Dear Favorite Blog Reader,
I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you and your ingenious methods of finding that which you seek. I also wanted to tell you that I love your sense of humor and zeal, your fine sense of taste and style, your elegant turn of phrase. I hope that you and I will be friends for a very long time. I hope that you weren't actually looking for something else, that may be misunderstood by other people. I hope that you aren't really such a troubled individual.
I sometimes wonder how many times you must have pushed the "next" button on Google search in order to find this place. You have so much patience! I got bored after only pushing it TWICE! Or maybe it was once... I've already forgotten, and I just barely opened a new tab to check it out for myself, too. And then I closed it once my investigation was over. And I've forgotten. But I know that I am not near the top of the list of results. I'm not in the first few results, and that generally calls for another search keyword combination. But you? No. You persevered. I respect that in a person. Perseverance.
Although I have no idea what you were actually looking for, I am glad that you found this humble blog. I hope that you stayed for more than just a minute before going back to your daily life. I hope that you found more than just a story about lost personal property. I hope that you found entertainment, pizazz, intelligence, genius, sparkle, and finely honed wit. I hope that you found wonderful works of art, and insightful interpretations of said art. I hope that you found something that was worth reading. Because you deserve it.
Yes, I'm talking to you. The reader who found this blog by searching: "her pants fell down."
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Welcome to the State Of.....Limbo
Andrew and I have officially moved. We are no longer college students in a college town! We are confused people in a different college town than the one that we went to. We're trying to be big kids and get all settled into our new situation before Andrew starts his big kid job at a company called National Instruments (often referred to as NI) at the end of the month. The problem is that nothing has really gone very smoothly in this whole escapade. I would chronicle the whole thing on here for everyone to read, but that would take about seventeen years, and I don't really want to do that. So I won't. :)
I will tell you a few blurbs of what happened along the way.
(This is Andy, in the blue. I know you may not be used to hearing from me here, but I decided to chime in as I proofread this post. Anyways, these blurbs sum up just about the whole story as if it were all told. Not sure how she avoided the 17 years, but we're lucky she did.)
Blurb Numero Uno: Austin Round One
Andrew and I came down to Austin on a house hunting trip in the beginning of May. This was just a few weeks after graduation, so we were as fresh as a patch of dandelion weeds (and almost as intelligent) while marching around down here. We were searching for a cute little rental HOUSE where we could live for a while, saving up for a down payment for a purchase later. After much searching and confusedness, we found a place that we liked. Really liked. Have you ever found a place that you went in, and you could just envision a haven of domestic felicity and marital bliss? You know, the kind that comes with Him walking through the door at 5:59, and Her having dinner ready on the table, and He says, "You wonderful babe of a woman, you, I'm taking you on a date to the theatre this evening!" and She says, "You wonderfully kind hunk, you, I've made you a scrumptious dinner!" and He says, "Mine darling, would you care to crochet while I read to you later this evening?" and She says, "Oh YES! I've been needing a bit of relaxing!" and He says, "And while I'm at it, why don't I give you a foot rub and tell you all the reasons why you're the best newlywed housewife in the world!" (She is, by the way.)
You know. That kind?
Blurb the Second: Signing and Waiting
Well, after all my bizarre delusions of grandeur, I decided that this was the one that I wanted. So we put in our application on the place, and we waited. A lot. Apparently all of the credit check agencies were backed up from Elko, Nevada to Moscow because of all the other people who also were trying to rent places to live. (Texas in general, and Austin in particular, haven't seen much of an economic downturn and is a magnet for business growth these days. And people too - the kind car rental person told us that 60,000 people move to Austin each year.) I don't see why the credit check people couldn't just see by my extraordinarily pretty name that I should be the first in line! I mean, really- Natashya. Think about it. It's a gorgeous name. So we waited a week for what usually took just a day. And then we got the news- "Yall got the house!!! I'm going to send you the contract in a day or two!"- from our real estate agent. (Who pulled all the strings for us, but still didn't get things to work out. She deserves some cookies or something) We liked that news.
Blurb Terceiro: Making Moving Arrangements
We signed the contract with relish and flourish, savoring the moment. Our first rented house! We called the moving company, and scheduled everything to be moved the last week of the month of May: we were to move in on June 1! (It should also be noted that whenever I say the words "We called... scheduled... set up..." and other such phrases, unless otherwise stated, I mean "Andrew" instead of "we.")
