Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Thanksgiving meme, or one to do while passing the time.

I stole this while surfing around blogs tonight, was taking a break from trying to come up with something for my Christmas list....I hope you enjoy.

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you.
The real question is who DOESN'T have the same birthday as me. Whenever I meet new people they all tell me someone who was born on July 23. I can tell you there are 4 others in my family (extended) and Harry Potter (the actor, not the character) off the top of my head. Oh yeah, Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia on "Buffy") and Monica Lewinski.

2. Where was your first kiss?
Eighth grade in a standard spin the bottle endevor during my bday party. Nothing good.

3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else’s property?
That's one of those things I don't think I could do w/o feeling extremely guilty afterward. Not my thing.

4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?
There's the occasional accidental kick in the nads to boys in school (soccer people, I'm not that evil!) and the random smack in jest to the boyfriend but that's about it.

5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?
I did choir until 6th grade but after that it's really only kareoke for bachelorette parties or Christmas songs in front of my family. What? I have a huge family.

6. What’s the first thing you notice about your preferred sex?
Arms & eyes.

7. What really turns you off?
Can't get over the corner mouth crusty stuff, lying and jealousy.

8. What do you order at Starbucks?
When I actually do it's a decaf peppermint mocha w/half the chocolate. What is with Starbucks and the insane amount of chocolate that goes into a mocha? Look at the iced one, it's basically black.

9. What is your biggest mistake?
I have regrets but I don't think they're mistakes.

10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?
Like I said, the guilt afterward isn't worth it.

11. Say something totally random about yourself.
I'm making an INSANE amount of cranberries and some pizza right now.

12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?
I don't think so but apparently that myheritage thing tells me I look like Laura Bush. Thanks for that vote of confidence.

13. Do you still watch kiddie movies or TV shows?
I love a good Pixar movie and I'll watch the random SpongeBob if the boyfriend makes me but that's about it. Oh wait, I have a 9 year old brother, I watch his stuff too.

14. Did you have braces?
Never, although my dentist was great to tell me that two of my teeth overlap and I could consider them "if I want". Thanks for the complex man.

15. Are you comfortable with your height?
It's not too bad, I'm 5'5" which isn't bad. Was an inch shorter for a long time but I'm still way taller than my mom so I'm the person who gets stuff off of shelves for her.

16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you?
I really like the fact that my boyfriend sends me flowers for the big things (anniversaries) when I've pretty much forgot about them.

17. When do you know its love?
When you can't imagine spending extended amounts of time with anyone else. When you're comfortable enough to fart in front of each other. When you'll watch all kinds of tv that you're not even interested in because they love it.

18. Do you speak any other languages?
I can do a little French & Spanish. Wait, I know more French, the extent of my Spanish is "un cerveza por favor".

19. Have you ever been to a tanning salon?
I have, but oddly only for the "sunlight" principle. I like being pale mostly.

20. What magazines do you read?
At one point I had like 10 subscriptions but now it's the random People, some Cosmo if I'm feeling stupid about men & Business Weekly.

21. Have you ever ridden in a limo?
Never. Could you please arrange that for me? Actually for prom I worked out all the details and then my friends (who's family's were WAY better off than mine) said it was too pricey. Sorry, I saved properly.

22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away?
Oh yes, I was super close to my g. gma (think 20+ years and lived with her for most of it). I miss her so much.

23. Do you watch MTV?
Every time I do I feel like my brain cells have died. At least I don't still have a Season Pass to The Hills.

24. What’s something that really annoys you?
The fact I have to clean my house tonight before Thanksgiving because my mom's oven is broken and she's coming over to cook her sweet potatoes before heading to the grandparent's house. Seriously, I haven't been here for like a week and it's a mess.

25. What’s something you really like?
Wine. Just kidding (sort of), how about TV? That's better. :-)

26. Do you like Michael Jackson?
I like a few older songs.

27. Can you dance?
Of course, and sometimes very well.

28. What’s the latest you have ever stayed up?
A little over 48 hours, thanks in part to a high school senior year project. I told myself never again and I've stuck to it.

29. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room?
No, but I did drive myself to the ER with an ulcer in my eye. NOT FUN.

30. Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?
I love them

31. Tag 5 people!
Screw this, I don't want people to feel left out. If it sounds like fun, feel free!

Pass the stuffing

Everyone is blogging about what they're thankful for this week & yes I'll hit on that quickly. I'm thankful for my family, for being as healthy as I possibly can, for an amazing boyfriend, great friends and the fact I have a job I actually enjoy going to every day. But more than anything?

I'm thankful for the FOOD. Especially the food at my grandparent's house because that's the way it always should be.

I know we all have our own traditions, but there's nothing like not being able to partake in your traditions to realize how engrained they are into your brain. Case in point, when I was about 15 my mom remarried. Nothing wrong with that, he's a good man...but he comes with alllll kinds of family. Not a super big family, but his parents had divorced & both remarried so there was quite the scene to sort out when it came to holidays. We've finally settled on whomever gets Thanksgiving does not get Christmas Eve and it alternates every year. Someone else gets Christmas Day and the rest of it is up to where we feel like spending time.

So...the first year? I went to my stepdad's father's house. I didn't really know them and I don't remember all that much about it but what I do remember? Is my introduction to what is known as canned cranberries.

???

To this day I still don't get it but "eh". I think making real cranberries is one of the easiest things to make so I don't know why you need to make it any easier. But everyone has their own way of doing things and that's just fine & dandy.

That is, until you go out to eat on Thanksgiving. Yes, I've had to do that too and when that happened (multiple times) that I refused to eat anything turkey related because it wasn't made at home. What? I never said I was mature (at least at that age).

Now my mom & stepdad usually have Thanksgiving dinner at their house on these off years and I'm perfectly ok with that. I make pie the way my grandma taught me, my mom makes the turkey and my stepdad makes the perfect stuffing to go with it.

Tomorrow night I head to my grandparent's house for the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, the only difference is we do it a little more potluck style. I'll be bringing the cranberries and I'm excited to see all of my extended family.

And of course all the wine. ;-)

What is your favorite part about Thanksgiving? And your favorite food?

Friday, November 6, 2009

If I stitch fast enough, does it count as aerobic exercise?

Do you ever get to the point where you say "oh crap! I haven't posted since *insertnumberofdayshere*!"?? Since so many people have signed up for NaBloPoMo this year my Google Reader has been PACKED with posts to read. I do read all of them and even comment on some (come on, I'm not a machine!) but my writing has suffered because of it. I just realized yesterday that it had been over a month since I updated LJ, so let's rectify all of this.

Thanks to all of you who are following Stepping Diagonally, I checked my dashboard today and all of a sudden it's a whole different dashboard. :-) Now the pressure's on to say something witty, or entertaining at least. Can I handle the pressure?? Let's kick this blog post off with stuff I'm thinking about right now:

Waiter Rant (by Steve Dublanica) - I picked this up the other day at B&N because I've been meaning to for a while. From the same named blog Steve writes about his experiences as a waiter with all kinds of truth and humor that I'm sailing through this book quickly. I also picked up Kristen Chenoweth's "A Little Bit Wicked" as well but I'm of the school of thought that I can only read one book at a time. Are you?

Thanksgiving/Christmas - I know there's a few other holidays in there but I don't celebrate any of them...sorry. But if you work in an office you've probably been getting catalogs for holidays cards for the last I don't know...month or two? I finally asked about what we're doing in our office the other day since I wasn't here at this time last year. Who knew that it would be so complicated? But with the invitation from my grandparents for Thanksgiving arriving in my e-mail yesterday it dawned on me how close it all is.

But why does it come so fast? And why is it that the day after Halloween all the stores are decked out in Santa gear? Even more important...why don't I remember to start knitting earlier in the year so I won't have to do it 24/7 until Christmas Eve because I've been procrastinating??

The nice thing is that Starbucks has put out their red cups and brought back all those yummy concoctions for us to partake in. I'll admit, I haven't been to Starbucks in well over 2 months or so, but I'm luckily enough to have one of these big boys in my office (Interactive cup brewer) so I don't have to go out in the rain to get coffee. Be jealous, it's totally ok. :-) The downside is that I'm drinking drip coffee and not a peppermint mocha with peppermint whipped cream and little sprinkles on top, but I will survive.

What is your go-to drink for the holidays?
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