schMORGANsborg

I want to know you…so let’s start by you telling me your name and where you’re from.  I’ll go first…

Hi, my name is Morgan and I live in fun-roe, ga.  See how easy that was?  Now you go!  Come on…don’t be a sissy:)  

As the TSG (token single girl), I am well acquainted with blind-dates….more so than I care to be:)  I still clearly remember the evening that it all began.  Of course this was long before I gained TSG status and I had no way of knowing how prophetic that night would be in my life.

It was early high school…freshman or sophomore…I can’t remember…and again BFF was involved.  She had been dating this one guy for a while.  He was nice and he could drive.  Well it just so happened that he had a friend that was coming into town from…somewhere else…I don’t remember where.  They casually mentioned that it would be fun for us to all double date that night and I agreed without giving the matter much thought.  I mean how bad could it be right?  Right.

That night BFF, her BF and Blind Date picked me up at my house.  We went through the introductions and then went merrily on our way to the movies.  Things were going well.  He seemed nice enough and he was pretty cute…so far, so good.  We all settled into our seats in the theatre and the movie began.  I was sitting in-between BFF and the Blind Date.  Then it started.  About 30 minutes into the movie Blind Date decides he wants to chat it up.  Now, I realize that not everyone knows this about me, but I HATE it when people talk during a movie.  What about that situation makes you think it’s a good time to strike up a convo?  So Blind Date is blabbing away and I’m just smiling and nodding praying that he would shut-up before I was forced to punch him in the face and make him shut-up.

Then the conversation took a turn.  Blind Date starts talking about how pretty he thinks I am, how nice I am and so on and so forth.  All the time I’m just thinking "Would you please stop talking so I can watch the dad-blame movie?!"  Then Blind Date leans over so that his mouth is almost touching my ear.

"Can I kiss you?"  He whispers.

"What?!"  I reply in utter shock.

"Can I kiss you?"  He asks again.

"No."  I say never once turning away from the movie.

"But I love you!"  He pleads. 

"You don’t even know me!"

"That doesn’t matter…I love you!"

"Well I don’t love you!"

If I had known how fast that would shut him up I would’ve said it a long time ago.  Needless to say, things didn’t work out between us.  

Looking back I kinda feel bad for the guy.  I guess someone somewhere along the line told the poor fool that telling a girl you love her is a sure fire way to get her to do what you want her to do.  Bless his little hormonal teenage boy heart.  He just didn’t know any better.        

sweating your ace off while the home team gets the crap beat out of ’em:)  Good times though…good times!

 Me and Tangy…I was super excited to be there:)

 Kel and Bob

 Notice the sheen…did I mention it was hot?

that none of you jokers were afraid of Freddy…you’re lying…you’re all lying!  What the heck were you watching that he didn’t scare the ever-lovin’ daylights out of you?!  I guess some of you probably weren’t allowed to watch his movies.  I, on the other hand, had very few restrictions on what I could watch.  My brother is 7 years older than me and you better believe I was going to make it my mission in life to watch everything he watched.  I have a distinct memory of us staying up real late one summer night and watching Jean Claude Van Damme dip his wrapped hands in glass and then kicking some tail.  What movie people…what movie?!  Tell me yall know this one! 

Ok, I need to go to bed.  Went to the braves game tonight with Kel, Bob and Tangy.  It was hotter than blue blazes…and the braves suck, but we had really good seats!  I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.  

When I was a little girl I used to be terrified of taking a shower and it was all because of a nice man named Freddy Krueger.  He single-handedly changed the way I took a shower.  Because I was sure that Freddy and his blade covered hand were going to come up through the drain and rip me to pieces, I went to great lengths to keep this from happening.  I would stay as far away from the drain as possible unless absolutely necessary.  I would be meticulous about how I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair.  I worked tirelessly to figure out the exact method of rinsing that wouldn’t require me to close my eyes….because we all know as soon as you close your eyes it’s over.  I would also seal the shower curtain to the wall just in case he decided to switch it up and come in from the outside.  Apparently I thought I was sealing the shower curtain with cement.  On the off chance that something went haywire in my hair rinsing method and I was forced to close my eyes I would quickly rinse my face and open my eyes, survey the scene inside the shower, look outside to make sure the coast was clear and then reseal the shower curtain.  It was actually quite stressful for me to take a shower for about 5 years.  Yes, I said 5 years…I’m telling you that flippin’ movie scarred me for life.  Thankfully I have now conquered my fear of the shower.  But every now and then….when I least expect it…right in the middle of an eyes closed hair rinse…I get a feeling….or I think I hear something.  Did I mention that I shower with a gun?  I’m so glad I got over my fear of Freddy.