Fourth Blurb: Flergh to all Mondays and Phones!
On Monday, that fateful Monday................................ Something TERRIBLE happened! You know when the phone rings, and you just get that feeling- that feeling that comes with foreboding, like you just know that it's your project partner calling you to say that he or she didn't do their part of the presentation, which is due in about 30 minutes, even though they had 17 days to work on it? That feeling that comes with a gnawing sense of dread that hangs on to the corners of your mouth and pulls them down towards the earth? That feeling that comes with unease that grabs on to your eyebrows and drags them in and down towards your nose, forming crinkles of worry on your concerned brow? (Oh, all too well. Most group projects in school were terrible. Except for a few my senior year, like the project for Kinematics where we made a chime-piano, or for Dynamics where we-- but that's another story. Or several.)
The phone rang on that fateful Monday, and it was accompanied by THAT kind of dark feeling. I didn't want Andrew to answer it. I knew it would be bad. Besides, Andrew was napping, and he can get cranky when he's tired. I shouldn't have to deal with bad news AND a cranky Randy. But answer he did. And I wished again that he hadn't. (Though, it should be noted that I didn't get cranky. She did.)
It turns out that our brand new landlady had be served with divorce papers that morning, and was therefor by law unable to let out the property. (And WHY is it called being SERVED with divorce papers? That's hardly an act of service to anyone. It's bad enough that they they ruin other people's lives, but to ruin their own marriage? That's just a mean thing.) So........................................ we don't have that house anymore. It's kind of heartbreaking, especially after all of those silly little daydreams I concocted for the house. I knew where my garden would be, where the flowers would go, where my craft table would go, and what kind of curtains I would make for the windows. (Except the last part, I hadn't got to that yet in my fantasies. But I would have shortly after. It was the next step.) (Guys - did you know that girls do this all the time? News to me. I had no clue any of this had gone on in her head. Also, they apparently all have their weddings planned by something like age 12, while us guys even age 25 have come to the decision that maybe they might like to get married if they could someday. Consider yourself warned.)
And I should also add here a cute story-within-a-story. Tashya was furious at the soon-perhaps-to-be-ex-husband of the landlady for taking this to court at this time. She was just shy of wishing some imagined past mafia connection resurface and exact its vengeance on him. But! - not before wanting to give the landlady (She was apparently the one wanting to lease to us.) some cookies and a hug.
Blurb Five: Homeless and Not Much Time
We knew that we were moving in a few weeks, but we had nowhere to move INTO! We got a little nervous. So we looked online again, saw that all of the other houses that we were interested in were taken, and that we were either going to have to live far FAR away from work, or live in an apartment. There was an APARTMENT (Note the capitalized HOUSE in blurb Numero Uno) complex in the area that we had been looking in, and we heard from some friends that it was a nice place. We signed a contract without ever seeing the place in real life since we needed somewhere to live. We'll see it for the first time tomorrow, when we can officially move in to our new home.
Lurbbay the Ixthsay: Sitting in Austin and Waiting
All of our stuff is on a truck somewhere, including our car. We've been staying in a temporary living place. I know that sounds like we're staying somewhere we'll only be alive for a short amount of time, but it's actually just a furnished apartment. No death traps or superhero stuff. It's really not all that dangerous! (As far as we can tell!!) Except for the fact that we moved in above a guy who just had abdominal surgery, and wants us to "not step too heavily" for the next two months while he recovers. I don't know which is worse: being the healing person or being the person tiptoeing around being paranoid about being the fat oaf that disturbs the healing person. I suppose that I'll get over it a lot faster than Downstairs Man will, though. I'll be cured as soon as we move into our new place. He may take a while to heal...
Also...when the Downstairs Man left us a note on our door, it was addressed to Ignacio and Mauricio. I'm not sure what prompted that. Did we sound overly Mexican or something?
Blurb Last: The Wrap Up
So ya, that's the basics of what's been going on with us. Now that we're not dying of dehydration or stress anxiety, and rather more amused at the fact that humidity makes my hair curly, I'll try to keep people more up to date on things in the Heim world. Does that sound good to people? I hope it does. Because that's what's going to happen.
Have a glorious day!
