I GOT A KINDLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem.

Yep. Enough said.

Soo... Anybody else exhausted from holiday festivities, or is that just me? We've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off over here. It's been crazy!

Here's a rundown of my last few days...

Christmas eve was spent playing with Christopher and his younger brother Adam's early Christmas present from Santa... a Wii, a bunch of games to go with it, and the Wii fitness thingamabob. Exciting huh? So of course we had to play with that all night. ALL NIGHT!

Christmas morning my boyfriend dragged all of us out of bed at 6:15am. Ahem. Sorry, that is actually incorrect. He dragged Adam and his parents out of bed at 6:15am. I was lucky. He woke me up at 5:51am. Yep. So after much grumbling we woke up enough to open presents (I GOT A KINDLE) and have some breakfast. Then we all fell into a coma until about 12:30pm. After that there was a mad dash to have showers, get ready, load the Jeep and drive the hour and a half in slick conditions to Granny and Pawpaw's house.

Christmas evening was spent with his family eating, opening presents and generally being loud and amusing. It was lots of fun-- I adore his family.

On Boxing Day, everyone, excluding Martha (his mother) and Granny, slept in till 11am. Then, once again, it was a mad dash for the showers so that we could meet the two crazy shopping ladies (Martha and Granny) for lunch in town.

After that we all fell asleep in the living room and then drove home.

Today (Sunday) we had to get up early and drive to Granddad's house for another Christmas. We left at 10am and didn't get back till 9pm, so I'm pretty pooped.

And the excitement doesn't stop there... Oh no, no, no. Christopher turns 21 tomorrow (technically today since it's 1:30am here). Yay!! Happy Birthday Baby! Love you!

After that we still have one more Christmas to go! PHEW! Anywho, I should probably go call my mum and then go to bed. I'll be back later with a detailed list of the stuff I got...

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!!!

What did you get for Christmas??

I GOT A KINDLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nope, it doesn't get old.

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone has a wonderful day tomorrow and a happy New Year-- whatever your religious beliefs may be!

I will be back in a few days to share all of the funny Christmas stories =]

My Birthday

Guess what?

Today is my birthday =D

That is all. You may now continue on with whatever you were doing.

AWARDS!!!!

Okay, this is going to be painful. I knew I shouldn't have slacked off with Awards. Now I have about a BILLION AND ONE to give out. Before I start, I just want to apologize to anyone who gave me an award but I don't mention your name. I lost track of them all. Sorry! Just let me know if you did give me the award and I'll give you a shout out on here.

First up, Victoria gave all of her followers the Picasso Award. Thanks Vicky!!

Next, Abby Annis, Jenna, and Rhonda gifted me with the Honest Scrap Award. Thanks ladies!

Phew. I'm already tired. Sighs. Okay, moving on...

Shannon and Jenna both gave me the Superior Scribbler Award! Thanks guys =]

Darling Diana (has a nice ring to it, don't you think?) gifted me with The Silver Lining Award. Thanks sweetie ♥

And lastly, Stephanie gave me the Helpful Blogger Award! Thanks hun =]

Now, I'm going to be unbelievably lazy and say that if you follow my blog and comment regularly (at least once a week) you can pick one award from this post for yourself. I know there are rules that go with each award, but honestly I'd rather go write Christmas cards and watch a movie with my family then spend the next 2+ hours tagging everyone, LOL! Besides, you're all so fabulous that it's truly a trial to figure out who gets what! And I don't need the stress ;)

2 more sleeps till my 20th Birthday!!

3 more sleeps till I fly to Virginia!!

6 more sleeps till Christmas!!

Update

Hello everyone!

Sorry I disappeared-- again! However, I think you are all used to that by now. And if you aren't... well you really should be. I mean, you are sooo not in the know if you're surprised by my disappearances. LOL!

Alright, so before I begin with my rambling I just have to say thank you so much for your lovely comments in my last post. Each made me smile (some even made me cry, heaven forbid), so thank you ♥

Now, on to a bit of an update for you guys! Thursday I wrote my Anthropology final, which I got 85% on. I finished the class with 90% ( an "A"). YAY! And I just found out that I got A+ on my huge presentation in my Advanced Writing class. I also got an A+ on my Mimic Assignment and an A on my journal. In total, I got A+ in the class (Advanced Writing). WOOHOO! I didn't even know you could get A+ as a final grade. I've only had A's.

