Adventures in Cooking

I'm now a full two weeks into this semester and was finally able to see two of my favorite people tonight, Lacey and Addie. When Lacey and I lived in our first apartment, we decided it'd be nice for our group of friends to share the cooking responsibilities. Thankfully even though we're not roommates anymore, this tradition has continued. Tonight was my turn.

When I cook for myself I very rarely have any problems. Actually, aside from the hamburger broiling accident, I can't think of any. Let me fill you in on the Hamburger Broiling Accident of 2013. My mom got me hooked on these frozen hamburger patties that you can buy at Walmart, so I decided I'd get some and have a burger one night. Of course, she normally cooks them in a skillet, but I'd seen how they pop and sizzle so decided that wasn't for me (popping and sizzling make me nervous), so I read the back of the package until I found the directions for broiling them. How hard could broiling be? I actually don't guess it was too difficult, terrifying, but not difficult. I followed the directions perfectly and set a timer to let me know when to flip them. A few minutes later I began hearing strange noises coming from my oven. I think to myself, "well that can't be good" and walk into the kitchen to check on the burgers. I open the oven door and am greeted by flames. Yes FLAMES, there were flames in my oven. I slam the door shut and spin around and grab the fire extinguisher from under the sink. This was when I began to question everything I've ever known about fire extinguishers, the main question being "can you even spray a fire extinguisher into a hot oven?". I decided against it and turn the oven off. After a few seconds, the flames subside and I'm only left with a partially charred, partially raw hamburger patty, but it was ok since the hunger had been scared out of me. So I don't broil things anymore.

Anyway, now that we've gotten that out of the way, back to how I'm normally an amazing cook and a perfect whiz in the kitchen. Last week I decided to face my fear of frying things (remember, popping and sizzling) and made a batch of hot water cornbread, which is only one of my favorite foods ever. Although it wasn't nearly as delicious as my grandma's it was still pretty good, especially for a first attempt. Since it was such a success, I decided it'd make the perfect bread item to go with the pork chops and black-eyed peas I was planning to make for Lacey and Addie. Here's where it gets interesting.

I asked Lacey to text me when they were on the way so I could start frying the bread, it was then that I realized I wouldn't be able to let them in since I'd have batter all over my hands. You see, since getting Allie, I've trained my friends to knock rather than just coming on in so I don't have to worry about Allie getting by them and going out the door. So I had a brilliant idea, I'd put her leash on her and tie it to the handle of the refrigerator door. Don't do this, ever, it's not brilliant, it's really rather boneheaded, but we'll get back to that in a minute.

One of the only things that didn't work right when I made my first batch of hot water cornbread, was that the batter was a tad too thick, so this time, I planned to fix that by adding a little more water. Unfortunately, I added a little too much and that made it too thin. No problem, I'll just add more cornmeal. Too thick. Added more water. Too thin. Discovered I was out of cornmeal, so decided it'd just have to work. Although I'm doing better about not screaming any time the grease pops (actually didn't even wear a hoodie this time), there ain't no way that I"m gonna put something into a skillet half full of grease with my bare hands, I use tongs instead. This worked fine when I made this last week, however, this batter was pretty thin and wasn't sticking together very well, so my patties were really just little lumps of batter in the skillet. I remembered that I had an unopened box of 3 Cheese Texas Toast in my freezer, so decided to scratch the whole hot water cornbread idea and just pop some of the toast in the oven. This is what was happening when Lacey and Addie started knocking on my door.

I called for them to come in, but they didn't hear me, so I went and opened the door. Well, when Allie realized that people were here and that they were actually coming in, she got super excited and came sliding across the floor with the handle to my refrigerator door still tied to the end of her leash. Thankfully I am somewhat mechanically inclined and was able to fix this later, so no harm done. Thank goodness, I really wasn't looking forward to explaining to maintenance how the refrigerator door handle just fell off on its own.

I explain to my guests the disappointing news that we will be having toast rather than the deliciousness that is hot water cornbread, and that we'll have to wait about 5 minutes for it to be ready. Thankfully they were good sports. When the bread is done, I begin making us some tea in the Keurig and go to get some ice out of the freezer. My freezer has been in an iffy mood here lately, Some days it does its job and there are no problems, then other days it decides that it just doesn't wanna freeze things and I get to eat ice cream soup. Apparently, today was one of the days that it decided it was tired of doing what freezers do. The ice trays that I'd refilled and placed in the freezer last night were mostly filled with really cold water. Some were kind of frozen, but when you touched them the delicate icy shell would break exposing their liquid centers. I did manage to get a few frozen ice cubes into our glasses and we enjoyed lukewarm peach tea with our supper, which was also lukewarm by this point.

Moral of the story, nothing ever goes as planned, especially when other people are there to witness it. Thankfully I have awesome, understanding friends who still seemed to enjoy their dinner, cold pork chops and all.

It's the Most Awfullest Time of the Year

I realized today that it'd been forever since I've written anything on here and decided that needed to change. You see, it's Final's Week and at 10:30 tomorrow morning I take what I am expecting to be the most difficult exam ever written in the history of the world, so you understand why it's crucial to listen to that little voice in my head that tells me that all 2 of you that actually keep up with this, may very well begin showing symptoms of withdrawal soon if I do not provide you with some sort of blog to get you through this next week.

Final's Week is a bittersweet time of the semester. And by bittersweet I mean that it's basically like a lemon with a grain and a half of sugar in the middle of it. On one hand, the semester is almost over, the light at the end of the semester-long tunnel is finally becoming visible , but on the other hand, there's a freight train full of final exams to squash you into the railroad tracks.

It's the time of year when the library is more crowded at 3 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon that it's been all semester, at least 80% of any given college student's liquid diet is composed of coffee, Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy, or any other caffeinated beverage, and McDonald's begins to sound like fine dining when compared to the Ramen Noodles and Mac and Cheese we use as sustenance for the the week.

It's also the time of year for our procrastination skills to be truly tested. We all know that Final's Week is coming, it's not some huge secret that is sprung on us during Dead Week of every semester. We know it's going to be incredibly stressful. We know we're not going to get a decent night's sleep all week. We know that due to lack of time and money, more junk food will be stuffed into our bodies than went into Morgan Spurlock during the filming of Super Size Me. We know exactly what to expect, and yet nobody begins to prepare for finals until MAYBE the weekend before. We begin to have thoughts like, "sure, I can read that entire textbook in 2 days, not a problem" or "I can totally make an A in this class if I make a perfect score on the final, no big deal". Unfortunately we're just kidding ourselves and we normally realize that about 3 hours before the time of the exam.

At some point during the week I think we all decide to take a step back and see what our true goals should be. Going into every final I know the exact score I need to make to either a) maintain the grade I already have, or b) bump myself up to the next letter grade. I don't know why I do this, all it ever does is psych me out because I know good and well that no matter how comfortable I am with the material, I'm never going to make an A on a math final, but I still do it every semester.

I don't really know where I was going with any of this, there's no grand idea behind any of it, really just felt like writing and taking a study break. Now to continue preparing for the most dreadful exam of my life.

Don't be surprised if you don't hear from me for a while, I will either be studying or maybe even possibly sleeping throughout this week, but until next time, stay awesome.

