Sweet summertime

I am ready to be done. Stick a fork in me and let’s put this one in the books. I am ready for the next seven days to fly by. Well, sorta that is. To put it in simple terms, finals are coming up. We all know what that means.

I have been a horrible blogger. I even forgot my blog existed for a short while as all I have done for the past month and half has revolved homework, tests, reading, hitting deadline, missing deadline, and writing more stories than I remember.

Don’t get me wrong. I love college. Sometimes, I feel like my life goes faster than I can. This is the first time I have sat down and written for myself in I don’t know how long. While some many good things and blessings keep popping up in my life, I feel like I am slowly spiraling out of control. Yet, I don’t want anything to stop.

I am ready to be home for the summer. I am ready to sleep in my bed and have my own bathroom again. I am definitely ready for someone to cook me dinner every night, and I cannot wait to catch up on ten months worth of TV that I missed.

However, doing all these things means making yet again another transition. Another change. I am not fond of change. I love college so much. I love all the friends I have made while being at MTSU. I don’t want them to leave, and I don’t want to leave them. I enjoy having an office to be in every day. Not every college student has an office. I love studying and learning more about writing. Not mention, I simply love work. I never dread it.

But the long days of summer are approaching. I am ready but not. I am making the most of my summer at home as I want to learn to cook the pastry my grandmother always made. More importantly, I want to learn how to cook real food, so I don’t starve next semester. I want to paint, and I want to write, write, write, and write. And did I mention write? I want to read as well. You really should see the reading list I have. It’s huge. It would probably make you think I am the world’s largest nerd. Heck, maybe I am.

I want to camping with my best friends, watch endless episodes of our favorite TV shows, and have long nights laughing on my porch swing. I cannot be at college and home. The two worlds simply don’t mesh. Maybe there not supposed to do that. In fact, I might not love college if they did.

At least while I am home making the most of the time I have, I can begin to get excited about school again. I can even fall more in love with my job as a journalist if that is possible. I am looking forward to the summer. I want to spend time with friends I have barely got to spend time with these past two semesters. I cannot wait to see what my college friends do with their summers. I am excited about the summer and already excited to begin my second year.

But before I do any of that, two finals, one paper, and one presentation stand in my way. May 3 at 3:30 cannot come soon enough.

These are my people

Most of the times I come home, I drive my car past my grandmother’s old house and her farm and think nothing of it. It’s just part of the scenery I have driven by my entire life. Today, though, I decided to drive my car on the old dusty path past the red barns and the silo and made a right. My mom told me yesterday that my cow had a new baby calf, and I wanted to see it.

I took my sandals off and walked barefoot through the pasture. The grass was still wet from last night’s rain, and I walked slowly to the fence row to see Survivor. Survivor is my red cow that my dad saved when I was about eight years old. He found her stuck in the swamp on the back of our farm. She was malnourished and close to death.

After he rescued her, Survivor became my pet. I bottle fed her back to health and watched her grow. I gave her shots, and I wanted so badly for her to play with me. I soon realized that cows don’t make the best of pets and that included baby ones, too. I remember I used to hop in her pen with her after I fed her in attempts to pet her. Looking back on that ten years later, I realize how stupid that was. Survivor could have trampled me. Thank goodness she was not too rambunctious for that.

I made it to the fence row today, and Survivor was way far down into the pasture lazily laying under a tree. I couldn’t see her cow from where I was standing, so I guess I will try the next time I am home. Defeated I walked back to my car, and I started to wonder about my grandparents. They farmed the grass and land beneath my feet for more than 50 years. I wonder what they would think of it now. More importantly, I wonder what they would think of me now.

Only my mom’s mom watched me grow up. My dad’s mom was already passed by the time I entered the world, and his dad died when I was seven. I barely remember him. My mom’s dad is only faint memory of Carmelo bars, tan skin and overalls. He died when I was four, so I never got to know the man I watched drive the tractor away to tend the land.

I am so different from all of my grandparents. No one in the family was a writer. I don’t think they cared about commas and grammar and breaking a top news story. I know my mom’s grandparents knew the South. My grandparents herded cows and grew crops. They raised tobacco, too. I remember being younger and wearing my overalls and claiming to be a farming kind of girl. I loved cows, and I always wanted to hop on the tractor with my dad. Occasionally, I got to help build a fence in the scorching June heat, and I remember getting to drive my dad’s old red Toyota pickup through the pasture at dusk to just check on things.

