Gifts from Family

So I had a missed call and voice mail on Thanksgiving Day from a number that seemed somewhat familiar, but unknown. I called my voice mail and Gladys(what I call the electronic voice on my voice mail) informed me that I had one new message. I listen anxiously to find out who my mystery caller was and what they wanted with me. It turns out it was my Aunt Pam calling to say she had a surprise for me. I was so excited, one because someone had actually called me, and two because the person who called had a surprise for me! It just doesn't get better than that! So I called my mommy dearest and asked her if she knew what the surprise was, turns out she did. She informed me that Pam, her older more distinguished, wiser sister; Caroline, the younger, somewhat distinguished, playful sister; Pam's joyful and amusing daughter Emily, and Caroline's disappointment but still loved daughter-in-law Eva, where all coming in town for a visit. They would be rolling in town on January 21st. We were so excited, so much so that Wanda (my mother) almost wet her pants! We ran out and made them goody bags filled with organic handmade soaps, bath poufs for that spa feel, monogrammed tissues, personalized notepads for their purses, and sleep masks for the best slumber of their lives. We spent weeks perfecting how our house looked so they would think they were in a five star resort. We planned out the foods we would eat, the games we would play, and the store we would go to. Then a few weeks before their arrival we get a phone call from Caroline telling us that Eva had backed out due to "car trouble." Ridiculous. I would rather have no car than to have to cancel a vacay to our house. Anywho, January 21st finally arrived and anticipation was killing me. I had to work that day and I could not wait to get off and rush home. They had quite a long drive from Arkansas to our house and decided to make it even longer by stopping and shopping along the way. They ended getting to the house around 7:30 Thursday night. We had fun catching up on everyone's lives. We awoke early on Friday morning to get started on the day of fun. Caroline claimed that the air mattress she had slept on felt as if it were filled with ice water. Then she had the audacity to pretend she felt like she might be getting sick. We all ignored her, had a wonderful breakfast of biscuits and nassau grits, got ready, and headed out for a day of shopping. Our first stop was at Old Time Pottery. A strange thing happened there; a role reversal. The mom's were the ones who wore Emily and I out. We had to retire to the OTP's old people hang out while the ladies finished up their shopping. As Emily and I were plotting to have "Wanda Kay Brewer Petty Smith Sanders" paged over the loud speaker we hear our names being belted out to report to check out; the old women beat us to it! We left OTP and headed for the outlet mall. We made it around the right side of the mall and got some great deals before Wanda started dragging her foot behind her due to her Planterfacitus. We left the mall and went home to have a lavish dinner of fried shrimp, coconut shrimp, and homemade mac and cheese. After dinner it was time to play games. We started off with hand and foot, but had to rotate player because Eva backed out of the trip and left us with an odd number of people, which proves to be a problem in pretty much every game imaginable. After five rounds the game was over and my team (Caroline and substitute Pam) was victorious. We decided to play catchphrase but couldn't make it work thanks again to Eva. So then it was on to Balderdash, which thankfully, does not require an even number of players. We all had a blast and laughed until we cried. We went to bed around 1a.m. Saturday morning Caroline decides she wants even more attention than she got on Friday. So once again she is claiming the air mattress was freezing and unbearable and now she has a "fever." Last time I checked a temp of 101.4 is not a fever it's and excuse, I mean grow up, if you are not passing out from the blood boiling in your body you do NOT have a fever. So I selflessly gave up my bed to the whiner. She insisted on calling us from her cell phone when she needed something. Then Wanda was tired of Caroline hogging the lime light so then all of a sudden she is "sick." Pam, Emily, and I were sick too, sick of these little whiny babies, so we went for another round of shopping and a short photo shoot at the beach. It was their last night in town and Pam made us some delicious jambalaya and homemade apple pie. Everyone went to bed at a reasonable hour and the snuck out at 4 in the morning on Sunday. I was informed later in the day that Pam was pulled over for speeding in our lovely town of Foley. Lucky for her the Foley police were very kind and she got off with a warning. I was sad they had to leave and spent my Sunday sulking. Wanda spent the entire day in bed because of her illness. I can't wait to go to Arkansas for a visit this summer, hopefully nobody will be "sick" this time.

In Loving Memory of Steven Baker

On January 14, 2010, my best friend lost her dad to cancer. Throughout middle school and high school he was like my second dad. I was at Whitney's house pretty much every weekend. Her family was a major part of my life and I owe them so much. I wish them the best in such a difficult time.

Things That Annoy Me (this may be long)

I am feeling especially annoyed today, so I thought I would compile a list of things that annoy me. The list will be in no particular order because that would take a lot of planning, and doing an outline for a blog just seems a tad unnecessary. So here we go.

1. Snowbirds. This is a very sensitive subject right now. For those of you who don't know what a snowbird is, which is probably nobody since I am the only one who reads this, a snowbird is a retired person who migrates to the south for the winter. Most of them come from Michigan, have a horrible accent, drive 20 mph in a 55 mph zone, buy up all the groceries, don't support local small businesses because they are so cheap, and have the attitude that we owe them our lives. I had one old fart come in the store the other day and tell me that it was "too cold down here and if we didn't do something about it, then they would stop coming down here." I'm sure in his mind he was hilarious. In my mind I was telling him we would be sure and keep it extra cold down here for him.

2. Job Hunting. I am currently seeking employment, preferably a "grown-up" job. I have applied for what seems like a million, but is probably closer to 10ish. Nobody ever contacts me and when they do they give me some vague response. I have to call or email them repeatedly in order to get another vague response. I'm starting to get a complex.

