Happy Halloween!

I really like Halloween! The candy corn, the happy ghosts, the pumpkins. I do miss trick-or-treating, though. It's just not as fun to go to the store, buy the candy yourself, then eat it. "Oh, wow! Another box of DOTS! I'm so surprised!"

I got into the spirit today by wearing my orange sweater and Halloween socks today. I really should be an elementary school teacher. I'd be the one who wore all the crazy vests that the kids make fun of.

I just saw a guy getting arrested! For real! It was at Abilene Muffler Shop on North 1st. (I was driving by). I saw the cop put the handcuffs on him, spread his legs apart and pat him down, and put him in the cop car. It was awesome! I've only seen that on T.V. I wonder what he was getting arrested for?

The Real World

Well, I had my first "real" job interview, and my first "real" rejection : ( I interviewed to be an administrative assitant at ACU. I would have been working for the guy in charge of the Campus Store, University Purchasing, and Dining Services. My interview went really well, but they needed someone who could start right away. It was pretty disappointing. I had tried not to get my hopes up, but it's really hard not to start thinking about what it would be like if you got the job. But at least I got some real interview experience. My interviewer told me I did really well and that I definitely would have moved to the next stage had I been able to start right away, so that made me feel good.

I just saw that the Abilene Reporter-News is hiring a full-time copy editor. I e-mailed my resume to the managing editor, so hopefully I'll hear from him soon. I think I would really enjoy doing that. Plus, it's actually relevant to the field I want to eventually go into (publishing).

Anyway, it's pretty exciting thinking about having a real job and NO HOMEWORK! Plus, I got to buy a business suit for my interview. I look so professional : )

Wedding Cakes

Darby and I picked out our wedding cakes this weekend! Mine is a combination of these two:






It's going to be a hexagonal cake, like the top one, with four layers. The first and third layer are going to have little icing pearls, like the top cake. The second and fourth layer are going to have icing bows, like the second cake. The pearls and bows are all going to be aqua, the color of my bridesmaid dresses.

Darby's cake looks somewhat like this, except it's also going to be hexagonal, and it's going to have a few tuxedo strawberries on the top:

Picking out cakes has probably been the most fun part of our wedding planning so far. There are so many choices. Plus, it's something that Darby can be involved in also. And we got free cupcakes, which is always a good thing : )

Busy Weekend!

My parents and brother came up for Homecoming this weekend. It was so fun! I haven't stayed in Abilene for the whole weekend for about a month. Friday afternoon I cleaned house and made little pretzel/Hershey Hugs/M&M's dessert things. Then Darby and I ate at Rosa's and went to the art show and JamFest. My parents got in around 9:00. My aunt, uncle, and cousins from Seattle were also in town for Homecoming, so they came over to my house and we talked for a while. Then, Brittany's mom took me, Britt, and Carolyn to 3rd Rock. Yum! On Saturday, Brittany and I got up early and went to the W-Club breakfast. Then I met my whole family at the parade. We watched Hannah and the rest of the Squigs, who were really cute. We went to the game that afternoon (ACU won!), and afterwards ate dinner at Cracker Barrel. They left right after dinner. It was kind of a crazy weekend, but it was so nice to spend time with my family, especially my cousins.

Last night, I applied for 3 full-time jobs at ACU. Aaaaaaahhh! It's so weird to actually be applying for real jobs. I don't know if I'll hear anything about them. I think I have a pretty strong application, though. I have had jobs at 3 different departments at ACU, and I have 3 ACU references. None of them pays very much, but I don't really have any hope of finding a well-paying job in Abilene (or ever, for that matter; English majors just don't make that much). I hope I at least get an interview, so I can get some practice.

Tonight, my friend Em is getting married. (On a Monday...weird, huh?) I'm the "wedding-day coordinator." I have to make sure everyone is in the right spot at the right time and that all the food gets served at the reception. I get to boss people around...yay! Last night was the rehearsal dinner at Cypress Street Station. I had risotto for the first time. It's some kind of deep-fried rice mixture. It tasted like a hush puppy to me. Yummy! And tonight, we get to eat Kalyn's dad's barbeque at the reception! Brittany and I have to defend our titles we won at Kalyn's rehearsal dinner as the only girls to go back for seconds. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it : )

Yay, Westgate!

I love my church! Especially the college group. This weekend, a bunch of us got together at Korbin's house. He grilled steaks for us, which were excellent, and the rest of us helped make the rest of the dinner. It was delicious. We had so much fun just sitting around talking (and watching Vince almost molest Eric, but that's another story). The boys watched sports on TV, while the girls went outside to "play Frisbee." We threw it around for a little while, but then we ended up just talking. It was some pretty meaningful girl talk, though. God really encouraged me through those girls. On Sunday, the college group was invited over to a couple's house for lunch. More free food! Woo-hoo! Then a bunch of us girls went to the bridal show. I was the only engaged one of the group; 2 were already married, and 2 others are soon to be engaged. The ones who weren't officially engaged were embarrassed, but I don't think it's ever too early to start getting ideas. (I've had my wedding planned for at least five years : ) They didn't have cake-testing at the show, which was disappointing, but it was still pretty fun looking at all the pictures of weddings. It's only been recently that we've really started doing things as a college group outside of church. I love it. And it's nice to know that after all my other friends leave in May I'll still have some good relationships in Abilene.

Celebrity Look-Alikes?

According to myheritage.com, these are my celebrity look-alikes. In the words of Carolyn, "I am soooo pretty!" : )



I do think it's a little scary that my best match is a member of the Spears family. That means one day I could end up looking like this:




But, hey, Petra Nemcova is a supermodel, so I think I'm all right.

Well, I have three papers due in the next nine days. So, what should I do? Actually work on them? Nah. Waste time on the Internet!

Here are my top 5 favorite things about the fall:

1. Candy corn! I love this stuff (especially the big pumpkins), and since I only eat it one month out of the year, it always feels like such a treat.
2. Sweatshirts. I have only worn one once this season, but I think the fact that I've needed to wear a sweatshirt one time before Halloween is pretty good for Texas.
3. ACU football (this year, at least.) We are 4-0 for the first time in like 20 years or something. It's so weird to actually see school spirit at ACU. (Well, school spirit that is unrelated to the Centennial).
4. The new T.V. season. I only watch two shows: The Office and Desperate Housewives, but I enjoy them so much! Darby and I watch The Office together; we just got season two on DVD, so we've been going crazy. And Britt and I watch Desperate together. It's so nice to have a scheduled time every week to spend together. I don't care what people say about T.V.; it's good bonding.
5. Fall back. It's so cool to get a whole extra hour. I know it technically all evens out with the whole spring forward thing, but it's nice to pretend.

Engagement Photos!

Sunday, my friend Emerald took engagement pictures for Darby and me at Hardin-Simmons. She is an amazing photographer. There were so many great pictures! Here's one of my favorites:
You can see the rest on Emerald's blog. Thank you so much, Em!

Another Shower

Well, my dad told me I should update, since I haven't in a while. Things have been going well lately. Last week, Brittany and I hosted Emerald's lingerie shower. It was "tastefully scandalous." We had a romance novel theme because Em likes to read them. Brittany and I think we are the only ones to ever use books for decorations at a lingerie shower. What can we say? Here's a couple pictures from the shower:

The hostesses (Me, Britt, Olivia) and Em

The lingerie cake. We didn't make it: McKay's did. Isn't it awesome?

I think the shower was a success. And it was very stress-free. Brittany and I delegated a lot of the jobs out, so all we had to do the day of was clean and finish up decorating. Em's wedding is in three weeks, which is crazy. This semester is flying by, as usual.

0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16

Monday night Darby got initiated into the strange world of women's sizes. Here was the conversation, more or less.

Me: I bought a new pair of jeans today. I gave in and bought a size 6 because the 4 didn't fit.
Darby: How did you go from a 4 to a 6?
Me: 6 is the next size above 4.
Darby: What about 5?
Me: They don't make 5's. Well, sometimes they do. Brands either have even or odd sizes. So, a 1 corresponds to a 2, a 3 to a 4, a 5 to a 6, etc.
Darby: That's crazy. What does that number stand for? The waist measurement?
Me: Nope...it's just the size. It includes waist, hips, and inseam.
Darby: That's ridiculous.
Me: Yep.

Now he knows why it's so hard for girls to find jeans that fit them. Who knows what the numbers mean? Things would be so much easier if they sized them like guys' jeans. But I guess most women might have a problem actually seeing their waist size in inches on the sticker. At least they should have some sort of standard, so that a 6 is the same in all brands. I doubt that'll ever happen. I'm just happy they started carrying curvy jeans at GAP and Old Navy. Try them; they'll change your life.

10 months...

from this minute, Darby and I will probably be leaving our wedding reception on our way to Dallas, then Niagara Falls, Canada for our honeymoon! Yay! (I say probably because I don't know exactly what time we will leave the reception, not because I don't know if we will get married : )

So, classes are going pretty well. I'm only taking 11 hours. I'm working about 18 hours a week at Camps and Alpha Academic Services, so it's still a pretty light load. The two English classes I'm in, Shakespeare and American Lit before 1860, are pretty interesting. They're a nice change of pace from last semester, when I had to read 20 novels, plus hundreds of pages of poetry in fifteen weeks. They are more lecture-based, rather than class discussion, which I actually enjoy. I'm paying thousands of dollars for these classes. I don't want to hear what my fellow students think. I want to hear the experts. Other than that, I'm just taking Bible (which is kind of weird...Bible majors, ugh!), Cross Training, and an honors colloquium on women's movements in third world countries. I think the colloquium will be really interesting, but a ton of work! It's only one hour credit, but we have two big papers and a 30-minute presentation, plus all the readings. Aaahh! At least it's a subject I'm interested in.

