Christmas Gifting: Receiving

This Christmas was definitely the best in a long time. My top gifts (in no particular order):

31 Bits Necklace: Camellia in sky blue. It's beautiful!

TOMS shoes in red. I've been wanting these for FOREVER. I've been wearing them since I got them on Tuesday night...and would have worn them to bed if Jeff hadn't told me this was unacceptable behavior for a 28-year old.

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an iPad!!!

Totally did not see this one coming.

Jeff figured it was a good investment for my business endeavors,

and I'd say...YES.

Played around with it all morning, and Jeff helped me decide on my next

DIY project:

an iPad cover :)

My mom was great and individually wrapped a bunch of gifts for Jeff and I (with the help of my cousins), including some truly awesome socks for Jeff--I'm not being facetious, Jeff LOVES cool socks and these are really cool--and some great ornaments for next years Christmas tree.

I can't thank everyone enough for making this year the best one we've had in a while, and not just because of the gifts, but because you are all amazing.

Love, love.

Christmas Gifting: Giving

This year I thought I would try to be a more conscientious consumer. So instead of buying a bunch of products made in China, I decided to make them (with products that are probably made in China anyway...I tried).

So I decided to bake goodies for my aunts, uncles, and their families. I made magic cookie bars (minus the coconut--gross), oatmeal chocolate cookies, and I did a few of the jars with ingredients to make your own cookies (because the jars looked really cool, and minus the pecans, because they didn't fit!).

The cupcakes were my contribution for Christmas Eve dinner. I put all the baked goods in mason jars, then Sarah helped me decorate the mason jars with holiday fabric, twine, ribbon, shiny paper, and anything else we could get our hands on.

For the male cousins, I made them each a friendship bracelet with their favorite cousin (it was more of a token gift than a "real" gift...), and went to Powell's candy store and bought all sorts of goodies to put in their gift bags with their bracelets (I'm talking pop rocks, air heads, now & laters, etc.). For my cousin in Colorado I crocheted some fingerless gloves (I do see the irony in fingerless gloves for someone living in Colorado...but they still have to come in handy, right?), and for the rest of the girl cousins I made them some yarn bracelets using a broomstick stitch .

Although I love the idea of having spent time on each gift, I will admit it was crazy stressful (Jeff can tell you all about this), although this is mainly because I love to procrastinate. All in all, I'd say it was a great Christmas for hand made gifting :)

P.S.: How cool is this photo feature?? Completely unrelated, but check out this 4 in 1 picture of the ingredients we used to make our tamales for Christmas:

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Updates and New Beginnings (Again)

(Disclaimer: it's a long one)

So many things to update on that I've actually been putting this off for a few days. Which, within the first line, leads me to digress already: I'm not sure why I feel the need to write; those that are close to me know what's going on, and I don't think I have too many random people following the intricacies of my life that I, for whatever reason, chose to post on the world wide web. Regardless, I feel I have the responsibility to let you all know what's been going on. So here we go.

WORK. I haven't written [too] much about my frustrations with TBM and my job because 1) I'm sure it gets old and most people seem to dislike their job to some degree; 2) it's minor complaining compared to what other people have to deal with in their lives; 3) as someone once said before, "be ye not so stupid" and don't write about your work on the internet unless you have permission to. So yeah, I wasn't so keen on the idea of my boss finding out about my blog while I was still working there and reading all the things I hated about the position (although I'm pretty sure he knew anyway).

This job was meant to be temporary, but it actually started looking like it would turn into something more permanent, and then it didn't. Woah, what does that even mean?! An attorney I used to work for ("TBM") was in need of a legal assistant since the one he had left him high and dry. I needed the money, so I agreed to work in his office part time doing administrative work. He later asked me to start working full time, and told me there was room for me to grow and possibly start a family law practice within his firm. Which sounded great, except that 1) there wasn't really enough time left in the week for me to "start a family law practice" while also keeping on top of all the other things I had to do (you know, important stuff, like correspondence and filing and making court and deposition appearances when him and the other attorney weren't available); and 2) I didn't really want to bust my ass to start a practice for someone else: if I'm going to put in the time and effort to learn a whole new area of law and make it work, I wanna make it work for me, not for someone else.

