Looking Forward

Quiet Day

Strangely enough, I have nothing in particular I want to write about.

I've decided that there are few pointless things to do in this life, but one of them is doing those internet surveys. I'm going to do one now. Looking forward to 2008:

This one's all about what you want out of "08!

1. Will you be looking for a new job?
Probably, after graduation. That won't be very happy.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?
Doubtful

3. New house?
My parents are planning to move us eventually. Mind you that's a big eventually.

4. What will you do differently in 08?
Ha ha ha ... you think I plan out the way I change?? Anything I vow to do never happens anyways...I can't even keep my promises to not eat chocolate for a day...if you think I'll willfully change any habits, you're crazy.

5. New Years resolution?
Nope.

6. What will you NOT be doing in 08?
Well I won't be following any New Year's Resolution.

7. Any trips planned?
I'd like to go to Australia for World Youth Day.

8. Wedding plans?
Not for me ... ha ha but you never know!

9. Major thing on your calendar?
Graduation... oh and probably getting my drivers' license Jan. 2.

10. What cant you wait for?
I'm currently able to wait for anything.

11. What would you like to see happen differently?
Maybe I'd like to see a little more sanity in my family...of course that's some really high hoping.

12. What about yourself will you be changing?
Well, if all goes according to plan I'll become a college student.

13. What happened in 07 that you didn't think would ever happen?
Hmmm...a couple things, actually. Yet they're all much too personal for this blog. So sorry.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?
Honestly, I doubt it. Proclaiming, "I'll be nicer!" doesn't magically transform anyone into a better person.

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 07?
Of course I would like to but my funds are limited, so probably not.

16. Will you start or quit drinking?
Neither planning on starting nor quitting. I am only 17.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?
That's not exactly very easy to answer. You're expecting me to be some sort of clairvoyant, you silly survey.

18. Will you do charity work?
I am volunteering at a Catholic grade school for two weeks in January. Though I really don't want to call it charity work because it seems to be more beneficial for me than anyone. ;)

19. Will you go to bars?
I'm only 17 so no, probably not.

20. Will you be nice to people you don't know?
I am, usually. I'm only mean to people I really know, ha ha ha.

21. Do you expect 08 to be a good year for you?
Well I don't have too many expectations (He who expects nothing shall never be disappointed) but I'm really hoping, yes.

22. How much did you change from this time last year til now?
I believe I've changed quite considerably. It's hard to say how, but a lot of things about me are definitely (I'm sorry, I'm being terribly vague!)

23. Do you plan on having a child?
Why, no.

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?
Some of them, I really hope so. But I'll doubtlessly (well, hopefully) find new friends as well. I'm graduating!!

26. Will you be moving?
Didn't I answer this? Possibly, depending on the definition of eventually.

28. What are your New Years Eve plans?
Going to church, actually.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?
Nope

30. One wish for 08?
Phew...get enough money for the school I want next year...
That, or I'm just wildly hoping everything goes okay. It has so far...more or less.

Warmth = Some Form of Satisfaction

I truly do come from a great city.

Denver is America's 4th most literate city. I am so proud.

I went to work today: I therefore actually did something productive and I feel a whole lot better about myself than I did yesterday, when I slept past noon and pointlessly loitered around my house for hours. You see, work is really wonderful when it happens in small dosages and not on a regular basis. When you do it for, say, 3 days in a row or more, it sucks. But today I worked for the first time in a week and a half, and it was on a Friday, so it was a great day. I actually do love my job.

I have a window seat now. One of the walls of my new cubicle is a large window. I am so excited--I work across the street from a mall so now I can wistfully gaze out the window that my computer faces and observe the snobby Nordstrom crowds pass in and out of the store and in and out of their luxury cars. Fascinating.

I can't bag on Nordstrom too much, though, because I actually shopped there today. I've never felt that I was even allowed to breathe in that store before. I'm slightly a bit too...how shall I put it...ghetto. But, no, I did walk into Nordstrom today looking no doubt like a terrified lost child, made my way up the escalator to the Juniors' section and walked out with a big bag filled with $120 worth of new coat and school pants.

