two for one

"Haaaaaaaaaaaave you met Ted?" Sorry...that had nothing to do with anything. I just had to.

Anyway, have I mentioned that I'm going to Central in 12ish days? I am. People keep asking me if I'm nervous or excited. Nine times out of ten I just tell them I'm not sure yet. It's the truth. I haven't decided. I don't really feel nervous, and I'm not all that excited. I'm mostly just indifferent. It doesn't make sense to me either. But I know exactly what will happen. I won't feel anything until the morning I'm supposed to head up there, and what I'll feel is a horrible stomach ache. It'll stick around for the entire 2 hour drive to Mr. Pleasant. Once I'm there, though, and I've met my suite mates, I'll be just peachy. Hopefully.

The whole experience will repeat itself that Sunday when I actually move in for good. I'm taking all my stuff up next Thursday probably, but then I'm coming home because Kristi and Jason's wedding is on Saturday, so I'd be coming home that weekend anyway. It doesn't make much sense that I would go through my little nervous ritual all over again, but that's the way my issue infested little self works. I've pretty much come to terms with it. Just another quirk.

In other news...

...I love living on the lake! I'm a little sad that we haven't always lived on a lake. I've become so outdoorsy. I've always liked being outside and enjoying the beautiful creations around me, but now I can't get enough of it! If I don't go for a bike ride or take a kayak out, I feel a little depressed at the end of the day, almost like I missed out on something. I even like to just sit by the water and read. It's kind of blissful, and I'm definitely going to miss it when I go to school. Something to look forward to next summer though!

"...it's just that it goes at all."

perfect day - a day that is simply good; a day that doesn't stand out because of one perfect moment, but because of a culmination of perfect little moments.

I had two of them this weekend.

I visited Jess and Nate this weekend, and it was blissful. I beat the storm by a couple of minutes and spent the duration of a tornado warning in the window surrounded living room of their second floor apartment. We hung out with Nate's brothers and talked and laughed and watched movies. We had breakfast the next morning and were served by the crankiest waitress I have ever met...and somehow that just made the weekend even better.

I visited with Jordan, who is now engaged to Justin :) I miss her...

I was supposed to make my way back to the country after that, but I decided I wasn't done visiting with Jess yet, so I filled the time while I waited for her to get done at work. I went and saw Shelly and reminisced about the past and speculated about the future for a few hours.

Then I went to Elizabeth Park and read a little and walked a little. I love walking through a park by myself. It always makes me feel a little bit like Elizabeth Bennett walking through the garden when Darcy brings her the infamous letter. Mr. Darcy wasn't there, but it was still blissful.

Then I went back to Jess, and we watched Ever After and part of Moulin Rouge and girl-talked until we fell asleep. This morning was full of more wonderful talks.

And then I had to go back to reality. Which isn't so bad, but I kind of sort of miss the weekend.

"Let's not go to sleep tonight. It's not that it goes too fast; it's just that it goes at all."

"I'm looking for corny in my life."

If I had to pick one favorite movie, it would be The Holiday. I have no idea how many times I've watched it, but I could watch it at least a thousand times more and still not get sick of it. I know all the lines, and I'd totally be that annoying person who says them before the actors do if you were to watch it with me. I love all of the characters and their stories. I love that it's funny and sweet and sentimental and (somewhat) realistic all in one. I love that Miles and Iris both say fruitily. And that Graham ends up being a dad. And that Iris rocks out to Jet. And that she ends up telling Jasper off in the end.

So anyway, all that to say, if you haven't seen this movie, you probably already should have. And if you have seen it, you should probably watch it again.

smiling next to Oprah and the queen

Honestly, if I had a billion dollars, the first person I would think of would be me. I would take a Jules Verne kind of trip, pay for the next lifetime of college, buy a jeep, and probably move to a nice house in the mountains of Arizona...or Europe. Of course, there would be family members and friends who would benefit from my fortune too. "What's that Stacie? You'd like another horse? Why not have two more?" "Mom, Dad, you need some fantastic landscaping for your new house and a new boat? I think this yacht's going to need a bigger lake." Really, it would be splendid.

But after that though, how fun would it be to just give it to people who really needed it? A trip to Haiti, another to Africa...heck, I probably wouldn't even need to leave Somerset. And not right away, but eventually I would adopt a bunch of awesome kids who didn't have hope before. It would be wonderful. Maybe even more than wonderful.

goodbyes

Remember this post? That was almost 2 years ago! Today was the last Tuesday of my 6:30AM babysitting gig. The crew's grown by one in the last two years...last two months actually. I love those kids. I really do. It's been awesome watching them grow up. That little girl who threw her poptarts on the floor is still crazy, and I still cringed this morning when she didn't use her "inside voice." But I've treasured the times that I've read her a story, the pictures she's drawn of me, and every single time she's told me she loves me. The little boy who climbed the counters in order to "help" me is still defiant, but I love that about him. He tries to be so independent, and he makes the best big brother. That baby who drooled all over me is now a toddler, and he still throws a fit when I can't hold him sometimes. That's my favorite. It sounds awful, but it makes me feel so good that he wants me there. He still eats yogurt too, but not as much as he used to :) The two month old doesn't say much, but I've enjoyed his company and adorable smiles these past two months.

