If you really knew me...

This afternoon amongst my crazy multitasking... and by multitasking I mean watching a movie, watching women's gymnastics, archery, swimming, and diving in the olympics while not ever really getting out of bed... I received a call to duty.

On this lazy, dark, drizzly day fit for staying in and watching the Olympics, I would normally shrug off any call to duty mainly because I'm in my complete and utter useless stage. Actually, that is really the only stage I have been in all weekend and I surely do not wish to break my lazy streak on account of some formal call to duty.

However, this particular call can be done from my bed with the simple tapping of computer keys. All the while, the Olympics plays happily and undisturbed in the background.

So what you ask is this call to duty? Well, there seems to be a blog craze going around. Something simple in which you post about things people would know if they really, really knew you. My good friend, sorority sister, and fellow blogger Jenna posted it on her blog this afternoon and tagged me in the this blogging trend. So here it goes...

If you really knew me...

You would know that I cannot spell to save my life. I actually just misspelled undisturbed and my computer had to correct it for me. I'm surprised they let me out of elementary school.

You would know that I absolutely love soup. It's the best and most amazing food ever and comes in 20,000+ flavors and consistencies. My favorite being Chicken Tortilla Soup at 2 particular restaurants back in New Mexico.

You would know that I am completely and hopelessly addicted to 19th century literature turned movie. North and South, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Little Women. You name it and I love it!

You would also know that though I love the above mentioned movies, my favorite movies include Fight Club, The Boondock Saints, Die Hard collection of movies, and Saw collection.

You would know that I hate knocking on doors and ringing door bells. I avoid it all costs. It makes me uncharacteristically nervous. If I am visiting somebody, I usually call them when I arrive. I'm sure there is some deep seeded physiological reason for this but I'm not entirely sure what it is.

You would know that I cannot stand cotton balls, polar fleece, cue tips, or anything of the like. Don't ask... I don't have a logical answer.

You would know that when I get really excited, and I start to talk too fast I shorten words and don't even realize it. Not because it has suddenly become the cool thing to do but because my mouth is going much more quickly than my brain can process. The most common is because... which I often shorten to bees. As in... "I'm so excited bees in two days my sister gets here and then in 9 days I go back to New Mexico."

You would know that the very first thing I see on a guy always is his hair. Good hair is the difference between a cute guy and a hot guy. And a bad haircut on a guy can ruin everything. This also makes me very aware of when any of the guys around me have just gotten a haircut. Even if it's a tiny trim, I notice. 

You would know that I need alone time. I am not one of those people who can constantly be surrounded by other people. Being too social actually really stresses me out and makes me very grumpy. Not that I don't love being around people. I do... I just need space sometimes.This makes clingy guys a problem.

You would know that I literally have to fight myself to stay awake in a car if I am not driving. It's torture. If I'm in the passenger seat, I definitely want to be sleeping. Five minutes in a car and I can be dead asleep and not wake up again for hours. It's not by choice either. It's a physical reaction of being in a car that I just cannot help. It's so damn relaxing! Unfortunately, this makes me a really bad road trip partner.

You would know that I don't actually own a brush. No, I'm not kidding. I do not brush my hair or comb my hair really. I have a pick that I use to detangle my hair right out of the shower but that is it. Experience has taught me that my insanely frizzy, thick, wavy/curly hair is turned in to a straight up afro at even the site of a brush. 

You would know that I love ellipses. You know... those three little dots. I don't even think I use them correctly most of the time but that isn't going to stop me!

You would know that I am excited but really, really, really nervous to uproot the only life I have ever known and move to Michigan... a place where I know not a single soul, in a mere 13 days.

You would know that I love my life, I love my friends, I love my family, and partly due to this I take things very personally.

Easter Camping

We are well packed for our camping trips!

A week ago today, I was sitting in the Gila National Forest on the most beautiful of days. No wind. Slightly cloudy skies. No homework. No people or noise or distractions. Just me, my dad, my mom and my two pups Emmy and Murphy.

Fast forward one week... I am sitting in my room avoiding doing homework. It's a disgustingly nasty spring day. Winds up to 40ish mph. Dust blowing in through the windows. And too many noises and distractions around.

Amazing how so much changes in a week. A week ago was Easter. As you know, I am not religious but we have been celebrating the traditions of Easter since I was a wee little girl and I love it. One of my favorite things is that we go camping on Easter.

We are a camping family. And we do it well.

We can sleep in tents... but we don't because we have a much more comfortable way to hide from the cold and the rain. When I was young we bought this pretty awesome pop-up tent camper thing from a family friend. It has seen us through many trips. Though, we spend a good 80% of our time camping outside, it is nice to not lay on an uneven rocky surface.

I think we eat better camping then we do even at home. Everything made in the woods on a fire is just incredibly more tasty. Take a hot dog. A hot dog is pretty tasty at home on your grill... but in the woods it's like a 5 star meal that obviously had to have been made with the finest ingredients in all the land. It's kind of magical how the forest seems to have that power over you.

