Hungry

He was sitting cross-legged in the median with a cardboard sign that read "hungry". I glanced and noticed him, but continued my conversation with Chelsea and Finley as we pulled off the interstate into Russellville.

We drove to the gas station/Wendy's/Subway because no one wants to travel with someone hungry. A hungry person is a cranky person. I ended my phone call with Chels before we pulled up to the order box.

I told Justin what I wanted and he recited it back to the Wendy's order box and added an additional 2 orders of chicken nuggets, a frosty, an order of fries and 2 jr. deluxe burgers. I flipped as we drove to the window asking him if he was really going to eat all of that food. That's a LOT of food. (1,540 calories and 176 grams of fat to be exact. Sick.) He told me to hold on as he paid. I asked him if I could tweet that. I was blown away and impressed and grossed out. The Wendy's worker handed him back his card, and he told me it wasn't all for him. He said it was for the man.

A man? What man? Then I remembered the man we passed as I was having my phone conversation with my best friend inside my nice, air-conditioned truck. Oh yea, that man. I responded in a way that I don't remember and stopped making a big deal about all of the food I thought Justin was about to consume. We got asked to move to a parking spot because it would be just a few minutes on our spicy chicken nuggets. Who knew spicy nugs were such a hot commodity?

We left Wendy's after we got all of our food and Justin went in to get the man a bottle of water. We headed back toward where we saw the man, but he was no where to be found. We drove around the surrounding area to make sure he hadn't moved, but we never found him.

I would like to think that someone beat us to it and fed the man, but I don't know that that's true. I'm going to pray so.

Things like this are what makes me thankful for my husband. (Husband! Ah!) 

Neti Potting and the Star Spangled Banner

Y'all. For what seems like the trillionth time this semester, I am sick. Boo. I've been sick for a week on Wednesday. I'm also too stubborn to go to the doctor. I know, it's my own fault. This time though, my friend Sarah got me to try out the Neti Pot. This is a fear-invoking contraption if you've never heard of it. It's basically a plastic teapot you stick in one nostril and tilt your head, so that when you pour it, it comes out the other. Here's an example.

Isn't that pretty? Thanks, random girl who's humble enough to put that picture on the internet.
Pretty or not, I can breathe a lot better.
During my first Neti Potting experience I didn't lean forward enough, and it kind of went down my throat. It felt like I was drowning. Sorry that's gross, but I don't want anyone to be deceived if they try it.

On another note about being sick, I've been drinking lots of water and hot tea. I've read that I'm not supposed to have much dairy or caffeine if I have a sore throat. Bummer. I crave coffee, ice cream, hot chocolate, and pretty much anything that contains those things. Currently I'm drinking decaf coffee, and it tastes like dirt. I didn't think I'd be able to tell a difference. I can. Maybe it's my tastebuds....

On a totally different note, the most ironic thing ever happened tonight at dinner. Ok, so maybe not ever, but at least that I can remember.
Myself and 5 other lovely ladies were eating dinner at the Union talking about how weird this whole Osama thing is and how we're freaked out by everyone's reaction and rejoicing of a death. (Serious side note: really, why the rejoicing? He's going to hell which is exactly what we all deserve, and without Jesus I'd be just as unrighteous as he is before the Lord. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't rejoice over the death of another one of God's creations.) Anyways, some news anchor or something said that this was the most important day in American history. What?! Really?! We all started naming days that were more important: "The end of WWII!", "D-Day!", "Ending slavery?!", "Uh, signing the Declaration?!", when, I promise, at the same time an all male choir started singing the Star Spangled Banner! Tell me that isn't ironic. Despite how really enjoyable it was, we all started dying laughing because of the irony. We sort of felt rude, but we really weren't laughing at them. After the SSB and watching a fellow Humphreys resident decide how to get around the boys without being rude as they were singing, we clapped for these beautifully voiced men. They then proceeded to turn to us and sing a song beginning with "A serenade to a girl..." Yep. They sang to us. Here's proof:

We clapped again, and they thanked us for being there and told us that it was a spontaneous performance. It should be noted that we were thrilled to receive such a performance.

Lastly, a boy got out a tuba, yes a tuba, and started playing Friday by Rebecca Black. We sang the random parts we knew. We got video taped by one of the boys iPhones. Maybe we'll be a viral video one day. 

This is lengthy. Sorry 'bout that. Hope it entertained you. 

Lovies. 

On Community and Quiet

Y'all. 2 things that bring joy to my soul, seriously bring joy, are community and quiet. Let me explain.

