Brains a la Mode... And Other Exciting Adventures From My Weekend Trip Home!

I went back home to the rural Toledo area this weekend and it has been a doozy! My classes on Friday were cancelled, and with a desperate plea from one of my besties to come and help clean her house before moving, I made the exciting 1 hour and 45 minute drive to Archbold. The drive was fine and dandy until I got to the point where the turnpike changes from six lanes to four. Normally this is okay, except this time coming some stupid-ass truck driver decided that he was going to go into the fast lane and block all traffic while he slowly passed about 4-5 other semi's. While everyone was going about 60mph because of this truck driver, it was also snowing like crazy, and everyones tires were kicking up the disgusting slush/snow/mud mixture that was on the road, making it nearly impossible for me to see, even with wiper fluid constantly running. Anyway, when I finally got off the turnpike, I agreed to meet my friend Anna at Walmart to do a little grocery shopping for our dinner that night (recipe courtesy of Buddy Valastro, a.k.a. The Cake Boss). The dinner was amazing, but way too time consuming as it took us nearly 3 hours to finish! We capped off the night with DVRed episodes of American Idol. I haven't been watching this season, but with the two episodes we did watch, I have decided that Steven Tyler is hilarious!!! (Ex. "Well hellfire, save matches, f*ck a duck, and see what hatches!")

My second day back home was just as exciting as the one before. There had been plans to go to my friend Brittany's house to clean and organize things to prepare for her move to her new apartment. After she, my other friend Carrie and I spent about two hours at the new apartment marveling at the space and planning on the future set-up of it, and then spending another hour and a half to two hours at Mancino's having lunch, it was time to leave. Needless to say, we didn't clean. Then it was back to Anna's house with Carrie. We went to see "The King's Speech" which was absolutely amazing! It had basically half the cast of Harry Potter in it (Bellatrix, Wormtail, and Dumbledore) plus Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean! I was thinking during this whole thing "All these people are connected to some of my favorite movies! This has to be good!" And it was! Surprisingly, the funniest and best line of the movie came when the King (played by Collin Firth [hottie alert!]) was in a session with his speech therapist. His therapist noticed that the King didn't stutter when he was mad about something and cursed. So, a series of weak cursings happened, and being thoroughly disappointed, the therapist says, "You can do better than that!" The best line of the movie happened next. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCKIDY, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK FUCK...TITS!!!!" Everyone lost it, and now it has become one of the many movie quotes of my life, though we mostly say "FFFFFFFFFFF...T!" instead of the unnecessary screaming of the "f" word. We mused about this and other things back at Anna's until nearly three in the morning!

Saturday got off to a slow start, but BOY did it end with a bang! Not having had enough time with each other, the three bestie Musketeers (meaning Brittany, Carrie and I) decided to have dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. The food, company, and conversation was amazing, and my margaretta had a little too much tequilla in it! Luckily it wore off about an hour later. Carrie and I parted ways from our other bestie and made our way (quickly I might add) to DQ for a half off ice cream cake! Oh, how that cake would determine our fate later that night! We giddily made our way over to Carrie's mom's to pick up her cats that had been staying there for a couple of days and to drop off a piece of the ice cream cake as payment for the trouble of having the cats in Carrie's mom's house. We stayed there for about 20 minutes before leaving... with the ice cream cake on the floor of the back seat of the car. Being the middle of winter, obviously we had the heat on in the car, and also being girls with imperfect circulation in our legs, the heat was on the floor. Carrie was worried that the ice cream cake would melt if it was on the floor instead of being on the actual seat. We both decided that it was a good idea to stop and move the ice cream cake. Also, being in the middle of the country and being about 9:30 at night, there was really no one anywhere on the roads. I told Carrie to just stop on the road with her hazards on to move the cake. Apparently, she decided it would be better to pull off the side of the road into a "driveway" and move the cake. Only we didn't stop in a driveway. We stopped in a half ditch with about 7 inches of snow which was also in front of a mini-graveyard. Needless to say... we were stuck. The fact that we had gotten stuck on the side of the road out of sheer lack of common sense and the need to make sure that our precious ice cream cake didn't melt, and the fact that we were a company of two 20-somethings and two cats in front of a graveyard caused a breakout of laughter for about 10 minutes before we got our bearings. Every time we called to tell someone about our plight, a new wave of laughter broke out. We waited about 30 minutes for a tow truck to come and get us out, hoping against hope that the zombies from the graveyard would not feel the need to come eat our brains, with a topping of ice cream cake!! (Hence, Brains a la mode!) Having the hazards on also caused the battery to drain, and a broken cable for popping the hood caused another 15 minute delay. We finally got out of the snow and made our way back to Napoleon. We rented "Eat. Pray. Love." and regrettably decided on the Director's Cut. It was a good movie apart from Julia Roberts being called "Groceries" by this annoying middle-aged man she met in India, but it was about 2:30 in the morning before the movie was over and we both lovingly welcomed the softness of our beds.