Times I Realize my Dog's Actually Kind of Smart

I've realized that I don't really give Allie enough credit for actually being a pretty smart dog. This is probably because at least once a day she spends several minutes barking/growling at her reflection in my bedroom window, runs into a wall, an end table, or some other piece of furniture on a daily basis, and is constantly knocking toys under my bed or couch and then headbutting the furniture thinking that's gonna magically free her toy from its grasps. Yes, on most days I'm pretty sure she has a few screws loose, but tonight I've come to the conclusion that my dog is more observant than I am.

Before you get too amazed at this possibility, I should probably tell you that I"m one of the least observant people on the planet. I once asked my mom when they put down new flooring in her bathroom  and was informed that this had occurred six months earlier. Keep in mind that this was when I still lived at home and showered in this very bathroom every day. I can spend the entire day with a person and not be able to tell you what color shirt they were wearing. So please don't ever ask me if I notice anything different about you, because unless your hair went from black to blonde or something drastic like that, I'm probably just gonna have some weird "deer in the headlights" expression and try to change the subject. Unless you've painted the fence outside of your house, I do tend to notice things like that. Yes I know I'm weird.

Anyway, Allie has decided to show me on a couple different occasions tonight that she's much more observant than her owner. The first was when I finally broke down and decided it was time to empty the kitchen trash. Since the dumpster is at the other end of the apartment complex and down a huge hill, it's not  a trip I try to take very often. However, since getting Allie, unless I've let the garbage get so out of control that I can't carry it with one hand, I take Allie along with me. This has actually only happened twice since I've gotten her (yes I empty my trash more than once a month, but I usually try to do it when someone can give me a ride to the dumpster because I'm lazy) and she has already learned what it means when I take the bag of trash out of the trash can. As soon as I pulled it out her tail started wagging and she ran around the apartment with glee.

The second time was just a few minutes ago. We're getting ready for bed so of course I get her leash on her to take her out before putting her in her crate. I decide as I open the door that we should go ahead and go to the mailbox while we're at it, so I bring her back inside to grab my keys. This had pretty much the same effect as the trash bag. She was suddenly wide awake and very excited to be going on another adventure. In just 2 months, she's already learned that when I bring my keys with me it means that we're not just going to the bathroom and right back inside, it means we're actually going somewhere that may be even more exciting than the grassy area under my balcony.

Now she's back to her usual self, spinning in circles trying to find her favorite ball which is actually under her. But I had to take a minute to brag on her for a little bit. It's the little things like this that keep her from driving me completely insane by eating my rug, pillows, and everything else I own.

Until next time, stay awesome.

The Education of Allie: The Miraculous World of Clicker Training

So I hadn't really planned on writing anything else today since I didn't really expect much out of our first little training session, but y'all this dog is full of surprises.

I realized now since I've talked about it several times, that some of you may not actually know what a "clicker" is because before getting Allie, the only clicker I'd ever heard of was a TV remote.
This is a clicker:

It's basically just a little plastic box with a piece of metal inside it that clicks when it's pressed. I've read a lot about clicker training and I like that it's a non-intimidating method of getting the results you want through reinforcing the behavior you want the dog (or pretty much any other pet, I've seen some people even use these with horses) to do. When starting clicker training, the first step is to "load the clicker" which definitely kind of threw me off with the name, when I hear that you have to "load" something, I'm thinking put something inside it, but that's not actually what this means. "Loading the clicker" basically means getting the dog used to the sound the clicker makes and getting them to understand that something positive follows hearing that sound. So to load the clicker you just click and treat without having the dog do anything. Just click and then give the dog a treat, most things I read said to do this about 10-20 times, then let the dog get interested in something else and then click again. If they look at you or come over to you, that means they've got it, then you can give them a treat and can actually start using the clicker to train them.

The idea behind clicker training is to help your pet to enjoy learning new things, whether it's obedience type skills or just tricks to show off for friends, because rather than punishing your dog for doing something you didn't want them to do, you're rewarding them for doing what you did want them to do. This is also supposed to make the dog want to listen to you because they do whatever it is you're wanting them to do, you're going to reward them. If they do the behavior you tell them to do, you click as soon as they do it and give them a treat, if they don't do what you told them to do, you simply put them back in the position you wanted them in and they don't get a treat that time. It doesn't take them too long to figure out that they only get a treat if they do whatever it is you're asking them to do.

The first thing (and supposedly the easiest) I wanted to train, was "stay". I read something that I'd never thought of, but makes a lot of sense. This article mentioned how most of us train our dog to sit or lay down, and teach a "stay" cue separately, but that it not only can be confusing to the dog, it's also kind of unnecessary. This article suggested teaching "stay" as a part of "sit" or "lay down", meaning to teach the dog to sit or lay down until you tell them to get up. Wow, why had I never thought of that before? Because when you think about it, that has to be pretty confusing for a dog, "if stay means to stay sitting until I'm told to move, then what do they mean when they tell me to sit?" I mean technically if you tell your dog to sit (meaning for them to stay seated) even if they only sit for 2 seconds, they did do what you told them to do.

The main difficulty I've had with finding training videos online is the ones that make the most sense typically use dogs that are already very well trained so already know how to do everything their owner is trying to demonstrate. I mean come on, having your dog sit perfectly still while you toss an entire package of weenies around your backyard, yeah that's something my dog will be able to do after a single training session, give me a break. But I finally managed to find a really decent step-by-step article on how to teach a "stay". So using steps from that, plus adding in a "release cue" (letting your dog know they can get up) which I learned from another video, here's how the session went.

I started off like the article said, had Allie sit right in front of me, waited 2 seconds, clicked and gave her a treat since she didn't move. I then repeated this (adding one second each time) until I could count to 15 without her trying to get up. Then it was time to start adding distance. I told her to sit, took a step backwards, counted to 10, clicked and gave her a treat. I repeated this taking one more step backwards every time until I could stand 10 steps away from her (per the directions) for 10 seconds without her trying to get up. Then I decided to make it even more interesting and had her sit and walked out of the room, first where she could still see me, but then around corners where she couldn't see where I was, and would count to 15 and she still stayed put.

Now some people are really picky and don't want their dog to move at all, not even shift position, but I don't really care. There were a couple times if I was gone for a while, she'd lay down and watch for me, that doesn't bother me at all, as long as she's in the same spot I left her, I couldn't really care less whether she's sitting or laying down.

I then decided to make it even more interesting. I picked up one of her toys and stood a few steps in front of her. I started out just holding the toy, didn't faze her, she got a click and a treat. Then I started kind of tossing the toy in the air and catching it, didn't faze her, she got another click and treat. Then I laid the toy down at my feet (expecting she'd at least scoot forward to try to get to it), didn't faze her at all, yet another click and treat. Then for the ultimate test, I tossed the toy across the room like I do when we play fetch, didn't even flinch. I was ecstatic.

We've still got a lot to work on, but this first training session was definitely a great confidence builder for both of us. In fact, I filmed our second training session as a semi-abbreviated version of what we went over earlier. I posted it to my YouTube channel, and will include the link here if anyone would like to see her progress.

