About 2010.

Twenty. Ten.

This year has been one of the toughest of my 25 years. Truth be told, I have no idea how I'm still standing on two feet after the whirlwind of life-changing events that have happened in the past 365 days. It began with a sense of falling into a dark pit, with anxiety, with sadness. It continued on into neutrality. I was neither sad nor happy. I wasn't in a place relationally where I thought I should be. I wasn't in a professional position that gave me any sense of accomplishment or worth. I worried constantly about where my life was heading, if anywhere. I was totally in limbo. Not as bad as the pit, but not basking in the sunshine. Everything was speeding past me in fast forward and I was standing as a statue.

But then, come July, the halfway mark, things just jumped ship. Did a 180. Whatever you wanna call it, they changed. Like whoa changed. Give you a bit of whiplash changed.

All of a sudden, the tunnel that I'd been traveling through opened. The light shone. I could quit holding my breath for good luck.

In a week (yes, A WEEK)...

I got a new job. A job that basically put me on the track to exactly where I wanted to be in my career. Along with it came more job security, the benefits I'd been wanting, the responsibilities I'd been aching for.

The same week, I re-signed my lease. This time with confidence that I wouldn't have to worry about how I'd pay rent when my project ended abruptly at work.

And just as importantly, I met a boy. The boy. The one who swept me off my feet and and helped me take all of my burdens, bundle them up, and throw them away. The one who has shown me what I was looking for in a partner when I didn't even know what exactly I wanted.

It's ironic that this has been the year that has been filled with both the hardest obstacles to hurdle and the sweetest rewards. But after looking at it in hindsight, I realize that I've also filled this year with the most passion. Passion for love, passion for success, passion for life. Because of the hurt and the feeling of stillness, this fire lit under me and I delved into making myself the best she could be. I think that was the key. I had to concentrate on just me for a while before I was to be blessed with anything else. I'm not saying that my actions had anything to do with my great fortune in the past 6 months, but I do know that it's helped me to be more appreciative and perceptive about even the small things.

Isn't it funny when you add such a thing as passion to the recipe, things kind of work out for the best?

So, my new year's resolution for 2011 is this. To live even more passionately. To love the people around me with a burning fire. To give myself to my job in its entirety during working hours. To reserve my free time for God, for myself, and for others. To make the most out of the 365 days of 2011 that I hope I'm fortunate enough to be blessed with. I want to look back at the end of each year as I do 2010. I want to be proud and to be thankful and to smile at even the heartbreak because I know that each small, minute little step helped me to be where I am right this moment. Exactly where I belong.

Ain't no way there's gonna be a white Christmas...

Okay, call me Mr. Grinch, but I swore up and down we South Carolinians wouldn't see one teensy, tiny little snowflake on Christmas day. The boy was on a 12-year-old's rampage about how it was going to snow sooo much on Christmas and the Sunday after (and zomg Caralee we're going to make snowmen and snowcream and snow angels and everything else that we can possibly think of that uses the word s.n.o.w.!!!), and I just kept squashing his hopes saying that there's no way anything that amazing will happen in GREENVILLE. Go ahead and give me the worst girlfriend of the year award.

Alas, I'm sure you're aware, I was utterly mistaken.

I need a tan.

It's funny, though. There was already something magical going on this Christmas. I was so excited about staying at my parents' house and celebrating and spending the boy and my's first Christmas together, and the snow just added to it. It resulted in the re-arranging of many plans because of the road conditions (don't hate on us, notherners-who-can-drive), but it made way for relaxation time and snuggles and extra coffee. If you know me, there's not much else I love more. Especially coffee. Okay okay and snuggles. Pshwhatever.

Okay, maybe I just like snuggling with him.

And now. It is over. I'm exhausted from playing ping pong between families' houses and eating my freakin' weight in turkey and dressing (whyyyy did you pick a month after Christmas to have your wedding WF? I won't have lost my December gut by thennnnnn!!), but I am happy. And a little chubbier. But happy nonetheless. 

