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!

Thank You

I want to thank the following people (and Kitty):

Thank you to Kitty for being the most tolerant, loyal, protective kitty ever and for most likely making me love  cats like I do. I always thought of Kitty as my guardian angel (which is super cheesy, but I don't care). He is a HUGE part of my childhood. He had the cutest short black nose and funny white markings and freckles in his eyes, and he would sleep at the foot of my bed almost every night. I do not remember life without kitty until four years ago. My sweet Kitty lived to be 18, and was the best cat in the world to me.

Thank you to my sister, Erin, who is someone I can always rely on to listen to me when I call her just to rant about stupid work or stupid drivers or stupid life. And to always be patient and offer advice and a clear, but understanding and generous perspective. Also for completely understanding my mooch-rage moments and offering the perfect therapy for such moments: 7-11 donut and coffee and an open mind. Thanks for understanding my reluctance to grow up and encouraging me to grow up in different ways. Allowing me to hold on to my child-like behaviors, but also encouraging me to emotionally grow to be more patient with people, like you are with me.

Thank you to my cousin, Taylor, who completely understands my faults and embraces them. Who doesn't agree with me on political/religious/life views but still wants to have a civil and usually funny conversation anyway and still respects my decisions and points of view regardless. Thank you, Taylor, for being encouraging about my need for creative control and of course for her exquisite and informed fashion expertise. Also, for being spontaneous and going on food-hunting treks, which usually end with mixed results. (cranberries in popcorn don't really work, but they aren't bad if you pour tongue-burning kosher salt all over it)

Thank you to my friend, Kiki, who like Kitty, has been in my life since before I remember. Thanks for not only being my friend when we were little and all we cared about was what the next adventure or game was, but also now when life has become more complicated, more hectic and more demanding. I can't tell you how much it means to know that I have a friend who completely understands how I operate under stress and who understands that just watching a movie and working on a puzzle is my idea of a good night. (And if you're reading this, thanks for your understanding texts a couple of nights ago, Chelsea, they meant a lot.) Also, thank you for introducing me to Doctor Who (WAY before the DW craze) and Flight of the Conchords and going to movies with me and putting up with my anxious, and most likely obnoxious, rush to not miss the previews.



There are two very obvious people missing from this list: My mom and my Justin. But it is quite late (I'm not doing so great with that whole get-to-bed-on-time goal) and I want to do them justice. And while it might seem like a short little paragraph, these do take emotional energy, and after today, I'm a bit drained.

Puzzletter!!!

So yesterday I got possibly the coolest letter in the mail. It was a combination of two of my favorite things! 1. Postcards and 2. Puzzles!!!

Kiki, you are the best. Coolest mail ever.