Hearts on Fire

Note: This is the Kathleen writing this. No one has brain-washed me or stole my account and written this post. Yes, this post might be unlike me, but I have been wanting to do this for a while.

This morning I received a text from Sophia, my roommate that works at David Gardners Jewelry.

 She told me I should come in and look at the diamond earring studs that they had in the store. I have been wanting some for a while, but I have never seen the point to spend that much money on jewelry. Sophia and I have been discussing jewelry ever since we have met. At first my opinion was, "I would NEVER spend more than a couple hundred dollars on jewelry." I explained that the fake stuff looks just as real and that you could spend your money on so many other things! She tried to explain that real jewelry is an investment: it goes up in value, can be passed on for generations and come on, it's just pretty. I heard what she said, but just kept coveting her diamond necklace and on occasion asked to borrow it (I've never had the guts to ask her to wear her Rolex). I don't wear necklaces that often and when I do I wear my favorite one (the silver one that Mike bought me for Christmas). I LOVE earrings though. I have probably 50 pairs. I usually always have earrings on. I told Sophia that if I bought anything, it would be earrings (even though that doubles the price since I have to buy 2 stones instead of one). I have always thought diamonds were beautiful, come on, what girl doesn't? They are so classy and simple, yet sparkly and elegant. You can wear them with a formal dress or with a t-shirt and jeans. After Sophia's text I told her I would come in and look. I texted Mike to see if he wouldn't mind coming with me so I wouldn't be persuaded too easily to buy something. I also wanted to make sure I wasn't losing my mind spending that much money on jewelry. He said he wouldn't mind meeting me there. Around 5 pm I headed over to DG's and started looking around. Sophia came out and showed me all the diamond earrings they had. She showed me the less expensive earrings that had a bunch of small diamonds that looked like a big diamond. Of course I heard less expensive and was sold. They were a good size for a good price. We held on to those while Sophia took me to look at the ones she "picked out" for me. They were called Hearts on Fire and were one solid diamond. Each earring was 0.5 carats. They were a bit smaller than the less expensive earrings, but were so shiny. Mike, Sophia and I decided that the solid diamonds were a better fit especially since I could always trade up the solid diamonds at full price for another piece of jewelry or bigger diamond earrings. If I bought the multiple small diamond earrings, I could not trade them for anything. I decided that solid Hearts on Fire diamonds were the ones for me. :)

David Gardners gave me a Jewelry Appraisal of the earrings and I decided it would be smart to cover them with insurance. If anything happens to the earrings, they will replace them. My future daughters or granddaughters will love me. :) You're welcome in advance. 

Edisto Island wedding weekend

This past weekend one of my best friends, Annloiuse, got married in South Carolina on Edisto (or Edislow, I'll explain later) Island. My roommate, Sophia, and I headed down to Houston on early Saturday morning to catch our 7am flight. (Note: Sophia booked the tickets) Anyways, so we got up at 3:30am to be able to get the Houston in time for our flight. We stayed up until about midnight the night before packing and getting ready because we both procrastinated doing this. Bad idea. We packed some snacks and headed out. We got to the airport in plenty of time and just sat at the gate for 30 minutes until we boarded the plane.

We were too awake to go back to sleep so what else was there to do than to post on Facebook and eat our snacks we packed for the weekend? We both packed trail mix and we both ate all of it before we got off the plane in Charleston, SC. Yup, that's me and Sophia for ya. When we got to Charleston we had to rent a car to drive to our house (I like to call it a villa). Sophia's friend used to work at Avis so she said we were not allowed to rent from there. So we asked Budget how much they charged for a car rental and it was outrageous like $62 a day or something. If you know me, I said, "Screw that" and we left and walked over to Hertz. They charge $24 a day. Much better. So we gave them all our information and somehow the entire bill came out to $114! Uh. They get you with those taxes and under 25 fees! Oh well. We got in our little blue Nissan Versa and drove away. Being the germaphob that I am, I used a plastic baggie in order to change the radio so I didn't have to touch it with my hands.

 We headed straight to Edisto Island where our villa and the wedding was. We got to our villa and it was so cute!