Now, I wear dresses and tights, and my fingers are glued to electronics half the time. My nose is usually in a book studying away, and the only barn I see is the one lone barn on campus for the ag kids.  I claim I am simply Southern. I don’t think I deserve the title of farm girl anymore.

Had my grandparents stayed alive longer than they did, I wonder if I would be any different. I wonder if I would want to live on a farm the rest of my life, or if I would still have the same desires I do now, which consists of writing other people’s stories every chance I get.

I love small town life. I love the fact that I grew up on a farm, and that I still have a cow. At almost 19, however, I am the point where I want to explore the world a little. I want to see and do things my grandparents didn’t have the opportunity to do. I am not sure what they would think of me as I am living on my own in what they would consider a big city. Who knows, they might think I am heathen.

I hope they wouldn’t though. I hope they would see themselves in me what ever little part they contributed. Despite that they are long gone, I know that I got all the traits I have from those before me. My sense of adventure had to come from somewhere. I am going to guess it is from dad’s dad. He was a skydiving, motorcyclist riding kinda guy.

My love for the acoustic guitar probably came from my mom’s dad. Mom told me he used to have one and pluck a string or two every now and then. What I would give to have played a song with him, or even just pick a few chords.

As for all my other traits, I am not sure. I know there is a piece of them within me, and perhaps the more I grow the more I will know what comes from who. Regardless of where I live someday whether it is where I grew up or somewhere else, I am proud of where I came from, and more importantly, I am proud of who I am came from.

The Fast Lane

This picture is similar to how my life is right now. All over the place with no real direction. Taking 18 hours and working for Sidelines puts me all over the map. I go to school, interview people, transcribe, try to be social, write and article or two, and go to sleep. Well, I sleep sometimes. Usually sleep is at the bottom of my list of things to do.

Right now, it’s four o’clock in the morning, and I just woke up from essentially sleeping 18 hours in about the past 36. College is just a tiring place. A younger friend of mine apparently visited campus the other night. He told me because I had Lucky Charms and ice cream in my dining hall that I was livin’ the life. Oh, how that is not exactly true.

The past two months have been crazy. I feel like my head is spinning most of the time. I am not sure how it is already March. Wasn’t it just Christmas yesterday? I love my life going fast. I usually can’t stand it going any other way. Sometimes, I wonder though. If my life were to keep at this fast pace until die, what would happen?

I feel like I am in a car blowing by the world at 100 mph. I fear that I am going to run into something or someone and spiral out of control. Life feels pretty unsteady when it’s in the fast lane.

The Journey Home

Sitting and talking with Jane in her colorful crocheted hat and red jacket felt like any everyday conversation. You wouldn’t know that behind her glasses and New York accent that she was a tornado victim with a mental disability.

More unexpectedly, you wouldn’t imagine that she was teacher with her masters in education and once an elementary school teacher. However, here she and I sat at the Journey Home this evening after my BCM family served her and several others a meal. Jane was unemployed and a little down on her luck, something she wasn’t afraid to share with total strangers.

The Journey Home, the facility where Jane and I sat and bantered, is a safe haven where the homeless or people just down on their luck come to find  food and love. They serve meals regularly throughout the week, and this Monday the BCM decided to offer dinner for anyone who needed it.

When I walked into the building tonight with the rest of my group, I didn’t know what to expect. Sometimes, I don’t feel like being a people person, and today was one of those days. I wanted to serve, but I was tired and it had been a long Monday. So, I offered to serve the food instead of talk to people.

God surprised me, though. I thought I had gotten out of talking with people until we ran out of people to serve. I took off my clear serving gloves and threw them in the trash. That’s where I saw Jane talking to one of my friends. Her mouth was going a mile a minute, and she intrigued me.

Michael, the man in charge, urged us to go and sit with the people who were eating while they finished their meal. I was hesitant. I was not in the right mindset to deal with people today especially people who I thought were sad and depressed.

So, I sat down in a green plastic chair and introduced myself to the woman across from me. She was friendly and had a smile on her face. Her smile surprised me most of all. I was not anticipating it at all.

I caught her in the middle of her story, but I remained quiet and listened attentively. She had just reached the part about her backpacking all over the country. I thought to myself, “Wow, she’s backpacked all over the country?” My curious nature always wants to know how people are in down-trodden situations. So I sat, waiting, hoping to find my answer.

