a Dear a Day

Dears. 02-27-12

Dear Pentatonix, You are so flipping talented. I have listened to your a capella cover of “Somebody That I Used to Know” approximately 20 times, and every time I more amazed by your talent. How the guy doing the bass is able to get his voice that low is beyond me, but it is super cool nevertheless.

Dear SDSU, Thanks for finally approving my application to graduate. Assuming that I pass all my classes, this is officially my final semester with you. YAY.

Dear Real World, Come May I will be entering you. Getting a job and paying bills…yeah, I am kind of scared of you. Until then, I will enjoy my last few months in the non-real world of: Mom and Dad Still Pay my Bills and do my Taxes. I like that world a lot.

Dear T-Dizzle, See what happens when you move out? Our calendar doesn’t get updated! It is February 27th, and the calendar is still filled out for the month of December. Come back and update it for us please! We need you!

Dear 5th Roommate, You graciously offered to come over and clean up our backyard (which was beginning to look like a jungle) this past weekend. You spent your Saturday morning making our yard look less like a jungle and more like a cute little backyard. And you did it all for nothing in return. Well, there might have been some steak involved. You officially have permission to come over whenever (not that you didn’t before, but I digress) and record as many episodes of LA Ink on our DVR as you want. Oh yeah, thanks for fixing our towel rack too. I didn’t know that living with a girl whose boyfriend does landscaping and is handy with things would have so many added benefits. Score. P.S. We like you for more than just your willingness to help us out. It has been fun getting to know you better over the past month that your lovely girlfriend has been living with us.

Dear E, You have the hardest math homework ever. I spent an hour trying to figure out the remaining answers to your math homework while you were watching a movie tonight. I know that I am no math genius, but this is fourth grade math homework we are talking about, not calculus. When your parents got home, long after you were asleep, the three of us spent 20 minutes trying to figure it out. You would think that a doctor, a teacher, and a college student working together would be able to figure out the answers to a few questions from a fourth graders math homework. Nope.

Dear E and Lo, Let’s have dance parties more often.

Dears. 02-16-12

Dear SDSU, Remember that one time I applied for graduation and then you sent me a letter saying that my application for Spring 2012 graduation was denied? That was fun. I am pretty sure my adviser just forgot to file my master plan, and that this whole thing will be worked out when I go in tomorrow and show you a copy of it. Here’s hoping. If that doesn’t work I will bribe you with cupcakes. That is sure to do the trick.

Dear Internet, Remember that one time I told you that you were the creeper of all creepers? I take it back. Target is a way bigger creeper than you. This really fascinating article talks about how Target tracks their customers purchases, and then uses that data to determine whether a customer is pregnant. Here is an excerpt:

Take a fictional Target shopper named Jenny Ward, who is 23, lives in Atlanta and in March bought cocoa-butter lotion, a purse large enough to double as a diaper bag, zinc and magnesium supplements and a bright blue rug. There’s, say, an 87 percent chance that she’s pregnant and that her delivery date is sometime in late August.

If you don’t have time to read the whole article (it is quite long) at least skip forward to page 7 and read the story about the dad who became angry with a Target store after his daughter received baby coupons in the mail. All my Target purchases will be made with cash from now on thankyouverymuch.

Dears. 02-15-12

Dear Wednesdays, You are my fave. That is all.

Dearest Father, Yesterday I got an email notifying me that you joined Pinterest. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this, but it made my night. Here’s to fashion ideas and craft tutorials… Cheers!

Dearest Mother, Last week I decided to make turtles (side-note: I am not talking about the animal, but a delightful dessert made with layers of oatmeal, sugar, chocolate, and caramel… Yeah, it’s pretty much a party in your mouth). You made these often when I was a kid, and they are, to this day, my favorite dessert. The recipe calls for 1 pound of chewy caramels that come individual wrapped in little squares, so, being the brilliant mother that you are, you used to bribe us (me and my sisters) with candy to unwrap all of the caramels for you. We got one caramel at the end of unwrapping upwards of 70 caramels. Yesterday as I was unwrapping caramels (unfortunately that I don’t have little children around to bribe with meager amounts of candy) for the recipe, I thought to myself, “I think mom got the better end of that deal.” Well played, Mother, well played. P.S. Can’t wait to go to yummy restaurants and have face to face conversations with you this weekend!