We arrived to the villa and Lauren, one of our housemates, was there. She is from NY and working on her MBA at Columbia. She was super nice. Sophia and I unloaded our stuff and toured the house then we decided to walk down to the beach since we were only 2 blocks away. We got there and the beach was deserted. It was pretty cold and overcast and the water was freezing so this made sense why no one was there. I still made Sophia look for sand dollars with me and walk in the water.

After we had our fun we went back to the house and headed over to Annlousie's villa before she and all the bridesmaids headed over to the wedding venue. We got to chat for a while and eat lunch over there. Annlouise looked so beautiful. She had her hair and makeup done and was so calm. We got to meet her bridesmaids too. Annlouise made sure to tell us not to speed on the island because the cops were out to get everyone. We said we wouldn't and forgot about it. They had to head out so Sophia and I headed back to our villa and all our other housemates were there when we got back. It was Jillian and Andrew, Kristine and Chris, Alexis Claire and her date, and Lauren. We got to talk to them for a while and got to know everyone and then we decided we better get ready. Everyone showered and got all dressed up. I asked Sophia to do my hair and we did a high sock bun. I'm kind of obsessed with the sock bun now. All it is is a real sock rolled up then you wrap your hair around it. Done. We all headed out to the venue, Brookland Pointe Plantation. It was a gorgeous house on the lake with big oak trees covered in Spanish moss everywhere and a huge yard to have the reception on.

There was a 7 person gospel choir singing while the guests and bridal party were walking in. They were really good and entertaining.

 The ceremony last only about 10-15 minutes. It was short, but very sweet. We walked over to the reception and before everyone got a drink (except the few alcoholics there) we fought over the bug spray. The gnats were so bad. After spraying it got a lot better. We talked, had appetizers and most everyone had a drink (or 7). 

Dale and Annlouise had their first dance and then the parent dance and then they opened up the food line. They had some awesome food choices. BBQ, mac and cheese, rolls and rice on one side and shrimp and grits, collard greens and tomato and cucumber salad on the other side. The shrimp and grits was SO good. It was a little chilly so Sophia and I went into the bridal house for 15 minutes to warm up and then all of a sudden we hear the music stop so I tell her they are cutting the cake! So we run out and they were making toasts and fixing to cut the cake. We made it right in time. Their cake was awesome! It was a 3 tiered cake. The top was orange flavored, the middle was lemon and the bottom was almond. I had lemon, it was so moist and tasty! After everyone had cake the dancing started. We all danced at least some. It was fun. They had an 8 person live jazz band. They were really good. The sax player would come down to the dance floor and get people to dance with him while he played his solo. It was a lot of fun. Around 10:30pm people started heading out. I was the newlywed's chauffeur so I helped them load gifts and decor and then took them back to their villa. They decided to have all the young people over to their villa to have an after party and just hang out.  Sophia and I dropped Annlouise and Dale off and we went to change and headed back over there. It was fun until about 12:30 when I laid down on the floor and dozed off a bit. We all headed home around 1am and as soon as I got there I hit the hay. Everyone else in the house was leaving Sunday morning so when Sophia and I woke up around noon, no one was there. Sophia had read about a strawberry festival in Charleston that was going on that weekend where you could pick your own strawberries from the field so we decided to hit it up. On our way there we passed a cute little produce stand and had to turn around to go buy something. Also, it was called Mike's Produce so of course I was in favor of stopping. :) 

After we bought 2 apples and an orange we headed to the strawberry festival. The line to get into the parking lot was SO long, but we wanted to pick some strawberries so we patiently waited (after I passed up 75% of the cars then cut in front of a car while he wasn't paying attention. Thanks black BMW.) 