Watch at your own risk!           

Have you ever in your life seen an entire rainbow?  I never have.  I’ve only ever seen pieces of it.  This picture is amazing to me.  I found it at my new favorite blog.  I wanna live someplace where I can see a whole rainbow.

Did I ever tell you about the time I fell in love?  Well get comfy because in order for you to understand this story I have to go back to the beginning.

I was born in Bible Belt, GA, USA….so naturally I went to church.  Only there was a slight disagreement about what kind of church we should go to.  Eventually the matter was settled and I was raised in the Catholic church.  I was a good kid growing up.  I did what I was told…for the most part.  So when they told me it was time to get baptized I said ok.  Then when they said it was time to get my first communion I said ok.  Then they said it was time to get confirmed and…well you get the picture.  At the time I really didn’t think too much about church or God.  I just did it because that’s what you do.  I realize now and I’m thankful that my time in the Catholic church was used to build a foundation in my life.  It would also prove helpful in giving me an "outsiders" perspective in a very baptist world.

Like I said, I happily went through all the prescribed steps when I was a little girl.  Then I went to high school and this is where the trouble started.  I should’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t…I don’t think my parents did either:)  All of a sudden I didn’t want to go to church anymore.  I didn’t really have any friends at the church I went to because most of the kids went to a different school than I did.  And being the shy (think my current shyness times a million) ninth grader that I was, most of the time I flat refused to go to church or youth group events.  After all, I was in high school now and I had much better things to do with my time.  Like follow around cute senior boys and taking spirit signs off their lockers.  Eventually I reached the conclusion that being cool was king…top priority in my life…and I was willing to do whatever I thought necessary to attain that status.  So I hung out with the people that I thought would make me cool.  I said things, dressed in things and did things that in my mind would make other people think I was cool.  This of course included things that were against my better judgement which would in turn force me to lie in a vain attempt to cover my butt.  At first when I would do things that I knew I shouldn’t be doing I would feel guilty for days.  However, the more I did those things the less guilty I would feel.  Until finally I reached a point where it didn’t bother me at all.  As a matter of fact, it made me mad if anyone tried to tell me that I shouldn’t do those things.  Who were they to tell me what to do!  Sadly, this included my parents.  Let’s just go ahead and praise Jesus for the miracle of them not disowning me during this time of my life.

By the time I was a junior in high school I had perfected the art of appearing cool and avoiding trouble.  See the Lord had given my parents some kind of sixth sense when it came to my lying so I pretty much always got caught (thankfully).  This resulted in my spending about ninety percent of the first two years of high school on restriction.  Isn’t being cool fun:)  But like I said at this point I had managed to keep the restriction to a minimum.  I also had started to drive….I fear the day that I’m a parent and my kids start to drive.  Now I understand why my mom was so neurotic about it.  I saw that license as my way out of there.  I saw it as a free pass to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

Interestingly enough about this time I started to feel….lost…in the dark.  I didn’t like the life I had built for myself.  I felt like the things I did in order to make myself cool had started to take over who I really was.  Then it happened.  An event that has forever changed who I am.  Second semester of my junior year one of my friends committed suicide.  I remember it clearly.  I was at a gymnastics class and my mom came to pick me up and told me to go wait in the car so she could talk to my coach.  Being the hard-headed brat that I was I was pissed that she wouldn’t just say what she had to say in front of me.  So I stomped out to the car and got in the driver’s side and waited.  When she finally came out she got in the car with me and told me what happened.  Amanda was gone.  I was in complete shock.  My brain couldn’t comprehend it.  She couldn’t be gone…I just saw her at school that day!  Suddenly I didn’t feel like driving.  My mom and I switched places and she began to drive.  On the way home it hit me that I needed my best friend.  She loved Jesus and she loved me…I needed to talk to her.  It was a wednesday night so I knew she would be at church.  My mom drove me straight there.  Only she wasn’t there.  They had already heard what happened and Tanaya had gone home.  So we drove over to her house and she and I sat there together for a long while.  I don’t know what we talked about or if we even talked.  We just sat together.  When I finally got home it was late and I was exhausted so I crawled into bed, but sleep wouldn’t come.  I laid there for hours.  Then the strangest thing happened….I got scared.  Very, very scared.  I sat up in my bed and turned the tv on.  Not because I wanted to watch tv, but because I didn’t want to be alone in that room.  I was terrified.  I don’t even know what I was afraid of, but I sat straight up in my bed all night. 

