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All right, friends. I will be on vacay until Jan. 7th. I hope you all had a great Christmas and happy 2008!

Dec. 25th, 2007

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM SARAH AND HER FAMILY!!!

12 Days of Christmas correspondence

December 14th

Dearest John:

I went to the door today and the postman delivered a partridge in a pear tree. What a delightful gift. I couldn't have been more surprised.

With dearest love and affection,
Agnes


December 15th

Dearest John:

Today the postman brought your very sweet gift. Just imagine, two turtledoves. I’m just delighted at your very thoughtful gift. They are just adorable.

All my love,
Agnes


December 16th

Dear John:

Oh, aren't you the extravagant one! Now I must protest. I don't deserve such generosity. Three French hens. They are just darling but I must insist.... you're just too kind.

Love,
Agnes


December 17th

Dear John:

Today the postman delivered four calling birds. Now really! They are beautiful, but don't you think enough is enough? You’re being too romantic.

Affectionately,
Agnes


December 18th

Dearest John:

What a surprise! Today the postman delivered five golden rings. One for each finger. You're just impossible, but I love it. Frankly, John, all those squawking birds were beginning to get on my nerves.

All my love,
Agnes


December 19th

Dear John:

When I opened the door there were actually six geese a-laying on my front steps. So you're back to the birds again, huh? Those geese are huge. Where will I ever keep them? The neighbors are complaining and I can't sleep through the racket. PLEASE STOP!

Cordially,
Agnes


December 20th

John:

What's with you and those birds? Seven swans a-swimming. What kind of joke is this? There's bird crap all over the house and they never stop the racket. I'm a nervous wreck and I can't sleep all night. IT'S NOT FUNNY. So stop with the birds.

Sincerely,
Agnes


December 21st

OK Buster:

I think I prefer the birds. What the heck am I going to do with eight maids-a-milking? It's not enough with all those birds and eight maids-a-milking, but they had to bring their own cows. There is cow poop all over the lawn and I can’t move in my own house. Just lay off me.

Ag


December 22nd

Hey Butthead:

What are you, some kind of sadist?! Now there's nine pipers piping. When they're not driving me crazy with their incessant piping, they're chasing those milk maids all over the house. The cows are upset and are stepping all over those screeching birds. No wonder they screech. What am I going to do? The neighbors have started a petition to evict me.

You'll get yours,
Ag


December 23rd

You Big Jerk:

Now there's ten ladies dancing - I don't know why I call those women "ladies". They've been with those nine pipers all night long. Now the cows can't sleep and they've got diarrhea. My living room is a river of cow dung. The commissioner of buildings has subpoenaed me to give cause why the building shouldn't be condemned. I'm sic'ing the police on you. They know where you are.

One who means it,
Ag


December 24th

WHAT THE CRAP!?!

What's with the eleven lords-a-leaping on those maids and aforementioned "ladies"? Some of those broads will never walk again.

All 23 of the birds are dead. They have been trampled to death. I hope you're satisfied, you rotten swine.

Your sworn enemy,
Miss Agnes McCallister


December 25th

From the law offices of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe -

This is to acknowledge your latest gift of twelve drummers drumming, which you have seen fit to inflict on our client, Miss Agnes McCallister. The destruction, of course, was total. All correspondence should come to our attention. If you should attempt to reach Miss McCallister at Happy-Dale Sanitarium, the attendants have instructions to shoot you on sight. With this letter, please find attached a warrant for your arrest.

Dewey, Cheatem and Howe
Attorneys at Law

yeah for a good week!

This week has been FAB. After last Wednesday's Christmas Banquet, we don't have college group until January 9! That means three full weeks of catch-up and vacation!

It has been so nice to come into work every day and feel so productive. I'm not running around trying to get everything ready for Wednesday night. I have been able to get caught up on projects I kept putting off. I have been able to cross many things off my To-Do list. I've even had the opportunity to get ahead! Woo! Thanks goodness for breaks.