We parked really close to the front thanks to my dad teaching me the most valuable lesson, "There's always room in the front" We paid our $5 entrance fee and walked around all the rides and food stands. We noticed we were the ONLY people without kids or a family. Awkward. We walked over to the strawberry pickin' fields and the lady said that they had JUST gotten all picked out. Really?! Uh. That's the only reason we went there. So we left without doing anything expect a one dollar ring toss that was most likely rigged. We decided to go to downtown Charleston and walk around to try and find cool shops and restaurants. We found an open market place that had all sorts of little set up shops. We walked around for a while and then saw a Free Sample sign and ran in. It was a pecan praline sample and was delish! We walked around the candy store and decided we needed some samples of the gelato too. We ended up getting a praline flavored gelato and loved every bite of it. After walking around trying to find a restaurant, we found something SO much better: A Fudgery. We got to sample some fudge and bought the peanut butter fudge that someone had forgotten to put peanut butter in. We didn't care because the guy that was making the fudge was an entertainer! He was singing all different songs and substituting "fudge" into the song. For example, one song he was singing was The Temptation's "Ain't Too Proud to Beg": I know you want some fudge, 

but I refuse to let you go, if I have to beg and plead for your sympathy, I don't mind coz' you mean that much to me. Also go here to check them out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OC72r_9u2g

We finally found a restaurant that seemed cool, Henry's. It was really good. The entire time we were eavesdropping on this table next to us trying to figure out what they were doing and how they knew each other. We were convinced it was a dating thing because all the guys were on one side and all the women were on the other side of the table and each person was talking to the person across from them. They all also had an alcoholic beverage. At first we didn't see any wedding rings and they were small talking, nothing detailed. Then we saw a couple of wedding rings and we gave up on what it could have been. I'm still curious. After dinner we headed back to the island (about 45 minutes away). On the way we wanted to stop at a Trader Joes store because we have always read about them and wanted to go to one (little did we know there is one in Houston and Austin....) Trader Joes is kind of like a Whole Foods. They have specialty foods that are pretty healthy. Sophia put in in her Google Maps and we started looking for it when we got close. Sophia looked down at her phone and said we had missed it. Uh. So we turned around and went back to find it. Well, we found it. Not exactly what we were thinking of.

We got to the villa and just relaxed on the couch. I went upstairs to read and go to bed and Sophia was working on homework. We went to bed at 10pm since we had to get up at 3:15am again (If you didn't catch it before, Sophia booked the tickets). We woke at an ungodly hour and packed up and cleaned the villa up a bit. We headed out at 4am. No one was on the road (duh) but all of a sudden I see blue and red flashing lights behind us. Sophia was driving and was speeding. The speed limit was 35 and she was going 45. She freaked out and we pulled over. The officer was nice, but tried to scare her at the same time asking her how she would feel if she hit a pedestrian while driving that fast. He reminded her that the island was called Edislow Island; he was trying to be funny. She was very polite and thankfully he let her off with a warning. LUCKY GIRL!

We got to the airport in time to have a bagel and an orange and then we boarded our flight. We walked down the connection walkway that connects to the plane, but there was no plane attached, it was steps leading outside and then there was another flight of steps leading up to the plane door. 

I've never been on a plane that small. It wasn't a crop plane or anything, but it only sat 3 people across and only about 20 rows. We didn't even get a free beverage or anything. I didn't mind since I was half asleep the entire time. We got back to Houston safe and sound and then headed back to College Station. Overall, the trip was a blast! South Carolina was so pretty and the wedding was perfect. Sophia and I were worn out, but it was all worth it. (Sorry for all the pictures)

Blue Bell Factory tour

Mike and I decided to take off work and go take the Blue Bell Factory tour today since I had never been. It was a perfect day to do it. It was sunny outside, a little cool and we both felt like we needed a break from work. Mike has taken the tour before with his family. He says they always want to go when they come visit him. :) We headed out around ten in the morning and got to Brenham, TX at 11am. We got to the Blue Bell Factory and paid our entry fee and waited around for our tour.

We got to read all about how and when the factory started and where there are other locations around the US. We read about the different flavors, the family that started it and how they made the ice cream. We also noticed that there were mainly either old people there or people with little kids there. We were the odd balls. I don't think we cared that much since we just wanted the free ice cream at the end of the tour! We started our tour and got to see the workers using the machines to make ice cream sandwiches, drumsticks, rainbow popsicles, and other neat things. While we were watching we saw a big mistake happen while the machine was filling the 1/2 gallon tubs with ice cream and putting the lids on them. A lid got stuck in the machine that was feeding the lids and the ice cream tubs were being filled with ice cream and pushed out with no lids! The workers never stopped the machines, they just started rushing over to help and they stacked the tubs with no lids to the side, minus the 2 that fell on the ground. They got it under control with the help of everyone and went back to working. The tour only lasted 15-20 minutes, but it was still cool to see how they made different things. At the end of the tour everyone gets to pick out of 12 flavors the one they want to have a scoop of. I picked the newest they have come out with, Caramel Turtle Cheesecake. Mike picked Red Velvet (probably his favorite). 

