It's What We Do

I'm sitting here at quarter to midnight, eating a piece of Pizza & loving the fact that one - I'm home and second - the amazing bits of music in the background right here. Makes the girl pretty happy, just like the countless other random bits of goodness today ...

• For starters, I fell asleep on the couch with two other siblings. We sleep like puppies on Friday nights, all six of us snuggled up on two couches. But the good thing was waking up and feeling crazy rested, which is always ALWAYS a real fine thing.

  --- I was pretty much dead to the world until my sister shoved the phone over the back of the couch and said, "Here! It's Chick-fil-A." And of course, it was. Later, I asked Kwon to pretty please not remember what I sounded like when I first picked up the phone because, well ... I was only half asleep. I discovered one thing, and that is this: I have a greater capability of saying "No" when I am not quite awake. * winks *

• On the way to my grandparents house, I got gas for $3.09 a gallon -- and no, that's not a typo, ya'll. It was something called Customer Appreciation that I only had to wait 10 minutes to cash in on. Not to mention they gave me a bag of junk food like Cheerwine | Sour Patch Kids | Peanuts & baby Chiclets. I don't know what I'm gonna do with all that good stuff but it made me smile 'cause it was FREE!

• My grandparents weren't home so I had the house | the pool all to myself which was pretty much amazing. The sunshine felt so good I could've stayed out there all day. And why is it that no matter if you're grandparents plan on you coming or not, there's always something scrumptious in the fridge?
• Work was beyond fun. I was in Dining Room which is basically the top most enjoyable thing I do at CFA. The shift was crazy good, with some of my favoritest peoples hanging out with me. For starters, the moment I walked in I found Amanda making Ice Cream balls. We chatted for a few minutes, after Carolyn having only just realized I had walked in attacked me with a ginormous hug which I'm quite fond of. * secretly *

• Amanda gave me an Ice Cream break. Can you believe it? No, you probably cant because you don't have amazing managers who believe in wonderful things like that. Jeff fried some ice cream, and we sat back there in the breakroom eating Ice Cream and smiling over its delicious yumminess with every bite -- which, come to think of it is almost ridiculous. And I'm sure I heard trumpets in the sky, I really did. * winks * 

• Victoria and I shut Dining Room down short-people style and shared an Iced Coffed Break together. Marc ended up being back there on a break too, and we found a random can of Cinnamon. We were playing around, and Victoria decided to try a spoonful just for kicks. Oh my lanta! The kick she -- no, we ALL -- got from that was outragiously insane. You know if you shake a bottle of cinnamon how it kind of poofs when you open it? That's what it did when she dumped the spoonful in her mouth ... and she teared up quite a lot and we laughed until our stomachs hurts and tears rolled down our faces. It was too much and now, I don't know why we even attempt to pretend we're all normal. 'Cause we're just not.

  --- Just for the record, just thinking about it makes me laugh. In case you're getting the idea that all we did all night was think of a zillion creative breaks to take, we really did work too. * winks *


And now I'm thinking that maybe I can finally get some sleep, the affects of all the sunshine | fun things | fried ice cream | laughing | and craziness are wearing off. I can hardly believe it, myself. But it's a good feeling, and I'm really thankful that God gave me such an Amazing Day today!

When Times Get Tough ... The Tough Tear Up.

No cozy little corners in Starbucks. No Snakes hiding out in my dining room. No horror stories …

Just a day off. That’s all, world. No more, no less.

Do you realize the crazy things I could do with Wifi anywhere and everywhere at my disposal? Insane things would happen. Chances are, I would blog on a daily basis like I did in the old days. When I lived off of pure adrenaline and lack of sleep. Ah … the good old days. * sigh *

So I’ve recently bought a car. And in the process of all this lovely stuff -- which isn’t as easy as signing papers and handing over one lump sum that would make your eyes water a little bit -- I had one of those shining moments. There I was, sitting in those metal scoopy chairs just waiting for them to call my number, with every intention of signing papers and hitting the road.

Oh contraire, mon frair. Because it was in that single moment that I discovered something called hidden fees piling up on top of tags, titles and loans. Can you imagine? Oh the irony of it all in a single moment, I felt my pulse quicken and I felt slightly dizzy. Of course it sounds a little absurd. After all, what kind of world have I been living in all along? The money didn’t get me, not even the fact that I had just signed the next two years of my life away -- well actually, THAT part did a little -- it was the sudden hidden fees that got me.

