12 Days of Christmas TAG

OK, I got tagged by my cousin, Sara, so I thought I would give it a shot…

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me....

1 embarrassing moment:
You mean, aside from the whole VT fiasco?

2 best friends:
I can’t choose just two – so I’ll give a shout out to my sisters (Nikki and Angie), Cami, Elizabeth, and Bonnie

3 things you buy regularly:
Diet Coke from Speedy on my way home from school; Diet Dr. Pepper from Speedy on my way home from school; Diet Mountain Dew from Speedy on my way home from school

4 places you want to go (and might actually really go):
Paris, France; London, England; Venice and Rome, Italy; Santorini, Greek Isles (Someday… long after our $1 million debt is paid off)

5 goals for the upcoming year (that you might actually do):
I’m going to say amen to Sara’s work out five days a week; Stop procrastinating school stuff; Fix our back bedroom up (instead of using it as storage); Clean out the garage (so I can accomplish the previous goal and use it as storage instead); Sadly I can’t think of a fifth goal… Guess I’m just that close to perfection

6 things most people don't know about you:
I am very critical of myself and others (I guess you could say I am rather harsh and quite judgmental– Dang it, Mark! You rubbed off on me!); I LOVE rap music, especially Snoop Dogg and Eminem (I’m ghetto at heart… ‘Sup Vegas!); I can’t stand it when people speak improperly, and it infuriates me to see it in print (ie: the “Jacob” chapter in Breaking Dawn – for hell sakes, Stephenie, wouldn’t’ve is NOT a word!); I watch the Friends episodes like they are going out of style, and I am a Desperate Housewives JUNKIE; I used to be quite shy, but I have become very outspoken and even abrupt (not sure which part of that is the new news); I have an entire wardrobe for my doggies (yep, I’m one of those…)

7 things you would never say:
I second the curse word thing – never had one escape my lips… (That’s a damn lie!); No, let’s not go shopping…; No, let’s not go get a coke/go out to dinner…; No, I don’t want… (you fill in the blank); Yes, I do agree, Jessica and Ashlee Simpson are so talented when they sing together! (Seriously, go check out the YouTube video of Little Drummer Boy – good crap!); Oh, I already did that…; I am so sad I’ll be finished with school in just a year and a half – where did the time go?

8 things you love about the Christmas season:
Getting to go visit family; Getting time off school; Decorations; Christmas movies; Christmas albums (Sarah McLachlan’s is GREAT!); Shopping (after Thanksgiving Day sales) and being shopped for; Snow and cold weather (but I hate this after the Christmas season); The fact that church meetings are actually Christ-oriented around this time

9 things you say to your kids:
I got nothing… (And yes, I am aware that my grammar here is very improper...)

10 things you do a lot:
Laundry; Dishes; Blogging and blog stocking; Grocery shopping; House décor shopping; Clothes shopping; Online shopping; Go to IKEA (changed my mind about that place after I realized I am not 60 years old and it is OK if my house is not decorated in country like the rest of Indiana); Play with my dogs; Watch movies

11 things you would rather not live without: Family; Friends; My doggies; SLEEP (at least 8 hrs a night, but that never happens); A king sized bed (specifically, mine); My house; My car (which is large enough to transport our IKEA purchases, unlike our last vehicle); Diet Coke (or some other caffeinated diet drink other than Pepsi); McDonald’s (that’s sick, I know…); A good mall (although I’ve been living without this for two and a half years now); Movies/TV shows

12 people to tag: If your name is on my blog, I tagged you… That means you, Jena and Catherine! Sha, right! And monkeys can fly out of my butt!

TWILIGHT

Well, it's official! TJ and I are going to see Twilight at midnight one week from tonight... My only beef about it is I am not all that thrilled about the actors they have chosen. I am especially not thrilled about their choice for Esme - she was on Grey's Anatomy and bugged the crap out of me on that show! And Bella kind of bugs, too. But hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised. I am (regardless of the actors) very much looking forward to our "girl's night out!" Thanks, TJ!

I LOVE A GOOD MOVIE

My friend Bonnie had a tribute to her five fav's, and I thought it might be fun to see what everyone else's top 5 favorite movies are. Here are mine:

1. Pride and Prejudice (the A&E six video or two DVD version - about 5 hours and pretty much Jane Austen word for word, with Colin Firth, thank-you-very-much).

2. Sabrina, the "new" one with Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond (the old one with Audrey Hepburn is also classic, as well as everything else she has been in).

3. French Kiss, with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. Or maybe I should have put this second. I don't know why, but I have always loved it.

4. Same thing with Only You, Robert Downey Jr. and Marisa Tomei. Always loved it.

5. So I Married an Axe Murderer. An "original" Mike Myers. Enough said.

And a few that deserve a shout out:

Under the Tuscan Sun, Diane Lane and Sandra Oh.
Anything Audrey Hepburn.
Anything Harry Potter.

OK, I HAD to add this...

