Snuggled up under the covers. After we woke up, but before I made the bed. I don’t even remember him going through the door. Sneaky. Don’t tell Jamal — the cats aren’t supposed to be in our room, let alone under the covers!
Once upon a time, Ruthie had a weekday off of work.
“Time to do all the errands I have been saving up!” she thought.
On the ‘To Do’ list was getting the tires rotated, getting new brake pads, giving some clothes up for consignment, getting the oil changed, getting her hair cut, and withdrawing all her money from one very unused bank account.
Looking back at it, the vast level of excitement Ruthie had about doing these things makes her feel a little bit like a very lame adult… But joy in the little things, right?
The day started out wonderful, after breakfast and a shower, it was time for an early morning oil change + Jiffy Lube coffee (yum!). It was a wonderful experience. The sweet man who helped her out not only made her feel like her car was a gem, but like she was a gem as well:
“May I say, you look ravishing today ma’am!” – random nice worker at the Jiffy Lube in Aiken
Yes sir, yes you may say that! Thanks! I certainly am ravishing, aren’t I?
After the oil change it was time for a hair trim at a beauty salon Ruthie had never been to before.
She looked for her phone so she could pull up Google Maps.
She couldn’t find it in her GIGANTUOUS purse.
Oh goodness, what is a millennial supposed to do without her phone on a day of errands??
But Ruth had confidence in herself. She was pretty sure the hair salon was near Food Lion.
So she drove to Food Lion. And drove around Food Lion. And drove around all the parking lots of all the shopping centers around Food Lion. And she had no luck. And she was already 1 minute late for her appointment.
So she went to the place she knew someone would help her: Herbal Solutions.
Earthy people who use many essential oils must be helpful and understanding of a girl accidentally leaving her technology device at home, right?
And they were helpful. You should shop there. Ruthie did; she bought some Castor oil, because she felt bad walking into their establishment and not purchasing something. But the price was much better than what she saw on Amazon, so hey!
The Herbal Solutions people pulled up the address of Ruthie’s hair salon on their Google Maps. It was by a Bi-Lo, not a Food Lion. Typical.
They also called the place for her to tell them Ruth would be late.
So sweet.
They even Ruthie a nick-name when she was rushing out of the door to make it to her hair appointment,
“Hey, Scatter! You left your Castor oil on the counter!”
‘Scatter’ – has a nice ring to it.
Ruthie, or Scatter as we shall now call her, made it only 10 minutes late to her hair appointment. They were so nice to receive her late, and did a wonderful job! Get your hair cut at the Beauty Shop in Aiken!
About 30 minutes later, Scatter pulled up to her Aunt’s consignment shop (should shop at Upscale Resale in Aiken). She was a little early for opening time, so she leaned on her car in the parking lot and decided to kill some time.
She brought out her GIGANTUOUS purse to get her planner out and start drawing some pictures or something.
As she was pulling the planner out, she noticed something… her phone!
Oh, irony.
The rest of Scatter’s day isn’t worth recounting in detail, but it was a very lovely & wonderful day for a lame adult like herself. The biggest perk was that she found out her brake pads didn’t need exchanging; evidently humidity creates squeaky brakes! Who knew?! Oh wait, the people at Tyler’s Tire in Aiken know. You should shop there.
I am so happy.
My baby neice, Brigid, said my name today.
“Poo-gal”
And she didn’t want to stop snuggling me all evening. ❤
I can’t even.
On another note, my nephews (4 yrs old & 7 yrs old) decided they really wanted to go to a haunted house for Halloween. So to convince them that haunted houses are a little scarier than they can handle at this time of life, Katie (my sister) and I made our own version of a haunted house – We turned off all the lights, hid in the upstairs of the house, and had the kids come look for us in the dark.
And look for us.
And look for us.
And then we jumped out at them and yelled,
“AHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
And they went,
“AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
Then they said silly things like,
“Please don’t hide again, Aunt Poogle! Oh, please!”
And then when they weren’t looking, I hid again, because I am heartless.
Being an aunt might just be one of my favorite things ever.
Michael turned 23 a few weeks back. And because last year we totally forgot to make him a Taylor Swift 22 music video, this year we just had to make him a birthday parody of Mike WiLLMade It and Miley Cyrus’ song 23. Ours is much more appropriate – I definitely do not endorse you watching the original (note: Michael chose the song, not us).
Lyrics were written at midnight (which is super late for grown ups like me and Chaela); I think late night silliness is super helpful for parody writing. Video was filmed from 7:30-9:00 am at our church – the pastor pulled in right as we were leaving… It was slightly hard to explain ourselves. Chaela’s high quality camera’s battery died mid-film, so we have bits of low-quality Ruthie camera shots intermixed.
