holidays, oh holidays

It is officially "that time of year". The weather is finally taking a turn for the cold. The unbearable heat and humidity are letting up and we can have the windows open. We turn our clocks back an hour next weekend. Thanksgiving is one month away, Christmas is 2. Hands down, Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday. It's a 360 holiday. When it comes to Christmas, I am in all-out mode. I decorate the apartment and the tree the best that I possibly can. This year I am particularly excited because last year I raided the sale racks and bought all of my favorite holiday classics. There are many benefits to this because my wrapping paper is different from this year's picks. No one really remembers what wrapping paper looked like last year. The best part of Christmas, aside from the obvious birthday, is the gifts. I actually hate trying to think of what I want from anyone because I am so excited about picking stuff out for my family and friends. I could care less about receiving gifts, but giving gifts is very special. I love love love! wrapping presents. I love bows, ribbons, tissue paper, everything. It takes me about 2 months to figure out the right gift for each person. Nina and I go shopping every black Thursday. We plan who we're buying for, where we're going and in what order we go. By the end of the day, we've knocked out about 75% of the gifts we have to buy at discounted prices. Then we also have stories to tell about how we got up at 5:00am, how we fought to get it and stood in line forever to buy just the right gift.

My second favorite thing is the the treeeeeee. Since Ryan and I live in an apartment, we can't really buy a real tree. It is too messy, it's a fire hazard and hard to dispose. For our 2nd and 3rd Christmas' together, Ryan and I had a 2 or 3 foot tall tree from his sister. We covered it in little mini ornaments and little mini lights. It was on top of a little end table with an enormous pile of presents stacked all around. We are blessed to have large families full of parents, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, aunts uncles, grandparents and friends. This means we get to put gift after gift under the tree and it is just lovely.

I am very excited about Christmas this year. The tough thing is celebrating between my family and Ryan's family. He and I play a sort of Hannukah style Christmas. I am a big fan of buying Ryan lots and lots of presents, though I am awful at keeping secrets and executing surprises. So to help me not go crazy, he lets us open presents throughout the week before Christmas. He endures lots and lots of pictures for me and I give him lots of presents. It's a good working relationship.

So. Here we are about a month before black Thursday and 2 months before Christmas. I am very excited. Christmas here we come!

And lastly, here's a shot of our mini tree from last year:

and another thing.

Yesterday, I had excellent success at tackling my bad habits.

I had leftovers for dinner, thus not spending any money when I already had food at home.
I did a load of laundry start to finish.
I got on the treadmill and worked out for 30 minutes.
I cleaned up a small mess that had been staring at me for weeks.
And at the end of the day, I brushed my teeth.

cheers.

ex·hil·a·rate (ĭg-zĭl'ə-rāt') tr.v.
1. To cause to feel happily refreshed and energetic; elate.
2. To invigorate; stimulate.

Ryan and I had an exhilarating evening.

random thoughts.

I need to break these bad habits:

1. Eating out when there is food in the apartment and I'm just too lazy to cook.
2. Not brushing my teeth before I go to bed.
3. Letting the apartment get messier and messier.
4. Allowing my negative thoughts prevent me from taking action.
5. Being too lazy to work out and be healthy.

This blog has enabled me in some ways to break through barriers in my life. Since I've started writing here, I've given myself more confidence to accomplish goals. I've realized my inner thoughts and hopes, simply by enumerating them and forcing myself to make them take life.
SO tonight I've enumerated my bad habits and will seek to make these improvements.

Ryan and I had a short talk this evening about moving out of Gainesville. His job satisfaction has seen a bit of a dip the last couple of months. Mostly due to lack of responsibility exhibited by the emloyees surrounding him. No one seems to really care enough about their job to even just put the minimum level of work required by the job. That brought us back to the idea of moving to Orlando. I had thought we would stay in Gainesville a little while longer (2 yrs max). I am still open to moving sooner though. I'm just curious where that would put our relationship. Do we buy a house? Do we rent again? It will be interesting to live out this next year. It seems a lot of changes are about to come.

On a different note...On the way out to his parents house yesterday we had a discussion about child behavior and what factors affect a child's personality. We decided that it could be parental influence, siblings, sex/gender, position in the sibling order and school/public influence. I realized during that discussion that my passions and interests have largely been in this area of thought: child behavior and child psychology. I have always enjoyed children (despite my previous anxiety about giving birth to my own children) and have always been curious as to what makes a child's mind work the way it does. I'm wondering how I could make a career out of this discovery of some of my real and true interests.

And now, I'm going to go brush my teeth.

a post.

Here are 5 things:

1. I really like to eat ice cream, especially right out of the carton.
2. I could watch HGTV and TLC all day long.
3. A good book on a rainy saturday is a good weekend for me.
4. I love flowers, every flower Ryan has ever given me is dried somewhere in the apartment.
5. I hate knowing that someone dislikes me. I also hate people telling me "You're just like me" when it is so not true.