awkward days of my life

grody

2011-09-28T11:37:00.000-04:00

"So desperate for chocolate, she picked up the fallen M&M from the grody, heavily-trodden work carpet and ate it."

No, this is not a quote from a book. This is the story of my life.

To be exact, this was a text that I sent my husband at 12:07pm yesterday afternoon. And it is a true story.

Yesterday I was helping out at our front reception desk and I brought with me my daily snack of trail mix. My husband found these individual-portion bags of trail mix and I eat those every day to hold me over until lunch.

palm size bag of trial mix

I usually make a big mess while eating this. I can't just pick a few pieces to eat at a time. No way! The proper way to eat trail mix is to grab a fist full of the trail mix and cram it into your mouth at once, even if you can't quite close your mouth all the way because you have soooo much in there at one time. It's just part of the greatness of trail mix.

And when I eat, I also follow the tactic of "save the best for last". Obviously, the M&M's are the best part of the trail mix. The little bit of sweetness mixed with the saltiness just makes my day. So I eat all of the nuts and raisins first, and I have a handful of precious M&M's to eat last.

Yesterday, I happened to drop my last M&M on the floor, where quite a few people walk. I thought about it for a minute. After seeing the movie Contagion, I am now more aware of touching other people or my face or public items like doorhandles and hand rails. A carpet is definitely a germ zone where infinite germs or bacteria can contaminate my M&M. But I do love chocolate, and this was my last little piece for the day!

So I picked up the M&M, examined it for any obvious crud from the floor, and when I saw nothing unusual, I ate it.

And it was good.

Who cares if I felt like I was getting a cold later on in the day and had to take an Airborne to fend off sickness?!?

I'd do it again.

fascinating fun

2011-09-22T13:17:00.000-04:00

This summer has been so unusually busy for the Mr. and I. We are in that age group where everyone weknow is getting married and/or having a baby.

On August 27^th, we had the pleasure of being inAaron’s sister’s wedding, which was in Miami. The entire family flew out to Miami together and celebrated a longweekend of wedding festivities. We spentmost of our time laying in the sun or eating, which is the dream.

Now that the bride and groom have starting sharing pictureswith everyone, I thought that I would post a few photos of some awkwardfun.

It all started with a hat…

I was at the mall a month or so ago and I was trying to finda black dress to wear in the wedding, when I stumbled upon this frillygoodness:

i die

I thought this was probably in the top 10 coolest headbands/ fascinators I had ever seen and I immediately wanted to wear it. There are very few occasions where you canwear a fascinator. And because myinvitation to the royal wedding was unfortunately lost in the mail, I did notget to rock my pink lobster fascinator, and I was well overdue for somefascinator sportin.

I immediately thought of Aaron’s sister and sent her a photoof this top hat fascinator, telling her that it would be hilarious for us bridesmaids to wearfor the wedding. Luckily, she was a boldbride, and she was totally down. Score!

It worked out well. The wedding had kind of a 40’s vibe. The groom was dressed in a full on tailed tuxedo with a top hat, whitegloves, and a black cane. It was very snazzy. As it turns out, these fascinators were agood complement to groom’s top hat.

So let’s flash forward to Miami. On the actual wedding day, I was faced withmy first dilemma:

My office was currently having this big competition whereteams of employees competed to see which team walked the most miles over thecourse of a month. We all had to wearpedometers 24/7 for a month to make sure that we got an accurate record of howmany miles we clocked each day. Andbeing the competitive person that I tend to be, I wanted to win. The winners would get cash money money, whichwas enough of an incentive to drive me to desperation.

So on the wedding day, I was of course wearing my littleblack bridesmaid’s dress, and I had to find some way to wear my pedometerwithout having this random thing showing in all of the wedding photos. In case you have never worn a dress, therearen’t a lot of places to put a pedometer. It’s not like I could have pinned this to the inside of the dress. And there were no pockets or sashes to hookthis thing onto. I basically only had oneoption… I’d have to wear it on my under-clothes somehow.

Later in the evening, I knew that this would make a veryinteresting story, so I readjusted the pedometer onto my dress for a quicksnapsnot of my dedication to the cause:

4,793 steps and going strong

My second awkward moment came after the wedding. The bride and groom were outside of the venuewhile the photographer took some outdoor portrait shots. I had taken a lot of photos on my cell phone,but at this point I had not gotten a good photo of the bride’s weddingdress. So I went outside and stoodbehind the photographer, completely out of the way, to grab a quick photo. When the photographer noticed I was behindhim, he thought it was funny that I was out there photographing with my pitifullittle cell phone, and he told me to swap with him: he gave me his ridiculouslyheavy professional camera, while he took my cell phone. Then he took a photo of me awkwardlypretending to be a real photographer.

He definitely had fun making fun of me being awkward, and I got a cool photo on my cell phone. Well worth it. In this photo, I was wearing the bride’s 9 year old son’stuxedo jacket. It’s snazzy and I’vedecided to get one. One day.

Aaaaaaaand, FYI. I recentlylooked at all of the professional wedding photos online and the photographerdefinitely included the few that I snapped with his camera. They were excellent and actually turned outwell.

I will end with a couple of photos of me, my husband, and mysweet new fascinator. Everyone should own one.

Sorry for the blurriness of these photos – cell phone +intimate restaurant lighting = bad combo.

outdoor disast-or

2011-08-16T09:39:00.006-04:00

How to begin to tell this tale…

On Sunday afternoon, Aaron told me that he wanted to go4-wheeling with our friends Brad and Morgan. I had already made plans to go and visit my family, so I declined. I also declined because I knew that this wasnot going to be my forte. I have been 4-wheelingmany times. I love the thrill of goingover the ups and downs of the terrain and bumping around. But the risk factor of all of that hampersthe entire experience for me. I don’twant to honestly believe that we are going to flip the car over sideways, whichI do. And I don’t want to think aboutbreaking vehicles or worse, bones, but I do. I can’t help it. I spent too muchtime with my overly-cautious grandmother as a little girl.

And if you will recall, my last ourdoorsy experience with Bradand Morgan (soon to be married – YAY!) did not end well for me. In fact, it was simply and literally a pain in the rear.

So even though I declined this Sunday afternoon adventure, Istill managed to get sucked into this in the most unfortunate of ways.

I was sitting on the couch. I was finally home alone for the first time in a while (just me and ourpups). Our house was clean. Chores done. Errands can wait another day. Ihad been hyping myself up for a lazy afternoon with myself and my DVR of girlystuff that I can only watch when Aaron is gone. I wanted nothing more than to sit around, cry at sentimental things on TV,paint my toenails, look at my pores… you know… all those girl things.

my snuggle bug

Aaron had been gone for a few hours, and while he waspresumably knee deep in mud, I was knee deep in my girl shows. I got a call from Aaron around 6:30pm sayingto get ready. Morgan’s sister was on herway to pick me up and she was going to bring me out to where they were, whereI would deliver fresh clothes to my husband and bottles of water. Notice this: I did not say that my husband called to check on me and see what I was doingand asked if I wanted to join them. No no no. Iwas VOLUNTEERED . I’m starting to see apattern with this. Haha

So I quickly let the dogs out and tossed on what I waswearing earlier that day. Not thatanyone normally cares what I am wearing on a Sunday afternoon, but it isrelevant. I made an agreement withmyself long ago that sundresses are me, and I love wearing them allsummer. I am not a shorts and t-shirtkind of gal. Give me a sundress or aflowy hippie skirt any day. So I had ona flowy black strapless cotton dress and my current favorite sandals that gowith everything. I knew that this wasgoing to be the opposite of what everyone else was wearing, but my husbandspecifically said that I was going to be dropping off refreshments… not partakingin mudding activities.

Oh boy. You knowwhere this is headed. We drove about 30minutes away from my home. We pulled offof the main highway and onto this cute little side road. Then the cute little side road turned into aback-country road. Then the back-countryroad turned into a deserted gravel road with lots of litter on eitherside. When the road dead-ended into thewoods, we stopped the car and I was told that this is where everyone was. I then saw my husband pull up on a 4-wheelercompletely soaked and covered in mud. But I didn’t see anyone else…

Aaron looked at me and my outfit like I was an alien. He told me that I should have worn clothesthat I want to get messed up.

OK, pause – let me ask you. How many people own clothes that they want to intentionally destroy?? Idon’t get that at all. I don’t. When I went caving for my birthday trip 2years ago, I had to buy new pants for our adventure that I knew would getstained and muddy and possibly torn. Idon’t keep a stash of clothes labeled “to be abolished”. I’m sorry.

So then Aaron told me that I should change into the clothesthat I brought for him. Unfortunately,being the good wife that I am, I came prepared. I brought 2 t-shirts so that he could have wardrobe options. I brought gymshorts. I brought him freshunderwear. And because his last pair offlip flops were mysteriously eaten and pieces are still being found around ourhouse, I brought him my personal croc flip flops that are a little too big forme and we keep them by the backdoor to slip on when we take the puppies out topotty.

This is how I ended up in the middle of the woods on Sundayafternoon in my husband’s underwear (boxer briefs, to be exact), his gym shirt, andrubber flip flops.

I had to ride on the back of a muddy 4-wheeler through thewoods with mud spraying all over me for about 10 minutes. To clarify: I am not a complete priss. I don’t mind getting dirty. But like anyone, I like to be mentally andphysically prepared to get dirty. Idon’t like being surprised dirty and completely without any clean-uppreparation.

When we pulled up to “the spot”, I didn’t see anything oranyone. The parking area where we werewas about 60 feet above where the action was. We had to walk down this steep hill into this ravine of sorts that was filledwith mud, where I then saw the problem: Brad’s Jeep, which was the vehicle thateveryone used to get out here in the middle of nowhere, was broken. And by broken, I mean that the right fronttire was completely diagonal, and the front of the Jeep was cranked up and heldup by this tall jack. My first sign of“this is going to be a long night” was that Brad was trying to build a smallfire, and Morgan was making herself cozy on a fallen tree.

The guys then told me that they were going to get Morgan’ssister (still waiting at the drop-off area on the gravel road) to take them toa car parts store and then to Brad’s place to pick up his tools, while Morganand I were on guard duty. Brad’s Jeep isfull of valuables. He had a wench, nicebig mudding tires, a CD player, some tools… he had a lot of stuff in there thathe did not want stolen. Not to mention an ATV and a dirt bike that theytrailered to the 4-wheeling site. Andearlier that day some rednecks were out in the woods mudding in that same area,so other people knew that we were out there and having car issues. He reallydid not want to leave the Jeep there overnight and come back the next day withit completely stripped. The game planwas for the guys to run get the parts they needed, some tools, some Wendy’s asour reward for our guard duty, and come back and fix this little mishap withinan hour or so.

The guys left, and Morgan and I were alone. Now to their credit, the guys had provided uswith a couple of knives and a handgun… you know… in case of bears and/orrednecks. A handgun did provide somemental satisfaction just in case we ran into trouble, but neither of us wantedto see it or touch it, much less use it.

We started out singing Kumbaya by the fire, but then the firequickly started to die. The guys hadspent about 30 minutes getting this fire started. I don’t know WHY they insisted that we have afire. I honestly think they just wantedto feel manly like Bear Grylls and make sure that we had a source of warmth andcooking; you know, in case the sun went down and it got frigid in the middle ofthe NC summer and in case we saw any appetizing squirrels. Hey, it happens, right?

So, Morgan and I set out in the woods to find dry sticks tokeep the fire a’burnin. Just as soon aswe replenished the wood, it started to rain. And the rain quickly turned into a torrential downpour with full onbooming thunder and lightning, which was our cue to move our little partyinside the Jeep.

And that’s when the fire went out and the sun went down.

[I just read all of what I have written so far to Aaron, andhis comment was “God, you’re not even halfway through the story.” Brace yourselves.]

As soon as the sun went down, Morgan and I started to hearnoises. These were not promising orwelcomed or happy noises. These weresketchy. We heard bugs. We heard animals. We heard leaves rustling. We heard branches moving and shaking andbreaking. All of which could indicate anoncoming attack. The only noise that wedid NOT hear was the noise of rescue.

We spent hours in that Jeep. It got hot and muggy, and because it was pouring outside, we could notroll down the windows. The windows werefoggy, so we could not see out of them. We are classic American girls: we have seenway too many scary movies where there are a couple of blonde chicks in themiddle of the woods at night in a broken down vehicle, completely on edge, andwaiting for a rescue. The fact that theJeep was broken down inside of a ravine, meant that potential attackers andevildoers could look down and see us, without our knowledge, which meant thatwe were at a complete disadvantage. Ourmain thought was that someone was going to come from behind the Jeep and put theirface right up to our window and say “BOO!” or something like that. It was SO dark because we were completelyhidden from the moon or any source of light, and the windows were so foggy thatthe only thing we really could have seen was someone right outside of thewindow anyway.

We did think about turning the car on, but it is such a loudengine, and we did not want to attract attention to ourselves. We figured that if any creeper was out herein the middle of the woods and saw a sign of life, they were heading towardsit.

Then we decided that it is probably better to make ourselvesknown to any outsiders, rather than them seeing a broken vehicle and decidingto curiously peer into the car. So weturned on the Jeep and the headlights, which immediately made us feel a lotbetter to be able to see a little bit of our surroundings.

The guys and Morgan’s sister finally made it back to usafter a few hours. They had run into alittle problem on the way to rescue us. In order to get everyone and all the supplies to the broken Jeep, theyneeded to drive Aaron’s Jeep into the middle of the woods to get to us. Aaron’s Jeep is in no way prepared for thatkind of terrain. It is not lifted orbuilt for hills and holes, and his tires are nearly bald, so it had no tractionto stand up to the mud. And at thatpoint after hours of rain, it was reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally muddy. The Jeep got stuck on the way into the woods,which took them about 40 minutes to get unstuck, I am told.

The guys decided that it would be better if they got usgirls out of the woods and home safe before beginning to work on the Jeep,which was now going to take at least 3-6 hours to fix. Morgan’s sister and I needed to go to workthe next morning, and I think it was pretty clear that us girls were going tocontinue to get more and more restless and impatient as the night progressed (akamoodier with time). So we left the Jeep,in the pouring rain, and formed a conga line to trek up this giant steep hillto the parking area. The problem wasthat the clearest path up the hill was completely mud. It was slick, and in just a few short stepsup the hill, we were sliding and falling all over the place. We had to take our train off the beaten paththrough the more rugged and natural zones of the hill. This includes briars, roots, foliage, bugs,and probably lots and lots of poison. Aswe climbed this hill, poisonous plants were brushing my bare arms andlegs. And because I was wearing bigrubber flip flops, the shoes were wet and my feet kept sliding off of the shoesand onto the bare forest ground. Theshoes spent more time on top of my feet than underneath. In order to keep my balance and preventmyself from falling and taking out the rest of the line, I had to put all of myweight onto Aaron. I nearly pulled downhis gym shorts because I was clinging to them for dear life. At one point, I made him fall and I feltreally bad. I guess that was a littlebit of payback for forcing me off my couch and into this never-endingnightmare.

