Fire alarms and Bed pegs

Today was the first Burritt fire alarm of the year, which is really saying something! Burritt has ridiculously sensitive fire alarms, so usually the alarms would have gone off at least 5 times by now, but miraculously, it took until the end of the semester to set it off! Malina and I initially thought it was us that did it (it went off the second I opened the oven to take out the pizza I was making for Kara), but it turned out to be a microwave from 3rd floor. Anywho, it was quite an adventure! Then, tonight, two of my girls decided to rearrange their room, which was quite the adventure as well. After some failed attempts, some successful moves, employing the muscles of someone's boyfriend, and finishing the job with our own muscles, I ended up pinned against the wall. Yeah, we didn't quite think it all the way through, so there I was, between a bed and a wall. I had barely enough room to squeeze my way out, so it all ended up okay. Even though it was difficult at times, we had a lot of fun. We laughed so hard, and just enjoyed each others' company. I love my girls, and that's all there is to it.

Home Sweet Home

I just spent an incredible weekend at home. I'm at a loss for words trying to describe it to you. Basically, I'm the luckiest girl alive; I had amazing, loving parents waiting with hugs for me at the airport, and I got to hang out with them all weekend, I have the coolest brother on the face of the planet, 2 of my 4 wonderful grandparents came for Thanksgiving, my friends rock and made time for me (It was nice to laugh with them again), I got to spend all day Saturday and the first half of Sunday with the most adorable, most incredible little boy to have ever lived, some more of my friends let me keep them up past their bed time :), and I got to go to New Cov again (and even though Tim Johnson didn't preach, I got to see Kyle and Dustin for the first time, so that was awesome). Anyway, that's a summary of how I'm so blessed. And, those are also the reasons why today was awful. Leaving all of that at home was so hard. 4ish days at home was definitely not enough. Luckily, the Bears were awesome today, and they were on TV, so they helped make up for the sadness (a little bit) of leaving (and I got to see my girls again!). Anyway, I already miss home, and everyone there that makes me feel loved.

That's me and my little stud muffin, sometimes known as snotface, more commonly known as Kayne, and previously referred to as "the most adorable, most incredible little boy to have ever lived"

Anywho, please pray for me. I'm dealing with something that I thought would be semi-better after being home, but it actually hurts worse now for a reason different than would be expected. So, please pray for healing. And pray for motivation. I'm extremely unmotivated at this moment, and I have a lot to do before finals, so I need to get my game face on.

Well, that's that. Time to finish a movie (Meet the Robinson's), and then off to bed...

Thanksgiving

1. Waking up in my home

2. I. Love. Football on TV...

3. My Grandpa's stories

4. Being with 2 of my grandparents, my parents, and my brother for Thanksgiving

5. House! - my mom lovingly tapes the House episodes while I'm at college so we can watch them when we are together, and we had a 4 episode marathon! Pretty sure that is my favorite show of all time. I highly recommend it if you are not already hooked...

(Kayne, the little boy wonder who lived with my family for 7.5 months, is coming over in about an hour! I can't wait to see him!!!)

Big Wednesday (random fact: that's the name of a 1978 surfer movie)

1. Route 66 - my driving music was the soundtrack to Cars. So, I'm driving along, listening to "Route 66," and I thought to myself, "too bad this song isn't about highway 170," and then I looked up and saw a sign that said "Historic Route 66"!!! It was pretty sweet. And, I recommend the soundtrack if you are a Cars fan.

2. Bad weather not producing bad results - it rained all day in St. Louis, and it snowed some in Nebraska, so I was worried that would mess up my travel plans, but I made it back with no weather related problems!

3. Mechanics - so, my flight was delayed 2 hours. One of our engines wouldn't start, so the mechanic had to go in and fix it. Thank you Mr. Mechanic for fixing my plane so that I could come home!

4. Seeing mom and dad at the airport, and seeing Taylor at home - and hugging them of course! Its so nice to be back with my family. I love them more than I could explain to you.

5. Being home - I think that speaks for itself

Tuesdays with [Marisa]

1. Friends that go out of their way to make you feel special - my friend X walked me to class today. I was a ways in front of him, and he hollered my name and asked me to stop so that he could walk me to class. It was sweet.

2. Michael Buble, aka, the only man who is welcome at a girls night :)

3. Finally feeling like I can rest - the girls have all gone home, and now I can just be. It's a nice feeling. Thank you God for rest.

4. Jared Delzell and Dustin Garrett - they both made me feel special and cared about today, they are wonderful friends, I'm so excited to see them!!!

5. Fried chicken with the girls - we had our pre-Thanksgiving dinner tonight. Betsye made fried chicken, and Emily let us feast in her apartment. It was a wonderful dinner!

"Monday, Monday" (so, I know that's in a song, but I don't know any other words...)

1. Laughter

2. 1st Burritt Annex lounge - we have a lounge at the end of our hallway, and I spent a good chunk of my afternoon down there with some of the girls. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to all hang out together.

3. Cell phones and e-mail - so you could argue that that would count as two things, but think of them more as falling into the same category, the category of "things that allow me to stay connected with those I love that are far away from me in a place that I can't wait to go back to!"

4. You lack knowledge of choice grapes and wild vines! I will now destroy you! - that translates to the study time Betsye and I had for Old Testament Survey today. I more so enjoyed the company rather than the actual studying, but that's to be expected. We had a good time, we laughed, we cried (not really), it was beautiful.

5. "I think I might have given a girl mono today." - #5 reason to be thankful translates to my roomie! (she said that today (she gave a half eaten pop tart to a girl today and she doesn't know if she bit the pop tart, or ripped it) (Kara has mono) (anyway)) She's amazing. Random roommate selection worked in my favor last year. She is so much fun and has been an amazing support system this year. She puts up with my rambling, and actually listens to it. She doesn't realize how much that means to me, and how much she means to me, and she never will be able to understand because I'll never be able to explain. Basically, I love my roomie.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

1. Tim Johnson's online services: there's nothing like a slice of home every once and awhile on Sunday mornings, and I miss Tim's sermons every Sunday

2. Sheena, well, Amy: during my junior and senior year, I ate lunch with this girl named Sheena. She is absolutely wonderful. Last year she was adopted, and she also changed her name to Amy. Well, she called me today out of the blue, and it made me so happy! We talked (I guess she talked and I listened) for awhile today, and it was really nice. I learned today that she is no longer a Backstreet Boys fan; she grew out of them (except for Nick, she still likes him).

3. Re-runs: Some of my girls and I watch America's Next Top Model every Wednesday. Unfortunately we missed it last week, but fortunately they play re-runs on Sunday! So, we all gathered in my room to watch the show. I love it because it is ridiculous, and also because it is a common interest between us so we can enjoy it together.

4. Surprise hugs

5. Ice cream! Dawn, Amanda, and I all had ice cream at dinner tonight. Good choice considering the cold outside temperature...

Things to be thankful for...

I really liked what the man at the Annex said about having a thankful heart the other day. My life has been pretty crazy lately, and I think sometimes I get lost in the chaos and forget how much I have to be thankful for. And, I'm not necessarily talking about the big things, like my family (they are easy to be thankful for), I'm talking more like the little things that can surprise you and make your day. So, with that being said, I thought I would make a list of 5 things each day that I'm thankful for in the weekish leading up to Thanksgiving. My boss had us do this one time, and it really is incredible. I think it will help me stay grounded and keep things in perspective. Despite any junk that might be happening, I still have so much to be thankful for. Here's a Friday/Saturday list:

1. Friends who love football: I watched the Oklahoma/Texas Tech game last night with my friend Xavier and a couple other people, and then they broke out in this amazing discussion about college football, and it pretty much rocked.
2. Make-a-flake: there's this website where you can cut your own snowflakes! My mom showed it to me a couple years okay, and Storm reintroduced me to it this year. It's a lot of fun (there's a link on the side).
3. Lauren's hugs: she's one of the girls on my floor, and her hugs make me happy!
4. Lunch with Betsye: on Friday we went to a little restaurant in town called Sam's and had soup and sandwiches. It was nice; it was good to have time with BETSye.
5. Murder mysteries: Kaitlynn, Andrea, Amanda, and I had so much fun together on Friday night at the play (A Murder is Announced), and we had a great time trying to figure out who was the murderer. We also realized that we aren't very good detectives. None of us figured it out...

Merry Thanksmas!

I decided that yesterday Betsye and I celebrated Thanksmas! We sat in my room and made Happy Thanksgiving notes for our girls (we traced our hands and made turkeys :) !) while watching Rudolph! It was quite fun! We have a habit of trying to make Christmas come earlier than its supposed to, and this year's attempt was much more successful than last year's. See, last year Betsye and I tried to make Christmas cookies before Halloween, and...we ended up burning them...some towel and cookie sheet waving saved us from setting off the fire alarms...stupid Burritt ovens!

