Now that you're gone, l can roll on to something good.

I'm not going to explain the title. Some people understand it, and if you don't, I'm not in the mood to be bitter. I'm in the mood to be HAPPY!! Because so many good things are happening right now, and all the bad things are in the past. Done for. See ya. Thanks for coming.

The biggest news is that one of my bestest best friends, Joe Petty, is engaged!!!! He's found his one, and I couldn't be more happy for Joe and his Savannah. Ryan told me he was going to propose, but when Joe texted me the simple yet profound words, "She said yes! I'm engaged!", I was at Chili's with friends and I mentally checked out of the table conversation. I felt like a blubbering sap and I just wanted to run onto the highway and start dancing. Good for him. I always knew Joe would get married before any of us, but I can't believe that it's actually happening!! We're getting to that age, the marriage age, then the having-a-family age, and then who knows what. Things are so utterly different since freshman year of high school, when none of us knew at all where our lives were headed. And look at us now. In college, Joe getting engaged, Ryan and I going to live on our own for the summer, Tim....being Tim, and Hillary interning with an editor!! Geez Louise. And despite all the changes, our friendship and bond has, if anything, grown stronger. I love them all so much!!

So... now that I've gone and said all that, it's time to move on to the next topic. And that is Las Vegas. In 10 days. Time is passing by soooo slowly, though, because I'm so freaking excited!! Seriously, yesterday alone felt like four whole days. I can't take the waiting anymore!! But I must. So, to pass the time, I've started to make lists. List upon list. I know what you're thinking, "Oh no, Stephanie and her lists". And you're probably right. I've made three lists so far: Places to Eat, Things to Do, and Snacks to Pack. And they're all fairly lengthy. I've got the portable DVD player and my handy dandy GPS, and we're pretty much all set. Wait, I have yet to print out tickets to the fan expo we're going to, but I've got plenty of time to kill, so I'll do it tomorrow. Haha I don't want to do everything in one day and have absolutely nothing to do for the rest of the week. That would be slow, painful torture. Not that it isn't already torture. Ughhh the waiting... just kill me. But not really. Then I wouldn't be able to go to Vegas! Hehehe.

Moving right along, I have more good news!! I'm learning how to cook! Hey, better late than never, and I've come to realize that cooking is something I really enjoy, regardless of the fact that I kinda suck at it. But I'll get better! Practice makes perfect, right? I'm adding to my mental recipe book day by day, and so far, this is what I can make off the top of my head: Omelettes, poached eggs, french toast, meatloaf, green bean casserole, creamy rice casserole, cornflake chicken, chicken salad, mushroom canapes, cucumber sandwiches, chocolate banana pie, queso, scrambled eggs, baked salmon with lemon butter, and... I think that's it. But that's pretty good for a newbie, if I do say so myself. 

So far, my Summer 2010 picture project, where I take at least one picture every day for this summer and posting it on Facebook (man that album is going to be FULL by the end of this summer), is going well. Of course, it's only been four days since my summer officially started, but still! I'm having fun with it. A lot of the pictures are of Indie, my big fatty cat, sleeping in various places around the house. I didn't notice the pattern until someone commented on it, but pretty much every day I have a picture of Indie sleeping on something new! First, it was the kitchen table, then it was a chair in my dad's room, and on a couch, and now he's sleeping in my laptop case! I cannot wait to take that kitty to Huntsville with me.

That's all for today. This is the first time I've posted two entries in two consecutive days... I MUST be bored.

Smile!

All shall know the wonder of purple summer...

Wow I have a lot of catching up to do. When did I become such a blogging slacker? Well, no more of that! I have a lot to tell you! And when I say a lot, I mean it's overwhelming me just thinking of how I can blog about all this without writing a novel!! I'll just take it one step at a time. Here we go.

