what to do when you're home alone

it's saturday afternoon, and i am doing homework in my room. i emerge to find everyone gone, and after doing homework for 3 hours, i had to find ways to entertain myself. this was the only obvious solution, choose a song you don't know all the words to. and i was having trouble with the hand puppets.

awkward blind dates, january, and other junk

oh how I live for the weekend! they are always filled with misadventures and way too much time in the library. we kicked off the weekend with another awkward blind date. I try, I really really do. I go on the date, and tell myself that we're going to have a good time, and sometimes it works, but sometimes, well, sometimes it just doesn't...

I won't go into details, but let's just say when we went to the MOA, we spent a good five minutes looking at the HUGE shark picture when I am actually deathly terrified of sharks and start having anxiety when I see them. so it was more of me standing there with my hands over my eyes for a good five minutes. 

On the bright side, it makes for a pretty funny story afterwards, and I got to see the Andy Warhol exhibit, which was awesome! And I went to the Roll Up Cafe, which will definitely be visited again. 

Saturday nights start out with Downton Abbey and making bows for my hair (I'm reverting back to my childhood with this one) and then end up with some Cafe Rio and Step Up Revolution- and don't forget to add a dance party. You always have to dance after watching Step Up. 

And January is almost over, but it made sure to give us a little more snow. It's really beautiful, though so I don't mind. Isn't it funny how when things are beautiful we seem to tolerate them more?

oh and this is really cute, we watched it in Relief Society, and I'm pretty sure it was filmed at my old high school's football field. I recognized it and then it said home of the eagles. I was an eagle once...

i can't see

so I have had some problems seeing, so I went to the eye doctor today and I need glasses (along with the rest of the world it seems...). But I don't need glasses. Confusing. Apparently I have a weak focusing muscle (who even has that!?), and unfortunately eye muscles aren't ones that you can work out, so I'm getting glasses so my eyes don't have to work as hard. Obviously I'm getting these ones.

you know you're getting old when...

so lately my brothers and my friends that are still in high school have been saying something.

"yolo"
       "yolo"
   "YOLO"
 "yolo"

what the heck is a yolo?

yolo: you only live once

oh.

well kiddies, it looks like I'm officially out of the loop with the cool slang. 

haha

it's also really funny when your little sister doesn't really know what she's saying so she goes around saying "olo" all the time haha

maxi skirts are good. really good.

I thought tonight was a lovely evening to go to a wedding. So I did.

and I discovered that:

- maxi skirts are really good because:
1. shaving. who likes it?
2. little unknown fact about Erica #78: apparently I'm allergic to some types of mosquitoes. I forget this every year until I get bitten and HELLO hamburger patty sized mosquito bite! I'm not even joking. We're talking 2 mosquito bites on my upper arm and my WHOLE upper arm is swollen. That's happened a couple of times. They get massive and it's quite unattractive. And I know that you just really really wanted to know that lovely bit of information. So yeah. This time the bite was on my let, so the legs had to be covered. This time wasn't as bad. Only about clementine sized.

so maxi skirts are good. real good. haha. ha.

i forget lots of things

I am the queen of awkward moments. I swear every situation I am in becomes awkward just because I am in it. For example, yesterday I was working and I ended up having to vacuum off an old man's back/almost his butt. Yeah. I don't even know.

Family dinner at the Paine house:

Dad: "Erica you should do something [in college] that doesn't have very many girls"

Erica: "But dad everything that only has 3 girls in it I don't want to do."

Dad: "But there's lots of great things like..."

Erica's Head: "wait for it, wait for it...."

Erica's Head & Dad: "Engineering, you'd be great at it."

Erica: "knew you were going to say that. actually I really like sanding tables. Like furniture building."

Mom: "You can build me a desk. There's one I want from Pottery Barn"

Dad: "You can do industrial design!" [runs off and goes to look it up on the computer]

Rebekah (my little sister): "I like chicken!"

what?

I forgot that I'm too short for my feet to touch the floor when I sit at the kitchen table.

I also forget that my little sisters like to torment me by scaring me.

So after dinner we're sitting at the table still and my little sister disappears. I then feel the awful sensation of tickling on my feet. BAD IDEA. Tickling is the worst! And I am so ticklish! Especially on the feet! And I can't even put them on the ground so she can't tickle them anymore! Short problems.

And then my little sisters like to sneak around corners and jump out at me and make scary faces just to hear me scream. I'm tormented. It's a hard life, I know. 

Later my little sister tries to get me to let her borrow my shoes. She tells me that she won't scare me the whole time I am home if I let her borrow my shoes. hahaha.

