by the bright shining light of the moon

Thanksgiving is the word of the week. To start, I'm going to list a few things I am thankful for:

1) My sister - she's the one that keeps me going and makes me want to go further. I would do anything for her, and it makes me so happy to know that she would do the same for me.
2) My family - I've heard so many complaints from people in the last week about how getting together with their family for the holidays is almost unbearable, and I feel so lucky to have been raised with such a close knit family.
3) My friends - who put up with my ranting, whining, laughing, crying, and everything else when they have all the highs and lows of their own lives to deal with.
4) Fall and it's pumpkin-flavored counterparts - I think I have a problem. One day this week, I went with a friend and got a pumpkin latte and pumpkin scone, and a mere 2 hours later we went out for pumpkin custard. Hey, you've got to get it while you can.


Thanksgiving is just barely over for me, because I didn't celebrate until Saturday. I worked on Thursday evening, which was actually okay. It was terribly slow, but I worked with a few of my good friends, so it was a pretty enjoyable evening - not to mention the holiday pay.

Friday I got to spend with my family. Alyssa and I took my parents to try out Hubbard's in Middleton. In all honesty, I think I ate more that night than I did on thanksgiving. Cranberries & Cream Cheese Pie - enough said. Afterwards, the four of us went to the Badger men's hockey game. Unfortunately it ended in a tie, but I had an awesome time. Its always nice to join a big crowd of white and red, do ridiculous dances, and yell profanities at the top of your lungs. Incidentally, I don't think my mom quite enjoyed the nuances of Badger sports quite as much as Alyssa and I do, but it was still a good family experience.

Saturday we had Thanksgiving at my place, and I'm proud to say that my first attempt at hosting a family holiday went swimmingly. With a massive amount of help from my mom and sister,  everything went smoothly (even despite the turkey getting done over 2 hours early). Both sets of my grandparents joined us, everyone brought a little something, and we enjoyed a fabulous meal together. Afterwards we watched the Badger football game, which was a phenomenal end to the regular season.

Today I went back to work as usual. I came home and ate dinner, and then moved promptly on to the next holiday - my Christmas tree is up! However, I am a procrastinator and won't be buying presents until...well, Christmas...so there aren't any presents under the tree. [However, I have considered wrapping empty boxes...pretty and cheap!]

Off to dreamland.....

nothing left but sleep

Well, this past week has definitely not been one of the more exciting ones, but I'll give you guys a little update anyways. :)
My addiction to Pumpkin Spice mixers at Culvers is really getting out of control. I think I got 3 this week...maybe only 2, but thats still way more than I needed. Luckily they only have the pumpkin through the end of this month. (So that means I've got to eat enough to last me through the entire year, right?)
This is always one of my favorite times of the year, and I think its partially because all the spices that I really love are so prevalent right now. Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, cloves...Plus pumpkin candles, pumpkin lattes, carving pumpkins, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pies, apple pies, autumn leaves, crisp weather, my birthday. Agh, it's wonderful!!! I've been making my own mulled cider the past few weeks. I buy a huge jug of apple cider and then cook it all at once, and pour it back into the jug so that I can have a nice hot mug every evening. I also baked an apple pie on Thursday (because I had a bunch of apples to use up), and it may have been the best apple pie I've ever made!
As I said, this week was pretty uneventful. I did get to babysit for my friend Steph's son, Jake on Friday night. He is 16 months, and I absolutely adore him. Alyssa went along with me and we played with him for a few hours and had a blast. When we left, he got a little bit upset; that broke my heart, and made the whole night totalllly worth it.
I also have another addiction - a diner called Hubbard's (which my friends and I lovingly call Mother Hubbard's). They have the best french toast I have ever had in my entire life (and I don't really even like french toast that much). I took Alyssa there for the first time last week for breakfast. We were really hungry before babysitting though, so we stopped for dinner. It was my first time eating something other than breakfast, and now I'm convinced that I should eat every single meal there. The morning after babysitting, I ended up going back AGAIN and met Steph and Jake for breakfast.
After breakfast on Saturday, I came home and knit while watching the Badger game. I've been attempting to create my own pattern for some very intricate mittens/gloves, but I have been failing epically so I am going to take a break for awhile. I spent the rest of the evening cleaning. That's right, Saturday night cleaning. I went through the closet where I keep all my arts and crafts supplies, and it was like doing an archeological dig. I found a bunch of stuff that I'd been missing, and even more stuff that I'd forgotten I had. Now that everything is all nice and organized, I might be able to be a little more creatively productive.
As of right now, there are no new projects to report on. I made a goal for myself for 2010 to read a certain number of books (I'll reveal that once I've reached the goal). Currently I am tragically behind schedule to meet the goal by the end of the year, so I've been spending as much time as possible trying to catch up on my reading. It has been a bit hard, because I've been really exhausted lately, so I've been sleeping a lot more than usual. I've also been trying very hard to see my friends and my darling sister more often, which gets tough with everyone being so busy.
Well, I've got a book, my nice comfy bed, and a mug of hot cider calling my name.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

