It's Been a Long Time Coming...

Once again I've neglected to post for over two weeks, and I just feel ashamed of that! Believe me now when I saw that I will get back on track with my one- or two-a-week postings. And those postings begin now...

I guess I can start by discussing the higher points of my "Spring Break," since that was definitely a major part of my life lately. As I said in one of my last posts way back when, I left on Friday after my big Biology test, and this was at around 2:45 PM. I had actually finished that test early (not to mention that I did pretty well on it!), so I got to leave a little earlier than I had originally expected. The trip itself was fairly uneventful as trips go, except for the one pit stop that was made somewhere in Kentucky. I had gotten hungry and stopped at a Taco Bell drive-thru that seemed to have been made out of some sort of trailer building! It was the oddest Taco Bell I had ever seen, but I guess if the food tastes the same, it works. I arrived at home around 6:30 PM, which is great time for that kind of trip at that time of day.

I had decided earlier that I would take my mom out for dinner that night, since I hadn't been there for her birthday earlier in February. We went to our favorite restaurant, Carrabba's, and had a great dinner, and a great time. Probably the highlight of this dinner was the wait time, about one full minute! The hostess had originally said the wait was 60-70 minutes, but we weren't going for that, no sir... So we ate up at the pizza and pasta bar and were waited on right away! Brilliant, in my opinion...

Ok, now on to something that doesn't involve food... I had made plans to help my friend Aaron and his mom move into their new apartment, so that entire day would be devoted to that cause. This started at around 10:00 AM over at their old house, and I was even treated to breakfast! We boxed up items from different rooms, and then began moving out packed boxes, some furniture, and appliances (namely, the washer and drier). Now I don't know if many of you know about what I'd like to call "the Suthurn Wimun" (my Southern drawl pronunciation of "Southern Women"), but we had three of them helping us out for part of the day. What I mean by Southern women is take-charge, strong, butch, and yet still very feminine women; that makes them especially good at moving furniture and appliances. Aaron, his brother, and I felt almost helpless around these women, since they were so take-charge and gung-ho! So we helped when we needed to, but mostly just got the stuff the women weren't lifting.

We all took a break for lunch and Miss Rebecca (Aaron's mom) treated us to Taco Bell for lunch. After that there was some more moving of stuff, and I took a load of boxes and a piece of furniture in my car. Now I got to actually see the apartment, and it is really nice. We carried all of that stuff in and tried to put it in the general location it belonged, and moved on. During that time we also hooked up the washer and dryer (though we later found out that everything was electric and they had a gas dryer) and the women set up his mom's bed. My friend Emily came by soon after that, and we talked a little while everyone was taking a break. Later on we headed back to the house to get a few things, and dropped them off in the same fashion.

Now that all the moving was done for the day, Aaron, Emily, and I decided to go get some dinner, and we decided on T.G.I. Fridays for their three-course combo thingy. Afterwards we wanted to go over to the University of Tennessee and see Emily's dorm, since we had never been over there. Surprisingly, her room is a lot bigger than my dorm, yet for some reason, her roommate (a girl we went to High School with) took up more than 2/3 of the room! We only stayed for about 30 minutes, since we weren't expecting Emily's roommate to be there (and she was...with visitors too). We then drove back to the apartment, only after making a quick late-night stop to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things, as per the request of Aaron's mom. Boy is it fun to go shopping after midnight! We got what we needed and headed back to the apartment for some more laughs and conversation, until Emily decided to leave around 1:00. Aaron invited me to stay over, which involved sleeping on the floor, but that was just fine with me. The thing that wasn't fine was how cold it got at night, and I was shivering the entire time!!! But all's well that ends well; we had a great time movin' and a-shakin', and had a great deal of laughs to go along with that.

Sunday was my first day back to work, and I worked every night from Sunday to Friday. It was great to see some of my old Ingles friends, but I also found out that there were a lot of new people that were like just hired. One humorous moment came when my manager asked me to watch the self checkout (called U-Scan) while someone was on break. One of those new guys got to take over my register briefly, but not before asking, "Are you sure you know how to run that?" What he didn't realize was that I have been there for almost three years, and was trained how to use that longer than anyone in the store that night. I just politely said, "Yes, I think I can manage." I think he later found out that I had been there for such a long time, so he must have been embarrassed about that.

