Saturday, June 30, 2012

Gifts and Thankfulness Vol. 3

Friday's Gift to Me Was:

Sugar. Sugar, sugar, and more sugar. Those of you who know me know that I try hard to limit the amount of carbs and sugar I eat. Yesterday, however, I bought and ate a square of pistachio nut fudge--awesome, had several drinks of Joel's Chocolate Banana Malt, and shared a banana split with him. Mmmmm. Totally worth it.

Friday, I was thankful for:

1--Having Jo and Destiny in my life. They are wonderful and amazing friends. They inspire me, make me laugh, and understand my crazy ways.

2--Having Joel to come home to. Spending our evenings together doing what makes us happy. Eating ice cream and watching movie previews, but not being able to decide on a movie.

3--Patrick O'Rourke. I am thankful that Destiny has him! Her car had a little glitch yesterday afternoon on the way home, and he didn't hesitate to jump in the car and drive two hours to help out his wife. I love that he loves her so much. She absolutely deserves it.

Playing Catch-Up

So yesterday, I spent many, many hours in the car and came up with several themes for the day's post. But, as you know, I get paralyzed when faced with decisions, so instead, I wrote nothing. Today, I'm playing catch-up and have decided to simply tell you about my awesome day. Because it was pretty awesome.

It started by my alarm going off around 7:15am, me turning to Joel, and saying, "I don't want to get up." He nodded, and we both went back to sleep. An hour later, I finally get out of bed realizing I have to leave in 15 minutes, need a shower, need to take Joel to the farm, and have to get gas. See? Awesome. I rushed around and was ready to walk out the door at 8:35, when Joel decided he'd stay home and save me a 15 minute detour.

Leaving the house so quickly resulted in me not packing food for the morning, and so I was existing off of not-enough water and a cup of coffee while I drove the three and a half hours to Berea, KY to meet Jo and Destiny to tour campus. Because I didn't have time to stop and eat, by the time I got to Berea, I was dangerously close to having a seizure (you see, I need to be fed every couple of hours). Fast forward to the drive home when I was digging through my purse to find gum and found not one, not two, but three cups of peanut butter and two Atkins bars. I'm glad I almost died of hunger in the middle of nowhere.

When we got to Berea, Jo and I searched what felt like miles and miles of Berea's campus to find Destiny waiting in the admissions office. When we were covered in sweat from the 106 degree temperature and near death, we finally found her and stumbled into the office. We met Greg, an admissions counselor at Berea and were completely mesmerized at how good he was at his job. We also all kicked ourselves for not going to Berea for college a million years ago when we went.

After our meeting and sweaty tour, we headed to Boone Tavern for lunch, but upon realizing it was closed, we stumbled to Main Street Cafe--mostly because we couldn't muster the energy to walk any further. During lunch, we realized how lucky we are to have each other. We have become such close friends, but we talk about how we're grown-up friends. Not the kind of friends who expect too much or the kind of friends you feel self-conscious around or need to impress. Not the kind of friends who you can't be your complete and total self around. One day, I'll write a blog about our theory on grown-up friends. It's an amazing concept, and we're lucky we have each other.

After lunch and lots of stimulating conversation, we gave in (after an amazingly healthy lunch) and went to the ice cream/candy shop next door. We each decided to purchase pounds and pounds of sugary candy with a scoop of ice cream on top, but chickened out before we ordered and each settled for a morsel or two of sugar.

This is what I ordered.
Two miles down the road, it was $2.97.
I, then, spent the next three hours in the car before getting in touch with Joel. He was at a tiny lake on the outskirts of Owensboro. He wanted me to come out. Sure, I've only been in the car for 7 hours today, I'll be right there. I stopped to get gas and paid a mere $3 a gallon for it. I had a tiny party on the way out of Ohio County. I finally found the tiny lake where Joel was hanging out with his buddies and watched his buddies horse around for a while before I was covered in my own sweat for the third time that day. (All-in-all, I was inside the Camry driving for a total of eight and a half hours.)
Yes, that's my pillow he's so happy to take over.

On the way home, we decided I hadn't had enough burgers and sugar for the day, so we got burgers and a banana split--in a boat, NEVER a cup--from the Big Dipper. We came home and snuggled with our sweet dog, who voluntarily got into bed and took over my pillow. Then we did our favorite thing ever--watched movie previews until we fell asleep.



Not sure what I've done to deserve it, but lately life has been pretty amazing.