Post Thanksgiving Post.

For those of you not in the States, you’re going to have to bear with one more Thanksgiving post. I’ll try to make it non-painful. I promise. This is one of the only pre-planned posts I have ever done. I like to free ball it.

I left work a little early to get home a little bit earlier, and arrived after my sister and her husband got there. Ate some Taco soup, did some laundry and took a shower. My sister and her husband had this “Thanksgiving Bingo” they were doing where they each made a list of things that were going to happen. On a list was that I would talk about M*A*S*H. First of all, I was baited into talking about it and I do not talk about it all the time.

Yesterday morning was where the real traditions start. It s tarts off with staying in my pjs until I have all clothes clean or at least until the last load is in the dryer. Then watch the beginning of the Macy’s Parade and keep watching it while I get ready for the day. my niece and nephew walked over from the new house and hung out. (They just moved into the new house like 2 weeks ago and it’s on the home place so it’s okay for them to walk over) The nephew also got to help with chores yesterday, which he loves, but he didn’t get to drive because he tells me he’s only 6. My niece gets about 30 feet away from the door and informs me that she broke her foot. She loves telling stories and being the center of attention so telling the story of how she broke it over and over was fun for her. Then everyone else showed up and the party began. There was only 13 for this holiday instead of the 20 or so if everyone showed up.

There’s always too much food. Always deserts and a cheese ball sitting out all day. So dinner was at 12 and we ate and at the end of a meal at our gatherings, there’s always a slight silences and either me or Cousin E will announce that it’s family nap time. Us two and my brother take it seriously every time. So Cousin E and I lay down on the living room floor and pretty soon the kids come to bug us. At one time the nephew was my pillow and the niece was my blanket. Cousin E and I try to install the importance of naps and how important and cool they are when you are in your 20’s. Needless to say, the family nap time didn’t happen as planned. Still super bummed about that. I love nap time, regardless of circumstances. During this time my nephew told both me and Cousin E we needed to cut our hair. (Cousin E has longer hair) The nephew told me he wanted me to get it cut up it into a bob. Then he was amazed when I said I’ve always had long hair. We took immediate family picture and went and “toured” the new house. I keep saying that it’s time for the family sleep over but no one is with me on that. Then there was a round of Crazy 8s, Memory and Go Fish for the kids. There’s always a game involved a family gathering and Cousin E and I were trying to get it to be Mouse Trap, Monopoly or the Saved by the Bell Board game. All of which we have a strong connection to from growing up but no one else was up for it

So at the evening meal, which we call supper but not everyone is in the world calls it that, I was sitting between my sister-in-law and my aunt and on the other side of my sister-in-law was my sister and mother. My sister-in-law said something that ended in slick. I didn’t happen to hear that way though. I looked up from my food and asked her to repeat it, so she did and “oh, hmmm, not what I heard.”

“That last part start with a d?” she asked.

Nope.

My aunt jumps in and she said “She thought she heard S-L-U-T” and yes, she spelled that out because there was children at the table. We’re very protective of what the kids hear. Then there was a debate about what was said and me, my aunt and mother all heard slut. My sister backed my sister-in-law up. But at least I wasn’t alone.

The nephew was in a mood where you know he missed me because he wouldn’t leave me alone. I love him.

A t the end of the night there were lots of hugs and good-byes and relief that another holiday is over.

Cousin E is moving down to Texas in January. This makes me super sad. I know that I’m leaving for a year and I wouldn’t see him then anyway but I’m going to be missing my comrade, my partner in crime. I get that he needs to do this but still super sad and makes me pout. But that was my Thanksgiving and always something to be thankful for.

Pre-Thanksgiving Post.

I’m going home for the rest of week and probably won’t be back in the museum town until Monday. I’m excited to remove myself from the museum/work for a few days. I do enjoy my job for the most part but it’s kind of my life right now until the end of the year and I’m just excited to just get away for 4 days and be a “kid” again. Because that’s what’s going to happen when you get Cousin E and I together. They shouldn’t have had us so close together and then make us play hide and go seek and other child games together. It’s inevitable that when you play games as children together, you will resort to be kids as adults.