The days following Amanda’s death were filled with all kinds of gatherings.  No one wanted to be alone so we would gather anywhere we could.  There was a memorial service, a funeral service…lots of services.  At the end of every one of these services some kind of invitation was given and people would flock to the alter.  Emotions were high.  On the day of the actual funeral service another invitation was given.  I remember sitting in the chapel of the funeral home and thinking "Ok, God.  I guess I’ll give this a try."  There was no way I was telling anyone, though!  What if I messed up?  What if I decided that I didn’t want to do this whole Jesus thing after all.  No, I would just keep this to myself until…until later.  Over the next week or so things began to change in my heart and on one Wednesday service at my bff’s church I knew it was time to say something.  Not because walking down the isle does anything, but because I knew I had to stand up and say that I was following Jesus.  Somehow I knew that just wasn’t the kind of thing that you kept to yourself.  So with the help of a precious friend I walked down the isle (thanks Bobo).

I wouldn’t really describe my "conversion" as one particular point in time.  It wasn’t really at the funeral and it wasn’t really at the church.  It was more a gradual progression over a week or two.  But at the same time it was like an instant awakening.  All of a sudden I could see…and I hadn’t even known that I was blind.  All of a sudden I was in the light and I hadn’t even known that I was in the dark.  All of a sudden Jesus went from being some guy in a book to the most precious thing in my life…my life itself! 

Jesus took such good care of me in the beginning.  He put a whole group of friends around me that were in love with him.  They taught me what it meant to walk with Jesus.  They embraced me in spite of my former way of life and they loved me.  Most of my desires for the things I was doing before disappeared immediately…and believe me I know what a mercy that is…it doesn’t always happen like that.  That was the start to an ongoing process of teaching me who He is and what it means to love Him.

I’m not one of those people who’s going to tell you that if you follow Jesus life will be swell and all your problems will go away….read the Bible…that aint how it went down for His followers.  He isn’t a means to an end.  He isn’t a solution to my problems.  He just IS.  And I forget that so often….but He is always faithful to remind me.  So here I am…a little over 10 years deep into this journey with my King.  I’m still learning who He is and what it means to love Him.  I still suck at it…but He’s still good. 

And that my little blog readers is the story of how I fell in love.     

so tell me something good…what’s going on with yall?  Put me in a good mood!  You didn’t know I was gonna put you to work did ya:)

I (and by I, I mostly mean my dad) put up a new light fixture in my kitchen this weekend.

This is the old fixture….gold….me no likey. 

So I ordered a new one and put it together…all by myself.  Aren’t you proud?

my dad came over and hung it for me…remember he’s handy like that.

And here’s the finished product!

whatcha think? 

Haven’t had one of these in a while and since that story sucked all the creativity right out of me, I’ll give you one of these for the road.

"You’re useless as tits on a boar hog!" 

Happy Friday!

And then Mr. P put his hand on my hip.  Ok, so nothing extraordinary happened when he touched me….other than the fact that I had a heart attack and died….then I got up and started dancing again. 

Eventually we decided that it was time to go so we all headed back out to the car.  Once we were piled in one of the guys suggested that we all go back to their condo to hang out.  You mean they weren’t ready to chunk us on the side of the road after that fine display of dancing in there?  Wait though…I may have been a hellion, but my Daddy had warned me about going places with boys alone.  Should we go to their room?  Would that be safe?  Should we stay out any later?  Did I give a crap?  I had already signed my own death certificat by leaving my mom standing there in the hotel room…what’s another hour:)  But just when I started to seriously doubt whether or not we should go Mr. P spoke up. 

