A blog about blogging.

 

This is really embarrassingly true.

But I'm obviously the exception. Everything I write about is extremely profound and I find it of utmost importance and urgency, nay, even my duty, for me to enlighten the world wide web with my unique perspective on diet coke, food, and awkward stories about my life. How would the world function if I did not continually broadcast my shrewd observations and opinions?

You're welcome, people of the internet. 

But really, despite its vapidity and probable narcissism, I love blogging because it forces me to see the humor and laugh at the situations that I otherwise might not be inclined to laugh about. And I hope that occasionally, it makes someone else laugh too.

And if not, this will: 

If this doesn't at least make you smile, you need to see a doctor, because your funny bone is most definitely broken.

I am a spoiled brat.

It was birthday yesterday, and I was spoiled rotten. It was a perfect day filled with church, food, games, movies, food, and friends. And food. I spent the day eating all of the things that I would never let myself eat on a normal day, such as:
Breakfast: S'mores Poptarts. Delicious. I felt like I was on the verge of a diabetic coma after wards, and got very hungry during church approximately 20 minutes later. It was worth it. I'm not ashamed of the fact that I really love Poptarts and wish I could justify eating them on a regular basis.

Lunch:  This will probably gross some people out, but I love Lunchables. A lot. So I channeled my inner 7 year old and enjoyed a delicious pizza lunchable for lunch.

Don't hate.

 For dinner we made scrumptious enchiladas. I probably shouldn't mention the millions of double stuffed oreos we also ate, but there it is. To top it all of, a bunch of our wonderful Del Rio friends came over to celebrate my 22 years on earth by eating with me. :) We had rootbeer floats and s'mores and it was so delicious and sugary. Cary and I both conked out at like 10:30 after falling from our sugar high. It was a delightful birthday and I love our little life here in Del Rio.

Wanna see my birthday spoils? I recognize that I am spoiled rotten, but I am extremely grateful and suuuuper excited about all of my presents, so I thought I'd tell you 'bout em.

(Side note: Cary hates being in pictures, but enjoys taking them, so here comes a bunch of pictures of yours truly. Kind of weird to be posting a million pictures of myself, but I'm allowed because I am (was) the birthday girl.)

Cary got me BEAUTIFUL white gold hoop earrings, which I don't have a picture of, but I'm wearing them in all of these here pictures. I have ridiculously sensitive ears and I can only wear real gold, so now I have 2 pairs of fancy earrings that I can wear. Thanks hubs!

(Tangent: While swimming laps the other day, I foolishly forgot to take out my diamond earrings, and one fell out while I was swimming. I realized this after I got home and raced back to the pool, where swim team practice was going on. I figured my earring was a goner, and was about to leave, when a little swim team girl found my earring! Best day ever!)

Back to the goods. Anywho. My wonderful family-in-law got me a sweet new curling iron so I can stop using the glittery purple one I've had since I was like 13! So exciting. And they also got me nice new running socks, and I tried them out today and they felt so great. Much better than the holey Spongebob socks I've been hanging on to. Thanks Reeves! Ya'll are the best!

 My dad is a Steep and Cheap addict and found me this awesome GPS watch! I loooove it! After finally reading enough of the instructions to figure out how to work it, I am taking it on it's maiden voyage tomorrow and I'm very excited/nervous to find out how far and how fast I've actually been running. Woohoo! Plus, now I feel like I have to keep up this whole running gig since people keep buying me running equipment. Great motivation.

I love that is gray and pink!

 Whoever guesses first what this next present is will be my new best friend for life. Hint 1: It's a necklace.

I'll give you a hint... Theme song: Dun dun da da dun da daaaa dun....

 My little brother Ryan got me this hilarious shirt. If you can't read it, it says "Chinchillin'". Ryan has a love of obscure t-shirts, and I was so excited that he got me a present before he left for his mission! My sister also got me an adorable bracelet. When the package with the bracelet was delivered to me and didn't say who it was from, I was very confused. But I wore it anyway, and I was also so excited when I found out it was from her! I have great siblings.

