"Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world."

Thankful List

• Topping the list this year is my job. First of all, I'm glad I even have a job. Secondly, this time last year, I was worried I was going to be a secretary forever, and actually cried (tears of joy) when one of my co-workers came up to me to discuss The Secret Garden which she had recently read. I realized then (more than ever) that I needed to be working among books and with other bookish people. God heard my prayers and placed me in a job that's perfect for me, and with people I really enjoy. I'm so grateful that the Director decided to take a chance on "the coupon girl with no experience." It's changed my life!
• I'm grateful for my family, who are wonderful. Especially my Mom, who no matter what life throws at her deals with it gracefully and with dignity, and no matter how hard her own battles are, touches everyone she meets and knows with kindness and generosity. I'm grateful for my Dad, who's not only brilliant, hard-working, and generally the best guy I know, but for giving me impossibly high standards when it comes to dating guys, because I know what the best is, and won't settle for less. And for Michael, who is such a hard worker, is so smart it actually makes me sick, and is, comparatively speaking, a really good kid and great brother. 
• I'm grateful for my mom's older sister who's really stepped up and helped us out this holiday season. And for my paternal grandmother, who's like the glue who holds us all together and is always welcoming and awesome. I'm also grateful that as my cousins and I move towards adulthood, we're able to reconnect in a way we couldn't when we were little kids with years between us. Being five years older is the difference between kindergarten and 5th grade when you're little. When you're older, it totally doesn't matter anymore. 
• I'm grateful that I have a heavenly Father who loves me and forgives me, and doesn't expect me to be perfect. He just wants me to be me. 
• I'm grateful for America, and even though our we're facing difficulty, we still live in the greatest country in the world. (Mostly because I get to have a blog where I can talk about God and government and not have to worry about getting shot for it. *_~)
• I'm grateful for Bixby, Sherman, and all the animals we're blessed with on this planet, both wild and domesticated. Seriously, animals are great. ALL of them. But especially pugs and manatees and narwhals.
• I'm grateful for being relatively healthy, asthma and monthly colds aside (which are due, mostly, to the fact that I work with children, who are well-recognized germ bags. Adorable and hilarious, but germ bags nonetheless). 
• I'm actually grateful that I'm strong enough to be single in a society which tells me that I'm worthless if I don't have a guy at my side or a ring on my finger. I'd rather be happy, like I am now, and single than stuck with somebody I can't stand. 
• I'm grateful for all my friends and acquaintances, even if we just talk on Facebook, because you make me feel loved and not as weird as I think I am in my head. But I'm especially grateful for Bethany, because we met when we were 15 and we'll both be 25 this year, which means she's been my bestie for 10 years. It's really nice to have someone grow up beside you, and know all your stories so you don't have to explain it all to them. Actually, she could probably finish all my stories for me with better accuracy than I could. 
• I'm grateful for books, literacy, and imagination.
• Food. Enough said. 

I know I've missed a lot, because I have so much for which to be grateful. Thank you, if you're reading this, for being here and being awesome. And Happy Thanksgiving!

(Or, as they say in the south with the emphasis on "thanks" and no "g" at the end, THANKSgivin'!)

Glampiracy.

So, a while back a friend of mine (who has such a charming blog...you must go there NOW) coined the term "Glampirate" as a nickname/verb (we go "Glampirating," often to Steak'n'Shake and Goodwill and/or Plato's). I think this came about the time that everyone thought that a "Vampirate" (being a vampire-pirate) was the best thing ever, and she just made a clever play on words. Anyway, the other day I came across this editorial featuring Kirsty Hume in Elle, and it EPITOMIZES "Glampirate!"

Photo credit.

I love the whole aesthetic. I like the sparkly-girly-glam bit and the rough-and-tumble, just blown in from the high seas look. 

I also totally wish I could dress like this every day in real life and get away with it. Alas.

Just thought I'd share! I found it inspiring/cool, especially since I have a history with "glampirating." *_~

I understand the language of waves.

Lose job. Best friend takes day off work to go to beach to "celebrate."

Best place to be. :)

(We found a manatee preservation park! There were none there...YET. But now we know it exists!)

Tell me I'm not lucky, and I'll tell you you're a liar.

"...look around at all the beautiful houses. Something in the way that blue lights on a black night can make you feel more..."

The other night, Bethany and I went Christmas light looking!

(May I just say that it's very nice to have her in town? Because it is. *_*)

Anyway, my parents used to take Michael and I here as kids. We'd get in the car, go through Starbucks, and listen to Christmas music while driving around. Sometimes we'd even take the dogs. This whole neighborhood gets into the spirit...everything from music-coordinated light displays, to those plastic blow-up things, to entire Christmas Villages constructed in garages! It's really outstanding and I can't recommend it enough. Anyone in the area needs to go check it out!











Pictures do it absolutely no justice. The address is 5651 Garden Grove Circle, Winter Park, and if you're looking for a wonderful way to spend an evening in Christmassy spirits, look no further! Go see it for yourselves!

Puddlejumping and "Tubthumping."

It was a dark and stormy night.

No, like, LITERALLY.

So Bethany and I have been planning a trip to Downtown Disney (more specifically, the Rainforest Cafe) for well over a year now. She had a gift card and neither of us had been before, so we were like, "YES, we are doing this." So we got all prettied up--wore dresses, actually DID our hair and makeup--and decided to go.


We got there and it turns out there's this neat little ferry that takes you from place to place (it's FREE) so we decided to ride it out to Rainforest Cafe.


