1.31.2011

Behold...the conquerer!

I was so busy kicking Bowsers ass yesterday and then making out with the Princess I forgot to write blogs for this week.
Sorry!

But let's just say, I kicked that Mario games ass and took its name. Conquered level 8 with much squealing and cursing. Watched the credits and tried to pronounce a lot of Japenese names and then lo and behold (except I knew because Alexis and Ryan told me about it when they came over Saturday) level 9 popped up.
AMAZING!

Also hilarious....the fact that Pete used 18 lives during the time I used 5. But that's ok. Don't tell him or anything...but I use him as bait for all the little mushrooms, turtle/ducks and other killing things in Mario so I can get through unscathed.

We'll be back with regularly scheduled blog posts Wednesday (since tomorrow is Good Things day).

1.28.2011

Going to the Chapel

Alright, this may cost me my single and proud of it card but this is to hilarious to not share.
First, an important piece of information...I have a small crush on someone

I went to bed last night and first, had a dream that the Sugarbaker women built the Panama Canal. But that's because I watched a PBS documentary about the building of the Panama Canal and recently watched the 30 Rock where Liz gave the Sugarbaker speech to the writers. 
After I woke up, and tweeted that dream I fell back asleep and the following happened...

 I had a dream that I flirted, then dated, then got engaged to a person of interest to me. In the dream he lived in a city about 4 hours away and I was moving there to join him. In the dream I told my parents I was moving to that city, and they then announced their intent to retire to that city...I fear those things are connected in some way. 
 I also decided to let Pete continue to live in my house and rent it. But the hilarious thing is in my dream I actually worked through the math of how much his rent would be for the whole house etc etc. I mean, I did ACTUAL math while dreaming.

Even more so I actually moved to this new town, and went through most of the process of planning the wedding. I even fought with my "fiance" about what church we would be married in and who we would be married by.
 

It was quite ridiculous, and hopefully not prophetic (although as I do very much enjoy the town this person lived in in my dream and also as I mentioned earlier I have a small crush on him)

Feel free to shame me now.....

1.27.2011

The Flawed Woman

As I mentioned I'm going to recap, or at least share my thoughts, chapter by chapter of this pretty great book I'm reading. It's called, When a Woman meets Jesus.

The Flawed Woman

Being flawed is really hard for me. I like to pretend that everything is fine and everything is ok, even in the face of insurmountable evidence that it's not.
Here are some quotes from the chapter I really liked:

When the goal is "to be perfect" we can thrash around in our flaws and forger about loving others and sharing our gifts with them. We allow the desire to be perfect to oppress us and keep us in the bondage of self-preoccupation. The focus becomes "me" and the effort becomes "trying to perform perfectly"
- Adrianne Gambucci

[Perfection] is the enemy of women. I am a woman. And I have found this enemy is constantly ready to trip me up, causing me to fall into the abyss of self-loathing as I attempt, often unsuccessfully, to live up to my lofty expectations and those of others.

For days I wept, disappointed in myself. I wasn't perfect anymore. A tough lesson to learn at the age of fifteen- and even tougher lesson if you are forty years old and still comparing yourself to everyone in town. Dissatisfied and unable to enjoy anything you do because it is never quite good enough.

Unfortunately, in the war for perfection, nobody wins. It isn't even a draw. There are just a bunch of losers sitting on the sidelines. Some with their noses in the air, others with their heads hung low. Some feeling "better than," others feeling "less than." No wonder the endless toil for perfection has been called "self-abuse of the highest order."

