Fantastic Fritz

Word of the day: CHOW Paper. I just DOMINATED it. 5 pages, 3 hours, felt like I was swimming through mud the whole time.

My roommate just burst into my room and made me scream something awful. Understand, she does this all the time, which is the reason my voice will be gone by the time I graduate.

Oh no. Alyssa just stuck in Walking Across Egypt. In a moment, there will be way too much Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the atmosphere.

Hey, so remember how Mountain Air was eating my life? Well, it finally stopped doing that around nine on Friday night. We didn't place, but I felt like a rock star. There's me, three over from the left.

So...what involves ten beautiful ladies and a weekend of absolute, wonderful, feminine bliss??

FRITZ WEEKEND!!!

This began immediately after Mountain Air, so we hit the road around 10:30 or so. I was tired out of my mind, but Kait forced me to drink a cup of coffee so that we could have a two hour dance rave with Diana in the back of the car. I think I lost about 50 thousand brain cells from head banging.
 

We got to Lisa's around one in the morning and Becky (Lisa's precious mother) got up just to see us. Then Lisa decided it would be a good idea to walk through the woods barefoot to go for a romp on the golf course under the stars. Yeah, talk about ouch on my feet. But we had a good time out there.

Then we went inside to play guitar hero. Til 2:30 in the morning. EXHAUSTION.

We woke up the next morning to the smell of delicious things in the kitchen. Precious Becky made us breakfast and we all got to eat outside. Then we hit the LAKE in Lisa's boat!!! And yes, I did wear my bikini. And yes, we did have an excellent time.

Yeah, we're great.

And we dance a lot.

My roommate is a precious redneck.

And I can't believe Britney's gonna be married in 2 1/2 months!

Needless to say, we all go sufficiently baked and a few of us almost drowned. See, we decided that it would be fun to jump in the freeeezing cold water. Unfortunately, it was next to impossible to get back up in the boat and a group of girls floated away while the rest of us tried to get back up.

That night, Lisa's daddy, Scott, took us out to dinner at a Hibachi place. We all got dressed up (except Laura Main, who forgot the proper clothes). Our cook was a Hispanic guy named Paco (at a Japanese place...hmmm....) and he pulled some scary trick that scared the bejesus out of me. I screamed and everybody laughed at me. My roommate, who loves making me scream, was particularly thrilled.

We're gorgeous.

And that's frightening Paco.

 

Then we split into two groups and one group went home while the other went to Walmart. Those of us who got back early hopped on the golf cart and whizzed around to the neighborhood of mansions near Lisa's house
for the next hour. Being girls, we drooled.  A lot. Then we went back to Lisa's and played Guitar Hero and had Molly's made-to-order milkshakes.

 

 

Then Alyssa and I played dollhouse for a while. I was the mom and she was the dad and we had a baby mouse whose leg fell off...whoops...and there were a lot of "marriage" scandals....

Then we had some Fritz-love-each-other-and-Jesus-time.

Then Amy and I ate about a gallon of ice cream and giggled like twelve-year-olds at the their first slumber party. And then there was some really great cuddle time up on the guest bed.

Mmmmm....

And then we went back the next morning! Good, sweet, simple times. And we heard the song "Hey, Soul Sister" about twenty times that weekend. 

Then Alyssa and I had a wonderful dinner with Esty. We all went to Chile's and, after dinner, had a delectable chocolate chip lava cake. In the meantime, we chatted it up with Nigel the waiter, swapped boy advice (well, that was more of a one-way street considering the fact that Esty's married), and quoted Demetri Martin. 

Lisa and Alyssa forced me to go for a donut run on Monday night and it turned into a sweet, two hour drive around the mountian. 

Last night, my sweet, sweet 81-year-old Grandaddy drove about two hours to come up here and take me out to dinner. We went to Rembrandt's, walked across the bridge, and talked about all his old cars. I had two emotions before he got here 1) That it would be super awkward because, well, my Gradaddy isn't the most verbal man, and 2) I felt privileged because Grandaddy never even took any of his own daughters out on a date, much less any of his grandaughters. He likes me, I think :) And it was a lot less awkward than I expected it to be.