It was SO good. After taking our sweet time (get it?) savoring the ice cream we looked around at the gift shop to see if we couldn't live without something. I saw a couple neat things, but then proceeded to look at the price tags. I decided I would live without them. When we were walking out the door there was this cool painting on the wall that we snapped a picture at. 

Oh ya, we got cool little hats to wear too. I was the only one to wear it though. I'm pretty sure it's because Mike's love for the Rangers has surpassed his love for ice cream. I'm liking him more and more. 

Dining in the Dark

Last night I got the opportunity of attending Dining in the Dark put on by Brazos Valley Center for Independent Living. My company, TDI-Brooks International, bought 8 seats to the dinner so I asked my sister, Katelyn, if she wanted to join my coworkers and I as we experienced this cool event. History of this event, courtesy of a manual produced by the Florida Institute of Rehabilitation Education for People Who are Visually Impaired or Blind provides the following, "Dining in the Dark was pioneered in Zurich by a Swiss socialite and trendsetter who happened to be blind. He threw cocktail parties for his sighted friends in the dark to add flair and zest to the occasion. He created a whole new set of sensations and experiences based on the combination of total darkness, social interaction, dining and drinking. By 1999 the growing popularity of the concept expanded into becoming a fine dining restaurant and social club. Since then, the concept has spread to Germany, Paris and London." The event started with a silent auction of different gift packages to places around town. Katelyn and I bid on a couple packages, but we eventually got out bid. After socializing for a little bit we got in line for dinner. It was held at one of the MSC ballrooms. The waiters were all visually impaired and lead us to our table in complete darkness by a congo line. 

We got to our table and found our seat and tried to sit down without falling. Our waiter, Laura Ann, explained that we had to explore our table settings and that the menu was a secret, unless you could read braille since the menu was written in braille on a piece of paper in the center of the table. We had to use our senses (other than sight) to figure out what we were eating. We all dug in to the first course and found out it was a salad. It was extremely hard to eat without seeing. We didn't know what would come next, unless of course your neighbor exclaimed, "Yum, I just got a strawberry!" I'm glad no one was watching or could see because half of the spinach would being hanging out of my mouth most of the time. We had to feel around on our plates with our fingers to make sure we had eaten it all. The next course was the main dish. It seemed like each person at the table started on a different food item because everyone was saying they tasted something different. It ended up being green beans, mashed potatoes, tomatoes stuffed with creme cheese, a star fruit and beef tips in a wine sauce. It was delicious. We then had dessert. I came in a wine type glass and had a spoon with it. We discovered that it was a mousse with a chocolate crust. It was rich, but so good. While eating dessert the waiters had a Q&A session up front. We were able to write questions and they would answer them. It was neat to see how they got around town, used technology and went through everyday life with this disability. After everyone at the dinner received their dessert, they turned on the lights. It hurt everyone's eyes pretty bad and everyone was squinting for the first couple of minutes. We got to get up and use the restroom and make the final bids on our auction items. When I went to the restroom I discovered that I had spilled who knows what all down my shirt. I am usually not a messy eater, but I guess if you can't see what you are eating you don't really know if you spill or not. We went back in the ballroom for Epicures, the catering place, to reveal the menu. (We already discovered what it was). Then we were able to tip our waiters and head out. It was a really cool experience and made us aware how hard it is for the blind to do something as simple as eating dinner. I think it made everyone there very grateful for their sight and reminded them not to take it for granted. If you ever have a chance to do this, DO IT! 

