… so I’ve got to push on through.

Coming back to reality today was difficult. I had a really good, relaxing weekend, which always makes things a little bit worse. We went to my parents’ for Thanksgiving. It was a smaller Thanksgiving than we have had for the past couple years (only one set of aunts, uncles, and cousins came) but it was still really fun.

Then for the rest of the weekend, we went to PA to spend some time with the Architect’s fam. We had a really busy day on Saturday. In the morning, we went shooting with the Architect’s cousins and uncle (Fun Cheshire Fact #237: Yes, I know how to shoot a gun and I enjoy target practice). I got to shoot a few different things that I had never shot before including a few big guns.

We also had lunch with the Architect’s grandfather. I had of course met him several times but he seems to be pretty quiet in crowds, even small crowds of family so I really hadn’t ever gotten to talk to him too much. We had a really nice visit with him and it was nice to get to talk to him a little bit more.

We also took the requisite trip to Hershey Park to see Christmas lights (and reindeer). We got a few Christmas ornaments although we aren’t putting our tree up until I finish finals, which I probably should be working on instead of typing this. Oops. What can I say though? I missed Xanga.

How was your holiday?

Tomorrow we’ll be driving up to my parents’ house to spend Thanksgiving with them. On Friday, we’ll drive up to Pennsylvania to spend time with the Architect’s family for a long weekend. I’m looking forward to it. The past few weeks have been pretty rough between work and school and I’m ready for a break. I think I’ve gotten far enough with school work to leave it behind for the weekend but I’ll have to make a game time decision tomorrow morning… I hope I can get away without bringing work.

I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

So Roadlesstaken and I came to the conclusion that it’s about time for another Xanga Meet for the DC Metro area. We’re looking at January 10, 2010 as a possible date to have the meet. We’re thinking of either meeting in the city or somewhere else metro accessible for travel ease.

And as always, anyone that isn’t from the area is certainly welcome to come! We’ll adopt you as honorary DC-ers

So who’s up for another meet?

(Oh, and if I tagged you, it’s either because you are a DC-er or you attended another meet-up. Sorry if I missed anyone!)

(*Ahem*, I’m timestamping this so that more people can see. My apologies; I know how grating timestamping can be.)

I have to admit, I was kind of scared to go wedding dress shopping. It wasn’t that I wasn’t excited about going dress shopping but I was kind of scared to go because I wasn’t sure how all that white was going to look on me. I don’t wear a lot of white usually. Also, you know that song from Sir Mix-a-lot? Yeah, you know the one that I’m talking about (pretty sure that’s the only song that he’s ever had a hit with). Whelp, that’s kind of my body in a nutshell. I’ve got a lot of  proverbial “back.” Thus, I thought that this might be a problem with the whole wedding dress thing.

It wasn’t and I found a really, really perfect dress that I’m absolutely in love with. It was the second dress that I tried on. You know how they always say that when you put on the one, you just know? I kind of thought people were joking about that. Turns out, that at least in my case, they really weren’t. I would go into more detail about the dress but the Architect reads my blog and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

I’m really stunned how easy it was to find a dress. My sisters, aunt, and mom came with me and we were even able to look at a few bridesmaid dresses. We found some prospects but I still want to think about them for a little bit.

Thanksgiving has always been sort of a strange holiday to me. I have a lot to be thankful for but I’m thankful every day. The idea of having to have a special holiday in order for people to think about what they are thankful is kind of strange to me.

I’m thankful that I’m happy, healthy, safe, secure and that I have a roof over my head and food to eat. I’m thankful for my friends and family (and be sure that includes my Xanga fam) and all the love and support they give me. There’s really nothing else that I need but I’ve been blessed with a lot more than that.

If I listed each specific thing that I’m thankful for, the list would drag on and on. So you see, I wouldn’t have enough time on Thanksgiving to even begin to think about everything that I’m thankful for. A day just wouldn’t be enough. I think about how good I have it every single day and that seems to work out a lot better for me.

(This is a featured_grownups entry; go visit!)

I promised and here they are. Here are the pictures from our trip to Philly; I so want to go back!