 

I have some more things due before next Tuesday. That's painful. 

School: less than 2 more weeks. Holy moly. 

Song of the day: Hey Soul Sister.

Funfetti

Word of the day: Mountain Air: a lipsyncing competition I'll be taking part in this Friday. I'm in a group that's doing "Seize the Day" from The Newsies and it's a lot more work than I thought it would be.

I'm sacrificing precious time to blog. I also find it an alternative to doing schoolwork.

Thursday afternoon, I got a last minute request to babysit. I thought "ok, no problem". Well, it was the five child family again. SUPER cute kids, but SUPER crazy kids. It wasn't worth it. It especially wasn't worth it when I got back to school and realized that, for five kids for five hours last minute (yeah, it was almost 1 am when I got back), I was only paid $6 an hour. Cute kids or not, it isn't worth it--that's below minimum wage.

Do you know why Friday was amazing? It was amazing because both of my afternoon classes were cancelled. I had so much time to do things!

Put yourself in this scene: 2:30 am. Just fell asleep. Suddenly there is a terrifying rumble outside in the hallway. In your dream, there was an earthquake. Then there's a pounding on your door and someone shouts "GET UP GET UP GET UP!!!" You jolt up and look at your roommate, who's standing up, staring at the door. She promptly walks over and locks it. You grumble incoherently to yourself and throw your head back down on the pillow, cursing the boys who you know weren't allowed to be on the hall.

The next day, we found out that those boys had also taken a boy from Sutherland, saran wrapped him to a chair in his boxers, spray painted him gold, and left in front of a girl's door.

Needless to say, I was very cranky when I woke up at 7 am for Love Chattanooga service project. However, those of us who went had a pretty good time. I learned how to work a lawn mover and a weed whacker, ruined a pair of pants, and got very sore.

Saturday night, the Fritz went to the drive-in to see How to Train Your Dragon and Bounty Hunter. First: excellent. Alyssa and I cuddled and said "awww" the whole time. Second: not so good. Lisa and I sat on the rood of her car and made fun of it. A lot of snacks and Ke$ha happened that night.

Sunday was interesting. I took Janessa ( a Uganda team member) to church and finally told the women's Sunday school class that I was going to Uganda this summer. Worship was a little hard, as someone I had asked not to come to New City decided to ignore me and come to church with his girlfriend anyway....not good for me, I was shaking while trying to worship God. Let's take a guess at who this was....ANYHOW after that, Janessa and I went to Move for Uganda, a thing in Coolidge park. While we were there, a Ugandan man sat a bunch of us down in the makeshift schoolhouse and explained the history of the war to us. Fascinating stuff.

That night I went to Esty's house for dinner. It was delicious and WONDERFUL. There is nothing better to a college student than getting to go to a home and eat home-cooked food. My alternative was Skettios. Before dinner, Ethan and Graham tried to shoot Esty and me. "Stit em up!!" Esty tried to explain that when someone puts their hands up, you don't shoot them. It didn't work out so well. After dinner, I read Cookie Monster and the Cookie Tree (my favorite children's book) to the boys for my field placement project for Kiddie Lit. We also found hidden pictures in a Cars book.

I don't think I realized how much I missed Leila and Anna until I didn't see them for a week....Monday, we jumped on the trampoline and read outside at piano lessons. Anna and I are really beginning to get along, and it's nice. She only threw one fit on Monday.

Tuesday = assessment day = day off. Actually, it = more busy day than usual. I still had to get up early for practical service, but it was still worth it. After that, Mountain Air began to consume my life.

I hold to the phrase "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned".

This weekend, The Fritz is going to Lisa's house and we're all going to chill on the lake boat on Saturday. I'm breaking out the bikini and it will be FABULOUS!

Remember back in January when I said I was beginning to rewrite a story from ninth grade? No, you don't. That's ok. Here's the problem. I'm at 128 pages (not bad for three months, eh?) and almost finished. But everything is beginning to pile up now. I just want to finish so I can actually pay attention to schoolwork, but that's very, very hard. I just want six hours in a quiet room where I can finish. School decided it didn't want me to do this.

