Archive for category: Awesome Findings

Last night I was sleeping over at my friend’s house. I woke up around five and couldn’t fall back asleep until seven. It was horrible. But I started brainstorming some stories for my blog. I’ve noticed the posts that get the most feedback are about old memories.

So here’s another one for you.

I was in seventh grade or so and my family and I were driving back from Destin, Florida. We drove the majority of the day and then decided to stop somewhere in Georgia, I think, to spend the night.

My dad was exhausted from driving all day long, but we were all pretty wired from having to sit and we wanted to go look around the city or at least go out to eat. My dad could do no such thing. He had to check into the hotel and he had to go to sleep because “we [had] a long day ahead of us.” Apparently that meant Sam, my mom, and I were all supposed to go to sleep too. I’m not kidding, it must have been seven p.m. and the sun was still shining outside. But Dad was serious.

First thing’s first. We had to get one of those fold up beds for the hotel room. My brother was told to sleep there since he was the “boy” and could suck it up. But Sam is tall so his feet hung way over the edge. He tried and tried to get comfortable but the thing was made for a child, not an 18 year old boy.

We couldn’t stop laughing at the situation, plus with the sun shining through the cracks of the blinds, we couldn’t fall asleep. So Dad started yellling at us for that.

After some quarrelling, I decided to let Sam have the bed and I’d sleep on the foldaway. Got yelled at for that (because of the noise).

Pretty soon after we were all situated, Dad fell asleep immediately, accompanied by great horns of snoring.

Here we are, restless, sun bright as noon day, already in a laughing mood and Dad expects us to sleep to this sound of chaos? The rest of the night when on as follows:

Laughter.

Yelling.

Snores.

Laughter.

“Put a sock in it!” (I still regret saying that…)

Yelling.

More yelling.

Laying in bed listening to the sound of snores for about three hours longer until we fell asleep.

1. When I was a kid I would eat pretzels every day after school and pretend I was smoking. Or I would put a marshmallow on the end and pretend it was a lollipop.
2. I had a boy hair cut for the majority of my up-bringing and was mistaken as a boy several times.
3. I would throw tantrums when I was little because my socks wouldn’t stay up.
4. I made up dances all the time. If you’d like to see my dance for the 6th grade talent show, let me know.
5. When my family and I would leave for vacations, I’d say bye to all of my stuffed animals and dolls and tell them how sorry I was that I couldn’t take all of them with me. But I’d always take one beanie baby, my Monkey baby and my American Girl doll, Kirsten.
6. Before going to my first middle school dance, I “practiced” in the mirror for a while and made conversation with myself, pretending like I was talking to someone.
7. I made up my imaginary friend just so I could say I had an imaginary friend. Her name was Rainbow.
8. I loved monkeys and dolphins.
9. My first beanie baby was a whale. I got it on Christmas Eve. I tied a string around it and dragged it everywhere I went, like a dog.
10. I loved making tents and playing outside in the creeks.
11. I watched Arthur, Dragon Tales, and Zoom almost every day. (We didn’t have cable.)
12. I read all of the Boxcar Children books over and over again.
13. The first time my piano teacher told me I needed to keep practicing my assigned song for another week, I ran to the bathroom and cried.
14. When I was 12, I had to sing “We’ll Bring the World His Truth” with two boys during our primary presentation. I started crying during the song because it’s a touching song, and once again… I ran out of the chapel during the song.
15. I tried to take my cat on a walk once.
16. I loved doing crafts, including that tie dye wheel, painting stain glass, and colored sand stuff.
17. I called a kid “4 eyes” in second grade (I had a crush on him). He told on me, I got in trouble. The next year I had to get glasses.
18. In first grade, my teacher told me I didn’t know how to use scissors right. She gathered all the kids around me for a lesson on cutting properly. Humiliating.
19. I wore Adidas sambas and overalls.
20. I loved playing house, but I could never remember my name. It usually was Melanie, but my friends always had to remind me. Also, if a grownup walked in while we were playing house or barbies, I stopped playing and pretended to be doing something else because I was always embarrassed.