She concluded by telling my friend and I that her house was torn to splinters a few years ago in the Good Friday tornadoes. Her house may have been almost rebuilt, but her spirit and mind weren’t. Despite her smile, her tragedy left with her with a disability and hard times.

I left the Journey Home with a great realization. Not everyone who are in terrible situations are sad. Lord knows I would be sad, depressed and irritable if I had to deal with the life hurdles Jane did. However, she kept her chin high and was open to telling her story and testimony.

Everyone has a story and sometimes it’s only a matter of sharing. More importantly, it’s only a matter of someone to listen to you. I am thankful and humbled by her story. She gave me a gift. I may have given her something to eat, but she gave me the gift hope and renewed light in this world. A light that isn’t so easily blown out.

Spinning the dial

As I have driven all over creation these past few months to and fro from Murfressboro, I have spun my radio dial a time or two, trying to find new tunes. Not only that, but I need some serious walking music. MTSU isn’t exactly a small campus when it comes to walking around.

My finger has skipped song after song in efforts to satisfy me. The over one thousand songs I have now weren’t cutting it. Something had to give. I had to find something new. Something that could keep my attention for more than ten seconds.

My ears experienced several different bands, and I think they like what they hear. I can’t study to the same tunes I did in high school all the time. If it is possible to grow bored from music, I certainly have, and I am hunting Pandora and Spotify high and low for something new.

The one perk of my newsroom is that we have all eclectic tastes. Our Pandora in the office is playing something different, and I always find my foot tapping to something I had never heard. Sometimes, the music even makes me want to dance but that is a different story.

So here are a few of my new favorite college tunes. Are you ready for this? Some how I don’t think you are.

1) Freelance Whales: I know what you are thinking. Whales? As in whales that swim in the ocean? Well yes, that is apart of the name. This quirky band got my attention last week as I awaited my editing class. My news editor introduced them to me, and we listened to them with the rest of the people in our class. The music itself has an eclectic sound with its Metrostation meets Mumford & Sons feel. This techno sound with a hint of banjo is just the right combination.

2) Explosions in the Sky: If you’ve ever seen the show or the movie “Friday Night Lights,” you are more than familiar with the instrumental song that seems to tug at your heartstrings and emotions. Months ago, I had researched to see who played the theme to the TV show, and I discovered that I liked the band as much as I the show. The instrumental sounds are soothing and are great for studying. Since most songs don’t have lyrics, I don’t sing along nor do I feel the need to dance. This is exactly why it’s perfect studying.

3) Death Cab For Cutie: Before you ask me where I have been the past few years if I am just now liking this band, hold your breath. I listened to Death Cab’s slow melodic music my freshman and sophomore years of high school. “I Will Follow You into the Dark” is one my favorite songs, and it has a beautiful meaning. However, this band just got swept under the rug, and I just let them fall off my radar screen. Until recently that is. One of my friends heard “Stay Young Go Dancing” on Pandora, and she liked it so much she played it for me. Now, I have fallen in love with the Codes and Keys, the album they produced in 2011. For the past few articles I have written, I type in Codes and Keys on my Spotify and hit play. My newest writing music muse.

4) Kate Nash: Singer songwriter Kate Nash has lifted my spirits these past few months. Here poppy sound and English accent have a way to make my bob my head along and want to sing. Except, I don’t have the English accent to sing along with her. I want to compare her to Sara Bareilles since they write about similar topics, but some of her lyrics are as bitter as Adele. However, Nash has the edge that makes my ears ever wonder why I thought she was mellow in the first place. Nonetheless, her witty music has found her way to my playlist. Not the best homework jams, but hey what’s a girl to do?

5) Foster the People: I know, I know. You are going to declare I only like them because of their hit song “Pumped Up Kicks.” Guess what? You’re right. That is what got me listening to them. That and I listened to that song so many times that I learned to play the acoustic version of the song. I don’t even know how to properly describe this band. They incorporate different elements to their music to get the right blend of beats. Call it what you want, but they made it to my list. It’s on my must buy, in fact. Hopefully, it will end up on my iTunes sooner than later.

Laundry room ramblings

Between the fire alarms and alarm clocks, I never have time to write for myself. Work and school take up 90 percent of my time while the little sliver I have left is dedicated to my social life. Yeah, my social life is small. Don’t judge.

