State Fair October 12, 2008
Posted by heatherhanley in : Outside of Owings Mills , 1 comment so farJust some pictures from the state fair!
Housewarming Party!
Posted by heatherhanley in : Ordinary Life of an SU Student , add a commentMy boyfriend’s older brother has recently gotten engaged and together they recently bought a house in Middle River. Last Saturday they hosted a housewarming party where they invited friends and family. The party began at 4pm and of course in true fashion, it was Saturday morning and I still hadn’t bought a housewarming gift. I decided that it would be very simple to find a gift, head to Pier 1 grab a unique and pretty vase, stop at the florist and pick up a bouquet of flowers and boom!, housewarming gift!…wrong! I convinced my boyfriend to accompany me to Pier 1 telling him I needed his input and that it would be really fast..ha! It didn’t turn out that way. I spent 2 hours in Pier 1 looking at everything from coasters to curtains! I was on and off the phone with my boyfriend’s father and stepmother asking them left and right if they had this and that..of course everything I suggested they already had! My boyfriend was like lets just get a gift certificate and call it a day. I was like no way! I felt as though that was a cop out and it said I have no idea what you like or need..which in reality seemed to be the truth :/ However finally, I knew that their bedroom was island themed with lots of green and orange. I decided to use that as my gift theme. I grabbed a cute functional basket..chose two different sized smelly candles, one orange and one green. I put two glass candle bases in the basket along with a nice smelling reed diffuser. I figured everyone loves smellies and candles for the home! Then I grabbed some shredded paper basket filler, threw it all together to look cute and boom there was my gift! It turned out great and they loved it! We had great food and great company and all in all a great time! The picture below is from left to right: Me, a family friend Stacey, and my boyfriend’s stepmother, Dawn on the back porch at the housewarming party.
Cromwell Valley Park
Posted by heatherhanley in : In the classroom , add a commentOn Saturday I had to travel to Cromwell ValleyPark for my Bio115 lab. We met at the Greenspring Campus at 9am and drove to Cromwell Valley National Park to study biodiversity. We were testing the hypothesis that a habitat with an intermediate disturbance level will have the most biodiversity. We were testing three communities within each disturbance level. The three communities were soil microbe, plant and invertebrate. The three levels of disturbance were low, intermediate and high. We hiked a total of about 1.8 miles to each habitat. To measure plants a 50×50 meter zone was set up and every tree in that zone was identified and its circumference at breast height measured. To study the soil microbe community five random sites within the zone were chosen and a sample of soil from each site was placed in a bag. The pH, temperature and percent water of each site was also recorded. To study the invertebrate community, the same five sites where soil was taken, the leaf litter at the sites were also placed in a bag. On Wednesday we are to go into the lab and analyze all of the data collected to prove or disprove our hypothesis.
Sweatin it Out!
Posted by heatherhanley in : Ordinary Life of an SU Student , add a commentHalloween is approaching so I have been trying to get to the gym as much as possible because #1, I want to look good in my costume and #2, I know I’ll be eating a lot of candy! The gym at Owings Mills is great..opens at 8am and closes at 10pm. It has all the equipment necessary for a great work-out! Tread mills, ellipticals, bikes, free weights, yoga balls as well as many bench machines. Mirrors line the back wall for those guys who like to watch themselves pump iron..lol. There are three flat screen TVs in front of the tread mills and ellipticals so you don’t have to stare at the wall while walking, running or stepping endlessly. I usually hit the gym around 8 or 9pm at night because it usually isn’t too crowded at that time. I generally enjoy staying on the tread mill for about an hour..another reason I go late so I’m not hogging up the machine during prime time. After about an hour or so in the gym I’ll usually go back up to my room and do some crunches in my bedroom. I usually try to go with a friend because the gym is always more enjoyable when somewhere is there sweatin it out with you! I’ll post some pictures soon of our great gym facility!
Oh, did I mention we have a racquetball court?!? A great way to get a work-out in while having fun with friends as well as letting your competitive edge out!
Bring on the Sun…
Posted by heatherhanley in : Ordinary Life of an SU Student , add a commentAfter Brothers & Sisters concluded this evening the 11:00pm News came on and I saw a headline for this weeks weather and boy does it look beautiful! There is a high of 83 on Tuesday with lots of sun! I know this is pretty random but warm weather makes me happy especially when cooler weather is expected so I wanted to share my happiness with all of you! Enjoy the sunny warm weather..I know I will!
