I fear for the wellbeing of little Stevie Williams

I had forgotten:
Just how much I love driving, though I could have imagined.
Just how brilliantly my friends and I click. I love them and I can't imagine living without them.
How my body reacts when I don't get enough sleep. And maybe it had something to do with the crazy driving and delayed reaction to leaving Ames, but I, as I sit in the Moline, Illinois airport, feel like shit.
But let's catch up a little bit on what's been going on in my life for the past week. It's been a doozie.

Christmas was spent at home with the family. It would have been nicer if my brother hadn't tried to poke out one of my ribs. My mom had made me a t-shirt quilt of some of the shirts I'd picked out from my high school days. It's ginormous. Huge. Bigger than possibly a king size. It'll be wonderful when I finally have a bed big enough to use it on. It's funny how my comforters and quilts are anticipating the upgrade, but the bed hasn't made it there quite. I CAN'T WAIT.

Drove up to my grandparents in Laurens for that family's Christmas with my mom. On the Saturday with the ice. 5+ hours. Never again. I love Monty, but even he couldn't make the small hell I put up with better.
Got to hang out with my Grandma, Grandpa, uncle, the other lawyer aunt and uncle (who inevitably gave me advice I don't want to listen to) and my little cousin, who pretty much adores me. It's cute.
My aunt got a call that she had to go back to Phoenix on Monday. As I was headed out anyway, I drove her there, getting part of my driving bug out of my system.

To Ames!!! A smaller selection of summer friends than I thought would be there, but nonetheless, it turned out to be a pretty rocking (nearly literally?) week over New Years. Now I'm not saying we were super excited, we got the drinking bug out of our systems pretty early on, but just hanging out, being ABLE to be boring is all part of it. Sex in the City marathon, the movies, sledding, making suppers, the New Years Eve party, girls night... **awesome**

I got to see a lot of people I wanted to, though some of them not nearly as much as I would have liked (Miss Carrie Bradshaw, there is a finger pointing in your general direction), but I have to make the most of what I do get with them. (I hope that doesn't sound hypocritical). Everything that was planned to happen did, which is kind of amazing. I thought the sledding wouldn't happen for a bit, but of course, I even have battle scars from those runs down death hill.

Of course I didn't want to leave. Not at all. But that's not exactly a choice for me at the moment. But of course defying my parents is always a choice, so we ended up leaving Ames pretty late and running with the ice storm all the way home. Most of the way it wasn't too bad, but then along about Stanwood, I don't know whether it was ice or Monty or both, but I went about 20mph for awhile. Not fun. The fun part came in the one driveway where I got about halfway up, tried to stop, and slid back out into the street... sideways. And that's after sliding past the first time. hahahaha, I love driving. I drove in nearly everything except sunny weather this break. Ice, rain, fog, blowing snow, snow, partly cloudy. Let me tell you, the partly cloudy was pretty tough going for awhile! :-)

But after packing and being driven to the airport at 3 in the morning, the trip to Boston was pretty uneventful. I tried to sleep. It didn't work too well, so I'm in that kind of soul-deep cold that I get when I haven't slept enough. Which is reasonable, I haven't slept since I got up yesterday at 11am. Plus I have the slight flight hangover, where I kind of feel crappy after getting off the plane mixed in with the awful feeling of missing people in Iowa immensely. Haven't eaten since last night either, but I still feel like puking. Vundebar. We'll see how soon it passes this time. Usually the transition is about 2 weeks.

Blargh.

Next stop, spring break!!