atomic turquoise

I'm a bit surprised I haven't collapsed at this point. The last week has been ridiculously hectic. Work was the busiest it has ever been. My brain was ready to explode by the end of the night on Thursday. Despite the stress and chaos of work, I was able to enjoy time with some of my friends (even though some of that time was at work). I also had far too much Pumpkin Spice ice cream from Culver's. [if you haven't tried it, this stuff is AMAZING] I was able to catch up over coffee with my friends Natalie and Jenna, and I even got to see my parents quickly on Friday. 

Thursday night was a celebratory point for me because I had made it through the week, and even though I knew I had to get up early the next morning I ended up going out with some people from work and didn't get home until about 1:45. Then Friday morning I left bright and early (seriously, not just early for me!) at 7am. I had to go to Portage to get an oil change on my car, and unfortunately ended up also replacing the rear brakes. But I did get to see my parents, and my dad even spoiled me by taking me out for breakfast.

Friday evening I hung out with Marley. As some of you know, I sometimes get "bored" and do something to try to shake my life up. Plus I love color. ;)

My hair now has ATOMIC TURQUOISE in it. Its a lot more green than I had intended, but I still like it!

I spent Saturday reading and watching the Badgers kill Indiana. I met up with Marley again for dinner and we met a few of our friends for coffee. 

I haven't had much time for any projects lately, and I had a really strong urge to paint. I spent the rest of Saturday night painting. As some of you know, I got a new queen sized bed a few months ago. This freed up an entire wall in my bedroom to decorate. I originally planned on doing one large painting to go over the bed, but have since decided to do multiple "portraits" of my friends and family using various different monochromatic schemes. I did the first of these last night. It went much faster than I had anticipated. It is done with oils on a birch wood panel. It was my first time painting on the birch wood, but I ended up really liking it, so I am planning on doing the rest of the paintings on various sizes of these panels. 

Before I close, I wanted to put up one more image of the last painting I did. My lovely sister hired me to do a painting to put above her bed in her room at her new house this year. She has a comforter that is black and white with very simple bamboo on it. Her sheets are a sage green. She gave me no instructions other than a basic guideline for size.  This is 20" x 42" and is done with acrylics on canvas. 

Well, I'm currently in the process of baking homemade bread, and it is just finishing with the second rising, so I've got to put that in the oven. 

passing through unconscious states

....I was on the highway....

This past week ended wonderfully with a mini-road trip. I take trips very seriously; I absolutely love the opportunity to drive with the windows down, sunglasses on, singing along to my favorite music as it mixes with the wind.
I left on Friday afternoon for Oshkosh, and despite getting stuck in traffic twice, the ride up was nice. I'd had a bit of stressful week at work so it was kind of nice to just relax in the car for awhile.
Best of all, I got to see some friends from college - Amy and Britny - which was the whole point of the trip. Amy and Ben moved to Oshkosh a few months ago, and I haven't been able to visit yet. Since Ben is gone at Coast Guard boot camp, Britny and I went to visit for a girls weekend. Britny's husband, Nick, stayed with some family, so I felt especially spoiled having the girls all to myself, sans husbands. There was plenty of laughing, homemade truffles, wine, shopping, trashy tv shows, and a plethora of talking. I drove back this morning, which was a beautiful ride with the sky all sunshiny and cerulean the entire way.
Unfortunately, I had to head straight back to work tonight. This week will be a busy at work. I have to conduct my monthly team meetings this week, but because of schedules I will end up breaking it down into 5 separate meetings.
At home, I'm not currently working on any projects. I'm trying to get myself caught up with reading, so most of my free time has been spent reading. I've got lots of ideas and things that I would love to be working on, but there is never enough time.
I'm hoping that the weather stays nice for a little bit longer. Its the perfect temperature now, where I can bundle up in as many layers as I want - two hooded sweatshirts (or cardigans) and a scarf is my favorite. And I love being able to sleep with the window cracked all snuggled into my comforters and pillows. I'm off to burrow into my blankets with a book right now.

Until next week.....

ice breaker

One of the (many) ironic things about getting older is that you have so much more to talk about and so much less time to do the talking. For me its been particularly difficult because I feel like I am on a whole different planet than everyone else, as if my reality is the exact opposite of the rest of the world. 


In an attempt to keep everyone updated on my life, I've created this blog for friends and families. I will be posting every Monday, on everything from everyday life to the projects I am working on. I will always post something - long or short - but you'll be able to browse all posts at your leisure. Please feel free to comment or ask questions. I'm hoping that in this forum, everyone will be able to communicate together. Let me know if there is anyone that you think would be interested in reading this. 


Enjoy!