An email to a roommate MIA

Dearest Katie,

I have to be honest with you.  Ever since you left, we've had a hole in our hearts.  We were afraid that our apartment would be forever lacking one, and we couldn't bear living like that.  But then, something marvelous happened!  We replaced you!  Hannah is great, but after a few days we knew that she would never fill that hole in us created when you went to Jerusalem.  This led us to think:  Is Katie the reason for that hole?  We have replaced you, you'd think the hole would be full.  But no, after a few weeks thinking on the matter, we discovered the real reason for the hole: Zac Efron.  He's gone, Katie.  You dragged him out of our home, and we miss him terribly. Hannah doesn't replace him the same way she does you.  We needed another "Zac Efron"-esque roommate.  And we needed him fast.


That being said, it was Jessie's birthday yesterday!  We had a party and balloons and cake and the whole shibang.  It might be worth mentioning that it was Tyler Nicholas' birthday as well.  Have you ever met Tyler's sister, Sarah?  I've only met her once, but she's fantastic.  In fact, she printed out ginormous pictures of Tyler and hung them up in the halls of Building 4 so that anyone passing by would be bombarded with his smiling face, with text on the picture announcing it was his special day!  


It is now that our two stories combine.  It is here that I feel I must also warn you.  It has been far too long since we've seen you, Katie.  Like, a whole two weeks!  You may have forgotten.  Katie, I beg you to remember that we are the kind of people who would keep a bottle of urine in our fridge until it starts to freeze and turn to slushy pee.  We are the kind of people who get very excited over a new product known simply as "Handerpants."  And yes, Katie.  We are the kind of people who take full size pictures of other people's boyfriends and hang them on the walls of our apartment.  Especially if said pictures are this one:

Yes.  T-Nick is in the house.  Specifically OUR house.  And though he may not be a celebrity like Zac, you've got to admit, we've definitely got the next best thing.


Hope all is well with you and yours!  Have a wonderful day.  And please, try your hardest not to miss us too much.  Crying like that is just embarrassing.

-Sara

Hot feet. The opposite of cold feet.

Marina's family is full of good people.  They think of her often.  Many times, they randomly send her money.  Other times, they randomly send her other things.  Like entire sets of dishes--plates, saucers, more different large plates, and bowls.  Oh, and teacups.  What dish set would be complete without 10 teacups?  None, I tell you!  Although Marina was graciously accepting of the two ton gift, a small problem arose.  And by small, I mean, you know.  Not so small.  We have a little less than 0 space in our kitchen cupboards (plus, come on Marina's family.  If we didn't already have dishes by now, we would have been eating like cavemen for months.  Cut us some slack.  We only did that for a few weeks).  Where were we going to put the mass amounts of dishes that had fallen into our possession?  Who knows?

But if you know us, you know that we are innovative human beings.  We found a small space on the shelf above our cupboards where we could stack all the dishes.  So we began.  The shelf, as I mentioned, is above the cupboards.  Aka, it's high.  And we are not at all high.  In height or drugs.  Which is unfortunate.  So in order to get the dishes up there, I climbed barefoot onto the counter and stood on the stove while Marina handed me the many dishes that were soon to call that shelf home.

All was going well, and we were very proud of ourselves for being so brilliant.  *Enter Tim, our FHE dad.*  We obviously don't go to FHE enough, or he would know to expect sights like this from us.  Let's be honest, standing on the stove is not the weirdest thing any of us has done.  Or the most dangerous.  One time Katie set a piece of paper on fire and then proceeded to carry it directly to the trashcan, which happened to be full of flammable materials.  Good thing the rest of us were able to put that fire out before it started, or we might have had an amazing blog post plus a less amazing law suit.  But I digress.

Tim began to stare up at us, with a mix of sheer amazement and concern.  He offered us a step stool in an effort to get me off the stove, but we were content and politely declined.  We continued using our amazing assembly line skills, until I heard Tim say, "Is the stove on?"

