adventures at Chick Fil A

Me in my thug life uniform that's two sizes too big even though it's a zero.

Ya'll. Don't get me wrong...I absolutely wholeheartedly 100% lovelovelove working at that place called CFA. I loved it so much I left a love note on the line up one day that went something like "i <3 CFA!" True love right there. But I can't for the life of me figure out why they want a girl as tiny and weak as me to work there. And klutzy because I am that too. Exhibit A...

Let's set the scene. It's lunch on a Wednesday and it's the busiest I've seen CFA in a while. There's four people on front counter and we still have a considerable line on each register. I spin around with a lemonade in my hands and set it down on the counter, start snapping on the lid and my hand spazzes out knocking over the FULL cup of lemonade towards the customers. It was not my finest moment. I froze and the guy next to me was like "Breathe!" Cut scene.

And let's not forget how I was making a milkshake, ran out of lids, opened them, and half of them flew every which way. Annaliese slow clapped. Diana laughed. It was awesome. SARCASM. Or there's the time I was opening a roll of nickels and they went flying everywhere. Things fly when I'm around...and not in the "Oh look at that pretty birdy!" kind of way.

Oh and I saved the best for last...I was doing Drive Thru cashier (my favorite!) and give the guy the wrong order. A manager had to go run after him and switch out his order. I'm in the fetal position up against the wall for the remainder of the afternoon.

Those are the adventures of SA working at CFA, ya'll. And that was only this week. Want me to take your order now? ;)

the good, the bad, the ugly.

Ya'll. This week is not treating well. Today was kinda sorta a balance...one minute everything's cool, the next I'm sobbing. This has nothing to do with emotions (I know, that was my first thought too...I am a girl, after all) but just life in general. Life is totally...life. That's the only way how to describe it.

So, if you want to know how I cope with the ups & downs of this thing we call life, read on.

Depressed when ya get up? Start you day off right with emails, the Twitters, and watching silly JHutch videos. Seriously, I've watched this video five times today. He is SO making fun of Vanessa and she thinks it's hilarious which makes that much more hilarious to me.



Sad that your blog is blue and all wintry when the weather is anything but? Email your amazing blogging design friend and plead for her to resize your February header. Then make your blog look all pretty in pink and starting updating it a little. Full monthly makeover post coming soon! 

Annoyed that you had to work on schoolwork until 7? Be proud of yourself for sticking with it and having a hot meal lovingly prepared by your mom. Also? Reward yourself with a Doctor Who episode while eating yummy turkey tetrazzini.

So sad for your sweet puppy not feeling good that you sob in the shower for the 2nd night in a row? Eat your feelings by stuffing your face with a Snickers bar and snuggling him.

That's my day. School, worry about the puppy, and surfing the Interwebs. Happy Tuesday, friends!

photography rut no more!

Today I picked up my camera. Like, really picked it up and enjoyed getting the settings right, capturing the joy on the CBS kiddos faces, and showed off my photography because I WAS PROUD OF IT. I haven't been proud of my photography in a longgg time.

Ruts are a-okay every once in awhile, because eventually you pick up whatever your hobby is & see it in a new light. That's what happened to me today. Having cute kiddos who love the camera helps.

Happy Thursday, readers. May your Friday be amazing and your weekend even more so.

hello monday {27}

{hello monday}

{hello early wake up during Christmas break}

{hello unloading firewood with Sam, a camp friend}

{hello stubbed toe [dropped a huge piece of wood on my left big toe] & something in my eye}

{hello chore filled morning}

{hello lunch}

{hello trying to find some relief for my eye}

{hello blog reading}

{hello little road trip for the afteroon}

{hello second fire of the winter}

{hello quick catnap and resting my eye [felt much better]}

{hello Monopoly with my boys}

{hello leftovers for dinner}

{hello kitchen clean up [i love turning around and seeing a sparkling kitchen before flicking off the light]}

