Frat House

Wait, nope. Just my parents after all of us have come home and taken over.

I'm probably not ever going to leave.

I stole this quote from Rachel (don't click on her name, it isn't going to take you anywhere. I still haven't tried to figure that one out).

"If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right, you'll probably never do much of anything."

- Win Borden

That's my stolen thought and I love it. Have a great week. I know I will, come Thursday I will have successfully completed a semester of college...there is a first for everything.

Only a few more to go and you can call me doctor.
Or just do it now, I'll still respond.

Perfection

If anything in the world deserves your undivided attention, it is what I am about to tell you.

The Med from Noodles & Co. is exactly everything perfect in the world combined. And then placed on a piece of flatbread.

Let me share with you the ingredients.

Chicken, mushrooms, spinach, red bell pepper, cucumber, red onion, their zippy Med dressing, cilantro and feta on flatbread

Let me repeat that, only slower this time.

1. Chicken. The only type of meat that makes me not a vegetarian. I love chicken.
2. Mushrooms. I can go both ways with mushrooms really. I used to eat them because I thought they served a purpose. But they don't so now I just eat them when they're on something out of being too lazy to pick them off.
3. Spinach. Have I ever mentioned my undying love for leafy greens?
4. Red bell peppers, they add a good amount of flavor to anything.
5. Cucumbers. Have I ever mentioned my undying love for any type of green healthful food?
6. Red onion. Serves same purpose as red bell pepper, yet with a different additional flavor.
7. Med dressing. Definitely never had it before but everything needs some type of dressing on it, always.
8. CILANTRO. Does it need to be expressed how I feel about this? Like this is the stuff I pour on my cereal instead of sugar.
9. Feta. Feta and I have become friends kind of recently, and it is an unbreakable bond.
10. Flatbread. You can eat it on it's own, eat it with butter, add cinnamon and sugar, or add 9 other ingredients, I mean you can literally do anything with flatbread. So Delicious.

The best way I can think to describe the feeling of eating The Med would be similar to completing your first triathlon, riding a bull for 8 seconds, winning a stuffed animal at a carnival, or it might even be as good as the day your mom told you it's time for a bra.

Miss(ing) Independent

On facebook they are doing this thing where you can make a collage of all of your status updates for the year. My curiosity wanted a reminder on what has been on my mind throughout the whole year. I went through them this morning (I'll do anything to pretend my political science debate isn't happening tomorrow) and I have to admit I was laughing my butt off at some of the things and responses to the thoughts shared.

That's all beside the point. As soon as I reached January 1st the status said "my runway never looked so clear" (a la Rihanna) and my most recent status was "feels like I just collided with a moose". Clearly, my runway wasn't as clear as I thought.

I found irony in this because this year I unintentionally started my life over, with a completely clear...runway. It started off with some amount of suffering and heartache that if you asked in January, I was never going to get over it.

Somewhere between February and September I figured out my life. That was the first time that has ever happened. As I went through a slew of half A** relationships (aside from any other year?) and was pushed back into school, I found out who I was, I know what I like, I have an idea of what I love, what I need and want are similar. As far as what I need I can't tell if they're needs or just wants...I think, technically, I have everything I need. But who can really determine what really is a want and what is a need?

My heart became much more susceptible and open and with that, I hit a wall....or collided with a moose, if you will. I lost my indestructibility and as a friend graciously told me, the other day, I lost my "free spirit". Call it what you want, it has gone missing.

So now I need to reinstate it. I have issued myself a 4 week challenge, come January 2nd I'll be back to where I was happily a few months ago. These last few months have been happy, just a different style than I'm used to. I'm going to get back to where school was a main priority and I made decisions from my brain, not my emotions.

I hate it when I sound like a hippie but I'm going to get my independence back. I want to go back to when walking into a room, alone, people looked at me and they didn't look around to see who wasn't with me.

Back to when it was just me. No questions. No explanations. No expectations. Just me, being me, and very happy with who that person is.

Like a child

Over the summer I would take Luke on walks and he constantly fought wanting to be buckled in the stroller. It wasn't that he wanted to walk around, he just didn't want the restriction of the seat belt.

One day I didn't fight him and about half way through the walk he completely face planted. Now, I'm not exactly sure what he was doing leaning forward for no reason, but he just leaned on forward and toppled to the ground. As he cried I held him, a little dumbfounded at how the situation played out but more just feeling bad and wanting to comfort him, wanting him to feel better.