Kiddie Lit decided to make everything due at the end of the year.

OH YEAH. I got shots on Monday. Yellow Fever and Typhoid. Christina Klukow and I got lost several times on the way there and back and I'm so glad I took her. Now understand, normally I freak out at shots--real bad. But these shots barely even hurt on the way in (thank you nurse!) and afterwards Christina and I got huge frosties from Wendy's, turning my negative experience into a positive one. However, my arm wanted to fall off for the next two days.

My cousin Jeremiah sent me a Uganda check today with a post-it note on it. "This is to use on your trip to Uganda. -Jeremiah". I love my man-relatives.

Glee started up again yesterday and my roommate made thirty funfetti cupcakes to celebrate. Speaking of my roommate, it's roommate, it's Roommate Appreciation Day, and I just want to say ROOMMATE I APPRECIATE YOU!!!!

Alyssa just brought back delicious cake from Esty....mmmm.....

Song of the week: Need You Now by Lady Antebellum. Why has this song been stuck in my head lately? Because everything is starting to come full circle. This time last year was when the heartbreak process began...and because I'm in the same place where it happened, I'm going down memory lane all over again. "Oh, that's where I was sitting when he called. That was the ringtone that went off. That was the blanket I used when I tried to lie in the hallway because I was afraid to go to sleep in my bed and dream about it.....etc." However, come July 10th, this process should be over. Everything will have been over a year ago by then and I will have replaced those memories. Maybe. And then maybe I'll stop blogging about it altogether. Now wouldn't that be nice?

No More Snuggles

Word of the day: chacos, like the kind your wear on your feet. I got some on Monday and I've been obsessed ever since. I think I'd sleep in them if I could. However, they hurt my feet a lot right now, so I'm hoping that goes away soon.

Second word of the day: ubiquitous. This means being everywhere at the same time. It has nothing to do with my life, but it's a super cool word. Like, if I were going to make a new country, I would want to give it a name like that. Look out world: it's a country of UBIQUITOUS! Or maybe that would just be a really good name for the king. King UBIQUITOUS.

I'm sitting in the the Imani commons while my roommate cleans it. I'm keeping her from getting lonely.

I found out two very tragic pieces of news today about the beautiful Jacob Snuggs, a.k.a. Snuggie boy, a.k.a. Snuggles. Or that's just what I call him.
1) He's engaged (what?? He's only a sophomore!)
2) He cut his long, majestic, honey-gold locks. Yeah, now he looks like every other typical Founders boy

I'm crushed. But at least it's easier to give him now that he's not pretty anymore.

So, Easter Break was this last weekend. What was my main impression? I think there was a little too much family time. Don't get me wrong, I love my family. But those were the only people I saw the entire time. My sister has reached the age where she complains about everything and everything makes her bored. And she's always been at the age where she pokes me in squishy places and laughs because she's a stick while I'm....well, curvaceous. Not fat, but shapely.So, unlike the normal times when I come home and Audrey and I have a good time together, I spent half the break wanting to put duct tape on her mouth.

Good part of break: we did a lot of nature-y things and dad took a million and one pictures. He got a new camera that's hugemongous and I think he literally took over three hundred pictures a day. We went to Greenbrier (basically my favorite place in the Smokies), Rainforest Adventures (the wild animal zoo where my brother volunteers--we held baby rats and fed emus), Cloudland Canyon, and Sewannee. Yeah, we got lots of pictures out of all that.

Every time I watch New Moon, I fall more in love with Jacob. Or maybe that's just his abs. Oh dear...

Anyway, I rode home with Sarah and then came back up to Chattanooga on Saturday night with the family so that we could all go to New City in the morning for Easter Service. They loved it. Dad was basically dancing the whole time.

Then we went up to Winchester Sunday afternoon -> Monday afternoon. This is where more family drama developed. My uncle brought his ex-wife to the family dinner (yeah, that didn't go over well) and my thirteen year old cousin snuck off with her boyfriend to go make out--several times. Her nine year old sister was with me at the time and I kept repeating "Don't get a boyfriend til you're out of high school. Boys are bad. Leave them alone til you grow up. Don't sneak off with boys...." Why did I do this? Because I like Lorianna. She's a cool kid. Her make-outy sister, however, is gross and called my sister a b**ch over text messages. *rolls eyes*. On the bright side: Grandaddy's dog is really cute and we bought lots of fun toys at Hammers and got to see Jonanne and her girls again.

