Advent Calendar

One of my favorite things leading up to Christmas is counting down to the big day with an advent calendar. We presently do not have one, but I remembered the wonderfulness of paper chains! For FHE last night Dan and I decorated 25 strips of paper with Christmas themed pictures. It was good times.

Our 25 strips of paper all decorated and ready to be stapled together.
Dan's creative 25th day strip getting inspiration from 5th avenue
My happy Christmas tree
Dan the man stapling those papers!
Only 25 more sleeps until Christmas!!

Which also means only 25 more days until the fam-bamily!

And the Christmas dreams begin...

um am I crazy for wanting this?

It's adorable and I would then have all the supplies I'd ever need to mend anything! I think it's a good two-for if you ask me : )

In other news. I got out the decorations my aunt Carey gave me for my bridal shower. Our home is now almost completely decorated for Christmas. We just need a tree, an advent calendar, and some stockings.

To get into the Christmas spirit today I went a little crazy with itunes. I found this cd, it has all of those classic songs you hear each year on the radio but you never know where to actually buy them. Santa's Top 10 has it!

Then I stumbled upon this Winter Songs by the Hotel Cafe tour. It has wintery and Christmas-y songs on it by all of my favorite indy girl artists. My new love.

Of course I already has Charlie Brown's Christmas. No Christmas collection is complete without it. It makes my heart happy.

And I'm renewing my love affair with the Elf soundtrack from last year. Good compilation of songs. It's a mix of Christmas and just plain fun songs. It also has my favorite version of Baby, it's Cold Outside with Zooey Deschanel singing the female part. Love her retro voice.

Anyways... I'm really excited for Christmas and I can't believe I'm writing this, but I'm excited for it to finally start feeling like Christmas. It's just barely starting to get cold and I know I'm going to HATE it the second I get back from California after Christmas, but right now, I'd really like to have that nip in the air and some snowflakes falling softly to start the holiday season.

I've definitely lived in cold climates for 5+ years too long.

Thanksgiving

This year our Thanksgiving was cut down. Jan was in the hospital, Jim went and ate with her there, and my friend Rachel decided to keep away from all the crazy going on over here : ) So Dan and I had a quiet Thanksgiving with Kate and Bill which was awesome because there were no adults! Kate made an amazing Thanksgiving dinner full of yummy food and afterwards we had three desserts to choose from. Good times were definitely had.

Bill carving away at that turkey
Dan and I took Nicholas outside so the kitchen wouldn't be as chaotic
They ran around all over and we discovered Nichalou enjoys drumming on things with "shticks"
Tender times
Cute boys!
Kate cutting my ridiculously large cake with a cleaver. We decided it was comparable to Ms. Trunchbull's cake in the book Matilda
Nicholas got to indulge in oodles of home made whipped cream
The piles of dessert.

It was sad that Jan and Jim couldn't be with us, but it ended up being a really yummy and relaxing kind of day. Thanks Kate and Bill for the mounds of food!

Whining...

So in my last post, I wrote about how last week was bad. And sadly last week's badness has simply carried over into this week. Today I have sessions until 8:30 pm. The night before Thanksgiving. The night I was hoping to be able to go and watch the balloons get blown up for the Thanksgiving day parade; the night I was hoping would finally end my misery of the last week and a half. But no, I have to do three sessions today which means over the weekend I'll need to write up the notes because notes have to be in within 72 hours. And I just don't want to! I want my dang holiday completely unadulterated with work! Growing up is so hard sometimes. Having a real job, where you have to just give of yourself and get the work done no matter what... it's dang hard! No wonder people want to be professional students! I want to be a professional student, nothing was so easy as that!

But tomorrow is Thanksgiving, where we celebrate what we're thankful for. And I am truly grateful for my job. A job where I get to put the skills I've been learning in school to work. A job where I get to help people on a daily basis, where I get to serve. A job where I can make a small difference in somebody's life. A job where I do well and am acknowledged for my successes.

I am incredibly grateful I have a husband to come home to, who listens to my freak outs, and who tells me I'm still a good person and who makes me feel better. I don't know what I'd do without him to refill me, this job kinda sucks the life out of you sometimes. I'm grateful that we're able to go through this crazy time in our lives of starting our careers and struggling through our growing pains together. I couldn't do this without him.

I'm thankful for family. We have Dan's family so close and my family is just a phone call away. I'm grateful for friends, especially girlfriends. I'm grateful for the scriptures we read daily and for the spirit they bring into my life. I'm grateful for church where I go to weekly to renew my covenants and to be filled spiritually for the coming week. I am grateful for my faith and for the inspiration I can receive.