And here is the only picture that I ever got Cary to be in. He looks so special. I love that goober.

 And now, introducing the newest member of our family... My new Kitchenaid! Do my parents know me, or do they know me? They got me a kitchenaid so that I could make more baked goods, and a GPS watch and running shirt so that I could burn them off. I am soooo excited to have a kitchenaid! No more exerting my rotator cuff while stirring. Yesssss.

And thus concludes an overall quite delightful birthday. I am so very grateful for my wonderful family, the awesome family I married into, my cute husband, and my great friends! Life is very good, my friends.

This just in.

What's good, homies?

I'm back at work after Cary's track select thing. I think my hands have resumed their normal sweating level, finally. For those non-AF folk (lucky son of a guns... only joking! Love the AF) track select is when they tell you what plane you will be flying for the next 6 months of your training. Cary could see himself being happy in any of the planes, but he was mostly thinking he'd be happiest in either the T-1 (heavy/cargo track) or the UH-1 (helicopter track). So, we really weren't too concerned or worried about the outcome, but I really just never miss an opportunity to be nervous and sweaty. Anywho, if you haven't facebook stalked me lately the verdict is....

The T-1 Jayhawk!

Cary is pretty excited. He was hoping for helicopters, but there was only one helicopter in the whole group and it went to a good friend of his, so he's just a bit bummed that he won't be flying helicopters. But mostly he's excited to be flying the T-1! In 6 more months, we'll have what they call "Drop Night" where we'll find out what plane he'll be flying for the rest of his career. I can already tell I'm going to be a nervous wreck. Do they make hand deodorant? That's a question one hopes to never have to ask.

In non-airplane news, I had a terrible nightmare last night and woke up screaming in bed. It was straight out of a horror movie. I was pulled over with my car on some dirt road, and this other car starts swerving towards me. I'm yelling and waving my arms and trying to get the car to stop and it crashes into my car, and the face of this girl that I haven't seen and/or thought about since high school (how in the world did she get in my dream? Where does my brain come up with this stuff) is all mangled and plastered against the window and her killer is getting out of the car to, I can only assume, kill me as well. At this point I woke up screaming my head off. And Cary woke up and reassurringly rubbed my back and held me and told me it would be all okay. Haha! Good joke. Cary told me to roll over and put a sock in it. So hurtful in my time of need.

Anywho, so that's what's new in the neighborhood. Happy Friday, folks!

p.s. Only 2 more shopping days until my birthday.

Traumatic Incidents from my Childhood, Volume 1

Life continues to putter on here in Dull Rio! In leiu of my uneventful life, I have decided to chronicle various incidents from my childhood that have scarred me.

Presenting: Amy Was A Weird Child; Episode One.

We moved to Colorado when I was in 7th grade. Could there be a more painful time to move and try to intergrate yourself into a new school? My 12-year-old self exemplified every meaning of "awkward phase."Let me paint a picture for you. Shoulder length hair, usually parted down the middle and clipped back on each side with the ever fashionable butterfly clips. I thought it was super neat-o to curl the bottom of my hair so that it would flip under and further my apparent goal to resemble a mushroom. I was very into Wet N' Wild sparkly powder blue eyeshadow, the only make-up my mom would let me wear at that age, and I applied it liberally. I was in that wonderful phase of tweenagehood, during which I was growing out rather than growing up. Short and stout would be an understatement. I enjoyed dressing myself in the latest Limited Too fashions, my favorite outfit being a blue glittery (are we seeing a trend here?) skirt with shorts attached, topped with a matching blue and glittery shirt-and-vest combo. I was stylin'. You may think I'm exaggerating, but just take a gander at these two beauties...

Yikes. Awkward personified.

Yikes again. But look how cute widdle Joshie is!

It should be noted that I was not entirely aware of my awkwardness. As far as I knew, I was the world's coolest 7th grader, and I was so excited to move to Colorado and have a brand new shot at finally becoming a popular girl.

After a month at my new school, I was disappointed to realize that I was still mostly invisible, and no where near the popularity status one would hope to achieve. I wasn't even certain that my teachers knew who I was, let alone the popular crowd.

