l.i.f.e.

nothing poetic...just a thought.

--i wanna live out this life in the nitty gritty. real, live, life. full of blood and sweat and dirt and clean, fresh air, and mud and grass. cause i want to break out of this old skin and fly with the seagulls in parking lots. i wanna float up in an air balloon and gaze upon the pure, solid earth and know that im alive. i wanna scratch up my knees falling off bicycles and playing in the sand. i wanna roll around in the dirty, messy, earthy mud and leaves and breath you in. breath it all in.

A Charlie Brown Christmas...Tree

Soooo, I know Christmas is over BUT, I figured, since this is supposed to be our resource file, I would document and share with you a story I heard the other day.

I was listening to the Delilah show on 97.1 the other day (gotta love Delilah, eh? ;) and this lady called in and shared a story. She said that one year, when she was a little girl, her father walked in the door on Christmas Eve with their Christmas tree, and (to their remorse) it was a really weak, wimpy looking tree....a.k.a a Charlie Brown tree. They gently expressed their slight disappointment and her father was very ashamed...SO! He walked right out of the house, into the garage and started clamoring around. They heard saws and drills and screw drivers and all sorts of racket and were all VERY curious as to what he was doing.

A couple hours later, her father appeared in the living room with a full, big, healthy, LOVELY looking tree and they were all very confused as to WHAT he had done....it appeared to be MAGIC.

When they asked for an explanation, he told them that he had sawed off ALL the branches and drilled holes in the trunk, and rearranged all the branches so that they were more closely bunched together, making the tree look beautiful and full. They found this EXTREMELY hilarious, as did Delilah and myself. ;)

THEN, Delilah commented how her father had OFTEN brought home Charlie Brown trees several Christmases and described his method of remedying the appearance of the tree(s). She said that HE drilled holes in between the branches, sawed of branches from NEARBY TREES and stuck them in the trunk of the one he bought. haha.

Sounds funny, right? Its amazing to what extremes some people will go. :P

Anyways, I thought this story was funny and wanted to share it with ya'll. I figured...I can probably reference this story in a speech sometime, right? Go figure.

-Michele

So this is Christmas....

It doesn't feel quite the same this year. I guess maybe its the weather? I'm not really sure, but it still doesn't feel like that time of the year yet.

Now, if you know me, you know I get SO psyched about Christmas! I go absolutely nuts, just to see all the Christmas decorations in the mall. I LOVE December, its my favorite month!!! Not only Christmas, but New Years' too. I love seeing family and opening gifts.

Anyways, as I said, I'm just not feeling it....yet.

Maybe if I shop a little bit more and drink even MORE hot chocolate (although I already have about 3 cups a day) and listen to EVEN MORE Christmas music, I'll get in the Christmas Spirit.... <-- which is what I will be speaking about in my Christmas speech next Thursday.

I hope you're feeling a little more Christmasy than I am right now

Oh, by the by, I WISH WITH ALL MY HEART THAT IT WOULD SNOW!.....pray for snow with me and maybe it'll come!!!

The Holiday Weekend

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving, as all of you know. It came and went pretty quickly. After laying around all day Thursday afternoon, we went to a friend's house to celebrate the holiday. In preparation for the big dinner we planned to eat, I had done 50 crunches to make sure that I didn't leave their house looking like Santa Clause...but it was all for not. After devouring the feast, I got really drowsy and slept the rest of the day away. When we got home, my sister, mom and I planned to go shopping the following morning at 6 am to get the best Black Friday deals we could. Unfortunately, the alarms were set for 7 instead of 5:30 and we all ended up LEAVING the house at 9am. There were absolutely NO sales.... epic fail. Later that morning, we departed for my Grandmother's house to celebrate with my cousins, aunts and uncles from SC and FL. We enjoyed a second feast and went to spend the weekend at my Grandmothers house.

I had a restful weekend, but it was not as enjoyable as I had anticipated.

Frankly, I'm just glad its all over because now, ITS CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today, we set up our Christmas tree and decorations and BLASTED the Christmas music. :)

"...its beginning to look alot like Christmas..."

Decided...

Last week, I resolved to procrastinate procrastination.

Confused? Think about it. I will PUT OFF....putting things off. Procrastinate...procrastinating.

