just another part of me

I was kind of a slacker the last couple of days with my Holidailies posts, but we are allowed to miss a few days, and I had a good reason. Katie is home! She lives in Washington state, so I only see her once a year. This year (fortunately for me, not so much for her, since her visit home this week was not for a pleasant reason), I get to see her twice! She’s home this week and will be back again on the 23rd for more debauchery. And debauchery there was last night. I only ever really drink – as in, drink more than one alcoholic beverage in a row – when Katie’s home. She bought beer for herself and her friend Rance, and since I don’t like beer…well. She bought me bottled mojitos! Mojitos are my drink of choice, and these were really good; a little rum with a spearmint gum chaser. Mmm.

It was a good night. We watched Moonwalker because Rance and I love it and Katie had never seen it, and I powered through three mojitos in roughly two hours. By the end, it was kind of drunken Moonwalker, at least for me. Rance and I spent the entire movie yelling things like, “Michael Jackson is THE SHIT,” while Katie spent the movie yelling that plus, “Who WROTE this?!” and Rance and I would laugh hysterically. I demonstrated my ability to go up on my toes like Mike, which was fortunately before the mojitos started, and we decided that, “The whole world should take drugs because of me!” is the best line in the history of ever. When Rance started referring to them as “droogs,” that was it. I was done.

Last night was the first time I was the only tipsy person in the room, the first time I attempted to knit while intoxicated, and the first time I had to be driven home in my 25 years of existence. It was a good night.

Today I’m back in the Holidailies swing, and the prompt is one I’d like to answer. :)

Tell us about an odd-but-beloved holiday tradition you or your family celebrate.

Our tradition really isn’t that odd if you’re German, I think, but we didn’t start it because of our German heritage. Every year, my mom hangs the Christmas pickle on the tree, and us kids (who would be me, my brother, and Scott, even though we’re all over the age of 21 and look a little silly) race to find the pickle first. Whoever wins gets an extra present! I’ve won every year for the last four or five years. I’m excellent at The Christmas Pickle game, even though I’m short and have a marked disadvantage. We started doing the Christmas pickle about eight years ago. My ex-boyfriend’s mom did it at her annual Christmas open house, and I loved it so much I told my mom. She didn’t believe me, googled it, and found a pickle ornament of our own. Voila! A tradition was born.

Mirrored from winged orange.

Well, my Monday morning actually looked a little crazy. It sort of started with me running back into the house, yelling, “I FORGOT MY PANTS!” In reality, I had put on the wrong pants – navy blue instead of black – gotten down the street on the way to work and came running back for the right ones, but I was reminded of this How I Met Your Mother episode where Marshall forgets his pants, and giggled the whole way.

I knew it was going to be an interesting Monday, especially because after that setback, I was still a good 15 minutes early for work. Monday’s starting off well.

Work itself was uneventful, but I felt like going to the gym, which hasn’t happened in while. I’ve been going, but I haven’t felt like it in weeks. Today I was really in the mood to go, which was nice for once. Monday’s not so terrible.

And then I get home and there’s a package waiting for me from Krissy! I love mail, especially spontaneous, unexpected mail. So I opened up the package and pulled out lots and lots of lovelies. Holy cow, Monday just got awesome!

Some fantastically bright knee socks, a promo badge from This Is It (because my lame-o theater didn’t have any, so Krissy sent me hers. Awwwwww. :), and…Moonwalker! I can’t even tell you how freaking excited I was by that. I love Moonwalker in a way I can’t quite explain and now I own my very, very own copy. SO HAPPY.

I really have pretty wonderful friends. Scott bought me a This Is It poster (and a 3 DVD set of MJ videos) out of the goodness of his not-particularly-MJ-lovin’-but-very-supportive heart when he was in the city a couple of weeks ago. Krissy sends me joy in the mail. Katie’s not buying me Ghosts for Christmas. Someone’s sending out a major love over here. You guys are awesome. :)

Other happiness includes the fact that I am done spinning for my alpaca scarf. I have a little more left to ply and then everything needs a wash and whack, but it came out exactly as I hoped it would. It’s slubby and thick and thin and underspun in some places and soft and squishy and fluffy. I tried long draw spinning for the first time with this project, and I really loved it. It’s going to be a really beautiful one-row handspun scarf. After the beaded yarn of DOOM, this was exactly what I needed to remind me that no, I don’t really fail at spinning. ;)

Also, over the weekend, we did Leaf Roundup 2009. I hate raking leaves, but we had a good weekend for it, some extra hands, and we managed to bang out the majority of the raking. We have 27 trees on half-acre my parents’ house sits on (I know), and they aren’t bare yet, but the rest of the raking will be maintenance, not a huge chore like it was over the weekend. Still, look at these leaf piles! They’re crazy! The leaves are (mostly) dry, but there are…so…many of them. What’s in the picture is maybe a fifth of the leaves. The piles are everywhere, all along the front of our house, and they are well over four feet tall. I’m 5′0″, and we had a picture of me next to one, but it was terrible. Still. You could kill me, bury me in the leaf piles, and no one would ever find me. Unreal.

And finally, revisiting Moonwalker for a moment, the final reason why I am joyously happy on a Monday. Remember that really fabulous batt I bought at Rhinebeck? The one I wanted all year? I knew there was a reason I loved it.

Yeah, that’s what I said. ;)

Mirrored from winged orange.

“Now, now, you’ll just have to be a little patient!”

I am an impatient person. This may surprise you, given my line of work, especially given that I was once pinched by a kid and really did nothing except to say, “Did you seriously just pinch me? Really?” I exhaust all of my patience reserves at work, on the road, running at the gym – basically, public places where I will be scorned and/or fired if I’m not patient.

When I get, home, though, all bets are off. Impatience abounds!

Right now, lots of good things are pending. I like this because I like good things and I like knowing that I have them to look forward to. I do not like this because – as I have stated – I am freaking impatient. I don’t want to wait for my good things. I wants dem NOW.

Things I Am Antsy For:

• My GREs to be over and done with (September 28)
• Possible KISS concert (October 10)
• LLOYD! (October 16?)
• Rhinebeck (October 17-18)
• This Is It (Halloween-ish, for me)
• New Bon Jovi album, The Circle (due out Nov. 11)
• Katie coming home! (December 23)
• Disney! (theoretically December 27, but possibly pushed to June. This may kill me.)
• My engagement!! (This is the only one I don’t have a date on. Just a cryptic time frame. Balls.)

Dude. I can’t handle it, especially because October is lined up to be the month of extreme awesome.

This really is a post with no particular point. I’m feeling a little goofy today – antsy and impatient and energetic and tired all at the same time. Today’s one of those days where I drove home with the music as loud as it would go and practically blew a vocal chord singing along with my iPod. I probably should have gone to the gym. I went yesterday and felt great, so I ran hard, and I probably could have used that today. I just don’t know what to do with myself or why I feel this way. Nothing really good has happened (yet). I just know I’m antsy. And I’m ready. :)

Mirrored from winged orange.