Allie's Second Training Session

To the two or three of you that keep up with this, let me know if y'all would be interested in more videos and I'll see what I can do. This one wasn't really planned, Mama wanted to see what all she was doing so I videoed our abbreviated run-through to show her. I posted it to my YouTube channel simply because it was too long to send her on Facebook so figured I could just put it on YouTube and send her the link. But if y'all are interested, maybe I can actually learn how to YouTube and make future videos a little fancier. Also, I noticed that for some reason the link's not actually visible on the black background, but if you move your cursor over it you can see it.

As always, until next time, stay awesome.

The Education of Allie: An Introduction

Hey guys, sorry it's been so long since I've written anything, but nothing too earth-shatteringly exciting has happened lately. But never fear, I have an idea. Ok, so that's normally a perfectly logical reason to fear, but let's ignore that shall we?  If you've been keeping up with my life either through this blog or via the wonderful world of Facebook, you are already very well aware that I now have a dog. She was the inspiration behind this new idea.

When I first brought Allie home she was pretty much the perfect dog, extremely quiet, calm, and just generally well-behaved. A lot of that changed after that first dreaded pest control visit. She now is constantly jumping on furniture, chewing on EVERYTHING (she even chewed a hole in the brand new couch cover my mom bought to keep her from ruining the couch not even close to 24 hours after I put it on), and barks, growls, and whines at everything. Now she's not terrible, but it's become apparent that for both mine and her own sanity, she is in desperate need of some obedience training.

Prior to Allie I've never had an indoor dog (the Pomeranian we had when I was little doesn't count since I don't really consider demons to be pets) and aside from teaching Goldie cute little tricks like "shake" and "wave" (these two were basically the same thing, we just didn't grab her paw when we told her to wave), we didn't do any kind of training with her since we had no need to worry about her jumping on the furniture or eating our belongings.

That is the reason behind this new blog series which I've entitled, "The Education of Allie". Because I have no clue what I'm doing, this should be thoroughly entertaining for all of you, and will hopefully not drive me completely over the brink of insanity. So armed with a clicker, plenty of dog treats, an infinity of YouTube videos, and most of my wits intact, I invite you to join me on this journey.

I haven't done much with her today as far as training goes, but I did manage to get her used to the clicker by clicking and giving her a treat while she waited patiently at my feet. I think she liked that little game so we'll see how the rest of the day goes.

Until next time, stay awesome.

Cold Coffee

I haven't even been awake for 2 full hours yet and it's already been "one of those days".  At a little after one o'clock I drug myself out of bed since it was apparent that Allie had had enough of being stuck in her crate and was not going to let me sleep any longer. But it was ok, I told myself I'd spend all day studying for my Visual Basic programming midterm that's tomorrow and would be ready to go to bed early and maybe even get my sleep schedule back on track. I was doing really good about going to bed a decent hour, but that bit the dust when I was up until 6 Friday morning trying to write a program for the previously mentioned Visual Basic class. I was awake and actually kinda sorta motivated to study. As you can probably tell from the fact that I am writing this blog and therefore not studying, that the motivation didn't last very long.

I went through my normal daily routine, brushed my teeth, made the bed, got dressed, let Allie out of her crate, etc. The only thing out of the ordinary that occurred was that the light bulb in my ceiling fan went out, but more on that later. I then took Allie out so she could use the bathroom. Let's pause for a second.

A couple days after bringing Allie home, I made the mistake of walking her all the way to the other side of the complex down a huge hill which I really want to roll down like we used to as kids. Unfortunately now that's the only place she will poop.

Now there's really no other way to word this so I'm just gonna go for it. Y'all, I was really hoping she'd poop. She doesn't usually on our first outing of the day, probably because she normally goes right before we go to bed and she hasn't eaten anything between then and waking up. But since it was only slightly sprinkling at this particular moment I was hoping she'd go so that maybe I could get away with only taking her right around the corner from my apartment to pee until the rain's over later tonight. No such luck.

Anyway, no big problem there, I knew going into it that it was a long shot. Came back inside and decided I should probably do the dishes that I'd been putting off since yesterday afternoon. As I'm finishing up the dishes, Allie starts to whine and paw at the front door which is usually her sign that she really needs to go. I finish up the dishes and chase her around the apartment so I can put her collar and leash on her (it was so much easier when I could just clip the leash to the collar, but now she tries to eat said collar, so it has to come off when she's in the house) and took her outside. Of course the slow sprinkle of just a few minutes earlier had become a pretty steady rain. Keep in mind me and Mama just gave this crazy dog a bath yesterday, so I wasn't too thrilled at the possibility of her deciding to roll around in the mud, or at the least have to smell a wet dog for the rest of the day, but oh well, it comes with the territory. I walk her down the big hill and she refuses to use the bathroom, won't even sniff around for a spot. I keep her outside for probably 10 minutes in the hopes that she'd get over the excitement of being outside in the rain and actually do something, but again, no such luck.

Once we made it back inside I made myself a cup of coffee and decided I should probably change the light bulb in my ceiling fan. Now I'm not the most mechanically inclined individual, but I'm definitely able to change a light bulb in less than five minutes. As with every other light fixture I've ever dealt with, the ceiling fan had 3 screws, the first 2 of which came out without a problem. The third one, not so much. Now I've always heard of people complaining about trying to remove a stripped screw, but I'd never actually dealt with one myself. It was an experience I'll not soon forget. Y'all it took me at least 20 minutes and two 2 different screwdrivers to remove that stubborn screw. It didn't help matters any that Allie spent this entire span of time whining and running between the window and the front door. She picked a pretty awful day to get cabin fever.

My arms were on fire, but I eventually loosened the stupid screw and removed the cover and if wasn't attached to the rest of the fan because of the pull strings I swear I coulda thrown it across the room. Lucky y'all, this blog even has pictures.

Here is the light bulb I have, because I'm too poor and honestly just don't really care about the environment enough to buy the fancy energy saving light bulbs. Also, I'm weird and prefer that my bulbs produce enough light to actually be able to read by.

And here is the light bulb I need...

Because of this, here is how my ceiling fan will remain until I can buy the right light bulbs...

So once this little chore was finally done I took Allie out AGAIN, still with no result, and sat down to write this blog as I sip my unappetizing cup of cold coffee while Allie works at the Kong that I have hopefully stuffed to the point of keeping her occupied for the next hour or so. My goal is now to make a sandwich and actually get some studying done.

Until next time, stay awesome.

Being Broke Sure has Helped me Spend Less Money, and Other Brilliant Things I've Said Today

There are just some days where it seems that nothing I say makes much sense at all, today has been one of them. Because I am of course procrastinating and waiting for the inspiration and the know-how to strike for me to finish the computer program I have to write and turn in by 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, I will tell you all about it. Get excited.

There are really only two of these little sayings, which can truly only be described as pearls of wisdom, that I've uttered today, but seeing as how I've only had an actual face-to-face conversation with one human, that's saying something. My point is that this may not be the novel you've gotten used to getting from me, but I'm not gonna promise anything.

