flashbacks and baked goods

i guess the o-house girls really took that last blog post to heart. look at our trash can now:

it's march! what better way to celebrate than with a blog post? i absolutely love march for the following reasons:

1. march madness.

*i'm fully aware that i'll get crap from everyone but abby about this. i don't care. rock chalk.

2. my half-birthday is the 17th. (just in case you're the type of person who gives half- birthday gifts.)

3. sprrrrrrriiiiiinnnnngggg break! here's a flashback to yesteryear:

*jayne, SB will not be the same this year. but please come visit the o-house soon!

*o-house and friends in chi-town. good one, becca.

4. it's not february.

not that february wasn't great for the o-house girls. it was just very cold. inside and outside... (ahem, sydney.) but the chilly weather gave us an excuse to stay indoors and practice our baking skills (a.k.a. man-catching skills):

*blackberry cobbler. recipe courtesy of pioneer woman. mmmmm.

*mocha pie. also courtesy of pioneer woman. super rich and delicious. thank you to kelsey fink for making sure we mixed it for the full 20 + minutes.

*that's right. we're foxy and we make pie.

i don't think i saw jennie hull at all in the month of february. i was about to send out an amber alert, but luckily she appeared the other day. apparently she's been spending all of her time boiling eggs and running.

speaking of jennie hull, here’s a little o-house flashback to last semester. this is a new blog segment i like to call classic moments in o-house history:

now back in the golden era of the o-house, when toby lived here, syd was going out of town for the weekend. she was positively freaking out that we were going feel burdened by toby, or worse, forget to take care of him. in typical sydney fashion, she brought it up at least a dozen times and jennie and i assured her that we didn’t mind at all and that toby would be in mint condition when she got back.

so she left.

about five hours later it occurred to me that i hadn’t seen toby. i did a quick search, couldn’t find him, and concluded that jennie must have taken him somewhere.

a couple hours later, they still weren’t back. and keira and i got a little worried and went downstairs, where we found jennie, but no sign of our canine friend. it quickly became clear that jennie did not have toby, had never had toby, and that toby was long-gone from the o-house premises.

we hypothesized that he had somehow gotten untied in the backyard. by our calculations, he had been gone for up to seven hours, and was probably halfway back to Wichita. we frantically called syd, who had turned off her phone. naturally.

the obvious next course of action was to get in jennie’s convertible, put the top down and drive all over manhattan yelling:

“toby! toby! toby! toby!” and

“toby, come back to the o-house. we love you!” and

“toby, we have a delicious treat for you!” and

“TTTTTTOOOOOOBBBBBYYYYYYY!”

*clearly a post- search party reenactment on the porch.

no response. no sign of him. we finally had to concede defeat and head back to the o-house, where keira had a cake burning in the oven.

i started bracing myself for syd's reaction when she found out that toby was, in all likelihood, deceased. and then i thought about all the other millers and how they weren’t going to be too happy either. after all, syd’s dad once had one of their other dogs AIR-LIFTED to save its life.

so we sat around for awhile, eating burnt cake and reminiscing about toby’s life, and trying not to imagine him dead in a ditch somewhere, or lured into a stranger’s van.

and then my phone rang. it was bethany brabec, who was with syd. here’s a transcript of the conversation:

“bethany! ohmygosh. aaaaahhhh!”

“did you think you lost toby?”

“huh? what? no, WE DID LOSE TOBY!”

“no, you didn’t. syd left him with ashley for the weekend.”

“what?”

“yeah, she forgot to tell you.”

