The first round of games...

My family and I just played the Star Wars Trilogy Trivial Pursuit Edition. Needless to say, my team did not win. My sister (who got the game for Christmas) won. She knew crazy things about those movies, like what an x-wing was and who's side Mon Montha was on. Whatever.

We also made french onion dip and ate 22 oz of potato chips between the 7 of us. Whoa. I guess it's not surprising no one is hungry for lunch....

I hate colds.

Every night I go to bed thinking, "I'm feeling better, I think this cold is going away!" and then I wake up and I cannot breathe. It is the endless cycle of I'm feeling better so I won't take my cold medication, then I get worse. This cycle has been going on for a week. It really needs to stop.

So. Today, I will take medicine every 4 hours. I will get better. I will not be sick. I need to get things accomplished.

Okay, I have to go get dressed, take a shower, and go to the library to pick up some books.

I am so bad when I'm on break from school. I go to bed late and get up late. I also prefer to wander around in pajamas all day because it is too hard to get properly dressed. Whoops.

~song currently in my head:

Wake up the dead by Family Force 5

A short update...

I have a headache.

My cold persists and wants to drag me down into icy depths of despair.

I received two packages in the mail containing textbooks.

I read two books in a row without doing anything else.

I completely neglected my room and left it a mess.

I ate ice cream that reminded me of Mexican popsicles.

I did not change out of penguin pajama pants all day.

I looked at new phones.

Time's a wastin'

I feel like time is going by fast. I blink and a couple days have passed.

I have plans for this break.

Plans to get things accomplished.

Plans to do epic things and not waste away like a rotting fish on the beach dunes.

I don't think it helps that I am trying to get rid of a pesky cold. It should just shrivel up and die.

I know that I need to stop saying all these things, mouthing these grand plans to empty rooms and listless iPods.

I need to act. I can't just formulate all afternoon away, but I have to actually take steps towards getting these things accomplished.

I've decided to buy a calendar and mark every day that I get something on my list accomplished. Seeing the tally marks on each day will rally my spirits and maybe I won't get so easily discouraged. Maybe.

I'll have to work on next year's challenges and make sure they are over-powering. I'm thinking about them in my head, but I am hesitant to write them down just yet. I will wait the remaining days until New Year's and then I'll post and this blog will help be keep accountable.

As a side note. Snow makes me happy and I will brave cold winds and chapped lips to make a snow angel imprint...

~song currently running through my head:

Mess of Me by Switchfoot (I feel like this is a roaring repeat, but I love it).

A white Christmas for a change

The day before yesterday, they predicted snow. I didn’t really believe them, because it is the Ville after all and you don’t get much snow. And then, yesterday, it snowed. My cousins were overjoyed. I was thrilled. But when it first started snowing, I didn’t think it would stick. It wasn’t very cold and I figured all the snow would just melt. But it didn’t. It kept piling up, inch upon inch until the world was white.

Of course, frolicking was involved. I took my camera outside and had a picture-fest and took crazy photos of the snow and the snowflakes that littered my black hoodie with white dust. It was glorious. I stuck out my tongue and ate little flakes that dropped into my mouth and as I twirled in the frost-bitten air.

~Song currently running through my head
Mess of Me by Switchfoot

We're visiting the Folks. I've eaten homemade french fries and Mexican hot chocolate for breakfast every morning.

One cool thing about this town is that we always go to movies while we are here because the movie theater is so cheap. So yesterday, we saw two movies. My mom and I are kind of movie fiends sometimes. But we saw The Blindside and Avatar. Yeah, I know - two very Different movies.

I kind of feel bad though, because I had been looking forward to seeing The Blindside for a while now. I had tried to go see it last time we were in the Ville, but it had been sold out. So I was pretty excited to go see it. I had even brought a box of kleenex because I was for sure convinced that it would make me cry. And I knew that might be a bad combination, because I already had a cold and was trying to kick that to the curb. But I figured I was well-prepared.

Funny thing though...I didn't cry at all while watching that movie. And when I was watching it, I felt like it was just an enlongated version of all the previews I had seen. It was still a really good movie, but I don't know if I liked it as much as I would have if it had not been so hyped up. I enjoyed it, but I was really surprised that I didn't end up crying at the end. It was kind of surreal.

Now Avatar on the other hand, I cried more in that movie than the first one. I had only heard about Avatar a couple days earlier when I saw it in the theaters. But I really enjoyed it. The creatures were amazing, and the cinomatorgphy was amazing! I fell in love with the colors and sounds of the movie and I loved the alien's turquoise skin. I thought the lluminisct atmosphere was pretty cool as well. When I got out of the movie, all I could think about was that alien world Pandora. It really stuck in my head and I kept it in my mind for the rest of the night. It was an interesting movie and I'd recommend it. Though there were a couple aspects of the movie that I thought were kind of unbelievable and that kept it from being one of my favorites.

Well, I'm off, Merry Christmas Eve!

~song currently playing through my head:

Carol of the Bells by Family Force 5

Things I wanted to get accomplished this Christmas break

1. get completely caught up in my book reviews blog.
2. get the vast majorty of my photos backed up on my new external portable hard drive.
3. read the stack of books I checked out from the library.
4. clean my room and make it look decent.

I will add more if I think of them.

~currently stuck in my head:

Twas the Night Before Christmas by Family Force 5

Christmas is just around the corner...