We finally made it to Aaron’s Jeep and headed out of thewoods, but it took about 30 minutes to get back to the gravel road. If you can imagine…..the “road” through thewoods was completely slushy mud at this point. And because these paths have been so traveled in the past, there weredeep deep groves/ruts (3 feet deep or more) of previous tire paths. If we wereto drive completely in the old tire paths/ruts, we would have gotten stuck inmud and we would have spent the night in the woods. So to avoid getting stuck, we had to drivewith one side of the car on top of a ledge, and the other side of the car in agroove. This angled the car to bediagonal for most of the ride out. Bradactually had to get out of the car and walk along side of the car through themuddy ruts to guide us all out safely.

Once we got Aaron’s Jeep out onto the gravel road tofreedom, the guys got out and left me to take the girls and myself home. The guys had left the ATV hidden along thegravel road, so they were able to take that back to Brad’s broken Jeep in themiddle of the woods.

We were finally out!! We were free!! We were headedhome to our dogs and a hot shower and a cozy bed!! I dropped Morgan and her sister off atMorgan’s house, and I drove my relieved broken butt home.

Then I got the call….

Aaron called to tell me some bad news (as if this nightcould not get any worse). The car partsthat they had bought to repair the broken Jeep were currently snuggled up inthe back of Aaron’s Jeep, which I happened to be driving home at thatmoment. And the whole point of this entireevening was that the guys were going to fix the broken Jeep and not leave it inthe woods to be ravaged. So they neededme to drive back out to the middle of the woods and give them this stupidrotten pitiful irritating awful greasy CAR PART, which I later learned was whatthey call a “ball joint”, which I hear is crucial.

My reaction to this phone call was “Are you KIDDINGme??? You can’t be serious. I’m almost home. How does this HAPPEN??? How can you forget tograb the parts??? Why didn’t you thinkabout this when you were unpacking the Jeep earlier???” To which Aaron responded, “I don’t know. Can you just bring it?”

The problem was that once I was free from the woods and themud and I had seen a glimpse of freedom, I forgot to turn on my magical mentalnavigation system that recorded my path home. I had no idea how to get back to the middle of the woods because I neverwanted to go back there EVER AGAIN! Atthis point, it was so late and I was so tired that I would not have found myway back to the guys. So I drove back toMorgan’s house, who by now was made aware of the situation, and picked her upand she got us back to the gravel road into the middle of the woods where ourmen were rolling in mud. Aaron drove theATV to the gravel road to meet us because if it were up to me to get to them,we would easily be on the Missing Persons report by morning.

And so Morgan and I headed back on the familiar path tohome. I dropped her off once again andmade my way back home to our pups, who by then had been unfed and unpottied forthe evening. At this point, it waspretty clear that this story was going to be my next blog entry, so I thoughtahead and started photo-documenting the night from hades. I snapped this picture of the clock when I pulledinto my driveway. It was 1:10 AM (notPM)… Aaron’s clock is wrong.

I took care of the dogs and practically ran to the showerwhere I had to scrub my body twice with a tough loofa to rid myself of mud andpoison. I crawled into bed and calledAaron to check on them once more. Iactually felt really really bad about leaving them there in the rain and in themiddle of the woods knee deep in mud to work on the broken Jeep overnight. When I called, I could hear Brad on the phonewith Morgan in the background. Apparently they had been using a saw to saw through some sort of carpart that was not cooperating, and the battery on the saw had died. Brad was calling Morgan to go to the garageand plug up the backup battery and let it charge for a few hours so that shecould take it to them. I was horrifiedand told them to leave her alone and let her rest. The guys decided that they would do what theycould to work on the car, and then they would take a nap.

I could not sleep. Iwas so worried about them in the woods, and I was paranoid about being homealone, which I am not a fan of. Ialready had a kitchen knife beside the bed and the dogs snuggled beside me, butI still felt like I had a big target on my forehead. I turned on the light and the TV and tried toease my mind, and around the time I did that, I heard a noise downstairs. It wasn’t the TV. It was most definitely from my house and itsounded like something had fallen. Ididn’t spend much time around the house before bed, so there were no unsteadypiles of anything that would have fallen made that noise. I officially freaked out. I grabbed my phone and had 911 ready todial. I grabbed the butcher knife. And I also grabbed this little battery-operateddoor wedge: you stick it under your door and if someone tries to open the door,the most ridiculously loud alarm sounds and hopefully scares them away. Here is a photo of what I was working with:

Thinking that someone could potentially be inthe house, I slowly opened my door and held out the door wedge thingy andturned it on to sound throughout the house and scare away any intruders.......

.........And it did NOTHING.  

Iwas so angry about that because I have never used it so the battery is stillfull and it ideally should work. Afterabout 10 minutes of tampering with this silly device, I realized that I hadturned the device on, but you actually had to press down on the wedge to makethe alarm sound. My bad. I tried this again. I grabbed the phone with 911 ready to go, Igrabbed the knife, and I grabbed the alarm. I opened the door and pushed the wedge to make the alarm sound. GLORY! It worked. I didn’t hear anyrustling in the house. All I managed todo was scare the HECK out of my dogs and myself.

I crawled into bed after deciding that maybe no one was inthe house. It was 3am at this point andI decided that I just need to find something relaxing on TV to get my mind offof my fear. I did doze off a few timesduring the night, but I slept so light that I would hardly consider it sleep. I was so on edge that any creaking or settlingof the house caused me to shoot upright in bed and look at the lock on mybedroom door to make sure that no one was on the other side trying to breakin. Again, I’ve seen too many scarymovies and I was convinced that someone was going to try to unlock my doorslowly and sneak into my room.

I gave up on sleeping, and around 7 something in themorning, I texted Morgan to see if she wanted to go and take the boys coffee,some fresh clothes, and the battery to the saw. She was already leaving the house and she picked me up on the way backto the woods once again. Obviously, Iknew that I would be absolutely worthless at work today, so I took the day offto hopefully get some sleep, and to cater to the boys and whatever theyneed to finish fixing this broken Jeepand come home! We brought the boyscoffee and Bojangles biscuits, which in these circumstances is like therapy,and they pulled up on the ATV to meet us on the gravel road just outside of thewoods.

I have been forbidden to post the picture that I snapped ofthem pulling up together on this ATV after a night in the woods, but it lookedreally bad. My husband, riding on theback of the ATV, had found an old polo shirt in the back of his Jeep earlierthat night, his only dry article of clothing left. It was bright pink, and he was wearing thisinside out with gym shorts and tall mud boots. Brad was wearing a button-down denim shirt and his boxers, as well as tallmud boots. Holy Brokeback4-wheeling! It was sad. Here are a few pictures from the morning:

breakfast on the back of the car

Aaron's muddy boots (mud was inside and out)

muddy ATV

this is a saw strapped to the front of the ATV

My story finally dwindles down here, thank the Lord. After dropping off breakfast and clothing, weleft the boys to finish up their work. Iwas told that everything that could have gone wrong that night with repairingthe Jeep did, in fact, go wrong. Hereare a couple of photos of their work site:

I made Aaron a “welcome home” sign in anticipation for hisarrival, and I heated up some food for him.

Then Hattie and I waited in the front yard for the boys to gethome. Aaron did not make it home until3pm that afternoon, he was covered in mud, and he smelled like the armpit of the forest. I still had not slept soundlybecause I was so anxious for him to get home, and the guys maybe got 2 hours ofsleep in the broken Jeep. Everyone wasabsolutely miserable and desperately needed a nap.

24 hours later, he finally made it home!

I can only end this story with a declaration:

NO MORE 4-WHEELING EVER EVER EVER AGAINFOR AWKWARD SAMANTHA!

fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

2011-07-28T15:15:00.005-04:00

I originally wrote this as an email to a friend. When I stumble upon some truth or something I have been searching for, my instinct is to write about it to someone. Not to call them, although I might do that after I write it down. But when I write, my brain is able to process things in a way that I can't usually explain clearly otherwise. When I write, I am able to see a wider scope of things that I can't normally see. I didn't intend to post this publicly, but I thought it would be a nice change for the blog.

_ _ _

Do you feel like you have fear of the Lord?

I think that topic has haunted me for some time. At the lower points in my life, moments of sadness or trial, I have been so in need of and in search of wisdom. And I actually took out paper and pen, and as I read about wisdom in the Bible, I tried to chart how to get it through verses that talked about it. I wanted to be a student doing research and find some giant arrow that pointed to a list of things to do. Instead I didn't find anything specific to try. I found a TON of verses on wisdom and what it starts with and the benefits of it...mostly from Proverbs, the wisdom literature:

Proverbs 1:7, Proverbs 4:7, Proverbs 15:33, Proverbs 18:8, Proverbs 28:14, James 3:13-17, Job 28:28, Job 38:36 - just to name a few

Most of these talk about how the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And get this, one verse tells me "The beginning of wisdom is: acquire wisdom" (Proverbs 4:7). Ha! Not exactly a bold arrow. As I thought about it, I guess the point is that we need to work to get wisdom. We have to actually seek it. But in addition to just asking for it, how do we get it? How can we be active and intentional in gaining wisdom?

I know that God is Sovereign. I know this. I love this. But I didn't know if I feared Him. That word fear is so complex. And the concept of fearing the Lord is a tricky one. I don't think of God and think "if I don't do this, God will be mad." Is that what He means by fear anyway? I am reverent and in awe, but my personal picture of fear is not an emotion that I would use to describe my thoughts on God. In light of God's grace, it's hard to live in trembling fear.

Then the other night I just took God at His Word (funny how that works). I prayed to Him that I knew that the beginning of wisdom was to fear Him, so I asked Him to show me how to fear Him. To show me His Holiness and Sovereignty and I would not forget it, and that all that I do is a result of knowing His awesomeness and fearing that properly.

Then today I read Proverbs 28:4-5 which says, "Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law strive with them. Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand all things."

My commentary added this: "When a person abandons God's law, he or she loses all sense of right and praise the wicked (Ro. 1:28-32). Since true justice is from God, the ungodly have trouble understanding it. This is why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (1:7)."

!!!!!!!

To me, this was just what I needed to hear! It was like God was saying "search no further". Not that I don't have more wisdom to gain. Quite the opposite actually. But I learned that just by knowing that God's ways are above ours and trusting His Word and His Will for my life, I am fearing Him. It was an excellent confirmation.

I just had to share that.

This commentary is also a really great thought for remembering the world and how people are now. Anyone who does not follow God's law loses a sense of right! They praise the wicked actively! They don't understand God's ways. They don't get it! They see black as white, and white as black and can't understand that it is wrong. They are deceived.

It's sad.

But anyway, I am thankful that God pointed me to this verse/commentary and I just wanted to pass this on. :)

bad news bears

2011-07-26T09:41:00.002-04:00

This morning at work I got a call on my cell phone from my Dr.'s office. The lady immediately jumped into telling me that they found some abnormal results from my recent physical. I was absolutely shocked and I could feel a slight panic start to come on.

Sidenote: I have had issues with panic attacks on more than one occasion. This type of news has been a fear of mine forever.

The lady started explaining what my next step would be, which was to get to the Dr.'s office soon for another exam. Then if results were not good from that exam, we would need to discuss a plan from there. My future was not looking bright.

Then it dawned on me... I asked her what Dr.'s office she said she was calling from. She told me my regular Dr.'s name, which I did see recently for a standard physical / wellness exam. But I did not have this particular type of exam that she was giving me a report on.

We then realized that I WAS THE WRONG PERSON! I could not believe it. This is the kind of thing you see in movies or Grey's Anatomy, and it totally just happened to ME.

Surprised? I'm not! GAH!

thanks?

2011-07-20T17:19:00.004-04:00

Today at work I received a neat handout that our office manager found with tips, guidelines, and courtesies for writing emails in a professional setting. One of the tips created a big debate. Here was the controversial tip:

"Do you really need to say 'thanks?' Replying with just a "thanks" is sometimes equivalent to getting in the last word during a discussion."

I may have mentioned this in the past, but I am not huge on texting. I have finally gotten in the habit of doing it just because it is my generation's communication of choice, but there is one thing that I refuse to do: I do not send a text message that simply says "thanks" in reply to another text. If I am going to thank someone, it is going to be a genuine "thank you for helping me with this", rather than being thrown as a confirmation.

And likewise, I have always followed the same procedure in an email. If someone helps me with a project or something that I need, I will email them a courtesy "you are awesome, thank you" email. But if I am asking a question via email and they throw me an answer, I don't send them a "thanks" email in return. Like the tip above, I see it as unecessary.

A beloved coworker of mine was horrified with this. She considered it rude not to thank someone for helping you out.

What do you think? Is "thanks" always necessary?

If most people think that a "thanks" is proper etiquette, I promise to be more conscious of this. However, an email simply saying "thanks" is not my style. THIS is more my jam:

Thanks!
;)

spamalot

2011-07-12T14:45:00.001-04:00

Since I have gotten married, I have changed my main email address. However, I still use my old email account for different things and I try to keep my new one personal to avoid spam, etc. Today I checked my old email account, and I saw this:

Yes, that is 666 SPAM emails. That is like a double-whammy from Satan.

If you are wondering how I possibly racked up on so many spam email lists, I think it has to do with signing up to be on the email lists for different stores to be emailed coupons. Once you make the decision to throw your email out there, it goes viral.

spiders, snakes, and rolling chairs

2011-07-11T14:06:00.007-04:00

I haven’t written any awkward moments in a while. I’ve had them, but I go through periods whereI don’t feel particularly…. (what’s the best word???)… artistic? I don’t want to pause to think about mystories and spend time recording them. If it were something huge, I would probably do it out of dedication…just to keep Awkward Samantha up and running. But for my every day moments, I am less motivated.

But today, I feel like sharing.

Yesterday after dinner Aaron and I decided to take our dogsfor a nice hike on a nature trail near our house. We have been out there several times and hada blast. There aren’t any other peopleout there that we have ever seen (side note: is that creepy? Walking through the woods on a nature trailthat no one else seems to tread?). So, we are comfortable letting the dogs run off-leash. We aren’t near any major roads, and they arewell-trained enough to halt and come when we tell them to. We all piled into Aaron’s new jeep (another side note: Aaronsold Chet, and he now owns a newer model Jeep named Leo. Much better on gas.), and we were excitedabout the upcoming family exercise. Whenwe finally hit the trail, the trip started off less than thrilling.

*******

The back story:

Aaron has gotten pretty familiar with these trails becausehe has been riding a mountain bike through here pretty regularly. A week ago, Aaron woke up with itchy spots onhis feet and ankles. There were a lot ofthem, and we didn’t know if it was from bug bites or if he stepped in somethingpoisonous. We agreed that he should notscratch the bumps, just in case it might spread. The next morning, he woke up with more bumps,and they started making their way up his calves and onto his thighs. Then the next morning, they were up to hiships and sides. To make matters worse, Ihad gotten [what turned out to be] a few mosquito bites on my feet, so Aaron thought that there mightbe something in our bed. After having abedbug scare a little over a year ago, and after purchasing a new mattress forour new home, I was NOT AT ALL pleased at that thought. Then we considered that our house had gottenfleas from the dogs (particularly in our bed).

At this point, Aaron was going crazy with all of theitchiness, and I was going crazy with the thought of bugs in our bed (andhouse), so Aaron went to the doctor to see if he could tell what was causingit. The doctor confirmed that they werebug bites and not poison, but there is no way to tell what it was that wasbiting him. We finally decided that hemust have picked up something on the nature trails while riding his bike. The bumps started to go away with some creamfrom the doctor.