1. "Being broke has really helped me spend less money."
Now personally I think Oprah or whoever the go-to advice person is these days should really adopt this idea and pass it on, because y'all it's truly amazing how little you spend when you have no money. Thankfully Lacey understood where I was going with this, but I'll explain it in case y'all don't quite see the brilliance in this statement. For the last couple years I've been saying I need to be better about spending money, but that's always been so much easier said than done. You see, for the last couple of years I've had a fairly sizable little chunk of change left over from my difference check every semester even after paying rent out of it. I wasn't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but it was definitely easy to justify ordering a $10 pizza if I was too lazy to cook. It also meant that I grocery shopped like a 5 year-old and would end up spending close to $100 for a week's worth of food. I couldn't care less about what brand my clothes are (as long as the jeans are Wrangler's and the boots are Ariats), but my food is a different story. Because it's just a simple fact that Blue Bell is the best ice cream that can possibly be purchased at Walmart, that 3 pound sack of cereal does not taste anything like whatever brand it's trying to imitate, and the Great Value potato chips are just lacking the grease that makes their Lays counterparts so delicious. But after realizing that my financial aid was actually less this year and that I would be paying rent over the summer which was something I'm not used to, I was definitely gonna have to tighten my grip on that debit card.
Adopting Allie has definitely helped in my money saving endeavors. Just in case y'all didn't know, buying a dog is a lot like having a baby, there's just a lot less physical pain involved. Now thankfully my family has been amazing and has helped out with a lot of the expenses, but now I get to pay not only my own rent, but Allie's as well. It's not too bad and I'm definitely not complaining, I wouldn't trade this girl for anything. I said from the get-go I'd eat nothing but Ramen Noodles if that's what I had to do to be able to afford to take care of her. I'm not quite at that point yet, but it's definitely changed the way I spend money. That's also the reason that I'm craving something sweet right now and can find nothing to satisfy that craving since I only bought the essentials rather than filling my buggy with junk food.
My point is this, it's a lot easier to be careful about what you spend your money on when you don't have the extra money to spend than it is when you know you shouldn't spend money, but you also know you do have the money to be able to do it. 

2. "Why does your computer say it's 5:30?" "Because the clock's wrong."
This one you probably just had to be here to see the humor in it. Lacey came over to cook some yummy BLTs for supper tonight and asked if she could use my laptop for a second to check her e-mail. My clock has been 2 hours slow for a couple weeks now even after I set it to the correct time, but since I've always either got my watch on or one of my iDevices close by, I haven't really worried about it. So when she asked why my computer said it was 5:30 when it clearly wasn't, I replied with a simple, yet duh-inducing, "because the clock's wrong". Like I said, you probably just had to be here.
I found this one particularly funny because it reminded me of something that happened on mine and Mama's most recent trip to Disney World. We were laying in our beds in the hotel room one night and she asked, "Why did it get so bright in here all of a sudden?" I said, "I didn't notice it getting brighter." she brilliantly replies, "Oh, I guess it's because I opened my eyes." Yep, it does in fact get brighter in a room when your eyes are open.

Anyway, I guess I should actually finish this computer program so me and Allie can hit the hay. She already got in her crate the last time she followed me into the bedroom, so I think that's her way of telling me she's sleepy.

Until next time, stay awesome.

Anything can Happen on a Sleepless NIght

Today's just been another one of those days that I really wanted to write something. I don't know why, it's been a typical day filled with classes and trying to keep Allie fro jumping on the furniture.  You can also toss in a few instances of trying to decide whether I want to mix up the lasagna to go in the crock pot for supper, or if I just wanna finish off the chips and homemade salsa in the fridge instead.

So as I sit here trying to think of something I could write about, my mind drifts a little and I have this thought. If I'd had this many instances of having such a strong desire to write something, I probably would have been much better about writing stories previous to the week they were due back when I was a Creative Writing major. So I decided to talk about that for a while, not so much the insane procrastination that went into pretty much every short story and poem I had to write for my Creative Writing classes, but just my time as a Creative Writing major in general.

Side Note: I must remember to post some of these stories I wrote, and especially my ridiculous sloth poem which is so horrible that I love it. But that's for another blog, which may or may not be posted right after this one is finished. Keep checking.

There was never a time that I enjoyed school. Before Pre-K even started, I asked my mom for a pair of roller skates so I could fall and break my neck and not have to go to school. After she told me I'd still have to go, they'd just prop me up in my wheelchair in the corner, I decided it wasn't worth it. Fast forward to Senior year of high school and I was the kid who took the school calendar and student planner we were given and kept a daily count of how many days were left until graduation. Everyone always told me I'd miss high school, well guys, it'll be 6 years this May and guess what, if Ed McMahon rang my doorbell at this very instant and offered me one of the infamous great big checks with the only condition being that I had to go back in time and do high school all over again, I'd have to give him a Root Beer and bowl of homemade salsa and send him on his merry way.

I don't know why I hated school so much. I got good grades, I had great friends, I really just couldn't care less about learning stuff that I knew deep down (and have been proven right so far) that I'd never actually need to use. I knew the only way I'd ever have to use physics in a career would be if I were to become a physicist, and guess what, I was terrible at math, so crossed that idea off my list of possible careers a long time ago.

I say that to say this, I LOVE COLLEGE. I don't know why really, but it's so much better than high school. Probably because even on my longest days I'm not stuck in a classroom for 8 hours, and there's also a chance that I'll probably use a lot of this stuff I'm learning later on in life.

Because I love college so much, I hate the fact that I only have 3 semesters left before I graduate. I don't want to get into the real-world. I've been there, I hated it, and that's why I'm back in college. Yes folks, the real-world is for the birds. I also don't like birds, so this saying was even more appropriate than I initially realized. I was laying awake contemplating this one Saturday night not long before the start of last semester (the idea of graduating soon, not the whole bird analogy).

As is becoming pretty common in these things, lets pause for a moment. For you to better understand the following events, I need to give you a better idea of myself. I used to joke about having Insomnia, but the older I get the more I realize that I probably actually do have some sort of sleep disorder. In fact, after learning more about its signs and symptoms, I'm pretty sure that I've gone through at least half of my life sleep deprived. My sleep schedule often ranges anywhere from being close to that of an 80 year-old where I'll go to bed at 9 and get up at dawn. Or closer to that of a raccoon in which I go to bed at dawn and sleep until dusk. Thankfully, Allie has kept me on a pretty normal sleep schedule since I actually have to get up at a reasonable hour to take care of her every day. In fact, the latest I've slept in the last two-and-a-half weeks has been 12:30 and that's insane for me.

Anyway, strange things seem to happen when I can't sleep. They usually fall into one of two categories, online shopping, or contemplating major life decisions. Seriously, most of my ebay-ing is done on nights when I can't seem to fall asleep. I've bought a Carhartt, iPod, and numerous video games on nights when I either can't fall asleep, or wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall back to sleep. But on this night in particular fell in the "contemplating major life decisions" category.

You see, even though I hated school with every fiber of my being, I've always loved to write. I was always the nerdy kid in class that looked forward to writing essays. Because of that, when I decided to go back to college I knew I wanted to major in something that dealt with writing. Well as soon as I found out SFA had a Creative Writing program I was convinced that I'd found my calling.