"Just so yall know we’re here with our parents….so they’ll be in the condo too."

Oh my sweet Mr. P!  He had seen the look of concern on my face and wanted to set me at ease…at least that’s what I told myself:)  Suddenly I didn’t feel like such a dork for being on vacation with my own parents.  So off we went to their condo.  Once we arrived at their place we walked into the living room which was lined wall to wall with mirrors.  Good grief!  I got a 360 degree look at the toll that the La Vela heat had taken on me.  I looked like something that’d been left out in the rain.  Oh well there was nothing I could do about it at this point.  It didn’t really matter anyway…I never actually expected Mr. P to like me back….that wasn’t the point.  I was just happy to be around him.

We all hung out in the room for a little while.  Any specific details about our conversation have escaped me, but I’m guessing that the bff did most of the talking.  She can talk to a wall.  And I’m sure you all know first hand that I’m not the most talkative person in the world….especially when I’m nervous…so I’m fairly certain that I spent most of the night just sitting there in silence.  I’m sure it was breath taking.  At last someone suggested something to do other than sitting there staring at each other.  "Let’s go get in the hot tub!" said Cute Boy #1.  Cute Boy #2 who also happened to be D-bag #1 could’ve cared less what we did.  He was sitting over on the other side of the room by himself.  Mr. P seemed down with it, though, and of course so was I.  All the boys went and changed into their bathing suits and then Tanaya and I followed them down to the hot tub.  We just stuck our feet in since we didn’t have bathing suits, but I can not lie…it was nice seeing Mr. P in his.  We hung out down there for the next hour or so and just talked.  Like I said I can’t really remember what we talked about for so long, but hopefully I had loosened up a little by this point and was able to contribute something to the conversation. 

After we had been there for a while I finally forced myself to say that we better get going.  Sadly, I knew we couldn’t stay there all night.  See, I wasn’t totally devoid of a sense of right and wrong.  Cute Boy #2 aka D-bag #1 went back up to the room and Cute Boy #1 and Mr. P said they would walk us home since we were staying in the hotel right next to theirs.  We all walked down to the beach and the bff and Cute Boy #1 kinda paired up ahead of Mr. P and I.  Unfortunately, it was a pretty short walk back to our place and it was time to say good bye before I knew it.  Mr. P and I stopped a little early and let Tanaya and Cute Boy #2 walk on ahead of us.  Who knows what they did after that….I wasn’t watching them. 

"Thanks for hanging out with us tonight" said Mr. P.

"Thanks for picking us up" I replied as Mr. P slowly moved his face closer to mine.

"Maybe I can give you a call once we get back to Lawrenceville" he said. 

"Sure" (again with the suaveness)

Mr. P reached up and cupped my chin in his hand.  Then he leaned in and gave me a sweet and simple kiss.

"Good night" he said as he turned to walk away.  

"Night" I whispered.

I was frozen…couldn’t have moved if I tried.  I saw Cute Boy #1 walk past me as he headed back to their condo as well and I heard Tanaya say my name.  I turned and walked towards her and we silently walked back to our room.  I crawled into bed and replayed one of the best nights of my life over and over in my head as I fell asleep.

Ok, here’s where you have a choice.  I have to confess that I totally made that last part up:)  Just the part about the kiss…everything else is true…I promise.  The real ending is just not all that exciting and I hated to let you all down after I’ve drug you through this story for the past 3 days.  So you can chose the real ending where they walked us back to our room, said good night and I never talked to Mr. P again.  Or you can chose the ending I just told you.  It’s up to you….but I’m going with the kiss:)

The End.

"yall need a ride?"  Good gracious what do we do now?! 

I must pause to make sure we’re clear about the tone of voice that this question was delivered in.  It wasn’t a hey-yall-are-cute-so-come-get-in-our-car tone of voice.  It was more of a we’ve-seen-you-walking-for-the-past-hour-and-we-feel-sorry-for-you tone of voice.  Ok, let’s continue. 