Funny conclusion: there are no bugs in our bed, and it wasn’t the dogs that got fleas… itwas my husband.

*******

Back to the main story…

Because of Aaron’s recent experience with bugs and itchyspots, he told me to avoid hitting vegetation with my legs. I made a bad decision by wearing cut-offworkout pants, so I was very paranoid about that the entire hike. As we were walking, I ran into literallyevery spider web along the path, face first. To clarify, like most women and human beings in general that I know, IDON’T LIKE SPIDERS. And I reactedexactly like you would expect a frightened woman to act. I quickly started hitting myself in the faceto get the webs and/or spiders off, and I screamed and made Aaron examine meall over to make sure there were no bugs on me. And then I pouted for a little while.

I decided that I would then duck down behind my husband whenwe were passing beside or under any low-hanging branches. I used my husband as a shield. Yes, it is shameful. But it is also survival. I rest my case.

Shortly after, we saw 3 deer cross the trail ahead ofus. Luckily, they were far enough offthat our dogs didn’t really notice or react. But that incident caused a conversation about how there were livingthings all around us at that moment and how we were “lucky” enough to spot afew. Aaron used the term “lucky”. I did not agree that that was the best wordto describe our situation. I am notafraid of a deer, unless of course they are in front of my car or charging atme. But the thought of random animalsand creepy things all around us at that moment really made me paranoid. I quickly brought up the fact that this wouldbe an ideal place to find a dead body, which gave way to the idea that thereare probably murderers in the woods as well.

So now, in case you lost count. I am having to simultaneously watch out forthe following at all times:

1) creepy vegetation touching my feet and legs (look down)

2) spider webs in front of my head and upper body (look up)

3) wild animals and murderers on either side (look to my sides)

4) roots along the trail that I was constantly and clumsily stumblingover (look in front)

In case you didn’t notice, that is all directions around me,and a lot of possible threats to consider when it comes to taking a “leisure”hike with my husband and dogs. Not mycup of tea.

When we were in the last 10 minute stretch of our hike,Aaron and I were walking side-by-side and in my constant inspection of mysurroundings, I saw something move on the ground to the right of us. I looked down, and there was a rattlesnakeless than a foot away from my husband’s foot, and it was rising up, staring atus, hissing, and rattling.

This was the cherry on the cake for me.

Now if you know me personally, you know that I am not acurser. I don’t like saying curse wordsany more than I like hearing them. Butin the moment of shear dread, I let one slip. And by one, I mean the same word, but over and over and over again. I waskind of proud because in that intense moment, I knew enough not to scream, so I half-whispered, half-stuttered “Holy ___”over and over, as I pranced away by hopping from one foot to another, my feet liftingat least a foot high in the air. (side note: if you use the word “Holy” in front of a profanity, does it then negatethe curse word, or does it make it worse?)

After I had ran about the length of a football field, Iyelled to Aaron, who was far behind me, “is the snake following me???” Aaron told me no and told me to stop and waitfor him, but I was so scared to stand still because a snake might try to attackme. So my solution was to stand in the same placebut to hop. I don’t know why, but itmade me feel a lot better.

We reached the end of our hike and I have never been sopleased to jump into a burning hot Jeep before in my life. When we got home, I ran to the shower, andwhile washing off all of the hiking trail cooties, I found a tick on myleg.

I had had enough action for one week. I was done. Needless to say, everyone was tired from that adventure and we all got anice night of sleep.

And now for the rolling chair.

This morning I was at my desk working. I have a habit of taking off my shoes undermy desk. As I was sitting in my rollyoffice chair, I pushed back the chair from the desk to stand, and when I did, Iran over my own toe. But it wasn’t asmooth hit-and run. I actually ran over-topmy toe, and my toe somehow got wedged in the little wheel piece. So I had to yank my toe out. I think I was so startled that my toe wasstuck that my automatic reaction was to yank. It was not a planned procedure. So now I have a busted-up bloody toe.

Not my week, folks. Not my week.

have you ever?!?

2011-04-27T13:00:00.000-04:00

Ok... I have to admit that I probably eat a few foods or combination of foods that are strange. For example, I have been known to put ketchup on macaroni and cheese (boxed, not homemade) and green beans. When out of milk, I have put a little bit of Sunny D in my cheerios and it was pretty good. I love grape jelly on egg sandwiches. Anyone?

Mine are pretty tame, I think.

My Nanny is famous for her peanut butter and mustard sandwiches. I have thought that this was the oddest combination known to man for years... until I got married.

My sweet husband has a very unusual way of eating his spaghetti. My family does spaghetti night once a week, and as a side we have salads to go with it. After Aaron and I got married and started joining my family for spaghetti nights, I noticed that my husband now wins the "weirdest food combo" award.

You ready?

Check it:

HE COMBINES HIS SPAGHETTI AND SALAD AND EATS IT ALL MIXED TOGETHER! That just can't be good! The lettuce will get all soggy!! NOOOOO!!!!!!

GASP! Spaghetti is my all time favorite food (just before Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts). To me, this is just wrong. Who messes with spaghetti, other than the occasional splash of hot sauce?!?

i just wanna dance

2011-04-22T14:02:00.003-04:00

Where can I sign up for this?

Incredible!

cornhole madness

2011-04-19T14:12:00.000-04:00

For Christmas Aaron and I received these beautiful homemade cornhole boards. I am a Carolina girl, and Aaron is/was a State fan. [I say “was” because he recently went with me to a UNC game and loved it, though he would never admit it. I think he is now a closet UNC fan, but shhhh…]

We have had several opportunities to break these bad boys out this year. I have a feeling that our house will be the gathering place for our family and nearby friends on the weekends this summer.

The other night my family came over for coffee and we all ended up breaking out the cornhole boards. We had one round with my sister and I on a team, and my stepdad and my brother on a team. I am proud to report that sissy and I won big time. I believe the term would be “slaughtered”. : )

For the second round, my mom took my place on a team with my sister, and Aaron took my stepdad’s spot on the team with my brother. My mom and Aaron were standing on one side of the yard and my brother and sister were on the other side.

Observe:

blurry, but you get the point

The game began with everyone excited and cheering each other on. Everyone was very encouraging, even if the other team scored. As the game progressed, my mother started to get really into the game. She would not settle for scoring the small points by getting a beanbag on the board… oh no… she was throwing to make it in the hole. When my mother finally made a shot into the hole, she turned to my husband, and in a scruffy a serious voice said,

........“Put that in your pipe and smoke it, buddy!”

HAHA. I don’t know if this was a complete “you had to be there” story, but I thought that was SO funny. Aaron was completely taken aback because my mother randomly turned evil for 2.5 seconds while basking in her cornhole glory. It was hilarious. I love that she said “buddy”. hahaha

the tornado

2011-04-18T09:28:00.001-04:00

This Saturday I visited my family at my Nanny’s house in Pinetown. We celebrated my cousin’s birthday with some excellent soul food (yum!), and had a great time just hanging out and catching up.

I rode with my Mama, Stepdad, and Brother & Sister to Nanny’s and back. We knew that there was going to be a big storm to hit Central and Eastern NC that evening, so we left a little early to get back home safely. On the way home, I spoke with my husband who told me that there had been 3 tornadoes to hit the Triangle area (back home), and they were headed East, which is where we were at the time. We had about an hour of driving left until we reached home.

On the ride home, the sky in front of us started to turn black. Eventually we got a little bit of rain, but nothing substantial. We reached our exit for home, and we turned off on the exit . As soon as we got off, the black clouds in front of us started to move lower and lower in a triangular funnel formation. My stepdad was the only person in the family who had ever seen a tornado, and he warned us that this is how it begins. So we braced ourselves for a show.

Within minutes, a tornado formed right to our left. Fortunately, it was far enough away to not affect us other than rain. It was my first time seeing anything like this, so I was a little excited and managed to snap some pictures:

I am so thankful to God that we didn’t experience any damage on the road during our travels, or at home. Our houses were perfectly standing, and there was no lawn damage. However, there are so many people who lost homes, belongings, and loved ones during this storm so our prayers go out to them!!

smart tricky tricky

2011-04-14T09:49:00.001-04:00

Our little puppy girl Hattie May is now just over 5 months old. She is the sweetest puppy, but she does have some moments where she is a little punk.

One afternoon last week, Aaron came home from work early and wanted to take a nap on the couch before heading to the gym.

When Aaron sleeps, he usually has what he refers to as the “dead hand”… where he sleeps with a hand flopped over the side of the bed/couch, usually palm-side up.

Kind of like this:

the "dead hand"

As he was dozing on the couch, he woke up to find a sock laying in his “dead hand”. He was really confused, and when he looked around the living room, he saw Hattie sitting nearby and staring at him. When they made eye contact, she started to playfully growl. He then realized that Hattie had placed the sock in his hand so that he would play her new favorite game: tug-of-war.

At that point Aaron was in no mood to play, so he dropped the sock back on the floor and went back to sleep. Shortly after, Hattie picked up the sock again and placed it into his “dead hand”, but this time she did not just leave it there. Instead, she held on to the sock with her teeth and started to slowly pull it from his hand in order to make him grab on to it. She is so smart!

When Aaron realized that Hattie was trying to call the shots, he really did not want to give in. We have read that it is good for the “pack leader” (aka us, on most days) to initiate and conclude play time. A dog should not tell the owner when to play and what to do, etc. So Aaron decided to turn over completely, removing his “dead hand” and facing away from Hattie.

He probably got one minute of rest in there before Hattie jumped onto the couch and sat on his head! What a mess!

How can you say no to that little face!!

techno torture

2011-04-12T10:20:00.003-04:00

I think that my prankster spirit thrives on [playfully] torturing people.

One evening my husband and I were working out at our gym. One thing that we like about our gym is that they play awesome music over the speakers. We don't even need to use our iPods because their music is great, and iPods get in the way anyway. On this particular evening, this techno song came over the loudspeaker and it had a great beat. I quickly picked up on the lyrics, but that may be because the only lyrics are “Barbra Streisand”.

I walked over to Aaron and pointed out that these song lyrics were too complicated (haha). He remarked that the song was driving him crazy and he could not wait for it to end – you know how techno songs are…they’re like the energizer bunny.

Ever since that evening, whenever there is silence in our house, I will pull up that song my phone and chase him around the house. It’s great fun.

I encourage everyone to check out this song and find someone to [playfully] torture with it.

the moustache

2011-04-11T10:53:00.010-04:00

Our house is the moustache of our neighborhood.

I realized this earlier last week when we were pulling into our neighborhood and saw how much our house stuck out like a sore thumb. To illustrate this analogy of being the “moustache” of the neighborhood, let’s observe Tom Selleck.

This is a great moustache. But don’t get distracted with that just yet. What else do you see?

I’ll answer for you: Handsome face, nice features, orderly, and aside from the moustache, clean cut.

Like Tom’s face, our neighborhood is very handsome and tidy. We have rules about maintaining the overall appeal of our neighborhood, like most communities do. They prefer people not to park on the street, but in their garage or driveway. They encourage you to maintain your lawn regularly. That sort of thing.

Well, Aaron and I have the moustache of the neighborhood, or the only hairy part of the face, if you will. When we bought our house, we inherited the worst yard in the entire community. This is no exaggeration. Our lawn doesn’t have grass. It has weeds. We have very little “green” in our yard… it’s all brown, baby.

Here is the photo from when our house was up for sale. As you can see, we have quite a bit of brown and/or empty patches. Sad:

What you CAN’T see in this photo is the gorgeous neighboring lawns. We happen to live in between the 2 prettiest lawns in the neighborhood. Our neighbors are big maintainers of their yards. There is never a stray leaf in their yard. There are no brown spots to report, not even in the middle of winter. Their gardens are ALWAYS properly weeded and mulched. They are the epitome of lawn perfection. They make us look like we just don't care!

In fact, Aaron told me recently that he heard that one of our neighbors adds something in their dog's water so that the dog's "potty" doesn't discolor their grass! I had NO idea that this was an option, and I definitely don't care if the dogs discolor our weeds. But this is just one example of what we are working with here... our neighbors have P-E-R-F-E-C-T lawns. Observe. This is one neighbor's house. She sets the tone for our neighborhood as you pull into our community.

quintessential lawn

Look at how green and perfect her grass is! One time our pup Hattie May ran over into her yard to investigate and I had to run into the neighbor's yard to fetch my dog. I felt like I was stomping on her bed. It was like walking on pillows of green.

Now for our house.... Try to imagine the contrast here.... You are driving through a pretty neighborhood.... Birds are chirping.... Children are laughing.... The sky is blue and the grass is green. Then you randomly pass by a house with a lawn that looks like THIS:

BAM! The icing on the cake is our car Chet. We are THOSE people of the neighborhood... taking things down a notch (or two). Awkward!

So this weekend I was taking the pups outside to play and I was once again reminded of our ugly garden in the front yard. There are some bushes against our house that have been driving me crazy! They are small bushes, but they have random wild and unruly branches that stick out in all directions. They need to be pruned, but the bulk of these bushes would be so small and sad-looking if I trimmed them down. Well this weekend I was bound and determined to fix up our garden. The only problem is... I did not have a single clue as to what I was doing! I have never before been a "doer" of yard work. Ever. Not even a little.

Since I have never before owned a garden, I called my Mama in for reinforcement. I called her and said "hey mom, come over and help me fix my garden. Bring your hoe." I realized afterwards that sounded awkward.

[Funny sidenote: my mom got her hair cut on Saturday and it is shorter than she had planned. So I have been calling her Mama Degeneras all weekend. haha]

Mama came over and we immediately got to work. She pointed out that those white hay-looking strands covering all of our gardens around our house are actually weeds. We are so infested with joint-grass that you could hardly see the soil beneath. We spent a great part of the day pulling up joint grass and other random weeds.

Now I am still a little unsure of how I did this, but my theory is that I pulled weeds so lively and artistically that I busted a blood vessel in my finger. But check it, injuries are just part of the job.

Aaron teases me because I get random injuries during my projects that make me look like a goober.

While making our way around the house, we found that one of our bushes had a tree growing out of the side of it. Not only was this the most ridiculous looking thing you've ever seen, but I can't imagine how that tree got there! I sadly did not capture a picture of this before chopping down that tree, but this is a good illustration of what it would look like 2 years from now if untouched (ours was more in the beginning phase):

After tidying up the garden significantly, we decided to plant some flowers to make our gardens colorful and pretty. I LOVE hydrangeas, so we planted two sections of those. I also love tulips, so we found planters of 4-5 bulbs for $5 and planted a few of those by our mailbox. If you look back at the photo of our yard, you will notice that there is nothing by our mailbox. It probably used to be a garden, but now it is just flattened earth. Here is that patch after we planted the flowers:

the dutch girl planted tulips

This is the first time that our yard has been introduced to mulch. We intend to do the rest of the yard soon, but for now, it's just our mailbox garden that is lookin cool.

I have to say, I am very proud how everything turned out. I spent the day pulling, planting, pruning, and just learning a thing or two about gardening in general. Now we don't have to worry about random trees growing out of our bushes, we have some flowers that are going to be very pretty one day, our bushes are a little less unruly, and we have one tiny section of garden that has mulch!

