Cheesecake Thief...

    My sister and I have been living together since October, and it has been great. Since we live together we obviously do more stuff together like grocery shop. Growing up our parents never kept junk food in the house, only on special occasions would we have chips or soda. That has more or less carried into how my sister and I live now. We will occasionally have chips for salsa or hummus. However for a few months now my sister has been on a real health kick, which that is great, but I'm kind of tired of the steamed veggies and eating like rabbits. We go grocery shopping and our cart will be full, but I will still feel like we haven't gotten anything to eat because it is full of side dishes, "Carrots, apples and crackers aren't a real meal!" My cries go unheard! 
    Last week was my sister's boyfriend's birthday! We are big on birthdays, so it was a time to celebrate! My sister bought cheesecake for the special occasion! The three of us all celebrated and enjoyed a piece, and then the rest of the cheesecake was put in the fridge to be enjoyed later...or so we thought! Her boyfriend went back to college and we continued our week as usual. 
    Wednesday I was at home all day, except for an hour around noon. That evening my sister and I were talking and I jogged her memory about the cheesecake. She ran into the kitchen eager to get a piece, but then announces that it is not in the fridge. She isn't always the best looker, so I went in there to get it for her, but it was gone! She questions me, and I tell her that I didn't eat it, ironically I had been doing a cleanse that day so I had just been drinking water and eating fruit. I had told her earlier everything I had eaten that day too (such a girl thing to do haha) but I was in the clear. 
    We looked in the back fridge and in the little fridge upstairs, but it was nowhere. By this time my sister is in hysterics because the cheesecake is missing and she had her heart set on having a piece! She was yelling and stomping around. She had had a long week, so the cheesecake was kind of a highlight, she really doesn't usually get that emotional about food...actually, I take that back. She has been known to get worked up about food. When she has her heart set on something and then it gets taken away, she will get really offended and can't comprehend why somebody would do that to her. Like if she picked out the most frosted wheatie and was saving it to eat last, and then "somebody" picked it up and ate it! You would think somebody just slapped her across the face, or that you were about to get slapped across the face! All hypothetical of course...though I can think of a half a dozen other instances that this has happened with various foods! 
    So considering the knowledge of how my sister reacts when food it taken from her, I was determined to help her discover what happened to the cheesecake! Plus I always love a mystery. We came up with two options, my parents stopped by and took it in the hour that I was gone, or somebody walked in our house and stole it! The next day we questioned our parents, but they had no knowledge of the cheesecake and were confused as to why we thought they would come and take it. That left one option! SOMEBODY STOLE IT! It was the only logical answer. We went back over all the details, "I didn't eat it, our parents didn't take it, her bf wasn't seen leaving with it, and she had a piece the night before it turned up missing." It only made since that somebody came into our house and took it! 
   Being the detective that I am, I posted all the events on my facebook, maybe somebody would know something, or just feel sorry for us because of the heinous crime that was done to us! One of my friends did say she took it, but I knew she was innocent, but I did tell her I needed her law enforcement friends to come out and take finger prints! As the suspense kept building about who came into our house and stole the cheesecake, the truth was finally revealed! 
   As it turns out my sister had told her boyfriend to take the cheesecake or the next time he came there wouldn't be any left! But instead of taking it he decided to hide it from us in the veggie draw in the back fridge! It was the perfect place because we never put our veggies in the back fridge so we would never look there! Needless to say we were relieved that somebody didn't actually break in and steal our cheesecake, but that it was actually just hidden from us. WHO KNEW! 
   The moral of this story is don't live on veggies!

I Better Keep Going...