Besides the fact that I was waken up by a crazy cat running around the room and across the top of me at 6 a.m., it was an enjoyable night. Now I'm sitting here enjoying the last day I have at home with my beloved bestie, Carrie, awaiting the scrumptiousness of her "famous goulash" and dreading the drive back to school and having to wake up at 6 in the morning for my four back-to-back classes tomorrow. Oh well, c'est la vie!!

A Long-Awaited Update

Hello all in the blogging world!

It has been so incredibly long since my last blog, and I am sorry for that. So much has happened in my life since I last talked to you. School is still going, and I am in my second full semester at TU. I'm finally in classes that have to do with my major and my required nonsense classes are OVER, thank the Lord. I ended up doing really well last semester, finishing with a 3.40 GPA which I am pretty darn proud of. Hopefully I can pull another good semester and finish my first year here strong. And if you were wondering about the roommate front, I, thankfully, moved out of the apartment I was in last semester and got rid of those crazy people!! (After having ANOTHER $20 stolen from me, got yelled at and made to have a meeting about cleaning a sink, and being harassed endlessly with my roommates incessant need to leave on lights.) Now, I'm in the apartment next door with the RA and three other girls. It's five of us now, but I love them!! We've had two dinners all together and a few nights we've stayed out in the living room talking about ourselves and laughing hysterically! It was definitely a good choice to move!

As for my personal life, it's been rocky to say the least. I last talked to you in October. Four holidays have since passed, and all have had their share of controversy.

First, Halloween. I was a little upset about this Halloween because I didn't even get to celebrate it. Unfortunately (as much as I love Choir) we had a concert the day before Halloween, going late into the night. This prevented me from going home and having the normal mother-daughter freak-out over Halloween. My mom and I have always loved the holiday, and last year we even pulled out our Snuggies and sat on the front porch with them on accompanied by some scary looking skull masks. We called ourselves "The Snuggie Cult". Some people may say that we are totally ridiculous, but I say that it was hilarious. Especially with these new Snuggie commercials they have now where they sing a jingle to the tune of the "Macarena". If that's not some crazy kind of cult, I don't know what is! But unfortunately I had to miss out on all the fun and spent the whole day locked up in my room at school.

Next comes Thanksgiving. It was relatively good on the actual day and we had our normal dinner at my Grandma's. I made the unfortunate mistake of going back to my dad's house after our normal family get together and after pulling an all-nighter for the Black Friday shopping. I was really excited to go to my dad's because we were having deep-fried turkey and I missed my dogs terribly! By the next day after I arrived, I was already packed and leaving for my Grandma's again. Apparently, I am not supposed to be allergic to cigarette smoke and am not supposed to offer anyone help for anything because it's selfish... Don't even get me started. Basically, a whole ginormous fight ensued between my dad, his girlfriend/fiance, and me which resulted in blocked phone numbers on my end and threats of taking my car away from the other. Now, my dad and I have called a truce, so to speak, and are being generally civil to each other. As for my dad's girlfriend/fiance, if I never lay eyes on her again, it would make me the happiest person alive.

Now, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, something terrible happened. My Grandpa had a stroke. This happened the weekend right before finals and I found out on Facebook. (Which I'm totally not blaming my Aunt for, but it was still hard to find out that way). Luckily, he survived with hardly any problems with movement, though the stroke basically destroyed his linguistics system. He can barely talk now, and when he does try to say anything, he only gets a few words (if that) out before he gives up and waves his hand in a gesture as to say "nevermind". He spent about a month or so in a nursing home while having surgery on his corroted arteries (which were clogged and caused the stroke). Thankfully he's home now, and has been for the last couple weeks. He's still trying to get used to be so inable to do certain things, and his speech is coming along slowly with the help of speech therapy three times a week. I just thank God that he's still alive and with us.

At Christmas, it was hard. My Grandpa (dad's side) was in the nursing home when we had our family get-together, and when we prayed before we ate, I started crying and had to run to the bathroom right when we finished so no one would notice. It was so empty without him there, and even though we all got a lot of nice things, it just didn't feel right. That just proves everything about Christmas. It's not about the gifts, what you get, how much you get, but who you share it with and the love and caring you feel for everyone around you. Except for having my dad and his girlfriend/fiance there. I was so upset with them (and still am) about the fight that we had. They were the last people I wanted to see on Christmas. Regardless, I was so glad to go and visit my Grandpa in the nursing home, and even more glad to be able to take my brother with me. It was the first time that my brother had seen him since the stroke happened, and I hope he was grateful to see him. Then, after all that, the day after Christmas my mom and Grandma (mom's side) got in a fight. It was so ridiculous and trivial, and I tried as hard as possible not to get in the middle of it. It just put the icing on the cake of one of the worst Christmas' I've ever had.

New Year's was fun though. Pina Colada's with my mom and watching The Twilight Zone until two minutes before midnight where we switched over to watch the ball drop. I really hope that this new year turns out to be a hell of a lot better than 2010.