A Very Close Call

So, Darby and I had an interesting trip to Wal-Mart last night. We got run over by a gas tanker. Yes, seriously. But, thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. He and I were getting gas at the little gas station beside Wal-Mart. That place is always super crowded, and last night was no exception. There was a tanker parked along the curb almost directly in front of us, but a little to the left, and another car at the pump to the left of us. I was just going to turn right to avoid all the congestion, but the driver of the truck waved me to come on. So I turned out. When I got about halfway of the length of the truck, he started moving! The tank just kept getting closer and closer to us. I tried to honk, but he couldn't hear me because of his engine. He hit the passenger side and dragged us just a little bit before he stopped. It was so surreal; I was eerily calm the whole time. I was just thinking, "This guy is going to hit us. Yep, he hit us." I turned off the car and Darby crawled out my side. We were both totally fine. And there was surprisingly little damage; I guess because we were both going so slow. I'll probably have to get a new hood, front passenger door, bumper, and antenna, but there doesn't appear to be any internal damage. It's still driveable, which is good. I'm just so glad Darby is okay. It's so weird to see a huge gas truck inches away from your fiance. The truck driver was really nice and apologetic. He admitted that it was his fault; he just thought we were already past him. I felt sorry for him because before this he had a perfect driving record. The Abilene police department was not so nice. They took FOREVER to get there; then, the officer didn't even introduce himself. He was really rude. I think he was probably ticked that he had to take care of filing the report; evidently if a commercial vehicle is involved, it's a lot longer process. Still, I think he could have shown a little bit of compassion for us. We weren't hurt, but it was still scary. Anyway, that was my first wreck, and I have been thanking God that it wasn't worse than it was. And I'm so glad Darby was there with me; otherwise, I probably would have freaked out. As it was, we just drove over to Wal-Mart and got our groceries like any other night.

My Dad and I repainted my room this weekend. It looks so good! We just painted it white, but it was gray before, so it's a big improvement. Plus, I rearranged all my furniture, and I love it!

I just realized that I might have made a bad choice on my blog's address. I'm only going to be kjanderson for 10 more months. I don't know whether I should change it after I get married (kjhewitt?!) Maybe I'll just keep it, so I can still have something with my old name. I'll miss being Kayla Anderson, but I don't want to do the whole hyphen thing, and I don't want to drop my middle name because it's my grandma's name. Oh, well! I guess I'll figure it out when I get there.

Should have gone to 3rd Rock

The other night Brittany and I went to Cold Stone because I had a coupon for a free Like It. Well, I kind of already have a beef against that place because the line is always extremely long, yet they still constantly stop working to sing their stupid songs. The absolute worst is when anyone orders something with bananas. "Peel bananas! Peel, peel bananas! Slice bananas, slice, slice bananas!" And so on. Anyway, this time we made it to the counter without hearing the banana song. I ordered my usual, Founder's Favorite. I can tell the girl must be new because she has to keep consulting the menu to see what mix-ins to add. Anyway, she adds a ton of chocolate syrup and caramel to my ice cream until it's a big gooey mess. Then she scoops it into the tiny cup. It's dripping everywhere, so she uses the scoop to pile it back on the cup. There are still big globs of ice cream running down the side. I'm thinking, "I wonder how she's gonna handle this." I assumed she would put it in a bigger cup. Nope. She hands it across the counter and says, "Uh...you're probably gonna need some napkins." At this moment, a huge glob falls off the cup and slides down the outside of the ice cream freezer. I couldn't believe it! These were not just little drips running down the cup. Seriously, half the ice cream was falling out. It would have taken a thousand of those whimpy napkins they give you to clean it up. I asked her if she could put it in a bigger cup, which she did. Brittany and I just looked at each other in disbelief. I think maybe Cold Stone should spend less time teaching their employees the dumb songs and more time teaching them how to scoop ice cream. But, at least Brittany and I got some laughs out of the whole thing.

Honeymoon Plans!

Darby and I booked our honeymoon hotel this weekend! (Well, one of the three hotels we'll be staying in). We went ahead and got the one for Niagara Falls because a lot of them have already filled up for next summer. We're staying at the Doubletree Resort Lodge and Spa Hotel Fallsview. You can see pictures of it here. It looks really nice! We're super-excited. It was a tough decision, though. It took us forever to read all the reviews and look at all the photos of different hotels online, but we really wanted to make sure we picked a good one. Now, we just have to go through the whole process again for Dallas and Toronto!