{hello more Monopoly in front of the fire}

{hello shower}

{hello working on blog posts}

{hello Terra Nova season finale [Clark got into it so we follow along]}

{hello Hunger Games [i'm on Mockingjay. dude, intense. but more on that in another post]}

{hello lights out}

{hello monday}

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This post was inspired by the one and only Lisa Leonard. If you'd like to take part in this blogging meme, make sure to give credit where credit is due. Don't forget to link up in Lisa's comments as well!

my anatomy co-op

Since I posted about Clark's Anatomy co-op, I though I'd give my readers a sneak peek at what I do in MY Anatomy co-op with my friend Kaley. This week we just happened to de-bone a chicken to get the wing bone AND look at slides under the microscope. We are classy like that. 

Kaley managed to take a chunk outta her hand while she was doing her wing. There was blood everywhere. 

Sharp knives, ahhhh! 

Disclamier: I DID NOT want my picture taken. In fact, I couldn't WAIT to wash my hands. Chicken feels weird and sticky, yo.

pouring the vinegar on the bones so we can test their flexibility. interesting.

Now, obvs...we don't cut up chicken EVERY time we meet. It's mostly looking at slides, identifying parts of the cell and drawing them. No biggie.

Lookin' at bone marrow. You know, the HUMAN kind?! Freaky. 

Oh, we lead such a glamorous {school} life, don't we? Happy Friday, readers!

i don't deserve my family's love...or God's, and they are kinda the same thing

Ohhh boy. Yesterday was a ROUGH day. Seems like I'm having a lot of those lately, amIright?! Can I share it with ya'll? I can? Thank you.

If you've been reading for awhile, you know that I've taken college classes every year since I was a freshman. Interpersonal communications the first go around, Health & Intro to Computers a couple semesters back, and English/Expository Writing this time. And it is BY FAR the toughest class I've taken.

It's not hard as in challenging by any means...I know how to write a paper but this teacher is very specific in his instructions and wants you to follow them to a T. No exceptions. That's resulted in lots of resubmitting and outstanding assignments. I submitted something FOUR TIMES before it was accepted. That's not the way I roll but I'm learning to cope.

But yesterday it was just too much. I felt like I was being picked on and my oh so carefully written paragraphs and papers were constantly being rejected. We had been working on just one assignment {that was being revised for the third time} for the WHOLE night, myself, Mama, and the cousin Sam included. Not the way I wanted to spend my night, if you know what I mean.

I wasn't having a good attitude about nit-picking a simple assignment and it spiraled downward. Dad walked in with a Adele music video on the phone to try and cheer me up and I snapped because the thought of something GOOD made me want to cry. I was afraid to be happy because I knew I had to go back to this "unhappy" assignment. I shoved them out of the way, screamed about the riduclousness of everything, stomped up the stairs, and parked my behind behind the door to my room, lights off, a sobbing snotty mess, and anger consuming me.

You know that sinking feeling when you realize you had a hissy fit...and YOU have to clean it up. Yeah, that. I felt HORRIBLE, you guys. I yelled and screamed at people who were just trying to help me, not make it worse like I thought. I hurt them and that hurt me to the core. I cried all over again wishing I hadn't gone crazy because a thing like that wasn't going to be forgotten anytime soon. They love me & I treated them like dirt.

After a while, I heard Mama padding up the stairs. She looked around then found me, handing me the laptop and said "Ask him about this assignment. That's all; then we'll call it a night" and she went right back downstairs. I submitted the question to the teacher and went downstairs, not at all ready to face the mess I had to clean up.

After I had tearfully apologized to everybody {and I mean tearfully. I bawled more than I had in a looong time} I sat in my bed and cried some more. Lots of crying, I tell you. I felt like one of those toddlers that has a crying fit for so long that they forget to breathe and hyperventilate. I'm pretty sure Dad had to change his shirt because it was so nasty.

