Checkout Cheat

Yesterday I was standing in line at the grocery store checkout patiently waiting my turn when the manager came over and said, “M'a’am, we can get you over on Aisle 1 right now, if you’re ready.”

Aisle 1.

This has happened to me on more than one occasion and it upsets me.  Now I realize that it may sound like the height of stupidity to be upset about someone getting me out of the checkout line in a timely manner, BUT…  The problem is that, Aisle 1? That’s 15 items or less.  And I had about 35 items.  So, I come out looking like the checkout cheat who is trying to ignore the rules and believes that her milk and Pringles are more important than everyone else’s 15 items.  Not the case.

Once again my irrational need to please people is pitted against my irrational need to obey the rules.

Weekend, Part 2

If you missed the first two days of my weekend scroll on down and check it out.  On Sunday I invited some friends to join me at the Denton Jazz and Arts Festival.  I love a festival, I love fun music and I especially love people watching, so I knew that I was in for a good time.

On with the pictures:

Chelsea, Cortnee and Dara

Ready to Go!

Dara and I were both ROCKIN’ our Sperry’s, while Chelsea opted for a 1996 throw-back courtesy of some Jellies.

Chelsea and I preparing for the walk to the fest.

When we got to the festival, the first thing we saw was this woman, on stage with her band, rockin’ out on the keyboard with both legs stretched WIIIIDE apart in her short little dress.  She had a voice that kind of sounded like a character from Sesame Street only she was singing about magic and dragons.  In retrospect, I’m kind of disturbed on behalf of those poor girls standing in front of the stage to have their picture made.  But, at the time, all I could think was “THIS is what I want to see at a festival”.

Next, we headed over to grab some lemonade, and thus, begin our trip through the festival via awesome/terrible foods.  Prepare yourself for a montage of our favorites.

Lemonade.

Cotton Candy (making all my dreams come true).

Iced Tea.

Funnel Cake (making all Chelsea’s festival dreams come true, and doubling the festival blessings for me)

 

Finally, after eating our way across about 20 acres of festival we sat down and enjoyed some tunes.

I didn’t get a picture of the belly dancers (you can thank me later) or the Vigilante Band (a favorite band of ours that only played 16 measures at a time) or the man walking around on stilts (because, obviously…).  But, I think you get the overall impression of how awesome the Jazz Fest was.  Maybe next year you can bring your Jellies (or Sperry’s) and eat your way across town with us!

Weekend Recap Part 1 (AKA The Baby Days)

I had a JAM-PACKED weekend and so I will be splitting it up because it really deserves two separate posts.  It was so full that for today, and today only, I’m going to lay off the comedy (if that’s even possible) and go straight to the photographic evidence.

On Friday I got to have lunch with this cute girl:

And her cute Mama:

A few side notes about this picture.  1. I feel like Katy and I look like the Double Mint twins with our toothy grins and 2. I really enjoy that you can see my ‘Stretch Armstrong’ arm reflected in both mine and Katy’s sunglasses.

I’m going to miss these two an awful lot when they head back to their real lives in North Carolina this week.  I was so glad to get a little more time in with them.

She is the cutest, most accessorized baby!  I can’t believe how much she’s grown in the last month and a half.  And I can’t wait for many  more lunch dates to come.

After lunch, I had to pick up my friend Yumi so we could go find a gift for our friend Rachel’s shower.  And Yumi brought a snack for us to have on the road…

Fish Snacks.  Or, as the label on the package calls them “Fishnacks”

And these smelled extra fishy.  Yum.

We got our gifts and got them wrapped.

 

On Saturday we headed to Rachel’s baby shower.  Rachel is a friend from grad school and there is NEVER a dull moment when she’s around.  Case and point:

Her middle name is Drama.

The shower was at a really cool tea house and we had “grand tea”:

They brought each of us our own tea pot and we got to choose our tea.  I was all about this (I was also all about the scones- yum!).

Best of all we got to celebrate Rachel and baby Aria.

I lived a lot of life over the past three years alongside these women and it was really good to be with them.  I still can’t believe Rachel’s going to be a Mother.  It’s going to take some time to get used to that.

So, that was the first two days of fun in my weekend, but you’ll have to wait for tomorrow when you will get to enjoy several photos of me partaking in festival food.  Sorry.  I know you’re crushed to have to wait.

I hope your weekends were as glorious as mine.  Happy Monday!

Thursday Thoughts, 4.22.10

1. I am really in love with Spring.  I have to say God has gone above and beyond the call of duty this year and I am appreciating Spring more than ever.  This could potentially be caused by the unusually long, wet, cold winter we had this year, but all I know is that the wildflowers are out in full force and I am a big time fan.

2. Speaking of wildflowers.  While I love and adore the bluebonnet (the state flower of Texas) I am also a huge fan of Indian Paintbrushes (the tall red flowers) because they remind me of the pasture in front of my parents house.  In fact, one spring I picked about 250 Indian Paintbrushes and then walked next door and gave them to my Mamaw as a little present.  Those were happy days. 

