To use instructions, or not to... that is the question.

Dear People-Who-Write-Instructions-On-How-To-Put-Desks/Chairs-Together,

I hate you.

Love,
Melissa

In other news, this is my dad's new office: complete with computer/printer connection and cute photostrips of my parents kissing.

"I don't need instructions; I use logic." -Papa *Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor grunt*

"Babe... I got you, Babe."

What an OCD girl does on her Christmas Break:

1) Wake up at 10:00 and help her dad clean stuff out of his room to make space for a desk.
2) Look through old VHS's that we can't play anymore and weep silently as she places them in the Goodwill pile.  (RIP Shrek, Quest For Camelot, and Land Before Time...)
3) Go shopping for a new desk and spend and hour and a half trying to check out at Office Depot.
4) Go home and watch Groundhog's Day.
5) Have "I Got You, Babe" stuck in her head for the rest of eternity.

I'll have some old stories with a side of laughter, please.

Don't let today's picture fool you.  I hate coffee.

I love, however, taking up a whole room in Boston Coffeehouse with lots of friends chatting so loudly the people next door in the Christian Science Reading Room can hear our conversations.

What was special about this particular group of friends was that I met all of them from different places at different points in my life and yet somehow all of our paths crossed at the same time...

The world is a crazy place.

"The claw!"

Yes, it's true.  If the Floo Powder wasn't enough to convince you, these movie tickets should be.

I am a Harry Potter addict.

I went to see Harry Potter 7 in theaters today... for the third time.  I went with my sister and some friends, and then after the movie we went to Mickey Finns for dinner.

PS
You guys know those really annoying claw machines with the stuffed animals that everyone (including myself) swears are rigged because you can never win anything?  Well, one of the friends with me tonight happens to be a real live claw machine expert!  (Kind of like the aliens in Toy Story 3.)  Anyway, those horrible machines are in Mickey Finns, and that's where the dog came from.  Name ideas, anyone?

Step aside, Napoleon.

Today was spent with my computer and Bible.

My task: write church camp curriculum.
My goal: teach kids to be reckless.

You gotta teach 'em young, after all.  It's a much harder thing to learn when you get old like me... kind of like languages.

"Every child of God conquers the world."  I love that.

Liquid Love

In that cup is white hot chocolate.

AKA Liquid love.

AKA The best drink on this planet.  Especially when it's a little chilly outside.

The meatball has spoken!

So I got a Magic Meatball for Christmas.  He would answer any question we asked with amazing accuracy.
"Meatball, is Pluto still a planet?"
"The meatball says no!"
....
"But in your opinion, it's a planet, right?"
"The meatball says yes."


We literally played with the Meatball until the batteries wore out.  I almost cried.  Don't judge me.


Here are some other great things about my Christmas:
1) Teasing my Abuela about only putting "To ____ with love" on some of the presents, but not all of them.
"This one is 'To Melissa... no love!'"
"Aww!  What the heck, Bueli?"
"This one is... 'To Nicole, all my love.'"
*all cousins jump up in outrage that all her love went to Nicole*


2) Seeing my boyfriend and his sister, even only for a few hours.  They got to enjoy The White Elephant gift exchange with us!  (White Elephant = Chinese gift exchange with gifts $5 or under.)


3) Playing Quelf with my cousins....  Enough said.


4) Celebrating the fact that God came down to Earth to save us from ourselves.


My favorite Christmas song for you:
I Celebrate the Day by Relient K


And with this Christmas wish is missed
the point I could convey.
If only I could find the words to say
to let You know how much You've touched my life.
Because here is where You're finding me,
in the exact same place as New Year's Eve,
and from a lack of my persistency
we're less than half as close as I want to be.

And the first time that You opened Your eyes
did You realize that You would be my Savior?
And the first breath that left Your lips
did You know that it would change this world forever?

And so this Christmas I'll compare
the things I felt in prior years
to what this midnight made so clear
that You have come to meet me here.

To look back and think that
this baby would one day save me.
In the hope that what You did
that you were born so I might really live.
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me.

And I, I celebrate the day
that You were born to die,
so I could one day pray for You to save my life.


"Meatball, should everyone have a merry Christmas and remember what it is truly about?"


"The meatball says yes!"


The meatball has spoken!

I'll be home for Christmas... eventually.

The choice: Drive to Tampa by myself tonight and possibly get lost or follow my mom to Tampa Christmas morning?

The decision: Drive to Tampa tonight.

The drive: Lost.  Lost.  Lost.  Found!  Tired.