There are only 28 days left in the school year. This is really, really sad. I'm not ready for the Fritz to be over, and it almost is. That, and it means that there are only 33 days left til I go to AFRICA. AAAHHH!!!

I have been pleasantly surprised in CHOW class lately. Remember the guy who chewed his nails in class and spit them on the floor? Apparently he's smart. I don't understand.

Today, chapel was awesome. Ironically enough, it had nothing to do with the songs or the message. I think it was only great because the people on both sides of me were being VERY silly and because Messner made fun of himself on stage.

You know what I hate about technology? Oftentimes, more things go wrong with it than right. Monday night, Christina, Amy, and a few others filmed a video for Tech for Educators (a chapter from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe--and I was Susan). Yesterday afternoon, we spent about three hours trying to get it onto a computer, from which we spent about forty-five minutes actually editing it.

Yesterday, one my kindergartners spotted a ring on my right pointer finger and stopped in the middle of his reading to say "Are you married?" Yes, Isaac, I'm married to Jesus :) Then I spent all of recess time holding Brown the horse for Kenzie so that she could play tag. Brown and I had a splendid time yelling at all the children.

Covenant College is a much more pleasant place to be when the sun is shining.

Song of the day: Don't Forget by Demi Lovato

Half-Asleep

Word of the week: emotional.

This week has just been a 'splosion of everyone's emotions, and I don't really understand why that is.

I've dealt with a friend who is dying, a friend who's heart is willingly being broken, a friend that I never meant to leave behind as I have, and then a night full of hall drama--and The Fritz does NOT have hall drama. I really didn't understand.

Implications for Laura? Staying up late every night, making sure that I was listening to those who needed to be listened to as well as working out my own emotions through conversation. Because here's the deal--a lot of the perceived problems all related back to a lack of communication. And I have a fixer mentality (as many do) so that  I don't like it when things just sit, I want to work through them or I do not sleep.

End of the semester pressure is coming on. There are a lot of things to do before Uganda gets here, and only five weeks to do them. I have also been neglecting relationships, which has made them fall into disrepair, and that's all my fault.

Oh, the wonderful world of being human.

On a brighter note:
-hall drama ended in about 24 hours
-Lisa, Alyssa, Kait, and I got lava cakes at Chile's
-babysitting's been great this week
-the sun has been out. a lot
-I've listened to a ton of country music this week, and I used to hate country
-I'm about to be able to sleep for ten hours

And, today I found a last relic of the relationship that has been in the back of a drawer for some time now. It was a small beanie bear with a "D" sown to it. I haven't really been sure what to do with it. I was looking it over today and finally just grabbed a pair of scissors and snipped off the "D". And now I have a small teddy I can enjoy.

This is creativity at work.

Song of the day: Grace Kelly by Mika

Winchester

Word of the day: free, single lady! Wait, I think that was more than one word...oops...

I spent the weekend at Jonanne's house and decided that I wanted to blog about it when I got back.

As soon as I walked in the house, Jenny (age five) announced that she wanted to show me something. I followed her upstairs and she forced me to do jumping jacks for two minutes. It seems to me that whenever five year olds say they want to show you something, it doesn't mean they actually want to, it means that they want your attention, no matter what. Ok. As soon as I was done, Rachel (age nine) burst into the room to show me the clay vase she made. There was constant "I wanna show you, I wanna show, I wanna show you!"

Alright. Then I was dragged downstairs to watch Barbie and the Mermaid Tail. Barbie movies make me lose all hope I have in the future of little girls. Every woman in that movie was teeny-tiny and bikini-clad.  My cookie belly was cringing.

As soon as Josh and Jonanne left for the evening, I suddenly felt like a mother. I prepared an entire dinner for both little girls, who were constantly demanding my attention. They stayed around the kitchen, drawing on the fridge, as I slaved over personal pizzas and played A*teens on the kitchen stereo. So imagine my disappointment when I placed dinner down in front of them, watched them take two bites and then declare that they weren't hungry.

