New Year's Eve

I'm leaving in a few moments for Plano to attend a New Year's gathering with some friends.

Lots has happened since last we talked.

Well, I'll be seeing you. Perhaps I'll come back with some New Year's Resolutions I've decided on. Perhaps I'll tell you what they are.

Quesadilla

I got a quesadilla maker from my mom for Christmas. It's like a waffle maker but....for quesadillas. So today, instead of my usual half a turkey sandwich with Baked Nacho Cheese Doritos, I made myself a quesadilla for lunch. For lack of other ingredients, I just grated myself some cheese and had myself a pretty tasty cheese quesadilla. And, not being able to find salsa, I dipped it in ranch (because, like a wise man once said, everything is better with ranch). And I'm satisfied. So far today has been quite an adventure.

Later today I got to MidWinter and will be gone until Friday. Just so you know.

Buon Natale!

The living room is littered with gifts and wrapping paper; my stomach is full of pancakes and biscuits and bacon and eggs and orange juice and coffee. It must be Christmas.



We wrapped Shiloh...


And there is now only one Christmas gift left under the tree. It looks so lonely...

"Don't you wish you're girlfriend was hot like me?"

I'm watching VH1's "Top 40 Videos of 2006," and at the same time realizing that most music videos by females are not so much about their song, but how hot said female is. And they are all hot, of course, so it gets pretty old. I think if I were to make a music video, I would just stand there, fully clothed, and sing my song. Or not be in it at all.

Buon Giorno

I just spend the last hour at a new coffee shop near my house, Buon Giorno Coffee. It was an hour well spent--reading, drinking coffee, supporting the local coffee shop peeps. It was my third time to go there and I have been pleased to find it pretty busy every time. Perhaps it will be able to compete with Starbucks and survive. The owner (who has a pleasant accent. English or something or other, I can never tell the difference.) saw that I was reading Blue Like Jazz and commented on what a good book it is. I concured. He then asked if I was a Christian and then what church I went to. He told me he led a church nearby as well as owning the coffee shop, that he opened the coffee shop in order to develop relationships in the community and such (I'm paraphrasing). He made a point to say that it wasnt' a "Christian" coffee shop, though, that he didn't want to alienate people, just serve them coffee. (I added that last part, about serving coffee. He didn't say that, but I figured it was implied, since it is a coffee shop). So that was neat, I thought. If you are ever in the Grapevine/Colleyville area, you should stop by Buon Giorno Coffee on Hall-Johnson for a cup o' joe. (It also as free wireless interenet. Starbucks can't beat that.)

I think it would be fun to open a coffee shop. It would be hard though, because of the Starbucks empire. Don't get me wrong, I like Starbucks-a lot-but you can't deny the fact that they are everywhere, which probably makes it hard for local coffee shops to survive.

Here is a question for my public, if you know the answer: Why is the Sound of Music's "Favorite Things," considered to be a Christmas song? Anyone?

In other news, my toe nail is falling off (sick OUT). I think that is of note. I postulate that my running shoes are to blame and so I've bought a new pair for myself for Christmas. I'm pretty excited about 'em.

I think it's funny that Shiloh likes having his butt rubbed (he's my dog, by the way). He just came up to me whilst I was sitting here and I started petting his back and he repostitioned himself so I was petting his butt, He always does that. Marco didn't do that. And also Shiloh always freaks out when Will leaves. LIke just now, Will, Allison and Bailey all went to the studio to record and now Shiloh is freaking out, running around and whining. It's pretty annoying and kind of sweet. Mainly just annoying.




Ok, you HAVE to see this.

Ping!

My house is making a lot of noises this morning. There are men outside doing yardwork and men above working in the attic, I think on the air conditioning or something. As we were eating breakfast this morning we kept hearing noises right above our head, like "pings!" and "thwats!" It was pretty funny/frightening.

