Twittering.

So it seems like I keep hearing about Twitter. I don't know if I completely get it, but since I have the compulsion to write about my life all the time anyway, I signed up. Any thoughts on it? Find me on there if you like...

The Bug Has Officially Been Totaled.

And yes, I cried.

Random Installments: Episode 4

1. I love the beach. I need to figure out a way to spend my entire summer there every year and eat nothing but seafood. And popsicles. I don't even mind being salty and sandy and loaded up with sunscreen all the time. I kind of like it. If I start wearing Hawaiian Tropic as perfume until September, don't be surprised... I'm only sort of kidding.

2. Popsicles are incredible. I hope that these bizarre little independent popsicle places that make flavors like "rose petal" and "hibiscus" and "Strawberry Pink Peppercorn" are EVERYWHERE this summer. I know I'm covered in Nashville and North Topsail Island... do we have any places like this in Raleigh? Cary? If not, someone start one. Kthx.

3. Why is it that my entire social life revolves around eating? Seriously guys, we really need to come up with other fun stuff to do. Or I will never wear a two piece bathing suit again. We live in a fun city, I'm fairly sure we can entertain ourselves away from restaurants. I vote for kayaking on the next weekend. Who's in?

4. I am the worst procrastinator in the entire world. We have to be out of our apartment in less that 2 weeks, and I have packed like, a box. Anyone wanna help me? I'll feed you. It may even be homecooked. Please? I'll provide the fun vacuum bags and we can squish all my clothes and bedding. It'll be fun! Oh man. Even I don't believe that.

5. O.M.Gsh. I Want To Believe. I can't wait. I'm gonna die! They're totally gonna make out.

The Damage.

I hate insurance companies. Especially the ones named Allstate. I hate them a lot. And I am not nice to them. Maybe I should be a little nicer. I tried for like, a minute.. But I can't handle being treated like an idiot. I am really not patient enough for that. I understand that it's their job to make it my fault. The trouble with that is that I just don't care... it was her fault, and my car is broken, so fix it. My insurance company rocks and has taken really good care of me, so I guess that's a huge blessing.

Here are some pictures:









The Bug handled the wreck really well... I was pretty impressed. I plowed into this chick at full speed... and while I'm pretty sure lots of stuff was busted up internally, the front end just kinda rolled under her van. And I didn't die.

Yeah. Again.

So today. I babysat this morning. I had a little time before I went to the office, so I stop at the mall. Buy me some jeans and a cute new shirt for my trip this weekend. Feelin' pretty good. I'm rollin' down the road. Chillin'. Doin' the speed limit. Hanging out in the right lane.

Next thing I know I'm inhaling gun powder and my airbags have both deployed. The windshield was sufficiently destroyed. A big black van decided to turn left. I have no idea how she missed a bright blue Bug driving down an open road at noon on a sunny day. It was not an intersection. There was no stop light or stop sign for her to run. She just decided that pulling out of the parking lot into my BRAND NEW CAR was a good plan.

So I hop out. My first thought was, her insurance better get me a rental car real quick like. Because tomorrow is beach day. I definitely didn't think about the fact that someone could have been hurt. Not one of my proudest moments.

However, we all ARE fine, so I'm just gonna be angry. Seriously?! What the heck. I didn't even make it three weeks. My computer was also busted in the accident, as it was hanging out on the passenger seat. There's a line in my computer an inch wide where the screen has been busted. So uh, I'm working with it.

When I finally did decide to check myself out I found only a few scratches and bruises from the airbags, so I know I'm pretty lucky. Thanks to Sarah, my boss, who brought me a Cherry Limeade and waited for me and drove me around. So anyway... another day, another day. Tomorrow morning I get to freak out on allstate until they give me a car to take to the beach.

Hysterical. Bono vs Kirk Cameron.

So I swiped this from Stuff Christians Like. Because it's incredible.

Have you ever thought what it would be like if Kirk Cameron and Bono got into a street fight to see who is the best famous Christian? Just a no holds barred, anything goes donnybrook? No? It's just me then, huh? Well here is what I think it would look like:

Kirk Cameron:
"Look Bono, even before I became really well known for my Christianity I was providing nice, appropriate laughter to millions of people on the hit show, 'Growing Pains.'"