Your friendly local (or non-local, as the case may be) Moi
(And also Andy)
I will tell you a few blurbs of what happened along the way.
(This is Andy, in the blue. I know you may not be used to hearing from me here, but I decided to chime in as I proofread this post. Anyways, these blurbs sum up just about the whole story as if it were all told. Not sure how she avoided the 17 years, but we're lucky she did.)
Blurb Numero Uno: Austin Round One
Andrew and I came down to Austin on a house hunting trip in the beginning of May. This was just a few weeks after graduation, so we were as fresh as a patch of dandelion weeds (and almost as intelligent) while marching around down here. We were searching for a cute little rental HOUSE where we could live for a while, saving up for a down payment for a purchase later. After much searching and confusedness, we found a place that we liked. Really liked. Have you ever found a place that you went in, and you could just envision a haven of domestic felicity and marital bliss? You know, the kind that comes with Him walking through the door at 5:59, and Her having dinner ready on the table, and He says, "You wonderful babe of a woman, you, I'm taking you on a date to the theatre this evening!" and She says, "You wonderfully kind hunk, you, I've made you a scrumptious dinner!" and He says, "Mine darling, would you care to crochet while I read to you later this evening?" and She says, "Oh YES! I've been needing a bit of relaxing!" and He says, "And while I'm at it, why don't I give you a foot rub and tell you all the reasons why you're the best newlywed housewife in the world!" (She is, by the way.)
You know. That kind?
Blurb the Second: Signing and Waiting
Well, after all my bizarre delusions of grandeur, I decided that this was the one that I wanted. So we put in our application on the place, and we waited. A lot. Apparently all of the credit check agencies were backed up from Elko, Nevada to Moscow because of all the other people who also were trying to rent places to live. (Texas in general, and Austin in particular, haven't seen much of an economic downturn and is a magnet for business growth these days. And people too - the kind car rental person told us that 60,000 people move to Austin each year.) I don't see why the credit check people couldn't just see by my extraordinarily pretty name that I should be the first in line! I mean, really- Natashya. Think about it. It's a gorgeous name. So we waited a week for what usually took just a day. And then we got the news- "Yall got the house!!! I'm going to send you the contract in a day or two!"- from our real estate agent. (Who pulled all the strings for us, but still didn't get things to work out. She deserves some cookies or something) We liked that news.
Blurb Terceiro: Making Moving Arrangements
We signed the contract with relish and flourish, savoring the moment. Our first rented house! We called the moving company, and scheduled everything to be moved the last week of the month of May: we were to move in on June 1! (It should also be noted that whenever I say the words "We called... scheduled... set up..." and other such phrases, unless otherwise stated, I mean "Andrew" instead of "we.")
Fourth Blurb: Flergh to all Mondays and Phones!
On Monday, that fateful Monday................................ Something TERRIBLE happened! You know when the phone rings, and you just get that feeling- that feeling that comes with foreboding, like you just know that it's your project partner calling you to say that he or she didn't do their part of the presentation, which is due in about 30 minutes, even though they had 17 days to work on it? That feeling that comes with a gnawing sense of dread that hangs on to the corners of your mouth and pulls them down towards the earth? That feeling that comes with unease that grabs on to your eyebrows and drags them in and down towards your nose, forming crinkles of worry on your concerned brow? (Oh, all too well. Most group projects in school were terrible. Except for a few my senior year, like the project for Kinematics where we made a chime-piano, or for Dynamics where we-- but that's another story. Or several.)
The phone rang on that fateful Monday, and it was accompanied by THAT kind of dark feeling. I didn't want Andrew to answer it. I knew it would be bad. Besides, Andrew was napping, and he can get cranky when he's tired. I shouldn't have to deal with bad news AND a cranky Randy. But answer he did. And I wished again that he hadn't. (Though, it should be noted that I didn't get cranky. She did.)
It turns out that our brand new landlady had be served with divorce papers that morning, and was therefor by law unable to let out the property. (And WHY is it called being SERVED with divorce papers? That's hardly an act of service to anyone. It's bad enough that they they ruin other people's lives, but to ruin their own marriage? That's just a mean thing.) So........................................ we don't have that house anymore. It's kind of heartbreaking, especially after all of those silly little daydreams I concocted for the house. I knew where my garden would be, where the flowers would go, where my craft table would go, and what kind of curtains I would make for the windows. (Except the last part, I hadn't got to that yet in my fantasies. But I would have shortly after. It was the next step.) (Guys - did you know that girls do this all the time? News to me. I had no clue any of this had gone on in her head. Also, they apparently all have their weddings planned by something like age 12, while us guys even age 25 have come to the decision that maybe they might like to get married if they could someday. Consider yourself warned.)
