Happy 2012

I hope you all had a fabulous New Year's. I sure did!

Now that the Christmas frenzy is over, I actually have time to do what you're supposed to do on Christmas break: relax. That relaxing time has included, but not been limited to: watching obscene amounts of movies, eating whatever I want, sleeping more, journaling, cleaning, and figuring out what school in 2012 will look like. The most exciting development: I changed my major to Journalism in November, and now I have an opportunity to travel to Cambridge in July for two weeks. Exciting? YES. I am going for sure... If my application gets accepted. And it will, of course. I hope.

My advisor told me that, based on my credits thus far, I don't really have any more gen-eds to take, but because the journalism classes build off of each other and cannot be lumped together, I will only be able to take 10 hours each semester. One problem: that is not full time. Problem solved: because I have so many English credits, I can pick up more, making full time tuition AND working towards a degree in English as well as Journalism. Guess who has two thumbs and has a double major without even trying?

 This girl.

Here's hoping I remember this blog exists in the future. Cheers.

Young and restless

Yeah. I'm restless. I want to dye my hair, get married, have my own house with my own kitchen, travel somewhere, be really creative, learn to make my own clothes, decorate fabulously, have vintage (but functional) things, by stylish, do what I love, not work at Starbucks, learn how to cook healthy but on a shoestring, have enough money to buy wine more than once in a blue moon, and be something resembling slim. At this point, none of this is achievable. I'm hard up for money, I don't have time to be creative, the boyfriend isn't exactly being supportive of the healthy cooking thing, I hate the house I live in so I don't want to put money or effort into it because I will move out as soon as I can, it's hotter than Satan's womb so I can't exactly spend hours outside exercising and the campus gym isn't available to me yet because I haven't started classes, and after I'm done buying clothes I need for work or replacing those that are falling apart, I don't have money to buy clothes I want.

I feel like everyone my age is getting engaged or married right now except me, and that's not even an option right now.

Oh, and I can't find my Bible, so any comfort I would get from it about my life right now is not accessible.

The Trials of Life

Well obviously I am not very good about keeping up with this blog.

On another note, my roommate and I bug bombed our house today. It was quite exciting. We set out papers under the little cans, gathered up all the stuff we needed for the next four hours and set it on the porch, and set the bombs off. The instructions were so cryptic. "Point cans away from face... Leave area immediately!" So we did. I'm sure we would have been amusing to watch, running from room to room giggling nervously every time one of the cans started spraying its noxious gasses. So now I am at Starbucks, two hours early, waiting for my shift to start. Oh well. It gives me time to catch up with stuff, like blogging.

The mice are beginning to disappear. We finally got our landlord to call the exterminator, who set out more poison and sticky traps... Basically what we had been doing before. Maybe the poison and sticky traps are industrial strength. So far we haven't found anything on the sticky traps besides these brown-gray hard shelled bugs that are impossible to kill. I had to beat one with a broom handle. The poison has been eaten on, but we haven't seen much activity lately, so maybe they are going away. I found a bunch of mouse droppings in one of the cabinets at floor level in my bathroom, so I dropped some poison in there too.

On the topic of the bathroom... It's dreadful. It's tiny, the walls are an awful gray-tan that sucks the light out of your very soul, and there is no mirror. I bought a tiny mirror for $1 at Salvation Army, but it barely fits my face. The landlord said that there would be a mirror by the time we moved in, but I'm guessing she forgot...? I have plans for that bathroom, though. The insides of the cabinets were actually part of the master bedroom closet, so someone just took some plywood and build shelves and walls to make cabinets for the bathroom. If you can call them walls. There are gaps in the corners and along the seams where the wall meets the shelf. I want to paint them, because it's just naked wood, but how do you make something pretty with paint that is shoddily put together in the first place? I also want to get a little shelf/cabinet/thing to hang on the wall above the toilet for more storage space, as well as a real mirror if the landlord doesn't carry through. The only problem is that these things cost money, and money, as always, is tight. Suggestions?

