"But Mom, Five More Minutes!"

     Oh wait, mommy doesn't wake me up for school anymore. College, that's right. My second year. Kinda crazy, huh? I think so too. I think it sounds weird coming out of my own mouth saying that I'm in college. Wasn't it just yesterday that I was about to puke with the nervousness of pulling into Sunnyslope High School for my first day of freshman year? Nope, five years ago. Holy smokes! Oh well, gotta keep movin' on up the ladder.
     Now, I'm not a huge fan of school, but maybe that's just 'cause I'm not doing what I'm eventually going to be doing yet. Still getting all those annoying prerequisites out of my hair. I wish I could fast forward. But for some reason, I got all excited for school the other day when I went shopping for a few school supplies. Funny how just a couple spiral notebooks, new pretty pens and pencils, and a cute planner kinda put me in a funk about school: what's this, now I'm looking forward to go back to school tomorrow, consisting of Microbiology, Developmental Psychology, and Philosophy of Religion. Hmm...I think I'm running a fever.

The Whole Fam-Damily

Alright, okay, I know I have been neglecting my blog lately, therefore this post about my vacation in July is kinda, very, a month late. But hey, at least I'm publishing it and getting back into the swing of things with my blog.

Here goes...

     There is something about the smell of the salty, chill breeze, (and the opportunity for a desert rat like me to be a beach bum dressed in shorts and a hoodie for a week), that just makes ya wanna kiss the ground. No really, I wouldn't mind kissing the Earth as long as I'm anywhere in Oregon. Anywhere but dry, crusty old Arizona. This year, our Becker Family Reunion was in Gold Beach, Oregon, and it could not have been more perfect. Being constantly surrounded by my favorite people and the beautiful scenery of the state makes my life more complete than it's ever been. Since family is the most important thing in my life, it was kind of impossible for me to be caught in a dull moment for that whole week at the beach. I'm not going to go into details about the whole vacation, there would just be way too much to talk about. More than I can even think about in this moment. But I will say, long story short, that it was the greatest feeling in the world to bond with my extended family members, have fun without a care in the world, and laugh continuously with my hilarious, amazing, crazy, beautiful family. If only every week could be like that. Sigh. Love ya'll! <3

What the Haboob?!

     "JULY 5, 2011 MASSIVE HABOOB HITS PHOENIX"

     ...What on Earth is a "haboob?!" I didn't know at first either. Who comes up with these words?! I heard it on the radio after this insane Phoenix dust storm and just had to look it up. According to Wikipedia (unreliable source, I know), "a haboob is a type of intense sandstorm commonly observed in arid regions throughout the world." Apparently they have been observed in the Sahara desert in Sudan. Really? Are people now comparing Arizona to the Sahara desert? I mean, I know it's hot and beyond miserable here, but we're not that ugly and sandy! 

     I knew the weather in Phoenix was kinda funky on Tuesday, but I definitely didn't see anything like a freakin' HABOOB coming anytime soon. Ha...haha..."boob." I was at work and I could hardly even see out the windows, but I knew people were pulling over and coming into Jamba Juice to get off the insane road. I think it's hilarious that people here don't know how to drive in ANY weather condition. "Oh. My God. It's raining. In Phoenix! I can't go out today, I won't be able to drive in this!" That's pretty much how everyone here acts when it rains, I can't imagine what they were thinking when a wall of dust hit their windshield. But me, I wanted to leave work and go play in the dust and rain. Oh yeah, that's me, I'm a strange one when it comes to wicked awesome weather changes. Maybe I need to travel more, go to places where it rains pours, snows, maybe something extreme like earthquakes? That'd be cool. I'm moving somewhere foreign. Very foreign, and very far. 

House vs. House Sitter

     I've been house sitting since Friday afternoon, and not only does it include the house and all it's beauty, but three dogs. Two lab mixes, Sosa and Pudge, and a Shih Tzu, Rowdy. Oh, and a tomato plant. The first two days were great, besides the fact that I was bored because I had no one to go swimming with, and I couldn't figure out how to even change the channel with this confusing Tivo remote. Awesome! 