I went to bed having made everything right with everybody, but my actions kept playing over & over in my head, haunting me. I started crying again because I just couldn't believe I had done what I did: have a full out temper tantrum over school. I felt like I didn't deserve the forgiveness I had received...and I knew it was true.

And, as the tears dried, I had a revelation..."If I don't deserve the family God gave me, what in the world makes me think I deserve HIM?! Jesus didn't die for me so I could act this way, no sir he didn't. So why am I doing it? " A whole new batch of tears flowed down my cheeks & I told God I was sorry. Sorry for not being grateful to Him for a family that I can yell at and they still love me...but most of all I was sorry for the way I treated them AND Him. And I cried myself to sleep, feeling oh so loved by both God & my family.

Ah, much better. I had to get that off my chest, so thanks for understanding readers. One day I'll look back and say "Man, I was a hormonal teenage mess. What an overreaction!" and laugh my head off. Or maybe not. I'm guessing the latter.

God's teaching me things

Like my title says, God's teaching me things, how to look at the bad things happening from His viewpoint. In other words, seeing the good out of every situation; it might not happen right after the bad thing occurred, but later on down the road...and that's when it's the hardest to accept.

While I absolutely love Lindsay's It's the Little Things link up, it makes things seem perfect {since you are only telling the good parts of the week instead of reflecting on the bad; nothing wrong with that}. I'm all about being a real blogger, but I don't want to bring my readers down by constantly writing about the not-so-good moments in my life. Therefore, I decided to show how God is working in our life by revealing himself in those moments.

Instead of getting in a funk about how it rained for the second straight time we've had a campout party, I can remember all the fun we had INSIDE the house playing UNO, having Twister chamionships, playing Night of the Assains, and putting glowsticks on the ceiling fan while the lights are out. If it hadn't rained, the boys would've been outside for the night & I wouldn't have gotten to hear their sweet laughter that makes me want to have a bunch of kids.

Instead of complaining about the hole in our ceiling that we cut weeks ago {to find a leak that had been there for years} and not having the time to patch it up, realizing that if we had, we wouldn't have seen that we hadn't fixed the leak and that's it still there, dripping right next to an outlet. What a mess it would have been to think we had succeeded and fixed the leak, patched up the ceiling & begun the next step in redo-ing the

Instead of crying about my bad grade on both essays I've done so far for my online college English class, I can feel the nudge to work harder & to learn to accept criticism, because ohhh boy...I hate criticism when it's directed at me.

There are things I'm still struggling with, like how I missed seeing my camp friends Hannah, Jack, and Sam last night because I was "stuck" here at Clark's party, but God's going to reveal that in no time. I believe that with all my heart <3

Today has been a good day. Really, it has. Productive because I washed my sheets, re-made my bed, got the house back in order and restful because I took a two hour nap,  made a HUGE dent in my blog reading {many people get freaked out over a bunch of unread posts but to me it means lots to read & catch up on. it's one of my favorite things}, texted with my camp bestie Hannah, and drank tea in bed while watching House.

We'll be back to your regularly scheduled happy blog posts next week, I promise. Thanks for sticking with me, readers. :)

mid-week ramblings

Happy middle of the week readers! Am I the only one that has a love/hate relationship with Wednesday since, hello! the week is only half over? But then again, you've got the weekend to look forward to. Yeah, I'd totally say it's a love/hate relationship for me.

Since about a million thoughts are running through my head, I needed to get them out, so on the blog they go. Get ready for random, my friends.

{1} Lauren, Lauren, Lauren.  ::shakes head:: First you & Ilene get me hooked on Bones, then you go and write a post all about why you love Doctor Who. So, naturally, I Netflix'd {totally a word, mind you} & what do ya know? it's available to watch Instantly! I clicked, I watched, I fell in love with the show.

