We're home, Carmen's napping, I'm cleaning ... life is back to normal!  It seems I found the sweet spot for Carmen's nap today - she went down without a fuss.  Of course, a little bit of pre-nap snuggle time helps. :)  Also sleeping in your own crib (after a month!!) is awesome.

Thanksgiving weekend was awesome.  First of all, it snowed on Monday and school was cancelled all week.  Logan and Torrey got some extra Carmen play time!  We left around noon on Wednesday and traffic was BAAAAAD all the way to Olympia.  That's when I stopped paying attention to how bad the traffic was.  We stopped a few times for food, and finally got to Nehalem around 7:30.  It's interesting how sitting in the back seat of the car changes how much attention you pay to the road.  Suddenly I was one of the kids again, blissfully unaware of where we were, how much farther we had to go, and what the road conditions were like.

Mark's brother, Nate, is going to school at the University of Washington, and he came to the Nehalem house, too.  He picked Mark and Marissa up from the Portland airport.  They flew in together from Salt Lake City.  The flight was delayed by an hour or so and the family considered having them stay in Hillsboro with Mark's aunts (called "The Aunties") but Mark wanted to see us so badly he convinced Nate to drive to the coast.  YAY it was great to see him!

Unfortunately, I spent the whole weekend uber sick with a nasty cold and slept 12-14 hours a day and spent most of my waking hours wiped out on the couch cross-stitching.  I'd wanted to help prepare food, clean, play games, and otherwise be a pleasant person, but I guess phlegm happens.

I had planned on doing a ton of writing in my down time (I have the energy to type!) but I was in for a shock when I turned my laptop on at the coast house ...

Somehow, my laptop got crushed in transit and the LCD screen cracked. You can see the two big holes where there was pressure on the screen, and you can kind of see the u-shaped crack on the left hand side of the screen.

I almost had a heart attack when I discovered my precious Lappy was maimed, but it's otherwise completely functional.  It's annoying to type and look around big black holes, but what the heck.  I was planning on getting a Netbook some time soon anyway.  Does anyone know if it's possible to replace a laptop/LCD screen?  And does it NOT cost as much as another laptop?

I could always tell people I got shot at and my laptop saved me.

Anyway.  I've got some kitchen projects I'm working on (okay, I just bought new canisters to store sugar and flour and stuff in and I want to see if I like it), and we have to buy a Christmas tree and put up Christmas decorations, and I have to dust and vacuum and all of that good stuff, and I want to look into buying new carpet/flooring in general (does anyone have experience with this?), and the kindergartner I tend before school is coming back tomorrow, so I might be a little busy ... but I love writing and I'll probably be posting a lot this upcoming month!

I'll write about how funny Carmen is and post videos! And pictures! And I will talk about how to make money doing online surveys! And how I save money! And I'll tell stupid stories about myself so you can feel better about the dumb things you do! And talk about my favorite funny things! YAY!

Carmen's Pretend Play

I've been kind of sick for the past few days (sore throat/headache/sneezing/body aches and chills/etc) so I've just wanted to sit on the couch and cross-stitch.  Lucky for me, Carmen does a pretty good job of entertaining herself.

Today, I was sitting on the couch and she started dragging around the changing pad.  I saw her lay down across it sideways, pull a wipe out of the pouch, and wipe her stomach with the wipe while trying to stick it down her diaper.

... Pretending to change your own diaper, honey?

I checked her, and she's clean!  This is hilarious!!!

She also likes to read books.  Not picture kid books - real books, like Harry Potter and Freakonomics.  She points to something big and in hardcover and asks, "Book?" so I hand it to her and she starts to flip through it.  Yesterday, she wasn't too interested in playing in Nursery all by herself, so we spent the last hour sitting quietly in the chapel while I cross stitched and she flipped through the hymn book while eating sweet potato-flavored Gerber puffs.

Hey, whatever works, right?