End of Summer

I can't believe it's almost the end of the summer! It went by so fast. But I am ready to go back to school. I'm a nerd; I like school. It was a good summer, though. Very busy! Here were the highlights:

- Getting engaged! (of course)
- My DDR/Karaoke Revolution b-day slumber party
- Being a bridesmaid twice and all the time I got to spend with my girlfriends because of that
- Buying my wedding dress
- Eating free lunch every day at work (Okay, so it was the Bean, but it was still FREE!)
- Getting to see my adorable cousins when they came to camp
- Learning how to light a match (sad, but true)
- Holding Amanda's baby, Sidney, when she was only 4 hours old!
- Going to the DCI show in San Antonio with Darby

There were, of course, some not-so-great things about this summer, like how unbelievably hot our upstairs is, but overall it was really fun.

I find myself at the end of every summer getting depressed about all the things I had planned to do that I didn't. But I decided I should stop thinking that way and just think about the things I did do. So I didn't make our curtains upstairs. Would I want to give up any of the time I spent with my friends, family, and Darby in order to do that? No. I'm happy with how this summer turned out.

I'm so brave!

Today, I faced one of my greatest fears; I caught a gecko! Okay, it was with a cup, not with my hands, but that's good for me. I hate those things! I saw him last night in the bathroom. Darby was over, so he tried to catch him, but he went into a crack behind the sink. My mom said, "Oh, well; he's probably gone for good." Hannah, just trying to scare me said, "No, he'll probably show up in the shower tomorrow." Well, I forgot about it, but sure enough when I went to take my shower this morning, he was in the bathtub. It took me a while to get up my nerve, but I finally went to get a cup to trap him. I didn't think that was going to work, though, because of the sloped bathtub, so I went to get a big wad of paper towels. I was going to try to just pick him up with that, but I chickened out. Finally I talked myself into slamming the cup down on top of him. It took me about 7 tries, but I got him. Then I slid a folder underneath him and carried him outside and threw him out as far away from the house as I could get. He was actually kind of cute. He kept trying to climb up the side of the bathtub, but he would just slowly slide back down. Then he'd double-time it, and run up really fast, but he still fell down. That made me a little less scared of him, although my legs were still shaking. The whole process took about 20 minutes, but I did it all by myself. I was pretty proud!

On a totally unrelated note, Whitney's wedding was this weekend. It was beautiful. We had a fun time decorating, even though we were up to our elbows in real ivy. I'm going to attempt to post a few pictures from the weekend:

All the bridesmaids. Aren't we pretty?

Me and my handsome man! Won't be long till we're the bride and groom. Yay!

This is all of us gals from church. We all were in the same grade and have been really good friends since middle school. We've had some crazy fun times together! I hope they can continue, even though Whitney's an old married woman.

Here's me and the beautiful bride, Whitney. We've been friends since we were 6! I can't believe she's all grown up!

I don't know why the beginning of this post is underlined. Oh, well!

The worst job ever

I feel so sorry for the weathermen in Abilene. They have such boring jobs, especially in the summer. Every day it's hot, sunny, and windy. Brittany said they might as well just make a tape of one day's weather and replay it for the whole summer. They try to come up with cute little sayings to distinguish the days. When the high is 99, they say "Under 100!" Like 99 is so cool. Like you can really tell the difference between 99 and 101.

Sunday night there was a story on the news about how the Abilene mayor had asked all of the local churches to pray for rain. That story was followed by the weather. Poor Pete the weatherman! He looked so sad. He said, "Well folks, I have some bad news. Tomorrow's going to be another hot, dry day." It just broke his heart to have to tell everyone that their prayers weren't answered and no rain was in the forecast for at least seven days. I'm not saying that God can't make it rain, but I just thought it was poor placement to have the dry weather forecast right after the story of everyone praying for rain. It puts a lot of pressure on the weatherman to deliver some good news. But Pete usually doesn't let it get to him; he keeps smiling through it all. I love that guy.

A Colorful Lunch

I just had a very surreal dining experience. My boss, co-worker, and I went to Cypress Street Station, a nice restaurant in downtown Abilene, for lunch. It's a pretty fancy place, especially for Abilene. Well, we were enjoying our food, when one of the workers in the back started screaming at the manager. He was cussing him out, saying things like, "You don't (mess) with my daughter," etc. He must have said at least 15 cuss words before they pushed him out the back. This is a small restaurant, so EVERYONE heard. Afterwards, everyone was just silent for a few minutes. It was like being in a movie. Then, the manager came out and apologized to everyone. Our waiter kept apologizing over and over. I didn't think they had to apologize so much; it wasn't their fault. I just wonder what happened. Had the manager really slept with that guy's daughter, or was he just saying a bunch of stuff because he was angry? Anyway, it really was like something that would happen on a movie or T.V. show. And, hey, the food was still good, so who cares?