Collard Greens Are Gross and That Baby Has A Gun.

It's natural to give thanks.

You know what's better than one thanksgiving meal?
Two thanksgiving meals.

My family hosted lunch at our house, then we headed to my grandmother's house for dinner.

This is a list of food I ate yesterday in no particular order:

Macaroni and cheese
Sweet potato casserole
Turkey
White rice
Brown rice (I'm not racist)
Gravy
rolls
deviled eggs
stuffing
more gravy
broccoli
Ham
collard greens (They were gross...my mom made me try them)
Pumpkin pie
Gravy
Pecan Pie
A couple of M&Ms (they were in a bowl on my grandmothers coffee table)

I realize that's an embarrassingly long list....but I skipped breakfast, so it's okay.

My mother's side of the family came over for thanksgiving lunch.  In the middle of eating, I look up to see my baby cousin Eva standing on the stairs holding my brothers rifle.  It's a good thing it's broken, because she is very feisty and it would not have ended well.  My uncles and brother argued about football and something about Joe Montana and the civil war.  My aunt and I stole my cousin's phone and changed her background to a picture of my tongue and recorded farting sounds and set it as her ringtone.
My big brother and I pinned down our little brother to the ground and force fed him broccoli.  We watched Little Rascals and Love Actually as our food digested.


I love thanksgiving for many reasons, but if I had to pick one,
it would probably be because there is a chance that I will see a 3 year old with a gun on my staircase.


I love my family.

I'm Feeling a Bit Sentimental

It's natural to change.


There is a beautiful tree near my dorm. 
It was nothing really special when I first got here.
 It was just a normal tree. 
Brown. Green. Bark. Squirrels. 
Then autumn showed up and changed the tree.
It is now sheltered by the most magnificently yellow leaves.  The ground below it, once dead grass, is now covered with a lovely yellow dusting.  You can't even see past the brilliance of the leaves to the dead ground.  I suppose this splendor was in the tree all along, but it took time to reveal the truth of it's nature.


Before you look away, look again. 

Time reveals the unexpected. 

Words and Pie

It's natural to not know what the heck you are doing.


If you are a college student, you could probably pay off your student loans if you had a nickel for every time someone asked you the infamous question,


"What's your major?"


My major is currently English.  I definitely get mixed reactions when I tell people that.  Some say things like "Good, good. That's great! I love literature." or "Oh, cool! So could you write my next paper for me?" What do people expect me to say to that? Yes, of course I will, I've been waiting for you to ask?


Others ask me, quite snidely,  "English, huh? What are you going to do with that?"


Don't think I don't see past your thinly veiled insult, you practical ninny.


What I really want to say is, "Um, I don't know, what are YOU going to do with your political science degree? Become the president? Do you know the percentage of people that actually BECOME president? Like, less than a tenth of a percent, kay?"

I don't actually say that though, because that is a tad cheeky and that percentage makes no sense.  I smile and tell them that I aspire to be a writer.  If I could get paid to write about funny and occasionally serious things and also bake pies, that would be ideal.  Practical? No. Awesome? Yes. An artist of words and pastries, if you will. People like Mark Twain and J.K. Rowling did okay for themselves, but they are apart of a very small club. And I'm sure J.K. Rowling bakes a mean English muffin.


There are many things I wish to do with my life, but if I had to condense it down to two main things, I would have to say I want to:


1) Have kids
2) change the world


First I need to find a husband (not anytime soon of course), which shouldn't be so hard, right? Like Tom Hanks says in You've Got Mail, "Oh right, yeah, a snap to find the one single person in the world who fills your heart with joy."
After that it's just science.


As far as changing the world goes, I'm still brainstorming on that one. 
 But hopefully it will involve words and pie.
Stay tuned.

Cry Me A River

It's natural to cry.


Everyone cries sometimes.  Everyone except Fergie, according to her hit "Big Girls Don't Cry."  But what does Fergie know anyway?  The only thing she ever did right was marry Josh Duhamel, on account of his ridiculous good looks.  Also Fergalicious.  That song was pretty catchy.


