giving thanks.

It’s Turkey Day once again and that means it’s time for some discussion about those things for which I am thankful. I got a little verbose this year, so bear with me.

Family. I have the most amazing (albeit bat-shit insane) family a girl could ever ask for. Parents who put up with me and hold their tongue more often than not about what’s not going on in my life. A mother who listens to me talk about any and everything for as long as I like, giving me advice and her opinion whenever I ask for it. A father who, as much as he loves to act like an old grump, is a mushy family man through and through. A brother who makes me laugh until I’m crying, plays video games with me, lets me vent about all my problems, and is truly the only other person who understands how ridiculous my parents are.

I have wonderful aunts and uncles who fill the little spaces that my parents can’t and grandparents who spoil me rotten. I have nine wonderful cousins, most of whom I would go to the moon for; these are the people who will become a part of all my family traditions in the future, acting as brothers and sisters instead of mere cousins.

Friends. Oh, my heart is too full of love for my friends. I could fill pages and pages with my admiration for these people that have become my safety net, my saving grace. My four best friends from college are my soul mates. I was lucky enough to get a chance to live with each of them for at least a year in college, which left me with more memories than I could ever recall and more laughter than I ever thought possible. They are amazing to me, astounding me at every turn with how hard-working and intelligent they are. Sometimes it’s hard to be surrounded with people so full-to-the-brim with talent, because it’s easy for the jealousy monster to unleash itself, but mostly? I’m just completely in awe of them.

As if having four best friends wasn’t lucky enough, I have two almost-sisters and a handful of girls-turned-young-ladies with whom I grew up inside rooms with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and deafening music. Even though we all don’t see each other as often as I’d like, my dancers all have a spot in my heart, and it only takes a few notes of a familiar song to remind me of them.

I have a fellow dance diva that I met not in ballet class, but in freshman year of high school, and we’ve been friends ever since. We’ve been out of touch – another hard-working brainiac, that one is – but I just know when we reunite, it will be as if no time has passed. I have a pseudo-family who lives down the street, a trio of sisters (one of whom had the cutest baby girl ever last spring) who treat me as one of their own and whose parents let me eat ice cream out of their freezer without asking. I have a couple of guys who never fail to make me laugh or at least smile, and even though we mostly ‘hang out’ in AIM chat rooms, we have our own awesome dynamic going on. I’m so glad to have connected with them this year because they’ve lightened up a lot of my bad days.

The Internetz. It goes without saying that I spend a lot of time online. This one is less about being thankful for the actual internet (though I am glad it exists!) and more about the people I’ve met. Though I have yet to technically ‘meet’ any of you, I am grateful for all the people who lay eyes on this blog, who read my words, and especially those who take the time to comment. If I could, I would give the entire blogosphere a great big hug.

Music and dancing. It’s been a hard couple of years and most days, I have music playing from when I wake up until I fall asleep so that my thoughts are occupied with lyrics instead of dwelling on my life. I just enjoy music so much, which is underscored by my love of dancing. The worst days can be cured by playing an old recital song and remembering choreography or letting off some steam by making up new stuff to a favorite song. I would probably go insane without music or the ability to dance.

I’ve been absolutely terrible at commenting on other blogs this week – hopefully I’ll get around to it this morning as I sip my tea and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade – but in case I don’t, I wish all of my readers the happiest of Thanksgivings. Enjoy your day, whatever it is that you’ll be doing, and good luck if you’re heading out on Black Friday!

ten on tuesday [vol. 13].

{Thanksgiving 2005}

1. What are your plans for the holidays? Do you travel at Thanksgiving? If you celebrate Christmas, do you travel then, too?
I don't travel (far) for any of the holidays, ever, because all of my family is in New Jersey. This year, for Thanksgiving we'll be at my aunt/grandparents' house in North Jersey, I'll be in South Jersey for Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day celebrations are at our house.

2. How do you make the plans for the holiday? If you have a significant other, how do you decide which family to visit?
We alternate between my mom's and dad's family each year. If it's my dad's side, we're almost always here; for my mom's side, my mom and aunt switch off every year.
3. Do you have your Thanksgiving meal at lunch or later in the day?
Usually we have an early dinner, around 4:30 or 5pm.

4. Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
Does gorging myself on pumpkin pie count as a 'tradition'? Actually, my grandparents on my dad's side (who passed away when I was younger) used to bring chocolate turkeys for all the kids, and for a while after they died, my aunt still found and bought them for us. Not sure why that stopped, though.

We have a few current semi-traditions, like how my dad always writes something funny on the whiteboard on our fridge. Oh! And I always, always get up to watch the Macy's parade on TV. I think I've only missed a year or two.

5. After a big meal do you lounge around or get up and take a walk?
When I was younger, I used to be a ball of nerves and would start to feel sick after eating a big meal and sitting in the warm house, so I would go for a little stroll outside. Nowadays, I'm usually on the Cleanup Crew, which depending on the location of the festivities includes simply drying dishes or, oppositely, walking up and down the stairs a million times to put leftovers in my aunt's spare fridge in the basement.

