Chuckle Chuckle

This March marks the 6th month I've been in San Antonio. Time sure does fly when you're.... working a lot!! It has been a fun ride so far. For the most part I like our little apartment, it's close to work, and I don't want to slit my wrists going to work everyday. (yet)I've met some great friends here too. It's been fun to meet new faces and get to know people from all parts of the world.
One of my favorite people I've collected here so far is Erica. She also works at Trinity and so far we've had many great memories. My roommate was out of town this weekend for Spring Break, so I asked Erica if she would like to go to church with me this morning. Now neither of us have found a church home yet and have been playing the church hopping game for a while. We both decided it'd be fun to try a new place that neither of us had been to. Thanks to google we found a baptist church up the road that seemed to have an active young adults program.
Erica, who grew up Catholic, was a little anxious about attending bible class. I assured her it would be fun and a prime opportunity for us both to make some new friends. Upon arriving at this colossal house of God, we managed to find the Information desk to ask directions to the young adults class. The red cheeked Santa Claus looking man with the lanyard around his neck holding his name tag in place cheerfully agreed to escort us to our class. There was a couple following this jubilant fellow as well. Over the river and through the woods we finally arrived at our class room and awkwardly took our seat as all of the eyes began to sink into my skin from the faithful attendees of this class. The chairs were positioned in a semicircle and we immediately began tossing our names across the room and greeting one another. One of the ladies brought me a visitors card to fill out along with a pen. I put my name in the proper blank and then realized something. There was another blank for "Spouse". I quickly looked around the arch of chairs only to notice guy, girl, guy, girl, wedding band, wedding band, wedding band....oh NO!!!!!!
I looked at Erica and she immediately realized the same thing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bulletin board. I turned to make out the title of the bulletin and it read "Couple's Class". I wanted to run out of the class room. Erica even asked if we could just grab our things and run. My face grew red like that stupid Santa Claus man that brought us here. What was he thinking?! Maybe he drank too much eggnog before service. We decided we'd ask for another card and clarify that we were NOT together.
It turns out that the discussion in the class itself was very enjoyable, apart from it being completely mortifying. We were invited to join them the following Sunday and it became apparent to me how willing they were to accept anyone. That is to say that my friend Erica and I were infact "together"--which we WEREN'T. I guess it was just refreshing to see Christians loving like Christ loved, if that makes sense. Needless to say, Erica and I bolted the first chance we could trying not to make eye contact with anyone...unless it was that silly red faced man and then I might have a few things to say with my fist. Oh, okay maybe I'm all talk!

Skipper and the Hog

I woke up early one day last week to a text message my oldest brother in New Mexico had sent me. It read "Dad hit a hog on his motorcycle last night. He's out of the hospital now and okay. Just broke some ribs and is skinned up". I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and read it again. My Dad? I thought to myself. My Dad doesn't have a motorcycle.

I immediately called my Dad to verify this information. He answered and I could tell in his voice that it was indeed true. He told me in his shaky voice how it had happened as best he could with being dosed up on pain killers and having suffered a concussion. He explained that he was driving back from Sidney and hit the hog. It was dark and knowing my Dad I'm sure he was having a hard time seeing. He was not wearing a helmet, which I made sure he would now and forever more.
Every part of me wanted to jump in the car and drive up to see him. My Dad is one tough dude, and I was afraid he was trying to put on a brave face for his little girl. With my new job I was unable to just jump in the car and go, but thankfully was able to get a picture of Dad so that my heart could rest easy...somewhat at least. The first picture I recieved was of him in the hospital before they cleaned him up from all of the road rash and it's a hard picture to look at, so I'm posting the after shot.
Keep Daddy in your prayers. He ended up breaking 4 ribs and has severe damage to his ankle and knee. Not to mention multiple deep gashes and lots of road rash.



Only in Texas would this happen AND you'd go back to take a picture of it.

Mace in ya face

It truly was the worst feeling ever. I had no idea that a person had feeling on the backside of their eyeballs. It was 45 minutes of excruciating pain. It felt like someone had dumped a pound of sand in my eyeball, stabbed them with 10,000 knives, and then set them on fire all at the same time. All the while I was trying to squeeze my butt cheeks together to prevent another ring of fire and taking deep breathes of extremely spicy air so that I would not vomit my McDonald's chicken nuggets I had eaten for lunch.

As part of taking on this new job I had to be sprayed with OC Spray. OC Spray is the law enforcement issued form of pepper spray. Oleoresin Capsicum is a chemical compound that irritates the eyes to cause tears, pain, and temporary blindness.The active ingredient in OC Spray is capsaicin, which is a chemical derived from the fruit of plants in the Capsicum genus, including chilis.

They first lined me up outside with my hands stretched away from my body, eyes shut tight, and mouth closed. I was sprayed from less than 3 feet away with a bright orange colored stream right to the eyes. I then had to open my eyes and let the chemical sink into my eyes for a few seconds. It took less than a second for me to feel the pain. I was then allowed to begin flushing my eyes with water and immediately dunked my head into an awaiting tub of water. It took me almost 30 minutes of splashing water in my eyes non-stop as fast as I could before I could stop without feeling like I would vomit or die. I remember even contemplating ways that I might could make myself pass out so that I could escape the pain. It took several hours to regain full vision and even when I went to bed that night it felt like I still had huge rocks in my eyes. Every time I blinked I could feel little pockets of burning gunk in the deep crevasses of my eye balls.
I don't recommend this to anyone. It was truly the worst pain I could have imagined and I was definitely not prepared for how bad it actually was.
Thanks to Lee I was able to get a few shots of this horrendous experience.

Officer Bessent

From waitressing to ice cream truck driving, cutting flowers to serving coffee, I am here to tell you I am now a Patrol Officer!
As many of you know I am in terrible debt from a semester unpaid at Abilene Christian University. They are holding my transcript until the amount is paid in full and as a result, I am unable to attend any University and receive financial aid. Don't worry, folks. I found the loop hole!!
I found that if you are an employee of a University classes are free! So, I looked online to see what jobs Trinity University had to offer. At the time they only had one job posted, and that was for a clerical position in the Security department. I quickly applied and had an interview later that week. Unfortunately, I did not get the job and continued to work my waitressing job. A few weeks later I got a phone call from Trinity's Security Department telling me that they had another position available that they felt I was "more qualified for". I quickly agreed to meet for a second interview and made an appointment later that afternoon. In the interview they told me of the new opening which was for a Patrol Officer position. How in the world was I more qualified for that?!! After discussing the pay and the benefits I took the job and am now a Patrol Officer!
I'm going on week 4 of training. It's been crazy so far. I never would have thought I'd find myself in the place I am today. Life is funny. I wear a badge and a duty belt loaded with cool weapons to work.

Happy 3 Months, Zinni Bug!

My how time flies! I can't believe my little niece is already 3 months old!! She's growing so fast and just gets cuter and cuter every day. My work schedule has gotten a little kink in it and I haven't been able to visit her on my regular Thursday each week. Here is a super cute shot from my visit with her just this Tuesday. It is still so weird to me that my brother is a Daddy! It seems like just days ago we were out tromping through the back 40. I sure do love being close to him and my wonderful sister in-law and of course my Zinni bug!

Dryer Fiasco

I dedicated part of my day to catching up on laundry. My poor roommate has been in and out so much I decided I'd help her catch up too. Our apartment complex has its own little laundry room with several coin operated washers and dryers. I was in a hurry to take the laundry out of the dryer, run it upstairs to our apartment, lay it all out flat, change into my clean work clothes, and get to work on time. As I bent down to grab the last of the clothes I hit my forehead on the metal quarter slot that protrudes out from the dryer. It was a pretty forceful blow. The girl that was next to me in the laundry mat immediately asked if I was alright and I quickly responded with a tough "Oh, yeah, hah, I'm fine!" while inside I was screaming "Sweet Lord!! Take MY LIFE NOW!!!" It hurt so bad and the worst of it was I couldn't even scream all of the profane things that were jutting through my mind. I gathered the last of my laundry and squeezed past the girl. She looked at me again, gasp, and said "Oh my! Are you sure you're alright?!". I assured her with the bravest of faces I could muster that I was great! As I arrived in my apartment I immediately dropped the laundry basket and went straight for the bathroom. As I looked in the mirror I noticed a stream of blood trickling down my forehead and onto my cheek! No wonder the girl in the laundry room was so concerned! I had to call work and tell them I'd be a a little late as I was panicking at home trying to decide if I needed to make a trip to the hospital for some stitches or if the bleeding would subside after a few minutes of pressure. Thankfully it did just that and I was able to clean up a bit and head to work with only a pounding headache and some yucky hair.


(picture not taken on the scene--compliments of Bella Pop Photography)

Happy Holidays!

I've been somewhat of a Scrooge the past couple holidays. I used to love Christmas time-- decorating the tree, listening to Carol of the Bells, driving around town looking at Christmas lights, making (but mostly eating) Christmas Candy. I guess the charm has been taken away a bit. My poor roommate has heard her fair share of my "Bah, humbug" exclamations when anything about Christmas is mentioned.
So, tonight I am turning over a new leaf! Our apartment now has a tiny bit of Christmas spirit. I bought my very first Christmas ornament today. Or my first 6. It used to be a little tradition that my family and I would do. Well, it was mostly just a custom with my Mom and I, because we enjoyed it the most. Every year we would pick out a new ornament to go on our tree. We had a few different "sets" of ornaments, but there was one set that was my favorite. It was a contemporary set with lots of bright purples, and greens, and turquoise's, and reds with a matching purple silk tree skirt. I loved it! I also bought two stockings to hang on our mantel. It's fun to actually have a mantel!
Lee is in Colorado for the weekend as Trinity has a game tonight. Go TU! I can't wait for her to get back and see that I'm NOT a Scrooge.....anymore!




How could I forget?! I spent yesterday (Thursday) with Zinni, Kim, and Cale. We had so much fun. We gave Zinnia a bath and she just LOVED splashing around in the water. Zinnia was wishing her Aunt Nikki could be in Texas to join the slumber party, so she decided to write her a letter. She's so smart and growing up so fast!!!






Love to you all and Happy Holidays!!!