I saw my friend L today. I was excited. She’s from town here but she never comes down when I’m in town and I never go up to see her so we haven’t seen each other in MONTHS! It wasn’t a long conversation but it was nice because I hadn’t seen her in a long time. And while I’m thinking about it, while we were talking I realized my camisole was inside out. Good thing you can’t see the majority of it.

Last night I had choir practice. And now that my leaving town is beginning to be well known, there was lots of questions. I don’t mind questions, I really don’t. What I do mind is nosiness. If I don’t know you, get out of my life and don’t insist on knowing everything about me. This lead me to think on other things in life. I realized how guarded I am. Obviously not on my blog, I kind of let everything out here, but in real life. I don’t know how I got to be this guarded. Very few people know specific large details in my life. No that’s not being cryptic like I was abused but things like the guy I really kind of liked and sort of not really dated in high school. Not many people know about him. He was a big deal and I haven’t made many people privy to that part of my life. I’m fixing that, I promise. (P.S. because of this closed off-ness, no one gets my humor.)

So it’s Thanksgiving for me in the States. Here is my question. Why is Canadian Thanksgiving and U.S. Thanksgiving at different times? Why can’t they be at the same time like Christmas. That makes things either easier or harder. Easier for people that have family on one side of the border or the other and harder for travel. But here’s what I’m thankful for. Blogging, people of the blogging world, family, friends, a job (even if I’m frustrated), yarn, books, Jamie and Claire Fraser from Outlander. I could go on forever on things I’m thankful for but that would be boring. So I won’t go on. What are you thankful for?

The Weekend.

Let’s talk about this weekend. It’s the fullest, non-work weekend I’ve had in a long time. And starting this weekend, lots of holiday stuff going on and moving and the what not.

R and I decided to go to “Catching Fire” on Friday and she texts me on Friday saying that we should go out and pre-game. And for us, pre-gaming is meeting a half hour before the movie and downing a beer at the bar next door to the theater. So we show up to the movie. I’ve realized that I am horrible to go to a movie with because I will have a running commentary. Even with movies I’ve seen before or love I have a running, sarcastic commentary. If you think some of my comments on here are sarcastic, you haven’t seen anything like me at a movie. But I did well and didn’t blurt out what came to mind. But R and I did a considerable amount of talking. At one part of the movie everyone was at the waterfront, talking about this wire that they were standing around and R turns to me and she goes “did he just say he invented water?” I thought she said wire because words get mis-translated when you whisper, so I said yes and then it hits me what she said and I start giggling. It’s a good movie, I liked it better than the first movie. I’m all ready looking forward to the next movie. But I’m sure that’s coming out when I’m overseas. Then we post-gamed. That’s the same as our pre-game, just after the movie. We sat at the other end of the bar next a guy friend of R who bought us our beers. He seemed nice. And R made fun of me for thinking about caulking my shower and she didn’t believe I could do it. That wasn’t very nice of her.

So we’re leaving the bar after 1 beer, (yes, only one because R has a little boy to get back to and we didn’t have anything to talk about in a crowded bar) and she said that her and her son were going to the high school production of “Grease” the next night and I should come along. So I did. It was a good. It obviously wasn’t a professional show but they did very well for it being a young cast. R’s little boy thought it was cool to make his empty popcorn box binoculars and use them, even though we were sitting in the second row. That’s what you do when you’re seven right?