6. Do you shop on “Black Friday” or do you avoid it?
Despite my love of shopping, I've never taken part in the traditional Black Friday experience. This is mostly because my mother - though she loves a great deal - hates crowds. Since I'm usually not looking for one of the major deals offered in the morning, I shop later in the day at places like Target, where there are still great sales without the general insanity. I also check online Black Friday sales that start at midnight.

7. When do you usually finish your Christmas shopping?
It depends. When I was in college - the first time I was doing 'serious' Christmas shopping - it varied because sometimes I'd put it off, but other times I'd use shopping as an excuse to avoid working. These past two years I've been out of college, my shopping has been finished extremely early because I'm super aware of it. I'm about three-quarters of the way done for this year already, and it's not even Thanksgiving!
8. Do you and your significant other exchange gifts? Is there a budget?
No significant other this year. In the past, yes, I exchanged gifts with my then-boyfriend, but we didn't have a specific budget.

9. When do you decorate for the holidays?
I have a self-imposed rule that I do not go near the Christmas decorations or music before Thanksgiving is over, unless there are extenuating circumstances (such as school stress or a special event). This is in place because I know if I start too early, I will get sick of all of it. That being said, I usually decorate the house the weekend following Thanksgiving.

10. Do you go “all out” with the decor or do you keep it simple?
Oh God, all out. My mom has such a vast array of decorations and we put all of them up. It's not too crazy, but it's a fair amount considering we don't decorate much for any other holiday. We have garlands for the banisters and doorways, poinsettias to replace the vases of regular (fake) flowers around the house, and our tree is decked from head-to-toe with a total mish-mosh of ornaments. Of course, all of these decorations are indoors, which is fine, but I always wished we could have a really glitzy outdoor display.

These questions are a part of Ten on Tuesday which is run by Roots and Rings.

a quiet weekend.

This weekend was a relaxing one for me, considering I had a busy end to my week last week and I know the upcoming week and weekend will be just as busy. Still, the weekend flew by and now there are just three days until Thanksgiving and the beginning of the weekends’ festivities.

On Thursday, I took my first holiday-season trip to the mall and Target. There’s something about the mall I love – I guess that’s a Jersey thing – and it’s even better during the Christmas season, especially when it’s not super crowded. I had a few stores I needed to stop in, the most important of which was The Gap to use my Groupon. I picked up some new tops to wear with leggings, then bought a bunch of gifts from The Body Shop and a few things at Victoria’s Secret.

Friday was, of course, the premiere of Deathly Hallows. I made last-minute plans with Natalie to see it at 5:30pm, which was the best decision ever. Even though we got there ten minutes before it started, we still got our (reserved) tickets and there were plenty of seats available. I found this was much better than reserving tickets for a later show only to have to get there early and wait in line for good seats, which is what a large number of teenagers had done.

The movie was amaze-balls. I could go on and on – mostly about all the little swoony moments between Ron and Hermione (one ship!) and the best-friend-y dance between Harry and Hermione – but I’ll refrain. Honestly, though, I’m dying to see it again. Also, I’ve decided that no matter what, I’m going to the midnight premiere of Part II. SO EXCITED.

After the movie, we stopped at Dunkin on the way back to Natalie’s apartment, where we proceed to watch trashy television with her fiancé (OMG I LOVE SAYING THAT). Of course, I could’ve done without the extra hour I spent stuck in the biggest clusterfuck of traffic I've ever seen on the way home. The construction geniuses of New Jersey decided it was perfectly fine to do roadwork directly behind a toll plaza, diverting eleven lanes of traffic into one. So much rage. The only plus is that a few radio stations are already playing Christmas music, so that helped.

My weekend was calm and cozy, just as I’d planned. I slept late both days, organized some things in my room on Saturday night, and on Sunday I watched football (last-seconds awesome win for the Jets, loss for the Giants), the AMAs, and did a bunch of random chores. It flew by just the same, but I feel prepared for the hustle and bustle of the upcoming week.

how harry potter revealed my inner geek.

{via}

I don’t remember exactly when I first picked up a Harry Potter book – the first of the series came out when I was just beginning middle school, and I’m sure I wasn’t getting into it that early. I do know that by high school, I had at least some interest, and that the release of the first movie that year launched me into my first-ever fandom.

Never in my life had I nerded out over anything. After splitting my personality between ‘cool kid’ and ‘G&T student’ in middle school, the former part of me drifted away as I embraced my social awkwardness, shyness, and tendency to obsess over things. As a freshman in high school, I befriended a group of people who were extremely intelligent and half of whom were very interested in literature, which only served as encouragement to become enthralled with a book series.

