Rachel. Renae. Squires.

This post is dedicated to my wonderful roommate Rachel Squires. I was contemplating writing about my ridiculously short trip home yesterday and the exhausting effects the excessive flying has had on my body, (how's that for assonance?) but I decided that Rachel and her life are much more exciting :)

I have really gotten close to Rachel lately as one of our dear roommates, her "room" roommate, moved away this semester so now there are only three of us in the apartment. Seeing as Rachel and I are always up late on the couch doing homework together we have had many an opportunity to chat about life, and other, less serious, things. She is always here on my right hand ready to suggest what I should write about in this blog, but tonight she settled on herself as the subject and I took it to heart.

Now let me explain Rachel in a nutshell. She is from Spokane, Washington, which I think contributes to her down-to-earth nature and extremely perceptive opinion about life in general. She is absolutely stunning. I mean it, I have heard people describe her as "a 10", "a total babe", "unbelievably gorgeous", and the likes of these descriptive phrases.

She is a spiritual giant. I can't even count the number of times I have walked in on her studying her scriptures or listening to conference talks or church music. There is no one I would rather have gospel

discussions with on a day-to-day basis because she just always presents a very mature and fresh opinion about the things we don't understand perfectly. She also magnifies her calling like no other. She spends a great deal of her time typing out e-mails she sends in mass to our relief society to which she receives only 1 or 2 replies on a good day from the 40 of us girls. Sorry Rachel 0:)

Rachel is known to listen to country when she needs a little pick me up. In fact, just the other weekend we went on a little Garth Brooks trip listening to "Wrapped Up In You" more times than I care to admit. I love having her to help indulge my love of country music :)

I always look forward to Rachel's dinner nights because we never know what we're gonna get. She has cooked everything from Paula Dean's recipe for amazingly yummy stuffed

shells to a creative lemon, garlic, and oniony chicken dish we made up on the fly. She knows her way around the kitchen though, this girl. She even zested some lemons for this chicken dish of hers...that's more than I can say I've ever done. Her eating habits have definitely improved my knowledge of vegetables and healthy food in general. She is a nursing major, so since she is learning all about the vegetables we need to eat, she implements it into our roommate diet. I have experienced all manner of new vegetables this year and I have her to thank for it.

Now, you don't know belching until you've met Rachel. The very first day I met her she belched like I've never heard before. I have tried time and time again to teach her that it is a repulsive habit that no one appreciates, but she claims that it is unintentional. I am currently in the process of diagnosing her problem with the excessive air in her stomach that leads to her incessant burping and belching, but she refuses to see a doctor for it. You would think my scornful looks 7-8 times a day would be enough to stop her from belching, but they seem to have no effect on her. She is very confident in herself I suppose...

Dates.

Rachel dates like no one I've ever seen. You see, she works with BYU Intramurals which I claim to be the cause of her excessive dating habits, but in all reality, it's really just because she is such

a great girl..."A 10", if you will. Even if you don't want to blame intramurals for her dates, though, you gotta include it when talking about her life because it explains a lot about her. She is very athletically talented. I have not been great about going to her games and things, but she is always on a volleyball team or something with our ward because she is awesome on the court! And when she is not playing she is working with sports which explains her rockin' bod :P

Rachel claims to not have a great voice, but I could listen to her sing all day long. She just walks around the apartment singing her head off and it's absolutely beautiful! It sounds like home to me now :)

Arguments don't go well with Rachel unless you have awesome support for your side. She's quite stubborn and refuses to listen to any less-than-well-thought-out argument which I love about her. She's been known to shoot down a couple people who really thought they were somethin'. It's great to witness, but frustrating when I'm on the receiving end of her impeccable logic :)

Sweat pants are the most commonly used items in Rachel's wardrobe; She's much more productive with her life when she feels comfortable and her favorite state of being is what she affectionately calls, "messy cute!"--this entails hair in a messy bun thrown back, sweats, and t-shirt or sweatshirt, depending on the temperature of our apt. In all reality, it's our way of justifying not getting ready or looking great. We make each other feel better by calling it "messy cute!"

When Rachel has something tough in her life that she has to get through, she turns to a youtube video of a little girl pumping herself up in the morning and quotes, "I like my apartment! I like my house! I like my hair! I like everything! I can do anything good!"

Rachel's stomach tends to be a bottomless pit at about 10:30 at night. She can eat like nobody's business. It's awesome. She'll eat dinner and then eat, and eat, and eat, and eat. She single handledly devoured a whole new box of oreos in less than a week last week. We're working on self-control together, as she kindly always points out my fettish with berry tie-dye fruit roll-ups whenever I criticize her eating habits. (for her own good--mind you)

But overall, Rachel is awesome. She basically makes my life worth living :) She's a psycho, brilliant, hilarious, energetic, talented, and so genuinely nice I just am going to miss her like crazy next year! I really do feel blessed to have been able to live with and get to be such great friends with her this year. I hope she knows what a positive impact she has had on my life this year. I mean, I think she does, thus the humongous post/shrine thingy for her, but in case she doesn't, I hope she figures it out soon! I just love her so much!