Christmas 09

Christmas. When I think of Christmas, I think of family, food, gifts, candy canes, baking, music, the list goes on and on. This year we had a different Christmas which only contained a couple of the elements that I associate with Christmas. But it turned out to be ok because the real focus this year was family and making sure we were all together.

This year we had Christmas at my grandmas new home. She recenly moved into a retirement village where she has here own apartment and she goes to a common dining room for food and sometimes entertainment. She wanted us to have Christmas at her place this year to make some good memories at her new place.

Christmas is usually at my house, so it was a new thing to travel on Christmas day. I wasn't really looking forward to that part but it ended up being kinda fun. My family and my Aunt's family all caravaned (is that a word? haha) to grandma's on Christmas morning after a breakfast of my homemade cinnamon rolls and opening stockings (for my 2 little cousins, I don't get one anymore). We found some Christmas music on the radio and my brother even had some on his ipod. It was actually nice because it was the first time in a long time the 4 of us spent any long length of time all together in the same place.

We arrived around 11:30 just an hour before the dining room would be serving Christmas dinner! This was definitely different being as we normally have our Christmas feast around 6 or 7. But this year's theme was "go with the flow" so we put on our happy faces. I don't know if you have ever been to a retirement home/place/village but if you are under the age of 60 and you are at their place, you are a sight to see (especially when you are a party of 11, 4 under age 21, and 1 on roller skates).

Finals

As of tomorrow, exactly 4 months will have gone by. 4 months ago was the first day of school of my junior year of college (pictured). Today I am sitting here wondering how 123 days or 2952 hours or even 177,120 minutes have gone by so quickly. 4 months ago, E, B, and I were so excited to land the perfect little house and to start a new school year together. And it was definitely a good time while it lasted. But right now, as I'm sitting in our almost empty house with half our belonging in a storage unit, things seem very bittersweet.

This week has been finals, and the one word I can think of to descibe it is CRAZY. Everyone is in a flurry, and practically living at the library. At least B has been. I live with the girl and literally haven't seen her in 3 days! I am hoping she will re-appear soon.

I spent the whole day reading for bus 316. Thats what you get when you do nothing the entire semester until finals week. I tend to think it works better for me though seeing as I have a great short term memory for tests. Hasn't failed me yet so I'll be crossing my fingers tomorrow.

All in all not a bad day, E kept me company while she cleaned and rubbed all our walls with rubbing alcohol (Isn't there a cleaning solution for that?). Tomorrow after my final is when the real cleaning begins and I must pack up my room before mom comes on friday. Meanwhile I am trying to eat everything in my cupboards, lots of spaghetti and and oatmeal, pretty much a carb diet, must say I'm looking forward to going home and eatting some real food.

Snow

This morning I had to scrape ice off my windshield. To most people in the world this is probably a normal everyday winter thing. But for me, I can count the number of times I have had to do this on one hand. My wimpy self is not used to have to brave such cold.

Today the house was 51 when I woke up. I wore to school 3 shirts (one of them long sleeved), my warm school sweatshirt, leggings, yoga pants, and my trusty uggs. And I was still cold. When Im freezing I can't think about anything else. I've talked about it so much today that its annoying.

If it's going to be this cold, it might as well be snowing. At least then it would be pretty. My mom sent me pictures of my house covered in snow! This might not seem so special, but where I live it is.

I am currently sitting in my 65 degree house at my kitchen table listening to christmas music trying  to finish my same soci paper (I'm on page 4 out of 5!) and also watching E get her hair dyed by our good friends K & W.

Things are about to get a lot more crazy around here. I am literally resting on the very edge of the calm before the storm. I finalize my class schedule for next semester tomorrow, turn in my paper and attend the last of my MW classes. This weekend will be filled with equal parts fun and crazyness as B & I think about starting to move our stuff into a temporary storage unit. On top of this I need to start studying for FINALS. Joy.

Procrastination

This morning my house was 54 degrees. Just typing it makes me cold. This is the reason I hate getting up in the morning. Not because I'm tired, not because I don't want to face the day, just simply because 54 degrees is damn cold! As soon as I jump out of bed I layered on leggings, velour sweat pants, tall uggs, shirt, a warm hoodie, and a blanket and I was still cold. So my next idea is to make hot oatmeal and tea to warm my bones and it did, temporarily. After that my strategy becomes like a cat, to find the SUN. Only our living room gets direct sun and only during certain hours of the day. Although I was able to enjoy it a few minutes this morning before the sky turned to a grey overcast.

Today's goal: Sociology paper
List of things I did to avoid completing today's goal:

• getting warm (who can do homework when you're freezing?!)
• eating
  
• cleaning my room
• watching GLEE
• doing other homework
• more eating
  
• chatting with roomies
• watching Jersey Shore (new addiction)
• watching 2nd episode JS
• facebook
• this post
• taking random pictures of the catcus in our front yard.
• watching 1/2 an intervention with E
• going to safeway with B to get caramel corn supplies

As of now I have 1 page of my paper almost completed, due date is Wed so I still have time. I am still freezing head to toe but the weatherman says it may snow tomorrow.

Vaccuming & Chocolate

This morning we had an official roommate talk. The 3 of us were actually all home and available to converse, which lately doesn't seem to happen often. Over coffee(E), tea(Me), and hot chocolate(B) we were finally able to clear the air just in the nick of time to fully enjoy our last 2 weeks living together before the fall semester ends.

Saturday tends to be a cleaning day around here, a Saturday every once in a while that is. But today was special because I got to try out my brand new vacuum! It's a little bit of a sad day when you realize that all you really want for Christmas is a security deposit for an apartment and a vacuum! But at least it's a little sign that after all I am growing up and really in a college town a vacuum is a very precious thing to have. I tried it out and it works great, I am really enjoying actually having clean carpets! Oh the things you take for granted when living with parents.

I sat down to write my final sociology paper several times today but I just cant START it! I would rather clean the whole house then write a paper, blah. B and I were productive though and found a storage unit to store our stuff when we are going to be homeless for a week in the beginning of January. Oh the joys of moving, and we also can rent a dolly for only $10! Now we just need some boys to help us.


As soon as I sat down again to do my paper B comes marching in with a strong chocolate craving but no idea what would satisfy her. What a dilemma! We finally settled on some funfetti brownies we had got at Safeway on sale for a $1! Too bad though that the funfetti actually ended up all over the living room floor. Luckily I had just vacuumed 2 hours prior so we figured it would be sanitary to use them anyway. If this is my first and last post, I will have died by poison brownies.