Bono:
"Was that the one with Tony Danza? I get those all confused. Well, while you were making sitcoms that paved the way for 'Two and a Half Men,' I was touring the world singing songs with hidden Christian meaning to millions of people."

Kirk Cameron:
"Fair enough, but I have a powerful ministry called 'the way of the master.' Not only do we have an official crest and a series called "Hell's best kept secret," but my partner has a mustache and everyone knows there is something inherently spiritual about mustachioed men."

Bono:
"Ha, that is hilarious. I touched more hearts than you'll ever reach with my Super Bowl performance after 9/11 and I've allowed Christian musicians to cover my music for years. I didn't even gripe when my songs were covered and suddenly deemed acceptable for Christian radio just because a Christian band was doing them. And don't forget my work in Africa."

Kirk Cameron:
"Oh please, you have a guy named "edge' in your band. Who changes their name to 'edge?' And didn't you swear at the grammy's one year?"

Bono:
"Whoa, low blow, Mike Seaver, low blow. Don't you have a photo shoot you need to be doing with the Jonas Brothers for the magazine Tiger Beat?"

Stephen Baldwin:
"Guys, there's no need to fight. I'm the best famous Christian."

Bono:
"Bio-Dome's Stephen Baldwin, what are you doing here?"

Stephen Baldwin:
"I have a skate ministry and since Stuff Christians Like refuses to give me my own entry I had to crash your entry."

Kirk Cameron:
"None of this matters. I've just been toying with the both of you?"

Stephen Baldwin:
"Why do you say that?"

Kirk Cameron:
"Simple, I was in the movie version of 'Left Behind.'"

Bono:
"You win."

Stephen Baldwin:
"Thanks for having me. Good game. Jon give me a call. I'll give you a free Rob Roskopp old school skateboard."

Listening: Part II

Okay so a few weeks back I posted about how I was shifting my focus to listening instead of deciding. Well let me tell you, it's pretty incredible. I feel like everything is coming together. Things don't seem as impossible as they did even last week. For the first time I actually feel like this whole graduation/move back to NC thing is going to happen... and not only that, but it's the right decision. I have a peace about it. Even if it changes again, for right now, I need to be there. The obstacles that seemed insurmountable are falling away one by one, such as living situations, which church to go to, etc.

God does absolutely amazing things all the time. Paying attention works wonders.

My roommate is cooler than yours.

This voicemail is probably the best voicemail ever. So I had to illustrate it a little.

A Sitcom Moment...

Okay so you know on TV when a girl is interested in a guy... they meet in a professional setting, guys gives girl a business card, and girl says something really smooth like "So how about you tell me more about this over drinks?" And the guy invariably says "Great, pick you up at 8 tomorrow."

Yeah, right now I wish I was that smooth. I'm just sayin'.

Fine. I'll give you the story. Cute Guy walks into the office for a meeting like 30 minutes ago. Boss man is late. Of course. So I have a chance to talk to Cute Guy. Definitely from a town 15 minutes from where I grew up. Really sweet. He's a finance guy.. we start talking about stuff I know nothing about. I tell him I know nothing about it. He gives me his card and says he'll show me how to get set up with IRAs, etc...

Now if I was half as lame as, say, any sitcom actress, when he walks out of that office, I would be like, "So this sounds really interesting... tell me more about it tomorrow night?"

But I'm so not cool enough to pull that off. Instead... I'll put on some lipstick and smile really big when he walks out of his meeting. And watch him drive away in his Lexus. *sigh*

Can I just say...

... that my life rocks?

Stuff is starting to pull together for my move. Yay!! I don't know that I could be much more excited to be out of school. And um, I have fans. They made tee shirts. :-)

You wish you had kids that cool in your life. :-)

Meanwhile, it's raining. I feel like a 5 year old, staring out the window wishing it was sunny out. I'm having a Cat In The Hat moment right now... I'm envisioning Thing 1 and Thing 2 running around, being scolded by a goldfish while running through the office with kites.



The only thing to do on days like this is sit on the couch with a huge bowl of mac and cheese. With Lifetime on TV. And only Lifetime. From 7am when the Nanny comes on and kicks off my morning until she closes it out at 1:30 AM, with a little Golden Girls, Reba, Frasier, and Will and Grace in between.

