Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!


I'm not usually a very thankful person. It's a terrible thing to say, but it's true. I usually go about my life taking everything for granted, or being pessimistic and telling myself nothing is actually worth being happy about.

Today, though, is Thanksgiving. An entire day devoted to gratitude. At least, kind of. It's also devoted to turkeys and pilgrims, but we'll save that for some other time.

Below is my list of the top five things I'm thankful for this year. While it could be much longer and much more complex, these are the things that instantly pop into my head when I think about what I'm grateful for.

5. The Internet
Maybe it makes me a bad person to be thankful for the internet, but it's true. I'm a child of the technological age and I would be completely lost without the internet. I use it to learn, to shop, and to avoid calling people to ask them stupid questions. I will be forever grateful to Al Gore for inventing the internet. :-) 

4. My Job
My job sucks. I hate my job. But no matter how frustrating my job is, I am very glad I have it and the paychecks it provides.

3. My Friends
My friends mean the world to me. They make me happy, they teach me things, and they give me people to care about and spend time with. They keep me from being lonely. I love every single one of them, and I am so thankful they're in my life.

2. My Roommate
Yeah, sure, he's a friend, but I love my roommate enough that he's in a class of his own. He's given me a great place to live, he feeds me, he fixes the bathtub drain, and he lets me use his awesome TV. Without this guy, I'd probably be living in a crappy apartment with a bunch of cockroaches, trying to stay out all night doing stupid things just so I didn't have to go home. 

1. My Brother
The number one thing I am thankful for is my little brother. My brother completely changed my life in the best possible way, and he gave me a reason not to give up on family completely. He's sweet and funny and creative and I couldn't have asked for more.


What are you thankful for this year?

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Hallogivmas

I currently have bats hanging all over my living room,  Thanksgiving recipes open in my internet browser, and, to top it all off, I have a Christmas CD in my stereo.

This is wrong.

I'm typically very strict about my holiday seasons and go VERY FAR out of my way to keep them from overlapping. I make a habit of giving dirty looks to anyone going Christmas-crazy before Thanksgiving, and for me (and my roommate, by association), the Christmas season isn't allowed to officially start until December 6th.

This year, however, I have failed myself.

Have you ever tried to give yourself a dirty look in the mirror? It's not very good for your self esteem. I don't recommend it.

My first brilliant idea to keep myself chilled-out this year was to be uber-organized. I started this by setting up an Excel file with gift lists. It's not helping. No, as a matter of fact, I think I spent ten minutes staring at it, getting more depressed. ("Holy crap, how am I supposed to get all this done on time????? Do I actually like these people? Do they like me back? Am I going to spend too much money on Bethany? Am I going to spend too little money on Matt? Are these worth buying? Am I going to have to special order that? How long does it take to ship DVDs from Liechtenstein?") It shouldn't be this daunting. It really shouldn't. I only have fourteen names on this list. *cough* (It may be SLIGHTLY more than fourteen presents. Maybe. Just slightly. It might possibly be, oh, I don't know....closer to 53 or something.....but that's just a guess!)

After angsting over my Christmas presents, it finally hit me that Thanksgiving is in less than a week. Yep, that's right. Less than seven days. By my calculations, I have less than 119 hours before Thanksgiving. In those 119 hours, I have to work 30 hours at my sucky day job, bake at least two pies, conjure up a Thanksgiving menu I may actually be able to cook without disaster, clean my house so it's semi-presentable, figure out who I'm actually spending Thanksgiving with this year, and then maybe try to sleep at some point.

Me? Stressed? Nooooo.....

I'm also beginning to think it might be time to take down my Halloween decorations, since the people two doors down already have their lawn buried under Christmas decorations. Then again, if I keep procrastinating and stressing out about other stuff, maybe I can just leave them up until next year.

How are your holiday plans coming along? Are you cool as a cucumber or will you be running around like a madman trying to buy cranberry sauce on Wednesday night like me?