Evening Haikus

Indian Spice tea
Add honey and almond milk
A cup of heaven

Productivity
A foreign concept to me
At least for school work

Damn, what a clean tub
See?  I can be productive.
What can I clean now?

Sleepy black kitty,
You are a cute lazy bum.
Let's snuggle later.

Oh no!  What is this?
I think it's senioritis.
Please, no more papers.

Amazed by stats--of the blogging sort. No math in this post.

I'd just like to say hi to my dedicated Slovenian reader, whoever you are.

And to my Russian reader, though it tells me the traffic source from whence you come is what appears to be an interior design site.  Not really sure about that one.

I mean, you American readers are pretty cool, too, I guess.

:)

I'm fascinated by the blogger stats.  I get super excited about charts and graphs *pushes glasses up nose* so seeing a graph of the number of times people choose to visit my blog ASTOUNDS me.  Like, how is it possible that in September I had 340 visits? 

It's not counting the times that I visit here myself, so you punks who were thinking that can stop it.

Meany faces.

I HAVE FRIENDS!

And a reader in Slovenia!  I may or may not have pulled out a map to see where Slovenia is, exactly.

And here's a bonus bit of info!  I love other people's blogs.  If you have a blog, be it ever so humble, I would love love love to know about it.  I'm a tad attached to my Google Reader, so I can keep up with all of my sites in one place.  It's wildly convenient.  But I visit the actual sites often to comment or just to bump up your page views when I dig a post.

Because now I understand that significance.  I want you to get excited about looking at your blogger stats too :)

That Terrifying Question...

We're coming up on 100 posts, folks.  Just a couple more posts and we've made it to some centenarian postage.  This party's just getting started.

Also, 52 days to graduation.

Can we just talk about how flippin exiting that is?

And flippin terrifying?

Ok let me ask you something--if it's rude/uncomfortable/socially inappropriate to ask how old someone is, whether a child was a "surprise" or not, whether someone is a Republican or a Democrat, etc...  Then how is it possible that the following question is considered totally normal:

"So what's next for you after graduation?"

What a mean question.  If I do know, do you really care?  What if it's really boring?  Or totally outside of your realm of thinking?  What if you disapprove?  Do you still want to know?

And if I DON'T know...  WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO??  FREAK ME OUT???

Good job.  It's working.

Because, no.  I don't have a post-graduation 5-year plan.  I barely have a PRE-graduation next-2-weeks plan.  Those of you who know me well know that this is kinda bizarre.  I like plans.  And structure.  And bulleted lists of things to do.  I like to have an idea of where I'm heading with a general timeline pointing to an ultimate goal.

And it is a GIANT challenge to not have that in my life right now.

God's pushing me to lean on Him--not on a plan that I make.  To trust that He's going to take care of me.  To trust that He has a plan and he's going to fill me in on it--in His sweet time.  To help me to see that my life is merely a vessel for His Glory--not a means for Cole's glory.

As uncomfortable as I am without my own plan, there is an INCREDIBLE amount of comfort in resting in the knowledge that God's plan trumps anything that I could make up on my own without His guidance.

For example - the ONLY plan that I have for post-graduation is to go to India on a short mission trip.  That's the only post-graduation plan that I have, and at the moment that is the most comforting, exciting, fulfilling plan I can imagine having.  Nothing else that I "test out" in my head (I do what could be called "statistical daydreaming") feels as right, urgent, and real as that mission trip.  I know without a doubt that I am meant to go on that trip.  Shoutout to old-school hymn - "Blessed Assurance."

Now.  The flip side.  I'm still praying that God shows me something else that feels as providential as that India trip feels to me now.  Something that has life-long implications.  I'm fully aware that the mission trip is 10 days long.  That's not very long.  Post-graduation plans usually involve something a little more long-term than just to the end of the next month.  I feel like God's going to use this trip somehow to show me something (oh hai, vagueness), but obviously I don't know what that is yet.

It's kinda a roundabout anxiety/comfort/excitement/anticipation/anxiety/comfort/ excitement cycle.

And how do you explain THAT to someone when they ask that terrifying question...

"So what's your plan for when you graduate?"

Exactly what I don't want to be doing right now:

Just barely got to sleep at 2:45 after an hour of trying. Rough evening. Got woken up at 3 by an intoxicated roommate looking for my keys. Which I'd left by the door. In case she needed to move my car. After I'd gone to sleep. Which I had. Now my intoxicated roommate and her two friend are sitting right outside my door, talking about throwup. The thing I like possibly least in the whole wide world. And the cat is meowing because they sound more fun, but if I let him out, I can't close the door because then he wouldn't have access to the litter box.

Did I mention that I have to be awake in 3.75 hours? To play with a hoard of small children? For 4 hours?

Yes. This was an entire blog post written at 3:15am to vent anger, frustration, and exhaustion.

Start today back at midnight and let's just redo the whole thing.

