Ho ho ho.

Been real busy this month! Biggest thing was probably wrapping up my next-to-last semester of college. One more semester, and then I’ll be done forever. 🙂 I’ve been enjoying this past week of not having to go to school in the evenings. It’s nice to be able to relax with Jenn, eat dinner at a normal time, and just generally not having a whole lot to do. Makes me look forward to being done with school even more.

Can’t believe Christmas is just over a week away. We had our Christmas program at church last Saturday. Jenn had an awesome solo right at the beginning, when the choir sang “Joy To The World.” Erin and Kevin had an amazing duet during “Ring The Bells,” which made Jenn and me even more impossibly excited about having them sing at our wedding. Click on the picture below if you’d like to see all the pictures I took:

We had the choir Christmas party at church last night. We watched the DVD of the Christmas program, ate several different varieties of cheese log (Jenn’s is SO my favorite), and then went caroling through the neighborhood behind the church, which was cold but quite fun! The only part I was sad about was the party was basically over soon as we got back. I wish we could have all sat around just a little bit longer and had some laughs. Though we did get to have plenty of that at our Refuge Christmas party, which was a total blastie blast.

Once I’m done here at work today, I’m heading up to the FLC at church to help Matt setup his blog that he wants to start. I tried to convince him that if he wanted to connect with his Youth, he needed to call it “Kilo 4 Christ” (his last name is Killough). But he said that was a loser name. Hey, if the shoe fits. O SNAP. Anyhoo, after that, Jenn and I are going to ol’ Arlington High School to see their Christmas orchestra concert. I am SO excited we’re going, I haven’t been to my old high school in several years. And the Symphony orchestra does Sleigh Ride every Christmas, so I can’t wait to see that again. The memories, they will be a-floodin’ back into my noggin, I tell you what.

Can’t wait for Christmas Eve/Day. Jenn and I are going with my family down to West to see my grandparents on Christmas Eve. Then we gotta fly back here pretty quick after lunch so we can get ready for the Christmas Eve service at church, because Jenn and I (with the assistance of the epically talented Dr. Gordon Page) will be doing “O Holy Night.” I am very excited about that, I haven’t played a candlelight service in several years, at least not since I was going to St. Andrew’s UMC. Anyway, once all that’s done, we’ll spend Christmas day with Jenn’s family, which is always a treat. 🙂

So what are your plans for Christmas? Got anything big planned, or are you just staying home for the holidays?

Agradecido.

Can you believe it’s that time of year already? I’m off for the rest of the week after today, so this’ll be it until Monday. Jenn and I are spending Turkey Day at Aunt Martha’s house, then we’re going with my mom down to the Hill Country, and Jenn’s going to meet Mom’s side of the family for the first time ever. Very exciting!

As we take the time to celebrate this wonderful holiday full of family, friends, and the best food in the universe, don’t forget to count your blessings and be thankful for what you have in your life. In these turbulent times, it’s more important than ever to remember that while there’s a lot we don’t have, there’s plenty more that we DO have.

I am thankful for the Heavenly Father above, and his son who was sent to die for our sins, both of whom I would be completely lost without.

I am thankful for my beautiful and amazing fiance, who I’ll be marrying in just a little over six months and spending the rest of my life with.

I am thankful for my awesome parents, who have been there for me more times than I can count.

I am thankful for my excellent friends, who bring so much laughter into my life.

I am thankful for my job, which allows me to earn the money I need to pay my bills.

I am thankful for my college education, which I will be completing in the Spring so I can earn MORE than the money I need to pay my bills. 🙂

I am thankful for you, friend. Thank you for reading my quaint little ol’ blog whenever you get a chance. I’m not exactly bringing in massive amounts of traffic here, but I know I have a dedicated few who enjoy reading my blog as much as y’all can. And that’s all I need.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, my dear friends. I hope you are able to enjoy it as much as I will. And when it’s over with, let’s all celebrate that magical time of year where we dust off the Christmas albums and listen to them until our ears bleed. Ha!