My dad called and the longer I talked, he could sense I was freaking out. He’s good like that. And what do you think the girl did? She started tearing up right there. Right there in the middle of DMV where big burly men were renewing truckers license, high school kids were failing driving tests, and little old ladies were being declined for poor eye-sight. Oh what a mess the girl made of what might have been an enjoyable visit to the DMV.

After all, who doesn’t love giving strangers a chunk of hard-earned cash she just about broke her neck to make, hmm? I mean, REALLY …

So I do the only sensible thing. I fake happiness, like I’m loving giving these poker-faced people behind the counter my money | pretending I don’t wonder why the heck it’s so expensive to live these days. For $200 + I get a teeny stack of little white papers that only mean anything if important people like cops or robbers read or steal them, and two green stickers to tell the world I’ve paid my dues & all. Yeah, it made me feel a little sick to be real honest. But I sucked it up, and told myself it would be alright. After that, I welcomed myself to the real world, and climbed into my car.

The whole thing only ended up sounding remotely funny when I shared all this good grown-up woe to my girlfriends, Carolyn and Hannah. We all had a good laugh about it, and by this time I’d already given the whole thing up anyways. So there you have it, ya’ll ... and only 'cause I promised I would. * winks *

We All Fall Down

Last time, I was sitting in a cute little corner at Starbucks enjoying the sunshine from inside. Tonight, I’m scrunched up into the tiniest possible ball in my living room, squinting into the deepest darkest corners and anywhere my nemesis might possible be hiding.

A foot long snake ventured into our dining room tonight while I was at work, and this is how my amazing daddy greets me the moment I walk in the door ... "Hold on. Stop, don't move." Naturally, I'm about midstep so I stop dead on the spot. He flips on the light and peers over my shoulder where I just dropped my work shoes. "There was a snake there today."

My heart actually stopped beating, I'm almost sure of it. First I laughed; some joke, yes? And then I wanted to cry as I stared open-mouthed as he began to relay all the gorey little details of how the snake had somehow gotten in the front door. This was hardly funny.


But just bear with me here, and help me pretend a snake never invaded my quiet, adorable house. Okay? Cause right now, I’ve got all kinds of little bumps on my stomach and my arms. I itch something awful and every little noise makes me kind of jump. The fact that my Father was hissing from beneath the covers in the other room a moment ago isn’t working miracles, either.

It’s probably those darn chickens … I’ve never had a snake in my house, people. Never. Do you know this? I’m saying, before we got our chickens and before my mommy thought it was a wonderful idea to stick our very first lovely | warm egg on our kitchen counter like some hippie home-grown prize we never had this problem.

I blame it on the chickens. Because really, if you were a nasty | slithering little snake wouldn’t you want to scarf down a nice - warm little egg straight from the coop? Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking … and even after considering this and discussing it with my parents, I’m still freaking out a lot on the inside out.
Shivers run down my spine, world.
 
BUT on a brighter note -- see, cause I know I'll eventually have to go to sleep and I don't want to even be thinking about snakes when I do -- my energy level was like Zero when I finally started closing dining room tonight, so in a moment of desperation, I threw together an amazing Iced Coffee that would pretty much knock your socks off. It did wonders and so did all my cfa buddies. We were all cracking up and goofing off something terrible. For some reason we weren't crazy busy, so we had fun and still got all our work done.
 
I just wanna say that Jeff D'beck is pretty much a hero. So Carolyn and I -- who have a strange love | fake hate relationship -- are taking out the last load of trash around 10 o'clock. We both agree that with as many boxes as we have to take out, and with the dumpster already overflowing of cardboards, etc. one of us really should compact the trash.
 
We're not fancy at Cfa -- we leave that kind of thing to Heinz 57 and their cute little Ketchup Packets -- we don't have one of those official trash compactors. Basically, the trash compactor is ... Us. Me & my buddy Carolyn. Isn't that terribly lucky? * winks *
 
So after discussing it amongst ourselves, we decide I would climb up on the dumpster and have a go at it. I don't remember exactly why we decided on me, but that's beside the point. Halfway up, Carolyn says "Oh! You've got a skirt on." I look down at her with a smirk, I'm sure I involuntarilly winked then too ... "Oh my goodness! Why didn't you tell me before I got up here?!" * more winks * 
 
So she's down there laughing at me and tossing up more boxes as I proceed to jump on the overflow. It's all going fine and dandy up there, the pile is going down and suddenly so am I. Apparently there was a hole in that big old dumpster where boxes hadn't ended up earlier, so I slid ride down. I looked heavenward with a holler, and said "Thank you, God. It's only cardboard."
 
