Christmas Tag...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I have to wrap? You're telling me the sack from the store isn't enough?

2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial, and small. Metal trees are good, too!

3. When do you put up the tree? Pretty late... as close to Christmas as possible.

4. When do you take the tree down? Right around the 31st... But no matter when it comes down, "I cry the day I take the tree down..."

5. Do you like eggnog? Nope!

6. Favorite gift received as a child? A play kitchen. Santa left the box in the real kitchen, and I asked him about it the next year... apparently there was some confusion with the clean-up elves.

7. Hardest person to buy for? My mom!

8. Easiest person to buy for? My dad and Holly

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, several.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail when I do them...

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can't really think of one... even dorky ones that I get from students, you know they thought I'd love it... Santa has always been good to me!

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Christmas Vacation - I could probably recite and perform the whole thing... sad, sad... but hilarious!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I start thinking in November and buying in December. If I'm making things, I try to get started early in November.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes, I have re-gifted, but only a few times, and only very tastefully...

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Breakfast casserole on Christmas morning.

16. Lights on the tree? Sometimes... depends which tree gets put up.

17. Favorite Christmas song? I have so many! If I'm listening in the car, I have to have fun songs to sing along with, so anything catchy...

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Of course!

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Depends on the tree...

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? This is a point of disagreement in our house. Every year my parents argue, and every year, until last year, my dad won. Growing up, my dad's tradition was to open Christmas morning, and my mom's tradition was to open Christmas eve. We opened Christmas eve last year, and it was great to sleep in a bit in the morning!

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Christmas Sing practice at school... urg!

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I love our eclectic ornament collection. Everyone in our family gets a new ornament each year, plus we usually get a few as gifts. It's so eclectic, it works!

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Ham and funeral potatoes.

25. What do you want for Christmas? World Peace!

Twilight!

I took the day off today to see the Twilight movie! It was about a year ago that I finished reading all the books over Thanksgiving weekend (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse). I made shirts for several *lucky* people - Holly, Joee, Charlotte, JoAnne, and me - so that we could be part of the craze. And crazy it was!


I enjoyed the movie! It was pretty well done. It stuck to the story line mostly, and the characters mostly matched my imaginings of them, probably mostly due to the fact that the film was cast soon after I read the books. There were a few places where I disagreed with the movie, of course, but it was done fairly well. I loved that the crowd was into the show (even the few guys that were there), and I even liked when a few of the more serious moments in the movie were kind of humorous, just because we all knew what the characters were doing, or what was coming next.

What I didn't enjoy at all was that Joee didn't get to watch from the baseball game to the end... Bo was making some noises, and people were rude and they ended up in the hall. He really wasn't that noisy (the movie was loud at this point), and he wasn't the only baby in the theater, and definitely not the noisiest person there (women swooning all the time!). Duh, rude people!

Can't wait for the next one! :)

New Hair!

I did it... chopped it right off!
A 10-inch pony tail is getting sent to Locks of Love next week!
Ack!

Esme!

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New favorite internet addictive site...

I learned about this Web 2.0 site at eMints class last night... a better class than normal! Go to http://wordle.net, and create your own! You can put in a blog or another website that has rss feed, or paste in a bunch of your own text. This is what came up when I pasted in the text of my last post. You can play with the layout, colors, and fonts... cool stuff!
Try it out!

Continually strive ahead...

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

If she were alive, she'd be 100 years young today!

Pictures to come later... (she passed away before my digital camera days, I'm working on getting some scanned...)

Some memories I shared with Grandma:

Grandma's School - reading, writing, math, piano, drawing, cooking, dancing, playing - everything!
Piano lessons - I was not the concert master that Grandma thought I could have been... but it was a great experience learning to play the piano and organ with Grandma as my teacher. She was a wonderful teacher - even if I wasn't a wonderful student.
"Continually strive ahead, even when you are as old as I am." Said by Grandma at age 89. I interviewed Grandma for a school assignment, and this was the advice she had to give my class. Continually strive ahead she did! She loved learning new things, reading, listening to books, visiting teaching, and going places.
Paying for college... one quarter at a time... Grandma's weekly hair-do cost whatever dollar amount, plus 75 cents. She paid cash, and gave me the quarter every week for a while.

Happy Day, Grandma! We miss you!

Inconvenient Commute #1

What a change a week brings in the weather in Utah! Last week the weather was beautiful! I had recess duty and was glad to be out in the sun and warmth and play Speed with the kids (and beat 'em at their own game!). Today was a different story...
I heard it might snow this morning in time for the commute, so we were all up early. Holly and I left the house at 6:30! I took Holly to Trax, and then made my way to the freeway. The freeway wasn't so bad... but it was snowing more as I got further south than it had been snowing in Midvale. The point of the mountain was awful... but my trusty car got over fine. Lots of people, going slow, which is good... but does not work well when you have to get on down the road!
It was about the point of the mountain that I realized that I probably should have gotten gas last night... (though if it hadn't been snowing I probably could have made it). It was also around this time that I realized I forgot my purse at home in the rush to get out. So I scrounged around in my ashtray and found enough money to make it worth my time and effort to stop at the Lehi Mav for gas. Properly fueled, I made my way east on the Highland Highway. Way worse than I-15! More people, going slow, and no recent plowings...

The worst part was the block before turning onto 4800 West. Lots of high school traffic - again, good that everyone is cautious and going slow, but not when we all need to get to school! I thought about calling Ryan about then to watch my kids in case I didn't make it on time to school, and remembered that I had forgotten all about faculty meeting! Urg. It's not like I didn't leave with plenty of time to get to school!

I finally arrived at school, 10 minutes before the kids got there! I heard that I didn't miss anything at faculty meeting (then why have one, people?), and quickly got my desk recovered from the sub yesterday and got things ready for the morning.

Whew! Made it. Wishfully, this will be the first and only 'inconvenient commute' of the season... but I'm not going to hold my breath.