At least it isn't leap year.

The good news is...February is over. Because I am blogging means that I made it through this less than favorable month. I'm sure you're wondering how the shortest month of the year could be so unbearable. I wouldn't call it unbearable, but there are better months out there. The thing about this particular February is that there have just been too many opportunities to gorge myself with large amounts of food, and that makes for a pretty terrible way to get the Spring Break bod I promised myself I would have.

Let's start with the first week of February. Take yourself back there...Mardi Gras is in full swing, and there are just so many delectable treats in Mobile that demand to be eaten. And of course when you're in a new town being shown around by your new friends, can you really say no to the best places in town to eat? Ummm...no one, including myself. So as I was taken on a journey of fried chicken, special sauce, "the best mexican food in town", and a large portion of chicken and rice from the Hibachi chain recently removed from Auburn, I am positive I left with a permanent food baby. No worries though, all I had to do was run every day the next week. Easy fix, right? In what pretend world was I living in...not quite an easy fix.

Moving on to the second week of this loath-able month. Oh this is the week that is host to everyone's favorite day of the year: Valentine's Day. Goodie goodie gumdrops, a day to point out my singleness to the rest of the world when I am forced to admit I have no plans except to dinner with my equally as single friends. Let me take a minuet to go over the evolution of this ONE day of the year into an entire season of sorts, basically the Christmas of February. No I do not want your email notifications that flowers are on sale and that there are millions of V-Day specials discounts, and I definitely don't want to read your blogs about how to get that perfect date night outfit. I am bitter I didn't get any emails teaching me how to find Mr. Right...or how to keep him preferably. Nevertheless, I got all of the unwanted emails, and went to dinner with my single friends, followed by the annual trip downtown to avoid most interaction with happy couples all over Auburn. Keep in mind, though, that the one thing about Valentine's Day that doesn't discriminate against singles is, unfortunately, the candy. There is a never-ending plethora of cookies and candies that girls all over the world allow themselves to cheat on their diet with...filling their shrinking bellies with chocolate. It's inevitable, and I admit that I too use the Love Day as an excuse as well.

On to the next weekend. The problem with this weekend is not a specially planned event, but rather the lack of one. Because I had nothing planned, I made my way back to good ole Clay County. I've written about my family before, so you can review my previous blogs to check in on how dysfunctional and southern they are, the latter of course entailing a great deal of fried foods...not to mention that when I go home for a weekend my family acts like it will be my last visit home and they should make me all of my favorite foods and take me to all of my favorite restaurants. I mean, how can a girl resist when loads of chocolate chip pie, cornbread and buttermilk, and trips to the local mexican restaurant are shoved in her face. For some reason, being home erased all sense of time awareness because I found myself dismissing the thoughts in the back of my mind to stop eating so much to preserve what little hope was left for my SB '13 toned and tanned bod with something like this..."Oh Spring Break is WEEKS away, I have plenty of time"...or the old faithful excuse..."I will just run every day next week." Too bad neither of those things were true. So with my excuses in hand, I ate all the fried, home cooking I wanted.

So after three weeks of binge eating, I don't know what could stop me. It turns out nothing could. At this point in February, not only did I have a three week track record of unhealthy eating, but it was also coincidently my roommate's 21st birthday (A.K.A. my 21st birthday). The weekend kicked off on Thursday night at Shogun as we stuffed ourselves with sushi, complete with fried shrimp, salad, and the best fried rice you can imagine. Friday night consisted of chips, queso, and a less than healthy margarita with the caloric equivalent of an entire day's worth of food. Laying around the entirety of Saturday burned zero calories, and the late night Taco Bell only furthered the weekend's calorie overload. As if this isn't embarrassing enough, we topped off the weekend with a roomie trip to one of our favorite places to indulge: Olive Garden. Two bowls of salad and soup later, we were somehow able to put down a (lunch-sized) entree. I blame the two bowls of salad on the amount of time it took them to cook our main dishes. I mean, it's salad right? To add to the mortifying nature of how much food the two of us were eating, we couldn't stop staring at the two people sitting at the bar beside us. As we literally sat turned toward them, making up a story about their lives that was outrageously untrue (we hope), everyone...and I mean everyone...caught us staring. No biggie...it's our birthday weekend. We can do whatever we want...and eat whatever we want. We topped off the weekend binge with a large handful of Andes mints. Apparently the waitress noticed our over-indulgence.

So here we are, just four days from a week of bikini wearing fun, and I started my slim-down meal plan ...yesterday. Things are definitely looking up...I mean at least now we are done with the glorious month of February.

Simply having a...well...typically quirky Christmastime

In my first post I touched a little on the extremely conservative nature of my family, but that doesn't even begin to describe the outlandish group of people to which I sometimes wonder if I am actually related. I hate to sound like I am bashing these people...in fact, I think they are all pretty hysterical if I'm being honest. Nevertheless, what they think is funny, acceptable, and pretty much NORMAL is different from 90 percent of the people I know. Their sense of humor has rubbed off on me, but their judgmental view of the world outside of our family is something I can't quite relate to. Again, I don't want it to sound like I don't like my family, because that would be one HUGE misconception. I just want to emphasize how...interesting they are. Tradition is everything: weekly trips to a local Mexican restaurant, second pew in the balcony for church, and summer vacations. Now when I say my family, I don't mean my mother, father, brother, and I, but the entire 15-member clan. Try seating and appeasing 15 people. Not an easy task.