Free Food

Here in College Station (and that other town that we do not speak of) there is a glorious place called Blue Baker. It has sandwiches, soups, salads, pizzas, cookies and they bake their own wonderful fresh bread. They have a different bread of the day every single day of the week. Saturday is by far my most favorite day to go here. Saturday = Pumpkin bread. This is the most moist, flavorful  addicting bread they have. Tons of college students, families and old folks go to Blue Baker to eat a refreshing healthy meal. We will come back to this marvelous place later. I am part of a graduate/young professional group at Grace Bible Church that meets every Sunday for bible study and meets throughout the week to do activities. We have volleyball every Monday evening, which I go to as much as possible. We have a prayer breakfast every first Saturday of the month. We have game/movie/pot luck nights scattered everywhere and sometimes we do crazy things like paint our bodies blue in order to get free food. Back to Blue Baker. Blue Baker has this policy that says "If you paint yourself blue, you eat free!" The Grad/young professional group (we will call them GRAYPs for short, thanks to Josh A.) decided in the event planning meeting that this would be an interesting thing to do. They were wrong. It was an amazing, humorous, magnificent event! 10 of us met up at the church (all wearing blue) and started to cake on the paint. There are 4 levels of blue at Blue Baker. Here is their go-to blueness rating:

Side note: I have done this before. Looking back, these two blue experiences were INCREDIBLY different. The first time I did it, I did it with my group of friends and this was Sophomore year of college (2007). It was me, Sarah, Caitlin, Peter and some boy (maybe Jeff?) that I think Sarah had a crush on. We went to Home Depot and bought a can of blue house paint. Now, did we tell them that we were painting our bodies with the paint? Nope. We just had the paint man make the prettiest blue color, bought the paint and took it home. When we got home we went outside in our blue t-shirts and shorts and dug in (yes, with our hands). We started gooping it all over each other. We were going for Level 4 blueness. We covered our legs, arms, faces, necks, and then someone (who I am almost certain wasn't me) got the great idea to put the house paint in our hair:

We painted our entire heads blue. We were all so stoked to walk in Blue Baker and get free food, and honestly we were probably looking forward to all the "Are you CRAZY?" stares. We walked over to Blue Baker since we lived close and while walking over I noticed that my hair was getting more and more stiff. I had never done this so I didn't really think anything of it besides, "Man, my hair feels like hay, cool."

Well we stuffed our bellies and hung out at Blue Baker for a while until we decided to go home and wash off. We get back to the house and go to the backyard to wash off with the hose and it comes off fairly easy on our face, arms and legs (thankfully, we bought the latex based paint and not the oil based). We had to give it a bit of a scrub, but nothing horrible. We started to wash it out of our hair, but it wasn't working so well. The girls decided to go inside and use shampoo because surely that would work. One entire shampoo bottle later, we still had blue in our hair. We tried combing it, soaking it, scrubbing it. It got out some of the blue, but there was still a lot left in our hair. I (back in my stupid days) suggested get some paint thinner to use because that is what my dad used to get paint off of us when we were his painting slaves. One of the guys ran to the store and they were closed so he stopped by a gas station to get some lighter fluid because that is basically the exact same thing (not). Well we were desperate so we poured that junk in our hair. It maybe helped get another 25% of the paint out, but it burned like heck! And stunk. Well, eventually we got enough out of our hair or our arms were so tired from washing our hair that we dried off and put fresh clothes on. We all looked in each others hair and found streaks of blue. The next couple of weeks (months for Sarah) we would always brush some blue out of our hair or find a strand of blue hair. Looking back, it was a ton of fun (as long as you look over our ignorance). Yesterday's blue experience was much different from the one 6 years ago. Like I said before, we met at the church and started painting ourselves. This time we used Halloween face paint that was made for painting your body.

We covered ourselves in blue and then raced over to Blue Baker. When we got there, we did get the laughs and stares that goes along with painting your entire body blue. But then again, we all ate for free. If you know me, this was totally worth it.

We enjoyed our tasty dinner and discussed about having a "blue night" every other week. I told them I wouldn't mind being in charge of this wonderful event. I'm pretty sure they were joking, so they might be surprised when they get an e-mail from me next weekend saying that we are having another "blue night". :)
When I went home to wash the blue paint off, it came off like butta (slang for butter). It was so easy to get off, well at least compared to the last time I did it. :) If you haven't yet, go paint yourself blue and go get free food!! Do it.