This year I took up running more. I'm pretty sure every year I take up running, but this year I have actually been consistently running. I will not at all say I am runner though. I started running during the school year because it was a break from studying, good alone time, and most importantly it helped relieve stress, which I seemed to have had a double portion of my senior year! Once I got home I just kept on running, I actually started liking running and the runner's high.
 I don't call myself a runner though, because I'm a bit of, shall we say, a high maintenance runner. Real runners can run anytime and in any way. Real runners can talk, run up hills, run without music, run with people or without people. I however can only run at night, I have to have music, and I don't really like to run with people. It's hard enough to keep the oxygen flow going without talking, so I definitely don't like to talk on the few occasions that I do run with people. As far as hills go...well I'm working on it. If any of these conditions change my run just isn't that good and I usually stop and walk more. One thing is for certain though, I have to have my music, it keeps me motivated to keep going.
Earlier this summer I borrowed my sisters ipod for my run. I looked through her playlists and found one named "running music" considering that I was going to run, I figured that would be the best playlist. Boy was I right! That playlists definitely kept me running. The first song was "Wavin Flag" by K-naan. That happens to be one of my favorite songs, I can't help but move when it starts playing, and it reminds me of my time in Germany and the World Cup! Good first song to get my running started. Then the second song, Hips Don't Lie, by Shakira, at that moment I caught a glimps of my shadow, and it is true, my hips don't lie! Better keep running! The next song to come on was "Bust Your Windows" by...ahm...Glee Cast (this is my sister's okay, don't judge!) it is a good song to run to though, about a young girl getting her aggression out about a boy liking somebody else. It's easy to run to if you imagine you are running away from her!
Next song "Get Busy" Sean Paul. Which part of the lyrics are about "shaking that thing" I already had Shakira talking about my hips, and it's no lie that as I run everything feels like it is shaking. It's not the "I just ran a marathon and my legs feel like jello shaking." It's more like I just ran a mile, and the lack of caring what I eat is shaking around...yes, I better keep going! I then skip over a few songs and land on "Single Ladies" by Beyonce. Now I don't care who you are or where you are, that song comes on and you can't help but start moving! It's just the kind of song that you get all your girl friends together and no man better come near, because we are on the mountain top about what we deserve honey, and no man has any say in that circle (snap your fingers in a Z, turn around and walk away...or run up the hill that I was now approaching, cuz baby you didn't bring me down and neither is this hill!) As I talk to the imaginary man in my head who never put the ring on my finger, but I feel ya Beyonce!
Next song, Taio Cruz "Dynamite" Great song to dance to, but as I am now quite a ways into my run, as Taio is singing about how "It goes on and on and on" and "I throw my hands up in the air, saying Hey O!" I'm going yes, "this run does go on and on, and I'm about to throw my hands in the air and say HECK NO!" A few more songs go by that keep me moving, Chris Brown "Forever" Kanye West "Gold Digger" a song by Eminem. Eminem always has a lot of aggression, which aggression is good emotion to have while running, "I'm so mad I'm going to run so fast on this ground and show it who's boss! I don't care if there is a enough oxygen flowing through my lungs I'm so angry I'll show oxygen who's boss too! There's a leaf, I'm going to stomp on it!" Eminem passes by and on comes Rihanna, if anybody needs to run it's Rihanna...away from Chris Brown! Few more songs go by, finally Diddy "Coming Home" YESSS, final stretch! I'm coming home!  I had quite the run, working out all my emotions about the World Cup, being out of shape, the boy liking somebody else, being on the mountain top of singleness, pushed through and made it through my aggression against the ground, oxygen, and leafs, and ran my benefit race to free Rihanna! Now I was going home, feeling at this point more like E.T. if only I could fly away on a bike! Once I returned home, my parents seemed a bit confused when they asked about my run, and I responded with "emotional!" I told you I was a high maintenance runner. 

(I wrote this entry this summer and never posted it. I haven't ran more than a mile since the beginning of winter.)

Let's all hold hands and be posers together!