Nordstrom. Let me justify myself. My Grandad gave me a $100 Nordstrom gift card for Christmas. I was somewhat privileged to receive this gift because all my other siblings and cousins got $50 for Macy's or Best Buy. I didn't realize until far too late that I wasn't supposed to show my gift to anyone else. Woops.
Grandad's reasoning behind this unique gift was that I needed new clothes for college. Granted, $100 for Nordstrom will not substantially advance anybody's wardrobe, but it was quite a nice gift all the same. I am hoping that the $72 coat I bought today will get me through college. It's a long trench coat that extends to about three inches above my knees. It's a bit longer than what I really wanted but I do like it a lot. I'm pretty excited to wear it, now that it's about the nicest piece of clothing I own.

Why am I telling you about my coat? Who really sits around thinking, Hmm, I would really like to indulge myself in some interesting reading, I think reading about Emily's new coat would be really fulfilling.
If you really are saying that to yourself, I'm truly sorry that you can find nothing better. Might I suggest some more profound forms of English writing?
In all honesty, thought, my coat was the highlight of my day. Some days such simple things as winter outerwear can make you feel quite good about life.

I've Always Been a Writer

I was cleaning the office today when I found...

I found an old story I wrote in first grade.

The Prince and The Princess
(11-13-96)
By Emily Major

Once upon a time there was a princess. Her name was Kristie.

And one day she went for a walk and she saw a prince and she thought he was handsome.


So she asked him to marry her and he said yes and they lived happily ever after.
THE END.

I've always been something of a hopeless romantic. Though I must say perhaps my protagonist came on a bit too strong? Hopefully their engagement worked out well, as it was based solely on a simple thought of "Oh, you're pretty 'hamsome.' "

Though it does say they lived happily ever after.
Brilliant. I have nothing to worry about.

Time Passes Slowly

Oh My Gosh, We're Huge.

I realized yesterday that my immediate family is ludicrously large. People tell me that all the time, of course, when I tell them I'm the oldest of going-on 12 children. "Oh my God!" the exclaim. "But aren't your parents crazy? That is a LOT of kids!"
"Yes, it's a lot," I reply, even though I'm thinking, Oh, it's only twelve kids, come off it.

We all went to church yesterday though, for Christmas, at my old grade school church, and when I noticed that my family took up about the same space as my entire 6th grade class did, I was forced to say to myself, "My goodness, we are ludicrously huge."

I could empathize with fellow churchgoer's amazed stares and stunned exclamations of "Are they all yours??"

It was pretty funny, actually.

*****

This is how I have been spending my free time over Christmas break:

This book is simply awesome. Awesomeawesomeawesomeawesomeawesome. I finished it this morning and I am very very excited to continue reading this "trilogy in five parts." It's full of excellent British humor, and with characters called Zaphod Beeblebrox and Slartibartfast, how could it not be interesting? Hilarious and borderline philosophical read.


This is a book I started reading this morning. It's a mildly depressing but very fast read. I've plowed through about 200 pages in about 3-4 hours. I'm expecting to finish it tonight, seeing as to how I can't put it down. It's about a girl in her first year of art school who's found herself trapped in a bad relationship with a true asshole (She has yet to realize that. Girls are so stupid sometimes.). Simply but very well written. I like this author (Hilary Frank) a lot.


I watched this late Christmas Eve Night. It was awesome. It's a pretty trippy movie to watch by yourself in the dark at 1 in the morning, with your new dog making all these noises in the corner of the room, but it was really enjoyable. Shia LeBeouf is really great in this. Funny, scary, breath-taking.

This is what I'm planning to do with the remainder of my time off:
LOOOOOOSSSSTTTTT!!!!!! Best show on television!!! On my school breaks, I watch this show obsessively, and I'm hoping Christmas Break 07-08 is no exception. I'm kind of a pathetic fan, in that I haven't finished watching season 3, even though it ended months ago. The thing is, I'm a poor LOST fan, and buying it on itunes is out of the question, and the DVD set costs about $50. I'm needing to spend my Christmas money on school clothes and new jeans (My one pair now has a gaping hole in the knee.) And the website I used to watch season 3 on has been shut down (I am assuming this was because it was wildly illegal.) . Damn it.
But I have until Jan. 31, 2008 to catch up on season 3, because this is soon coming out:



LOST SEASON 4!!!! I am so excited!!!