     But last night, oh last night was the real exciting night. After a day of swimming with my best friend (in a pool full of pine needles from the wind storm), we made an awesome dinner and watched Glee. Then after we were ready for bed, we were sitting in the living room watching TV and were interrupted by thunderous barking from the two big dogs. They took off out the doggy door and disappeared in the back yard on the side of the house. Courtney and I were TOTALLY freaked, and I had my phone in my hand ready to dial the three magic numbers, just in case. The dogs came inside after a while, so we shut down the lights and TV and set the house alarm on "STAY." However...I'm such a smarty, and went to let Rowdy outside around two in the morning and..."WEE OOH WEE OOH!!" I forgot I had set the alarm. Great. I raced to the kitchen to find the alarm keypad and shut it off. Oh but wait, I don't know the code. Perfect! I started punching random buttons, which was a big mistake. Five seconds later the phone rang. "Is everything okay? We saw that your alarm went off." I was thinking, "Yeah we're fine, I'm just an idiot." 

     Finally everything was settled and I went back to bed. An hour or so later the big dogs were nonstop barking, so I went out to the dining room to check on them. Apparently "I stepped in the beam," ("Beethoven" movie reference), and the alarm went off again. I thought it wasn't supposed to do that since it was set on "STAY" so the dogs could move around the house! I froze standing still in the middle of the kitchen and nervously glanced around. Once I got the alarm turned off again, I decided never to set that alarm again. Ever. 

     We'll see how my next house sitting gig goes. Until then, I think it's safe to say that this time the house won.

Divine Sisterhood

     Today is my first day home from Atlanta, and even though it is bittersweet, I am beaming today :D Sometimes it's the little things in life that make me so happy. I feel like this week is going to be awesome, and it's all because I have the greatest best friends in the universe. My two best friends Kendalyn and Courtney picked me up from the airport last night, complete with a "Welcome Home Danielle!" sign, and even gorgeous sunflowers (my favorite!) Anyway, I have the best friends a girl could ask for, and I love them so much. The end :)

Baby Alana, Kendalyn's baby girl <3

                                                                                     

A Bug's Life

     I. Hate. Centipedes. Giant centipedes, to be specific. Ones that scurry across walls and ceilings and sneak-attack you when you're sitting on the couch, innocently watching TV.

How'd you like to see one of these buggers
on your wall late at night? Yeah, didn't
think so.

     Yeah, this is all coming from a personal experience. A very traumatizing one, I might say. My cousin Chelsea and I were sitting on the couch watching TV, and all of a sudden she says, "Hey look, there's one of those big freaky bugs I was talking about."
HOLY CRAP!
   All I could do from then on, instead of watching TV, was focus on the giant centipede (we concluded, via Google, that it was indeed a centipede, not a millipede. After much arguing.), crawling along the wall above the bookshelf.  I continued to keep a sneaky eye on the thing, and then it lost it's footing and fell onto the blinds of the window. Oh my gosh, I've never seen an insect run so fast in my life. And I thought cockroaches were speedy! No, not as speedy as this Beast.  High pitched screaming commenced, from both of us wimps.
   Its a bird, it's a plane, it's, SUPERMAN! Well, kind of. Terry came out of the bedroom with a shoe to save the day night, and looked high and low for the Beast. No such luck. He was just as freakishly good at Hide and Seek as Osama bin Laden.
   Alright, it's gone. Sit back, relax, and be sure to keep all feet inside the vehicle. Don't let them touch the ground. THERE IT IS!!! Round Two, ding! After hiding under a sheet on the ground, the Beast was nowhere to be found, once again. Okay, now we're definitely not getting any sleep tonight. I thought maybe it had headed for the door to make its getaway, but no. All of a sudden it was running STRAIGHT for us at the couch. Now it was my turn to get really brave. (This is coming from a girl who will catch a snake in the kitchen, play with it, and then carry it down the street to let it go in the grass. Don't ask, I don't know why I was so scared of this gazillion-legged Beast). So before it reached the couch, I jumped up and grabbed the nearest big item: a baseball glove. Swing batter batter!  I squished the thing with all my might. SCORE! Whew, now we can sleep.
     "But wait, there's more!" Later on after I was finished getting ready for bed, I noticed something behind the toilet on the floor. Two brown antennae sticking out from underneath a single square of toilet paper. Here we go again. Superman came to look for Thing 2, but no luck. Awesome, they crawl on walls, and my bed is right up against a wall. I quit, I'm going to a hotel. Nah, just kiddin'. Where, did you ask, did I ever find him? In the shower underneath my bathing suit! Bug, shoe, and sinker. "Good day. I SAID good day!!"

Ah, The Little Things in Life

     Tonight, after watching my suitcase sit half full, (er, is it half empty?) in the corner of the bedroom for one whole month, I finally have to pack up and get ready to go home :( Now, I don't mind packing, it's the unpacking that I despise. I probably won't be completely unpacked for at least a week after I get home. My animal printed suitcase will be sitting at the foot of my new bed in my room, and every day I will pick an outfit out of it to wear for the day, and repeat that action as long as it takes for that suitcase to empty out. And every day my mom will tell me the same thing: "Danielle, you HAVE to unpack tonight, your stuff can't just keep camping out right there! K? There's no room for it." And I'll say the same thing every day: "Ugh, mom, I know. I promise I'll clean up tonight." Hah, FAT CHANCE.

     Anyway, back to packing. I had all my clothes in front of me, messily folding them and staggering them into my suitcase, hoping everything was gonna fit. So I'm sitting there cross-legged, realizing that I'm almost done packing everything, but here's the kicker: I have to get up and reach that Bath & Body Works bag sitting across the room, and I can't move. I  feel like I've been hit by a truck. (I went jet skiing with my cousin on Sunday, and now I feel completely broken). All my muscles are so beyond sore, I can't even sit my @$$ on the toilet without wincing. All I could do was dramatically reach my arm out in front of me in hopes that I would magically turn into Matilda. Ya know, the little girl from the movie who can slam a door in her brother's face just by pointing at the doorknob? Not to mention draw a water glass closer to her just by looking at it. I could only dream.

     So this is the complicated method I have to use to get my broken body up off the floor: rock myself forward on my hands and knees. Reach up and use the bunk bed ladder to pull myself up. Then, one limb at a time, painfully hoist myself up. I look like a total retard. AND I walk like an old man with a pickle up his butt. GREAT.

     Thirty minutes later, (oh, and I DID finally get across to reach the Bath & Body Works bag. Whew!)...I was sitting on the couch, pluggin' away at this blog post, and Cara comes out of the bedroom and asks for some water. So now I roll myself off of the couch, and of course all the muscles in my legs are ten times more sore after I've been sitting for a few minutes and have to stand up. As I was obviously limping across the living room and into the kitchen, Cara on my heels, she sweetly says, "Danielle, are you hurting?" Oh. My. Gosh. AWW!!! It doesn't get any cuter than that right there, my friends. "Yeah, Cara, I am hurting." 

     So, I guess I don't have much more to say about tonight, but that one little statement, from the sweetest and most adorable two-year-old girl in the universe, made my entire night. <3

Artsy-Fartsy Masterpiece

     One of my FAVORITE things to do is paint. Paint on wood (which I'm going to blog about later on, 'cause it's AWESOME), paint on ceramics, and paint bedrooms. Haha! As a little kid I had almost all of my birthday parties at a place called "Paint On Pottery,' and I never got sick of it. In other words, I'm obsessed with painting. On that note, this is a picture of my favorite "As You Wish" paint creation!

Giant coffee or soup mug!

     I love giraffes and giraffe print, and by the time I was almost done painting this, I realized I wanted to incorporate something about Africa in the giraffe spots. So...being the genius that I am, I came up with the idea to actually put Africa IN the painting! This is what I mean:  

                                                                                      

Africa! And I even included lil' Madagascar off to the right.

     I have more paintings coming soon, but this is the one I am most proud of! :)

                                      

Good Morning, From Atlanta

     Okay, so, I go to bed around 3am every day, and ALMOST get lots of good, hard, sleep. I might as well be dead for nine hours. Until...that top bunk starts-a-wobblin', and a very wide awake five-year-old Jay steps down his squeaky ladder, using my bottom bunk as his trampoline to bounce off of. I put my pillow over my head and pretend I'm still asleep. 

"Danielle, you look weird!:

     "Mom. Mom...MOM!! I want something to eat! Can I have a chocolate cookie? How 'bout some chips?" Then the little one wakes up. Cara: "Mommy I wanna watch Caillou on your 'puter!' Mommy, eeeat!!!" 
     Meanwhile, I'm still in bed, periodically responding to text messages and Facebook comments from the night before. But when a kid walks in, I'm back "asleep." Of course, the ONE time I open my eyes to sneak a peek of God-knows-what, there's a little minion standing there, chin resting on the edge of the bed, big blue eyes staring at me. My eyes snap shut again and I roll over. Then someone whispers, "Danielle. Danielle? Danieeelle? Can I play on your 'ahPod?'" "NO." STOMP STOMP STOMP, she's over it. ...Me: "Jay, please turn of the light, hey, shut off the bathtub water too!!! AHH!" "FINE! Cara, let's go play." 
     Whew, they're gone. Time for some more Zs. Oh wait, nevermind, they're letting out blood-curdling screams in the living room. Good morning, Carr household.

Jay and Cara sharing their suckers