Head Full of Thoughts

I prefer Krispy Kreme to Dunkin' Donuts.

I hate being alone.

I'm glad that when I talk to God, I can be sure he's listening.

I like lillies and daisies and wildflowers.

When I was little, I wanted to be a famous singer.

I like winter, because I like to bundle.

I like argyle and houndstooth and checkered patterns.

When I was 9, my best friend and I transformed a huge fallen tree into a Pirates of the Caribbean-esque ship.

I always wished I had curly hair.

The way the world smells when it rains is one of the best scents ever.

I hate doing laundry and ironing.

I hope one day I'll get a chance to travel.

I love holding hands and surprise kisses and the warmth of an embrace.

I'm the girl who can't stop dreaming.

What I Love

I love that our ornaments on our newsroom Christmas tree were hung with paper clips. Seems only appropriate. I forget that fun fact and am reminded each time I help put up or take down the tree.

I love good hair days. They can set the stage for the rest of the day.

I love when the ride to work is commercial free.

I love lunch dates and catch-up phone calls and hot tea in the morning.

I remember

I remember the first time I stayed on the telephone all night with a boy. I tried so hard to keep my voice muffled, but I'm sure my frequent giggles escaped my efforts.

I remember popping popcorn in what now seems like an antique machine. We'd measure out the kernels, pour them in, and then listen to the whir and pop, pop, pop. We'd watch as the fluffy pieces climbed to the top and then coasted down the slide at the lip of the machine into an oversized bowl. Of course we'd then proceed to douse the miniature white clouds with an excessive amount of melted butter. Mmm...

I remember riding my bike down the steepest hill in the neighborhood, the feel of wind and freedom whipping around me, until I reached the bottom, red-faced and exuberant.

I remember the urgency and fever of first love. Feeling like you were walking on air and couldn't breathe and wishing time could stand still. Learning what it felt like to have butterflies flapping their wings in your stomach, trapped and trying to get out.

I remember using my living room for a concert hall, belting out my favorite songs with abandon to an audience of tables and chairs.

I remember the first time I shaved my legs, away from home so mom wouldn't know, with a cheap plastic razor and feeling astonished at how smooth legs could actually be. I wanted so desperately to be grown up.

Why on earth do we all want so desperately to be grown up?

Sunday, Lazy Sunday

Very little rivals a slow, easy start to the day with a hot cup of coffee. Mmm... I think could sit in my pajamas drinking coffee and thinking great thoughts all day long and be perfectly content. Why won't someone pay me to do that?

Post-Christmas Lull

Sometimes to me the days after Christmas feel like the saddest days of the year. The weeks leading up to Christmas create such a euphoric high. And once you reach the pinnacle, well, it seems you can only go downhill from there.

Coming down from the high of the holidays is a task. What do you focus all your time and energy on? And don't get me started about having to stop playing the carols I love so much, taking down the tree and putting away all the decorations until next year.

Quick, somebody send me another beloved holiday to prepare for...

Crossroads

You ever feel like you're at a crossroads in your life? You've come to the intersection and the shiny green rectangle road signs are waiting for you to decide your route? Yeah, I'm definitely at the corner of confused and completely unsure.

The one thing I do know is that 2009 is going to be a pivotal year. Some years go by in a blur of same-ness. Others are life-changing and leave deep markings on the blueprints of your life. '09 is going to be one of those. I can feel it, change is a-comin'.

My 2008 Top Ten Lists

Favorite Songs:
Sugarland "Already There"
Matt Nathanson "Come on Get Higher"
Flo Rida "Low"
Taylor Swift "Love Story"
Daughtry "What About Now"
Jason Mraz "I'm Yours"
Britney Spears "Womanizer"
Katy Perry "Hot 'N Cold"
Beyonce "If I Were a Boy"
T.I. "Whatever You Want"

Favorite Movies:
"Twilight"
"Four Christmases"
"Sex and the City"
"Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist"
"Nights in Rodanthe"
"The Dark Knight"
"Iron Man"
"Eagle Eye"
"What Happens in Vegas"
"27 Dresses"

Celebrities I Couldn't Get Enough Of:
Britney Spears (fo sho)
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Nettles
Kenny Chesney (went to his summer tour kick-off concert in Columbia!)
Fall Out Boy
Tina Fey
Taylor Swift
Heath Ledger
John Krasinski
Barack Obama (He's a celebrity, right?)

Celebrities I'm Sick Of:
Lindsay Lohan
Brad Pitt
Tom Cruise
Kim Kardashian
Angelina Jolie
Paris Hilton
Madonna
Anyone from The Hills
Amy Winehouse
Disney stars

Stuff I Was Addicted to This Year:
Coffee
Jodi Picoult books
Converse shoes
Sweater dresses
My iPod
Scarves
Nine West
England
Manicures and Pedicures
Sales

Books I Read And Loved This Year:
"Atlas Shrugged"
"My Sister's Keeper"
"Twilight"
"New Moon"
"Eclipse"
"Breaking Dawn"
"Blue Like Jazz"
"Nineteen Minutes"
"Skipping Christmas"
"Sense and Sensibility"

Merry Christmas

Breakfast casserole and apple crisp. Candy canes and coffee. Mmmm. It's Christmas. Eat it up.