*****

This is a new part of my Christmas Break:

If you read my post from 3 days ago, you'll remember me mentioning a dog showing up on my doorstep. You'll also remember me mentioning the prospect of a dog spending the night with me on my bed, and also my worries on said dog peeing on my comforters.

Well I did put that dog on my bed, which was a truly stupid thing to do because within about ten minutes she had left not one but two pee stains on not one but TWO of my comforters (Yes, I have multiple comforters on my bed. Comfort is important, you see.). So I very angrily had to throw them in the wash and search the house for more comforters. I had to settle for a thin Scooby Doo blanket.

I am giving you incredibly pointless details. The point is that my bed is, in my opinion, the best place in my entire house and under no circumstances will I let anyone defile it, so I will probably never ever let that dog set foot on it again.

That dog is probably mine now. We tacked up FOUND signs around my neighborhood and asked a few neighbors if they'd ever seen it, but the dog seems to be a stray. We might just take it. My parents were threatening to call the pound about this dog, but today my Mom bought a dog collar and treats and has been inciting debates about dog names at dinner (My 3-year-old sister, Katie, the photogenic one, suggested Polly Pocket, Gabriella Montes, or Vanessa Hutchens.). I believe this dog might be here to stay. In which I'll have to start calling her something other than "puppy."

I might have myself a new companion for long walks.

Until the future, dear reader...

Emily

Playing With Light

Allow me to showcase some of my semi-bad but not horrible photography:

The above photo is my brother Jimmy outside church this morning. He is taking refuge in my shadow.

This is my sister Katie and my brother Jimmy. Cute kids.

I had a photo shoot today with Katie and apple. Fun stuff but unfortunately no exceptional results.


I'm lucky, though, because it's incredibly difficult to take a bad picture of Katie.


See, even the bad photos look good with this girl.


So it's easy to end up with shots that I really like, like this one. I totally love my sister.


Sometimes she may doze off in front of the camera...


...Or even get a little exasperated...

But we usually both end up feeling pretty satisfied with my shots. =D


We had my Mom's side of the family over for her birthday dinner tonight. This is my brother David and my Grandpa. I'll leave it to you to guess which one's which.

These are some of my boy cousins being, well, boy cousins.

These are my brothers Tommy and Billy. They're really really happy to see me.


This is Billy, still uncontainably excited, about 10 minutes before he threw a ball across the top of that bookshelf knocking over those candles and spilling hot wax and broken glass everywhere. Oh, we've had a great night. You've just got to love those family get-togethers. Tonight we are left with the souvenir of a large red spot of wax on the wall that I've artistically and creatively entitled Blood Stain. We were discussing the idea of framing it and calling it modern art, but I think we may eventually just end up cleaning it.


So I couldn't resist. I had to take more Katie photos. This girl really makes me look like a good photographer. She's gonna grow up to be a total hottie (hell, she already is), but boys, keep in mind I'm watching you.


She's just so damn CUTE!!


I close with an artistic self-portrait.

Maybe two self-portraits. This is what I did when I was (well, instead of) getting ready for dinner tonight.

Have a good night, ladies and gentlemen!! Excitingly enough, I have a dog to take care of tonight! My 16-year-old dog Barkley died about a year ago and in the past month or two I've been trying to convince my Mom to let me get another dog (I really want something to go on walks with that I DON'T have to talk to). She has adamantly and persistently said no, but tonight a dog literally showed up on my doorstep. I think it's one of my neighbor's dogs, but it had a rope tied tightly around its neck that had been broken. This dog clearly ran away from somewhere. We'll probably take it out tomorrow knocking on doors to try to find owners, but tonight...I have a dog.

It's cool to have a dog in my bed with me but I'm slightly worried that I'll wake up to pee stains on my comforter...and my hands already smell strongly of dog.
Damn it.

But it's okay. How can I complain?

Happy Christmas Eve Eve,
Emily

Insanity

One More Day...Let's Hope I Don't Die

This is what I wrote on Tuesday night, the last time I blogged:

"It feels like I have an incredible amount of stuff to do, but I really don't."

HA HA HA HA HA. I am clearly full of shit! It's about 10 PM on Thursday night and I have a mind-boggling amount of work to do!! I feel like I have been hit by a train about three times over and am now expected to run 7,000 miles nonstop with paralyzed feet! Really! That's exactly what I feel like! It's a pretty desperately horrible feeling!

