Christmas update!

Kevin tells me that my blog fans will be quite upset if I don't post soon, as seeing as how we will be running around crazy for the next few days, I figured I would post a holiday wrap up (get it, wrap? wrapping paper? bah, you guys are no fun.)

On Christmas Eve we went to Mass with my parents and brother and then joined them, along with our family friends the Miscavages, for dinner at my parents house. Previous to this, I spent about two days in the kitchen baking desserts and cookies for the holidays and to give as gifts, so I can honestly say that our new kitchen can't come soon enough! I'm so sick of that awful old room. Here's a pic of Kev and I in our gingerbread workshop:In related culinary news, we had to make the purchase of a new fridge since ours was truly at the end of its life and our new cabinets have been ordered! Construction will begin in January.

I was also completely remiss to mention our holiday cookie bake with Etown friends, which this year took place in Germantown, Md. Sorry girls! We had a great time catching up and baking.

Anyway, after opening gifts on Christmas Eve with my family (and getting to bed at around 2 a.m.) we woke up Christmas morning to open our gifts here (taking approximately 27.6 seconds; I got tickets to see Les Mis in NYC and Kevin got his Etown baseball jersey framed) and then we headed to his grandparents in South Jersey for breakfast with the rest of Kevin's immediate family and Msgr. Martin, who conducted our wedding Mass. The rest of the day was spent at Kevin's parents house; it was nice to visit and relax with everyone!

The day after Christmas resulted in more kitchen time for me, as I was making Kevin's favorite dinner, meatballs and gravy, for his family who would again be dining with us that evening. I also had to make the famous Masciulli birthday cake, which I am happy to say turned out of the pans perfectly, even if the icing was a little thin. The whole fam was together again in the evening to celebrate Kev's 27th birthday with some singing, much to his chagrin.

Today we had breakfast with Mark and Cara Dixon and their 3-month-old, Samuel. Shortly we will be heading to Atlantic City for a TSO concert tonight and then tomorrow to York to visit with friends and family.

Whew - thanks for reading and staying up to date on our crazy lives!

Sometimes a rainy day is nice...

If you'll recall, part of the point of this blog was that I could do some creative writing. The prompt I was working on was to list 10 things you'd like to do on a rainy day, pick one and free write about it for five minutes. For those of you who are unfamiliar, a free write means that there is to be no censorship, just continual writing on a topic or string of topics, wherever your brain leads you. Here's my product:

10 things I like to do on a rainy day:

Sleep
Read
Go shopping
Cuddle up with a good movie
Cook or bake something
Clean the house
Make photo albums
Eat some soup
Call a girlfriend and catch up
Listen to the clock tick


It has been so long since I’ve been home on a rainy day, let alone have time to read a book for pleasure and not have anything else on my agenda for the day. I have a stack of books on my nightstand that need to be read and who knows when I will get to them. Gone are the days when I used to have a book with me at every lunch; I would sit down to eat during the summer at exactly noon every day and my family would laugh at me. But I would spend an hour sitting at that table, even after I’d finished my lunch, just reading my book. I would read the same books over and over, nothing special or earth shattering, just the same pre-teen stories that I felt comfortable with. There was nothing challenging about those tales, but the safety of reading them repeatedly, the knowledge of the characters and what would happen next (namely, a happy ending) is still something I find myself looking for today when I get suckered into reading fanfic on the Internet. That search for the happy ending, the tucking of that last loose end into the sunset of a story, somehow makes me feel content and safe inside again, like eating my Spaghetti O’s and knowing what was going to happen in the next chapter. I have to admit, my standards are much higher now – not all fanfic is created equal. I can’t take anything that’s missing dialogue and I’m still a stickler for proper capitalization and spelling, but there are some pretty good writers out there crawling the Web, some of them close to the real thing. I have written some fanfic myself (nerdy, I know) and although it’s been a good practice in structure, it gives you no practice in character development because you are using people who’ve been made up for the purposes of a TV show or movie.

Not too bad, but it's not going to get a Pulitzer either. Oh well, it's a good exercise to stretch those synapses!

In other news, my mom's family, the Forsters, just celebrated their family Christmas this past Sunday! Some pictures of the fam and our new cousin, Samantha Forster.

Celebrity Look Alikes

I saw this on our friend Erin's blog and had to check it out. It's hilarious because when you look at Kevin's, one of his matches is Jason Biggs and our friend Mentha always used to say that they looked alike! Technology has proven you correct, Menthie! We got a good laugh out of that one!

http://www.myheritage.com

http://www.myheritage.com

Stick a fork in me

I'm done! Well, in a manner of speaking.

Saturday was my final class of the semester, so I am happy to say that class is over for a few weeks. It's always a nice feeling and I'm finally relieved to be able to get into all the holiday tasks that I have been putting off. Today I met Lindy in Lancaster and we did some shopping at the outlets; Kevin went and got our Christmas tree so we finally have that up! It was nice to come home this evening and smell the evergreen in the house. Kevin has his final classes on Tuesday; after that we'll finally be able to relax and enjoy the holidays.

I got a few e-mails from people re: the IQ tests, so I'm glad you all enjoyed it and I hope it didn't cause any marital woes!

IQ

In class we got talking about IQs on Saturday and I have never taken an IQ test. I realize it's probably not 100% accurate, but I tried this test at Tickle.com http://web.tickle.com/invite?test=3001&type=t. I rated at a 131, which sounds about ballpark from our presentations in class on Saturday. I found this to be interesting, however;

Your Intellectual Type is Insightful Linguist. This means you are highly intelligent and have the natural fluency of a writer and the visual and spatial strengths of an artist. Those skills contribute to your creative and expressive mind.