Remember the mad game I mentioned before?  Well I drew on those skills and managed to utter a suave response of "sure".  So before I knew what was happening I was climbing into the back of cute boy #1’s Camaro.  Cute boy #1 was of course driving his own car.  Cute boy #2 was riding shot gun.  And my beloved Mr. P was laid out in the back seat with the hatch back open.  Yes, I said laying in the back…I about had a coronary.  Tanaya climbed in and laid down next to Mr. P…I almost slapped her, but decided to keep my cool and climb in next to her.  All that stood between me and Mr. P was my clueless bff who didn’t even know who any of these guys were.   

"So what are yall up to tonight?"  asked Mr. P.

"Oh nothing much" I replied trying to keep my voice from shaking, "We thought about going to La Vela (you sound way cooler if you leave off the word club) but we saw the long line and decided we didn’t want to wait to get in (you also sound cooler if you leave off the parents waiting in the room for you part)".

"That’s cool" said Cute Boy #1, "we were thinking about heading back over there later if yall wanna go with us."

What?!  I had to bite my tongue to keep from yelling that out loud!  You want to hang out with us?!  "Sure (again with the suaveness) that sounds cool".  At least I was able to form a complete sentence this time.  But I had to think fast….I HAD to go back to the room to at least check in with my parents.  They would kill me if I went MIA for the entire night.  So I just pulled something outta my butt…."can you drop us by our room first?  I need to run up and get a jacket."  Really, Morgan?  That’s the best you could come up with?  You need a jacket in the middle of July in Florida?  Whatever, it worked.  They pulled into our hotel parking lot and said they would wait there for us.  I climbed out of the car…without busting it…one of the finer moments of that evening.  Then I walked as calmly as I could into the hotel.  When were out of their sight I broke out in a mad sprint headed for the stairs.  There was no way I was wasting 30 seconds waiting on an elevator!  And Tanaya just ran right behind me…never asking once if I had lost my ever-lovin’ mind….reason 3,480 that she is my bff. 

We finally reached the room and I slowly opened the door.  Tanaya and I had our own room, but it was joined to my parents room by a door…that had to stay open at all times.  My mom apparently has wolf ears because she was in our room before we even got through the door.  She immediately started drilling us on where the h*** we had been and what the h*** we had been doing.  Ok, she didn’t really cuss at us, but she probably should have.  As I ran around the room like a banshee trying to improve my appearance as much as I could in 3 minutes I paused, looked at her and very calmly said "Mom, Mr. P is waiting for me downstairs.  I’m leaving and I don’t know when I’ll be back".  She just stared at me in disbelief.  Before she had a chance to slap me in my smart mouth I grabbed Tanaya and hi-tailed it outta there.  She claims that she told us that we could only be gone for an hour or two, but I never heard that.  Truth is she probably did said that, but I wasn’t listening…I didn’t care.  I knew if my dad woke up and found us gone that my life would be over.  I knew that there was a very real possibility that my mom walked in the other room and woke up my dad as soon as we left and that he called the cops and that they would find me and arrest me….or at the very least I’d be on restriction for the rest of my life.  But like I said….I did not care.  Mr. P was downstairs and I was not about to pass up this opportunity!

When we finally got back downstairs we saw the car waiting right where they said they would be.  A big part of me thought they would drive off as soon as we were out of sight, but to my eternal gladness they didn’t.  We climbed back into the car….Tanaya in the middle again.  Gah!  Why hadn’t I taken the time to tell her to quit doing that?!  Once we were all piled in Cute Boy #1 headed back down the strip for La Vela.  It’s actually a nice trip when you’re not on foot.  When we arrived at La Vela we all hopped out and noticed that the long line that had been there before was gone.  This night was going perfectly. 