Okay, now for a bit of iffy news. So my mum's friend (Genny and her husband Jon) got home yesterday afternoon. However they were (and still are) so exhausted and stressed out and in pain (she had 2 seizures and a c-section, and Jon has Crohn's Disease), that they called my mum and we went over last night to help out with Baby (bay-baeh). It was quite stressful and draining on everyone. However, Genny is doing better now, and Jon is... well he'll be okay once he gets his Crohn's to calm down. We went over there again tonight to help out, and Genny and Baby are doing much better.

But enough sad stuff. I'd rather rant about Baby's utter and complete cuteness. You know how some babies are just plain funny looking? Not Cristian. He's sooo cute (absolutely no biases here). He has dimples, a cleft in his chin, the darkest eyes you'll ever see, and a full head of black hair. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures when we were there-- I was too busy fighting mum for my turn to hold him (It was about half and half. I got him for a good hour or more). We're going over again tomorrow though, so I promise to take pictures for you guys.

So what have I been missing recently? How are your stories coming along? Need to rant about something?

*Tomorrow I will hopefully be giving away a ton of Awards, since I've been slacking off with this recently... Oops.*

Perfection

When I first moved into residence 3 years ago, I quickly realized that my room was going to need some TLD-- Tender Loving Decoration.* Badly. Although it's not the same set up as most American colleges since I have my own room, it was still pretty plain and boring. I had one blue (think stormy blue) wall, while all the others were an odd beige colour.** The light in the room was--and still is--so dim it actually hurts the eyes to use it. And the furniture. Sighs. Oh the furniture. It's not the prettiest by any means. It's serviceable and hardy, which is what it's supposed to be. But it's certainly not pretty. Add this all together, and I came into quite a dilemma. My room needed to be in my taste for me to feel truly comfortable there. And so I set out to make my room the best I could.

In the end I am quite happy with how it turned out. Even though I've changed apartments over the years, my room has basically stayed the same (I'm apparently a creature of habit). My comforter is a pretty black and white creation from Ikea, the pillows and blankets are all moss green and stormy blue, and my knick knacks--teddy bears, fake candles (no flames in residence, remember), picture frames, posters and whatever else floats my boat--add a personal touch to the room that most other residence rooms lack.

This year, I added a few new pictures to the walls. I now have what is probably the most famous kissing picture of the 20th century (I am an avid romance reader and writer) and one of the best pictures depicting the joy of Freedom:

I also bought another picture, which sits over my desk to both taunt me and inspire me:

Here it is above my desk at school:

I'm not sure if any of you have noticed, but I'm quite the perfectionist. My room is always clean, everything is organized, my grades must be as good as possible, and my writing... well my writing has to be perfect, which complicates my life immeasurably when it doesn't work out that way. So I got this poster, both for the pretty picture and also to remind myself what perfection should be, not what I always make it be. However, while staring aimlessly at it during a break from studying the other day, it occurred to me that not everyone would view perfection in this neat and tidy way. While I believe perfection to be clean, organized, and beautiful, many others would readily disagree with me. And I don't blame them. I do think the picture above is perfect; however, I would say the same of a wild, overgrown meadow. Which brings me to my main point. If everyone sees perfection in such different ways, how can there ever be a solid, concrete term to rely on? If everyone has a different view on perfection, how can we determine what body image is perfect, what behaviour is perfect, or what writing is perfect? The answer is simple:

We can't.

So stop trying to mould yourself to what society deems is acceptable. Don't try to force your behaviour into what you believe is perfect (unless you have the inclination to break the law... then you probably shouldn't do that). And most especially my friends, don't try to squeeze, shove or bully your writing into being some false ideal of perfection. It won't work. In the end you'll only feel nauseous for ignoring yourself and for forcing yourself to be something you're not.***

As my poster says, "Perfection: Success is the art of doing ordinary things in extraordinary ways."