3. Sitting in the movie theater freaks me out.  Half of me loves it because I love seeing movies and the other half of me despises it.  I just start thinking about all the possible things that could happen to me while I’m sitting there and I panic a little.  Crowded theaters are the absolute all-time worst, but theaters that have the entrance behind the seats (where I can’t keep an eye on the comings-and-goings) are a close second.  This is a relatively new development on the list of things that make me a little bit crazier than the average human.  It had never happened until about two years ago when Chelsea and I went to see “I Am Legend” and I nearly had to leave the theater because between the zombie/vampires and the throng of people I made myself almost sick with worry.  The second worst was going to see “The Dark Knight” on opening day- even now I can’t think about it without getting a chill.  I will confess that I occasionally feel this way in church too, but it usually isn’t dark in church so I’m ok for the most part.  Something about being restricted to my seat makes me feel like a sitting duck.  I don’t know what I think is going to happen but it just makes me nervous.

4. Today is Earth Day and in honor of that I purchased the new Sun Chips (Garden Salsa) which are packaged in a compost bag.  But, after I got the bag home I realized I was slightly uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure if the bag had been MADE from compost or was just compostable.  I’m still a little unsure and wary of the whole thing.  Which makes me sad, because “unsure” and “wary” are two words I never want associated with “Sun Chips”.

5. I know everyone (including me) says that girls talk more than guys, and I still think that’s true, BUT I have to say that when it comes to my students the roles are reversed.  The girls come in and we get right down to business, but the boys?  Maybe it’s something about my room that encourages boys to talk, but MAN ALIVE they are talkative.  So talkative that yesterday, in order to actually accomplish something, I finally had to start playing and singing over both my male students’ talking to get started for the day.  Somehow we discussed everything from their voice problems to the new Pokemon video game.  It made me realize, all over again, that the male of the species is still one big question mark for me.  Because, honestly, why a 7th grade boy would be willing to admit he’s still interested in Pokemon is completely beyond me.

Words, Words, Words

I don’t know about you but there are some words that I constantly have trouble spelling.   Trying to write without the assistance of my computer would probably be next to impossible nowadays since spell check has become my accomplice in ignorance.  I’m embarrassed to say that I have never learned how to spell certain words correctly. 

For instance, “rhythm”.   5 years of undergrad (because I crammed 4 years of college into 5) and 2 and a half years of grad school combine to equal nearly 8 years of writing papers and being very confused about how to spell rhythm.  If you think my papers took a long time to write then you can imagine what my notes looked like in theory class.  It’s just too many h’s for my brain to compute.

Also, “reimbursement”.  This is a word I hate to have to use, but it does occasionally become important in the billing portion of my job.  Other words I have to rely on spell check for:  perseverance, Massachusetts and embarrassed (I’ve already misspelled and respelled it once in this post, which I am very embarrassed about).

Do you have any spelling words that embarrass you?

Romantic Reunion

Do you guys remember this story about a man named George, me, the library and new levels of social awkwardness?  Hard to forget, huh?

Recently, I was at the Kroger parking lot, minding my own business, heading to my car.  As I put my groceries in the backseat a (creepy, white) van pulled into the parking space next to me.  The driver had to wait for my friend Yumi to close her door before he could get out and when he finally opened it he smiled and spoke (in an accented voice) ‘I didn’t know if she saw me’.  I would recognize that voice anywhere…  GEORGE.

I looked up and we locked eyes. 

Then I jumped in my car and locked the doors. 

If I wasn’t sure before, then seeing George again confirmed two things for me:

1. I am seriously disturbed by him and his creepy van.

2.  If, for no other reason than the van, George and I simply aren’t meant to be.

At least I made good on my promise- I’ll never be able to forget him.

So, You Think You Can Blog…

Y’all.  It’s finally happened. 

It only took a year and two months but I am officially blogxhausted.

I have nothing interesting to write about or say, so I decided to do a little brainstorming and came up with nothing.  Then I decided to go through all my old facebook photos in hopes of coming up with an entertaining anecdote and all that did was waste an hour of my time.  I stopped myself before I went through old wall posts.  Facebook is such a wonderful and convenient research tool, it makes me really thankful that I went to Graduate school just to learn that databases will get you nowhere, but facebook succeeds every time.

When people find out I have a blog they usually ask me two questions:

1. “Why?”

Haha!  It’s totally understandable, why do you blog?  Who wants all their thoughts out there in the public domain?  Most women who blog are “Mommy Bloggers” women who want to keep a record of their everyday family lives or important milestones.  In case you haven’t noticed, I have no children and the only milestones I keep track of are whether or not I’ve hit any exceptional sales that week.  There are also people who blog about home decorating, fashion, weddings, sports and politics.  But, since I excel at none of those things I have a blog about nothing.  Thus, making me the Seinfeld of the blogging world.  Basically, I blog because I’ve always enjoyed writing (minus the constraints that language arts can put on a girl) and because I have some thoughts on some things that I figure other people might be interested in.  As odd as it sounds I’ve felt like blogging has become a way for me to praise God for the little moments in my life that I may not have recognized in the past.

2. “How do you do it?”

Most people are also curious about how I write so often, which is slightly mortifying considering I only blogged 3 days last week.  I know it’s shocking, what with my pressing social calendar, but I try and set aside some time to try and write each night.  The main thing that keeps me writing is my need to please people (if that comes as a surprise to you then you must be new here.  Hi!  My name is Crystal and I am a people pleaser.).  I realize that’s slightly unusual to try to blog for my 3 readers since I speak to each of those 3 readers on a daily basis, but it’s my cross to bear.

And now after posting all about my blogging success I’ll be lucky if any of you have survived the boredom to make it to the end of this post.