April Fools Day Fun

So today is April Fools Day. One of my favorite days of the year, behind Halloween and my birthday and Ranger's opening day. I looked up April Fools Day pranks WEEKS ago. I wrote the good ones down in my phone so I wouldn't forget. Finally I got a reminder last night that the next day was April Fools Day. Then I knew it was on. My first victims were of course my lovely, sweet, kind roommates. They are such good roommates, I just had to prank them. One of them, Jackie, already had an idea about April Fools so I had to get her good. :) I started by taping Jackie and Lauren's door frames with clear packaging tape, one at the bottom (ankle level) of the door frame and one at the top (around forehead level). After that I went to the pantry and decided it would be funny to unwrap all of Sophia's canned goods and mix them up. I hope she is in the mood for whatever she opens.... I also put stickers that said "Sophia" on them on all of Sophia's belongings I could find (ex: honey, coffee mug, banana, lemon, apple, keys, etc.). So I fell sound asleep with a little mischievous smile on my face and the satisfaction of knowing I had pranked my clueless roomies. I woke up the next morning knowing that Jackie had already headed to work so I waved my arms and legs through my door frame and found the same little contraption that I had put on her door. April Fools prank on Kathleen 1: deflected. I cautiously walked to the hall and saw that I had pranked Lauren (so hard that she tore off some of the wall paint with the tape). I then proceeded to get ready for work and Sophia told me that Jackie had explained to her that she ran into the tape and was extremely confused. Then Jackie heard Lauren run into it and heard a lot of laughing. :) Got them! Side note: I have been looking over my shoulder all day long. Anyways, so I got to work and stopped by the warehouse first (seeing that no one who worked in the Geotechnical lab was there). I walked into the lab and found the scotch tape. I went straight to the sink and taped the sprayers down so when you turned the faucet on, it would spray you instead of going into the sink. I don't think I got anyone with this pranked. :( I also stuck all the spatulas that they use for work on the ceiling. Have fun with that. I then drove over to my office and went around to everyone's desk that wasn't there yet and put a yellow sticky note under their mouse saying "Happy April Fools Day!" A lot of people were having technical problems, then they lifted up their mouse and found my little note. My greatest prank came next. I decided to prank my boyfriend, Mike. I made a craigslist ad for free baby chicks and told people to call or text his number. He texted a picture of the ad and said "Did you post a Craigslist ad for chicks? With my number?" I then called him and explained. He told me "Who would have known so many people wanted chicks?" He has a great sense of humor so he thought it was funny (but made sure I deleted it ASAP).

I continued to think this was a hilarious joke so I did it to other friends and family. I posted that my dad had a horse saddle he wanted to get rid of so people started calling his cell phone, unfortunately he left it at home on accident so my mom took it to work. My mom called my dad and explained that people were calling his phone and leaving messages about a saddle. She called me and asked if I knew anything about it so I busted out laughing. She didn't. She said dad would probably be calling me to hear some explanation. I got a call 30 minutes later from Tim Davis with the IRS (good try dad). I explained what I did and he eventually thought it was funny and said that I better watch my back. I then posted things about free bikes, chilifest tickets in exchange for beer, a free astronaut statue, $10 Keurig and free puzzles/free baby chicks combo. Most people had a pretty good laugh, some more so than others. Below is my little sister's reaction. :) Love you!