I could go on forever, but for your sake and mine, I'll just say that the administrative and "personal assistant" duties became a bit much for me to handle, and I realized that any promises made were not going to come to fruition. I was planning on putting in my two weeks notice when TBM let me know last Friday that he was gonna have to let me go due to some financial difficulties. It wasn't a huge shock, and aside from not having a steady check every two weeks (which is HUGE), I was actually relieved.

Here's why.

I've been thinking about what I want to do, or at least what I could enjoy doing, that would help bring some income into our household. I've got some business ideas floating around with Jeff, my friend Brooke, and an old colleague also, but I haven't been able to do anything with these ideas because I've been wasting forty hours a week at a pointless job. Sure, not having a source of steady income is scary as all hell, but I think it's something that needed to happen to make me do something for myself. I'm so used to things working out, and always being able to get things done with minimal effort, that I'm not used to having to work really hard at things. This is my challenge, and I'm nervous/excited to see how I deal with it.

One thing Jeff and I did have to laugh/cry about: I wrote before about how our lives seem to be a roller coaster, but one that never careens out of control: there's always a very delicate balance that keeps us holding on. I mentioned in the "Failure to Launch" blog (which I still have to respond to, thank you everyone for your very thoughtful comments!) how Jeff and I would be moving into his parents house. We were both so excited to be able to save up some money. But with the whole loss of income thing...it seems like we'll be, once again, just getting by. Thankfully we won't have to worry about paying rent, but we also won't have the income we had...which we were hoping to save up. Just so typically us :)

FOOD. Salads. They're kind of my jam right now. I grew up on salads that contained minimal ingredients, and figured that was the norm. I'm discovering that you can throw just about anything into a salad and make it delicious. Like almonds. Or bell peppers. Or feta cheese. Or cilantro! I know, they may seem obvious to you, but for whatever reason, they're new discoveries to me, and I'm excited about it. I think I've been pretty good the last few weeks on not over-indulging on stuff. I did have Mickey D's on Friday (right before I found out I was getting laid off), but that was because I had few alternatives, plus, it came out to about five bucks. Sigh.

This last picture is from dinner with Jeff's parents on Sunday. Holy glorious. Those potatoes? Yep, amazing. Foil paper, slice, salt, butter, put some onion chunks over them, smear some italian dressing over them, put them on the grill, and voila. Not pictured: stuffed chile. I don't know enough to give details, other than it was delicious. And it sent me into a food coma.

EXERCISE: I haven't been the greatest at this, but with being unemployed and Vegas being around the corner, I'm really gonna try to kick it up a notch. Jeff and I are trying to go on little walks before/after dinner, and I actually made it to the gym this morning! It was probably my most lame attempt at working out, but I at least made it there. Baby steps...

THINGS I WANT: Remember that iPhone case I wanted? Here's a reminder just in case. (Ha! iPhone "case"..."just in case"...get it?! wow...Lord help me...) Well....I GOT IT! Turns out Jeff wanted to give me some sort of compensation for helping him get his art show set up at Mesa, and it's absolutely fabulous. It's taking some getting used to, but I really like it. I still haven't dropped my phone, so I can't attest to it's protective powers, but hopefully they're good...because my phone falls quite a bit. Needless to say...I need to set up Jeff's next art show before my next installment of "Things I Want"...this could be great!

Unemployment accountability: I think I might go back to my old accountability reports from my last stint of unemployment. It shamed me into being productive, and I might need that up and running again. I think this post is long enough as is, so I might skip my accountability from the last couple days, but I am proud of everything I did yesterday and today, so I'm off to a much better start.

The Walking Dead: One thing I did do yesterday was go to Barns & Nobel and buy Volume 13 of The Walking Dead. As if I didn't have OCD issues on my own, this comic makes it nearly impossible to put down. I read volumes 11 & 12 on Sunday at Jeff's parent's house, and although we had volume 14...we were missing volume 13. So I went to B&N yesterday...then sat in the parking lot of Trader Joe's reading about a third of it before I forced myself to go buy stuff for dinner and go home before finishing it. Which I did. Then I finished Volume 14. Holy cow. The father-son relationship reminds me so much of Roland and Jake from The Dark Tower, which I love. I actually keep wanting to call Carl, Jake. It'll be interesting to see what they keep for season 2 of the show. And I'm hoping volume 15 comes out soon...