Every week, I struggle with choosing to do what I want to do and what I need to do. Among high schoolers and college students, procrastination is a popular topic. Often, we talk about it as if there's nothing we can do to avoid it, but I decided, that I was going to change that.

I need to get more done with the time I have, so am going to fight to use all my time wisely.

Often, I end up getting side tracked in the middle of the day. I cower away from the responsibilities I have not only in my classes, but also around the house and I squander my time doing optional or pleasurable activities instead of the mandatory ones.

Yesterday was a perfect example. I was out late on Sunday night and thus I had a late start Monday morning on my school. I stretched out my school subjects and left most of them to complete after around 2 oclock. This ONE unwise choice in the best usage of time lead to the necessity for me to stay up most of the night and well into the morning only to wake up at 5:30am in order to complete a photography assignment. One decision to procrastinate your whole day and even your whole week. Thankfully, last night was indeed productive and I was able to catch up on my school subjects, but because of that dreadful experience, I have vowed never to put off my subjects when I have the opportunity to do them.

This week I will attempt, once again, to procrastinate procrastination and get all my assignments done AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

the.end.

5 short stories.

A memorable moment I remember from when I was little? How about 5?

The first one: One day, when I was about 18 months old, I remember waking up in my adorable little crib in our nursery, with circus wall paper on the walls and a yellow carpet (yes our house was built about 30 years ago....phew! run on sentence). My dad walked in with a camera recorder and said "Hello bunny! How was your nap?" (bunny is my lifelong nickname). The End. The Significance of this random memory? We have home videos in our basement and I was watching them the other day and I saw that recording of me waking up that day in my crib...just how I remember it.

The second one: I told a little bit of this story in a comment on someone's blog (extra credit if you figure out whose it was!). One day...my sister, aunt, mom, dad and I were walking around Washington, D.C. (my aunt lives there) in the fall. I was about 2 at the time. My mom and aunt were walking ahead of Daddy and the girls while they were chatting. Katlyn and I came up to a fountain and started walking around the edge of it, balancing as we went along. Daddy gave us each a few coins to drop in (because of course, when you're little, every fountain is a wishing well) . First Katlyn dropped hers in and made a wish, then I did but of course by the time I was beginning to make my wish and put mine in the fountain, Katlyn (the eager 5 year old) wanted to move on walking around the edge. So she pushed me in and kept walking. I distinctly remember sinking to the bottom of the 1 1/2 foot deep fountain and seeing my dad look down on me in shock and concern. He then swooped me up, out of the fountain, saving my life! My hero.

The third one: I remember ever since we were little, my dad would sit us girls down in Katlyn and my room and turn on our tape recorder. Now, my grandpa lives in New Mexico and my other grandparents live down in southern Virginia so my dad liked making random recordings of us rambling about our day once or twice a week for them. One day, I remember talking to the recording saying, "Hiiiiii....I'm Micheuuul. I live in Cenabell." and my dad said "No Michele, Centreville." and I responded "Cenabell!" I found that tape the other day and listened to the recording. <3 I was so darn cute back then.

The fourth one: (I know these stories are a bit longer than short stories but just hang in there!)
My 6th birthday party. My birthday rolls around each year on the 22nd of December (I expect ALL of you to remember that!) and so some of my birthday parties were Christmas themed. This birthday was memorable though. One of my favorite birthday parties! All my friends showed up. My neighbor, my mom's friends children, and some besties from the Church - Peter Rogers and Joanna Bartley. This birthday was special. We made Gingerbread houses! It was so much fun. I don't remember much about that party except that all my friends came and we had a ton of gum drops and icing.

The fifth and final one: As I said, my grandpa lives in New Mexico, so one year, when I was about 4 I think, we went to visit him and my step-grandmother for a couple weeks. While we were there, they decided to take us to see some ancient indian cave dwellings. While we were there, my Dad brought out his handy dandy video camera again and recorded us hot, sweaty and tired children exploring the caves. About 5 minutes into the recording, I discovered that there was an echo inside of the caves and decided to shout out "Taco Bell!!" just about a hundred times to hear my cute little voice echoing throughout the caves. Then I started shouting "DA!" Why do I think this was particularly memorable? Because every time we enter a cave, tunnel, stairwell or any other echoey place, someone in my family always looks at me and says "DA!" and then they all laugh about how cute I used to me. The end.