Nothing to Complain About and Much to be Thankful for

Today has been a wonderfully cozy day, spent in my pj's, being safe, warm, and dry in front of a crackling fire, one of my most favorite ways to spend a cold, rainy Saturday. And I think I just spent 8 hours straight in this very same spot on my comfy couch, surfing the internet and shopping online. The person I love most in this world and the cutest, best kitty cat in the world have been my faithful couch-surfing companions throughout the day. And a nice Asian man brought us delicious crab rangoons and warm, coconut chicken soup for dinner. If that isn't the good life, I don't know what is.

Playing Catch Up

Please enjoy the following jumble of random thoughts....

• An interview can only reveal so much about what a job is really like. I'm not quite sure I knew exactly what I was getting into when I accepted this new position. It's not necessarily anything that's really bad, but it's just different than what I had expected. I am trying very hard to be open-minded and continue to adjust, but I am rather stubborn about some things and this is causing me some frustration. I can't wait until I can go back to school.
  
• There are two cats yowling outside of my window right now. I am home alone, and it is a very scary, very unsettling sound. But I find it very funny that my cat is intently listening to it with a bit of a confused look on her face. I wonder if those cats are speaking in a different cat language than she speaks.
  
• I feel like someone has hit the pause button on my life in some ways. I know what I want, but right now I don't have any control over how or when I will get there. Everyone else around me seems to be moving through their lives swimmingly, but I just feel like I have been put on hold.
• Speaking of things being on hold, we need to put some more serious work into our house. The next big project is going to be the office. We went and blew some serious cash on new furniture at IKEA several weeks ago, and I can't wait to actually put it to use. It will be so nice when that room is clean and organized.
  
• *sigh* I can't wait to be "done" with this house. I am proud of what we have accomplished, but I am so over the worrying, the doing, and the stressing. I just want to come into my house and not be bothered by thinking to myself about all the things we still need to do.
  
• I keep saying that I need to start exercising again. I don't know what it's going to take to get motivated to actually do it. I'm really good at coming up with excuses.
• I feel really fortunate that I have so many nice friends. And when I say "nice" I mean these people are good to the core, and I really appreciate that. At this point in my life, I don't see a point in hanging out with people that don't genuinely care about me, or that I don't genuinely care about.
• I had a really great time last weekend hanging out with some friends at their house on Lake Hartwell. We took the long route home on Sunday, and enjoyed the gorgeous fall weather and beautiful scenery as we drove through the mountains. I almost forgot how much I love the fresh air of North Georgia. We stopped in Dahlonega for lunch and ended up finding the cutest little hole in the wall of a restaurant, called The Crimson Moon Cafe. They even had some really good live bluegrass music, which I really enjoyed listening to while we ate.
• I miss going to random live music shows and knowing all about the good local music like I used to.
  
• Leftover hibachi chicken and fried rice with "yum-yum" sauce is freaking delicious.
• I had a blast dancing with friends at the most random redneck bar in Cumming for CD-H's birthday last night. There were a lot of really "special" people there.....Good times!
• We haven't been doing movie night the past couple of weeks, but I am hoping we will have time for one soon.
• I can't wait to snuggle up with a glass of wine next to a roaring fire in our very own fireplace. Hopefully I can get the chimney man to check our chimney out sometime this week to make sure our house is not going to blow up if we light a fire.
• I have been reading the first book of the "Twilight" series, and I gotta say, I am totally hooked so far. This will be the second entire book I have read this year. That's pretty good for me.... Hey I gotta start somewhere right?
• I love lazy Saturdays.
  

H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N!

I love Halloween. It has always been one of my favorite holidays. I have so many fun and happy memories from this time of year, both as a child and as an adult, and I think it's partly because of the traditions my family always honored year after year. Even now, there are just certain things that I have to do in order to really enjoy and celebrate the holiday.

For one thing, I always have to carve a pumpkin. There's no better family bonding than sticking your hand into a big pile of pumpkin goop, and eventually coming up with a creative design together. This year, I ended up attending a pumpkin carving party with my dad, where we joined family and friends from his neighborhood to see who could carve the most creative pumpkin. Two ghouling grueling hours later, I came up with this (and boy was my hand sore and cramped from those darn pumpkin carving knives):



I also love dressing up every year. There's just something really fun about coming up with a creative costume design and putting it all together for the big reveal on Halloween. I always have such a great time checking out everyone's costumes and seeing who has the goofiest, weirdest, or scariest idea. Of course, it's fun to watch other people react to your costume too. This year, I think we had one of the funniest ones at the party we went to, as DD was Luigi and I was Mario from the Super Mario Brothers! (If you are reading this and have no idea what I'm talking about then you are dead to me.) The mustaches we wore were pretty freaking hilarious, I gotta say. Check out my pics on Facebook!

We only got a few trick-or-treaters this year, but they were sooo cute! They reminded me of how much fun I used to have back in the day when we would go all over our neighborhood trick-or-treating, and getting so excited about how much candy we were getting.

I guess in some ways, I'm just not ready to admit I'm a grown-up.