Sarah's 25th Birthday

Could this be the best birthday video ever?

And I suppose I better include a picture of my birthday girl!

Peace.

These Dreams

I am famous (in my bedroom, anyway) for having the most outrageous dreams.

Last night, I dreamed I was back at Purdue, hanging out in the lobby of Meredith and had to go to the bathroom; all I could find was a men's room. So, I went to my dorm room, which was big and modern, and in which I roomed with my real-life friend, Angie, and my real-life cousin, Elisa. We all had our own TVs and huge bookcases. Unfortunately, the girl who had lived there before me, Stacey Hawkins from Seymour, Indiana (who I do not know in real life, if she even exists -- I read her name inside of one of her textbooks) did not remove any of her things from the room. I just didn't know what to do; class was starting any minute, and I didn't have my schedule. I woke up in a panic, as I do from most of my dreams.

Usually, my dreams are very, very scary. Last week, we (random people I didn't know) were eating dinner in the basement of my parents' house when we looked out the windows and saw burning debris falling from the sky. We all went outside to see what was going on, and watched as many burning planes were crashing into skyscrapers. Then we had to hurry inside, because Big Brother was watching. Someone actually said that. "Hurry in! Big Brother is watching!"

But mostly, aside from the Big Brother dream and the Purdue dream, my dreams are in recurring themes. Three themes, to be exact.

Theme one: driving off of an interstate ramp at an alarmingly high rate of speed into oblivion. Or, into an ocean. A few weeks ago, this dream took on a Purdue motif, as the ramp I was travelling on at an alarmingly high rate of speed went right past the Triple XXX. And into oblivion. I should have know this was a dream, for anyone who has been in WLafayette knows that area is incredibly congested -- no oblivion for miles. And, no interstate ramps. But I woke up scared and sweaty, regardless.

Theme two: tornadoes. Watching them, running from them, being swept up in them. That's all I can bear to say about that.

Theme three: This may be TMI, but this is my blog, so deal with it. Until recently (when pre-menopause came to stay for a visit) I would dream about getting my period the night before my period. Every month. Like clockwork. I thought this was absolutely fascinating -- the mind/body connection and all, and mentioned it to my doctor. I was sure he would want to study this further and write it up for a medical journal.
Instead, he said, "Huh."

But I guess it would be hard to prove the connection, as I could be lying about my period dreams, and that's not so good for medical research.

I could be lying about all these dreams, couldn't I? Just to have something to blog about.
Because people are starting to harass me about not blogging.

Well, not harass, just ask. And only two people, really.
Very nice people who I hate to disappoint. So here's my blog post.
I'm not lying, I promise.

Birthday Boy

17. Well, 17 plus 3 days -- it's hard to find a day when everyone can come for supper. We had such a nice time together, though.

Will (and the rest of us) loves the movie, "Up"; he had watched it on the bus on the way to Kansas City for NCYC in November. He told Clay and me that we would love it, and he was so right. We gave him a Dug dog (just like Sarah L's!) for Valentine's Day, and I wanted to surprise him with a special cake -- it's been so long since I decorated and nice cake for him -- I think the last one might have been a motocross cake when he was 11 or so. Sad.

Yeah, this cake was not at all as I had pictured in my head. Double sad. I had thought and thought and thought about this for a couple of weeks, and knew just what I wanted to do. First, I had a disaster with the baking -- the first two cakes I baked were flat and icky. So, Clay baked two more for me. They were perfect. I sliced each layer in half and filled them with Nutella buttercream. Oh. my. gosh. Is that ever good. I just used the ATK recipe (beat 2 1/2 sticks of softened butter together with 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar for 4 minutes or so, add 2 T. cream, 1 t. vanilla and a pinch of salt and beat a little more) and added a 1/2 jar of Nutella.

Then I started carving and decorating, and I don't really know where I went wrong, but it went all wonky very quickly, and there was no saving it as the clock was ticking down toward party time. Even sweet, kind, loving Clay, who would never ever hurt my feelings, said it "Wasn't my best effort."

Crap.

But Will was happy, and I guess really, that's all that matters.

Peace.