Christmas Tradition

My family has a million Christmas traditions, and I love every one of them. It doesn't actually feel like Christmas unless we do these things.

It starts, actually, two weeks before. My mom makes a bajillion and one kinds of cookies and chocolates. Fruit foldovers, mint brownies, almond crescents, chocolate turtles, chocolate covered pretzels, peanuts and raisins, ginger snaps, white chocolate peppermint sugar cookie snowflakes, pecan tassies, snowballs, buckeyes, etc, etc, and then she makes a plate for every family/friend we have in the area as our Christmas present. Usually the plates are delivered on the two days prior to Christmas. I'm amazed mom managed it this year, though my sisters helped out a lot.

Then, on Christmas Eve, we all go to the church candlelight service while chili cooks on the stove so it's ready when we get home. This year we didn't make chili because everyone else is sick of it, so instead we had baked beans. Which i think we have more often than chili, but whatever. I made my own pot of chili when I got back home. ;) Anyway, we eat dinner and watch the best Christmas movie ever: The Muppet Christmas Carol. By this time my sister and bro in-law have made it, and my younger sister's fiance and Johnny were both there as well.

Since my mom's cancer she and dad have stopped setting out the presents after we go to bed. It used to be that we'd put out our presents to each other, hang stockings and go upstairs.
While we try to fall asleep, unsuccessfully, my parents would set out all of the presents and fill stockings so we're surprised the next morning. However, this year we all trooped upstairs and brought all the presents down since Mom was so tired.

On Christmas morning, a ribbon blocks the opening to the stairs, something my parents started years ago to keep their four daughters from sneaking downstairs before everyone else. We are supposed to stay upstairs while my mom makes breakfast. Latkes, a family favorite. And we aren't allowed to come downstairs until it's all ready and my dad is up. When we get down to the table, it's set with lit candles and Christmas music playing in the background and we all have breakfast together in our PJs. This year mom slept while Erin and Jennie, my two older sisters, make the latkes and blueberry muffins, and the rest of us came down and just chilled while we waited. As we are all over the age of 21, it just doesn't make sense to cram all of us into the hallway upstairs.

After breakfast we clean up the table and put dishes in the dishwasher and then comes the big revealing. All of us head downstairs and see the tree for the very first time. This year, obviously, isn't the same, but it was still a good time. Plus my parents waited until Christmas morning to stuff stockings so that was a new addition.

We always sit in the same place, though every time we add a boy it gets a little more difficult to cram all nine of us in the family room, and stockings are always first. Once we've opened everything in there and put the candy into a large communal bowl for later, Anne and I pass out all of the presents since we sit closest to the tree. Once all the gifts are out, all but my mom open. Mom likes to wait and watch us as we open the gifts she spent so many months finding and purchasing, and once we're all done and the paper is cleared she opens her gifts while we all watch.

And once all of this is done we clean up, go get ready and drive up to Cleveland to hang with the extended family and have a huge meal and open more presents.

It's all just wonderful, a wonderful time, and it's beautiful to spend time with all of us together at the same time.  And soon we'll add children to the mix and oh, the times we'll have!

I, unfortunately, did not take as many photos as I would have liked so I stole some from previous years, but you get the basic idea. Plus, I found an app that is very similar to the hipstamatic for iPhone and it makes me look like I can actually take good photos!

So to finish, here are a bunch of photos from Christmas Day, everything from Johnny and Derrick spending ample time with their phones to a bunch of us playing Balderdash, to my cousin's children pretending to eat a turkey whole.

I hope you had a blessed Christmas, and I'll be back to regular, shorter posts here soon. :)

 Derrick and Johnny in the hallway, while Erin and Jennie make breakfast.

 We had a semi-white Christmas.

More cooking.

Anne and Derrick wait. 

 Our new cousin, Lydia, falls asleep in my mom's lap. Johnny and Derrick with their phones. Again.

 Noah and Silas play Don't Break the Ice. They also got Don't Spill the Beans, and Ants in the Pants.

the family.

