an impending change

   Well apparently it’s been a really long time since I’ve reappeared in Blog-land. By “really long time” I mean just over a week, but that’s strange for a girl who’s used to checking Blogger at least twice a day.

   Finals week was insufferable as usual, but finished with a bang when I watched my best friend walk across a giant blue stage as he shook hands and accepted his college diploma. It seems like just yesterday that I awkwardly took pictures with him outside of our semi-dilapidated high school when he graduated four and a half years ago. Gee whiz.

   Now I’ve been home for the past nine days, thoroughly enjoying my 9:00am sleep-ins and home cooked meals. I’ve spent time with my sister, taken many quiet snowy walks with my furry friend, baked way too many sugary treats, wrapped numerous presents, sang Christmas songs possibly too loudly (as if there were such a thing…), and lounged in comfy clothes for a majority of the day. Can it GET any BETTER?

   But I can’t help but find myself thinking forward to this same time a year from now. Everything will change. I’ve never been one to be afraid of change, I am usually anxious about changes but find myself embracing them in the end. And it’s not that I don’t want these upcoming changes. I will be done with my undergraduate degree, I’ll be married, I’ll probably have a dog (I hope!), I’ll be studying for the CPA exam, and I’ll have to split my holiday celebrations between three households.

   Ever since I was little, Christmas has been a very intimate family experience. Christmas Eve was spent at Grandma’s house, enjoying a delicious meal with close family then annihilating an absurd number of presents, followed with pie and a dozy drive home scanning the sky for Rudolph. Christmas morning consisted of just the four of us enjoying Santa’s haul and a lazy day at home. Moving to Montana changed things slightly, but the idea has always been to keep it personal and calm.

   I’m marrying someone who comes from a split family. I’ve recently realized that this will most likely be my last Christmas spent in the cozy confines of my mountainous home, my four-membered family spending quiet quality time together. Next year I’ll be traversing our small valley with my new husband, cycling through the three families who very badly want to see our smiling faces.

   

   It will be so strange not waking up with my one and only sister at an earlier hour than usual, sharing the tiny bathroom while we try to make ourselves look good for the awaiting camera, getting tiny butterflies in our stomachs as we follow each other down the stairs and sneak peeks at what Santa left for us. It’ll be weird not sitting with my tiny family at our modest dinner table, eating the traditional quiche in our new Christmas pajamas. It’s going to feel odd not hanging out all day, passing the phone around to talk to and thank our dispersed family members for gifts shipped up north. It’s all just going to be so weird and I can’t stop thinking about it. And the worst part is that I know my little family is feeling the same way.

   So I’m trying to make this Christmas my favorite one yet. We’ve made Christmas cookies with friends, delivered goodies and carols to neighbors, shouted Christmas songs in the car with my sister, left candy canes downtown, watched innumerable Christmas movies, got excited for Santa, and gotten the feel-goods from giving gifts to loved ones. And it’s not even Christmas yet!

   I love my traditions, and as strange as it will be to have to change them and make new ones, I know everything will work out. Because everything always does. Change is hard but I’ve found that it’s usually pretty worth it!

Happy Holidays :) 

reminiscent

   I get told fairly often that I am reminiscent. I wasn’t aware of that particular characteristic before.

   Now that times are changing quicker than I ever anticipated, I find myself reminiscing more than is probably normal.

I reminisce about:

Lazy Sunday mornings at home, waking up at 10:30 and groggily making my way downstairs for a cup of coffee in my favorite mug.

Walking home from campus, enjoying the excuse to stretch my legs and daydream about my own cute cracker box house someday.

Spending time with my sister, never realizing how much I took those days for granted.

Lighthearted evenings with friends, all of us in that same semi-lost stage in life but filling our time with poorly cooked group dinners and cheap wine.

Listening to my favorite songs from my childhood, remembering how I’d dance around the living room thinking I was so cool in my tights and purple velvet miniskirt.

Telling my secrets to my dog and letting her sleep on my bed when no one else was home.

The soothing feeling of my mom running her fingers through my hair when I’m two seconds away from falling asleep on the couch.

Waiting anxiously for Garrett to come pick me up for dinner and a movie after he got done working on the farm.

Spending my summer evenings trying to beat my dad’s record of free throws on our makeshift driveway basketball court.

Talking to my childhood friends on the phone for hours just because we had nothing better to do.

   Reminiscing is funny, though. Soon I’ll look back at these days of trudging across campus, cramming for exams, eating whatever is readily available and inexpensive, and late nights of randomness and miss them just as I miss the others. 

this 'n that v.1

Yay for new link-ups! Jena is hosting a weekly funfest: This&That

This: Last day of classes! I had an exam today unfortunately and knew beforehand that I needed to get at least an 85% on it in order to not have to take the final next week. So I studied and studied and drank coffee and then studied more and took a nap and suddenly it was test time. This particular class (cost accounting, exciting stuff…) has computerized exams which is just awesome not. For some reason my brain can’t work through things on a screen as well as on paper. Anyway, the whole time I was taking said exam my heart was pounding and I kept thinking “what if I only get an 84%?! Wahh!”. At the end I forced myself to click “submit” and my score was immediately revealed: 87.3%! Ha! Take that, you technological meanie.

That: Today was Garrett’s last day of college classes EVER. What the hey? I swear it was just yesterday I was crying into my bad perm and twin-bed comforter the day he left me for college-land. And now he’s about to graduate. If I had a super power it would be the ability to slow down time.

This: I got a phone call from the bridal shop today saying my dress is back from being altered! Yippee! Now for another fitting and the addition of some bra cups…gotta give the ladies some lift.

That: It’s snowing. A lot. I kind of forgot it was December there for a bit.

settle down, you!

   It has been fairly windy here recently, which I am not particularly a huge fan of (no pun intended). My hair’s archnemesis is wind so whenever the two of them battle, I bear the brunt of the disharmony by looking like a complete idiot.

   For example, this was how I looked all day yesterday as I walked/ran around campus:

Please ignore my club-like hands. It's been a while since I've drawn a picture, ok?

   Seriously. Three tiny little strands of my spiderweb-like hair were constantly floating a good foot above my head. I kept having to reach up and grab them and force them behind my ear whilst most likely looking like a schizophrenic trying to shoo away air-demons. Why only those three strands? Why wouldn’t they just stay put? These mysteries of life.

   In other news, it’s dead week here in college-land which means two things:

One: next week is finals week

Two: I will have no life. 

   Bring on the never ending study sessions accompanied by pain and suffering! Winning.