So what are you up to this week? Travel plans? Eating plans? Sleeping plans?

Caffeine Withdrawal Sucks.

Trying to quit soda again. Freakin’ sucks, my head is killing me. Hopefully I’ll get over it soon enough. Sorry for not blogging yesterday. I was lacking inspiration, I guess. Wasn’t even a busy day or anything!

Anyway, this past weekend was a blast. Friday night, Misty and Jenn and I had dinner at Los Lupes. Had some most excellent tamales. 🙂 On Saturday, Jenn took her bridesmaids to Ocone’s to look at dresses. They found the one they liked best, so they’re on order and will be delivered in February! Afterwards, Jenn and I took Angela to Crystal’s Pizza in Irving, because her sister organized a surprise birthday party for her. It was fun, their pizza is REALLY good! The restaurant itself was interesting, though. I felt like I was on the set of a Ghostbusters movie or something. Just, like, oddly creepy, but not in a bad way. Regardless, we still had a great time!

That night, Jenn, Misty, and Samantha had a girls night while I stayed with my brothers. Mom and Dad were out of town for their anniversary, so I hung around to keep an eye on Mark. Allen came over, and we watched Snatch and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. Snatch was hilarious as always, but we hadn’t seen Public Enemies yet. It was a sweet little flick. Probably my favorite out of these new animated movies DC has been putting out lately. The animation style matches exactly with the drawing style used in the comic it was based on. And it was sweet to hear Tim Daly as Superman again, along with Kevin Conroy as Batman. Cool stuff.

Sunday, we took Allen to Genghis Grill for lunch. Allen’s getting ready to go to South America for his big solo adventure for three months, so we wanted to take him out one last time before he goes and gets lost in the Amazon. After lunch, we went down to Joshua to see his parents. It was the first time Jenn and Misty had met them, so that was pretty cool. We stayed until somewhat late in the evening, playing with the goats and watching the Cowboys game. Definitely one of the more relaxing Sundays we’ve had lately! I hated that we had to go home and get ready for the work week. That’s never fun.

Ugh, this headache is making me over-sensitive to noise. The kids yapping in here are driving me nuts, and I have to keep reminding myself that they really are being relatively quiet and good, it’s just me being too sensitive. Wish I had a soundproof room right now. Hah! Hopefully this headache will be gone soon, once the effects of caffeine withdrawal diminish. I’m back on the diet as of yesterday, too, so talk about quitting cold turkey. Think I’m getting the shakes. LOL

Guess that’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll get the pictures from this weekend online tonight, so keep an eye out for those on my Flickr. Have a good one, friend.

Dadgummit.

Sorry the blogging’s been all but nonexistent the past couple days. Between school and work, I’ve been having a hard time shifting gears enough to do this. Had a major paper due in Archaeology yesterday, plus an exam in Criminal Justice. So that was a little nuts! But, it’s all over now, so I’ve got at least a couple days of respite before it gets wacky again.

So Friday night, I surprised Jenn for an early birthday treat. I had Misty tell us that she wanted to go to Chuy’s for dinner with us after we finished registering at Home Depot. When we got there, Misty walked us back to where she had already got us a table. What Jenn didn’t realize was that there were a whole bunch of people waiting for us there. 🙂 My dad, Brad, her parents, her aunt and uncle, and several of our friends were all sitting there… and she walked right by them! Only when Kevin jumped out from behind a wall and surprised her did she realize what was going on. We got her good! LOL So that was a lot of fun. She totally had no idea, which was awesome. Tomorrow night is her real birthday, so we’re going to spend some time with her family to celebrate it.

