Dear Josh,
I just looked at my last post to see where I placed the cliffhanger on my blog, and I CANNOT believe that over a month has passed already. I’m serious. Time absolutely FLIES when you’re in this world. Only about three weeks until I get to stuff my face with turkey, two weeks of school after that (one of those weeks is Finals week), and then this semester is OVER. Unbelievable. Remember that when you are in college for me, will you? Don’t let the days swallow you up. Anyway, that is not I even what I wanted to write about really—I wanted to tell you about something new!
You will never believe it. I am mastering the art of two new talents! Okay, talent number one? Accumulating a stack of homework SO high that I could call it “The Leaning Tower of Pizzo” (Note: Dr. Pizzo is my social sciences professor, he is great, but needless to say the homework load is knocking my head off my socks). Talent number two? Spontaneous weekend fun-having. I think both of those talents are necessary for every Mucci that goes to college, so I am going to give you a heads up on acquiring them.
As for talent number one, that stack of homework is the central reason why you haven’t heard from me in quite some time. I’ve had tests, projects, quizzes, worksheets, and various other things to do for the school part. Plus, volunteering with the lovely forensics team at a local high school here in good ole’ Murray, attending two campus ministries regularly, going to meetings for my scholarship, keeping my fish alive, and trying to occasionally straighten up my room—to name a few things. This probably does not make college sound like the most exciting thing in the world, but mom sent me a text that said to “build in some crazy fun breaks”, so that is what I have been doing—especially on the weekends.
And that brings me to talent number two! (Did you see how I transitioned there? Pretty good, eh? Can you tell I’ve been writing lots of papers?) The weekends here in Murray can be completely relaxing, boring, and chill. The weekends here in Murray can be crazy, fun, and packed. The weekends here in Murray can even qualify as crazy, fun, and relaxing! Personally, I have been picking door number three for the past couple of weekends; however, these are not simply weekends I plan. No, these are weekends that occur SPONTANEOUSLY, and spontaneity is the best part.
 |
| Freshly sliced strawberries, puff pastries, milk chocolate chips, and marshmallow cream. Can you say heaven? |
Two weekends ago, my break started with a visit from mom for lunch, shopping, Footloose watching, dancing in empty theaters, and much-needed-chatting. From there Jonathan and I did the college kid thing and had a cheap date night--a night in. We played music, we brought frozen pizza, we borrowed the lovely Wesley campus ministry's kitchen, and we made THE MOST AMAZING DELICIOUS DESSERT EVER (without a recipe of course—we’re just THAT good). On Saturday, I woke up and helped judge a mock speech tournament and then went to help the group from the Wesley Foundation campus ministry prepare the lunch they were serving at a church the next morning. As soon as that wrapped up I ditched any inkling of an afternoon plan and headed to Paducah with my friends Tori, Jonathan, Meagan, and Craig.
 |
| Stuff it all together and a mouthwatering, sticky dessert makes date night a success! |
To understand the next sentence completely and fully you must stop reading here, close your eyes, and imagine a world completely void of Chik-fil-a. Are you hyperventilating yet? Now, with Paducah housing the closest delicious chicken haven we had to make a beeline for the place as soon as we hit the city. From there we shopped around until these signs drew our attention. We should have just kept walking, but we stopped. These giant, monster-filled signs in the center of the mall called everyone to speed over to a place called Talon Falls for a good time. With the reactions from nervous (Tori and I) to pumped (Craig) the plans were made to brave the haunted property right after we looked for Halloween costumes.
 |
| "Find a Happy Place, Find a Happy Place, Find a Happy Place... THIS IS NOT A HAPPY PLACE" |
Obviously one twist in the day just wasn’t enough because that day was a day to make marks on the ever-growing bucket list. With only EIGHT of these currently around, we were in for such a treat. Get ready for it…prepare yourself…WE ENCOUNTERED THE…………WIENERMOBILE!! Ridiculous, huh? So, with that experience fresh under our belts we headed to the haunted house. For the sake of teaching you something, I will now quickly share how the haunted house went even though I have tried to remove it from my memory permanently. I was excited through all of the lines—not getting myself too worked up. The group chose the five-star house (one being the least scary—five being the worst) and I continued to try and relax. We finally got into the house, entered an elevator, and my nerves went through the roof. Let’s just say that if you thought you were crying at the thought of no chick-fil-a, well, this was worse. Ripping one hand off of Tori, one off of Jonathan, and the ears off of anyone within a ten-mile radius. Tori (who was walking in front of me) even started threatening the “scary people” and telling them to “please don’t scare her”. Jonathan talked in my right ear saying “It’s alright, you’re going to be fine, we’re almost done, we’re almost done, you’re going to be fine, ect”, and whichever mean killer guy we were passing would growl in my left ear “you’re not fine, you’re going to die, you’re not almost done, you’re not getting out of here, ect”. Thank GOODNESS Jonathan was the shoulder with the angel on it and we made it out of the haunted house alive (note that I am not saying safe and sound). If you ever see me step in a city with a haunted house, kindly send me in the opposite direction.
 |
| We SEE you...our first "cache"! :) |
 |
| It was camouflage, good thing we practiced seeing things that blend in! |
Although that was a traumatizing experience, I managed to make it all the way to “halloweekend” and have had yet another “door number three” time. I went to two Halloween parties on Friday dressed as a nerd (I know, I know. “Maddie, you’re supposed to DRESS UP for Halloween—NOT go as yourself” hardeee-har-harr). One of them was for the Honors Program and one was with the Wesley group. From there I watched the Cardinals win the World Series (YES J) and then went to Applebees to watch a Wesley friend turn 23. The next day Jonathan and I decided to take on Geocaching together. We are going to find every single one in the Murray area before this blog is over. You just wait. Anyway, we took a Subway Buffalo Chicken sandwich to a park in Cadiz near Murray and after Jonathan shoved his half of the sandwich in and then proceeded to impatiently push me to finish my half we began the search. The weather was absolutely perfect, and I was hoping to get a ton of great pictures but they won't all fit on the blog. We searched for three different caches just to get our feet wet, I can tell we're gonna have to work at the "gotta catch 'em all" thing. It It was SUCH a beautiful day and I found a good Sonic to top off the loveliness. After a long, long nap, I went to a scary movie marathon (I survived without damaging any eardrums) and managed to sleep through the night.
 |
| Unfortunately we only found two out of three of the "caches". We did what any college student would do, we pouted. |
There you have it! Talent numbers one and two. Are you impressed? You should be. If THAT doesn’t impress you then pay close attention to my final thought before I have to get back to pounding the books. After I last wrote, one of my fish died and not wanting my sole-surviving fish to go crazy from being alone, I rushed to Walmart and picked up three more fish. The next day I had five fish. Woah! Hold up, WHAT? You had FIVE fish? One of your two fish died, so you had one fish. You went and bought three fish. You have five fish. One plus three equals five now? It’s pretty crazy—I ended up with five fish and I have no idea how! I am a fish breeder, a fish lover, a fish magician, a fish loser, a ghost-fish see-er, or maybe even a friend to imaginary fish. I am not sure which title I deserve, but I do know that I remember to feed them whether or not they are real.
Much Love,
Talented Maddie