And I should also add here a cute story-within-a-story. Tashya was furious at the soon-perhaps-to-be-ex-husband of the landlady for taking this to court at this time. She was just shy of wishing some imagined past mafia connection resurface and exact its vengeance on him. But! - not before wanting to give the landlady (She was apparently the one wanting to lease to us.) some cookies and a hug.
Blurb Five: Homeless and Not Much Time
We knew that we were moving in a few weeks, but we had nowhere to move INTO! We got a little nervous. So we looked online again, saw that all of the other houses that we were interested in were taken, and that we were either going to have to live far FAR away from work, or live in an apartment. There was an APARTMENT (Note the capitalized HOUSE in blurb Numero Uno) complex in the area that we had been looking in, and we heard from some friends that it was a nice place. We signed a contract without ever seeing the place in real life since we needed somewhere to live. We'll see it for the first time tomorrow, when we can officially move in to our new home.
Lurbbay the Ixthsay: Sitting in Austin and Waiting
All of our stuff is on a truck somewhere, including our car. We've been staying in a temporary living place. I know that sounds like we're staying somewhere we'll only be alive for a short amount of time, but it's actually just a furnished apartment. No death traps or superhero stuff. It's really not all that dangerous! (As far as we can tell!!) Except for the fact that we moved in above a guy who just had abdominal surgery, and wants us to "not step too heavily" for the next two months while he recovers. I don't know which is worse: being the healing person or being the person tiptoeing around being paranoid about being the fat oaf that disturbs the healing person. I suppose that I'll get over it a lot faster than Downstairs Man will, though. I'll be cured as soon as we move into our new place. He may take a while to heal...
Also...when the Downstairs Man left us a note on our door, it was addressed to Ignacio and Mauricio. I'm not sure what prompted that. Did we sound overly Mexican or something?
Blurb Last: The Wrap Up
So ya, that's the basics of what's been going on with us. Now that we're not dying of dehydration or stress anxiety, and rather more amused at the fact that humidity makes my hair curly, I'll try to keep people more up to date on things in the Heim world. Does that sound good to people? I hope it does. Because that's what's going to happen.
Have a glorious day!
Your friendly local (or non-local, as the case may be) Moi
(And also Andy)
Saturday, May 19, 2012
A RED LETTER WEEK! (Part the Second: Woes with Cameras)
This is a later update about Graduation Week. It is Part Two. I begin. I didn't begin earlier because I didn't want to slaughter anyone with a sudden gushing forth of Weird Heim updates. And then lots of stuff happened. I'll write about it, too. But not in this post. This goes back to graduation week.
Wednesday, April 18. I bawled a lot. So did my mom. We dropped off Elder Spud at the MTC. It involved Daddy, Mama, Andrew, Elder Spud, and I, and a silver rental car my parents got for the trip. It also involved a camera to capture some memories of this moment. Can I just say that it was a sunny day?
Ya, that whole "TASH! Keep your eyes open!" thing got pretty old pretty darn fast. I'm sure Daddy got rather sick of it as well, since he was the one who had to keep telling me to open up my pretty eyeballs. It's just that they can get twitchy from trying so hard to keep them open. You'd think that people would learn to appreciate my fine makeup skills and just call it good. Or maybe I should learn to masterfully apply eye shadow to create the illusion of a glimmering eye upon my closed eyelid. Then it wouldn't matter WHEN people took my picture. I would always be prepared! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! WHAT NOW, CAMERA?!?!
Closed eyes: Notice the........ natural appearance.......... of ........... that...... thing.......
Contrary to obvious appearances, those shapes are not Dr. Seuss fish, but are in fact mine own makeup-festooned eyelids. Also, I do not intend to sport a Grinch-like grin. It was purely incidental, I assure you.