This morning, she woke up shortly before Torrey left for the bus stop.  As Torrey was getting ready to head out the door, she asked Carmen for hugs or kisses goodbye, which Carmen refused, but then Torrey called out, "Bye, Kamis!  Bye, Carmen!" as she was leaving, and Carmen immediately started crying and running towards the stairs saying, "No, no!  TOYYYYYY!!!  TOOOOOOYYYYYYYYY!"

And while we were walking around the church yesterday after Nursery, we came across this poster with a bunch of pictures from some park volunteer activity thing.  Dad was in one of the photos, and Carmen found it and pointed to Dad and said, "Papa!" (her word for "grandpa")  I walked her over to the photo directory of the young women and young men, and she said, "Toy!" and pointed to Torrey's picture.  She also pointed out Logan's picture, but she doesn't say his name yet.  She's got about a week left to do it!

Anywho.

This stage is really delightful.  She's grown up SO MUCH in the past month - I totally see why 18 months is Nursery age.

Yulefest Adventures

Mom was trying to find something to do today, so she looked in the newspaper and the most interesting-looking event was Yulefest at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle.  We invited Logan's friend, Spencer, to come along with us.

It kind of reminded me of the Danish Days festivals we have in Elsinore over the summer ... only it was indoors and there were a lot more old people.  ;)  It was kind of funny being surrounded by a whole bunch of white people again ... it almost felt like Utah!  Honestly, it was kind of boring, but it's fun being out!

First, Carmen enjoyed some ebelskivers:

Ebelskivers (Æbleskivers) are like ... little round pancake balls.  Grandpa (the bald one) sometimes makes them at his house during the holidays.

We went out into the hall to see if we could get in to some semi-interesting-sounding dance thing, and it started getting really crowded.  People were moving towards the back door, and someone said, "There's a fire and we're supposed to evacuate."  I didn't hear any alarms going off, but a minute later I could smell smoke.  It was like ... an electrical-smelling smoke, not a wood-smelling smoke.  Ick.

Apparently some wiring caught fire in the auditorium during a performance.

Everyone went outside and the fire department came!  It was kind of awesome.

It made for a great photo op:

Logan and Spencer are awesome goofballs:

After they let us back inside, we went upstairs and looked at all the crafts they were selling.  They had some cool knitted flap hats ...... that were made in China. -_-;  We found some hats this lady knitted.  They were only $1 so Torrey bought one for Carmen as a Christmas present.

It looks like the excitement wore Carmen out:

We joked they could make t-shirts, like, "I survived the great Nordic Heritage Museum fire" or "I survived the Yulefest fire!"  (You know, like "I survived the Carnival Splendor Cruise Spamcation!")

Speaking of the Carnival Splendor, that's the ship we were on in February when we went on our Mexico cruise.  For anyone who is worried about Carnival after the engine fire ... Carnival is amazing, I think they handled the situation fantastically, and I would totally cruise with them again.  If I were rich.  And could actually afford a cruise. ;)

If I were bald ...

My maternal grandfather looks a bit like Charlie Brown - he is bald.  When my brother was 3 or 4 years old, Mom informed Logan that because her father was bald, he had a chance of being bald when he got older.  (The gene for baldness is carried on the X chromosome ... and I have no idea why some women don't go bald like men do.  I should look that up.)

A few days later, Mom found Logan checking himself out in the bathroom mirror.  He was pulling his hair back, as if pondering what he would look like if he were bald.  Mom asked him what he was doing.

"You know, I guess I wouldn't mind being bald ..." he said thoughtfully.  "Then I would have more time to wash my armpits!"



I thought of this story because I noticed the kind of shampoo my brother uses:

Head & Shoulders Hair Endurance for Men

I won't ask who picked it, because I think my thoughts are funnier than real life.