I feel like life has turned a 180 on me. I look back at last year, and I am simply amazed. God has obviously worked in my life. Never in my wildest thoughts would I have imagined that I would be sitting in my dorm laundry room writing a blog. I was unaware that any of the things that have taken place would have ever happened at all.

So, here I sit at a Formica blue table listening to the dryer hum as I wait for my towels. Doors are slamming, but people are quiet for the most part. It is Friday night after all, so the majority has already hit the party scene.

Before I could put my fingers to the keys tonight, the fire alarm went off in my building. I was merely thankful I was awake for this one instead of grudgingly sliding out of bed half asleep.

Usually, I am seething when the fire alarm goes off. It always disrupts something I am trying to accomplish such as this blog post for instance. However, this time I grabbed my brown leather jacket and walked outside. Since it’s not really winter, it’s not terribly cold. Actually,  it is bearable so I didn’t mind. I hate standing with the crowd so I ventured down the sidewalk to a quieter spot. I stood and I thought.

I love my new life here at MTSU. I truly do. But as I have just finished one incredible week, I find myself missing simple things.

I miss…

•  having a window that opens in my bedroom.
• my church family.
• all the people I left back home.
• taking naps every day after school.
• sleeping in late.
• playing a sport.
• seeing my best friends every day, all day.
• having time to read a book.
• writing for myself.
• random trips on Saturdays.

And to be honest, that’s about all I miss for the time being. It’s a pretty short list compared to a lot of others I make. In hindsight, I am one blessed girl if that is all I am lacking in life.

We all want the past to the extend, but I am really looking forward to the future. Right now, my future consists of a laundry buzzer and folding towels.  Oh, college life.

My Favorite Distractions

There are a lot of things I should be doing right now. I need to be writing an article for Sidelines. I need to be finishing up my honors speech class homework. I need to be doing a whole host of other things on my way too long to do list. However after being up so long, I have run into my wall so to speak. The energizer bunny within in me is slowing down.

In light of slowing down, I get a little distracted. I am not on task one bit and my mind is wandering. When this happens, one of two things take place. I either stew on my entire day, and I think about everything I have to do while I am sitting here not doing it. OR, and this is a big or, I decide to distract myself if only for a minute or thirty.

So, my favorite distractions. What are they you ask?

1) TV. I love watching re-runs of NCIS religiously. My favorite past downtime hands down. Except when I am away at school, I face one problem: no TV. There is currently not one in my dorm room, so I have to find something else to occupy my thoughts which really isn’t that hard.

2) Since there is no NCIS, I love creepin’ on Facebook. Yeah, don’t think I am weird. I know you do it, too. The newsfeed is full of interesting information. Sometimes, it just requires a little time to sift through all the stupid to get to the good stuff.

3) Reading a not required novel. I have to transport myself sometimes to a different place and time entirely. Escaping reality is one the best stress relievers of all. That is until I enter back into reality.

4) Taking a nap. I have a strong conviction that naps are the key to grappling with life. Someone once told me organization was. There is truth in the statement. I just have a different mantra. I love naps. They give me a little boost. The extra get-up-and-go I need. Taking naps aren’t the best thing to do at eight o’clock at night. Those naps turn into full on sleep. Be careful.

5) Cleaning. I love cleaning my dorm room for some reason. My bedroom back home is something of a mess usually. I have a good reason, though. Nothing has an exact place back home. Everything has a true place here. Plus, it’s smaller, and I hate having it dirty. Sometimes, I can’t do anything until my floors have been mopped. A little anal retentive don’t you think?

6) Angry birds. I heart Angry Birds. I love anything free to begin with, and I of  course love a good competition. I could sit and play that game for hours. It’s actually kinda sickening once you think about it. I thoroughly enjoy playing. Well, until it makes me angry.

We all have distractions that keep us from our true responsibilities. What are yours?

2012 To-Do List

So in a short few days, the ball will drop on Times Square, and we have a brand new year, a fresh slate. I always love the beginning of each new year. For me, it’s filled with endless possibilities, and I always look for new ways to make myself a better person.

A few days ago, my friend Milton asked if I had any resolutions. I couldn’t think of any except the fact that I want to lose weight. What girl doesn’t set herself that goal at the dawning of the new year? Other than that, I couldn’t think of a single one.