So I was on the phone with my mom last night and she asked me what I had planned for last night and I told her I was going to caulk my shower. There was a pause and she said “you realize you can’t take a shower right after you caulk, you have to wait a few hours”. There was a disbelief in her voice that I could do this and yes, mother, I do realize I have to wait some time after I caulk. It’s on the bottle. And if you remember from just a little bit before this, R doubted me too. I can’t believe that no one thinks I can caulk my shower. Granted, it’s not professional and you can tell it’s not professionally done, but I’m handy. Remember the time I was talking screws for my towel rack to my father in my towel? Because it takes talent to do things in a towel. And the time I built bookshelves? People had a hard time believing that I could caulk my shower. I did it. Without the aid of YouTube. Just by the directions on the back of the tube. This is proof I am smart even though I’m blonde. And why did I decide to caulk my shower last night, a Sunday night? Because I had nothing else to do. I don’t have a very active social life. Everyone should know that by now. The slow Sunday did allow me to finish up my support letter for overseas.

So that was my weekend. More active and social than most. But it was entertaining. I’d do it again. Because in a few weeks, I won’t be readily near my friends. 😦 Guess I’ll deal.

Oh Dudley.

I had Dudley Doright on at work today. The one with Brendan Fraser in it. I remember seeing this when it first came out. It’s not the best movie but I was reminded today that I was in love with Brendan because of this movie. Especially the scene where they have the sting version of “Born to be Wild”. And it was oddly attractive that he rode horse well. I don’t know why because I haven’t rode in 14 years. And he’s kind of nerdy so that’s attractive.

I used recluse in a text today. I was describing myself. And in all actuality, I am a recluse except that a recluse is typically secluded for religious reasons. I just don’t have a life. It’s only going to get worse from here. At least I have support raising to keep me occupied. I am, however, going to “Catching Fire” tonight with R. I’m excited. I haven’t ever talked much about movies and my opinion of them. Or I haven’t talked about them to the extent I have books. But I do like movies. Maybe I should start doing movie reviews. I probably will just start doing them after this movie. We’ll see how I feel about life after tonight.

Since I brought up movies, have I ever talked about my love/hate relationship with movie theater popcorn? Well I am now. My sophomore year of college I worked at a 15 screen theater, in concessions. There were times where I worked 32 hours in 3 days. Not fun. Lot’s of popcorn popping around me. I have a horrible sense of smell but I can smell popcorn like nothing else. There are still times, even now, where I lose my appetite to have popcorn. Not every time, just sometimes. It was worse right after I left.

I also had to wear a skirt to this job. I’m not a skirt person. And every girl wore pants under her skirt during the winter. We were classy. It was also the only job where I had to work on Christmas day. It was good for the free movies I got but the popcorn smell……ew. And if you have ever worked at a movie theater you know what I mean when I say you can feel like a popcorn kernel. It’s true.

I Knew It

I knew there were benefits for me loving to read so much.

You Know you Want it……Facebook Quotes!

So at one point, I had a post of random comments from real life or from social media. Let’s do that again because I am on a social media kick.

This was a caption of a picture of the guy scratching his scruffy chin: Leviticus 19:27-“Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.” Being a good Jew would be a lot easier if beards weren’t so damn itchy.
to which the response was: just use some shampoo and conditioner and your beard will be as soft a pillow. (This wouldn’t be a problem for me because I think I’d be okay with having a beard, especially since I plan on being the bearded lady in the circus after I come home from overseas)

You know you are a self-deprecator when the youth pastor has to say when you finish: “L really IS fun to hang out with…”

For those of you who don’t have windows, it snowed last night.

SNOW!? But this is North Dakota! I am just incredibly shocked right now…Since when did this start happening? (we’re so mean to out-of-staters who work in the oil field when it starts getting colder and it snows. They bring it on themselves. You know it’s North Dakota and it gets cold and snowy)

Daisy (the cat) and I are sad. We were all ready to put up the tree and decorate for Christmas and it is missing a leg and won’t stand up Is this karma for my tendency to skip over Thanksgiving?

Gordon Bombay
Response: Ducks Fly together and QUACK, QUACK, QUACK.

The toilet was plugged. A was in the bathroom. Me: “Just don’t flush that toilet!” A: “OKAAAAY! I’ll just poop…” Thanks so much, son.

Oh I know who that was, that was so and so. He’s been in love with me for years. I don’t encourage that.

I thought they told me I was getting two Cadillacs but then I realized they told me I had two Cataracts.