 When you major in Creative Writing, there's one question that you'll get from pretty much everyone you tell, "what are you going to do with that?" Well, the answer I gave everyone was that from what I'd read, you could do with a Creative Writing degree basically everything that you could do with a degree in Journalism (on the written side of the field anyway), so I figured I'd work for a newspaper or something. On that sleepless night I began to think of just how close I was getting to graduation and what on earth WAS I going to do after finishing school? Did I REALLY see myself working for a newspaper, or was that just something I told people so they wouldn't think I had these grand delusions of becoming some world-renowned author and planned to live in a cabin in the woods and write all day, learning how to hunt and trap wild game to eat and weave the furs into clothing since I wouldn't actually be making any money to afford the finer things in life like food and clothing?

I eventually came to the conclusion that even though I loved my major, the professors, and all the people I'd met through the program, that I needed to get a degree that might could actually get me a job after I graduate. So then came the task of figuring out what this degree would be. Other than writing, I realized there was really only one other thing that I enjoyed that could potentially work as a life-sustaining career. I decided I was going to become a professional video game player and make millions of dollars by playing Halo. Ok, unfortunately that's not true, but how awesome would that be? No, I decided that I should do something that dealt with computers. I figured that was a pretty safe bet since everything is computerized now-a-days, so surely those jobs would be in demand. My first thought was Computer Science, so I hopped on the SFA website and started looking at what was involved in that major. I saw that I'd have to take 4 more math classes and 3 more science classes and quickly determined that Computer Science wasn't for me. So I checked into IT (Information Technology) and saw that I'd pretty much be taking the same classes as I would with Computer Science, but thankfully without the extra maths and sciences. I was sold.

So that's how I went from a Creative Writing major to an IT major. I really only regret it when I have a program to write. I'm still not sure what I actually want to do as a career, but I have determine that programming ain't it, because it's hard. It definitely makes me miss the days when my homework was to write a story.  It is a welcomed change to hear your professors tell you how many job opportunities will be waiting for you once you graduate, rather than how you're gonna have to find somehting else to do for a job because you're not going to make any money writing though, so I guess I'll stick with it.

Until next time, stay awesome.

Math and Myself: A Story of Hatred and Loathing

Today has been one of those days where I feel the need to write something, but nothing too terribly exciting has happened lately. I guess I could tell you about how adorable Allie is as she's laying here at my feet alternating her attention between her new toy duck and trying to get the last piece of Milk Bone out of her Kong, but I'll spare you. I've decided to instead tell you about my moment of exasperation I felt this weekend.

There are some things that pretty much everyone who I'm close to knows about me. One of those is that  the subject of mathematics and I share a relationship filled with mutual hatred and loathing. We are not kind to each other, it tricks me by making me think I actually understand something only to toss in some new piece of evilness that makes me question everything I've ever known, and I call it names such as stupid and useless. It's quite an abusive relationship that I will thankfully be out of (hopefully for real this time) at the end of this semester.

Because of this extreme hatred that we share, after I threw a slight temper tantrum when I discovered that thanks to changing majors I'd have to take Probability and Statistics, I decided that rather than torturing myself and yet another teacher who would have the impossible task of trying to teach me math, I'd take it online instead. Everyone thought I was insane, but let's get real, most everyone already thinks I'm nuts anyway so that's nothing new. They all gave me many reasons to not take the class online, some of which included, "you'll have to teach it to yourself" and "you don't usually actually learn much of anything in an online class". But I ignored those pieces of advice, and so far haven't really regretted it. See, I don't do well in math classrooms. I'll be fine for the first couple weeks, but as soon as we hit something that I don't understand, I get frustrated, stop listening, and spend the rest of the semester drawing spacemen in my notebook and having a self-induced coughing fit so my friend can open the bag of chips she brought for us to snack on, without being noticed. My point is, I usually ended up teaching myself the material the couple nights before exams anyway, so it's really not that different. As for the not learning anything, that's probably really accurate, but because I do not care in the slightest what the probability is of pulling a green marble out of a sack filled with 8 red marbles, 3 green marbles, and 14 yellow marbles, I'm not too worried about that. Also I don't see what any of this has to do with computers, just saying.

Anyway, as with most Fridays, I had two math assignments due at midnight last Friday. Knowing that I was going home for the weekend, and trying my hardest to be a responsible student for once, I decided to break it up and finished the first one Thursday night. I figured I'd have plenty of time to do the second one Friday. After all, my only class on Fridays ends at 10:50, and Mama normally doesn't get here to pick me up until around 4, how could it possibly take 6 hours to do one math assignment? HA! I worked on the same assignment from 11 until Mama got here at around 5, then worked on it at home from about 9 until midnight and still didn't finish.

Let me pause for a second to tell you how this online class works. On each homework assignment we only have to answer enough of the questions correctly to pass and we get a 100, we also get unlimited attempts to do these assignments, so in theory you should never make less than 100 on any of the homework. On each assignment there is a certain number of strikes you get based on how many questions are to be answered. If you use up all your strikes, you have to start over. On this particular assignment I got 3 strikes, so as soon as I missed 4 questions I was done and had to start all over. I really wish I'd kept a count of how many times I only needed to answer one more question correctly to be finished, only to miss it and have to start over since I'd already used up all my strikes.  It also made matters much worse that some of these problems were so long that it might take 45 minutes just to do the formula for a single question.

Even though I'd missed the due date, I knew if I turned it in Saturday I'd still be able to make a decent grade. So I started working on it not long after I got up Saturday afternoon.

Fast forward to slightly before midnight on Saturday night. I'll even set the scene for you. Allie was playing with her duck in the floor between me and Mama. Amazing Grace was being sang on the TV by whoever was on the episode of Country's Family Reunion that we were watching. I am just finishing up the final calculations on the last question of the assignment, I have no strikes left. The heat was on, make it or break it, go big or go home, and any other sports-like cliches you wanna add. The contents of the message box that would pop up when I clicked "submit" would determine whether I closed my laptop and rolled around in the floor with my dog who was trying her best to wait patiently for me to finish, or throw my laptop across the room in anger at the idea of having to start all over..

I took a deep breath, and with a trembling finger clicked the submit button. The split second between the click and the appearance of the message box seemed to take an eternity,  I waited with bated breath as finally the pop up appeared on the screen...

"Well Done!"

It was all I could do not to scream with happiness, I was so thankful to finally be done. But the story doesn't end there.

A few minutes later I decided to look at the progress report and see how much I'd actually gotten taken off for turning it in almost a full 24 hours late. I scrolled down to the assignment in question and read "Dropped" printed beside it's name. I had no idea that the lowest grade or so gets dropped in this class. I know I should've been happy. That means my homework average is still 100% , which may help a little to balance out the not so great grades that are sure to occur on the face-to-face midterm and final exams that I will not be able to Google my way through. Sure, that's great, but think of this. If I'd have known that grade would be dropped, I definitely would not have spent 90% of my weekend working on it.

And that is why I hate math. Even when I think I've won and kicked it in it's teeth, it still has a way of biting me in the butt. It is for that reason that I stick by my position that math is stupid and I hate it.

That is all.

Until next time, stay awesome.

My Newest Procrastination Assistant

Many have asked for it, and I figured after a week and a day, I'd be nice and finally give it to you. Here is the longish-awaited blog about my newest procrastination assistant, also known as my new dog, Allie.

