A few years back I started to have issues sleeping, so sometimes I will wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to fall back asleep for hours. After like 30 minutes of trying I usually stop and try to do something productive, sometimes its just watching a movie, but other times I will do homework or journal. Well tonight is one of those nights so I figured I would write another blog post.
So I was thinking about the best way to format this blog revival and I think the best starting point is trying to catch everyone up to speed on my life by introducing its key characters first!
Well, to start there's me! Right now I'm exactly 7,139 days old (so 19 1/2). I'm already a second semester sophomore in college at Christendom and I'm mentally preparing myself for the rest of my life. But seriously, I have the closer friendships at this point in my life than I can say I have ever had. Yes, my St. John's squad from high school was very close in its last two years and I am still am close with my two best friends but other than that we don't hang out except for a few times a year when I am home, which is sad but it's life. I suspect we will all always be friends but now we have to rely on texting and social media more to keep in touch since we don't have the parish as a common spot anymore. Speaking of my two best friends I will introduce them next!
Serena Hoernig is probably the most sweet innocent childlike person you will ever meet. And I mean that in an entirely complimenting way. She and I met when we were in seventh grade preparing for Confirmation. At the time, we became friends because we were next to each other for height order for the procession in and out of the Church, well I grew in high school and so did she, just not merely as much. But I am extremely grateful for this period of my life where I was short since I got to meet one of my best friends because of it. We were stuck to each other like glue in high school: youth group, mission work, sleepovers all the time. Now, we just see each other whenever we are home from college as Serena is now a sophomore at Christopher Newport University double majoring in Math and Music and hopes to be an elementary teacher post graduation.
Theresa (Tt) Crnkovich gives the best advice on the planet. A year younger than Serena and I but probably the most mature of the three of us. She has her head on straight and is always there for encouragement and rationale. We are as close as sisters and attempting to legalize that aspect. I am very lucky to have her at college with me and lives directly above my dorm room, which makes it a convenient tap on the ceiling to get her attention. I'm kidding. Instead I text her to get her butt down to my room. We also meet back in the days of middle school after Mass one day. We thought we were instant friends but we didn't truly understand the definition of our friendship until we were older and closer.
Annemarie Speer, well this insanely crazy girl and I met through Tt my sophomore year of high school. Her family was coming into town for the March for Life 2013 and needed a place to stay. And thus this perfectly odd stranger showed up on my front doorstep. By the end of three days, I was so upset to have to say goodbye. The commute to and from Sarver, PA became a familiar one to me the years before college started. We had a tradition of me going up for Annie's birthday which lands on New Year's Eve, but sadly the tradition only lasts two years before we both landed ourselves at Christendom and wanted to spend the time with family. But our adventures are far from over. We dominated the softball field together during the spring and rock out on the dance floor together making fools of ourselves whenever humanly possible. Who knew this stranger would become one of my closest friends.
And then there's Miss
Mary Katherine Mooney. And this picture had to be used since MK never goes anywhere without her camera. It's her prized possession and she takes the best photographs I have ever seen. She hails from Lake Wylie, South Carolina and is a genius. We met on the third or fourth day of freshmen year at Christendom, I don't really remember how (neither of us do) but us and
Mary-Grace Handy quickly became a trio first semester. But that faded second semester as we all went our separate ways in friend groups, never leaving each other but we were part of different groups now. But come sophomore year, we grew super close again. Living two doors down the hall, does that to people. We have spent many a nights sitting up talking and saying, for over an hour, that we need to go to bed but never want to drop the conversation we were having.
Ahhh,
Katarina Schwake, what would Christendom be without you? Freshmen year we lived across the hall from each other and we said hi in the bathroom. That was all. Well, at least it was for the first two months, we were invisible to each other. Until the Sunday after Homecoming where we bonded over the latest couple gossip (I mean we are teenaged girls after all) And second semester, we became inseparable. I lived in her room more than I lived in my own. We would make smoothies, go to Martins' at all hours of the early morning, laugh until we were rolling on the floor crying (or screaming Southernly). She graced me with her presence for my 19th birthday and spending the whole weekend down in Maryland. I guess I need to venture to New York next. Anyways, she and I, we are tight yo!
Meet
Ali Van Sambeek, who was still Ali Kremer when I first met her in high school but now she is all married and has that gorgeous baby girl,
Tilly, that you see asleep in her arms. Ali used to volunteer for my youth group when I was a sophomore and junior in high school while she was going to Christendom's graduate school for her masters in Theology. She became like a big sister to me, someone who I could seek advice from. For this past fall break, I got the chance to fly out to Hermosa, South Dakota and stay with her and her husband for a week. It was truly a blessed experience and I got a glimpse at married life. And she is the perfect role model to get to watch and I look forward to many more trips to South Dakota as Tilly grows up and even more little ones join the picture.