ETA: So I broke down and asked Logan about it.  He said his friend borrowed some shampoo from one of the leaders at High Adventure over the summer and all of the guys thought the shampoo smelled amazing.  (Everyone gets really really stinky after a week of camping.)  So Logan went out and bought some Head & Shoulders shampoo and now his friends are jealous of how good he smells (he's kind of like the Old Spice guy!)  I pointed out that he bought the "Hair Endurance" kind and it cracked him up, too.

James Bond Taught Me Physics

Today, I finally understood the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, thanks to Daniel Craig in the play Copenhagen.

Five years ago, I took Chem 111 at BYU and was introduced to the uncertainty principle - basically, you can't simultaneously know a particle's position and momentum.  It was explained to me multiple times.  I just didn't get it, and decided to just accept the fact without exactly understanding it.  After all, quantum physics isn't supposed to make any sense, right?  Especially not to a freshman in college who is not a physics major and sucked at math until she got it.

For those of you who don't know me ... I rock at math.  I love it.  I tutored it.  I like math until you hit calculus.  Calculus is awesome, but I have a hard time integrating - not knowing what the answer is supposed to look like.  And then physics is all calculus, and I can listen to people talk about it, but if you ask me to actually do physics and I'll probably start crying while doing the homework.  Freshman year, this really awesome guy named Ben (physics major) helped me with my calculus homework.  I loved him.  He was a genius.

ANYWHO.

BACK TO THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.

I never got it until my Dad was watching that Copenhagen show (recommended by my mom's dad), and James Bond (I mean Heisenberg ... I mean Daniel Craig ...) was walking around the city at night illustrating random physics concepts.  He said something along the lines of, "I was thinking about what it would be like if someone were observing me with a telescope ... you don't see me, and then I walk past a street light and you can ... then I go back into the darkness and I'm unobservable."

And suddenly, I got it.  You're trying to observe just him, but there's also the light you need to observe him, and now you're messing everything up because you've got extra stuff in there ... and somehow, that particular illustration is all I needed to get it.  And Schrodinger makes more sense now.  I thought I got it before, but now I get it again.  Check.  And my brain just exploded.  I'm so happy!!

Now, I don't care whether or not you understand the uncertainty principle, or know what it is, or whether it made sense to you from the get-go (you darn genius, I hate you!), or even care about it, but I'm feeling really proud of myself.  It's been five years and this concept has been bugging me.  I guess physics is supposed to bug you, huh?

Okay.  I'm a nerd.  I'll go back into my room now. =p

Playing with Carmen

Carmen's tons of fun to play with!!  I love the random things she does and the stuff she gets excited about.

I was sweeping the kitchen floor the other day, and she wanted to take the broom and help me sweep.  Luckily, my parents have approximately 193834 brooms, so we had one to spare.  As she ran around the house "sweeping" the carpet, I decided her name should be "CinderCarmen" because she reminds me of Cinderella.  And I can't call her "Carmenella" because it sounds too much like "salmonella" ... which is just wrong. ;)

The last of the autumn leaves have fallen from the trees, so at another point last week I went into the backyard and raked up all of the leaves.  When all of the leaves are raked up, we put them in the yard waste trash can and dump the leaves into the wildlife preserve on the other side of the fence.  While I was picking up the leaves and putting them in the trash can, Carmen would walk across the backyard to another pile of leaves and dump her own handful into the trash can.  It was so cute!!

We've started watching a little bit of TV together.  I happened to stop on the Disney Channel while Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse was on.  It was an episode about giving Pluto a bath, and when Carmen saw Pluto, she got really excited and said, "Doggie!  Doggie, doggie!!!"  Then there was an episode of Sesame Street where Elmo talked all about bananas.  It was pretty much a perfect day. :D

Another time, Logan and Torrey were watching an episode of The Office on Netflix.  They were interviewing Kevin (maybe this was the episode where he got Jim and Pam's credit card cancelled while they were on their honeymoon?) and there was a container of M&Ms on the desk.  Carmen looked up at Kevin and said, "More?  MORE?!?!" because she really really ridiculously likes M&Ms.  HAHAHAHA.  I think it's fabulous that she wanted the M&M's on TV.

