Boy Bands

Just like every other tween in the 90's and early 2000's, I loved boy bands. There were so many great ones in that time period. Of course there were Backstreet Boys and N*Sync, but then there were a plethora of other lesser known boy bands. Just to name a few: O Town, 98 degrees, Dreamstreet, LFO, 2gether, Hanson, Savage Garden, and I am sure I have forgotten some great ones. My personal favorite boy band of all time was, and still is, the Backstreet Boys. When the song "As Long as You Love Me" came out I was just so sure they were singing to me. N*Sync was amazing too though. My friends and I used to spend hours and hours singing and making up dances to the songs of these musical geniuses. Whenever I hear BSB or N*Sync dance moves that I committed to memory immediately pop into my head and it is all I can do to stay in my seat. At most of our sleep overs we took time to make up a dance and then record it. So in the majority of my music videos I am wearing pajama's, it is very attractive.

Sally had an N*Sync poster and one afternoon each of us chose our favorite band member. I chose Chris, the weird one, Sally chose Justin, the hot one, and Corie chose Lance, we didn't know he was gay yet. We lathered our lips in hot pink lip stick and then kissed the pictures of our guys leaving lip prints on their cheeks. If you are a girl reading this, you know you probably did the same thing. Another favorite boy band activity was to play "Sisters". It was basically house but we were all sistters instead of like mom and dad. In Sisters we were dating our favorite band member from whichever boy band we chose for the day. If we were playing BSB then I was dating AJ. For N*Sync I of course chose Chris, and for 98 degrees I was dating Drew. Yeah, I got around the band crowd. We spent about a billion hours of our childhood pretending to be college age sisters and dating celebrities. In the back of my mind I sincerely thought that that was what my life would be like when I was 20. Well needless to say, it is.

I went to 2 N*Sync concerts when they were in their prime. The first time during the song "Sailing" the boys fly out over the crowd in harnesses. Joey almost kicked me in the face. It was one of the best moments of my life. I was talking about it for weeks at school. Honestly, he was probably so far from me, but no one could convince me of that at the time. The second N*Sync concert was the most exciting. It was a surprise that our moms put together. Corie, Sally, and I were actually fighting because Corie was going to the concert and Sally and I were going to see Tarzan in theaters and we were all jealous of the others. Then while I was sitting at home crying a limo pulled into my driveway and Corie, Sally, Leslie, and I all got to ride in the limo to the concert. I never did see Tarzan, but I am pretty sure N*Sync was way better.

I only have been to one Backstreet Boys concert even though they are my favorite. I really think that I may be one of their biggest fans, besides their moms of course-just like the song says. I was in 10th grade and my parents got three tickets. I could not find anyone to go with me, so I went with mom and dad. That part was kind of lame, but the concert was amazing! Click 5, another cheesy boy band, opened for them and it was their Never Gone tour so they played all their old classics and new stuff. Definitely one of the best nights of my life.

Boy Bands played a huge part of my childhood. They taught me all about love and life and having fun. Seriously, the lyrics are like poetry... NOT! But I do still enjoy the occasional cheesy love song. Nothing beats "Quit Playing Games With My Heart" or "Tearing Up My Heart" when you are feeling a little down. Kids these days are really missing out if you ask me.

Brownies, like the girls dressed in brown, not the yummy dessert

"Do a good turn daily" That is the Brownie Girl Scout's motto. Once a week a wore a brown skort, blue button up shirt, brown sash, and cream colored neck tie to school so that I could attend my Brownie meeting after school. This is probably the ugliest outfit ever. I loved it. I felt sooo cool on the days that I got to wear it to school. All my best friends were in my troop and at first we had a lot of fun. then my troop leader decided to have a baby and quit. Cool. So we all joined a new troop together. This leader was not so good. My favorite part of Brownies was the day once a year when each troop in the area would set up a display at the convention center and represent a different country. I remember being Mexico one year. We made a Mexican flag, cooked Mexican food and learned some Spanish for our display. Then, you got to walk around the convention center and see all the other troops and their countries. It felt like I was traveling the world. However, the year that I joined the new troop we got all of our food and posters together and drove to the convention center. Guess who forgot to show up. My troop leader. We were not allowed to set up our table without her there and she never came. I was devastated. This was when my disdain for Girl Scouts began to take root.

