Mums

While I was sick with a 36 hour stomach bug last week, the only thing that made it a bit better was streaming Netflix. A few friends on Twitter had suggested Friday Night Lights as a great show that they were all addicted to recently. Since I didn’t have anything else to do, I started up an episode – and boy howdy, was it addicting!

It’s about a Texas town and their love for football. And with Texas football comes Homecoming. I know other high schools and colleges have Homecoming, but in Texas, it’s just special. We take it to another level.

For those that aren’t familiar, Homecoming in many Texas towns has a special tradition – mums. And we’re not talking the normal flowers:

We’re talking fake mums that guys buy their Homecoming dates so they can wear them to the big game the day before the dance.

Enter exhibit one:

This is a sophomore me, with T, the love of my young high school life. Boy, was he wonderful. He’s now a Navy man with a beautiful wife and a few kids, I think. It’s crazy how things change.

Tradition in Texas has it that a gentleman purchase his lady a mum before the big Homecoming game. In the beginning, that was a real mum but over the years, people started using plastic flowers so they would last longer (I’m guessing in the Texas heat, because in October, it’s still awfully hot). They started adding ribbons in the team colors and little trinkets to make noise when they walked. Then, more elaborate ribbons and teddy bears in the middle of the mums. And then you have my wonderful mum from sophomore year.

Homecoming tradition also holds that the lady purchase her gentleman a garter to wear. If he’s on the football team, he can wear it during the school day, but if he’s just watching the game, then you can wear it the whole day.

Yup, that’s right. We wear these things to school that day, to classes and then to the big pep rally at the end of the day, before the big game.

Enter exhibit two:

 

This is my senior year of high school, after I transferred from one Texas city to another, hence the different colors in the mum. Typically, the mums are in the color of the mascot – whatever that may be. The teddy bears in the middle of the mums were usually dressed up like little cheerleaders and carry megaphones.

But as a senior? Your mum got to be special. Yours got to be white – to denote your seniority of the school. I waited three years to be able to wear one of those white mums! I was so happy when I finally got to do it. This one was particularly big – the ribbons went to my knees. It was so heavy that I had to wear overalls to the Spirit Day that year, because pinning the thing to a regular shirt would have pulled my shirt clean off me! Lots of the girls came to the same conclusion, so we all matched in our overalls that day.

I was never one of the extra special girls who got a double or triple mum – multiple flowers on one thing. Those were extra expensive and my boyfriends never loved me that much. ;)

When I brought up my love of Homecoming mums, my Sunday night dinner crowd looked at me like I had two heads.

I explained what it was, and then the laughing started.

So let me ask you – did your high school have any traditions that other people might find ridiculous? Because I loved my mums and wouldn’t have traded the tradition for anything in the world.

And God Blessed the Broken Road, Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

I hung out with future-husband’s friends for the first few weeks of school, and they were a lot of fun. I would join them for dinner or snacks after class. On the first anniversary of 9/11, I was there outside the residence hall for the memorial service hosted by one of his friends. He was from New York and was very close to the attacks. It was an emotional experience, lots of tears in the darkness, punctuated by candlelight in the parking lot.

But as things happen in college, people come together for a time and then float apart. With a good distance between his residence hall and mine, and his classes in the business school and mine in the theatre, it got harder and harder to find the time to meet up. After all, I was dating someone and so was he. He was just a friend I met that first week of school and somehow, things just start drifting apart.

Whenever I signed on to AIM, I would look down the lists of friends and every once in a while, I would notice his screenname at the bottom and wonder what that cute kid from the local high school was doing then.

A few months into my freshman year, the boyfriend that I followed to college broke up with me. And immediately started dating the girl he insisted he wasn’t into. That was a tough pill to swallow. I was 18 and thought the world was going to come crashing down on my head.

And still, every once in a while, I would see future-husband’s name on my AIM list and wonder about that cute guy in the residence hall across campus. But the thought would pass and I would head to rehearsal. That’s where I spent most of my college years, in the theatre.

I never realized that the cute guy I saw on my AIM list would eventually come back into life in a HUGE way.

Removing Excuses

You know how you can always talk yourself in or out of something?

I don’t know about you, but I can always convince myself that one more piece of candy won’t hurt my waistline or that the extra half hour of sleep is SO much more worth it than working out. Later on, those decisions always tick me off, because they really were the wrong decision.

Pinterest has a bunch of inspiration pictures that I’ve been pinning lately – they’re helping remove the excuses that I’ve thrown up to not run in the mornings. Like this one. Or this one. And this one just makes me laugh. I tried to insert the images here but Pinterest isn’t playing nice right now.

In any case, I’m trying to use these quotes to really remind myself why getting up at 6 am and walking/running 2.2 miles is a good idea. In the mornings, when no matter what I put on my body to clothe it for work, nothing is looking the way it should. I am not liking what I see in the mirror. And seeing a picture of me at the work event last week? Yuck. I want to scrub it from the internet.

