Tremendous Blondette

I’ve started to get into the spirit early-ish this year. I’m overjoyed to even feel spirited as I was far from it last year. And let me press this point upon you: I am all about Christmas. My name should have been Mary Carol. I judge homes based on their Christmas decoration potential and event hosting capabilities. Can this place carry the atmosphere I wish to create?

I try to figure out why this holiday means so much to me and meeting people who don’t feel the same way causes an even greater level of review. I’ve now met two people whom I respect who are anti-Christmas tree. And honestly, I still just don’t understand. I can’t grasp it. Caring, religious people who don’t like the holiday. It’s difficult for me to accept being that all I want to do is make it perfect and spread joy and cheer. Maybe it’s because I’m idealistic and Christmas is a time when it’s okay to believe in miracles; a time when it’s okay to believe in the unbelievable. It’s home.

I decided to start shopping early this year mainly due to money. I’ve never had an issue with cramming all my shopping into the 3 days before Christmas and then having a wrapping binge.. In fact, I love creating a mood with a good series of Christmas movies and songs, lights on, candles burning, fire burning in the fireplace. It fills me up. It fills me in a way that is absent for most of the year. I feel connected and I feel the joy of sharing with family and friends. I feel the joy of life. I feel the joy of a miracle that’s part of the foundation upon which I was raised.

I am unsure what gifts I’d like to give to my family (and what they’d like to receive. and all my gifts must have meaning-otherwise, why give it? it should be an expression of your love for another person–something that will mean something to them and bring them joy. I don’t believe in random junk.) I do have a small fear of receiving these pajamas from someone. Not that gifts are the main focus for me.

Me, my elf and I are ready to immerse ourselves in O Holy Night, What Child is This, and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. We are ready to share with you the meaning of Christmas.

I’m fairly certain that I’m still tired from 3 days ago. However, for some inexplicable reason, I awoke at 3:45am today–and couldn’t go back to sleep. Perhaps it was the ABBA song that wouldn’t leave my brain (even in my dreaming state) or perhaps it was just the adrenaline from the week kicking up. Or I could just be a freak. Take your pick, but here are things you can do at 3:45am if you find yourself awake after only 3.75 hours of sleep and unable to return to a slumbery bliss.

1. Email business partners in response to questions.
2. Email family with recipes for low-cal Thanksgiving side dishes.
3. Text several of your friends about how Dancing Queen is stuck in your head. Include lyrics.
4. Meticulously groom your eyebrows. Tweezers and tiny, sharp scissors near your eyes when you’ve had minimal sleep is quite intelligent.
5. Look up forwarded “Stores Closing in 2009 OMG PANIC HOLIDAY RETURNS” email on Snopes.com. Feel good about self for not blindly believing.
6. Blog about eccentric habits.
7. Email coworkers regarding things you forgot to tell them.
8. Realize in course of creating list of things to do, that you forgot to send an email to coworkers about something else you forgot to tell them.
9. Check for new lolcats.
10. Ponder the greatness of lolcats and puns. Punny lolcats may be the best ever.
11. Ponder when holiday lolcats will make their debut.
12. Feed cats early so they stop destroying things. Do they do all this shit when I’m sleeping and I just never know?
13. Expertly curl eyelashes.
14. Weigh yourself and rejoice in fact that you have maintained 2 pounds of your sickness weightloss.
15. Obsessively check all social networking sites for signs of other awake people.
16. Post Status on Facebook letting people know just how early you woke up. Secretly hope that your coworkers see this and comment.
17. Also secretly hope people are impressed by your industriousness and awed by your early rising.
18. Long for a chocolate filled croissant.
19. Countdown the minutes until Starbucks opens. (11 minutes!)
20. Actually put on makeup.
21. Wonder how long it will take before you use the excuse, “well I got up at 3:45am.”

We’re not meant to go back in time except in our memories. If we were all still sitting in our pajamas in the cozy hallway of the 4th floor at Kentwood Hall, we’d be laughing and acting this scene out by now. But, we’re grown up, graduated, and moved on to different lives and different cities. So instead, we’re chatting about it on Facebook IM. Me in my purple thermal jammies in my Kansas City apartment (with a kitten on my lap!) and Carrie in Springfield sipping her Sam Adams or Merlot.

We rarely get the opportunity to chat these days so we have to make the most it when we do. Tonight, after catching up on the current events in our lives, we easily slid into silly girltalk. We discussed the joy that is scratchers tickets (Carrie likes the Bingo ones best and my stepdad likes to put them in our stockings at Christmas–there you are caught up) and the sadness of being in line at the lottery winnings place (does it have a name?) behind someone who is claiming a $200 prize when you were happy about your $5 winnings.