It's not like I've idiotically procrastinated this week...I haven't. I actually have been somewhat focusing through all these school days. I've actually been able to stay focused a couple times this week which is really something monumental for me. I'm usually viewed as some sort of model student but in all honesty my attention span and thought capacity usually feel nonexistent. There's always people to talk to, daydreams to fall into, and other such nonsensical activities that are more interesting and meaningful than schoolwork.

I got a 2 out of 10 on a math quiz today. That was pretty embarassing. I had to put up with hearing my friend saying, "Major!!! What happened?? I told you!!"

I stared blankly."You told me what?"
"I showed you all the points for the unit circle!"

"Oh. Well damn. Look at this, they're all wrong!"

"Yes. Major, I told you!!"

What I'm saying is, model student, my ass.

See, because I am such an exceptional epitome of an ideal high school student, here I am blogging when I have about 40 pages to read and a paper to write! Brilliant!

If you'll notice, I really don't want to do my schoolwork. Plus I'm kind of stressed to the point of insanity. This is indeed the last schoolnight of 2007.

I stayed at school 'till 6 today working on the yearbook cover, which is incidentally due by the end of this week, so...tomorrow. I am floored by how time-consuming moving pictures around in Photoshop can be. It's unbelievable. Of course, I could be slower than most, considering that the first time I even touched Photoshop was yesterday (in which I resized the entire cover to about 2 square inches, not knowing how to reverse my blunder, which was somewhat panic-inducing). But the pictures on our cover have been arranged. I was kind of shaking when I finished, after staring so much at a computer for so long, but I was proud to finish something today. The cover might actually turn out to look like a yearbook cover! Thrilling!

Of course, there is a plethora of other tasks in my life that must be done, which I will actually get to now.

Restlessness

This will be short tonight.

Because this is the last week of my semester, I am *trying* to stay somewhat focused on schoolwork. I'm not really succeeding, but what matters is being able to pull off A LOT OF SHIT at the last minute. I do not, however, want to wait until the last EXTREME minute so maybe I'll try to start at the last hour or so.

It feels like I have an incredible amount of stuff to do, but I really don't. Well, I have 3 papers to write in two days, and then a powerpoint presentation to get started on, but none of it is really hard. I think I can totally do it. Especially if I tackle one of the English papers tonight. I usually write my papers in a 10PM-3AM time frame the night before they're due, and I end up with a decent outcome.

So I feel okay now but ask me Wednesday and Thursday nights, that might change.

Ack. I'm really restless tonight (which may be because most of what I drank today had a lot of caffeine...I think my heart rate has been abnormal all day), yet I can't really find anything I want to write right now.

Well huh. Telling a story would take too long.

I'm not in any psycho emotional state, just a lot of restlessness.

In that case, I actually will do homework.

Good night,

Emily

Baby Portraits

This is Charlie.

Absolutely, unarguably, one of the most incredibly cutest babies EVER. Try and argue with me, just try. I love this little brother like crazy.

Just look at that second picture! Oh my gosh could he get any cuter??

Even though he cries a lot and doesn't let me get my homework done there are still things like this which make me love him insanely. =D

Ah, babies.

Sleepy Saturday

This is so cool.

So this is amazing!! Ha ha!! I only just discovered this website, imeem, where you can stream entire songs for free...I'm pretty thrilled. They aren't available for free download, which is okay because I tend not to trust free downloads at all...I've had bad experiences with this PC completely dying...it's a nightmare that I never want to witness again.

But okay. I could totally get into the habit of posting songs with my blog entries.
=D

I've recently fallen in love with Sugarcult. I've had one of their albums for years, yet its been one of those forgotten collection of songs that I've never really cared for. But I've recently discovered, damn, they're good.

This song, "Pretty Girl," is especially thrilling. I hope you enjoy it. And I hope the html actually works.

*****

So you know how I said I was tired on Friday? I really was. Because I didn't do much on Saturday besides sleep. I didn't read, I didn't watch TV...I just wrote a little bit, I ate, I picked up my brother from mandatory Saturday study hall at school, and I slept. I stayed in bed sporadically sleeping until 11:30 AM, then after that took two or three 1-2 hour naps. I don't even know, it was all a haze. I went to church that night, got home at about 9:30 or 10, then fell asleep before midnight and slept till 8:30 AM.