#1 problem of being home: I don't have anyone to share clothes with (my mom is a lot taller than me and my little sisters are 11 and 9 so...). But then I discovered little brothers' plaid shirts! Perfect!

I forgot why humidity is not great. These past couple days I have had a halo of frizzy curls all around my head. And they're not even cute! I don't think I had curls once in Utah!

I also forgot about Tennessee storms. Man I sure missed them. Here we have real thunderstorms. Hail and pouring rain. Lightening and thunder. They're great!

Today I was asked to come in and help do hair and makeup for young women's. So I was at church and we were told there was a tornado that had touched down (that means one hit the ground) at a park nearby and so we had to cram in the church bathroom with at least 30 other people. Fun fun fun! 

Gotta love Tennessee. It's actually quite scary. This is what happened because of the tornado today:

when we were driving home from church the tornado sirens went off again and my mom said, "of course there was a tornado. I feel dumb because I was like 'look at the clouds they're so pretty' and then they turned out to be tornado" 

This then proceeded to become a conversation where we all talked in our chinese accents and made fun of tornados and said things like (imagine chinese accents)

"oh look at those pretty clouds turning and twisting in the air"

"oh look cows can fly here"

"oh and pigs too"

"and houses! where can I get one of those?"

"look mom! we're flying with the birds"

"see kids this is why we wear helmets in the car"

just a typical day at home. that's all.

coming home

That awkward moment when...

You come home and everyone is ten feet taller than you. I was tall once. I promise.

Your little brother can drive.

Your other little brother's voice is cracking. 

You wash all of your dishes before you put them in the dishwasher and then your dad tells you that your dishwasher actually works.

You're still afraid of your basement and have to run up the stairs 2 at a time in order to avoid being murdered by the murderer that you swear lives in your basement.

You're hungry but don't actually end up eating anything because there are so many options of food in your house and you can eat any of it. It's quite stressful.

Everyone is going to bed but you are still wide awake and trying to talk to everyone but no one wants to talk because they're going to bed.

You're emptying the dishwasher and you forget where something goes and you start panicking and feel like your whole childhood is crashing down on you until you find the right spot.

Your little brother has been staying in your bedroom while you were at college and his boxers are pinned on your bulletin board. You just hope they're clean.

You forgot you now live with boys and have to get dressed with the door closed. (sorry probably TMI)

You're perfectly content living in your shower because it's so much bigger than the one in your dorm.

Ingrid Michaelson is the only real friend you have now that you're home. And she's not even real because she's just singing to you out of your computer.

Your mom's shoes now live in your shoe cubby in the mudroom.

Your family doesn't think that puppy pictures are funny.

You end up talking to yourself while you're lying in bed at midnight because you don't have a roommate to talk to.


Everything has changed, yet nothing has changed.

national wear your socks inside out and backwards day

just kidding. I'm sure you were actually super duper excited about it being national wear your socks inside out and backwards day, but it's not. sorry I crushed your dreams.

it's actually National-nappy-time-and-please-stop-shutting-off-our-water-for-those-of-us-who-seem-to-have-particularly-tiny-bladders-on-only-these-days Day.

goodnight zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............

 

feel free to still wear  your socks inside out and backwards, if you want.

who'd a thunked

tip #453

the best thinking is done with hair over your face

didn't you know?

who'd a thought.

What a Morning

So this morning, I was minding my own business, getting ready for school. I needed to leave in 5 minutes to go to class, but I had to go to the bathroom. So I didn't put on my pants, because what is the point in taking off my warm pajama pants and put on pants that I am just about to take off again? Well I left my room to go to the bathroom when I realized that my door was locked. Great. 5 minutes til class, in my pajamas, with all of my school stuff locked in my room. I went to knock on my RA's door and she wasn't home. So, I put on my roommate's pants and shoes and walked in the freezing cold to the Central Building. I got a key and came home. THE KEY DIDN'T WORK!! So I just decided to skip my first class because I wasn't going to go in my pajamas and I had nothing to take to the class anyway. I couldn't wait for my room roommate Morgan to come home, because her key doesn't work for our room. Thankfully my wonderful roommate Amanda's class was cancelled and she came home early. She and I have magical keys. They open both her room and my room. Morgan and Mateja (Amanda's room roommate) have dud keys. Their keys don't open either of their rooms at all. So I finally got into my bedroom and was able to put some pants on and go to my class after my first class.

I am so happy to be IN my room with MY keys and wearing pants!!!

Wednesday

So we were bored....
And sick of homework.... (this is what homework does to you by the way)