1.26.2011

Missing the Boat

It is not so much that the boat passed
and you failed to notice it.
It is more like the boat stopping
directly outside your bedroom window,
the captain blowing the signal-horn,
the band playing a rousing march.
The boat shouted, waving bright flags,
its silver hull blinding in the sunlight.
But you had this idea you were going by train.
You kept checking the time-tables,
digging for tracks.
And the boat got tired of you,
so tired it pulled up the anchor
and raised the ramp.
The boat bobbed into the distance
shrinking like a toy -
at which point you probably realized
you had always loved the sea

- 'Missing the Boat' by Naomi Shihab Nye

1.25.2011

10 Things: That Happened Last Weekend

  1. I cleaned the litter boxes finally. Then as I was carrying the bag filled with aromatic cat feces through the garage the bag snagged on the door hardware....and spilled.....in a giant puddle. It was disgusting and I just pretty much threw the broom and dust pan away when I was done cleaning up cat feces for the 2nd time.
  2. Pete and I were finally able to solve the overflowing liquor and cookbook cabinets dilemma of 2010. Ironically enough it just involved switching the two locations with each other and drinking a bit in the afternoon.
  3. I put on makeup and went to a club with Pete and some work friends. Here are some things that were said in the course of the night:
    1. What should I wear? I don't want to waste good boobs at a gay bar...
    2. Shut the door we're practicing philanthropy
    3. It's like a 5 course gay club
    4. Do I have to show you EVERYTHING?
    5. I get everything, but the breasts still really confuse me.
    6. That guy takes every step as if it's on a runway
    7. Don't lick my phone!
    8. That one strap is working really hard right now
    9. That is the most epic white fur coat worn by a man I've ever seen
    10. Pete, you not only made an illegal left turn you did it on a RED light!
  4. In pursuit of the bathrooms at the bar a young man told me to sit in the big cozy chair by him because it was a free city. I told him I had to pee and he probably didn't want me to pee in the chair no matter how free the city is.
  5. I was taken aback by a Ce Ce Peniston marathon at the bar
  6. Pop Up Video played at the bar for one Whitney Houston video. It was like giving a thimble of water to a dying woman in the desert of boring routine videos
  7. I didn't have a drop to drink at the bar. When I was driving Pete's friend Delainna home I skidded on some slush on a downward hill and almost pee'd my pants a little.
  8. After dropping off Delainna, Pete and I went in search of a Waffle House. After one crazy, crowded and super noisy one we found another that was much calmer. Super delicious breakfast at 3am.
  9. I didn't fall asleep until 4am. I was remarkably awake. It was like 2001.
  10. Made it up for 2nd service at church for an awesome sermon and then spent the afternoon lazing about on the sofa.
This weekend and I are besties. It was a lot of fun.

1.24.2011

Initiation

I'm a planner.
I'm comfortable planning.
I like to make sure that everyone is where they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there doing what they're supposed to be doing.
We could call it another aspect of my need to be in control, and that absolutely plays into it. But to a greater extent I also feel the need to always put myself in front of people's faces. Because I'm afraid they're going to forget me.

Lately, my ability to initiate and interact with anyone has been greatly diminished. It feels much more difficult to initiate contact and connection with people. It feels very oppressive inside of my head and heart right now.

It might just be a self-fulfilling prophecy but it seems that with my ability to initiate contact with people my contact with people has decreased dramatically.
I could be sending out signals.
I could be projecting myself as unavailable.
Because lately I just don't have it in me. I don't have the capability right now to be the only initiator and while I'm trying to get my head screwed back on straight I'm also panicking thinking I'm taking to long to get myself pulled together because no one wants to be friends with the falling apart girl. 

But most of the time I just wonder. If I didn't call, text, email or (insert form of communication here) you....would we even still talk?
Some of you I know yes. Because you show me that.
But others of you...others of you I have taken serious pause wondering if we would ever speak again if I didn't start the conversation.  I think for more of you than my heart cares to admit the answer would be no. We would no longer have a friendship. And that makes me very sad.
It makes me never want to try, while at the same time being terrified to ever stop trying.

There might have been a time
When I would give myself away
Oh once upon a time I didn't give a damn
But now, here we are, so what do you want from me?
What do you want from me?

Just don't give up, I am workin' it out
Please don't give in, I won't let you down
It messed me up, need a second to breathe
Just keep coming around
- Adam Lambert "Want From Me"




(and no, I can't believe I just quoted an Adam Lambert song either. I'm so sorry)

1.21.2011

The Broken Woman

I started reading through the book When a Woman Meets Jesus which studies the women in the bible and their interactions with Jesus. It's really good and thought I'd recap as I went through the chapters.