Wild-Cherry Pepsi is Michael’s favorite, but Chaela and I don’t drink soda, so it all went to him. Lucky duck getting 2 presents.
We recorded the song in my dad’s music studio while he was on vacation. I have never received such clear instructions from him in my life, and it was over the phone! I enjoyed that bonding experience.
Katelyn is pretty much the best music guy/recorder you will ever meet.
This video is a little to embarrassing to post to Facebook, but I’m way too proud not to share it because it’s freaking awesome. And I spent a lot of time on it. So people who read my blog, you are the lucky ones who get to see this. You and Michael… we showed him too..
—
Side note: this is an impromptu post while I am at camp as a counselor and on time off. We just finished staff training, and tomorrow our first campers come!!! Could I write an entire post on staff training and how wonderful it was and how amazing everyone here is and how organized and intentional camp is and how wonderful and lasting an impact they have on so many underpriveleged and differently abled individuals??? Yes. I could write a whole post on that. But I don’t think my words could encapsulate everything. It would be like trying to take a picture of the moon or the curvature of the earth or a Clemson sunset. So instead I am choosing to show you the music video. Maybe next week I’ll try and reflect and give you an accurate depiction of what it’s like to be here and the growth that is going on in my heart. But as it is, this will have to do.
Much love,
Ruthie
Once upon a time, Ruthie’s mom was paranoid that all the banks would shut down, and she advised Ruthie to keep a large sum of cash hidden away in case terrible things happened.
So Ruthie put a large sum of cash in an ugly fuzzy sock. She kept this sock tucked away in her sock drawer.
“You are going to lose that,” said Autumn. “You should just put that in the bank”.
But Ruthie kept it in the ugly fuzzy sock that she never wore.
One month later, all the girls moved out of their apartment.
Boy, had they accumulated a lot of unnecessary junk over 3 years.
They filled 5 bags full of old puzzles, Halloween costumes, and socks to bring to the Salvation Army. Everyone got rid of a lot of stuff; they were all in a bind to get their things out of there by the deadline.
Ruthie put all her earthly belongings (minus her recent Salvation Army donations) into her parents’ truck and her cute little car, saying “bye bye” to sweet Clemson. She spent the next week unpacking all her things at her parents’ house. But as the week went by, Ruthie began to realize something horrible…She didn’t know where her ugly sock was.
She looked through every trash bag, every suit case, every box, but her large sum of money was missing.
“Oh my gosh… I think I must’ve donated it to the Salvation Army on accident!” Ruthie thought to herself. “I mean, I was in such a rush to move out, and that sock is awful ugly! I must have gotten rid of it.”
Ruthie felt horrible. She felt like the most terribly irresponsible person in the world. Young adult? Yeah right! Ruthie told no one about her predicament. With waiting tables all Summer, she would make up for her loss. No one had to know about her awful mistake.
But Ruthie has to share things with her girls! So one night, a few months later, Ruthie confessed to Katelyn and Chaela about her loss of the large sum of money. It felt good to get off her chest and to be able to laugh about it. Yes, Ruthie was terribly irresponsible, but life is more than money. Sometimes Ruthie freaks out about money too much, and this was God’s funny way of showing her that He is in control of such things.
Ruthie didn’t tell Autumn about her loss, because she was scared of what Autumn would think and knew Autumn would make fun of her (sorry Autumn, but you would have. You told Ruthie multiple times she wold lose it. And you know what? You were right!).
A few weeks later, Autumn came over to Ruthie’s house to help clean and organize Ruthie’s room. They wanted to hang a picture on the wall, so Autumn brought down Ruthie’s tool box to get the hammer and nails.
“Ewww, Ruth. You are so gross! You have an old sock in your toolbox. This better not be dirty!” exclaimed Autumn.
“Oh. My gosh, Autumn. That sock has a whole lot of money in it..” said a relieved, grateful, and shocked Ruthie.
And then Ruthie admitted the whole story to Autumn. And then she told her dad. Who told her mom, who was hopefully not too ashamed. And then Ruthie told you, because she’s crazy.
But don’t go searching through her sock drawer, because Ruthie brought that money to the bank (and gave some of it to charity. Because obviously, with a story like this, some of that money needed to go to charity!).
Moral of the story: It might be good to keep some money outside of the bank, but if you know you are prone to losing things, think twice about it!