3. People who pretend to listen. I hate having a conversation with someone and knowing that you could stop talking at any moment and they wouldn't even realize it. It becomes rather distracting for me, I start looking around to find what they are looking at, or I'm thinking the whole time I'm talking about how they aren't paying attention. Then I start thinking why aren't they paying attention, am I boring? And then I forget what I'm even talking about. I mean really, is it that hard to just listen?

4. People that are repeatedly late. I just want to know their process before leaving. Do they not notice that they are always late. This one is especially annoying in the work place. In my book 15 minutes early is on time, anything after that is late.

5. Bad Drivers. I don't really need to explain this one, I think it's on everyone's list.

6. Children that Taunt my Dog. I can't figure out what is so fun about making my dog bark and squeal and keeping him from pooping. It is Zero% fun for me.

7. The Radio. They apparently only have 5 songs per station.

8. Cold Weather. Cold weather is a real problem. I live in South Alabama; it should never reach temperatures below 50. We southerners are just not equipped to handle these temperatures. This past week it has been in the 20s. Ridiculous. I started the cold front off gracefully with a slip and fall and roll off the bridge in our yard and into the ditch. No need to worry....I lived. It takes me 20 minutes to put on the 10 layers of clothing needed to go out and walk the dogs for 5 minutes. And the another 20 minutes to strip down once we get back in. Then the pipes freeze and you can't take a shower until they thaw out. Everything freezes, dies, and turns brown, ugly, and lifeless. And the worst part is that it will not snow down here. What is the point of cold if there is no pretty snow to play in.

9. People who smell like an ashtray. It's just gross. Smoking is disgusting and will kill you. Your skin looks like leather. Your mouth gets ugly wrinkles around it. Please stop. If you are going to smoke please make sure you do not smell like you rolled around in an ashtray. I have friends who smoke and you would never know it because they don't stink. So it is possible to smoke and smell clean. But you really should just not smoke, it saves a lot of time.

That concludes my list for today. There are plenty of other things that annoy me, but these are the most annoying. I feel much better getting all of that off my chest.

Resolutions

So it's that time of year again...the new beginning. It's so funny to me how everyone starts making their resolutions about a month or two before New Year's. They say, "I have to get healthy, I have to go on a diet, I have to start exercising." They know this about themselves, they know they are unhealthy and need to change their ways, then they say, "January 1 everything will change!" And it usually does change for about a week, maybe two. I am guilty of this as well. My goal this year is to train for a 5k coming up this spring. I am a runner at heart; I am just a little rusty. It has probably been 10 years since I was a "runner" and being that I am 23, I guess technically I have never been a "runner." I mean every 13 year old is a runner. They have all that energy to burn off. Now I can't run to the end of the driveway without getting winded, but I don't feel too bad, my driveway is quite long, you could probably fit 4 mid-sized sedans on it if they were parked bumper to bumper. So I feel that I have a nice little base to start training on. I bought myself a new mp3 player to take running with me. I already had a mp3 player, but it's a few years old and about the size and weight of a brick. It came with case that had a clip on it, which I thought would be great for running with. The one time I gave it a go, the mp3 player decided to pants me in the middle of the jog. So, in turn, I gave up running so I could listen to music...it only made sense. Anyway, I am now the proud owner of a 4gb mp3 player the size of one of those Bluetooth ear thingies. Now all I have to do is the running part. You may wonder if I have any other resolutions for 2010, and lucky for you, I do. I would like to continue my quest to find myself. I look to have that done by mid-march at the latest. Once finished I will find my niche as an artist and then I will take the world by storm with my profound artwork that will change the lives of millions. I believe that will be done sometime between end of March to ,at the latest, Mayish. Then I plan to spend the summer exploring the world and sharing my riveting artwork with every man, woman, and child along the way. When I return home in September I will begin my work in finding a cure and completely eliminating the H1N1 (aka the Swine Flu) virus, I find it disgusting and completely unnecessary. I should be done with before Halloween. My goal for Halloween is to get gross Halloween candy, like those chewy things wrapped in orange and black wax paper, banned from be sold in any stores. If someone happens to buy them on the black market or something and give them out, then they should be arrested. There is no excuse for handing out inedible candy. After Halloween is over and every child in the world is eating snickers and Reese's cups, I will focus all my attention on Christmas. Christmas is a time for going overboard and that is exactly what I intend to do. After I get done with Christmas it will be known as an extreme sport. So those are my resolutions for 2010. I think it is important to create goals that are reachable. If you set impossibly high goals you will never meet them and then you are just hurting yourself, because you will be a failure. Good Luck in the New Year!

Apparently I'm Terrible at Computer Machines...

So I'm very new at this whole blogging thing. I fought the urge to blog for a long time because, to be frank, I felt a wee bit nerdy. And it's like writing in a diary. You have all these images of yourself looking smart and deep by letting all of your thoughts and confessions find their way into a little purple and kitten covered book with a gold, heart-shaped lock on the side. So you sit down with your 4-colors-in-1 pen, unlock your diary, and you suddenly forget every experience in your life worth writing about. So you decide to just write about your day, which is usually not too exciting. That is about how I feel about this blog. I really do not know what to write about, so I figure I just write about my days, and today, I am bad at computers. I don't care to admit how long it took me to get to this screen so I could actually write the blog. There are so many things that I don't know what they mean and really don't want to know what they mean. As long as my entry doesn't disappear after I type it then I'm good to go. I don't even know if anyone will ever read this, which is probably for the best. Anyway, I am a blogger now, so I feel smart and deep and stuff.