The Broken Woman
This chapter talked mostly about the way women are broken and how that affects the way they view Jesus and relate to Him. How so often our relational baggage deeply affects (and sometimes fractures) our relationship with Him. (Hello!) Here's one (giant) quote I loved with my parenthetical comments. (p18)

Instead of pigeonholing women the way society had, he {Jesus} looked at each woman as unique. No one ever heard Jesus trivialize one of their problems by calling it a "woman-thing." (LOVE that)
He didn't smooth-talk women, or flatter them to get their attention. And he didn't tell them what they wanted to hear- he told them what they needed to know. What's more, he did not believe what many of the women thought about themselves, because so often their own view had been grossly distorted by others. What Jesus did was to focus his attention on each woman's greatest need, and then he met that need-in ways they never expected.
Jesus taught women to look beyond their outward appearance for acceptance. He showed them they were valuable when others said they were worthless. He challenged the rules that bound them and broke down the walls of prejudice that entrapped them. Even when a woman was labeled a "failure" he believed she could be more than her broken past. Most importantly, Jesus gave unconditional love to every woman no matter what her past history, present condition, or future prospects. He was a man ahead of his time, a Renaissance man who understood what loving a woman was all about.
This is why the women stayed with him. And the longer they stayed, the more they grew to love him and to love themselves.
When you are accepted just the way you are, encouraged to reach your potential, and empowered to follow your dreams, don't you feel loved?

1.20.2011

Giggle Cereal

Last weekend I was scrolling through the IFC channel looking for a new show set in Portland that's starting soon. I had clicked on the channel and it was playing in a little square while I flipped.

As I was half watching while scrolling I started thinking about how the show looked familiar. So I watched a few minutes until I realized, with a jolt of panic and horror, that I knew what the movie was.
It's called The Gate
You will have to google the trailer, because I can't even link the trailer because I'm kind of a baby.
But I digress.

The point is, for years I've been trying to find this b-horror movie that I watched back in the early 90's. It scared the crap out of me, but I was SURE it existed. All I knew is it was about a brother and sister, home alone, when a gate to hell opened up and swallowed their house. I also had a clear image of a demon rising out of a pit in the middle of the living room to try and swallow the brother. (I know, creepy right!?)

But, guys, it was The Gate! I didn't make it up!
Nor did I watch it, because I would like to be able to sleep in 2011.

However, I was about 75% sure I had made it up. Because, it wouldn't be the first time I completely made up a product and believed it was real.
When I was a teenager I swear to you I saw a commercial for Giggle Cereal.
I STILL can see the actors in the commercial and the design of the box of the cereal.
An elementary school teacher had to step out of her classroom to speak to someone and while in the hallway kept hearing a ruckus in her room. When she walked back in the room the kids were all rolling around laughing and laughing and laughing.
The teacher giggled a little and said, "What did you all eat for breakfast?!
The kids replied in unison, "GIGGLE CEREAL!"

But I have never been able to prove the cereal (or marketing campaign) ever existed.
It wasn't the first time I believed a dream to be fact, but hopefully it's one of the last.

1.19.2011

Trusting

When I was contemplating my One Word for 2011 I came up with two words. Help, which is the word I settled on, and Trust.

Just thinking about having to work on trusting more leaves me breathless. Because I don't do it.

I want to believe you when you say you love me.
I want to believe you when you say you'll be around.
But experience tells me over and over again that it's not true and I would be a fool to believe you.

I want to believe that you are who you say that you are, who you mostly show me that you are. But I don't.
Because you are an imperfect and flawed person (like me) and when I see your cracks it makes me all jumpy and anxious and leaves me feeling unsafe.
Which is just silly, because I'm that person too.

I'm trying not to be bitter and stiff with unforgiveness, I'm trying to trust you, anyone at all really. But the relational ground feels unstable and threatening.

I fear I have no real life tools to deal with the complete dropping out of my ability to trust people that happened.
Which is why I chose help instead of trust.
Because I need help trusting people again.
I need to stop being so afraid of every single damn thing and person around me.
It's stifling and paralyzing folding yourself in as tightly as I have.