Oh my gosh, Autumn is so weird. She talks to herself when she does her homework saying:
“Doy-a, Duii”
*Insert Scottish accent* “Then you plug in the one. Negative three, negative two, negative one”
*insert creepy voice here* “Ohh, it’s a negative number heh heh heh”
“I have problems and I know it”
*sing song voice* “equals x minus 1”
*Heavy breathing*
“END SCENE!”
*Mooooaaaannn*
But I love her very much. In fact, this might be a part of why I love her so much.
Facebook is pretty cool if you ask me. I know it’s not “in” anymore, and all the young, cool chickens have moved onto Twitter and Instagram… but y’all I’m still a Facebook kid. It’s great for planning events, stalking people, and looking back at sentimental photos.
There is something quite scary about the FB though: I’ve had mine since I was 12… This means someone can stalk me from when I was TWELVE. As weird as you think I am now, multiply that by 20, and that’s how weird I was at 12.
Tonight we had a big “back to school” /slash/ “eat spaghetti at our apartment” party, and somehow the activity of the night became lets look at Ruthie’s old profile pictures and laugh at them.
umm. Rude.
But can I blame them? They are pretty funny.
I’ll give y’all a little gallery of my favorites (disclaimer: they’re not all selfies.) :
I took selfies before they were cool. High school freshie Ruthie.
Chaela and I. Again, 9th grade. I forgot to put an apostrophe :O
Selfie in my Dad’s office chair, because I rock.
Karlee and I were some serious burger kings
I’m surprised Katelyn stayed my friend after I had this one as my profile pic… Going on 4 years strong of being roomies though. Forgiveness y’all: it’s a good thing.
Classic selfie on my deck at night in my pjs.
I hug trees. This is a 10th grade selfie, as you can see I am slightly more mature.
Also a 10th grade selfie. Like my faux fur? I borrowed Abbie’s vest.
Speaking of Abbie, she was not above taking “cool” selfies with me FYI.
So.Cool.
Okay. So I’ll stop now. I promise there’s a ton more, but I think this gives you a good glimpse into it.
Don’t judge me; I know you’re the same way. You duck face. You peace sign. I know it’s true, so don’t lie.
You should do like me and write a post about it so you look all light-hearted about your lameness. And then you should delete all those photos off Facebook, because let’s be real, they’re pretty embarrassing 🙂 Unlike those new selfies you take… Those are totally awesome.
Once Upon a time (*cough* yesterday *cough*),
Autumn and Ruth took a lovely stroll around a university that shall remain unnamed.They walked; they talked; they tried locked doors, and altogether had a glorious time on that empty summer campus. But on the way back to the parking lot, they saw something mighty suspicious…
A girl, who looked to be in her twenties, was trying to open the hatch of Autumn’s car, Oliver.
Now, Autumn and Ruth have both had those “oops I accidently tried to open this vehicle, but it’s not actually mine” moments, but this girl seemed excessively freaked out when she saw Autumn and Ruth walking her way. She quickly moved towards her boyfriend who was about twenty yards away and up to some suspicious activity himself.
He was hunched down and situated between two cars, one of which was quite nice and sporty looking. He had both of the cars’ doors open and appeared to be doing something in the driver’s side of the sporty one.
“They could have car troubles” Ruth thought to herself “Or they could be, you know, Hotwiring it!“
Autumn and Ruth walked with haste to Oliver, Ruth with her head down and Autumn observing everything, and they drove away.
“Should we call someone?” they debated.
“That was super sketch.”
After a few minutes, Autumn handed Ruth the phone with the university police number on it.
“Call if you think you should,” said Autumn, who has a strong sense of justice but is scared of making phone calls.
“Eh. Okay. What the heck,” said Ruth, whose sense of civic responsibility is rather small, but who also talks on the phone quite frequently.
She dialed.
As she awkwardly tried to explain the suspicious activity they observed using a lot more “ums” than necessary, Ruth heard the lady on the other line talking to someone else.
“Hold on, I think we have a witness to the theft on the phone!”
Next thing Autumn and Ruth knew, they were back at the college explaining to an officer everything they had seen. The officer took their heights, weights, hair and eye colors, addresses and phone numbers.
Turned out the car was stolen and then abandon, thieves unfound.
The description of the car takey people and their vehicle will not be disclosed, so that you don’t start suspecting your BFF Jill of being a car thief. (“OMG. Suzie has a tye dye shirt too… I’ve seen it.)
Autumn and Ruth drove home a bit later than expected that night, but they still made it to Panera before closing, and that’s all that matters.