Anyway, after we took lots of pictures with and of Elder Spud, we all piled in the car. I got to sit by my brother. I was in the middle because that's the smallest spot, and I'm still the smallest person. (I have officially given up on being a big kid. Ever. I'm doomed to this shortness. But there are benefits to being short. You're cute and you can get away with things.) Andy was in the backseat too, and he spent most of the 10 minute ride bracing himself for what it would be like when there was no Elder Spud in the car. When we got to the MTC, there were loads of people to tell us where to go and whisk the new missionaries away and show them around and help them to settle in. We parked by the curb slot #23, and then all piled out of the car. We pulled Elder Spud's stuff out, and then stared forlornly at him. We took some more pictures. I wasn't in them, because now not only was it sunny, there was also some strange blob of liquid in my eyes that made them even harder to open... at least while maintaining at least some semblance of a humanoid facial structure.
And then Elder Spud marched into the MTC. He's there now. He's learning the Thai language, and is already learning how to be both the most popular guy on campus, and also one of the biggest trouble makers. He likes to tease other missionaries. I shall give unto you an example.
Elder Spud and some other missionaries were studying Thai. One of the sister missionaries had made lots of flashcards to study vocab words. Elder Spud thought he'd be clever and pull a trick on her. He took another note card and wrote some random symbols on it (I think that he calls the writing "script," but I'm not sure), and wrote a definition on the back. He challenged her ability to name off all of the vocab, a challenge which the sister valiantly accepted. She was doing very well until Elder Spud pulled out his own card. She tried so very hard to remember, but it's so very hard to remember a vocab term that isn't real. She got frustrated and grabbed the card from Elder Spud and read the back: "Why are you so mad?" She was not quite as amused as was Elder Spud. Isn't he a goon? But he's also a great goon. We are so proud of him!
Andy did well to prepare for the departure of Elder Spud. It turned out that he had brought chocolate truffles as well as mint Milano cookies, favorites of both Mama's and mine. There was crying and bawling and missing Elder Spud, though he had just barely walked into the MTC. Andy patted me on the head and gave me another cookie every time I heaved a sob. You can't sob with a cookie in your mouth, can you? After dropping Elder Spud off, Andy and I still both had one more final exam each before we were done with classes. We made it through. I held so tightly to my chocolate truffle that it melted in my pocket during my final. My consolation melted. *sigh* I miss my brother, but I know that he's in the right place doing the right thing. And that is consolation enough for me. Except for a chocolate truffle sounds pretty darn good. I like those things. .... Andrew....???
Wednesday, April 18. I bawled a lot. So did my mom. We dropped off Elder Spud at the MTC. It involved Daddy, Mama, Andrew, Elder Spud, and I, and a silver rental car my parents got for the trip. It also involved a camera to capture some memories of this moment. Can I just say that it was a sunny day?
Ya, that whole "TASH! Keep your eyes open!" thing got pretty old pretty darn fast. I'm sure Daddy got rather sick of it as well, since he was the one who had to keep telling me to open up my pretty eyeballs. It's just that they can get twitchy from trying so hard to keep them open. You'd think that people would learn to appreciate my fine makeup skills and just call it good. Or maybe I should learn to masterfully apply eye shadow to create the illusion of a glimmering eye upon my closed eyelid. Then it wouldn't matter WHEN people took my picture. I would always be prepared! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! WHAT NOW, CAMERA?!?!
Observe!
Open eyes: Notice the bizarre squint that appears in the corner of the eyes, the unnatural expression induced by the strain placed upon the eyeball-keeping-open-muscles, the excessively strange shape of the eyelashes.
Closed eyes: Notice the........ natural appearance.......... of ........... that...... thing.......
Contrary to obvious appearances, those shapes are not Dr. Seuss fish, but are in fact mine own makeup-festooned eyelids. Also, I do not intend to sport a Grinch-like grin. It was purely incidental, I assure you.
Anyway, after we took lots of pictures with and of Elder Spud, we all piled in the car. I got to sit by my brother. I was in the middle because that's the smallest spot, and I'm still the smallest person. (I have officially given up on being a big kid. Ever. I'm doomed to this shortness. But there are benefits to being short. You're cute and you can get away with things.) Andy was in the backseat too, and he spent most of the 10 minute ride bracing himself for what it would be like when there was no Elder Spud in the car. When we got to the MTC, there were loads of people to tell us where to go and whisk the new missionaries away and show them around and help them to settle in. We parked by the curb slot #23, and then all piled out of the car. We pulled Elder Spud's stuff out, and then stared forlornly at him. We took some more pictures. I wasn't in them, because now not only was it sunny, there was also some strange blob of liquid in my eyes that made them even harder to open... at least while maintaining at least some semblance of a humanoid facial structure.
And then Elder Spud marched into the MTC. He's there now. He's learning the Thai language, and is already learning how to be both the most popular guy on campus, and also one of the biggest trouble makers. He likes to tease other missionaries. I shall give unto you an example.
Elder Spud and some other missionaries were studying Thai. One of the sister missionaries had made lots of flashcards to study vocab words. Elder Spud thought he'd be clever and pull a trick on her. He took another note card and wrote some random symbols on it (I think that he calls the writing "script," but I'm not sure), and wrote a definition on the back. He challenged her ability to name off all of the vocab, a challenge which the sister valiantly accepted. She was doing very well until Elder Spud pulled out his own card. She tried so very hard to remember, but it's so very hard to remember a vocab term that isn't real. She got frustrated and grabbed the card from Elder Spud and read the back: "Why are you so mad?" She was not quite as amused as was Elder Spud. Isn't he a goon? But he's also a great goon. We are so proud of him!
Andy did well to prepare for the departure of Elder Spud. It turned out that he had brought chocolate truffles as well as mint Milano cookies, favorites of both Mama's and mine. There was crying and bawling and missing Elder Spud, though he had just barely walked into the MTC. Andy patted me on the head and gave me another cookie every time I heaved a sob. You can't sob with a cookie in your mouth, can you? After dropping Elder Spud off, Andy and I still both had one more final exam each before we were done with classes. We made it through. I held so tightly to my chocolate truffle that it melted in my pocket during my final. My consolation melted. *sigh* I miss my brother, but I know that he's in the right place doing the right thing. And that is consolation enough for me. Except for a chocolate truffle sounds pretty darn good. I like those things. .... Andrew....???
Monday, April 30, 2012
A RED LETTER WEEK! (Part the First- The First Half)
The week of April 16th- April 23rd was a very important week for our family. A RED LETTER WEEK, as Daddy likes to say. I'd been looking forward to this week for months, because Mama and Spud were coming down on Monday (April 16), and then we were dropping off Spud at the MTC on Wednesday, Andy's parents and Gma (his mom's mom) where coming Thursday morning, and then on Thursday and Friday was GRADUATION for Andy and I! OH HAPPY DAY! Sunday and Monday would be family departure dates. It was going to be the best week since the beginning of this year! The only downside was that Daddy wouldn't be able to come. Daddy is a professor over at another school, and the week of my graduation was the week before his finals- it was hard for him to wrestle out of it. I told him I loved him all the same, and that I understood-even if I didn't like it one stinking bit!
The semester was wrapping up like a two-year-old wraps up your own junk with toilet paper to give you for your birthday: messy and catastrophic to the cleanliness of our humble abode. I had stress and insanity coming out my eyeballs till I couldn't see straight any more.
Andy had engineering coming out his nose, he was doing so many problems and equations and projects.
While it may appear that the stress load made his head short and fat, this is not because of the math above his head. I would like to point out that the equation pictured in the image above is not an accurate representation of Andrew's homework. His math involves a lot of pretty squiggles, some stuff that look like the letter S or F, some Greek letters, and [insert numbers and symbols here]/[even more complicated stuff here] kind of things. I just drew the kind of math that I can do! The chimes: Andy made a piano mechanism with a group in one of his classes- they had to do a project that would be able to teach 4th graders something about science. It was a neat project. Especially the part when he cut the pipes to length and hung them on our shower rod and started whacking at them with my 3 pound dumbbells. Ya. Real cool. Berg: Andy's capstone project was for a company called Schlumberger, but the boys called themselves Team Berg. I'm going to let Andy explain that stuff in his own post. It's really neat, but filtered through me, it would probably be more poorly executed algebra.
I just wrote lots of papers and did lots of projects for my English and Humanities classes. Holy snarkwaffles, but that was a long and difficult week. I seem to have snapped before the end, though, because by Wednesday of finals week, I was just floating along, not even caring if I made it to my last final on time. Andy was surprised, but noted that it must be due to the fact that all the stress and insanity had already seeped out of my eyeballs. (See below.)