Without turning to face him, I looked at Marina and said, "Yeah, could you turn that off now?  It's getting kind of uncomfortable."  Tim's face was priceless.

I think I'm only good at thinking of one-liners when I'm being judgmental.  Keep that in mind.  If I'm ever able to think of a funny one-liner right when it's needed, you're being judged.  Or I'm just extraordinarily witty that day.  You decide.  Do what your heart tells you.

The Men Won't Be Able To Get Their Hands Off... Our Hands?

Real life conversation between Sara and myself.  Real life stuff happening right here.

I'm not entirely sure, but this might be the reason we're single.  Because we don't yet have handerpants.  And in case you're wondering, here's some information on how you can order six pairs for yourself:

I think my favorite part is the tagline: "your hands never need to go commando again!"

Matt Is the Best.

I have all sorts of problems with my computer.  I'm pro at picking up viruses and malware. It's probably all of those "You're the 1,000,000,000th Visitor" notices I keep clicking on.  The flashing banners get me every time, darn them.  Since my fields of specialty don't extend past Facebook stalking, hoarding candy corn, and making a fool of myself in public, I leave technology to technology people.

Enter my friend Matt.  I took my computer to his apartment last week and left it there with a vague "something is wrong, please fix it."  I picked it up a few hours later with high hopes.  Matt said he cleaned several viruses off and handed it over.

When I got home, I realized what he really spent three hours doing.  Messing with my settings.

I thought I was crazy at first, because computers don't talk.  Well now mine does.  Every time I turn it on, off, open a new window, open a new tab, click a link, etc., my computer reminds me that I shouldn't trust Matt with my computer every again.  It alerts me to system changes with a kindly "Matt is the best."

Sometimes, if I leave my computer alone for a while, it reminds me anyway.  Just to keep me on my toes.  It might be the best thing that's happened to my computer, and I kind of lovehate it.  For now, anyway.

I Love My Mom.

Really, I do.  My momma is pretty great.  When she's not teaching high schoolers, baking pies, or feeding the homeless, she's giving me dating advice.

Through Facebook.

texts to a stranger.

every sunday and wednesday nights in our hall, we have visiting hours. for two hours, twice a week, boys are allowed in girl halls and vice versa. i have a guitar class during the wednesday visiting hours, so i come back from class once a week right as the boys are asked to leave. this particular wednesday, we were left with this gem on our hall mirror:

i'm always down for a good thyme. especially when i don't have to worry about the repercussions of making a fool out of myself.

after some brief inquiry, i found out it was a boy's number- he was visiting one of our hallmates and left his number behind as a joke. a few girls in the hall had already called, but he didn't ever answer.

so i texted him. and our conversation went a little something like this:

me: hey. i'm looking for some oregano. can you hook a girl up?

stranger: Oregano huh. Depends who and where this girl is.

me: look i'm just a girl from pocatello, idaho who loves her herbs.* and you come highly recommended.

stranger: I think people misunderstood my message. Thyme was just how we decided to spell time. I don't have special herbs.

me: what?! i was really hoping to impress my fhe group with my famous oregano spaghetti sauce!

stranger: I'm terrible sorry to disappoint you and to have deceived you.

me: no, its cool. i get it, there you were, taking artistic license with the phrase "looking for a good time" and here i am, hoping for some high carb deliciousness. whelp if ever you're in town, you bring the oregano, i'll bring the pasta, and we can party like it's 1994.

me: or if you're more suited to basil or frankincense, i don't actually know what oregano is. just bring party hats and we'll call it good.

we continued to text a bit longer. turns out we both love reading, and share the same favorite books- twinners! the conversation died off a little after that, and i haven't heard from him since, but i'm still waiting for our party. i told him we should meet at chuck-e-cheese, as i'm pretty sure they provide party hats there. but this whole debacle was three weeks ago, and i'm so sure i'll never hear from him again, i'm practically deodorant. in the case of a mad part-ay, everyone is absolutely invited! hope to smerf you there!