My best friends and I got into our biggest fight that I can remember at our Brownie meeting one day. We were always arguing about something, but this particular fight has always stuck with me. Corie, Sally, and I were sitting at the same table and of course our leader hadn't shown up yet. So while we were waiting I must have said something and Sally called me stupid. I immediately decided to retaliate by calling her a brat. Corie took my side. We were all crying and stayed mad at each other for a few days. Yes, it was a big deal.

One good thing about my troop was that my leader was too lazy to take us camping. All the other troops in my area would go camping, honestly I was not jealous. My brother was in Boy Scouts and I would hear stories of sleeping in the rain and eating nasty camping food. That did not seem like the activity for me. However, my parents thought I should give it a try. So they talked to a troop leader that went to our church and asked if I could spend the weekend camping with her troop. I found myself on a cot in a damp sleeping bag hoping creatures didn't eat me in the middle of the night. Also, I did not know any of the girls in this troop so I was kind of the weird intruder to them. Throughout the course of the weekend I had two near death experiences. At lunch on Saturday I choked on my hot dog but I could not remember the sign for choking(I feel like I should have learned that basic thing in Girl Scouts...) I just sat there thinking I was going to die until I finally got my hot dog to dislodge from my throat. Later we were night hiking with glow necklaces. I put my necklace in my mouth and it got caught on one of my braces wires. The necklace busted open and all the glowing juice got into my mouth. I was not sure if it was non toxic but during the course of the hike I convinced myself that it was poisonous. I was too shy to tell anyone about my situation though. It turns out that the magical glowing juice is non-toxic and I did not die. It was still a terrible weekend.

I had had it with Girl Scouts. I bridged over to Juniors and quit before I got any patches on that teal vest. It was one of the best decisions of my life.

The Best Cat Ever/ Manipulating Dad

When we were young we lived in Chesapeake, VA (that little factoid is not really relevant to this story, it is just information). One Sunday morning in 1998 we arrived at church and found out that someone had left a box of about 5 kittens on the door step of the church. I guess they figured that Christians would be kind enough to find homes for the kittens. After all, what would Jesus do? I think He would take in a homeless kitty. So naturally, the Sarah Margaret and I wanted one of the kittens so bad. At this point we only had one dog and one cat at home, and our current cat was really weird and not fun to play with (RIP Chief). There was definitely room in the Craft house for another animal.

Four of the five kittens were black and one was a little white girl. We knew that Dad would only let us have a female cat, that has just always been a rule. He says boys make a bigger mess in the litter box, and they are not as nice. This explanation made sense at the time because this seemed to be true of the human boys I knew as well. Most of the kittens had been spoken for except for a little black girl kitty so we snatched her up and took to the sanctuary where Dad was. He obviously did not want another cat, but he needed to give us a logical reason. He said we could not get the kitten because she was black and we had already had a bad experience with a black cat. Her name was Carmen, as in Carmen San Diego. She pooped on the rug a lot and finally just ran away. Dad was also aware that the only white cat had already been claimed by a boy in my Sunday school class whose mom had already said he could get it. He said if only the cat was white we could have her. He thought the discussion about kittens was over.

Well Marg and I would not give up so easily. We immediately found Aaron, the boy with the only white cat. We explained our situation to him. Aaron was very nice to us and agreed to trade kittens with us. He did not care whether his kitten was black or white. With gigantic grins on our faces we ran back to the sanctuary to show Dad out accomplishment. Much to his dismay our new kitten fit all his criteria and he could not say no.

We went through many names for the kitten. She started as Apricot because she had orange on her ears and tail, but that is just too long to say all the time. Then, she was Boo because she's white like a ghost. Next was just Kitty, we were not feeling creative anymore. However, after we said "Kitty" enough in baby voice (because who doesn't talk to kittens in baby voice) her name evolved into Bitty. to this day Bitty is the best cat ever. She is actually curled up beside me right now as I am writing this. I think Dad would be the first to tell you that he is glad we tricked him into getting a kitten that day.