I need more friends, all mine are dying. 😦

The preacher was so short, when she was behind the pulpit it looked like the head of John the Baptist on a platter preaching.

This morning, the nephew pushed the niece off the couch and I asked him if that’s what you do to sisters and he said “no, but she was bugging me”. There’s logic in that right?

We didn’t have air conditioning when I went to school either, but then we barely had electricity back then.

Seeing that the temp is currently -4 isn’t all that comforting.

How can I bring down football? It’s destroying Sundays.

The niece fell down the stairs and broke a bone in her foot. She’s thrilled she gets a special shoe. Is she ever a girl.

So not a long list this time, but a list. Hope you enjoy it.

The Selfie Generation.

I think that technology is amazing. I love that technology got us from horse-drawn vehicles to motorized vehicles with heat and music. Even though I’ve ranted and raged about social media, I love social media for keeping me in touch with family and friends. I am attached to my cell phone for business and sometimes for personal reasons. But technology has made my generation and the generation younger than me, the selfie generation. We are obsessed with ourselves. I don’t know why. Let’s talk about it.

There is nothing wrong with confidence. But being confident to the point where you’re so confident that you know that people will want to look at numerous pictures of you on social media is ridiculous. Why do you need that many pictures of yourself? Did you forget what you looked like? Did you need to check your hair or your butt? Because let me tell you, there’s this really random invention called a mirror that you can use for all those things. If you can’t get to one, well that’s just tough. Deal with it.

Then there’s the duck face. You are not a duck and I don’t think you’re related to the animal and it makes you look utterly ridiculous. How did this trend start and why is it still going? I make a sort of duck face when I’m deeply thinking but it last for a whole two seconds. I don’t take a picture of it and put it on the internet to live forever. Is it attractive to some people? Is it a good form of exercise? Is the exercise to strengthen your lips for those awesome make-out sessions? I mean it’s been a while since I’ve had an awesome make-out session so I don’t remember how strong my lips should be, so maybe I need to be working on my lip stamina or is that brass group I’m in count?

One day, the people who selfie, eventually find Photoshop or another editing software. That means when I go on a social media site to catch up on other people’s lives, I see your face at least twice as much as usual because you have the original selfie and then the selfie edit(s). And it annoys me/makes me laugh when once in a great while when that person puts text in the edits and they will misspell a word. It doesn’t happen often because usually that person probably copy and pastes that text but it makes me shake my head and laugh at the same time, it’s a very confusing time for me. My best friend from high school sister does all these edits and I know a lot of things make me violent, but this definitely makes me violent. Like I love you that’s why I want to punch you in the face because I see it so much on Facebook. It’s like I live with you and I don’t want to live with every selfie enthusiast.

I honestly think that selfies are a gateway drug to posting other random things that no one wants to see. No not like porn but like recipes and inspirational pictures. That annoys me too. All I want is relevant posts to people’s lives. Your face is not necessarily one of those relevant posts. Basic info of your life please. Only give me more if I ask.

Selfie is the word of the year. It’s grown like 17,000% since last year, which, really? This seems ridiculous. I don’t understand the excessive use of selfies to begin with. One or two from a teenager is fine but when you’re an adult and you do it all the time, it ‘s a little immature, isn’t it? And does no one work anymore? (I know that’s ironic, since I’m writing this at work, but it’s slow and I don’t have anything pressing to do) Can someone explain this concept to me? Is it not as immature as I think it is? Is it over confidence is it under confidence? Is it excessive vanity? I guess I don’t like to look at myself that much to take duck-faced selfies all the time.

I know this is kind of a pointless post and, unfortunately, it’s a legitimate issue and it annoys me just as much as my talking about my love life does. But I just can’t help it. The narcissistic society needs to stop the self-love.

My Wallowing/Rant Post

So my friend MJ got accepted into grad school. Now we can text each other panicking about life and our future and not just me texting her how I’m scared. I told her she would get in and she doubted me. This is proof that you shouldn’t doubt me. I know things. I just know. One shouldn’t question me.

