monday morning up!date

although many times it’s an ughpdate, emphasis on the ugh!, today it’s an up!!!date, because it’s my first lovely monday on break.  wooooo!

Outside my window… is an ugly steel window well grate.  Oh, I should say that I’m in my parent’s basement, otherwise known as “my apartment” or “the well-appointed hovel where my parents graciously let me stay so I can finish college” or, if we’re judging by looks right now, my “refuge camp”.  It looks sort of sunny out, though, and when I go upstairs to take in christmas decorations and way too much chex mix, it looks lovely outside.

I am thinking… about the things I need to get done today, which all have nothing to do with Christmas.  Over the years I have ended up being very well-prepared for Christmas.  This has not come because I am an uber-responsible person, but more because I really love gift-giving, and I need time to think about what might be a good gift for people.  So, I start early.  I also knew how poor I would be this December (although I grossly underestimated that one), so I planned early.

So instead of Christmas shopping, I am doing pesky administrative things pertaining to medical bills (boo!), student loans and passports, and then moving on to writing literature papers.  What fun!

I am thankful for… so many things.  Really.  I love being able to spend copious amounts of time in proximity to my parents at their cozy home, for friends we get to casually hang out with all the time because they live half a block from us, for family living in the same city, for a life that I like, for a boy that I love immensely, for being engaged, for these mini-snickerdoodle cookies sent to my family by my uncle and aunt.  Bursting with thanks, really.

I am wearing… my pajamas still.  I attempted to get going and dressed much earlier, but I only was able to accomplish the get going part.  Excuse me while I change into actual clothes.

I am remembering… a time when Christmas felt entirely more sad and melancholy than it has in some time.  so glad it’s different now.

I am going… to get things done today!  I’m channeling my inner Thomas the tank engine:  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

I am currently reading… The Color of Water, a memoir for the Juniors I will be co-teaching next semester.  I am also reading a very dry anthology of early American literature that I wish I could just learn by osmosis; however, the pages would get awfully sticky that way.

I am hoping… that my friend Sara gets to have her baby soon!

On my mind… many. many wedding details are on my mind, as well as school.  But currently, I’m being diverted by looking at hotels in Europe…J

Noticing that… I think I am a productive person in late morning and early afternoon.  Early morning is not so great, and late afternoon is not so great.  But late morning and early afternoon I am READY TO GO.

Pondering these words… “I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always … so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.” –Yann Martel, Life of Pi

From the kitchen… oh, I’ve gotten to do some lovely cooking and baking this week.  As it turns out, I love to cook – selectively.  When I have time, my own kitchen, food that I’ve picked out…then I love it.  Maybe at some point in my life I will learn to love it when I have to do it in a compulsory fashion.  I HOPE.  I picked out recipes to make for my family and my love, so this week it was homemade chex mix, stuffed mushroom caps, the pioneer woman’s wonderfully ridiculous steak with blue cheese onion sauce (Oh.My.Gosh…this just about killed us last night, it was so good), California eggs benedict coming up…delightful.

Around the house… get the bed made, finish some laundry, get my pesky administrative things done, make some headway on my literature papers (they are neverending, I tell you) watch my Paper Heart documentary that I’ve been looking forward too, and helping my mom with cooking for our family’s Christmas celebration which will occur tomorrow!  Oh, and cutting the wedding guest list down to a number we can afford, which is SO.PAINFUL.TO.DO.  how is it that we know and love so many people?  I suppose this is a great problem to have.

One of my favorite things~ snickerdoodles!  The cookie, and the name!  I think I’d order it just to be able to say it.  SNICKER! DOODLE!

From my picture journal…  these are gifts I wrapped for the boy.  Have I mentioned how much I like to wrap gifts?  I do.  I like the presentation as much as the giving of special things. I am a sucker for good packaging, it’s true.  Anyway, this year I wrapped a few in magazines and a few in an old road atlas, and he loved them.

happy week everyone, and merry christmas!