Happy Birthday, Katie!

I want to wish a very happy birthday to my best friend in the whole wide world: Katie! Her birthday was on Thursday, and we've been celebrating ever since! Her friends threw a party for her on Thursday night, and I and to keep it a secret! That was kind of hard, but it was worth it to see how happy she was when they surprised her! (I think she thought they forgot, to be honest.)

I was twinning with Bob the Minion!

I'm glad Katie has human friends who love her as much as I do. They tried so hard to make her day special. They got her cupcakes and presents and balloons, and they wrote her nice cards, and they even let her take a picture of all of them together. (Katie's note: The group picture was my favorite part. I'm definitely going to be in love with those pictures for the rest of my life!) But Katie had to go to college the next day, so they couldn't stay up too late. She definitely had a lot of fun, though, and that makes me happy.

The only sad part about Katie's birthday was that she didn't get to spend it with her family. Everyone was so busy during the week that they didn't get to see each other until Saturday! So after Preview Day and the Serving Table and helping  Katie's Brother fill out scholarship applications, I went with Katie's family to Cracker Barrel for her birthday dinner and presents. I don't get to go to real restaurants very often, so I was really excited. I promised Katie that I would be on my "beary best" behavior, though.


We ate dinner (I had salmon patties!), and it was yummy, but my favorite thing about Cracker Barrel is all the fun games you can play!





Katie taught me how to play this game (it's just called the peg board game) where you have to jump all the other pegs on the board and only leave one! If you leave one, you're a genius. If you leave two, you're pretty smart. If you leave three, you're just plain dumb, and if you leave four or more, you're "eg-no-ra-moose"--whatever that means. (The game told Katie that she was dumb, and I thought that was pretty funny!!)





After dinner, I got to play checkers on the porch (Katie won, because I've never played checkers before), and they even had a Trash Bear-sized rocking chair for me!








I had so much fun celebrating with Katie and her family last night! Even though I don't know when my birthday is, I know that birthdays are special. It's a day for your friends and family to celebrate you and how happy they are that they get to know you. That's the kind of thing that should be celebrated every day, but especially on birthdays! You know, because it's the day your whole life started! If you didn't have a birthday, the world wouldn't have you, and that would be sad. So I hope all of you have great birthdays whenever they come, because my life would be sad without all of you, too!

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~

Service with a Smile

I know it's been a while since my last adventure, but it's not that I haven't been busy. I just don't have thumbs, so sometimes it's hard for me to find the time to sit down and actually WRITE about what I've been doing.
I celebrated my first Valentine's day a few weeks ago. (I may have been a Valentine's Day gift myself once. I don't actually remember. That was during the "Dark Times.") It was fun. I ate so much chocolate! I got a little sick afterwards, but it was totally worth it. I regret nothing. And I also got some pretty cool new roommates who I'll tell you about later in another blog post.

Pre-Preview Day Pic! We look good!

Today is really the adventure I wanted to talk about, though.

Katie woke up early, and I was confused, because I thought we got to sleep extra late on Saturdays. But Katie said no, that we had lots of things to do today and that I had to wear my JSU shirt to do them. I was a little grumpy, but I changed shirts anyway. Katie said she had to go to Preview Day, and she wanted me to look all school spirit-y because there would be lots of future students on campus. (It was her job to convince them to join the Honors Program. I hope those kids aren't afraid of her bubbliness. It's my favorite thing about her, but some people think it's a little much for 9 o'clock in the morning. It's okay. If she can deal with all of my quirks, I can deal with hers, too. Because that's what best friends do.) I didn't get to go to Preview Day because Katie had to be "professional," so I waited impatiently for her to get back.

I didn't have to wait too long, though. (Side note: You'd think I'd be used to waiting, but I'm not. I don't like it. It makes me feel anxious. I think I have abandonment issues. But it's okay. Katie and her friends always come back to me, no matter how long they're gone. I think I'm starting to accept that they really do love me and that they're going to be around for a long, long time. Sometimes it's hard, though.) When Katie got back she said it was time to go to church, and, again, I was confused. Thankfully, she explained that the Methodist church in Jacksonville hosts something called the Serving Table once a month. They cook yummy, homemade meals for people who can't always eat every day, and they get to eat it for free. Katie explained that some people don't have jobs, or maybe they have a lot of doctor bills, or maybe they're old or sick, and that makes it hard to go out and buy food or to even afford food to buy. A guaranteed meal, even if it's only once a month, takes a lot of worry off of their minds. After I heard that, I was really excited to help. Katie even said that some of our other friends might be there!