Before I could drown my sorrows in my dinner, Jenny demanded that we play princess with her as queen. Twenty minutes later, we were all in dresses with flowers and jewelry. Enjoy:

Rachel

Jenny (with chocolate milk on the mouth)

The stunner.

We had a procession down the stairway and then had a princess dance party around the kitchen. Probably the best fifteen minutes of my life. The rest of the evening was spent making brownies and watching Enchanted.

Jenny is at the "let me do everything" stage. Soon she will be where Rachel is now, at the "i don't want to do anything" stage.

I spent the night snuggling with Rachel because she REALLY wanted to have a sleepover.

When we finally rose the next morning, I made Jenny a bowl of Lucky Charms and all she did was pick out the marshmallows >.< After helping Jonanne clean house, I went out to the field with the girls for a while where we were princess sisters. We fought off an evil lake monster and witches and made a crazy salad. 

I'm sorry, she's just oober cute.

Off to Hammer's store to see Gandaddy for a while! He is a darling man, but very difficult to converse with unless you know your sports. Lorianna, my other nine year old cousin, joined us. I haven't seen her in over a year....geez. And she had ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE silly bands on her arms!!

 When we got back, we flew kites. Well, tried at least. This kite got stuck in a tree.

Then a million deer came sprinting out of the woods! I only got a picture of the last one. I think he was lost.

Bye Mr. Deer!

Jonanne and I slaved over a Greek dinner that night and made some delicious things. I took a picture because I never want to forget them. Spinach and LOTS of feta.

MMMMMMMMMMM

Oh yeah, and Lorianna came back with us. Then Jonanne's other Laura-niece came over, so there were four little girls having a sleepover there. CRAZY.

That night = exhausted. So waking up for church the next morning was difficult. But Jonanne made cinnamon rolls--real ones--which made it all better. Here at college, we get these fake, rock-hard cinnamon rolls that aren't even worth eating. Just about everything Jonanne makes is very much worth eating. 

They go to a very small church, so I got introduced in front of the congregation, and such on and so forth. It was great. Extra attention is awesome in my book. 

Strangely enough, I also listened to country music all the way back to school, which is weird because I never listen to country music when I'm alone. It reminds me of my former, more redneck days.

End of the weekend. 

So, what's with my words of the day? Well, the original reason I went for the weekend was to escape Spring Formal because 1) it held a lot of memories of last year's Spring Formal, which was the last really good memory I had with Dusty and 2) because going as a single lady or even being at school thinking about it as a single lady would make me feel very....sad, I guess, because I would compare it to last year. I discovered that going to Winchester instead was a good idea. While I was there, I spent a lot of time helping Jonanne around the house and taking care of the girls. That made me realize something: I'm NOT ready to have my own house, my own husband, and my own kids. This period of my life--the young, single time where I can travel wherever I want and take care of only myself is not going to last for very long. If I had a husband, I wouldn't have been able to go and visit them like that, I wouldn't have been able to play games with the girls like I did, and so on. If I had a boyfriend, I wouldn't have even gone, I would've stayed for Spring Formal. 

It's still hard sometimes to tell myself that God's got it. He knows how long my life will be this way and whether or not I'll end up with a house and family. Because I do want one someday. My problem is that I can be a real control freak.  I think I've been husband-hunting since I was five years old, when I made a list of all the boys I knew that I could marry. Well, not hunting. But I've wanted one. Scary thing is, when I actually think about it, I don't want one just yet. I want one later. What I want now is to know who he is....but God doesn't operate that way. For a couple years, I felt very secure because I thought I knew who it was, and even though I'm glad that I was wrong, I now have that insecurity, which is now even worse than it was before I dated anyone. 

I also tend to focus on all the stories I've heard of women who never got a husband, and though I hate to admit it, that scares me to death. I hate even sleeping in a room alone...and I've decided that if I don't get a man, I'm moving to a country where I can run an orphanage and we can all sleep in a hut together. 

