Christmas ABCs

Yes, yes. I still have three papers to write. However, it is vital to stay alive and well. Thus, I am going to blog about Christmas. Here are MY ABCs of Christmas...

Absolutely fabulous presents, I mean company!
Beatles music. Something about the Beatles just screams Christmas to me.
Christmas carols
Dancing around the Christmas tree
Everybody gets together for the holidays
Festive cheer
Gluhwein
Happy faces
Ice
Jolly Ol' St. Nick!
Kris Kringle
Laughter
Music...lots of it
Nog as in Egg Nog
Offspring have to visit their 'rents
Prayer before the meal
Quietly sneaking to see if St. Nick is real.
Red
Sleigh bells
Tinsel on the tree
Uniform Christmas gifts...no kid gets more than another at the BBJ house
Very Merry Christmas Disney sing-along
Winter Wonderland
Xciting times
Yule tidings
Zzzzs since the old farts are too old to wake up early for presents these days

little gnomes

I like gnomes. I have a few. Three lawn gnomes now decorate my parents' front lawn. My mom doesn't like them. My father tolerates them, I'm sure when he sees them, he thinks of me.

This past weekend, I went to Dayton to visit my parents and take a litte "vaca." It was great. But while I was home, I realized that my parents don't care much for the gnomes in their yard. The beach gnome pictured on this blog was knocked over. It looked as if he had been lying on his side for a while. It was horrible. Okay, to be honest, this is the one gnome I haven't named yet. I don't really know what to call him. I mean, he wears shorts every day of the year. Who does this? It's not as if we live in Hawaii.

If anyone has any ideas of what the gnome should be named, please let me know.

Anyway...

I think lawn gnomes are cool. But if I ever end up living in a house with a hundred cats and a colony of lawn gnomes in my yard, I totally give you all permission to have an intervention.

Top Ten Things About Thanksgiving...

1. The green bean casserole

2. Hanging out with family

3. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV

4. Playing board games and card games

5. Turkey...the only time of year I'll eat turkey...I don't like that kind of bird.

6. Decorating for Christmas and listening to Christmas music suddenly becomes okay.

7. Chex Mix

8. The "I'm Thankful For" Speeches (which we totally skipped this year)

9. The Veggie tray

10. The prospect of great sales on Black Friday (even when I don't have money to shop

Thanksgiving weekend...utterly stuffing!

It seems that every time I visit my parents in Dayton, I end up eating too many sweets, drinking a whole lot of sugared soda and forgetting to eat anything of real substance. Lucky for me, yesterday was Thanksgiving and we ate turkey and other totally awesome food. My favorite was the green bean casserole. Yummy!

This was my first family Thanksgiving since 2003. For the past five years, I've celebrated with friends and colleagues. Yesterday was all about the family. I played Scrabble with my brother's partner and read my British chick lit while we watched holiday films.

It was a fantastic weekened. I love turkey day and all it brings to me.

COW boys at OSU

I did a story a couple of weeks ago. It was on the radio. I was proud of it because it took so much work to complete.

Here's the link to my story on KLCC's website.

Keeping my Sanity

Today I realized that my life is a bit busy. It'd be so much easier if I could just sit around and watch TV all the time, but when I do that, I feel lazy. So I go to school or I go to work. It's a good way to be, a good thing to do.

HOWEVER...

On occasion, I allow myself to just watch TV and not do stressful homework. This past weekend was one of those times. Instead of finishing up my big project, I took a little bit of down time. I watched Dawson's Creek, Season Three.

It was awesome! I was able to escape from my homework and focus on the trivial lives of fictional East Coast characters. I got annoyed with Dawson. He's too much of a cry-baby. And I was hoping for Joey and Pacey to get together way before it actually happened. I even looked up some of the episodes on Wikipedia just to relieve any stress I felt over not knowing what the characters would do.

Ah. It was a nice weekend.

Note: The way I feel about Dawson and Pacey is much the way I now feel about Jacob and Edward in the Twilight series. Originally (when I was in high school), I wanted Dawson and Joey to get together. Now, I find Dawson to be a complete moron and I cheer Pacey on. The same is true for the Twilight characters. In the beginning, I was a huge Edward fan. Now, after re-reading New Moon, I find Edward to be a total jerk. And Bella is stupid for crying over him so much. Jacob is SUCH the better bet. Plus, he's funny. Oh...if I ruled the world, these stupid match-ups would never go down.

If I weren't studying...

I'm not such a fan of studying these days. I do it, though. It's not as if I've started to slack off or anything. It's just that I would rather be doing other things. Studying isn't so fun anymore. I end up thinking too hard. I'm not supposed to be an analytical thinker. And that's what I have to do at school. Ugh!

As I'm taking a 20 minute break from studying, I've decided to share a list of things I'd rather be doing...if I weren't forced to study, that is...

1. drinking tea with Baba Masha...oh to be able to complain about my school work to that sweet old lady. I miss her so much!
2. watching Dawson's Creek...I know. Totally lame. But the high school drama requires no brain power. The problems they face are so tiny compared to my HUGE grad school issues. (ha!)
3. Wandering through the Christmas decorations at Fred Meyer or Target.
4. Reading my British chickLit!
5. traveling...anywhere really.
6. taking pictures for fun
7. sleeping
8. reorganizing my cupboards or bookshelves (seriously, I sometimes get a high from this!)
9. drinking a glass of wine...I'm sure I haven't had any wine since week 2 of school! Ah!
10. Going back to Dayton to see my closest friend from the Dayton years.

Too bad. I have to go read more about the Political Economy of the Media. Wahoo?