Seriously.

I have a ton of forms to fill out so I can work freshmen orientation.


I have at least an hour of online training to complete to be able to work as a research assistant.


I have $300 dollars left to raise for my mission trip in July.


But....this is going to be the best summer ever. 

Things That Make Me Happy Today

• Finishing my last big paper of the semester

• Raspberry lattes

• Mom finally getting off my back because I'm blogging (hi mom!)

• New shoes bought with birthday money

• The possibility of some knitting and/or sewing this weekend

• Jesus

• This song by Michael Buble

Things I Was Doing When I Was Obviously Not Here

Helping my mom throw my dad a surprise 50th birthday party, and it was awesome. And surprisingly, an actual surprise.

Forgetting to get my oil changed, almost getting stranded on the side of the highway. Begging my car not to hate me. 

Acing my summer class. (Why yes, I did get a 100% on my paper.) 

Trying to find a way to stop the excruciating pain in my hip. (Because apparently just chopping out that part of my body isn't an option.)

Reading about 8 trillion books from the library. I <3 free literature.

Buying books for fall semester. Definitely not free literature. Remind me to post a picture. It's an impressive stack of books.

Still reading all of your blogs.

 Packing for Disney World. See you in a week and a half! :-)

I'm A Couple Days Late...

But Happy Father's Day, Daddy! I love you!

Any Kid With The Patience To Do This is Probably Actually Possessed

Or, Part Two: The Knitting Loom.

(Note: Please excuse any finger bling in these pictures. This was in December.)

You've probably seen them on TV. Brightly colored hoops with pegs on them. Small children excitedly wrapping yarn around and around and around. And oh look! I made a scarf!

It looks so simple. After my traumatizing crocheting disaster, nothing could be worse, right? I made some comment about the commercial and Mom mentioned that actually, grandma had some of those that she'd given us. So we dug them out. (Cue theme from Jaws.)

The things look innocent enough.

(Source)

Remember, though, that since these were my grandmother's bits & pieces, we didn't have the instructions. Or the hooks, at first. And I'm actually not sure what that long thing at the bottom of the picture is?

But thanks to the internet & watching those commercials, we figured out the basic concept. Simple!

Take big plastic hoop.

Wrap yarn around pegs. Twice.

Flip bottom loop over top loop with hook.

Realize yarn is wrapped backwards. Curse. Start over.

Watch yarn fall off all pegs. Curse demon children in loom commercial. Start over.

Yarn does everything you don't want it to do. Whimper.

Start over 745 more times.

Flip out. Make Mommy do it.

Give up. Swear off yarn forever.

Discover only good use for $#%$# looms.

Decide to stick to the classics. Next up: Potholders.

I Probably Have An Addictive Personality, But I Never Exaggerate.

You know those people who pick up a new hobby and become so obsessed with it that they can't do anything else and really don't talk about anything else?

That would be me.

I am a knitting fiend. Although that kind of implies that I'm fast, and I'm really not....but whatever. I thought I would share with you my path to knitting. And actually, you know, making something that can be used.

Part One: My sister attempts to teach me to crochet.

This is my sister:

Sure, she looks innocent enough. But looks can be deceiving. The weirdo actually enjoys untangling yarn.
(I would like to point out at this point that my sister has made socks/slippers, a sweater, baby blankets...she's got some experience.)

I crocheted chains when I was little. 9 or 10 maybe? I don't really remember when it was or how to do it. At all. My grandmothers both crochet, my mom crochets. I'm an anomaly.

The Scene: Sitting next to Sis on the couch. Between telling me what to do, she's crocheting her own something-or-other. I don't think she got much done, as about every .2 seconds I needed instruction. Which would not be so bad, except that for about every .5 seconds, I'd mess up.

This is how I remember it:

Sis: THIS IS WRONG. YOU SUCK. ROOOOAAAAR!!!
-Proceeds to RIP OUT ALL OF MY WORK and turn back to her own like it's nothing. I cower in the corner crying and muttering like Gollum.


What probably actually happened, although the experience was too traumatizing for me to remember it clearly:

Sis: Oh, you messed up. You need to start over.
-Really did rip out my work, although probably not the whole thing every time. (So she says.)
Me: *whimper*

In the end, I did end up with something that may have been pretty, but I never actually finished an entire square. Plus I couldn't do it on my own. I needed instruction for every single step. That kind of makes it not enjoyable. At all.

I'm pretty sure this little square took me about 72 hours to make. Or maybe minutes. Whatever.

Anyway, after all of this, I swore off crocheting. At this point in time, no one in my (immediate) family was a knitter so I kind of figured I was done playing with yarn. Unless I wanted to carry my sister around in a backpack everywhere I went. I love her, but um.....no.

Coming soon, Part Two: The Knitting Loom. Kids do this in commercials, but I think that's a bunch of bullhonkey.

Moms Rock

Happy Mother's Day to the Best Mommy Ever! 

I love you, Mom. Thanks for everything.