Anyone who knows me very well at all, knows that I love dogs. My family had always had at least one dog running around since I was born. But after Goldie died about 4 years ago, we decided that we would not get another dog until we could build a bigger pen for him or her to run around in. You see, when we got Goldie when I was 7, we hadn't started all the renovations on our house and didn't have a very spacious backyard, so we had to work with what we had. Over the years, trees have been cleared, swing sets have been outgrown, and land has been leveled, resulting in a backyard that's a little bit more spacious than the one we began with. Unfortunately, my mom and I know nothing about building dog pens or clearing brush, this falls under the expertise of my grandpa, and since he's not a dog person at all, he never got into too much of a hurry. So after all these years of wishing I could get another dog, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Mama and I are always sharing pics of cute dogs at local animal shelters with each other via Facebook message, so one night I sent her a picture of an old dog that was in a shelter in Longview. It appeared to be a classic case of, "everybody wants a puppy" and I felt really bad for this poor dog who seemed to be so sweet, but nobody wanted him. This wasn't Allie by the way, but this is how everything got started. We messaged back and forth and eventually decided that getting this particular dog would probably not be the wisest decision. The post didn't say exactly how old he was, but based on the picture, he was getting on up there, so would probably find climbing the stairs to my apartment pretty difficult, and since the post did mention he did not like being picked up, carrying him up and down the stairs was out of the question. So like many times before, I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever get to have another dog.

Then Friday morning as I was walking home from class, I got a Facebook message from Mama with this picture.

 I was in love. I started looking into ways that I could make this happen. I'm not gonna bore you with all the details, but I eventually came to the conclusion that if I eat nothing more but Ramen Noodles and mac & cheese for the remainder of my college career, I could actually afford to adopt this beautiful dog.

So a while later, I messaged Mama to let her know I had filled out an application and had been approved to adopt a dog from the Lufkin Animal Shelter. This isn't normally my style. I sometimes wonder why even at the ripe old age of 24, I still tend to ask for my mom's permission before doing things like this, but in this case, I figured if it was already a done deal, it'd be hard to say no. And I was right.

Mama and I drove to Lufkin Saturday afternoon to meet her and get everything taken care of. I knew within the first five minutes of playing with her in the "meet and greet room" that she was gonna be perfect. She was super calm, but still liked to play, and never barked, even when all the other dogs in the shelter were going nuts. Unfortunately I was told that since she wasn't spayed, they'd have to get that done before I could take her home, so I didn't actually get to leave the shelter with her, but were told we could pick her up from the vet Monday afternoon.

She is so sweet. Still trying to figure out if she's just really lazy or if she's just got her days and nights mixed up (she was pretty out of it and slept all day Monday because of the anesthesia). I don't know that she actually sleeps at night, but she naps off an on throughout the day. Either way, it kind of works for me, she's quiet in her crate, so doesn't keep me awake at night, and her naps allow me to actually get things done during the day. She's actually napping beside me right now as I type.

Every day it seems she does something new to make me laugh and love her even more. Like how she'll follow me everywhere in my apartment, except into the bathroom (yay for her respect for privacy), how she's always so excited to see me when I let her out of her crate, even if I've only been gone for a couple minutes, how she always crosses her front paws when she lays down, and how she works her way behind the curtains and blinds of the sliding glass doors in my bedroom to look outside. I don't know how anyone could give this girl up. She gets along with everybody (dog and human alike), doesn't try to jump up on furniture, or on people (unless you have a treat), and to this day I've only heard her bark twice. The owners claimed that she wasn't good with cats, but since I've had her she's never acted any differently when she's seen a cat than she does when she sees anything else, so I think that was just an excuse. But their loss is definitely my gain.

If you ever see us out and about, don't be afraid to come say hi, she loves everyone, especially if you'll give her a belly rub. 

I've never had an indoor dog before, aside from Buttons who we had when I was really little, but she was more demon than dog, so that doesn't really count. So this should be a new and exciting adventure for all of us. I'm already learning there are things I won't ever get to do again, like sleep in. The latest I've slept since getting Allie was 11:15. I'm also starting to go through withdrawals since I haven't played Halo or Call of Duty in over a week. Not complaining though, I love this dog and really enjoy spending time playing with her.

I'm going to try to do my best to keep writing these as often as I have been, but if you don't hear from me for a while, just assume that Allie's doing something adorable to pull me away from doing anything that could possibly be classified as productive.

So in the meantime, stay awesome. 

A Cat, A Gun, And An Arsonist Part 2

Alright guys, I have returned from my night and afternoon of slumber so the wait is over. Here is the continuation of the Great Mouse Ordeal of 2014.

We left off with me calling my mom at work to please come save me from the little monster that was now somewhere under my stove. I don't really know why, but I remained on my perch (the top step of my step-ladder) with the old t-shirt slung over my shoulder, and clutching the Swiffer mop. I guess I wanted to be ready if the mouse had a lapse in judgement and decided to come out from under the stove. That didn't happen.

It normally only takes about 20 minutes to make the drive from home to my apartment in Nacogdoches, but I swear it felt like three hours before Mama arrived giggling at my front door. We go over the happenings of the current situation and she makes her way into the kitchen. After poking around under the stove with the mop, the mouse squeaks and one of us screams (I'm not telling you which one of us, but I will tell you that it wasn't Mama). She now decides the best plan of action would be to pull the stove away from the wall. As she pulls the mouse, who is far smarter than I'd given him credit for up until this point, managed to find a small ledge at the back of the stove and pried himself off of the trap. That's when we lost visual contact with the intruder. I still don't know where he managed to get to without us seeing him. We did discover where he was headed when he first scooted his way under the stove though. Whoever cut the hole for the outlet behind the stove did not pay attention to the rule of "measure twice, cut once", in fact based on the hole around that outlet, I don't know that they even measured once. So we had found it, the place of entry.

We decided to call the first person that came to mind who would know how to deal with this little incident, my grandpa. To make a long story short, after about an hour he arrives at my door wielding a can of foam insulation to plug up the hole behind my stove. He also discovers numerous other large holes under my sink where the pipes came in through the wall. He quickly determined that this single can would not do the trick and we set out to the wonderful world of Walmart to purchase another can of foam and some more mouse traps. This trip to Walmart is also pretty blog-worthy, but that will have to wait for another day. We browse through the many varieties of traps before finally settling on one that looks like a hollow hockey puck with a door on it. You were supposed to stick some peanut butter or whatever bait you prefer inside and the mouse would come through the door for a snack and the door would close behind him. Then all I would have to do would be to throw the trap with mouse concealed inside, into the trash and go on with my life. I was very hopeful that between these new traps, the other glue traps I still had left, and the plugging of the holes, my intruder was either already gone or soon would be. One day I'll learn that things aren't ever that simple where I'm concerned. After plugging up all the holes and helping me set the new traps, Mama and Boppa (my grandpa) leave and I head over to Taco Bueno to meet some friends for a much needed night of food and laughs.

It's very quiet in my apartment for the night and most of the next day. I was hopeful that the little demon had somehow manged to get by both me and my mom and exit my apartment through one of the holes under the sink, that we had closed off all of his available entry points, and he would be forced to move on.That idea bit the dust at about midnight Wednesday night.

