The Catastrophic Events of the Week : How NOT to Make Coconut Brittle

My entire body ached even though I haven't exercised in the last two weeks--welll besides all the walking back and forth between classes and the grocery store and whatnot ,thanks again bikethief-!-I seriously feel like I just went nine rounds of girl-boxing. Of course this is nothing more than I expected, just doing the rounds right? Oh Finals why must you make me so sick to my stomach?See the thing is that this semester I took serveral of my upper level communications classes and, while I loved every minute of them that meant turning in 8 page papers instead of taking an exam. I love writing don't get me wrong, but keep in mind here that I also write for the newspaper and that the professor I have for two classes happens to be a pretty strict grader. AKA I was up all night for much of this week trying to hit deadlines, and it doesn't help that I am a bit of a perfectionist about written assignments. Anyway Wedneday night I finished with one of the essays and my dear friend Michelle came over to borrow a Christmas card ( oh crap I still haven't sent those out) and found me proudly patting the top of the microwave. "What are you doing?" "MAKING COCONUT BRITTLE IN THE MICROWAVE!" I shouted excitedly. She looked over my shoulder and raised her eyebrows appraisingly , my smile faltered , that her communication was wordless did not diminish its effect. A few minutes later I opened the door cautiously ...something smelled funny. See below for what I saw. I figured, well if at first you don't suceed try try again right? Haha FAIL. We worked together this time, bending over the stove and trying to figure out if the syrup had turned gold enough. Yeah it was gold enough ...immediately it started to go brown so we tried pouring in the baking soda as quick as we could and it puffed way way up! We were yelling and running around trying to pour it into the pan when it happened...I BURNED MICHELLE!!! I was trying to frantically scoop the puffyness out of the pan and some flicked right onto her finger. She looked at me with this sad desperate look and said in her Meeshy way of saying things "um...ow" and then "um ow ow ow ow ow" with this look in her eye that said "What do I do what do I do What do I do?" and I reacted on gut instinct. It was go-time. I grabbed her hand and ripped that sticky burning ooze right off. I turned the water on cool (not cold, because that would be too harsh of a temperature change) and ran her hand under it. It seemed like I had four arms flailing around because somehow I managed to turn the sink on and pull a bag of peas out of the freezer simultaneously. Long story short my fast reaction didn't seem to do much good, she ended up with a huge blister. She forgave me though...I think.
After that I gave on up brittle, and moved on to bigger and better things like writing essays and studying for exams. 12 noon on Friday finally rolled around and I was finished. I sat there for a good hour, numb, like I said finals are exhausting for no apparent reason. Now that it was all over I needed a good night's sleep, but alas fate decided against it. Justin didn't finish his last final until around 7:30 p.m. and it was torture waiting to find out how he did...things didn't go well. His professor hadn't told them about the two-hour time limit and , welll, Justin likes to take things slow when it comes to taking a test or picking out a can of refried beans. He didn't even make it to the last page. Needless to say he was pretty forlorn by the time he made it back to me and that was NOT a good thing. See at this point neither of us had gotten proper sleep in a while and to top it off , we were finally able to bring our borrowed Christmas tree home. I had been running around all day on half -empty and the thought of decorating that tree was the only thing that got me through it., my Christmas spirit was (IS!) in a state of fragility, I keep getting so nervous that Christmas can't exist without my family ...all of this to say that Justin coming home and effectively fire-hosing my teetering happiness was just about the last straw. Poor guy. I had tried cheering him up by smiling, telling him forget about grades it's Christmas, tickling him, and holding him close but he couldn't pull himself out of that dark cloud. I got really quiet, and, well, alright fine I was sulky. He took a walk and when he came back he gave me a hug and said sorry. I don't know if he was ready for what happened next -- I broke down crying in his arms, I can't quite explain what I was feeling except for that I wanted to have Christmas really mean something for us this year, I wanted to be a full functioning adult and throw a party and beautifully decorate a tree. I wanted to show people, especially Justin, that I was all grown up and creative and whatever else your supposed to be in this world. As I rested my cheek against his shoulder, however,  fighting down the sobs that kept rising higher and higher in my chest, I couldn't help but think I am just too little for this, too young , I just need someone else to do it all. I hated that I thought it, hated that all those judgemental people who tried to shove their opinions in my face might have been right, but there you  have it, the life of a young wife.

After I had had a good cry I told Justin to put his party clothes on, we both needed to forget ourselves and just have fun. We headed to Foodland, as we opened the door to Angel's shave ice I realized I had dropped my wallet. "Could things get any worse? " I thought. Laie isn't the best place to drop a wallet, though it's just a small town theivery seems to be pretty common-place...case-in-point, my friend Lacee's bike was stolen earlier that same day. In any case Justin and I figured we'd better turn around and retrace our tracks ( we were riding on his bike). Just as we were leaving the Foofland parking lot I saw a familiar looking, blue bit of duct tape. "Wait" my brain told me, the guy who had been walking just ahead grabbed a bike from behind a half wall and yes it was LACEE'S BIKE!!! I spoke unhesitatingly "DUDE, That's my friends BIKE!", my hand shot to my mouth in disbelief , I had said it so aggresively. The guy looked at me fearfully, "Oh really, I --uh---found it on the side of the road...do you like...want it?" "Um...Yeaaah." I said grabbing the handlebars. MENTAL FISTPUMP !! I was so excited to surprise her with the recovered bike. We had to ride past the suspected thief again and he shouted at us angrily, but I barely heard him as I wooshed by. It felt like the wind was echoing my jubilation. We even found my wallet on the way back. What a week!!!! Now I am off to write two article that may or may not be appearing in the LDS Church News-- JAZZED!