Also, yesterday I realized that I'm spoiled. Mr. Bob, my theatre director, spoiled me. I went with a couple of my girls last night to a high school play. Kaitlynn's brother was in the show, and she invited us to go with her. I was excited, and it was a lot of fun, and they did a great job, but it paled in comparison to Southwest theatre. Two of the funniest things were that they "drank tea" a lot, but they didn't actually use liquid (and they didn't pretend very well), and at a one point they started flipping through a photo album, and all the pages were empty! I was laughing so hard when that happened (hard, but quietly so as not to disrupt the show)! Also, all the characters had British accents, and it was clear that their director hadn't made them a CD of the British dialect...anywho, thanks Mr. Bob. Thank you for spoiling me.

"Another [autumn] day, has come and gone away, in [Greenville, Illinois], and I want to go home..."

I love it here. I love my girls. I love my friends. But I need a break. I haven't been home since August 4th, and I desperately need to go back. I will be home in a little less than 5 days from right now, and I am so excited! Pray that these next few days go by quickly so that I can hop on a plane and fly back to my home. I was working out this morning and I had a conversation with a man from the community. We talked about how my family celebrates Thanksgiving, and we talked about how excited he is to see his 12 grandchildren. Anyway, he said that one of the greatest gifts God gave us was the ability to have a thankful heart. Well, right now, more than anything, I'm thankful that I have amazing, loving parents, and an amazing loving brother to go home to. I can't wait for Wednesday.

Cake Baking, Smore Making, Concert Going, Leaf Blowing, and Singing and Dancing in the Rain

Sunday night, we went to Kaitlynn's house and her mom made us dinner! They barbecued, and made cookies, and it was wonderful. It was nice to have a home cooked meal, and to hang out at someone's home for awhile. Her family was super nice, and they were wonderful to welcome us in. We also played some ping pong, and let me tell you...my girls have mad skills.

Monday afternoon we had an amazing rainstorm. Betsye, Storm, and I played in the rain after we had lunch, and it was so much fun!!! I love playing in the rain! Betsye and I did our fair share of puddle jumping and what not last year, and now we found another friend to join us! Storm led us in rain dancing when the rain slowed down, and to my amazement, it worked! Personally, I think it worked simply because his name is Storm...anyway, for some reason the rain just makes things seem better, even if they aren't that great. I like rain because its fun, but more than that I like it because I like to think of the raindrops as God's tears, like he's crying for us and on us because he knows how we feel and he cares for us. Anywho, I love rain, and my friends.

More importantly, Monday was my roomie's birthday! She's no longer a teenager! She wanted us to sing her happy birthday 20 different ways. We made it to 11, and then we got sidetracked by a concert, so we got close! I love her so much, she's the best roomie ever! Speaking of concert...11 of us went into St. Louis on Monday night to go to a Regina Spektor concert! She is amazing! Her voice is unique, and is incredible! It was a lot of fun. After that we went to Steak and Shake, and that was fun too. It was nice to have a night with my friends, and to celebrate Kara's birthday with her!

Then, today Betsye and I played in the leaves! There are a lot of trees here, so there are a lot of leaves, which are perfect for pile making! We started out on campus and our friends Dustin and Michelle played with us, but then Betsye and I left for a park just outside of town called Patriots Park. It was so much fun! There was also a playground, so we took advantage of that as well. Here are a couple of pictures. I put the rest on Picasa. There are a lot...we got snap happy...

Bringing out the little kid in me!

Friday night some of my girls and I went into St. Louis to have dinner. We ate a place called Old Spaghetti Factory, and it was delicious! The best part though, was the balloon man. This guy was walking around to different tables, making balloon animals. It was so cool, and I got so excited. Well, we had our eye on him the whole night, trying to track him down, and finally he walked by our table! I flagged him down, and then he made us balloon hats! Basically, it made my night. This guy was incredible; he has been making balloon animals for 9 years, and he taught himself. Here are the fruits of his labor:

Then, this morning I definitely watched Saturday morning cartoons! How cool is that? Granted, they aren't as good as they used to be, but the simple fact that they were Saturday morning cartoons was all that mattered. And, I just want to say that while Batman is cool enough and man enough to have his own show, Superman needs to have a show with a whole Legion of superheroes. I guess he can't get the job done by himself...