Just to sum up how bad our yard used to be, when Aaron looked around our house and saw all of the work I had done, he commented, "I think there's at least another house that looks worse than ours now." The sad thing was, he wasn't trying to be funny at all.

gladiator wannabe

2011-03-31T10:02:00.000-04:00

I just signed up for something that I'm not sure I'll be able to do. My office has a team in a local Gladiator 5K in May. I have never ever participated in a race of any sort (Wait.. does Field Day in grade school count?). And the closest thing I have ever done to being a Gladiator is wearing a toga.

The race is 3.1 miles, and there are all sorts of obstacles. Check it:

Gladiator bars

Walls

Cargo nets

Ab crawl (crawling under cammo-nets)

Tires

Tunnels

Battle walls

Balance beams

Rope bridges

Monkey bars

Fence jumps

And the highlight obstacle – a Mud Pit!

What am I thinking?!? I am NOT a runner in any sense of the word. In fact, I would go as far to say that I HATE running. But I am VERY excited about the obstacle courses. Even though I am not a runner, I am a scrapper. I am one of the most stubborn human beings on the planet (ask my husband) and I won’t give up a challenge.

Bring it on!

songs of the day

2011-03-18T12:19:00.001-04:00

I have 2 great songs that I have been jamming to this week.

The first is not new, but we have danced to this song a few times in my aerobics dance class and I LOVE it. I am posting the song with the lyrics instead of the actual video because the video is really weird and it might ruin your listening experience.

The next song is a great Christian rock song. I may or may not blast this in my car and pretend I am singing this live.

post-it trauma

2011-03-15T12:57:00.001-04:00

Just this morning I thought to myself “Self, you have not posted any awkward moments in a while.” Then I thought about how the past week has been pretty tame in comparison to some of my other awkward incidents. Just as I was beginning to feel the glow of relief…

I was waiting in line in our copier room to make some copies. When you walk in the door to the room, the copier is on the left, and the back wall has a long counter as a workspace. While I was waiting, I decided to lean over that counter and doze for a minute while the other person finished making their copies. I even actually thought about how my butt is facing the doorway which is really unpleasant for anyone walking in, so I tried to angle myself so that you could see more of my side than my behind.

Then a secretary walked into the copy room and yelled “SAM!” I was startled out of my sweet little catnap. Then she tells me “YOU HAVE A POST-IT STUCK TO YOUR BUTT”.

Dang. I suck. There is no telling how long that had been stuck on me. And I have been running around this office all morning. And what’s worse is that this was no prank… this was my own unknowing handy-work. It must have just fallen in my chair and I sat down without noticing. Dude, give me a break!

As if having just any post-it stuck to your butt while bending over facing a doorway is not bad enough, this was the probably worst possible post-it that could have been stuck on my butt.

Every once in a while, I update our employee list at work. I always count how many people that we have in the office, and I hate counting each name individually. I usually lose my place somewhere between 3-75 times before I can finally make it all the way through the list of names. So, I devised a genius solution: I grabbed a post-it note and measured out 10 names. Now, I just have to use the post-it to count the names by 10’s. Pretty smart, eh?

This post-it probably looked like I was trying to measure my butt or something. My genius post-it has turned against me and made me look really stupid. bah!

song of the day

2011-03-04T09:32:00.003-05:00

I think I like this as much as the Cake version, if not more. Happy Friday!

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/video.

the amazing awkward race

2011-03-01T12:17:00.001-05:00

My sweetheart and I have talked about how cool it would be to compete in the Amazing Race. We are certain beyond all certainty that we would win. Like for real. Aaron and I make an excellent team. We both have competitive spirits, and we both know how to get a job done.

Take Monopoly for example. I stinkin hate Monopoly. It’s the longest game in the world that should be called “monotonous” instead. However, when Aaron and I play with other people, the game takes an interesting twist. Aaron and/or I will always win. Why, you ask? It’s simple. We cheat. Aaron and I will form an unspoken and secret alliance and we will take you down! We will pass money under the table. We will scoot our pieces (my favorite is the thimble) to the wrong space on purpose. We will hook each other up when we need it. Don’t play Monopoly with us. We will cheat and you will lose and we’ll all feel bad about it in the end.

We have heard that it is nearly impossible to make it on the Amazing Race unless you know someone who can get you in… and we don’t have that kind of hookup (if you do, let me know!). But last night, Aaron and I came the closest we’ve ever been to having an Amazing Race experience. And yes, it was pretty awkward.

I recently received a coupon for a free article of clothing from a well-known ladies store. Unlike a lot of coupons, you don’t have to purchase anything in order to get this free goody. You just walk in, hand them the coupon, and grab your goody and go! I was SO excited because this particular goody was my favorite in the store. I just had to have it!

Yesterday at work, I happened to open my wallet and I saw that coupon. Sadly, yesterday was the very last day that you could get this free goody, and I had not planned on stopping by the mall. In fact, the thought of doing anything but going straight home seemed awful. But because it’s my favorite goody from that store, and because it’s absolutely free, I called my husband and asked if he would be down for making an evening trip to pick up my heart’s desire. He agreed and all was well.

Later when we got home, we agreed that we would go to the gym (we are trying to be very committed to our workout regimen) and then head straight to the mall. Here’s where the Amazing Awkward Race to the mall begins.

We did not finish up at the gym until 8:20pm and the mall closes at 9:00pm. It takes right around 40 minutes for us to get to the mall. Sometimes, stores will start closing their doors halfway to deter any wanderers from coming in and holding up their closing process. So really, I needed to be there several minutes before 9:00 at the latest.

Just as we were leaving the gym, it started pouring rain. As far as we were concerned, this was just one more obstacle that was not going to hold us back! It was a rushed drive, and it was one of those drives where we would near our exit on the highway and yell “THERE! TAKE THE EXIT!” and we would have to swerve to take the correct route. It was intense. It felt like we would never make it to the mall.

We arrived at the mall at 8:55pm. Aaron pulled right up to one of the entrances and yelled “GO! GO! GO!” I leaped out of the car, ran through the pouring rain, and darted inside the mall. Once I located my store and charted my course, I ran at full speed. My tennis shoes were squeaking across the mall floor and people were staring at me. But I did not care. I wanted my free goody.

I jogged up the escalator, which was really tough after doing an hour of cardio at a high incline, and I saw my store ahead. I wish that someone had this next scene on video because it would totally be in slow motion and the song “Chariots of Fire” would be playing.

As I neared the door of the store, one of the sales ladies was heading to the front to close the doors and lock up for the evening. I ran up and leaped in the door just in time and yelled “GIMME MY UNDERWEARS!!” Only, I pronounced it like a northerner: “undahweahs”.

It was great. The lady laughed at me and gave me my free undahweahs, and I left the mall victoriously triumphant. I did a quick little victory dance outside of the store before I ran back outside in the rain to where Aaron was waiting for me nervously to see if we won the Amazing Awkward Race.

We did.

And in case you're wondering, my victory dance was to this cool remix... but in my head of course...

outfit

2011-02-22T10:05:00.001-05:00

I am really diggin this outfit from Anthropologie!

i got a fever

2011-02-21T10:56:00.001-05:00

No, the title of this blog post is not a request for more cowbell.

This weekend I was volunteered to do something horrific. I never would have done this in a million years on my own free will. I had zero interest. In fact, I was protesting it.

My little sister asked me to take her to see the new Justin Bieber movie Never Say Never. I was very very excited to spend some one-on-one time with my sweet sister, but the Bieber movie was not on my top 10 list of ways to do that.

The afternoon of the movie I picked her up and we headed to the theatre. I decided that instead of sulking into the theatre, I should get hyped. I closed my eyes and thought back to being an 11 year old and an adoring fan for the latest boy band or solo artist. For me, that magical group was - and will always be - the Backsteet Boys.

I will say this loud and clear. I LOVE BSB! I have gone to several concerts, including their trip to Raleigh last summer, and I actually got to touch 2 of them when they walked by me at a concert. And yes, I was that awkward girl that cried because she touched the hem of Howie D’s flashy garment.

Remembering those wonderful days of my youth, I got excited. My sister, though, was playing it cool. She is kind of going through that tender phase where she is easily embarrassed. So I thought that maybe I could get her a little hyped up about seeing this movie.

As soon as we got our tickets and walked into the theatre, I screamed (like a 12 year old) “YAAAAAAAAAY!!! WE’RE GONNA SEE JUSTIN BIEBER! OMG!! JUSTIN BIEBER!!!”

It was as if I threw dirt in my sister’s corn flakes. She was horrified.

When the movie was about to begin, I tried to hype her up again, but more quietly this time. “Sissy! This is SO exciting! Yay! Justin Bieber!” She then responded back, “Sissy, I don’t like it when people talk during movies!” I was being TOLD by an 11 year old.

As the movie progressed, I saw baby pictures of the Biebs, saw his talent, saw his journey to make it in the show biz, and saw the pride of his family when he hit the top of the charts and performed for sold out packed concerts. At this point, I am very sad to say, I was transformed. Not only have I become pro-Justin Bieber, but I actually teared up a few times during the movie! hahahaha. I have to laugh at myself.

One of the sweet things I learned is that for every concert, his managers find one random girl in the audience to walk onstage and sit on a stool and he serenades them and gives them 2 dozen roses and a kiss on the cheek! How sweet! The girls are absolutely sobbing every time. As the song was playing in the movie and Biebs was serenading the young lady, I leaned over to my sister and asked “would you like that to be you?” She responded with, “Sissy! Shhhh!” Then right after the song finished, she looked at me seriously and said “DUUUUUH!”

I also learned that Justin and his family are strong Christians with great values, and I really loved that. I hope he maintains that strength of character throughout his career.

Overall, it was a completely sweet movie and I enjoyed hanging with my baby sister. She is one of my favorite people.

Go Biebs!

cracked out ?

2011-02-10T12:20:00.002-05:00

I have my very first broken bone.

Now before I go into this story, I have to tell you that 1) it is a very sensitive subject, quite literally, 2) it’s hard to discuss via blog because of the subject matter, and 3) I’m going to discuss it via blog because this is so insane and it just proves how this random and weird stuff really does love me. The fact that this particular bone was broken is SO awkward, and thus, I have made a commitment to report it.

Here we goooooooo!

Ladies and gentlemen, I broke my butt.

More specifically, I broke my coccyx.

Now I have been coerced into my fair share of dabbling in winter sports which I covered in my very first introductory Awkward Samantha blog post. But let me just say for the record: I HATE WINTER SPORTS! I can’t think of one that sounds appealing to me. Ice Skating? Too slippery. Skiing? Nah, I’ll probably die. Tubing? Yawn. And the biggest problem with winter sports altogether is… IT’S STINKIN COLD! This does not work well for me because I am abnormally cold-natured it seems. Give me a fireplace, a blanket, and a good book and let me watch from afar. I’ll wave occasionally. It’ll be great fun.

Now that that fact is out of the way, I’ll begin.

Here’s how it all went down.

The day I broke my butt

The day was Monday, December 27, 2010 and it had just snowed. Aaron and I were invited to go sledding with some friends of ours that live nearby. I was a little hesitant just because of my nemesis with winter sports, but I really wanted to hang out with our friends. So, we all piled into one vehicle and sought out the perfect sledding location. We learned that there was a really awesome section of Hwy. 70 where people were sledding off the side of a tall overpass down into this big field, so we headed there.

When we pulled up, another vehicle was pulling up at the same time. They came really really prepared and basically put us to shame. They had proper sleds, lots of warm items for the snow, and huge spotlights that completely lit up the field below. It was awesome. They took one half of the overpass, and we took the other.

Between 5 of us, we had one flat sled called “the deathsled”, a more traditional sled that didn’t work as well and actually made you spin around backwards while you were going down the hill, and then we had a pink pool float. Observe:

We all alternated sleds. Obviously, the most popular choice was “the deathsled”, so I was left with the pink pool float. My friend and I went down the hill on the pink float and then walked the huge hill back up to the top. It only took one quick ride down there to destroy the float. It was completely deflated.

After a while, we decided to all try to go down the hill at once. The only “sled” long enough to hold everyone was the broke-down float. Although it was flat, the surface was still smooth enough to get us downhill. So we all piled onto this float and headed down. It was none too thrilling and it was a very bumpy ride.

In addition to the general bumpiness from the ground, I was wearing a particular pair of donated jeans (thanks G-Bob!) that had rather thick seams, including down the center of your hind-end.

That night I had a little trouble sleeping. I had a sore lower back. Then later the next day, I sat down on the floor to play with our dogs, and I remember thinking I must have bruised my behind, because it hurt when I sat on the hard floor. I later put two and two together and theorized that the reason I had trouble sleeping with a sore back was because I was arching my back in my sleep to take pressure off of my butt! I decided that it wasn’t that big of a deal and that I would just tough it out like a good little soldier.

A couple of weeks later

I still had a soreness in my you-know-what when I would sit on hard surfaces and when I would lay on my back. I could also feel a tenderness when I would lift weights at the gym. Other than that, I didn’t have any problems.

A month later

No harsher pain to report, but no progress either.

Over a month later – Friday, February 5, 2011

After talking with some family and friends, I decided to go to the doctor just to make certain that I had not done something major.

This is where the story starts to get really awkward.

I called my doctor’s office that morning and told the receptionist lady that I needed to make an appointment. She got all of my personal information, and then, as I was dreading, she asked me what I needed to come in for. Now I had already prepared myself for a little bit of embarrassment in having to explain this. I promised myself that I would be “proper” in explaining my injury, and I swore that I would absolutely NOT use the terms “buttcheek” and “buttcrack”. But in all my preparation, I was not prepared for this lady’s questions!

I told the lady that I think I might have broken something and I wanted to be sure. She then asked me what I had broken. This is where I started to dread the conversation. I told her simply that I think I broke my butt. She then asked me where it hurt. Now, this might be a little too much information (TMI), but it didn’t just hurt in the center… it was more focused to the left. So I tried to explain that by only using directions. She was not following me at all. She asked me if it was my left hip that was hurting. At this point, I was starting to get a little frustrated. Not with her, but with myself for not knowing any proper terms to describe this location to her. I tried to describe it a little better without using my forbidden words, but it just wasn’t working. Finally, I gave in and decided that if I was going to look stupid, I might as well go out strong. So I mustered up my southern-bordering-on-redneck accent and said “It’s mah left buttcheek right next to mah buttcrack”.

This lady lost it. She started to laugh so hard that she had to excuse herself from the phone for a moment. I could hear her laughing the entire time. Then she composed herself and came back and apologized and told me that I would have my appointment the following Wednesday.

Nearing a month and a half later - Tuesday, February 8, 2011, the day before my Dr. appointment

I mentioned that I recently joined an aerobic dance class at my gym. Tuesday night I had my dance class and it was so much fun. It wasn’t anything too strenuous, but definitely a lot of movement. After the gym I went home and played with the dogs and then went to bed.

At 3:00am I woke up in the worst pain I have experienced with this particular injury. It was aching no matter which way I turned or how I positioned myself. Before this moment, I was able to go about my day without noticing discomfort unless I did something specific to target that area. But as of 3:00am, I was constantly aware of my injury.

I guessed that maybe the dance class or some sort of combination of activity might have set me back in the healing process, and I was really thankful that I had made my Dr. appointment for the next day!

The day of truth – Wednesday, February 9, 2011

I arrived to the Dr.’s office a little early to prepare myself mentally for what was about to go down. I didn’t know what they were going to do to check this out, but any tactic at all is embarrassing. Then… my name was called.