OOOOHHHH and also! I might've received a new camera for Christmas because of my incessant ranting on this here blog about my broken camera and my lack of motivation to take it to get fixed. I knew all that talk wasn't for nothin'. ;)

One last Merry Christmas, y'all. I sincerely hope it was fantastic for everyone! Now...enjoy a few of my favorite pictures from the holidays!

Yeah, I like to smell your butt. What of it?

The Fam.

Tree! I apparently am a failure at taking clear pictures. I'll get there.

My cookies. Remember, I'm awesome at Christmas.

The boy's cookies. I love him for many reasons. Cookie making is not one of them.

His redemption!! The pretty much ONLY good looking cookie he made.

I'm bursting with pride.

Buzz, can I sleep in your room? I don't want to sleep on the hide-a-bed with Fuller. If he has something to drink, he'll wet the bed.

Obviously, I just got done watching Home Alone.

And NOW I HAVE WATCHED EVERY CHRISTMAS MOVIE I OWN. Tragedy! It's Christmas Eve and I don't have anymore movies to watch!!

But, we won't dwell on the negative. The positive? It's Christmas Eve!!!!!!!!!!!!

For some reason, I'm so incredibly excited about this year. I'm excited about spending the night at my parents' tonight, about having the boy and I's first Christmas together, about waking up in the morning, opening presents and drinking coffee with my mom, about doing absolutely nothing tomorrow afternoon...about everything!! Side note: I hope we have biscuits and sausage gravy tomorrow. We always have that. I neeeed that. Calling Mom now....

Anyways, I know this sounds harpy, but I do want to take a minute to recognize WHY I have the chance to be so excited about the holidays. It's because my Jesus was born. And it is gift enough to be able to call Him mine. I don't know about you, but I'm gonna make sure to remember the real reason for the season, be thankful and celebrate. :)

Sugar plums and sparkles and sprinkles and everything else fabulous...

So remember how I told you I was going to bake and take pictures of it all and even mail you some of my goodies (okay I never said that) and it was going to be amazing? I know I failed at all that the first go-round, but hark. the. heralds. I proved you all wrong and baked the first of my Christmas goodies last night. Booyah.

Of course, this was after I spent $85 on baking goods, paper towels which were supposed to be on sale but weren't (haaate), a roast for beef stew tonight and moooore baking goods.

This is how all that turned out.

Santa came early and dropped off all this stuff because clearly he's evil and doesn't want me to fit into

any of my pants. Even sweatpants. Misery loves company, is what he told me. Jerkface.

So, anyways, my friend MR gave me this awesome recipe that she made for our ornament exchange last year. She was also nice enough to come chaperone me while I made it last night. It went a little something lik this:

Me: Is this good?

MR: Ummmm, not even a little bit. You have to crush them into tiny pieces.

Me: But my hand hurts...can I just let Sam chew them up and regurgitate them so they'll be small enough? I mean, if that's too gross, I guess I can chew it up myself.

MR: Let me do the rest. Get out of the kitchen.

Just kidding mostly, but she really was a great help, and gave me some awesome tips to make my sweet treat the best it could be. Thanks, friend!

This is what I sent the boy last night with an uber-cheesy "sweets for my sweet!!" type message. I swear, the later it gets at night, the more I lose my mind. I'm serious. That, my friends, was a corny message. And probably also why he didn't even bother to respond.

Still yummy, though.

After a lot of crushing and pretending to be the Hulk or a construction girl with a hammer (I smashed my peppermints with a hammer, yes), and me stressing out a little bit because chocolate is so testy when it's being melted over a burner, and the whole waiting game for the stuff to freeze, I finally came out with my finished product.

(A picture will go here eventually when I get on the ball and take one)

And yes, it is delicious. Especially since it has mine and Sam's slobber all in it.