Let’s see, what else has happened?… Oh yeah, Halloween was Saturday! That was a hoot. I volunteered my car to participate in our church’s Trunk or Treat party for the kiddos. I couldn’t believe I was the only one who decorated my car like this:

And the icing on the cake, of course, was Scottie volunteering to be eaten:

After we finished up there, we went to my family’s house for a little Halloween party. Nothing fancy, just hanging out and heating hot dawgs ‘n s’mores from the fire pit. The motley crew for the night:

So, fun little turnout there. 🙂

Sunday was our new music minister’s first day on the job. That was an absolute blast. Plus, even though we couldn’t have service out on the new property (dang mud), our pastor brought in a tub of dirt from the property and blessed it. It was very cool, and the service as a whole was SO much fun. We also raised nearly $200,000 in one-day offerings as part of the “first fruits” offering to go towards the development of the new church. I’m pretty sure that was the largest one-day offering in the history of the church. Very awesome.

That’s about all I got for now. Peace out, homeys.

iPSotD

Mark and Dad goofing around Saturday night.

One ring or two to rule them all…

So this weekend was about as awesome as it could get right now. Jenn and I got our wedding bands! Wanna see them?

Well, this is all you’re gonna get. LOL! We’re not showing them to ANYONE (except our parents) until the wedding day. But friend, I gotta tell you, they look fantastic. Jenn’s matches her engagement ring perfectly, and looks absolutely stunning on her. And my ring is just freakin’ sweet. It’s a very unique design that I haven’t seen used before, and it feels amazing on my hand. I can’t wait until I’m wearing it all the time. These next eight months cannot be over with soon enough!

After we picked them up from Robbins Bros. late Saturday morning, we went and hung out with my family all day. Talked a lot about wedding stuff, ranging from finalizing the guest list to planning out the rehearsal dinner. It was a great planning session, and it made Jenn and me all the more excited about the wedding. 🙂 We also got to spend some great quality time in general with my family, which is something we rarely have time to do these days. We drove out to the place where we’re having the wedding reception, since my parents hadn’t seen it yet. They were setting it up for a reception when we got there, so we got to see it pretty close to how it’ll look for our reception (minus the color scheme and table arrangements). My parents definitely loved how it looked, so it was exciting to finally show it to them.

Oh, funny side story. The Sheraton offers (relatively) cheap parking for people going to events at the new Cowboys Stadium, since it’s right up the street from the hotel. And since the A&M/Arkansas game was at Cowboys Stadium this weekend, there were all manner of crazy/drunk folk parking there. But one vehicle stood out amongst all the hubbub:

Is this not one of the most awesome vehicles you’ve seen in your whole entire life!? Seriously, AWESOME. It looks like it only accepts the blood of terrorists for fuel.

Anyway, yep, overall it was an excellent weekend. And of course, to celebrate this awesome weekend, I… came back to work on Monday. Buuuuzzkiiiiiill. *sigh* At least it’s a relatively quiet day. Only one printer jam. I spent a good part of the morning trying to figure out my schedule for the Spring semester. I’m down to 14 hours: 12 hours of electives (including 3 advanced), and 3 hours of an advanced class from a list of required classes for my Humanities minor. Well, I’ve got the electives taken care of for sure. There are four advanced History classes that I can use for all four slots. The only problem now is taking care of that Humanities course, because NONE of the classes on that blasted list are freakin’ available in the afternoon/evenings. AUGH. So I’m not really sure what I’m going to do. I’ve emailed my advisor, so hopefully she’ll get back to me first thing tomorrow morning when she’s back from out of town.

Please pray that I can get this worked out. I HAVE to graduate in May, and it’s gonna be horrible if it doesn’t work out because of of one friggin’ class. I’m confident that we’ll figure it out, just gotta get a better picture of all my options from my advisor.

iPSotD:

I hate Xenon Headlamps. They stab my eyes like knives of light.

I wanna rock and roll ’til 9…

So did you hear about who’s being nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for 2010? Here’s a list…

ABBA
The Chantels
Jimmy Cliff
Genesis
The Hollies
KISS
LL Cool J
Darlene Love
Laura Nyro
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Stooges
Donna Summer

Now… Okay. Some of these are a no-brainer. KISS is a big duh, along with Genesis. The Red Hot Chili Peppers? Mmmmaybe. They’re definitely someone who should be there at some point, but I’m not sure if it should happen just yet. But seriously, DONNA SUMMER? LL COOL J? Look, I like these artists as much as the next guy, but really? In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? That’s just silly, friend! I mean, good grief, how many legends of Rock are being overlooked so we can get these people on the list? Oh look, another list!

