*Blush*

Yesterday, I read something that pricked my conscience. It reminded me that I am human too, and I should be just as willing to humble myself to my small audience. You can read about the Pioneer Woman's woes here.

Please brace yourself. This is not pretty.

This chair is on my living room floor, just as you see it in the pictures. The tale of how it ended up there is embarrassing. I must give you some history first.

Several years ago, a bunch of young people were gathered at a friend's house playing games. I got up (I don't remember why now) and then came back to my chair at the table. When I sat down, the back two legs of the chair I plopped onto promptly split from the chair and I ended up in the floor. As you can imagine, EVERYONE laughed, and I was mortified. I never lived it down. People were talking about splinters flying any time they saw me. I considered going on a diet, and then decided I loved food too much.

Last week, I sat down in my chair at the dinner table after fixing something delectable for Cameron and I to consume, and the legs of my chair split from the bottom of the chair. Talk about deja vu. Cameron promptly started laughing, and I must say, I was mortified (again!) and went to the bedroom to compose myself. Cameron didn't even ask me if I was ok! (He said it was because I didn't even fall in the floor. I have acquired the ability to gracefully fall when my chair is breaking. Experience is a doozy of a teacher.) It took me a while to get over my embarrassment enough to post about it. I'm thinking a diet really is in order this time! Until such a time as I have reached a sufficiently low weight that the chairs no longer tremble in fear when they see me coming, I think we will be having dinner on the couch!

Thanksgiving Celebrations

I spent Thanksgiving last year in Idaho with Cameron's family, so I kind of knew what to expect. Or I thought I did. It would be the opposite of what I was used to: no chaos, no large groups of people, no paper plates, no impromtu game of football, no overeating, no Black Friday shopping. I was partially right. I had forgotten about the parts of Thanksgiving that really matter, though. Family. Love. Laughter. Pumpkin Pie. There was definitely an abundance of those. (Except the family. They are a lot fewer in number than my family. But I'm guessing that is probably true of most families.)

Not a very good picture - sorry. Please ignore my sunken cheeks. Dinner helped fatten me up, I assure you.

We left early Thursday morning to drive to Cameron's grandparents house. I took a picture of us on Cameron's phone as we drove so that I could share it with you all, but couldn't get the internet to work very well while we drove through the tall (snow-covered and gorgeous) mountains. That was the only picture we took, even though we also took the camera. Good intentions... Snow fell while we drove, and there were several inches on the ground when we stopped about 30 miles away from his grandparents' house. Thanksgiving in this family is never complete without the guys spending part of the day hunting. Cameron joined his brothers and his dad in their truck and his mom and I took our truck on to his grandparents'. I just want the whole world to know that I drove up a very steep road that was still snow covered. And it has no guard-rail for most of the way. (I probably wasn't as scared as his mom. I couldn't look at how far down it was.) We made it safely and had a good day preparing dinner. Then, we ate lots of good food. I tried pot-liquor. I wasn't brave enough to try it last year. It tastes like tabouli. And it doesn't contain liquor. It just has a weird name.

Friday, I went for a couple of walks in the snow and read a good book (not at the same time!). There are quite a few deer around his grandparents' house and it was fun to watch them.

We left to come home this morning, and I felt like I was coming back to civilization. There is no cell signal out there, and I didn't ask to use their dazzling fast dial-up internet. I couldn't bring myself to be dazzled in that way.

I was worried about the trip before we went. I was worried about driving all that way on slick roads, I was worried about staying the weekend with people I didn't know very well, and I was worried about not eating enough. That is a very serious concern to my emaciated body. I have to eat constantly just to keep up my girlish figure. I had a great time. There were a couple of times when I wanted to break out in wailing sobs because of homesickness, but I managed to ignore them. Yes, I missed my family. And I still do. But I chose to marry my best friend, and chose the sacrifices associated with living in a different state. My sisters sent me lots of pictures and I can pretend like I'm home. I love his family, and I'm learning by God's grace to deal with my homesickness one day at a time. I'm focusing on the positive. (Like the abundance of cinnamon rolls that I somehow ended up bringing home that are begging to be eaten. They are definitely going to help my girlish figure stay well rounded. That's good, right?)

All this to say: God is good. I thought I would be miserable this weekend, and I wasn't. I wasn't sure I'd have a good time, and I did. Change and new things aren't bad; they are just change and new things. (That was profound. Please let me know when you get done pondering my profundity.) I had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope all of you did as well. Now, if someone would please play me the BC Clark commercial, my life would be complete.

Outside My Windows, Part 2

This is normally what I see outside my window. Everything is obscured by the condensation. Cameron told me I could probably wipe it off, but I like it. I can open the blinds and still get natural light, while still not worrying that the people walking down the street can see that I stay in my pjs most of the day.



This is what it looks like outside my window when I stand on the window seat to reach the cleared spot in the window. I was going to open the window to take a picture but I think it is frozen shut. There is a LOT of snow. Ok, so there are only 5 or 6 inches, but that is a lot for this Oklahoma girl.