I was at Costco a few weeks ago and found this awesome Dog book I thought Carmen would like.

You can pull on these little arrows and it makes a dog's tail wag, or there are some parts where you can pet a fuzzy dog, etc etc.  It's adorable!  You can get it used on Amazon for $4, including shipping!  It looks like they have a Cat book, too!  I'm totally buying another one of these for Carmen!  She loooooooves dogs and cats.  And she can say "puppy" too.  Whenever she sees one, it sounds like she says, "Ooh, issa doddie!"

Yep.  Definitely buying myself a zillion Matthew Van Fleet board books ... looks like they've got "Dog" "Cat" "Tails" "Heads" "Frogs" "Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings" "The Alphabet" ....  I can't tell you how much I LOOOOVE board books, especially one with fuzzy things in it.

Part of me is still 4 years old.  Does anybody remember the Rainbow Fish book?  I loved it because it had those pages with the sparkly scales.  I loved activity books (also called "quiet books").  I have friends who have made some ... I should go get some ideas from them.  I think Carmen's ready to play with 'em.  YAY.

Junk Food

Several weeks ago, we went to Cornbelly's Corn Maze at Thanksgiving Point with some of our friends.  The kids started getting hungry, and we decided it would be cheaper and more fun to have corn dogs and s'mores at our house than to have the overpriced corn dogs and s'mores at the corn maze.

Usually, I avoid "frankenfoods" like corn dogs, but let's admit it - they are amazing and tasty.  The occasional snack won't kill you, right?  So I went to Costco and Wal-Mart and bought the kid-friendly junk food so we could enjoy the evening with our friends.  I'm not about to make a bunch of 5-year-olds eat my leftovers.

You'd think that, as adults, we would have some level of self-restraint when it comes to eating junk ... especially when we're eating at home (not out at Cornbelly's) and there is plenty of tasty produce in the fridge, too.

Mark saw the corn dogs and was like, "Oh, great, corn dogs!  I'll have three!"

**facepalm**

Catering

We all eventually learn it's impossible to be a "perfect parent".  No matter what you do, some day your kids are going to resent that you did X horrible thing to them, be it feeding them lots of leftovers or nothing but spaghetti for a week, or making them wear hand-me-downs, or buying margarine instead of butter, or ... whatever.

My siblings are wonderful kids.  They're pretty easy-going, and there aren't a whole bunch of things they really need or want.  Torrey made me a grocery list of all the foods she desperately wanted me to buy and was mildly disappointed I didn't get her peaches.  But I bought the bagels she wanted and she didn't eat them.  And she's only eaten a few of the grapes and hasn't touched them for the past week.  She asks for something for dinner and I cook it and she hardly touches it.  They asked me to make pumpkin pie last week and only ate 1 piece.  And you know what they've mostly snacked on this week?  Nachos!  I bought the tortilla chips on a whim!

I can't cater to all of their wants.  I've decided I'm just going to cook whatever I want to eat for dinner, and Logan and Torrey can pick at it as much as they want and make themselves more nachos later if that's what they want.  I think it would be ridiculous for me to cook something they say they want (that I don't necessarily want) to have them pick at it and be like, "Ugh, and I don't want to have to eat leftovers!"  That's how I want to do dinner in my family - we'll come up with a weekly meal plan or something, and that's what we're having, end of discussion.  Make yourself a PB&J if you don't like it.

In Nursery one day, a mother told me about her daughter who worries about things that haven't happened yet.  This daughter is mad at her mom for doing her hair and deciding what kind of hairstyle she has.  The mother tries to explain, "Honey, when you do your own hair, you can do whatever you want with it.  But since *I* am the one who has to deal with your hair and brush it, I'm going to decide when and how it needs to be cut."

