Kansas City

This afternoon I will be driving to Columbia, picking up two lovely ladies by the names of Laurie & Margaret, and then will head a couple more hours west to Oleathe, KS. My old college roommate, Alexis, and her husband, Justin, just bought a beautiful house. Justin is going to Chicago tomorrow for the Chiefs - Bears football game (that sounds so awesome!) so it is officially a GIRLS WEEKEND!

Alexis & I, random roommates freshmen year, were perfect. Personality-wise we were different, but we were absolutely ridiculously crazy together. Random was our middle name. I don't know how many bizarre inside jokes we have. We even started a book to keep track of things we did/things that happened to us: "Alexis & Natalie's Book of Randomness." We found Laurie and were the three muskateers in college... us going to Eva J's for dinner every night in the dorms, us vs. the other roommates at the TGS house, making horrible creations at craft nights, us and our crazy sorority.

Well, then I went to Chile and when I came back Alexis & Justin were inseparable. Laurie & I became pretty inseparable. And now we're all separated.

I miss my girls. Nothing will be the same again. We've grown apart, chosen different paths, don't always understand each other.... but I can assure you that sometime this weekend we will get a short feeling of "man, some things never change."

Stormy Craziness

We had a HUGE storm last night go over St. Louis. The thunder was deafening. I woke up, laid listening to the booming thunder, blinking at the lightning blinding me every couple seconds. All of a sudden I sat upright in a panic -- I think I left the windows down on my car!!!

By the sound of the downpour, I didn't think it would make any difference to close them now. The storm was passing on to scare children in another suburb now. After pondering a few more minutes I got up, put on some flipflops and went outside -- WOW, 10 minutes after the fierce of the storm was gone, it was still raining torrents! I ran out to my car, felt the window -- completely sealed up. I laughed about how crazy I looked, running in the middle of the night thru a dangerous storm to touch my car and run back into my apartment.

Ah, school days! I am so envious. I am still getting invited to beginning of the school year parties at Mizzou- gosh, I miss it. Why does life post-college suck so bad???

I saw a little girl with a shiny backpack being fussed over by a doting mother, camera in hand in my apartment complex this morning when I left for work. I think it was her first day of school! I was staring, reminscing and she saw and looked back. I waved warmly at her like a crazy old lady. I would switch you in a heartbeat, second grader!

blast from the past

So I was googling the name "nataliemma," which is my common logon in the online world, and discovered an old website that I had made maybe my sophomore year of college. It's mostly of pictures and cheesy captions. And what is up with that introduction paragraph- what a weirdo! Man, I am cool. I will post this for posterity. Am I earning more nerd points by the minute?? :-/

http://nataliemma.tripod.com

Linds, do you remember our gurlpages???