The Domestication of Cecilia Irene

So my life has been interesting of late. And by of late, I mean over the past two days. Yesterday, Lauren, Nicole, and I left the Mishler homestead around 10 hours ante meridian and arrived in Grand Rapids around noon. Lauren left and went to work while Nicole and I fiddled around our house. Then Nicole went to work around four hours post meridian while I continued to fiddle around the house. (For any interested parties, I can't really fiddle. I was actually doing homework, reading, drinking coffee, taking a trip to Beaner's/Biggby's, and other interesting endeavors.)
Then in the evening, Nicole returned home around 9pm and ate supper. Then we invited Lauren and Alex over and of course, they came. Then we adjourned to Lauren's house to make use of the fact that Sandy and Samson have gone away for the weekend. We also made use of the television and DVD player (and my free rental coupon from Blockbuster) to watch the fourth movie in a classic American adrenaline epic. It was fabulous.
Then today, I went to work at Big Apple Bagels. I had to be there at 9am and I was scheduled to work until close. Now, BABs closes at 3pm on Saturdays so usually you're out of there by 3:15 or 3:30. Today, closing took forever and I didn't clock out until 4:08pm. On the upside, I did get thirteen free bagels. But then I had to stand at the bus stop in the cold and wind for 50 minutes waiting for a bus. I'm still trying to recover. It made me cold,
But then it was when I arrived at home that my real domestication began. Before leaving my parents' house yesterday, my mother gave me the turkey carcass from our Thanksgiving dinner. Combined with the fact that we have a large soup tureen in our kitchen and I had some spare carrots and celery, I made turkey soup for our dinner tonight. We're hoping that when Lauren and Alex and possibly Alex's twin join us later in the evening, they will eat some soup. But Nicole says it was good soup.
I'll show you a picture of the soup and another of Alex.
As you can see, I also put some noodles into the soup as well as the turkey, carrots, and celery. I also found a few green beans that I threw in for good measure. Nicole really liked it. She also enjoyed the free bagel I gave her.
This is a picture of Alex sleeping on bed, partially just to harass D.Cous. Obviously, this is NOT the Alex who came over and watched a movie with us last night.

It's an American Tragedy

Well, okay it's not really. The time has come to say "Adios" or "au revoir" to our dearly beloved Coach Lloyd Carr. Now he can devote his life to things other than losing to Ohio State.
If you're wondering, I only have one more class until I'm on break. Unfortunately, that class starts in 8 hours and 21 minutes. I will not be well-rested for class. I think I shall sleep on the car ride home.

Well...it could always be worse

In case you've never noticed, I have a tendency towards sarcasm. My life is actually going pretty well right now if you don't mention the following conversation I had yesterday when I got off work where I had not been allowed to watch the UofM vs. OSU game. At half-time, Kyle sent me a text message informing me that OSU was up 7-3 but "don't cry. Mike Hart is playing."
So after the game, I sent him a message asking "Can I cry yet or has Mike Hart saved the day?"
Kyle's response? "Start crying. Ohio St. won 14-3."
I wanted to cry; maybe I did and maybe I didn't. That's for me to know and you to find out.
And then we learned of this sad bit of news. I shall be sad to see this occur but I believe that the time has come. I don't even really remember Gary Moeller although he was the coach of my early childhood. And Bo was coach until 1989, but who expects me to remember the first year or two of my life? Lloyd Carr is the only coach I've ever really known or remembered. I'm sad. But I really don't want to see Ron English become the coach; I'm not sure he would be good at it.

In other news that I briefly hinted at earlier, I have been gainfully employed for almost two weeks now. On Monday, November 5, I was hired to work at Big Apple Bagels (Bab's) in Grand Rapids. I take orders as well as stocking shelves, making coffee, specialty drinks, and sandwiches. For those of you who remember tales of my times at Bath and Body Works, this new job is much better. This new job is also the reason my Thanksgiving break will be a bit shorter than preferable. I need to be back in GR in time to work on Saturday morning, so I'll only be home from Tuesday until Friday morning.
But I am skipping two classes on Tuesday because Greg wants to leave at 2pm and I can't do that unless I skip class. So I shall be home in time to eat some of my lovely mother's cooking...which is always a good thing.
I also get free bagels when I work at the closing shift at Bab's because otherwise the bagels are just thrown away. That's a pretty great deal.
In not so happy news, I'm getting sick. This might have something to do with the fact that I almost never sleep. The fact that I stood outside in the cold rain for 45 minutes yesterday might be another factor. Who knows? All I know is that I'm sleepy and I feel gross.