The little girl kicks and screams and says, "I'll NEEEEEVERRRR be able to choose my own hair!" to which Mom replies, "Do you see my mom coming over and doing my hair every morning? No? I do my own hair. You will be able to do the same some day." and the little girl has been bested and goes and sulks in the corner because her mom is soooo horrible.

No matter how awesome a parent you are, there is going to be that ONE THING your kid magnifies and it turns into a major psychological issue later in life.  (Maybe, maybe not. We all hope we can equip our kids to deal with disappointment!)  "Oh, my mother was so horrible, she always/never did X ..." and another sibling will have a completely different major issue with something else you did.  We don't know what will push other peoples' buttons.  I was sad my parents didn't buy more string cheese when I was a kid.  How could they have known??

I had to wait until I was 12 before I could get my first pet.   I begged my parents for years and years to let me have a pet, and Mom said she wanted to wait until the youngest child was at least 2 years old.  (Torrey was only 1 when we got our cats. BWAHAHA.)  Carmen got two kittens when she was a year old!  But I'm sure Carmen is going to go nutso over the fact that we aren't going to have a dog.  What a mean parent I am!  I know how much she loves dogs these days! (Doggie, doggie! Woo-woof!)

Oh, how hard it is to be a child.  Your parents have absolute control over everything, and even when you get what you want, half the time it wasn't what you really wanted anyway!

Please and Thank You!

Sometimes, it's hard to get kids to be polite. I think most parents want their kids to be nice, but they don't really want to be the kind of parent who has to hassle their kids to say 'thank you' all the times. "Whaddaya say? Whaddaya say?"

I tried to teach Carmen how to say "trick or treat" for Halloween. That phrase is too long, so I started trying to get her to learn how to say "thank you". Halloween came around, and all Carmen could do when she saw people handing out candy was go, "Ooh! Ooh!" and start panting and dancing around excitedly.

"Can you say trick or treat?" I'd ask.
"Ooooooohhhhhh!" she'd say, bouncing up and down.

Then the door would close and Carmen would either say, "Deedoo!" (thank you) or "Bye!"

Oh, sweetheart, why can't you be adorable when other people are watching?!


It doesn't stop me from continuing to try to teach Carmen how to be polite. There are some words she'll repeat back to me and other words she won't (she still refuses to say "Logan" or "Torrey" but has picked up the word "leaves" and "papa").

Lately I've been working on "please" and "thank you" but I don't make a big deal of it if she won't repeat the words back to me. I figure she'll pick it up eventually, and I want to teach on her level. Today, she really wanted the dried strawberries out of the Special K cereal (doesn't everyone?). Her word for "food" is "more". So she'd pull the box of cereal out of the pantry and walk up to me and ask, "More?" I'd ask, "Do you want the strawberries out of the cereal?" and she'd nod her head and go, "Uh-huh."

I'd hand her the strawberries one at a time and say, "Can you say please?" and she'd either say "peas" or not, and I'd hand her a strawberry. "Can you say thank you?" and she'd parrot back, "Deedoo!" and I'd smile and say, "Ooh, you're welcome!" The proudest moment of my morning was when I handed her a strawberry and she said, "Deedoo!" without my asking. :)

How to Get Rich: Spend Less Than You Earn

A few weeks ago, a friend and I were talking about finances.  She said something that ended up sound a lot like, "And if you want something, you can just go out and get it!"  It surprises me how much her comment still bothers me today.

No, dear friend, I still budget.  I think before I buy things.  I try to be responsible and frugal and I save and there are plenty of things I want that I could get but I choose not to because I have other priorities.

The other night, I was kind of bored and flipping through channels on my parents' TV.  I guess their cable and DVR is more interesting than mine.  ANYWHO.  I ended up watching an episode of King of Queens where the main characters (Doug and Carrie) get jealous of their friends (Deacon and Kelly) because they bought a vacation home.  Carrie says, "We earn about as much as they do; how could they possibly afford to buy a vacation home?!"  Long story short, at the end of the episode, the friends reveal that they've been saving and making a lot of sacrifices for a long time to be able to afford to buy it.

Since I'm a finance major, personal/family financial planning and pretty much anything related to money and finances is on my mind.  Sometimes I just want to shake people and tell them to think about what they're doing with their money and track it, instead of assuming that just because they feel like they're earning money that they have a lot to spend.  It just kills me.


The following videos kind of sum up how I feel about money:


I think debt is bondage.  Have as few monthly payments as possible.  Save.  Please.



Some day I hope to write up random stuff in here about finances ... maybe budgeting, saving, identifying wants vs. needs, random things I like to do to save money (it's actually kinda fun to make your own brown sugar ...), making a little extra cash by joining online survey groups (so what if it's only $100 ... it's still $100! and I get to test new products for free!) ... etc ...

... but right now I want to continue reading I Am Spock.

And in the morning, I'm making waffles!

Torrey suggested we have "breakfast for dinner" tonight ... which means bacon, eggs, and waffles.  Carmen was a big fan.  She stuck bacon up her nose and licked the syrup off the waffles.  :)  The picture above is Carmen requesting more syrup.

My parents received a waffle iron from our friends the Worwoods for Christmas several years ago.  Danny and Leanne went to high school with my mom, and both of our families ended up living in Colorado Springs for a while.  One night, Dad had a dream that he woke up one morning and Danny was in the kitchen wearing an apron (I assume it was girly) cooking waffles.  It kind of reminded us all of that scene from Shrek where Donkey goes, "And in the mornin', I'm makin' waffles!!"  Dad told Danny about this dream, so the following Christmas we received a waffle iron from them. :)

Skype

Mark told me he'd miss us while we were up here in Seattle.  He decided he wanted to buy himself a webcam so we could see each other and use Skype.  My laptop has a built-in webcam.  Plus, Carmen and the cats have mauled his microphone headset he uses to play Starcraft and he kinda needed a new microphone.

Apparently, money at work is a little tight right now and rumors abound that they can't afford Christmas bonuses this year.  At least Mark is still employed!  Who cares about Christmas bonuses?!

Anywho, Mark's boss bought webcams a while ago for business meetings or something, but that plan didn't pan out so they've got a few webcams lying around.  Mark offered to buy one off his boss, and his boss basically said, "Oh, just take it for free."

I joked it's Mark's Christmas bonus. :)

Anywho, a few nights ago, I called Mark up on Skype so he could see Carmen and me.  Carmen was finishing up her bath.  When she saw Mark, she got really excited, and cried out, "Daddy?  Daddy!  DADDY!!!" and kept crying and trying to climb out of the tub to grab the laptop.  It was heartbreaking to hear how much she missed Daddy and it made me cry.

I'm keeping Carmen away from Skype now.  I'll try again when I feel less emotional!  We've managed to talk to Dad on the phone with speakerphone a few times.  She just gets happy and says, "Daddy!  Hiiiii!" without freaking out and being adorable and making me cry.

Power of Positive Thinking

There's this paper on my parents' refrigerator that I read every morning.  I love to read and will read just about anything ... when I was little, I read the nutrition facts on our cereal boxes during breakfast.

It's kind of corny and cliche, but many times things become cliche because they're true.  Old sayings and words of wisdom stick around generation after generation because they're true!

The winner is always part of the answer.
The loser is always a part of the problem.

The winner always has a program.
The loser always has an excuse.

The winner ssays, "Let me do it with you!"
The loser says, "That's not my job."

The winner sees an answer to every problem.
The loser sees a problem to ever answer.

The winner sees a green near every sand trap
The loser sees two or three sand traps near every green.

The winner says, "It may be difficult, but it's possible."
The loser says, "It may be possible, but it's too difficult."

Be a winner!