*i was hesitant to say herbs- i didn't want to imply that i was looking for pot, and i think that's what he interpreted. although if i'm being real here (which i usually am), he could've maybe actually given me pot, told me it was oregano, and i wouldn't have known. "famous" spaghetti sauce, indeed.

we are the BEST home teach-ees.

recently, we were informed that one of our home teachers, tyler, was sick. more specifically, the boys told us "he's really sick. and also, he's dead." so we got to thinking. about once a month, tyler provides us with a great home teaching lesson, followed by like 45 minutes of fantastic guitar playing (sara and i are a little bit creepily obsessed with his mad guitar skills). what if he dies?! scotty, his roommate will have to take over sole home teachingness. which is not entirely a bad thing, because scotty is awesome also. but then we can't creep on his guitar skillz anymore.

and that just won't do.

so sara and i decided that the only way to make him feel better was to assemble a care package. at 11:20, we ran to the creamery and got him some power pills (m&ms, reese's pieces and skittles) and lots of chicken noodle soup.

but obviously no please-stop-dying care kit is complete without a card! we mustered forces with jessie and marina and composed this gem...

a lovely rhyme and heartfelt message on the inside, with pictures of his favorite things on the outside. i guess it worked, because he's still kicking. but for real- are we not the nicest people ever? just click on the picture if you're having a hard time reading our loving note.

are we mother theresa incarnate or what?

if you too want to fall in love with his guitarism, go ahead and smerf on this link:

or this one

The Rules

Several months ago we decided that, just to simplify things, the four of us would only hate people as a group. And it really did make things easier for a while. Every once in a while, one of us would just announce, oh by the way, we hate _____ now. And so we would. It's almost always a man. Make of that what you will. It never lasted very long though; we just don't have the commitment for long-term hatred.

Yesterday, though, things got complicated. It all started when Katie and Jessie asked Sara and I to save them seats in church. We did, but they were stolen a couple of minutes later. This evidently ended our friendship. And since they hated us, we soon realized that WE were obliged to hate us. We wallowed in self-loathing for a couple of hours before we were forgiven. But it got worse. Evidently, during our brief seperation, Katie and Jessie began planning for the Civil War. They started recruiting boys for their team. When they had recruited Alex, and Michael supported us, we suddenly realized that we all hated both of them. So, naturally, we spent the rest of the afternoon asking people which side they would support. No matter what they said, we responded, "Good. We hate you now." Many people were confused. There was no correct response. Except for what Asa sent, which consisted of just this picture:

There's no way to argue with that.

we ♥ summer.

today is a beautiful day. it's snowed probably four or five times in the last week. generally, it's been depressingly cold. so cold in fact, that i actually wore pants under my pants twice last week. but today is different. it's sunny. it's breezy. it's warm. and when it gets warm, great things happen....

...the track kids emerge from hibernation...

because who needs real men when you can take hyper-zoom pictures of shirtless strangers and then use the computer to zoom in further and check out their ab muscles? not us. we don't do that. we just shout things at them. after all, why not abuse the excellent view we have of the track? we're nothing if not opportunists.

it was so nice that even we were outside for a while, studying. and by studying, i mean meditating. and by meditating, i mean napping. and by we, i mean me. jessie and sara might have been legitimately doing things... but i was too busy smerfing the warm sunshine behind closed eyelids. anyway, enjoy this collaborative shot of people enjoying the beautiful warm weather. because here, it never lasts long.

now i'm three dollars richer!

sometimes, i like to think of myself as a crafty person. as such, there are various sewing/refashion blogs i follow. the other day, i was checking my favorite one and noticed one of the posts included a picture of a young-ish guy modeling a shirt the author refitted. said my-age-ish-looking guy was labeled as the author's younger brother. i couldn't help but notice that he was super familiar looking... but i figured he just had one of those faces.