I also have a prayer request. The transmission on my car has given out, and it is going to be $2900 to fix, which is a little out of the available funds range. It wouldn't be such a big deal, except that if/when it rains or I need to get groceries, my bike is not the best mode of transportation. Some prayer would be great. Thanks, guys. You're the best.

Well I guess this is long enough. Happy weekend guys. Have a great Father's Day.

The days are just packed!

Well I have been in Stillwater for nine days. So far, our house has mice, spiders, and ants. I have been systematically dealing with the spiders as I find them, and ant traps and spray have taken care of the pesky creatures, but the mice were another issue. I found out from one of my other roommates that the house had mice when we moved in (no one told me?!), but for some reason they thought they would just... go away... Right. So on Sunday I found a little brown present left by one of them on my pillow. I later discovered chewed holes in some wrapped candies that my mom gave me for my birthday (21!!).

Austin and I promptly got traps from Wal-Mart and set them up, baited with peanut butter. When they were empty the next day, we discovered that the crafty mice had licked all of the bait off without tripping the trap. Those wily critters. I kept finding chocolates around my room. They had *somehow* gotten on my desk, dragged the candy across the room to the closet and shredded the wrappers. I found chocolate in my shoes, behind the door, under my bed, on my desk chair... How frustrating. The chocolates now live with Austin until the coast is clear.  The landlord was called, and you know what she said? "You are pretty much on your own... Go get some poison." Excuse me. You, as the owner, are responsible for keeping the house vermin-free. I am paying rent. Either get rid of the mice or I will get a cat and not pay the pet deposit.

We took matters into our own hands, though, and got some sticky traps (I know, they're awful, but seeing as how they were too smart to trip the spring traps and our landlord refused to call the exterminator, sticky traps were the next best thing). I baited them with chocolate and we got two mice within two hours. I haven't seen anymore, but we did set out poison packets and those have been nibbled, so we might find more later. I guess I thought that they would disappear, but when they didn't and I kept finding nibbled chocolate shreds and poop on my bed and the floor, I declared war.

Oh, and the transmission on my car is going out. My mother's bike has been my new best friend, but my legs are in a constant state of ache. The car will be towed back to Tulsa next week because apparently there is no one in Stillwater who is good enough to fix it.

My good friends from Tulsa, Haden and Lydia, came to Stillwater on Wednesday night and we all stayed up til the wee hours of the morning, drinking adult beverages and watching the Emperor's New Groove and eating Pringles and peanuts. Such a good way to spend a night.

I started my new job at the Starbucks in Stillwater. Well, it's not really new because I just transferred from Tulsa, but still, it's been interesting. I definitely miss my old store, but hopefully I will come to like this one too.

Oh friends, these days have been an adventure. Hopefully there will be more to come, but none involving broken cars and little rodents.

Stillwater: Day 1

Well it's my first full day in Stillwater. Austin is at work, so I am on my own for a while, which is okay. I am sitting at the Aspen Coffee shop on 6th, trying to figure out what to do with my day. It seems pretty full at this point. I have to go to Wal-Mart for a few *more* essentials, Salvation Army for a cheap mirror to put in my bathroom until the landlord puts one in, and figure out which provider to use for internet at the house. To my deep chagrin, Cox does not serve the Stillwater area. LAME. My brother is helping me figure out a plan with SuddenLink, but I have to go buy a modem and stuff. Being an adult is so stressful. Oh and I have to move into my room. I have my bed set up but I have been living out of boxes so far. Also lame.

Anyone in Stillwater have internet provider suggestions?

Life. It's Hectic.

Well it's been a bit, hasn't it? Sorry. Between finals, graduating, flying to New York City and back, working, driving to Kentucky for my brother's graduation from seminary and back, no wifi when we returned, and getting ready to move to Stillwater on Wednesday, there hasn't been much time for blogging. So I will recap all of the above so you aren't bored to tears.

Finals and Graduating
Well, not much to say there. I basically passed with floating colors. I graduated within the first four rows of 1000 kids, so everyone had to sit forever. By the by, rows have nothing to do with anything. They told us to line up so we did. I just happened to be closer to the front.

