Why don't I ever see shit this cool at our Walmart???

First: If you haven't been to PeopleofWalmart.com, you need to go there now.

Second: Imagine my surprise when I was casually scrolling through pictures, and saw this one!!! Why can't I see that here at the Kernersville Walmart? Do I need to go more often? As a general rule, I try to avoid Walmart whenever possible, but if I knew there were tigers in the parking lot, you wouldn't be able to get me out of the place!

(Here kitty, kitty, kitty!)

This is the tiger post. It was in South Carolina. Jeanette: do you know anything about Walmart tigers???

Third: What would happen if a little kid put their finger in there? Or... hypothetically speaking (of course), what would happen if a 29 year old put her finger in there?

Merry Christmas!

(ho ho ho!)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

I am so excited I can hardly stand it. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

(Ican'twaitIcan'twaitIcan'twait)

The Cutest Cookies EVER

Christopher and I stopped at Starbucks this afternoon, and I found the CUTEST cookies EVER! At first I thought they were just cat cookies – which frankly, would have been just fine with me – but after I looked closer, I realized they were The Owl and the Pussy Cat cookies!!! Even better than just regular cat cookies! What could be cuter?

(the pussy cat was a little broken)

(and they were tasty too!)

I'm pretty sure I want to go back to Starbucks and completely buy them out of their Owl and Pussy Cat cookies.

We Don't Own This Anymore!!!

How exciting is that?!?!? Now we can buy a new one! I am very excited about this.

Our realtor, Michelle, went to the closing for us this morning, and by mid-afternoon all the paperwork was recorded, filed, and finalized! She sold it in 40 days (after it had been on the market for over a year). I was starting to feel a little bad that we were bringing her 22-day average down, but I think Shannon and Nathan's house selling in 15 days balanced our 40 days. Woohoo! Thanks Michelle!

Almost Christmas Eve Eve

People! Are you watching that Christmas ticker up there??? In less than an hour it will be Christmas Eve Eve. If today were tomorrow, tomorrow would be Christmas Eve! I am so excited, I can hardly stand it!

Buster Cat Nixon, our little mountain goat, got so excited about Christmas he nibbled on a pickle this afternoon. This pickle to be more specific...ugh! He tried to eat the Christmas Pickle! I came home to find it broken on the carpet. I gathered all the pieces, and started piecing them together. I wasn't trying to save the ornament; I was just so desperately hoping that all the pieces were there. They were not. There was definitely some missing pickle. I googled "cat ate glass." It still didn't comfort me. I called the vet. They said to feed him so that the food would bind to any glass and hopefully pass safely. So - for breaking and eating an ornament, this cat got about 20 treats, and an entire container of the fancy cat food.

(Hardly seems like punishment...)

I love him so much, and I am so excited about Christmas, that I am not even going to complain about having to examine the litter box... Seriously, I'm not.

Just put it on!

The people have spoken, and 13.5 out of 15 people do not twist their deodorant and chap stick up and down. 13.5 people, you say? Well, Ouida and I wondered today at work if it was a family trait...so we immediately headed to Kendra's desk and made her put chap stick on. Kendra thought our request was totally weird and thought we were playing some cruel trick on her. But she opened it, twisted it up, applied, twisted it down, and then closed it. She doesn't do that with her deodorant though. So 13.5. (And this may be hereditary.)

For those of you who thought it might have been me that twists up, and then twists down...you are so wrong. So, so wrong. I don't care if I get a little deodorant or chap stick on the cap; it's a risk I'm willing to take. Lindsey put it best this morning when she said "that's time you are never going to get back." I did the calculations, and if it takes a second to twist up, and a second to twist down, and you plan on living to 100 (like I do; Smuckers jar, here I come!), you will have wasted over 18 hours of your life twisting deodorant up and down. That's TWO work days! And that doesn't even count the time you spend on chap stick!

To Twist Back or Not To Twist Back: A Survey

Our friend Jennifer just posted a question on facebook. She needed a vote - it seems that either she or her husband (and she wouldn't say who) think they should buy their dog this camo fleece hoodie (since he IS a hunting dog and all... albeit one who does not hunt):

CLEARLY, it must be Ed that wanted to buy the hoodie. And I agree with you Ed, you SHOULD get Buddy the hoodie! ;-) But Jennifer's question reminded me that there was something I was supposed to ask you all to vote on as well.

The other day Christopher walked in the bathroom as I was putting on my deodorant and said "It's so weird that you [insert either 'do this' or 'don't do this' here]." My reply was of course "No it's not. It's weird that you [insert the opposite of the previous statement here]."

You see: one of us (and I will not say who, so as to not influence the voting), when applying deodorant removes the cap, twists the deodorant up, applies the deodorant, twists the deodorant down, replaces the cap. Same goes for chap stick: remove cap, twist up, apply, twist down, replace cap. The other one of us just takes the cap off, applies and then replaces the cap.