And to cap things off, we had a pillow/watergun fight with our brother floor tonight. Dawn and I were sitting in my room, and randomly we heard a bunch of guys yelling, and next thing we knew, Storm was running into my room, leading his guys in beating us with pillows. It was funny. Then, he called at 11:15 to let me know that they were planning on coming back at 11:30 and told me to get ready for them. At first we thought they chickened out because it was 11:45 and they hadn't shown up yet, but then he called to say that they were "running errands," and the attack began! I'm pretty sure we won though because they had pillows, but we had pillows and water guns. I'm not gonna lie, it was awesome. I love our brother floor.

The joy of being serenaded

My girls just made my week, actually, made my month. I was sitting in my room with Kara and Betsye, and all of a sudden someone threw rocks at our window! We pulled up the blinds and saw four of my girls standing outside the window (Taylor, Dawn, Kaitlynn, and Amanda)! They then proceeded to serenade me with "My Girl." It was so wonderful! They just warmed my heart. I love them so much. Well, they wanted to do more, so we decided to go serenade Storm! Dawn, Kaitlynn, Amanda and I all walked over to his dorm to sing to him. He lives on fourth floor, and we weren't sure which room was his, so I resulted to calling him and told him to pretend that someone just threw rocks at his window and to look outside. We started singing "Build Me up Buttercup" to him, only meaning the happy parts, and it was so much fun! A bunch of guys from other parts of the dorm came to their windows when we started singing, so it made it that much funnier! Anyway, Storm said we warmed his heart, so mission accomplished. I just thought I'd share my joy.

A Bonfire with the Brothers

Tonight my girls and I had our first activity with our brother floor. It was so much fun! We went out to this nature trail thing, called the Gullies (its really cool, and its right behind our dorm), and had a bonfire! It was the first time that my girls had met some of the guys, so it was a great opportunity. We made smores, shared random stories, and had some good laughs. It was a great way to cap off my weekend. They were a lot of fun. Storm, the RC of our brother floor, is an awesome guy, and he has a great group of guys on his floor. I'm looking forward to hanging out with them more this year! Well, I'm going to finish watching Batman Begins (!), and then I'm off to bed! Oh, and one of my girls, Dawn, straightened my hair today. It's an odd sensation being able to run my fingers through my hair...you decide for yourself if you like it or not...

My girls at the bonfire

The hair from behind, and that's my good buddy Storm

So I saw my former classmate on a package of underwear today

That's right. A girl I went to high school with was a model on a package of underwear we saw at Wal-Mart today. Weird, I know. But really, how many people get to say that during their lifetime? Not very many...

"Happy Birthday" Kaitlynn!

A couple of my girls and I went out for a night on the town last night. We went to Edwardsville, and went out for dinner and a movie. We saw Dan in Real Life, and it was really good! It wasn't what we expected, but it was good nonetheless. It was more of a romantic comedy than a straight up comedy, but we all enjoyed it. Before we went to the movie though, we went to eat at Red Robin, and it was so good. I needed a real cheeseburger. DC cheeseburgers don't count. Anyway, we pretended it was Kaitlynn's birthday and got a free sundae! Her birthday was only a week and a half ago, so it wasn't too far off...plus, Red Robin is over priced, so we deserved a free scoop or two of ice cream. Anyway, it was just a fun night with the girls, off campus. I think the off campus part was what made the night the best! My girls rock, so they made it pretty special too.

PART FOUR: Happy Halloween!

For Halloween, my dorm does this trick-or-treat event for the community. Each floor picks a theme and decorates their hallway. For two hours on Halloween, the little kids come and trick-or-treat, and we get to dress up and hand out candy. Our floor picked Disney for our theme. It was so much fun! The girls did an amazing job decorating (most of it happened while I was at the ER with Angela)! We built Cinderella's castle out of boxes, and decorated the hall in three sections: Under the Sea, the Enchanted Forest, and Princess. We all dressed up as different characters, and stood out in the hallway waiting for the kids. My girls also rocked at making costumes, they looked so good! I was Wendy and my roomie was Peter Pan. We had so much fun! After the kids were all gone, my girls and I went over to the hospital to see Angela. We got some funny looks since we were still in our costumes, and a nurse came in and took our picture. Anyway, I'll stop writing, and I'll conclude with some pictures:

At the hospital with Angela

More pictures on Picasa!

PART THREE: I hate ER doctors

This is where my chaos begins. I will try to keep this brief so you don't have to read a novel. We'll see how that goes...