I’ve tried making my resolutions stick since middle school. But around the middle of January, I usually find myself back to my old habits and routines, and my resolutions are absent. So for this new year, I decided upon a different approach. Yes, I want to be a better person, but I am not going to do it through resolutions.

Call it a bucket-list if you want, but I really don’t plan on dying in 2012 even though most people think the world is going to end. I don’t. Jesus is way more creative with that. Like He’s really going to let the world know when it’s going to end? Yeah right.

For 2012, I’ve made a to-do list of things, places, and tasks I want to do. All of the items on my list I have never done or been able to fully complete before now.

The List in the making

1. Fly a kite
2. Read 50 books in a year
3. Read the entire Bible in 364 days
4. Go somewhere I’ve never gone before
5. Photograph something incredible
6. Color an entire coloring book
7. Successfully do yoga
8. Somehow run a mile each day
9. Try sushi
10. Play in the rain barefooted
11. Visit my best friend at UTC
12. Master five songs on the guitar
13. Learn how to use bar chords on the guitar
14. Learn how to properly use Photoshop
15. Make myself more vulnerable
16. Keep a journal each day
17. Try everything on the Starbucks menu
18. Lead others to Christ
19. Be bold in my faith
20. Go back to Memphis
21. Watch all of the Star Wars movies–even though I didn’t even like the first one
22. Straighten my mom’s insanely curly hair
23. Write a blog at least once a week
24. Watch every episode of Psych
25. Shoot a gun–like at a target or can. I just felt the need to clarify.
26. Take a road trip with just friends
27. Take a road trip just me and mom
28. Write a poem worth reading
29. Bake 100 cookies and randomly give them away
30. Start writing a novel
31. Write a song
32. Build a sand castle
33. Make fried pies
34. Be in a flash mob
35. Climb a tree
36. Document my entire day with a camera
37. Go completely silent for one entire day
38. Make dinner for my family and friends
39. See an SEC team play that I’ve never seen before
40. Do a one handed push-up
41. Stay in Barnes and Noble for an entire day
42. Visit the creepiest, scariest, most haunted house I can find on Halloween
43. See an 80′s band in concert
44. Let my dog ride in my car with his head hanging out the window
45. Go to more than 5 concerts
46. Stay an entire night at Bonnaroo
47. Sleep outside in the summer without a tent in my yard
48. Make 4 new friends
49. Go horse back riding
50. Vote in the election
51. Paint something for my apartment
52. Throw someone a surprise party
53. Finish a scrapbook
54. Work an entire jigsaw puzzle by myself
55. Learn how to play one song on the piano
56. Make a snow man with 3 people–providing that it snows
57. Learn how to sew on a button
58. Straighten my hair every day for an entire week
59. Do a backhandspring at MTSU
60. Win a game of laser tag
61. Make someone’s day

2011 Highlights

There are only six more days until the year 2011 concludes. As usual, the old cliché of “where did the time go?” is on my mind. Because in all seriousness, where did it go? This time last year I was tuning the strings on my new Johnson guitar, and my only responsibilities consisted of nothing except finishing out the rest of my senior year.

Now, life is full of all sorts of responsibilities. College is a completely different world than high school. My life transformed, and it doesn’t seem real that only six measly months ago that I graduated high school in front 3,000 of my closest friends.

The year 2011 hasn’t been a piece of cake. Transiting wasn’t as effortless as I thought. Graduation itself was actually fast, and the last months of high school are all a blur of friends, breezing through homework, and tying up loose ends.

Here’s the highlight reel of 2011. The 12 highlights of the year thus far.

January: Snow days. Two simple words. The white fluffy fun visited Tennessee with a furry leaving me with one option: to play. I had some of the most fun with my best friends sledding down the snow-covered terrain and ramming into thorny bushes. I came away with snow burn and bruises. But hey, what’s a little pain?

February: Not that it will ever really matter, but I got into the top ten percent of my class. I got the 20th spot, too. It will never matter again in my life, and no one except maybe all the other people who snagged a spot will care. I guess it was just one of those accomplishments that will only potentially be remembered at my class reunion ten years from now.

March: The good–learning my newspaper was number one in the state. It was one of the best feelings of my senior year. It definitely is in the top five moments. The bad–the person who loved me, spoiled me through endless pots of macaroni and cheese, and was on my side no matter how wrong I was, passed away. And, I still miss her to this day.