Nate Reyes, don't remember how we met. Just that we both had Dr. Tsakanikas for Theology and I showed up at this study group for Midterms and determined it wasn't going to be productive so I left. So that basically would have been my only experience with him. Except second semester, we were in the same friend group and thus forced to become friends, just kidding. Nate is hilarious! We share a love for Christendom's theater "department" if you can call it that. Although we have been in all three plays together, it wasn't until the most recent one,
The Crucible, that it meant anything. Lots and lots of hours spent learning lines and discussing the latest theater drama (always in abundance).
Never have I met a person that makes me laugh as hard as
Luke Majewski does. This kid is the source of entertainment of our entire friend group. His laugh is quite unique and can be recognized from across campus. Although he is the oldest of our friend group, he often refers to me as his mom which always makes me chuckle seeing as he is a whole year older than I. But he definitely adds a distinct dynamic to our friend group which would be absent otherwise. The ability to carry on a conversation no matter the circumstances. And to obsess over girls with blonde hair, although he plans on entering a monastery at the end of the summer. And of course, no one can rock the dad bod like Lukey-Poo.
Jeremy Mersch is the practical one of all of us. The handy dandy boy scout, who never was part of boy scouts. (Luke was though) Thanks to him we get delicious pancakes when we go back to my house for meals and his grilling skills were a highlight of camping. Jeremy and I first met in Latin 199 Study Group but that quickly ended as we were the only ones who would show up and we weren't much help to each other, that is except for my study guides that were clutch for midterms and finals. Too bad we didn't know how to memorize 17 pages of translations. But we survived and moved onto bigger and better things...well Professor Hahn's class, but I don't know if you can call that a better thing. Jeremy often gets roped into my schemes for tech crew and has to build all the structures I design, but that's okay. He does so willingly...well if you bargain with coffee and donuts for the early morning start that is.
The youngest of all, even younger than Tt, falls
Emily Farabaugh. But she is the most mature 18 year old that I have ever met. Emily was roommates with Mary Katherine and Mary-Grace first semester freshmen year so I was constantly in her room and so we would carry out little conversations here and there. But it wasn't until she joined my yearbook staff that the two of us became close. I honestly don't know what the yearbook would have done if she didn't join the staff. Emily became my lifeline every time a deadline would approach and she provided the necessary encouragement when staff members had failed to reach expectations. Now she has been promoted to an editor and still serves me well in that role! She is also my paper writing buddy, we can often be found with coffee or hot chocolate in our mugs plugging away at a paper that is most likely due the next morning and then we'll reward ourselves with an episode of Downton Abbey once the task has been completed. But for the two of us, our biggest adventure is still ahead. Emily and I will be travel buddies before the Rome Semester commences, traveling to Austria, Czech Republic, England, Scotland, and Ireland, and I can't wait. I have already written a fairly detailed list of places to visit.
So that about wraps up my closest friends as of sophomore year. But there are truly so many more that I wish I could write every single detail about. But these kiddos will appear in most of my stories and adventures and therefore were the most important to introduce. I hope you liked all the little tidbits, I sure do!
At the end of October we headed off to Trout Pond National Park in West Virginia. We had three loaded down cars and enough food to feed an army. Going grocery shopping in and of itself was an adventure. Since I am a crazy planner, I figured out a meal plan for the weekend ahead of time. And then Jeremy, Emily, and I hit up three different stores to get the best bargains on everything: Costco, Walmart, and our Front Royal favorite, Martin's. Jeremy had never been to a Costco and his reaction to everything was priceless. It was like a little kid in a candy store. After getting all stocked up we became master packers with the cars. Who know it took so much stuff to take eleven people camping for the weekend. I honestly don't think that Tyrone (my handsome Jeep Liberty) had an inch of free space with all the camping gear along with me, Jeremy, and Emily and our respective crap. But luckily the drive was just under an hour and a half, so we weren't squished for too long.
The sleeping arrangements were as followed: the five girls snuggled for warmth in the big tent. And then there were the two tents that contained all the snoring. Jeremy and Joe slept in Jeremy's pub tent. And Nate, John Paul, and Luke cuddled together in the third tent. Sully had opted for the hammock when we first arrived on site. Which went fine on night one until the wind picked up around 5am. And then there was an unfortunate incident with the hammock and it ripped on Saturday. So on Saturday night he chose to sleep in his minivan instead of squeezing in with Jeremy and Joe. All and all everything worked out fine and we all stayed warm throughout the night.
Saturday was a day full of adventure as we hit the lake when we woke up. We had bought bait on our way in and the boys were so excited to catch something to fry up for lunch. But it was a flop. We didn't catch a single thing. I don't think we even had a nibble all day long. But we had fun trying and then we all climbed up on the big rock formation at the other end of the lake and sang songs to two old men fishing across the lake.