One of my classes was a drama class (Side note: Why would they offer a drama class at a middle school? I think middle schoolers have it covered in the drama department.) We were doing little skits, and in one of these skits, I was supposed to be play a car mechanic. We needed props, so I brought in my baby brother's Little Tykes tools. They are neon colored toy tools that buzz and shake when you turn them on. I packed them up in a black tool box my brother had and trotted off to school.

The box looked just like this, but black.

I got to school, and discovered that my tool box wouldn't fit in my locker. It was too big for me to carry around all day, and I was slightly panicky about being late to class if I didn't figure out what to do with it. I decided to drop it off in my math teacher's classroom, and ask her if I could keep it there until it was time for my drama class. I hurried to her classroom, but she wasn't there. I was so worried about being late to my first class, that I just decided to leave it on her desk. I told one of the kids in her class to tell her what it was, but this message was apparently not received.

I got to my next class on time and it seemed as though a crisis had been averted. About 10 minutes into class, the fire alarm went off. We all trotted out to the usual fire alarm spot, and the teachers made us keep walking. We walked all of the way to the fence, and it was clear that this was not your usual fire drill. Teachers were nervously shuffling around, making calls, and whispering to each other. But all of the students were too excited about missing class to be worried about the teacher's behaviors. A fire truck pulled up the school. Not all that unusual, for a fire drill. We began to speculate that perhaps there was a real fire somewhere in the school. And then the police came. 3 or 4 police cars pulled up and the policemen joined in on the nervous chattering. The students started to become interested in all of the happenings. A bomb squad car pulled around the corner and joined the party. Men with big vests and fancy equipment ran into the school.

Rumors started to fly through the lines of students. Being at the bottom of the popularity food chain, I only caught snippets of hushed conversations. "There's a bomb." "In the school." "A big black box" "A big box that's shaking" "In the math classroom."

My stomach dropped to the bottom of my shoes. A black vibrating box. In the math classroom. No... It couldn't be. How would the tools have turned on? I tried to ease my frantic conscience by reminding myself that I told the boy in that classroom what it was, and surely he told my teacher, so this must be an unrelated incidence. And besides my name was written on the bottom of the box on a piece of masking tape...

No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than I heard "Will Amy Reichman please come down to the principal's office?" crackle over the P.A. system. I felt like a prisoner being marched to the gallows, walking to a chorus of "Ooooooo"s and "she's in trouble"s emanating from the harsh crowd of prepubescent onlookers.

Dragging me by the hand like a misbehaving toddler, the principal and assorted other scary men escorted me to the principal's office, where they all sat and stared at me for what felt like an eternity. I stared at the floor, hoping desperately for the carpet to rise up and swallow me whole. The superintendent of the school district finally spoke: "So, do you think this is funny?" I was not expecting this question at all, and decided to answer by continuing my staring match with the carpet. "Is this your idea of a funny prank? Leaving a box of shaking tools on your teacher's desk, in a black box to look like a bomb?" He launched into what can only be described as the scolding of a lifetime, detailing exactly why what I had done was so terrible, and all of the things that could happen to me now that I had planted a fake bomb in my school. He tossed around words like "expelled" and "counseling" and I sat there in terror, tears streaming down my face. I was too scared to even point out that it was all a huge misunderstanding. I just sat there, crying and picturing the rest of my adolescent life in juvie. The thought of spending my remaining teen years in an orange jumper was beyond my capacity for grief and fear.

After what felt like hours of this, the door opened, and my hero appeared in the form of a guidance counselor. This lady came in and absolutely threw it down. She ripped into the principal, telling him off for being such a jerk and correctly stating that there was no way I did this on purpose and had he ever considered asking me how my box ended up in the math teacher's room? The principal sat there in the wake of the veritable tongue lashing and grudgingly asked me how my tool box ended up in the math classroom.