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Cole is feeling...

A leeee-ttle bit smooshed up and worthless.

Sometimes that happens.

It'll go away soon enough.

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Late Saturday Lunch!

Hey folks!

I'm hungry.  I want pancakes.  But not just any pancakes.

I want THESE PANCAKES.  They're whole grain oatmeal pancakes.

Mhm--I see that drool seeping out of the corner of your mouth.

About to go to the store to get a few things.  Want to know how Cole grocery shops on a budget?  Read on...

• milk - probably almond milk.  It lasts longer than regular milk, and it's better for you.  Get the vanilla flavor and thank me later.
• nutmeg - for the pancakes, but super awesome to have on hand anyway.
• fruit - 2 or three different kinds.  I like to get bananas, strawberries, and some other kind of seasonal fruit.  Bananas are cheap as anything, strawberries are often on a buy 1 get 1 sale, and maybe a plum, pear, or peach.  Grapes are also in season, but they don't go as well in fruit smoothies.
• avocado - just one, and if it's more than $.60, you're overpaying. (Find a 3 for $1 sale)
• veggies - a couple of cheap ones, like a broccoli head, mushrooms, and a bell pepper (I've got my eye on THIS RECIPE for this week.  It looks like it'll be super easy to take and reheat for lunches.  Yes, I think like that.  You should too. It makes your life significantly more college-affordable.)
• lunch meat - because I wanted an omelet today and I couldn't have one because all I had was egg and cheese and that's not exciting enough for me.  Hi, I'm Cole, and I'm an omelet diva.

Love you :) off I go to the grocery store!

**************************

Just got back from the grocery a few minutes ago.  It was raining.  It was the least cute I've looked at the grocery, possibly ever.  I did some probability stats before leaving and found that the odds were very slim that I'd see anyone I knew because 1) it's raining 2) it's homecoming for TCU 3) it's Saturday afternoon.  And for once, stats didn't fail me!  There were LOTS of people there (probably some acting agents, future employers, and such) but no one that I recognized.

I got out of there having only spent $22.87.

I got all things mentioned above, plus 2 different kinds of pasta and a container of parmesan. 

Ima chalk that one up to an epic success.  Shoutout to my Kroger card.

Also, the pancakes are being cooked even as I type this.  I multitask like a fool.

They far exceeded my expectations, much thanks to this little addendum that I discovered:  one food guy's pancake breakthrough!  It is indeed a breakthrough.  If you separate the eggs and whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, and THEN add the egg whites after you've added everything else, you are actually no longer making pancakes but little patties of heaven.

It's true.  I know because I've eaten two in the process of cooking them.  My taste buds do not lie.

I'm going to take some to the boyfriend as a peace offering for being late, but considering the fact that my peace offering is a warm, banana-filled, light and fluffy, stack of heaven patties, I think I'll be forgiven.

These are so good, they make the dripping sound of the leak in my ceiling sound like background music.  Now, THAT is a good pancake.

Post from earlier today:

Looked weird.

Paragraphs in the whole last section disappeared.  As did lots of capitalization.

Ugh.  That's what I get for blogging from my phone.

Just wanted to let you know that I fixed it so maybe I'll look less like a dummy now.

Have a beautiful Thursday tomorrow!

Today:

Let me tell you a little about my day.

1.  I've fallen in love with hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com.

You will too.  Just try it out.

2.  I'm stinky.  I need a shower.  I had dance class today, and it was rough and tumble.  My hips are going to feel that tomorrow.  Leg swings.  Rolling around on the floor.  WHEW.

3.  My tolerance is diminishing in a particular type of social situation.  I'm gearing up for a big explanitory blog post.  Keep your ears up.  Meanwhile, see number 1.

4.  I dislike it when my professors have such severe and obvious chips on their shoulders (when it's plural it sounds like there's a stack of pringles hanging out on somebody's shoulder) about Jesus Christ. I understand that not everybody is a believer--oh trust me, I understand--but when that same professor speaks respectfully of all other faiths under the sun, it tells me that s/he has a personal and almost child-like rebellion from Christ.

Do you believe in Santa Claus? (if so this doesn't apply to you)

If NOT, does hearing someone talk about believing in Santa make you angry? Are you so vehemently against the belief in Santa? No. That seems a ridiculous way to respond. It's just that the whole thing isn't something you believe in. You don't feel the need to slam little kids who believe in Santa. Being angrily opposed to Christianity makes me wonder if maybe you are actually angry with God. It's mighty hard to be angry at someone you really don't think exists... Follow my logic?

That doesn't apply to everyone who doesn't follow Christ. But it's pretty clear that that's what's going on with a couple of my profs.

5. I'm about to watch the The Wizard of Oz with my dear friend Meg. So happy about that. :D

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Please note that I had to edit out some weird formatting stuff from earlier.  Sorry about that.  Silly Blogger-droid.