silent night

As you can see from the previous post, I haven't been feeling so Christmas-y lately. I've been feeling a little stressed. While normally I would be dancing about in my apron tidying up our apartment and cheerfully preparing Christmas treats while packing for our trip to California (it's my imagination, okay? who cares if this is completely and totally inaccurate?), instead I have found myself wanting nothing more than to curl up in the fetal position with a pan of brownies. I have not packed yet, we leave tomorrow, and I'm feeling the pressure. This morning as I entered the subway station on my way to work, I heard something that changed all of that: rising above the general nastiness of the subway station, a single violin playing Silent Night. For that moment, the weight of my busy week melted away, and I felt.....love. I love my Savior, I love my family, I love my friends. Soaringly beautiful, that love, that music....ahhhh, nice.

cranky

I'm cranky. Today, I consumed 910 calories worth of KFC, to be exact. This is not what made me cranky, but I felt it was worthy of mention. To backtrack, I had my hair cut, and it's.....okay. I did that thing where I went for a haircut fully expecting said haircut to fix whatever inner turmoil I was experiencing (this haircut will make me look like Jennifer Aniston and help me know if I should go back to school. Like that.). So, I spent all day chanting to myself "it's just hair, it's not that important". After work, I went to do some Christmas shopping. Surely this is deserving of some good karma, right? Wrong. As I waited in the rain on the sidewalk for the light to change, a taxi cab drove through the mother of all puddles, and splashed awful muddy nasty gutter water all over my lovely green coat. I paused to recover from the shock, and thought "Hmmmm. Nice point, Heavenly Father. I can see that I am experiencing this so that I can see that while I may really dig my green coat, it is just a thing. It is not my life, my happiness does not come from material things." Then, I moved on to severe crankiness, because my coat got slimed, man!!! That totally stinks. I then rushed to the subway, hoping to get to the cleaners by our apartment in time to drop my coat off. I looked at my watch: 6:45. Dang. The cleaners close at 7:00. I know it maybe will sound a little cheesy, but I said a little prayer that went something like this: "Heavenly Father, I know that this coat is just a thing, but I really want to have it cleaned, and if there's any way to have the cleaners be open, that would be awesome." I got off the subway, walked/ran to the cleaners, which of course was closed, because it was 7:15, when I looked across the street and saw......another dry cleaners!!! All lit up like a beacon!! A shining, good clean laundry smelling beacon!! I ran in, stripped off the coat, handed it over to the blessed dry cleaner guy, and walked home, and looked at my receipt. The thing is, this place is supposed to close at 7:00, too. Thanks, Heavenly Father. I really, really appreciate this.

to cut, or not to cut?

I am going for a hair appointment tomorrow. I know, I know, I said I was growing my hair out, but I miss my short hair, and I keep seeing all these short, swingy, fun cuts out on the street....so far, I'm getting mixed reviews. Some like long better, and some like it short better. Paul is being quite diplomatic and supportive, but has not provided any concrete opinion. Hmmmmm. Ahhh, short swingy cut, how I pine for you. Now, shall I break it off with the current mid-length hair? I mean, it's been good to me, sure, but it takes longer to style, and I don't know if it's meeting my needs. Any opinions?? Short or long??

good bus, bad bus, and waffles

I am always amused at how the way I feel about New York can change in seconds. On a crisp fall day, with the sun shining brightly, and kind people holding doors and smiling on the subway, as I eat a cupcake while finding a really awesome dress on sale, I love New York. On a frigid sleety day when I am loaded down with bags and people are shoving and yelling as a homeless guy pukes on the street, not so much. This week, I had two experiences on the bus, one sweet, and the other, odd.

#1-Riding the bus to work. In between stops, the driver starts honking, and I am wondering,who is the idiot driver causing this outburst? Turns out, the driver is honking at some kids who are running for the bus, to tell them he's going to stop. Stop he does, and lets the kids on, who are all junior high age, and all adorably in some state of disarray so signature to that age.....ahhhh, the days of messed up hair and backwards T shirts. Anyhoo. As a side note, the girl sitting across from me on the bus had on Nike sneakers with a pink stripe, pink socks, a pink backpack and pink leopard print purse, pink cell phone, and pink I-Pod. Awesome.