But worse still is the trust I'm having to desperately hang on to in God.
My heart is battling every day to remind me that just because I don't feel like I can trust Him doesn't mean I can't. My memory of the last years with Him yowls as loudly as possible reminding me that His promise is true and His Grace and Mercy is true with or without my trust in them.
I'm just foolish enough to believe I can hold my breath and disappear from even Him.

Yet still there is hope. Hope that every morning His mercies are new. That every morning I have a chance to ask Him for help. That every morning I am being refined by this desert place I find myself wandering in again. Some mornings it's all I can do to say, "I'm still here, are you still here?" and wait for the whispered reply, "of course"
All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship
- Hillsong: Desert Song

1.18.2011

Molasses

Sometimes I feel like I'm disappearing into myself.
I can't bring myself to do much anymore, because it still feels pretty unsafe for me to be outside.
I force myself to participate in life and then I retreat exhausted to my house where I have the illusion of safety.

I'm working on getting better. But it's like swimming through molasses with 50 pound ankle weights on.

1.17.2011

10 Things: About the Wii

  1. It's embarrassing how much I play Mario
  2. It's even more embarrassing how much I scream and shout when playing Mario
  3. Sometimes I have to take a deep breath and step back because my muscles are spasming from holding onto the Wii-mote to tightly. 
  4. I freaking LOVE Netflix on Wii
  5. I was nervous at first that I would constantly be seeing buffering or retrieving and it would be annoying. But it works so well.
  6. I would cancel cable for it. I haven't been watching a lot of regular TV anyway but love being able to watch through shows without commercials
  7. But I can't cancel cable because I have a roomie to consider...but that's ok. I'd probably miss it when it's gone
  8. I watched Arrested Development for the first time through Netflix and now I can't stop laughing thinking about it. 
  9. I just started watching The Tudors today and it's amazing. I might finish the 1st season if I'm not careful
  10. I can't figure out how to download Wii points, but when I do I'm downloading Dr. Mario. When that happens, all hope for productivity (even the little there is left around here) will be gone forever.

1.14.2011

Rounding it Out

Just to round out all the elevator talk from this week I have one last story to tell.

The same day that I woke up after the super ninja team dream I laid in bed thinking about elevators for awhile. I mean, a long time. An embarrassing amount of time.
Ultimately I landed on one obsessively annoying topic.

What television show was the elevator an integral plot point?

(ETA: I tried discussing this with Pete but he was being difficult and stating that integral didn't apply to all of these. So let's just say played a prominent role. Gosh!)

I came up with:

Mad About You
Seinfeld
Big Bang Theory
Will and Grace
Murphy Brown
Ally McBeal
Less Than Perfect
Ugly Betty
ER
Grey's Anatomy

I would like to state for the record that I came up with all of those on my own. Pete cheated and googled the following:

Night Court
Frasier

He's just sad isn't he?

Can you think of any others?

1.13.2011

Nothing to You

I know that there are hundreds of promises in the bible.
I know that God is a big God, he is a God of miracles, one that is slow to anger and whose grace is abounding. I know that God relentlessly pursues each of us personally.

And still.....

I wonder.

I wonder when the "but" will come. I wonder when the other shoe will drop. I wonder when He'll pull back, withdrawal, and tell me He was just kidding...He didn't really care.

The truth is, I HATE that I think that. I HATE that I wonder if His grace and love is conditional because of the conditional grace and love I've grown accustomed to from "friends" and people that were supposed to love me and protect me.
I hate that I expect His apathy after all these years of seeing His mercy and compassion.

I hate the sin in me that believes the hissing and slithering lies, the sin that tells me even God is ashamed of me for needing Him so desperately to help.
And why do you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you
Why do you sing with me at all?
-Damien Rice 'Delicate'

1.12.2011

Giving it away

I give it away.
All the time.

I give away my confidence and my strength by believing that I am less worthy than you.

I give away my laughter trusting you when you say it is obnoxious.

I give away my tears and the ability to grieve and feel things deeply when I stifle them in pillows and public bathroom stalls because I am shamed by them.

