he is so awesome.

“It is one of the great abominations that we are being encouraged to move our bodies. I attempt to move mine as infrequently as possible.”

“One of the great lines of judicial dishonesty: I’m deferring to the legislature.”

“If all this stuff wasn’t important, it’d be pretty funny.” (Talking about line of abortion cases.)

“I don’t know any question worth asking that has a short answer.”

“I know, an unexamined life isn't worth living. But how many people's lives are worth living?"

“So let’s not get all weepy about democracy without remembering that there are politics involved.”

Mr. Dworkin received a phone call from a transplant doctor who said: “I’ve got a husband that wants to donate his dead wife’s kidney.” Mr. Dworkin responded: “Ok, no problem.” Doctor: “But, the husband killed the wife.” Dworkin: “Oh.”

Dworkin: “Was the contract enforceable?” Student: “No.” Dworkin: “What do you mean when you say no?” Student: “Yes?”

“No man gets weepy about his sperm.”

Potentate's Ball

This past Saturday was the Potentate's Ball. The "Potentate" is the head of the Shriners. You know, the Shriners that drive around on the mini-scooters in parades? Oh, and more importantly, the Shriners run childrens' hospitals. Well, I guess they have a ball every year when the new Potentate begins his year of leadership. This was the first time we went to one. I got to buy a pretty purple dress. Amzie got to wear a silly hate. This is really not a great picture of either one of us, but it's all I have!


Paul and Sue, on the other hand, took a great picture! Aren't they sweet? I believe they are both smiling so big because Paul is copping a feel. I love that they still flirt with each other!


Anyway, it was a fun night. I was disappointed because Amzie was out in the hallway talking and missed "our song." And then they played crap music the rest of the night, we didn't get to do any dancing. Otherwise, it was a fine time.

Couple's Shower

I had the privilege of throwing my wonderful friends Jen and Adam a couple's shower this past Saturday. Jen is a law student that I met back in first year. I have adored her from day one. I met her fiancee Adam early on too, and he is just phenomenal. We have all gone to weddings where you feel like you're watching a train wreck getting ready to happen, but I am so looking foward to their upcoming wedding because they are the real deal.

Here is the lovely couple! Oh, and it was a Mad Hatter themed shower, that's why the boys all had do-rags on and the girls have silly hats. I realize a do-rag is not exactly a hat, but they were way funny.


When the guests arrived the first game began: the Celebrity Game. We were each pinned with the name of a celebrity and we had to figure out who by asking questions of other people. I think Adam's first question was "Who am I?" I told him that was an impermissible question.


Pictured here is Josh, Jeremy, and Sarah who were, respectively, Johnny Depp, Ryan Seacrest, and JK Rowling.


Here are all the girls that were in attendance. That's Jen on the left, Sarah seated in the middle, Laura standing in the middle, and me on the right. Laura and her fiance David were kind enough to let us use their house for the shower. She also did very lovely decorating for the day!

Here are the boys: David, Adam, Josh, and Jeremy. David informed us early on that he would be wearing his do-rag "Aunt Jemima style."


After brunch and a couple of quiz games Jen and Adam opened up their presents.



One of the best gifts predictably came from Jeremy. His gift consisted of an envelope with cash inside, and an explanatory document, which they are reading here.



The document will need some explanation for those of you reading that are not stuck in law school. Jen loves the UCC - the Uniform Commercial Code. A group of uppity lawyers got together and drafted this set of rules, having to do with commercial law, and the states then each chose whether or not to adopt the rules as law. The idea is that since business is conducted across state lines, we need some uniformity. So, a class on the UCC is very different than a class where you mainly study case law. I don't know how better to explain it, just take my word for it that some people love it and some people hate it. Jen and I both love it.

So, Jeremy's explanatory document was drafted to mimic the UCC, with a definition section and everything. Basically it explained that the money was there for them to use when they needed to run away from crazy family members in the days preceding the wedding, when things tend to get crazy. Good gift, no?


I think everyone had a pretty good time. I know my face hurt from laughing at several points in the day. And again, it was wonderful to celebrate such a wonderful couple. They just really love each other. And I'm using love as a verb there, not an emotion. I'm sure they feel the emotion too, but the verb is what really counts. Ok, preaching over.

They do remind me of Amzie and me, though. I always believed there was some supernatural component to our relationship, like something out there had brought us together and was keeping us together. Jen and Adam strike me that same way.

Pretty pretty

These Nine West shoes are called "Destiny." I mean, come on! Valentines Day gift from husband anyone?

Makes my day every time I watch this...

Belated Christmas Post...

Thank you to my crappy dial-up Internet connection at home, I obviously did no posting over the holiday break. Classes started on the 14th, but it's been busy.

So, here is my belated Christmas post!

I only buy presents for a few people, mostly just Amzie and his parents. As far as friends go, they know I'm not rolling in money yet, so I get things for friends if I find something special that I can afford, but no promises. :) Extended family gets cookies. I made chocolate dipped chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. You can't really tell, but the ones on the top row are halfway dipped in chocolate. Mmmm. The red and green ones are almond flavored butter meltaway cookies. The third row are tea cakes. The balls are called chocolate snowballs. And the last row are cranberry almond. They were all fabulous, if I do say so myself.


This was a banner year in that we actually knew of things that Paul and Sue, my in-laws, wanted. They are notoriously hard to buy for. But Paul wanted these tools. Yay!

We found a makeup mirror for Sue that she's been looking for. I don't have a picture of that though.

Amzie mostly got clothes and other unexciting, but useful things. He was particularly excited about his battery powered tie rack though. He has quite a nice collection of ties now.


I barely found him these wooly lined Crocs. Don't worry kids, he doesn't wear them in public. He wears them for slippers around the house because he likes that he can wear them out with the dogs or to get the mail. Confession: I just bought an identical pair for myself. You can see in this picture that the dogs are suspicious of the plasticky smell.


I also got clothes for the most part. Here's a pretty shirt that I am actually wearing as I type this post.

Lyric got a very pretty dress, with a belt that nicely accentuates her waist. As you can see, she enjoys looking lovely. She did a wonderful over the shoulder pose for the picture.



Buck, on the other hand, did not like his sweater. All he did was chew on it. When we tried to put it on him he bit us. So, that was a no go.

But the best present of the year was Sue's ring that Paul bought for her. Actually we were all at the jewelry store looking at Masonic rings and Sue spooted this ring and put it on layaway. But Paul paid it off and surprised her with it. Well, sort of surprised her. I think she would have pouted if he hadn't bought it.


But she teared up and gave him such a sweet hug! It was really nice! It was a great Christmas all in all. I felt loved and in love both, which is about as good as it gets.