Lazy Sunday
Posted by heatherhanley in : Ordinary Life of an SU Student , add a commentSunday’s seem to be very routine for me..always a lazy day. Sunday’s are usually the days I catch up on my zzz’s I lost during the week as well as Friday and Saturday night. Today was particularly lazy..I didn’t even get out of bed until 1pm! My Sunday’s usually consist of staying in some sweats, doing homework and doing some laundry. Today I rolled out of bed in the afternoon and worked a little on my organic chem lab report before heating up some spaghetti for breakfast/lunch. Spaghetti is always better the next day 
I then called my boyfriend and begged him to take me to Smoothie King and buy me a smoothie insisting that I needed something to jump start me and get me motivated to do homework..he agreed and we went..it was just what I needed! After returning from Smoothie King I decided to finish the lab report and start the laundry that was up to my ceiling in my closet..yikes! I kept counting down the hours to Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters tonight! Not a very productive day but then again Sunday’s usually aren’t for many people..
Visit From Dad
Posted by heatherhanley in : Owings Mills Entertainment , 1 comment so farMy father lives in Norfolk, VA so needless to say I do not get to see him very much when I am at school. Whenever he is in the area for business he always stops by and we run some errands and have dinner. I love when he comes, usually about once every 2 months because he always stocks me up groceries, toiletries and anything else I may need. Plus I get an awesome dinner! Oh and of course because I love seeing him..lol. Well he was in Philadelphia for business this past Wednesday-Friday so he decided to stop here Thursday afternoon after his meetings. He arrived at around 4:00pm and he checked out my new apartment. He loved it! He loved seeing how all the great things he has bought and givenme and my roommates had come together. We chatted for a while and then he took me and one of my roommates to Target to stock up. After Target we contemplated where to have dinner before finally deciding on Bonefish Grill at the bottom of the hill on the Owings Mills Campus. This was my first time to Bonefish and it was AMAZING!! We started out with 2 appetizers, the crab cakes and Bang Bang shrimp. The shrimp were first breaded and fried and then covered in a spicy, sweet sauce and served on a bed of greens. They were absolutely delicious!!! For my entree I ordered Longfin Tilapia stuffed with crab, shrimp and scallops and served with a caper imperial sauce. It was sooooo goooood!!!! My roommate ordered the same thing and my father order Chilean Sea Bass with a mango salsa sauce. He enjoyed his as well. And then for dessert we split a key lime pie and a Creme Brulee as well as three coffees…yummmy! Every time my dad comes to visit it’s a great time!
Jason’s Woods!
Posted by heatherhanley in : Outside of Owings Mills , add a commentSo some friends and I went to Jason’s Woods in Lancaster, PA last night. Let’s start with the drive..my friend has a GPS and we plugged the address in thinking no problem..well just about every road there was extremely dark and extremely windy! We felt like the only car on the road for miles. Even with the high beams on it was difficult to see. We were always stretching our heads to try and see over the hill in case there was an animal or something..also secretly hoping to see lights of civilization. Of course this scary ride only hyped us up more for the haunted house. Once we arrived at around 9:30pm we were soo glad we had purchased our tickets online. The ticket line there was crazzzyyy..we would have been waiting in line for over an hour. But since we had already purchased the tickets we were able to get right in line for the first event. The first part of the night we went through a dark maze where you literally could not see in front of you, it was a common theme of the night. A hand on the wall was necessary to prevent you from running into things and to find your way through. Of course scary characters jumped out at you and there were loud, sudden noises and creepy laughing..pretty scary. We then got on a haunted hayride. The theme of the hayride was “Wrong Turn” with the creep in-bred people who enjoy cannibalism. Very scary because they liked to jump on the wagon and particularly seemed to like to pick on me. I mostly kept my head buried haha. The nexy part of the haunted night we entered the haunted barn. Another pitch dark place where we even needed to crawl on our hands and knees to get through one part..very creepy. The final part was the 3D-pirate house. We were given 3-D glasses and had to walk through this area where again masked characters jumped out to scare you. The worst is when they turn on the strobe light and the next thing you know Michael Myers is in your face…yeah bad experience! All in all it was a lot of fun and would recommend it to anyone as long as they don’t mind a long. creepy drive and a little waiting in line
Happy Halloween!!