The therapy: Snoring dog, blogging, book, bed.

How to make to happy sisters on Christmas Eve Eve

1. Put on a Christmas Pandora mix.
2. Melt butter, chocolate, sugar and peanut butter in a pot.
3. Use stirring spoon as a microphone and sing along obnoxiously to Pandora.
4. Mix Chex cereal with chocolate melty goodness.
5. Pour chocolate-y yummy Chex and powdered sugar into a giganto ziplock.
6. Shake it like a Polaroid picture.
7. Watch The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The wand chooses the wizard.

You may be looking at this picture thinking, "How nice.  A Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw are enjoying a lovely day at Harry Potter World at Islands of Adventure."  And ignoring the fact that no one (except perhaps British people?) thinks with such proper language, you'd be right.

But today was so much more than that.

One of us, the Hufflepuff, is holding a wand.  But not just any wand.  This wand choose him.
Ash, Dragon Heartstring core, reliable, good for healing.

Best.  Day.  Ever.

This is the story of a girl...

This is the story of a girl who was bored, so she wrapped Christmas presents.

Except later, she realized that she wasn't just trying to cure boredom... she was actually trying to get her mind off of something that was causing her stress.  She first realized this when the boy called her.

Somehow the boy knew that the girl needed someone before she did.  So he became that someone and made her feel better.

And the girl knows that the gift in that bottom package is not nearly enough to repay him for that.

Yesterday's stress reliever

Mommy and daughter's night out!

1) Christmas shopping (Sorry, no details given on the Internet...)
2) Gilmore Girls (As I always say, "God bless sarcasm.")

Anyway, it was short, nothing too exciting.  But good.

Hot chocolate and a hug

This is what I have been reading about 20 times a day since December 15.

Or if I do get mail, it's junk.

I didn't realize I was freaking out this much until I said it outloud today in front of all my camp friends and asked them to pray for me.

And then theydid.  Well, not specifically for me.  But I was in there somewhere.

And I almost started crying because I realized that not even I have prayed about this.

I'm freaking out about an email, and I haven't prayed once.

These realizations and many more led to a pretty crappy and lonely day.

White hot chocolate and a hug should cheer me up.

Jonny 2x4

Camp.

That's about all I can say about this picture.

The Camp Christmas party is an annual reunion of the craziest, and best, people I've ever met.  This year we had a special visitor: Plank.  Plank's goal was to be in every picture taken all night.  And he did a purty dern good job, I must say.

Friends, food, bonfire, and worship.
I love camp.

Snape kills Dumbledore.

First day of break without any real plans.  So what do I do?  Read, of course!
(Pretty much all day, until my family and I watched Despicable Me--which B-T-Dubs should win the cutest movie ever award.)

Currently, because of many recommendations, I am reading The Hunger Games.  Any of you that know me know that when a book is recommended to me, I don't need to know what it is about.  I just get it and read it.  Why spoil the surprise?

Phew.  This book is a lot more intense than I expected.  But that is all I'll say for I do not believe in spoilers.

Unless it's Harry Potter, in which case you should have read the book the day it came out.
Snape kills Dumbledore.

PS If you put a spoiler in my comments, I will end you.

Let's do lunch.

Well, it's official.  I'm an old fart.  According to my sister, if your playdates have turned into "Let's do lunch," there's no turning back.  *sigh*

But lunch we did.  And I got to see two old friends: one who was in a super secret superhero trio with me (Shh... don't tell...) and one who is now pregnant!  We don't know if little Ducky is a boy or a girl yet, but everyone is excited nonetheless.

Apparently this Christmas break has a theme of seeing old friends.  I can dig it.

PS "I can dig it" = cool young people lingo

So long as we have hands to clasp!

Christmas math:
Love + The Grinch Who Stole Christmas + toasted marshmallows = happiness


Welcome, welcome
Fah who rah moos
Welcome, welcome
Dah who dah moos
Christmas day is in our grasp,
so long as we have hands to clasp!

That's Rock with a Y!

Meet Rocky.

He is one of my best friends ever.

And I got to see him today.

Life is good.  :)

I'll be home for Christmas

So I went on an little unexpected adventure today...  After I finished my finals and got all packed up, I was ready to go home!  So, of course, I went to the fireplace to use the Floo Powder Network--most effective mode of transportaion here.  Unfortunately, just when I said "Home!" I coughed.  It must have sounded like "sea foam," though, because somehow I ended up at the beach.  Well, that is a whole hour from my house!  So I had to Apparate the rest of the way.  Embarressing as it is, I'm still not a very good Apparator.  I got slinched and now I'm missing half my left eyebrow.  But I finally made it home.