I decided the lottery winnings place would be a prime place to meet a guy–a guy with cash. No, I’m not a goldigging skank, but let’s be realistic, a man who can support himself and has a little extra cash is generally a more appealing (potential) mate than a man with no dinero.

So, why not try to pick up a cute guy in line at the lottery winnings claiming place? Why not go for the gold? Why not spin the wheel of love? (too much?)

Sample pick up lines:
“i see you’ve recently come into some cash. wanna buy me a drink?’

“wanna buy me another chance at my jackpot?”

“and you thought all you won was $50″

“i hope you didn’t steal that because you already stole my heart.”

“wanna rub a few bucks together?”

“wanna see your return on investment?”

*note, some of these lines can be modified to be dirty, not just innuendo-y! We’re so versatile in our tacky creativity.

In fact, to really do it right you’d need to get all glammed up, maybe be checking out with some strawberries and champagne, and just strike a conversation. It would be completely normal, right? IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME, RIGHT? oh, wait.

Obviously, someone would have to tape this brilliant display/debacle and the witnesses would be dying laughing. In fact, this may sound like a stereotype and I hope this isn’t taken in an offensive manner, but I would pray that there’s a big black lady and maybe one of her friends in that line or nearby because they would ham it up. Really, any innocent bystanders would just add to the overall merriment.

Of course, neither of us think we are truly brave enough to actually do this. Maybe we could get the third member of our posse, the LBC, to do it. I am of course referring to Gentri. Carrie and I would whisper, “Let’s see if G will do it.” (and yes, in college we really did–excuse me, DO– have a posse called the LBC. We had a meeting night and special glasses among other things.)

Thus tonight, after giggling (haha-ing) about how we’d have to be drunk to do this, Carrie proposed that we all get together some weekend, video tape the scenario, but have Nick be the winner, and show “how to meet guys with cash” with us going after him. We’ll be famous on the YouTube. Imagine it with me, “The LBC Presents: How to Meet Guys With Cash.” We’ll be the next big meme. But this time around, we’re upgrading from Busch Light.

DQ’s Grilled Chicken Wrap.

Save your money.

Sometimes I have the urge to randomly speak in French. Unfortunately, I do not actually speak French. I know a few choice phrases and vocabulary words, but can’t really string a coherent thought together in that lovely foreign tongue.

I’ve just missed a new episode of Grey’s Anatomy because I was at work and so engaged in what I was doing that I forgot about my shlumpy Thursday night agenda (go home, get in jammies, eat Lean Pockets, lie on couch watching Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy, go to bed.) I feel a new sense of purpose and hope that I desperately needed after the past few days for I have new ideas and projects to create. (more on that at some point) That’s right- the floodgates opened for me tonight. I think I’ve found a way to satisfy my passions and prove myself.

It’s only the second day of the work week for me as I was out sick Monday and Tuesday- I developed strep throat over the weekend and then I was graced with a cold on Monday. Now that my glands are mostly de-swelled and my neck and head mainly pain free, and most importantly, now that my appetite has returned (I lost 5 pounds in the few days I was sick- *sigh*) I can get back to my normal routine- JUST IN TIME FOR THE WEEKEND! I’m still croaky and such, but getting better. (although, I was not feeling so much better this morning when I snapped at everyone who dared approach my desk with a question. and my tummy isn’t feeling so hot after eating my Lean Pockets and taking my penicillin.)

I’m getting ready to start my Christmas shopping (an email from Target tells me they have free shipping on 50,000+ gifts), but that means I have to figure out what to get for people. I like to give one main gift and a couple smaller items. In fact, I have a standard gift that I give my brother and stepdad each year. They know it’s coming. Each year. (it’s a little desk calender. You know, the kind that have riddles, jokes, trivia, or facts on them for each day? those. that’s what they get–each year.)

I am also a stocking aficionado. I love them and I feel compelled to stuff them. It’s what drives me to get up at 3am and drive to my parents’ house and tend to the gift placement and stocking filling. The year before last I got to listen to Mannheim Steamroller do a Christmas special during my drive. Only to nap for a few hours on the couch amid the glow of the lit Christmas weed and flickering of “A Christmas Story” on tv.

What I really and truly most want for Christmas, only I’m not sure I can wait that long: running shoes. (this one or this one.) I’ve wanted a pair of Nike Shox for ages. I’m not quite sure why I never bought a pair except for the hundred plus dollar price tag. I guess partly because after I got out of my normal workout routine, I figured it would be wasted money because they’d just sit in the gym bag on my bedroom floor. But maybe, just maybe I’d want to wear them so bad, and maybe just maybe, they’d be that little extra boost that made me excited or less dready about going to the gym after work.

I guess we all have themes in life. Mine are finding an occupation that makes me happy, getting my healthiness back on track (working out and eating right), and finding that family I want.

Happy Thursday. I know you missed me.