When Monday the 16th came, I was all sorts of excited. And nervous. Andrew's Evil Test of Doomsdayness and Despair was the next day. He had been studying so hard, but if he bombed the test, then passing the class might not be an option. Unless we used covert action. Like cookies. I make good pie. The plan was to get Andy to bed early so that he would be plenty rested for his big test. Mama and Spud were going to rent a car at the airport and drive down the hour ride to our place, getting here at about 1:00 AM or so. I tidied everything up, then set up the air mattress, and set out blankets on the couch, and fluffed things up to be pretty and cozy. Then I tiptoed into bed where Andy was already dozing.
An hour or so later, my phone rang. Mama told me that she was in front of my door! I leaped out of bed, smashed my glasses on my face, threw a sweater on, and ran out to get the door for her. I made sure to close the bedroom door gently so as to not wake the sleeping engineer. When I opened the door to let Mama in, Spud wasn't with her. I gave her a hug, and went out to the parking lot to help her with the bags. I hugged Spud and dragged some bags up the stairwell with the two of them.
When I got back inside, I noticed a human shaped lump under the neatly made up blankets on the couch. I became seriously peeved- I had spent all that time making this all cute, and Andy comes shambling out of the bedroom and chucks himself in the cute set up when he is SUPPOSED to be asleep?! I was in shock and confusion.
That's right, folks! Daddy came and surprised me! *Please Note: I don't remember what I/other people actually said, only what happened. For verification of truthfulness of events, ask my mother.* Basically, I freaked out and jumped around, then hugged Daddy, then jumped around, then hugged Daddy again, continue ad nauseam. Then we sat down and talked for a long time. I was so happy Daddy came! It was the best graduation gift I could have asked for!
The next morning, we had breakfast, then chatted for a bit, then studied a lot more, and then Andy and I mosied on up the hill to take some tests, while Mama, Daddy, and Spud went to get some last minute things for Spud before he went into the Missionary Training Center. It turns out that my teacher had told us the incorrect time for the final, and so I was there an hour early. Oh well. More study time. I ended up being the third one done, so I felt smart. Andy and I both felt we did well on our tests, which is good. Andy's test mattered. Good thing he studied so much!
I got to hang out with Spud some, just the two of us. It was really nice. I got to talk to him about memories, and future plans, and how awesome his mission call was. He's only been in the MTC for a week and a half, but I feel like it's been forever. I am comforted by knowing that he's doing the right thing in the right place. (More about dropping off Spud in the next post- including my repeated failures with cameras. This was not my week with picture taking technologies.)
Wednesday dawned. The final final day. The day we dropped off Elder Spud at the MTC. The day we would be finished with college.
It happened. It was at this point that I stopped being invested in caring about grades or thinking. My brain shut off with my worrying centers. Mental productivity levels decreased drastically, except the part that came up with creative ways to avoid thinking. That was a go. We took our last finals, and then rushed home. We went out to eat at the Creamery on 9th, since Andy and I had to use up the rest of our meal plan monies before the deadline. We ate, celebrated that finals were over, then fell over and crashed asleep.
And can I just tell you something? Sleep is a wonderful thing. Floating out on the lagoon of sleep after finals week is like sipping cool lemonade freshly poured from one of those awesome fat glass pitchers. It's like lying down in the warm grass with the sprinklers going on a hot, hot day in July. It's like when you're at the cinema, and the movie *FINALLY* starts after all of those looooooong previews. It's also like being hit upside the head with a 20 pound bag of potatoes. You're just knocked out.
The semester was wrapping up like a two-year-old wraps up your own junk with toilet paper to give you for your birthday: messy and catastrophic to the cleanliness of our humble abode. I had stress and insanity coming out my eyeballs till I couldn't see straight any more.
Andy had engineering coming out his nose, he was doing so many problems and equations and projects.
While it may appear that the stress load made his head short and fat, this is not because of the math above his head. I would like to point out that the equation pictured in the image above is not an accurate representation of Andrew's homework. His math involves a lot of pretty squiggles, some stuff that look like the letter S or F, some Greek letters, and [insert numbers and symbols here]/[even more complicated stuff here] kind of things. I just drew the kind of math that I can do! The chimes: Andy made a piano mechanism with a group in one of his classes- they had to do a project that would be able to teach 4th graders something about science. It was a neat project. Especially the part when he cut the pipes to length and hung them on our shower rod and started whacking at them with my 3 pound dumbbells. Ya. Real cool. Berg: Andy's capstone project was for a company called Schlumberger, but the boys called themselves Team Berg. I'm going to let Andy explain that stuff in his own post. It's really neat, but filtered through me, it would probably be more poorly executed algebra.
