Today was quite a long day! (And I even got to squeeze in two naps ... yay!) I got up at 6:30 this morning to shower and whatnot before heading over to Andrea and Jesse's to play photographer for their Christmas morning. I got to their place a little before 7:30, just in time to notice the truck delivering Dan's new recliner (which we all chipped in and got him for Christmas) pulling into their driveway. So we went ahead and brought that over to Dan and got it set up in his living room. (He loved it!)
Then it was time for presents with Ben:
(There are more videos of Christmas morning here, and pictures here.)
Then, I headed back to Mom's, where we opened gifts and then had more family over for a wonderful holiday meal. "Santa" was very good to us. :) Mom had wrapped up all the wonderful clothes she and I bought together during our fun Monday shopping trip, so I was delighted to get those. I also got a few other fun things ... including some funky earrings and a Christmas on the River shirt. Codi got me some fun PJ pants -- which I'm wearing now! -- and Andrea got me some hair clips, a cute handkerchief and a Julia Child cookbook.
Unfortunately, we also learned this morning that my Uncle Jack had to be taken to the hospital late last night. He'd had a heart attack and was transferred to Alabaster later in the day for more tests and such. We're playing it by ear; I may go up there with my dad and grandfather tomorrow. We'll be praying that everything goes well.
All in all, it was a good day with family and a nice reminder of all the things we have to be thankful for.
It's becoming a family tradition that we get together at my sister's on Christmas Eve and enjoy some tasty food, wonderful company and a fun (but competitive) game of Uno Attack. :) Below are some gems from the evening.
Ben got so excited about putting out the "reindeer food"!
Today, I decided to fight all the snow (a historic "blizzard," according to the news) and hit the road for Bama. It had stopped snowing, so I figured it was worth a shot. Despite the 16+ inches of snow on the ground. After a little trouble actually getting out onto the roadway from my building's driveway, I was on my way. Little did I know, the next 6 hours would be ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE.
Terrible road conditions made for a very stressful drive. Plus, something was going on with my upper back/neck, so I was in A LOT of pain with no way to lessen or ease the torture. Plus, around Harrisonburg, traffic decided that 30 mph was way to fast ... and it proceeded to stop ... entirely. ENTIRELY. As in, I put my car in Park. Every 15 min or so, we would creep forward about half a mile, before coming to a complete stop ... for another 15 min. This went on for more than an hour. Then came the ice patches. I guess I'd never really thought before about what ice patches were exactly. Patches of ice, right? Sounds relatively harmless ... was expecting perhaps something slippery. Nope. This was like a cement truck had shat all over the road. It was rough and bumpy; way worse than potholes.
Anyway, that scenario continued for while, but finally cleared up. What seemed like an eternity later, it was dark and I was in Tennessee, trying to decide where I was going to eat dinner and shack up for the night. (Talking to mom, I decided to snag a hotel room for the night, since I'd lost so much time due to the poor travel conditions.) I had passed an O'Charleys earlier in my trip, and as a result, was seriously craving some potato soup and some of their aMAZing rolls. Thanks to Maggie (my for-the-most-part-trusty GPS), I was able to determine that there as an O'Charleys off a nearby exit. So off I went in search of my soup and rolls. Well. I got a little lost. Before I knew it, I was staring up at UT's stadium. Cool. Heh, and I realized I was wearing my favorite orange Auburn sweatshirt. How appropriate. But then ... as if on cue ... Eye of the Tiger comes of the radio. I KID YOU NOT. Seriously.
So after that wonderful little moment, I turned back to Maggie to direct me to my soup and rolls again. And well, apparently, my GPS knows me better than I do. Because next thing I knew, I was turning into the Mellow Mushroom parking lot. And now, here I sit. Eating my cheese calzone and blogging about my bizarro day. (sigh) Happiness.
Next up: finding a hotel. Hoping that's a little less eventful, or at least as fortuitous as my dinner situation turned out to be.
Ain't it loverly? It was a little bit of a "wet" snow. (Can you believe that I've lived here long enough to realize that there is a difference between a wet and dry snow storm? Time flies.) But it was still beautiful and magical ... and made me want to run outside to make a snow angel.
I'm back in Bama for Thanksgiving and I'm LOVING all the family time. I've had to squeeze a fair amount of work in over the past couple of days, but somehow, I've made it work. It's only Tuesday, but I feel like I've already done a lot at home. Certainly already have a lot of pictures! More to come, but here's a taste for now ...
Supposedly, housing (which includes rent and utilities) is supposed to account for 35-42% of my net income. Well. No wonder my finances are spread so thin at the beginning of the month. My "housing" takes a VERY healthy bite out of my monthly income -- approx 50%. Yikes.
Even more alarming ... I spend a TON on "eating out." So, I'm sorry for the folks at Subway, but I'm going to have to start bringing my lunch. It will literally save me about $200 a month. And probably a couple pounds, too. Maybe.
At any rate, I'm digging into my finances more these days (as so many of us are) and have been playing around with the budgeting tools at Mint.com. I have to say, I'm really loving what they've got there. Looking forward seeing how I do with the new monthly budget I set up. Wish me luck!
Interesting look at this historic time, through the eyes of a photographer:
Today, we took a little road trip out to very rural Virginia ... to the land of wineries, pumpkin patches and apple orchards. Specifically, we journeyed to the Marker-Miller Orchards in Winchester and spent the afternoon picking apples, sipping on fresh apple cider, and munching on wonderfully warm -- fresh-from-the-oven -- apple cider donuts. Sooooooo GOOD!!! We also each picked out a pumpkin ... this'll be the first time I've carved a pumpkin since ... um ... I was in kindergarten, I believe. Wow. Should be fun!
At any rate, we had the BEST time. It was wonderful, relaxing, refreshing and uplifting. Ah, fresh air. And the weather was perfect. Sunny, with a beautiful spattering of clouds ... cool, perfect fall weather ... little bit of a breeze. Pure bliss. I wish I could do this ever weekend.
(View all the pics from the day here.)
Today, my mom turns 36.
Hee hee ...
Okay, in all honestly, I'm not sure how old my mom is now, but does it really matter? This is kind of a running joke for me (who knows if other people think it's funny). But since I was 15 or so, I've been saying that Mom is 36. I think that estimation was rooted in me trying to legitimately figure out how old she was ... having trouble doing so ... and then settling on 36 with the thought, "Well, who cares how old she actually is? She'll always be beautiful and wonderful to me. So 36 it is."
Considering that I'm now 26, you can do the math and figure that in reality, my numbers are off slightly. But it doesn't matter. She's still beautiful and wonderful.
Happy birthday, mama!
Well, technically, I guess summer is coming to an end. But boy, I did a lot of reading this summer. I read the entire Twilight series. (The use of "entire" is probably unnecessary there. It's not like someone would just read one and not be interested in the rest of them. Pshaw! Insanity.) The Twilight series was splendid. Thank you, Andrea. :)
I just finished reading The Alchemist, which I highly recommend. And now, I'm on to The Prince of Tides by the wonderful (and southern) Pat Conroy.
Check out my entire book list here, where you'll find my remarks and thoughts about each of the books I've read over the past ... however long.