April: What a blur. I did the prom thing. I finished up all my high school duties. In reality, I didn’t do a whole bunch of anything. Maybe that’s why it was significant.

May: I graduated with all the sashes I ever want. I didn’t fall in front of a very large crowd. I celebrated my 18th birthday with my friends. May came and went with much ease, not to mention a lot of goodbyes.

June: I’ll never forget walking on those cracked streets in the Memphis heat as I went door to door picking up children for bible club. Their faces are etched in my mind, and their stories are woven in my heart. I would do anything for those kids. I will go back to serve there one day. I just don’t know when.

July: Like Spongebob, I went stepping on the beach and watched the ocean waves crash on the shore. It’s always my favorite part of the summer. My mom and I always tease that we could be at the beach in eight hours when we feel like running away. One of those days, it will happen. No, I am not joking.

August: I finally left the little town that I have known all my life. It’s not like I went very far either, just thirty miles up the road. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to go further away. Nonetheless, I found myself walking the sidewalks of MTSU not knowing my place among all the people. Maybe I never will.

September: Only eight days after my first article published in my college paper, I managed to wind up with cover story. It landed in my lap. It was a God-thing, serendipity, an accident. I don’t really know what to call it, but it happened. I wrote the cover on an upcoming band that toured to our campus. It was the biggest story I’d ever done, and I got the entire band to sign my copy of the paper backstage before their performance.

October: Every girl deserves one perfect day out of this 365 day of the year, right? I don’t know what it was, but I had the perfect day in this month. My best guy friend from Bryan College came to visit. I managed to get all the work I needed to do that day, and I went with one my new good friends to an awesome worship service. I had the best interview of my life, and it was just an incredible day.

November: Two things: All Time Low concert and Thanksgiving Outreach. I finally got to see the band I had dreamed of seeing for the past four years. I had the best mosh pitting experience, and I held the lead guitarist’s hand (even if it was for just five seconds). I delivered meals to people who needed them, and I got to share the love of Christ. And of course, I couldn’t have a good adventure without getting lost along the way now could I?

December: This month is finally coming to a close. I finished my first semester of college. I got promoted to associate news editor of my college paper. I successfully lived on my own, and now I am back in my small, little town with all the same people. Christmas came and went. The wrapping paper is torn and already thrown away. I watched two of my new friends get baptized, and I had the blessing of helping with Operation Christmas Child. What more could I ask for?

As I ring in the New Year with my several friends in a week, I wonder what the new year holds. There’s no telling what God can do.

Christmas Eve Insomnia

Another Christmas is upon us, and Santa is already making his stops around the globe. But before Christmas ever comes, we have to have Christmas Eve. Growing up, Christmas Eve was one of my least favorite days of the year. I’ve always had a problem on December 24. A problem I still can’t remedy at 18.

I can remember Christmas Eves where I was a small body of angst. The day was full of so much anticipation. What was I going to get from my mom and dad? Most importantly, what was I going to get from Santa? Time went slower on Christmas Eve than it did any other day of the year. That just drove me up a wall.

I remember vividly in the third grade I tried to do all sorts of physical activities all day to tire myself out. I did push-ups, and I did toe-touches. I did sit-ups too and don’t think I didn’t run around my house all day long. The bad thing was that just made matters worse.

I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, and I slept in the floor of my parent’s bedroom on an air mattress that felt like all the air just kept being sucked out. My aunt and uncle came to see us for the first time in years, and all the sleeping arrangements got thrown off kilter.

However, all I could do was lay there with anticipation prying my eyes open until two in the morning. We had a strict rule in my house. I couldn’t leave my parents bedroom until they came to get me on Christmas morning. If I tried to slip into the living room, Santa wouldn’t come, which would be devastating.

Somehow, I don’t think this year would be any different. I’ve tried different tactics over the years to get myself to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. I’ve tried listening to classical music. I’ve tried counting sheep. I’ve tried laying in bed since eight o’clock in the evening. Nothing has ever worked.

Nothing is going to work this year either. I ended up watching movies until four this morning, and I’ve slept in until ten thirty. Not to mention, I have taken an hour nap today.

Going to sleep tonight won’t be easy. I still hope Santa comes. Maybe I should leave out those milk and cookies after all.