So I am a college student now.  That's still weird to type, and I've been here nearly three months.  One interesting and slightly inconvenient thing about being in college is that there is nowhere to hide.  I don't mean hide from the cops or stash the hash or anything like that, I simply mean there is no hiding who you truly are to the people you live with.  My fantastic roommate Joy has seen me on my best days and on my darkest days.  She took care of me when I was sick, and she makes sure I don't waste my life away watching youtube and wikipedia-ing famous people (and succeeds 86% of the time.) As a result of the close proximity of our living situation, several 3rd floor Belk-ers (Belk is the building I live in) have see me cry.  Perhaps it is just me, but I feel your relationship with someone slightly changes once you see them cry.  Tears are tangible emotions that drips down your face and make you all wet and vulnerable.  My closest friends know that I hold to a strict "no one cries alone policy," just like Dolly Parton in Steel Magnolias.  Seeing the people I care about the most in pain makes my face start to leak, I simply can't help it.  And the excuse "I'm not crying, it's just raining on my face" never works....just speaking from personal experience.


I am a self admitted crier, but lets get one thing straight, I'm no sissy.  Believe me, I grew up a tomboy.  I don't carry a monogrammed handkerchief around or anything, but I am known to get teary eyed from 
time to time.


Here are some examples.

Times I've cried and it's kind of embarrassing; The part of the blog where I write about times that I have cried, and it was kind of embarrassing.

I cried when I got my college shots.  I am 18 years old.  The buzz lightyear bandaids really helped me cope with it.


I cried when Jim proposed to Pam from The Office.  Yes, I realize Jim and Pam are fictional characters.  Technically, anyway. In my world they are very much alive.


I cried when my oldest friend Allison graduated.  I got made fun of for days, but I was just so proud of her I didn't care.  Even now, writing this, I am tearing up just thinking about how much she means to me.  Is that slightly pathetic? Maybe. But Allison would understand.

There is a line from the movie Garden State that Natalie Portman says that has always stuck with me.

 "What do you do? You laugh. I'm not saying I don't cry but in between I laugh and I realize how silly it is to take anything too seriously. Plus, I look forward to a good cry. It feels pretty good."

Natalie Portman was right.


Plus she's got a great name. 

Martin Luther is a Boss.

It's natural to make lists.

Today in British Literature, my professor was teaching on the sixteen century.  We started discussing Martin Luther and his 95 theses, when I suddenly realized something.

Martin Luther is a champion.

He knew what he needed to do and he did it.  He wrote down all these complaints and issues he had against the church, and instead of just pegging them on a cork board in his office, he went down and NAILED the thing to the door of the church.  That got me thinking about things I want to do with my life, so for the next hour of lecturing, I wrote my bucket list. I like to think Martin Luther had one too. This is what I've got thus far, in no particular order:

1. Get a drink and/or sandwich named after me.
2. Try out vegetarianism for a month, then eat a huge steak
3. Get published
4. Run to and kiss the boy I love in an airport
5. Learn how to drive stick shift
6. Successfully complete an entire Harry Potter marathon
7. Buy a pet owl
8. Speak in front of the church
9. Knit a sweater and wear it in public
10. Go to Greece
11. Read War and Peace
12. Go on a road trip across America
13. Drive to Charleston just to see the sun rise
14. Meet John Krasinski
15. Have a conversation with Rob Dyrdek
16. Send an incredibly creepy family christmas photo to everyone I know
17. Write a movie script
18. Study in London
19. Write for NBC
20. Swim with dolphins
21. Rollar blade around campus for a whole day
22. Go bridge jumping
23. Get a meaningful tattoo
24. Convince someone giraffes aren't real
25. Punch someone in the face (for good reason)
26. Quit a job, then say "You don't know how high I can fly." Michael Scott style
27. Got to Lake Lure, NC, the place where Dirty dancing was filmed, and swim in the lake and walk on the log that Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey danced across.
28. Go to the 500 Days of Summer bench, and draw on someones arm
29. Go on a "dinner, dancing, drinks" date
30. Own season tickets for a college basketball team
31. Learn how to fence
32. Sing "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton in a karaoke bar like Lorelai Gilmore
33. Write a song and play it on the guitar
34. Buy a record player and listen to records while smoking a pipe
35. Solve a rubik's cube
36. Do mission work in Africa
37. Learn how to play the piano
38. Be a troubadour for a day
39. Go to a film festival
40. Fly first class
41. Watch someone perform Beat Poetry
42. Go to and participate in a drum circle
43. Spy on someone with Jabez Waters, and NOT get caught
44. Dedicate a book to my father
45. Somehow show my mother how much I appreciate her
46. Go a Justin Bieber concert
47. Eat more donuts than Connor Morvay in one sitting
48. Go to the opera
49. Take Katie Waters to New York
50. Love. Period.