So I am removing all excuses. I realized I didn’t have any comfortable work out shorts that weren’t inappropriately short to wear in public. So on Monday, I stopped by the thrift store on the way home and found some black work out shorts for $4. Awesome. That’s one excuse I can’t use – I have outfits to wear.

Another excuse is being tired in the mornings when the alarm goes off for the work out. So I need to be in bed by 10:30 pm and that means lights off – no more reading until 11:15 pm because I’m not tired yet. No matter how awesome the book is.

They say that nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels. I’m really trying to concentrate on that one and prevent myself from eating crap. I don’t know if it’s working. But there has to be a change. Something has to give.

One last quote I’m centering on? A year from now, you’ll wish you had started today. I so do want that. I’m starting today.

A Bit Like a Voyeur

Am I the only one who loves seeing how other people set up their iPhone folders? No? Really? I guess I’m kind of a weird one.

I really do like peeking into other people’s phones and look through their folders. What apps have they downloaded? What’s on their homepage? What’s in the quick access bar at the bottom? I think it’s similar to peeking into someone’s purse or their medicine cabinet when you’re a house guest.

In that vein, I thought I’d share my organization. After the Great Screen Shattering of 2011, I had to start over and reload all my apps from last back up done in June. Because I had the chance to spend some time reorganizing, I thought I’d reorder the apps.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the folder option! But there’s something overwhelming about ALL of those apps, even in folders. I read somewhere about gathering up all the apps into a logical folder order, but having that at the beginning of the line, and then having three of your most used apps on that line. Seeing your favorite apps on the line makes it easier to remember what’s in the folder at the end, even if you have the name of the folder listed there.

So if any of you love to see how others organize their apps, here are my screen shots!

 

My main screen. My favorites. Calendar in the corner, Remember the Milk Pro (to do list) and of course, maps and the Disney countdown. 28 days until the Poly – not that I’m counting down the days or anything.

Twitter, Facebook, Gowalla (check in game), of course.

Games like Words with Friends – I’m clearly behind in my games.

Photos, Instagram and Camera not in a folder because they need to be easily accessible. 

Here’s where it gets a little more complicated on the second page. Some random apps and then around – things like Yelp and Urban Spoon. Awesome apps. then we have entertainment things and shopping of course! Gotta have my Groupon.

 

Third page continues from the second. We’ve got travel and my beloved TripIt app. Seriously, it’s the best itinerary planner out there. And then Lines – thank you for my Disney fix! You can see how long the waits are for any ride in WDW or Disneyland at any given time, and carry your touring plans for the parks in your app as well. Awesomely worth the yearly membership fee if you’re a fan like we are.

 

And finally – the dregs of the apps. Random things that I can’t delete or don’t want to have on more readily accessible pages.

On a side note – how adorable is that cupcake background? I can’t remember where I found it but I love it! So cute. :)

Ok – am I weird or was this interesting? How do you organize your phone?

Organizing My Basement Storage Room Almost Killed Me and My Husband – But It Was Worth It

Saturday morning…

10:18 am – Husband comes in, pokes me, tells me it’s time to wake up, that’s it past 10 am. I slept in after staying out late on Friday night for a work event.

10:26 am – Managed to drag ourselves out of the house and into the car for a quick donut run. Decide on one dozen in order to get us through the cleaning weekend.

11:12 am – First fight of the day. It revolves around the question of what someone means when they offer an item up for either the trash or donation pile. We resolve this and move forward. I won’t say who won it, because I’m pretty sure it might bring up the fight again.

2 pm – It’s time for a break. There was a donation run as well as a snack at QT. Do you know how awesome those fountain vanilla cokes are? They’re my addiction lately.

4:52 pm – The doorbell knocks as we are just starting to place boxes back where they go. There’s lots of extra room and we have combined many boxes. I’m feeling good! I go upstairs and who is standing there but the Sunday night dinner crew. We spent that night drinking and playing video games. It was an awesome diversion.

Sunday morning…

10:45 am – We woke up late. It was a late night driving home after playing games. :) But we get moving and finish going through boxes and finding new ways to stack all the boxes we were keeping.

2:03 pm – Husband and I stand back, and admire our work. We have lots of room for a laundry folding table, Husband’s tools and even an organized corner for luggage next to the deep freeze.

5 boxes and a few random things to Goodwill… 15 bags to the trash… and an entire pile of empty moving boxes that need to be broken down to be recycled. It is awfully impressive. I’m so happy – I even want to fold laundry in there! It is so true that if you like the spaces in your house, you’ll stop avoiding chores there. When we get the next house with a real laundry room instead of space in the basement, I’m definitely going to be decorating it to make me happy there too!

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I wish I could show you pictures, but unfortunately, my iPhone took a nose dive this morning and the replacement I got today didn’t allow me to back it up beforehand. Plus, taking pictures in a basement is just so boring. And hard to really show what it looks like. So there’s just my little narrative!