Easter is more special in the forest. My parents used to hide the eggs filled with candy all around the forest and my sister and I would wake to freezing cold mornings to find the colored gifts scattered high in the trees. It's so much more rewarding that way.

We had freezing years where the candy would literally freeze in the eggs. We had years where the droughts prohibited fires throughout the forest in an effort to prevent all the trees going up in a burning blaze. We had windy years where you couldn't sleep because you felt like you may just be lifted right out of your sleeping bag and thrown into the air.

But this year was perfect. It was cool but not cold. It was breezy but not windy. It didn't rain. We had fires all weekend long. We played games, hiked, flew kites. It was perfect. Well, almost perfect. Almost perfect because this was the first year my sister wasn't there to spend it with us seeing as how she is in grad school in Pennsylvania. And almost perfect because it is more than likely the last Easter camping trip I will ever get to go on.

I'm starting to get a little sappy and a little nervous and a little bitter-sweet about everything. I have exactly 28 days until I graduate and 32 days until I leave New Mexico for good. Well, almost for good. I come back 1 day after a very short science related trip to Maryland, just so I can pack and fly out to Boston the next day. Then in August I am back for a total of 3.5 days so I can pack up my whole life in to my tiny new car and drive off to Michigan.

It's all getting very real and I am not preparing for it at all. I'm one of those last minute packers/preparers and right now I am more concerned with the my food list. You know, the list of food I have to eat before I leave. Oh... the amount of green chili being consumed in 1 month is going to be a new record. I am sure of it.

I hope you all had a wonderfully amazing Easter whether you're religious or not. Enjoy the moments... life never stays the same for long.

This Pantry is Delerious

Sometimes I worry about my family. Probably not in the sense you're thinking about. I mean, I do worry that, you know, I'll get a call saying that they were found in a ditch somewhere (Obviously, I hope this never actually happens). But to worry about things like that is exhausting and quite frankly stupid. I mean, if they were going to get in a freak accident, it would be horrible. I would cry. I'd probably lock myself in my room. I'd curse them for never making a will because I would probably end up homeless on the streets as the city took away our house and pretty much everything else. And I would be really really depressed and hate life for a ridiculously large amount of time (more for the loss of family than the house and homeless part... that's just an unfortunate outcome of an unforeseeable accident. One that can be avoided parental units! Get a will. Thanks.)

But in the end... it is just an accident. I can't worry about accidents happening. There really isn't a lot I can do to stop them.

However, I do worry about how my parents are going to survive without me. No seriously, I feel like I should make them lists of everything. But I still don't think that would help. Or maybe I should just hire them a personal grocery shopper. I don't know, but sometimes when I start to think about it too much I get mini heart palpitations.

The main things I am concerned with are the pantry, freezer(s), and fridge. Which are huge areas to be concerned about. These places are the only places in the house that store the food. The food we need to survive on. The food that I find out multiple times a year... gets lost in the corners never to be heard of again until I come and clean it out. I think the perfect motto for our kitchen would be:

A messy kitchen is a happy kitchen and this kitchen is delirious.

Ever since I have been born... 21.5ish years... I can only remember one event involving my mother/father/sister cleaning out a food storage place. Once. Yeah, everybody chips in with cleaning the dishes and the counters and whatever else but not those three sacred areas. I don't know how I got this job or if I just simply took it over in a time of need but I have become a pretty strict food cleaner.

It is like a compulsive behavior. If I open the fridge, and it is a disaster, I have to clean it. I can't help it. I don't focus and I sure as heck can't eat so I drop everything and clean it out and straighten it up. I'm more lax on the freezers and pantry because those are more of a pain to clean out.

But today I tackled the pantry. It took me 2 solid hours to clean it out. TWO hours. As I am going through and sorting things out, I find the most ridiculous things. I am not even positive how these things got in here in the first place, because I know they weren't hiding in there the last time I cleaned, yet somehow their expiration date is 2008. How is that possible? How can we have... not 1 but 2 cans of blueberry pie filling that expired in 2008. I know that I have never had a blueberry pie and my mother has never made one. So why I ask do we have blueberry pie filling? It is truly still a mystery to me.

I feel like there must be some miniature door hidden in the back corner of the pantry where the Keebler Elves or some sort of creature that looks quite similar waits for the perfect time to attack! By adding ridiculous expired food products. Or just ridiculous food products.

For example, our stash of tea. I am not a tea drinker. I quite prefer coffee and I think tea tastes strange. But maybe once a year we make tea. My sister once went through a phase where she made a lot of tea and I think that is where we acquired the stash. But we had ten boxes of assorted tea. And in case you didn't know, tea does expire! So most of our stash of tea is sitting at the bottom of the trash can.