My sister and I were talking the other day about how people used to dress for the activities they were going to do. Such as, if they were going to travel they would put on their travel clothes, if they were going to ride a horse they would put on their riding clothes.
My sister and I thought it would be interesting if we still did that today, because it seems that a lot people dress like they are going to go do yoga, but actually they are just buying frozen yogurt or going tanning. I mean it is just very confusing these days to know who people really are.
Back then it would probably be easy to find people you have things in common with, because you see them dressed in the attire of what they really are doing! But today you can't tell if somebody is really into sailing a boat or if they just like to walk around the mall in boating shoes.
My sister's boyfriend was walking around downtown Columbia the other day and he said everyone was wearing Northface and Patagonia jackets. I mean it's possible that they all just came from hiking down a mountain, elevation at 10,000 ft. But considering we live in the middle of Missouri, I kind of doubt it. Maybe I'm being harsh, I know those jackets are warm, but those companies are mountaineering companies whose intent was to sale to people who do mountaineering things. Now it has become a fad that everyone from a 4 year old to the cheerleader owns ones...I'd like to hear about their crazy hiking adventures!
Okay, okay, I'll give northface a rest. So I would consider myself a pretty compassionate person, I like to help those in need. But recently I've been a little deceived  I can't seem to tell the difference between a homeless person and a hipster! I see somebody sitting in the park looking homeless, then they pull out their iphone! Wait a second! I'm not going to give my sandwich to you! I'm just kidding, I love hipsters. I think I'm a little confused by them, and what really defines one, cuz we also have this skinny jean, v-neck, flannel shirt, beard, big glasses, with a beenie fad going on. So I'm not sure if those people are hipsters, or if looking homeless/mountain man is a real hipster!
See my dilemma these days, I don't know who people really are! How am I supposed to start a conversation with somebody, "I see you're wearing running shorts, want to go running sometime?...oh you don't run...well, uhh...hey look at that cloud." The only people I know who they are when I see them are hicks...but even those lines are starting to blur, because cowboy boots have hit the fashion market in the last few years too!
Fads, they are just so interesting. I remember when I said I would never wear skinny jeans! Now almost all my jeans are skinny jeans. Truth is I get caught up in fads too, but honestly I really don't own yoga pants, a northface jacket or sparies. I do have one flannel shirt though! Sometimes maybe my style could be hard to read, but generally my clothes define who I am and what I enjoy doing. I'm wearing sweat pants, yes, I'm going to Wal-Mart...okay maybe that's not a good example considering there is a whole web page dedicated to what people wear to W-M!
It's actually funny that clothes can define somebody. Adam and Eve had no idea what shame would evolve into when they covered themselves with leaves! Thanks a lot guys! I guess that's why the saying holds true "don't judge a book by its cover." Because you really don't know who a person is by what they are wearing! I've been really surprised and disappointed so many times hahaha. I say let's just all hold hands and be posers together (I'm not a hippie, I don't own tie-dye!) Haha.

Just the Worst!

    AAAaaa-chhooooo! Excuse me! I have now been sick for about two weeks. It started out as a sore throat and then progressed into congestion and coughing. I honestly can't believe that I am still sick. It's the worst kind of sickness too. I would rather be throwing up and living over the toilet than have a sore throat and congestion. If I were to make a list of the 20 worst things to endure, a sore throat would probably be about number 3. I hate them that much, I can endure getting my face bitten by a dog and numerous broken bones, but I can not endure a sore throat.
   Every time I'm sick, I'm sure it is the worst sickness I have ever had, but this one really may be the worst sickness I've had...well except that one time when I was in Europe, and the morning I was to go on a 24 hour train journey to Bulgaria to finish out my summer internship, I woke up with a super sore throat and could barely talk or swallow! Those 24 hours were the worst in my life. I was in a box car that was steaming hot and Europeans don't like to roll down the windows for fear that they will get sick. So we literally went back and forth me pulling the widow down so I could breath and them pulling it back up when I fell back asleep. I was miserable, I'm pretty sure I was going in and out of consciousness than actually sleeping, from it being so hot. Then I had a something like a 4 or 7 wait in Budapest for my next train. I bought three bottles of water and a fanta, piled my bags on a bench and laid across them while I waited for my train. I know I looked miserable, I was soaked in sweat, couldn't breath, hadn't slept, and everything was going numb and beginning to swell from not being able to get up and walk around (I had two huge bags that I was lugging around so it was too difficult to move around with them). At that moment I don't think I ever felt more miserable in my life! So that was probably the worst sickness I've had, but this one is coming in close.
   I haven't had a decent nights sleep in awhile, because my nose has to be blown or I have a twenty minute coughing fit, where I'm sure I'm going to cough up a lung or a rib is going to come flying up my throat. I know for certain that if my nose makes it through this, it will never be the same again, and I may have to give Rudolf a run for his money. The only good thing coming from this is the ab workout I get every time I cough. I'll have to pin my workout on Pinterest, "All you have to do is every hour cough uncontrollably for 20 minutes, to get those defined abs we all desire!" Okay, maybe not.
   Being sick, just really knocks me on my butt, literally, like I have no energy to walk around so I have to stay on my butt all day. Unfortunately my bedroom is upstairs, I swear it's like climbing mount Everest when I have to go up there, but I don't have an oxygen tank to make the hike with. I'm going to start carrying a backpack around so when I am in my room I can load up anything that I think I may slightly need, so when I go downstairs I don't have a to take three trips up the stairs during the day to grab my chap-stick, or hoody, or my bag  of M&M's. It might be five in the morning and I'm going downstairs to lay on the couch, and I may not want my m&m's at  five, but if I want them at 1:30 I'll have them in my backpack
   Another thing about being sick is that it makes you really weak and vulnerable, and at least for me, more emotional. All my emotions seem to get heightened  I don't know if it's because my brain is so jumbled from blowing my nose like a trumpet, and all the congestion has it all foggy up there that my emotions don't get put through a filter so everything comes streaming out or what, but everything was making me cry yesterday. My sister showed me a get well card that her boyfriend sent her and I started crying. We were watching a TV show and one of the characters died and I cried for like a half hour about it. It's awful! I swear if I look outside and see a squirrel gather acorns I would probably loose it. 
   Unfortunately yesterday we also got a huge snow storm, I'm a bit confused cuz I thought the groundhog said we were going to have a shorter winter, but the foot of snow seems to be suggesting otherwise. We are now snowed in! It would seem fun, but I'm too sick and tired to enjoy it, I think I'm going to go drink some NyQuil and cry about it. 
   

Okay, Where Are The Cameras?

I think that if my life were a reality tv show that it would be a huge hit with like 12 people! Sometimes my life can seem a little boring, but when it's exciting it is really exciting or humorous rather, and it's mostly when I'm overseas! Like the time I was in India and I asked a lady who had a lame leg to help me across the street. Good job Natalie, out of all the people I had to ask! Or the time I was on a tram in Germany and I tried to ask a guy how to pay and ended up playing German charades, which I lost miserably! The more I travel the more humorous and ridiculous stories I seem to pile up, that never seem to get remembered until months or years later when something jogs your memory.

Sometimes I think it would be cool to have my own camera team to document everything I do...it would save me writing time in my journal that's for sure. Then there are other times when I'm not thinking about having a camera team at all, but I am sure there must be hidden camera around and I'm going to end up on some tv show looking ridiculous! If I had my own camera crew I could at least edit the material to always make myself look awesome and funny and never boring! But if there are hidden camera's around I would then be exposed for how ridiculous I really am. 

All this thought about camera's following me was really brought up by a memory I had tonight while I was taking a shower in our little shower in the basement, my memory was jogged. It reminded me about a time I was in Bulgaria last summer. The shower in the basement bathroom is really small, but the bathroom is small so the shower had to be small. While I was showering I thinking about how difficult it was to manage in there and how I didn't think I had ever been in such a small shower. But then I remembered that I actually had! 

My last day in Bulgaria I stayed with the oldest daughter of the missionaries I had been with. She lived in the capital and that is where I was flying out of to come back home. I had to be up real early in the morning to catch a taxi to the airport, so I woke up an hour earlier to take a shower and make sure all my stuff was in order. I wanted to wake up 3:30, but I was so paranoid that I wouldn't wake up I kept waking up every 15 minutes, and then unfortunately I woke up at 4!

 I rushed around and tried to take my shower, but this bathroom was about the size of a closet and so it was a very interesting trial trying to shower quickly without getting water everywhere and soaking my clothes...it was an open shower, no curtains or anything. It was quite the ordeal trying to manage. I then got dressed and got myself put together. After some confusion with the taxi and which airport I was going to, we finally got it all sorted out and I made it to the airport on time, some what frazzled, but on time! 

Out of all the flights I have had I have never had my bags searched, but of course this time when I am flustered the most because of my frantic morning, my bags would be searched. Security pulled me aside and started to unload my backpack, apparently something had showed up on screen. I don't know why but it seemed like I packed all my underwear in my backpack too. If anyone knows me I always pack lots of underwear, I have some weird fear of running out or something! I think it goes back to the time when I was still wearing pull-ups and one Sunday I forgot to change out of my pull-ups into my big girl panties for church...needless to say I don't think I have ever been so devastated in life when I went to Sunday school and sat down in the little wooden chairs. Trying to conceal the noise of a pull-up on a wooden chair is like trying to conceal cymbals in a library! I'm pretty sure that it was at that moment in my life I swore that I would never be without underwear, an abundance of underwear at that as long as I live! So there I was in that airport having the foreign male guard pull out all of my underwear...I guess I can be happy they weren't pull-ups! 

He then asks me if I have a knife! The female guard then jumped in very quickly and said NO NO! and asked if I had anything metal in my bag. I then pulled out the flashlight in the front pocket that I forgot to put in the other bag! They apologized then the male guard asked if I wanted help repacking my bag. Somewhat frustrated but trying to keep my cool, I told him no and I think I can now manage my underwear alone! Those are the times where you have to think, where are the cameras...well considering I was in an international airport there were cameras I guess haha. I just never ended up on a tv show. I think what made all of this a little worse was that when I went to the bathroom I saw how awful I really looked haha. Lack of sleep and a tiny bathroom where very cruel to me. No wonder the other guard didn't think I had a knife, I looked like a poor lost American trying to get home. Not the put together world traveler I thought I was appearing to be! What was so frustrating then, is now quit humorous, which is how most of my stories go I suppose. Maybe one day I'll just make a movie and re-enact all the times I wish I had a camera, and throw in all the ridiculous times that I now find humorous. 

Paper or plastic?

ALWAYS PLASTIC! Now before anybody gets angry and says I hate the planet let me explain! When I say plastic I mean my debt/credit card and not paper money. I got my first debit card when I was about 16 years old when was getting ready to start my great adventures around the world. Having my debt card was easy because I could use the ATMs overseas instead of worrying about carrying hundreds of dollars with me and having to exchange all of it.
But the real reason I say always plastic is because then you can avoid the awkward paper money exchange! I think we all know what I'm talking about! Very rarely does anybody give the exact amount of change these days when they are purchasing items. No big deal, who wants to count out 7.42 when you can hand the cashier a 10, or 20 for you high rollers. Now before the exact changers think I'm making fun of them, I will say that I started counting out the exact change myself. Partly because the place I keep my change gets so full of coins I can't close my wallet, so why not take a few extra seconds to count out some pennies and dimes. And by a few extra seconds I mean practically dumping my whole wallet on the counter to find that one dime that is hiding, or so I can examine all my coins to make sure I'm not accidentally giving a foreign coin left over from my last trip to India or Europe. So really in my attempt to be exact I just waste time.
  But I mostly give the exact change so I can avoid the awkward change exchange back to me. Maybe I'm the only one with this problem, or maybe I'm the only one who notices, but let me explain and then maybe you'll understand. Not only do you have to wait another 30 seconds while the change is being counted, you then have to make the exchange from the cashiers hand to your hand. Different cashiers have different techniques for handing change back, some hand you the coins first and then the dollars, and then some balance the coins on top of the dollars and hand it back. For some reason it doesn't seem to matter how the change is being handed back to me I always make a mess of it. Maybe I should start using both hands to receive my money back, then I can pretend like I'm being given lots of gold coins that requires me to use both hands, instead of like 2.93 for the bag of m&ms I just bought. I think more often then not I either drop some of my coins or I end up making awkward hand contact with the cashier, you try to ignore it, but you both know our fingers were pretty much intertwined as I was trying to receive my change.
Then there is the get away. I don't know when this started, probably when there was no longer just one grocery store in the whole town and the cashiers no longer knew everyone by name. But it is now common knowledge that right when you get your change back you have to sprint out of the door as fast as you can. If you hesitate you have suddenly become the biggest inconvenience to the two people behind you who have nowhere to be. I've tried to master this game, I really have, this is the technique I have come up with, while the cashier is counting your change grab your bags, if the receipt is accessible to you, grab that too! Then when the cashier hands you your change, assuming that it is a smooth hand off and you don't have to crawl around on the floor trying to find the run away penny or God forbid a quarter, you stuff the change in one of your bags, don't take the time to put it back in your wallet wastes too much time. Then you run out the door!

To make this technique as successful as possible I found that it's a good idea to wear the appropriate clothing, tennis shoes and shorts are usually the best, maybe a sweat band if you are really intense, also drink enough fluid so you don't get dehydrated on your 200 yard sprint out the door and to your car. Camel backs are great, cuz you can hydrate while you shop, and your hands will be free for your bags and change.
If all of this sounds like nonsense to you, just use plastic! Or pray that you are never stuck behind me line!

Next time I'll take the drive through!

Today after I swam laps I decided that I would grab the new Cantina bowl at Taco Bell before I headed to take care of my grandma for the day. I don't usually eat fast food for lunch, but I figured today would be the exception. As I was pulling up there was a line for the drive through so I figured going in would be faster. As I walked to the door I see an old man who looked homeless sitting in front of Taco Bell eating a bag of chips. As I neared the door he started talking to me, but I couldn't really hear him or understand what he was saying, I said "sorry?" and he just shrugged so I continued inside. 
The guy behind the counter asked me how I was, which I replied with "I'm doing well," then continued to order my Cantina bowl. He repeated the order back to me and then asked how I was again. I was a little confused since he had already asked me, maybe I wasn't convincing enough the first time, or he just really wanted me to pour out a dialog of how I was really feeeeling. Since I was confused by being asked a second time it created an awkward pause to which I then let out an exhale/sigh that I was fine, all the while looking to make sure he didn't have an earpiece in and was really talking to me. 
I was then saved from pouring out my heart to the Taco Bell order taker, by one of my friends who works at Taco Bell. I hadn't seen him in a few years so I might have been overly happy to see him, or maybe to just be saved from the other guy. After the initial "hey!" my friend asked me how my trip was, followed by "you did go on a trip right?" Now I'm always a bit thrown by this question. Since I go overseas like once a year I never know if I am being asked about my last trip overseas, which would have been India over spring break, or if he was asking about my recent trip to Florida. We are friends on facebook so he could have seen it there, but I wasn't sure, so I then proceed to over answer his question. There is something about Taco Bell employees, they are going to get information out of me! 
By this time my food was ready so I grabbed it and proceeded back to my car, praying that it isn't Jesus sitting on the curb (ya know the whole Matt. 25:37 story), get in my car drive to my grandma's and realize that I'm locked out of her house!