The Architect modeling the latest in Ben Franklin eyeglass fashion.

Here’s a picture of the Liberty Bell with part of Independence Hall back behind it.

It’s always been amazing to me at how small the Liberty Bell is in real life.

We wandered some of the side streets near the Independence Mall and came across this fire station who had an emblem of Ben Franklin wearing a fire hat. I love it!

This fountain is on the outside of the Betsy Ross house which we toured while we were in town. It’s a quick tour but pretty interesting. No one really knew that Betsy Ross made our flag in her own time. Had she be caught making our flag, the British could have tried her with treason!

I thought these were kind of cute. They had mock ups outside the Diana dresses exhibit of “We the People” magazine, a parody of People Magazine. The front pages were filled with significant political stories throughout history.

This was my favorite. I love TR!

Things that we don’t have pictures of:

• Princess Diana dresses: they wouldn’t let you take pictures in the exhibit. I loved this exhibit! I’ve always been fascinated with the British royal family and Princess Diana.
• Fork: We ate at a really, really amazing restaurant while we were there on the recommendation of one of my co-workers who is a Philly native. I had butternut squash risotto topped with gorgonzola and pepitas (sort of like pine nuts really). We both loved the risotto so much that the Architect made a version last week for dinner with goat cheese. For those that don’t know, I have an obsession with goat cheese. It was wonderful. The Architect had hanger steak with potatoes. It was absolutely amazing. We sat at the bar since the restaurant was so crowded. The bartender was really wonderful. We got a apple tartlet to split for dessert. The bartender gave us a glass of port to go with dessert. I’ve never had port before but it was really enjoyable with the apple-ish sweetness of our dessert.

I have off today for Veteran’s Day. I’m trying to get some writing done for school but am having major trouble concentrating… grr. I guess I should get back to that….

I like shopping and I like buying gifts but I really hate venturing to the mall to buy Christmas gifts. I’ve gotten a little bit of a late start because I’ve been quite busy between work and school. On Saturday, I was able to get a little bit done but not without some added frustration. I met with my wedding planner at a bookstore in a big mall over in VA. After we got finished talking and going over a few things, I ventured into the mall. I guess others had the same idea about shopping on a Saturday as I did. The mall was pretty crowded. One negative. I hate, hate, hate crowds

The second negative is that since the downturn in the economy, I’ve noticed that salespeople have seemingly turned into vultures. The people in the kiosks in the middle of the walkways practically jump you as you walk by. If you even more than glance at an item, you have salespeople that want to get all up on you to get you to buy stuff.  

I wandered into Teavana, a store that sells tea and tea accoutrements like it sounds. I had this wonderful idea to get my grandma some items to make loose leaf tea because she liked it so much when we went to tea a few weeks ago while she was visiting. I was practically pounced on by this short cashier. She bombarded me with the usual questions (i.e. what are you looking for today? Have you seen <insert new item here>?). I sort of mumbled something incoherent at her. I never know what to say to salespeople and besides, I knew exactly what I wanted. I was carrying a big bag from other things that I had bought already. Pushy Cashier Lady as she in the midst of warbling at me about the 50 bazillion kinds of tea they had says “Oh, what did you get for lunch???” and then proceeds to take her fingers and PEEK INTO MY BAG. For serious? This stranger who is trying to sell me a bunch of stuff wants to see what else I’ve bought. I said “Excuse me!” and she left me alone. I gathered up the items I was going to buy and got out of there only to be bombarded by kiosk people… I can’t win.

I understand that these people are probably being paid on commission but I’ll tell you one thing, if someone is bothering me, I’m probably not having a good time shopping. If I’m not having a good time shopping, I’m going to be less likely to want to spend money wherever it is that I’m being bothered. Yeesh. I wish I could write that on a sign and wear it to the mall…grr!!!

The ever lovely Seedsower put up a post about what Xanga means to her and tagged many of us to post on what Xanga means to us.