By the time I am done with the pantry, I am feeling much better about life. I can find things. I can tell what we have in stock and what we do not. And I can make sure my mom doesn't buy any more of what we already have.

But what do you think happened when my parents got home? Well, I pointed to the pantry and my mom went to open it and do you know what she did next!? I still am in utter shock. I can't even believe it happened. She opened the trash can and peered inside it. Then with a crumpled face, she took out an old bottle of dressing and said,  "I JUST bought this. You cannot throw this away." Well ma, seeing as how the expiration date is 2010 I'm going to go with that was a blatant lie and the only way you "just" bought this is if you created a time machine and placed it in the dressing isle at the grocery store. But seeing as how this is a highly unlikely scenario,  I'm gonna go with lie.

Next she asks... "Where's all the tea!?" This coming from the mother who has never made tea for herself in her life. I'm sorry... what were we keeping this tea for? Are gypsies coming to town and we plan buying things from them by trading in tea? Because it is enough to start some form of currency so this may actually be doable. In that case, I can most certainly fish them out of the trash. If that isn't the case then they are staying put. Or are we planning on reenacting the Boston Tea Party because I think that would be fun and for this I will also fish the tea out of the trash.

Do you see what I have to deal with people? I am currently swaying back and forth on a very small line. On one side of the line... I'm leaving soon and therefore can pretend it goes away. The other side of the line... dear god, if I don't teach them the proper grocery buying and storing rules my parents are going to 1. Die of starvation because they can't find anything 2. Die of some disease because they have eaten rotten food.

Looks like I have work cut out for me in the next several months...

I also found the perfect gift to give as a going away gift. As in, I am going away, please read this!

On the upside and random side, I just found out you can make a funfetti cake/cupcakes with a simple box of funfetti mix and a can of soda. No eggs, oil or anything else. Thank you pinterest.com for taking multitude of hours away from productivity as well as providing me with a plethora of humorous jokes and yummy recipes. 

cookiesandcups.com

(Disclaimer - I should tell you that we don't actually throw out a lot of food. I do more rearranging and making everything fit nicely than throw things away. Just so you know and don't get all crazy and bring out the starving kids in Africa. Though yes, I know they still exist and it is an unfortunate set of events. I'm sure they wouldn't enjoy large amounts of expired tea which brings no nutritional value except for the water that it is carried in.

And my family isn't filled with slobs... I promise! I am just a little crazy. You may have already come to this conclusion on your own.)

Ringing in the New Year!

At this very second, some of you have already entered the new year. Some of you are waiting for it to happen in approximately 36 minutes. Some of you have to wait even longer than that.

Some of you are passed out drunk. Some of you are alone. Some of you are regretting that person you kissed at midnight. Some of you are wishing that your midnight kiss is going to be with that special someone. Some of you are already taking in your two hours of 2012 with a good nights sleep.

But me... I'm at home with my family. Starting our New Years tradition of movie marathoning. We have already watched Captain America (way better than I was expecting), Water for Elephants (excellent! Can't wait to read the book), and Hanna (saw it with my sister previously and thought it was alright. What was I thinking?! Obviously I was on some kind of pain killers or in a state of utter confusion because that movie was horrible. I just wasted 2 hours of my life. Turns out... I wasted 4!! When will I learn!?).

Tomorrow we have Unknown, Super 8, The Help... and possibly Crazy Stupid Love if I can convince my Dad to watch it with us. Love that movie. Love Ryan Gosling! I don't think I am going to win my father over with Ryan Gosling's incredible charm or looks.

So, no parties for me. No boys to kiss at midnight. No drinks to be had (actually my mom and I are enjoying some refreshing Mike's Hard Lemonade so that is always fun). No fancy dress. No fireworks, or streamers, or sparklers. Just movies.

And as my friends text me to get together and asked what I was up to over and over, I didn't feel the slightest bit of regret to saying no. This is possibly the last year in a very long time... if not ever that I will be spending New Years with my family. So no, I don't want to party or put on sparkly makeup. I don't want to watch the ball drop in a crowded room half filled with strangers half filled with close friends. I want to spend it here, on my couch in my comfy pajamas with my family.

2011 was such an amazing year. I met amazing people. A city full of wonder and magic (Boston). I had new adventures in D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and New Orleans, NYC, Pennsylvania. I reconnected with old friends. I lost friends. I was excited as my sister moved away and entered a new life for herself in Pennsylvania. I fell down some stairs. I became an alumni of Pi Beta Phi. I turned 21. I cried. I let people go. I karaoked.  For a whole wonderful year I lived. Which is more than anybody can even hope for.

So no. I am not going to break tradition this year just because I am expected to go out with everybody. Not when this is the last year I won't have to break tradition.

This year was beyond spectacular... why would I start 2012 off with anything different?

And just like that... 2011 slips into 2012 seamlessly.  And I just have this feeling that something spectacular is going to happen this year... either the end of the world or something much much better ;)