Finished!

I just finished my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo. Woot! Feel free to celebrate with me now. The story is not finished yet, but I have successfully completed my first National Novel Writing Month. And for the record I finished 6 days early. Far better than I anticipated.

Now I can focus on the more important things here. Like for example the fact that in a mere hours I will be jetting across the US to New York. What, did I forget to tell you all that I was going to New York for Thanksgiving? Just Kidding.

Tomorrow I have to get up at 3:15am (sick!) to get to the airport in time for my flight. Which I just find really ironic because it was under a week ago I found myself going to bed at that same time, after watching New Moon. Normally I am very routine going to bed at the same time every night [a time that I will not tell you because it is embarrassingly early] and getting up at the same time each morning. And now this last week I have been all over the place. Out late and up early. Yikes. I am hoping that my lack of sleep will help me adjust to the 3 hour time change. That may not sound like a big difference to all you world travelers out there, but this is the farthest time zone I have ever entered - and I have a history of not reacting well to time changes in general. I took me a whole week to adjust to daylight savings last spring and that was only an hour.

It's Official: I'm Crazy

Crazy Tired.

Last night Ashleyann, Tori, Rachel and I joined the hordes of screaming junior high

girls for a midnight viewing of New Moon.

Even though we all are fans, and wanted to see the movie, I feel the need to inform you that we actually were not dying to go to the midnight show. It just so happened that we are all way to busy and the only time in the next three weeks that the four of us would be able to see the movie together was at midnight.
In the four hours we spent in the movie theater I learned three important lessons.

1. If you go to a midnight showing go to AMC, they let you in right away where as stodgy old Regal Cinemas makes you wait in line outside.

2. When you consume mass amounts of caffeine to stay awake. It works - and it's effects do not miraculously turn off at 2:30am just because you no longer need to stay awake.

3. Werewolves have incredible oral hygiene. So many times during the movie I wished I had sunglasses, the glare of off Jacobs unnaturally white teeth was near blinding.

Really Big Important News!

Did that title get you or what?

Chuck has an official return date.

[que me jumping up and down]

As if that's not good enough, there's more.

Sunday January 10th Chuck will return in all his glory with a back to back 2 episode premiere, followed by a return to regularly scheduled programing Monday night.3 episodes in two days. They must know how desperate the world is for more Chuck!

In case you didn't already know this. Chuck is my absolute favorite television show. If you haven't seen it you are missing out. Jake and I have taken it upon ourselves to introduce the world to Chuck. So far we each have two converts. If you would like more information on this show please feel free to contact me. I can hook you up with season one - most of season two is now available on Hulu.com

7 Days!!!!!!!!!

One more week!

As if that is not exciting enough, last night I returned home to find two New York related items in my mail box. Some lovely tourist info from Megan, with the keys to the apartment.

And tickets to Regis and Kelly! Which actually is not quite as exciting as I initially thought since they only gave me two tickets. That won't do three people much good. Lame Regis lame.
We plan to make an appearance outside the today show while we are there as well. Currently I am brainstorming ideas for the AMAZING sign I plan to make. Let me know if you have any suggestions, I welcome all ideas. The goal is to make it SO awesome that it gets their attention and they won't be able to help but put us on camera. Should be easy right?

Repulsive

Last night while leaving the Penthouse, walking through The Woods I stopped short. I let out a small gasp, causing Jeni and Angela to stop with me, wondering what was wrong. I was stunned speechless, all I could do was point. They followed my finger to our neighbors window. Inside was the bright twinkling lights of ...........................a Christmas Tree. SICK! I nearly threw up.

Who does that? This wrong on so many levels. Not only is it not even December, but clearly it is a fake tree seeing as real ones are not being sold yet. Thanksgiving is not for another week and a half. Please people are they really just going to skip right over that holiday?

The worst part was, when we returned from the store I spotted another tree. It's an epidemic. There is no excuse for this, quit rushing the holidays.

Oak Glen

Today myself and some of the women from my grace group ventured up to the lovely Oak Glen, to enjoy the crisp fall weather.

Our first stop at Riley Farms found me in the stalks. We did not purchase arm bands when we arrived, and therefore found ourselves in quite a bit of trouble once crossing the creek.

There is no messing around with rule breakers here - it is straight to the stalks.

Next we enjoyed samples galore, of apples, cider, mustard, and jellys galore.

Rachel was quite excited to find coffee brewed in a neighboring county to where she grew up.

We rounded out the morning with a delish lunch at Law's Coffee Shop. Yum Yum!

And yes even though we are in southern California, the scarfs and oversized sweaters were necessary.

Camer Bamer

So last night I was talking to my brother Cameron, helping him with his English paper. Yeah I won't deny it I felt pretty cool, that he wanted my help. But then I read his paper. HA! I nearly laughed out loud at the difference between his writing style and mine. Cameron is uber smart, right I knew this, but his paper, please. I had to use a dictionary to figure out the meaning of a few of the words he used. When I told him this on the phone he laughed and said "well that's why I did so well on the SAT's." Oh wow, at least he's modest right?

But have no fear I am pretty certain that he will get an A on his paper, and all the credit will go to me, and the AMAZING ideas I gave him.

This is him. The brother. Cameron.

I know he is a bit disheveled in the pic, but I think it is hilarious.

On a somewhat but not really related note - he informed me that people

are constantly telling him he looks like Michael Cera.

To the point where they call him Bleeker.
HA! This made me laugh.

14 days

Two weeks from today I shall be here.

I apologize in advance for the fact that my blog may be taken over by all things New York for the next three weeks or so. Before, during and immediately following the trip. My excitement is barely containable. Not only because I am SO excited to see this amazing city, but also because I get to see my dear friend Megan. We shall have be having some big city adventures.