I think the first major thing that happened since the last time I updated was my cruise to Cozumel!! I went with my mom, and man, getting away was so awesome. Just heavenly. And this time, we learned from our mistakes from our last cruise and actually went and participated in the onboard activities, as opposed to staying in our cabin all the time like we did on our last cruise. We went to many of the Las Vegas-style shows, ate tons and tons, and participated in some of the shopping talks that they had. Plus, at these shopping talks, they gave out vouchers for free stuff in Cozumel! I was simply ecstatic when we finally got to Cozumel. We were in a time crunch because our first excursion started at 11, and we didn't get on the island until 9:30, but we managed to get all of our shopping done just in time for the glass-bottom boat/snorkeling tour. My favorite store was Del Sol, a store in which all of the merchandise changed color in the sun! The shirt and hairclip I got from there are among my favorite things to wear!! The snorkeling excursion was a blast. We went to 3 barrier reefs in a glass-bottom boat, and then we geared up and went snorkeling! The tour guide was super nice and helpful, and I even saw a barracuda! That was pretty scary, not gonna lie, but it was the experience of a lifetime and something I never before thought I could've done. That's one thing crossed off my bucket list. After that, we had lunch at a cute outdoor Mexican restaurant and experienced some authentic fajitas. Twas glorious. Energized, we plunged onto my next excursion: The manatee encounter!! That was super, super fun and I even got my own manatee to feed and play with! His name was Angel and he was bigger than me and kept grabbing onto me in an attempt to take the lettuce from my hands! I loved it so much. It was definitely a day I will never, ever forget.

The next major thing was my surprise 19th birthday party that my incredible roommates, Ryan and Melissa, coordinated and planned behind my back! It was on Friday, May 7th (Dead Day) and me and Ryan had gone to see Experimental Theater together. Then, when we got back to the apartment, pretty much every person at SHSU that was important to me was there and I was so freaking shocked! EVERYTHING was Hello Kitty, and it took me a full 3 seconds to realize that the surprise was for me. There was all this food, and this gorgeous pink cake, and a ginormous Hello Kitty balloon that I will pin to my wall once it's deflated. I got tons of gifts, all Hello Kitty, and I loved them ALL. After the initial shock wore off, we played Apples to Apples and The Game of Things, and Jen spent the night. It was my best birthday party ever, and again, something I will never, never forget as long as I live!! The next morning, all of us roommates decided to clean out the fridge, and we found some nasty things. Ryan donned his bandana over his face to protect himself from the rancid smell and, equipped with his trusty Febreze, tackled the mess! What a hero!

The next week was finals, and my grades were okay this semester. An "A" in Spanish II (which was a shocker, let me tell ya), and a "B" in everything else. I'm so glad it's summer.

Yesterday, I went back up to Huntsville to pick up some stuff I left behind, and to celebrate Raven's 20th birthday. After seeing her show, "Crimes of the Heart", at Old Town Theater, we (me, Raven, Ryan, Michael Madro, Kyle, and Ashley) all went to dinner at Chili's and then went back to our apartment for ice cream and games. It was so much fun!!! I'm so glad I came back to Huntsville for it. Everyone left at around 2 a.m., and then Trang texted me to Skype. So I Skyped with her, which was also tons of fun, until around 4:30 a.m. That's unlike me, I know. But then I fell into bed, exhausted, and woke up at 10:30 ish and went back to Tomball where I belong.

I would fill you in on the exciting details about my upcoming summer, but that would be another novel. So I'll make it quick. In short, me and Trang are going to Las Vegas in a week and a half, then I'm spending two weeks in Northern California visiting family, THEN me and Trang are going to L.A. together to hang out with Lynn..... and last but not least, I'll be working at TADW, in L.A., all summer, living on my own! OH! And Ryan Anderson will be an hour away from me all summer working on his internship in Orange County! So we'll definitely be seeing a lot of each other this summer. I can think of three words that will describe my next three months, and those words are: BEST. SUMMER. EVER.

^..^

Scene 24, Take 11.

The three words "That's a wrap" marked the end of four incredible days and my first experience working on the set of a legitimate film production. Not that all of my posts' titles need explanation, but the reason this entry is titled what it is... I'll tell you. Scene 24, which was supposed to be done in ten minutes, but because the director jinxed us all by voicing that aloud, took 11 takes and almost two hours to film. And it was an outdoor scene that depended on the sun for illumination and the longer it took, the more daylight we burned. Anyway, I'm telling this way out of order.

I was the Slater for an independent short film that was then called "Delinquent Duty" but has since been renamed "Chasing Cane". It was directed by Roy Ford, a SHSU alum, and it was sooo fun and an incredible learning experience. Before this, I never would've thought that 12 minutes of film could take 4 whole days to shoot!! We filmed at six different locations: The Woodlands Chamber of Commerce, Coffee Expressions, Lake Conroe, a really nice house in The Woodlands, and some warehouse in Conroe. It was nice to watch all the action from behind the scenes and to learn how everything was done and put together. And it was really nice to be super busy on the weekends!! I met some awesome people and learned some really valuable stuff.

To see still shots of "Chasing Cane" and to learn more about the cast, click here.

Watch the trailer of the first episode of the mini series, Chasing Cane! (We filmed the first two episodes so far).

I just wanna be okay, be okay, be okay.