Once we made our way into the club I was instantly deafened by the guest band that night….the 69 boyz.  Go ahead and admit that you’re jealous based on that fact alone.  Cute boy #2 was not the least bit interested in hanging out with us so he pretty much bailed as soon as we walked in the door and made his way to the bar.  I had started to notice something interesting throughout the night though.  Cute Boy #1 was taking a likin’ to the bff.  So when we all made our way onto the dance floor Cute Boy #1 and bff just sort of paired up.  Guess who that left me with?  That’s right.  While I’m sure he was none too thrilled I couldn’t have been happier.  It’s worth mentioning that it was hot as hades in that place…..no pun intended.  So right from the get go I was sweating like a maniac.  This destroyed any hope I had of looking even half-way presentable that night, but it did aid in one very important event.  See Mr. P was getting hot too, apparently, because he decided to take off his shirt.  Relax he had an under shirt on, but it was just a plain white t-shirt….that was pretty much soaked through with sweat.  How come his sweat looked so dang good and mine looked disgusting.  No matter…it was a delight to behold.  Mr. P and I started dancing because….well he didn’t have anyone else to dance with.  I’m pretty sure I displayed some of the whitest dancing skills that Club La Vela and the 69 boys have ever seen the likes of.  Mr. P was literally a couple inches away from me.  I was doing good not to fall over and have a seizure.  So the step back and forth and the head bob were about all I could manage.  Then Mr. P put his hand on my hip.

To be continued:)

Since I know you all are dying to hear another one of my wonderful stories I’ll indulge you.  This one takes place in the far off land of CGHS circa 1996.  I was a sweet and innocent freshman in high school and I just happened to have a tiny crush on a big, bad senior.  Most of you probably know who I’m talking about, but because I’m sure he would rather not be mentioned on my blog, wherever he is, we’ll just call him Mr. P. ok?  So freshman Morgan had a crush…ok, I’ll be real…it was more like a slight obsession, but whatever…I liked him.  School ended and Mr. P graduated along with the rest of his very cool and almost as equally good looking friends.  I bid farewell to my true love and set off living the rest of my days apart from my soul mate.

About a month later my family went on vacation to PCB aka The Redneck Rivera…where all the magic happens.  My best friend came with us cause who wants to hang out with just your fam on vaca?  I mean I wasn’t cool enough for Mr. P, but I was way too cool for Mike and Darlene (love you mom and dad!)  Now keep in mind that this was pre-Jesus Morgan and at this point in my life I was pretty sure that my parents main goal was to try to make me the lamest girl in school.  And of course I took it upon myself to ignore their wishes most of the time because I was not about to be the lamest girl in school.  So one night the bff and I decided that we were going to walk down to a high class establishment and socialize with some other people our age.  You may have heard of the place…Club La Vela?  Very high class.  I’m sure this was mostly my idea because the bff was always better behaved than I was….except for the time she ran over me with a go-cart, but that’s another story.

For those of you familiar with PCB, me and the bff were staying at the Holiday Inn….and for those of you not familiar with PCB (consider yourselves lucky) the Holiday Inn is a reeeally long way from Club La Vela.  In spite of that, one night the bff and I told my parents that we were going to go to dinner across the street and then look around at some of the shops over there…again I’m sure this was courtesy of my too-big-for-my-britches mind and not the bff’s.  My parents bought it…probably because the bff was with me and she was too sweet to make up a story….regardless, we were on our way to La Vela!

We walked out of the lobby and made our way over to the street where we began the journey to our high class destination.  Almost as soon as we were on the street I heard someone yelling my name.  Crap!  My parents didn’t buy my story after all.  I looked around and didn’t see Mike and Darlene anywhere.  I heard my name again…and that’s when I spotted them.  A car full of seniors from my high school…including MR. P!!!!    

"Dear lord he knows my name" was all that went through my head.  Because I have mad game and I’ve always been really awesome socially I just stood there and waved.  Thankfully traffic was moving pretty good and they just drove off.  I say thankfully because while it’s true I was in love with Mr. P, I didn’t think I could handle the excitement of actually talking to him….I’d never done that before.  Up until my oh so cool wave our only interaction had been when I stole the spirit signs off his locker before the games.  (Cut me some slack…I told you I was a freshman). 

Once I recovered from the idea that they actually knew who I was the bff and I continued on our way.  We walked and walked….and walked….and walked some more.  Like I said, it was a reeeally long way.  We got to a point where we could at least see the promised land…we were almost there!  We were on a part of the road that was a lot less busy than the main strip where we had first spotted Mr. P.  It was actually quite dangerous looking back on it…Adult Morgan sure is glad that stupid freshman Morgan and bff didn’t get kidnapped that night….but that’s beside the point.  