Take it to heart guys. Sometimes the simplest, smallest thing can be the best.

*Cheesy I know. Gimme a break, it's exam period.*

** My room is still this way, with one blue wall and all the rest being beige.**

*** This is not based on my own experience, but from what I've read/seen from other people.***

Meh Weekend

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been around. It's been a tough weekend. First off, I've been studying for my final exams, which is both tiring and stressful. Then as you all know, Daisy has been unwell. To make matters even worse, my mum's really good friend and someone I consider an Aunt had a seizure on Saturday. She just gave birth to her adorable baby boy Cristian on Wednesday and there were some complications. Unfortunately, it was expected that her pregnancy would be difficult. When she was in her 20's she had a blood clot in her brain and had a stroke. Thankfully, however, she is okay (as far as we know) and should be released soon.

So due to all for this, I've been a little preoccupied. Thank you all for understanding. Your comments in the last post made me grateful to have you as my friends.

In happier news, I received a $1000 scholarship today for academic achievements. Yay!

So how was your weekend? Any good news?

Bad Day

Okay, this post is not going to be a cheerful post. In fact, this is going to be a very unhappy post. There will be tons of cute pictures though. I hope in the end you all understand (I know you will, because you're all such caring people and I ♥ you for it).

First, I had my GNED final. That in itself is awful. But it's done. Yay.

Then when I got home my baby girl (Daisy) gave us a terrible scare. My parents let her outside for her usual guard duty/ perimeter check while they worked on dinner. A few minutes later they let her back in and that's when they noticed she was acting funny. In a way, it looked like she had gone blind. She couldn't walk straight and her head was twitching uncontrollably-- like she was trying to see. However, we quickly figured out that she could see us, just couldn't do much else. She couldn't walk properly, she was shaking and twitching, and her eyes were shifting nonstop.

.

.

Mum forced her to take some corn syrup in case it was her blood sugar-- we had a cat who was diabetic, or had pancreatic cancer and that's what they told us to do. Once we got her to take that, I sat with her on the chaise and held her. I slowly, gently stroked her while trying to keep her head from twitching. Eventually the worst of the shaking stopped, but her eyes were still going crazy. Then she started to lick my hand-- it helps her to calm down. Thankfully, her eyes stopped shifting and she rested for a while. About half an hour after that she wanted to get up and walk around. She stumbled a lot and fell down a few times, but now shes doing pretty good. She ate all of her dinner and seems to be doing much better-- she's currently sleeping. We're going to watch her very carefully now and we don't plan on leaving her alone for the next few weeks.

My birthday so many years ago....

Being cute...



Good action shot if I do say so myself...


Playing with her rope!

Fuzzy puppy! Here she's actually still a pup.
You can also see our old cat Ninja there.

Fantastic Jumping Dog!

And look at that awesome Barbie house in the background!

My parents made it for me one Christmas.

Obviously I'm very upset about this. I cried the whole time I was trying to calm her down-- and still am. She's my baby and I've had her for 14 1/2 years. I know she's going to die eventually, but I'm just not ready for her to go yet. If she was in pain or showed any signs of pain, I know what I'd have to do. But while she's not in pain, I can't let her go.

I just can't.

Things That Made Me Laugh

*12 Days Till I Feel My Toes Again*

So... I'm feeling rather lazy today. I should be studying for my GNED final tomorrow, but instead I decided to read all of your fabulous posts. And now I'm furthering my procrastination by writing a post rather than studying. Yes, the end of the semester has hit me hard. I no longer seem to care about my grades-- I just want this DONE! It's also a lot harder to care about your grades when you know you can't fail the class... MUAH HAH HAH! That's right my darlings, I could get a "0" on the final tomorrow and still end up with a C+. Excellent.

Anyway, I decided that today I would share with you some of the funny things I've stumbled across this week. I haven't done a post like this before-- mainly because it's a lot of effort and I do believe we've already established that I'm lazy. However, I'll give this a shot.