I give away my waistline when I am seduced by neon lights and value menus and I give away my future when I stop at the gas station to throw the evidence away.

I give away my influence when I defer and demure, more comfortable making a joke out of my leadership than embracing and running with it.

I give away things to delicate to mention with every clench of my lips and pick of my finger.

I give it away.

I give away my name when I dream of being someone else.

I give away my face when I look in the mirror and see nothing worth wanting.

I give away my voice when I press my lips together to keep from telling you what happened, how it affected me and why it paralyzes me still.

I give away my hands when I sit on them and do nothing when I see people in need.

I give away my feet when I crawl under the covers day after day and hide in the dark cave of perceived safety.

I give it away.
All of it.
I give it away every day in hundreds of ways.

But I have to grieve that which I have given away and begin the climb up the sides of discarded piles of me. I have to push the covers back, I have to stop sitting on my hands, unpress my lips, see truth in the mirror, wake from the dream, unclench my fingers and stop believing myself to be the joke I keep telling you I am.

I have to stop giving it away.

1.11.2011

Elevator Action

So Friday night I put on clean sheets and crawled into bed at 730/8ish and watched some TV. Since the night before I had only gotten about 3 or so hours of sleep and then worked out and worked all day I was pooped. Completely wrung out.
I just remember rolling over and pushing play on the iPod and the next thing I knew I was living in a condo in Toronto (I blame Sandra Rinomato and Property Virgins).
I headed out of my condo and down in a giant elevator knowing I was going to meet Alaina and our band of "don't let the man hold you down" brothers.
I got all the way to the parking garage and realized I left something in my place. So back up I went and back down I came. Except, when the elevator was almost to the ground floor it stopped and tipped, like tipped over.

We could see out of the corner of the elevator but that was it. My cell phone was in the car and I started to panic about getting to our rendez-vous point.

While dreaming that I was in the elevator panicking about being late I started to flash back in my dream about the meetings. How we were planning to "stick it to the man" using an elaborate plan of scaffolding, parade balloon animals, fireworks and all of us dressed like ninjas.
It's hard to explain, but imagine the set up looking something like the Hollywood Squares boxes all stacked up.
We would meet in Alaina and I's old dorm room in YSU, which was located in a building that looked like the dorms at BGSU and had the inside layout of Alaina's old factory apartment in Cincinnati. I know...it's all very tres tres chic.

When I finally got out of the elevator I ran Sydney Bristow style through the streets of Toronto until I arrived and was able to watch (but not participate in...boooo) the gloriousness of the plan come off.

I'm still not aware of the point of it all, other than the usual result of Alaina and I's master schemes, which was a crap ton of fun.

1.10.2011

Welcome, to the Night Mare

I've decided to try to read 52 books this year again. Last year I only made it to about 35 but I'm trying again this year.
I won't be reviewing them like I did last year, if you can call it that, but creating an epic (ok that might be a stretch) list for posting the end of 2011. I've already got 3 under my belt, so we'll see if I can keep on track.
But I digress.

So I was about 100 pages from the end of Every Last One and could just feel the climax of the story coming. It was pretty close to 11pm so I thought I would read a few more pages and then call it a night.
Except the climax of the story was a home invasion and homicide.

:gulp:

Yeah. So, sleep didn't work out so well for me that night.
I jumped at every noise and even at the shadow of my elbow in the light of my iPod.
I couldn't lay with my back to the door like I usually do because that's how the woman was laying in the book. My shoulder blades were just itching with the anticipation of a butcher knife in my back.

It took me until almost 2am to fall asleep, and of course by fall asleep I mean "pass out from sheer exhaustion".

But I am happy to report that I did still get up in 3 1/2 hours and work out like a champ.
I did pretty good energy-wise until about 430, when I crashed and hard. I was out like a light by 9pm that night. For the next almost 14 hours.

Ahhhh, paranoid delusions how I loathe thee.