I had gone into the kitchen sometime after cooking dinner and had noticed a tiny piece of paper sticking out from under my stove. No big deal, I assumed I'd just dropped a piece of a food wrapper or something and I would sweep it up when I gave my apartment a thorough cleaning when I was sure my little visitor had hit the road. Unfortunately, I was wrong again.

After hearing noises around midnight I ventured back into my kitchen and discovered that there was a noticeably larger corner of paper sticking out from under my stove. The glue trap. I knew then that the mouse was stuck, alive, and making his demonic little way back to the front of the stove. After consulting Mama again via Facebook messages, I determined that I would use the handle of my broom to drag the trap and mouse out from under the stove where I would be waiting to carry out my initial plan of covering it with a t-shirt and beating it to death with my Swiffer mop. Unfortunately that didn't happen.

I did as Mama instructed me and stuck the handle of the broom to the glue trap and ever so slowly began to pull the trap toward me. As soon as the trap began to move, the mouse screeched and I jumped. Unfortunately, when I jumped, my hand jerked and yanked the trap upward where it became stuck to the pan drawer under my stove. I had no idea what to do. I tried knocking it loose with the broom, but that didn't work. I had noticed that the mouse had become very quiet after this newest development and I knew that one of two things had probably happened. 1. I had knocked the little booger out when I yanked the trap upward and rammed him into to the bottom of the stove, or 2. I'd managed to knock him off the trap completely. All I knew for sure was that it was getting close to 3 in the morning and I was exhausted and completely out of ideas. I filed probably the most pitiful maintenance request that the apartment complex has ever received, telling them a shortened story of my ordeal and how I had been trying to catch this mouse for almost a full week. I told them that I had actually caught him at least twice, but he'd managed to out-smart me and get away both times. I told them I honestly did not know where he was now, but that he was hopefully still stuck to the glue trap that had somehow become stuck to the bottom of my stove and begged them to send someone to get rid of it.

The next morning at 9:06 AM, I was awoken by my doorbell. I threw on a hoodie and almost jogged to the front door. "You have a mouse?" the maintenance man who is now my hero asked. I told him I did, to which he asked "Can I come get it?" I replied with a "yes, please." and motioned for him to come inside. I led him to the kitchen and flipped on the light only to discover that the mouse had performed a miracle, maybe not for himself, but definitely for me. During the night, he had managed to work his way farther up the trap, eventually causing it to un-stick itself from the stove. After all the fights this little monster had put up for me every time I tried to dispose of it, he simply let out one final weak squeak as my new hero waded him up in the glue trap. As I thanked this kind stranger and let him out the door, I swear I would've hugged him if he had not been holding a dying rodent in his gloved hands.

So that was it, the mouse was gone, and I could live happily ever after. Of course as some of you may know, it takes a while for things to really get back to normal after an ordeal like mine. I spent most of that day cleaning every surface in my apartment. It was during this cleaning that I almost gave myself a heart attack. I was re-washing all of my dishes since I had found droppings in my dish drainer and did not know where else the little monster had visited during his stay. The sponge I was using squeaked when I was cleaning one of my measuring cups and I jumped so high I probably could've landed on the counter. Thankfully I was able to recreate the noise so my nerves settled quickly.

It's been about a month since this whole ordeal took place and I can finally walk around my apartment normally again, although I still turn on the light as I walk into each room. Thankfully as far as I can tell, unlike many of the accounts on google that did nothing but scare me more, there is such thing as just a single mouse.

So there you have it, there is the story of the one week that I really hated living alone. I hope it has been entertaining to anyone reading and I hope the same never happens to you. Until next time, stay awesome. (Think I've found my closing).

A Cat, A Gun, And An Arsonist

As you may or may not know, last August I began a whole new chapter in my life by moving into my own apartment. The experiences I have gained so far have ranged anywhere from absolutely amazing to no shy of traumatizing (piece of advice, never use the broiler on your oven to cook hamburger patties, even if the directions do say it's an option. They begin by making scary noises and then proceed to catch on fire and it's a horrifying experience that raises questions of how much you truly know about fire extinguishers. For example, is it actually safe to spray a fire extinguisher into an oven?). But no matter where they fall on that scale, I can honestly say that every experience I have had while living by myself for the first time in my 24 years of life has certainly been interesting to say the least. I thoroughly enjoyed living alone until I moved back to Nacogdoches for this Spring semester.

It all really started when my mom and I were making my bed. She noticed them first. Little black pellets were scattered across the head of my bed. My first though was bed bugs, but no, it was worse, much worse. My brilliant mother quickly determined that these littler pellets were in fact, mouse droppings. Yes, you read correctly, there were several mouse droppings IN MY BED. If the idea of a rodent scampering about on your beloved place of slumber doesn't make your skin crawl, I don't know that anything will. After several hours of just feeling down right icky about this idea, I manged to convince myself that whatever creature had left those despicable little gifts was long gone. Oh if only I were right.

Everything was normal for a couple days. I got all my clothes unpacked and put away, got my beloved video game consoles into position, and had a pretty relaxing first couple of nights back in my apartment. The relaxing stopped at exactly 10:38 PM on Monday night. I heard rustling coming from my kitchen. Here is the series of text messages that followed between my mom and I.

Me: Omg, I think I hear the mouse.
Mama: Lol... where? (there are many lol's in these conversations because while this whole ordeal was horrifying for me, it probably ranks somewhere on her top five list of funniest things ever.)
Me: I don't know, somewhere in the kitchen it sounds like.
Mama: You need some glue boards.
Me: I have some, but I don't know where to put them. And they're in the pantry and I'm afraid that's where he is.
Me: I think it's under my sink. And it's loud now!
Mama: You should put one in the pantry and one under the sink.
Me: BUT HE'S UNDER THE SINK!!! He'll get me!

Then autocorrect decides to make an appearance:
Me: I don't hear it anymore, that's even scarier.
Me: I need a cat, a gun, and arsonist.
Me: Arsenic, although burning the apartment down would probably kill it too.

The rest of the conversation transpired via Facebook and my mom and I share way too many messages for me to try to dig  through them to find these in particular. However, I do remember that my biggest worry at the time was not a mouse chewing through my walls or spreading any of the numerous life-threatening diseases they carry, no, my current fear was that I really wanted to play XBox, but was too afraid to leave my bedroom. You know you're a gamer when...

Anyway, I eventually do sneak out into my kitchen and bait two of the glue traps with peanut butter and place one inside the pantry, and the other outside the cabinet under my sink (I wasn't about to open that door). After feeling quite certain that the peanut butter would attract the little devil mouse to its demise, I go to bed and enjoy a surprisingly restful night's sleep.

I awoke the next morning to find that there was no mouse stuck to either trap, but I remained hopeful and was determined to enjoy my day. Thanks to having two online classes this semester, I do not have any classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays so I was very much looking forward to a nice relaxing Tuesday before these days off would become days to actually work on homework. I was oh so very wrong.

After eating lunch I hear the far too familiar noise coming from under my sink. This seems like a nice place to pause this particular story for a moment to give you a little background on myself to help you better understand the events that followed.

