Finals

Hard to study when waiting for the holidays...

^From 2012.

Staying in touch...craftily?

12.7.13

• I'm so grateful for a working heater. It's getting pretty chilly for this part of the country, and I have at least one friend who has no heat in her house. I shiver to think of it.
• I go to the Starbucks near my house so often that several of the employees know me (by face if not name) and they're always very friendly. Jack goes there so often that several of the employees give him free drinks. So nice.
• I had a nightmare last night that I had gained like 30lbs, so I was relieved to wake up this morning and realize I was still the weight I expected.
• I've been slowly going through my old CDs and adding them to my external hard drive. It seems worth it since even someday when my laptop crashes, I can just put the music back on my new desktop or laptop and it will already be labeled and organized. I really enjoy organizing the music and remembering all the songs I forgot I once loved.
• And listening to that music yesterday made me feel grateful that I am still friends with certain people whose friendships I would not have expected to last so very long. It's nice.
• Every rare now and again you have anxiety over some impending issue or event, and the anxiety goes away not because anything has changed, but simply because you get bored of feeling anxious. I actually really like that. "This too shall pass." Suddenly you realize you know longer feel the thing is as big of a deal as you once did, because humans are adaptable.
• Jack has been biking everywhere (work and school, mostly) to exercise and save us gas money. He's such a hard-working guy. :)
• I recently discovered that Molly loves the Epic Rap Battles, adding another person I can quote ERB to.
• One of my friends on Facebook is doing a "Hope for Humanity" series for December where she posts one hope every day, and she inspired me to do it too. I am enjoying it, it's like another version of a Joy Inventory. The other day I posted this:

This is actually from December 6, not December 7. But still.

Christmas music!

Warming Up

I guess I kinda do like snow.

Sleep

12.3.13

• It was so nice to get to sleep in my own bed last night.
• I had Life cereal to mix with my yogurt this morning, making it much more substantial and crunchy.
• I worked out to Breaking Bad, which I am really enjoying. I really like Jesse Pinkman.
• Went to Starbucks and enjoyed their many Christmas decorations and Christmas-y music.
• Got a free sample of pumpkin loaf!
• Got more done on my project proposal than I expected, and much more quickly.
• So I went home earlier than I planned and baked spinach sausage loaf for lunch!
• While it was baking I put White Christmas on Netflix Instant and started putting up our Christmas decorations. Last year was the first time I had any Christmas decorations at all (a tabletop tree Jack's parents sent us), and since then I have made a few things and bought a few things and now we are actually able to decorate our apartment, and it's so nice.
• I also went to the Dollar Tree and picked up a few more decorations (obviously for very cheap) that I'm happy with.
• I got a chance to try a Pinterest craft (first time in quite awhile) and I really like the way it turned out.
• I made Jack a dinner of bread dipped in egg and mixed with onion, cheese, and sausage. He thanked me like 3x. I like having time to cook for him.
• Especially since he is way too busy with how hard he is working and studying, it's good to find some way to help.
• One of my FB friends is posting "hope for humanity" posts every day of December, which I think is very sweet.
• I love the moment when I finally get to crawl into bed, especially now that we have two comforters to stay warm without turning the heater on. So much softness, I am ready to sleep at this very moment!

The Pinterest-inspired craft. Cost less than $2.

My apartment full of decorations.

Games

12.1.3 & 12.2.13

Yesterday:

• Felt especially proud of Jack for how hard he studies. He studied almost the entire plane ride and continued to study after we got back to Dad's house, despite being exhausted from a major lack of sleep the night before.
• We had a great date night at Barney's.
• We used our expired Groupon, so it was still $15 cheaper than otherwise.
• I got the Beach Body salad and felt proud of myself for not getting some cheesy burger.
• Plus the Beach Body salad is delicious.
• They were playing Christmas music which, now that it's past Thanksgiving, I really enjoy.
• We sat at the bar away from everyone else and next to some really cool drawings of Barney's around the bay area.
• We had great conversations about the future, which is always nice.
• Then I went home and brainstormed on my gift for my sibling secret santa, which was fun.
• Then I passed out in a very comfortable bed in a very quiet house and slept for over 8 hours.

Today:

• I met with a woman organizing the Walk and it went very well!
• Jack and I finally made some progress on fixing Dad's kitchen floor.
• Jack was very comforting when I got upset after ruining some linens by leaving a lipstick in my jeans pocket. :-/
• Then I found out the linens aren't nearly as expensive as I thought, whew.
• And in fact there may be back up linens such that I don't have to buy new ones at all.
• I bought a Christmas decoration at Michael's, and when the cashier rung it up I was surprised to find it was 50% off!
• I had cereal for dinner, because I can.

Thanksgiving 2013

(Written 11/28/13:)

• Jack and I are staying in Sola's room for this trip, and she told me we are welcome to read any of her books. 
• Yesterday I played an excellent game of Tichu. Everett and I beat Neil and Jack, and it was close. Close games are more fun.
• Dinner was delicious, and I like our annual tradition of singing along loudly to music (especially Disney music) while cleaning up after.
• Then Jack and I got to swing dance a lot, and I also danced a lot with Sola and Rocket. That was my favorite part of the day, to be sure.
• I love that Jack likes to dance.
• Harrison has clearly watched my home video playlists a lot, which makes me so happy. He can quote from home videos from several years ago, and he knows exactly which video is the first one in a playlist.

(Written 12/2/13:)

• We played many Tichu games. During some of them I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.
• I also made 5 Tichus and broke none, upping my record (hooray!)
• A bunch of us went and sang karaoke at a local bar.
• There were just the right amount of people to make it feel happening, but still few enough that we had plenty of room to dance and we got to sing many songs.
• I love that my family likes to dance.
• I also love that my boyfriend likes to dance.
• He and I did a bunch of swing dancing and a random stranger complimented us on how well we dance! I think we practiced more during this trip than we have in months.
• I got to sing "Son of a Preacher Man" which is one of my favorite songs, and my siblings did back up.
• Another random stranger bought our whole table shots that tasted like pineapple upside down cake. It was his way of thanking our group for making the bar so fun that night.
• So we all ran over and gave him a group hug, pretty funny.
• At the end of the night we all sang "What's Going On" by 4 Non Blondes, then the karaoke DJ announced our departure and a bunch of people clapped and hugged us and shook our hands as we were leaving.
• We also got some great videos and pictures of it.
• The next day was more chill--we got to hang around the house and play with Rocket and Zoey and play cards with each other.
• I also had time to work on the ever-increasing home video collection for our family a lot throughout the trip.
• In the evening Denny and I watched Zoey and she was very cute for a long time playing with poker chips.
• I also shared a bowl (two bowls) of Corn Pops with Rocket, each of us taking turns taking bites and then slurping the milk. It was a nice bonding time.
• We stayed up late enough to see Julie after work and we watched the "Goats that sound like humans" video and laughed a lot.
• Yesterday we got to the airport in plenty of time and even though our flight left late, we still arrived in SF on time.
• Oh, and on the way through security I was behind the most efficient passengers I've ever seen. They had their shoes and belts and etc. off and their laptops out and everything ready to go so far in advance that I was struggling to keep up, haha. It was kind of cool.

Friends that make you laugh.

Countdown to Christmas!