a theory

As I got in my car after work tonight, and I put in one of the three discs in my "Bath and Body Works Perfect Christmas Collection", a thought crossed my mind: Why am I not sick of these songs? I've listened to them every year from probably Halloween till Christmas since 2005 when I worked at Bath and Body Works. It's not that I've expected to eventually get tired of listening to What Child Is This or Winter Wonderland, but specifically the version Destiny's Child sings of What Child Is This and specifically the version Liz Phair sings of Winter Wonderland.

I sat at the red light outside my work, waiting for it to turn green, and thought about this. I think it's because we assign various Christmas songs to different memories that are specific to gatherings with family and friends during the holidays. Those songs that are correlated with our memories give us the feeling of glee and contentment. Therefore, we don't get sick of the songs we hear every holiday season!

I believe it's not the songs exactly, but the version of the songs and who sings them. I would like to share some of my "song memories" with you:

White Christmas by The Drifters- Two words: Home Alone! This is when Kevin is "shaving" in the beginning of the movie and singing into a comb. This whole movie brings me back to being little and watching this ALL year round with my little brother.

Silent Night, the hymn- This song reminds me of the midnight Christmas Eve service at my church in South Windsor. We sing this song as the second to last song of the night. The lights are turned off and the choir is lining the perimeter of the chapel, all holding lit candles, and the candles in the windows also light the room. I don't remember what Christmas Eve it was, but I was standing next to my Papa and I could hear him singing loudly during this song. As his hands firmly gripped the back of the pew in front of him to help his weak arms support his weight, my grandmother placed her hand upon his, and they continued singing.

Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms- My parents had a briefcase filled with cassettes in our hall closet, which was also where they kept the cassette player. Justin and I would always go grab the player and the briefcase and take out the cassette labeled CHRISTMAS. This song was one of my favorites, and I specifically remember playing this song while decorating the tree as a family. We had one of the chairs from the kitchen in the family room so my dad could stand on it to put the star on top of the tree.

Santa Baby by The Pussycat Dolls- This song is on my Bath and Body Works CD, and the CD would play over the speakers at Bath and Body Works when I worked there during the holiday season in 2005. This specific song reminds me of working late with Michelle the night of Black Friday. I was an idiot and wore heals, and my feet hurt so bad! Michelle and I had to stay until I think it was 3 a.m. or something crazy like that.

What are some of your "song memories"?

updates

1. I'm officially feeling 100% like myself again after the accident.
2. I'm now terrified of driving, and seriously considering investing in a bike or some really good walking shoes.
3. I am obsessed with Kardashians. Thank you instant Netflix.
4. One more week until I am done student teaching! Yayy, celebration for me.
5. I don't know if anyone knows, but that means I graduate in a week. Yayy, another celebration for me.
6. I'm not pregnant. Just thought I'd throw that out there, since a certain sister-in-law of mine will be disappointed when reading this.
7. I'm pretty sure I haven't worn make-up in so long that I've forgotten how to apply it.
8. Every year, I put extra effort into my Christmas Eve outfit, since that is my favorite holiday. I have the shoes. Now I need to build my outfit around the shoes. Isn't that how it works, ladies? Back me up here.
9. Confession: I'm nervous that when I move back east, I'll take my family for granted just like I did before I moved out here over 3 years ago.
10. Currently on my mind: Would I rather have absolutely no butt? Or an enormous butt? Not that I want either... I'm just thinking which scenario would suck the most.

...aaaaand, i'm back

Ryan picked me up from the airport Thursday evening around 5. We said our hello's, I got in the car, and we started our short drive to my house. As I looked around at the beautiful New England sunset, at my wonderful husband next to me, and at all the familiar Connecticut license plates on that familiar I-84, I began to cry. "Why are you crying, babes?" he asked me. I told him I didn't want to go back to Utah. Seriously? I JUST got there, and I was already thinking about how I had to leave!

Besides dreading the trip back west the entire weekend, I had a fabulous time with my husband. Thursday night I got to go out to dinner with my family (parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle, and in-laws), and then we headed to Quincy where I got to finally meet my new home. The next day, we ran errands (Ryan was thrilled to do this...cough cough) and he showed me around. The traffic is absolutely crazy, and the roads make no sense to me! Two way streets turn into one way streets without signs letting you know! There are stop lights that point in all different directions! And the people who live in Massachusetts are called Mass-holes for a reason! AHHHHH I am scared to drive there. I told him to anticipate an accident shortly after I move there. I thought it would be nice to give him a heads-up, so maybe he wouldn't be too mad at me when it actually happened.

