You guys are the people who get paid the most for coming up with the worst ideas ever. Like seriously, none of you must drive places on a regular basis because then you would know what a pain in the ass some of your parking lots are to maneuver around. It’s really great that you get paid as much as you do for angering the majority of drivers with your illogical parking lot designs.
First, don’t make parking spaces 8 inches wide. It’s really fun to try to squeeze ourselves out of the car because we can only open it two inches because there’s a car parked right next to us since the spaces are so tiny. Then there are those behemoth SUVs that feel obligated to park in two spaces because their massive car deserves more than one of the narrow, measly little spaces that you designed. Or they park right on the line and leave you with only one inch to squish yourself out of the car.
You know what’s also really awesome about your designs? Dead ends. They’re so awesome. I’m not sure why you guys would ever think that putting a dead end in a parking lot is a good idea. I bet you just did it for a laugh. I just love turning down a row to find a parking space but there’s nothing there AND there’s a dead end. You guys just think of everything, don’t you?
Christmas is just like a second Thanksgiving, except it has red and green, gifts, and trees, instead of brown and orange, pumpkins, and turkeys. Both holidays are great for me because they involve copious amounts of food. Normally, I wouldn't complain about two feasts within the span of 4 weeks. However, now I feel like a couch potato. I understand why people make resolutions at this time of year. It's the after-gorging-on-food holiday shock.
I love buying gifts for people. Shopping is pretty fun in general, so having an excuse to go shopping (it's for my friend, I swear) just makes it so much better. I'm not really good at getting meaningful or deep gifts for people. I love giving creative/witty/inside joking gifts. Then they're practical and they bring back memories. And, really, that's what Christmas is all about, isn't it? Making and reliving memories.
Somehow, I don't think I'm that easy to buy gifts for. I don't really have any interests that allow people to give me little gifts relating to that activity. I mean, you could buy me a French horn, if you want, but I never expect that. Also, my birthday is two months after Christmas so I don't want to waste all of my good Christmas gift ideas and then have no ideas for my birthday.
I always like getting practical gifts because they're obviously something you're going to use: lotion, pens, food, money. It saves the awkward "Oh, hey I love this!" reaction where you really don't like it at all and you don't think you're ever going to use it. Though I like practical gifts, I have yet to find a good reaction for them, too. You can't really be too excited: "Shut up! It's exactly what I wanted! I can't believe you got me my favorite pretzels!" I mean, they're pretzels. Come on.
I do like Christmas. It's a great time to chill and hang out with family. We get to laugh together as we play board games and eat pie and open presents. Who wouldn't love that?
"The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing." -Leo F. Buscaglia
Everybody takes risks in their lives, whether unconsciously or not. Every decision we make, every action we do all involve risk in some way. There are obvious risky decisions, ones that affect your health or well-being or life, but there are other, less obvious ones. When you sign up for classes, you take the risk of losing your sanity or dropping your GPA. When you eat junk food, you take the risk of developing clogged arteries or diabetes. When you get a haircut, you take the risk of not having people like how you look afterwards.
There's also different types of risk. There's the "Haha-That-Was-Sooooo-Risky" risk, which isn't very risky at all. That's a risk like wearing yellow with red instead of pink. You ran the risk of clashing. Then there's the "Yikes-That-Was-Kinda-Risky" risk, which are usually somewhat risky. That constitutes the acceleration through a yellow light to have it turn red when you're a quarter of the way through the intersection. Lastly, there's the "Shit-Man-That-Was-Super-Risky" risk, which usually is just scary beyond belief. That would be like bungee jumping out of a plane in which the pilot fell asleep and your parachute ripped.
People all classify their risks differently. I'm not a risky person at all. I'm very indecisive, so whenever I do make a decision, it's going to be one with little chance of something going wrong. To me, risky is arriving to class 30 seconds before the bell rings. I feel like a daredevil. (My gosh, am I really this lame?) Some people think risky is ordering a turkey sandwich instead of ham, or drinking apple juice with breakfast instead of orange juice. Others think that hitchhiking a ride to the Metrodome to sneak in to see a game is hardly risky at all.
The most risky thing of all is telling lies. This goes for everybody, no matter what their risk-tolerance level. I'll just leave you with that thought. Ponder it for a while. Do you lie a lot? Do you take risks? Check out the connection between the two, it might be more prevalent than you think.
