Joplin, MO---5/22/2011

Most of my childhood was spent "touring" Kansas. 

That's a nice way of saying we moved around a lot. 

Then one day, right before my fifth grade year, we settled in a small (and what i would now consider ghetto) community known as Parsons, KS. Population approx. 12,000.

 I'm not sure what it is about the town that kept my family there, but I spent the next 8 years in that town, growing up and learning about life.

It wasn't a bad place to live; though, there wasn't much to do. 

No mall. 

No mini golf. 

No notable events.

Sometimes we had a movie theater...

There were a couple of cities not too far from us that were able to provide some occasional entertainment.

One of these such places was Joplin, MO.

The memories I have of the hour long drives to Joplin are countless. 

Singing at the top of my lungs with my best friends.

The long talks with my ex-boyfriend.

The non-stop chattering with my mother.

And then the actual memories of Joplin itself......

Spending hours picking out prom dresses and a wedding dress with my mom.

Going to the mall and spending way too much time and money at Old Navy.

 Visiting the Harley Davidson store with my family and eating dinner at an awesome diner nearby.

Eating at Olive Garden every single chance we got. 

I can still picture everything.

Just like it was.

Completely intact.

On Sunday, May 22, 2011, a tornado struck Joplin, MO leaving massive amounts of death 

and destruction in its wake. This storm hit my hometown; though, an actual tornado wasn't present at that time. For that, I am extremely grateful. However, my heart is simply broken at all of the devastation caused by this storm. As of the time of this post, 24 have been confirmed dead and CNN has reported that 75% of the town is destroyed. The death toll is expected to rise greatly as rescue crews are able to sift through the destruction during daylight hours. To put this storm in perspective for you, I heard a story of a woman who had insulation and a CHECK from a doctor's office in Joplin, in her yard.....60 miles away from the storm.

I've basically lived in Kansas my whole life, but I still haven't gotten used to tornadoes. I have awful memories as a child--with my classmates, huddled against walls in my school, trying to protect ourselves from the tornado outside, climbing under beds in the basement of my grandparent's house, being home alone with my 3 younger siblings and wondering how I was going to keep us all safe through the storm, or returning to my hometown from a weekend vacation to find it ripped apart by a tornado. Still to this day, if there's a bad storm with sirens going off and we have to take cover, I don't really handle it well. Inside, I turn into a complete mess; though, I always try to put on a brave face for those I'm around. After the storm, I can't help but burst into tears, incredibly thankful that my family and I are safe. 

I'm posting some links that will show in pictures what I can't convey in words. The videos and pictures can only give us a small glimpse into the terror that these people must have felt during the storm and the feeling of loss that was left behind when the storm moved out. 

Pictures of the destruction--These pictures are of the damage in Joplin, MO as well as Minnesota. 

Pictures from a local photographer--Most of these pictures have stories to go along with them, but NONE of these pictures need the accompanying words. This photographer is amazing. You can see the pain, the fear and the hope in each and every one of the photos.

First Person Video Of Tornado--For some reason, the video wouldn't post correctly, so I just linked it. This video is pretty terrifying. You can't see anything through out, but you can hear the storm, glass breaking, a child crying. Not for the faint of heart.

Video of Tornado Destruction--This video is rather long and the audio is selective, but it shows a good amount of the damage done. 

This is one of those times where I'm extremely thankful that all of my friends and family are safe and healthy. But not everyone was as lucky. As the week goes on, I encourage everyone reading this to keep those affected by these storms in your thoughts and prayers. If you're close by and able to help out, get off your computer right NOW and go pitch in. It doesn't matter what you do to help, but I'm positive that your time and strength will be very much appreciated by those suffering. If you're hearing this story from a distance, call the ones you love and tell them why they mean so much to you, go to sleep at night understanding how lucky you are to be safe and sound and don't take any of your days for granted. 

Day of Rest

Saturday Night.....

How am I spending my Saturday night, you ask? 

Watching This:

And Eating This:

It's okay to be jealous.....

Missing Post

I tried to write this yesterday....really, I did.
I just.......couldn't.
So here is yesterday's missing post. =)

I love my job.......

And that, boys and girls, was sarcasm. 

Because really, who would love spending 4-8 hours a day/6-7
days a week in a pretzel store, usually all alone????

The only company I have are my thoughts...and let me tell ya, that's scary.
(There are aspects I do enjoy about my job...this was just a day full of bad stuff)

For those who don't know, I work at a pretzel store in the mall.
It's a pretty boring, uneventful job, and I tend to see some crazies through out the day.

For some reason, today (now yesterday) just wasn't my day. For starters, I was rushing around too quickly and burned my arm on the 500 degree oven. It left a nice, 4 inch burn that is quite attractive and feels great!!
But don't worry, I managed to give myself an almost matching on my opposite arm today.
Yeah, I'm special.....

Also, this devil child.....(umm, okay, maybe that was harsh. but you'll be thinking the same, if not worse thoughts than me once you continue the story) So anyway, this AWFUL child was whining and crying to her mom because her mom would not let her have her own smoothie. She wanted a pomegranate one, but her mom was making her share with her little sister and it was going to be strawberry banana.

So...here I am, spending my precious time making a strawberry banana smoothie, with lots of love and care.
Cause that's how I roll. Apparently, that wasn't good enough though.
The little girl comes up to where I put the mix on the counter top, screams NO!!! and hits it with all her might. The smoothie mix container hits the wall, then drops to the floor, showering the wall, the floor and ME with smoothie mix. She hit the container so hard that the hard plastic container even split when it hit the wall.

What happened next, you ask?? You're probably assuming that the mother apologized profusely, demanding her child clean up the spill and also apologize. No. Of course not. Instead, the child gave me a satisfied grin and the mother did....nothing.

She stood there.
I stood there.
We just looked at each other.

After what felt like hours, though I'm sure was only seconds, I go right back to my business, finish making the smoothie, hand it to the mom and they walk out the store to enjoy their day,
while I'm left cleaning up a mess of a very undisciplined, disagreeable child.

Last, but very not least, I spent 10 minutes scooping bubbles out of the dish sink, after making new soapy dish water, because the woman I was working with doesn't like bubbles.
Yeah, that's what she said...as I'm making up the new water.
"I don't like bubbles."
"Huh?" I ask.
"I don't like bubbles."
I'm kind of at a loss for words at this point. It's been a long day, I don't want a fight.
"Umm...okay." I look down at the water.
"Just scoop them out with your hand."
So that's what I did. I spent AT LEAST 10 minutes grabbing the bubbles with my hand and scooping them into the other sink beside me. At the end of those 10 minutes, I realized something......

Life would have been much easier had I just drained the water out of the sink and started all over.
Or, better yet, she just got over her bubble phobia and quit being so darn picky.
Or, even better yet, I said "No" and walked away.
Or, even BETTER yet, I had not even gone into work that day at all.

Terrible Thursday....

This is my “depressed stance”.  
When you’re depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand.  
The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you’ll start to feel better.  If you’re going to get any joy out of being depressed, you’ve go to stand like this.  
– Charlie Brown

I love this quote. 

Whenever I'm in a bad mood (like today) I always think of this quote. 

I then put a smile on my face and "fake it till I make it."

Most days, that smile becomes genuine and all's okay again.

Today......is not that day.

To be honest, nothing extremely bad happened today. 

Heck, nothing bad happened today period. 

It just wasn't a good day. 

But......you know what else I LOVE??    

Hot showers. I'm talkin so hot that it physically hurts.

So hot that it feels like my skin is melting off of me and when I'm done, my skin is beat

 (is it beat or beet??) red and extremely hot to the touch. 

I just can't get enough of that feeling. 

And this is probably why my skin can never stay hydrated. 

I just experienced one of those amazing sauna-esque showers. 

And now I'm laying in bed, in my sweats and a hoodie.

Oh, it's only 6 o'clock pm, you say??

Sigh. I need a life. 

Actually, I need the opposite of a life. I need a break from life.

It really has me run down lately. 

That's probably because it never seems to give me what I want or need.

And to be honest, I haven't really had a vacation in a couple of years. 

I haven't taken more than a day or two away from Manhattan either.

No wonder I'm ready to bid this town goodbye. 

And I will be doing just that in about 7 1/2 months! 

Wichita, here I come!!

Ha. Okay, maybe that doesn't sound like the most exciting place under the sun,

but it's something I'm more than looking forward to.

I simply can't wait. 

Wish I could fast forward time....

Writing for....ME!

When I first started this blog, I immediately....stopped. 

Writing to no one (since I'm brand new and have no followers) and pretending like I was actually talking to someone made me feel foolish. I was also thinking that I needed these incredibly entertaining, amazing posts to get people to want to read and, you know, sometimes you just don't feel all that witty!!

So I stopped writing for a couple weeks.

In fact, I even decided not to write at all. I stayed away from blogger completely. 

But then I missed it.

A lot!

And I wondered what was going on in the lives of those I used to read about daily.

Because, believe it or not, reading about your lives for months now makes me feel like I know you personally; although, I haven't really reached out to talk to too many of you.

So, I logged onto blogger and started reading away. 

I came across one post that really put things in perspective for me. 

Miss Molly, always the inspiration over at http://midwesterntouch.blogspot.com/, pointed out how important it is to blog for yourself. Not your grandma, not your best friend, not your neighbor's dog.....YOURSELF.

And I realized, I LOOOOOVE blogging, so not doing it because no one is there to read it is pretty darn silly of me! Whether or not no one reads this or even just my one follower (Thank you, Kevers!), I'm still going to write! And I'm going to write whatever the heck I want to and say anything I darn well please. Because if people are going to read this, I want them to be able to know the real me. I want my posts to be genuine and not something I took fooooorever thinking about in order to entertain. 

ANYWAY, I should probably step away from Blogger for a little bit so I can clean and make dinner. I'm also going to bake up some yummy chocolate cupcakes tonight. MMMMM!!!! Can't wait. 

=D

Hello, World! =D

Okay, well the world may not actually be reading this.....YET  ;-)

But it'll happen.......

Hey, look! It's me! 

I have spent soooooo many countless hours stalking your blogs, 

laughing at your awesome stories, 

crying tears of joy and sorrow with you 

and being inspired by how amazing each and EVERY one of you are.

I've been wanting to create a blog of my own for a while now.

As a bit of a perfectionist, I have spent weeeeks creating this blog 

and I'm sure I will continue to change it as I start to learn what the heck I'm doing !!

'Cause let me tell ya.....I have no idea !!

For starters, anyone who knows me knows that I'm awful at talking
about myself and my day-to-day life.
Even my roommate and family don't always get told as much as they would like to hear.
Which means that this will be a challenge for me.

On top of that, I don't have an amazingly awesome husband
or adorably, embarrassing kids who will supply me with endless stories to entertain you with.

Instead, you just get ME, myself and I.

Lucky you! ;)