I LOVE being a tourist - seeing the sights, and taking lots of photos!

YAY New York!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Currently I am sitting in a pitch black office, lit only by the glow of my computer screen. We are having so weird quasi power outage, that has turned off all lights and computers except my own. For some strange reason everything at my desk has power, but nothing else in the building.

Ha! I think I have special powers.

The best part is that no one really cares. People are being surprisingly calm. Which is probably a good thing since I just called the electrician and he can't come for an hour.

I find it mildly ironic that the one person (me) with a working computer,

is the person who does the least amount of work.

Soft Spoken

Yesterday Rachel and I went on a quick field trip to JoAnns. While walking the aisles of the Christmas decorations, and scrapbooking materials Rachel casually says "oh look our stickers." She proceeds to tell me that she designed over half of the stickers hanging on the display in front of us, as if it is no big deal. Like oh yeah I drew those, but you know doesn't everyone do that type of thing?

Call me crazy but I think it is really cook. I wanted to pull aside some random shopper and tell them "hey do you scrap book? Do you use these stickers? Well she designed them." Ha! I felt pretty special just being in the presence of scrapbook sticker greatness. I don't think however, that Rachel was too excited when I pulled out my camera. Thanks for humoring me with a photo.

My photo skills are seriously lacking but here is a close up of some of the goodies.

Chart it!

This week I learned something new about myself. I learned that I am highly motivated by charts and graphs. It's funny really I never would have thought this would be true of me, but I guess I can't work around a bunch of CPA's without something rubbing off on me. I like watching the numbers go up and I love Excel spreadsheets!

It all started this week when I began NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). With encouragement from some friends I decided to give it a go. Why not right? I have nothing to lose. The first two days I diligently logged on to the official website to update my word count - and check out my progress on the bar graph. Then I decided that I should make a spreadsheet that keeps track of my daily word count and my daily and weekly goals.

I got way too much enjoyment out of creating this spreadsheet. Each column is complete with equations that update my running totals, my goals and my words to go every time I change the numbers. And did I mention that the numbers are color coded. HA! I LOVE it!

Yesterday I had to limit myself. I found that I enjoyed updating the spread sheet so much that I was doing so after every paragraph I wrote, for the pure joy of seeing the numbers change. Some column totals going up and some going down. Now I am only allowing myself to update it twice a day.

In case you are curious here are my running totals for the day so far:
Words written today: 1238
Words written total: 11,336
Words left to go:38,664

The Freezer

I arrived at work just the same as everyday. I unlocked the doors, turned of the alarm, turned on the radio, turned on my computer and the copy machine. A good song came on the radio and I danced my way across the office to the kitchen. I opened the freezer door and placed my lunch inside, not looking to closely, because I mean really it's a freezer, whats there to look at, and shut the door.

As I walked out of the kitchen I stopped turned back to the freezer, I had a flash of what I saw in passing. What was it? There was something different in there today. Usually the freezer is nearly empty, just containing a few frozen dinners. Even in my quick glance today I noticed something was different. Today there were two bags inside.

You may think me weird but I was curious and went back to investigate. It was well worth it. You will never guess what I found. My coworkers makeup bag. A small purple pouch containing her makeup and tooth brush, and a Target bag containing a blanket and socks. Call me crazy but I don't think any of those things need to be frozen.

Last time I checked freezers were food - unless of course you are at a JR High sleep over - then they might contain some clothing.

A History of Mandy

The time has come. My California drivers license arrived in the mail last night. And let me tell you the photo was even worse than I remembered it being. In the spirit of transitioning to being a real legit California driver (after 6.5 years of being a Washington driver residing in CA) I decided to revisit my past drivers licenses. Unfortunately I am becoming un photogenic in my old age, they just keep getting worse and worse.

Here is my very first license. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo - but look how young and happy I am. I will never forget completing the driving portion of my test, which I took in the family Astro van. When I parked at the end of the test I was neatly positioned between two spaces - it was quite horrible. When I walked in the building I my mom was surely convinced that I did not pass. Have no fear, I got a 95, the older man that conducted my test LOVED the Astro van, he talked about it the whole time.
Now we move on to my second Washington license. I was extremely disappointed that this one was vertical instead of horizontal. If you are under 21 they are vertical, for easy identification of legal age. I ended up getting my license renewed 6 days before my birthday so I was allowed to have a horizontal one.
And finally that brings us to this hideous mess. UGH! How gross is that? I do not care to relive my time at the DMV as all of the workers were exceptionally rude. The man taking the photos did not give any warning. He told me to move back to the white line - I looked down found the white line, lifted my head and was instantly blinded by the flash. And furthermore I look like I have a mullet. Ew! There is nothing good about this photo.

Halloween!

A couple of weeks ago I introduced Rachel to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I think it is safe to say that they are influencing her work as of late. She drew this lovely design for us on the chalk board - and made these great cupcakes. Can you spot the influence of the bats?

Here is the great reveal. My Halloween costume. Did you have a guess as to what I was?

Every Halloween there is a theme or common costume. According to Angela in the elementary school this year that was Bumble Bees, at our apartment it was aprons.

Carlos hands down won the award for best costume.

He was so convincing as the Hulk that he managed to scare away all the trick or treaters. We only had one - leaving us with an abundance of left over candy.

After dinner we had a quick viewing of Strangers on a Train. It did not end up being a huge crownd pleaser. Angela may have been the harshest critic giving it a 3 out of 10. I personally have to disagree - I will never again be able to ride a carousel without a little bit of fear. After the movie we enjoyed a couple rounds of Catch Phrase and the Penthouse classic True Colors. The very informative game through which we learned that Angela is the most demanding person, Andrew is the most likely to write a novel about space aliens and Nate is the most likely to accidentally shoot themselves.