get that girl some maracas!

Watch this:



And then tell me it doesn't look like she's dancing to it:

And maybe singing along ;)


[es mi sobrina]

deck the halls with boughs of holly

I decorated my house for Christmas.

Check it out over at Be Jolly, By Golly!

anything for youuuu

I love a good commercial.
Bahaha.

I think this is my second fave at the moment.
Next to this one.

thoughts on Thanksgiving

Ya know, there's a lot I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful for my husband, for example, who loves me and laughs with me.
I'm thankful for my family--my nieces, my sister, all that stuff.
I'm thankful for school and the fact that it's a luxury that I've been blessed with having access to.
I'm thankful that I have a roof over my head and food in the cupboard.
I'm thankful that I live in America; we may have a lot of problems, but I couldn't imagine anywhere else.
I'm thankful that my Jesus loved me enough to die for me when He definitely didn't have to.

I'm thankful for so much.

But ya know what? That's not entirely what this post is about.

We're all thankful for things.

But why is it that I hate Thanksgiving? Hate it. I loathe Thanksgiving.
It's the most stressful day of the year for me.
Going from one house to the next because my parents got divorced when I was little--too small to remember having one house--is awful. It puts guilt on me when there's really no reason for it. I feel guilty if I skip either house, so I go to both--every year. And then when I got married, I added a third house: MIL's.

And ya know what else I hate?

I'm not allowed to really chow down like most people do.

When we had early Thanksgiving at MIL's house on Saturday, I ate like crazy. I think I ate more than anybody there except SIL's boyfriend, who eats like it's going out of style. I even ate more than Hubby did.

I realized today why I ate so much more than I usually do for Thanksgiving meals. It wasn't because the food was delicious; it wasn't. It wasn't because I hadn't eaten all day; I had a good breakfast that morning. It wasn't because I was competing with someone else at the table; I wish it was that simple.

It was because I had no reservations; I didn't have to save room in my stomach for a second Thanksgiving dinner. I didn't have to hold back on eating so I'd still be able to eat at the next house.

It was nice to be able to know what a real Thanksgiving feels a little like, without being stressed to the limit. I haven't had that since--well, since before I can remember.


I hate to say it, but I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving ending.
The day after Thanksgiving happens to be my favorite day of the year.
And for that, I'm excited.
:]

finals--bah!

[the arts building on campus--where my two classes are!]

I have finals in two weeks.

14 days.

Seriously--two weeks.

I'm freaking out! My math final is worth twenty percent of the class grade, and my speech final is ten percent. I think. It could be more.

So all of the hard work I've done maintaining A grades in both classes so far could be for nothing if I bomb my finals.

That's a lot of pressure! Bah!

But then again, I trust myself. I don't usually fail tests... I'm pretty good about it. I don't think I've bombed a test since eighth grade.


It's bittersweet that classes are almost over for the quarter.
This is my last--ever--quarter on campus at my school.
I'll be doing winter and spring quarters online like I did last year, and then I graduate in June (!).
I think I'll miss my school!

I won't miss finals, though. Blech.

pass the grub!

We had Thanksgiving with Hubby's family early on Saturday (I'll pass on reporting that--it uh, could have been better), and now I'm looking forward to the real Thanksgiving in just a couple more days!

That said, what's on your Thanksgiving menu? Any specific Thanksgiving dishes you can't live without?



(By the way, Christmas Eve is just one month away! And thaaat means you should check out Be Jolly, By Golly more often!)

wow!

I feel kind of stupid.

Ya know how sometimes you forget which side of the car has the gas tank and which side is ... well, nothing, so when you pull up the gas pump you feel like an idiot 'cause your car is backwards?
Especially if you have multiple cars and they're not all on one side...

I didn't realize until Friday that my car has this:

It's just two words, but they're oh-so helpful.

The fuel door? Thataway! >>>


[anyone else have a neon? Does yours have this too?]

ridiculously bubbly

Crack me up.

dear snow

Dear Snow:

Please, if it's not too much to ask, could you wait until December 9th to visit me again?

My last day of classes this quarter is December 8th when we take finals, so I need to be able to get off the hill to finish. But when you show up, it makes it very hard to go anywhere!