Man, oh, man this show is addicting solely because it's just so unrealistic. I mean, 5 billion years into the future? The earth being shield from the sun because it's expanding? Totally awesomespice, to quote Lauren. If you'd like to know more about the show, read her amazing post HERE. You won't be sorry.

{2} Party planning...it's what's happening over here at my house. Clark's 13th birthday party is going to be Amazing Race themed, complete with challenges and the works, so we're trying to work on the details without him really knowing what's going on. It's hard, but so fun because we get to work in secret; a test to see if we can do things without the snoop finding out.

{3} Day in the Life {in pictures} is in the works. Maddie inspired me with her twist on the regular ol' day in the life {just words with a couple of random pictures} by letting the photos do the talking. I documented most of my day today, so with a couple extra pictures of the things I do everyday thrown in there, it should be up next week! Hold me to that date, mkay? And the best part? I'm doing both the wordy AND the pictures version so we can compare them...because I'm a goober like that. ;)

{4} Misquitoes. Ya'll, they are everywhere...In fact, it's an epidemic since the hurricane and they are doing aerial sprays of insecticides at night to try and combat them. Don't get too close because I'm sure we all reek of bug spray. The bad part? It doesn't even touch the bugs.

 Apparently, there was one just going to town on my left middle finger and right ankle. Um, ouch? I think I'm having an allergic reaction because it's swollen up to twice it's size & it hurts to bend it. :( Looks like I'll be icing it & taking a Benadryl tonight.

**UPDATE** My finger is fine today {Thursday}; still hurts to move it though. It's my foot that giving me a problem...it feels like someone punched it repeatedly and there is a bruise underneath the skin. Ow! I'm sure ya'll where on the edge of your seats for that latest installment.

Happy Wednesday ya'll!

blog facelift

If you've been hanging around Simply Sarah-Anne for awhile, you know that when I have a blog design, I usually stick with it for awhile until the seasons change or I just tire of the same colors staring at me each time I open my blog {which is a lot. A LOT.}

While I did love the header my IRL friend Emily & I designed one afternoon, it was bringing me down, putting me in a blogging slump. It was just so...dark & I couldn't stand it anymore. So, a bloggy facelift was in order.

My love for neutrals became an obsession and I knew exactly what I want the blog to look like, so off I went to make a new header on Scrapblog.com only to have about a million width problems. I ran to Emily begging for help and she graciously helped me install the header in all of it's glory.

All that to say: what do you think? Do you like it? I need to know anything that might need to be changed! Some other changes are coming too; an updated blog roll list & just this afternoon I switched back to the good ol' Blogger commenting system {I never really liked Intense Database system; too many problems}. While the comments aren't showing up on the blog, I have all of them saved in my email :) Thank goodness, am I right?! It would make me oh so sad if they were lost forever.

Happy Tuesday readers; almost halfway through the week.

hurricane Irene {the aftermath}

**UPDATE** As of Saturday, we have gotten the yard cleaned and mowed...but the oak tree is still here, hanging on the porch & dying on the ground. Thankfully, the insurance guy came out yesterday and tried to move us up on the list, but we don't have any way to move the tree. Prayers are still needed, readers; I know I can count on you for them :) 

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First off, we're here...safe & sound. Your prayers were so greatly appreciated & I can say without a doubt that God protected us; so many of our friends lost oh so much more than we did. Thinking of our friends from CBS who have whole trees in their house & the worst of all: our friends lost their whole on-the-water home in Nags Head. It breaks my heart to see the destruction & heartache Irene caused, but it's a testament to God's awesome power.

Irene was an all weekend event, ya'll. I'm not even kidding...we saw a change in the weather early Friday & it was Sunday before all the wind died down & rain moved away. So I thought the best things to do was break down each day in the weekend & give you a rundown of hurricane Irene's wrath

{Friday 8.26}

 Since the rain & the wind started mid-morning and only got stronger, we decided to stick around the house & clean, do schoolwork, and last minute prep stuff to the house...

