Little Kite Girl

Me: “I’m going to teach our kids that when the microwave is on, time stands still.”

John: “And we will call them Skunkweed, Rhododendron, and Gladiolas.”

The parents are here!  Their flight ran a bit long- and apparently it was a little torturous- but they’re here now, so it’s all good.

They were really tired when they arrived, but I still did my customary talk them til they beg me to stop thing.  John and Jon were both at work, so I got them all to myself for an evening.  It was funny- I brought them over to the apartment where they are staying, and there was a note from Alicia that said, “Give this to Erin, I meant to but ran out of time!  Merry Christmas.”  So…my Mom hands me the note and attached to it is a small baggie of plant food.  I was like…hmmm…ok.  That’s a random present.  My Mom and I just stood around wondering what the significance of the plant food was until my Dad said, “Maybe it’s the plant that the note was sitting on.”  Sure enough, there was a beautiful  flower arrangement with a Christmas candle in the middle.  Yes.  Perhaps a little brain dead.

Tomorrow will be the end of Christmas shopping.  A few more things for stockings- food shopping, and then we’re all done.  I’m having an issue though- I can’t seem to let go of the “pent up” feeling from the end of the semester.  Usually about now I’m releasing all my stress and feeding the little party inside me.  But this week I’m feeling a little like I’m underwater.  Perhaps it’s just because everything is so new, and I am a long way from where I normally spend Christmas.

Even so, my Dad said that my home feels very homey.  Much more so than when he was here for the wedding.  He came as all the chaos hit and I became frazzled bride and the world was upside down.  Tonight, I actually had some dinner for them and the tree was up and there were sparkly lights and snow outside and yes, it just feels good.

Probably time for a real post.  It’s been a busy few days.  The semester is almost a memory.  I can’t believe it’s all gone so quickly.  I’m excited to hear from Westminster and set up my next educational experience.  It’ll be nice to take a class I feel I can actually use.  Not that I didn’t appreciate BYU…but…anyway.  Moving on.

I seriously cleaned the house tonight.  It feels so good.  I’ve been, well, not cleaning for a couple weeks through finals time.  I don’t deal with that very well.  Whenever anyone comes into town I get all freakish and have to wash the bathroom rugs.

Work today was rather interesting.  I’ll have a week off now- through Christmas.  We’ll resume book meetings on Thursday of next week- but then have a few more days off for New Years.  The 2nd I go full time- “big push” time.

Now it’s just waiting for final grades, putting my backpack away, and preparing for holiday festivities.  Mom and Dad fly in tomorrow around 12- and they’ll probably need some time to rest up and then Saturday well do all the food shopping (yum.  Mom’s cooking.  yum yum yum) for the holiday.

Hmmmm. That seemed a little boring.  But HEY.  Vacation life can be boring.  That’s part of the CHARM.

John flipped the mattress today. Just in case anyone was wondering. Apparently that’s something that grownups do. Good to know.

Today was the film final- yesterday was Book of Mormon. I didn’t do AMAZINGLY on either, but I did well enough. Well enough to keep my grades high, and well enough to be done with a couple more classes. There’s only one more building on campus that I ever have to go to again- that’s kind of exiting!

I parked my car across from my old house today. I wasn’t planning on it- but when I went to campus I found out that everyone else in the Provo area had a final at the same time, so I drove around a bit looking for a spot. I checked out the lot across from the white house, and lo and behold, a spot! It was kind of weird, taking my old route onto campus again. Walking back to my car the same way I used to. The house looks small now, more decrepit then it used to. And I was amazed to feel…nothing. It’s kind of sad. Coming to the end of my undergraduate career I thought I’d feel something. Perhaps, nostalgia or excitement, or sadness at leaving. But I feel kind of nothing. I know I had all of those feelings when I left Scranton- so maybe I used all of them up.

So yes- still some work to do.  I especially have to get my house spic and span for the weekend.  I think it’ll feel nice to actually pay some attention to my surroundings.  Haven’t done that in a little bit.

I almost forgot my MOST exciting news.  I got into Westminster’s MPC program!  I found out yesterday.   Now I have to decide when to start.  Basically, if I can get financial aid for one class- I’ll start in January.  If not, I’ll have to wait until May.  Either way, I’m happy to have a new next step.  I think I’ll learn some really useful skills there. This Master’s program will be a perfect, compatible capstone to my philosophy degree.

Time to get some things done.

TWO DOWN. Phew. Only 473 to go. Well, not exactly. But close. My William James final this morning went well. We presented papers- so other than making sure mine made sense, there wasn’t too much prep work to do. Also, Dr. Paulsen brought us sandwiches and cookies and chips and juice, and, get this, shrimp. Seriously. Shrimp. It was really good food. The discussion wasn’t too bad, either. I knew that I’d go, even though the speakers were chosen by lottery. It was a feeling I got when we decided to do it, and sure enough, my name was the first out of the envelope. But I felt like I made my point well and was able to contribute throughout the rest of the final. So all’s good. As for biology, we are DONE WITH THE CLASS. It feels so good. What we studied ALL DAY YESTERDAY did come in handy for the final- so I felt like the exam was fair. We’ll see how it goes- but I’m not too worried. I’m just so happy to be done. AND, this Friday, my parents will be here. Then Christmas really gets to start.