So please wait a little while longer--just a couple more weeks!
Then you can visit all you want <3

Love, Amy.

dear happy friends...

Will you share with me what makes you happy?

When you're sad (or mad...), what cheers you up? Where is your happy place?

ah washington...

So I've lived here my whole life, right? I was driving home in the rain today and realized that finally, after 20 years, I'm starting to get tired of rain. Maybe I just need a vacation. I miss the sunshine! We get like, two weeks a year when we know without a doubt that rain's not in the forecast.

I then thought about those lists you see once in a while: "you know you're from suchandsuch when..."
So I googled one and picked out a few of my favorites:

You know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Enumclaw, Skamokawa, and Issaquah.

You consider swimming an indoor sport.

You know the difference between "showers followed by rain" and "rain followed by showers".

You see a person carrying an umbrella and know they must be a tourist.

You get a terrible sunburn on the first really nice day of summer.

You've owned the same bathing suit for years because you never have a chance to wear it out.

You take a heavy coat and a hat with you for a day at the beach.

You know the difference between Chinook, Coho and Sockeye salmon.

You still can't believe the new Seahawks stadium is open air.

You or someone you know works at Boeing or Microsoft.

You can point to at least 2 volcanoes even if you can't actually see them through the cloud cover.

You have no concept of humidity without precipitation.

You buy new sunglasses every year because you've lost last years pair after such a long time not needing them.

You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit under a raincoat.

You know how to pronounce geoduck and know that it doesn't quack or have feathers.

You have an earthquake story, and so does everyone else you know.

You know what 'Sodo Mojo' is.

You can't imagine living through a tornado or hurricane but you secretly think earthquakes are kind of fun.

You lose your sense of direction if you go east of the Cascade mountains.

You don't know what a turnpike is and have never paid a toll to drive over a bridge.

serendipaciousness

On Saturday I went to the store to get some time out of the house.

I wandered around Walmart, picked out a few things, bought them, put them in my car and started do head home.
But then, spur of the moment, I turned in the opposite direction.

I went to Fred Meyer to see if they had these. While I was there in that aisle I turned around and was looking at the prices for NDS's. I glanced down and happened to see a coupon for a free $15 gift card with purchase of either DS or DSLite. I called Hubby immediately and we basically decided that that was good enough to be a sale price!

He came down with the money we had been saving for just this occasion and we bought two DS consoles. Somebody else had left a store ad there with a barcode for like, 15% off purchases over $100 or somethin along those lines, so we got to use that, too.

And then used the two free gift cards to buy Mario Kart DS.

Funny that I happened to turn right and end up at Fred Meyer that night instead of going home. We'd still be waiting and waiting and waiting for a sale price!
We are now the proud owners of a red DS, a blue DS, and MarioKart DS.
(and two more games I bought on eBay but haven't gotten yet)

Woot.

Merry early Christmas to us.

cake

On Saturday, my quarter birthday, I made myself a quarter birthday cake.

And blew out three candles, one for each quarter of my 20th year.

I love cake <3

And I love confetti frosting.

happy quarter birthday to me!

Today is my quarter birthday!
Well, one of them.
The other one is May 14th.

Today I am 20 and three quarters years old. (can't believe only three months till I'm 21)

I'm starting a new tradition today of actually celebrating my quarter birthday in one way or another.

When I was a kid I celebrated my real birthday--but since I was born on Valentine's Day, it got harder to celebrate as I got older and all of my friends started blowing me off for dates. Makes sense, I guess, but it sucked.

Then I started celebrating my half birthday--August 14th.
But then Hubby and I got married on my half birthday, so now my halfbirthday is overshadowed by our anniversary.

My solution? Quarter birthdays. Huzzah!

Not sure how I'm going to celebrate, but I'll figure something out!

Happy quarter birthday to me!

fyi... tis the season!

Pssssst...

As Christmas gets closer, it becomes harder and harder for me to contain my excitement.
And thus Christmas starts to overtake my life!

I might not be posting here as much until it's over... but I'll be posting on Be Jolly, By Golly! more often! So check it out!

There are links to the latest posts; you can find those links just beneath the header here on this blog.


Oh, and come over to BJBG to welcome Callie to Christmas blogging!