...BUT! The show didn't get started until after we went to sleep; the parents made an executive decision to drag a mattress downstairs & let us sleep in the family room...the only room that wasn't over a hundred years old!
We lost power around 8PM that night & went to sleep after reading by candlelight. About an hour after we blew the candles out, the power came back on & stayed on until early Sat. morning while the weather outside continued to deteriorate. Needless to say, no one got a whole lot of sleep that night; Clark was the only one that wasn't awakened by the storm...he said the only thing that bothered him was the TV on all night. ;)

 {Saturday 8.27}

Like I mentioned earlier, we lost power for the whole day early in the morning; I woke up to Mama talking on the phone & Clark already going stir-crazy. Pop Tarts were consumed, lots of reading took place (along with a bit of schoolwork), and I even zoned out for a pre-lunch catnap. Sandwiches for lunch, another nap, and lots of pacing the living. I texted Emily for updates (I think at that point they still had power), texted other friends randomly...

While people were starting to go crazy in the house, outside the wind howled so.loud. that you really couldn't even talk. I felt like I was yelling all the time.

There was a lot of this:

Oh goodness, there was a lot of rain. Whole yards under water, the pool overflowed & we had rain blowing in every north facing window. We took turns wringing out towels & putting dry ones in their place.

Later that afternoon we ventured upstairs & saw that half of our 100 yr old oak tree was lying on the ground, along with another big limb in the front yard AND another limb about the same size resting on our porch roof. Since it was raining there was nothing we could do but we prayed that nothing else would fall for the rest of the day. 

Once we had eaten whatever we hadn't eaten already for supper, we decided before turning in for the night we'd play a board game by oil lamplight; something we do when the power goes out anyways. Mama & I ended up winning a pretty intense game of Cranium. :)

I rock at the yellow Word Worm cards & this was my rendition of  a DJ. Pretty awesome, no?

Yes, we played on a mattress. We are adventurous like that.

We went to sleep that night tired & nasty {we hadn't showered since Friday before the power went out...which wouldn't have been that bad if we had some way to cool off since the AC doesn't work without power. Duh.} but ready to tackle the cleanup we KNEW would happen the next day....at least, we thought we were.

{Sunday 8.27}

Sometime late Saturday night, the power came back down {YAY}, the winds died down, and the sunshine was shining bright early that morning. We got up, showered, ate breakfast & went outside to check on the status of everything.

Note: All of these pictures aren't as "artsy" as I would've done them {Dad took them for the insurance company} but they show the damage relatively well so here you go! 

The pool {1st picture} & patio {above} were trashed. It took almost as long to clean the pool & grass area as opposed to the rest of the almost 3 acres elsewhere.

See what I mean?! The pool was so messed up; Dad spent a whole afternoon scooping leaves, vacuuming, backwashing, etc. We pulled 8 ft limbs outta there as well!

To the right of the house; we call it the sideyard...along with it being our football yard, it also houses our pecan trees. We lost the whole pecan crop {this was going to be an awesome year} & had to rake up every.single.one of those green bombs because you can't mow over them. That was torture.

On to the front yard, which was by far the worst of the damage...

The smallest branch. THE SMALLEST.

The second biggest branch...it's the one that resting on the porch roof.

The place where the biggest part of the oak tree fell...

A wide angle view of the destruction; it was massive.

After we had gotten the necessary  pictures for the insurance company, we went back inside because man...it was HOT out there. Made a game plan & tackled the yard in 30 minute spurts.

More pictures of the downed oak tree...

There was a HUGE squirrel nest in this part of the tree; we saw it in the pool area totally brain damaged & stumbling around.

It hurt to see this: a perfectly healthy tree lying on the ground, twisted & mangled. We lost our tire swing as well & haven't been able to locate it in the tree.

The inside was completely hollow...weird!

We cleaned up until about 3 when we threw in the towel. Needless to say, we slept GOOD that night!!