Corbin waits patiently and then tries to eat the turkey when he thinks no one is looking.

This is Hannah. Lol.

We started playing Balderdash.

My beautiful Mom. 

<3

Get Ready for Random...

Last weekend I went to Canton to hang with Johnny for roughly 24 hours. Somewhere during our Sunday we stopped over at his best friend's house and I finally met the younger brother. We've been Facebook friends for months but have never before met. I actually have quite a few of those, including friends from Wales, Scotland, and Russia. Not bragging, that's just how it is.

Anywho, my knees came up into conversation somehow and I showed them how my knees have eyes. They then grab a pen and made smiley faces.

New subject.

Yesterday was a food day at work, and I didn't know it until about two hours after getting there. Had I known, I definitely would have brought something. As it is, there were four different kinds of meatballs and more dessert than real food.

Glad to see my co-workers have their priorities straight.

This is a picture of just the regular food table, not including the bags of chips on top of the cabinet, and that was before it was all set out. I would have also taken a photo of the dessert table, but this picture was taken surreptitiously by me while sitting at my desk so people wouldn't think I'm any weirder than they already do.

Yes. As luck would have it, all food was right next to my desk. This means Emily did very little work and gained back any and all weight she lost over the past month in just one day.

Johnny came down to Cincinnati yesterday. He applied for a bajillion jobs in the area and the Apple Store called him. My fiance is a total Mac guy and used to have the iPhone until he found out it didn't work at his parent's house. So they called him about an interview, which he had yesterday at 3pm. He stopped by my office building to get my apartment keys on the way there so that after the interview he'd have somewhere to go and relax until I got off work at 5:30.

In other news, here's an update on my mom.

WARNING: Here is where I get serious.

For my new readers, my mother has been battling cancer for the past year. There are tumors growing in her abdomen, and they have gotten so large that she actually looks like she's pregnant, and she's in a lot of pain. Her doctor has her on this new pill that costs an arm, a leg, the Empire State building, and a couple of Jupiter's moons, but apparently it's the miracle drug. Anyway, she ended up making a surprise trip to Columbus yesterday to give a plate of her famous Christmas cookies/chocolates to her special staff at Riverside Hospital. While she was there they tested her for fluid retention and today she went to the local hospital to drain her a bit.

They extracted 3.5 LBS of fluid from her body.

This helped with her pain, but she's still creeping around the house slowly. It really makes me feel guilty for complaining about having to work so much extra or about minor pain or just complaining in general. It really puts things into perspective. And this drug had better by golly work because it hurts to see my mom go through all of this.

On a happier note, tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we will have the ENTIRE family together tomorrow night for our annual Christmas Eve traditions.

Sorry for all the random! I hope you all have a glorious, beautiful, and blessed Christmas. :)

"For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulders and he shall be called Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God. Everlasting Father. Prince of Peace." ~ Isaiah 9:6

Confession

Okay. I give. The truth is finally coming out.

I actually like Justin Beiber.

*covers face* I am ashamed.

In other news, here's the picture of the ornament I made.

Have a great Christmas, y'all!!

Happy Christmas!

So, I feel like everything I do in this city is a fiasco of some kind.

It all began with a gloriously amazing weekend. I spent Saturday evening and Sunday with Johnny and we really had a blast. We even braved going to the mall to find his mom a gift. I'm thrilled that we made it out alive.

So I drive 3.5 hours home and I leave all the stuff I brought home with me in my car because it's too cold and I'm too tired and lazy to drag all of it in.

As a temporary employee with hourly pay, when everyone else gets paid to take Thursday and Friday off this week, I get to work three ten hour days and then work from home on Thursday for eight hours to make up for the time lost. This makes for an exceptionally long, boring day, especially since all I do is key insurance claims into the system.

Anywho, I'm late for work yesterday, I forget why. It was a slow morning and I was tired and I actually found myself falling asleep at my desk no matter what music I listened to. I'm not the biggest fan of arriving to work in the dark AND leaving in the dark. Which was yesterday and will be today and tomorrow.