The highlight of my working week was that I got to do my old job on Wednesday night! The other girl had the night off, and the guy that just started that job was training over in the video department, so the store manager asked me to be the bookkeeper. I was so excited! Now, I hadn't done this job by myself in over six months, but I had helped out the others, so I remembered all that I had to do. The only difference was that now we have a gas station outside, so there was some extra to do there. But, the others had taught me what to do, so I felt pretty confident. The night actually went really well, and the very first time I counted the cash drawer, it was perfect down to the very penny! (See, we have to count the cash drawer several times a night to make sure it's correct, and we find this out by matching our count to the system computer.) Everything went very smoothly, except that I had to stay a little bit later than I was supposed to, since I fell a little bit behind after we switched the system over to the next business day. I was trying to count all the tills by myself, which takes a little bit longer, but I like being able to go at my own pace and have the office to myself. So I got out of there around 11:45, but all in all, it was a great work day.

Friday was my last day of work, and it was fairly uneventful. Saturday was going to be "fun day" because Aaron and I went to see a movie, and we were going to celebrate my dad's birthday, which was actually on Thursday. (Oh, and I forgot to mention that I took him out to lunch on Thursday, and we went to our favorite chicken place, Zaxby's...oh so good...) Aaron and I saw the movie "Madea's Family Reunion," and I highly recommend it if you're into that kind of humor (a black man dressed as a woman, with lots of crazy antics). It was a hilarious movie, and I just couldn't stop laughing! Afterwards we went to the mall and got some lunch, and then walked around for a little while. Aaron had to work at 6:30 (he works at American Eagle in that very mall, so that was convenient), so we just hung out until then. I left after he went in, and it was time for dinner by the time I got home.

Oh, and boy what a good dinner it was! My mom had found a recipe for orange zest salmon, and mmmm mmmm mmmm!!! It was the best salmon I had ever had, and I do love salmon! Then we all had a fun night watching TV, and even a movie that I had just bought, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," which by the way is also extremely hilarious!!! Though, it is rated "R" and has a lot of language and such, but hilarious nevertheless. We had a small cake later on for dessert, and spent some time talking about school and life in general before heading off to bed. A very good day in my opinion!

Sunday was my last day in town, so I wanted to make the best of it. We went to Mass at 11:30 AM and met our friends Greg and Janie for lunch at Burger King, as we have during almost every visit I have made. It was great to see them once again, and we shared lots of nice conversation, and some laughs of course. We were there for about two and a half hours, and it was time to go back home. We say our goodbyes and headed back on our way. Once we got home, we just lounged around for a little while, and conversed yet again while watching a little bit of TV. I delayed packing up my stuff for as long as possible, since I wanted to get the very most out of that day. I finally ended up getting ready to leave around 5:00-5:30, as usual, and set off around 6:30. We all said our goodbyes, and I headed off, though I was not even close to being ready to start classes again. But, it was a very good trip, and I had a lot of fun during this one.

The drive back here was uneventful to say the least, but I stopped again at a Taco Bell (I seem to be eating there a lot in this particular blog...) in Berea, Kentucky, and had a nice little dinner. I finally got back here at around 11:30 PM, and I was dead tired. After I lugged everything back to the room, I noticed that I was missing once of my hooded sweatshirts, and I looked up and down the room to find it! It wasn't there! So I walked up and down the halls and even went back outside to see if I had dropped it, only to find nothing once again. So, then I, in my infinite wisdom, walked all the way back to my car in the parking lot to see if it was still in there; it wasn't. I had just come to the conclusion right then that either I had left it at home, or that someone had picked it up and was now wearing it. I headed back to the room, not really caring about it any more. But, lo and behold, and I was putting my suitcase under the bed, there it was! It had fallen through the space between the bed and the wall and was sitting under the bed! How frustrating to me, but then again, I was glad that I didn't lose it.

So, there you have the main events from my "Spring Break." Since then, nothing too exciting has been going on here; just classes and such. This coming week will be a good one (my birthday being on Wednesday!), except for the fact that I think I have three tests this week! As always, I will keep everyone updated on how everything turns out. Until later, have a great week!