Emerging from the depths of middle school

Guess this blogging thing isn't as "me" as it is some other people. I always have these funny or inspiring things to share, and then never get around to sharing them.

But I'm on break now--woo hoo! 2 whole weeks!!! (I'm digging this year-round thing.) So I'll be writing several posts to catch up on the past 3 months or so...as you read them, pretend they're spaced out and posted every 2 weeks, or so, yeah?

Audreyisms on Steamy Shoes

I would feel bad about starting this supposed blog of my life, and then not posting anything for weeks and weeks and weeks.  But when I start to wonder if I should feel bad about it, I come up with a definitive "No!", because I realize that I haven't written, because I've been too busy living real life.

Ok, off the soap box.  I have about 2-dozen sticky notes, along with random things jotted in every notebook I own, of cute things Audrey says that just make me laugh outloud in pure delight  So here are 3 of the latest "Audreyisms", those happy moments in my life that make me smile:

1)  I was at the table working on my homework, and Audrey was hanging around me with.  She saw a spider under the table, and I said, "Get a shoe and kill it!"  So after a really cute 2 or 3 minutes of her hiding out and trying to catch it, she got it.  I said, "Good!  Now go get a Kleenex and pick it up and throw it away."  She gets the Kleenex and comes back.  As she gets back under the table to pick it up, she says, "Ooooh, now it's just a smudge!"  Cute.

2)  Direct quote from dinner last night (eating the bowl of Mac & Cheese I'd made her since she didn't want sesame chicken), very matter-of-factly:  "Um, I need something else to go with my Mac & Cheese, and that involves chocolate milk."

3)  So I went shopping with my friend, Kansas, the other night.  In Belk, we found a shoe clearance sale--the kind I never have the patience or desire for, but that my more shopping-crazy friend is crazy about.  The kind with tables piled high with shoebox madness and crazed shoe vampires (women) surround them.  So I'm sorting through piles of shoes that I'll never buy or care about.  I find a pair of shiny black peak-toe shoes and try them on to show Kansas.

And they were hot.

I fell in love with them.  Like I've never fallen in love with shoes before.  And I'd just tried on the most perfect LBD (Little Black Dress) that I was trying to convince myself not to buy.  And they'd go PERFECT with it.

I look at the price written on the box:  $81.99.  Surely that couldn't be the clearance price.  The clearance sale was for 50-75% off.  If these puppies were 75% off, I could totally justify spending $20 on a pair of shoes that hot.  If they were $40...that'd be stretching it.

I take the shoes up to the counter and ask for a price.  Yeah, that's the CLEARANCE price.  Original price:  $165.

Dude.  Seriously?  They're shoes.

But they're HOT shoes.

Next morning at breakfast, I'm sitting across the table from Audrey eating Captain Crunch (hey, it's spring break!) and telling Kellie about my shopping excursion from the night before.  Here's how it went:

Lori:  I found the hot-HOT-HOTTEST shoes at Belk.

Audrey:  How hot were they?

Hmmm....I stopped to ponder how to say this.  I didn't think my sister would want me to teach my niece words like "beyond sexy" or something like that, so...

Lori:  Like, 120 degrees hot!

Audrey:  (making an "eww!" face)  Ewwwgh!  (that's her squealing sound for either disgust or disbelief)

Things I Learned from a 4-year-old Princess: Chapter 3

Some random 4-year-old Princess Proverbs I gathered while playing "house"...or "doctor"...which inevitably turns in to either "sneaky" or a trip to outer space or a shoot-up-the-bad-guys game:

-Bad guys never take good care of flowers.

-They hate sounds that make them die.

-A recipe for some potion if you're fighting bad guys:

"Add salt and peppermints.

Cool it with hot flowers.

Freeze the ice from Lori's room.  (It is frigid in there.  I love my space heater!)

In the 1980's, you'll need to find a sign of 1980."

Then, you "dip it in felicity" and "He will reveal in the ocean forever and forever."

Sounds messy to me.  But it should do the trick.

But never, ever, ever trust bad guys with your flower garden while you're on vacation.

Things I Learned from a 4-year-old Princess: Chapter 2

I have yellow teeth.

One of my eyes is glaringly larger than the other.

It is yet to be determined if I am pretty.

Bu--I have the darned COOLEST snow scraper that you could ever dream of having!

I "love" (?) kids...

Of Pancakes and Pluckers

To bring everyone up to date:  I moved 2 weeks ago to Huntsville, Alabama.  All I have left in order to finish my undergrad degree in music education is to do my semester of student teaching.  As I have a somewhat (understatement) adventurous spirit and definitely feel like I have gotten quite a full "northern colorado experience", and as you can really student teach anywhere, I decided to come out to Alabama and do it here.

