We Live Our Lives Like We're Calling a Bluff and All These Miles are not Enough

When you're given a night in which you have the whole house and a spunky second grader all to yourself, what do you do?

I had a few ideas.


I decided to try and give Bethany a fun night to remember by giving her a mini makeover, complete with make-up, an up do, and a photoshoot in one of my old prom dresses. 

She ate up every second of it. 

As I was twirling piece after piece of black, shiny hair around the curling iron, I felt the familiar feeling of deja vu flood my senses. Even though I was only primping an 8 year old, the season and the time of day made me feel like I was getting ready to send Bethany off to prom. I remembered how every event in high school, be it homecoming or prom, I sat exactly where she was sitting in my parent's huge bathroom getting my own golden hair curled before slipping into a fancy dress and heading off to take pictures with my friends. 

As the memories invaded my consciousness in droves, I began to think to the future to when Bethany and Marissa will be getting primped and polished for their own big high school shebangs. I imagined my mom and me as a team in giving each of them a glamorous make-over and watching with a smile as they posed for pictures with their friends and dates. 

It was in this mental flashforward that I realized that once I graduate from college, there is no way that I can live far away from my family. I have said for years that I want to live in a huge city  after college, and have recently added warm temperature to my  requirements for a future home (Big city + Warmth = Tampa, FL or Atlanta, GA). But, being hundreds of miles away from home would mean missing out on many major milestones in my little sister's lives. Since they are still young, there are so many exciting things they have yet to experience that come with growing up. I am not planning on missing out on seeing each of them off to their first day of high school, first homecoming dance, first date (AFTER I make sure the dude is up to my standards), first time at the wheel, first soccer game as a varsity player, you name it. 

So, I told my parents today that, upon graduating from college, I'm either going to have to sacrifice my warm, big city dreams and move somewhere back in Ohio or they are going to have to sacrifice cold Ohio to move to the warm, big city in which I plan to reside. Sounds like a pretty easy decision to me. :)

Fidget

I should have known that I would end up blogging quite a bit about my little sister Bethany. My AP English teacher senior year said, "an author repeats what is important to an author," and boy does Bethany keep popping up in my posts and BOY is she important to me.


Yesterday, I spent the latter part of the afternoon traipsing through the neighborhood with her at my side. She rode her scooter beside me as we walked to the park, singing me the songs she has learned for her school's performance of  "Suessical." She is simply adorable. When we arrived at the park, she made me spin her around on the tire swing until she described her current state as "barfy" and shakily climbed off. 


Feeling woozy and barfy wasn't enough to dampen this girl's spirits though.


After going to the park we headed down a trail to the creek in our neighborhood. Bethany's eyes twinkled with delight when I suggested we take our shoes off and dip our toes in the rushing water of the creek (I love these moments when I get to be the cool big sister and let her do things Mom normally wouldn't.) We explored a little more before heading home and playing volleyball in the yard barefooted. The day was warm so taking our shoes off seemed like the most appropriate way to play.


After we ate dinner that night, I knew that I wouldn't be content just to sit around inside since it was such a gorgeous evening. So me and Bethany headed to the OTHER park near our house. We swung on the swings and kicked the soccer ball around for a little bit before she decided she wanted to play "princess." She climbed up the steps of the jungle gym and began walking down with her nose in the air, saying "peasants...minions....servants.....GET BACK TO WORK!" as she descended. This happened three or four times, and I think I was referred to as a peasant at least once in helping her cross the mini zipline that the playground has. 


The last time she came down her "royal staircase," she did so yelling at her imaginary subjects as well as doing a little booty shake move here and there as well as gracing the kingdom with a musical number in which she would stick her hand under her armpit and make farting noises. 


A country being ruled by Bethany probably would have never seen a stricter ruler than she, and they CERTAINLY wouldn't have had a funnier one.


On the way home, she started singing again before trying to hold my hand and ride her scooter at the same time. I don't know how she does it, but not a day goes by when she doesn't do SOMETHING to melt my heart and make me laugh. Bethany Caroline Jin is an extraordinary girl who will absolutely do amazing things in life. 


I adore her.

The Many Highs of this Week

It is almost inconceivable to me that Easter was already a week ago! The past seven days have been crazy, mostly in a good way. In my Speech class last semester, my prof would always ask us to share the highs and lows of our week, and in thinking about this week, I could only come up with three lows: stress over finals, saying goodbye to all my friends at IWU, and cleaning up my disaster area of a room once I got home. But, in addition to these lows, I had quite a few highs over the past week!

1. Celebrating Easter with my family, cousins and all.

2. Bringing Bethany lunch on Monday. I love brightening her day with a McDonald's Happy Meal and root beer.

3. Toasting with Liz and Hannah at midnight with sparkling lemonade and giant cookies. Delish.

4. Doing my PR presentation and knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that public relations is the field God intended for me to be in.

5. Waking up Thursday morning to sunshine and making myself scrambled eggs for breakfast.

6. Going to Dewey's Pizza to celebrate my year ending and consuming this little beauty:

That's a buffalo chicken pizza, folks.

7. Going to Target twice in two days

8. Going to the Greene twice in one day

9. Going "garage-saleing" with Fidge

10. Getting my bronze on all day on Saturday

11. Going on a grand adventure in the warmth and sunshine with Fidge

We went to the park and she insisted I spin her on the tire swing until she felt "a little woozy." Silly girl.

After the park, we walked down to the creek and I did a little exploring.

AFTER the park and the creek, we came home and made lemonade, played volleyball in the yard barefoot, and showed off some of our tumbling skills.

12. Signed my FCC contract

Good start to an amazing summer.