All that said, I'm still a little relieved I'm done. Have I mentioned I'm not a morning person? I have? So I'm not going to miss getting up at 5:30AM every Tuesday. And four kids is kind of a lot to handle. Their parents are saints.

But I am going to miss their too cute little selves. Hopefully I'll still get to babysit them occasionally :)

updates

This past weekend was Jessica's wedding. It was a "spiritual experience," and she was a "vision of loveliness," at least according to her new aunt. She was gorgeous, and everything was beautiful. I'm so happy for her and her new husband, Nate!

The wedding was on July 3rd, and I stayed to watch fireworks on the 4th with the two of them, her new brothers, and Kristi. The fireworks were pretty amazing. The weekend was kind of like taking a stroll down memory lane as we were in Gibraltar for a bit, and the fireworks were less than a mile down from what used to be the hospital that I was born at. I miss family.

Speaking of which, my sister's been visiting from Arizona since Saturday night/Sunday morning. I feel kind of bad because it's been too hot to do a lot of the things we wanted to. That seems funny since she's from one of the hottest places in the U.S., but her beautiful home is devoid of the wonderful stickiness that we get to experience throughout the summer here in Michigan. We did get to go to the zoo this week though. I've already talked about how much I love the zoo, so I won't go into it again, but we did have a lot of fun even in the 90 degree weather. After the zoo we did my next favorite thing and got Starbucks followed by going to the bookstore. Perfect day. Other than that, we've just kind of been bumming around. She leaves tomorrow, and I'm definitely not ready for her to go. I'll miss her.

So will the side of me that's been eating crap since she's been here. Usually I'm semi-health conscious, but my diet's been composed of mostly chocolate cake and M&M's while she's been here.

Which brings me to an update on my goals. I'm doing okay so far. I felt guilty after eating a giant burrito from Qdoba and half a bag of M&M's today, so I went for a pretty long bike ride. It was fun, and I felt great afterward :) The journal one's not going so well, but here I am blogging and it hasn't even been a month, so there's another one. The whole morning person thing is an ongoing struggle that sometimes I win, but mostly I don't. I'm still working on them though.

I'm going to go watch Return to Me with Stacie now. Goodnight.

objectives; goals; ambitions; aspirations

I have NEVER been able to brag about fulfilling goals. I've made plenty. There are many pieces of paper and word documents that have met with my pen, or keystrokes, and have ended up as just that -- pieces of paper and word documents with some words scrawled/typed across. Who knows where they've ended up. The trash can? Forgotten half-filled notebooks stashed in the bottom of a desk drawer? Deleted MySpace profiles? Crashed hardrives? Fallen Post-it notes stuck behind the dresser? The possibilities are endless, but it doesn't really matter; no matter where those lists would have ended up, the goals on them probably wouldn't have been achieved.

For some of these goals, though originally well-meaning in nature, it's probably for the best. Others didn't really matter in the first place. But I know there are some that I've just been lazy and negligent about. I don't want that to be the case anymore, so I'm approaching this whole goals subject from a different angle this time. I'm going to trick them. My first goal is to stick to achieving my goals. I don't think that's been on the list before, and I'm foolishly hoping it works this time.

As much as that's a joke, it's also the sad truth. I'm hoping that when I decide I want to be lazy, I'll think of that first goal and be guilted into fulfilling the others instead. Does that make sense? No? Yeah, I know. But I've found that a lot of the time things that don't make sense still seem to work.

So here are goals 2-5:

2. Become a morning person: I know, I'm pretty skeptical about the possibility of that one too, but I found a little inspiration through this blog post.

3. Journal at least once a day week: If I ever have kids, and they ask me about something from when I was their age, instead of sitting there looking up at the sky, I want to pull out a book and let them read it for themselves.

4. Blog at least once a month: I know I have very few readers, but I really enjoy reading other people's posts, so maybe they enjoy reading mine too.

5. Ride my [mom's] bike a lot this summer: We're in the process of moving...kind of. We haven't sold our "old" house yet, so we're still living in it while the "new" house has a little reconstructive surgery done. The "new" house is probably about a mile from the "old" one, and I find myself driving over there a lot because walking there isn't very quick. Which is dumb, when I could just bike, so I think I will :)

I'll start with those and see where they take me...