YOU NEED TO SHAVE

So I returned to Ann Arbor this weekend. It was a lovely trip and I hope to return to the area again soon...how does Thanksgiving sound? Lovely...I'll see some of you then.

So Friday night, after a lovely family dinner, I went to see You Can't Take It with You at the same time as Dani, Maryn, Framy, and Schmidt-face; I suppose you could say we watched it together. The play was great and it was good to see all the folks. And of course, Brad and I were able to renew our memberships in Mean People Anonymous. We are also considering allowing Dan to join us; he seems to be progressing well. And Maryn also seems to have a future in being mean to people. We'll really have to see how that one goes.
Saturday, I had a great day. In the morning I interviewed the famous Barb Panning about what life is like when you are a teacher. It was very informational and useful. Later in the day, my family had a large number of guests for dinner. There were my guests: Jenny and Alex; they were well-behaved and are invited to come again. Then there were Gregoire's guests; they were loud and argumentative. They sat around and discussed the Tridentine Mass vs. Novus Ordo; they really seem to prefer the Latin Mass to speaking English. Yeah...they were interesting. I think they might have scared Alex but he's a big boy...I think he lived.
After that, we all headed over to the Nitkiewiczes for Mary's party...and talked about weddings and really expensive engagement rings ($20,000 for example) despite the fact that I did promise Alex that we wouldn't discuss weddings at all. Poor kid...he really does get abused. But he was a good sport and maybe some day he'll have to go engagement ring shopping. If he does that, he'd better spend a lot less than $20,000.
So after we left that house, Jenny, Alex, and I went to Starbucks...where Alex's twin, Kyle, called. (Alex goes to UofM; Kyle goes to GVSU and is a friend of mine. Alex and I are also friends but he doesn't attend GVSU so I don't see him as much as I see his brother.) So Kyle calls and Alex gives me the phone without telling Kyle who he's at the pick-pockets with. All he says is that he's there with a "crazy mysterious woman." So I tell Kyle that I'm the crazy mysterious woman and he replies, "What the heck are you doing in Ann Arbor?"
After a brief refresher that my parents live in A2 we had a nice chat until his brother decided he needed the phone back. Shortly after this, Ben, a friend of mine from high school and a friend of Alex's from UCO, calls Alex and basically invites Alex, Jenny, and me to come over to his dorm and hang out for a while. So now we head over to UofM's campus and hang out with Ben and his roommate, David, and this other guy, Josh, for a couple hours. We watched Sports Center and were able to view the awesomeness that is the University of Michigan's football team. It was pretty great.
But this was also where things got awkward. Somehow we got unto the topic of girls and leg-shaving. Over the summer, Alex and I were at someone's house when that person's little brother pulled my pants leg up to my knee and yelled "YOU NEED TO SHAVE."
David informed us of a few interesting points such as the fact that he didn't know that girls shave their legs until he was in high school and even now he can't tell whether or not girls have shaved their legs. (Hairy legs are after all our only link to reality.)
A bit later we were discussing the serious lack of males at GVSU (this institution is 73% female) and there are very few single men. Now this is not to say that I want a boyfriend; I'm merely stating that sometimes it's really nice to hang out with a guy who won't run off to canoodle someplace the minute his girlfriend gets back. It's also incredibly awkward to sit around with like six or seven girls and one guy. Now most of these guys (Greg and Kyle) are good sports about this but it has to be rough on them. But anyway...I remarked about how there are almost no single guys around and David looks at me and says "Oh, I bet I know what you want." Yep, Dave, that's right; I'm just another single girl out to get a boyfriend...or not! I'm more interested in finding someone you can talk to without having to also talk to his girlfriend/fiancee/wife.
But yeah...I like people; they're awesome.
And for the record...I'm still single and I shaved my legs this morning. Return to Me lied to me.

What grace has given to me...