There is so much to be thankful for, it's kinda ridiculous. What are you thankful for?

Preparing for this week

As mentioned in my previous post, Dan and I had a doozy of a week last week. Let me outline how it failed.

1. Dan's mom was admitted to the hospital (prayers and thoughts are appreciated) for back pain and will be having surgery today.

2. Dan had a rough week at school with two more 15 year old girls declaring they're preggers.

3. Dan the man just needs a break from teaching and planning every single day. This poor man is not an organized kind of person and all of this planning and organizing is difficult to do when it's not natural!

4. I got a case from H-E double hockey sticks! Mostly because the family is out of control and it's my job to get it back under control and make sure nobody is hurt in the process. That whole nobody gets hurt part is really scary for my little 23 year old heart.

5. I got another new case, which I've been informed is also going to be a doozy.

6. My two easy cases are being closed out which is good, but leads to all new fears of what if they fail, does that mean it's my fault?

7. I have two incredibly stagnant and (what I see as) pointless cases which leads me to feel like I'm floundering around trying to figure out something to do with them (not a good feeling).

So this weekend, to make up for the horribleness of it all, I...

1. went to the temple with my boo

2. cuddled in bed and watched old CSI's

3. slept in

4. didn't clean the apartment

5. baked (of course)

6. got my hair cut (notice the new bangs in the above picture? I definitely need my Jodi back home to fix them though)

7. went shopping around

8. got TWO new books : )

9. saw Women at the Well (a church production that was preformed here in NYC--my sweet Julie Mack was a singer in it : )

10. Chatted with my J and my Z

11. Went grocery shopping with my MIL-y's car which meant we could buy more food!

12. Drove to church which meant I could wear cute high heels without pain!

So the weekend was good, didn't completely make up for the crazy week, but it helped make it not hurt so bad for a few days. AND! there are only 3 working days this week.

Anyone up for singing the Hallelujah Chorus?

Last Sunday

This week was rough, for both Dan and me. But after church last week, we walked through the Cloisters and Fort Tryon Park across the street from our church building. Sadly I didn't have my camera, but I did have my phone!

Overlooking the Hudson
My lover man
Gorgeous fall colors

So at least we started our horrible week off right and went to church right? It could have been worse! I shudder at the thought!

You wanna piece of this?

Let me tell you about my day. As defined by cat calls.

This morning I decided I was going to start my week off right! I got up early and went to the gym so I could get that blood pumpin'! Now let me clarify something. I am not a cute work out kinda girl. I am the nasty greasy hair, bright red with weird white splotches on my face, and sweat stains galore! Not particularly attractive, correct? Correct.

I start my walk home to try and hike up the 5 floors after a work out (not fun), and I'm almost home. I can see my building clearly through the leafless trees, when a man pulls over and stops motioning me to wait a sec. Now this is what's going on in my mind, "umm okay maybe he needs directions...." While he apparently was thinking "I am gonna get this one." He proceeds to climb out of his car and walk over to me. And this is how it went:

Creepy Guy: Sorry about my appearance miss, but I've been driving around this neighborhood and... well you're just so gorgeous. You are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, what's your name? *mumble mumble mumble*

Scared Maddie: um I just live up here. (notice the incoherency?)

CG: Oh well hello 'lives up here.' Now, beautiful, what do you like to do for fun?

SM: Hang out with my husband (wa-bam! flash the ring!)

CG: oh that's how it is? That's too bad honey...

SM: (cutting him off) uh huh... so bye.... (I start walking quickly away, praying that he doesn't follow me and thanking my lucky stars our street is a 10 block one way street)

CG: (fading in the distance) well my name is ... and if you ever want to hang out just...........

Now let me explain something more to you. This was before 9am. 9 AM in the freakin morning!! Are you kidding me?

My day then proceeded as follows.

10:20 am--walk from the subway to the office, man yells I'm beautiful with that long blonde hair of mine

1:15 pm--walk to the subway from the office to go on a visit, I am a bonita blanca

3:45 pm--walk through the subway station while listening to a little latino man mutter under his breath how I am the most beautiful woman he has ever met and how he just loooooves me

6:00 pm I climb out of the subway to walk home, "oooo blanca pinkie, such a pinkie blanca, oooo" (what does that even mean?!)

Thanks men of Harlem and Washington Heights for one uncomfortable validation of my apparent beauty after another.