Can you believe that we’re at nine volumes now?  That’s pretty crazy!  I’m glad people are really enjoying these videos, although I have been wondering if I should end this series once it hits an even ten.  I guess we’ll have to to find out next time what I will decide on this matter.  Whatever the case may be, I am pretty positive I will do something special for the 10th volume of XangaSecret.  Stay tuned!

Until then, here’s XangaSecret: Volume IX.  I’m bringing back Matt‘s music for this one:

I’ve kept a journal every week of my life since I was 5 years old. Here’s a page from baby girl_smileyy:

I would guess that I have about 30 or so of you that I consider my top xanga friends (and I hope that number will rise a bit, but not too much, or I couldn’t keep up!)  So I was asking myself…hmmmm, self?  “How do I know which one’s are my top xanga friends?” 

And the answers came from looking at my behavior.  Here’s are some of the things I find myself doing which give me ideas that the people I do this with are the ones that are my top xanga friends at the moment!

I’ve been to the emergency room more than a dozen times in my life. From third degree burns, to broken bones to fractured fingers, I’ve become quite familiar with the routine in the emergency room. However, when I came across this article, I learned seven completely new facts about the emergency room.

  
My great-niece Gracie is about to celebrate her fourth birthday. All she wants to mark the occasion is some big girl panties. Scooby Doo big girl panties, to be exact. It doesn’t seem like too much for a little girl to ask for on her birthday, but the advertising gods have decreed that little girls are not supposed to love Scooby Doo. They’re supposed to want panties sporting cavorting Disney princesses, Tinker Bell, Dora the Explorer, Hello Kitty and even Sponge Bob Square Pants. Doting great-aunt that I am, I spent all yesterday afternoon looking at toddler-sized panties in our admittedly limited local selection of department stores. I battled idiot drivers and rude shoppers at Target, Kohls, Elder-Beerman, Penney’s, Meijer and Walmart. I came home empty handed.

I’d forgotten what it was like to have a young child who only wanted one thing in the whole world.

On my way home from work I ended up passing a grey sedan that had the words “Student Driver” on the bumper. The driver, a young, dark haired, scared looking young man, had the wheel in a death grip at 11 and 1. He leaned forward nervously, eyes wide open. The few seconds I saw him, he never blinked, and didn’t look like he would until he got off of the highway.

I realized to myself how horrifying an experience it likely was for him. I wondered how many other times he had driven. I wondered if this was a road test, or just behind the wheel training.

Growing up on a farm, you get a little bit different sort of driving lessons than townies.

We’ve gotten great feedback on the new and improved site search… so wanted to share what we’re working on next: personal search!

Nini1981 described exactly what we had in mind in a comment on our last post: “Any way to search a [specific] blog.. if not, any plans to make it possible?”

Yup, we plan on making this possible!

A quick preview of our plans:

I was creeped out from the minute I got into the car. We were all creeped out. The driver told us some really long name and about how he worked for a law firm. He told us about his wife and how he was drunk at dinner last night. He told us about how he used to be a police officer. He told us that he was married five times. He told us all sorts of things. So maybe this guy just likes to talk. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?

There’s nothing wrong with it when the driver is wearing his seat belt, driving in the lines, and stopping at red lights. It becomes a problem when the driver is not wearing his seat belt, swerving on the road, and barely stopping at red lights. Also, although I was not aware of this at the time, two of my friends smelt alcohol on his breath.

At this point I was only slightly nervous and creeped out. I felt bad for my friend who was sitting in the front seat because she was the one that had to talk to him and he kept patting her head.

I started to notice that we were no longer on the main road.