Well, I hope that wasn't entirely boring. One thing I'm excited about with this whole unemployment thing is working on more substantive blog posts...so hopefully that works out to your advantage :)

Has our generation "failed to launch"?

Last week I went to a deposition for one of our cases, and I got to talking to Mr. Doctor (his specialty is in bio mechanics, really interesting stuff about friction coefficients and what not--seriously) during breaks and for a bit after the depo (legal lingo, short for deposition...so fancy, huh?). He ended up talking about his frustration with the failure of each of his kids to be able to live on their own. They're each between 22-27 years old, and yet they're all living off of the old man still. Mind you, they're not losers or bad children: his daughter is an attorney, another son works in the environmental non profit sector, and the youngest is an aspiring actor (Mr. Doctor said this last one is going to have a "coming to God talk with his father very soon" about the realities of pursuing an acting career while living off of his father).

The daughter was laid off from her last job, and has been unable to find a similar job in the legal industry. The middle son is working, but doesn't make enough to pay rent, so Mr. Doctor pays for that. I guess to an extent he's enabling them, but on the other hand, he's not the only person in his generation going through this. Jeff and I might actually be moving in with Jeff's parents for a bit to save up some money. Is it wrong for them to let us move in instead of making Jeff and I figure it out on our own? Who knows.

Mr. Doctor made a comment which I found interesting, and I'll paraphrase: "I thought having kids was going to be like my generation was: you go to school, get a job, and start supporting yourself. I thought I was going to be done after college, maybe graduate school, but I'm still having to support all three of them." This is something that's come up quite a bit lately, and I find it pretty intriguing. What is crazy about this whole situation is that Jeff's parents and Mr. Doctor are among plenty of parents going through the same thing, I'm sure.

I think I wrote before how my family seems to be disappointed in the fact that my cousins and I haven't reached any sort of stability in our lives. They think back to when they were our age, and although they all had their difficulties in getting where they are, they had kids, a steady and secure job with potential to move up, and eventually a house.

The New York times published an article, a lengthy one that I'll confess I wasn't able to read in it's entirety, talking about why 20-somethings are taking so long to grow up. They've termed it "emerging adulthood." Our "transition to adulthood" is traditionally marked by five milestones:

1. Completing school
2. Leaving home
3. Becoming financially independent
4. Marrying
5. Having a child

Our generation is reaching these milestones at a later point in life than past generations. According to the article, some of the reasons for our delay in reaching these milestones include:

• "Need for more education to survive in an information-based economy;
• Fewer entry-level jobs even after all that schooling;
• Young people feeling less rush to marry because of general acceptance of premarital sex, cohabitation and birth control;
• and young women feeling less rush to have babies given their wide range of career options and their access to assisted reproductive technology if they delay pregnancy beyond their most fertile years."

I find that all very interesting, and I have few points of my own that I've been wanting to make about all of this:

We're not fuck ups. Sorry for the f-bomb, but I'm not sure what other expression to use, haha. I get the feeling that older generations (or maybe just the media, hmm....) think we're doing something hugely wrong with our lives, that we haven't played our cards right. But, we've kinda played the cards we were dealt. We were raised on the understanding that if you go to school and put your time in, things will work out for you. Given how many people get college degrees these days, that simple plan of just "going to school and working hard" can't work out for everyone.

As spoken by Tyler Durden in Fight Club:

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war...our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

Which leads me to...

The education bubble has to burst. Remember that whole housing bubble and how it finally exploded? I think something similar has to happen with higher level education. Hear me out. So. Housing. Prices got crazy high. People were able to buy them based on loans they couldn't afford to pay back. People didn't pay. Housing market crashed. People got stuck with over priced homes, and many of them lost them. But the pricing of real estate finally came down to something that was at least remotely affordable for the average American.

There are so many people going to college now, it's basically like another high school degree. Tuition for colleges and universities has been on a steady incline for how long? I'm not gonna look this up, but I'm pretty sure that every semester I hear something on the news about tuition going up 10, 20, 30%. NPR had a brief segment in which, if I remember correctly, it stated that the UC system was the most expensive public education in the world. How is that a public education? Not to mention private schools, such as my law school. Which is overpriced, and I couldn't afford, but someone gave me a loan, which I'm not quite able to pay back. I haven't made a decent payment on my loan since I graduated, but the interest is still accumulating. And I know I'm not the only one that didn't think this through. So what's going to happen when thousands of graduates start defaulting? I think something has to give for the cost of education to normalize. The big difference between a house and an education: they can't take back my degrees! Suckas.

