I suppose you’re looking for a Vegas recap, eh? (That question was posed mostly for my grandparents– all of my Facebook friends were subjected to updates and cell phone pics the entire week. Gotta love them smart phones.) In short, it was awesome, obviously. For a bit more depth, I suppose I could go into how I refuse to ever get in a car again if I’ll be traveling more than four hours away. I could tell you how great– kinda awkward at first, but great– it was to see Darin (best friend from my study abroad program who lives in Colorado, remember?) again and how amazing the pizza was at the local place he took us to. If you were wondering, it’s called Home Slice in Durango, CO. I could tell you how fabulous Thunder from Down Under was, but I feel that’s one of those “What happens in Vegas…” things. Having the roomies there was surprisingly fun– I don’t mean that in a bitchy way, I mean there are few people I could go on vacation with and not completely despise afterward, and thankfully they made the list. (So did NPH, but if nothing else, 50+ hours in a car with him only more solidified his awesomeness.) I’m also surprisingly sane for sitting alone in my apartment– sleeping, recently bathed basset sleeping on the couch behind me not included– on the last night of my very last Spring Break ever, catching up on homework, brushing up for an internship interview tomorrow, not all that concerned that there are only eight weeks before BLAM-O real life. Oh, speaking of aforementioned hound, apparently he was an absolute shithead (sorry, but that’s really the only way to describe it) for my parents when they watched him all week. An adorable one, but pretty misbehaved nonetheless. I do have to give them props, he seems to have taken some disciplinary lessons to heart, though he may still just be exhausted from having 12 acres to himself for six days. I shall leave you now with some photos since my brilliant literary descriptions could never be enough.

There was a LOT of this.

Glorious. The weather was absolutely perfect the entire time.

You can take the girl outta Germany...

Yes, after that much time spent together, we're still speaking to each other.

And finally, perhaps the most important part of the whole trip! DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN GET PICKLES ON YOUR IN-N-OUT BURGER?! I've died.

Having survived the 27 hour drive to Vegas, I’ve now had the chance to enjoy my Spring Break destination for three nights (because in Sin City no one’s awake during the day anyway, right?) and learn a few things about myself along the way.

-I am a morning person. Ok, so this realization has been brewing for several weeks & the two hour time difference probably helps, but I have been up with the sun every day since leaving home. This also means staying up until even midnight is a challenge, much to the chagrin of my travel companions.

-I’m not a sit by the pool and relax type of vacationer. I prefer to be doing something, even when I am sitting poolside. I may have brought my laptop outside with me to search for wireless to send something to my editor. Yes, I felt like a tool and was being far too self important, but even on Spring Break there’s deadlines and jobs to search for (anxiety much? Perhaps.)

-You can get pickles on In-n-Out burgers, upping the already insane delicious factor. Also, their fries really aren’t that great and should be skipped so as to not detract from the cheeseburger-y awesomeness.

-Vegas is different when you’re the one paying
for it. Shout out to my father, he’s always taken great care of all of us on vacation. Traveling as a group of college students facing the brink of unemployment is a whole different ballgame, however, making me more thankful for the nicer vacations I’ve had and weary about my financial future when paired with my wanderlust.

-Flats are better than heels when you gotta do anything besides sit around and look pretty. Or perhaps this post could be titled “Brittney Goes to Vegas and Realizes She’s Become an Old Person.” I promise my next bullet point will not be how I’ve discovered the joys of eating dinner before 5 pm.

That’s actually gonna be it due to fear of hand cancer from holding my Droid for so long. If this post is rife with spelling errors or errant punctuation, blame it on big thumbs typing on a tiny touchscreen.

Yeah, Minnesota– keep turning it over to us. 

We’ve rendezvoused in Kansas City with my dad’s side of the family after a fun-filled three hour road trip.  If you should ever get the chance to be a fly on the wall during one of these rides, you should really jump at it.  Think a lot of group sing-alongs (Salt ‘n Pepa’s “Push It” is a crowd favorite), air-guitaring to 80s hair bands, really inappropriate conversation thanks to the college students in the back, and some reminders to not “be dumb and do drugs” courtesy of Mom.

It’s noon, I think the first draft of my story was due at 10 am.  Or midnight.  I don’t really remember, obviously let’s keep our fingers crossed for the latter.

