Over the summer I’ve been taking an English course at St. Cloud State University on the Internet to finish my Associate of Arts Degree. The course is almost over and I got a waiver on another requirement that I needed to complete. It’s meant a lot of nights and weekends studying, but it’s all been worth it to be able to say that I have a degree. Who knows what’ll be next?

Lynsey has been really supportive, by helping me with my papers and taking care of most of the household chores over the past several weeks so that I could study. I’ve vowed to be her chauffeur all weekend so we can take care of all those errands and projects that have been put off.

Thanks, Lynsey, for all your help!

We had a pretty crazy weekend! It started out on Friday night when I got home and my key didn’t open up our apartment door. I thought my key may have been bad (I ran over it when I was trying to pick it up while trying to get in the garage), so I decided to what for Lynsey to come home. So I went outside climbed over our patio wall and was sitting at the table studying. I figured that Lynsey would be home soon, would park in front of the building and could just let me in.

Then I got the idea that maybe she was taking a nap and had locked the door. I called the apartment and could hear the phone ringing, but no answer. About a minute later my cell phone rings and it Lynsey:

Lynsey — Hi! Where are you�
Me — I’m at home.
Lynse — Will you let me in?
Me — No.
Lynsey — Why not�
Me — Because I’m sitting on the patio, locked out!
Lynsey — Well, I’m sitting in front of the door!

As it turns out she was sitting in front of the door for about 10 minutes, locked out as well. We called the maintenance guy on duty, he came over right away, and determined our lock was bad. He then drilled out the lock and replaced it.

The only good thing about this whole story is that Lynsey had picked up a 6 pack of beer on the way home! So we relaxed on the patio while waiting to get in and ordered a pizza.

The rest of the weekend was nice, but not quite as crazy!

Has it really been a month? Almost. I knew it was time to blog again when my mom spent a two week stint in Boston and checked my web log every day for news. “All I found was that stupid George on your site. You know, you’ll probably get arrested for scanning money,” she told me. Alas, the authorities have yet to find me. I think I’m safe. If you’re wondering where George went to, apparently he’s back in Northfield (where I obtained him in the first place.) Kinda scary.

Anyway, it’s been a whirlwind month. In late July, Roger and I headed up to Alexandria to camp at Lake Carlos State Park. Aside from the rain (what’s new? it always rains when we camp!) we visisted a winery (yeah, in Minnesota) just outside of Alex. Carlos Creek Winery was absolutely lovely …almost as wonderful as the one winery I visited in Napa a few years ago. Roger and I settled on a nice Cabernet and a bottle of hard apple cider, their specialty. We recommend the trip!

Mom visited last weekend, mostly to do wedding “stuff.” Lucky me: I found my wedding dress in the first store we went to, after only about two hours of trying on about a dozen gowns. Mom was a bit disappointed that we couldn’t try on more, she was having so much fun. But, since I’ve promised not to bore the faithful Fresh! readers with wedding details here, I invite you to head on over to our new site. All right, all right … so the entire site says “Coming soon” but really, it is! Wedding details will about there. A wedding blog, anyone?

Hives. Yes, hives. Aside from the wedding dress, I think that must have been the highlight of last weekend. I broke out Friday at midnight, they spread across my entire body, and finally disappeared Monday morning. Seafood? Nope. I think it was the swimming pool at my apartment, but I’m not ready to actually test out the theory again this afternoon. For more details, you’ll have to ask me in person.

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m still at work, but not working! Summer hours mean working til noon on Fridays … so I wrapped up work and have been doing all of the things I wanted to do this week and didn’t have time to (pay bills, surf my favorite sites, chop our wedding guest list, blog). Only two or three more Fridays of this luxury.

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I admit it. I LOVE the Miss America pageant. And here’s another reason why I can’t wait for this year’s contest: Miss America meets Survivor

Codeine Syrup & Screwed Music

In Houston, local hip-hop acts thrive. You can find “screwed” music in any record store — “screwed” being a slowed down, draggy version of the original song. And in many of these songs, if you listen closely to the lyrics, you’ll hear references to “drank”, “lean” or “Barr” — all nicknames for codeine cough syrup, a drug of choice for many in the hip-hop community. They mix it with soda or juice, add some ice and sip it to get high.

I am so exited to be able to finally blog like Lynsey has been doing since before we first met. Lynsey has been working really hard getting this site set up, while I have been studying diligently to finish up my last English paper before the Aug. 16th deadline next week.

So, I hope you’ll check back periodically to see what has been updated.

Welcome to our new web site! Roger and I were engaged on July 2 and our first task (well, aside from setting a wedding date) was to buy our domain name (are we geeks or what?). At first, we planned to go with something fun and crazy like lynseyandroger.org, or rogerandlynsey.com, or lynsandrog.net …. but we came to our sense and realized struthers was a lot easier to spell. Rog and I will periodically update this site with news about what’s going on in our lives … and in the next few days, plan to have more details online in the “about us, “photos,” and “we’re getting married” sections. Til then …