I am fairly certain that my way is the normal way...but Christopher is, of course, also sure his way is the normal way.

Christopher fairly quickly noted "this seems like a poll for the blog." While, I think the way he applies deodorant and chap stick is ludacris, I like the way he thinks! So let's vote! What do you do??? Vote in the poll above, and while you are at it, leave a comment and let Jennifer know if Buddy should get a camo hoodie! You have until...uhm...let's say 7:00 pm EST on Monday to vote!

And It's Decorated!

Did you really think I would go the night and not show you the final product??? Silly readers!

Here it is! I am in love!

(beautiful!)

(The "Twelve Days of Christmas" ornaments from Crate & Barrel that I have wanted for YEARS, and finally got them ON SALE after Christmas last year! "Partridge in a Pear Tree" (with a pretty snowman))

(Nine Dancing Ladies)
(there are ten more...just trust me on this one. We don't have all night.)

(Christopher collects all the Hallmark Grinch ornaments)

(The Grinch and Max!)

(my friend Charity made this for me three or four years ago. It's paper, and I can't believe I have kept it together for all these years!)

(chubby penguins! There are six!)

(Christopher gets me the Hallmark Rudolf ornaments every year! Rudolf's nose glows on this one!!!)

(the Land of Misfits)

(I think you can all tell who this ornament belongs to...me, of course! Ha! Right. Not a chance. It does play the Sports Center (I think) theme song.)

(My Starbucks reindeer, and a glass teddy bear (with a little bit of another glowing nose Rudolf ornament, and also a little bit of a pewter NC State series of ornaments that Christopher gets each year. This year was Harrelson Hall, so I voted it be immediately kicked off the tree; I hated that building. Christopher vetoed my vote because that's were he "made A's in all his classes." Show off. It just so happens that's where I took MA107 FOUR TIMES. Seriously, yo - FOUR TIMES.))

(everyone needs a pickle! Do we all know the story of the Christmas pickle???)

(Christopher also used to collect the Dr. Seuss ornaments...but then Hallmark discontinued them.)

(Reese's Cups for Christopher)

(somewhere I have an entire Tupperware container full of these awesome S'more ornaments, but they are not where all the other ornaments were... Blast! I do have this one though!)

(Our "First Christmas" ornament..that we didn't get until after Christmas last year. We're also not crazy about the term "X-mas," but there aren't a ton of First Christmas ornament options out there, and we figured it was just a space limitation issue. I just put the picture in it tonight.)

(a flamingo from our honeymoon in Turks & Caicos)

(a beautiful Stone Lotus Pottery ornament)

(and another SLP ornament - there are new designs this year! I have some, but they haven't made it to the tree yet!)

(and finally a slice of pizza for ME!)

And there you have it - more than you ever needed to know about our Christmas tree!

TREEEEEEEE!

Geeze! I’ve been really bad about blogging this month! And this is the month when there is probably the most to blog about; it’s the most wonderful time of the year! Of course I couldn’t let tonight’s event go by without a blog mention…

WE GOT OUR CHRISTMAS TREE TONIGHT!!!

Buster of course thought that since we love him so much, and he is such a good cat (psh!), that we brought in this huge play toy especially for him...and then filled it with tiny small play toys. But that’s okay. That’s what this if for:

(32 oz. should last us through the week, right?)

(Gotta get a closer look! And what better way!?!?)

(It’s never good when you only see two feet. Of course, I guess that’s better than just a dangling tail…)

Surprised Kitty

This is what I would like for Christmas, please.

(I think I could watch this video all day...)

Farmville Part Deux

The last time we talked about Farmville, I had a modest, cute little farm. As evidenced below, things seem to have run amok since.

(Look at all those animals!)

I want to stop…but I don’t want to stop! I’m a Farmvillaholic.

And I’m certainly not going to stop now – not at Christmas – when they are bringing out all sorts of great Christmas items! Reindeer…clumsy reindeer…Christmas elves…toy soldiers…and this is just the beginning! Imagine all the Christmas stuff they haven’t even released yet!

(Do you see the reindeer there??? Regular and clumsy; the clumsy reindeer have the Christmas lights in their antlers and the red nose.)

Several weeks ago, they came out with an orange tabby cat. You know how I feel about orange tabby cats! You can see a couple of them in the picture below:

(See more Christmas items? The Christmas elf and the toy soldier. When I saw that toy soldier, I really thought it would be a bit smaller. It’s practically as tall as the house, for Pete’s sake! (who’s Pete???))