Just to warn everyone now, this is kind of a “poor me” attitude post. This is more for me venting this out so I can move on. So you’ve been warned.

So I’m single and if you’ve followed this blog at all, you know that I have periods of being okay with that and not being okay with that and sometimes I just don’t talk about it. And trust me, I know I get annoying when I do talk about it. It annoys me, so I assume it annoys others. But being single in a small town isn’t easy. Being single anywhere isn’t easy. It gets to a girl. So when you have friends that say “Let’s go out, it’ll be fun” you kind of don’t look forward to it because everyone is married or is in a very committed relationship. It’s not rare that I am the only single person in the room. I don’t know where I was the day where the significant others were handed out in the small towns, but I missed it. So 90% of the time these outings get awkward. Especially if you go out to the bar and let’s face it, it’s a small town in North Dakota. Pretty much every get together involves alcohol. I’m not a big drinker, but I can handle some alcohol. Just don’t tell my mother or grandmothers that. But you go out, you get a decent amount of adult drinks in people and they start figuring out that significant others are good for more than just looking at. Then there’s me. Feeling awkward and a little grossed out by the people who forgot that they’re not necessarily the prettiest picture when they’re groping.

So I tend to scope out all the single people. My friend R is a single mother, MJ is single, my friend H (the one who wanted a rib-eye steak for her birthday but ended up ordering the hot guy) is single. This is what I need. I need the single people in the world to back me up. The single people have let me down the past couple of years. Shame on all of you. Where have you been? Especially during the holiday season. I know I said I love the holiday season and I do but still, doesn’t make it easy when everyone but you and one cousin is coupled off. It was so much easier when we were all single and thought the opposite sex had cooties. If I didn’t like guys so much, they’d still have cooties. The creepy ones still do.

Then I get the people who are standing right in front of me and talking to someone else and ask when I’m going to get married. Don’t rush me into this. And don’t ask someone else when I’m going to get married, ask me when I’m going to get married. Chances are (and chances are good) that the person that you’re talking to doesn’t know. I know, or have a good idea. This is another frustration with living in a small town, everyone is in your business. Sometimes it’s not bad, like when I get asked what grade in school I’m in, but leave my love life alone, it’s mine. Unless I specifically ask you if you know anyone, leave my love life alone.

Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to the guys I’ve been “involved with” I wouldn’t go back to those guys. There was a reason that those relationships didn’t pan out. The kind of boyfriend from high school especially. I was just to young to realize it then however. I’m not asking for some whirlwind romance or anything, I’m just asking for something stable, something I can take slow and steady for a long time. The holiday season makes me realize this even more. And since I mentioned it, what’s with the phrase “involved with”. Isn’t it your with someone or not? Being “involved” makes it sound like a business deal to me.

Well, hopefully I didn’t bore/annoy people with this post.

Dear Holiday Movies.

So Christmas. I love Christmas. I love the snow for about 2-3 weeks, only time of the year I love shopping, I love the festivities. I love everything about Christmas. When I had work-study at the library in college the librarians figured out quick that I was maybe in love with Christmas. I can’t help that I’ve been lucky enough to have awesome holiday seasons. I am okay with looking horrible all weekend long and having a Christmas movie marathon, going between the Lifetime and Hallmark channels. I am okay with this. Okay.

Here’s my issues with Christmas movies. There’s two things. Only two things. We can handle this. First: Don’t start at the beginning of November, we still celebrate Thanksgiving in November in the States. No holiday skipping. It’s a rule. Because I enjoy Thanksgiving. It’s not the love I give Christmas, but yeah.