1.07.2011

Shame

A few weeks back (or was it just last week, it seems like forever ago) Pete and I went to Verizon to get new phones. Towards the end I noticed one of my apps wasn't working right so I asked the guy and he fiddled with it for a little bit and then tossed the phone back at me and said "all set thanks bye" and started to walk away.

I look down at my phone and then at Pete's and realized it still wasn't working right. There was a moment I considered just adapting and dealing with it because I didn't want to bother the guy (who was being PAID to help me). But I persisted and he fidgeted a little more and said "oh it's the app not the phone". I pointed to Pete's and said, "His is working fine so it's clearly not the app."  After several more go rounds the phone was fixed and the issue resolved.
As Pete and I walked out the store I turned to him and said that I was so reassured just knowing he was in the store. Because had I been by myself I would have just given up and walked out.
He asked why and I replied, because I felt ashamed that I need help.

I'm realizing a lot lately how much shame I'm carrying around with me.
Especially heavy is the shame I feel whenever I realize that I need someone else, anyone else. Whether it is assistance at a store, to reschedule a meeting, needing help around the house because I don't know or can't do something on my own, moving, being sick, and especially with the crazy rolling around in my head I just haven't been able to do it. So much shame.
I would never ever encourage that in anyone else, not even my worst enemy (ok, maybe her but well...I'm working on that) but it's the ONLY reaction I have to needing help.

I spend massive amounts of time composing texts, emails, even Facebook posts and Tweets so that I don't sound like I need help. So that I don't sound needy and demanding.
Because deep down, hell, right here on the surface, I feel like if I make even the slightest demand or am the tiniest bit inconvenient to you you will completely shut me out and down and I will lose my relationship with you.

It's irrational. But it's true.

I measure my words.
I measure my actions.
I think through most conversations I have to the nth degree trying to anticipate any conflict points or ways I might irritate you and I either figure out how to avoid them or come up witty retorts to make sarcastic jokes out of them.

I don't know how, or even if, I'll be able to overcome that. It seems so daunting. This word.
Which is also how I know it's the right word for me right now. 

1.06.2011

Disparate Words

When something terrible happens, a lifetime of small events and unremarkable decisions, of unresolved anger and unexplored fears, begins to play itself out in ways you least expect. You've been going along from one day to the next, not realizing that those disparate words and gestures were adding up to something, a conclusion you didn't anticipate. And later, when you begin to retrace your steps, you see that you will need to reach back further than you could have imagined, beyond words and thoughts and even dreams, perhaps, to make sense of what happened. 

-Bird in Hand

1.05.2011

Fresh Start

The thing about the new year is how hopeful you can feel.
That week after Christmas but before New Year (when you actually start working on your resolutions, whatever they may be).
It's the moment when you say, I CAN do this. I WILL do this. Whatever this is depends on you.

It's the hope before you fail and before people start letting you down, before you start letting yourself down.

(Because while I'm hopeful that when I ask for help this year I won't be let down I'm not sure I trust that it will happen.)

But the thing I can't seem to grasp, what I can't seem to grab onto lately is that everyday is a new day. Everyday is a chance to let go of yesterday and what happened and start fresh and new.
Everyday brings with it hope that things can be better and that you can and will do these things, whatever things there are that you want to do.

Every morning mercies are new and there is hope.

1.04.2011

Vanishing

She has forgotten herself for a second, forgotten her desire for distance and privacy.
He could wait for this to pass -- and it will quickly. She'll look at her watch and walk away.
He knows this because he too knows solitude.
He knows its pleasure and its power.
He knows it is a home you cam occupy, a place where you can watch your pains shimmer around you like a school of fish.
It's also a habit, and he knows how entrenched and addictive it becomes.
She might hate him of he pulls her out of its dark waters.
It would hurt at first.
And maybe always.
- Deborah Willis Escape

1.03.2011

One Word: Help


I love me some Alece. Her blogs, while coming from a different place than mine, seem to cut right through all the rigmarole and find the place I needed to hear those words. Without even saying it she says, "Me Too", which sometimes makes all the difference. Last year she chose the word Risk as her one word. This year, she's doing One Word again and asking others to challenge themselves to pick a word too.

