Hello, everyone! I got to spend the weekend with my best friend Karlee. I was super excited because it had been about a month and a half since I had seen her. I went down and spent the weekend at her apartment. We were able to just talk, do a little teacher shopping, go to a baseball game, and even go to church together. It was a great weekend and it will always be one of my favorite ways to spend a few days. Well, this weekend was amazing, it was overall a pretty chill weekend. We just hung out and caught up. This was the best way to spend the weekend. The rest of this post will be giving you a little more information about Karlee and our friendship because I am sure there will be more posts about her. 
Flashback to when we met! Now I wish I could sit down and tell you that I do not remember not being friends with Karlee or that we met on the first day of Kindergarten, but that is not the case. We both ended up at the same college studying Early Childhood Education. She was a double major with Special Education and I was the minor version of that. We both ended up at this college after registering and being pretty sure we were going to go to different schools. I was very homesick even though I was not too far from home. I started going to my classes and one day I realized that a girl who lived across the hall from me was in one of my education classes. I am not very good at thinking of ways to start a conversation, so I kind of knocked on her open door and asked if there was any homework (anyone who knows me knows I already knew the answer to the question). Then I am not really sure how we got talking but in that first little bit of college, you can have a pretty long conversation with anybody as you share basic information. Well, I ended up sitting down and we talked until it was time to get dinner and she invited me to get dinner with the people she normally ate with. Now, I cannot give you some AHA moment of when we became close. It just kind of happened. I can tell you that I spent a ton of time hanging out in her little dorm room across the hall from mine (I think that may be one of my favorite places at college). We talked and hung out, it was all pretty chill. 
I can tell you though that I have never clicked with another person in the same way. We had many things in common and we looked at a lot of life in a similar way. We were able to spend all of our time together and not get sick of each other. Meeting Karlee helped my homesickness and I finally felt like I had someone I could talk to about it. We were able to talk about our high school experiences and families. It is great having a friend who you can tell anything too and you do not feel like they are going to hate you or judge you. We are close enough that it is also nice to have someone who thinks in a very similar way to you. She understands my kind of crazy and is able to roll with it. We did not live together our freshman year, but I spent more time in her dorm room than mine. Freshman year we got to know each other and went through good and bad things together. We cried and laughed together. We got to experience college together. And we even watched a whole lot of Reba on ABC Family.
Now we no longer live together as I am starting my first year teaching and she is beginning her student teaching experience. I can say that texting and Facetiming will never make up for weekends we can see each other. I can also say that it is nice to have someone who is excited to hear anything that you are excited to tell them. It is nice to have someone you know is always praying for you and cheering you on in your corner. It is a friendship that seems like I have known her forever. I know it is a friendship that will last. One of the things I am most thankful in college is that I pretended not to know the homework, walked into your dorm room and never left.
Karlee, since I know you will read this. I want to say thank you for getting me through college. Thank you for always being in my corner cheering me on. Thank you for praying for me. Thank you for crying with me and laughing with me. Thank you for letting me complain, but also showing me the positives when I am only being negative. Thank you for dealing with me when I was crazy stressed out. I am so thankful that even though it was not our first choice we ended up in the same college across the hall from each other (I would like everyone to know that dorm was my very last choice). Looking back I know that God knew I would need a friend like you. I am so excited to hear about all of the amazing experiences you have during student teaching. I am excited that we can swap stories now. You are going to be such a blessing to those kids and schools. I cannot wait to see you again in two weeks!
Check out Karlee's blog: https://littlebitokarlee.blogspot.com/