It's been so nice. When I said I felt deprived of 3 years of sleep...I was right!

Now today, Sunday, is homework day. Unfortunately.
How quickly the weekends fly by.

But I have one more week of school in 2007. After this point, I am sure senior year were fly by faster than any of us will really realize...then we'll be graduating.

My God, how can we already be reaching this point?

Babysitting

Really, really tired Friday night

Here's that video I promised:

I told you it was random. But it is so cool!! Ha ha Oh my God!!

Now that you've seen that, your day should be fulfilled. How can a giant pink bunny not make you feel really really good?

Well, it makes me want to laugh.

Anyways, this is my second night babysitting (outside of my home) this week. It's hard to put kids to bed without curling up and falling asleep myself. I've been falling asleep since about 8 PM. I woke up a little when two boys jumped on me screaming and calling me a horse (that was actually some of the most fun I've had all day), but now that they're sleeping, I'm having a little trouble erasing thoughts of my own bed from my mind.

11:30 PM... I'll be home soon.
No one better be waking me up tomorrow. I fully intend to spend my Saturday sleeeeeeeping. I feel like I've been deprived of a good 3 years of sleep.
Whew.

A lie.

I'm coming clean, please don't let go!

I also saw this song live. I love this video. Motion City is becoming known for creating some strange and random videos. Particularly noteworthy is that of a giant pink bunny. I'll try to post that video next time.

This post is going to have to be short tonight. In all truth, I shouldn't be meandering online at all; I have a painful amount of reading to do tonight. However, I have the bad habit of blogging and writing before all my homework is done. (Yes. I am indeed quite an irresponsible child.) It's just that if I do all my homework first, I don't know if I'll do anything else. By the time I get all appropriate housework and homework done, I'm so tired that I'll collapse on my bed until I am woken by the screaming radio of my alarm clock. I do that anyways...but fun comes before homework. I'm sorry. My priorities are clearly quite screwed.

So I spend a lot of schooldays throwing homework to the wind and instead of typing essays in the computer lab, I spend a good 65 minutes arguing about nothing with my friends. Many people, particuarly those older than myself, may disagree with my way of thinking, but I view most everything else I do to be more worthwhile than homework. Talking about sweet nothings with my friends after school in the student life office, rather than trying to make sense of my math notes makes my life much more beautiful. And that's what I care about. Not math notes.

At the end of the day, even though I'm collapsing in fatigue after writing essays till 3 in the morning, I can stare at the ceiling and laugh about the day's events. Remembering something as simple as the short notes my friend Cindy and I leave in our locker between class periods, or even Victor and Johnny ruining my hair before first period even starts, is a lot more fulfilling than trying to memorize sine and cosine formulas.

I have a B in Calculus, anyways.

What I'm saying is that I find a lot of things to be more important homework. Homework is necessary but not very fun to look back on.

I said this was going to be short tonight. I think I lied.

It's 10:30 PM and I still have a large amount of painful pages to plow through.

*Sigh*

Too bad dissing homework doesn't make it go away.

A Small Scene In My House

Strike up that song.

I begin this blog with a video: some music while you read!


I saw this song live at Sunday's concert. Great stuff.

Now this blog is not going to be long tonight, I am actually planning on doing my homework and I have a lot of writing to do tonight.
But I didn't want to neglect my pointless internet rantings.

As terrible as my house can be sometimes, sometimes it really makes me want to laugh. I came upstairs a couple minutes ago to discover a group of strange people milling around my house: An Argentinian priest listening to my little brother recite the "Padre Nuestro" in Spanish, an Italian couple, the woman walking around my house handing out candy, jabbering, "Cioccolato per i bambini!", and an American couple, my friends' parents, her mother taking pictures of my parents with her cell phone, exclaiming, "You guys look like you're still in school!"

Maybe I'm a little too tired, but I found the whole scene really funny. I know, you probably don't.

Here are some cute random things:





I know these pictures are kind of tacky, but I've always thought they were heart-wrenchingly cute. Find them at this website.

I'm out. Children to shut up and homework to do.