Dear Internet, This article about what music people tend to listen to depending upon their Facebook relationship status  blew my mind, only because I think it is crazy that you are able to figure that kind of information out. It got me thinking about all the things you probably know about me, like: the random things that I search for, the fact that I just spent 10 minutes of my time playing this completely pointless game, the obscene amount of time I spend on Google Reader, my whereabouts at almost every second of every day (thanks Google Calendar), my secret obsession with Taylor Swift music videos, and plenty of other random things. You are like the creeper of all creepers. Congrats.

Dears. 02-07-12

Dear Readers, If you have stuck around with me despite my inconsistent posting, props to you. You deserve a cupcake or something. For reals.

Dear E, Yesterday we were driving in the car and you were telling me about all the homework you had to do when you got home. At one point you said, “Molly, you are SO lucky you are in college because third grade is so hard.” I could have tried to explain to you that college isn’t exactly a cake walk, but for now I will refrain from crushing your dreams with the harsh reality of what is to come.

Dearest Mother, Sometimes I forget that normal people go to bed at reasonable hours. I forgot this recently and called you at 10:30PM without thinking you would probably be asleep. I mean, really though, who goes to sleep that early?… Oh right, people who wake up at 6 in the morning. Yeah, so, I am sorry about that, I will try to remember to look at the clock before calling you from now on.

Dear Neti Pot, I had a pretty nasty cold, again, and the doctor recommended that I use you to clean out my sinuses. I was hesitant because of the recent news reports that two people died after using you. In your defense, they used tap water instead of distilled or boiled water, so I guess I can’t place all the blame on you. When I expressed this concern to the doctor though, she said it was silly and that people die walking on the street too. Point taken. Not to mention, I used you with the tap water in Lebanon, and if I didn’t die from that then I am pretty sure I won’t die from the San Diego tap water. Anyways, I was feeling miserable and I succumbed to using you. I am happy to report that you helped tremendously. I felt like I could finally breath again. It’s nice to be friends again, I forgot how wonderful you were.

Dear Tuesdays, You are usually my least favorite day of the week. Ten hours of class jam packed into one day is not exactly what I would call fun. All that to say, when I woke up this morning I was dreading you. But as it turns out, this week you were actually pretty great! My classes were all pretty interesting, and I even made some friends in a couple of my classes (one of whom grew up in Lebanon, which made the day even more awesome). For the win.

Dears. 01-24-12

Dear spring 2012 Semester, Remember that one time I said I was really looking forward to you and all the fun classes you are filled with? Well, after a mostly pleasant visit with my professor to talk about graduation yesterday, I decided to add six units to my class schedule. So yeah, that means I am taking 21 units. You just got 6 units harder and approximately 58 times less enjoyable. And to make things even worse, one of the classes I added is on Tuesdays from 7-10pm, making for a grand total of 10 hours of class on Tuesdays. Woohoo. On a brighter note, I don’t have class Wednesdays or Fridays and you are my LAST official semester at SDSU!!!! That’s what’s up.

Dear E, Yesterday I got to take you to your hip-hop class. Watching you and a bunch of other 5-12 year old kids dancing to hip-hop music was one of the greatest things ever. Your mom specifically told me to sit on the side where you wouldn’t be able to see me because I would probably be laughing the whole time. And laugh I did. But I will be honest, I was pretty impressed by your hip-hop skills. You are far better than I will ever be, if that means anything at all. Reason #529 why my job is the greatest.

