Two Weeks in a Second

These past two weeks have been so good to me, and yet so utterly and completely exhausting. And I've finally had the chance to stop and catch my breath to tell you alllll about them. Also, I've been on this "in bed asleep and do not dare try to talk to me at 10 o'clock every night" kick so my blogging time has been greatly reduced. But I just finished baking at 10:30pm on a school night [again] so I'm in the mood for some bloggage. Ready for it?

1) SB12
Remember me talking about going to the beach with the single coolest people you will ever meet here? Well I went and I was not disappointed.

View from my balcony. I mean I guess I can work with this.

The Seaside spring break newbie and myself.

Hatz. Beach wardrobe staple.

We also took advantage of the various balconies to spy on our friends like the mature 18 year olds we are.

They're my favs.

Meet Fluffy Israel, proud sponser of SB12 and YOLO

Meet the Joy Luck Club. We're going places.

Did I mention Mrs. Israel makes the best bread known to mankind?

Windblown-beach models. No biggie.

Story of my life.

The porch swing with my spring break ladies.

For seven days my only problems were deciding what to eat for breakfast/lunch, applying sunscreen (insert squirm here), and wondering if I needed to flip to my stomach while laying out. Also, Smives' family just redid their house and it was utterly GORGEOUS. Hands down one of my favorite houses on this planet. Also plus side of having the ballin' house: we left the house one time during the entire trip because everyone came to us. It was almost like our laziness was embraced because there was no way in hey that we would ever want to take the energy and leave. More importantly than the exceptional accomadations, the hosts (Mr. and Mrs. Israel and Smives) were the cat's meow.

2) My last tryout week. Now I'm officially done. No longer is Allison Ingram a Mountain Brook cheerleader.
[cue sound of the earth shattering.]
I spent my first Monday without a cheerleading practice working out, outdoor apparel shopping, and going on a grocery store outing where I argued in the dairy aisle with my brother about his insistance on purchasing 20 containers of yogurt that no one in my family eats. Not going to lie, I missed the controlled chaos of 32 girls in the estrogen-filled chamber that is the cheer room.
On tryout day, I experienced I different side of the tryout world that I knew existed but never actually understood. During the Varsity and JV tryout, my job was to open the door for the girls as they walked out of the gym, otherwise known as "Crisis Management." They could come in and jump up and down with excitement, start crying hysterically, collaspe, sprint down the hallway to get ice for suppressed injuries, or my personal favorite, launch into an blurred and rambling over analyzed account about how they spent the past 7 minutes of their lives. It was three hours of emotional hell that I had to regulate. At least after that followed by moving all three of the gigantic mats back into the cheer dungeon with 5 cheerleaders made the pain of that 2012-2013 squad list slightly more bearable.

Last uniform day selfies.

Best stunt group in the world.

Make it party.

3) Prom. Now, I understand that prom is a big deal at other schools, but at Mountain Brook, you get a cocktail dress, take pictures, go to the dance for 20 minutes, and go to the lake. GSG.
I spent 45 minutes getting ready, got jewelry/shoes earlier in the day, and watched Criminal Minds right up until I got picked up. And it was fun and everything, but I was so exhausted about having spring break, rush weekend, tryouts, and then prom that I'm just glad to have a second to breathe.

...Did we just go to our senior prom?

God bless America.



Prom=Lake.

 So Allison, how has the past week post-Prom and post-cheerleading been for you?
Fantastic.
I bake. I catch up on school work. I work out [if you consider watching Criminal Minds on the treadmill at the Y working out]. I hang out with my friends all afternoon. You could definitely say I'm living the good life.

OH GUYS! I totally forgot something HUGE. We're talking HUGE huge.
Last week, I spoke at first priority.
Yes, you heard right. I spoke in public for a whole fifteen minutes, and I only made up one word! Told you it was huge! I spoke about dwelling, and I'm sure my friends who hear me talk about dwelling all the time were about to run out as fast as they could but thankfully they stayed because heaven knows I needed the support. Basically, I talked about dwelling on things of heaven that will lift you up, rather than devoting your time and energy into things of this world that lead only to dissapointment and ruin. Once you focus that attention to God, He returns the favor and dwells in you. This has been one big lesson that I've been learning this year and so when I was deciding what to speak about I felt like I had to talk about this...especially since I feel like I have overanalyzed the concept to the point of no return.
Want to hear the best part though?
The whole time I was freaking out about speaking, I was concerned mainly with not throwing up and making coherent sense. It didn't occur to me that people would actually listen to me. Well apparently they did. One of my JV girls called me over before she was trying out, you know, when you're waiting in the cafeteria for the 5 minutes that decides your next year and all you want to do is pass out. She said, "Allison, I just started freaking out and making myself more nervous, but then I remembered to dwell on things that will build me up and it worked!"

Thank you God for these past two weeks. You were so good to me.

To the moon and back,
Allie

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." -E.E. Cummings