That's more of a rant, but the point for this particular conversation is that almost everyone goes to college now. A college degree does not set you apart from the next person applying for the job you want. Maybe a master's degree. Maybe a Ph.D. Maybe the fact that your uncle John knowns the hiring partner. Education alone does not set you apart anymore. "I'm a dime a dozen, and so are you!" Yep, I just quoted that book you should've read in high school: Death of a Salesman. Maybe the cost of education will continue to increase to such staggering rates that not everyone will be able to go to college or a university, and the rest will follow through, you know, yadda yadda yadda supply and demand, less over-qualified applicants per available job positions. (Which begs the question, is it fair that only the wealthiest will be able to afford an education for better jobs?)

Job stability isn't what it used to be. I see my mom who's been at her job for over 10 years, and Jeff's dad, who just celebrated his 10 year anniversary with his company, and I wonder if/when I'll find a job that I see myself staying with for that long. Careers these days seem full of moves, transitions, lateral hires, moving up to the next thing. I'm not sure if that's because we can't be happy staying at a job that long, or because the possibility just isn't available as much anymore. Given the competition for a job position these days, it seems we're all a little more expendable. A company could probably find someone younger willing to work for free to get experience, for the same job that I want to get paid for, ha!

Priorities have changed. Getting back to the reasons for our delay given above, I'd have to agree with most of them. Instead of one head of household, you usually have two now. That's two people that have probably gone to school and are trying to figure out their career before settling down. Which also means school loans that need to get paid, and maybe that factors in to the delay in having kids and buying a house. I think this generation has also changed the order of priorities quite a bit. Maybe it's selfishness, I dunno, but it seems that our generation has put a lot of value in living their life before settling down, whether that's through travel or other life experiences. I don't think we feel the same pressure to settle down and have kids that our parents or grandparents had. Whether that's for better or worse, you can each decide :)

So. Have we failed to launch? Or are we just living life at a different pace than those before us? Or is this part of some Darwinian evolution?

Hmmmmm...

P.S. Pretty timely to come across this online today.

P.P.S. Another timely article I saw today regarding the business of law schools.

Daddy Issues

Well, it only took 28 years for me to get emotional about Father's Day.

Up to now I've always told myself, and others, that it probably worked for the best that I never met my father, and hence, that he's never been a part of my life. Curious thing to say, right? Thing is, the father relationships that surrounded me growing up have always been complicated ones. Not necessarily bad ones, just complicated: divorced parents, step-father, emotionally withdrawn, not around, etc. From what I understand, my dad wasn't ready to be a dad, and he made that clear to my mom. So why would I want someone in my life who didn't want me in theirs? I prefer that I've been brought up by people who love and care for me, as opposed to someone who felt obligated to do so; I think any issues I have would have been exacerbated by a father who didn't care to be a father to me. Nothing that happened today changes my mind about that.

Now that I'm older, I'm seeing relationships that are less complicated. Jeff's dad is a great example, as is my uncle, who is constantly at baseball games and family vacations with his kids and family. During the sermon at church today (after which my mom gave me a book titled "Rediscover Catholicism," but that's neither here nor there for purposes of this post), the priest recalled stories of time spent with his dad, like going to pick rocks at the Santa Ana river bed, which they later used to for various projects in the garden. He recounted these stories with a certain...I dunno...sparkle? Maybe not the right word, but you could just hear in his voice how much he enjoyed spending those moments with his dad. Jeff's often recounted similar stories to me, with the same "sparkle" and enthusiasm.

I haven't thought very much about what I've missed out on. I guess maybe when I was little I did. But I can't remember it anymore. Maybe that's why today just hit me out of no where. What if my dad is actually a great dad to the children he has now? What stories will they have to share about their dad that I don't? I've always told myself that I haven't missed out by not having my dad around, but what if I have?

I think those are questions I'll never know the answer to. Today was the first day I asked myself if I'm really ok with that.