Those are all the ones I'm willing to post on the internet.

What's on your bucket list?

Tick Tock, you're Not a Clock. You're a Time Bomb.

It's natural to feel sad.
You know that look that people give you when they know something really bad has happened to you?  People look at you like you this ticking time bomb, about to explode into tears and emotions and get it all over their new jeans.  But really, it's just the opposite.  You feel as though you are about to quietly disappear, as if the slightest wind could knock you over and that would be the end of it.  Like you are the last leaf left on a tree during fall, and the only thing holding you together is the promise of spring. The great thing about emotional turmoil is that you get excellent material for writing out of it (see above sentence, pretty good right?) I may just crank out a top 40 hit as well. Besides, the longer I live, the more I realize God knows exactly what he is doing. Ergo, no fear.

This one's for you, Beth.

It's natural to have irrational fears.

I am now a college student.  While reflecting on this new adventure in my life, I am reminded of why I get to go to college.

Her name is Beth.

"Who is Beth?"
 you may ask,  or "what does this mysterious Beth have anything to do with Natalie's ability to pursue higher education?"

Let me explain.

When I was in middle school, my youth group took a trip to Daytona Beach, Florida.

The day of the incident had the appearance of a normal day.  Foreboding clouds painted the sky.  Buzzards encircled the hotel.  I swear I saw what looked like a dementor outside my window.

Okay, so none of that actually happened....which is why we never saw it coming.

As the time for our worship meeting approached, me and five other girls walked down the hall to the elevator, pushed the button, and boarded what I would later referred to as "the death machine." The elevator started moving up, as one would expect, when suddenly it shook violently and abruptly stopped.

We all said the first thing that came to our mind;

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"WE'RE GOING TO PLUMMET OT THE BASEMENT!"

"WE'RE ON THE FIRST FLOOR YOU IDIOT!"

"I DON'T WANNNA DIIEEEEE!"

I'm paraphrasing, of course.

We frantically pushed more buttons as fear gripped our hearts.  Nothing worked.  We were in a standstill limbo of death in this evil transportation box.  I didn't want to die, I hadn't even been to high school yet!  I still had to walk in a LINE down the hallways at school; a fact that seemed too depressing to dwell on.

We were all in a panic, when suddenly we realized there was another person outside of our party in the elevator.  She was a short women, appeared to be in her forties, and looked as though she weighed about 90 pounds.  This is perhaps why we didn't notice her initially, seeing as though she was about the size of Dobby the house elf.

"It's going to be alright ladies, we will be out of here in no time," she said soothingly as she reached for the telephone built into the elevator (which of course none of us had noticed).  She talked calmly to the manager explaining our situation.  She told us her name was Beth. We watched in awe as this angelic woman singlehandedly plotted our escape from the perilous death box, and what seemed like hours later, the doors finally opened to freedom.

As we all piled out of the elevator, we swore to her that we would all somehow repay her for saving our lives. My first book will be dedicated to Beth.  And probably my first child, boy or girl. Or dog.

Looking back, I think we were stuck in the elevator for 8 minutes. At tops.

But for now, I raise my water bottle to you Beth, for I am currently in the library attempting to study for my Spanish test tomorrow.

Muchos gracias Beth.