tonight at dinner, a few boys came and sat at a table near where marina, sara, dallin and i were sitting. immediately i identified one of them as Blog Boy. after filling marina, sara and dallin in on the sitch, i began measuring how crazy it would be if i went and asked him if he really was the boy from the c&c blog. then i began measuring how awkward that conversation would be and decided it just wasn't worth the trouble...

until marina told me she would give me a dollar if i would talk to him. then dallin and sara offered to pitch in a dollar each, also. i almost never say no to free stuff, because i'm cheap- and i certainly don't say no to easy money! indeed, it was a strange and somewhat stilted conversation. because i don't know how to be normal. but nonetheless, i walked away with two IOUs and four quarters. win? i think so.

if sewing is your thing, or if you want to see the post, or if you just have some time to smerf, the blog is cottonandcurls.blogspot.com, and the Blog Boy post was written about a week ago about refitting t-shirts. check it out, the author is fantastic, and i think i secretly hope she'll notice traffic from my blog and come and read this and mention it and it'll be an awesome circle of upped views. true story.

Wendy's: The Fast Food Failure.

Did you know that at Wendy's you can "eat great, even late?" But only if you have a car. Multiple times we have tried to go on a late night Wendy's run, only to discover they will not give you fast food goodness unless you have a car and can go through the drive through. The first time this happened, we just borrowed a car from a few random men. No big deal, guys, don't worry. We're alive and still virgins.  The second time, we had no choice but to smerf back to campus and grab my car. Lame.

By the way, did you know Wendy's gives out their recipes? They print them all over the bags! They're going to go out of business if they keep giving out their secrets like this....

Also, have caution. Fireworks are allowed on the grass. Good to know.

Some wise wisdom. Or something.

YUMMY!!!!!

In conclusion, don't go to Wendy's, because they're racist against people who don't have cars, and they give out their recipes anyway, so you might as well just make the fast food yourself at home. The End.

our new friend.

i was talking to sara about the nice opthamologist i met last friday. she reminded me that he was actually a phlebotomist. then asked me if i knew what an opthamologist was, anyway. yes, i do- it's an eye doctor. then marina had to show us up. we're both wrong- eye doctors are called optometrists. then we started talking about optomologists, and got all turned around trying to figure out what an optomologist and opthamologist is. we still aren't sure.

but i digress.

last friday, i met a nice phlebotomist (guys, that word is spelled right- i googled it!). i went in to give blood after physical science and was settled with a phlebotomology (that one is probably definitely misspelled) expert named landen. remember that one time i explained how i'm crazy, but i try to dole it out? well that went out the window in his presence. i'm a rambler. that much is painfully clear if you actually read the whole first paragraph. when i'm nervous (i get realll scared when i give blood), things get much stranger.

turns out my phlebotomologist friend is good at rolling with the punches. when i accused him of not doing his job right, he didn't jab the needle in harder. when i panicked because i almost fell out of my tilty chair, he showed me how it goes back and forth just a weensy woony bit and told me to cool it- it's not an exercise chair. when jessie mentioned that she drinks blood sometimes, he was only mildly alarmed. most importantly, he only gave me the "wow this girl is insane" side glances a few times. guys, he's a pro.

finally, before i left, he asked me which color gauze i wanted him to wrap my arm with. i told him i wanted both. he asked what color i wanted first, to which i replied "surprise me." surprise me he did.

that's a bow, you guys! a bow, on top of the regular wrap!

anyway, sorry if you were hoping for a real story, and you read all this just to find out i'm done, and there wasn't even a point to this post. jeez, cut me some slack, it's two in the morning and i've been working on accounting homework for at least five of the last eight hours (ok, ok, at least 90 minutes of that five hours was spent smerfing the internet). on that note, night night, don't let the bed bugs bite!

