(A continuation of my first skydive)

Getting into the plane itself was kind of intimidating. They pull out this iron ladder and place it against the door of the plane, then you crawl up the ladder to get into the plane. Hank told me to watch my head, but I was really more concerned about falling off this 3′ tall ladder, to be honest.

Once you get in, you’ll notice two “benches” on either side of the plane. They look like long planks of 2″ thick foam stacked on top of each other. It was weird.

AND OMG, I AM IN A PLANE AND THE NEXT TIME I WILL BE OUT OF THIS PLANE, I WILL HAVE JUMPED OUT OF IT IN THE SKY.
[read on]

Happy Fourth of July!!!

Happy

Bella!!!

My little pup is no longer a little pup! Bella turns one year old today, meaning she’s official an adult dog! My, oh my!

I had some pictures and a vid planned, plus a Bella update, but after my skydive on friday, I’ve been in such a state of euphoria that I didn’t get a chance to get to those things. Soon enough, I hope.

In the meantime, Bella has enjoyed several treats throughout the day to celebrate her first year. Happy Birthday, Booboo! Mama loves you!!!

My cousin Melissa turned 23 on friday, and decided that she wanted to celebrate by jumping out of a plane and falling from the sky. She invited people to come with, and since it’s been forever on my “Bucket List” I told her I AM IN!

Friday, I fell from the sky.

When she made the announcement, without hesitation, I said, I’d do it. (Well, I did have one hesitation, and that was work since it was a friday. I asked my boss and he told me to enjoy the jump!!)

For most of the week, it kept popping into my head that I was going to do this crazy thing. The suspense kept building up, along with the nerves, but I never reached that level of nervousness where I just wanted to back out. Sure, I was terrified, but I was willing to do it.

Friday morning, I was in a little bit shaken up, and I almost threw up from my nerves. (I tend to want to dry heave when I’m really nervous.) But there’s no backing out after a $50 has been made. And I was excited to do it! At least I wasn’t nervous enough to not want to eat. I pretty much ate normally. (Another indication that I’m nervous is that I will refuse to eat.)

We were to meet some of her friends in front of the grocery store across from her neighborhood. They were all boys, and they were all nervous. They just kept shifting their weight back and forth in anticipation and working themselves up into a ball of fear. You’d think that that would get me on edge, but to be frank … it kind of calmed me down a bit. I had a feeling that I wasn’t as nervous as they were, and that made me feel ok.

Or, it could be a really horrible state of denial.

We were waiting on a few more of Melissa’s friends and they were taking FOR-EV-ER to meet us at the store. One of them was bringing her entire family, and considering they run on Filipino Time* we were in an even more panic to even make it on time! We had a 10 am reservation, and we were already looking at 9:30. It takes about 20–30 minutes to get there. In an attempted to move it along, we told them to meet us a little further down the road at the Wal*Mart. Melissa was already pretty anxious, but this put her on edge even more. We did not want to be late on top of having to worry about jumping out of a plane.

And when we were at the Walmart, one of her friends was so worked up, he started to jog around the parking lot to work off some of that energy (plus, he stupidly drank a lot of coffee before!).

Now, if you know me, I am fully OPPOSED to Filipino Time. And at this point, I started to get nervous. NOT about jumping from a plane, but FROM BEING LATE! Oh my gosh, OCD!

Dean (the aforementioned friend that jogged around the lot), called the skydiving place to let them know we were running late, and they told us to bring them coffee to make up for it. The two other guys went inside the Walmart to get some coffee from the indoor McDonalds. The McDonalds folks packed them inside a paper bag, cause they were out of holders.

ANYWAY … the people we were waiting for FINALLY arrived.

And so we started to make our way to the skydiving place.

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I know all I seem to ever post are quick quips and youtube videos …

But you’ve GOT to watch this amazing video of 5th graders from PS22 singing Lady Gaga’s Just Dance … OF ALL THINGS! I totally LOOOOOVE it! (Tirzah, the lead singer, is just so amazing and talented! I hope she never forgets that!)

(You should definitely check out their website and their music instructor’s youtube account for more info and performances about these kids!)

Shame that there are so many schools that have to get rid of the arts just to keep going. Kids NEED the arts! It’s simply an essential asset to growing up!

The song was requested by Perez Hilton, and sung especially for him since he posted several of their videos and helped the chorus gain notoriety worldwide.

Back in December, I posted a story about a very angry courier that came by the office one rainy day. And then in February, he came back in a much nicer mood.

Well, since then, he’s been around several times … all an improved visits since the first one. But this past friday, was probably the strangest.

Whenever anyone comes in, I always tell them to watch their step, since there’s an immediate step down from the door. When he came in he jokingly says, “Watch my step! I know!” And then proceeds to fill out the courier slip.

THEN, he said that I looked like I was in a good mood that day, that it was good to see “that cute smile” on my face, to which I said that I was just happy that it was friday. He then asks what my name is (they never ask unless I’m receiving a package), and then goes off on his way.

I’m glad that he was in a happy mood, and I’ll take that any day over our grumpy first encounter, but now it’s going into “creepy old man” territory. *shudder* Just the way that he was saying these things really sent my creepy-radar on alert.

The couriers that stop by are always a bunch of funny characters!

You simply MUST check out this ADORABLE website by artist Inhae Renee Lee, called “My Milk Toof”

… it’s about the baby teeth that have gone off to live with the tooth fairy, only to return back home.

SO. CUTE.

I love all the stories, but this one about a mellow afternoon cracks me up! (Ickle is the tooth that is reading, while Lardee is the one in the background unstuffing his red bag.)

[via cuteoverload. meow.]