The doctor’s assistant was the first person I had to tell my story to. That actually wasn’t that bad. She held a straight face. She was also kind of sarcastic, which I appreciate. When she could not find my pulse, I tried to assure her that I was alive, and she responded with “I’m the one that gets to decide that”. Gotta love a dry sense of humor. She immediately put me at ease.

Then it was the doctor’s turn to come in and check me out. I am going to resist going into the TMI zone, but I will tell you that I had to put aside my pride and my bashfulness. The entire exam, I was bright red to the point of overheating.

The doctor confirmed that I had indeed broke my tailbone. I felt like a sad puppy. Luckily, I don’t have to go through any sort of repairing. The doctor told me that it will heal on its own and the best thing I can do is take some pain medicine and avoid doing things that hurt. The drabby part is that it takes a full year to heal completely! GAH! Another sad thing is that I can’t continue with my dance classes or my regular workouts. Well, I take that back, I might still go to the dance classes and just stand in the back and dance like a stiff little grandma. Hey, it’ll give me more to write about.

So, all in all, I have learned a few things:

1) I HATE WINTER SPORTS AND WINTER SPORTS HATE ME!!!

2) Awkward situations love me. I just HAD to break my buttbone.

3) If you don’t like something, don’t do it. But if you have to, take it easy and do more observing that participating.

4) If you’re going to break your butt, the way to do it is by doing something cool, like sledding down the side of the highway. What a way to go out!

Awkward Samantha, signing outttt.

where's waldo - the contact edition

2011-02-09T09:59:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I not only had a major awkward moment, but a complete blonde one as well. Surprised?

Yesterday afternoon I stopped by the reception desk in our lobby to drop something off. Our two sweet reception ladies were up there. I was in the middle of telling them something when I got something in my eye. I rubbed my eye to make that awful feeling go away, but it wasn’t working. At that point, tears were flowing from that one eyeball and the reception ladies were concerned.

When the feeling ebbed a little, I thought to myself, “Self, maybe your stinkin contact has moved behind your eyeball again.” I hate it when that happens! Every time that happens I go into a mini panic mode where I wonder if I will have to rush to my eye doctor and he’ll have to stick some little plunger thing in my eye to suck out my rebellious contact! I have no idea if that’s what he would do, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t be pleasant. Just a thought.

To check for my contact, I stuck my finger in my eye to see if my contact was nicely sitting where it’s supposed to sit. Of course, it wasn’t. But it always is really neat how I can rub my eyeball and it doesn't even phase me. This action actually freaked out one of the receptionist ladies.

Even though the contact was probably hiding behind my eyeball, it didn’t feel that uncomfortable. Normally, I can tell that something is amiss when that happens, but this was unusually peaceful.

Then I thought to myself, “Self, what if your rebellious contact somehow leaped out of your eyeball and it’s not in there at all!” I didn’t feel like that was likely, but I crawled around the lobby on my hands and knees for quite a while just to make certain.

When I did not find my contact on the floor, I decided that it must be in my eye. I asked one of the ladies to pass me a little hand mirror so that I could search for it. Whenever my contact decides to get crazy and disappear, my tactic of wooing it back to its proper position is usually just to rub my eye and hope that the contact gives in and returns! I tried this for a good 5 or 10 minutes, but it just wasn’t working.

Finally, the ladies at the reception desk told me to hold still and they would look in my eye for me. One of them held my face and lifted my eyelid to look up into my eye socket. I have to tell you, even though I know these ladies are so sweet and would never judge me by my eye socket, it is nothing less than awkward to have someone see that! I felt so silly having someone pry my eye lids open, so of course, it made me giggle. And every time I giggled, my cheeks would go up and my eyes would squint even more. So the lady was having to fight my cheek muscles and really hold my eye open firmly to look in it. It was definitely a battle.

Let me just say that I am so thankful that no one walked by at that point. The receptionist was there holding me by my face and prying my eye open while I’m standing there laughing and crying simultaneously. It would have been really confusing to explain to a passerby.

Quite some time had passed since our mission began. And this mission turned out to be impossible. We were not finding this contact. It was gone. Sucked into my brain and it’s going to rot away forever!!

THEN…. I looked down at the desk beside where I was standing and I realized something………

I wore my glasses today.

I wasn’t wearing contacts at all.

I felt so stupid. I felt even stupider when I had to explain this to the sweet ladies at the reception desk who had spent forever searching with me for my missing contact. When I told them that I just realized that I wore my glasses today, they laughed at me, and one of them stood up and gave me a standing ovation.
I can’t believe I did that! GAH!

awkward runs in the family

2011-02-08T15:19:00.002-05:00

Today I had lunch with my dear sweet Grammy. Grammy is such a fun lady, and she’s always down for an adventure.

One of the greatest things about my Grammy is that she is the most selfless person on the entire planet. Note, I did not say “the most selfless person I know”, because I’m 110% positive that this lady’s open heart and selfless nature beats out any other human being. She has blessed me beyond belief.

Whenever Grammy and I get together, four things are certain:

1) she will always have a funny story to tell me about her life or someone she knows

2) she will always go down the list of nearly all of my family and friends and ask how they are doing

3) she will always look around the restaurant (or wherever we happen to be) and find someone or something to tease – she especially likes to call out girls who are dressed inappropriately, but in a “bless her heart” kind of way of course… and

4) she will always come bearing gifts

#4 is always interesting. It could be something really cool that I need, or it can be something completely random that I would never ever think to get on my own, but she thought of me and wants me to have it. Like the time when I was techno side-swiped by my Grandmother.

When we have lunch during the week, I always walk back into work with a bag of something, and my coworkers always love seeing what she has brought this time.

One of her most famous gift-bearing days was when she decided that I just have to have a crystal collection. To begin this must-have collection, she gave me 3 crystal items:

First, because I work at a law firm, she decided that I should have a crystal gavel:

Second, because I was about to get married, she gave me crystal wedding bells, which was so sweet and I used it as an ornament on our first Christmas tree!

Lastly, because everyone needs one of these, she gave me a crystal cornucopia…

Guys, I’m not kidding at all. These are the exact gifts that Grammy brought me.

To date, these have been the funniest gifts that she has brought me. My coworkers thought these were hilarious.

Well today, Grammy may have mastered the most random selection of gifts she’s ever brought me.

Now let me just clarify before I list them. I love everything she does and I am extremely grateful for her gifts and the fact that she is thinking of me as she is out-and-about. I love it. Again, I am blessed to the point of being spoiled. I admit it. HOWEVER, these gifts are so funny to me because they are SO random. I have decided that awkward must run in my family a little bit. Not that Grammy is awkward herself, but her selections of gifts are so funny and random and they make for great stories.

You ready?

Today I received the following items (I took pictures for proof and comedic effect):

1) Food and Fitness magazine

2) a Julianne Hough Just Dance workout DVD

3) a really cute purple sweater

4) a tall bottle of Bertolli Extra Virgin Olive Oil

5) Scotch tape… with 200 bonus inches!

6) 2 lemons

7) and finally, a red rooster and apple table runner

Grammy is so cute! I love that she thought of me when she spotted all of these things.

I was trying to think of a theme with these items. I recently joined an aerobic dance class at my gym and I told Grammy that I was dancing again and LOVING it! (side note: if you are in the area, please come join me. It’s a blast!). So the magazine and the workout video make sense. She knew that I am interested in those things and wanted to give me more to have fun with. That’s so sweet. The sweater is something that I can see Grammy saying “oh, I love that color! I’ll get this for Samantha!” But the rest of the gifts, those are just random. So funny!!

awkward samantha's coupon filing system

2011-02-03T16:00:00.003-05:00

This is my little pink coupon accordion file. I keep this in my purse at all times. It’s pretty heavy, and it’s getting a little cramped. I have a lot of coupons. I am still learning the art of couponing, but I am really good at clipping them, as you can see.

Here’s where my coupon clipping gets a little weird.

I don’t know if you can see this in the photo, but I have coupons organized not only by tab, but by category. All the coupons from each category are then put into order of expiration date and paper-clipped together.

This keeps my little pink file fairly organized, but it is a pain when we are strolling through the grocery store and I am stopping every few feet to search for a coupon that we are going to use. I usually hold up traffic and Aaron has to block for other customers. He gets a little tired of edging me to the side because I am in the way of someone trying to pass, to which I say “I’m saving money here!!”

“A little weird” gets a little weirder:

Then I thought to myself “Self, maybe you can make a list of coupons that you have so that you will know which coupons you have without searching through each stack!”

That’a way, I won’t have to thumb through coupons in every aisle. All I will need to do is pull out my list and find the coupon I need. The list is also a great way to serve as an index as to how I have filed a particular coupon. Observe:

Is this weird?

the day pandora bit me

2011-01-27T13:52:00.001-05:00

Picture: the hall is silent. People are at their desks working hard.

Samantha thinks: the hall is too silent. Let me turn on Pandora.

Note: My Pandora is always tuned to Cake Radio. Little did I know, my volume was turned to the maximum level.

Awkward: When Pandora loads, I hear in a loud voice (the singer was speaking and there was no music playing) “I need your arms around me. I need to feel your touch.”

After-effect: yeeeeeeeeah. wow. I’m embarrassed. I know at least one "higher-up" in the office heard.

Word of advice: check your phone settings in advance. Bah!

new car mishap #'s 2 and 3

2011-01-26T12:04:00.003-05:00

I hope that car mishaps come in 3’s, and then I am free from car mishaps. For good. Got em all out of the way. Vamoose.

MISHAP #2:

I didn’t want to share this story because it’s highly embarrassing, but Aaron insists that I have to. Isn’t he wonderful?!

Let me start with this: I think this was actually my husband’s fault. (hahaha)

My old car The Phat Mobile had a very pointed nose. From the driver’s seat, and maybe this is because I don’t sit very high in the seat, I could not see the point of my car’s nose at all. So when I park places, if there is something in front of me, let’s just say that there’s a 50-50 chance that I might hit it.

I am notorious for parking too closely to something and hitting it. My car before The Phat Mobile was a green cavalier. It was…unique. It also had a long and pointed nose. One evening in college I was going to a basketball game. I was driving onto campus and I parked in the sports parking deck. When I pulled in, there was a column in front of my car in the parking space. I pulled into the parking space really slowly to avoid catastrophe, and I even said to my friend “man it would suck if I hit this column”. As soon as I got the words out of my mouth, I hit the stinkin column. I was stunned. I quickly backed up out of the parking space and then pulled back in even slower to recorrect myself in the parking spot. When I pulled in the 2^nd time, I hit that stinkin column again!! I'm surprised I didn't bring the place down that day.

I have a couple of theories about this. Either the column moved… maybe I was on one of those prank shows. Or, maybe my cars are just so long and sleek and it appears to me that my tail is sticking out of a parking space, so I try to compensate by moving forward more than necessary. I am afraid to be sticking way out of my parking space and then someone might ding my car, or even worse, people would point at my car and say “look at that jerk with their tail sticking out”.

Anyway... our garage at home is a 2-car garage. At the back of the garage, we have steps that lead into the house. The steps are directly in front of my parking space. I cannot park in the other “space” because we have a lot of junk there. So with the Phat Mobile, I had, on more than one occasion dinged our steps in our garage.

Here’s where my husband comes in. He knows about my tendency to ding obstacles in front of me when parking. And being the loving and cautious husband that he is, he said to me “you better not hit the stairs with that new car!”

So, yesterday I was coming home in my brand new car (yes, still unnamed). When I pulled into the garage though, I was SO paranoid about Aaron’s warning and I did NOT want to take any chances. So I pulled in reeeeeally slowly. I was so proud of myself for pulling in and leaving plenty of room between myself and the stairs.

I started grabbing all of my things from the car to take into the house and I closed the garage door to seal myself in. When the garage door came down though, I heard a very unusual thud. Hm. When I felt my car vibrate a little, I realized that this was bad news. I looked in my rearview mirror, completely afraid to move, and I saw that the garage door was closed. So I put the car in drive and moved forward an inch or so just in case the garage door was having trouble closing all the way. What I didn’t know what that MY CAR TAIL WAS STUCK OUT OF THE GARAGE DOOR.

Now let me clarify. Please. Don’t judge me yet. I didn’t close the garage door on my car entirely. It wasn’t like it was sitting on my spoiler or anything. But what I think happened was it caught the very very lip of my bumper.

When I pulled forward in the garage, I heard one final thud, which told me that the garage door was finally in place. I realized what I had done, and after I recovered from my heart attack, I ran to the back of the car to see if there was any damage.

Thank the Good Lord above – I have not found a scratch or a dent. Also thank the Lord that my sweet husband did not kill me. haha (he really would never do that, let me just clarify. I can’t have the police showing up at my house.). It’s always bad when your wife calls you and says “please don’t get angry”, especially when it’s followed with “I had a little mishap with the car.”

MISHAP #3:

I’ll go ahead and save you some anticipation with this one. The only thing that was damaged in this mishap was me and my ego.

Beside my car, leaning against the garage wall, we have a bed frame that we will eveeeeentually be moved upstairs to a guest room. This morning when I was getting into my car, I made a mental note to carefully open my car door so that I would not hit this bed frame.

I have less than a foot of space to squeeze into the open door. In the winter, with a big bundly coat and all of my goods that I carry with me everywhere, that is a challenge. I am stuck in an awkward little crevice between my car and this bed frame, so I have to tiptoe to make sure that I don’t hit anything.

I cracked my door open and slid my right hand in the open crack to open the door, but when I started to pull the car door open, I lost my footing and fell completely forward against the door. This, of course, made the door close again. There was only one little problem. MY HAND WAS STILL IN THE DOOR.

It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t that painful, but I felt foolish, even though I was alone in a closed garage.

I closed my own hand in my own car door...

new car mishap #1

2011-01-25T14:44:00.009-05:00

So yeah. I have had the car, still unnamed, less than 24 hours and I have had my first little awkward incident.

This was not planned, though this was a great way to christen the car into awkward.

I met my Grammy for lunch today. She had something in her car that I needed to move to my car, so we met in the parking deck to move the goods and then head to lunch. When I got to my car, I reached into my deep purse of secrets and pulled out my keys. Only, they weren't my keys. They were my alternate keys. You know, the key chain with all of the grocery store tabs and the extra keys to old things you don’t use often. Am I alone in having alternate keys?

Anyways, I dug deeper searching for my real keys and I found nothing. I shook my purse to hear the lovely sound of keys jiggling, but I heareth none. I thought to myself, “Self, if you locked your keys in your car in less than 24 of owning the car, you are the sorriest little blonde in the history of drivers. You will also have a story for the blog!” (There’s always an upside).

I looked in the front seat of my car, and there, sitting in my driver’s seat where I have sat a total of twice, are my keys! Imprisoned. Scoffing at me.

Luckily, I have AAA (thanks Grammy!) and I called my dear old friends to come to my rescue once again. The guy was there to pop open my brand new car to release my keys within 15 minutes. And let me tell you from experience, it is a very stressful thing to watch a man force open the door to a car you just bought within 24 hours. Don’t try this at home.

: /

After just telling my officemate about all of the crazy technical things my car does, and then having to admit that I locked my keys in my car, she said "What, does it not hand them out to you too?"

Dear officemate,

If only.