Second: Get a new plot line. I believe in love as much as the next girl. I mean, I’ve talked about it. There was the guy when I was in high school and boy from this past summer but does every holiday movie have to involve love and a happy ending? I did decide that I want my life to be a Lifetime/Hallmark movie. If it were, here’s how it would pan out. Obviously, it would be the holidays and I’d be complaining about being single to my friends and then the high school sort of boyfriend and boy would compete over me and I’d get confused but at the end of the movie, I’d make a decision and there would be a wedding scene at the end of the movie and we’d live happily ever after. And based on what I know of the guys that I mentioned, I’d go for a guy C, that doesn’t exist at this moment or a combination of the two. And why is always like a pretend love or a very dramatic love and there’s always a shot kissing in the gently falling snow. Give me a movie where it’s a fake love affair, they pull it off and then the couple of parts ways, and never see each other again. Is that so hard to do? Throw me a curve ball. I’d appreciate it. Moving backwards for a second, I deserve a movie life, right? I’ll get there.

Nephew turned six yesterday. They were also moving into the new house yesterday. I called him last night. I asked him what he was learning and he said that he learned how to spell dad but not mom and he learned the letter n. He told me that nose and nachos started with n and he got really excited about nachos. My kind of kid. It’s going to break my heart to leave him and the niece for a year. I’m not excited telling him I’m leaving and I have no idea how I’m going to do it. We’ll get through this. I’m going to get this done with as few tears from everyone. Because I know that I will cry.

Well….no snappy ending. Sorry.

A Bunch of Book Reviews.

So I’m a fan of coffee. I love coffee while I get my thoughts in order. I’m not obsessed but I have a healthy love. I need more coffee in my life. I decided. This is not open to debate and have you noticed my best random posts come as a result of coffee? So don’t argue. I haven’t been sleeping well so I’ve been tired lately.

I had my kids here today. Pretty sure the girl adores me. She bolts in every week and is excited to see me. That’s right, high schoolers love me.

Books have been listened to lately. I don’t know why but actual books and reading have been super hard. READING’S HARD! Why do I like it so much….Never mind, I know, it’s a detailed explanation. Anyway, audio books and YouTube have been my friends lately. I’m also re-watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. So here’s what I’ve read and what I thought.

I just finished How I Got This Way by Regis Philbin. This book is about all the people who influenced Philbin. It was also a lot about his professional career. The thing I liked was that at the end of each chapter, he said what he learned. I got a little bored with this after a while and couldn’t do more than a chapter or two at the time because it was a lot. Not that it was horrible writing, just it was a lot of talking about famous people or industry people who I really didn’t know. I was fascinated by everyone he knows or knew. I love that he loves old Hollywood because if I had to choose, I’d choose the old Hollywood actors and time period. Not now. Anyway, overall pretty good.

I also finished The Sea of Monsters second Percy Jackson & and the Olympians book by Rick Riordan. Another good book in this series. The one thing I didn’t really get is Percy and all Cyclopes related? I could have missed that part because I did listen to this book at work so I didn’t give all my attention to it like I should have. What I really like about these books is that they just don’t make things up about mythology. There’s research that goes into it. I enjoy that from any book and when it’s a young adult book, I like it even more. Since I have heard/read reviews of the series throughout, I’ve pieced together kind of what happens. Actually I only know one piece of information that is from an upcoming book that doesn’t make me worry about Percy and Annabeth not getting threw to the next book. I think I’ll continue the series.

A while ago I listened to Fallen by Lauren Kate. Kate as a middle name or last name? You don’t see a woman with two female names. I keep trying to figure out how to state how I feel about this book. The book was interesting. It wasn’t bad. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I feel like I’ve read it before or something like it and I can’t figure it out. There was also some phrasing in the book that I felt was repetitive. That’s another thing that it felt repetitive but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I don’t know what it was about this book that was so aloof. In this book I was a lot like Luc because I thought I knew things but these things didn’t really hit me until I read them. (Spoilers) Like I knew that pretty much everyone was angels and that one boy she liked (the super nice one) was bad and the other one (who was mean to her) was good. I saw it coming. I know I’m good at predicting what happens in a book but this was ridiculous. It was decent enough though. Easy fiction.

That’s what I’ve been listening to. I promise I’ll get a Sara Donali book review up when I can get words to process.