Stephanie Thornton has posted another hilarious, spew-your-drink-out-funny post in her Student Analogies & Metaphors series. I strongly recommend you put the drink down before you read this.

Like animals? You should definitely read Kristen Painter's letter to her pets. It is so good--and so very true-- that I still giggle over it.

Ever think that maybe the screaming baby you always see sitting on Santa's lap has the right of it? That Santa really is... Evil? If so, click. This will be good fodder for your conspiracy theory. If you don't think he's evil, still click, you may just change your mind.

This one just made me snicker because the "mob-boss" looks so much like my own puppy Daisy:

And lastly, my dad sent me these two cartoons. They really resonated with me, and I'm sure you can understand why. I'm also positive many of you will understand how frustrating this can be...

So, what made you laugh this week?

14 Days Till I Feel My Toes Again, Fa la la la la la la la la

Since the last post...

I received the grades for my Anthropology term paper (A, 90%), my Theory term paper (B-, 78%-- thank GOD I PASSED), and GNED Term paper (A-, 88%). I am waiting on my History term paper, which should be up sometime this week (and should be an A). I am also waiting for 4 grades from my stupid English class (aka Advanced Writing).

I have played with human skulls and weaponry from hundreds of thousands of years ago. (My Anthropology professor brought us to the lab on Monday, and we got to poke and prod skulls from our ancestors. It was interesting! Some of them were real, especially the weapons, but most of the skulls were replicas-- thank goodness too because touching a real skull would creep me out.)

I have been battling the cold weather as well. We've been having -25c (or -13f) pretty consistently, but with the windchill it is more like -32c (-25.6f).

I have also written an essay since we last spoke. Yipee, it's done! I just need to edit it once I'm done this post, then I'm FINISHED! MUAH HAH HAH HAH!

Ahem.

My last day of classes for this semester is tomorrow and I am so excited to be done. After tomorrow I just have finals... Speaking of which:

GNED (Controversies in Science, or as I say, Kill Me Now)-- Friday, December 11th at 3pm.

English Literary theory-- Wednesday, December 16th at 8am.-- Yes. 8am. They clearly hate English majors.

Anthropology-- Thursday, December 17th at 11:30am.

History-- Monday, December 21st at 6:30pm-- AKA MY 20th BIRTHDAY. Now I know they really hate me.

So what have you been up to the past few days?

*If you're wondering about the title of this post... I fly back to Virginia on December 22nd.*

A Letter to Nature

Dear Nature,

I regret to inform you that although you are my constant companion, I no longer consider you my friend. I do hope this does not come as a shock to you, since I'd hate to displease you further than I already seem to have done. My issue with you, stems, not necessarily from your breeding or countenance, but rather from your utter disregard for others feelings and wishes, and your frightening display of temper. Why, just three days past you spewed forth such an unholy snowstorm that my family and I have been trapped within our drafty old house with very little to do. The wind, even now, batters against the walls and screams through the cracks in the front door—quite disturbing that. It makes napping, reading and movie-watching very difficult to do. Very difficult, indeed. And this tantrum of yours, only a week after your last storm, in which a dear friend of mine ended up in a car crash, the treacherous roads being the cause of his misfortune. Thankfully he is well enough, though he was in the hospital for quite some time. I do hope you are charitable enough to feel remorse for your actions; though, something tells me you find nothing but glee in ruling over other people’s lives.

In lieu of this, I believe everything becomes quite clear. In truth, I find your company quite exhilarating in southern climes, and even in the short period of summer here. Your behaviour during these times is vastly improved from normal. However, I cannot, in good conscience be your friend any longer. Your complete lack of respect for people makes me ill to my stomach. I only hope that you and your dastardly Weathermen are pleased with yourselves.

Sincerely,

Natalie Murphy

.

P.S. As you may have already noticed, I have attached several photographs to this letter. You will find that each of them provides undeniable proof of your guilt. Good day.

The view out of our living room window on Friday.

It has since worsened considerably.

It is important to note that there wasn't a flake of snow in sight Thursday morning.

The garage door earlier today:

My apologies over the poor quality of this photograph.

It was taken with a numb hand and frost covered face.

My father by the snow drift.