Home again, home again...

... jiggity jig.

Well, I am officially a resident at the Hays Home once more. Macy and I have spent the past few days settling into our new digs. That is, Macy spent an hour sniffing around before she proclaimed herself Queen of the Kingdom. Meanwhile, I spend most of my days organizing and re-organizing and trying to fit 5 years of college into my bedroom. Currently, my apartment has just vomited out into the basement living room and my car isn't even completely unloaded, so just when I think I've made a dent, more things pop up. The amount of things a person can collect is truly remarkable. And it's ridiculous how sentimentally attached I get to the dumbest things. No, I don't have a place for my four years' worth of ADPi composite pictures, but I can hardly throw them away. What do you do with such a thing? And sure, all of those caseless CDs are uploaded onto my computer, but it wouldn't seem right to throw them away... what if my computer crashes? Then I'd be in a pickle. Ah... conundrum.

Other than moving in and sorting through years of memories, I've kept pretty busy. I had a lunch date with Erica Monday, and yesterday Chasley, Emily, and I went to my grandmother's for dinner and girl talk on the dock. We three girls lounged on the dock while my grandmother and our other family friend, Mama B, swayed in rocking chairs and shared their wisdom with us... Something like, "When I was your age, I was married with two kids." Am I behind, or was she ahead? She just laughed when I asked her.

After playing on the farm, the three of us came back to my house for a slumber party; Dad continually interrupted us wondering how he was going to participate in girl talk if I insisted on keeping my bedroom door closed. 13 or 23, some things never change. We sat three across my bed, each with our Mac laptops on our pajama-bottomed legs, and surfed Facebook and abryanphoto.com for hours looking at wedding pictures. And of course we braided each others' hair for hours. I fell asleep to Joan Rivers talking about J. Lo on Fashion Police. It was practically perfect...

...until this morning at 5:20. I knew it was strange in my dream that someone was continually knocking on the door. It probably took me a full five minutes to realize it wasn't in my dream. Naturally, I lay paralyzed with fear for five minutes as I contemplated how the assassins on my back porch weren't going to take me down without a fight and wondered where my sweet Macy was-- I guess I figured Chasley and Emily could fend for themselves. Anyway, a few minutes later it registered with me that the construction men had arrived to begin repairing our tornado-damaged deck. Sure, it's perfectly logical that they do as much work as they can before the July sun hits 'Melting' on the thermometer, but I just wish someone had warned me... and that this wasn't going to be my fate for the weeks to come. So long, my dear friend Sleep... we had a good run.

After wrestling with sleep for a few more hours, I pulled myself from bed to have breakfast with Em before she headed back to Birmingham. Then Chasley and I hung out and got ready for the day and our sushi lunch date-- I've been craving it for some time now, and I finally got my fix. After lunch, Chasley was back to Huntsville for work.

And then there was one. Or two, if you count my loyal feline companion. And you should. Anyway, I topped off my day with freshly highlighted hair--- can I get an amen?-- and a catch up session with David and Tyler over chips and guac.

You know what's missing from this post? Boyfriend: last sighted on Sunday afternoon; 6'5, skinny; sweat-drenched from helping his girlfriend move (but surely he's changed and showered by now). It's possible that I've scared him off, but if you see him, send him my way. You'll know him when you see him; he's the one blotting out the sun.