So as you can see, it was sunny and nice and everything was awesome. The destination:


We got there and ate this DELICIOUS appetizer sampler dish (we split everything...including drinks. Sorry, waiter!) and had the most amazing frozen raspberry lemonade on the planet. We actually ate outside because it was, no pun intended, a zoo in the inside. And we actually wanted to be able to hear each other talk and stuff, so we ate on the deck by the water. Then we went inside and looked around.


Bethany thought this penguin was an owl (it IS a penguin, right??)



And we found some weird pimp/hippie hats (Disney merchandisers, wtf.).



That's when things got sketchy (and not just because of the pimp hats). While we were eating outside, it got progressively darker (like that scene in the first "Pirates" movie when Elizabeth Swan falls into the ocean and the weather changes like *that*). We brought umbrellas with us so we were like, "Yeah, we're good. It'll probably pass in an hour or so."

Umm, FALSE.

Let me just show you the satellite image from last night:

Neither of us bothered to check the weather. MAJOR planning fail.

So we left the restaurant and started to walk, in the rain, around Downtown Disney. We made it about 20 yards before the rain became a torrential downpour, so we ducked inside this massive Disney store for a while. And we were there FOREVER. And here's the really stupid part. We were in heels, right? So they hurt. And we were wet. So we found a little corner to sit down in and just wait until the rain lightened up. But OH NO. Apparently, you're not allowed to sit. Anywhere. Ever. Seriously, for being the "happiest place on Earth," Disney (and their employees) and pretty effing annoying. Especially considering it was basically a monsoon. And the store was PACKED with people all trying to just wait it out.

So we stayed there for like an hour being bored out of our minds and shooed away like a couple of stray dogs before we decided we'd had it. So we took off our shoes, popped the umbrellas and decided to just go back to the car where we could at least SIT until the storm had passed.

Well.

Let me just show you a map of Downtown Disney, complete with our various locations and the path we took, in mid-calf deep water, to get there:


We. Were. SOAKED. And for those of you who were wondering, both of us determined that wet chiffon may well be the most uncomfortable thing in the world. But anyway, this was epic. It was like Lord of the Rings, the "barefoot in posh frocks" edition. Bethany fell down (she's fine, btw). Her umbrella also broke halfway through. We sang "The Little Mermaid" songs at the top of our lungs because what the hell else are you supposed to do while running across Disney in a semi-hurricane? We encountered some lost old people. We got lost ourselves. We probably picked up some kind of weird thing from walking barefoot across an entire park. And then we FINALLY found the car.


This is Bethany's umbrella in the OPEN position.



So we sat in the car for a good while playing Pop Quiz on Beth's iPhone before it finally let up enough that we could SEE the road in front of us to get home (it was during this time that I introduced Bethany to Chumbawamba. Was I the only one who listened to Chumbawamba in the 90's? I thought they were awesome because they were English! Granted I was like, 9...).

So yes. Overall, it was wet but it was AWESOME. I haven't laughed that much in a looong time. And I was just ecstatic to see my Friend in real life instead of on a computer screen. :)

:DD

I am SO excited!!!

Okay, two things.


First, I got my syllabus for Gothic Literature which I'm taking online.
!!!!
I have to read 7 novels, 9 articles and short stories, write 3 papers and have weekly quizzes and discussions.


I am SO excited! And SHOCKED. That is a lot of reading. And that's only ONE of my classes. My life is about to go from 0 to 100 in nothing flat. But I'm so ecstatic because the reading list is so incredible, and some of these books have been on my "to read" list for quite a while. I'll finally get to read some Ann Radcliffe and The Castle of Otranto, both of which feature prominently in Northanger Abbey, one of Austen's finest.

This is why I LOVE literature. It's all interconnected. It's like a massive spider web spun from words, and everything somehow can be traced back to other fibers of the web. It is so deliciously exciting and I adore it. I wish everyone got this worked up over words on paper, but alas. It's a hard job, but someone's got to do it. ;)


Secondly, Bethany will be home for A WHOLE WEEK longer than we originally thought! She was only going to be home for a few days, but now I have even longer to see her before she goes away again (until like, CHRISTMAS). This makes me quite happy.


FINALLY something of substance to post! And good news at that! Hooray!


Also, thanks, Half.com, for selling obscure Gothic titles on the cheap. :)

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

This post is about my best friend, Bethany, and the fact that I'm happy we've been friends since we were like, 15.

We've been to a couple formal things together (we like to unintentionally match)...



We will always take our best picture ourselves (you know, the arm-stretched-out-myspace-self-portrait kind).

And when we take pics, I will almost always be on the right and she will be on the left (but to you looking at the pic, it's reversed. VISION FTW.). It's also nice that we're not in our awkward puberty phases anymore. ;)

And the more things change, the more things stay the same. Like, I will wear skirts to the beach (because for whatever reason, my messed up mind thinks this is LOGICAL) and Beth will wear capris. And the beach will always be our favorite place to go.

I have bazillions more photos, but these ones just highlight that even though we've grown older, we haven't really grown apart. Which is pretty awesome. And she's pretty awesome. It's okay to be jealous.

I'm sad because she lives 4 hours away now, but we talk almost every night and try to see each other as much as possible. Also, she's studying to be a Physician's Assistant, which means that she a) works her butt off, b) is smarter than I am and probably smarter than you too, and c) will end up saving lives like the heroic BAMF that she is. She's a really hard worker and the best studier I know and so whenever I feel useless and unmotivated, I think of her and how persevering and hard working she is. I think that friends should inspire you, and if they don't you probably don't need them.

So even though I miss her, it's okay.


TL;DR: I have a best friend and I miss her and she's cool.

Words of wisdom...

...from my best friend.


I'm pretty lucky to have people like her who routinely send me emails filled with joyous things like this. TAKE HER ADVICE and have a lovely weekend!

True story.

Accurate.

♥