You're All I Ever Wanted...

I’ve officially decided that I must be chronically ill.  I think that every time I say that I’ll get better about updating my blog, the lapse between posts gets larger.  So for that, I apologize.  But, maybe it’s just a part of my sinister game to keep everyone hanging for a while and just when you think that I’ve deserted the land of blogging, I pop up again!  Surprise!   So, no more promises about when I’ll blog next.  Mostly because, even when I do that, it turns out that something else always comes up…like Kosovo. :)

Instead of trying to fill everyone in on the last 5 months of my life, today’s blog will be a tribute to trips down memory lane.  I would love to blog about my Kosovo adventures and all of the shenanigans that I’ve managed to get myself into since I’ve been home but it would take FOREVER.  I did write weekly emails though and I put pictures on facebook so if you want those, let me know and I’ll forward them to you! :)  Also, can I just say how grateful I am for great friends?  Especially those that you just made that you somehow feel like you’ve known forever?  Yup.  Totally awesome.  Anyway…here we go!  I wrote this on Monday of last week and am just now getting around to hitting the "post" button...yup.  Awesome. So hopefully, it makes sense. 

My Monday started out like most others today:  Running around the house trying to get everything put together for the day, realizing that I’m running late because I hit the snooze button or decided ‘I’ll just listen to one more song and then I’ll get up.’  That never turns out in my favor, by the way.  But that extra 3 ½ minutes with eyes closed and curled up with my man pillow, while Carrie is serenading, sure feels great!  Little did I know that my day was about to change, for the better, about 5 minutes later. 

I get in the car to start my super long, 15-minute commute to work (yes, I am bragging, just in case you missed that) and I put my iPod on shuffle to see what it would surprise me with.  It started out with a little BBMak and I was very pleased.  I haven’t heard them since I lived with Emily!  Well, my good ole iPod didn’t stop there!  No, sir.  It decided to bust out some Nsync.  It’s like it knew that my entire being was secretly hoping and pleading that that would be next in the shuffle.  Not only did it play Nsync, but it played ‘I Want You Back.’  I had always dreamed of them singing this song to me, and today, they did.  After a 10 year Nsync sabbatical, they came back:  “You’re all I ever wanted.  You’re all I ever needed.  So tell me what to do now, when I want you back.”  Well naturally, I set it to shuffle ‘all things Nsync’ after that and it was the best 15 minutes I’ve ever had on a Monday morning!  And don’t you worry, I still remember all of the rap words during Space Cowboy.  I tried it. :)  Seriously though, oh my word…memory lane is so fun!  It is incredibly too awesome that almost 10 years later, Nsync still knows how to speak to my soul.

Naturally, once I got to work and got through some of the important stuff, I started up my mix again.  I usually hit up Pandora, but I had to continue with the Nsync legacy.  One song after another came on, and each of them brought so many fun memories for me: 

·        Learning the dances and spending an entire summer dancing in the front room of the Budge’s house for hours because we thought we were so cool!

·        My sister breaking me out of school early when Lance Bass’s movie, On the Line, came out so that we could watch it opening day. 

·        All of my tapes that I had where I taped every time they were on TV (and yes, I did watch those over and over and over again).

·        Coming home and watching VH1 to make sure that they beat Backstreet Boys on the music video countdown and to see if my comment ever made it on the show (it didn’t by the way…I’m convinced that it was rigged.  Nobody can enter that many comments and not have it scroll during the video at least once!) .  Yes, I realize that this makes me out to be some kind of crazy, stalker fan.  And I totally was.  I admit that, wholeheartedly. 

·        The concert in Houston! 

·        And last but not least, the makeshift wall paper that I made out of magazine clippings and memorabilia.  Nsync, how I love y’all.  Lance, if you ever decide not to be gay, you know where to find me.

This little trip down memory lane also inspired me to do my next project:  I’m going to compile a bunch of my family’s favorite memories and compile them in a book for all of us.  It’s going to be legit.  We started going back and forth a little bit today with all of our favorite family memories and I found myself chuckling so hard that I was crying!  Good times.  One of my favorites was submitted by my dad.  Not because it is particularly funny, but the image that I paint in my mind is priceless:

“I can remember someone, who I'm sure will fess up, falling down Grandpa and Grandma's stairs in Yakima, with a plate of spaghetti. Quite a mess. Who was that anyway,,,,, :)” 

In a family like mine, it could have been any of us, but it definitely paints an awesome picture in my head.  We fell down those stairs all the time.  And I really do mean, ALL of the time.  But edit in a plate full of spaghetti into the mix and it all gets a lot more hilarious.  If you’ve ever seen any of us falling down the stairs, you know that we do it with style.  Go big or go home.  Flailing, hootin’ and hollerin’, rolling, a couple of back flips…the whole nine yards.  Dang, I love my family.  Memory lane, here’s to you!  Now, I need some animal crackers, so I’m signing off for now!  Until next time…