With heaving sobs and scattered breath, I told the whole story. My drama teacher was called in and had to show the script that proved I was really playing a mechanic in class that day. The principal muttered something about me being really lucky, and I spent the rest of the day hiding out in the gracious guidance counselor's office. She let me stay there all day, drinking hot chocolate and trying to recover from the humiliation that I'd just endured. And I tell you what, if it were up to me, that single event would get that woman a ticket straight to heaven.

At the end of the day, all of the kids were sent home with letters explaining the bomb incident. There was an article in the paper about the bomb scare and it was all anyone could talk about for the next month. But it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. Sure, there were some who called me Amy Bin Laden, but there were others who high-fived me on getting them out half the day of school. There was no doubt about it; people definitely knew who I was now.

My mom snipped the article out of the paper, and I think she still has it somewhere. Over the years the story has morphed from a traumatic event to a hilarious misunderstanding, and I can finally tell the story without blushing all the way up to my ears and wanting to find a rock to live under for the rest of my life. 

Wasn't that a touching story? I should write a children's book.

Stream of consciousness.

You are invited to take a field trip into the inner workings of my wandering brain.

I hate it when my phone rings. It is almost always someone calling to ask me to do something. When my cell phone rings, unless I know for certain that the person calling is not going to ask me to play piano for something or make a casserole for someone, I never answer.

Speaking of phones, the effects of being married for a while now are beginning to manifest themselves in strange ways. Most notably in the fact that I very nearly say "Love you!" every single time I hang up the phone. This can get especially awkward when my boss is calling me.

I was visiting Cary at the Academy once, and we were with a bunch of his friends. I saw what looked like Cary leaning over and reading something on a counter, so I went and rested my head on his shoulder and slipped my arm around his waist to read what he was reading. After several seconds, I realized that I did not recognize the shoes on this person and it was decidedly not Cary that I was snuggling up to. I stood up abruptly, muttered some sort of excuse and spent the rest of our time there extremely interested in the floor to avoid making eye contact with my accidental cuddle buddy. The mystery remains as to why this guy let me put the moves on him for so long without even pausing to look at me.

 One time my aunt was at the movie store with her husband and they were wandering the aisles to pick out a movie. She came up behind him and gave him a quick pinch on the behind, only to discover that recipient of the pinch was not, in fact, her husband.

This same aunt once drove away from a gas station with the gas nozzle still stuck in her car.

We are very much related, can you tell?

Speaking of relatives, my widdle tiny brudder goes into the MTC today. We said goodbye this morning and it's taken a lot of self control to not sit at my desk and cry. I'm very proud of him and I know he's going to do great things and help so many people, but I'm selfish and I'm going to miss him. He always laughs at my jokes, which is a quality I find very endearing. He is a Harry Potter fanatic and is definitely bummed out to be missing the last movie.

I just read a review on Harry Potter 7 1/2 and I am not ashamed to admit that I have full-fledged goosebumps. Cary was supposed to be done flying T-6s this week, but they are just dragging out his last 2 flights, so he probably won't be in done in time for us to see the midnight premiere. Bummer. But Friday night can not come soon enough. Tickets have been purchased, Gryffindor shirt has been washed, and I am ready to cry in public, unashamedly.

In that last month or so I've been re-reading all of the books, and last weekend Cary and I had a Harry Potter movie marathon. This is me, raising my Potter Fan Flag high. I am not the least bit embarrased or shy to admit that I LOVE Harry Potter. The books are beyond magical and everytime I read them, I become completely engrossed in the story, even though I already know what happens. And everytime I read them, I have terrifying dreams about Voldemort. I am immediately suspicious of people who do not like Harry Potter.

I'm not sure what butterbeer and pumpkin pasties are, but I am positive that they would be delicious and I would love them.

I just learned from some google searching that Daniel Radcliffe's favorite drink is Diet Coke, and his favorite breakfast is toast with nutella. I'm pretty sure we are meant to be. And our birthdays are only 1 day apart.