But why am I being so hasty? I totally skipped the rest of the weekend. Saturday, I think I wrote about…and it was a nice little date night. That’s something we hadn’t had in a while. I think we figured out that we actually hadn’t been to a movie at all this semester. Sunday we woke up and went to church. My class hysterical. I can’t believe the weird things kids come up with. My favorite comments of the day came from one little girl I’ll call vocabgirl. (Because she LOVES vocab time). So, we’re watching a video about Paul the Apostle and after a few minutes of watching, vocabgirl turns around to me (I was sitting behind her curbing the hair pulling/snot flicking tendencies of the boys in the class) and says: “Paul’s beard is incredibly unkept.” She said unkept, not unkempt, but it was still rather funny. And then later in a discussion about spiritual gifts…faith, musical talent, teaching skills, etc. she said, “I think mine is organization.” Well hey. You can’t denigrate that.

After church we got home and had some food- then immediately started reading and studying for our bio final today. For HOURS.   We ran back to church to meet with our bishop, then home again home again jiggety jig for more studying.  Ew.  Jonathan came over and watched some movie about dragons (Circle of Fire?  Ring…??) and then part of the classic, Blue Lagoon.  Oh fun.  So, tonight, some work, some cleaning, some more studying.  Fun fun, no?

I get a little bored studying and start messing with John’s pant leg.  He notices and says, “What are you doing?”  I say, “Don’t look!  I’m trying to pinch you.”  He replies (deadpan): “Would you like me to get closer so you can pinch me?”

What a nice guy.

You know those mornings when the universe looks down at you while you’re sleeping, and then says: “Yeah…she deserves it, make it a good one.” Today was one of those days.

I woke up earlier than intended because of a bunch of crazy dreams- and did some work on the book. After about an hour of that John woke up, and we talked about different things to do with our day. Study, help the little brother with some paperwork type stuff, go see The Golden Compass (a movie John and I have been dying to see for months), etc.

The little brother came over for a few, and he was a little cuddly. John said it might be because his job is largely a loner one- but he seems to be liking it. He borrowed one of John’s books Neverwhere to read while working. I’m glad he found a nice warm job to sustain him through the winter. Also- apparently he went to a Wii competition, and while he did not win a Wii, he DID get fed Prime Rib and lots of other good food. On top of that, he had a Christmas party for his new job, a job he had worked at for two days- and ended up getting some stocking holders and a $50 giftcard to WalMart. That’s quality!

So- he went merrily on his way to work and John and I headed to campus. To campus? You ask? Well- we had scrounged and found some books to sell back- not a lot, mind you, we are kind of the book keeping type…but a few. We figured selling back our books would be a great way to get ourselves some extra money for our little date night- dinner and a movie. Little did we know that we’d get $75 back! I was going to be happy with $30- so that was exciting. I felt a little bit like we were selling our blood, though. It was an odd sensation. And then John tried to get me to recycle a book they wouldn’t take back. I couldn’t even believe it! We are not the kind of household that sends books to their doom. Nope. Not us.

Skipping jauntily on our way (ok, we just walked) we went to Provo Town Centre and got tickets to the Golden Compass- we made the matinée so it was only $11! And the movie was good- I mean really good. I loved the idea that a long time ago our ancestors made a choice which allowed all kinds of new thoughts and things to enter the world- and that the world started to fight back. In the story it gets so extreme that the government is actually trying to mediate the children’s growth- change the way they change as they become adults. It’s reminiscent of The Giver- actually. The story is magical and fun, and it says a lot about bravery and loyalty. There is a lot of criticism going around about how it teaches children to lie and undermine authority, but I like to think it will just teach children to think about what they’re being told to do. Also, honestly, I don’t know too many children who will read into it that deeply. I kind of want to know a little more about the controversy, and obviously the author has some issues with dogma and even the Catholic religion (or, the way he thinks it may become in the future…and all religions for that matter) but I don’t really care. I think that as long as people are writing moral stories, someone will be there to try and drag it down. No press is bad press, right?

I did tell John, though, that if I happen to right a controversial book I’m going to make sure to give it a name that will look GREAT on the religious extremist’s signs. Make sure it’s a real shocker. For instance, the name of the trilogy that The Golden Compass belongs to is His Dark Materials. That gives ‘em something to wave around.

After the movie because we were SO RICH we decided to go and grab some food at Bajio- we had it just the other night, but it left us wanting some more. We parked around back and starting walking in when this guy with a visible limp yells, “I’m gonna beat you!”and takes off running. He did beat us. Not only that, but he stood in front of us line saying things like, “Yeah, my daughter is real high energy. But she fell on my foot chasing my grandkid…and now I have a limp.” And then there was something about Cellulitis, and then he asked John if he knew what that was…John said no, and then he said, “Yeah, me neither. But it can kill ya. I’ve got it, but I get my last shot tomorrow. Anti-biotics…” I’m staring to think he’s a little crazy (and maybe contagious?) when he says, “And THAT is the life story of the man who beat you in here.” Haha. Seriously.

Anyway. So we order our food and get to the end of the line- $12. I was like whooaaa John, that’s AWESOME. John said, “Yeah, that guy at the end had the girl take four dollars off. I don’t know why.” I looked at the receipt, and sure enough it said -$4. Why? Because the universe loves us.

So now it’s actually time to study. Actually actually. It’s a cold one outside, and it’s been a good day. Good good day.

(Oh yes, and I can’t forget my cupcake! When we ran out to Harmon’s for some last minute essentials- I saw a cupcake that I HAD to have, covered in Christmas frosting and with a pink snowflake ring on top. Sooo decadent. Just perfect.)