I made it to Muenster on Friday, then came right back to Dallas last night to celebrate Katherine's birthday. Her family always gets crazy huge Christmas Tree so we snapped a photo in front of it before I left.
After dinner, my mom and I went to pick up my brother at the airport. His flight came in at 12:23 AM. Yes, AM. As in Sunday morning. He waited for his luggage for 30 minutes, so we got back to my parents' house at 2:15 AM. I was beyond tired. Today we are in full panic mode as my grandparents have decided to come in one day early. Mom's running around in a frenzy trying to wrap the rest of the presents, thaw out the turkey and clean all the bathrooms. It's probably going to be a hectic day!
Merry Christmas Eve Eve.
I am lucky. I always have been. I win things all the time. Drawings, contests, trivia, slot machines, lottery scratch offs, door prizes. You name it, I win it. Just to give you an idea, here’s a running list of things I’ve won in the past:
- all expense paid cruise for two on Carnival Cruise lines
- cell phone
- $200 Blockbuster gift card
- $190 in a quarter slot machine.. on one quarter!
- SAT prep book (in high school, awesome)
- designer handbag
- concert tickets from calling in on the radio
- countless bridal shower games… usually just the luck of the draw
I know there’s more. I just can’t think of it all right now. I will add to the list as I remember more, so check back if you are so intrigued. My most recent victory really came in handy this holiday season. Every year my school puts up a great big Christmas tree in our commons area. The tree is a ten foot tall pre-lit monster of a tree that is always completely decorated in red ornaments. This year, someone in the higher up offices decided that ten feet is just not tall enough for our school. We needed a twelve foot tree. And all those red ornaments just aren’t cutting it anymore. We needed new ones! So someone made a trip to Home Depot and bought all brand new stuff. In early November, an email was sent out to all the employees saying they were going to give away the old tree and all its ornaments and to let them know if we wanted to be included in the drawing.
I’m sure you know where this is going.
I of course responded to the email to get into the drawing. I almost added a line at the end of the email. I know I am going to win this tree. Don’t bother having the drawing, just give it to me! But I didn’t. I do believe in jinxing my luck.
So two weeks before Thanksgiving I came home with the world’s largest Christmas tree and three plastic tubs of red ornaments. They did indeed draw my name. There was no way that tree was going to fit in my apartment, so I traded trees with Mark. He took the ten foot monster, and I took his little skinny five footer. Mine took about ten minutes to put up and decorate, his took about two weeks. Here it is in all his glory, as Mark squishes the star on top. 
Have you all put your trees up? If so, post a picture on your blog! I hope you have a little Christmas spirit at home! If not, go to the mall for some Christmas shopping. The parking garage lines, crowded stores and cold rainy weather will surely put you in the mood! Oh wait, its 72 degrees today. In December. Less than one week from Christmas. That'll get you in the spirit!
Last night I went over to Mark's to finally start watching this season's episodes of Friday Night Lights. It is my absolute favorite show on TV and really the only one I still watch religiously. Mark and I started watching it together last year when we first started dating, so last night as we sat huddled in his living room, me freezing under a huge blanket, it really reminded me of one year ago when we barely even knew each other. So much has happened since then, but.. I am getting off topic.The only difference with last night's viewing of FNL was that it was in front of Mark's computer screen. Somewhere in the depths of his DVR, we missed the first episode of the season and didn't get it recorded. The following weeks nine are safely sitting in his DVR list, but we could not watch them without seeing the season premiere! Which would have been a lot easier if Mark's computer hadn't been broken for the past four months! I was quite excited Tuesday night when he told me he had actually called Dell and his PC was up and running again. So alas, last night we finally got the season started off. After watching the first episode courtesy of Amazon.com, we settled down to watch the rest. My cell phone happened to be across the room from me and Mark happened to be walking right past it, so I asked him if he would check to see if I had any missed calls. He looked and said I had a message. I asked him who it was from, since it displays it right on the screen. Instead of telling me, he opts to "toss" the phone over to me to check. Only it wasn't a toss, it was a throw. An MLB pitcher, bottom of the ninth, two strikes down throw. Right. At. My. Face. I wasn't expecting this and had zero time to react, so it smacked me right above my left eye.Ouch.The tears streamed down my face and I was reminded of being a kid and getting hurt and just wanting to CRY really loud. My face was throbbing. Mark runs over, pleading his sorries, swearing he didn't mean to, trying to look at my face that I now have shoved down on the pillow. I know it was an accident. Surely he did not intend to smack me in the face with a hard chunk of plastic. Five minutes later I have a bump on my head the size of an egg and I am imagining waking up the next morning with a black eye and having to explain to everyone at work that my boyfriend? Yeah, he throws things at me. However today, there's nothing more to show other than a small red dot and a great big knot. Sadly, it actually looks more like a pimple than a domestic abuse wound. I have the headache to prove its still there though. And my boyfriend just might be feeling guilty enough to stick another present under the tree this Christmas...Speaking of, I totally have the Christmas itch! I cannot wait for it to get here. I've got exactly one week left of work and only a few more gifts to buy. I haven't sent out any cards yet and I really still want to, especially after checking my mail yesterday and getting a stack of cards from friends, including the cutest card(s) ever from Sadie! (I am wearing my new kitty bracelet today!! Thank you!!). So those might still go out, if I have the time to get creative enough and send out something cute and festive. Watch the mail, but don't hold your breath yet!