It's Beginning to Look at Lot Like Christmas

It's really not beginning to look like Christmas at all, but alas, Christmas is just around the corner. Hard to believe, isn't it? Though the events leading up to Christmas have been fantastic, for me the actual week of Christmas feels very little like Christmas. This Christmas is so strange, so different in so very many ways.

I keep trying to remind myself that different is okay and to find joy in all the places it's so abundant and not focus on the places it seems to be missing.

I have to work on Christmas Day and the day after, but I'm trying -- really I am -- to maintain my Christmas spirit.

Why is Christmas never like it appears in the movies? Perfect families, perfect romances, perfect time spent together...

The way

Show me the way, and I'll go.

I won't hesitate, I won't ask twice, I won't argue. I'll trust. Just show me the way.

Show me what you want me to be. What you expect of me. The person you want me to become.

Just show me the way.

La, la, la

I love butterflies, the ones painted by the brushstroke of nature in vibrant colors and the ones you get in your stomach when you're excited.

I love ice cream. Especially Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip. And Baskin Robbins' Baseball Nut. And almost anything from Brewsters, Cold Stone or Marble Slab. Who am I kidding? I just love ice cream.

I love coffee. When it's warm and flavored and wakes me up and makes me giddy.

I love when the right song comes on at the right moment.

I love snow. Why is it 70 degrees in December?

I love photographs, expressions and moments frozen in time.

I love possibility.

Christmas to-do list

Perform, as part of the choir, in four productions this weekend of "The Answer," Alice Drive Baptist's Christmas play.

Enjoy a weekend visit from my sister, my mother and Mel's sister.

Drive as many times as possible through the BEAUTIFUL light display at Swan Lake.

Drink lots of yummy flavored coffee and hot chocolate.

Enjoy an at-work Christmas party with co-workers on Tuesday. I can only hope that it will hold as much excitement as the Dunder Mifflin Christmas party. "Everyone in this room loves you. But mark my words, we are not going to support your alcoholism anymore. The next time you light yourself on fire, we are not going to help put you out."

Go to the mountains the weekend before Christmas and hopefully see some snow!

I'm singing in the rain...or not

Today was one of those days I SO wanted to stay in bed, cacooned in my warm, cozy bed. I could have stayed there, happily, all day long. Sleeping. Reading. Listening to the rain beating down on the roof and on the ground and shimmying off the leaves of the trees.

I love the rain. I just hate trying to be productive when it rains. When I'd rather be unproductive, lazy. Just listening to the rain.

Today I'll have to muster extra oomph to try to get my daily tasks accomplished. Everything will be just a teensy bit harder.

Follow the yellow brick road

Just follow the yellow brick road. No big deal. The blindingly fluorescent yellow bricks will lead you in the right direction. But what if there are no yellow bricks? What do you do then?

Follow instinct? Your gut? A certain intuition?

Or, better yet, what if there IS a yellow brick road, but it forks. Then what? Which path do you follow?

Walk down memory lane

Some life events will always have a memory attached to them. For me, one of those -- strange as it may sound -- is getting french toast sticks from Burger King.

This morning -- as happens once in a while -- I got a craving for BK's french toast sticks on my way to work. And so I indulged.

When I was little, my mom and I had a morning ritual of eating breakfast at Burger King before our busy days started. I was four and attending pre-school in Knoxville at a tiny little school on the edge of the University of Tennessee's campus. Both of my parents were going back to school at that time, and my mother would take me to pre-school every day. But first, we'd make a stop at the Burger King on top of the hill.

We'd sit, morning after morning, stuffing our faces with the delectable sugar sticks and talking. I loved those conversations with my mommy. And then she would take my hand and walk me down the hill to school.

Every day seemed a little bit better because of my french toast sticks and my mother's love.

It's Christmas time in the city

The star stands firm in its spot at the top of the Christmas tree. The presents lure and taunt from beneath.

Morning frost paints the earth a glistening mirror.

Lights wind 'round and 'round light poles and stretch across rooftops, twinkling their greeting.

"Santa Baby" and "The Nutcracker" provide the music for every other commercial on television.

All I can think about is hot chocolate and cookies. Ornaments and sleighs. My savior and his birth.

Oh, how I love Christmas.

Is it a sacrifice if I enjoy it?

I think life is about sacrifices. Some are bigger than others, some more monumental, some with greater consequences. Some are easier to make than others. But each day that unfolds carries with it a promise of more sacrifices.

We sacrifice money, time, love, possessions, blood, sweat, tears, ourselves -- in different doses to different people.

We take time away from one person to give to another. We sacrifice ethics, morals, values to get farther in life. We burn bridges just in the nick of time to cling to what's left of them to get to the other side.

We sacrifice health to push ourselves to live longer, more caffienated, Rolodexed lives. We sacrifice marriages in the pursuit of a moment of tantalizing pleasure.

We sacrifice the flat screen TVs and the new sports car for meals for the family and a minivan.

We sacrifice in the form of compromise to please another.

Life is a precarious balance of healthy sacrifices and the ones that slice into who we are and bleed us dry.

If I could, I would

I wish I could be like the earth after a storm, everything washed clean away, everything renewed.

I wish I could be like the flame that dances and tantalizes and jumps and sways so vigorously and then, when it's extinguished, it's forgotten.

I wish I could be like a feather or a leaf floating on the breeze, direction unimportant. No GPS required.

I wish I could be the stream running, pushing, moving toward freedom.

I wish I could be impulsive.