It's Christmas

Christmas has come and gone. The new year is approaching fast. My holiday was different this year. But still blessed as ever.

One of my most favorite parts of the holiday is our Christmas Eve service at church. It was beautiful.

We spent Christmas Eve dinner with my grandparents, uncle, aunt, and cousins. Christmas Eve night always means lots of family jokes, presents, food, games, and getting home late. It's a blast!

On Christmas morning we all woke up around 7:00 (which is early for me folks) and headed downstairs to see what Santa had left us. And boy was it a sight. People, over my two days of Christmas, I've never seen so much Doctor Who merchandise...and it's now all found its home in my very own bedroom. *happy dance*

After all our presents were unwrapped and we'd all made a thorough mess, we got ready for our day. This year we hosted a big Christmas day brunch and invited multiple families from our church and home school group. Our house was packed! This was my absolute favorite part of Christmas this year. Serving these people, my friends, on Christmas Day...what a huge blessing!

{Photo credit goes to my dad.}

it's about time

Gah. I've become such a terrible blogger. I believe an update is in order.

School is out. Thank you Lord! I don't think I've ever wanted a break so badly in my life. The past week in a half I've pretty much been a slug. Other than work, I've done nothing productive. Absolutely nothing. (Well...unless you count reading and watching tons of Netflix.) It's amazing.

I watched The Hobbit. It was absolutely fantastic. I haven't read the book. Actually, I haven't read anything relating to The Lord of the Rings. But I'm a die hard fan of the movies. And The Hobbit definitely lived up to The Lord of the Rings awesomeness.

With there being a lovely break from school, I made myself a list of things to do.
     1) Start guitar lessons. My sister who is amazing agreed to teach me. So far I know the A chord and the Em chord. We aren't real far along in our lessons, but we're getting there. Exciting!

     2) Read Les Misérables. I probably won't finish it during winter break. It's 1,463 pages. O_o But my goal is to finish before the new movie leaves theaters. I've been watching the trailer over and over. Gosh, it looks fabulous.

    3) Spend lots of time with this dear girl.

So far, Bethany and I have had a sleep over, watched lots of Doctor Who, and got our hair cut together. On Sunday we're eating out at Pizza Hut and exchanging Christmas gifts. Can't wait!

Christmas is in three days. THREE. And I don't even have all my shopping done. I'm such a slacker. I plan on finishing up this afternoon though. Hopefully. And wrapping everything. Hopefully.

Downton Abbey season three comes out on DVD on January 29th. And I'm #4 in the hold list at the library. Eek! Excited!

Well...that's all from me. How about you? How is your winter break going?

just writing...

It's been a while.

Today I had kinda a stinky day.  So I thought I'd log in and just write...just write.

School's almost over for the semester and I'm about to jump for joy.  Next week I have finals.  The only one I'm really worried about is my anatomy final.  It's the only one that's cumulative.  Cumulative-ness scares me a bit.  Will my brain be able to retain that much information?  Part of me thinks it's entirely impossible.  But this girl's gonna try!...and study herself crazy.

It is officially decided.  I have some ah-mazing friends.  Like mentioned above, I had kinda a stinky day.  Well, maybe a couple stinky days...in a row.  And my superly fantastical, God given friends were there for me.  I love them.

Work has been swell.  Pretty consistent really.  Except that I am losing my best working buddy.  She's up and decided to move!  Shame on her.  Naw, joking, joking.  It's a good opportunity.  Best wishes to you, dearie.

So I'm reading back over this post and it's feeling pretty random and unorganized.  Aw well...

Hope you dearies have a splendid weekend. *smiles*

odd stuff

As many of you may know, I work at a public library. And I love it, don't get me wrong. But, what many of you may not know is that there are some weird happenings in libraries. I can testify first hand.  And because I have this knowledge, I feel it my civil duty to share it with you. ;) What goes on behind the scenes in public libraries....

One day over the summer I was walking through fiction to pull a book for a young lady, one of my friends actually. Along the back wall we have a bunch of window bays that people use for reading and studying and such. As I walk by one of the window bays I witness a man exercising.  And I'm talking like major exercising. He was doing stretches and push ups. In the library? It was one of those things that you see and have to do a double take to make sure you actually saw it.

Sometimes I feel that people think the library is a living google search. I get odd phone calls and questions sometimes. Such as, what is the answer to this crossword puzzle? Or, do you know how to put minutes on a go-phone? What district is such and such high school in? Who is Scarlett's best friend in the movie Gone With the Wind? Where can I rent a projector? How do you restart your iPhone after locking yourself out?

Not long ago I was working the night shift and my coworker, Kim, and I had stepped away from the information desk for a moment. When we return she says, "Oh look. We have flowers." Sure enough, we each had a single, pink rose bud at our work stations. Weird.

So these are just a few of my strange library excursions. Funny stuff!

Currently...

I stole borrowed this post idea from Miss Tessa Hall over at Christ is Write. Check out her blog; it's wonderful. She's been doing this post for the last few months and I always thought it was a really neat idea. So I thought, why not try it out.

Currently Reading...

{source}

• Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers
• Jenny B. Jones books...she is fantastic.
• Rob Bell books...he's also pretty super.

Currently Watching...

{source}

• Doctor Who. Lots and lots and lots of Doctor Who.
• Castle. Season five has started. Excited!

Currently Listening To...

{source}

• Needtobreathe The Reckoning
• Tenth Avenue North The Struggle
• Way-FM Radio. The Wally Show is the best.

Currently Working On...

{source}

• Anatomy and Physiology homework. Tests and papers are coming up!

Currently Sipping On...

{source}

• White Chocolate Mochas...but I'm going to try out Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice Latte soon as well.
• Fiji water.

Currently Looking Forward To...

{source}

• Wednesday morning coffee and Bible study with my dear friend Bethany.

What are you doing here lately?

So I have this friend. And she's pretty much amazing.

Emily and I met through our blogs close to two years ago.  We started e-mailing and chatting on facebook...all the time.  You know, tell-tale signs of total best buds. ;)  But there was a bit of a downside to our friendship...12 hours of drive time separated us.  We didn't let that stop us though.  A couple different times we started planning trips to get together and meet in person.  They never worked out though.

But!  Last week...a week ago today in fact, we were able to meet, for the first time, face-to-face.

Talk about a neat experience!  This one definitely makes it to the top of the list.

We met at Cracker Barrel first and had breakfast together.  The first time we saw each other my family and I were on one side of the Cracker Barrel porch and Emily and her family came around the corner on the other side.  We kind of fast-walked to each other and hugged and smiled.  Epic, movie worthy stuff there, I'm telling you.

After Cracker Barrel, we went to the mall.  They had a Barnes and Noble, a Starbucks, a movie/music store and a Bath & Body Works...which equals a pretty fantastic time.

{We found these in Barnes and Noble and thought it great photo opportunity.}

So, to Emily...
Thanks for meeting me.
Thanks for putting up with my Doctor Who obsession.
Thanks for praying for me.
Thanks for being the macaroni to my cheese and the peanut butter to my jelly.  (Hehe!)
Thanks for being my bestie.

{Photo credit to my dad and Emily.}

Dear Florida,

Dear Florida,

We're back!

{Photo credit goes to my dad.}