Almost there!

Well, its t-minus 5 days until Christmas and I am done with all my Christmas shopping.. hopefully! All I have left are a couple of gifts I am "making" and then I have to wrap a couple. This year, shopping for my fiance and brother-in-law have been the worst! Joseph tends to be very picky and has very expensive taste - he's like a girl in that sense. Most the things he REALLY wants are out of my price range this year while I am in between work and school. And other than the pricey items, he has not told me anything else he would want. Then the few ideas I do get out of him of course got passed on to my mom and sister to get him for Christmas. Then I had absolutely no idea what to get Nate, my brother-in-law. My sister came up with the perfect idea: some nice chairs for their back deck. They saw some at Lowe's he wanted so I was going to buy 2 and she was going to get 2. Then, low and behold, they are all out at Lowe's! Argh! Even online! So back to the drawing board. And what do I come up with? Camo! Apparently he needs some more for hunting and so I got him a camo shirt but am still in need of a little something extra. Anyone got any good ideas? Probably not..

Other than working on my Christmas shopping, I haven't been up to too much. I met with a couple of the partners from the CPA office I worked at when I was an undergrad student last week and hashed out the details of me coming back to work for them. I will begin work as a "Professional Accountant" on January 3rd and will have my own office! I have never had my own office before. When I worked there before, I was their receptionist, so I spent most my days sitting at a desk right by the front door. If I wasn't at my desk, I was in the copy room, on my feet, assembling tax returns during tax season. And then when I became a TA once I started the MAcc program, I had an office.. only I shared it with 9 other TAs as well. We had one big room, about 11 desks, a desktop computer and printer, and a few filing cabinets to call our own. But now I will have 4 solid walls, a window, a desk, double monitor computer, a filing cabinet, an extra chair, and a door! I am very excited about this! Especially since most people my age that work have a cubicle they call their own and even once I move to Atlanta and start my position up there, a cubicle is all I will have, too.

I didn't realize how exhausting it is to do absolutely nothing! When I was a student, I spent most my days waking up pretty early to study or work on an assignment, before I headed to campus for a few hours for class and office hours, then I would return home and hit the books, occasionally squeezing in a workout with my roomie, cooking dinner or cleaning after Joseph cooked, showering, and staying up late doing some more studying. Pretty much I always had a full day. Now, I haven't woken up before 9am and have stayed in bed until at least 10am watching Regis & Kelly (I <3 Kelly Ripa and want her body when I'm a mommy..  and would love to have her wardrobe now!). Then I finally will myself out of bed where I typically doddle and do a little of this or a little of that, but nothing too mind-boggling or exhausting. I've run a few errands here and there. But there were a couple of days where I didn't leave the apartment AT ALL or if I did, it probably wasn't before 1 or 2 in the afternoon, meaning I was probably in my pajamas until at least 1 in the afternoon. It has been very nice to live this lifestyle and have a break from the hustle and bustle of being a graduate student, but to be honest, I'm not sure if I can handle two more weeks of it! Usually by about 5 or 6pm, I am yawning and ready for a nap, as if I'd been up since 6am being productive or engaging in some sort of physical activities! Which has NOT been the case! But I am sure January 3rd will be here before I know it and I will be longing for the days where I didn't get out of my pajamas until the wee afternoon hours!

I am really looking forward to Christmas and all my family traditions and being able to spend some time with everyone again! This is the second year that Joseph and I will be celebrating both our family holidays together. The first Christmas we were a couple, we both realized that we had our own family traditions, that were pretty much at the exact same time and since we hadn't been exclusive for very long, we didn't see the need to uproot any one's traditions. Well, last year Joseph began ring shopping and envisioning our future together around this time (unknown to me) and since we had been together for going on 2 years, we decided we wanted to be apart of each other's traditions. So I made the trip to Cairo, GA to spend Christmas with the Bowen/Sunday clan and he made the drive to Pensacola with me afterwards to spend the rest of the day with the Dickson/Tracy family. Well, last year was also the first year my mom lived away from her kids during the holidays. By Christmas, my brother was living with her but Ashley and I were still here in Tallahassee. So it was pretty hard on all of us not to wake up and immediately spend Christmas morning together with the 4 of us, plus Nate and Joseph. Needless to say, it got kinda hectic last year, racing from doing Christmas with Joseph, just the 2 of us in Tallahassee, to getting to Cairo to have Christmas lunch with his family, which ended up running late which made us late getting on the road to drive over to Pensacola, and running into the time we were supposed to have with just my mom before having Christmas with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I am hoping this year will go much smoother. We are very blessed and lucky to have families that understand the kind of compromising that goes on in a relationship with both parties coming from large families that live in different cities, so they all understand that we are doing the best that we can and spending time with them, even if its only a couple of hours, means more to us than not seeing them at all (One alternative that was put on the table was rotating between families every year but it broke my heart just thinking about it so it was quickly nixed). This year we are cutting back from doing 4 Christmases (just the two of us, Joseph's family, my mom, and then my grandparents) to 3 and moving our Christmas exchange to Christmas Eve night. I am hoping this will alleviate some of the go-go-go mentality that was in the air last year and allow us to really enjoy the day and the people we are spending it with! I know next year, with Joseph and I living in Atlanta, its going to take some adjusting and possibly more compromises but I know we will think of something!

I am so excited to watch "Its a Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve! This has become a little tradition of Joseph and mine. It is hands down my favorite Christmas movie and on my favorite movies list overall! I usually have to borrow it from Christy's dad every year (I guess that is another tradition) but last year I forgot to return the movie and I still have it, which works in my favor since Christy is overseas, currently staying in Scotland, so I don't have to look for alternative means to get the movie (but if a Forsyth is reading, I promise to return it this year :). Hmm, sounds like a good last-minute Christmas idea if anyone is looking for one ;) If you've never seen it, you truly are missing out (and must have been living under a rock your whole life)! Here are just a couple of my favorite quotes from the movie:

"Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings." <--- a classic, of course!

"Remember, George: no man is a failure who has friends."

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

And there are tons more I love, but then I'd be giving away the whole movie! I hope all of you readers find a copy of the movie and watch it sometime this week and enjoy! :)