The free puzzle/free chicks deserves some explaining. As most people I am friends with know, I love putting jigsaw puzzles together. I just finished a 1,000 piece puzzle a couple weeks ago and was waiting to glue it together. I finally bought some glue and went to glue it and found 2 pieces missing! I KNOW for a fact I had all the pieces when I finished the puzzle. I knew it was my roommates or one of their fiances. I kept asking and the pieces never showed up. So this morning as I was telling my roomies about the Craigslist thing I was doing, Lauren asked me if I wanted to get back to the puzzle piece snatcher. Of course I was in. I thought for sure she would send me her fiances number, but it was some random kid that I had never met. Apparently he and some of Lauren's other friends came over one night to hang out and he thought it would be funny to pocket some pieces of my puzzle. Not funny. After getting the phone number from Lauren I proceeded to make an ad for Puzzle Piece Snatcher. He was selling 5 brand new, never opened puzzles and giving away free baby chicks (I had to throw that in there because who really wants puzzles besides me). The listing went like this "I have 5 unopened puzzles. I really like puzzles (sometimes I take pieces from other peoples puzzles and think it's funny), but I got arthritis at a young age and it is acting up really bad so I am giving these away. I have 2 Thomas Kinkade puzzles, one that is all sorts of candy, one that has puppies in it and one that is a really pretty landscape with a family walking on a dirt road into the sunset. Please call or text: #########. For the free baby chicks please text or call the same number above. I just moved into a really small apartment and they won't allow chickens. Free to first person to text or call."  I was pretty sure no one would text or call or bother him so I texted him about it. He was clueless, obviously. After a few minutes I got some of my friends at work to text him. After an hour or so I texted him again asking him if he liked puzzles. He then asked if I liked posting things on Craigslist. I confessed and told him I would make him a deal. I would take the post down if he would bring back my pieces. He said that it was a deal as long as we made the pieces into shot drops at Lauren and Jake's engagement party this weekend. I was forced to accept this offer. After all the happened, I went back to work working on answering e-mails and printing paperwork. My friend at work, Jon, came in my office to give the accountant a receipt and we talked about April Fools Day pranks and whatnot. As he was leaving he said I should watch my back; I told him that I was and then he said, "Not close enough" and walked out of the room. I swung around in my chair and looked out the window and he had wrapped my car in saran wrap. I knew this was the prank because he did it to me last year. April Fools prank on Kathleen 2: success. I left work and ran a couple errands then headed home. I walk in and see my two roommates, Jackie and Sophia in the kitchen looking pretty mischievous. I try and look around, but I don't see anything out of the ordinary. I go to my room and open my door and this is what I see:

I was so impressed with this prank that I was in shock. EVERYTHING in my room was covered with foil. This took time and a ton of foil. I couldn't stop staring at everything. This is the best prank ever pulled on me. I congratulate Jackie and Sophia for this. They were dedicated. Prank on Kathleen 3: major success. After I got over the shock of my room covered in foil from ceiling to floor, I was hungry. I made a sandwich and took a swig out of my water bottle (which I noticed was more full than when I left it) and all of a sudden I taste a minty taste and then my tongue and lips started to numb. Ora-gel on my water bottle. Awesome. Prank on Kathleen 4: success. After that happened I went to check my toothbrush and sure enough there was some clear gel on it. Prank on Kathleen 5: deflected. So after dinner, chatting for a while and trying to uncover some of my room I went on a run over to play volleyball. I thought finally April Fools is over and I won't have to watch my back anymore. Well I was wrong, the night was not over yet. After volleyball Mike gave me a ride home and when we got there I noticed that my car was gone. I thought that Sophia or Lauren took it somewhere, but then I noticed that both of their cars were gone. Hummmm. I walk in the house and yell for Jackie and ask her where she hid my car. She said she didn't have a clue about it being gone, she went on a run after I left for volleyball. So we all walk outside and look up and down the street for it. It's nowhere. But there is some broken glass and a t-shirt with "blood" on it where my car was. Mike asked if I thought someone broke into my car. I said, no, my windows are tinted and the glass is clear. He then said that they could have broken into the windshield. (Come on Mike, have you ever seen a robber break into the windshield to unlock the car?) Anyways, I knew no one stole it. I then tell Mike and Jackie that we need to drive around the block to see if it is parked on another street. We drive around the neighborhood and Mike said that it might be on Holleman. I told him that there was no parking on Holleman, then Mike pulled out my keys from under his seat and just started smiling. I didn't think twice about it being him who hid it. I thought it was one of my roomies. Well Mike and his friend, Kenny, decided to get me back for the prank I played on them earlier in the day. Well done. Prank on Kathleen 6: success. Next year will be even better so if you are my friend, stay on your toes on April 1st. And remember, it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, so go prank people!