* Reading - just started Judges in my quiet time (I'm trying to read through the whole OT....who knew I'd like it so much?) and The Secret Life of Bees for personal reading. So good! Lily is my hero.

* Listening to - Josh Groban's "Noel" and Ciara's "Like A Boy" (it's the song my hip-hop dance is to, so I listen to it all the time and practice the dance in my office (with the door closed, of course).

* Watched - the dumbest movie last night. My co-worker Christian told me I HAD to watch Hot Rod. I would think it was the best, most hilarious movie EVER, etc. So he gave me his copy and after a week of putting it off, I finally sat down and watched it. Oh my word. I can never get those 87 minutes back. Dumb! I came to work today and told Christian that I was going to make him watch Anne of Green Gables as payback.

* favorite video on YouTube lately (thanks sister for showing it to me!): a 10-men-accapella group singing the 12 Days of Christmas. Very fun. Check it out here.

* I'm getting a massage after work today. Yeah for me!

* 4 more days until vacation!!!

The Hobbit!!

If you could see me now, I have a huge grin on my face and I want to step away from my computer and do a little dance of joy!!! I just read some amazing news on yahoo.com:

"After months of bitter legal wrangling, Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, and MGM Studios Inc. have agreed to make two movies based on the book 'The Hobbit' by J.R.R. Tolkien.

In a statement Tuesday, the companies said Jackson, the director of the smash hit 'Lord of the Rings' movies, and producer Fran Walsh will executive produce both a 'Hobbit' movie and a sequel, but Jackson was not named as the director. 'We don't have a director yet,' said a New Line spokeswoman.

The movies will be made simultaneously starting in 2009, and a tentative release date has been set for 2010 for the first film and 2011 for the second."

Ahhhh!! As a huge fan of both the books and the movies, I am beyond stoked that they are going to make The Hobbit into a movie (actually it sounds like they will be making two movies). I'm a little bummed that Peter Jackson won't be directing, because he did such a great job with the LOTR trilogy, but hopefully whoever they get will be just as good.

This post might make me sound like a nerd, and yes, on one hand I might be. But don't fret...I'm not one of those fanatics that wears cloaks everywhere and has a LOTR lunch box. I just enjoy good literature and film. =)

Bring on The Hobbit!!

oh, the ol' white elephant gift exchange...

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you might remember two years ago when I opened a bag of cement during our house's white elephant gift exchange party, compliments of Mr. Mike M.

And then last year I was duped again by M-squared to open his gift...which turned out to be a nasty, smelly, stain-and-hair-covered chair (that STILL sits in our garage to this very day).

The tradition was broken, my friends. I think turning 30 made me smart. I did NOT choose Mike's gift, and indeed that was a very wise choice. It was a toilet. NICE! Mike, you can keep coming to our party as long as you point out your gift before we start, so I can avoid it at all costs. =)

Other highlights of the par-tay:

* I stole a plastic blue Dunder-Mifflin lunch box from someone and was so excited! Not that I would use it...but it had the Dunder-Mifflin logo on it and I am a HUGE fan of The Office, so I was stoked. However, it immediately got stolen from me. Sad. So then I got a new gift which included a Starbucks gift card. SWEET! Also stolen. What did I end up with? A Kojak record and book set, some random DVD with a He-Man type dude on the front called "Masters of the Universe", and a bottle of "fcuk" cologne which smelled like nasty boy swimming in slime. ewww....

* Scotty G decided to spray me and anyone else nearby with the aforementioned "fcuk" cologne and I reeked like slimy boy for the rest of the evening. (I apologized profusely to anyone who sat within 5 feel of me) Thanks, Scotty!

* Our friend Peter made a 12-month calendar called "The Gordon Girls" (our house is called the "Gordon House") where he took swimsuit models and put our faces in them!! One picture for every month, so we each got two shots of glory. Everyone was screaming and laughing and shrieking and I kept wondering what it was they were looking at. When I finally saw, I was dying! It was so funny! And yet at the same time, it made me want to put seven layers of clothes over myself because I felt so exposed.

* the Jesus figurine that spouted off bible verses when you pressed his back and the bobble head Jesus for your car dashboard were big hits.

* Cara-friend decided to put red and green antlers on her dog, Mr. Darcy. He was less then pleased. He'd be all hyper and letting us pet him, but as soon as those antlers went on...he would put his head down, not move, sulk, and look at us with his big, pleading eyes as if saying, "Give me back my dignity." It was hilarious! I love your dog, Macsies. =)

* Towards the end of the night, my roomate Jessica brought out her marshmellow launcher. One friend stood on the other side of the room with a plastic cup on his head. We tried to shoot it off with the mini-marshmellows. Who knew something so silly could be so fun?! Well, it was at 1:15 at night so I think we were all delirious with lack-of-sleep by that point.

Another fun Christmas party! Thanks to all who came! See you all next year. (P.S. please note the toilet that was left in our living room at the end of the night, plus all the styrofoam peanuts that were also left behind and ripped up. Good times.)

Christmas Banquet

'Tis the season for the college Christmas Banquet!

We always end the fall semester with a fancy schmancy banquet where all the students get dressed up and wear something other than jeans. It was two nights ago and it was a blast. Some of the evening activities included: eating, taking pictures, making gingerbread houses (there were some very interesting ones...), singing, hearing the Christmas story, watching a slideshow of the semester, dessert, and having a white elephant gift exchange.

It's fun to look back on the last three and a half months and see all that has happened. All the fun nights, all the teaching nights, the fall road trip, the service nights, the friendships, the relationships, the break-ups, the hard conversations, the tears, the laughter, the goofiness, the lovin'! Yup, it's been a full, rich semester.

And now...sleep is calling me...it's hibernation time...

oh no they DIDN'T!

I was in my office with my intern Jeff...we were brainstorming a teaching series we want to do in the spring on Jesus...we couldn't think of a good title for the series so we decided to google "Jesus" and see if any inspiration hit...and we came across this...we screamed and laughed so hard, all our co-workers came running...

OH NO THEY DIDN'T!!!

this week

- has been emotionally draining

- I watched the Prince Caspian trailer. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out here

- I continued knitting my scarf

- we took the college students downtown to sing carols Wednesday night. It was amazing.

- I watched The Golden Compass. I think if I hadn't read the book, I would have found it a bit confusing. But I liked it.

- We had a bridal shower for our dear roomate, Jen!! She is getting married in January. It was so much dang fun.

17 days until Sarah's vacation....

favorite Christmas movies

Last night I was watching Elf and it got me thinking about all the fun holiday movies out there. So...INTERACTIVE BLOG. Share with us your favorite Christmas movie. It can be old-school (Rudolph or Frosty) or recent. Don't be shy. Let's all swim in the pool of nostaglia.

I'll start: mine is "It's a Wonderful Life". ("I wish I had a million dollars... HOT DOG!") It might not exactly be a Christmas movie, but it ends at Christmas-time and I always watched it around the holidays, so that is what I associate it with. A close second is "A Muppet Family Christmas". ("Careful of the icy patch!") That one came out when I was 10 and we taped it off T.V. and watched it all the time.

Ok, your turn...

Baking Day!

Every year at Christmas-time, my mamacita spends a whole day baking. It's tradition. My sisters and I have grown up looking forward to the goodies that result from such a day: brownies made from scratch (with home-made frosting on top), almond rocha, chocolate chip bread, sugar cookie cut-outs in Christmas shapes, banana bread, and much more. YUM!!

Well, this year I had the opportunity to actually join her for Baking Day! Myself and my sister, Liz. We spent hours poring over the recipies, whipping up the batter, frosting cookies, and I think I can safely say my mom's Cuisinart and I are now BFF's.