It's only 11:10 and I've already accomplished so much. I've come closer to finishing my Christmas shopping, I've ordered my textbooks, and I've sent in my money for our electricity bill. Not a bad morning. It's interesting, having to worry about things like paying bills. When I got the email from Molly about how much we owe for our electric bill, I thought to myself, "Oh dear, and I still need to buy so many Christmas gifts. Perhaps I can hold off on paying the bill for a little while, they'd understand." I was thinking this was a perfectly reasonable assessment of the situation when it dawned on me that really, things like bills are supposed to take priority over things like Christmas presents, not the other way around. I'm not used to thinking like that.

Ok, I'm tired of strange men walking around my house, espeically when I'm here by myself. I'm going to do some more Christmas shopping. Perhaps I'll stop by a Coinstar first...

Restless

I'm home now, have been for two full days. It's good being home, but sometimes I get to feeling restless because there is so little to do. And then when I have a ton to do during school, I wish I was at home doing nothing and feeling restless. A person is never satisfied. What else is new?

I saw "The Pursuit of Happyness" this evening. It was a good movie, but I don't really wish to see it ever again. The majority of it was just so depressing. But like I said, it was still a good movie, I just didn't really have a good time watching it.

I worked out today at Lifetime. All by myself I went. It was nice. Working out just makes a person feel so much better about herself.

Not a bad day

I just spent the last hour or so being in and out of a nap on my couch. I never nap, but this was actually kind of nice. I don't remember actually being asleep, but I remembering dreaming. Like, in one dream my dad gave me a Christmas present that was kind of like a backpack, back more like a baby bag. And it could stretch out really long and fit a lot of stuff. I kept having ilttle dreams like that.

And also I'm done with this semester now. I finished my finals today. They were pretty painless. Not a walk in the park, but not a walk in downtown Waco at night either. For part of my Italian final I had to write a story using the words wedding, sad, sheep, to chat, and to say. I wrote a story about a man that was in love with a woman who worked as the restaurant where he ate lunch every day, but he was sad because she never talked to him. That is until on day when he ordered sheep for lunch. When she heard him order sheep, she said, "I love sheep!" After that every day they would chat while the man ate his lunch. One day the man asked the woman if she would like to go to his cousins wedding with him, but she said no. He asked her why and she said it was because she didn't like weddings, she always ended up eating too much cake. The story ends with the man saying, "Non capisco le donne!" or "I don't understand women!" The end.

I also got a five dollar Target gift card today for having the third most volunteer hours in Habitat for Humanity. That was pretty surprising. And I sold my books back and got some extra cash for Christmas shopping. So all in all, not a bad day.

Mad World

So I just saw "Stranger Than Fiction," for the second time. It is such a good movie. Oh goodness. You simply must watch it. And if you don't catch it in theatres, than you can watch it with me sometime, because I will definitely be buying it.

And also, this is a really good song/video. They showed it in church last Sunday. It's "Mad World," by Gary Jules. It's one of those beautifully depressing songs.

Merry finals!



What a splendid time of year. Finals, presents buying, studying, shopping, stressing, weight gaining, money spending, wrapping, increasing landfills. Oh joy. Oh peace. Oh Christmas.

Sorry, I'm really not that cynical. It just kind of came out.

I worked out with Rachael last night at the SLC. They have TVs going in front of all the cardio machines, and on one of them, the one right in front of me, the Victoria Secret fashion show was airing. I got to watch girls with perfect bodies that all look the same parade around in underwear and angels wings. It was funny because a lot of them, along with their bra and panties, were wearing mittens and warm hats. And of course the angel wings. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me. I was starting to feel a little down on myself, cause I'll never look like them, but then I stopped looking at the TV screen and started looking at the people around me-girls who were bigger than me, smaller than me, the same size as me. That's what's beautiful, how none of our bodies were the same, there's beauty in that variety, in not looking as the same like those dastardly Victoria's Secret models.

It's one thing to think that and write it in a blog, and it's another to actually believe it and to feel actually beautiful in one's own skin, not despite one's un-perfect body, but because of it. That's harder.

Hey, that reminds of me of a Kendall Payne song: "Me and B we hate supermodels. It's not that we know anyone personally. It's just that I'm tired of being compared."

Charlie Brown



I saw this last night at a Christmas gathering and had to share.