I think you get the point that my family is conservative, and that they consequently don't drink (we are the last dry county in Alabama...imagine that). They know, though, through a few not so desirable situations, that I have had the occasional drink. Nevertheless, "I am more responsible now." I "don't go to Sky Bar anymore." Well that facade completely dissipated when my nosey little 12-year-old cousin hacked into my phone and announced as everyone was opening Christmas gifts, "Now we have proof that she goes to bars and gets drunk!!" He then proceeded to read aloud a text conversation that I had had the weekend before. GREAT. Silence and awkwardness filled the room, and at that moment I could have slapped his big head harder than I have ever hit my brother or my roommate. Of course the attention soon shiften to my aunt.  She was opening her third gift from Dick's and proceeded to say--and repeat infallibly--"Ohhh goodie, more dicks! I love dicks!!" Umm....#awkward.

Some of our most intense family traditions surround the holiday season. The night before Christmas Eve is our annual trip to McAlister's Deli (which I hate) and then to a movie. This year, word got out that my other female cousin, my wingman, was bringing someone to our movie night. Most families would have been excited for a new face to come along, but not the Reynolds clan. You would have thought one of us had flunked out of college, robbed a bank, and sold cocaine on the streets just to get by. "This is a family thing, just for family," they would say, "it's tradition." Well at this point I am somewhere between panic over the absence of a date of my own, and relieved I didn't have to go through the torture of being scrutinized and embarrassed in front of the said date.

Okay side note: my family thrives on making fun of one another. Now when I say one another, I mostly mean me and my older guy cousin. I should take this time to give them a shout out for thickening my skin and preparing me for any kind of embarrassment through the use of countless less than flattering nicknames and many public displays of humiliation.

Now my family knows that I am serious about my threat to elope to avoid all awkward and mortifying moments that are sure to ensue once a boy is brought into the picture, especially if he isn't fluent in sarcasm and fully equipped with witty comebacks. Needless to say, I was nervous about the new boy coming to movie night. No worries, though, she--as would I--backed out entirely. Whewww...blood, sweat, and a few tears were saved there. Okay, back to movie night. After we made a scene walking through the mall, failing to censor inappropriate comments and loud conversations about passing gas and why thats a problem, my aunt proceeded to ask the man selling tickets if he could move a movie to a different time so she wouldn't have to be up so late. I think you know what his answer was. Keep in mind the whole time we are there, and anywhere for that matter, I am constantly being badgered to talk in every different accent I know to random passers-by. Ummm...NO I think I'll try to keep my chances of finding a boyfriend as high as possible. Don't worry though, if they think I should talk to a boy, they will either do it for me, or make sure the boy has seen me, them, and wants to run as far away as possible. It's incredibly attractive.

I hate to drag this on any longer, but there is so much more I could say about my Christmas break. Whether it be the inappropriate game of Mad Libs we played on Christmas Eve or the night's endless underlying sexual innuendoes, they always make for an entertaining holiday season. Maybe I will touch on that a little later. I promise this whole blog won't revolve around my family, but sometimes they will inevitably make their way into my stories.

Here goes nothing...

FINALLY....I am sitting myself down and starting a blog. Why it has taken me until my twenty-second year to document the ridiculous happenings of my world-wind of a life can only be blamed on too much school work and a tad bit too much socializing...paired with my insatiable ability to fiddle-fart all the time. I guess I could start this thing by telling you a little bit about myself so you will know what you're getting yourself into. 

I grew up in an incredibly small place where I knew the first and last name of everyone in my graduating class, and the three before and after me. It is a place described in many a George Strait song...where sitting on the front porch after dark in the summer is mandatory, as is Sunday morning church. My parents raised me well, teaching me to always be kind to others and work hard for things in life. My household was a place where cursing wasn't allowed, family came first, and alcohol was frowned upon. If that sounds boring, no worries, my friends were brought up the exact same way--in youth choir and drama groups, complete with mission trips and youth conventions. It was an ideal upbringing. 

I don't want to go so far as to say that I am a completely different person now as I was when I was in high school, but I would say that my exposure to different points of view has shaped the way I think about most things, but more about that later. The fall after I graduated high school I started at Auburn University, scared to death and all alone. Granted I had some other friends starting as juniors, but I was a measly little freshman. I am now, four years later, a senior planning to graduate in May. I have learned more about myself and the world around me in the last four years than I could have ever imagined, and it's safe to say I believe in Auburn and love it. Sorry I had to put that one plug in for the place I have spent countless hours and dollars on during my collegiate career. 

I can't help but think this is the perfect time to start a blog--it will soon be a new year...one in which the life I have lived for the past four years will come to an end and I will embark on a new life that involves commitment, drive, and (ughhh) responsibility. This should be an exciting time to document, and I am ready to embrace the change. What can I say, I'm just a college kid who is fiercely dreading graduation day, but equally as excited to see what's in store for my future...and you are invited to come along for the ride.