Below is an explanation of a stressful, awful event in my life that has yielded some unusual results.
On Friday, I borrowed Noelle's car for part of the afternoon to go take care of a job application. I was driving back home on bridge street and there was a bus in front of the service drive for Union High School. There was a minivan stopped at the bottom of the hill wanting to turn into this service drive. (At this point I should mention that it was raining and it had been raining all day.) Then, I, being the idiot that I am, hit the gas pedal instead of the brake and rammed the car into the back of the guy's minivan.
Noelle's car is totaled, destroyed. And I'm really lucky that car had airbags because according to the police, I'd be dead if not for the airbag. My nose and upper lip are pretty badly cut up and bruised. (My face hurts a lot and I keep ice on it most of the time.) I also have cuts and bruises on my arms and chest. (All of those are from the airbag.) My knees are pretty bruised up too but that's probably from being slammed into something in the car at impact.
A nice guy driving by stopped and called the police and helped take care of me. I called Noelle who, thank God, was not mad at me. She took care of calling the insurance company and everything. Then Beth Parr drove her over to where we were to help out. Noelle dealt with getting the car towed while Beth took me back to her house. I stayed there for most of the rest of the day. Beth even made me a nice homemade dinner; it was beautiful.
Noelle's dad and my mom drove out to GR and stayed for about two or three hours to help take care of Noelle and me. The car is over and done with. I have a ticket to deal with although since my parents agree that it is an accident, they're willing to help me pay for it if I need the help. I'll find out on Monday how bad everything is in that area.
So yeah, I'm in pain but I survived; thank God. Pretty much everything that happened after the accident was an act of God. The policeman was amazingly nice to me. The guy who called the police was awesome and so helpful. Beth Parr normally has piano lessons all afternoon Friday and she was supposed to drive her daughter Becca to Lansing yesterday but she didn't have any piano lessons yesterday and someone else was able to drive Becca to Lansing earlier in the day. My mom and Mr. Gornik were able to drive out to GR and take care of us.
And no one is mad at me, which was my biggest fear. Not going to lie, I was terrified to call Noelle. God has really blessed me in this situation, although now more than ever I really need a job.
So yeah, if you see me anytime in the next couple days, my face will probably still be a bit of a mess; right now I kind of look like Charlie Chaplin. And I survived with only cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Praise God for airbags.
Please pray that everything just keeps working out from here.

Something's Up

So today I was at Meijer's with Noelle. She needed to grab something from one part of the store and I needed something from another part of the store. So we went our separate ways and were off searching. Suddenly, the store goes pitch black for about a whole second or two. And then a woman screamed. Then the emergency generator kicked in gear and then...behold...THERE WAS LIGHT!
But it was still very dim. And a voice came over the PA saying "Will all employees please report to customer service?"
The store remained dimly lit for the rest of our shopping expedition. Then we drove home and until about half a mile or maybe a bit more from our house, there was no power. But now we're home where we have power.
And Lauren and Audrey have joined us for the evening.

Funny, she doesn't look Druish.

At many points in my life I have been mistaken for things I am not.
When I was seventeen years old, I was babysitting a very sweet, very blond infant. She does have dark brown eyes, but when this particular incident took place, she happened to be asleep in her stroller. It was a scorching hot afternoon in the middle of August and Thea and I were out for a walk. She was sleeping in her stroller (as previously stated) and I was strolling along the streets (aka Cross Street) of Depot Town. Suddenly, this random woman came up to me and started giving me what-for because I was a single mother and I was a teenage mother. It was a horrible. After a few minutes of this, I looked at her and said, "Well, at least I didn't have an abortion."
She didn't have much of a response to this and just walked away.

Over the past several years, people have asked me if I was Assyrian, Spanish, Dutch, and various other nationalities. Let's review, kiddos. I'm half-Italian, a quarter-Slovak, and a quarter-mutt. I might be part Dutch, but I am NOT Assyrian or Spanish.
The other day someone asked me if my last name was "Hernandez." Yeah...I'm not Hispanic.
And then last Thursday my Sociology professor asked me if I was Jewish.
Nope...not religiously, not culturally, not all. I am a Catholic Christian, but I am not a Jew of any form.

Also, way too many people are getting engaged right now. So if you're planning on getting engaged in the near future, please wait at least a week. I've had two engagements of good friends in the past four days. So yes, please don't get engaged any time soon.

Donal, I'm not really worried about you.