 I am SO thankful for the sunshine. It's really bright when you look right in it, but who can help gazing adoringly at that huge friend that has been so conspicuously absent the last few days?

Tomorrow, we are headed a few hours south to spend Thanksgiving with Cameron's grandparents. We are planning to stay all weekend, and the guys will be hunting. I will be trying not to freeze. I'm not worried about eating too much, because that is not part of this culture, unless you live in my house. I hope you all have a very blessed Thanksgiving and a great time with family. If you are related to me and you are reading this, I will miss all of the chaos that always surrounds family gatherings. Please talk a little bit louder for me. And someone tall, hit your head on Grandma's light that is above the table, just for old times sake. Thanks!

Snow

I want nothing more at this moment than to be a snowbird. To all of you who are familiar with large amounts of snow and allowed me to move to North Idaho, I simply have one question: WHY????

The initial snowflakes were pretty. The pristine layer covering the drab leafless trees was beautiful. The slick layer of stuff on the road? Not so much. My distaste for the stuff started last night. We were coming home from church, turned into our neighborhood, and promptly slid into a curb. My tire is fine. The rim isn't. Rather than deal with it in the dark and lateness, I got up and went with Cameron to work so that I could have his truck today. (I am thankful for two vehicles.) We got to his work, I got out of the car, shut the door, and slipped and fell. I wrenched my arm, and ended up with a wet, sore bum and bruised ego. I drove very slowly home (I am fairly certain I have never done the suggested 35 mph on our off ramp. I did today.) and now I don't want to go anywhere. I have to work in a few hours. Can someone please turn on a heat lamp and make this stuff go away? Thanks!

I'm sorry that this is a whiny posting. Maybe I'll have something more positive to say later. Until then, you can find me in the kitchen devouring any chocolate we have in the cupboards. I wonder how baking chocolate would taste by itself?

Peeping through my peep-hole

When I am alone in the apartment, I often glance through the peep-hole to make sure no one is outside the door. Even if I am just walking by or sitting across the room, I look to see if there is light coming through because that means no one is there. Yesterday, as I was vacuuming, I glanced out as I went past and thought I saw something. I promptly had to put my eye up to it and see if there was really anything there. There wasn't. Looking through the hole from a distance had skewed what I could see until it looked like something was there.

My overly analytical mind immediately began comparing that to life. We can know our surroundings, and see them clearly, but how clearly do we see the things outside our little world? For instance, on Facebook yesterday, someone posted something like this. "Some woman is whining that her city has made her sick. If you don't like living here, MOVE." Someone put a comment, reminding this person that the city really might have made her sick, and it was her right and responsibility to make sure that people are aware that there is a problem so that the issue can be fixed. They also said that maybe the woman couldn't afford to move, etc, and the answer isn't always that simple. We are all prone to jump to conclusions about things we see in life, skewing them according to the lens that we view them through. I hope that I can learn to be a little less judgmental, and be a little more open to seeing things through other peoples' peepholes.

The sun will come out...

"The sun is up, the sun is yellow. The yellow sun is over the house." - Go Dog Go, by PD Eastman

I like the sun. I was driving home from Bible Story time on Tuesday, and saw the most gorgeous sunset. The fact that the sun was setting at 4 pm was a little disturbing, but the sunset was pretty none-the-less. The sky to the west was golden, surrounded by beautiful shades of pink. Shades of pink also outlined the folds of clouds in the sky above me. I watched the sunset fade as I drove, turning the sky into soft grays with light patches between the clouds. Wow.

Then, this morning I woke up to precipitation. I thought it was rain, but Cameron texted me later that it was snowing. I went to a window that I could actually see out of (the windows collect condensation in the mornings, and are quite hard to see through!) and saw huge flakes of snow drifting down. Shortly thereafter, the sun came out, the clouds are gone, and I had to open a window because the sun was overheating our apartment! I can hear the birds singing, the roads are wet from melted snow, and I think it's a perfect day to do some Christmas shopping! Soak up some of that sunshine, spend money on my favorite people... Some of my favorite activities!

Pay more?

I bought some black boots last year around this time because I wanted something cute that would keep my legs warm. I still had an office job at the time, and so I bought a pair with 3 inch heels. They are super cute and I still like to wear them, but they are not water proof and certainly not very practical for an area that is going to get snow. (Thankfully, it hasn't snowed yet!) Yesterday, I went looking for a pair of black boots that would be waterproof, warm, and still chic. I'm not too proud to admit that the first stop I made was Payless. I am not above shopping in the cheap stores! I looked and they had several pairs of black boots and most of them were even cute. However, they want $50.00 for their black boots. Now, the name Payless would lead you to believe that you are going to pay LESS for their product. However, $50.00 is not much less than boots you can get in most department stores. Payless, what have you done? Are you adjusting your prices for inflation? Are you trying to change your image to a more trendy, exclusive shopping environment? Because if so, you have a long way to go. You are letting down the public. You need to make your products more affordable for us poor newly married folk. Ok? Thanks!