While I was working I was also taking a few breaks to find a) an Aldi's nearby so I can eat for the next few weeks, b) a Hobby Lobby so I could buy the stuff to make the ornament for the ornament exchange at work, c) a Goodwill so I can find mismatched picture frames for my sister for Christmas and d) a Barnes and Nobles or any music bookstore so I can buy my brother in-law HIS Christmas present. All of which I intended to take care of after work last night.

Get off work at 5:30 (FINALLY) and headed out to my car to drive to Aldi, which I found without too much difficulty AND which has a Hobby Lobby literally right next door! Very excited. I found almost everything on my list (and a couple things that weren't *cough*cookies*cough*) and I go through the checkout and I'm below budget, which rocks, and then my debit card wouldn't swipe. Swiped it. "Bad Swipe, try again" the keypad yells at me. Over and over and over... even the two employees tried and it wouldn't work. Then I find out they don't accept credit, only debit or cash. So they hold my order as I rush out to my car, annoyed, and drive down the street to the nearest Chase bank to withdraw cash, come back and pay for everything and finally, an hour later, leave that place.

Next comes Hobby Lobby. As I used to work at a Hobby Lobby I know what they have, especially at Christmastime. I managed to pick my boss out of the grab bag, and after asking everyone I could find what on earth to get him I discovered he loves the Bengals. Die hard fan. So I'm like, okay, well, if I don't find a Bengals ornament of some kind I'll just make him one.

No Bengals ornaments. Go figure.

Scrapbooking, here I come! Browsed the paper aisle searching for tiger print. There's zebra print. Cheeta. Giraffe. Leopard. But no tiger. Well, that's a lie, there was tiger print in a huge packet of paper that would cost me upwards of $20, and pink/purple/green tiger print in a small package of cardstock. No thanks. I did find football paper, and then I grabbed the zebra paper, figuring I have an orange highlighter and I can just color in the white parts. Run to the other aisles and grab a glue stick, gold glitter, and ornament hooks, purchase it all and leave.

By now it's going on 7pm and I'm exhausted and had no interest in finding the B&N or Goodwill so instead that's today's after work excursion. More on that later. So I drive home to kick off my heels and put on jeans and boots and make seven trips to and from my car with clean laundry, bags of groceries, a giant scrapbook my grandmother gave me, boxes, etc, etc.

Still no rest for Emily.

On go the shorts and tank top in my swelteringly hot apartment and I proceed to put things away, reattach the doors to the entertainment center after propping it up with blocks of wood (dad and Johnny broke off the wheels on their trek up the stairs. That sucker is HEAVY), organizing my books, etc etc (sorry for all the lists, it was a crazy day). Of course Johnny called somewhere in the middle so I'm holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I set up the DVD/VCR/TV. Once all of THAT was done (groceries still not put away) I got my laptop and found a tutorial on how to make origami stars, colored in the zebra paper with an orange highlighter, made three stars (two tiger, one football) in different sizes, strung them together with thread, glue-sticked them and shook them around in a baggie of gold glitter, and finally boxed and wrapped the final product after taking a pic of it to show Johnny.

And then I collapsed on the floor and relaxed for the first time since 5am.

Rinse. Repeat.

Today is the same, only it's B&N and Goodwill, I did major organizing before I even left for work, and I left my phone at my apartment so I'm without directions and I was late to work AGAIN... but in seven minutes we are having our ornament exchange and hopefully my boss doesn't sneer at my handiwork.

Once I have my phone back and am sitting at home, I will post a less hectic story and show y'all pictures.

Deep breaths... and scene.

Oh movies. :)

I don't know if you knew this, but Netflix and I are like this *crosses fingers*. Until I got my TV and DVD player here with me all I had was my computer and some internet I borrowed from the neighbors. I literally watched When Harry Met Sally three days in a row.

So if you're on Netflix you know how it asks you to rate movies you've seen and then it'll give you a list of movies they think you'll love. Nothing on the lists they usually give was working for me a couple days ago, so I did that rating thing. In the list of movies they offered there was this one indie flick called Keith.

