Where Have I Been?

...All your liiiiyyyyiiiifffeee?!?!?!

(That's a song, guys. Kind of.)

So I just *happened* to be looking through my blog feed on blogger and then my eyes jumped up and noticed that I haven't posted in over a month.

Oops.

I actually think that's wrong. I don't feel like it's been that long. Really, I don't. I blame Netflix. I got a Netflix account, and because I'm not a big fan of movies but I L-O-V-E getting hooked on a good TV show, I've been watching approximately 4 seasons of various shows per week.

Don't worry, I actually only did that for two weeks in a row. But watching that much TV seriously makes the days go by, like, super fast.

Actually, the main* reason I've been gone is because I'm working on finalizing my Capstone project which is due two weeks from tomorrow! What a relief it will be when it's over; this project is SO HUGE.

*Main meaning I work on it for the two whole days before each assignment is due. And assignments are due every two weeks. So however much of a main reason that can be. That's my reason. Netflix is the other main reason.

So basically what I'm trying to say here is...I'll be back in two weeks, haha. BECAUSE the FINAL project is due in TWO WEEKS...and I can't just wait until the day before to start working on that one. No more procrastinating for this girl.*

*HA. Heard that before.

I'm actually supposed to be working on that right now...so I'm gonna go get back to that. Basically the purpose of this post is so that it doesn't say my last post was March 7th, because that really bothered me. So, the cobwebs have been dusted off of this blog, and I will be back to dust them off again in two weeks!

And Then the Clouds Came Out.

My day was...stressful, mostly. Let me start at 7:00 this morning.

I had a speech today in speech class. A speech I was freaking out about. Especially since I had a dream the other night that I was COMPLETELY unprepared for it.

We had a lot of stuff to bring for it: an outline, a reference page, a visual aid, and a memory card so she could record us. I double checked last night to make sure I had everything I needed. And I checked again this morning.

Anyway, I got up early because I had to make sure I looked okay and everything, you know, cuz the whole class would be staring at me. My car was also out of gas, so I needed to stop at a gas station so that my car didn't break down or anything on my way to school.

So I leave earlier than normal to get gas and get there in plenty of time to prepare for my speech. It's 7:15 and I'm probably about 10 minutes away from my house when I remember a dream I had last night.

In my dream, it was speech day, and I didn't have my memory card. Thankfully, in my dream, the teacher had extra cards so it wasn't a big deal. But that got me thinking...did I pack my card? I didn't double check this morning to make sure I had it...did I pack it last night? I couldn't remember. So as I'm driving I have one hand in my bag digging around for it. And I can't find it. So I take the next exit, pull into a gas station, and do a thorough search of my bag. Nothing.

So now I'm starting to panic. I'm going to have to go home and get it. But what if it's not there? Then I would have just wasted about 20 minutes. So I decide to call my mom to have her check and see if it's still sitting on my desk. I call her twice, and there's no answer. So I start driving back. I decide to call my dad, even though I know he's at the airport dropping off my grandpa, just in case he's back already. But he's not. So, it's about 7:25 now and I run inside (leaving my car on because I don't have time to turn it off, and praying that no one steals it). Thankfully, it's still on my desk so I grab it and run. I'm in and out in about 30 seconds. Record time.

Anyway, I made it to school barely on time. I walked in right at 8, as opposed to about 7:30 when I would have gotten there had this little setback not happened. As you can imagine, I was a little frazzled the rest of the morning. And imagining everything that could go wrong. And feeling like I was going to throw up on the person in front of me (except no one sits in front of me, so I guess that's a plus).

But I think my speech went pretty well. Everything worked and I didn't forget anything and I stayed (barely) within the time limits. So, now I just have to wait for my evaluation.

By the way, I think the dream I had, and the fact that I remembered it before I was too far from home, was totally a God thing. Because He's awesome like that.

The next stressful thing that happened was one of my professors scheduled a test on a day that I'm not going to be in class...so now I have to talk to him and see if I can take it another time and then figure out a time I can take it which is going to be difficult because I have approximately 15 minutes of free time between the hours of 8 and 4 on weekdays. And I doubt he'll let me take the test at home.

And THEN to top it all off, I went to McDonald's for lunch and ordered my usual cheeseburger, plain and dry. PLAIN AND DRY. I go to eat my burger after I leave and it has ketchup, pickles, mustard, and onions on it. Not the definition of plain and dry.

So I had to wait until I got to work to eat it so I could scrape off all the gross stuff because it's hard to do that in the car. But by then, it was getting cold and the cheese was gross and the ketchup and mustard had absorbed into the bread. So, being the clever person that I am, I cut off the parts of the bread that I couldn't eat. And it still tasted terrible, and I almost threw up once (that's twice today, folks), but at least I wasn't hungry.

And then, as if it knew exactly how my day was going,  the sun disappeared and a billion clouds came out of nowhere and made the sky all gray and dark. I even took off my sunglasses. Y'all, I once wore my sunglasses while watching fireworks because they were too bright for my sensitive eyes. This is a big deal.

I kept thinking today was Tuesday, because normally these things happen to me on Tuesdays. (Tuesdays hate me, if you haven't heard). But thankfully, it is Thursday, tomorrow is Friday (Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday...haha. Now it's in your head.) and then it's the WEEKEND. My favorite word. (After euphemism, of course).

On the bright side, I was totally having a great hair day. It was all soft and everything.

I Don't Know What to Title This.

It's a sad day when you have so much going on that you forget to make time for the things you love doing. Or when you don't have time to think of a clever and catchy title.

It feels like AGES since I've been here. And I'm sorry I haven't been reading many blogs, either. But it kind of just recently hit me that I'm graduating in 2 months and I have no less than a trillion things to do before that day.

Okay, maybe a little less...but check out my to-do list:

• Finish online computer course so I CAN graduate
• Write an essay for character distinction
• Get 4 references from teachers for character distinction
• Get in another hour of community service with the school
• Write a valedictorian speech
• Take my senior pictures
• Figure out what pictures/song to put in the slideshow
• Create a photo/achievement display for graduation
• Write two essays and have a meeting for Accelerate University
• Figure out my degree plan
• Possibly take another CLEP (or two) before college registration next month (which I was NOT planning on doing), and
• Figure out what classes to enroll in at UTA (I have to go full-time due to a scholarship) that will allow me to use my time most wisely (i.e. classes I need to take but can't CLEP out of, that don't have a ton of homework so I can still work on AU at the same time)

All while still going to school, doing homework, taking tests, going to church, growth groups, and meetings, working 12 hours a week, AND we're about to start working on our big spring play at school....which means countless hours of rehearsals added in there too.

Not to mention, I have recently been diagnosed with a severe case of senioritis. It's bad, y'all. And it makes me not want to do ANY of the things mentioned above.

It's going to be crazy. If you think about it, I would really appreciate prayers as I try to balance all of this and still do it all with excellence.

Two months. TWO MONTHS. Three months ago, I thought that day would never come. Now I wish I had more time.

But, there are some things I'm looking forward to. Like PROM! I've wanted to go my whole life, and I started collecting prom dresses in eighth grade. (It was kind of an accidental collection. No one needs four prom dresses). That's in a month and I can't wait!

So anyway, the point of this post was basically just to blog, because I've missed it greatly. And to let anyone who was wondering know that I'm still alive.

But just barely.

Some Good News, Some Random Thoughts, and a Distraction.

I love distractions.

Well, no, I take that back. I hate distractions with a passion. BUT they are usually so much more fun than the work they distract you from.

For example, tonight I had the option of studying for a ridiculously hard A&P test, or write a blog post.

One is the wise decision, the other is a distraction.

Let's just say I'm easily distracted. To put it lightly.

I have the attention span of a squirrel. The reason I use that analogy is because I think squirrels have tiny attention spans. You know, because they'll start to cross the street and halfway through get distracted and that's why squirrels are at the top of the list of rodents that cause car accidents.

So anyway, in order to have a legit excuse to write this post, I decided to share some awesome news that most of you probably already know. But it's okay. You can hear it again.

As you all should know, as if I haven't mentioned it enough, I am graduating this year. Well...I just found out...

I'm valedictorian!

The good thing about this:
Scholarship money.

The bad thing:
I have to make a speech....

