Holiday Season

It really makes me sad when I write a post that doesn't include a picture.  But not so sad that I don't write at all (as evidenced by my last four posts).  Let's be honest, if I enforced that kind of restriction on myself you'd see even less of me here.

So here you go - a photo of a book I bought on Halloween!

This my friends, is a "Thanksgiving Book."  A Thanksgiving Book, because it is about the man who created the balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

Jared picked me up from downtown that day because we were headed straight to Sara's and when I got in the car he said "So....just standing there on the street....reading a children's book?"  and I said "That's what makes me awesome!!"

Also awesome = this book. I LOVE having seasonally appropriate children's books out on my coffee table, but have always lacked a Thanksgiving representative because - as I'm sure you can imagine - most of the Thanksgiving books out there are stupid.

But I'm not here to talk about books (...tricked you with that picture didn't I?)

I'm here to talk about decorating for Christmas...which may start as early as next weekend.  As in, before Thanksgiving. *gasp*

This holiday season is all screwy timing wise.

I know that technically there are the same number of days until Christmas as there always are, because Christmas doesn't move, but with silly Thanksgiving moving, and being extremely late, it's thrown everything off.

It's moved my vacation with my mom later in the month, it's moved my Christmas party later (and to a weekday - what?!), it's reduced the number of full weekends in December before Christmas because the first day of December is on the Sunday of the weekend after Thanksgiving.  See? All messed up.

I went into last December convinced it was going to be awful, and in an attempt to make it #NotAwful, I packed it full with every single activity possible.  I'm more positive about this December, but I'm sure it will be just as busy, so I'm trying to reduce stress by moving as much prep into early November as I can.

Of course, in order to be ready to decorate, I need to finish cleaning my apartment first.  I made massive strides this past week.  My living room is "put back together" for the first time since March  - it's really quite amazing.  I wish I could keep up that momentum, but instead I'll use a hashtag that Beth created this weekend....

#ButCouch


In other news:

• Online shopping could eventually destroy me.  Instead of being that crazy old person ordering everything from QVC and HSN, I will be the crazy old person who loses everything to Amazon.
• I turned on the heat today for the first time this fall.
• Despite this past week trying to kill me, it was full of some awesome things like Gena coming to visit, and my episode of The Big Bang Theory airing...and some packages arriving...of things I ordered online.
• The ceiling of the parking structure is leaking...again.  It's a miracle my building is still standing.
• North Dakota photos have been posted to Facebook, so that trip happened.  Still on deck - New York, Tim and Emily's Wedding, Florida, and Chicago. (Maybe I'll post Chicago photos on the 3 year anniversary of that trip...)
• It was a #TeamSatrina weekend, complete with a rowing class, running, errands, and an awesome Garfunkel and Oates concert - Sara thinks we should be them next year for Halloween, which could be really funny.  I just need to find a way to be 4 inches shorter and 100 pounds lighter by next Halloween.  #WeTotesGotThis

Photo Friday

Here are three pictures related to the weather we've been having in Seattle:

This was actually on a post next to my parking spot at home.  The writing was facing away from my car.  I wouldn't even have seen it but I walked around the passenger side to get into the trunk.  I think it's fairly new (as in, new vandalism)...but what's interesting is that this appeared BEFORE any of the really bad weather came in.  Whoever wrote it must have known what we were in for.

On Wednesday night, most of Downtown Seattle shut down early.  Jeremy flew into town that day and we met for happy hour to catch up at Sazerac.  Walking over there from work was spooky.  Even though it was 7:30pm, it felt like midnight - EVERYTHING was shut down...............except.......URBAN OUTFITTERS!  They had this sign on their door letting everyone know they were still open for business.  I felt bad for them!

Snow to Ice - Icicles spotted on the way to work.  I really didn't take too many pictures of the snow...mainly because I felt like it was too cold to keep taking off my gloves, but I did stop on the way to work to snap this shot because the icicles were exceptionally pretty (to me).