yayyyyy!!!!

here's to some holiday cheer for ya...

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i'm coming home!!!!!
i may or may not be on my way right. now.

but probably not, because i have to finish a test (and those Never start on time), and i have to figure out how to drug oni into a light coma (thanks google and benadryl), and i have to get gas (and convince mikah to pay for it!)

anyways.  see you when i see you!!

oni loves working in the kitchen

arley was a little concerned about oni when he came to visit.  she was a little shy.  that, or she had to spend more time under the bed planning two people's demise(s) (?) instead of one.
he thought she "had changed" and wasn't her spunky, sassy, kill-you self.

here is how i know she has not, in fact, "changed":

this is oni's favorite box.  and the kitchen is her favorite place to play in her favorite box.  so she can swipe me with her sharp sharp claws when i am cooking (rare) or doing dishes (even rarer).

she has a habit of looking guilty.  or like she's ready to kill.

already packing!!!

only 11 more days til i make it to laramie.  i'm so excited.  i'm also going to freeze my butt off.  it was 78 degrees this weekend.
i've already started packing.  i decided i'm going to take a bunch of stuff back that i probably shouldn't have even brought with me in the first place.  like shoes.  and skinny clothes (sadly).  hopefully i will need those by the time i am done with texas...

anyways.  i'm going to be home for christmas!  and it's going to be really great!!

bedtime. aka destroy claire's attempts to have a pretty house

this is oni's favorite place to sing.  or something.  but only right after i make the bed (also rare).

see her footsteps?  i am pretty sure she hopped on about 30 seconds after i finished making the bed...

the counter of calories.

i'm having a hard time with this whole "get fit thing."  for one thing, counting is hard!

first i'm eating WAY too many calories - like 2000.

then i'm not eating enough, and my "body is going to go into starvation mode and lead to weight gain and bad bones and blah blah blah" - like 900.

who knew it could be so hard??


and the whole working out/being healthy thing.  a different story entirely...
it took me 5 days of break sleeping in til noon everyday to finally feel rested enough to work out.  then i worked out for 3 days, classes started, and my feet haven't seen their horrible, blister-causing shoes since. (two days, but still....)


anyways... i will keep trying.  i found a bunch of "fit blogs", which help to make me feel motivated and workout-y all from the comfort of my couchbed!


i did buy super delicious and healthy food though.  i'm going to attempt tofu!  i'm a little nervous, but i think it will be fun.  until i burn it or cook some wax paper and throw the spatula across the room....  look for the one that says "tofu", but not ironically, or anything...

what's that you say??

i think we can agree that it's not my style.  but i can't seem to get enough of it lately...

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it's true.  i am missing winter a little bit.  you never thought you'd hear me say it, did you?

i went on a 74 degree run today at 2 in the afternoon.  at the end of november.
it was great, i'll give you that.  i got to wear a tank top in the middle of wyoming's winter.

but it just felt weird.

i feel like the wind should be howling.
i feel like i should need to turn my heat on.
i feel like even with the heat on, i should be in a snuggly blanket to keep warm.
i feel like oni should be antagonizing me by snuggling on said blanket instead of cooling down in the bathtub.
i feel like i want to wear my snazzy snow boots (which are still in wyoming).
i feel like i want to see some snowy trees and tracks across campus.

cooking, claire style.

oh, how i love her voice.

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you know what that means.  that means i'm pretty sure i was just now seconds away from starting a fire...
but seriously.  i was following the directions.  the pie crust directions say you have to cook it with wax paper crumbled on top.
so i did it.  although i don't remember ever doing that before.  but it's in mikah's writing, so this fire nonsense is all on her head!
i even made sure all the edges of the wax paper were away from the elements...  and i turned away for one second (not to do the dishes, though, let's be honest).  when i looked up the oven was smoking profusely.  i opened it and it smelled like burnt plastic.  and all the edges of the wax paper were black.  so i took them out (you should be proud).  and now the whole house/apartment/flat is foggy and smelly.
so. gross.  smells like burnt plastic.

i took pictures, but you only can tell if you look closely (cameras are good at shooting through fog, even phone cameras)  (i do not know how to find Paint or something else to circle the fogs in the photos...)

ok, ok, you can't tell at all, which i'm really disappointed about, because it really was a complete mess.
also, how perfect does my pie crust look?!  the advantages of a blurry shot!  (i actually messed it up and just had to mash pieces together in the pan because it kept falling apart when i rolled it out a billion times.)

also, mikah said she had no idea what i was talking about when i told her about the crumpled wax in the oven.  even though it was her handwriting....sneaky.

i TRIED...

well i tried to do my second workout today.  but about 50 seconds in (i got 3 sets of high knees and mountain climbers in) my downstairs neighbor knocked on the door and told me how loud i was being. this is the neighbor who throws parties on tuesdays...

why, oh why can i never think of good comebacks when they're needed?

so now i have my music as loud as it will go and i have been stomping around for the last half hour.  i hope they're glad they asked me not to workout at 6 pm.  i might just have to get up at 6 am and do a workout or two.... it would be worth it.

this is war, neighbors.

on a positive note, i ran almost 2 miles straight tonight!

also.

i hope you noticed i now seem really mature, since i changed my bloggy from crazy to a mature sort of greenish white.
doesn't my life seem so together now?
don't i seem like i have responsibilities?  and actually take care of them?
doesn't it seem like i cook my own dinner instead of eating cereal?  and i buy groceries when i run out instead of wallowing around for days complaining about how i have no food?
don't i seem like the go getter type, and not a big homework procrastinator?

i know.... i'm not fooling anyone.  but i tried.  really i did.  and doesn't my blog look nice?

my bundle of joy

i guess it can be caturday, since oni is the most lively person around this place (and she sleeps more than i do...)

the other day i was reading on my couch (i know!!) and i heard oni scrabbling around by the door.  i looked over, and she was shoulder deep in my running shoe, which i had used about an hour or two before...  i kept watching and she just kept rolling around with her head in my shoe.  and then she realized i was watching and ran under the bed.

yesterday i was talking to arley on skype, and i thought it would be a good idea to catch oni and show her to him.  so i was holding her and talking to him for a second, and she started wiggling around, trying to escape.  and suddenly her claw was in. my. neck.  in it.  i could feel its claw-ness under my skin.  and when she would try to escape she would literally pull my skin out from my neck (arley saw it).  i didn't know what to do.  my neck skin was flashing before my eyes.  soon it was going to be ripped open when she finally managed to escape.  and suddenly her claw was not in my neck any more and oni was back under the bed, pouting, or planning my demise, or whatever she does under there.  i had to leave skype to get ahold of myself, and realize that i didn't need to cry for my ripped open neck since it wasn't ripped open afterall...

she's such a bundle of joy.

and she will kill you.  as soon as she gets out of her shopping bag...

new real life adventure.

i think i saw this girl on pinterest (i may or may not be addicted).  i. was. Dying.  literally falling over from laughing so hard.  who knows - maybe it's not even funny, but definitely give her a try.

no.  it's funny.  i just watched it again and almost threw up from laughing (i did abs earlier...).

________________________________

i'm starting on a new adventure.  one i've never had to take so seriously.  i'm a little nervous.

here's the story (i will make it short, well, because it is short):
i had a little - and by little, i mean 37 pounds - reaction to the birth control i recently tried out (in april).  they told me about the usual 5 pounds.  so i kept explaining away to myself the next 5 pounds.  the last 25 have happened since i've been in texas, and i explained it away as stress/new place of residence/school.
and then it suddenly hit me:  there is no more explaining away.  maybe this "reaction" was a reaction and not me being lazy, but now i have to do something about it.  and i've never had to do anything about my weight before.  if i was having a "fat day"  i would eat super healthy, drink a lot of water, and run for 3 days, and i would be back to normal.  but not this time.  this time i'm going to have to work really hard.

and so i decided to write about it on here so that maybe i would be accountable to someone (the entire internets, all 3 of you!).  because how can you do a before without an after?  right?
i'm not quite brave enough to do a "before", but maybe when i have a "during" i will be brave enough to compare the 2.


so here is everything:

START:  21.Nov.  1*6 lb (also not brave enough to say)
     FIRST GOAL:  -6 lb
     AND:

• 30 day thing from this place, which actually has some good workouts (and short so you can't talk yourself out of them).  it is actually only 4 weeks of 4 days a week.  it is a bit skanky, with the girls all in their pushup/sports bras, but hey, they are Fiiiitttt.  so i guess they earned their 'shirts off' rights.
• run the other 3 days a week.
• eat salad every day.
• drink 6 glasses of water a day (i'll work up to 8...)

TODAY'S FIT TEST (50 seconds with a 10 second break in between)
     Squat Jumps - 32
     Pushups - 1 real one and 21 girly ones
     Burpees - 11
     High Knees - 122 (or 61 if you count each knee as a set)
     Switch Lunges - 23 (or 11 pairs? does that make more sense?)
     Tuck Jumps - 15 (i hate you, tuck jumps)
     Situps - 23 (WHAT HAPPENED, ABS?  I USED TO BE SO GOOD AT YOU!!!)

i do realize that the day before thanksgiving may be the stupidest day of all time to start a serious workout.  but pretty much no day is a good day if you've lost the habit of working out and craving endorphins....

anyways.  another fit test in 30 days.  hopefully i'll make my FIRST GOAL before then!!!!!

from pinterest....

"inspiration/motivation/etc/etc"

barbie adventure

arley and i were talking about our childhoods today.  i told him i thought he was the eat glue and crayons type.  and he thought i seemed like the "kool-aid mustache barbie" type.  and i told him right about the barbies but most definitely wrong about the kool-aid mustache.  my mom would Never let that happen!

so i was thinking about my two favorite barbies.  and guess what!  i found them!!


here is Wet N Wild Barbie (from the 80s! yikes!!)

i remember thinking how beautiful she was.  it was a sad sad day when i pulled her head off in a valiant attempt to braid her hair (like my sister could).  

her swimming suit changed colors when it got wet.  wet n wild barbie went swimming a lot.  probably the water in her head contributed to the ease with which her head popped off.  she was never quite the same wearing a tape neck brace...

and here is Rollerblader Barbie.  her name is apparently kira... (from the 90s - 91, to be exact)

i never pulled rollerblader barbie's head off.  probably because i was more mature by the time santa brought her to me.  also.  look at that fanny pack.  and those bangs.  i got in trouble a lot for trying to make her rollerblades spark using all the tables in the house (and scratching them, of course).  rollerblader barbie knew some great tricks.  

good taste

i read somewhere that a girl should buy herself a really nice, classic, classy (are those two different things?), and slightly pricey (which equals good quality) bag before she gets married.  i think the married part was extraneous.  maybe.
anyways.  while i was washing my car tonight (vacuum, armor-all, and everything!), that came to my mind.  so when i got home i decided that instead of doing homework i would do some window shopping.  on my computer of course.  nothing serious.

but i found the bag of my dreams.  i want to use it as a pillow.  it looks so soft and buttery.

leave it to me to find the most expensive bag on the planet.
only 775 doll hairs.
but sent from straight off the italian cow's back, which resides in the tuscan countryside.  drinking tuscan wine.  probably.

oh, internet, why do you tease me?  i'm pretty sure the saying was "slightly pricey," not "the price of your firstborn child" pricey....whatever that means.

aaannnd study!

don't let his florid looks fool you.  he's pretty good.

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i guess i can't have caturday if i don't put anything else in here.  then i will just be a crazy cat lady, soon to be crazy bag lady.  or something.
good thing oni thinks she is a dog, because then i can't be a cat lady!
not only does she think she's a dog, she is very green.
the other night i woke up to the sound of chewing.  oni was chewing my phone charger out of the wall.  (do cats chew things?)  she didn't stop until it was pulled completely out of the socket.  it is now completely chewed up - it looks like needles have been stabbing it for a year or so.  i'm not even mad.  frankly, i'm just impressed she didn't electrocute herself.  now i keep my charger in the drawer when i'm not using it.  and when i do use it, she helps me remember when charging is complete by chewing on my phone.

in other news (because i do do things that don't involve my little angry kitty), i went to my very first renaissance festival.  but i can't tell you about it until i get the pictures off of sara's camera.

i also had my very first psyc clinical.  and i learned that we do not call patients/clients "crazy,"  we call them "floridly psychotic."

one more thing.  i was about 99.5% sure that my sister was going to show up at my house today.  she texted me with a "when do you get home?"  she only asks me that when my house is at its messiest.  so just in case she shows up next week, i am grounding myself until i do a deep clean of the entire mess.

the end.

yes, i have a test tomorrow.  why else would i come here during school?

the new and, well not improved because it's just new, CATURDAY!

how in the world is it possible to keep a blog up and running when all you do is go to school and take pictures of your cat?  no one cares about your cat, only you do.

although, come to think of it, if i care about my cat, that means everyone else does too.  i'm from the "me generation," and what i say goes.  successfully.

so to take an idea from this very strange, and slightly hilarious man:  CATURDAY!!!

oni being especially judgmental as i did crunchers

loan-ception.

watch this and maybe you'll understand...well, not the youtube, but the actual movie.  the youtube makes no sense whatsoever.

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today is the day i paid off my credit card!  granted, i paid them off with a loan - with which i am also paying my car loan... (notice the proper grammatical usage)

it's all in the name of credit, you see.


today is also the day i have discovered the very reason for my unhappiness!  kind of.  ok, that was yesterday, but it's all sinking in today.  anyways.  i know what to do, and life is good.

the end.

world's worst recycler

i watched a movie and discovered a band.  a beautiful band.  they're sort of melancholy and perfect for fall.  (you may not want to watch too carefully if you are prone to carsickness...)

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as of this week, i am the world's worst recycler.  but it's only because i had an exam.  which i got an A on.

recycling is good and pure and upstanding.  but not when you don't wash out the recycling before it gets recycled.

but i was really busy! ok??

anyways.  i'm sorry.  and i vow to eat healthy and clean my apartment and recycle like a real human being from now on.

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on a separate and sort of related note, it's almost fall here.  today it only got up to 77*.  chil.  ly.  i like to drive around with my air conditioner on really high and pretend that it's a wyoming fall (aka 40 degrees) instead of a texas fall (what's fall?). 

what real fall should look like (even though i always complain that it's fall and i wish it was still summer.  at least if it's going to be fall it should look right...)

cysts and table manners.

i forgot how much i loooovve this song

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i have a cyst.  on my wrist.  a ganglion cyst, in fact.  because there are other types of cysts.  like ovarian cysts (which are not usually on the wrist), and sebaceous cysts (which are also not on the wrist, as they are in the small glands of the skin), and pancreatic cysts (again...).

and it has been hurting.  

and because i have recently purchased a pack of yoga sessions, i wanted to do something about it so that i could do yoga without Agonizing Pain in my wrist.  

so i went to the doctor today to have someone look at it.  and suddenly, before i even knew what was happening, we (because i agreed to it) were poking holes in my cystic pocket (a claire-style nursing term) and filling it full of steroids.  

and now it hurts.  

which brings us to the real story.  

tonight, after all the steroids, i was eating pasta with some chicken, which needed to be cut.  my wrist was feeling a little sensitive and sad, and hurt to move.  so i was wondering if i could maybe do it all with my left hand so i could baby my cystic hand.  and it reminded me of when i was in denmark learning table manners.

neils (my denmark tour guide, and distant family) was telling me that he could spot an america from 10 miles away because they cut their food right handed, and then they waste a lot of time and energy switching the fork to their right hand to eat their food.  this is also not appropriate table manners.  so i asked him what americans should be doing.  he told me that you hold the knife in the right hand and the fork in the left, and you just always keep them in their separate hands.  no switching.  it's hard, but your left hand will get used to it.  i was almost convinced, but not quite.  so i asked him "what about when you have pasta?  no cutting, and it is too technical for your left hand to handle!"  

i thought i cracked him.  but no. 

his reply:  "i just don't eat pasta."

this is neils and mereta.

summer break. ish.

for my 6 day summer break, arley came to visit.  we got sushi (totally texas, eh?), went to a rodeo, floated the river, went up the "tower of the americas," watched a 4-d movie (where i was screaming the whole time and arley was super duper embarrassed) went to the alamo, went to the beach (port aransas, near corpus christi), ate barbacoa, thought about going hiking, and watched a lot of movies.  i forgot that arley is a movie watcher!

it was really great.

when i first left for texas, i was so nervous, because everyone knows that long distance things don't work out.  and then we figured it out.  and then i was nervous, because what if we only knew how to have a long distance thing?!  but it all worked out.  we were only awkward and weird and shy for about 10 minutes.  or 20...

and everywhere we went, i forgot my camera.

here is the evidence that arley was ever here:

leaving port aransas.  we saw sea turtles and dolphins!

after the trauma of a 4-d movie

waiting to ride the squeaky, rusty elevator a billion feet up in the tower of the americas.  arley is doing his movie star face, i think.  i'm just trying to be supportive.

the miracle of life!

i have witnessed the miracle of life.  in fact, i witnessed it for 3 hours...!

i am in OB clinical and i got to see a baby get born!  and it was amazing and surreal and anticlimactic all at the same time.  after all, the girl, well, lady (woman?)...the deliverer just wanted a cheeseburger.

i did tear up though at the end, i have to admit.  and i got to inject a brand new baby with vitamin k, and give its eyes some goo and put its hat on.

while i was putting the baby's hat on, the instructor said, "you have kids don't you!" and when i looked at her like she was crazy:  "oh.  well you're good at that..."
sometimes i forget that i'm now at an age where it would not be insane insanity to be able to say i have babies.

anyways.  back to the miracle of life.  i was impressed.  i have even talked to a few midwifes (midwives?).  a potential career, perhaps?

hipstasaurus rex

i'm happy this little blog is back in business!!

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a while ago, i was talking to my mama.  ok, maybe two days ago.  and we were talking about the fact that i was making real live blogs again for a second (sort of) ((sort of, as in, we were sort of talking about that.  not that i was only sort of making blogs...)).  and this little guy came up in the conversation.

her:  i loved your disclosure.
me:  you did??
her:  i was cracking up.
me:  in case you were wondering, it's because all the facebook kids use this thing called instagram where it makes their pictures look all polaroidy, and they put them on facebook...
her:  i have seen them.  your cousin does it quite often.
me:  oh.  yep.  hipster...
her:  i remember you and mikah have done it for years.
me:  yay!! thank you!  at least one person knows!
her:  you are a pre-hipster.  a pripster?
me:  dinausaur hipster.
her:  haha
me:  hipstasaurus rex.
her:  ....

and it made me laugh a little bit.  so now we all know:  i'm a hipstasaurus rex.  hipster before hipster was cool.  hahahahaha

raw muffins

i like to eat raw muffins.  i really do.  i have this memory of going with my sissy to stay at our cousins' house and eating plastic cheese because we didn't have that at home (irrelevant), and making muffins in the morning.  our one cousin and i would basically eat half of the muffins before we even cooked them.  and my sister would be so grossed out by us.

well.  i have discovered that it's the eggs that makes eating raw things so great.  it must be the texture, or maybe even the taste.  who knows?

today i was making "just add milk" muffins.  i was super excited to snack on some raw muffins while i was filling up the muffin tin(s).

there was a problem.  or maybe two.

first of all, i had no muffin tin.  uh, what?  i had about 3 when i lived in my last apartment...

second of all, the batter tasted horrible.  i've never tasted such an awful raw muffin.  i couldn't even lick the bowl.

so here is what had to happen:

(don't mind the couscous box...that was from dinner last night....)

i had to chug some milk to get the taste of milk and flour out of my mouth.  and i had to use a cake pan to cook my muffins.  i'm still waiting on them, so i still don't know if muffin-cakes even work... hopefully they will be edible.... if not, i'll have to throw them in the grass for the wild cats to eat.


aaaaaaand, they're done.  but at first they weren't done enough, so i set my bird/egg timer again.  but it didn't go off.  for reals!  for really reals.  and now my muffin-cakes look like this:

black.  quite black.  

but that's ok.  i'll still try them.

oh dear...  forgot to spray the pan.

done.  these are some crunchy muffin-cakes.

i'll chalk that one up to a win.

ps.  i am holding my computer on my lap, and, sadly, i am attached to an internet cable.  oni just walked straight into the internet cable and clotheslined herself.  and just sat there and looked at me in a very "why would you do this to me??" tone of voice...  where is my camera when i really need it?

pop tart

we always talk about this, but i'd never actually seen it...

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today is my pop tart's birthday.  sometimes that's what i call him.  "what's cookin, pop tart?"  ok, i don't really say that, but sometimes i really do call him pop tart.
sometimes i just call him boyfriend.
and today it's his birthday!  and he's (in his own words, i'll have you know) 'an old ass man'!
and in just 5 short (but probably very looong and dragging) days, he gets to come visit me!  and i can't wait!
as he doesn't have skype, we haven't seen each other since the day that i left wyoming.  here is what we looked like back then:

i told him i would bring a sign with me to the airport in case he didn't recognize me since it's been so long (aka 3 1/2 months).

real live second rodeo

have i ever shown (showed?) you this one?  so beautiful.

we went back to the rodeo.  and again, we forgot how to take pictures until the actual rodeo was over.  or more like a 10 year old girl worried about chasing boys was climbing the fence in front of us and stick her butt out in our faces.  or rather, erica's face.  and when we (again, erica) asked her to move over a little, she pretended not to speak english.

here is a little taste of the rodeo we saw (courtesy of google)

the announcer was saying how girls had travelled across the country just to compete in this barrel thing.  and then almost every girl fell off their horse during the turns....the 6 year olds that competed did better than the professionals.  maybe it's because their horses weren't wearing socks...

(this photo is actually from jubilee days)  

my favorite one of the sheep riding was a little girl in a dress.  when she fell off she landed on her butt and then she fell back with her legs in the air and her dress came above her head and all you could see were her hot pink panties!!

another event where professionals around the world were "the match of the night" on world class bulls that hadn't been ridden in 3 years.  this was all we saw.  

this roping/wrestling thing was too violent for erica and noe.  they had to go walk around until it was over.

and here is what our photos showed happened:

we were trying to self-portrait... also, that's mikah's beer i'm holding.  i was the driver!!

mikah, claire, noe, erica 

things are not working out.  i just got done telling mikah about my pitty sweats (instead of sweaty pitts), and i'm sorry it's on your  shoulder, so i was laughing really hard with my fake teeth.  (don't they look fake?)  and then we laughed hysterically for about 10 minutes about how tan erica makes mikah look!

real live rodeo experience

my sister recently introduced me to a new and fantastic place.  everyone needs to go there.

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a while ago i went to my first real live rodeo.  i've been at (or in the vicinity of) rodeos before, but never at the actual rodeo part, where the cow roping and riding around barrels and bull riding happens.  noe (which is pronounced know-y) and i tried taking pictures of all the amazing things, but nothing really worked out.  so here is our evidence, in which you can't even tell where we are (but the giant cowboy should give you reason to believe....according to noe)

doba (as in qdoba), claire (uh, duh), big rodeo cowboy mayor guy, noe (who was desperate to take photo with said big rodeo cowboy mayor guy)

noe, claire, doba

claire dancing with a 17 year old (sometimes it's hard for me to remember that i am not, in fact, 17 anymore, but this kid made it very obvious), a 17 year old that noe found while she was soliciting for boys (she is 30 and married...). but instead of dancing with them herself, she guilts other people into dancing with these poor solicited souls.

texas nature

when arley comes to visit, we are going here!  i can't wait!  some water to go with this heat will be really great!

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i do like the trees and the plants here.  even though they cause "the worst allergies in the country."  some of the trees still have flowers on them from when i got here in may.  the flowers grow 8 feet tall.  however, the bugs in these trees and flowers are big enough to bite your face off.
and did you know that crickets are very black and spidery and creepy?  and they fly??  but don't worry about me.  the two that have gotten in have been caught, and tortured, and eaten by the heroic oni cat.

the art of unpacking. and re-unpacking.

i just kinda like this one... (try not to cringe, mama!)

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it took me a while to unpack once i moved to texas.  in fact, i still have a few frames to hang on my walls...
not that that should be a surprise to anyone.  it takes me weeks just to unpack a suitcase from a 2 day trip.
i was finally making some progress, working so hard to feel at home in my little blah apartment.  and just when i started to feel like i was getting there, that progress was cruelly, cruelly undone...

the newspapers were originally all stuffed in the blue thing.  but Someone thought they would do something about that....

morning. it's really real!!

everyone probably knows all about this little guy, but i love him!!

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it just so happens that, occasionally, i do see the morning happen.  i even have proof.
once upon a time my car blew up (which may or may not have occurred due to the fact that i ran over a parking curb - it was an accident, ok??).  anyways.  i was without a car, and so had to walk to the bus, and this is what i saw:

disclosure:  i discovered poladroids waaaaaaaaay before instagram.  i'm no facebook hipster, even if i do like independently signed, totally unknown musicians who wear panama hats and beachy waves in their hair.  that's totally and completely irrelevant.

tomorrow = a few days later

i like a song.  suprise.  i can't tell if it's a love song or not...

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once upon a time, my sissy and i encountered some deadly alligators (remember?  i said i'd tell all about it...).  it was mostly my fault.
i thought it would be really great, and really american, and really 90's to get floaty alligators.
i always wanted those cool shaped floats when i was little and saw them taking up half the swimming pool.
like these:

so when i saw the chance to get some really amazing alligators, i couldn't pass.

anyways.  once upon a time, when i was still a baby (aka no study abroad, no degree, no boyfriend [does having a boyfriend mean you're growing up?], the list goes on), i almost got killed by an alligator.

i made a very bad choice to float the river with my sissy, who did not almost get killed by an alligator.  in fact, she was befriended.  jerk.

i told my sister it would be so great to go to steamboat and see our friends (aka. her friends) and float on my shiny new alligators.

it was basically a death sentence.

we got all sunscreened up and had our alligators nice and full of air.

within two seconds of getting in, i was bucked off and scraped my knees on the rocks that were approximately 3 inches below the surface of the water.

things were not looking good.

within about 5 minutes i was bleeding.

and then the rapids came.
(this is the yampa we're talking about.  in late august.  very dry. very rocky.  the rocks stick out of the water and cause rapids and try to impale you.)

i was basically riding my alligator's belly.  hanging on from below.  the stupid thing was so slippery that i couldn't stay on.

i'm usually not a big bruiser.  it takes a lot, and about 3 days for a bruise to show up.  but by the end of our float my knees were both purple, as were my elbows.  and hips.

and you know what?  my sister wasn't even wet.

here is the evidence:

on the way to float.  super excited.  no idea that every second we're coming closer to death itself.

first 3 seconds, and i've already been bucked off.  my whole right side landed on the rocks.  ps.  sister's fine....

alligator wrestling.  it. must. pay.

mikah and gary the alligator were feeling very zen.

the end.

mikah's face:  that was so much fun!

claire's face:  there's still a chance these things could kill us.

a big, fat, texan 4th

i had a very american sort of 4th.  obviously, since it was the 4th of july, it was american.  but this one seemed especially...something.  or maybe it was especially texan.  i guess that is a little different...

sara and i spent the afternoon by the river.  then she took me to her parents house for dinner (banana cream pie, anyone?).  after that, we went with a couple of sara's friends to a nearby lake and drove around and swam, and then watched fireworks from the lake!  and then after the fireworks - i know you're not going to believe this - i went night swimming!  i made sure everyone else got in first, though, so the hungry fish wouldn't eat me.  of course, we also had a few spontaneous boat dance parties...

 the infamous, deadly (and i'm not exaggerating!) alligators (which apparently, you don't know about - so i will tell you.  tomorrow.

 sara's parent's driveway.  

 the american texan lake! with a tree growing in the middle!

 the gathering of the masses.  it doesn't look like a lot, but the entire lake was packed.

 one photo of fireworks, in case anyone forgot what they look like.

 i liked the swirlies that the lights made on the water.