Recent Goings-on & Photo Dump

For Thanksgiving we drove to Washington D.C. and spent the weekend with my cousin Taylor, her husband Gabe, and my aunt and uncle. It was a lot of fun, and I'm really glad we went. We were a little worried about weather and our car, but I'm glad everything worked out! Well, we ended up renting a car instead. It wasn't all that much more expensive, since it had better gas mileage than my stationwagon.

Here are some pictures of our trip:

On Black Friday Justin and I drove to Harper's Ferry & Antietam while everyone else went Christmas tree shopping. It was a lot of fun! We followed them to the Christmas lot, which was in beautiful horse country of West Virginia. Then it was just another 20 minutes to Harper's Ferry and another 20 minutes from there to Antietam. It was really amazing to see.

My uncle gave us an awesome night-time tour of D.C. He is so knowledgeable and it was a lot of fun to get that opportunity.

The Capitol is under construction right now. My cousin currently lives about half a mile from the Capitol. It is crazy!

 My cousin and I married tall men!

On the way back from D.C. we went through Ohio in order to go to IKEA. My cousin has a tiny apartment that was built in about 1910 and the entrance is really bizarre. The door is at an angle and only open about 45 degrees up a narrow staircase. It is one of those kind of apartment buildings that has been converted from one large, narrow city house to 3 small apartments. It is really cute, but because of the entrance, basically all of their furniture came from IKEA because it had to be assembled inside. 

ANYWAY, we went into IKEA looking for a shelf like the one my cousin had in her kitchen. We walked out with a different shelf and a futon couch. Haha! Worth it. So here are pictures of the new furniture:

This is the shelf we bought. It is our new pantry. I don't have any before pictures, but there used to be a little table that held some of that. 

Also, the garbage can was in the entry way. Now the kitchen entrance seems much bigger. It really is much better efficient use of space.

And now we have way more surface area! Imagine about half of what is in the pantry was on the kitchen counter. It made the kitchen seem smaller and constantly cluttered. 

Here is the futon couch. It is actually really comfortable. More so than any futon I've ever been on. It folds out to be a double bed, too. Bonus!

And I'll just keep going with this photo dump to show you Christmas Decorations!

Advent Calendar!

It is kind of hard to tell because of the flash, but there are little snowflake LED lights in the wreath.

My Snoopy blanket. Seriously one of my favorite blankets. So warm, but thin.

This blanket used to be on my bed all year round, but since it is for a twin bed, it isn't out as much. It is perfect Christmas colors, though! So I put it out with our useless lumpy pillows that happen to match very nicely!

Our little tree Justin brought back from Utah along with presents his parents and my parents sent back for us! Although I really enjoyed last Christmas when we got to come home, I'm sort of excited to have our own little tree and gifts. I'd probably feel different if Skype didn't exist!

Time

It is already December 15th! How did that happen??

Movies

As you can tell, the last several posts have been cranky pet peeves. Well, now I'm influenced by a positive thing on facebook! I was thinking of good Cary Grant films when my friend said something about Christmas movies. That made me start thinking of my favorite old holiday movies. Here are my favorite holiday movies that come to mind. I purposely left out plot points In order of date:

1. Holiday: (1938) Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant. This is a Grant movie that sort of flies under the radar compared to his other work. It isn't necessarily a Christmas holiday movie. In fact...I might have it mixed up and it has nothing to do with Christmas time. It is just that I got it as a gift for Christmas...not sure. Still, fun and also fun to see a young Cary and Katharine.

2. Shop Around the Corner: (1940) James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan. If you like the movie You've Got Mail, then watch this, because this is the original movie. (Although this movie is based on a play). Classic romantic comedy, set around the holidays.

3. The Man Who Came to Dinner: (1942) Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley. I'll be completely honest...I haven't actually seen this movie. BUT! BUT! My parents have, and they love it and have told me to watch it. I'll take their word for it!

4. Christmas in Connecticut: (1945) Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet. I still like to say "It's a cat-a-stroph!" Fun and funny. This is another movie that I watch every holiday season. It is the fun "everything is about to be in shambles" type of comedy.

5. It's a Wonderful Life: (1946) James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore. This is a movie that seems to sort of be a classic movie. Everyone watches this, A Christmas Story, and Elf every Christmas. Well, we didn't really watch it every Christmas, opting for comedies The Bishop's Wife or Christmas in Connecticut. Still, I do like this movie a lot.

6. The Bishop's Wife: (1947) Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven. As religious of a movie as my family ever watches. I love it. The ice-skating scene, in particular, is a classic. As is the scene where Cary Grant's character (who is an angel) gets a scholar drunk. Love it.

7. Miracle on 34th Street: (1947) Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood. Classic story. I like this version as well as the 1994 version.

8. White Christmas: (1954) Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen. One of my all-time favorite Christmas songs is from this movie. Bet you can't guess which one it is!!!

9. Desk Set: (1957) Specer Tracey, Katharine Hepburn. Classic Tracy/Hepburn movie. One of the funnest things about this movie is the depiction of the times. It is about the computerization of a TV network's research department. Classic fast talking witty dialogue makes this really fun. To be honest, I don't remember any Christmas or holiday stuff in this movie, either, but um...oh well.

10. Bell, Book, & Candle: (1958) James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon. This is a movie that isn't necessarily a Christmas movie, but it takes place in the winter, and I think they tend to play it around the holidays on TMC and other channels like that. It also features a cat named Pyewacket. When we first found Mooch at the Pilot gas station, I had entertained the thought of naming him Pie, after Pilot, and I particularly liked it because it would double as Pyewacket. It didn't stick, though, so Moochy it was.

Bell, Book, & Candle is the only movie in this list that is in color, not black & white. Check out this cool psychedelic-ish Italian poster: 

Help

ARGH!!! When someone comes in and I re-direct them to the correct department, I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING. If I needed help, I would ask. I can't tell you how many times I have helped a customer, only for my coworker to run in and start asking questions. Then just give the EXACT same answer as I do.

Great Full

"Great full" is not a word! GRATEFUL is the word you mean!

Vocal Fry

STOP IT! I hate it. I HATE vocal fry. Stop, stop, stop!