Sincerely,
Awkward Samantha

bittersweet

2011-01-25T14:20:00.004-05:00

We bought a new car last night.

It's a 2011 Ford Fusion, tuxedo black.

the new car

What’s really sad is that I think we frowned more than we smiled. It’s not because we don’t like the car – we think it’s great and it’s very exciting to have a new car that smells like leather and victory – but we both loved our old cars.

Now I know, as Christians we do not love material things. And I don’t really. I would give up my car for the cause and all. But let me just tell you, my car and I bonded. When I needed to get somewhere, it got me there fast. When I was cold, it kept me warm. It made me feel cool because it was sleek and sporty. It was the Phat Mobile, and I really dug my car. If you rehash my old posts, a ton of those wonderfully awkward moments were brought to you from my sweet car, the Phatty. We went through a lot together.

me...saying farewell to he Phat Mobile

And my sweet husband loved his mustang. This car screamed testosterone. It was his dream car, or at least one of them. Very bittersweet.

Aaron and his man car

The reason for the madness is simple: we wanted to spend less each month so that we could save more. Although we purchased a new car which is more expensive than my old one, we have eliminated Aaron’s car payment and insurance altogether, which was the highest. And with the money saved, we are still able to pay for the new car and save money.

The sweetest thing is that my wonderful husband wants me in a very reliable vehicle. He knows how I am. I drive hard. And I drive a lot. With my sweet Phat Mobile climbing the 6 digits in miles (now up to 103,000 as of last night), it was bound to experience some issues pretty soon. I am pretty prone to car issues.

My husband also told me that it was time for me to have a brand new car. I’ve never had one before. I’ve never smelled leather in my car. I have never had AC in a car! So now, I am celebrating owning my very FIRST brand NEW car!

But oh there’s more. This car is going to be a pistol. Now I am no stranger to vehicular transitions. I can drive anything. But this car is going to be hard to adjust to. This car is SO stinkin technologically advanced, which not only boggles my mind, but goes against my old-soulness. I try to keep technology at a friendly distance.

This car talks to me. And not in a figurative sense. I mean.. It knows my name. It has my cell phone phonebook in it’s car brain. All I have to do is say “call Aaron”, and it calls him… over the radio. It says the names of my friends and families. It’s insane. How does it do that?! It has a microphone in the roof so that I don’t have to move to speak. It also can pull the music from my handy-dandy iPhone and play it. I can tell the car to “play Led Zeppelin” and it will… play Led Zeppelin! Shazam!

All of this is so nifty. It really is. Ok. Get me here. It’s stinkin cool.

BUT (you knew that was coming). I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO ANY OF THAT. I know it can do it simply because the car guys showed me. But I don’t know how to work my own car!

Oh, and another thing. MY NEW CAR DISCRIMINATES! IT HATES ME BECAUSE I’M SOUTHERN!

When I tried to tell it to “call Aaron”, it thinks I’m telling it to read my text messages to me audibly, which it does!! I tried to give it a phone number to dial, and it got all but one number wrong. The car guys at the dealership told me that it was because I have an accent and I will have to learn to enunciate and accentuate words differently. WHAT THE HECK?!? If I wasn’t concerned that the car would react like a transformer and toss me out at the throw of an insult, you better believe I’d toss them!

I'll learn. I swear I will. I say this with the resolve of 1,000 Scarlett O'Hara's. But there's one thing I have to do first. In keeping with the tradition of naming our vehicles, the new Ford needs a name. This is a very sensitive and possibly time-consuming process because the car's name must carefully and exactly reflect the personality of the car.

____

To aid in the process, I have developed a foolproof guide to naming your vehicle:

Rules:

#1: The vehicle's name must carefully and exactly reflect the personality of the vehicle.

#2: The vehicle should not be named after someone you know personally, a previous vehicle you have owned or loved, or another vehicle's name that you have heard and liked. Every vehicle is an individual.

#3: Once properly named, never alter the name of your vehicle. It's rude, and at heart, your vehicle is always the same.

Steps:

#1: Determine if your vehicle is male, female, or a hunk of machine (which is neither/nor).

#2: Examine the exterior of the vehicle from all sides and angles to determine the feel of the vehicle. For example, is it sleek? Sexy? Round? Wood-paneled? Flawed? Curvy?
#3: List characteristics of your vehicle that stand out the most. Does your vehicle have quarks? If so, you may want to ponder those when deciding on a name.
#4: Finally, consult your favorite movies, name books, or loved ones to come up with a unique name that suits your automobile. You should be able to close your eyes and picture your vehicle when you say this name. They should match each other.
_______

Ok, so following what we have learned here today, let's name my car! I am not committed on the gender of my car yet. I don't think it's a girl, though it's not altogether manly. However, if my car could talk, I'm almost certain that it would have the voice of Antonio Banderas.

My thoughts thus far are leaning toward a neutral name. I think because my car is so technologically nifty, Teck might be a suitable name. I also like the X names for this car: Dax, Maddox... you know...channelling Angelina.

What do you think??

uh oh

2011-01-24T17:27:00.001-05:00

A little while ago at work, I was celebrating the arrival of a new attorney at a small office party and the receptionist slipped in and motioned for me to leave the party. She said that someone called the office looking for "Samantha ___ (insert maiden name)".

I was really confused because anyone calling for me would know my newly married last name. Any clients or vendors have updated information, and my family and friends surely know my new name.

I got to my desk and there was no message. The mystery continues!

I then checked my phone. The only missed call that I had was from my husband. I called him to see what he needed. He was really frazzled because he was trying to gather some information for an exciting and upcoming event (I will post about this later).

It then occurred to me, what if my husband called and asked for the old me?

I interrupted his thought - this is important stuff - and asked if he just called the office for me. And guess what.... he did!!

MY HUSBAND CALLED MY OFFICE FOR ME AND FORGOT MY NEW LAST NAME... WHICH HAPPENS TO BE HIS.

Wow. I guess he's my boyfriend now??

gah!

2011-01-21T17:03:00.000-05:00

if I don't get this, I'll stinkin burst!!

meet Chet

2011-01-20T10:39:00.000-05:00

Chet is our new family vehicle where we can throw the dogs in the car and all ride comfortably. Here you can see Chet sitting in my parking deck at work.

I drove Chet to work this morning for the first time. This may not immediately scream “awkward”, but it is definitely a sight to see.

Chet’s gas gage… doesn’t work.. right now. This means that as we drive, we are in constant awareness and utter fear that we could end up stranded. To prevent that sort of disaster, we constantly have to top off the tank every other day, just to make sure. And as you know, gas stations and I are not friends.

Chet’s speedometer doesn’t work too well either. In Chet’s world, you’re going 45; in the outside world, you’re going 55. Aaron didn’t bother to tell me that until AFTER I had driven him. It was one of those “oh yeah by the way” moments that came just a little too late. Thanks hun.

The biggest adjustment for me was Chet’s sensitively. Chet’s kind of like a lady – hold him steady and don’t make too many changes or else he’ll flip. It truly feels like if you turn the steering wheel one inch in either direction, the car is going to flip over. Aaron has assured me that this guy’s a tank and I shouldn’t worry about that, but Chet is just going to have to earn my trust over time. For now I’m crawling around turns and corners. No sudden movements. I don’t care how sketchy it looks.

If you happen to see a blonde girl boppin along in an old Wagoneer, be graceful and just smile and wave. It’s me. I’m sorry in advance for being a sketchy driver.

mobile milestone

2010-12-07T10:00:00.000-05:00

This happened this morning on my way to work. My car, the phat mobile, has reached a new milestone. I feel like my car just turned 100. : /

i'm back. i stink. my car is ruined.

2010-12-01T11:30:00.001-05:00

Awkward Samantha is back, and awkwardness is hitting with a vengeance.

Yesterday evening after work I noticed that I needed to stop and get gas on the way home. Years ago, I would never have dreamed of letting the gas needle dip below ¼ of the tank, but I am now lazy and I let my gas light come on before I look in the direction of a gas station. I know, it’s a little careless. But I hate stopping for gas, especially in the winter.

To get home I have to drive down this sketchy street (New Bern Avenue, for all the Raleigh-ites) to get to the highway. I hate this road because, it never fails, there are always at least 3 people that will cross the 4-lane road in the dark in heavy traffic. It’s truly like real life Frogger. I don’t know if they are really eager to get somewhere or are just suicidal, but either way, I will likely hit one of them one day (God forbid).

There are 3 gas stations that I can go to. All of them are small gas stations (not a major-name station) and there are always men lurking around the stations like zombies and scaring people with their presence. I’m not making this up. It’s SKETCHY. So, I pulled up to get some gas and get home! I stuck the nozzle in my gas tank and pushed down that little God-send stopper thingy that holds the trigger for you so that you can avoid getting a disease from the gas nozzle handle and hide in your car from the zombies.

Here are some other details you need to know. I was in a hurry. I needed the tank to fill supernaturally quickly so that I could run to my family’s house (out of the way) and pick up my new puppy girl Hattie May where she was spending the day. Then I needed to run home and clean the house because my sweet Grammy was coming over for dinner and wanted to meet Hattie May for the first time.

Because I was in a hurry and completely sketched out from this gas station, I decided I would only let the tank fill halfway and then I would leave it at that. When the tank was halfway full, I got out of the car and grabbed the nozzle to stop the gas from flowing. But, when I grabbed that little trigger to make the little stopper thing release, it would not release. It was completely stuck and the gas was still flowing with a fury. So I squeezed it again. No luck. I had no idea what to do at this point, so I tried one more thing. I pulled the nozzle up from the tank about an inch so that I could try to jiggle the whole nozzle. When I did this, the gas was pumping so hard and so fast that the entire nozzle shot out of my car and hit the ground, the stopper thingy was still stuck, gas was still pumping, and it was squirting upward all over me and my car like a monster water hose!

From afar, it probably looked something like the scene in Zoolander where the guys have a gasoline fight.

I was completely drenched. My first reaction was to cover my face. Gasoline had squirted into my eyes and mouth. Eventually, I guess the gas station attendant saw this and cut the pump off.

It was like I jumped in a pool of gasoline. There wasn’t a spot untouched. My clothes were soaked. My skin was covered. My shoes were filled to the top full of gas.

This man that was parked beside me walked to his car from inside the store and he saw me standing there horrified and dripping wet with the gas nozzle still laying on the ground. He walked over and put the nozzle back into the pump for me and gave me a hand towel from his truck to dry off. He told me to go inside and wash off because it was not good for me to have gasoline on my skin.

I thought about it for a second, looked over in the direction of the gas station, and then lied. I told him that I had a change of clothes in the car and I would just change in the car. I know, lying is bad. But it only took one look at this gas station to scream “danger zone”. The bathroom probably looked something like this:

Yeah, that’s not happening. I would rather the gasoline burn off my top layer of skin than go anywhere near that. Plus, this seems like the kind of place that would have a peephole.

Not. Happening.

Even if I were to go in and rinse off, I would not only leave a trail of gasoline all over the floor, but I would have to put on the same gassy clothes and drive home in them.

I thanked him for his assistance and got into my car. I drove away from that gas station horrified and embarrassed, and with the complete realization that this would truly only happen to ME.

Then I thought about my car. I don’t want to have this car forever. At some point I will sell it. I decided that it would be better to take the gasoline covered items, at least the dripping ones, and move them to one area in the floor.

I’m just going to say this plainly: I had to drive home in my skivvies in 5:30 bumper-to-bumper traffic on a major highway.

This just added insult to injury. I was now humiliated.

I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS bring a jacket everywhere with me. I am cold natured to the extreme. If I don’t have a jacket in my arms, I have one somewhere in my car. Exceeeept now. I had nothing. Oh, except for my Bible sitting in the seat next to me. That made me feel really great.

It also was really upsetting that these were my best work pants. About a month ago, my sweet and darling husband was teasing me because all of my pants were too big. I don’t like spending money, and I’m not very good a shopping. So I just pinned all my pants at the waist to fit me and I wore the same pants I always have. It wasn’t until my husband told me that I wear “mommy pants” that I decided that it was time to go shopping. I found one pair of dress pants that fit me well and bought them. I love them. Those pants were the very ones that I happened to be wearing when the gas pump decided to go exorcist on me. Thanks.

I was also really annoyed that in addition to picking up my dog and cleaning the house, I now had to take a long shower to get rid of the smell of gasoline that covered me and my car. I was having a really good hair day and I was looking forward to having my hair styled nicely for the occasion.

The smell was intoxicating. I had a headache from the fumes, and I had to roll with the window down… in winter… in my skivvies. I felt like one of those mall fountain statues in the winter with icicles covering them. I was a Samcicle.

I called my husband crying. He was so nice to me. At first I thought he was joking when he said “yeeeeeeeah, we’re not letting you pump gas anymore. You’ll have to let me know when it gets close to empty and I’ll fill it from now on.” But he was serious.

Then, the bottom dropped out.

When I was almost home, I realized something awful. Yesterday when my stepdad offered to come and pick up Hattie May to take care of her for the day, I was so excited. We don’t have an extra house key so I left him my garage door opener for him to get into the house. My garage door opener is the only means I have to get inside the garage. I realized that I was not going to be able to pull inside the garage and walk into the house unseen. I would now have to get out of the car and make a mad dash to the front door and unlock both of our locks. It was not going to be a quick and easy process, and I was likely to be spotted and judged by our neighbors.

………………………………………………. there are no words to explain my horror! Well, there might be, but I don’t use those words….

I made it inside. I left all of my clothes and my shoes laying in the driveway. The more that I grabbed and touched them, the more I embedded the stench of fumes into my skin. I decided that I was enough of a victim today that I needed to be babied. I would leave my clothes right there in the driveway for my husband to come home and find and wash out with the water hose. I didn’t care if they blew away. I didn’t care if bugs crawled in them. I didn’t care if they were stolen. I didn’t care if they laid there for 5 years and crusted over in our driveway. I was not dealing with anymore stuff. I was done.

I had to scrub my skin 3 times with the strongest soap that I own. I couldn’t tell if I still smelled gas on my arms or if the smell was just under my nose!

When I finished, my stepdad was kind enough to bring my puppy home to me so that I could make our house presentable. Luckily, Grammy was running behind and I got the house looking guest-worthy.

Icing on the cake: When Grammy finally made it over, she got out of her car to give us a hug, and she stopped and said aloud “I smell gasoline!”

………………………………………………GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

PS – the smell is still in my car and my favorite pants are still in a ball somewhere.

manana

2010-09-24T09:28:00.002-04:00

So... I'm getting married tomorrow.

:)

Bridal shower

2010-06-21T20:28:00.001-04:00

This past weekend, Aaron and I had the pleasure of celebrating our engagement with our family and friends. It was an Cocktail Engagement party and Jack & Jill shower, and it was a blast! It was actually the first time that our whole families met, so it was pretty interesting. Thanks to Ginny and Stacey for putting together such a fabulous event!!

Here are some pics!
_ _

Aaron’s sister Cheryl made this cake for us. She does AMAZING cakes and desserts. Chocolate cake with raspberry filling.

The food! Ginny made those “utensil holders”…..it’s a tall glass candle holder with printed pictures of me and Aaron wrapped around them. They can be used for candles later and the pictures will glow. SO cool! Aaron’s sister also made those truffles on the table (oreo cream). Godiva’s got nothing on these!