I watched it.

Love at first sight.

It stars Jesse McCartney

 and Elizabeth Harnois. 

You probably know who Jesse McCartney is. He's the original Justin Beiber. Elizabeth Harnois, however, I had never heard of her. Apparently she's on One Tree Hill. But I don't really watch TV (and especially not shows like One Tree Hill) so I wouldn't have known had I not creeped all over her imdb.com page.

Yes, I admit it. I'm a creeper. But in a good way!

I also creeped Jesse McCartney's page, and I appreciated what I found. On some people's pages it says things like "dating some Russian supermodel (2004)" or "got engaged to the Queen of England (Jan 2006)" (ok, that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea) and then two months later it's over. On his, though, it's all about his music and the TV show he co-starred in for awhile. And he's, like, 23 or 24, normally the imdb pages for actors that age are smothered by that kind of junk!

While I'm at work my imagination likes to jump into overdrive so I don't go completely insane. The day after I watched this movie I had all these imagined situations where I was in L.A. for whatever reason sitting in some coffee shop with my comp waiting for a friend to finish, idk, whatever. I was singing along with the radio and Jesse McCartney happens to be there, hears me, and wants me to come with him to the recording studio so I can be on his new album or something. Pretty sure I'm the only person who does this. 

And of course I'm always the Joe Cool of meeting celebrities, never freaking out once. In my daydreams, at least. If I actually did meet someone famous I probably would be pretty low key while there. I'm not the type to have huge crushes on celebrities because, honestly, what's the point? However, I would definitely send an OMG text to my BFF the moment the situation was over.

Anywho, that's me. I'm weird. It's okay.

I also made the mistake of buying the movie on iTunes. Now there's no free way for me to burn it to disc and actually watch it on my television. Not for lack of trying, though.

Back home to my parent's house for the weekend! Unpacked all of my stuff today during the blizzard, working eight hours on Saturday. 

Cheers!

Yay and Grrr.

It's it weird that I'm stupidly excited about going from 4 followers to 7 in one day? I mean, there are people with hundreds of followers and after two years of writing this blog I finally have 7 followers! Of course, I also networked this blog to my Facebook so there are actually a lot of people who read it that I don't know about.

In any case, thank you thank you thank you to amyschmamey for the shout out and gettin' me three more! Totally made my day. :D

Now for the grr.

Have you looked at the weather radar lately? There's a HUGE blue splotch headed straight for Ohio starting with *drumroll please* Cincinnati.

Now, for most of the people I work with this is no big deal. They'll just stay home and sign on to their work computer from there and do their thing.

Then there's me. The poor girl who moved here two weeks ago, just got her final apartment on Saturday and hasn't had a chance to call the internet company to set anything up. So I, who does not get paid holidays or time off (that sounds weird grammatically) due to being a temporary employee with hourly pay gets to either brave the snow and ice and frigid temperatures tomorrow at 6:30am OR I get to forfeit eight hours of pay that I desperately need. OR I get to make up the time by working on Saturday. Assuming I have internet by Saturday. In either case, any high created by actually being mentioned in someone else's blog and gaining new people to become friends with has been blown up by this frustration.

However, to finish on a high note, I now have almost all of my stuff. I've about three more loads of dishes to do (everything is really gross after spending a year in the garage) and a bunch of boxes to dispose of and tons of organizing to do, but if I don't work tomorrow that will not be a problem.

Anywho, welcome new friends! I hope I don't bore you too badly and that you have a wonderful day!

Song of the Day

I'm not actually going to post a song every single day. Mostly because it'd probably be the same song over again, I tend to go back to things.

However, Sunday's song was "Rock of Ages (When the Road Seems Long)" by Sandra McCracken. This video is, unfortunately, not Sandra singing but you get the idea.
Rock of Ages

Monday's song was "Eet" by Regina Spektor.
Eet

Tuesday
Colors

That's it. Enjoy!