Why Alabama?!?  (I knew that was coming.)  My older sister and her family live here, so I'm staying with them.  Upcoming features to look forward to in my blog:  Things I Learned from a 4-year-old Princess.  I have some great ones already, don't worry.  Let me introduce the cast of characters for that series:  Kellie, my older sister--The Mom.  Scott, her husband--The Dad.  (Who recently revived my mac, whose new hard drive I named "Lazarus"--Thank You!)  Audrey, my adorable, blond, 4-year-old niece.  And Ian Holland, born this morning at 7:33 am.  :)

Just 2 funnies from the normalities of life today (look for upcoming episodes of the "Things I Learned..." series):

Whenever Audrey is bored or cranky or just doesn't want to do something, she'll get this obnoxious whiny voice and say, "I'm SOOOOOooooOOOOooo tired!"  Tonight, on the way to the hospital to say goodnight to her mom, she was sitting in the backseat and made some comment about being tired.  I got ready for the whiny "soooooooo tired" comment, but instead she said very matter-of-factly, "I'm as tired as a pancake!"

???

Things I Learned from a 4-year-old Princess, Chapter 1:  Pancakes are very, very sleepy.

Other funny:  Scott was showing me the 3 1/2 page form they have to fill out and give to the state to get Ian's birth certificate.  Apparently there are several glaring typo's and grammatical mistakes (welkome too Alabama), but this was the part that we liked best.  One of the questions, honest to goodness, said the following:

What was your occupation during this pregnancy?  for example, cashier, bank teller, chicken plucker, nurse, attorney, etc.

Stupid Comments in Delayed Insults

I think this may be one of those "You had to be there" moments, but I found it hysterical, so I thought I'd share it.

I went to the UNC vs. Air Force Academy basketball game tonight.  (Who I rooted for is another post altogether.)  The crowd was full of very energetic college students, eager to root on their team and boo the opposing one.

It's funny how some people really struggle to come up with insults, but still insist on giving them--the result often being ridiculously poor timing.

And Air Force player was shooting a free throw.  The crowd was booing and shouting out insults to his dog, his mother, etc., trying to get him to miss the shot.  That's normal.  But about 4 seconds after the shot, when it had already been rebounded and was heading down to the opposite basket, the brain of someone behind me FINALLY arrived at the insult they'd probably been working on for a good 15 seconds and shouted, "Your...ears are...irproportional to your face!"

I thought the insult itself was kind of funny (and original, at least to shout it out from the stands), and the timing was ridiculous, so I was already genuinely laughing.  About .5 seconds later, I started laughing much harder as I realized what he'd said.

Irproportional?  Really?!

Poor guy.  That's embarrassing enough to say that, but in the middle of hundreds of people?  (At least it was so loud not everyone heard...and it was a group of probably lesser intelligence than maybe the concert hall I was at last night...no offense...)

But then, I can kind of relate.  Whenever my EFY counselors would get down on themselves for messing something up, I'd say, "You know what?  Don't worry about it!  When you mess up, 8 people (their group of youth) know about it.  When I mess up, 800 people know about it!"

But...IRPROPORTIONAL?!  Really??

Extreme Facebook Messaging

My roommates and I are rarely all home at the same time.  There are 3 of us, 2 very busy music majors and one theatre education major.  Even in the rare happenstance that we ARE all in the house at the same time, usually one or 2 of us is asleep or something.

But tonight--a Tuesday night at 11 pm, out of all times--all 3 of us are home.  I'm sitting in my room at my power desk, and right outside my slightly open door Ashley and Amanda are sitting in the living room.  Us being 3 tech-savvy girls, we are all on our laptops...pretending to do homework.

I get onto Facebook (1st mistake) just to check something, and Ashley messages me from the living room and says, "Not only are we all home, we're all on Facebook!"  I realize what an oddity that is, and message her back with my classic response to her every time she messages me:  the robot face she taught me:   :|]

It makes her laugh out loud. I  can hear it through my open door.  Then she tries to send me back a face with the tongue sticking out but starts giggling because she messed up.  But instead of TELLING me that (she's seriously like 12 feet from me, through an open door) she writes it to me....that makes me start giggling.  Then I hear another outburst of laughter as she tries to teach Amanda how to make the robot face--but all over Facebook messaging, no verbal communication.  And Ash starts laughing again because Amanda can't find the right keys...but she WRITES to me to tell me (again).

A few minutes pass, and I hear an outburst of laughter from Ashley that doesn't stop.  Apparently they're trying to figure out how to make more smiley faces.

They both just erupted in laughter.  I guess they experimented and made the exact same smiley face at the same time.

No words.  Not one.

Sometimes this world is just plain weird to me.

But a whole lot of fun!