I asked Mark if he could tell me what my five favorite movies are. He said, "Friends disc one, Friends disc two, Friends disc three..." He bought me the series two Christmases ago, and that theme song resonates from our house almost daily (I usually listen/watch while I clean). So I guess that's his way of saying, "Yes, I am sick of Friends..." Just for the record, though, he was able to tell me my 5 favorite movies with very little prompting.

AND THE SAGA CONTINUES...

Well, I thought I would blog a new "twist" to the ongoing saga of the unexpected visiting teachers. I knew I was totally rude last month (without meaning to be), but I guess I didn't expect that my stress that night would transcend into a relief society issue to be "resolved." I got a message from my relief society president tonight indicating that she had been looking through the visiting teaching records and noticed that I didn't have any visiting teachers assigned to me, and that needed to be "resolved." She wanted to know what my schedule was and where I live so that she could, "pair me up with someone who can be of service and who won't just be a pain in my neck..." Can you believe that?! So, obviously, they requested not to be my VTs anymore, since I am just so rude! I probably should feel bad (or embarassed), but I don't. I would have thought they would have been intuitive enough to realize that I was just extremely stressed out and in no fit state to entertain. Sheesh! Women can be so touchy!

WHO DUNNIT???

This year for Halloween, Ryan and TJ decided to host a murder mystery party. Everyone was given a character to portray, complete with personality description. Mark was Balihi, the Rogersandhammerstein Monster, and I was Dr. Angela Deth, D.D.S. These two characters were pretty fitting, I thought. Mark was supposed to portray a cross between Frankenstein (the monster part) and a musical theatre diva (divo?). I was Dr. Deth, a dentist who loves to put her patients under - six feet under. Mark's costume was a real trip. It consisted of light green face paint, two nasty "cuts," cat ears and tail (he supposedly starred in CATS), and a tutu - a tribute to his time on the stage. I went in goth, with a black and grey wig, white face, and black eye makeup and lipstick. I also had a nose ring (look closely) and several earrings. Mark wasn't too keen on wearing a typical pink, girly tutu, so I made him a red and black skull print tutu. Very masculine indeed.

Ryan and TJ were a mummy (King Aldrinktotat) and Lizzie Bordeaux, a woman who pledged her innocence on the charge that she killed both her parents during childhood.

Travis and Vicki were an asthmatic devil (namely, the Prince of Dimness - he wasn't altogether too bright) and Madame Garlique, a communicator of departed souls. They had the BEST props... Travis would pull out his "inhaler" and take a long puff anytime he was questioned or threatened, and Vicki would change the subject by fortune telling and tarot card reading.

Jacob and Brittany were Hannibal Schecter (doesn't the name say it all?) and Glumda, the Wicked Witch of Depressed.

And this is all of us together (Way to go on figuring out that camera's ten second timer, Mark!) posing in all of our evil glory...

I would definitely recommend hosting one of these parties, to all of you who have told me that you've been wanting to. It was a lot of fun (as long as the people you invite are as much fun as we all were)!

Halloween Divas

Last year Daisy and Starkisha were a pumpkin and a devil for Halloween. Even though their costumes were really just glorified t-shirts, they were still pretty expensive (good 'ol PetSmart). We thought we would try something else this year, since we noticed that Walmart now makes pet costumes, and for pretty dang cheap, too. So we bought two costumes, one skeleton and one witch. We intended the witch for Starkisha and the skeleton for Daisy...

Oh, and by the way, that mess you see in the background was the state of my house when my VT's tried to come over!!! I had just kicked a huge pile of clothes out to send to the laundry room, and Mark had a huge set up for working on his denture - what a nightmare...

Well, it seemed that the witch was quite a bit too small for Starkisha (it wouldn't snap together by about two inches!), so we tried to swap costumes and put Daisy in the witch and Starkisha in the skeleton to see if it was a little roomier.

Well, it was a little roomier. But apparently Starkisha is not a "small" dog anymore - her belly was way too big for both costumes, even though they fit her length-wise. Rather than try and exchange the size, we just returned the costumes. But we made sure to get pictures of them first. That's all that really matters anyway...

HILLBILLYVILLE

A couple weeks ago we decided we would check out the Bridge Festival in Parke County. We have been to the bridges many times (too many times, in fact), but we had never made it to the festival until this year. There is a lot of hype about it for the Indiana locals, so we thought we would check it out. We figured it would be like Art in the Park in Boulder City. And it kind of was, except for one thing. When I go to Art in the Park, there are usually lots of things I would like to buy. When we went to the Bridge Festival, you couldn't have paid me to take any of the things home. It was so funky! Seriously, it was like back woods, grandma trailor trash. Anyway, we did manage to buy one thing. A fried twinkie. And it was so gross!

But we did manage to take a few pictures of the beautiful scenery. Fall in Indiana is very pretty - it was just starting to change colors when we took these, and it actually was quite a lot prettier than the pictures give it credit.

Anyway, it was nothing to write home about, but we thought we'd blog it anyway, just another tribute to how odd Indiana (and it's population) is.