Now off to finish research for my presentation next week, which will mark the end of this semester for me. In addition to that exciting news, Dad was here to measure our kitchen today for new cabinets. We are looking at a major overhaul project in there for the new year, so they'll be some home improvement pics up come January!

I got m'am-ed

Tonight at the supermarket, it happened. I knew that someday it would happen to me, but I've got to admit, I didn't think it would be this early in my life.

I got m'am-ed.

After I had meticulously loaded my groceries on to the belt (which is another subject for another blog) I told the cashier that my club card thingy didn't scan but I could give her the number. Not only did she call me "M'am," but she said it in a tsk-ing voice, which especially annoyed me since she was half my age, had bangs hanging in her eyes and talked more to the bagger at the next checkout than to me. But I digress. I couldn't believe my ears - someone was calling me m'am in a completely legitimate way. I use this term at work a lot, more out of politeness on the phone than in deference to age, but I think I will cease and desist all m'am-ing operations after the way it made me feel. OLD!! I asked her not to call me that again.

For the most part, I know you're as young as you feel, and I definitely don't feel 26. As Mark Twain wrote, "Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

Just be on the lookout. It happened to me; it could happen to you.

This turkey is stuffed

Hey y'all,

I have been staring at the writing prompt for this week and trying to think of something creative. Sometimes looking at other people's answers messes with my head - I should not do that in the future because I turn into a defeatist and convince myself that I won't be able to write something more creative. So I'll have to work more on that.

However, I did want to post some pictures from our Thanksgiving celebration yesterday. My Aunt Ginger and Uncle Steve hosted 27 family members and close friends at their house yesterday. Because the large party does not dovetail easily with their lovely, but small, home, they rented a tent with sides and borrowed a bunch of propane heaters to let us eat outside! Check out the picture of Megan with spoons on her eyes - my smart aunt used authentic-looking plastic flatware that was actually see through, doubling as T-giving specs. The set up worked out really well and it was so nice to have one large table to celebrate all for which we are thankful. The rain (100% chance according to The Weather Channel - that's not really a "chance," is it?) drummed down steadily, but it didn't dampen the festive spirits inside.

After an amazing meal, and an engagement announcement from my uncle Michael, we partook in a little Catchphrase rivalry, which was more entertaining than it was competitive!

Hope you all had a great holiday and got a big jump on your holiday shopping today!

The blogger

I guess I forgot to mention the reason for creating this blog! A little of it is covered in my profile. As noted there, I am looking for a creative outlet. As many of you know, I toyed with the idea of creating a blog last year, but that was vetoed by popular vote in lieu of continuing the monthly update e-mails. Well, in case you haven't noticed, it's been a while since one of those e-mails went out! We haven't had anything monumental going on and they were becoming a little redundant: work, school, etc.

Therefore, I was hoping that this blog would serve to allow for finer detail of our lives. It should be a showstopper. In addition to that, I am hoping to get a little more writing in. And the final reason is that, according to Kevin, I apparently have an opinion on everything (hence the use of "soapbox" in the title. If you'd like to know more about the origin of that phrase, check here and here.) One of my latest rants has been on George Bush and his creation of the phrase "the Google."

As some of you may know, Dubya was recently asked in an interview if he ever used Google. If you haven't had the pleasure of witnessing this interview, please take a moment. This is only 19 seconds worth - you may want to search for more (or not). This interview has quickly entered the pop culture lexicon because of the reference to the popular search engine as "the" Google. Doesn't really sound like a guy who's in the know, does it? Do you hear that? It's the sound of his staff, political party and children simultaneously slapping their foreheads. Secondly, he uses "the Google" for maps. Maps, people. The man, often referred to as the leader of the free world, has multi-billion dollar satellites as his disposal and he's looking up maps on Google? I mean, I guess we can rest assured that he's not wasting taxpayer dollars and abusing his executive powers. Granted, the directions are excellent, I'll agree with him there. The last thing that bothers me about this clip is the way that the interviewer is tossing her hair and giggling. Maybe she's just got stars in her eyes, but the reaction to his innane commentary is a bit much.

Needless to say, we've now taken to calling it "the Google" as well just for laughs. I must admit that I did vote for this man. Lastly I'd like to point out that my blog host, Blogger, the video links on YouTube and the search engine I used to find the soapbox references are all sponsored by - you guessed it - THE Google. It's taking over the world. Better watch out, George.

Christening the blog with klutziness

I find it fitting that on my first day as a blogger, I do something so characteristic of myself. No matter how old you get, you'll always be that 14-year-old inside (or at least, that's what it looks like right now.)

This morning I was rushing to get out of the house. I had slept to the last possible minute and also decided to straighten my hair for a function at work today, leaving a zero margin for error in my morning schedule. After all my bathroom routines, I grabbed my gym bag and started down the stairs. I was focusing on grabbing the iPod off the banister as I went by. This was when the fashionably pointed toe of my right shoe got caught in the fashionably wide and cuffed leg of my left pant and I started to fall. I fell the last two steps (could have been worse) and landed with pretty much all of my weight on my right elbow and hip. Ouch. Girlfriend has to lose some weight.

With that, I could feel the sweat brought on by adreneline crop up around my hairline, effectively curling all the hair that I had just straightened. I heard Kevin yell in a sleepy voice, "Are you ok?" I said, yeah as I brushed myself off, but he then suddenly bound out of bed and came running downstairs. I was fine, a little shakey, but ok. Needless to say, putting on eyeliner after that event was out of the question.

The point here is...I'm a klutz. I always have been, and it seems, always will be. I haven't had a really klutzy moment like this in a long time (ask Kevin!) and have gotten impressively adept at catching things before they fall or staying on my feet. Today, alas, it was not meant to be. I took some Advil when I got to work and I am fully anticipating being sore tomorrow, which is just a shame because I'm only 26. Or am I 14?