He took me to Nut Island which is a part of Hough's Neck. It overlooks the Boston skyline and is absolutely beautiful. This will definitely be a place I go often to escape and relax. Here are some pictures from Hough's Neck! Bev and Ricky came over Friday night as I discovered how to use a gas stove. Thanks you guys for being understanding :) And then we introduced them to Arrested Development! And I rediscovered my love for Jason Bateman.

Saturday we went into Boston (literally 10 minute drive from our apartment!) where Ryan got asked to help out a street performer at Faneuil Hall do some escape thing upside down. Then we ate at an AMAZING seafood restaurant and walked down to Long Wharf. The weather was beautiful and it was a perfect day.
And then it was Sunday. The day I had been dreading ever since my plane landed. We drove home to Connecticut and had lunch at my house after I visited Justin at work. Now that he is the only manager of Brookestone, he works so much! I have the best parents in the world because my mom made Thanksgiving dinner! ON HALLOWEEN! Since I wasn't going to be home for Thanksgiving, she took the time to make my favorite stuffing (vegetarian) and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes (also vegetarian) and sweet potatoes with marshmallows! It was wonderful and I appreciate everything my family does for me and Ryan.

Just 5 weeks until Utah is over and I am finally back with the people I love. But I most of all can't wait to see Ryan.

home sweet home

The plan: In 4 days from right now, I will be sitting around a long table at Willington Pizza (my favorite pizza spot in Connecticut!) surrounded by all my loved ones. After that, Ryan and I will drive up to Boston so I can see our new home. Friday morning, it's off to the bank so I can get my name on our new bank account. Then Bev and Ricky are coming over for dinner that night! Saturday is a "Me & Ryan Day". He claims to have found the best Italian restaurant in Boston, so we will take the T downtown so I can test this place out! And he wants to take me around to all the shores he has found close to our apartment, like Hough's Neck. Then it's dinner with my family on Sunday, then back to Utah for another 5 long weeks without my husband :(

I have seriously been looking forward to this Thursday, October 28, for quite a while. Don't believe me? Here is a calendar I've had taped to the inside of my closet, and every night I cross off that day.
There's just something that's so comforting about crossing something off, whether it's a calendar or a list. Don't you agree?

Well, it's Autumn, and it's when I miss Connecticut the most. The colors are fabulous, and the smells are absolutely wonderful. But most of all, fall reminds me of Ryan. It's when we first started dating, and it immediately reminds me of all the rides to and from Institute, and the time he got pulled over in front of my house for being suspected of drunk driving, and all the times we would sit on the benches at Central, cuddled under the same jacket, and carving pumpkins and going to the haunted forest and blah blah blah...

My Grandma knows how much I love the fall, so for the second year in a row, she has gathered up some leaves from her yard (note a few posts back, a photo of her vibrant tree in her yard), pressed them, and mailed them out to me. I am so grateful she found the time to send a little bit of home to me. I have the best family in the world!

hey jealousy

I have jealousy.

I have jealousy towards people who have furniture in their homes. I look across at the other condos adjacent to mine and envy them as they lounge with bowls of popcorn watching a movie on their TV.

I have jealousy towards people who are in the same state.. no wait, same timezone.. as their loved one. Like people in the grocery store who share pushing their cart around and interlock their free hands. I have been comforting my good friend out here as she has been going through a break up and now is back together with him, but I want to shake her by her shoulders and slap her around and say, UM HELLO! AT LEAST YOU GET TO SEE YOUR GUY!

I have jealousy towards my husband, who gets to live in a fabulous apartment with all of our furniture and kitchen stuff. I mean, why should he have the pots and pans? Is he going to wake up early to make a batch of homemade tomato sauce? I think not. He is a 5 minute drive away from Hough's Neck, a gorgeous stretch of shore which overlooks the Boston skyline. I mean, seriously?! So what. I can see a mountain... take that.

I have jealousy towards people who have a variety of clothes in their closets. I rotate between 5 outfits at work... one for each day. Luckily I don't think the students notice. I haven't accessorized since August. What's a necklace again? I forget..