GREAT NEWS: I’ll be living at 713 next year.  It has been decided.  This is essentially already where I live; the only difference is I can have my own bed instead of always passing out falling asleep on the couch.  Now Pops, I realize you may be reading this thinking, “Dream another dream, this dream’s over.”  (That is actually a phrase he uses– for more oft’ sung phrases, check out the Wisdom from my Father tab at the top.)  But I will prepare a PowerPoint and some Excel documents to show exactly this is my best possible living situation.  Reason #1 of course being the washer and dryer in the basement instead of saving every blank-blankin’ quarter I can get my hands on.

Hmmm what should I be thankful for today?  At our Thanksgiving on Thursday I suggested we all go around and say one thing we’re thankful for as our prayer, but apparently everyone had done that at work earlier (oh, if you didn’t know, my friend pool is quite incestuous and they ALL work at the same place, I am one of maybe three of us who’s out of the loop.)  One of my friends said he was thankful for seedless grapes.  Another said crayons.

So today I’m thankful for… dishwashers.  How freakin’ awesome are they?!  Dishes are NOT my thing. Well, housework in general really isn’t, but I’d rather kill all the trees on the Earth for my paper plates than do a sinkful of dishes every night.  I’ve lived in apartments that like, didn’t have a dishwasher.  I know!  I’m not quite sure how I survived either.  To think that like… in the dark ages… when our parents were like, not super old… they didn’t have such modern conveniences.  Oh… my father has just informed me that there were dishwashers in the ’80s.  So now there is really no legitimate reason for me not to build a time machine and travel back to when Guns n Roses were touring at their peak.

Our trip to Des Moines was a rousing success, minus not doing so well with all the one way streets, not realizing there’s a difference between 6th and East 6th, and parking near where we believed KCCI was located, but having to actually run up a hill in heels because we were nowhere close.  Running a 5K in jeans and now footraces in formalwear?  Hold your applause until the end, please

Last night’s continuation of “I don’t even know who turns 21 this weekend but I’m following a large group of people downtown under the promise of lots of pitcher” involved me getting to wear a cardboard crown from Burger King in public.  I was the Burger Queen.  The Burger Queen was pretty proud of herself that the crown made it unharmed the entire night and was still on the couch this morning.  At some point I also acquired a medium-sized stick which I used to conduct a roomful of people in a melodious rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” 

A friend and I decided this morning that toast is perhaps the most underrated food in the history of the world, so we set out in search of some.  Did we grab some bread from the kitchen and put it in the toaster?  OF COURSE NOT.  We went to a diner neither of us have ever been to and got omelettes because they came with toast (and hashbrowns!  And fruit!)  It generally did not bother me that every single other patron, mostly middle-agers or nice families, was openly staring at me.  APPARENTLY my scarecrow-esque hair and raccooned slept-in eye make-up and bright green t-shirt that’s supposed to look like doctor’s scrubs (complete with stethescope and fake blood)  provided some early morning entertainment for my fellow patrons.  That or they were just really afraid that Homeless Meth Addict Girl was going to steal their food.   I should have worn my crown.

The toast though…. wtf.  You know exactly what kind of toast I was expecting– the perfectly buttered, crunchy piece cut into triangles.  This toast was CHEWY.  Like, not crunchy.  Ch-EW-y.  There was a choice between white, wheat, rye or an English muffin.  I ordered the white– I never order the white.  Perhaps THIS TOAST is the very reason I never order white.  So disappointing.  I even tried to put some jelly on it, but to no avail.  The toast and I had to part ways.  You probably don’t need two guesses as to what I’ll be fixing myself tomorrow morning.

Continuing my thankful ’til Thanksgiving challenge, today I am thankful for… my mama because she’s currently working on the (approximately) ten loads of laundry I brought home with me.  I will be working as some sort of indentured servant tomorrow to prepare for Family Thanksgiving #1 though, so really, it all evens out.

We saw 2012 today and holy blecccchhhh.  I was hand-to-mouthing kettle corn the entire time, though, so the three hours we  spent in the theater were not in vain.  It was cliched from beginning to end– the phrase “whenever we’re together, that’s where home is” was even used.  You can tell it wanted to be Armageddon but NOTHING CAN BE so don’t even try John Cusack… don’t you even try.

I get to go make a french silk pie now.  BE JEALOUS.