Mother's Day: DIY Project

My family kind of skipped Easter this year. No one really wanted to drive the hour-and-a-half one way or another, so we ended up just calling it a day and everyone stayed in their respective cities. So the cousins took it upon themselves to make something happen for Mother's Day. I'm sure my mom and aunt's would've figured something out on their own, but where's the Mother's Day grace in that? So we organized brunch at a restaurant located along the lake, and I requested outdoor seating with our reservations. Unfortunately, it was gloomy and sprinkling on Sunday, so we got sat inside anyway. Good thing we had thought of decorations to make our table extra pretty :)

After being made aware of the fact that Target no longer has garden centers, Adri and I headed to Home Depot and after much looking around, settled on simple little pots and multi-colored flowers, the name of which I can't remember, but were super pretty.

Add a little ribbon, and voila!

After brunch we walked around and took some family portraits:

Mom and I.

Las primas.

La Familia.

Some of the extra flowers ended up permanently relocating to our balcony:

Cathartic Writing

28. Wow.

I'm not sure how I got here, but here I am. 28 years old.

Do you remember when you were younger, and you would plan out where you would be in five, ten, fifteen years? Eh, maybe that was just me. Anyhow, I calculated how old I would be when I graduated high school and college...and once I was in college I realized I needed to add some time for a graduate program...so marriage would come after that, then the career, the house and babies!

Ha, yeah....I know...ridiculous. You can't plan your life...some things just need to happen. Regardless, I feel that for the most part, my life is where I originally planned, and where I need to be: I graduated school, graduated law school, and met an absolutely amazing man that is beyond perfect for me.

The areas that haven't quite worked out are mostly financial and career. Some of you may remember that I started this blog because I was unemployed...and it's been a bit of a roller coaster since I graduated law school a couple years ago. And financially....well, I've never been financially stable I guess. I've never been able to go crazy around Christmas time and buy stuff for the whole family, or go on expensive weekend get-aways...or finance my own car. I feel like at 28 I should have improved from when I was 18. But I haven't. I wish I could say with confidence that in a few years I'll be where I want to be, financially, but with my career aspirations of working in a field that [normally] doesn't pay over $50,000, and school loans nearing the $200's, I just can't.

As the first person in my extended family to graduate from undergrad and law school, I think my family's expectations of what I would do with my life were high. I know they're looking out for me when they want me to land some lucrative job, but I think they've finally realized that's not what I want for myself, and seeing that reaction is difficult.

My aunts and my grandmother were having a conversation a few weeks ago about how life for my cousins and I has been so much easier than theirs, and they don't understand how we don't have our life together at this point. I've been a bit of an emotional wreck about this on my own, so being me, I clammed up and just tried to hide how much their commentaries bothered me. I know the challenges my cousins and I face can't be compared to what my grandmother and my aunts had to do to get ahead in life, but I don't feel like I'm where I am because I took the "get out of jail free" card either. I wish I had it in me to be more hungry for money, to want money bad enough that I didn't care what I did with my career, as long as I was bringing in the cash. I wish I was a fighter. I wish so many things, but I'm not. So I'm trying to work with the cards that I've been dealt, and as far as I can tell, I'm doing the best I can. I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do.