Eating the best lunch ever courtesy of Ms. Mandee!

The Serving Table ended up being really fun! There were a lot of people who came to eat and help. They said we served over 100 meals! That's a lot of food! I was a little sad that there are so many people in Jacksonville who need help getting food, but Katie reminded me that that was why we were there: to help them. And everyone was so nice. They weren't mad or sad that they had to come to a church to eat; they were just happy to be alive! There were little kids and big kids and old men and young men and everyone in-between. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside that I got to be part of their days!
Katie was right that some of our other friends would be there. I got to see Curly-Haired Boy, and I made some new friends, too! A lot of them were in the Honors Program with Katie, but I also made friends with some of the grown ups from Katie's church. (Katie says that I'm kind of a celebrity now!)

Dessert was my favorite part!

This may not have been my biggest or most extravagant adventure so far, but it was definitely the most rewarding. I feel like sometimes people complain without thinking about how much worse it could be. It's important to see that some people are positive and upbeat even though they're not where they want to be in life. It "puts things in perspective," as Katie told me. These were so grateful that a bunch of college kids and a bear came out to serve them lunch, but I was grateful to have met them. All we did was put food on their plates; they put a smile in my heart.

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~

Over the Mountain and Through the Woods

Hi, again!

I hope you've all been keeping up with my Facebook page! (24 likes is pretty exciting!) I just posted some pictures from last summer, but I wanted to tell you guys about my super fun weekend!

On Sunday, Katie and her friends (Curly-Haired Boy and Short Girl) took me to the Quad. It was so pretty outside, and we laid on the grass and looked at the sky and talked. It was nice to just get to relax, because Katie's been really stressed since school started. (Trash Bear Note: Don't tell Katie this, but she gets really stressed about a lot of things!) Then, they took me to this place called the Mountain. Have you guys ever been to the Mountain? You have to drive there, so we all got in a car and we drove up and up and up on this curvy road. It was really fun, but also kind of scary! So we kept driving and driving and driving, and the sun was getting closer and closer and closer. I thought we might actually catch the sun! Well, we finally reached the spot, because Curly-Haired Boy pulled over, and everyone got out. There were some other people here, too, and at first I was confused as to why.







But then I saw the sunset, and I figured that that's why they were all there.













I've really only ever seen a few sunsets in my life, but Katie talks about them a lot, and she says that Jacksonville sunsets are the prettiest sunsets in the whole world! And now I think she's right! The sky looked so pretty!! It was striped blue and purple and orange and yellow, and the sun was this tiny ball of fire and the mountains in the distance were purple, and the sky stayed all streaked with reds and pinks for a really long time after the sun was gone.

Curly-Haired Boy and Short Girl sat on the hood of his car, and Katie took a lot of pictures, and the car beside us played music really loudly. I'm pretty sure this is what it would feel like if life was a movie. No one said anything for a long time, so we just sat and watched the sun set. I thought about my life and how happy I am now compared to a year ago. I thought about my friends and how much I love them, and I thought a little bit about how sad I'll be when we all have to go our separate ways. But I didn't think about that too much, because that's sad. Every once in awhile someone would say something, but we didn't really talk much. We watched the other cars drive away until it was just us and Music Car. We could have been the only people and bear in the whole world just then, and that would have been okay with me.



And so we all sat around and watched as the sky got darker and darker, and we talked a little bit more, and finally the wind got a little cold, so we got back in the car and drove down and down and down the scary winding road, and the sky and sun got farther away, and the street lights got bigger, and the world got louder, and then it felt like real life again.


And that's a little bit sad. Because the Mountain seems like a really special place. No one was stressed out while we were watching the sunset. No one was worried about homework or tests or work or how they would get it all done. But as soon as we got back to the dorm it felt like it was time to worry about those things again.


I guess the good news is that the Mountain will always be there to calm us down if things ever get too stressful.

And that makes me happy. 

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~