First, I'm just going to say that I did follow directions, Cardona. I want to point out that I did try to switch things up a little bit, so I made a vlog. When I watched it back, though, I looked uncomfortable and I felt awkward talking to myself. I felt like I was going crazy. So I ditched that idea and I'm just gonna write about Christmas now. *We wish you a Merry Christmas.*
I'm sitting in our kitchen right now as my parents are making Polish Potato and Sausage Soup for lunch, jamming out to Christmas tunes. I think we have 20 Christmas themed CDs. And I'm pretty sure we listen to all of them. In our defense, there are a bunch of different genres: brass instrumental, rat pack, a cappella, choral, and then the normal kind of music. Is that too much? *City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style.*
I love listening to Christmas music. I don't think Christmas would be complete without it, although I do think it's a little overkill that radio stations start playing Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. Too soon, man. And then, even worse, there are some bad recordings out there, but I'm glad that my family respects good Christmas music. *And so it's been said many times, many ways. Merry Christmas to you.*
In December, my mom always has at least 3 Christmas CDs in her car. Even at home, my dad sets aside his iPod, which is usually constantly playing, for Christmas CDs to create holiday cheer. We sing along with these songs a lot. My dad and I like to harmonize. My mom and I sing along with songs that don't have any words, so we "da da da" along. *Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. And since we've no place to go, let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!*
Along with the large amount of Christmas CDs, we have 4 or 5 Christmas piano books. My mom likes finding cool versions of Christmas songs, so two of our books are jazzy Christmas songs. Some of them actually sound interesting, like We Three Kings of Orient Are. We all have our own favorite songs: my mom likes Do You Hear What I Hear?, my dad likes The Christmas Song, and I like Deck the Halls. *Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la la la.*
Speaking of decking the halls, when I went to see the Dallas Brass concert, I bought their Christmas CD because my mom also really likes brass Christmas music. They have a really good version of Deck the Halls where they just go crazy and are doing massive runs and hitting really high notes. It's awesome, but if I had to pick an overall favorite CD, it would be the Blenders. They are an a cappella group based in the Twin Cities and their songs/arrangements are freaking awesome. I couldn't find their best originial song ('Twas the Night) on YouTube, but I found their freaking awesome version of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Please listen and enjoy.
They're kind of a older boy band who try to be hip, but they're still really cute.
Now I'm going to go make some cookies: Russian Teacakes. And I'm going to eat them. And I'm going to get all covered in powdered sugar.
Except for it's not caves we're examining here. It's a cavernous junk drawer in the kitchen near the hallway. A very convenient location to drop things in passing. I bet there are things in there older than I am. Let's see, shall we.
Obviously it holds necessary household items like scissors, pencils, pens, tape, calculators, and rulers (I'm sure you all have a drawer like that at home), but if you delve a littler deeper you'll find some pretty weird things in there.
I was right. There is something older than me in there. Those massive spectacles in the upper left hand corner were my dad's glasses at one point in time. I think he got them out to show me how small my glasses were compared to his. I'm pretty sure he also just wanted to show me how cool he was back then.
That lone pink pom-pom fell off my snowman slippers once upon a time. My mom said she would fix them (because I'm all about symmetry) but that never happened. I'm not even sure how it made its way downstairs since our sewing machine is upstairs. It's been living in the drawer undisturbed ever since.
The small, green, bullet-shaped thing is an eraser. I found it at school in 3rd grade and fell in love. I didn't think it was too extreme to steal an eraser, so I brought it home to enjoy it, but when it got home it lost its magic so I tossed it in the drawer to save it from any further humiliation. My dad discovered it a few years ago and has been using it somewhat ever since. Apparently it's a really good eraser.
Behind the glare of the florescent light is a package of music note shaped paper clips. I got those for my birthday 2 years ago and put them out by all of my other music stuff in the dining room. Turns out, there isn't much to paper clip in dining rooms, so I moved them to the drawer, hoping to use them more. One now holds together my AP Comp vocab notecards. At least I'm organized.
There's a roll of bright fuschia electrical tape in there. I was bored one day in 6th grade when I found it and decided to cover my whole band folder in purple tape. It used the majority of the roll and I didn't have anything else I needed it for so I put it back. I was the coolest band kid in 6th grade.
Lastly, that's a mini book light/laser pointer. It can only clip on to 20 pages so nobody really used it as a booklight. The laser made a really good play toy for Dave, though. (Dave was a cat. Not a brother. I'm an only child and who entertains their brothers with lasers?) Then he got old and didn't want to play with it anymore, so back in the drawer it went.
As you can see, there are many useful things in that drawer. You just need to go junk drawer diving. Who knows? You might even find some cool tidbits and trinkets in there.