Yesterday I realized I had the beginnings of a cold. I thought if I ate lots of garlic (boosts immune system and kills off unwanted bacteria) and drank lots of liquid, I would be safe. Turns out, that wasn't the case. I'm now taking cold medication and fake-yawning to unplug my ears on a regular basis.

Not cool.

I think I get sick every year around Christmas time. I don't know if it's because of the amount of chocolate I eat or what. But for the past couple Christmases I've been sick, and this one looks like it will follow in the same pattern.

Ah, I'm sitting here, trying to type, and it's not working because I took some night time cold medication and it's starting to kick in, making me drowsy.

Okay, no more talk about sickness, let's hear about happier things. We had some friends over for dinner, and my sister made desert.

These are yummy homemade from scratch apple dumplings. They were really good. I'm probably going to eat another one tomorrow for breakfast.

Tomorrow will be kind of hectic. We're leaving to go see our relatives for Christmas. I still have to pack and pick up some books from the library and probably do some other things that I've forgotten at the moment (thanks cold medication) because I'm completely spacing.

I should probably get some sleep, I already feel like a zombie, and I kind of want to get rid of this cold...nasty old thing.

~CD I've played three times today:

Family Force 5's Christmas Pageant by Family Force 5

Things to do, places to go (no couch potato please)

I'm trying really hard to be organized in my life. I'm taking little steps so that I don't get overwhelmed and get horribly frustrated, because that usually ends with me giving up. It is about this time every year I think all sorts of dangerous thoughts. Well, they aren't really dangerous, but more like radical or boundary-stretching. I start thinking about the new year and what I want to get accomplished, all the while conveniently forgetting my resolutions from last year. I have so many plans, ideas, goals, aspirations, and dreams that are bubbling up inside of me. I often get discouraged though when I fail to reach my lofty goal or crazy schedule. That's why, for the past couple of years, I've made goals that are boundary-stretching, but have more lax restrictions.

In 2008 I decided that I was going to read my bible every day and write one new poem every day for the whole year. I made myself little sticky note calendars that I put next to my bed, and I kept my bible and notebook easily accessible so I didn't have any excuse to not do it. I knew though, that if I missed one day, I would get so annoyed that I would give up, and I would have five new poems for that goal (and that's it) and then I'd quit. So I made it a rule that I was allowed to miss up to thirty days of writing poems. That way, if something came up, and I went to bed without scribbling something down, I was forgiven and didn't have to freak out that I had messed up.

This strategy worked great for me. I am a perfectionist in some areas, and when I make goals I want everything to go according to schedule, so when I made exceptions for myself to fail a little bit, my success was much greater in the end. I wrote a poem nearly every day that year, and I read my daily bible almost every day. Granted, most of the poems were not spectacular or amazing, and sometimes I hurried through my reading because I was so sleepy, but I got into the habit of doing it, and that was really the whole point of it.

It makes me wonder what I should try to do next year. There are so many interesting/enriching things I'd like to try for a year...

1. post a new photograph every day
2. write a new blog post every day
3. exercise at least three times a week
4. send something out to be published twice a month
5. skip eating fastfood (except for special occasions)
6. write one page in a journal every day
7. listen to one CD every day
8. post a new scarf to Etsy every week
9. write a review for a book I've read within a week of reading for my book reviews blog

The list could go on and on. I will just have to mull over all my thoughts for a couple days and then think up a plan of action...I want to do at least two radical things.

As an aside, working with little kids (specifically two and three year olds) cracks me up. They say the zaniest things. Plus they are positively darling and I want to take half of the sunday school kids home on a regular basis.

Whoa! I just sneezed six times in a row. If this is not allergies and I'm beginning to get a cold, I won't be a happy camper.

~two CDs currently on repeat:

The End is Not the End by House of Heroes &

Family Force 5's Christmas Pageant by Family Force 5

So, I have a new blog...

I decided I needed a new blog. Here are some of the deciding factors:

1. I was bored.
2. My old blog seemed horribly outdated.
3. And because of #2, I didn't want to do new posts on an archaic blog.
4. The prospect of configuring and designing a new blog template sounded exciting.
5. I wanted a fresh start for the new year.

So, that up there is my rationalization for my new blog. I know my family thinks I'm crazy, because they are going, "don't you already have a facebook, twitter, myspace, goodreads, and like four other blogs?" But I felt like I needed a new blog, and besides my other main blog is only for my book reviews.

Confession: I am slightly obsessive.

Those of you who know me personally are probably laughing. But I decided that I wanted to keep track of all the books I read, so I started my book reviews blog, even though I already had a regular blog. And now I'm adding another blog. Crazy, huh?

It took me forever to come up with name, by the way. I sat there, staring at my computer screen, thinking random suggestions as I shot down every single thought that popped into my head. It seemed like all the names I might like were already taken, and then the ones that were just oh-kay I immediately thought were lame after seeing them as a header. Blah.

So...what do I want to get accomplished with this blog? I'm not really sure. I'm thinking I'll record my thoughts, random musings, favorite music, concerts I'm stoked about, movies I want to see, books I'm reading, classes I'm taking...basically, I think I'll just have this be a regular ol' blog. I'm contemplating whether or not I will make any lofty goals for this blog as a part of my new year's resolutions. I'm debating whether or not I will try to do one post every day - but that might drive me insane, and insanity is never a good thing to wear on your sleeve.

~song I'm currently obsessed with: It's About Time by Barcelona