Thin Lizzy
Blue Oyster Cult
The Doobie Brothers
Kansas
The Steve Miller Band
Billy Squier
Journey
The Cult
Rush (I’m not their biggest fan ever, but I do acknowledge where they belong in history)
The Moody Blues
Def Leppard
The Marshall Tucker Band
Heart
Ringo Starr (the ONLY Beatle that hasn’t been inducted yet)
Stevie Ray Vaughn!

The list goes on. Now granted, I understand they don’t want to cram everyone into a single year. They wanna space ’em out. But does that really mean we should be giving non-rock and roll artists the opportunity to be inducted? Not that it’s gonna happen, but what if LL Cool J gets voted in over KISS?

You’d look stupid, 500 people who get to vote on this. Yes, you. I will blame you all. Shame on you, 500 people. Shame. On. You.

So, to summarize, vote for KISS. Because that’s the American way.

Or write in the Electric Light Orchestra. That’d be pretty dang sweet.

Anyway, I’m outta here at 11:30. Gotta go take my Computer Skills Placement Test, or whatever it’s called. After that, I’m going to go pick up my tux for Troll’s wedding. Rehearsal’s tomorrow night, and Troll’s big day is on Saturday. I really hope it works out for him, and I wish him nothing but the best. I’ve been mulling over my best man speech (I did tell you I got “promoted,” right?…), and I have a pretty good idea of the challenge I’m going to issue them as part of my toast. I just hope they take what I say to heart, because the stuff I’m going to say is the stuff that all married couples should remember if they want to live a long and happy life together.

Little blurb about the iPSotD… My brother, Mark, is in the special ed program here at the high school where I work. They have their own PE room where they go to work on a preset list of physical goals. Today the teacher had Mark on the stairmaster, which as you can see, Mark can do in his sleep. LOL! (he stayed up all night last night)

Wait wait wait. ABBA? ABBA!? That’s… well, I don’t know what to think of that.

iPSotD:

My brother, the Sleepwalker!

Berfday

Man, what a weekend!

I turned 27 yesterday. That’s a weird number to say, y’know? Not because I feel like it sounds old or anything, but it’s just such a weird number. I felt the same way when I turned 26. I don’t see myself feeling this way when I turn 30. It rolls off the tongue better than 27.

Anyway, yep, awesome weekend. Saturday night, we had a big ol’ bash at BJ’s. Lots of family and friends showed up, and it was a rollicking good time. Oh yes, I used “rollicking.” Eat that. But yeah, freakin’ great time. Had some great laughs and got to spend time with some friends that I definitely don’t get to spend enough time with in this crazy, mixed-up world. Good food, too. I had the BJ’s Favorite pizza. Sucker’s loaded, just the ways I likes it. Got some of their nachos too, which are just heavenly. Erin and Jana got their pizzas late. I don’t know if they got eaten en route to the table, or if they forgot to make them, or what, but that just wasn’t cool. But they got comp’d’d’d, so that worked out nicely. The waiter was a pretty cool guy. He defied his manager by leaving the carafe of Dr. Pepper on the table for us. Livin’ on the edge there, friends. Also, he brought me a free Pizookie for my birthday, which is this tremendously evil deep-dish chocolate chip cookie smothered in vanilla ice cream. It was one heckuva treat.

I must say, though, he did a couple of things that got on my nerves. The guy was seriously tweaked up on something. Pretty sure it was Red Bull. I mean, he practically THREW our appetizer plates down in front of all of us, because he was in such a hurry. And he kept standing over (I mean, OVER) Erin and/or Samantha while talking to everyone, which was really pretty creepy. Then, when he was collecting our checks, he asked Jana how much change she wanted back. Call me crazy, but that is INCREDIBLY unprofessional. I told Jana the next time a waiter asks her that, she should say, “ALL OF IT.” That wasn’t the only incident. My dear sweet friend Kim, the special ed. nurse at my old job, was relaxing and enjoying herself while talking it up with some other folks at the table. The waiter was sitting there being friendly with everyone, and he suddenly looks at her and asked her if she can finish writing her check, so he can go home. What the heck!? That’s just not right, my friend. There’s a fine line between outgoing and pushy, and he totally obliterated that line. Not cool. Don’t mess with my friends like that.