They have still not been called to do a line-up, but Autumn and Ruth think that’s a good thing considering they probably wouldn’t recognize the law breakers anyways.
You may have heard the stories– the stories of Ruthie driving irresponsibly, at times putting herself or others in danger and damaging property. All of these stories occurred before this particular story- the story of how Ruth became a responsible driver.
“Let’s drive to Charleston, stay at your sister’s house and go to the beach!” suggested Autumn.
Ruthie was turning seventeen, and the beach seemed like a fun spontaneous way to celebrate, and fun and spontaneous it was!
The two young and untraveled girls made the three hour trek to Ruth’s sister’s place in Charleston. Sixteen-year-old Ruth was the anxious and excited driver. They had an uneventful drive (except for a casual U-turn or so), and made it safely there. That evening they played games, enjoyed the kiddos, ate delicious food- all the usual “Ruthie’s awesome family” activities.
Now I know this story seems to be going nowhere, but bear with me. Some serious shiznit goes down soon.
The next day was Ruthie’s birthday, so she and Autumn headed to the beach for the morning. Autumn was sunburnt, so she lathered in sunscreen, put on a t-shirt, stood in the shade and watched as Ruthie jumped up and down in the waves for an hour. This probably wasn’t too exciting for Autumn, but she was a good sport- it was Ruthie’s birthday after all.
But best friend, family, good food, and beach were not enough fun for Ruthie’s birthday. Oh no- Ruthie had to plan dinner with all the friends she could think of that night back in Aiken (where Ruthie is from). Dinner was set for 5 O’clock. This time was awful early- but they had to make it for half-priced sushi time at Redbowl!
So Ruthie and Autumn didn’t stay at the beach long, had a rushed but yummy lunch of homemade tomato soup, and headed out the door at around 2.
‘I got this! If we go straight to the restaurant from here, we’ll make it. Can’t be late, can’t be late, can’t be late.’ thought Ruth as they drove away. She knew if she sped just a little they should make it on time. Ruthie does not like to be late.
Soon it started to drizzle. Then rain. Then downpour torrentially.
So much for speeding a little… After an hour of this slow rain traffic, Ruthie was getting really anxious and upset. Things were not going according to plan- they were going to be so late. Everyone would be stuck waiting for them!
And then the sun came out.
‘I am going to make it’ thought Ruth, as she began to speed like a cheetah on Adderall. ‘Nobody drives on these country back roads anyways’.
But there was someone driving on those country back roads-
A cop.
Ruth’s heart leapt into her throat as she saw his car come into view, as she saw his lights flash red and blue.
He was not a happy man. Ruth had been going 23 mph over the speed limit.
“What would you have done if a deer had jumped in front of you going that fast?!” he demanded.
“Uhhh, died I guess…” replied Ruth stupidly. She was trying so hard not to cry, everyone says to cry when you get pulled over to get out of tickets, but Ruth would not. She was NOT going to cry in front of this man. Her pride would not allow it.
She succeeded in not crying in front of him. She also succeeded in getting $400 worth of tickets-$365 for speeding, and $35 for wearing her seatbelt under her armpit.
‘What are my parents going to think? How will I pay for it? The insurance is going to go up even more? What if I had killed us? Autumns parents are going to freak! No way we’ll make it in time now.’
Ruth had to stop by the nearest Burger King to cry, gain some composure, and call her Dad.
*sniff sniff* “dadeeigottaticketaahhh”
“Who is this?”
“itsMEigottaticket. IwasSPEEDINGstupidbad.” Cry cry cry
“Hahaha! Well pull yourself together before getting on the road again!”
Ruth’s dad thought it was kind of funny… Autumn did too- she had never seen Ruthie cry before, so it was a very pivotal moment of their relationship. Autumn took videos so they could keep the memory alive…
Ruthie drove the speed limit all the way to Redbowl, where they met Katelyn for dinner. Katelyn didn’t mind meeting at 6:00 instead of 5:00, and everyone else had bailed anyways. Ruthie had a good birthday dinner with friends, despite paying full price for sushi.
The three girls slept at Ruthie’s that night. Ruth drank away her sorrows with sparking grape juice (really- sparkling grape juice. Not a euphemism for some other special drink.), as she processed the days lessons and thanked God for great friends.
From that day forward she was a responsible driver, whom any passenger can trust with their very lives. She also became more easy-going, and stopped wearing her seatbelt under her armpit!
This post written for the Weekend Funny Challenge. Hopefully it turned out to be atleast slightly humorous! If not I can always post the video of Ruthie crying and calling her father…
Ruthie Rambles 