This really couldn’t have come at a better time for me. Last week, I had the idea for the whole International Xanga Friend Day. I thought it would be kind of a fun thing to do and really didn’t expect that it would take off the way that it did. It did take off though. I had many, many people putting up the names of their friends. Some friends thought their friends just needed some love. Some friends thought their friends could use some extra traffic. Some friends knew their friends were having a rough time of it and could use some kind words, thoughts, or prayers. All I was doing was giving out kind words and comments and while I’m a big believer in that every little bit counts, I really didn’t think that either of those items would be in such high demand. That’s one thing that I love about being here. There are so many wonderful people here who are willing to do things for others, even if it’s just a small thing.  I like that I’m not alone in believing that I am not alone in believing that the little things in life can actually account for a lot. There’s a sense of community about this place that I haven’t seen duplicated in any other blogosphere.

I have met some really fantastic people here and I would list them all but that would take up so much room. Hopefully through the words that I’ve written in the past to them or about them, they are already very much aware of who they are. I’ve even had the opportunity to meet several Xangans in real life through two Xanga meets (DC people: when are we doing that again?) and they were all pretty amazing.

Writing has always been cathartic for me. I feel like I communicate better through writing than speaking. I think there is a lot of like-minded individuals on that matter that find themselves on Xanga. It’s pretty cool in that respect.

I’ve been on Xanga in various incarnations since 2002 and I can’t see myself leaving. This place is too good to let go of.

I’m pretty freaked out by what happened at Ft. Hood yesterday. I’m praying and thinking about all of the victims, their families, and everyone else on the base as they are probably pretty freaked out right now as well. One would think that in someplace like a military installation you would be just about as safe as you could be. There’s tons of security. My hometown has a very small army base in it and when I was in high school, I was dating a guy whose dad was in the military and their family lived on the base so I had to go through the front gate security all the time. 9/11 happened while I was in high school and while I was dating this guy and I noticed how much tighter security got. There were times where the MPs had to check my trunk and take a mirror to the underside of my car. This was to get on a little tiny base where most of the stuff going on was science-y type things. It’s been awhile since I’ve been on an actual military base but I know that even still to walk on to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, you have to be frisked and go through a metal detector. So they keep the bad guys from outside out but you never really stop to think that there might be bad guys inside already…

I just feel so much pain for the families affected by this. I don’t have any immediate family in the military but I have tons and tons of extended family that are in the military (including one who was apparently at Ft. Hood yesterday, but he’s okay; thank God!). I have cousins that at this point have deployed to war zones several times and it’s been scary for the entire family. So I have to imagine that there already has to be a huge amount of stress in immediate families where there is even the smallest chance that a family member could deploy. So already these affected families were probably dealing with a lot of extra stress before this ever even happened.

It just makes me sick to think about this happening. People should be able to feel safe in places like military installations. These are the people that are protecting our country!!! They have a pretty stressful job already without this other stuff going on.

I’m going to be very interested to see what the investigation uncovers about the shooter. He was in the military getting ready to deploy for Iraq. He was a psychiatrist that had been up here in DC at Walter Reed (the army hospital where many war veterans with war wounds are treated).

Hopefully what will come out of this whole mess is more of a focus on the psychiatric health of our troops before and especially after they deploy…. I really hope.

I have a lot of credits (over 31,500) and they’re burning a hole in my interwebz pocket. I was thinking about having some kind of contest but I don’t have enough time right now to oversee a contest and I also couldn’t think of a good contest to have. But I do want to do something with these credits. Here’s where you, the lovely people of Xanga come in.

I’m declaring today (and every subsequent day until either I fulfill my promise or until my credits run out) International Xanga Friend Day.

Here’s what I’m thinking: you leave a comment here with the username of a fellow Xangan who could use some cheer and friendship through comment and mini love. Maybe it’s a good Xanga friend. Or maybe it’s someone just starting out here. Submit anyone you want.  It’s even better if you can think of a specific entry that you feel needs some more love. Once you comment me with the usernames or entries, I’ll visit that person or the specific entry you link me to and give that person a mini.

It’s not much but I think this could be fun. Yay!

And I don’t do this often but I would greatly appreciate if you would rec this entry. I want as many people as possible to participate!