In many ways I am far from your typical girl. My roommate had on several occasions jokingly referred to me as "the husband" when we rented our apartment together last year. If something broke, I would fix it (or try to anyway), if a toilet was clogged, I'd unclog it (again, or try to), I even fearlessly killed the wasp that invaded her bathroom one night. I do not like to wear makeup, going shopping for clothes ranks somewhere below being water-boarded while my fingernails are ripped off one by one on my list of fun things to do, and a bad hair day is not a crisis, but is simply an excuse to wear a baseball cap to class. However, I learned something about myself when Lacey and I had our apartment, I despise mice. I can kill roaches, spiders, and wasps without batting an eye, I will let a bee walk up and down my arm without flinching, but the sight of a mouse transforms me into a shrieking, trembling, mess. In those moments I am, what most would call, a typical girl. It is also at these moments that the same people who complain about my lack of girliness (pretty sure that's not a word, but let's go with it), now complain about my utter abundance of it.

Ok, resuming the story now. I begin to hear a new sound, a sort of scooting noise. I tiptoe into my bedroom and remove my step-ladder from the closet. I soundlessly place it in the doorway of the kitchen and step onto the top step, stretching my arm as far as I can, I snap a photo with my iPhone and discover that the mouse is in fact stuck to the trap. But my initial joy is short lived. While he's stuck, he is only truly stuck by his tail and has already managed to scoot his way a decent amount of space across my kitchen. This was when I began to wish I'd gone with my better judgement and bought a couple of snap traps that would kill the little monster immediately (if you're a member of PETA or any other animal rights advocacy group, you probably wanna stop reading, it only gets worse from here). I scoop up my iPad and run into my bedroom to get some advice from my mother via Facebook.

I eventually devise a plan of attack. Seriously, if you are crazy and love mice for some reason which I'm not even gonna try to understand, you're gonna wanna skip this paragraph. You have been warned. My plan is to take an old t-shirt that I never wear, stand on my step-stool, drop said t-shirt over mouse (mainly just I don't have to look at it), and very VERY carefully... beat the thing to death with my Swiffer mop. I know what you're thinking, "how could a plan that was so brilliantly thought out possibly go wrong?" well, you don't know me very well.

Ok PETA friends you can start reading again. Now armed with my supplies I return to the scene of the crime just in time to see the tip of the mouse's tail (still attached to the glue trap) slide under my stove. "NO!!" I shout and lunge at the creature with my mop in an attempt to drag it back out to meet its doom. But instead, it squeaked, I screamed, and almost fell backwards over my couch. This is when Mama gets a panicked phone call at work from her wimp of a daughter. I told her what happened and begged her to come to my rescue. After she stopped laughing (it took a while) she said she was on her way.

Well guys, it's 4 AM, it's been a long but very exciting day (more on this in a future blog), and I am ready to go to bed. This will at least keep you entertained for a while and I promise to write the rest tomorrow. In the meantime, thanks for reading, and stay awesome.

I Put The Pro In Procrastination

College is many things, a time to discover what you actually want to do with your life, a time to figure out who you really are, a time to make new friends, a time to have new experiences, and finally, a time to procrastinate.

You see, us college students are experts at finding new ways to procrastinate. I don't know if it's like this for anyone else, but every time I have a test to study for, a computer program due, or an essay to write, it becomes crucial that my bookcase become perfectly organized, every surface in my apartment become spotless, and that my junk e-mail folder be empty. Now I know you're probably thinking, "But that's good, those are things that you should be doing anyway." and yes, you're very right, but these things seem to take on a new sense of urgency the night before an exam.

This exact thing happened just the other night, let me give you a little bit of background. I changed majors from Creative Writing to Information Technology right before the start of last semester, so I'm still learning the whole computer programming thing. So I was taking this class that was supposed to be a follow-up to the programming class I took last semester. I was unaware that the professor I'd signed up for has quite the reputation of being extremely difficult, and in the words of one of his colleagues "not very good at explaining things in a way that people actually know what he's talking about". One day I"ll learn to check rate my professor BEFORE registering for classes. Anyway, he assigned us a program to write full of things that I've never even heard of, and apparently neither had the authors of the textbook because it was no help whatsoever. So I'd been working on this program off and on for about a week (and by "working on" I mean I'd get out the instructions, open the software, realize I had no clue what I was doing, put everything away and go play XBox), but eventually the time came that I absolutely had to get it done. So here is how it went.

Tuesday Evening (roughly 8 o'clock):
Decide I've put it off long enough and it's time to get to work.
Sit down at my desk and pull out the instructions, textbook, notes, and lab manual for the assignment.
Open the software used to write the program.
Decide I need music to help me work.
Open iTunes.
Spend the next half hour building the perfect playlist which I entitled "Studying".

(It's now roughly 9 o'clock):
Decide I need a study break (even though I haven't actually done anything) and go make coffee.
Listen to my new "Studying" playlist while I drink my coffee and browse Facebook.
Convince myself that if I do not wash my now empty coffee cup at this exact moment in time, that I will surely die.
Go wash my coffee cup.
Make more coffee.

(It's now around 11 o'clock):
The song "It's Time" begins to play on my awesome new playlist and I realize that the Imagine Dragons are correct, it is time for me to stop messing around and get to work.
Take picture of song title, my coffee cup, and my computer programming binder and post to Instagram with a clever comment about how iTunes knows me so well.
Minimize Facebook and go back to the programming software.
Think to myself that I should really start working out again.
Get on the Campus Rec website to see what their hours are.
See they close at midnight so decide there's no use walking over there to only get to work out for about half an hour.
Decide to plan a workout routine for when I do start working out again.
Browse the internet for the best ab workouts.

(It's now midnight):
Finally start writing the program.
Program won't compile so I begin to use the all-knowing powers of the Google to find out what I'm doing wrong.
Find an answer, but still don't understand why it won't work.

(At about 12:30 panic sets in):
Realize that this program is due in 10 hours and I've barely gotten started.
Remember that there's a whole list of other things that have to be completed and turned in with the printout of the program.
Look at this list of things and realize I don't know how to do any of it.
Decide to look and see if this class is offered over the summer.
Discover that it is offered during the summer.
Sign into mySFA and drop the class.
Play Call of Duty Ghosts until 3 AM.
Go to bed.

Ok, probably not the best example since I think the purpose of this post was to prove that I thrive under the immense pressures that occur when things are put off to the last minute, but it was the most recent example I could think of. However, most of my best work has occurred when I'm under the gun and have to get it done at the last minute.

I used to try and not procrastinate, but the older I've gotten, the less I fight it. Because no matter what any of the studies say, it works for me. I've never not turned in a homework assignment or completely bombed an exam (except in math, but that doesn't count because...well, because it's math).

I feel like I should come up with some kind of catchy closing for these things, but right now I got nothin'. I'll brainstorm some ideas when I should be studying for my Internet Technologies test which I have to take tomorrow ;-)

Welcome

Over the last couple of years, several people have mentioned to me that I should start a blog. So by popular demand of about 3 people, give or take a couple, here it goes.

I don't really have any set theme for what this blog will be about. I'm basically just going to be telling you about all the crazy, ridiculous, and often hilarious things that always seem to happen to me everywhere I go. Just don't expect any earth-shattering realizations to come from me, at least not often, and it should be enjoyable for all of us.

I know this post hasn't been exciting at all, but I promise that will change. Since starting college I have experienced many "firsts" and most of them come with an awesome story, many of which I will be sharing here, so keep checking back for updates.