Happy Christmas

The Christmas countdown has begun. Officially, Christmas-time starts the day after Thanksgiving, but I'll admit that I had already watched a few abcFamily Christmas movies before Thanksgiving, but I promise the tree didn't go up until the day after.

My roommate Marci and I decorated the tree as we listened to the amazing vocals of the New Kids on the Block "Funky Funky Christmas" circa 1987. It was pretty great, but we couldn't take too much of that so we moved on to Twisted Sister and Barenaked Ladies Christmas songs.

I've actually decorated three trees so far, and some Christmas cookies. I've made a Christmas playlist with three different versions of my favorite song, "O Come O Come Emmanuel." And, I've been to two movies to do my part to support Hollywood at this trying time.

Here are some pics of Christmas cookie fun. This one won "best use of left-over sprinkles"

Julie Kelly and Jon acting as cookie judges
Robin is excited by something, she is only funny 10% of the time though:)

We decorated quite a lot of cookies, I think the Christmas trees were my favorites.

This one won for "best use of shading" Go Libby!

Give Thanks

Given the day, I thought I would take a moment to list some of the things that I am grateful for.

• My family- even though they are far away, I love and miss them
• Getting off work early on a Wednesday and not working for the rest of the week
• Good friends that get me through the day
• A regular view of the Washinton Memorial as I drive around my house
• Finding new music that I love
• Cabin memories, past and future
• Looking forward to fun vacations
• Sunday game nights
• Finding old friends and new friends on facebook
• Talking to my mom on the way home from work
• I'm going to be an auntie next year
• Decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving
• Enjoying the red rocks of southern Utah with my camping buddy
• Getting something in the mail that isn't a bill
• Going to concerts
• Going shopping with my dad on Christmas Eve
• The first snow of the year
• Having a big table that can host Thanksgiving dinner
• Liking the people that I work with
• Having friends all over the world and the hope that someday I'll be able to visit them
• Knowing that my buddy Bradley lives in a good home
• The first time in the ski season where I really remember how to ski
• Occasional hibernation
• Comfy sweats
• Watching movies
• Getting something great on sale
• Morning ski runs at Lake Powell

Ingrid Michaelson

Last night was the Ingrid Michaelson concert, it was great, and I'm pretty sure we could be great friends. She was pretty hillarious, and at one point could not even sing the song because she was laughing too much. Those are my favorite concerts- when you can tell that the artist is having so much fun.

Also, it was the last show in their tour. Last shows tend to be lots of fun anyway because even though they are happy to be heading home to sleep in their own beds, I think they realize they'll miss being on the road with adoring fans.

I feel like it's possible to post youtube videos on here, but I don't know how. And I forgot my camera last night, so if you want to see her singing "The way I am" go here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtVPF_IYRKI

My afternoon

Every weekday, right around 2:45 I have the exact same conversation.

Mail guy: Hi, how's it going?
Me: Pretty good, how about you?
Mail guy: Oh pretty good.

awkward pause

Mail guy: Ok, have a good day.
Me: You too.



Today was pretty interesting because he let me know that he wouldn't be here tomorrow, (we're closing at noon, so neither will I) but I have to admit that the veering off from the regular conversation with the weird mail guy has slightly thrown my afternoon out of balance.

I'm not lying

There is snow outside my window! In Virginia! In November!

It's kind of hard to see at first, and isn't enough to actually do anything other than make me happy, but it really is snowing.

update:

It actually got going up to an official flurry, but by the time I got downstairs and outside it was gone :(

Wolf Parade

I took a quick little trip up to New Jersey and New York this weekend. One of my favorite bands, Wolf Parade, only had two shows on the east coast before they were heading off to tour Europe, so of course I had to go. I was lucky enough to actually convince some other people to go with me- Marci and Alan (happy birthday Marci!), and we had a great time.

The show was awesome- especially when some of the cieling fell down on Spencer Krug, one of the leads and the crowd just cheered and said "What do you expect? You're in New Jersey!

After the show we saw a White Castle, so we stopped to get Marci and I our first White Castle burger, mmm tasty?

We went into the city on Saturday and packed in as much as we could. My new favorite thing that I think I will have to do every time I go to New York now is go to Rice to Riches and eat yummy rice pudding and get cool bowls that I can use as fun tupperware.

This is a clip from "I'll believe in anything." The guy singing is Spencer Krug, I have a crush on him. The opening band, Listening Party, came out and sang with them, as well as a "tricerasquatch"- I don't know what to say about that, except that they're Canadian.

Tonight

Tonight we played nertz, and ate cinnamon rolls, and I may have danced with/chased Kelly skipping and twirling around the kitchen island. Maybe the cinnamon rolls had a little too much sugar in them.

It's not the dump we all thought it was

I was in Pittsburgh for most of last week, and I actually quite liked the city. Coming in from the airport you kind of wonder where you are going because cities usually have some taller buildings, and then you go through this tunnel and voila, on the other side you're crossing a bridge and there is the city laid out in front of you. My hotel was right on the point park where the two rivers meet, so I had a great view of the bridges and the ridge and the park. When I woke up on Wednesday there was fog all over the river and it looked really cool.

The conference was pretty good, I met lots of great people and learned some very interesting things. I learned which secondary school systems have courses that can be evaluated as transfer credit, and about the changes in the French educational system over the last ten years, and how Bollywood can help foster cultural understanding on college campuses.

One of the highlights however, was going out to dinner with some others from the conference to the Church Brew works. It is an old catholic church that was renovated and turned into a brewery. It was pretty amazing inside, it's still a huge building, and a lot of the seats are still pews (even in the bathroom). I had a rattlesnake and cactus pirogi (a traditional Pittsburgh/Polish food- except for the rattlesnake part, that wasn't very traditional)