I love love love the various senses of community that make up my life and the world. There are little things as comforting as the community that I have with my sisters in Christ/best friends/the girls. There is a lack of judgment from these beautiful women that anyone could appreciate, and I get to know them better than lots of other people do. To know that at least one of many girls will always always be there for you is so neat. Knowing that I could tell them anything and entrust them with it completely is so refreshing from previous relationships and oh yea, a lot of the world. I cannot tell you the joy these sweet girls and my wonderful relationships with them bring me.

I realized my love for community on the Green Bus the other day. I know, that's kind of funny. I was on the bus by myself (do you know that I love public transportation? I do.), and we were coming up to my stop. It's a common stop, Lot 56, many students who desire to not pay more to park closer simply ride the bus up and down the hill that is the UofA to avoid walking an extra 20 minutes each way. (Who has that kind of time?) Well, as I said, generally, this is a pretty common stop. This day, the bus driver decided he would announce it and if no one got up, he'd just keep going. Well ya see, I don't have super balance therefore I don't usually get up until the bus stops. However, this day, I was the only one getting off. The bus driver said, "No one?" over the loud speaker and started to speed up. I started to get up and as I was opening my mouth to say, "No sir. Please stop. Me me me. I need to get off here." (or something like that.) at least 3 other people said, "You've got one!" "No, wait" or something like that. I assumed then, that they were getting off as well. The bus stopped, and I got off. Alone. It is a small thing, but how kind of people to speak for me when I was very capable of doing it myself. How friendly. I don't even know those people. Is that Arkansas community? Green bus community? I don't know, but it made my heart smile and make me realize that I adore a solid sense of community. This may explain my love for the dorms that I so want to leave, but still don't at the same time.

My quiet ties into my community. Particularly, with my friend Kelsey. I appreciate so greatly people that you can be with and be quiet and not be uncomfortable or think it's awkward, but really relish it and enjoy it. Kelsey is one of those people that I can do this with. This is funny because I'm not sure if we've ever actually spoken about it, but it is a joyful thing that two very messy spirits can be in one place together and just be. Don't get me wrong I appreciate your words and descriptions and stories, but I still adore that sweet silence. Honestly, I feel like that connects to people more than talking all. the. time. It's a soul soother.

Ya know what else is?
www.rainymood.com

Also, let the countdown continue that I will be a wifey in 43 days. Oh my heavens. That's soon.

Lovelovelove

This is my life

So, I without a doubt should be doing something else right now, but I'm gonna take a few minutes and finish a post I started a while ago. A girl can take a quick break from necessary things right?

Anyways....

Y'all, probably one of the most irritating things about myself is how much I don't want help, unless it's from my daddy or brother, doing anything that girls don't typically do. Ask Justin. It's dumb. I'm working on it. BUT, this week I did something I'm super proud of: Unclogging my gross sink drain. I don't know if you've ever tried this (with a drain I'm not allowed to use chemicals on AND the stopper doesn't come out), but it's hard. I bent and used a wire hanger to pull out ridiculous amounts of hair and some weird black substance. It was disgusting. I almost took a picture because I was proud of it, but I thought was gross to most people.
I'm so cool. I know.

Also on the cleaning note, wanna know how awesome my friends are? My sweet sweet friend, Rachel, sat with me on carpet and rubbed her hands around to help me make hair balls to throw away because the vacuums in this building are terrible and don't suck anything up. So, my carpet technically still needs to be vacuumed, but there's less hair. Thanks, Rach.

On Sunday the girls and I were coming back from a meeting, and it had been raining. The second we were getting out of the car to come in it started pouring. I love the rain, and it wasn't super cold, so I thought it was pretty enjoyable. However, I was holding books and stuff, so we all started running. Well, boys from the dorm next to our started yelling and cheering us on. (From what I heard they weren't being inappropriate which is a complete shock to me since living with a lot of boys. I appreciated that.) Kelsey yelled "I'm limping!" to us because her leg has been hurting for a while, and one of the boys yelled back, "Yea, you are wet!" What? Sir, that's not at all what she said. Ha. We couldn't stop laughing. This is way lamer typed out, but we could hardly breathe we were laughing so hard.

Wedding favors are dumb. The ones you buy are at least. Seriously, who cares if I have a sticker with our names on it on the bottom of a Reeses. Lame.

When I was doing a round the other night I saw a boy walking around the building in a very short dress being videotaped because he lost a bet. It was great. Welcome to dorm life.

And, for your entertainment...

There's a part 2 and an autotuned version also.

Lovelovelove

Are you gonna have a frat bachelor party?!

So, I know it's past Valentine's day, but we didn't go on a Valentine's day date until yesterday. Hence the late post.