I need to shift my focus to now-and-not-then. God knows everything that's gonna happen and nothing I do will change it. Of course, that is easier said than done, especially when I hear about marriage three-and-fifty times a day at Covenant College.

Song of the day: Lollipop by Mika.

Ice cream

Word of the week: sporadic. There was snow on Monday, nasty on Tuesday, shorts on Wednesday, COLD on Thursday, and bleh today. What the Fritz???

I figured it would be a good idea to update before I left for Winchester. I'm going to Jonanne and Josh's house for the weekend to escape the horrors of Spring Formal with my little cousins Rachel and Jenny. Maybe we'll have a princess ball to replace it :)

It's getting to the point in the semester where I just don't want to do anything useful. Actually, that's my entire life when it comes to school, but it has recently escalated. My roommate feels the same way--which led to the events of last night. At 9:30, Lisa said "I HAVE AN IDEA! Let's make a puppet theater with this box!!" So we cut out a box, cut up magazine, and got this:

Pronounce "Celebrity Feater" wif an English accent. 

Last week, I pulled one of my kindergartners aside to have her read to me. The first thing she did was sit down, sniff, and say "You smell like you just took a bath." Why, thank you, Rebecca. And, as I was grading one of the third grader's geography worksheets, I came across this:

Question: "What is the statue of liberty wearing?"

Answer: "A sassy robe"

I busted out laughing.

Anna, the lovely six year old that I babysit twice a week, has been surprisingly cooperative recently. Last week she walked in the door and proclaimed, "I wanna finish my homework right now!" My ears nearly fell off. On a good day, usually she is only semi-difficult. There have been many great days the last two weeks. Here's Anna:

A couple days ago, I rediscovered why I enjoy working out. Why, you ask? Because, when I am on the elliptical, I simply turn on hip hop music and pretend I'm dancing. Of course, that's a little dangerous, especially when I actually do start dancing...on a moving machine....

On St. Patrick's day, Laura Main taught us how to riverdance. And we dressed Brian Peppers up like this:

He's a leprechaun.

On Monday, I babysat Esty's beautiful boys once again (and yes, Esty, I'm writing this for your entertainment :). Instead of eating dinner, the boys sat at the counter and constantly gave one another bunny ears. When they were finally "finished" with that, we watched Star Wars and I got a very interesting commentary. Then we made cushion forts, which was therapeutic in my opinion. And when it was time for bed, Ethan tried to kill me with his plastic gun, and Graham requested that we read the lego version of the Christmas story. 

I mean, I guess I had a good time. Maybe a little bit.

I've been collecting quotes from Dr. Stewart (affectionately known as Stewy) in Doctrine class . Some of his Canadian colloquialisms are...cute:

• "Have you ever been to a spa?"

• "I'm not going to snow you with details, I'm simply going to use a very bright paintbrush."

• "He's not your piece of spaghetti, you know. He's doctrinal."

• "I like to have mints in church, you know, to keep me awake. Give me a sugar jolt. It seems that Eutychus didn't have any mints."
• "Rapidly, rapidly, rapidly..." 

Last weekend, I read The Giver in a single afternoon, and it ruined my emotions for a whole day. That is a crazy, crazy, crazy book. Then Alyssa and Lisa and I went for a midnight donut run and stayed up til 2 am watching/ridiculing/losing our virtue to New Moon.

My sister got two Justin Bieber posters for her birthday.

You know what I love? I love it when people call me by my name. Except when they are angry with me. Then I'd rather them not continually repeat my name. I actually would prefer they forget it.

This week's ice cream count: Two cones in the Great Hall, two free cones at Ben & Jerry's, one free cone of Clumpie's, one bowl of ice cream in Andreas, and one whole bowl of ice cream, chocolate syrup, cake, rice krispies treats, and chocolate chip cookies on Student Appreciation Day.

I hope they have ice cream in Uganda.

And, when the hall went for free cones, we also got stuck down the mountain playing football at Sonic because someone set the fire alarm off in Andreas.

Beaulah went to the car doctor AGAIN this week because she's been crying and I couldn't figure out why. But they called today and said it was something really minor. When I go to pick her up, I'll be sure to give her a lecture about being a grown-up car. She is thirteen years old, after all.

