Do you know any French?

Ok-So really, I had no idea I would be this busy!! Christmastime=no Bloggingtime! I had a gazillion rehearsals for this Christmas program we were doing at church. Which honestly, I wasn't too thrilled to be doing, but it turned out pretty good in the end. But that's over now, and the only thing left for me to do is to make it through 2 more days of working. Had one farewell lunch today, one more tomorrow. And not that I'm complaining or anything, b/c it was really sweet that people got together for lunch with me to begin with, but in the past, the one leaving always got treated to lunch. Not today.....Humph. Oh well. Wow, am I greedy or what?!?!? Where's my Christmas Spirit??

Probably in the same place as all those ASSHOLE drivers' that are out and about lately. (Pardon my French). Last week, I was driving to work, and to make a long story short, this delivery truck tried to RUN ME OFF THE ROAD!!! No joke. He was thisclose to me the whole time I was in front of him, and kept honking at me. Even though there was another truck in front of me, and I was unable to merge into the left lane yet. So I finally get over and he flies by me and flips me the bird as he passes and then proceeds to swerve into my lane and I end up in the shoulder while he swerves back into his own lane. What a jerk!!! I of course, totally shaken up that someone would even consider this normal driving behavior, and on the verge of tears. I don't cry about it until I actually tell the story to Derrick, whom I called immediately. And then I bawled. And then I called Horizon Freightways and complained to the guy there about his dickhead drivers and how they think they own the road. (Pardon my French again. You know what, just pardon it the whole post today. This is a blanket Pardon.) He said he would find out who it was and "lay into him". Hmm...didn't make me feel all that much better, but what can you do?

And then yesterday. Big accident on the 45. Only one lane open. Everyone is going super slow, and I'm merging from one freeway to another. Well, I know there is a merging lane that goes on for awhile, so I ride in that for awhile trying to get a little bit ahead. I finally get over, and the car in front of me notices the merge lane, thinks it's a real lane, and get over into it. Well, he's out of my way and I move up to take his place. Well, he decides that he wants back and proceeds to just butt back in. It was a matter of wills--I wasn't slowing down and he wasn't going to stop moving over. Finally, I backed off. I hate people that think they are the King of the Road. This big delivery truck. This big Caddilac SUV--not an Escalade--I don't know what it was. They think they can just push this little purple Corolla around. Well, they are RIGHT!!! I need a bigger, meaner car!!! No more getting pushed on the playground!! Where's my Honda Pilot when I need it?? With it's 4 Wheel Drive and big menancing frame. It's 8 passenger seating and sleek sporty look. The Purplerolla has had it up to here, folks. She's going to stop playing nice. There will be more honking, more bird flipping, more aggressiveness. And if someone notices the BYU Alumni license plate, or the BYU Alumni sticker on my car, I'll just tell them I'm borrowing it from someone else. Humph.

I had a new experience last night. My lips froze. FROZE. I tried to talk, and they were numb. They couldn't move. I was outside a mere 60 seconds. -6 degrees. It was just like on Christmas Vacation when they get the tree and Clark W. Griswold's mouth froze. It really happens!! It's too damn cold here for me. It's making me bitter and hardened and bitchy. Can you tell??

Ok, time to think of 3 nice things to make up for my ugliness and bitterness today.

1) Our awesome friends-turned-neighbors who gave us Harry & David treats. YUM! They are the best, and great friends. We don't hang out as much as we used to, and I think that should change. Their sense of humor keeps me sane when I start to go crazy from the viriginity and naivety of others.

2) Christmas lights. Milwaukee does a pretty decent job of decorating downtown. If Christmas lights, yes CHRISTMAS lights, not lame "holiday" lights, can't cheer you up, then you probably need something a little more serious, like "Elf", or doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles. If you live in the Milwaukee area, I highly recommend going to Candy Cane Lane, which is off of Oklahoma and 894. Just head East. You'll see it. Awesome lights. Some a little ridiculous, but still, very spirited.

3) Christmas traditions. My family was never very big on Christmas traditions, but Derrick's is. Which I think is fun. So, even though we're going to my house for Christmas, I'm still going to keep some of the traditions that he's used to and that I've started to keep. I can't mention them here, in case he snoops on over here, but I'm excited for them. Plus, I have to do something fun in case Christmas turns out to be a bust at my house!!

Well, there is much work to be done in the last 19 hours of my job. It's crunch time!

How cute it Garfield today?

Very superstitious....

Normally I wouldn't say I'm a superstitious person. But lately, I'm becoming one. Last Saturday when I went to the Happiest Place on Earth (IKEA--no, not Disney), I bought Lucky Bamboo. I debated on whether I wanted a straight one or a curly one. Well, no surprise to you I'm sure, I opted for the curly one. He's super cute. I put him in a tall round glass vase with some pretty rocks at the bottom, and he looks right at home. Well, not two days had passed before I got lucky. (No, not like that!) Monday I find out I won 2 tickets to Ashlee Simpson. Hooray! (BTW, we did try and go to it, but everyone was leaving as we drove up. Who has a concert that's over at 9:15pm??? Lame.) Then, on Friday, I check my spam e-mail and found out that I won $100 in gift cards to Oakland Trattoria and their sister restaurants. A hundred bucks!! Score! FYI--go to foodspot.com and you can win too!!