Pounds of sugar, flour, butter, and chocolate later...SUCCESS! Christmas treats galore! At one point during the baking process, I started thinking (probably a little too deep for baking time, but oh well): it felt like my mom was passing down all her secret holiday recipies down to the next generation. And now my sisters and I will be able to make these same treats every Christmas time for our loved ones. And the tradition will continue.

First knitting, now this. When did I get so domesticated? =)

knitting

Last night I learned how to knit! I'm so stoked. I learned how to crochet back in college but I've always wanted to learn knitting. I am working on a scarf right now. I will post a picture when it's all done.

What a great winter hobby.

flag football

Every year, the high school and college groups at our church play a flag football game, affectionately called the "Turkey Bowl". It was a beautiful day! The sun was out, the grass was green and dry, and the air was nice and brisk.



Final score:

High School - 21

College - 35

Turkey Day

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!

holiday movies

Here are some holiday movies I will see:



Here is a holiday movie I will NOT see:

This particular gem (Alien vs. Predator 2) comes out on Christmas Day. Are you freaking kidding me.

daylight savings

Is anyone else finding it difficult to adapt to the time change? I feel like I go through this every fall. By the time I leave work, it is already pitch black outside. And then the evenings feel sooooo long. It will feel like 10 pm, but really it's only 6:30!! Ack! Weird weird. I guess it just takes some getting used to. I definitely miss the long days of summer.

best new fall show

I am a LOST fanatic. It is my fav. show on TV. However, it does not come back on until February of '08. Grey's Anatomy has become painful to watch and even The Office is not as funny as last season. But fear not! There is a new show this fall that we should all be watching if we're not already: Pushing Daisies.
What are you doing Wednesdays at 8 pm? Nothing? Perfect. Check it out. (I feel like I should be working for ABC or something). Here's the story: the main character Ned has an amazing gift. He can bring the dead back to life...but only for a minute. He discovered this gift when he 9. His mom died while she was baking a pie (heart attack I think). He went over and touched her body. She immediately came back to life! But here's the catch...the magic has one flaw. If you bring someone back to life, they can only stay alive for one minute. If they stay alive after that, someone else nearby will die (to take their place).

Who died in Ned's mom's place? His next door neighbor. Little Ned had a crush on 9 year old Charlotte ("Chuck") next door. Her dad was out watering the lawn when Ned's mom came back to life. Because Ned didn't know about the "catch" to his magical touch, Chuck's dad died after a minute. Ned was horrified when he realized what happened. And then to make matters worse, that night when his mom kissed him goodnight, she died again. This time...permanently. Once Ned chose to keep something alive, he could never touch them again or they would go back to being dead forever. If you watch this 3 minute video, it can explain things a little better:

Two reasons I love this new show: 1) the Narrator is Jim Dale. Jim Dale is British and does all the voices in the Harry Potter books-on-CD. My roomates and I got into listening to them in our cars to and from work. Jim Dale can do over 200 voices of all the characters in the HP books! He is amazing. Just listening to his voice sounds like you are entering a fairy tale. 2) Kristin Chenoweth. I fell in love with her four years ago when I fell in love with the musical "Wicked". She played Glinda, the good witch on Broadway (and on the soundtrack). On Pushing Daisies, she plays Olive, a waitress in the pie shop with a crush on Ned.

The show is fun, colorful, entertaining, quirky, magical, and very sweet. Let me know what you guys think after you check it out.

I have T.F.

Lately I have been noticing that my right index finger has been sore. It hurts a bit whenever it touches something. What the heck is it from? I was going through all scenarios in my head and it wasn't until this morning I finally realized what it is.

I have "Text Finger". Or as I will refer to it from now on...T.F.