“that little-“ end of transcript.

and there you have it, the first of many classic o-house moments in history .

oh speaking of ashley, as an o-house BFF, she deserves a shout-out. we love her not only because she makes waffles in the shape of barnyard animals, but also because she took the o-house family pictures this year. and she is loud/hilarious/superhot:

ashley: come to the o-house more often. and bring your waffle iron and camera!

member of the week: sydney freaking miller

so you know how sometimes there’s a lot of trash in the trashcan, and instead of taking the trash out, people just keep piling stuff on top? and then you go to throw something away and the whole thing’s overflowing with banana peels and used Kleenex and other unpleasantries. and you say to yourself, “ugh. why do people do that? why don’t they just take out the trash?” but then to prove a point you go ahead and strategically place your trash on top… oh, that’s just the o-house?

well we were in such a state last week. i am fairly certain that the trash needed taken out for a solid three days. i know because there was no room for my empty cereal box, so i just put it back in the cupboard. sometimes its not that we’re lazy, it’s just that we’re busy. (but mostly, we're lazy.) and that’s when i decided that whoever took out the trash would be the o-house member of the week. guess who it was:

not sydney miller.

no, it was our very own abby trammel. i should have seen that one coming a mile away. abby has already been the o-house member of the week and therefore is ineligible to receive the honor again. sorry abs.

so i chose an alternative member of the week, who is equally deserving. that’s right:

SYDNEY MILLER.

there are any other reasons that syd deserves roommate of the week. i texted the other o-housers to see what they thought needed to be included in this post. here are a few responses:

“i think it is of vital importance that the capital of Australia was named after our very own sydney miller. and heath ledger and surfing came from there.” – jennie hull

“gotta do something about b**** week.”—abby trammel ( this is, of course, a term coined by sydney. and if you don’t know what it is, sorry. i have to keep this PG.)

now, obviously there are about 293418892 things about sydney that should be included in this post, but i don't have time to write all of them, and you don't have time to read them... unless you have no life. so instead of typing out a long list of syd's best attributes and idiosyncrasies, i am instead sharing her semi-fictitious daily schedule, which should give you a pretty clear indication of how wonderful she truly is. i now present:

a day in the life of sydney miller

6:38 am: wakes up

6:52: out the door

6:54: grabs some starbucks

7:00: prayer at the middle school

7:42: back at the o-house, making herself look like an adult

8:15: back to starbucks

*note: sydney doesn't dress like this on a regular basis. i'm merely proving the point that the girl loves her some starbucks.

8:28: starting the day at meadowlark, hanging out with all of her 87 year-old BFFs

9:30: meeting about what kind of jello to serve

12:30 done at meadowlark for the day… still no decision on the jello

12:38 lunch at the o-house, puts bagel bites in the oven

12:39 reading O magazine and talking to middle school girls online

1:17 needs some coffee, goes downstairs. remembers the bagel bites. smoke is pouring out of the oven. no big deal. has cinnamon sugar toast instead.

1:38 out the door to go to the younglife office

1:45 some sort of younglife meeting

2:30 pick up some middle school girls from school. go to sonic for happy hour. duh.

3:49 drop off middle schoolers at home, simultaneous conversation with bethany brabec about future life plans

4:00 locked out of the o-house. frantic ringing of the doorbell so that she doesn't miss a moment of OPRAH.

5:00 work out class

6:07 post workout trip to java, sees 47 people she knows.

6:41 baking cookies at the o-house/ kitchen counseling session with sarah hach

6:59 another attempt to burn down the o-house

7:30 younglife/wyldlife event #2 of the day. undoubtedly involves wearing some sort of weird costume

8:51 back at the o-house, time to put on sweat pants, watch real housewives of new york and drink mountain dew out of a wine glass

8:54 joined by the other o-house girls. discussion about that day’s episode of oprah. turns into discussion of syd’s career goals: marry rich and give away money.

9:23 time for another cup of coffee

9:25 sits in room, plots ways to be more edgy, watches grey’s anatomy online

9:53 writes 2 page paper about her feelings. homework is done for the week.

10:01 looks up recipes for the next o-house dinner

10:21 meeting on keira’s bed. discussion includes: other people’s relationships, pioneer woman recipes and shampoo.

11:28 bed time

2:38 am becca comes to bed.

3:19 am becca gets up for the day. syd never knows she was there.

the end.

syd: we love you so much. mostly because you brought toby into our lives and came up with the idea for the blog. and gave us lucky charms for valentine's day.