Babies and Salamanders.

Hot jasmine tea, tall black Uggs, and a hot pink snuggie.... it's COLD in Florida! It's been freezing gardens overnight and I haven't run in a week because of it. HOW am I going to force myself to stay in shape when I'm living in the 10 degree temperatures of Chicago? Oh... I think the hot and sweaty co-eds in the UIC rec center just might keep me coming back ;) I'll be that cougar on the treadmill staring inappropriately at the muscly boys working off last nights pitchers. The funny thing is, I don't really like muscles in real life. I would never date a super muscly man because I don't want the personality that is often attached to those muscles. I can't stand the idea of having a boyfriend who goes to the gym to "work out" all the time. Those muscles mean hours spent in the gym every day lifting. Gross. I want a man who is active - running, sports, biking, etc.- NOT a gym rat. That doesn't mean I don't like looking at them from afar though ;) I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't one of the millions of women who gasped at a 17 yr old Taylor Lautner when his hot, sweaty body popped up on the screen... Yowsers! Moral of the story: Lovers for Elle: active men, yes. Gym rats no... unless she's just watching them from the treadmill. :) Cougar town!

You may be tired of hearing about Elle's dreams, but I don't care. I like having a record of them. There were some CRAZY ones last night!

I don't remember the back story, but I was in a pool that was really more of a man-made lake with murky water and a concrete floor. EC was there and he was holding a baby and trying to play catch with some other kid. He kept dropping the baby and I would have to dive down and catch it. This was a challenge because the baby felt like it was filled with lead and its skin was so slippery! I kept hearing it cry from under the water and I was so afraid it was going to inhale water and drown. Once I would get it's head above water, it would slip out of my arms again and I'd have to dive. Finally, I got it to the edge of the lake where there were steps. By then the baby had turned into a salamander and the other kid was gone. So EC and I were hanging out trying to keep this salamander from slipping away under the water. I had to dive for it a few times then it finally turned into a leach, jumped onto my neck and started sucking! EC had to yank it off and throw it. Weird. Then all of the sudden, we heard trumpets playing and we turned to see the processional of the "Nivea" (pronounced Ni-VAY-uh) statue. It was being escorted from Europe by all of the leaders and royalty of the entire world. There were kings and queens in white wigs and ball gowns circa Marie Antoinette. It was so beautiful that EC and I just stopped and stared. It turned into a big event on the stage that had appear next to the lake. Everyone looked like they had been pulled right out of the MA movie. It was pretty awesome.

There was another scene where I was on a tiny plane flying around a city with massive tower and amusement parks. Everything was deep purples and dusty blues but the sky was bright. We were about to land on a dirt runway when the pilot saw a giant puddle in the middle and pulled up. We ended up going straight up and completely upside down. I was completely freaking out, screaming, hyperventilating, but everyone else acted normal. We finally landed and the pilot was laughing about it all and blaming it on some other old man in the airport (which actually looked like a run-down cabin at camp). EC was about to get on the same place but I forced him to stay and we decided to walk home. Hahaha! I think some other crazy stuff happened during the walk, but I can't remember. Doh!