We were still out there -- me on top of the dumpster, Carolyn on the ground: both still cracking up in wheezey | asthmatic giggles -- when Jeff comes running out the back door asking if we're okay. That only made us laugh more, and when Jeff figured out what happened, he laughed too.
 
Oh my goodness, it was such a crazy night. Everything from Jeff's awesome tan which we shall all pretend not to be insanely jealous of | the demonic sounding noises in our slide -- you really should hear them, they always creep me out just a little | dancing in the bathroom | our awesome cow for kid's night | and a bunch of other craziness.
 
So I've ALMOST forgotten to think about the snake but I'm maybe considering going out tomorrow and replacing my lost cat. Romeo is too spoiled rotten to be on the look out for things like snakes. I'd rather have a cute, adorable little puppy though ... just sayin'. * smiles *
 

... And Our World Stood Still

I'm sitting in a sunny | semi-cozy little corner of Starbucks listening to coffee-house music that's some kind of wonderful. It's a crazy HOT afternoon -- that's what I'm gonna call our 103 degree weather, just to be nice. Basically, the AC is a God-send and I'm lovin' just relaxing where I am for a good little bit. * smiles *

I've gone awol for um, I don't even know how long. Would you believe me if I said I've sat down countless | umpteen times trying to think of something brilliant to say, without a whole lot of luck? No comments from the peanut gallery, ya'll. Haha!

Thus, I've scrapped brilliance and decided to ramble. I'm really good at that, just rambling about a bunch of nonsense -- with nothing even sounding like it fits together, you know?

I just came back from an awesome weekend in NC. I can't say much about my funny tan ... it's not even really a Farmer's Tan, either. It's more like 10 hours in a car with my arm hanging out the window. What can I say, ya'll? I tan lopsided. * winks *

Thursday -- I discovered I really like Turkey Burgers at FATZ cafe. Just the name paints terrible pictures in my brain, just so you know. But while it wasn't my first choice, the food was pretty good.

Friday -- We shopped till we dropped at the amazing Concord Mills just outside of Charlotte. We found a bunch of awesome stuff, but I was a good little shopper and didn't go crazy wild. Good thing, right? I decided I am a lover of Forever 21 and their vintage everything  under the sun. My absolute favorite things I bought were the cheapest ... I found a little pearl bracelet for $1.50 and a cute necklace for $3.

Saturday -- Ah, Saturday. Got up early and had some pretty amazing devotions about what it means to be completely yielded to God. And then I went to the Zoo in Asheboro with some of my friends which was pretty much the highlight of my whole weekend. Who knew animals could be so much fun? * winks *

It was pretty warm that day, so we were all sweating buckets and otherwise loving it. Then we went home and had a little cook-out and watched a movie.

And on the way home, my friend Drea and I were pulled over just catching up. Because, girls really never do enough of that sort of thing, in our opinions. A police car passed by in front of us, and Drea absently cracked up and said, "hey! wouldn't that be hilarious if he pulled us over?"

I laughed. "Yeah genius, if he pulls us over anymore we'll be in the ditch!" And thus we went back to gabbing and crying and laughing over random good things. Three minutes later, blue lights flashed and a siren pulled to a beautiful stop behind us and the earth stood still.

We looked at each other. "No way ..."

They came to each side of our car and shined their lights in as they asked us what we were doing, yada yada, etc. Horrible habit -- I babble insanely much when I'm nervous or just because. Andrea pretty much said like three words, while my brain raced for words to say, an explaination of any sort! So finally, after I shut-up the Police Men take our un-gorgeous I.D.s back to their car and I prop my head up on my hand, leaning on the side of the open window.

"Are you even kidding me, man? I mean, really?" Sigh and look at Andrea before we both bust out laughing and she's shushing me, saying something about how they're going to make us walk a line -- which we've never been able to do in our lives. "We're not even together an hour and the cops have got us. What's up with that, huh?"

So they let us go after deciding we weren't blood-thirsty serial killers | money-hungry criminals or a couple making out. Go figure, right? But they were pretty awesome and said we could go up to the fire-house and hang out if we wanted ... so we did. We laid outside the fire-house, watching the stars and cracking up like we do. It was pretty much amazing!

Me & Drea with the PO behind us ...

waiting to figure out if we go to Jail or not.

* winks *

 Me & My Friend ... standing outside the Depot.

Behavin' and all that good | uncriminal stuff.

The End.