Okay, okay. I'm not jealous. I just miss it all. I didn't realize how much I relied on certain things, like clocks and spatulas and my husband , and everything else I am without right now. I didn't realize it until it was all gone. I am fully aware that I chose to live this way so I only had to move once, but man it is hard! But pretty soon I will be able to move home (FYI home=Massachusetts!).

Today marks my half-way point until I move home for good!

Yayy!

before you speak

Before I met a certain someone in high school who introduced me to a certain new way of living, I used to have a very dirty mouth. You know when you watch a movie and think, All that swearing was so unnecessary! Every other word was a form of the word f*ck! Well, that was how I talked. I threw words out there that could have been left out, that offended people, and that got me into trouble.

Being in the major that I am in, I am more aware of how the things we say affect people. I did a project about a year ago in my Multicultural Education class that was based on the book Dude, You're a Fag. It was about how the gay and lesbian are treated in school, and how they are hurt by people who aren't even aware they are doing it. For example, people who say "That's gay!" are putting another meaning to the word gay other than homosexual.

I've uploaded my project below.. so let me explain a little. Based on the book I read, I asked some people questions based on the topic. When I created the video, it cut off some of the letters, and I don't know why! I did it over and over again and it kept cutting the letters off... so yes, I do know how to spell. I promise. Obviously I'm not a professional movie maker, but this video gets the message across and that's all that matters. Big thanks again to Ryan, Rob and Brooke for letting me ask you these questions.

Along that line, people who throw out the word retarded are doing the same thing. I am currently working with someone who I look up to a lot, and have looked up to for almost a year now. She is teaching me how to be a teacher, and she is absolutely wonderful all around. However, when she is not in the teacher setting and casually talking with friends, I overhear her several times use the word retarded to describe the curriculum or an assembly or something else. I have lost a lot of respect for her after hearing her use this word because she was someone who was supposed to be modeling how I should be acting as a teacher. Yet, I still need to look up to her to some degree in order to get through the rest of this semester.

Think before you speak. Don't just think about how the listener will take what you're saying, but think about who else out there you are offending. Gay does not mean stupid. Retarded does not mean dumb or lame. Instead of saying gay or retarded, just say the words you are really meaning to say, instead of using words that are unnecessary.

Take it from a girl who has used many unnecessary words back in the day.

Just a sec.

I want to take a moment to say how awesome my little brother is. Okay, so he isn't exactly little. Being taller than I, let's just call him my younger brother. We've recently started an email going back and forth between us where we write down crazy memories we have from our childhood. Some of you may not know what I'm talking about, but among these memories are:
*We LOVED filming music videos. I have one of him and his friend Chris dancing to Missy Elliot with their underwear on their heads

*We would clean out the bottoms of our closets, put our sleeping bags in the bottoms of them and sleep in there. Sometimes we would trade rooms and sleep in opposite closets.

*The night before our first time flying to Disney World, we were helping each other make our beds and said "OK, we won't fight on this trip."

*Justin hid Daddy's keys the night before we were supposed to leave for Cape Cod and forgot where he put them. We were all up the entire night with flash lights searching our yard... come to find out he had hid them in a bowl in the kitchen.

*Ditch 1 and Ditch 2 in the winter under the power lines (you had to be there)

*Every Halloween we would keep our candy in a secret place and take them out only to trade. We would always eat our last candy bar Christmas Eve.

*Tennis over the roof... turned into tennis in the road once the parents found out we were hitting balls over the house. Still can't believe how long we got away with that..

*Sleeping in the same bed Christmas Eves and taking turns staying up to watch for Santa

*Instead of telling on each other, if we got mad we would either threaten to tear the sheets off the other's bed, or secretly rub their toothbrush in a bar of soap

*When Jenna and Alex would come over and we would lay out all of our stuffed animals on the driveway to play with them

*Roller blading. In the basement. To Ace of Base.

*Putting Barbies in our roller skates attached with shoe laces and taking them for walks (hey. we were really little here)

Go ahead and say we were crazy. But looking back, I had the best friend growing up, and still do. Justin has the warmest heart of anyone I know. He is funny when you least expect him to be, inappropriate at the wrong times, and compassionate when you need it the most. I can honestly say that Justin beats out my husband and parents combined when it comes to how many bouquets of flowers I've received.

Here's to you, Justin. I love you kid.