Later we had to play a game where I had to feel every man’s leg (below the knee, thank God!!) and try to figure out which one was my sweetheart. Aaron got a kiss on the cheek from every lady (and his brother-in-law snuck one in too) to try to figure out which one was me. I guessed that a groomsman was Aaron, and he guessed that his mother was me. I guess it’s true that boys marry someone like their moms! haha

White chocolate hearts! yum!

We ate each other’s hearts. Not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad sign…

service of love

2010-06-09T19:13:00.001-04:00

The other day I was at work and Aaron called to ask me if he could take a nap at the place where I am living until we get married - I am staying at a guest house, and he had to take a quick nap before heading to a job he did that night. So I, of course, said sure.

Later that evening when I got home from work, I walked up the stairs in the guest house and I noticed that some things were missing. I have been a little lax in unpacking some things, just because I didn't know where to put them or want to go through the effort of unpacking anything ever again. All that junk I had sitting in the corner was officially MIA. I looked behind me in the living room area and the pillows on the couch were standing up nicely and fluffed. Blankets were folded, the coffee table was cleaned. The bags of cooking supplies I never use were tucked away in a spot I never would have thought of, the floor was swept. The bed was made nicely and my shoes were all lined up in a row on the floor. I mean this place looked BALLER.

I immediately called Aaron and thanked him for cleaning my place. We have been reading The Love Dare, which walks you through ways to show your partner love. I thought to myself "Wow, he must really be getting into this!" I was really inspired!

After 5 minutes of me raving how nice it was that he did that, Aaron finally says, "uhh... I didn't do it."

I was like "whaaaaaaaaaaaa". I could not imagine who else would break into my house to clean it.

Then he confessed that I have a maid. The people that I am staying with have a maid that comes regularly to clean their house, and I guess they told her to make her way over to the guest house. At first I was a little horrified... I mean luckily I had put away all my dirty laundry, and I had wiped any gunk off my dirty dishes. But what if I hadn't?!? That could have been even more awkward.

Now I am looking forward to this. I think I can get used to this lifestyle fo sho!! :)

vera is my homegirl

2010-05-18T21:15:00.000-04:00

I am FIERCELY in love with this bedding. Vera Wang at Kohl's.

song of the day

2010-05-13T20:24:00.002-04:00

"Dream" by Priscilla Ahn

Lyrics:
I was a little girl alone in my little world who dreamed of a little home for me.
I played pretend between the trees, and fed my houseguests bark and leaves, and laughed in my pretty bed of green.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest swing.
I had a dream.

Long walks in the dark through woods grown behind the park, I asked God who I'm supposed to be.
The stars smiled down on me, God answered in silent reverie. I said a prayer and fell asleep.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest tree.
I had a dream.

oooooooooooooo oooooooooooooo ooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooo ooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooo

Now I'm old and feeling grey. I don't know what's left to say about this life I'm willing to leave.
I lived it full and I lived it well, there's many tales I've lived to tell. I'm ready now, I'm ready now, I'm ready now to fly from the highest wing.

I had a dream

song of the day

2010-05-11T22:08:00.005-04:00

i am digging this song entirely. heard it a while back, but rediscovered it just now.

"Falling Slowly" by The Frames

Lyrics:

I don't know you but I want you

All the more for that
Words fall through me and always fool me
And I can't react
You have suffered enough and what with yourself
It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time, raise your hopeful voice
You had the choice, you've made it now

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'll paint it black
Games that never amount
To more than themselves
Will play themselves out

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time, raise your hopeful voice
You had the choice, you've made it now

broken chair, bruised ego

2010-05-11T19:07:00.003-04:00

I was sitting at the front reception desk at work and a very serious lady attorney walked by and asked me about something. While I was in thought, I leaned to the side (in the chair) to adjust the way I was sitting and I put my weight on the arms of the chair. The chair is one of those rolling desk chairs, and the arms turn side to side to adjust themselves. Well, when I leaned on the arms, one of them gave way and rotated, and I fell sideways out of the chair. Not only did I scare the lady attorney, but I had 4 witnesses to the horror.

The lady asked me if I was OK, but the only thing injured was my ego. Ouch.

roommate 911

2010-05-04T21:27:00.004-04:00

I'm not the most technologically savvy person in the world. You can read about one of my many techo-flaws here. However, when it comes to fixing things around the house, figuring out a mystery, or putting things together, I like to think that I am somewhat useful.

In many of my roommate relationships, I have often been the one that "wears the pants":

When you need to put together a cheap shelf from Wal-Mart, I'm your girl.

When you need to hang a picture that is perfectly centered in the wall, I can help.

Despite my absolute disgust of loose hair, if your shower drain gets clogged, I'll come to the rescue with my pink tool kit (yes, I really have one).

And if you need help figuring out how to wire your entertainment center, just send me a text....

That's what my former roommate and high school sweetheart Lynn did tonight. I just received this text and picture:

"Cable not getting to tv. Help! Does this look right?"

I am very proud to say that I was able to fix her problem from 130 miles away. Can you?

And just so you believe me about the pink tool kit.....

Can I get a girl get a drill in pink?

the Screwtape letters

2010-05-03T14:18:00.004-04:00

I am reading “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis and I just got CALLED OUT.

The book is written from the perspective of a demon named Screwtape. He is writing to his nephew, Wormwood, who is a new demon who needs counsel from a demon that has been around a while and knows how to pull people from God in clever ways. So Screwtape is writing letters to him and telling him good ways to sway people. The demons are each assigned to a person that they refer to as their “patient”.

Screwtape writes:

“In civilized life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which would appear quiet harmless on paper (the words are not offensive) but in such a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face. To keep this game up you must see to it that each of these two fools has a sort of double standard. Your patient must demand that all his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging all the other person’s utterances with the fullest and most over-sensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention. The other person must be encouraged to do the same to him. Hence from every quarrel they can both go away convinced, or very nearly convinced, that they are quite innocent. You know the kind of thing: ‘I simply ask her what time dinner will be and she flies into a temper.’ Once this habit is well established you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offense is taken.”

~C.S. Lewis

GAH! I’m guilty. Big time.

I don’t think anyone can read this book without being called out. There are SO MANY ways that are mentioned where people do things they don’t even realize. Definitely a good read!

you think you know someone...

2010-04-21T14:08:00.008-04:00

My sweetheart came for lunch today so that we could go to the register of deeds to get his birth certificate so that we can get our passports for our honeymoon. You have to fill out a little form with your name, date of birth, and parent's names, so I just grabbed it and started filling it out for him (I do all of his paperwork...haha).

When we got his birth certificate, I was looking at it to see all of these cool facts about Aaron that I never knew (like time of birth...all that good stuff... I think it's interesting), and then I noticed something that made me go HOL' UP WAIT A SECOND SLOW YOUR ROLL STOP THE STINKIN BUS SAY WHAAAAA????!!!!!!

I have been spelling his name wrong for 4 YEARS!

His name is Aaron Micheal. I have spelled "Micheal" the correct way for years, which is "Michael".

What in the stinkin world?!?!

Of course I couldn't let it just slide. I decided to create a dramatic (but obviously joking) scene. I started saying:
"OH MY GOSH.... I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU!....YOU SIT ON A THRONE OF LIES!....THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!"

hahahaha... the lady at the counter thought it was great.

FYI - I googled it, and his name is just wrong. haha :)

dress

2010-04-21T10:13:00.001-04:00

I wish people still dressed like this:

someone needs a haircut

2010-03-29T10:05:00.004-04:00

Last night was of those nights where things just weren't working for me. I found a nail in my tire (AGAIN!), I kept dropping things at the grocery store and had to search under shelves to get them, the self check-out lane would not take my card, and then THIS happened:

The wind was blowing like crazy and when I got in the car. I nearly ripped out a chunk of hair when I tried to move and could not. I don't think "random bald spots" is the look for me. Luckily, Aaron was with me and got it on camera. Enjoy!

_

going streaking

2010-03-23T22:43:00.007-04:00

So ok, this is really awkward and embarrassing, which means I am obligated to report it/admit it on le blog.

Tonight Stacey baked cupcakes for a package to send to a friend. I was helping her draw some letters on the cake with food coloring markers. Observe:

Then I thought, "hmmm....I wonder what this marker ink tastes like.... I bet it's sugary sweet." So I took the marker and quickly dabbed it on the tip of my tongue.

Well, it wasn't sweet. It was actually kind of bitter. Stacey turned to me and said "you dummy...it's food coloring... it doesn't taste good".

Then I looked over into the mirror on our wall and I discovered that the marker left a food coloring stain on the tip of my tongue. To make things even worse, when I swallowed the ink, it made a perfect half inch wide stripe down the very center of my tongue.

And it won't go away.

Like at all.

Not kidding.

Now I know that it's probably hard to picture this, and probably a little unbelievable, so I had to take a picture. As I have said many times before, DON'T JUDGE ME.

my weekend with cars

2010-03-23T10:12:00.013-04:00

This weekend Aaron told me that when/if he gets another means of transportation, I will get to drive his [brand new] mustang:

This is very exciting news, to say the least. But it is also the scariest concept ever. Let's see how many things we can find wrong with this statement:

Anxious blonde woman driver, with a heavy foot and little patience, in a fast car that has the coolest cell phone/radio features, driving 5-speed for the first time ever.

Hmmm......

Sound scary to you? It should.

This weekend was my practice round. I drove us home from Oxford this Sunday. Aaron swears up and down that the car has an anti-stall feature. I am going to call his bluff on this one, because I definitely stalled out anywhere from 3-52 times.

When we got home, Aaron decided we should give his car a little rest. We took my car to dinner, and afterwards he told me that my car was ridiculously dirty and we should take it to the car wash.

Soooo....my car, up until this past weekend, has been disgusting. I haven't washed the outside of my car since....probably... last year? 2008? I don't know. It's been a while.

And the only time the inside of my car gets any attention is my quarterly visit to Jiffy Lube when they vacuum the inside and wash the windows. I know, it's pitiful. Shame on me.

What is really sad is that I completely forgot that the car wash is an option! It never occurred to me to take it!

Look at the dirt that the soap pulled up (left)...

--there is an awkward story that occurred at this point, but it's one that you will have to ask me about personally. hahaha. To give you a clue, I told a guy friend of mine this awkward story, and his response was "major man points for Aaron". ha

After we came out of the car wash, Aaron cleaned the inside of the car for me. What a good job he did!

I also forgot that my rims are silver and not black.

I think I will be doing regular maintenance from now on, rest assured. :)

_

goin down

2010-03-15T10:12:00.003-04:00

Ever since the strange fellow from Asheville told me that I was responsible for the demise of the pandas and whales, I have seen the pair of creatures everywhere. They have been taunting me. I happened to walk by this in the mall this weekend.... Check-a, check it out yo:

I guess it's a sign that this really is my personal duty.

taking one for the team

2010-03-08T09:59:00.007-05:00

This weekend we (meaning 8 lovely ladies) celebrated the upcoming marriage of Ginny and Donald with a ritual commonly known as the Bachelorette party. We all drove to Asheville, NC where we stayed in this killer awesome hotel in downtown.

We were originally supposed to have 2 rooms that we were all going to pack into, but the hotel had a small mix-up and they put the 2 separate rooms on 2 separate floors, which was not what we planned. So, to make up for the mix-up, they upgraded us (fo free) to one of the top floor condos that is currently on the market for $1.3 million.

Have you seen the movie 'The Hangover'? This was something like that (minus the piano and the tiger). Here's the living room...

Later that night, we all went dancing and had an awesome time.

After dancing, we all were getting tired and we stopped at this one restaurant on the way home to sit down and put up our feet before we walked back to the hotel. We were all at one long table in the restaurant, and there was this table of 3 boys next to us. When they saw the table of girls, they came over and said hello. There happened to be an empty chair next to me, so one of the fellows sat there.

Within the first 5 minutes of sitting there, this fellow tells us that they are all out celebrating his upcoming move to Australia. He is moving there because he wants to steer away from the path that everyone (his family) expects him to follow, and he wants to clean up his debt by working in Australia, where apparently the minimum wage is $16.50. And he doesn't want to settle down to get married because he doesn't believe that you should get married before the age of 37 because that is such a deep commitment that he couldn't imagine having right now in his life. So, Australia it is!

At this point in the conversation, I decided that the opposite end of the table was the "winner" section, so I turned my attention to that side and let this strange boy tell his story to the unfortunate ladies who had no choice but to listen. bwahaha

After a little while of sitting, we decided to start heading out. I looked over and heard this same strange boy finishing up this story about how he lived in Hawaii for a couple of months and surfed with the locals. He was very proud of this.

I don't know how this was mentioned, but I had said something about Dog the Bounty Hunter because I know he is in Hawaii. He asked me if I like Dog, and I said "Well, I've only seen the show a couple of times, but from what I can tell, he's always nice to the people he arrests." ha

Minutes later, when we were all gathering our things to leave, this strange boy turns to me and says this (pay close attention):

"Well, I'm never going to see you again so I just wanted to give you a few words before you go. The locals in Hawaii hate Dog the Bounty Hunter. The land there is a big volcano and thanks to Oprah, a lot of people started buying up the land for housing and it is ruining the local vibe there, and the locals hate it. Dog the Bounty Hunter is a b*#&#rd. And in our lifetime, you will see the pandas go extinct. And you will see the whales go extinct. And I assume that you are a Republican. Well I just want you to know that it is your fault. You are a poor person."

No, I'm really not kidding.

This boy looked me dead in the eyes when he told me this. He was SO serious. And I don't even think he was drunk, which still would not be a good excuse for being a dummy.

I was so appalled at this guy that I could do nothing but giggle in disbelief. I knew that there was no reasoning with this boy. Within the first 5 minutes of sitting at our table, this boy tells us that he is financially immature, emotionally immature, and weird, and yet I am a poor person. And we never spoke about politics or anything that could have hinted about my political stance, so this must mean that my political stance is written on my forehead. No clue.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I have made a decision. I have thought about this boy's comment all weekend. I don't like being not liked, and I hate it when people judge you without knowing you. So his comment really did make me think. And I have decided to "man" up. I am going to take one for the team.

Years from now, when the pandas and the whales are extinct, I want everyone to know...that it is MY fault. No, not the Japanese whalers. Or whatever eats pandas. Nope. It's MY fault.

This is the burden that I must bear alone. And I think it is really important that if you know me and know anything about me, you should know this.

I hope that you all can find it in your hearts to forgive me for being responsible for the demise of the pandas and whales.

Thank you,
Awkward Samantha

PS - this place is going down.

caught on camera

2010-02-23T15:23:00.002-05:00

One evening I was driving home from work and the traffic was extraordinarily horrendous. I decided it would be funny to take a picture on my phone of the traffic for my oldest friend from home...Washington, NC, where there is no such thing as traffic.

When I took the picture though, I noticed something else. MY WINDOWS ARE DISGUSTING!

I never noticed! Check it out:

Seriously, I realize that's just shameful. Don't judge me.

office love

2010-02-10T16:15:00.004-05:00

Today I walked past the front desk. We are having one of those "guess the number of hershey's kisses in the jar" contests. The big jar of pretty colored kisses definitely is an attention-getter in itself, but on this occasion, it was the yellow post-it note beside the jar that stood out.

And what did the note say, you ask?

Check it....

If you can't read that, it says "Guess the amount of kisses and receive the same amount from Sam."

Hold up there, cowboy. I don't think so.

Let's just file this "under office pranksters that are going down!!"

blogiversary take 2 - the confession

2010-01-28T00:11:00.011-05:00

Lately I have been busy.

Ok, that's only partially true. I have been really busy at work, and I have made some plans in the evening after work. But mostly I have been reading at home and I have not been able to lift my butt off the couch or bring my fingers to open my laptop. I apologize.

So for my blogiversary, I wanted to do something big. Not because I think it will attract more attention really (although, shameful plug... "awkward days of my life" has made it worldwide!).
This is because I have been keeping a secret for a while, and I wanted to share it on a special occasion. So now, I will confess to the world one of the craziest changes in my life.

...
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..
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I.......................recently.........(i'm just gonna say it)....read the Twilight Series.

I know, I am well past the age limit. 13 has long come and gone. But I really must confess that this series has impacted my life for the past 3 weeks, and impact is an understatement. I'm afraid it has changed me.

Ok, so let me explain.

I started reading this... I don't know why actually. The covers are awfully shiny and pretty, and I like to read a good series. And with all the hype, I just had to check it out. Dare I say, it called to me?

I read the first book in a day. I could not put it down. I layed around and read. Walked and read. Ate and read. Peed and read. It was bad. (no worries, i own my copy of the book)

So then, after reading the first, I of course moved on to the second. And the third. And finally the fourth.

Throughout the entire series (I sound like I'm writing an essay), I began to develop a more deeply unhealthy connection to the characters. That's the only way I can describe it. When the main narrator, Bella, was nervous, I was nearly physically sick. This was inconvenient because I had to stop at some point in my new reading binge to get up and go to work. Often times, I would work in the middle of a major part where I was left with an unsettling dilemma. So needless to say, I was a bizarre little zombie for a few days at work. Yes, people noticed. And yes, people worried about me. Not because I looked bad, which I did, or because I was absolutely in a mindless daze, which I was... but because they knew that I was reading this series.

When Bella was sad, I was crying. Not just a few Twilight tear droplets either. No, no. I was cryyyying. I had to hold tissues to my eyeballs. One night I was reading a very sad part in book 2 (you Twilight lovers know what I'm talkin about) and I cried for at least an hour. {Bella, I can relate!!} When I looked up to check the time, it was past 3am. I was not even tired. I was like the vampire that never sleeps. The next morning, 3 hours later, I got up and went to work. My face looked like I got sucker-punched in the gourd. My eyeballs were bloodshot and I had purple circles under my eyes. Irony: I really did look like a vampire.

When Bella was happy, I was crying. But these were tears of joy. There were several times where I read something joyous and screamed. It alarmed my roommate, the Schro.

When Bella was in love, I was pretty much obsessed. (was?)

I started to really care for these characters. If it were not for the fact that I borrowed book 4 and had to return it, I probably still would not be done with the book. Simply because of this fact: I never want it to end! Ever!

Now I miss these people! The movies just don't suffice! I must meet Edward!

gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So, my advice: don't read the books. They'll tear you apart and spit you out into a pile of emotions that can only be acceptable if you are 13 and/or your life is one giant story of awkward anyway.

Got it?

Oh, by the way... I am thinking of making this a shirt. What do you think?

(jk)

blogiversary

2010-01-26T09:17:00.004-05:00

Today, one year ago, I started out creating a blog that was for close family and friends who loved hearing stories about the "trouble" I got into. It is a well known fact that awkward moments follow me.

I never expected the blog to actually make it a year... but awkward keeps on coming.

Like the other day, I was really really busy at work. Probably one of the busiest days I have ever had. I was power-walking and talking to a coworker on the way to my desk. I walked through our lobby area and through the side door that leads to my desk. But when I opened the side door, I just swung it open and kept going. Unfortunately, there was a man on the other side of the door and I ran RIGHT into him. Like really.. I am surprised he was still standing. I nearly tackled this man to the ground.

I apologized several times and continued on my feat to my desk. The coworker that was still following me then told me that this was "Mr. Big". He is the head head head partner of the entire firm... and Awkward Samantha just tackled him.

Poor man never saw it coming.

YAY me!

imagination running wild, literally

2010-01-08T09:48:00.006-05:00

Let me start with this:
Yes, I really did this...
No, I don't know why...
and Yes, I know I'm probably the only person on earth who would...

Last night Stacey and I took a late night trip to Harris Teeter. Party at the sto'! They are having the double-your-coupons special, and I am a nerd for coupons.

Stacey needed to get something from the far right of the store, and I headed left to grab something else. When I found what I was looking for, I started to head for Stacey. But... I was lost in the moment....

They were playing this dramatic love song throughout the store. And lately, I have been a complete bubble of emotion. I will write more about this later, but I am reading a series right now that has bewitched me body and soul, to quote Mr. Darcy. I am stuck in their dramatic world and I can't seem to focus on anything else.

When I heard this music playing, I started running. Running in the Harris Teeter. I was nearly frantic. I just had to find Stacey. It was as if we were parted as lovers, and I had to find her before it was too late.

It wasn't a fast run. Not like I was Jason Bourne running through the streets of some European country from the "bad guys". It was a slow and dramatic run that was as if I were a desperate woman running in the rain to find the person holding the other half of her heart. hahahaha. I have to laugh at myself.

When I finally found her, I flung out my arms as if to say "I am here!" I think Stacey is fairly used to me doing weird things like this. I think she just knows not to ask questions.

When I tried to explain that I just got caught in the moment thanks to the mood music, she actually understood! When she saw me running, she got it completely! It was great.

I am sure that the rest of the other HT late-nighters think I'm a loon, and the store managers are probably showing all their friends the surveillance video while eating popcorn.

sew exciting

2009-12-28T12:17:00.003-05:00

Have you ever asked for something... in this case a gift... that you think would be really cool, but you are being very ambitious and don't really know what to do with it?

Well this year I mentioned to my mother that I thought it would be cool to have a sewing machine. It seemed like a really great idea. It's one of those things that I have always wished I could do well. I love looking at Craft blogs, and I always feel like I can do what they do. So, my mother got me this awesome sewing machine:

Now let me clarify... I am SO excited about this. I am going to make something really cool. I can feel it. But my realistic response was "oh crap".

The problem is, I have no idea how to work a sewing machine. None. I have sewed buttons on my pants and even made a pillowcase once out of an old shirt, all by hand, but I have never actually been around a sewing machine.

I am dying to play with this thing, but I have no idea how. I have decided that the best way to approach this is to just dive right in. I am open to suggestions, but I am thinking that I just need to wing it and create something crazy awesome.

What's really funny is that I was just looking up some pictures of things that I could sew/make. I saw this shirt which really caught my attention and then I realized that this girl in the photo kinda looks like me. IT'S A SIGN!!

my life needs a soundtrack

2009-12-17T09:30:00.007-05:00

Have you ever thought about how cool it would be if your life had a soundtrack?

Like when you are driving in the rain, there would be a special song for that (something like Coldplay?).

And when you are angry, there would be a special loud rockish song for that.

Well the other morning, I was close to having one...only I didn't know it.

I was getting in the elevator to go up to my office's floor. There was this one business man in the elevator with me. As soon as the doors closed, this music started playing.

To my knowledge, my building has never had elevator music before. And this song did not sound like your typical elevator song... it sounded like they were pulling music from a radio station or something.

When I got off the elevator and started walking into my lobby, I could still hear the music. It was following me! I stopped and looked around, but there was nothing unusual around me.

Then I finally realized that my cell phone had randomly switched onto the iPod function and it was playing one of the few songs I have saved on there.

I should have known that the business elevators would not be playing "Grace Kelly" by Mika...

________________
And a couple of random thoughts:

I would love to live in a Weebee...

... and this is my dream Christmas tree

one stuck truck

2009-12-16T09:02:00.007-05:00

This morning I was getting into downtown and I happened to drive past the most awesome thing ever. I have ALWAYS wanted to see this happen. Now this is not to say that I am excited that it did happen, because I do feel bad for all parties involved.... except me of course...and the other witnesses who got to see such a rare gem of traffic mishaps.

Behold:

In the 3rd picture, you can see the ginormous saw (it is behind the bridge going down into the truck) where they were having to cut off the entire top of the truck!

The fact that this was a Michelob Ultra truck makes this just an iota funnier. I sent this to my stepdad (because I knew that a good ole redneck would get a KICK outta this one) and his reply was "I wonder if he was playing London bridge". That made me giggle.

wedding planning woes

2009-12-04T10:17:00.005-05:00

Aaron and I have started to begin planning for our big day. We are so blessed to have our families who are so excited and ready to help us plan. My mother is one of those.

I should start with this: My mother means well. She really really does. But her taste is probably the opposite of mine in every way. My mother has taken it upon herself to send me a few wedding dresses that she likes for me. Behold her dream (for me):

And yes, her dream comes complete with the tiara.

Now as you could imagine, I am not exactly leaping over this picture. I mean, love ya mom, it's just not me at all. I don't even know what is "me" yet, but y'all, this ain't it. Noooooot happeniiiiing.

Not only has she offered to help with the dress selection, but she has offered to help with all of the planning. Now this will actually be very helpful, however, it will not be devoid of some awkward moments.

For example (you knew there would be one): My mother called me the other day and she was very upset because she is not invited to my bachelorette party... Like she was really upset... Like she had no idea that mothers don't come to bachelorette parties. So I had to tenderly say "Are you out of your mind?!?"

Let me clarify, Mama has never (that I know of) been to a wedding outside of Washington, NC. She has never been to a reception with a sit-down dinner. In Washington, you get finger foods only. So Mama is lacking in the modern "wedding etiquette" department. So the first thing I had to share with Mama was MOTHERS DON'T GO TO BACHELORETTE PARTIES! It's not even because my party is going to be wild and crazy. It's really not. But this is a time with my girlfriends to sit around and be girls. No mothers allowed.

When I told Mama this, her response was even more awkward... "well fine. I'll give you bachelorette. But I'm going to the lingerie shower!". What is even more horrifying than your mom joining in "girl time"? Well that would be your mother observing things that you will be sharing with your husband! I wasn't sure that I wanted a lingerie shower in the first place, but now I'm really sure.

On a somewhat side-note, you want to know the most awkward part of a wedding? When the newly wedded couples leaves the reception for the evening... everyone knows what's going down. All your friends. All your family. All your coworkers. AWKWARD!

[vomit]

orphan tupperware

2009-11-23T13:34:00.004-05:00

In order to save some moolah here and there for our super stinkin awesome wedding, I decided it would be smart to bring my own lunch to work every day for the foreseeable future. I went out and bought a plethora of soup and sandwich options. However when I was packing my lunch this morning (and running a little late), I could not find one single Tupperware container that had a matching lid. Not one.

Observe:

At this point, I had covered the counter with 1/5 of the containers from our cabinets, and my quest for a matching lid was really looking grim. I cannot understand where these things go! It's like the mysterious sock monster that lives in the washing machine and/or dryer that eats just one of your socks out of spite and you will never find a matching pair again because all of your socks are multi-colored neon animal prints. Ok maybe that's just me...

wait... What? What was that? You think you see a match in the cluttered mess pictured above? Wrong. You are wrong. There were none.

Today I learned that for the S.Sh/S.Sch household, Ziploc baggies are the way to go.

gold rings and awkward things

2009-11-20T09:49:00.008-05:00

As of this weekend, Aaron and I are engaged! It was a very special proposal. Aaron arranged for us to tour the Biltmore Estate for the candlelight Christmas tour. Here is a picture from where we were standing when he proposed:

Now you may assume that because it was such a wonderfully planned and eventful weekend that there were no awkward moments to be found. Well friends, rest assured, that is not the case. To introduce our first awkward moment of the weekend, I need to give a short explanation of something that had happened before our engagement:

It all started with a cup of Caribou coffee. One evening about a month ago, Aaron picked me up for dinner and there was an empty coffee cup from Caribou in his center cup holder. Now this may sound a little crazy (go figure), but when I saw this empty Caribou cup, I knew something was up. You see, the Mr. and I are not Caribou people. We are Team Starbucks all the way. I have purchased like 7 of their coffee mugs.

_ _ [mini rant] _ _

Ok, let me pause the story here to hop atop my mini soapbox for 15 seconds...
WHO THE HECK KNOWS WHAT A CARIBOU IS? Really. Without looking it up. What is the difference between a Caribou, a moose, and a big deer? Where do the Caribou roam? Where do they hail from? Have you ever seen one?

I am wagering that not many people know anything about a Caribou without looking it up. Why? Because Caribou is a weird word.

And if you are one of those people who are very studied on the Caribou and pull for their team, let me ask you... Do you eat granola and wear Birkenstocks?

_ _ [end rant] _ _

So finally, when I saw this unusual cup in my boyfriend's car, I said "HEY! Why did you go to Caribou?? We are not Caribou people! You know this!" He later told me that his first thought included an expletive. In seconds, Aaron had to make that crucial decision of whether he should straight up lie, or let on that something was up. So, he straight up lied. He told me that he met with a buddy of his and it was the closest coffee place. Later, Aaron told me that he met with his jeweler to finalize some ring details. (yes, he designed it!)

At this point, I had an inkling that something was amiss. In 3 years, I don't think Aaron has ever taken the reins to plan out a trip for us. He usually suggests, and I usually plan. That's how it works. But this time he planned all of this out. So, knowing that something was up, I went along with everything with the idea that this would be a good opportunity for a proposal and therefore I should keep my mouth shut and let him do his thing.

Now for Project Proposal Awkward Moment (PPAM) #1:
When we arrived at the Estate, we were checking in at the front desk, and the lady asks in her overly-chipper tone that reminded me of the lady from Office Space... "Are you here to celebrate a special occasion?"
I didn't want to say anything because I had no idea what we were doing there (...or I wasn't supposed to). There was complete silence for about 15 seconds. Finally, I looked at Aaron as if to say "well...is it a special occasion?" The poor kid was sweating. He had to tell another bold-faced lie. His response was "NOPE". So smooth.

PPAM #2:
Later that evening we were eating in the Inn's dining room, which is spectacular. Our plan was to head to the evening house tour right after dinner. Halfway through the dinner, Aaron completely stopped talking and he started to sip his glass of wine a little more quickly. I asked him if he was OK and he said yes, so we went on to the house.
Now the Biltmore Estate is HUGE, so to get to the house, you have to take a shuttle. We hopped on the shuttle and it was stuffed with people heading over to the house tour. On the way over, no one was speaking at all. So the driver was trying his best to lighten the mood and tell a couple of funny stories of his experiences on the job. He started talking about the wildlife around the estate: turkeys, deer, foxes... and then he said bears. He told us that the previous week, he was driving a group of visitors in the shuttle and these two bears ran across the road. No one seemed too thrilled with that idea... the room was still silent.
That is, until my boyfriend yells in a really nervous Yogi the bear voice, "YOOOOGI AND BOOBOO!" The bus driver gave him a courtesy laugh. Everyone looked. And I was so horrified that these were the only words that came out of his mouth in the past hour that I just hid.

There were several more awkward things that I could share, but I have not gotten permission for those just yet. Still too fresh. But know this, it's going to be an interesting blog from here on out. Why? Because awkward marries awkward.