Some people may have T-squared or T.T. which is "Text Thumbs". Where they punch on their phone or Blackberry using their thumbs. I don't know why but I've always texted by holding my phone in my left hand and punching the numbers with my right index finger.

The point is people, I love texting. I do. At first, I was not into it at all. My students would text me all the time. "Hey! I'm in class! Just wanted to say hi!" or "What's going on at college group tonight?" Or my personal fav is when they would text me and I could barely understand what they were saying: "im at the mll. do u wnt me 2 pck u up smthng frm SB?" (SB=Starbucks) But slowly as time went on, I began to explore this new world of communication. And I got hooked.

lol.
g2g.
ttyl.
brb.
idk.
omg.
2moro.

These abbreviations are part of texting lingo. Not necessarily ones I use, but ones I see a lot.

WHO AM I!? Am I 12? Seriously, isn't texting for jr. high and high schoolers? Why do I love it so much? Will my T.F. ever go away?

Night game!

Last night, we had a college "Night Game" at church. It was rad. We turned off tons of lights inside and out. Students came wearing dark clothing, camouflage, and face paint. We had the whole church to ourselves. *mwahahaha!!*

We played Kick The Can and then Capture The Flag, using glow sticks as the "flags". About halfway through the night, I sprained my ankle. I was running from this one guy and I went off a curb and twisted it. It didn't start hurting till I went to bed. So I've been gimping around all day.

But back to the night game. We played for about two hours. Then everyone was hungry so we went to this 24-hour Denny's type place and got food. It was so great because we were all still dressed in our nighttime get-up and face paint (some guys even had ski masks on), so we got tons of "looks".

My highlight was when I went to the restroom. I was passing a table with two high school boys, texting on their phones. They happened to look up just as I walked by and both got all wide-eyed! One of 'em said, "Whoa!" (My face was completely covered in black face paint) So I smiled and thought, "Yeah that's right. I'm soooooo cool," but then I promptly tripped on the carpet. Classy.

The Golden Compass

I feel a rant coming on.

The Golden Compass. A new movie coming out December 7th from New Line Cinema. I think I saw the first trailer in May or June. It looked like a great movie - along the likes of LOTR or Narnia. And it has Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and Eva Green (love her from the Bond movie!) starring in it.

Then in August I was in Target and saw the book on sale, so I bought it to read before the movie came out. I actually didn't start reading it till last month. I have just been reading a bit each night before bed. And I was really into it. I thought Philip Pullman (the author) was a gifted writer and it was entertaining.

But then.

I started receiving emails. And bulletins on My Space. "Philip Pullman is an atheist! He hates the Church. He wrote those novels (The Golden Compass is the first of the trilogy) to turn people away from Christianity." I was shocked. Huh?! I didn't get that AT ALL from reading the book. I just thought it was a fun read. What's the big fuss?

And then I was reading Entertainment Weekly magazine and came across an article about this. (Click here to read the article.) Apparently, it has escalated into a huge deal. The Catholic Church is calling for a boycott on the movie. What the heck? Didn't they do that last year for The Da Vinci Code and it still made a load o' cash?

And now we are being warned NOT to take kids to see this movie because what if *gasp* they LIKE the movie?? They might want to go out and read the BOOK!! Oh no!! Kids reading!!! The same thing happened a million years ago with the Harry Potter books. "Don't let your kids read them! They're full of witchcraft and sorcery!" And those same books ended up getting kids away from their computers, TV's, and video games to READ. Their imaginations were expanded. A love of reading began.

I guess I just have no patience for boycotts like these. I doubt kids will walk away from the movie (or the book) and immediately turn away from Christianity and become atheists. Instead of spending all this time trying to keep kids from watching the movie or reading the books, how about parents spend TIME with their kids. Read it WITH them. See the movie WITH them. TALK about these things.

And no, I don't believe that by going to see The Golden Compass on December 7th (which I am planning on) I am "supporting atheism". I will be going to watch a movie for entertainment purposes. That's all.