-katie

well this is awkward.

turns out the unfortunate boy i potentially scarred is in the same physical science lab as jessie and i. there are nine other sections and nine other labs he could be in... but of course he's in mine. you would think i had smerfed mother theresa in a past life for the poor karmic synergy i'm getting lately.

let the semester full of avoiding eye contact and awkward hellos begin.

(of course i will keep everyone updated)

-katie

Our Awkward New Roommate

Katie and I recently got a new roommate. There are a few oddities about this person though. Number one, he's a boy. Boys normally aren't allowed in our hall or our rooms except between the hours of 7 and 9 on Sundays and Wednesdays, but somehow he got through the system. Oddity number two, there are only two beds. Katie takes one, I take the other, and to be honest, it works out because our new roommate doesn't sleep much. He does like to constantly get dressed and undressed, however, which can be a little concerning, but I've gotten used to it. He also likes to just watch us. All the time. He'll stand by the door, silently, and observe us day and night. I might have been weirded out and asked him to leave and never come back, but here's the thing: He's adorable. His smile will melt a cynical girl's soul, and, let's face it. When he undresses, his abs are to die for.



Oh, you want a name and a picture? No worries. Everyone, meet our new roommate, Zac Efron.

Don't you just want to smerf with him all day long? Yeah, so do we. :)

if he could've, i think he would've run away. screaming.

i had an encounter with one of the new boys in our ward yesterday. his name is britton (i think... he didn't stick around long enough for me to double check) and he is in the same physical science class as jessie and i. jessie, social butterfly that she is, invited him to sit with us, and then walk back to the dorm with us afterward.

it just so happens that i get a little tongue tied around new people sometimes, and i say all the wrong things. it also just so happens that i have been a bundle of nerves lately as i consider my various potential classes/futures. i've been really stressed the last few days about making sure i'm in good classes this semester that i'm more socially inept than usual.

with that in mind, consider what this poor new kid must be thinking as he walks down freshman hill with jessie and myself as i start rambling about my mid-year crisis and how conflicted i've been feeling. then jessie, trying to comfort me, mentions my mini-breakdown/cry fest the night before, and that's it. we've completely lost him.

i wish i could've told him i'm not normally so smerfing chaotic, but if i'm being honest... i'm a big basket of crazy. i saw him later that night and apologized while explaining that i usually dole out the crazy in little bits until people are used to me. but i don't think he understood.

tragic, really.

The Dumb Man's Guide to Dinner Dates

There's a youtube video that's been getting a lot of attention lately. It attempts to answer the question, "Can Men and Women Be Just Friends?" Ultimately, the students at USU came to a negative conclusion. To this I say, really? Guys, is it really that hard to just be friends? I would have supported men, defended the position that they are not just flirtatious beasts out on the prowl, looking for some innocent prey to attack, but lately I've seen strong evidence suggesting USU was right.

Exhibit A: There was a guy who was one of my good friends. I liked hanging out with him, and eventually I even started to have a little bit of a crush on him.

Then he went crazy.

He called me 8 times within the course of one hour. 8 times! And all he wanted to do was ask me if I wanted to have dinner with him. So, to all the men out there, here's the break down. To ask a girl to dinner, calling 1 or 2 times is sufficient. She'll see that you called and that you wanted to make plans. Even 3 times is acceptable if there's not much time before you need a reply. However, anything more than 3 tells the girl, "Help! Answer the phone! I'm dying, call an ambulance!!" Knowing this, imagine what I thought when I saw that I had 8 missed calls! Needless to say, I answered call number 9 (I didn't have to wait long, either), expecting a catastrophe. Upon finding out that dinner plans were the only thing crushing his skull, all I could think about was how much I wanted to smack him in the (insert body part of choice here).

In closing: Men, be careful when being persistent. A little goes a long way. Always remember that the twin brother of persistence is creepy, and no girl ever wants to meet him.

Happy hunting!
-Sara