Wish me luck,
Emily

Concert!

I went!!

I did! I did!! Oh my God I went to my first concert last night!! It was completely thrilling!! I can’t believe!! I was riding this high from it all day!
My friends looked at me like I was some kind of moron this morning. First period was especially ridiculous, in that I seemed really disoriented and I laughed a lot.
I was really exhausted and a big part of me was still at that CONCERT!!
So my 1st period English friends threw out a lot of “hilarious” comments about my alleged possession of illegal substances, and wonderings of what I did this weekend, and what I smoked at that concert. I put up with being called a crack addict for a good part of the morning, and denied many times accusations of the existence of contraband in my brand new beautiful, Motion City Soundtrack “EVEN IF IT KILLS ME” (name of their newest record) bag, which I proudly toted around for most of the day.

Like this:
Okay, so I look a little tired. It’s late. I am sleep deprived. It is Monday. I came home to a chaotic night at home. Victor and Johnny at school thought it was funny today to shake their hands over the top of my head while singing that annoying Hawaiian Christmas song, about 70 times today.
It’s been something of a rough Monday.
BUT. I have this bag. Which you must admit it pretty damn COOL!! Especially because nobody at school knows who MCS is, so I get to proudly tell them, “Oh they’re my favorite band ever. I went to their concert last night, and it was fantastic because I’m basically in love with their lead singer. See, look,” I say as I show them my pins. Notice the pins on the handle of my bag.
What can I say. I just love this band.

When I get obsessive over something, I get emotional-obsessive. Angsty-obsessive. If-I-don’t-have-it-I-am-going-to-die-obsessive. Motion City is something like that for me.

So it was a great concert. Metro Station, Anberlin, and Mae were openers. The first two bands I’d never heard of. They were…as good as a band can be when you know nothing about them or their songs. They were nice, though. Mae was phenomenal. I went through a Mae phase one or two years ago, and I don’t really know any of their new stuff, but everything I heard from them was fantastic. They played a few songs from the album I do know, and when I heard their song “Suspension,” I was really psyched because I’ve always loved that song and hearing it live was AWESOME. They were very talented and beautiful. I really enjoyed Mae.

Then Motion City came on. Finally. This was a moment I’d seriously been waiting for months, years, even. I SAW JUSTIN PIERRE IN THE FLESH!!! Not to mention the talented Josh Cain, Tony Thaxton, Jesse Johnson, and Matt Taylor.
Phenomenal.
I’ve been obsessing over their songs, pictures, websites, blogs, interviews, videos, everything for 2 years, and I finally actually SAW them!! It was unreal. I saw my hero Justin Pierre, mere feet away from me, looking just like he does in all the pictures, singing just like I’ve always heard him. UNREAL!! I have the mental picture seared into my brain. His trademark hair. His glasses. Justin Pierre. I saw him. I saw him. I SAW HIM!!!!!

I’m like those girls who were crazy over the Beatles in the 60’s. Ha ha. I am so iiiinnnnn loooooveeee!! (Just let me act really immature for a couple seconds here, I’m really enjoying it!)

Motion City was just as good in concert as I always imagined they would be. Pierre was really animated and put on some good dialogue with the crowd. He joked around, he made fun of his own mistakes…the guy seems to have a great way with words, as well. I can’t tell you how much I admire that in people.
I’m pretty damn smitten!

So it was nice. Whew.
I just wish I could have met them!! Maybe someday I will be lucky enough to do so! I would absolutely love it!!

I felt pretty emotional when the concert was over. Almost like crying. Like I said, I’m emotional/angsty-obsessive. I was sooo so close to my Motion City, and then…they were gone.

Oh, but they were brilliant. It’s just stuck in my mind. The whole experience was kind of a blur, like, “Oh my God I’m in a sea of people and they’re all jumping and falling into me and oh damn someone’s stepping on my foot. Ah! I’m falling into the tall guy behind me, oh wow” and “AAHH!!!! JUSTIN PIERRE!!! LOOK LOOK LOOK JUSTIN PIERRE!!! HOW BRILLIANT IS THIS!?!?” It was all a haze. But looking back…wow. As I said, I have this image seared into my brain. And their sound…it was so much like their recordings! But of course LOUDER! And more real!