This weekend I had a lot of downtime, which lately has been pretty unusual. I used this time to clean up my apartment, but pretty soon my place was spotless and I still had all this time on my hands. So I wrapped some Christmas presents, but quickly ran out of gift boxes, so that hit a dead-end as well. I decided I would get ahead of laundry for once, which almost never happens. I am more of an uh oh I am out of underwear, I guess I better do some laundry kind of gal. So I started a load. Then I took it one step further and even began to hand wash all the sweaters and delicate tops that usually just sit in the pile month after month and never get worn again. So I poured some Woolite into the sink, popped the sweater in and turned the faucet on to let it fill with water.
And then, for whatever reason, I left.
I took the trash out, turned the Christmas tree lights on, lit some candles and basked in my oh-so-clean and festive apartment. I turned on the TV and did some crunches (man I was on a role!). I did a couple sets of lunges. I sat there and thought to myself hmm what I am forgetting. Gus was walking around meowing kind of weird so I followed him into the bedroom to see if he wanted to play. Then I heard a strange sound and glanced into the bathroom. It sounded like flowing water. My first thought was CRAP my toilet is overflowing! But no. Then it hit me. I never turned the water off to fill the sink up.
The sink was beyond full. It must have been running for at least ten or fifteen minutes. There was water running down the cabinets and spilling onto the floor. The entire bathroom floor was covered in water, about a half inch thick. I went into full blown panic mode. Is the water going to spill through and flood the apartment below me?? Will I get mold damage?? How will I ever get all this water out?? Will I have to call the maintenance people, who will in turn come to clean up and find the illegal cat that I am hiding without paying my $300 pet deposit?!?! My heart was racing and my hands were shaking as a frantically grabbed every towel I owned and threw them onto the floor. They all quickly soaked up full of water, so I threw them into the bathtub and did the next most logical thing I could think of to control the mess… I reached into the laundry hamper and started throwing dirty clothes all over the puddles of water. So I got all the water mopped up, but was left with a tub full of soaking wet towels and clothes. So much for getting ahead of the laundry.
I spent the rest of the day and most of the next doing laundry and trying to get all those towels dry again. My little washer/dryer in my apartment is not only tiny, but its not the strongest machine out there, so towels take 2-3 cycles in the dryer before really drying out. But the good news is that since my bathroom floor was all wet and slippery, I went ahead and grabbed the mop to give it a good scrubbing. That hasn’t happened in… oh four or five months.
I have done a horrible job of staying in touch with my scattered friends, near and far. Since my birthday or even before, I have been getting all kinds of notes, phone calls, texts, cards, online comments and emails from people in Dallas, Austin, Houston and beyond and I keep putting them on my “I’ll get back to them soon” list. Well, soon is long gone and here I still sit, too busy to give them a call or shoot them an email. I feel like a crappy friend and resolve to get back in touch with everyone in the coming days. It’s my Old Year Resolution, since 2007 is basically on its way out and I don’t want to put it off until 2008! So everyone out there: if you recently sent me a sweet Thanksgiving card, recently posted on my Facebook wall asking about Gus, recently called to ask how my holidays are going, recently had a birthday, recently traveled to see your long distance boyfriend, recently met your BF’s family for the first time, recently got married and haven’t seen much of me since, recently sent me a cute ad that reminded you of me, recently thought about me and where the heck I am… I am here and I will be sending you some love soon. Thanks for still sending me the love, even when it sometime seems like it’s unrequited. I assure you it is not!
My last few weeks in a nutshell, just to catch everyone up quickly: Thanksgiving was six straight days of traveling through Texas with nine people in a Volvo. Well, we rented a car halfway through the trip and split between a Volvo and a Hyundai, so it was glamorous indeed. This past weekend was jammed packed with out of town guests, two of which spent twelve hours in the Colin County Jail. Yikes. But we all made it to Dane Cook last night and laughed away the previous night’s troubles to end the weekend on a high note. I hope your week ended on a high as well.
