December!!

*sigh* I can't even believe how long it's been since I've written! Between school, homework, and working, I've had almost NO time to do ANYTHING! But since December is pretty much here, I thought I'd finally put down all the December activities! I'm actually really excited to do them :D I hope I'll have time :S Well...if I don't, I'll MAKE the time :)

Sooo...here's the list!!

December...

1) Write a letter to Santa! That way he has plenty of time to look it over before Christmas :)

2) Make a Christmas drawing and decorate it with glitter! Because glitter is perfect, and everyone loves glitter :D

3) Make a paper chain in Christmas colors and hang it somewhere in your house.

4) Make your breakfast in Christmas colors! Like green eggs and red ham...or red pancakes or green crepes!

5) Decorate one of the doors in your house all Christmasy! It sounds funny, but be creative!

6) Give a gift to your favorite teacher :)

7) Eat dessert for dinner...cuz that's the way the Christmas season rolls!

8) Write something you love about each family member on an index card and give it to them if you can :)

9) Make paper snowflakes and hang them somewhere in your house!

10) Toast marshmallows. This one might be a little tricky...if you don't have a woodstove (like me :S) toast them over a gas stove...or if you don't have one of those either, use a lighter :P

11) Tell your favorite holiday story! Record yourself and send it to someone special :)

12) Make a Christmas tree ornament and give it to someone special.

13) Make three Christmas cards and send them to people you love <3

14) Pop popcorn and string it! Then hang it in your house somewhere :)

15) Read a Christmas book...everybody loves to read :)

16) Go Christmas shopping! If you already have all your shopping done, go out and buy someone else a gift...someone who wouldn't be expecting one from you. It'll be a nice surprise :)

17) Watch three of your favorite Christmas movies...all in one night! Movie marathons ROCK!

18) Spend the night baking Christmas cookies. It'll make your house smell great :D

19) Hang mistletoe or a kissing ball somewhere and get a kiss :)

20) Record yourself singing a  Christmas carol and send it to someone!

21) Write your own Christmas story! Be creative :) It can be as long or as short as you want it to be, just have fun with it!

22) Read the Christmas story from the Bible...always, always, ALWAYS important to remember what Christmas is all about <3

I don't have the twenty-third, Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day down because I'm just going to take those as they get here! I might  not even have time to do them, but we'll see :)

I don't know how many times I'm going to say this, but I would LOOOOVE it if people did this with me :) If you send me pictures of you doing them with me, I'll stick them up on my blog! I know, it's not like you'll be famous or anything, but I still think it would be fun :) Just let me know if you want to!

Anyways...that's it for tonight!! Got TONS of homework to get done...then work tomorrow...yay :P Naw, I'm kidding! I love my job, I really do :P It's a childhood dream of mine to be a "paylady" as I used to call it...and it's just as fun as I'd always imagined :D Besides...I'm just thankful that I have a job at all...that's the most important thing :) Ciao!

Thanksgiving :)

Well, another Thanksgiving has successfully come and gone :) I hope everyone had a great time with their families...I certainly did! This year my family picked me up and we all went over to my aunt and uncle's house in Boston. It was a pretty small crowd this year...well, smaller than usual. I wouldn't call anything having to do with my family small...we're quite a bunch! :P

As an added bonus, there was a Jets vs. Patriots football game tonight! Half my family are Jets fans and half are Patriots fans, so it makes for a pretty loud and exciting game :) But tonight it was kind of a boring game...the Patriots pretty much crushed the Jets, so it wasn't a huge deal. I was too busy upstairs, however, watching stupid youtube videos with a few of my other sisters. I have to say, I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time! It was especially special being able to spend the time with them, too :) Those kids mean the world to me <3

The ride home was hilarious. It was just about midnight by the time we finally got to my apartment. I hopped out of the van and waved goodbye to all of them before climbing the steps to my apartment. It wasn't until I went in and closed the door behind me when I realized...

I was all alone.

At the end of the day, I have to face the reality that I live all by myself and the fun and games are all over. To be honest, it makes me pretty sad. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude, however, and just be thankful (SUPER THANKFUL!) that I was able to spend the day with them today. It meant soooo much to me to spend a holiday with them. Holidays are really, REALLY important to me, for some reason. They just...ach...mean soooooo much! Lol...I'm a kid, I know :P But I really feel like holidays are when families can be together and just...enjoy each other, no matter what the situation are. During the holidays, and especially when I'm with my family, I really feel like I can forget all my problems and just....be happy.