Not a fan of speeches. I don't even know what to say...I've considered singing it. Or rapping it. THAT would be memorable. But then again, I'm not a fan of being memorable....

Some random thoughts that will give you some insight into my mind. Or not:

• Today I saw a tow truck broken down on the side of the road. I found this ironic.
• I am really tempted to one day park in the 15 minute visitor's parking at work and see if they would actually do anything about it.
• Who is Joseph Kony??? Everyone is talking about him, but I don't want to take the time to watch the 30 minute video everyone's posting on facebook.
• I currently love the song What Makes You Beautiful by some new band called One Direction. Apparently they're British and were on X Factor. And like, I'm older than half the band members. Which is a little weird. But I enjoy the song. And boy bands. I have no idea why. I just do.
• Sonic puts pineapple in their banana splits. I thought this was weird, but it's actually not half bad.
• I heard a new song on the radio on my way to dinner tonight. I heard it again on my way back and discovered I already had half the song memorized.
• I just wrote an ironic poem about spiders for English. It's awesome.
• Spring break officially starts in 15 hours and 20 minutes. SOEXCITED.

I would go on, but I really need to study for this test now, or else I'll fail and they won't let me be valedictorian anymore. So, I will leave you with this picture that I found on Pinterest:

Go ahead. Say "awww." I did.

Happy spring break!

Worst. Babysitting Experience. EVER.

Okay, so normally I try to just post happy/funny/random/profound things on this blog. BUT last night was sooo frustrating, that I feel the need to tell everyone exactly what happened. And actually, there's a good chance it will turn out to be a funny story because it has to do with none other than more Kayla-deficient technology....

So, last night I was babysitting, as I often do. I mean seriously. I babysit a lot. Well, sometimes. It kind of comes in spurts. Like, there will be several weeks in a row where I babysit 2-3 times a week, and then there will be several weeks where I don't babysit at all.

Anyway, on to the story. I was babysitting a little 3-year-old girl that I probably babysit more than any other child. I usually don't have any problems with her. She did go through this one phase of, like, separation anxiety or something when she would randomly start crying because she missed her parents. But me, being the super-sitter that I am, figured out the cure for that: singing Old McDonald Had A Farm, over and over and over....

That phase didn't last long though. It was over almost as quickly as it started. But last night...I don't know WHAT happened...but she randomly started crying about 2 hours in.

"Why are you crying?" I asked.

"I don't know," she would reply. And then promptly stop crying.

"Do you want to play with your computer?" I suggested. She has a click-start Leap Frog computer or something. She was happy with that suggestion so we started it up, and I went to go make myself some toast because I had forgotten to eat dinner before I came. While I'm making toast, she walks in and says, "I'm tired!"

I look at the clock. It's 7. Her bed time is 9. I don't feel authorized to put her to bed THAT early, so I suggest she keep playing with her computer. She sits down but does nothing with it. She says she doesn't want to play it anymore. So I suggest watching a movie.

She likes this idea! Yay! A happy camper. So we pick out a VHS (or an old school video, in case you read that and went "what?") and I go put it in the VCR. As a side note, I have ALWAYS been able to work their TV in the past. But now, it's not working.

After trying various things to get it to work, I switch to a DVD. Well, guess what? The DVD player won't open. I try for a few minutes, then decide to try a different VHS. Still doesn't work. Try the DVD player again. Nope. The little girl starts crying. Fantastic.

Wait! I have a brilliantly ingenious idea! You can watch DVDs on laptops. They have a laptop. I have a DVD. Fantastic! I locate the laptops (there's two). This is so going to work and the kid will be happy and I can eat my toast that is still sitting on the kitchen counter.

Well...for some unknown reason that makes absolutely NO sense to me, the laptops wouldn't play the DVD. Neither of them. I tried both. TWICE. They wouldn't play it. I tried EVERYTHING. I opened 3 different programs on the laptops that should be able to play DVDs and I couldn't get anything to work.

At this point, the girl is FLIPPING out because she wants to watch Blue's Clues, which halfway through switched to Veggie Tales just making my life more difficult, and I'm frustrated and about to throw these laptops against the wall along with the VCR and the DVD player. But I refrain, because these items do not belong to me.