New York!
Three days after graduation I flew to New York with Austin and some of his friends from his architecture studio at OSU. Correction: we drove to Dallas and flew to Atlanta and then to New York. We got our tickets for SUPER cheap - $275 for a round trip (Airtran, kids. Super cheap.) One problem... They don't fly out of Oklahoma, so we had to drive to Dallas. No big deal. For $275 I will drive to Dallas and back. We spent the night at a friend's house because our flight left at 6 in the morning. I woke up with a cold, which vastly diminished the amount of enjoyment I got out of the trip. It was still a blast, though. This may attest to exactly what kind of person I am, but my favorite parts of the trip were visiting the New York Public Library and sitting in Bryant Park, drinking coffee and enjoying the beauty of a green park in the the middle of a bustling city. Massive buildings peeping over the trees lining the park, the contrast of the blue, blue sky with the green, green grass, car horns faintly audible even though the road was a few hundred feet away instead of a few hundred miles, hot coffee, cool bench... Need I go on? It was lovely. I definitely plan to go back and enjoy the parks, museums, and libraries in more detail. We visited Times Square at night, were on the Today Show, went to the top of the Empire State Building... So much more. I took hundreds of pictures, and they are on my Facebook. Here are a few of my favorites.

Trinity Church

This guy was dressed up as the classic green army man. 

Bryant Park. Beautiful, right?

The view from the Empire State Building Observation Deck.

Central Park.

Strawberry Fields and IMAGINE memorial.

Driving to Kentucky!!

My brother, after several years of very hard work, graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky last week. We drove down to Kentucky through Springfield. On our way, my car started acting funny, missing when I was stopped at lights or in parking lots. By the time we got to Springfield it was dying at stoplights and starting realllly slowly. We barely made it to our hotel, where it was clearly on its last leg. I was sure it was the gas we had gotten in Tulsa, and I was ready to go to Conoco and kill everyone. We found a mechanic through my sister-in-law's dad and they were able to diagnose the problem fairly early the next day. It turned out to be the distributor.. I'm assuming it's a part of my engine that distributes the power from the ignition to the rest of the car... Anyway. They happened to have the part we needed and we were able to be on the road by 2 after breakfast for lunch at Gailey's Breakfast Cafe, which is absolutely stellar by the way. If you are ever in Springfield, I HIGHLY recommend it. They have wonderful coffee, which you can buy at the Mudhouse, a coffee shop just down the block. 

Rain was also an issue. My car did okay, but my brother's car, a tricked out Honda Prelude, was almost lost in the downpour. More than once we had to turn on our hazard lights so we could be seen during the day. But we finally arrived in Wilmore at 2 in the morning of Seth's graduation, which went without a hitch, aside from the woman two rows in front of us oblivious to the massive wedgie overtaking her hind quarters. We met his girlfriend, Ginger, of whom I very much approve. They are going to get married. I am calling it right now. You are all witnesses. 

No Wifi...

Yeah. When we returned from Kentucky, we found our wifi to be nonexistent, which is dumb because my computer keeps saying "Yes! You have wifi!" but then I try to get online and it says "Haha! Made you look!" We have concluded that it is an issue with our provider because nothing we do with the router or whatever is working. So I am sitting at my favorite spot in Tulsa, Shades of Brown, sipping some iced mint matte and catching up with life online. After this, I will be paying some attention to my much-neglected Hulu account.

Moving to Stillwater 

Yup. It's true. As of Wednesday, June 1st, I will be living in Stillwater. I have started packing, but having lived in the same room for fifteen years, I'm not sure what to take and what to leave. Obviously I will be leaving lots of crap, but I can't seem to shift through the crap to find the non-crap that is necessary to my life in the next town. Seeing as how it's only an hour away, I will probably be making many, many trips in attaining the perfect balance of crap and non-crap.

Well folks, that's my life.

 Oh. I went garage sale-ing today. I found a vintage Pan Am bag for a dollar. Steal? Yes. 

In a galaxy far, far away...

Happy Star Wars Day. May the Force be with you.