Here is the recipe, lucky dogs:

PEPPERMINT ICE CREAM SURPRISE

20 chocolate wafer cookies, crushed1/2 stick softened butter
1/2 gal. peppermint ice cream*** (see below)
1 c. confectioners' sugar
5 oz. evaporated milk
6 oz. chocolate chips
9 oz. Cool Whip
1/2 stick butter
Mix cookies and softened butter and press into 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan. Spread ice cream over cookies and freeze 2-3 hours. In saucepan mix: 10X sugar, chocolate chips, milk, 1/2 stick butter. Boil until chips melt - cool. Pour and spread over frozen layers. Freeze 3 hours. Top with 9 ounce Cool Whip. Freeze.
Defrost 10-20 minutes before serving. Serve with chocolate sauce drizzled over the top. Makes 15 servings.
***you can either buy peppermint ice cream in the store or you can make your own. what i did was buy vanilla ice cream and crush up peppermint candies and mix it in and add some peppermint extract and just kinda add it in small amounts and keep tasting until its to your liking.

Warning: don't read this if you're hungry...

Ohgoodlawd, I have found the pentultimate of all peppermint-chocolate recipes. I think. I haven't actually tried to make it yet, but with a picture like that and Food Network as the host website, I'm willing to bet at least my right foot that it'll be delish.

So the previous post about me baking stuff and taking pictures? Yeah, that didn't happen. I can't remember exactly what I did instead, but it wasn't that. It also wasn't trying to bake and making a mess and then telling you a funny story. It seems like it might've been more like having a couple friends over and trash-talking for most of the night. But I can't know, things like that get a little blurry.

Anyways, to make up for not actually doing my baking, I surfed the net today for good, Christmas-y recipes. As a generation nexter, I know I can always succeed at finding stuff on the Internets. Me = .5, Baking = 1. I'm catchin' up!

So here you are. My favorite thus far...

Chocolate Cheesecake Candy Cane Bars 

Chocolate, pictures, and utensils. But not really utensils.

I'm going to bake tonight. I'm also going to attempt to take pictures of it (even though my camera is still broken) and document it on here.

But then again, I might just make a complete mess of it and tell you a story, because somehow, I think I like that better.

Sadly, I'm not a photo documenter. If that's even a word. The red squigglies aren't underneath it, so I'm going with yes.

If you'd like me to start putting more pictures on here, you're more than welcome to fix my camera or, better yet, just buy me a new one. I think I like that last option. And once, again, if you do, I'll tell you you're awesome at Christmas just like me.

LH's Tree Topper - I figured I'd start off on a good foot with my photo-taking venture.

Things that have gone on this week...

• Did you know that there's really a bug called the woolly worm? I know this because we found one at work. Did you also know that you can look at the thickness of its black stripe on its back to see how harsh/mild the winter will be? I do, now! Also, according to THIS woolly worm, we'll be having a mild winter. I'm taking him home to see how right he is. If he's wrong, I'm squishing him. Jk jk jk. He's like the smaller, more easily tamable version of a groundhog. Fantastic.
• I am kind of awesome at Christmas. My tree has been decorated for weeks, I also put up and decorated the two trees at work and did LH's tree topper and wreath. ALSO, 90% of my presents are wrapped, which, if you're not so quick on the draw, means that I am d.o.n.e. with my Christmas shopping. Thaaaat's right. Be so jealous, all you late Christmas shoppers.
• LH and I are planning a Christmas party for the night before Christmas Eve. Tacky sweaters, gag gifts and dirty Santa. I need a gooood gag gift, so ideas are appreciated. I'll even tell you you are awesome at Christmas just like me. Give credit where credit is due, I say.
• My car.....is sick. Thankfully, I have a boy in the automotive industry, so I'm not paying as much as I should, but holy smokes MUST it happen during the holidays?!?! And during the time where I'm fronting a large sum of money for WF's bachelorette cabin?!?! I think it's because I'm so awesome at Christmas. I can't have it all.
• I've realized that if I can make it until 10 a.m. at work everyday, I'm golden. After that, one hour until eleven, when I kind of start kicking into lunch mode. Then one hour until 12, when the bosses leave for lunch, then I go eat at one. Get back at two and have three more hours to go, easy as pie. As you can see, I spent a good 45 minutes of my work day yesterday (between 8 and 10 of course) figuring this system out.
• That's all I got. Oh look!! It's 11:18. Almost time to go home!!