What to do, what to do

Once upon a time I had a headache so I got into bed early and started watching Cake Boss. During that time I fell asleep. At 9 my mom came in, turned my computer off and turned off the lights. Well now it is 3:30 in the morning and I'm wide awake! See mom, this is why I stay up late.

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The Christmas Card

Once upon a time I decided to create my own christmas card. It's great. It has stuffed sock reindeer, great christmas sweaters, and two fantastic cars on it. I'm quite proud of it actually. And now it's time to write my letter and send them off to a very exclusive group (that group being 50 people because costco prints by the 50's (I don't even have 50 friends)).

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The cul-de-sac

When I was six months old, my family moved into the house that we currently live in. Through the years we've had some change in neighbors, but not many. Almost all of the houses in my cul-de-sac were parade of homes houses in the 70's and most have not been updated, so the tenants are a little old as well. Three houses in particular have always sparked my curiosity because until recently, I had never been inside them. Not only had I never been inside the houses, but I had no contact with the people living there (with some exceptions). But a few years ago, the people living in one of the houses (the one right next door) moved and a young couple with two little girls moved in. Since the wife was one of my young women's leaders, I was able to go inside and see what the house was like. It kind of blew my mind to be honest. One mystery was settled.

The other two houses, the Allen's house and the Hausen's house, I got to go in tonight at our annual cul-de-sac christmas party.

Now before I finish this tale (it's rather confusing, I know) let me explain a few things about our christmas parties. Before our polynesian neighbors moved in, we had a lovely family live next door named the Westons. Sister Weston would always host the christmas parties and they usually involved a lot of singing and yawning. When I turned 12, the Pili's moved in and the christmas party turned into more of a food thing. And for some reason it always seemed to be at our house. Well to end this side note, the party was always something to be avoided.

This year, Mrs. Hausen decided that we really needed a christmas party because the one last year got cancelled (keep in mind I had never even seen this woman in my life and she's been my neighbor for my whole life). So Sister Sanders, the Martha Stewart of the cul-de-sac, decided to make this night a progressive dinner type thing. Instead of an actually meal, we would travel to 5 different houses and eat appetizers.

The first house was Sister Sander's and true to her style, everything was very elegant and nice. The food was excellent and it was good to see everyone. And then I noticed something strange... Mr. and Mrs. Hausen were there. I only knew she was Mrs. Hausen because she was with him and I've seen him driving every now and then. Even more strange, she knew our names and was friendly and outgoing to everyone.

Then someone said the thing that took me for a loop... the next house we were going to was the Hausen's. What!? So we walked over there and I found myself speechless drinking egg nog out of a crystal glass. Someone outdid Sister Sanders this year. Every inch of that house was decorated in christmas decorations. The food was excellent and the egg nog even better. After years of imagining the most extreme scenarios, I was almost disappointed to discover that they were quite normal and their house was normal as well. Two mysteries down, one to go.

The next house we went to wasn't necessarily a mystery, but it had been years and years since I'd been there that I didn't know what to expect. This was the Allen's house. Growing up, I always thought Sister Allen was way cool because she was Austrian and had a thick accent. Brother Allen has very sick for most of my life, so I don't actually remember seeing him, so I naturally thought he was austrian too. Come to find out, he's not. Anyway, when we stepped in I was again surprised to see that another person had outdone sister Sanders. Not only were there several different dips, but there was also baklava!!!! Who spends that kind of effort for a neighborhood get together? The saddest part was the next house we went to was ours and all we had was rice pudding.

Well the point of this post is to say that I learned something very important tonight, my neighbors are quite impressive. In a 10 house cul-de-sac we have two Japanese families, one Irish family, one polynesian family, one Lebanese family (the Hausens), and one austrian family. Everyone has a different background and I only wish that we would have put more effort into inviting all of our neighbors for the past christmas parties. Maybe that would have made them less painful.

The End

Oh and I almost forgot! The Hausens are our good friends now. In fact, after new years we're going over there to make some Lebanese cookies!

Finals Week

Finals Week is quite a different experience when you live in a freshman ward. The kids in my building and the buildings around me started studying weeks ago. Because of the increase in studying, the stress levels have gone up and the friendliness has gone down. It was quite entertaining for me to watch actually because I didn't feel stress until Sunday night, and even then it was only stress for my 7 am comparative government final that took place the next morning. So while everyone's been studying and stressing, I've been watching plenty of good (and by good I mean horrifically cheesy) holiday movies. Sure, I study, but I only study right before I take my test and then the rest of the day is free time in my eyes. To be honest, I studied and stressed way more in Spain for my finals than I do here. And besides the horrible 3 hr. nightmarish comparative government final, I've been doing pretty well. Multiple choice finals are the best!

Well I guess it's about that time again to get down to studying. This time chemistry and then I'm done for three glorious weeks!

Birthday and Motivation

Once upon a time I turned 19 and I don't feel any different. I think when I turn 20 I might feel old, but as for 19, there's no change... except I got a car!!! Yep! Pretty ecstatic about that one! But my birthday went well. I went to church, a building meeting where the girls sang a horribly awkward happy birthday to me, and home for scones. I also got to play some phase ten with my grandma, my sister, and my mom and I won. Yep, pretty exciting and relaxing birthday.

Today started off bad though. I woke up at 6 to write my last paper for comparative government and it was definitely the hardest one of them all. Because of that I barely got to class on time which means I didn't look at the current events and because there was no reading for today, the quiz was entirely current events. Great. But that class is basically over!!! Then I found out I did horribly on the chemistry test I took before thanksgiving break. Oh and I fell asleep in astronomy within two minutes of sitting down. I didn't even make it to the prayer. That's just sad. So today wasn't the best, but I did see that sam kid that was on the 5000 day project in the HFAC today and I kind of freaked out. If I were more outgoing I would have talked to him, but instead I stared at him creepily.

So after a somewhat disappointing day I plugged my ipod in and turned We Shot the Moon on. Immediately the song Hope came on and man how my mood changed. It brought me back to two years ago around this time when two good friends of mine stayed on skype with me for over 2 hours and since they're boys and run out of things to talk about, they serenaded me. And you guessed it, the first song they sang was Hope. I've loved We Shot the Moon ever since. Oh and then the next song was Sway Your Head which you should definitely listen to because it's great for motivation.

"You gotta pull yourself back together,

give it one more shot it's now or never,

with a new day calling for you

You gotta believe.

You gotta pull yourself back in the water,

take in one deep breath,

you're getting closer

After all you've talked and seen,

you gotta believe."

So bring on the end of the semester! I'm ready. I've got all this motivation now.

The End