Granted, in this scenario I will be passed out wayyyy before 1:30. Are you slightly distressed that I know Lifetime's programming schedule so well? It makes me a little sad. I should probably be more embarrassed than I am. Meanwhile, this sums up my weekend:



I love my life.

My car is the girliest thing in the world.

And I love it that way.  Leave it to me to make a BUG even more girly.  You've already seen the outside but I'll post it again.  Sorry, I haven't taken a new pic of the outside. Yet. That'll change this weekend I'm sure.

I even Nashvilled it up with the rhinestones.  Yes, I went there.

And here are the cherries and cute sea animals. PS - that's a dolphin and sea turtle.

And to top it off they gave me a flower vase.  :-)

Things Franklinites like.

In the tradition of Stuff White People Like and Stuff Christians Like, I have decided to compile a list of stuff people in Franklin like.  Because it seems that no matter how many houses I go to, there are a ton of things that I can pretty much count on.  Feel free to add to this list:

1. Two refrigerators.  Everyone feels the need to not only have a huge side-by-side in their kitchen, but since that cannot possibly hold the amount of food an average family or 4 can eat, they have to put one in the garage or sunroom.

2. Organic everything.  I forreal just ate some organic fruit snacks with little Jack.

3. Sonic.  I think there's one just about every 100 feet.

4. Hanging their kids names on the walls in their bedrooms.  Nearly every child's bedroom has "E L L A" or "A U S T I N" hung in bright letters.

5. Naming their kids Ella, Austin, or any name that should really be a last name (i.e. Brady, Jackson, Walker, Parker, etc).

6. Having TVs everywhere.  I think the average Franklin household has about 19.7 televisions in their home.  We're talking bathrooms, sunrooms, etc.  I was startled to find one in a kitchen cabinet last week.

7. The rustic barn star. It's everywhere.  Above fireplaces, in stairwells... anywhere there is blank wall space to be filled.

8. Super complicated cable/TV/DVD set-ups.  The universal remote helps nothing.  At all.  I can count on screwing up everything when I play DVDs.  Pretty much every time.

9. Brick homes.  Just about every house is brick.  With hardwood floors.

10. Bibles.  And random religious children's books.  This includes Veggietales and any fairy-tale style Bible storybook.  I went to a house yesterday and didn't notice any, and was strangle unnerved.  Although that could have something to do with an abundance of African tribal masks lining the walls.

11. Stopping completely before they turn.

12. Going to church.  There are roughly 46781246 churches in this town.  And they all get out at the same time.  Do not try to have lunch in downtown Franklin.  Unless you are a heathen and go to the Irish pub we go to every week. Then you're golden.

This will most likely be a work in progress. :-)

Backyardigan Battles and Popsicles. For Jen.

So uh, Jen brought it to my attention that I haven't updated recently. Holy geez, 5 days. That's because I have been working every second I am awake. And like, real working, not pretend working like I usually do. When I'm pretend working I find time to blog.

I'm exhausted. And still have like 7 hours to go. Before I get to go home, pack, and do laundry. My poor puppyface. He hates me right now.

So just to bring everyone up to speed: School's out, yay God. I passed everything. Which is a small miracle in and of itself. Because I'm still not entirely sure how everything got done. But... most of it did. Enough of it did for me to be still enrolled in school.

Now for the next few weeks I juggle my time between sitting in offices and playing with children. Which brings me to my adventure for today.

I showed up at 7:45 for this job this morning. Which is ridiculous. And had this kid alllll day. Anyone who watches children knows what it's like keeping a 4 year old entertained all day. Especially when they don't like TV. So we start off the day by playing Barbies. Entirely his idea, I promise (much to the chagrin of his father, who was at home working for part of the day). Barbies are a completely different experience with 4 year old boys. There was no hair brushing involved. No dressing them up for "weddings". We sent them on rocket rides. Dropped houses on them. They pooped every 30 seconds. Babies were put in the oven.

We read about 756 books before my voice gave out. We ate. We played the most dysfunctional game of Kerplunk ever. I began to run out of things to do about 4 hours in. So I resorted to the balloons I bought that I keep in my car just for these occasions. We head out to the bug and make balloon swords and hats. I take him on an adventure. The enemy was not a monster. Not pirates. None of that. We were fighting off the Backyardigans.