#2-Coming home from work. As I sit on the bus, I become aware of a very tall European man standing right in front of me. He has the bushiest eyebrows I have ever seen (really! like toothbrush bristles pasted above his eyes!) , and a cup of coffee with a lid. He is talking on a cell phone, and has to get something out of his pocket. He wedges the coffee cup in between his arm (the one attached to the cell phone) and his body, while his free hand searches in his pockets. I watch the coffee sloshing in the cup, praying for no spillage. Ahhh, he finds what he was looking for. Coffee cup gets transferred to the free hand. Wait, it's not a free hand. It's holding something else. As his hand tries to hold the coffee cup and whatever else is in his hand, I watch the coffee slosh higher and higher, closer and closer to lid opening. I shrink back into my seat- I can't watch. I'm mere minutes away from being bathed in coffee. Just as I am about to either faint, scream, or run (all exaggerations, but I think they all really drive the point home) the bus stops. He sits down. Ahhhhh. Thank you.

Last, and in no way related to the above anecdotes, we made waffles for breakfast this morning. We were tag-teaming it pretty well, taking turns removing the waffles from the waffle iron and buttering them when our rhythm got mixed up, and Paul opened the waffle iron too soon. We both lamented the sure to be butchered waffle, and decided that this waffle should be eaten immediately, to put it out of its misery. When the waffle was finished, we opened the waffle iron, and found that the waffle was miraculously saved-not maimed whatsoever. We stood over the waffle iron, awed. "It's like forgiveness!" said Paul, "all the mistakes are gone!" "Right!" I said, "and just like forgiveness, only the waffle iron could fix it. Not like when you try to fix a pancake and it just gets even worse. " Thank you, Paul. Thank you, waffles. Thank you, forgiveness.

food diary

Breakfast: Peanut butter cookie

Lunch: Peanut butter cookie, two slices gouda cheese, toast

Dinner: A little bit of stew

Dessert: Two gingerbread cookies followed by about 1/2 cup of sugar cookie dough followed by 1 1/2 sugar cookies with buttercream frosting.

I don't feel so good. I think my body might be telling me to eat like a grown-up. Dang.

john

It's my little brother John's birthday today. He's twelve years old. Twelve!! I can't believe it. How did that happen? If you thought I was really psyched about birthdays, John is....psyched multiplied by fifty. He is "psyched" personified. He had a sleepover birthday party last night. They went bowling, and Mom made pigs-in-blankets, and they played ping pong, and watched Home Alone 2, and Elf, and my Mom, who has always doubted her talents in the party throwing department, is the new hero of the day. It sounds like this was a rocking party! Hats off to my mom for hosting a gaggle of twelve year old boys. I think one of the kids accidentally knocked over the snack food table, and a lot of stuff was spilled, but a good time was had by all. I just got off the phone with him. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: Happy birthday, dude! I can't believe you're twelve!!

John: Thanks! So, Mom says there is a present coming in the mail for me.

Me: Cool! Do you have any idea what it is?

John: No! I have no idea what it is. Unless it's church related. Mom, is it church related? Maybe it's a case for my scriptures. Mom, is it a case for my scriptures? Oh, okay. She said it's not church related.

Me: Hmmm. Guess you'll have to wait and see!

John: Mom, is it BYU related? Or UCLA related? Oh, okay. She said it isn't.

Me: (I start to say something but John jumps in again)

John: Oooooh, unless it's Dragon sunglasses. I really want Dragon sunglasses. It could be Dragon sunglasses, but I doubt it. Mom, is it Dragon sunglasses? Oh, okay, not that. She said it isn't.

Me: Hmmm.

John: Mom, if it doesn't come today then do I get to open a Christmas present instead? Oh. okay. She said no. Oooooh! Car magazines! I bet it's car magazines. Mom, is it car magazines? Oh, okay. She says she won't tell me what it is. I bet it's car magazines.

I can't handle how much I love him. I bet my Mom is going to take a really long nap today.

cold+wind=yucky

I do not care for wind. I think it exists only to make me unhappy. Am I being unfair? I mean, I'm sure it's useful for sailing, and flying kites, and of course it is necessary in movies where some awful storm is coming and the grizzled old sea captain licks his finger and sticks it up in the air and says "Arrrr, thar be a storm brewin' ", but really I personally have little use for it. I have my reasons. I really love lip gloss, the sticky kind to be specific, and let me tell you: sticky lip gloss + hair + wind= cranky Andrea. Also, I really really hate cold, and if you add cold to that, well, let us just not go there. Me no likey. The TV weather people have been spreading their croakings of doom for the last couple of days about the terrible wind and cold set to come our way, and this morning I was determined to be ready. Here's what I put on:

tights
socks
pants
tank top
t shirt
turtleneck
sweater
puffy coat
scarf
hat
gloves

I marched outside this morning a prepared woman. A prepared, puffy woman. Thankfully, I have no doctor appointments that would require me to disrobe, since I think that would take me about 45 minutes.