I think it's appropriate to head this post with some Ingrid Michaelson lyrics, because she's all I've been listening to for the past week and a half. I just love her! Heather bought me her CD and I can't get enough. We have a lot of ground to cover in this post, so let's get to it.

Shall we?

The first Saturday of Spring Break, which was March 12, I woke up early so I could shower and pack and get gas before embarking on the 2 1/2 hour drive to Waco. What's in Waco? Tim and Ryan are in Waco! I made sure to burn plenty of CD's for the road and while my tank was filling up, I bought two big bags of Doritos for Tim and Ryan. The drive wasn't bad actually. I thought it would be long and grueling and boring, but time flies when you're jamming out. When I was leaving Huntsville, my GPS predicted that I would arrive in Waco at 11:52, but I arrived at 11:15. How's that for defeating the system?

We all met at Ryan's apartment, which was conveniently located right off the highway. No corkscrewing through little avenues and getting lost. What a relief! Tim met us there about half an hour later and we had lunch at Five Guys, which was delicious, then... since Ryan is a certified Baylor tour guide, I was treated to a state-of-the-art tour of Baylor University.

Fun fact: Baylor University is home to two live bears! I literally thought Tim was joking when he told me... then I was face-to-face with the bear enclosure. Lovely!

They showed me a ton of cool stuff, like the library that people apparently get married in, a huge concert hall with a huge organ, a time capsule that was buried in 1945 and will be uncovered in 2045, and this bench circle where everything echoes like crazy. Baylor is actually really beautiful. I thought SHSU was an exceptionally scenic campus, but Baylor is just as pretty if not more so.

After sneaking around the music building, the art building, and the ENORMOUS science building -- it was more like a 5-star hotel, if you ask me -- they took me to an amazing snow cone hut called Mr. Snow. At first, I was a little skeptical. I mean, a snow cone is a snow cone. Right? Wrong. This snow cone was the mother of all snow cones. It eats other snow cones for breakfast. Get the picture?

I sat there dumbfounded for a good five minutes, staring at the gigantic list of flavors, and couldn't decide, so Ryan took the initiative and ordered for me. So, I ended up with a polar ice/electric lemonade flavored snow cone nestled on top of homemade vanilla ice cream. What is also known as a "love nest". It was amazing. The next time I'm in Waco, I might just drive straight to Mr. Snow and forget to visit Tim and Ryan.

Kidding!

Anyway, check this baby out.

Doesn't that look delicious? I know!!

After that excursion, we retired to Tim's apartment and played a few quick games of Bananagrams, then Ryan had to leave. Sadness ensues. Tim and I played Super Smash Bros on my Wii for about an hour, and he made me a ham and egg sandwich. I learned something new from this sandwich, and that is the way college boys cook eggs. We were standing in Tim's kitchen and I was watching him whip the egg in a mug, mixing in salt and pepper and the usual. Then, he pops open the microwave and puts the mug in the microwave. I've never, in my life, seen someone cook eggs in the microwave. Isn't that such a "boy" thing to do?

Anyway, that ham-and-microwaved-egg sandwich was my dinner, and as Tim's friends started to trickle in for a fun little get-together, I sadly had to go if I wanted to be home by midnight. The drive back was definitely more exhausting than the drive there. I was super tired by the time I got home, but I'm really glad I went. Really glad.

Childhood calls.

I came home this weekend to re-pot my sunflower saplings, and now the weekend is gone. It's gone by so fast, probably because it was amazing, and amazing weekends are always far too short.

On Friday, I went around looking at apartments for the Fall, and I think I've settled on one. It's called Woodcreek Apartments, and when I toured it, I fell in love with its quaint charm and roomy apartments. The concept of having a place to myself in just a few months is unbelievably thrilling. The only thing I'm worried about is taking Peach there. I don't know how she'll handle the move, but I'm sure everything will work itself out.

Saturday morning, my dad and I had a HUGE brunch at The Egg & I, one of my favourite restaurants in the Tomball area. I just love em. After that, we went to Wal-mart to purchase ingredients for a new dish I wanted to make: Creamy Rice Casserole. I saw it on the Food Network show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate", and the recipe sounded simple enough. With ingredients in hand, we went next door to Dollar Tree to find a watering can to properly water my sunflower, but we couldn't find one so we settled on a spray bottle. While I was there, I bought a new pot for my sunflower. Why not?... It was only a dollar. And since I was at a dollar store, or any store for that matter, anyone who knows me knows that I bought several unnecessary items. I bought a bubble set and a huge bottle of Arizona sweet tea. Hey, that's not so bad. I could've done worse, don't you think?