First off, even though we didn't go on our date til yesterday, Justin surprised me at the desk Monday night with 25 helium inflated balloons tied to a box of slippers. :)

On Saturday he gave me some lilies that he bought on Monday but kept leaving at work, so I didn't actually get them til Yesterday.

On our date we ate breakfast at Rick's and then went to Harp's to get picnic stuff. Then we drove to Eureka Springs for the day! It was so fun and ended up being such a good day for it! Let me tell y'all though, Eureka Springs has very different people/places.

Examples
1. Everyone asked where we were from, and I'm pretty sure they all thought we were staying in Eureka Springs together for the weekend. We weren't. That was annoying.
2. There are a few wedding chapels in Eureka Springs. That's just funny to me. Justin kept telling me we could elope all day. We didn't of course.
3. Stores have really weird names. Pardon my language, but there was a store called Big Boner. Really? That's unnecessary.
We also went to an Amish furniture store where we're pretty sure a guy planted a phone call, so we'd feel guilty. We walked in, said hello, and then his phone rang. All we could hear was his side of the phone convo which went something like, "Yea, there haven't been too many people in here today. Sales aren't doing so good. There's been 2 or 3 people in here." Ouch.
There was also a store called W.T. Focker's Discount Outlet. We ended up going there, and it was a lot like A-Z in Alma but way smaller. We bought a can that had a pull tab top and no label for a quarter. It had WTF? written on the side of it in permanent marker. As far as I know we still don't know what it is.

4. The people there are slightly outrageous sometimes. Or maybe they're just passionate about different stuff than I am. I overheard a conversation between a cashier at a bookstore and a customer about America having the opposite of an Oedipus complex (Electra complex I believe) with our president. We went into an outdoorsy store, and we were looking at a pair of men's jeans trying to guess how much they cost. Justin guessed $150, and before I could guess the sales lady came over and told us that they had replaced their Jack of Spades jeans (Justin and I both said, "Oh. Ok." even though neither of us knew what she was talking about.) with the ones we were looking at. She said they were supposed to be $165, but they were offering an introductory price of $135. She then proceeded to show us how they were double and triple stitched, and how they were stretchy kind of like girls jeans, so you could run from the cops. Yep. Then she started laughing, and so did we...sort of. We kept looking around the store, and she asked us if we were honeymooning. We said something along the lines of "not yet", and Justin made a joke about trying to get me to elope. She asked when I was gonna just do it, and I explained that we actually were getting married at the end of May. She said, "Oh! Really? Where ya gonna do the deed?" I told her where and that we were students at the UofA to which she responded, "Paarrrrrty!" Ha. THEN, she looked at Justin and said, "I bet you're gonna have a big frat bachelor party aren't ya?! Hahahahaha." Justin said he was going to have a bachelor party, but probably not a frat one. I was trying not to laugh my face off. Then she turned to me and said, "What about you? (whisper) Are you gonna have a stripper?" I said absolutely not and that I would kill my friends if I did. She then started her story with, "The first time I got married..." Sad. She proceeded to tell us that her friends hired a stripper, and it was someone she knew, and she was appalled. She said he stripped down to his tighty whities and there was a poop stain on them. She then used some explicitives to finish her story. Who tells strangers that!?!??!!? 

It was a fun day, but y'all Eureka Springs is a funny town. We watched Sherlock Holmes and then went to Geraldi's for dinner. It was a 12 hour date, and it was super fun. 

Happy Sunday y'all. 

Lovelovelove. 

Scurvy and Ramen

So, last night Justin and I went to Walmart to get necessities (contact solution, vitamins, peanut m&m's, and 2 church candles) for the snowpocalypse (PartDeux). We were waiting in line, and Justin asked if I needed any food or anything. I said, no that I still had Ramen from the last snow. He told me I was going to get scurvy. One of his friends apparently got scurvy from eating only Ramen and drinking Mountain Dew. He told me my teeth were going to fall out. As he was saying this, I was trying to figure out how to tell him that the lady in front of us was looking/listening, and she had only 2 teeth. She could see me though, so I couldn't do anything.

She then told us that she lost her teeth from a little grey pill that looked like cement that she took for kidney stones, not from scurvy. Well, she thought it was from the little grey pill at least. She turned back around, and Justin just looked at me. We tried to not look at each other to contain our laughter at the irony of the situation. I made a comment about all the crackers by the checkout.

She continued to talk to us a little bit. Justin just made funny faces as if he were trying not to laugh.

Moral to the story: Don't talk about scurvy in public. You might unknowingly be standing behind a toothless person.

The end.