Well....I used to feel that way. I still want to, but unfortunately, my past mistakes have made the holidays really tough for me to enjoy :/ I'm constantly faced with the consequences of the choices I made a year ago, and it kills me.

Sometimes life is compared to writing a book. But in my opinion, that's the word comparison you could ever come up with. When you're writing a book, you have the choice to go back and change a few words or paragraphs...maybe even a whole chapter. When you're living life, you don't have that option. You can't go back and change those few words that you said. You can't change what you've done. You just have to live with it.

Have any of you ever used Google Docs?? Well, you should...it's amazing! I've been using it a little with a good friend of mine who's writing a book. She shares the page with me, and we can both be reading it at the same time. The cool thing is, we can also both write at the same time! So while she's writing, I can go back and recheck her grammar or spelling or stuff like that. It's pretty cool!

Wouldn't it be nice if life was like Google Docs? I mean, you could share your life with God and he could just follow behind you, fixing your mistakes and touching a few things up. He could give you suggestions, throw in a little advice, and even tip you off about the ending! If only it was that easy, right?

*sigh* if only...

Instead, we're living life the same way I wrote  my essay during my midterm in Lit class this year...in pen and without going back to change anything. It was stupid, I know, but that's how I write! And guess what? I got a A on the paper, so HA! If only I was as successful in life as I was at that paper :/

What I'm trying to say is...life is full of second chances, but nothing we can do will erase what happened in the past. No matter what I do, I can't make holidays go back to what they were. There will always be a little reminder in the back of my mind why the holidays aren't as great as they used to be. But if I sit around and fuss about it, there won't be ANYTHING good about them! I've been given another chance to make holidays great again, and I'm not going to pass that up! I need the holidays, I really do. I need Easter. I need July 4th. I need Thanksgiving. I need Christmas. I need them all. I need them because those are the times when everyone is happy, and I feed off of that! I want to be happy so bad that I want to surround myself with happy people....the people I love most. That's what holidays are all about for me, and that's what I want for the rest of my life.

I didn't get as many pictures at Thanksgiving this year because I was too busy being crazy with the girls :P But here are a few that I liked :)

My family pretty much rocks :) I hope everyone had a FANTASTIC Thanksgiving this year :) The countdown for Christmas can officially start now :D

It's 1:58 in the morning, so I suppose people are out Black Friday shopping...lucky little buggers :P I don't have work until 11, so I have a few hours to sleep before I have to be up and ready to go! Bring it on....

Super Happy Monday!

ACH! It's been soooo super long since I've written! Last week was so insanely busy, I hardly had time to sit down! Work, school, and homework really wiped me out :S But GOOD NEWS!! I have almost all week to myself! I only have school tomorrow, then I have work on Black Friday and Saturday. Not a lot of hours, but hey...the 12 1/2 hours I worked the other day will make up for it :P

So normally Monday is that day that everyone dreads...but today I'm actually happy it's Monday! It's been a great day so far :) I got to sleep in this morning (yay!!) then my Grampa Hipke came and visited me around noon and brought me...A TV!! 

Super happy me :) I got it all hooked up and everything then I sat down with a sandwich and watched Mrs. Doubtfire. Oh my gosh...that movie is SOOOOO HILARIOUS!! If you haven't seen it, go watch it! It's amazing :D

And because I have nothing else to do today, I was looking through some old papers and stuff that I have in my guest/junk room :P (In other words, it's a room full of my junk that will eventually be a guest/random stuff room...whenever I get around to it!) I found this wicked cute little note, so I took a picture of it :)

This is the front. If you can't read it, it says, 

"Some Marzs are kind

Some are lame but not

one of them is as

great as you!

WE LOVE

YOU!

to true to true

p.s. jack and carson

And this is the back! It says,

"Some Marzs

are not as

nice as you

Love, Olivia

Isn't that the cutest thing ever?? It totally made my day :) I hung it on my fridge with a bunch of other notes I'd gotten from the kids. BEST! EVER!

I feel like I had so much to talk about before I started writing this, but I guess I don't have as much as I thought :S OH!! I was going to tell you about my new baby...I got a beta fish :) I named him James Bond after the new movie that just came out that i just LOVED!!! James Bond is my new hero :) I love him! I love him so much, I named my fish after him :)

James Bond <3

It's a terrible picture of him because he's so wiggly!! But he's white, and he has little bits of color all over him.. he's really adorable <3 I don't know if anybody read my other blog at any point, but I had two goldfish...well, I TRIED to have two goldfish, but they died pretty fast :/ Their names were Brandolese and Velena. Amazing names, I know :P Lol..actually, most people thought they were terrible, but hey. Whatever! I liked 'em :) Anyways...they didn't live for very long, sadly :( I'm thinking it was because they were goldfish, and I hear that betas live for a while. So I'm hoping James Bond will last me a long time :) If not, I give up!

