Thursday, December 13, 2007

My Drawings


This is Peggy on a goofy day.


This is Ema. I drew this as a gifty to her
family on the occassion of her adoption.


Jimmy's hands.


My beautiful friend, Brittnee. This
illustrates, to me, a desire for God.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Blood Pressure




In the course of a week, I have had my blood pressure and pulse taken five times. First, it has become a tradition at our family's thanksgiving to take everyone's blood pressure...yeah, I know it's an odd tradition, but we Blanshans are competitive about everything, so we even try to have better blood pressure than the others.
Then, just a few days ago, one of my professors, Brian Dunbar, asked some of us students to help his son, Jason, out with his science project. As a science project, he had decided to study the affects that music has on blood pressure. There were nine of us who did it, and three nurses. A lot of you may know my nurse, Eric Sheldon. First we had our pressure taken, then we were subjected to 3 minutes and 8 seconds of very heavy metal music and our pressure was taken again. Then we had about a 20 minute break before going back in to have our pressure taken again. Then we listened to about the same amount of Mozart...and repeated the taking of the blood pressure. I haven't heard all of the results yet, but in our group, our pressure raised a very little during the heavy metal. The results after the Mozart were remarkable, though! I'm not sure how much mine lowered, but I remember it being quite a bit. My friend, Emily, was in my group, and her pressure had lowered by 26 points after Mozart!

Monday, October 29, 2007

Senior Pictures

They're finally here, thanks to Emily. Thursday was a beautiful day and I was feeling cute =D, so, since neither she or I were working, Emily and I drove out to Quarry Hill (some sort of nature center) and I got to tell stories and smile a lot and just naturally look beautiful while Emily took pictures of me. It was so much fun! =D
If you have any favorites, please let me know which ones they are. I haven't quite made up my mind which ones to use, yet.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

The Adventures of 4 Girls and a Photographer

The other day, a few of us had a few free hours in which we had very little to do...or, rather, we had nothing to do but memorize "As the Hart" for choir. So, the five of us decided to set out on an adventure. Emily had her camera, of course, and spent the next hour snapping pictures of Amanda, Catt, Peggy and I. Such fun! The joys of having a photographer as a friend! Have I mentioned that I love that girl?

Friday, October 26, 2007

Fun with the Hellers.

The other day, I went with my friends, the Hellers, to a tea room, then on to an apple orchard, pumpkin patch, and a corn maze. We had a really fun time...as you can see from our goofy pictures.

Robin Hood Party

Some friends and I are really big fans of the BBC series of Robin Hood. I am especially fond of the quirk of his eyebrow...makes my heart flutter every time. =D
We decided to have a party and I offered my home...well, Amanda offered my home =D , as a joke at first, but I heartily agreed. Peggy and I banished the men of our house from the living room for the night. We got all of the necessities together, like root beer floats, pizza, chips, brownies, cookies...necessities. There were six of us to start out: Amanda, Emily, MollyBea, Melissa, Peggy, and I. Amanda and Emily's niece, Kianah, joined us later. Of the seven of us, Melissa was the only one who hadn't seen any of the series. To start out the night Emily, Amanda, and MollyBea did a reenactment of the first episode. =D I think we watched the first 4 or 5 episodes. We ate too much junk food, sat in front of a tv for too long, and giggled waaaay too much. It was a grand time!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Autumn

I love autumn! The leaves are gorgeous while still on the trees and so deliciously crunchy when on the ground. It is the season of red and orange...two of the happiest colors out there. Fall makes me think of carving pumpkins, apple cider, crunchy leaves, and...sweaters!

These two pictures were taken by my friend, Andrew Parfenov. If you'd like to see more of his photos, you can view them at istockphoto.com, just type his name in search.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Balloons

Brian Dunbar, my music professor, was sick on Tuesday, so a few of us students (mostly choir students) decided to use the opportunity to prank him. We happen to know his TA very well...okay, actually, she was one of the main conspirators. She holds a key to his office. For the next 5 hours, we practiced breathing from our diaphram... =D ...we figured it would make him proud. By 4:00, his office was filled floor to about a foot from the ceiling with nearly 1000 balloons. On his door we left an envelope that said "To help you with your troubles" and inside we was placed a thumb-tack. 5 hours + 15 students + an office key + 1000 balloons = a ton of fun. I recommend it...the after-effects aren't quite as pleasant, however. A few students ended up with blisters from tying the balloons and everybody ended up with sore mouths....yes, sore mouths. It hurts to blow up balloons for 5 hours!