Our attack brought us in circles around the pond, through "tree covered caves", and into "bat" territory. They chased us endlessly. Until he decided he wanted a red popsicle. Then there was a ceasefire of sorts, and we made balloon elephants and monkeys. We were in full battle attire, about to brave the jungles to deliver the monkey to his natural habitat when mom came home and broke up the fun.

He told her to leave.

This is the third job in a row where the kids have told their parents that they didn't want the babysitter to leave. That's good, right? ;-)

It's probably because I am getting entirely too good at acting like a 5 year old.

A day in the life.

Wake up at 7. Go to church - nursery duty. I had the tinies today -0 to walking. I'm handed Timothy - the crier. He cried for 30 minutes. We walked, we bounced, we rocked... to no avail. Finally, Timothy's mama comes. I enjoy my Route 44 Sonic drink and play with Ben the rest of the time. The easy baby.

Then I had a clown gig. Since I'm perpetually overbooked, I had to get ready at the church. I'm standing in the bathroom getting plenty of stares as I paint up my face.



I'm just finishing up and look over to see Pam Tillis beside me. Anyway, yeah so I'm pretty embarrassed. But I laugh it off, then jump in my Bug and head over to another church to twist some balloons.

I get there and Jo Dee Messina and her mom were sitting there. I was like awesome, this is a fun game. Let's see how many celebrities I can run into dressed like a clown.



At least the dogs enjoy my skirt.



Sorry about the wall shot at the end. I uh, didn't realize it was still recording.

Random Installments: Episode 3

1. Somehow the concept of being in 2 places at once still seems possible to me. Which, being an intelligent woman with a reasonable understanding of the laws of physics, doesn't make much sense. Yet I continually overbook myself. I'm going to start keeping a planner. I'll let you know how this works out for me.

2. I should be a 5 year old boy. I enjoy poking roly-poly's and chasing animals way more than I should probably admit. And I don't even mind the dirt under my fingernails. I seriously considered buying a creepy crawler machine after playing with one a while back. SO FUN.

3. Summer makes me a happier person. The sun comes out - I love life. Maybe there's a direct correlation between the amount of ice cream I consume when it's hot and my elevated mood? Maybe it's the obnoxious yellow purse? Who knows. But it's workin' for me.

4. I want my car. In case you haven't heard yet... meaning, you've had no contact with me this week, I'm buying a car, which is on it's way from Atlanta and will be in the same city as me by tomorrow. Meanwhile, my useless machine is overheating constantly, spewing fluids everywhere, and generally being an eyesore. This is my new car:

Tell me that I don't belong in a Bug. I'm breaking her in on a trip to NC. Very soon. Next week if I can scrape the gas money together... Because um, gas home is going to cost me MORE THAN MY FREAKING RENT. But, this time I don't have to rent a car!

5. Since it seems that I always close these out with a YouTube video, I'll keep up the tradition with a little flashback from Keith Urban and Patty Loveless... from when Keith was "on the verge"... yeah he'll never make it. March 2001.

I love love love both of them.

Reason #732 I Shouldn't Drive...

Before I start this, I need to say, in my own defense, that I haven't hit ANYTHING in 2 1/2 years. I'm just sayin'.

So there was a situation at work, and the short story is that I needed to get a check in the mail... like, yesterday.  After a not-so-nice phone call from the company, which I handled with complete grace, I assure you, I cut the check and leave a message with one of my bosses to please make arrangements with me to get it signed ASAP, so I don't get any more angry phone calls.  

It was decided that I would run the check over to his house to get it signed and the drop it in the mail.  I roll up, as hectic as usual because I had 5 stops to make on my little adventure, and circle the cul-de-sac to his house.  And promptly knock over his mailbox.

Do not ask me how I managed to do this because I don't know.  I walk up to his door, and he goes "Um, did you just knock over my mailbox?"  I was like uh, yeah... about that... he was like "how the hell did you do that?" 

I HAVE NO IDEA.  He laughed at me.  Refused any offer to replace it, telling me that would be silly.  Then wished me a safe drive back to the office....

And no, I didn't hit anything else.