The other day my mom mentioned that Jeff and I should be saving money, and I almost lost it. Jeff and I aren't not saving because we don't want to...we've actually tried...but eating or paying bills seems to take precedence every time. Everyone has an opinion about what I should do with my life and in what direction I should take my career, but honestly, none of them sound appealing. I wish they did. I don't know how to reach the financial stability I want. And I don't know how to do what I want, and not feel like I'm compromising my financial stability.

~~~~~~

I hope you reading this was as cathartic an experience as me writing it :)

Reminders and Memories

(Disclaimer: this blog is from my working days, certainly not recent!)

There was quite a bit of drama leading up to this moment, but to make a long story short: I was in the middle of driving an-hour-and-a-half from the office to a clients house to handle some stuff for work. At first I was furious that I was going to have to take the whole afternoon off from my busy office schedule to do this, but as I set my tunes and hit the freeway I realized how stupid I was for complaining: I was out of the office! It reminded me of how much I enjoyed being on the road when most people were stuck in an office, behind a desk. There's something liberating about driving down a street at 10am, or 2pm, when the norms of society are yelling at your body: you shouldn't be here!!!

This trip was also quite an experience for a few other reasons. For those who read this blog and don't live anywhere near me, nor have ever lived anywhere near me (bless your hearts for reading), I live in a county that is sorely lacking in diversity, and it shows. This trip reminded me of the bubble that I live in. It was almost like crossing a border into another country. The streets are smaller, more people walking, different colored faces, people everywhere just trying to survive. It was good to be reminded.

When I got the the clients house it was almost like going back in time: I found myself in my great-aunt's house, or my grandmother's neighbors house in Guatemala: the plastic cover over the furniture and dining room table, the religious icons all over the house, the "recuerditos" from baptisms, weddings, and quinceneras all over the house, the clutter on the walls. There's a certain "feeling" of hispanic homes that I had missed for a while, and I felt strangely comfortable in this strangers home.

Great News today, times two!

A couple quick updates that are worth mentioning:

Firstly, Jeff got a job! We're both soooo very excited about this. Hopefully with two steady incomes, we'll be able to figure out our finances (and my stupid student loans), and maybe even start saving for a vacation or a home. The great thing about this job is that it offers health insurance, which we both haven't had in a long time and are really looking forward to (just think about how much cheaper those malaria pills would have been WITH insurance!).

aaaaaaaaaand:

MIKE AND ULI ARE COMING HOME! For those of you unawares, Jeff's brother, Mike, and his wife, Uli, had to move to Germany at the end of 2008 to take care of some stuff, and they've been out there since. Thing is, they also got a little frisky while they were out there and now we have a new member in the family, little Henry (aka, Hank). It's been pretty terrible not being able to meet the little guy, other than through Skype and Facebook picutures. I know Mike and Uli didn't make their decision to move back lightly, since there are still a lot of unresolved issues over there, but Jeff and I (not to mention their parents) are beyond stoked to have them and lil Hank in our lives again. Holidays and family time has not been the same since they were gone: although you carry on as if nothing's wrong, everyone at the dinner table is aware that there are a couple very important people missing. I can't wait for the dinner table to be full again!

Holiday Special!

In the spirit of Christmas, I'm sharing with you a movie that everyone should watch at least once during the Holiday Season. I'm sure most of you have already seen this movie before, but I'll be honest and tell you that if it wasn't for marrying into the Armstrong Family, I probably wouldn't even have known about it, or caught all the jokes in movies, TV shows, etc., about the leg lamp.

Here's a little trailer for A Christmas Story:


I hope you all have a safe and wonderful Christmas, sharing it with those you love.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Remembering What We're Thankful For

I really think it's the only thing that has gotten Jeff and I through these last couple months. As you probably know from prior posts, things have been difficult for Jeff and I, but we've somehow managed. People always say that money is what tears marriages apart, and I guess I can kind of see why. Obviously Jeff and I are somewhat novice to the marriage idea (3 months today!!), but I'd like to think we've got a good thing going.

Even now that I started a job, it doesn't alleviate things overnight. We still have bills that are overdue (but getting paid day-by-day), and things we'd like to do but are unable to do right now. And Jeff won't be getting some of the money that he was getting from unemployment, so I think my income will basically even things out rather than put us over the top. But among all of this, there have constantly been things that keep me positive and hopeful (which is difficult to do, believe me). As rocky as things have been the last couple months with money, rent, bills, etc., the thing that always kept me hopeful was knowing that I have Jeff in my life, along with our friends and family.

This season, especially, makes me really happy. My mom and all my aunts came to our place last week, and it made me so happy to just sit around my apartment with them and catch up on everything. It made me realize how lucky I am to have the family that I have. On Tuesday, my mom surprised Jeff and I and bought us a Christmas tree, which was amazing. We had been holding off on buying it because we wanted to make sure all our bills were paid before we splurged, so it was soooo amazing to walk into our apartment on Tuesday after my first day of work, and find a Christmas tree all set up! (My mom called Jeff, so he went to her house to pick it up, then set it up at our place before I got home.) We also got to spend time on Tuesday with Jeff's parents (who cooked him a special birthday dinner: tacos!), and got to celebrate Jeff's birthday on Wednesday with all of our close friends. To top it off, Courtney came over to our place to help us decorate the tree, and we had hot chocolate after we were all done. It's amazing to share special occasions with those you love and appreciate. It makes me all giddy!

I know some of you reading this are still struggling, and the point of this is to simply remind everyone to be thankful for the good things we have in life. I know how easy it is to get down and out, but it makes life easier when you remember all the little-good things in life, rather than just the big-bad things ;)