My Book of Poems

So lately my mom has been wanting me to clean out my room at home. This weekend my wonderful friend Erin and I did just that. We cleaned and sanded down dressers and sorted through tons of old papers. We found some of the most interesting things that a person could hoard: a piece of tin foil, a bow, old high school lunch menus, senior pics, millions of cards, high school and grade school notes, crush matches, and our favorite...my old book of poems from grade school. I will now share with you two limericks from the book of poems.

1) There once was an old lady thats fat; who lived in a house with a cat; the lady sat down; with a big frown; and now it's goodbye to the cat.  (wtf Sarah?!? who writes these kinds of things as a child?!?)

2) There once was a young boy named Frank; who loved to go to the bank; he lost his money; it wasn't funny; so he gave himself a spank. (once again...I was just too clever for my own good)

It was a very exhausting day but we had the best time searching through my old belongings and reading about which boys smelled in high school and which girls we hated or what teachers were giving us evil glares. Also, I found my old basketball season totals from 7th and 8th grade...yup, I scored a total of 12 points throughout the season...ballin'

Feeding Frenzy

Yes, it's another story dealing with my work...I'm sorry to entertain you yet again.

I arrive at work at 9am. I get a phone call asking to come into the office for a meeting discussing some issues. Issues?!? What is going on?? Heart rate rising and I'm nervous. What did I do wrong? Anxiously, I drive to the office with my consumer to hash out this problem. I sit there and hear one side of the story and then give my side of the story...what's the problem you're wondering?!?

Yup, that's right, English Muffins. My panicking and increased anxiety was all because of some harmless English Muffins. Apparently I'm a bad person if I don't let people eat what they want in order to help protect them against high cholesterol and obesity. I'm sorry. I'll stop. As for the rest of you let's try to eat healthy and not eat 4 English Muffins at once oozing with butter so much that it's literally pouring off when you take a bite. Thanks, I'll appreciate having my friends around longer. Also, in the end, I still have my job and I was told I'm doing everything fine and that educating is part of what I was trained to do. I still don't know if I'll ever get over this one though. 

Balloon chasing

This past weekend I went to Cedar Rapids to attend my sister's graduation ceremony and hang out with friends. Well, I got a phone call from my friend Jacob informing me of this crazy thing called "balloon chasing". Of course, I said yes and had no idea what i was getting myself into. Here is the story of my balloon chasing adventure...

Team: Me, Parker, Tyler V., Jacob, and Jeannie (Parker's mom).
Location: Meet outside a Baptist Church
Time: 6pm (remember this time)

It's about 5:45pm and I'm at Parker's house. Everyone (except Jacob) loads into the jeep and heads to the church where the balloon will be taking off from. We sit in the car fearfully waiting for what we were getting ourselves into. We wanted to wait for Jacob to show up before we'd get out of the car but unfortunately we couldn't wait for him any longer as we were getting death stares from the other crew members wondering who we were. So, we hesitantly get out of the car and head to the open area. We watch the other crew members set up the basket and then we were told we were moving locations. WHAT?!?! you want us to get into two cars with random strangers and take us to an open field?!? This scenario was slowly turning into my nightmare...so, we piled into one car with strangers and took off. On the ride over to the field I felt safe because I was in the way back of the SUV and thankfully I had a tire iron in between my legs for safety. If anyone wanted to pull a quick one on me, they'd have to meet my tire iron friend first...

We arrive at the new field (note: still no Jacob) and still have no idea what we're doing. So slowly they start showing us what to do and teaching us about "ballooning" and the ways of this secret hobby. Everything is going smooth and we're trying to make the most of the scary situation we're in by joking about playing "parachute" with the balloon and then getting scolded by another crew member...oops. The pilot then says he needs someone to come over and help him. I made a rookie mistake by volunteering to go over and help. My job: hold onto the rope and keep the mouth of the balloon open while the pilot filled the balloon with hot air. There I was with no gloves (Jacob had them) holding onto rope that was burning my hand and flames were shooting next to me. I already hate fire so when the pilot told me it was going to be loud and hot my heart rate skyrocketed. The whole filling up the balloon with air was going smoothly until the balloon wanted to rise off the ground and my foot started slipping...it was at this moment that I needed help and looked like I was going to pee myself (see pic).

So, Ted (crew member), came to my rescue right as we lifted the balloon up. We all held the balloon down to the ground while the pilot told us what the plan was. It was bout 6:45pm (no Jacob) and we were all getting ready to take off and follow the balloon that we just released into the air. Once again, we were told to pile into cars with strangers as we drove around the Cedar Rapids area chasing this balloon. FINALLY, we get a phone call from Jacob saying he overslept and was on his way. Jacob showed up after all the hard work was done and we were piling into the car. Of course right when I saw Jacob's car I bolted from the stranger's vehicle and ran to Jacob's car and yelled at him to get in the car and drive. Sure enough, Tyler and Parker were right behind me running towards Jacob. Poor Jeannie (Parker's mom) was stuck in the other car with Ted...oops. And off we were to chase the hot air balloon we launched. 

    

We followed the balloon and helped catch the balloon when it was landing. I was warned that you do NOT want to get in front of the basket to catch it because it was 5,000lbs. of force coming at you. You know once I heard that warning I stayed as far away as I could. So, for my first ballooning experience, I'd say it was pretty successful. I really enjoyed being dramatic and joking about "chasing the balloon" as if it was a tornado (the balloon moves 1mph...). It was a very interesting experience and someday I'll make a documentary entitled, "The Secret Life of Ballooning".