So, like I said, she's freaking out which stresses me out even more and I'm trying so hard not to yell at the poor child. I keep asking her why she's crying and all I get is "I don't know!"

I'm not even kidding, I was about to start crying. Seemed like the easiest solution at this point.

And normally, this would be the part where I tell you how I saved the day and fixed the laptop, we watched Veggie Tales and everyone lived happily ever after. But alas, that is not what happened. Instead, I gave up. Yep. I put the laptops away and the movies away and I said, "Okay, we're not watching a movie."

She wasn't happy.

Now this is the part where I save the day. She wanted to watch Veggie Tales so much, but we couldn't. So this is where my second brilliantly ingenious idea of the night comes in. I remember they have a Veggie Tales CD. Sooo I find it with my awesome scavenger hunt skills, pop it in the CD player (which is apparently the only technological item that is not part of the technology conspiracy against me), and she remains happy until bedtime.

Win.

So now it's an hour later, I've acquired a headache, and I still haven't eaten my toast. But at least the little girl was happy and there was no more crying--from either of us--the rest of the night.

I hope that ending was happy enough for you, because that's all I've got.

May all your babysitting adventures go much smoother than mine did last night.

I Forgot How Much I Love Christmastime.

I knew I loved Christmas, but I honestly forgot how fun it can be.

Actually, surprisingly, I'm having the most fun giving gifts this year. Maybe it's because I'm making most of them this year, as opposed to the usual giftcard. But putting thought into gifts and making something that you think your friends and family will love adds so much more joy to the gift giving ritual.

I would tell you what I'm making, but I'll have to save that for after Christmas. Wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone... :-)

There's just a couple people left that I have NO IDEA what to get for them. And Christmas is in less than two weeks...I'm starting to get nervous about it. AAAH! Hopefully I will come up with something.

Last year I made about 100 cookies and gave them to about 20 of my closest friends. haha, I'm debating whether or not to do that this year...my best friends are getting actual gifts, but I feel like I should do something for everyone else too...hmm, we'll see! 

What's your favorite part of Christmas? I honestly don't think I can pick just one thing...I love it all. :-)

Merry Christmas (a couple weeks early)!!

Tick Tock, On the Clock...

(Don't worry, this is not a post about Ke$ha. I just stole her lyrics.)

I LOVED my pastor's sermon today. It was everything I needed to hear.

The lesson today was on time management. "When you run out of time, you die," my pastor said. (On a side note, it made me think of that new movie coming out, In Time.)

Anyway, one of the points he made, and the one that stuck out to me the most, was that we have time--we just waste it early on. Then, when it comes time to get the really important things done, we have only a small amount of time left...and feel rushed and stressed.

Our problem isn't that we don't have enough time. We waste it. That's all there is to it.

I definitely have a problem with wasting time. I always feel like I don't have enough time to get things done. It's true, I really don't have a lot of free time....but it's also true that I don't exactly spend every spare second I have getting things done. I definitely waste time. I would guess I waste at least a couple hours in every day.

Can you imagine all the things you could get done if you were given all the time you've wasted in your life back? Let's see...we'll say I've wasted about 3 hours every day for the past 18 years. Obviously this is an inaccurate figure, but it's an estimated average, so bear with me.

People, that 19,710 hours I have wasted in my life. More if you take leap years into consideration, which I totally didn't because that math was too complicated for me. 19,710!! That's crazy! I could get SO MUCH DONE in that amount of time.

I could write a book...

I could make a movie...

I could spend a week in every country in the world...

I could build a time machine...
I could come up with the cure for cancer.

Okay, maybe not all that. But 19,710 hours is over 800 days. I could get a lot of things accomplished in 800 days.

800 days of my life...wasted. That's about 2 and a half years.

Wow. That's incredible.

This has definitely opened my eyes to how I spend my time, and from now on I am definitely going to try to get the important things done first, and then "waste" the leftover time. The sermon this morning was exactly what I needed, because my life has been CRAZY busy lately.

It's not that we don't have time...it's that we waste it early on. Those words have been ringing in my head all day. Truly a great reminder.

P.S. I hope I didn't hurt your head with all the math. Because I definitely hurt mine.

DESSERTS Backwards is STRESSED.

I would rather have desserts.