Speaking of birthdays, only 11 more shopping days until mine! Hot dog. I love me a birthday! If you are reading this blog and we are friends and you know where I live, come to my house on my birfday for root beer floats and s'mores! Because it turns out that I don't particularly care for cake, and it's my birthday and I'll have root beer floats and s'mores if I want to. And if you are reading this blog but we aren't friends, but you still somehow know where I live, please stop reading my blog because that's creepy.

I prefer my rootbeer floats to be about 1 part rootbeer to every 10 parts ice cream. I really just want a bowl of vanilla ice cream with a light rootbeer coating. And when the rootbeer kind of freezes to the ice cream and creates that creamy frozen layer? Nothing better.

This took me probably 10 minutes to type. But if I just sat and thought all of these things, my brain would have gone from annoying phone calls to Harry Potter to root beer floats in approximately 2 seconds.

Sometimes Cary and I will be sitting around just hanging out and I'll ask him what he's thinking about, to which he almost always replies: "Nothing." I used to get mad and think that he just didn't want to tell me, but I've come to believe that this is really the truth. He describes this as his brain just "idling." My brain is incapable of idling. At any given moment, I have millions of thoughts bouncing around in there.

And what a wonder the internet is, allowing me to express each and every extremely insightful one of them.

The Extremely Friendly Skies

I always think that coming back from vacation will leave me refreshed and energized; still basking in the glow of recently experienced vacation bliss. But instead, I always come back and I'm very grumpy. Work is lame. My boss asked me how to spell "original" this morning. We're out of food. I have to do laundry. My khakis are still offensive. I miss my fambly.Will somebody please get me a waaaaaamburger and some french cries, STAT.

But really, coming back from vacation hasn't been all bad. I've been sleeping mostly on a couch for the last 2 1/2 weeks, and I am oh so happy to be back in my own bed. With my own pillow and my own husband and my own dog sleeping at the foot of said bed. I sleep more soundly with the cacauphony of snoring and grunting eminating from my 2 hairy roommates. I think that I have finally removed the last of the sand that made residence inside of my ears and nostrils. It is a bittersweet feeling. Everytime I found sand in various body parts, I felt like I was still at the ocean. Luckily, there is enough sand in my suitcase and swimsuits, the memory will never die. Also? I came home to roasted red pepper hummus in the fridge, and shut the front door, that stuff is dang good. It is the best thing that's happened to me this week.
Scratch that, finding 20 bucks on the floor at the airport is the best thing that happened to me this week.
Scratch that again, reuniting with my husband and scarfing down giant Freebirds burritos together after a long day of traveling and starving is the best thing.

And now, here comes a story about a very strange man I met on the plane while flying here. I flew Southwest, and I was in the A group, so I chose a window seat towards the front of the plane. Shortly after I sat down, a 20-something year old guy comes and sits in the middle seat right next to me, which is strange, beacuse there were still plenty of more desirable window and aisle seats available up front. As a member of the female gender, I will objectively state that he was an attractive man, but as I am married and blind to those sorts of things, I did not really notice. He was wearing nice clothes and I'm sure if I'd asked him, he would have rated himself a definite 10. It was apparent that he thought he was hot stuff. He sat down and stared at me, and I pretended to be engrossed in the current issue of SkyMall (Ha! There was no pretending, I love Skymall and was probably mulling over a Hermione's Time Turner Necklace Authentic Replica purchase.) Oblivious to my Skymall fixation, my seat mate decides to initiate some small talk.
Homeboy in the seat next to me:Where are you going?
Amy: San Antonio
Homeboy: Me too!
Amy: ....
Homeboy: And you're flying out of Alabama?
Amy:... Yes...
Homeboy: Me too!! (I could tell that this conversation was headed in a scholarly direction, now that we had established that our plane was departing and arriving at the same location.)

Still hoping for more small talk fodder, he looks down at my bag, which happens to be a laptop bag I stole from Cary, who got it at the Air Force Academy. He then asks, "Do you work at the White House?" To which I flirtaciously reply, "No." Well it must have been a flirtacious response, because he took that reply as an invitation to become BFFs for the rest of the flight. He asked where I got the bag, and I informed him that it is my husband's bag and I borrowed it from my husband because my husband went to the Air Force Academy and then graduated and now he's my husband and oh did I mention that I have a husband?