I like to try to stay focused on the positive, because there are many times when I struggle to stay happy.  It's easier to stay happy when I'm actively focused on being happy and optimistic.  It really makes life better.

Auto Tune the News

Last week, the Hurds introduced us to this:
http://www.youtube.com/autotunethenews

The short of it is: they take funny phrases and things from news casts, etc, and put it through a tuner to make it musical.

After YW/YM tonight, Logan and Torrey were telling me about this crazy cat lady song I *had* to hear.  It sounded like what the Hurds had showed us the week before with Bed Intruders.  In the video, they first showed the lady talking, then they showed the remixed music-ified version of it.  And Carmen started dancing!  So I pulled out the camera and watched her dance to "Bed Intruders" which was even funnier. :)

So here's the cute family video of Carmen dancing:

I love how she purses her lips and head bangs.

Here's the original newscast (so weird!!)


Here's the Bed Intruders song.  It's 1000x better than watching the newscast, but you kinda have to see the cast to appreciate the song.  And please ignore everything after 1:15.

I love this whole thing too much.  That guy is hilarious.

And here's the crazy cat lady backin' up.  She reminds me of some people I meet at bus stops.

Skechers Shape Ups WORK!

In April, I bought some new shoes:

Carmen loves going for walks and I figured getting toning shoes sounded like a great idea!  My best friend teased me for spending nearly $100 on new shoes (search Amazon for Shape Ups ... the price has since dropped to as low as $40 for a new pair, and you can probably find a pair in your size for $60-$80.) but you know what?  It's worth it!

After just a week of walking around in these things, I could feel my legs rejoice when I took my shoes off.  "Oh, phew!  I can relax now!!"

Now my legs and butt are in pretty good shape ...

But I've still got this fatty belly.

I should work out more.

Hello, Seattle; I'm not Owl City!

It always feels so good to come to Sammamish to visit my family!  I only lived here for a year and a half, but I'm completely in love with this place.  This morning, I dropped my parents off at the airport (they're flying to Maryland, then going on a Caribbean cruise.  Just a little jealous.)

I got lost in Seattle looking for a Value Village.  I found the one in Burien, then couldn't find one in downtown Seattle and got lost in an industrial district.  I gave up, found I-5, and went to Redmond.  Now Carmen has a big box full of fun kids' toys!  All for about $40!  Cars and dinosaurs and balls, oh my!  Let's add a few more exclamation points!!

Mom sat me down last night with my siblings' schedules and told me where I'd need to drive them when.  It almost made me with Logan had his license. =p  It's also a little weird driving my parents' cars - I drive a Nissan Sentra at home (a little itty bitty sedan) and my parents drive a Honda Pilot and a Chevy Equinox, which feel like mini Hummers to me. @_@

Also, my family's redecorating.  It's weird not having a bedroom anymore (I graduated 5 years ago, moved out most of my stuff 4 years ago, and took out the last of my stuff 2 1/2 years ago when we bought our house) because I have to borrow someone else's space.  My parents painted some of the walls downstairs (so far, I LOVE IT) and replaced the carpet.  When I first walked into the house, I was trying to figure out why it smelled like a model home and made me feel all nostalgic.

"Kamis, that's the new carpet smell."

*facepalm*  Of course!  I don't know why I like the smell so much.  Maybe it has to do with all of the moving we did when I was a kid.  We visited a lot of model homes and I loved to fantasize about what it would be like to live there, and I asked myself all sorts of questions ...  Which floor plan do I like the best?  Which bedroom would be mine?  Does it have a cool playroom?  Does it have stairs to the attic?  Is the master bathroom big enough for a small family to live in?

I thought I would start feeling really lonely as soon as the plane landed.  But Dad called when Mom picked me up and we all went out to dinner and it felt a bit like I was a kid in my family again ... only without the threat of power struggles.  I guess I am sort of glad not to be a teenager any more. ;)

Now it's just us kids.  Party time!