I decided after a tumultuous year of lots of chaotic events both physically and emotionally that this year I'm going to ask for help more.

I'm not good at it.
I hate doing it.

Even though I'm happy to help other people, even though it would never ever occur to me that they were taking advantage, lazy or inconveniencing me I feel that way when I ask for help.

I'm already quite nauseous about it.
I'm worried that I'll lose friends and relationships because I'm being to demanding.
I'm worried that no one will show up.
I'm worried about what I will be like after asking for help from doctors with various issues I'm determined to address this year.

Because one of the first ways I'm asking for help is to find a pay-a-friend to help me face some scars and get them healed and off of my heart for the last and final time.

There are some other big things I'm thinking about doing this year, and I'll need help doing them all I think. So I'm working on asking for help more and trusting people when they say they really want to help me.

(I briefly contemplated making my One Word trust, but...I just can't do that without help so help it is)

So if I ask you for help this year, please just know it was probably pretty hard for me to ask you so be kind.

1.01.2011

Good Things: December

December 1st- Day 3 of nothing to do after work, can a girl take all this down time?

December 2nd- Happy Birthday Dad!

December 3rd- Work party, a lot of laughing, good food, and open bar.

December 4th- HP7 for the 3rd (and probably final in the theater) time then decorating the house for Christmas

December 5th- Lazy laundry Sunday and a 2 hour nap

December 6th- Crazy hectic day at work but had fun hanging out with roomie and Matthew at Golden Corral (where it's ok to eat when it's NOT Thanksgiving)

December 7th- Hurt my back today, but got to spend some quality time with my best friend the chiro table

December 8th- Thanks to automatic online notifications I was able to save $70. See also cranky and tired so I pouted on the couch while roomie made dinner (and cleaned up!)

December 9th- Anything that could go wrong did this morning, but people offered to lend me gas money so that was wonderful

December 10th- Clean sheet night followed by no alarm clock Saturday!

December 11th- After briefly waking up at 630 I fell back asleep until 1130 and stayed on the sofa until 5pm. Lovely day followed by XBox 360 Kinect with some friends

December 12th- Kicked Pete's ass in Monopoly. It was literally the best Monopoly game I've ever played. I ended up owning every single thing on the board. No...really.

December 13th- In an unsurprising turn of events instead of being productive after work I fell asleep on the sofa at 7pm and then got up and went to bed for the night at 9.

December 14th- Roomie made a ridiculously delicious dinner, Skip-Bo and Toy Story 3

December 15th- Snowpocalypse! Yet it only took me 15 minutes longer to get to work. Go figure.

December 16th- Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

December 17th- Costco with Sharen and Matthew, it was surprisingly empty and slow for the Friday before Christmas

December 18th- I shopped for like 6 hours today, but I'm DONE shopping until well after the holidays! Also, old movies in bed most of the night

December 19th- Finally rearranged the 2nd bedroom, I'm not sure if I'm happy with it but time will tell.

December 20th- Made almost 10 dozen cookies, emptied, reloaded, washed, emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, washed and dried towels and clothes (and folded the clothes!) and wrapped the rest of the Christmas gifts I had at my house. It was the most productive night I've had in a LONG time

December 21st- Marathon cleaning at Sharen's house getting it ready for Christmas and teaching a certain 6 year old nephew to write things in the snow with his "special yellow paint"

December 22nd- Sharen's living room finally got completely put back together and is ready for Christmas Day! I admit I was doubtful it would happen in time :)

December 23rd- Christmas Eve Eve services at church. I love me some candle light service singing

December 24th- Fun night playing games and laughing with the family, I was exhausted and slept super well too

December 25th- I got a freakin Wii! I also may have played it for like 8 hours. Maybe.

December 26th- I bought drapes for my bedroom and played about 9 hours of Wii

December 27th- Bought the rest of my drapes and played MORE Wii

December 28th- New phone! Droid, which I'm still learning to use. Hoping the battery life of this one is MUCH better than the Storm.

December 29th- Two words: Angry Birds

December 30th- 1/2 day at work, last day of the year to work

December 31st- Nicole came to play!