It all started on Monday. One of my girls had an infection on her forehead, so she went to a local doctor, and later I took her to get her prescription. The doctor didn't do a proper examination of her, just gave her some pills. I got a call from her, and one from her mom on Tuesday because her eye was swollen and she was feeling worse. Well, I took her to the ER (we don't have any sort of walk-in clinic), and they did some blood work and determined that they needed to drain her infection. Before you read this next part, keep in mind that this girl weighs about 90 pounds. Well, they drained the infection then gave her 2 vicodin, 2! vicodin, for the pain. 90 pounds + 2 vicodin = bad. After we got some ice cream, she fell asleep until 7 PM. After she woke up, so had constant nausea, and vomited after eating or drinking anything. Another one of my girls looked up side effects of vicodin, and found that persistent vomiting is a serious side effect, so we brought her back to the ER. Well, my sick girl, Angela, is freaking out and is in incredible pain. They draw some more blood, but the nurse messes up, so she has to draw from the other hand. Angela hates getting her blood drawn, so this just makes her freak out more. To make it worse, they had to draw blood a third time because initially they didn't think they would have to rerun blood work since they had just done it that afternoon so they threw it away, but later they actually did need to run the blood work. Who does that? Who throws away blood while the patient is still getting treated? The doctors don't seem to care, and rarely came in to see her. They put her on some IV fluids because she was dehydrated, and they kept giving her meds for the nausea. None of the meds were working, so they eventually gave her a CAT scan. After we got back from that, 3 other girls from the floor came to see her, and the doctors gave her some more nausea meds and some anxiety meds that put her to sleep right away (thank goodness!). The CAT scan results showed some inflammation of the kidneys, and the doctor said that she thought she had something called Pyelonephritis, which is an infection of the kidneys. They put her on some IV meds, and transferred her over to inpatient care at about 4 AM. I have never said so many bad words in my life. Everything inside of me wanted to scream in the faces of the doctors and nurses, but I restrained myself because on the off chance I have to bring a girl to the ER at some other point this year, I don't want them treating us even crappier because I blew up in their faces. I stayed the night with her, and her parents left in the morning to come down to be with her. Two of my girls came in before their classes to see Angela, and they made me this really cute goodie bag with a bunch of random things. My girls are amazing. Angela woke up about 9, and the nausea set back in. The girls came back, as well as one of her teachers, so that was nice. I kept rubbing her back to help her fall asleep, but people kept waking her up. Her doctor came in from Monday and was a real pain in the butt (except, I'm using a much stronger word in my head). As he walked out the door, Angela kept saying I hate him, I hate him. I got her back to sleep, and then her parents came about 1:15. I filled them in on more details of what had happened, and then I left the hospital after being there since 11 PM the night before, and getting 1 hour of sleep at the most. Anyway, I hate the ER. The doctors are awful, they don't care, and I just hate them! They kept Angela overnight on Wednesday and released her Thursday morning. The doctor ruled that her nausea and symptoms were due to a vicodin overdose, which was their fault. Stupid doctors. They ended up waiving the doctor fee from Monday and one of the ER fees since we had to come back because they screwed up. The vicodin is out of her system because they flushed her with fluids, and the kidney infection is treated (the inflammation was also partially due to her being dehydrated, so the fluids helped that as well). Her parents took her home on Thursday so that she can get some good rest and recuperate. Anyway, that's the story. It turned into a novel anyway, that doesn't surprise me though...things have calmed down, and I'm so glad its Friday!

PART TWO: I love boys who hold open automatic doors

When a guy holds a door open for you, it makes you feel special. It is a very gentlemanly thing to do, and most girls appreciate it. But, when a guy holds open an automatic handicap door for you, you just gotta laugh. I appreciate the gesture, but more so I appreciate the laugh! They must feel so silly walking away after holding a door open, just to see it stay open on its own. Anyway, I just wanted to share my smile moment. More power to you boys who hold open automatic doors, more power to you.

4 Part Post

So...this has been a whirlwind of a week, and I decided I would divide the happenings into 4 parts. Let the good times roll!

PART ONE: Move over Brian Griese, there's a new quarterback in town!

and her name is Marisa Ford! That's right, I will be assuming the quarterback position for the Chicago Bears, they just don't know it yet. So, about 11 o'clock on Sunday night, me and three of my girls went out to Scott field to play some football. It started out as a simple game of catch, but we later started running some pretty ridiculous plays. Basically, we learned that we rock the game of football. Some time we are going to be playing football with our brother floor, and they have no idea what is going to hit them. Watch out boys, we are coming with our game faces on!