Dear DNLiquidity, Yesterday you sent me this email:

First things first: I am quite satisfied with my current domain name. Also, thank you for letting me know that you find my website name to be inferior to your suggested “adear.com;” however, insulting my website is not going to earn you any bonus points, let alone my money. I highly suggest considering a different strategy on the next victims of your spam. Lastly, I appreciate your hope that “this email may have brightened up your day,” but, really? Remember that part where you said “you truly feel [adear.com] is a superior domain than the one you currently have now…”? Moving on.

Dear Political Violence Class, I want to like you so badly. You have such potential and by the name you sound like a fascinating class. But you occur from 7-10 at night after a full day of classes, making you so incredibly difficult to enjoy. I tried so hard to listen tonight but based upon my notes I clearly failed. My notes page is filled almost completely with doodles. In fact, the only thing I wrote down from the 2 and a half hours of lecture was: “Community identity is important.” Yeah, it is going to be a looooonnnnggg semester.

Dears. 01-22-12

Dear Carol, I don’t know you, but this video of you dancing totally made my night. Awesome. I also love that Ellen brought you on her show to do the dance with tWitch. Also awesome.

Dear Aztecs, What’s up? Turns out we are super legit. Bomb.

Dear T-Dizzle, Sometimes things happen throughout the day and I think to myself “I have to tell T-Dizzle about this when I get home, she will find it so funny,” and then I remember that you don’t live here anymore and I get really sad. P.S. I have gone to every single one of my classes so far! Aren’t you proud of me!?!?!

Dear The 14th Dalai Lama, The other day it was announced that you are coming to speak at SDSU in a few months. Truth be told, I knew very little about you until about a half hour ago when I researched information about you on Wikipedia. Turns out you have been reigning in Tibet since 1950; you were only 15 years old when you began your reign. When I was 15 I was busy worrying about how to be cool and what I was going to wear to the school dance, so props to you. Looking forward to hearing you speak in April.

Dear Haagen Dazs Ice Cream, Babysitting tonight made me realize that when I am a parent I will always keep some of you on hand. Because on nights like tonight that include children using baseball bats, screaming, and refusing to eat dinner, I would argue that you are a well earned treat.

Dear Marty Madd, The picture you posted of the six of us in front of the Louvre with the caption “I miss you babies.”  made me tear up a little bit. I miss you and the rest of the dream team more than words can express. I still think we should all move to the same city and open a cute coffee shop. You in? P.S. You definitely love the team the most.

Dears. Penny Al’s Birthday Edition.

Dear Penny Al, In response to your threats to hack into my blog and write a post about yourself if I don’t write your birthday post, here is the long awaited happy birthday post you have been anticipating for over a week now. Happy birthday! I hope you have a great year.

………

I was tempted to just end it there and not post more until tomorrow as a joke, but I am not that mean. So we have been friends for 3 and a half years now, and for one of those years we even shared a room. I have learned a lot about you throughout the course of our friendship. For example, you turn everything into a song when you are stressed. You sometimes sleep with a towel over your pillow. You don’t mind spiders but you are petrified of crickets. You can’t fall asleep without listening to N*Sync. It has been great getting to know you and your quirks. In sticking with tradition, I made a list of my three favorite things about you. 1. Sometimes you start randomly singing and dancing. This usually happens when you are studying for tests or doing something stressful, and I love it. I even have this on video, but I like being friends with you, so I will refrain from posting it for the world to see. I admire the confidence you have in yourself. Your silly moods are the best. 2. You have great style. I probably like this about you mostly for selfish reasons, since I tend to benefit a lot from your cute clothes. But regardless, I always love the cute outfits you wear. Thanks for being a giver and allowing me to borrow your clothes sometimes. You are totes a giver. 3. You are real. If I am wearing something that looks dumb, you aren’t afraid to tell me that it looks dumb (if I ask). When you don’t like something, or disagree with something, you voice it. But you tend to do it in such a way that is not at all mean or offensive. I love that I can trust you to be honest with me.

You’re a great friend Al and I love you! Happy birthday!