We finally arrived!  It looked glorious!  There was a line spiraling all through the parking lot….just look at all those cool, half-dressed people.  Then reality set in…it had just taken us almost an hour to walk down there.  There was no way we had time to go in and still get back to the room at a reasonable hour.  Crap!  So we turned around, hung our heads in shame and began the long as butt walk back to the hotel room.

Towards the beginning of our walk of shame I saw a car pass us going in our same direction.  Then I saw it pull over onto a side street a little ways ahead of us.  And then I realized who’s car it was!  That’s right!  Mr. P and his car full of friends had pulled over and were waiting on us!  I froze.  The bff asked me what my problem was and I told her we had to turn back around.  Like I said before, I couldn’t actually talk to those guys…I might be incinerated by their coolness.  We stood there arguing for a few minutes…which I’m sure looked super cool…and then I realized we had no choice but to keep going.  We were already dangerously close to being shot by my parents since we’d been gone so long…we had to persevere.  I kept praying that they would just drive away, but they didn’t.  And before I knew it I was face to face with a car full of the coolest guys in our school and my Mr. P!  

"Yall need a ride?"

To be continued:)             

Just thought I would expound upon KQ’s comment here.  One year in college we all decided to go skiing for Spring Break.  So we…and by we I mean Katie…planned this great trip to Winter Park, CO.  I’d had my snowboard for a couple years, but had never used it.  That’s what happens when you have an awesome brother who likes to spend money on you:)  So I was really excited to finally have the chance to get on the thing.  Our first day on the mountain finally arrived and we were are all rarin’ to go!  I contemplated taking lessons for about 2.5 seconds before I decided that I was an amazing athlete and would easily catch on to snowboarding…right.  That day will go down as one of the worst of my life.  I have never been in so much pain or been more embarrassed in my whole life.  One of the highlights of the day was the story that KQ referenced on her blog.  Her and I were the only 2 girls snowboarding so we stuck together.  I was just a little ways in front of her and we were straight chillin’.  At this point we had both pretty much managed to get down a few runs without eating it.  I was enjoying the nice ride when out of nowhere I’m flying through the air.  Then I proceeded to land flat on my back.  I looked back and saw the culprit.  A tiny dip in the snow that I had no chance of seeing until after I was already on the ground.  It had acted like a little ramp and sent me flying into the air.  I laid my head back down as I took in the pain shooting through my entire body.  About 5 seconds later I hear a thud and a certain expletive behind me.  I manage to pick my head up again just enough to see that KQ had eaten it on the same mini-ramp devil thingy I had.  We both just laid there…laughing…then crying…then laughing some more.  It was equally painful and hilarious all at once. 

The real cherry on top of that sundae of a day was that I lost my grip on my board at one point (yes, I know a clueless rider like myself should’ve had a strap…but I didn’t, ok!) and it went flying down the mountain.  I ran and dove after it landing flat on my stomach nowhere near the board cause I’m a slow white girl and so I just laid there kissing my brand new board good-bye…on the first day of the trip.  One of the patrols saw what happened and took off after the board.  A few seconds later he reappeared and rode over to me and asked if I’d lost my board.  "No, I just thought I’d see how many people I could kill by sending the thing flying down the mountain".  Then after giving me a complete look of disgust he said, "Why don’t you let me give you a ride to the bottom…you look like you’re done".  Ummm….yeah…I am SO done. 

After he dropped me off I went and hid in a corner and cried.  Not really, but that’s what I wanted to do.  It was a rough first day.  Not to mention I’m pretty sure I broke my tail bone on that trip cause it hurt to sit down for about 6 months.  Doesn’t that sound like fun:) 

This is the group before we left to go to the airport.

The girls ready to go!

And here I am about to eat it off the lift.

Maybe starting to get the hang of things?:)

I ate you all and you were good.  Thanks yall for all the bday wishes!  It was a good one…even if I am officially in my late 20’s now.  Even if I am only 3 short years from 30.  Even if I do have to walk with a cane now….ok, that last part isn’t true, but it might not be far off.