He paused briefly to consider this and then asked about my husband and how long we'd been married. I told him we'd been married for a year, to which he replied, "Oh, so it's not very serious, then?" I couldn't even think of a response. He moved on to the topic of Cary being in the Air Force. "So you're husband is gone all of the time, huh? Do you ever see him?" It was like he wanted me to say "Oh yes, I'm sort of married, but he's gone a lot, you're hot, and I'm a total floozy so don't even worry about that little detail."

The flight attendant stood up to explain the intricacies of an airplane seatbelt and what to do should a water evacuation become necessary (which, really, in a flight from Alabama to Texas, I feel like the pilot would have to be aiming for a body of water in order for that to happen, but that really is neither here nor there) and my seat mate continued to talk to me, even though I couldn't hear a word of what he was saying. We took off and I dug through my backpack to pull out a magazine and my iPod. Suddenly he grabbed for his barf bag and ruslted all around. I looked over at him, mostly to make sure none of my belongings were in the barf zone, when he pulled out his gum and stuck it in the barf bag. He just thought this was an absolute riot. "Hahaha! I scared you! You thought I was going to barf! Hahaha!"

After that hilarious joke, I decided that I was pretty much done entertaining this weirdo and I dove deep into my People magazine, thinking that he would not have any interest in the most recent Bachelor couple, but this proved to be an ineffective strategy. He peered over my shoulder, pointing at pictures and making commentary. If I turned the page on an article without reading it, he'd say "Wait, I want to read that article!" I decided I would just give him the magazine and pull out another one. He took the magazine and then proceeded to show me all of the pictures and tell me how my hair looks just like that girl's hair and he likes ponytails and have I ever thought of cutting my hair shorter?

Eventually he seemed to notice that I was not enjoying this little reading group he ycreated and he shut up for a few glorious moments. But then suddenly he blurted out:
Weirdo: "What kind of mattress do you and your husband have?"
Amy: "Um... the kind that you sleep on."
Weirdo: "What brand is it? What size?"
Amy: (insert extremely perplexed/annoyed/creeped out facial expression here)
Weirdo: "I'm only asking because I have a high position at Mattress Firm and I'd love to help you and your husband pick out a great mattress."
Amy: "Are you trying to schmooze me so I'll buy a mattress from you??"
Weirdo: "No!! I'm not even a sales guy. I work for the guy who works for the CEO. I don't get any sort of commission, I just really think we have the best mattresses and I want to help a cool girl I met on the plane!  (He stares at me anticipatedly, thinking I will suddenly swoon knowing that I'm sitting next to the assistant-to-the-assistant-to-the-CEO)
Amy: "I think we're good."
Weirdo: "No, really, do you like your mattress firm? Soft? Do you want one that's adjustable?"
Amy: "We like our mattress. We're fine."
Weirdo: "I'm just really passionate about what I do and my company."
Amy: "Saving the world, one mattress at a time."
Weirdo: "It's a pretty great job."

This continued on and on and on. He kept name-dropping all of these corporate big wigs that I've never heard of or care about and how he always plays golf with them. He detailed his entire career plan, and how he was going to be the CEO before he was 35. I was not even hiding the fact that I was very done with this conversation. Eventually he ends that little gambit and strikes up a new conversation by thrusting his cell phone screen towards me and showing me pictures of his sister's expensive pet cat that plays fetch. It was truly riveting.

Thankfully, the flight was drawing to a close. He said that he wanted to keep in touch, and asked if he could write down my name so he could add me on facebook. I pretended to be distracted with getting my bag out from under my seat. Still refusing to accept any sort of hint that I was not interested in being lifetime buddies, he told me how to spell his name so that he could find me on facebook. He had some super long greek last name, and asked if I was going to write it down so I could remember it and look him up. After I failed to do this, he put one of his business cards in my hand and asked me to keep in touch, but the only thing his business card kept in touch with was the trash can.

Suffice it to say, it was weird flight.