I just wrote lots of papers and did lots of projects for my English and Humanities classes. Holy snarkwaffles, but that was a long and difficult week. I seem to have snapped before the end, though, because by Wednesday of finals week, I was just floating along, not even caring if I made it to my last final on time. Andy was surprised, but noted that it must be due to the fact that all the stress and insanity had already seeped out of my eyeballs. (See below.)
When Monday the 16th came, I was all sorts of excited. And nervous. Andrew's Evil Test of Doomsdayness and Despair was the next day. He had been studying so hard, but if he bombed the test, then passing the class might not be an option. Unless we used covert action. Like cookies. I make good pie. The plan was to get Andy to bed early so that he would be plenty rested for his big test. Mama and Spud were going to rent a car at the airport and drive down the hour ride to our place, getting here at about 1:00 AM or so. I tidied everything up, then set up the air mattress, and set out blankets on the couch, and fluffed things up to be pretty and cozy. Then I tiptoed into bed where Andy was already dozing.
An hour or so later, my phone rang. Mama told me that she was in front of my door! I leaped out of bed, smashed my glasses on my face, threw a sweater on, and ran out to get the door for her. I made sure to close the bedroom door gently so as to not wake the sleeping engineer. When I opened the door to let Mama in, Spud wasn't with her. I gave her a hug, and went out to the parking lot to help her with the bags. I hugged Spud and dragged some bags up the stairwell with the two of them.
When I got back inside, I noticed a human shaped lump under the neatly made up blankets on the couch. I became seriously peeved- I had spent all that time making this all cute, and Andy comes shambling out of the bedroom and chucks himself in the cute set up when he is SUPPOSED to be asleep?! I was in shock and confusion.
That's right, folks! Daddy came and surprised me! *Please Note: I don't remember what I/other people actually said, only what happened. For verification of truthfulness of events, ask my mother.* Basically, I freaked out and jumped around, then hugged Daddy, then jumped around, then hugged Daddy again, continue ad nauseam. Then we sat down and talked for a long time. I was so happy Daddy came! It was the best graduation gift I could have asked for!
The next morning, we had breakfast, then chatted for a bit, then studied a lot more, and then Andy and I mosied on up the hill to take some tests, while Mama, Daddy, and Spud went to get some last minute things for Spud before he went into the Missionary Training Center. It turns out that my teacher had told us the incorrect time for the final, and so I was there an hour early. Oh well. More study time. I ended up being the third one done, so I felt smart. Andy and I both felt we did well on our tests, which is good. Andy's test mattered. Good thing he studied so much!
I got to hang out with Spud some, just the two of us. It was really nice. I got to talk to him about memories, and future plans, and how awesome his mission call was. He's only been in the MTC for a week and a half, but I feel like it's been forever. I am comforted by knowing that he's doing the right thing in the right place. (More about dropping off Spud in the next post- including my repeated failures with cameras. This was not my week with picture taking technologies.)
Wednesday dawned. The final final day. The day we dropped off Elder Spud at the MTC. The day we would be finished with college.
It happened. It was at this point that I stopped being invested in caring about grades or thinking. My brain shut off with my worrying centers. Mental productivity levels decreased drastically, except the part that came up with creative ways to avoid thinking. That was a go. We took our last finals, and then rushed home. We went out to eat at the Creamery on 9th, since Andy and I had to use up the rest of our meal plan monies before the deadline. We ate, celebrated that finals were over, then fell over and crashed asleep.
And can I just tell you something? Sleep is a wonderful thing. Floating out on the lagoon of sleep after finals week is like sipping cool lemonade freshly poured from one of those awesome fat glass pitchers. It's like lying down in the warm grass with the sprinklers going on a hot, hot day in July. It's like when you're at the cinema, and the movie *FINALLY* starts after all of those looooooong previews. It's also like being hit upside the head with a 20 pound bag of potatoes. You're just knocked out.
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