I'm finding it SUPER hard to believe that Thanksgiving is this week! I don't even remember October, and November is just FLYING right by! I have NO idea where the time is going :P But the good news is, it's making school go by faster :) This year we're meeting at my Aunt and Uncle's new house in Boston, I think(?) or is it Lexington?? I don't remember, but somewhere in the city :) Good enough for me! I <3 the city :) 

We're already planning on being there really late because there's a football game that night that everyone wants to watch. It's the New York Jets against the New England Patriots! DEFINITELY a big game for my family! See, they're Tim Tebow fans, so whatever team he's on, they cheer for. Because of that, they've turned their backs on the Patriots and cheer for the Jets now. No, I take that back...not ALL of them have changed their minds. Kalen started the revolt, and only Jackson and Dad have stayed true to their team. Me and Mom? We just...go with the flow :P The last game the Jets and Patriots played was on Carson's birthday on October 21st. It was literally the Best. Party. EVER!

Those are my favorite pictures from the last game! Hopefully I'll be able to get some good ones during the next game :) SOOOO EXCITED!!

Anyways...I guess this was just a random post with random stuff :P I think i'll probably go watch another movie on my new TV :P Suggestions?? I have a few options...The Secret Window, Batman Begins, Iron Man, Moulin Rouge, K-19, or the old War of the Worlds. Ready? Set? Suggest!

Thinking Ahead! (For Once In My Life :P )

It's official...I'm hooked on Christmas music now...and actually I have been for the past month or so.I know I started a little early, but for me, Christmas music never gets old! Besides...I can listen to whatever I want! So there :P

It's almost halfway through the month of November now...how's your month been?? I have to admit, I'm still recovering from October! It went by sooooo fast, I can't even remember what I did all month! November 1st came and I was like "holy moley, what happened to October?!" They say time flies when you're having fun, but in this case, I don't think it was "fun that was making the time fly :P I'd say...school, work, and crazy life in general :) Being busy isn't a bad thing. In fact, I like keeping my life busy. It distracts me! Of course there are bad things about being busy..I feel like I'm missing out on stuff (like keeping up with this blog :S ). But at least I'm not bored, right?? That'd be terrible!!

So remember that thing I'm going to do every month? This month was "write-a-letter-to-three-people-every-Monday" month? Yeah, well that's not working as planned...lol :P I haven't given up on it, I'm just a couple days late for my second set of three. I'm going to do them, though, I promise! I already wrote one today, so I'll do my other two after I get home from Newburyport today! It's no biggie :P For December, I have that 24 days of Christmas fun idea. I'm actually WICKED psyched about doing it! It's gonna be soooo fun!! I have a bunch of ideas written down, but I haven't decided which ones I wanna do yet. If you have ideas, do tell! I'd love it if people did it with me. They're all wicked fun, and pretty simple, so I'm pretty sure everyone would be able to do them :)

Here are my ideas:

• Make an ornament yourself and give it to a neighbor or a friend. 
• Decorate a Christmasy door in your house. (Or every door! That might be fun too :P )
• Write a letter to Santa.
• Give a gift to a teacher
• Write your own Christmas story
• Go Christmas shopping and buy a toy for either a charity, or someone unexpected...like the kid in line behind you, or something. Basically, buy a gift for a stranger, just cuz it's nice :)
• Watch three of your favorite Christmas movies...all in one night!
• Make a Christmas drawing and decorate it with glitter...cuz who DOESN'T like glitter??
• Make three homemade Christmas cards and give them to family, classmates, coworkers, or neighbors!
• Eat dessert for dinner.
• Write something you love about every family member on an index card and give it to them.
• Spend a night baking Christmas cookies.
• Make a gingerbread house.
• Decorate your Christmas tree or help someone else decorate theirs.
• Make a paper chain in Christmas colors and hang it up in your house somewhere
• Get a plain white sock and some fabric markers. Write all the happy things you can remember on it from that year and hang it in your house.
• Hang some mistletoe in your house.
• Tell a favorite holiday story.
• Record yourself singing a Christmas carol and send it to someone :) 
• Read the Christmas story from the Bible
• Make a snowman or go sledding in your yard. (Hopefully there's snow!!)
• Read a Christmas book.
• String popcorn and hang it on your tree or somewhere in your house.
• Make paper snowflakes and hang them around your house.
• Sleep under your Christmas tree! (This one sounds fun :D )
• Toast marshmallows. (Some people have a wood stove or something...unfortunately, I don't. But I do have a gas stove, so I could always toast them over the burners :P )
• Make a red and green breakfast! Use food coloring to color your food in Christmas colors.

Those are the ideas I have so far! I don't know which ones I'm going to pick for each day yet, but I think most of those are pretty easy. Like I said, if you have ideas and want to do them with me, please tell me! If we do this all together, we can take pictures and put them all together and see how people did on their own things :) You can always text me the pictures too, if it's too hard to download/email them too. Whatever you wanna do. I just thought it'd be fun. You have plenty of time to think about it, but I thought I'd just throw those out there for now :) 

It's almost Thanksgiving, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get crey crey busy at the Burlington Coat Factory! I'm actually working on Black Friday this year! Annnnnd...I'm wicked excited about it! I love my job a lot, so the idea of working on a crazy busy day just sounds like so much for me :D Last year I went shopping on Black Friday with a few friends really early in the morning. I was a little disappointed with the turnout...the Rockingham Mall was too quiet :( I was hoping it would be mobbed, because that just sounds like FUN! Oh well :/ I think I went a few years ago with my mom too. Definitely an incredible time...not because it was insanely busy, but because my mom was insanely pregnant with my sister! Lol...she was 8 months pregnant with Averil (who was born December 17th) and she took me Black Friday shopping. How awesome is that?! Thanks Mom :D You're the best!!

Hope everyone has a great rest of the week! Hard to believe Thanksgiving is coming up so quickly :S Fear the humans, turkeys...fear the humans. We're coming for you...

Welll....

Wellll....I have something to confess. Today was Monday, so I was supposed to write three more notes today. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to it :S I had work this morning until 7:30 tonight. When I got home, I had dinner, and then realized I had a LOT of homework to get done before tomorrow! Ugh...not fun :/ But I have nothing going on tomorrow afternoon, so I'm planning on getting those done then. I promise!! I already have my whole day planned out. School, letters, walk to the post office, drop letters off, walk to the bus station, go the to Loop, watch a movie, come home, do more homework :P

The reason I have to plan my days out now is that so I don't get bored. Boredom is never good for me, so I try to fill my day up with fun, interesting, or just plain distracting stuff. Plus, it's only $1.25 to take the bus somewhere. That's why I usually go to Newburyport to do homework or stuff...it's cheap, and I get stuff done :) My next Newburyport study date is set for Wednesday! Yayy!!

For those of you that don't know, I work at the Burlington Coat Factory in the customer service area. I do stuff like returns and layaways. I love my day, I really do, but I definitely have to deal with "less than ideal" customers. And when I say "less than ideal," I actuallly mean nasty people :P Some of the unpleasant situations I find myself in frequently are Spanish-speaking-only people, people buying items with no tags, people returning items with no receipt, and people who want to make 4 or 5 layaways at one time. Ok...definitely difficult situations, but nothing I can't or haven't been able to handle. But today, I faced an entirely new challenge.

Someone who was bent and determined on making my day terrible.

That might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but she definitely wasn't making it easy for me. She came in with a million receipts, wanting to return everything she had, then buy it all back using coupons. I've had to do that before, so that part was really no big deal. Well...it WASN'T a big deal, until I realized that she had two coats instead of just one. I apologized and went to fix my problem, but she took that opportunity to tell me how terrible I was at my job. And she was NOT nice about it.

I have to admit...........I wanted to punch the woman in the face. But instead, I fixed the problem quietly, did everything she wanted me to do, smile, and wished her a fantastic night. They say smiles are contagious. Well, this woman must have gotten her smile vaccine, because she growled a "yeah, whatever" and huffed away. I don't understand what makes people that way...all I can do is try to be nice to people like that. Even though it's SO RIDICULOUSLY HARD TO DO!!

Anyways...that was my adventure for the day. Moral of the story? Be nice to nasty people :P

What If...?

Do you ever have one of those nights when you'd just like to crawl into bed and sleep for a few days straight? I'm having one of those nights :/ It's not the night itself that got me in a "down" mood...it was just the circumstances. One of my biggest fears in the world is rejection...and I had to face some of that tonight :( And it hurt. I don't understand it, and I don't think I even want to try. Honestly, I wouldn't want to have a conversation long enough to find out exactly why it happened. I just want to accept that it did, and move on with my life.

If only, right?

What if it really was that easy? What if I could just take a deep breath, swallow the pain, and move on with my life? What if rejection didn't actually hurt? What if...? *sigh* I guess there's no real answer to those questions. Like I said...accept and move on. Tonight I tried to do that. I didn't cry. I didn't fall apart. I didn't even sit on my kitchen floor! (sounds weird, but seriously...my kitchen floor is a great place to think. I sit with my back up against my warm oven, drink a cup of tea, and just think about stuff. You should try it sometime...the world looks like a completely different place when you're sitting on your kitchen floor :P ) But I didn't react that way this time. Instead, I decided to go out to Bible study and hang with some of my bestest friends in the whole world. They never fail to make me laugh, and I ALWAYS have a good time. I forget my troubles, live in the moment, and laugh until I sound like a man. (They'd understand that reference.)

But then I have to go home. And for me, home means sitting alone on my bed...not laughing anymore...and thinking over the events of the day. Once again I'm faced with the reminder that I've been rejected, and it hits me again...almost harder. The reality sinks in and I start to "feel." Depending on the situation, I either feel angry, upset, or just plain sad. Tonight I'm sad. Very sad.

I never promised myself I'd never be sad again, but I did try and promise myself that I would make better choices about dealing with my sadness. So far, I think I've done okay. It just...stinks to be sad :( Anyways...I'm not sure what the purpose of this post was, except that it was a good way to vent a little and deal with my sadness by expressing myself, rather than bottling all my feelings up inside. I've found that doesn't work so well :S

On a positive note, tomorrow is Monday! Sounds weird to be excited about a Monday, but it's the second Monday of the month. And on Monday in November, I write a note to three people. I already received texts back from the three people I wrote to last week, and they seemed to appreciate the notes...so I think it was a success :) I'm excited to do it again tomorrow!

Like I've said before, please feel free to join in! I think it'd be great if people did it along with me...it's nice to have company :) Plus it's a nice feeling to know that someone appreciated something you did for them. In fact, it's a great way to counteract rejection...acceptance :)

What To Do...

This man's got the right idea!

Well, it's the day after elections, and we all know how that went. I'm in the Newburyport library right now in the reading room, and all the awesome people over the age of 55 have come in to read the papers. I'm surrounded by about 8 who are reading the headlines about Obama's win, Obama's speech, and Obama's future. But there's this one guy who really caught my eye. He's just sittin' there...reading the COMICS page! Now HE'S got the right idea :)

Anyways, that has nothing to do with what I was planning to write about. I just thought it was sooo cute, so I sneaked a picture and had to share it with all of you people who don't read this blog :)

I absolutely LOVE coming into Newburyport to study! It's usually every Wednesday I get up in the morning and take a mile and a half walk to the bus station at 9:45 to get to the bus by 10:30. I'm usually there early, so I sit on the bus, chillin', listening to my Ipod, and people watching. The ride itself is about an hour and fifteen minutes long. You think it'd be boring, but it's really not! There are enough stops that the passengers change all the time, and that makes people watching more fun :) It's almost noon by the time I get to downtown, and then I walk down the street to Starbucks. (Awww yisss STARBUCKS!!) I get myself something to eat (usually a bagel or sandwich or something) and a venti caramel apple spice, find myself a window to sit by, set up my laptop, and do homework. I'm finding that I can focus better in a busy environment as opposed to my quiet apartment. Don't ask me why...I have NO idea.

When I'm done homework, sometimes I'll walk about a half mile to the Tannery and hang out in Jabberwocky (the *AMAZING* book store!) for a while. I have to confess, when I do go to Jabberwocky, I spend most of my time reading the children's books. Don't judge...or Harold will draw and big black hole with his purple crayon and push you into it. If I don't go to the book store, I usually either go walk by the water for a while, or I come up the library (like today) and chill until the bus gets here :)

I'm pretty sure you don't really care what I do in my spare time, but the reason I told you is because I'm curious what other people do to keep themselves busy! I know people have pretty cray cray lives nowadays, but when you do have free time, what do you do with it? Read a book? Watch tv? Just sit and relax until life catches up with you? Tell me! I'd love to know :)

I doubt I'll get any responses to this, but that's ok :) Life goes on. However you spend your free time, just make sure you're doing something you love. Life is too short to spend it unhappy. Take a break every once in a while and remind yourself that everything is going to be ok...or spend time with someone who will tell you that :)

And now...off to do more homework! Love it :P Oh by the way, if you happen to have free time sometime, you've GOT  to read this story I just read for homework! It's only a few pages long, so it won't take you until next year to read it. It's called The Shadowy Third by Ellen Glasgow. It's great...now GO READ IT! *hits you with book until you go read the story* Ciao!

Marly