In my last post, it seems I tempted Amy into playing. And Amy had actually blocked Farmville! She totally loves it now - right, Amy? My next projects are Ouida and Lindsey. Ouida claims she has a kid and doesn’t have time, but I don’t buy it. (Okay – the kid part is true. She does have a kid…but I think she could mange a little crop harvesting here and there.) Lindsey just thinks she is too cool, but I think she is secretly curious. I pulled it up at work the other day to show her the reindeer, and she was asking all sorts of questions, and even wanted to harvest some trees. Girls: are you even the tiniest bit tempted?

Get in the Christmas Spirit!

It’s full-force Christmas mode now, and what better way to get in the Christmas spirit than to watch some Christmas movies!?!?

I think my favorite Christmas movie is The Family Stone. I love it! My friend Megan hates it. She says it’s too uncomfortable for her to watch and she feels bad for Sarah Jessica Parker’s character. Whatever. That movie rocks, and SJP’s character is a way annoying up until the time she hooks up with Luke Wilson.

I love that when my friend Brianna went to see it in the theatre she accidentally went to the subtitled showing. Hahaha! You know you can’t do anything but read the subtitles across the bottom when they are there…even when you already know what they say.

Christopher’s fave Christmas movie is the original animated The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, which was always my favorite as kid. My parent’s taped it on TV one night – old school style: record+play, stop at commercials, and pick up just a few seconds late after the commercials. I used to watch The Grinch and Frosty the Snowman over and over again. Great movies.

Also quite enjoyable for me over the holidays? White Christmas with Bing Crosby, Miracle on 34^th Street, Love Actually, and Bad Boys II. What? You didn’t know Bad Boys II was a Christmas movie??? Well, technically I suppose it’s not, but it’s probably my favorite movie and I got it on Christmas, and then watched it (to the dismay of my mom and Keith) about ten times on Christmas. Now I kinda associate it with Christmas.

(the dancing - it's my favorite!)

(*heart*)

(What about this doesn't say "Christmas???")

What’s your favorite Christmas movie???

Kitty-face’s favorite seems to be the Grinch as well…

Cincinnati…or is it two t’s and one n…? Two n’s and two t’s?? SEVEN n’s???

I never knew I didn’t know how to spell Cincinnati until my friend Jennifer moved there, and I had to talk about it in email. Crap. Another word to add to the list, along with ludicrous and fabulous. In my defense, the rap and hip-hop industry ruined those for me. See here – Ludacris and Fabolous.

Anyway, my friend Jennifer is in C-i-n-c-i-n-n-a-t-i, and she totally has a miniature person in her belly. Proof:

(I packed an extra bag just to fit my camera, and I took blurry pictures. Geesh!)

Two of my coolest friends, Brianna and Jessica, and I went to spend the weekend with Jennifer. The last time we all saw each other was at…my wedding…?

{photo credit: Sally Gupton Photography}
(Brianna is there, but you can’t see her.)

Ah! Here we all are!

{photo credit: Sally Gupton Photography}
(Somewhere someone’s mother has a picture of the four of us where Jessica, Brianna, and Jennifer are looking at the camera, and I am looking away. People: always look at the camera that is being paid! Carmen? Do you have this picture??? Cindy? You?)

We all had a great time. We had a ton to celebrate: Jennifer’s (and of course Joe’s) mini person, Brianna’s upcoming wedding, Jessica’s upcoming move to New Zealand for her NEW JOB, and the impending [hopeful] sale of our house in Raleigh! Jennifer actually took us out Friday and Saturday. What a good sport! (I SWEAR, we did not make her do this, and we did not stay out late.) We went to this one bar, and Jessica went to the bathroom…and gave Jennifer her beer to hold. You should have seen these girls across the bar. “That girl’s pregnant! And she’s drinking!” They totally looked like the type of girls that would make the duck face.

The Duck Face: Somehow we started making fun of “The Duck Face” on the plane ride to Cincinnati. It was basically the theme of the weekend. We all tried to recreate it, but I think Jessica came the closest.

Brianna’s and my attempts were pretty lame.

Jennifer couldn’t even keep a straight face long enough for a solid attempt.

We did meet this one little guy at a bar who had absolutely mastered The Duck Face. Brianna’s hand talked to him all night.

Saturday morning, Joe (Jen's husband) cooked us a GREAT breakfast, and then we went to this great little park and took a walk on a nature trail. I would love to share some pictures of that, but none of us thought to bring a camera… We also went to a new outlet mall – who wouldn’t have a good time there?!?! We were too busy trying things on to take pictures, but I did get this one of Jess after we had been waiting in line to get through a red light for 40 minutes. They hadn't quite mastered the traffic pattern at the outlet mall.

(Are we ever going to get out of here?)

So, we all had a great time, and I can’t wait to meet the little person when she comes in February. As Jacey once said to Ouida: Jennifer, “when are you going to hatch that baby?”