Home sweet home.

Slice n' Dice

Green card: Edgy
Winning red card: Slice n' Dice


Get it?  Ha! Ha. Ha... Okay, so you have to have the same sense of humor as my CBF (college best friend) and me.  (PS She's the hot redhead.)


Anyway... welcome to the Flapjack Fling!  (No one really calls them "flapjacks," but we appreciate the alliteration anyway.)  FSC's semesterly pre-finals party.  AKA: Stop studying and eat pancakes!  So my fantastic friends and I created this tradition of playing Apples To Apples during the fiesta.  Awesomely bad karaoke, deliciously free pancakes, hilariously witty game.  Can't.  Go.  Wrong.


Trump cards of the night:
Helen Keller (Duh.)
Pez despensers
Harry Potter

Merry Christmas, Whoville!

This morning I had to take the world's stupidest test as part of my teacher certification.  I passed.  (Yay!)  I returned home.  Starving.  So my roommate decided to treat me to some IHop brunch!


PS Cinnamon pancakes are highly recommended.


Anyway, I always like to try to leave a nice note or picture for my server when I go out to eat.  Today, we asked for crayons (duh), so I started doodling.  At first, I didn't like it that much.  But then somehow it turned into a Whoville ice cream cone, and now it's a freakin' masterpiece.


PSS I don't usually say "Happy Holidays."  I don't know what came over me.  Screw political correctness.


Merry Christmas, Bloggers!

Back in the day, I pointed my toes...

So I did a gymnastics photo shoot for a friend today.  Good to know after all these years I've still got it...


I'm going to be so sore tomorrow.

Glee first, homework later

Warning: today's picture is super lame.


Yes, my fine blog-reading friends.  This is my Things-I-Have-To-Finish-Before-The-End-Of-The-Semester-So-I-Can-Finally-Go-Home-For-Christmas-And-Sleep List.  I would now like to turn your attention to the red lines.  Those are all the things I checked off today.  That's right, Ladies and Gentlebloggers: Melissa was productive today.  Therefore, if my math is correct, this leaves four assignments.  Two of them are half finished.  One we are doing together in class.  So.  Close.  So.  Very.  Close.


PS  Why, yes, that does say "Glee" on the top of the list.  Who says I don't have my priorities in order?

Because kids are byootaful.

People ask me why I want to teach.  Well, here you go. ^

"You can call me Flower, if you want to."

This, my good friends, is my new staff shirt.  That's right, everyone!  I am semi-officially employed.   I will be working with a really great after-school program at a church near my school.  I'm pretty dang stoked about it.  I got to watch their Christmas show tonight, which was adorable.  And then all the staff (yeah, that's right: staff) went out to Chile's.  Hence the super adorable skunk balloon.

Fun Fact #1:
My favorite animal is the skunk.

My Winter Wardrobe

Thank you, Mother Earth, for giving us a taste of some real winter.  It's finally time to break out my winter clothes: toe socks.  And for you unbelievers who say toe socks don't match with anything, I'd like to direct your attention to my fabulous orange matching sweatshirt and lovely matching silly band accessories.


And because I know you are all wondering:
pink: women's restroom sign
blurple: hippopotamus
yellow: jack-o-lanturn
green: Frankenstein


Special shout-out for today:
Miranda: What a fashion faux pas!  Wearing socks with sandles!
Me: Not if they're toe socks!  Perfectly legal.
Miranda: Ah, true.
Me: However, wearing this red jacket with my orange sweater... that's a faux pas.
Miranda: Also true.  Although Velma wore red with orange, so you're okay.

The answer is always π.

Well, day two and my blog is already holding me accountable...  The day is rounding off, and I realized something... I haven't done anything exciting reckless all day.  Thank you, Blog, for reminding me to get off my lazy butt and have an adventure, for Pete's sake.  (Ever wonder who Pete is?...)


Anyway, whether you're trying to procrastinate or whether your roommate is trying to figure out her calculus homework, just remember: the answer is always pi.


More special thanks to Skype and Jeff Denham for helping pie keep me from my homework today.

Have Fun. Be Reckless.

Let the adventure begin!  And what better way to start an adventure to 21 than with coloring books, silly bands, stuffed animals, and a Dr. Seuss calendar?  Sure, I may play on an ancient game system and complain about the dumb TV show "kids these days" are watching... but I still know what's what.  (<--Do kids these days use that phrase anymore?... Dang.)

Goals this year?  Have fun.  Be reckless.