Treasure Hunt!

So, I've got one of those over-the-door, 12-hook hanger things, and I try to keep it just to jackets, sweatshirts, my bathrobe, and towels. But I had this one purse hanging there for a very long time. While I was cleaning my room yesterday (shocker!), I thought I'd finally take care of it. When I lifted it off the hook, though, it felt a bit too heavy for just a purse. Turns out I had never emptied it out! It was full of goodies! Here's a picture of what I found:

- two packages of pocket tissues

- a couple Altoids still in the container

- expired bowling coupons

- a zillion writing utensils, including my favorite pen from a few years ago, a Sharpie, and one of those stick eraser things

- a nail file

- a purse-sized bottle of hand lotion

- a little ducky charm

- 3 decorated bobby pins

- several regular bobby pins

- (and this is the greatest!) a nearly-full tube of Bath & Body Works' Mentha Lime Lip Shine!! (I love that stuff.)

(Oh, and there were some little scraps of King Pepermunt wrappers.)

Needless to say, I'm pretty stoked about having an extra tube of lip gloss, especially since I usually just buy Lip Smackers tubes and carry them around in my pocket. (Of course, I still have the Bath & Body Works' American Girl Pink Lemonade lip gloss tube I got from my small group leader in 8th grade, so we all know I'm more of a chapstick girl than a lip gloss girl.) Anyway, I remember that I spent $7.50 on the Mentha Lime stuff, so I'm glad I get to finish the tube.

In other news, today is our 99¢ clothing sale at Salvation Army. My family is heading up there this morning to check out the sale (maybe get a pleather biker jacket for 99¢?) and then I get to work the sale tonight. I figure it will be a pretty busy day at the store, but I've thought that before and then no one shows up, so we'll see.

Love and Lip Gloss,

Leah Joy

And someone is getting married!

I don't think my cousin Emily reads my blog, but two days after I posted requesting upcoming nuptials, I got a "Save the Date" magnet for her wedding! Of course, it's not until December... but still!

In other news, here's a funny video about bacon.

Love and BACON,

Leah Joy

Will Someone Please Get Married?

Or at least have a formal gala?

Here's the deal: I just found this AWESOME dress at Salvation Army. It's a beautiful blue. It was hand-sewn. It's an awesome vintage cut. It fits me PERFECTLY (unless I eat too much pizza). (And it cost me $5.) And then I found these AWESOME shoes. They have 4 inch heels, so I'm 6'1" when I wear them. And they almost match the dress (which in my world means they match perfectly). And they're adorable. The toes peek through. (And they only cost me $5.)

So I have this GORGEOUS outfit.

And NO ONE'S GETTING MARRIED ANYTIME SOON!

So I need a fancy date.

Or a fancily-dressed party to McDonald's would work just as well.

I just really want an occasion to wear this beautiful outfit.

In other news, my younger siblings just watched Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope for the first time ever. This excellent piece of epic space-adventure filmography was received with much enthusiasm on both accounts, and both children are excited for next week's installment of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

In more other news, Jacob (age 9) played in a baseball tournament this weekend. On Saturday, they played 3 games and went undefeated. Today, they played two games. The first, they won (mercied in 4 innings) 14-0. The second game they played against a team they creamed yesterday. However, today was a new story. The opposing coaches decided to question every single call, causing the umpire to actually change a few calls against Jacob's team. This also caused much discouragement among Jacob and his teammates, who ended up losing 7-11. It is still the general opinion that they'd rather take 2nd place in the tournament and have cool coaches than win 1st place and have nasty, argumentative coaches who stoop that low to scrape up a win for their team.

Finally, I stepped on a bee yesterday and was stung for the second time in my life. Last time was approximately 18 years ago. Amusingly (once I got over the pain), both stings were in the same place for the same reason: the bottom of my foot, because I refuse to wear shoes. I pulled the stinger out and hopped back to the house (after completing the dog's walk-and-toilet routine), where I iced my now-hive-infested foot. Turns out I'm slightly allergic. I had to go to work for 6 hours, but it wasn't so bad. I was slightly feverish, a teensy-bit delirious (aren't I always?), a bit nauseated (not to be confused with nauseous), and kind of itchy. However, I was informed by a very helpful customer (a mother of one of my few readers), to watch out in case my mouth started swelling. Of course, due to my over-active imagination, I soon found my mouth swelling, but my reality check (which - for once - did not bounce) told me that my mouth was, in fact, its normal large size.

Well, I'm glad I could finally update all y'all without saying "Dang it's been waaay too long." Hopefully the next entry will prove likewise. And hopefully it won't contain more allergic reactions and annoying baseball coaches.

Love and Loquacity,

Leah Joy

Dog-Sitting

Dear Friends,

I apologize for my long silence.

My road trip was great. I posted some pictures on my Facebook, but to sum up: I drove 3.5 hours to Southfield, MI to visit my brother. I stayed there for an hour or so learning about his new job and his weaponry. Then I drove another 3 hours down to Cuyahoga Falls, OH, where I spent the night and the next day with Alexandria and Alysha Schall. They showed me around their town (including their mall which has a hippie store called "Peace and Love"). We also drove to Sandusky for their great-aunt's 80th birthday party. That was very very interesting. From there, we drove 7 hours to Lancaster, PA to see Bethany Weaver and Rob Sykora. We got there about 2 in the morning on Sunday. Once we had all slept, the 5 of us drove to the CRAYOLA FACTORY! There, we learned how crayons are made and had a lot of fun pushing 4-year-olds out of the way. Anyway, lots of driving back, and since then I've just been working at the Salvation Army and dog-sitting.

Oh yes, dog-sitting. I've always known I'm not a dog-person. Never did I realize to what extent. But now I do. I do not like dogs at all. I don't want them sleeping with me, cuddling with me, sitting by my feet, licking me, smelling me, looking at me... I just don't like dogs! They smell, and they're germy, and ... I just prefer people. Or perhaps flowers. Anyway, I've been dog-sitting for the last week and a half, and I've got another week and a half to go. And after that, I doubt I'll do it again. :)

Yesterday I came into work at 4:00. While I was counting my drawer up in the office, a very rude lady hollered up at me to call the "real manager" 'cause the lady down here was "only in training" and didn't "know her stuff". Apparently, she had already cussed out our clothes lady for some reason, and now she was upset because Zhelle, one of our managers, wouldn't accept a credit card gift card. Because we don't accept them at our store. Our "real" manager is on vacation for a week in Wisconsin. If she feels comfortable leaving the store in the hands of two "managers-in-training" (who have been working at the Salvation Army for a combined total of 10 years, by the way), I think they "know their stuff". Anyway, she said she'd pay "with a REAL credit card" now and I was going to ring her up. The whole time, she's yelling about how we're all incompetent, and our jobs are obviously too cushy, and we're all going to get fired, and we don't know our stuff (except she used much more expressive language). It took all my strength to not holler at her the words I was muttering under my breath.

The best part? As she left, Zhelle says, "Jesus loves you, ma'am. God bless you!" And the lady said, "I know he does. And it's a damn good thing, too, or I'd -" and Zhelle interrupts again with "Jesus loves you, ma'am!"

If there's one thing I've learned at the Salvation Army, it's this: don't mess with Zhelle. She means business. And she will have the last word.

Anyway, once I stopped wanting to cry about this horrible woman, the day was fine.

So, yeah... there's no moral.

Love and the Lorax,

Leah Joy