Recent Happenings in Pictures

My sister made me this lovely jewelry/chalkboard/corkboard for Christmas. It is now hanging up in my room and I love it.

My sisters and brother-in-law and me on Christmas. We had a particularly fun and low-key Christmas this year.

Instead of stockings this year, we got a 2-pound box of See’s candy to snack on throughout Christmas day. Yum.

Another Christmas gift. The yellow adds a nice touch to our kitchen.

When I was younger, my sisters and dad would often play Risk on Christmas day. For some reason, I was never allowed to play with them. This year, though, I was finally included in the Risk playing tradition.

Roommates and I at a friend’s wedding. Yes, we did all three wear black dresses to a wedding. The wedding was beautiful, and the bride in particular looked gorgeous.

While visiting a friend on the other side of the country, we went to the Atlanta botanical gardens. Out of all the flowers and plants, this tree was my favorite.

We also went to the aquarium in Atlanta. Jellyfish might be the coolest creatures ever. Although the penguins were my favorite things at the aquarium.

I took out my dreads!

This is how I spent my morning…Reading and drinking tea with a warm blanket on a comfy couch. It was the perfect way to spend a rainy morning.

Dears. December and Beyond.

Finals Week House Guest

My attempt to become a more consistent blogger starts now. Let’s start with a story shall we?

My house in San Diego has been the location of many crazy adventures. There was the time that maggots decided to invade our kitchen floor. Or the night that random baseball players showed up to our door at 1am  with beers in hand. Lest I forget the time the neighbor came over to inform us that if we saw some weird looking plants growing in his yard, not to worry, because he is a medical doctor (translation: he is a pot dealer). Or that other time that we came home and we thought a drug deal was occurring outside our house. Penny Placers, correct me if I am wrong, but I would say the “Finals Week Skunk Invasion of 2011″ has been the most interesting adventure the Penny Place house has faced yet.

It was a cold and rainy day in December. Really though, it was. We started hearing some unusual noises around our house. After trying for awhile to pinpoint the source of these odd sounds, we discovered that the strange noises were coming from a heater vent in our dining room floor. We came to the conclusion that there was some sort of creature making its home underneath our house. I said it was probably a grizzly bear, but Penny Al and Jules said it was probably a possum or something like that. Penny Al, being the brave one of our household, shined a flashlight into the vent to see if she could see anything. We could not see anything in the vent so we figured it was probably just under the house, no big deal.

The next day as I was studying at Starbucks, I got a text from T-Dizzle saying, “There is a skunk! OMG someone come home!!!!!” I came home, and sure enough, there in the vent was a little black and white skunk. The only thing separating us from the animal was an inch thick heater vent. The skunk was so close that we could have pet it, but we thought that probably wouldn’t be very wise. After some freaking out and some discussion on what to do, T-Dizzle and I called some extermination companies, our landlord, and my sister, none of which were very helpful. We were mostly just worried that the skunk would spray inside our house, and that could be potentially disastrous.

The skunk moved away from the vent a little while later, and as soon as it did we covered the vent with a trash bag and duct tape as to hopefully avoid skunk spray getting inside of our dining room. Later that night we all started the smell the aroma of skunk filling our house. It must have sprayed right under our house and it was disgusting. And it smelled even worse the next night. Thank goodness for candles that smell like yummy cookies. We were unable to get an exterminator out to trap it before we all left for winter break, so we decided to just let it go until we could deal with it when we got back. I drove up to Ventura and as I unpacked my stuff that night I realized all of my clothes smelled like skunk. Oh yeah, and the majority of my stuff is still in San Diego incubating in the stench of skunk spray. So, that is really awesome.

I wish this story had some dramatic ending, like, we trapped the skunk with our bare hands without being sprayed and so there is no longer a skunk in our house! Unfortunately though, it ends quite the opposite. We have yet to catch the skunk, we have all been gone for over 2 weeks, and we have no idea what state our house will be in when we get back. I will keep you updated on the status of the skunk and our house, since I am sure you are all dying to know how this ends.