The bubbles and sweet tea weren't a complete waste. I spent the afternoon in the backyard blowing bubbles and watching Snapu chase after them. It was a gorgeous sunny day, just breezy enough to keep my bubbles afloat until they burst mid-air. My dad filled two glasses with ice and we downed the sweet tea in no time. After my bubble supply was exhausted, it was already 4:30 in the afternoon. Time to prepare the casserole. My dad did most of the work, but I got to dice the poblano peppers and mix the cream sauce. The casserole was delicious. That recipe gets my stamp of approval, for sure. My mom brought home rotisserie chicken, and it was a complete meal with enough leftovers for lunch the next day.

This morning, I woke up early -- "early" meaning 9:40 a.m. -- and woke my dad up so that we could make breakfast. I recently learned how to poach eggs through a Youtube tutorial... dorky, right? But I wanted to try it, so my dad and I poached eggs for the very first time. It was rather successful, and pretty much tasted awesome. My dad made his famous french toast, and I poached three eggs: one for me, one for my dad, and one for my mom. It was a fun breakfast, and one that I was pretty proud of. Probably because I helped, which is a big deal, because I am a goner when it comes to anything culinary. That's a fact.

I just came back from seeing "Alice in Wonderland" with my dad, and I really liked it. It was pretty graphic at times, which seemed out-of-place in what I thought was going to be a children's movie but turned out to be anything but. The acting was tremendous, Helena Bonham Carter was completely adorable and Johnny Depp was so loveable and complex.

Anyway, I had a great weekend and spent oodles of quality time with my dad, which is always a good thing. I'm now headed downstairs for my dinner, then am heading back to Huntsville where I belong. Ooh by the way, the Waco trip is on again, and I hope it stays that way this time. However, a lot can change between now and this coming weekend. Fingers crossed.

Love ya.

Sunshine

It's a perfectly beautiful sunny day to end the snow blizzard that befell Huntsville just two days ago. Not that the snow wasn't beautiful and fun, but the overall mood was just dreary and wet. I feel like this sudden sunburst reflects my life right now, as corny and dramatic as that sounds. Last week was horrible, and this week was just the lift I needed to make up for it. This week was amazing, to say the least. Nothing extraordinary or life-altering transpired, but there was just a lot of joy and friendship to be experienced. Contentment is the greatest wealth.

You're probably super bored of hearing about my scleroderma, and I do not blame you, but I'll say it anyway. Another change I've experienced in myself partly by reading old blog entries is that I haven't had a poutful, whiney day in conjunction with being sick in a long time. And usually those come every couple of weeks or so. But nope! Who's a happy panda? Me.

I feel like so much growth has taken place in me over the past two years, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. The empathy and perspective that has come out of this is priceless, and continues to better my life each and every day.

God works in mysterious ways. He really, really does.

86,400 seconds

It's amazing to go back and read the first posts in this blog, and see how much my priorities have changed since then. My outlook on life is dramatically, ridiculously changed. If you went back in time and told the person that I was back then that in a year, I'd see scleroderma as the biggest blessing, I'd laugh at you. Well, maybe not laugh. I might've hit you.

I can't believe it's taken me until age 18 to realize how important it is to live like I'm dying. It's ironic that I actually had to reach the point of near death to finally wake up and start living. In high school, I was so insecure and so easily wavered by the opinions of others. Now, although I'm still conscious of other's opinions of me, I'm proud of the person I am and it's very hard to shake that now that I know who I am. Finally. It's no longer important to me to be the trendiest person, or the most popular, or the smartest. I'm a good person, and that's the most important thing I think you can be.

This week has been such a rocky, emotional rollercoaster, but the cool thing about my newfound self-assurance is that I know what the right thing to do is and if I stick with that, it always ends well. I've been really stressed out these past few days, and my mom keeps telling me to stop caring about these things that bother me, that they'll worsen my condition. She's right; my illness was stress-induced in the first place. But to not care? That is so much easier said than done for me. Sensitivity is my main attribute, and sometimes it works against me, but I'd rather live a short life having cared than live a long, unfulfilled life in which I didn't. I'm so sensitive that it made me sick, but look where being sick has gotten me. I'm the happiest I've ever been, and I've never been so sure of who I am and what I need to do than I am right now.

Tomorrow, Brooke and I are hopefully taking a road trip to Baylor, but Tim's partied out and is sick now so he might not feel up to it. I really hope we get to go. I miss Tim and Ryan like no one's business. And I really need this getaway. Like, really.