Phew. It was fantastic. Brilliant. I’ll be excited to do that again.

There's Not Enough Snow, But I Have Photos!

Hello, readers!

I'm kind of thrilled to see that some people are viewing my blog. I had about 10 views since yesterday, and they weren't me. Setting up that site visit counter at the bottom of my page has been good for my morale. =D

People like you are both seeing my blog and looking at my profile, and I thank you! Clearly my writings aren't anything particularly substantial but I do enjoy posting them. It makes me feel that I have some sort of audience, and knowing that makes me write a lot better.

That post from yesterday? I spent an estimated 2 hours on it. Maybe more. Now does that reveal how big of a dork I am? I got home on Friday night and I really felt like writing. It's kind of strange that I'm writing personal essays for fun but I actually really DID enjoy writing it and I think it turned out kind of nicely.
Yeah?

Denver's getting big snow this weekend (I'm sorry. I'm talking to you about the weather. I'm kind of short for words today but I want to write something). After sleeping and watching NUMB3RS episodes for hours in my room this afternoon, I was surprised to see a heavy blanket of snow on the ground when I looked out my front window. Let me look again.

Oh. Not as much snow as I thought. Just a couple inches. I was thinking in the 2-foot range. I'm disappointed. I usually don't like snow, or cold, or anything really associated with winter at all except maybe cute coats and hats and the way my nose gets red in the cold. I like the way the cold gives my face some color. I also like scarves. I love scarves. Aside from that though, winter is a pain in the ass, as is snow, unless of course I am skiing on it.
I just wanted a lot of snow tonight because I really don't want to go to church tomorrow morning. This weekend all I really want to do is sleep.
I lead a terribly exciting life, I know.
So right now I'm fantasizing how my house should look 6 AM tomorrow...6 foot snowbanks blocking my front door. How wonderful would it be to say, Oh, darn, looks like we won't be able to move the car today. Looks like I'll have to spend the day at home staying warm in bed.

That unfortunately is not the case right now. I'm sad to see tire marks on the road, which means of course that conditions are drive-able right now.
I can't even barricade myself in my bedroom because I'm stuck upstairs caring for crying children who are actually beating themselves up pretty badly tonight. My 12-year old brother felt justified in knocking two small children down onto the floor because he was hit by my 8-year-old sister.
Then when I yell at him he insists that he did nothing wrong.

I put up with chaos on a daily basis.

Let me show you a picture of my family. Just for kicks.
Photos make blogs much more interesting.

This isn't even all of us. This picture was taken in the summer of 2006. Since then another baby boy has been born and my mother is now expecting baby #12. But this is the most recent decent picture of most of the whole gang. I'm the tall redhead standing behind my parents. The kid in the right-hand corner is the second oldest. He's not that short. I don't know why but he is sinking into something there in the back row. He's actually taller than me now.

Now for some more pictures. This is fun.

This is my baby brother, Charlie, not pictured in the family photo. He's a real cutie, I love him a lot.

This is my brother in a skirt. I have nothing more to say to that.

This is one of my TV boyfriends, Charlie from LOST. Best show on television. No matter what you say, LOST is amazing. Because of this guy, I call my baby brother "Chah-lee" all the time.

This is another TV boyfriend, Jim Halpert from The Office. I am crazy over this guy.

This is me, my best friend Iliana, and my piano on prom night of Junior year. I had a killer dress that I loved. It just wasn't very dance-friendly.


This is my sister Katie being unspeakably cute. This was part of a candid trampoline photoshoot last summer. Tons of fun.

This is my brother and me being rebellious little shits. Heh heh.


This is my sister Lucy and me on Christmas Eve of my sophomore year. I look deranged, but hey, we like to have fun.


I love this picture. Katie is wearing a pirate bandana. She is still unspeakably cute. That's my sister Mary in the background giving me a killer smile.

This is me and Iliana on New Year's 2007. I look pretty stupid when I laugh, but this is definitely us. :)

This is me and my brother Michael. We're the only two redheads in my family. I think we're pretty lucky. :)

Well, I think I've posted enough photos for the night. I may post more random photos another day. Maybe I'll just start taking more pictures in order to better document my life.

Anyways, I'm off to do something actually productive now.

Happy Saturday.