But I digress. It was a freakin’ blastie blast. Those of you who came, thank you so much! I had such a wonderful time, and my babygirl did so good getting it all put together. I have the most awesome fiancé in the world. 🙂 She got me a pretty sweet batch of goodies. Got a new shirt, which I’m always in need of, along with a LEGO set that I’ve wanted for a very long time, the Benjamin Button DVD, a very slick Texas Rangers hat, and the comic book adaptation of the new Transformers movie. My sweetie knows what I like, that’s for sure! I also got some cash from my future in-laws, which was very sweet.

Sunday night, we hung out with my family for my “real” birthday. Had some good pizza and had our first swim in the pool for this year. The water was just the right amount of cold to be refreshing, and it felt great to take a dip. After dinner, we had some REALLY good cake and ice cream, and Mom and Dad got me a card with a couple of $25 gift cards to Olive Garden and AMC Theatres in it, which will definitely come in handy. 🙂

Overall, it was an absolutely awesome weekend. I’m so grateful for all my awesome friends and family, and especially Jenn. It was certainly a birthday to remember.

Now for some bad news… or awesome news, depending on how you feel. LOL This will be my last PBSoD until August, because my coworker isn’t going to let me check out this iMac for the summer. So I’ll still be blogging as much as possible throughout the summer, but the Photo Booth antics will be put on hold for the next couple of months.

Photo Booth Shot of the Day:

*beeeeeeeeeeeeeep*

Ow.

I’ve never gotten a headache from taking a Photo Booth Shot of the Day, until now. It messed me up so much, I’m issuing an executive order to place the PBSoD at the top of today’s post. OMG!

Photo Booth Shot of the Day:

Taking this picture made my eyes hurt.

This filter is called “Trippy” for a reason, I suppose. That funky double-distortion moves in and out constantly, so if you want a shot with the most distortion possible, you have to time your shot just right so it hits right after the 3-2-1 countdown that Photo Booth uses. Apparently, staring at oneself through that filter for a prolonged period of time can strain your eyes and turn your brain to mush.

… Though now that I think about it, I may have already felt that way before I took the picture.

Anyway, IS FRAHDY. \o/ Jenn and I are going to eat at Genghis Grill tonight, because I got a coupon for a free meal for my birthday. Tomorrow night, we’re going to BJ’s for dinner with a bunch of family and friends, so I’m very excited about that.

Today’s another one of those days where I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open. UGH. My Spanish class is turning out to be pretty fun, but it’s making for late nights that I don’t need to be combining with early mornings. I’m exhausted.

Ding!

Level up!

Trevor (one of the TA’s that works with my brother) just came in and handed me another light bulb.

For those of you who don’t know, I have an autistic little brother named Mark who goes to this school I work at. Well, lately he’s decided to pick up the habit of taking light bulbs from various fixtures in the house, sneak them to school, and throw them on the tile floor to watch them explode. Isn’t that AWESOME!?

Yeah, anyway, so now I have a light bulb sitting here on my desk. It’s kinda funny to see it sitting there with my phones, watch, Burt’s Bees Lip Balm, flash drive, Batman notepad, and two internal CD-ROMs that don’t work anymore.

…. Hey! I should take a picture of my desk! Hang on a minute…

Messy desk is messy!

Yep, quite a mess. Haha.

I’ve got a video conference to go set up in about 45 minutes. It’s usually pretty fun to do, though it can get boring sometimes. This one may be a boring one, unfortunately. At any rate, off I go.

Oh, and if anyone’s on Twitter, follow me. I’m trying to get back into the habit. 🙂

Photo Booth Shot of the Day:

Ding!