He didn't fight for about two weeks after that but then one day he refused to let me buckle him in again. I looked at him and said "You really are going to try this again? Haven't you already learned?" Right after I said it I stopped, it was like the heavens were chuckling and saying look who's talking.

I have thought a lot about the amount of love I have for Luke. He isn't my own kid and I have a love for him that you don't know is out there until you have experienced being around a child. The battles we have are constant and always over the same things. Don't jump off the couch, put those pillows back on my bed, don't hit people with golf clubs, and so on. So many times I hear the chair being dragged onto the kitchen floor so that he can get on top of the counter to get into who knows what. My patience is often tested and I usually fall short of the person that I could be in helping him grow and learn. Things like trying to teach him that if he eats his lunch, he can have a cookie. Or if he cleans up his toys he can watch mickey.

Under every circumstance that leads to frustration, there is never a day where I don't love him. Anytime I walk in the door he yells my name and runs to give me a hug. When I am in my room he sticks his fingers under the door and says "Am, Ammie, Abbie" until I let him in, usually to have a pillow fight. We have a bond and it's one that has helped me realize exactly what it must be like for our Heavenly Father. He loves us unconditionally and doesn't enjoy watching us go through hardships. But he does allow us to learn and grow, on our own.

There are two big differences about the love we have for kids and the love Heavenly Father has for us. The first being that he doesn't fall short. He doesn't get exhausted from us. He doesn't leave us alone because he just doesn't feel like getting off the couch because he has heard enough complaints for one day. Imagine the love that you have for a child and multiply it by 10 billion.

The second difference is that, like a child, we have lessons where we need to learn obedience and cause and effect. But with us it isn't always as easy as eating our carrots and getting dessert. Or if we keep our room clean all week we can have a sleep over that Friday. Sometimes we have to be obedient for an unknown amount of time and we are working towards an unspecified reward. And we do it because we know that there is something waiting for us, somewhere. We have gone through it enough in the past to know that there is always something better waiting for us, something greater than being able to stay up late with your friend and even better than a homemade cookie.

Unless the cookie lasts forever and doesn't have any calories. That would so be worth it.

Peeved

I have a handful of pet peeves, a lot of them are small things like tape left on windows, smudges on the computer screen, Hollister, or when a rug is slightly curled at the corner.

I decided my biggest ones are people complaining over issues they can solve and when people act like they are above you because they don't drink soda or they don't watch tv.
I highly dislike hearing the following statements: "oh, I don't have time for television" or "soda is soooo bad for you", yeah well so is slouching and find me someone that doesn't do that .

First of all, I understand that life is busy and sometimes it takes me a couple of days to get through an episode of Modern Family. However, I do not feel as though my life has gone to waste because on Thursday nights after babysitting, working, going to school, and going to the gym (sometimes) I sit down and plop in front of the tv for an hour or two of straight humor. But there are a few people out there that if you ask if they like whatever show they say "I don't watch tv" or "Who has time for tv?". It wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't have an elitist tone when they said it. I'm sorry, but if I can find time to watch tv and most full time employee, full time students, and parents that I know can find time-then anyone can find time. You're not fooling anyone, we know you just want to sound like a hipster but deep down you hate that you can't quote 30 rock...I know, I've been there.

Secondly, soda. You don't have to like it. Not everyone loves carbonation and some people find their guilty pleasures elsewhere. It's the over exaggeration of the word hate when expressing how you feel about it. Really, you hate it? Like the feeling I have towards gang members is the same way you feel about bubbly drinks with aspartame? Highly Doubt it.

Lastly, complaining about a solvable problem. I don't mind people venting, at all. All of us need to do it, clearly that is what is happening right now. It's the complaining about issues that you have control over.
What are considered valid complaints? Hunger while at work, cramps, homework, being tired, being cold, gnats in your salad, and having to pee during a meeting.
What is not valid? Complaining about not having a boyfriend/girlfriend but when someone suggests someone you could ask out your response is "yeah but he/she is too (fat, skinny, tall, short, blonde, brunette, red head, pasty, fake bakes, outgoing, shy, etc)."
Then why are you complaining? If I thought that no one was good enough for me, I would not be complaining. I would kill to be that awesome.