The fam and I grubbed at Cracker Barrel and my country fried steak was delicious!  It was a little touch and go there towards the end though.  I had 3 bites left and I had reached my capacity.  But I couldn’t not eat those last 3 bites!  It was my birthday….I had to eat until I was miserable…it’s my duty as a good American.  In spite of having every inch of my gut filled with food I forced the last 3 bites down.  I feared it was all about to overflow out of my throat back onto my plate (TMI, I know), but I didn’t care….I was triumphant over my birthday meal!  And just for good measure I took one last bite of green beans.  That way if it did come back up there’d be a little color in there:) 

As wonderful as it was eating until I made myself sick, the best part of the meal was when my precious little niece took a dump at the table.  (she’s a baby so it was in a diaper…geez)  This normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but she has a little trouble when it comes to taking the brown’s to the superbowl.  Poor thing just can’t get it done most of the time…which makes her tummy hurt…which makes her scream bloody murder…which makes me cry and then pass her back to my brother and leave.  However, last night she gave us all a wonderful gift!  She dropped a deuce right there at the table just to say Happy Birthday and tell me how much she loves me.  I sure do ‘preciate that Tanner!   

you can pick anywhere you want to go for dinner on your bday and you choose Cracker Barrel.  What can I say…I got a hankerin’ for some country fried steak. 

27 has finally arrived.  I told it not to come…to just stay home…but it came anyway.  So in one last 26 year old act of rebellion I stayed up late last night painting.  Take that body!  Who’s old now?!  aldgkjdrhjae…sorry I just had a cramp in my arm from painting all night. 

I went to Athens this weekend to hang out with some friends for the 4th.  We’re 90 years old so it pretty much consisted of eating and going to an antique shop….but we had fun:)

The boys and their pipes.  A nice little hobby they’ve picked up.  The antique store we went to in Madison was also a pipe shop and they were like kids in a candy store.  Us girls are still trying to figure out why you need more than one pipe…don’t they all do the same thing?…but whatever makes ‘em happy:)

Kel and KT took a turn:)

My cute as pie hot pink ice-cream maker!  Thanks Rebecca for the recipe…it was delicious! 

Everyone enjoying their ice-cream! 

Yeah, I don’t even know what this was all about…but this is Bobby.  On a side-note…one time I brought a guy I had just started talking to over to meet Kel and Bob and this is how Bobby came out of his room….carrying his gun.  Geez, no wonder I can’t keep a guy:)

When I came in today one of the guys I work with said "well don’t you look pretty this morning".  Even if he is an old married man it still made me smile.  And it got me to thinkin’.  When I lived with my parents….which was pretty much all of my life up until a couple of years ago…I used to hear nice things like that all the time.  Every morning when I came out of my room after my usual routine of getting ready my mom would always tell me how pretty I looked.  Every time.  Without fail.  If she did fail then I would think something was wrong with how I looked.  Then I would ask her if my outfit looked ok and then she would give me what I was looking for….affirmation that I was pretty.  This morning I thought about how much I miss that.  Now when I come out of my room in the morning after getting ready the only thing there to greet me is the hallway.  And it’s not real big on telling me I look good. 

You wanna know the funny part?  Most of the time my mom would tell me that I looked pretty I would just laugh and say thanks…not really paying attention to her compliment.  I knew she would tell me every day and I knew she would say it no matter what I looked like…she’s my mom….she thinks I look pretty with poop on my head….not that I’ve ever had poop on my head, but that’s beside the point. 

So thanks Mom.  Thanks for telling me that I’m pretty.  Every day.  Even if all you got for it was an eye roll and a half-hearted thank you.

I guess it’s a girl thing to want to be pretty…or maybe not.  Maybe dudes like being pretty too, but it’s always nice to hear that someone thinks you look good.  And believe me when your dating life looks like mine does you start to think something major is lacking in that department:)  I know, I know…that has nothing to do with itm but I know it’s not my awesome personality:)  So that only leaves one logical alternative.  I promise this isn’t a ploy to get compliments….all comments telling me I’m pretty are banned….seriously…don’t do it.  But I guess this is just your little peek inside of a single girl’s head.  Geez…this is not where I was planning on going with this post.  But this is me…take it or leave it.  Ok, I’m stopping now…I better hurry up and post this before I change my mind.       

you can take the girl outta tha hood, but you can’t take the hood outta tha girl…thank you CGHS.

Happy July 1st….it’s tha first of tha month.