Last Saturday = awesome. We went to Coolidge Park, flew kites, ate food, blew bubbles, and played with sidewalk chalk. Unfortunately, Molly has all the pictures.

Sometimes, I think that if I were a color, I would be pink. 

Song of the week: Don't Forget by Demi Lovato. As well as everything by Ke$ha.

Gustav

HELLO BLOG!!!

Word of the week: pancake. I both ate and felt like one.

I think this was possibly the laziest week I've ever had since I've been in college. And that's wonderful. I accomplished much, however. We'll go through the highlights.

1) I saw a lot of my high school friends. I spent a whole day with Sarah and Laurie from homeschool, which was especially good because I haven't seen either of them since their weddings. But it was weird hanging out with two married women all day--with me not being in that stage of development and all. Just a totally different perspective on life. My husband is invisible and does not influence my decisions, thank you. I also saw Bekah, Rejoice, and Tori from high school. It amazes me how different everyone's lives get after school is over...and I feel like a pink, sunny flower compared to them. Sometimes you don't see your blessings until you see others who don't have them. And sometimes it's really hard to figure out the right thing to say to help without sounding annoying. I felt like a lot of my conversations went like this:
Them: "so how's life?"
Laura: "oh, it's great! i love school, etc...how's yours?"
Them: "my life sucks. here's why...."
Laura: *crapola!*

2) I wrote. A LOT.

3) There was one day that I stayed inside the house the entire day.

4) I spent one afternoon outside in my driveway pretending to be a child. First, I drew with sidewalk chalk. Then I hit around a volleyball. Then I blew bubbles. Just me. Actually, that's a lie. My invisible husband was there also. I will provide a picture of the sidewalk chalk. It's a Lewis Carroll poem, don't ask me why it was stuck in my head.

5) I read a children's book. I also read the whole book of Joel.

6) Some Ukrainian friends came over on Friday night and kicked me out of my room, which was ok with me, I suppose. One of them, Lyuda, was from the mission trip that our church went on back in 2008, and she's in charge of the girls' youth small group there. It was AWESOME to see her! The problem, though, was that I stayed at Sarah's that night (which is usually great) and Muffin--the sweet little poodle--wouldn't shut up. I was laying in bed having fantasies of hitting the dog with a broom.

7) I painted shelves at a thrift store. They were TV shelves, meaning that there were TVs on them that were playing movies. This particular movie was "Elmo in Grouchland, USA". Excellent film. I watched the whole thing and a half.

8) I went Uganda skirt shopping at this same establishment.

9) I ate a lot of quality food.

10) I hardcore cleaned my room.

11) I made a ridiculous album for the Fritz. My favorite picture was the one in which Laura Main killed everybody:

12) I found that I'm very grouchy when awoken by any family member. 

13) I definitely had a self-dance party when everyone was gone. And no, this was not simply one of those I-just-got-out-of-the-shower-and-I'm-hopping-around-my-room-to-music dance parties (those are pretty regular), this was a full-out-headphones-in-ears-ipod-turned-up-all-the-way-leaping-across-the-balcony-pretending-you're-a-rockstar dance parties. I even danced to the Veggie Tales song "Endangered Love/Barbara Manatee" and N'Sync's "Bye Bye Bye". 

14) I belted out a Thumbelina song while sitting in a bank drive-thru.

15) I became more and more amazed at the hickness of Sevier County. The first story in today's paper--the headliner--was about a Dollar General that they are building in Seymour. A Dollar General. In New York, they get new skyscrapers. In Sevierville, we get new Dollar Generals.

16) I talked in front of church about Uganda. Always a lil nerve wracking.

17) I did 0 homeworks.

So break=good. I think it was about the right length of time, because any longer and I would've strangled someone in my family, probably. However, I still don't feel like classes are happening tomorrow. Actually, I've decided they're not. I'm sleeping in with my invisible husband. We'll call him Gustav.

Song of the day: Hello Seattle by Owl City.

Oh yes, and a picture of the time when we captured Christina for her birthday last weekend: