All Work and No Play

Two weeks ago during Spring Break I worked full-time or 40 hours at my part time job. I figured it would not only give me a nice chunk of change but it would also help me realize what getting up every day and going to work would be like. Result: I was exhausted and fell asleep every night by 9:30 p.m. My job has me on my feet all day while wearing heels.
By the end of the day my dogs were barking and I really didn’t have the energy to do much else. College life is easier, but I am over it and can’t wait to work after leaving IU next year. Now I understand why my parents want to collapse after a days work and kudos to them for working all day and coming home to Adam and me all those years. Working full-time is definitely mentally and physically exhausting. So physically exhausting I didn’t have the energy to do my normal gym workout that week. This summer I’ll be living in Bloomington and working about 30 hours per week, plus taking two classes (one each summer session). In between work and class, I’ll be at the gym. I won’t have time for much else. This hard working Irish girl is just about ready to take on the world!

It Might As Well Be Spring

Back home, outside my bedroom window, always this time of year, little birds wake me up in the morning with their gentle chirping sounds happy and excited that spring is here and in the air. It’s sweet even though it does wake me up when I so long to sleep in. Here, in Bloomington, I wake up every morning to hammers, jackhammers, crane wielding balls and electric drills. Ahh…spring! Will they ever finish that building? They’ve been there since I moved here in August. Now they work every day…even on Sundays, which is my only sleep in day. I just want one day…one day of sleep! Please somebody give those poor Mexican workers one day off please! POR FAVOR!!!! For Pete Sake!

Spring is great for running. Now that I’m up to 5 miles of running (note February 15 blog called SRSC) per session, springtime is great to move your SRSC treadmill workout outdoors. The air is fresh, the trees are budding, the flowers are sprouting, it’s amazing! The one thing I absolutely love about IU is our beautiful campus. Thank you God that I’m not at some ugly campus like Rutgers or Rowan. Eek! I love Jersey, but the Campus choices are awful (sorry Princeton…but you suck). Anyway, get ready, Hoosiers, IU is about to be transformed and will be beautiful. Spring is here! I’m so excited!

What Is Your Claim to Fame?

Recently someone asked me…so what is YOUR claim to fame? My claim to fame? Hmm. Well, last summer I worked at Victoria’s Secret and sold two pairs of cotton pajamas to Cuba Gooding, Jr. um..let’s see…I made a TV commercial for ABC when I was 10 years old. I was Little Miss Barrington when I was 9 years old. I am a distant relative of both Robert E. Lee and Dr. Samuel Mudd (aka John Wilkes Booth’s Doctor) and my Great grandfather, Charles Franklin Carter used to hunt and drink (heavily) with Buffalo Bill. I have a great uncle who struck out Babe Ruth and was later traded for the great Rogers Hornsby. My grandfather swears he sees “dead people” at night in his bedroom and my grandmother says he's crazy. I’ve sung the National Anthem before two AA baseball games and I have two remarkable and unique dimples in the back of my shoulders. And that, my friends, is my claim to fame.

National Threat to Airport Security...duh hello?

During one of my recent escapes home to Philadelphia, I was mistaken as a Terrorist at the Indianapolis airport. Now, I agree I am quite unusual looking to the general Indiana population – I mean being a brunette and all. But do I look like a terrorist? I am not of Middle Eastern descent. I wear cute hats and stylish clothes, not kitchen towels or black scarves over my head and face (Although some times when I’m experiencing a bad skin break out I wish I could wear one over my face). Anyway, I always come walking up to airport security with a big friendly smile on my face, ready to say “hello” to everyone and I am usually chewing gum. (Three obvious signs I am not a terrorist). Now does that sound like someone who would be a threat to airport security? Anyway, when my carryon went through the inspection machine, the security guards jumped on my bag like I was smuggling alcohol into my high school choir trip (Long story, don’t ask). Here they found via their hi-tech screening my tiny eyebrow shaping scissors, which I keep in the bottom of my makeup bag. They are my very favorite pair since I spent an exorbitant $15 for them at Cherry Hill Beauty Supply last summer. They pulled them out of my bag and looked at me like I was going to hold the plane load of people captive with my eyebrow shaping scissors which are a total 3 inches in length. Security scolded me saying that I should have put them in my regular suitcase and now it was too late. Sadly, I watched them throw my scissors in the same pile as the handguns, the automatic weapons and machete knives. I begged “Pleeeeese let me have my scissors back”. But they didn’t care. They didn’t care about my eyebrows. They didn’t care about the $15 I would have to pay Cherry Hill Beauty Supply for another pair! Well, everyone on my plane, including me, made it back safely to Philadelphia. No one had a gun and no one had eyebrow-trimming scissors on board. We were all definitely safe.

There's No Place Like Home

A song from The Wiz called “Home” starts out, “When I think of home I think of a place where there’s love overflowing.” I am so fortunate to be able to sing and feel those words. I miss my family and home so very much.

Now that I have one more year here at IU, I am excited about where life will take me. It could be anywhere. But I know that my memories of home will always be with me wherever I am. Even now I can visually picture my mom and dad relaxing in our family room, each in their appropriate loungers. I can almost smell the Yankee candle burning from our dining room table that welcomes you as you enter the front door. I can picture sitting around the table for dinner at home or going out to eat at our favorite restaurants together, our family trips to Manhattan, our trips to the shore, eating on our deck, Christmas mornings, birthday parties at the house, and being tucked into bed at night and always feeling safe and loved. I can picture walking by my brother’s bedroom and hearing the clicking away of his computer keyboard late at night or singing at the top of his lungs making sure I hear how fabulous he is. I can picture my brother and I sharing the bathroom sink as we both stand in front of the large mirror “getting gorgeous” together. I can hear his voice as we say goodnight to each other. These are all visual and happy memories for me…Instant visuals that appear, when I think of home. When I’m lonely, my family is only a phone call away, an IM away, and for that hug…a plane ride away. Dad, Mom, and Adam...I love and miss you all.

Do Guardian Angels Sit on Porches?

There are two old men that sit out on their house porch across the street from my apartment complex. They sit out there, eat out there, play cards out there, smoke cigarettes out there, and watch everyone’s coming and going from the chairs on their porch. I can only guess their names are Bubba and Jed. Anyway, at first I was a little annoyed by them watching my comings and goings. They watch me leave my apartment, unload the groceries from my car and watch me carry my laundry in and out. However, someone did open my eyes to the benefit of having Bubba and Jed across the street. He said, “Think of them as watching over you…good neighbors who make sure no one suspicious is coming around”. Then I realized he was right. From that moment on I began waving and saying hello to Bubba and Jed. They always wave back. Not with a lot of expression, mind you, but I understand now the importance of having Bubba and Jed living across the street.

Why are there so many fire alarms sounding every 10 minutes in Bloomington?

Did you ever count how many fire or ambulance sirens you hear during any one day in Bloomington? I do. The other day I counted five. Five alarms at different times during the course of one Tuesday afternoon. What is wrong with the people in this town? Does no one know how to cook, put out their cigarette, blow out a candle, or even light a candle? Are people setting themselves on fire? What is the deal? A few weeks ago a fire truck went flying by me on Third Street and just the breeze from it almost knocked me down. I was like, “Hey buddy, where’s the fire?” Maybe people in Bloomington aren’t careless at all. Maybe somebody’s cat got stuck in a tree or maybe an elementary school is visiting the firehouse and the kids want to hear the alarm go off. Maybe, Quasimodo lives at the fire station and loooovvvvveeeessss to sound that siren!

The only time a fire truck comes around my town back home is when Santa Clause makes his annual appearance one Sunday afternoon in December to ride on top of the fire truck and hand out candy canes. That’s it. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen a Cherry Hill Fire truck, which is funny since Cherry Hill has a pretty large population of about 75,000 people living there.

So try it…start counting fire sirens during the day. I think something strange is going on. So friends, remember, stop, drop and roll!