Now, if only Mr. Lucky Bamboo can work his magic on the folks that review scholarship applications....

Frappr!

So there's this cool new feature that google put out called Frappr. It maps where you live, and you can create groups and stuff. It's neat-o! I made a group for all of my blogalicious friends--go and sign up so I can see where everyone is!

25 years

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

My eyes!!!

OK. I wanna know who did it. Fess up. Right now.

Yesterday I get the mail. Nothing too exciting, a KitchenAid ad, and a magazine wrapped in solid green plastic. I didn't think too much of it, seeing as how we've gotten some blue ones from P&G as part of their year end tax reports and stuff. It said "Exposed" on the outside, and I just figured it was the numbers! Uh....no. It was a straight up nudie mag. A raunchy nudie mag. You're probably thinking, "aren't they ALL raunchy?". Well, I guess so, sorta. I consider Playboy to be the best of them all. They are at least tasteful, and consider the female form as more of an art than an object and respect it more. Well, as much as you can respect a glossy nekked girl in stilletos. But this....this was just nasty.

The interesting thing is, it was address to BOTH of us. I can't think of a single piece of mail we get that is addressed to both Derrick and myself. Except the Ensign. A church magazine. Somehow I doubt Exposed and Ensign share distribution lists.

So, to the clown who signed up to send this to us--and you know who you are--you suck. And when I find out who you are, I will get revenge on you. And you'll be sorry. Soooooo sorry.

Next time, send some decent porn.

I'm baaaaaack!

Happy December!

I really wish I could say I was happy to be back in Milwaukee. But I can't. Driving to work yesterday it was MINUS 9 degrees. Honestly, is it really necessary to get that cold? No, it's not. It's not like we need it to get that cold for environmental reasons, or for some animals' sake. It's superfluous coldness. How about we stop at about 35 degrees and call it good. Still cold enough for the idiots who think it needs to be cold for Christmas. But not cold enough to snow. Of course, there will be those who think you need snow for Christmas. They are idiots too. Snow has to be the absolute worst part about winter and living in Wisconsin. Case in point: Saturday I went to IKEA in Chicago, a mere 80 minute drive from home. I was happily browsing through cheap Swedish delights when I looked outside and just saw white. Great. I had to load the car by myself, in the snow, freezing my arse off. Well, I started for home, and 3 HOURS LATER, I got there. What a joke. I hate snow. Probably more than anything. More than getting up in the morning. I was going 3 mph for a stretch. Luckily, I am a stellar driver, and did not slide all over the place or get into an accident or wind up in a ditch. To top it all off, all of the hardware for the futon I bought was missing. Perfecto. I HATE SNOW!! I hate how the weather dictates our travel. Case in point: my flight from Raleigh into Chicago. Delayed. Why? They had to de-ice the planes. Great. My flight from Chicago to Milwaukee? Delayed? Why? Our plane from Grand Rapids was delayed due to bad weather. I HATE IT!!!! On top of that, our plane was seriously the smallest plane I have ever been on in my life. The ceiling of the plane was 4 inches from the top of my head. Imagine if you're of normal heighth!! It was mini. I guess that's the end of my weather rant. To those who say Milwaukee summers make up for their winters, and I used to be one of them, I say, "Like hell they do!"

13 more days of working left. Can't wait. I definitely will NOT miss the work here. People, yes. Work, no. It's the people I work with that have kept me through it. And Janice, the lady who sits behind me, is the best. I found out yesterday what St. Nick's was. (For those of you who don't know, St. Nick comes the night of the 5th and fills your stocking with fruit, nuts, candy, small toys.) So on the 6th you wake up and see what he brought you. Well, when I got to work, "St. Nick" had come and left a little stocking filled with goodies on my desk!! Janice is my "mom-away-from-home". Love her.

I registered for my nursing classes!! It took much debating with the registrars office to let me register with the rest of the seniors (long story) but I got what I wanted. Got the best schedule ever, with Friday's off. Nice!

I can't believe Christmas is less than 3 weeks away. I'm totally not ready for it to come. Because that means it will be over. I need to start some holiday baking. I made cookies last night as a start. I have some new recipes that I'm going to try, and I have a feeling I will end up being very chubby by the time this is all over.

I won tickets to see Ashlee Simpson this Saturday! Sweet! While I'm not a huuuuuge fan, I would like to see her live, to see how she really sounds. Plus, maybe Joe will be there! And then I can tell him how creepy he is!

So I want to have a New Year's Eve party. A nice one. With fondue. Anyone interested?

And a cartoon for you: