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...

in six minutes or less:

• the disk drive in my computer won't stay in my computer.
• according to my podiatrist, my toe's healing correctly.
• one more week and I'm done with JCC...hopefully forever.
• I really, really want to see Phantom of the Opera.
• I applied for Central almost two weeks ago.
• my dad's building me a room in the new house...a big one.
• just finished Men and Dogs by Katie Crouch...controversial for a novel...I liked it...don't judge.
• I still have three tests, a paper, a forum post, a quiz, a journal entry, and a group project due before the end of the semester.
• I'm really not looking forward to babysitting at 6:30 in the morning.
• added another wedding to this summer's list.
• my fingernails are blue...and everyone let me know that today...even though I painted them two and a half weeks ago.

Time's up.

officially old

Last week, my doctor scheduled an appointment with a podiatrist for me. I've been battling an ingrown toenail for the last three or four years, and I finally decided that I needed professional help. My appointment was this morning. I figured he'd look at it and set up an appointment to actually do something about it like cut out the ingrown part...amputate my toe...you know...whatever it is that those feet people do. Well, I underestimated the process. Apparently they just go ahead and cut it out right there. A how-do-you-do? and then they stick a needle in your toe and you walk out with your toe looking like a giant q-tip.

Actually I found it all kind of cool. First he numbed my toe, which actually hurt really bad because of the stinging (apparently most of the stinging's from the alcohol that he cleaned the area with before inserting the needle...I asked). Then he just kind of dug in there for about two minutes, and it didn't hurt, but I could feel pressure in my toe. He bandaged it up, and I was good to go. I was glad I'd worn flip-flops because I don't think I could've fit my foot into a whole shoe.

The fun part was driving with a numb toe. The other fun part was sitting at work, touching my toe, and not being able to feel it. It never got old.

Here's a picture of what my foot looks like right now. Warning: it's not pretty (the icky yellow color is from the stuff they had to wash my foot with).

Yeah, I'm officially an old lady who goes to the foot doctor.

girls in white dresses

I knew it was coming. I've watched it happen to my older friends and relatives, and now it's my turn. The weddings start this year. Not in general, of course, but for my friends. I've hit that age where it seems like everybody's getting married. I think it's supposed to make me feel old, but it's having the opposite effect on me. I feel like the baby, which isn't much of a change for me actually. All Most of my friends are talking about weddings and houses and babies, and I'm trying to figure out which school I'm going to go to in the fall. Weddings and houses and babies are way too far away for me right now. I realize I'm a little behind in the whole choosing a school department, so I guess that's kind of okay; it's just weird I guess. I mean we always talked about getting married and starting families, but we also talked about going to Columbia and becoming lawyers who saved the world while wearing really cute shoes. It was always just a far off dream.

It probably sounds like I'm whining, and that's probably because I am a little bit. Don't get me wrong though. I'm elated for my coupled friends, and I'm so excited to start going to their weddings. I guess I'm just feeling a little bit left behind. Not by anyone's fault. I mean seriously, I have the best friends when it comes to making sure I don't feel like a third wheel just in general. Most of them even keep PDA down to a minimum (unlike the couple I saw in the hall at school today who were literally on top of each other...why do people think that's alright?...because it's not). But there's that inevitable moment when you're hanging out with your best friend and you can tell that she would seriously rather be with her significant other than having a girls night. It's not like she says anything, but you can just tell. Probably because that's how I would feel if I were her. And I can't blame her. It's just the way life goes. I'm dealing.

Kind of in the same direction...I was recently talking to Morgan about how much fun it is when people ask if you're dating anyone or engaged, and then proceed to say, "you better get on that," when you let them know you're not. Really people? Really? I'm twenty-one for crying out loud! It's not like it's the nineteenth century anymore, and my welfare depends on a prudent marriage. I have time, and I actually like the way things are going right now. In fact, I think I'd be perfectly fine if I never married at all. That's not to say that I don't ever want to get married because some day I might. Someday is just definitely not today or tomorrow. So seriously, stop making me feel like a loser for still being single. Trust me, there are so many other things that make me a loser, and I don't think being single is one of them.

And to all of my currently engaged and soon-to-be engaged friends, I really am very happy for you :)