It was with these girls that I began to love Harry Potter. I remember driving to the movies nearly right after school in senior year – stopping at home only to change into regular clothes – to see the release of the third movie. In July of the summer between high school and college, we waited in line at the midnight release of the sixth book. Even once we had all gone our separate ways in college, we met up to see the fifth movie, enthusiastic as ever.

As luck would have it, or maybe circumstance, the friends I made in college also had an affinity for the series. It helped that I was drawn to those people; I found that if they, too, had a certain love for the series, then they were my type of people. It was comforting, in a way.

One of my most cherished memories is going to see the fourth movie at the end of the fall semester in freshman year. The friends I had made and I planned to see the movie the night it came out, and Katie, my roommate at the time, invited a classmate of hers. Spoiler alert: that mystery classmate turned out to be Melissa, we hit it off immediately, and she’s now one of my closest friends. All thanks to Harry Potter. (That’s not dramatic at all. You know what is dramatic, though? This picture.)

This photo will never not amuse me. And I mean, seriously, we knew each other for maybe a half hour at this point.

The excitement I have for the final set of movies is indescribable, but at the same time, I am incredibly sad to see it end. It means no more anticipation, no more waiting outside of a Barnes and Noble at midnight or pre-ordering tickets weeks in advance, filling theaters with gaggles of costumed audience members. It also means that one more piece of my adolescence is being tucked away, only to be rehashed in occasional references by friends and weekend-long movie marathons.

But two things are for sure – one, that I’ll always remember the message of the books, that love is the most powerful thing in the world; and two, whenever I hear the first notes of the movie’s theme song play, I will not be able to stop a smile from crossing my face.

wordless wednesday.

{via}

!!!

ten on tuesday [vol. 12].

Oh, what a glorious sight. Come to mama.
{via}

1. What is your favorite breakfast pastry?
Donuts. Of any kind, really, but especially French crullers from DD.

2. Were you ever in a Thanksgiving or Christmas play?
Yes! I played Clara in The Nutcracker in fifth grade for chorus. (Which is always a teeny bit amusing to me that, despite being a dancer, the only version of The Nutcracker I've been in was a non-ballet version.) Anyway, I tried out on a whim and I'm pretty sure I only got the part because I was really good at reading out loud. This is furthermore confirmed by my ability to recite my lines well and with emphasis and emotion while also being completely devoid of any acting skills. I would just stand there, hands clasped awkwardly, tossing my bangs out of the way of my face every five seconds with a shake of my head.

However. All that being said, it was insanely fun and pretty cool to be the lead. It made me feel important and awesome. And, I still remember most of the song lyrics (which I bet you didn't think existed, because neither did I. But, here they are, the set that's halfway down the page).

3. What is your favorite clothing accessory?
Belts. I'm (slowly) learning how to incorporate them into my wardrobe to make something look dressier or completely fix a 'blah' outfit.

4. What is your favorite item of clothing?
I switch favorites a lot, because I usually fall completely in love with something and wear it everywhere for a while. My most recent favorite is a blue, high-waisted, floral print skirt, though that was more in the summer. I haven't found a new favorite for the fall yet.

5. What is your favorite color and why?
Pink. It wasn't always my favorite color, mainly because my room was a pukey color of pink and I hated it. Once I painted my room purple, I learned to love pink again and it became my favorite color. And then I became obsessed. Most of my electronics are pink (laptop, camera, iPod) and in college, my room definitely had a pink glow to it due to all the bedding and decor being that color.

6. What is your favorite type of Christmas cookie?
The chocolate chip cookies and the cookie press butter cookies that we made when I was younger.

7. What is your favorite scent (food, perfume/lotion)
This is tough. I don't think I could pick just one favorite, so here are a few: Sun and Sand candle from Yankee Candle; peppers and onion pizza; Versace Man cologne; Orbit Bubblemint gum.

8. What is your favorite household cleaner?
I feel like this question's been asked before. Because I distinctly remember thinking I don't have any specific loyalties to cleaners. Except now that I think about it, I actually do have a favorite - the Magic Eraser. It cleans pretty much everything.

9. When you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up? And what did you actually grow up to be?
My longest-running career ambition was to be a dance teacher, a dream I held onto pretty much up until the middle of high school. Somewhere along the line I decided I also wanted to be a chef. Toward the end of high school, my "dream" job was to work as a wedding planner.

What I ended up with was studying accounting for four miserable years, not getting a career out of it, and being stuck with a tiny little part-time job. I have ambitions to be a wedding planner, but have also considered a range of other similar (and more practical) options as well.

10. What is the last song or album you bought?
Hands All Over by Maroon 5. It's fabulous and I highly recommend it.

These questions are a part of Ten on Tuesday which is run by Roots and Rings.

parental-free weekend, in photos.

Friday.

Best. Packaging. EVER.

Free gift for reaching some kind of status level at Club Nintendo.

Saturday.

Painting (part of) the kitchen to see if we like the color.
(You can see the old color at the top left in the picture; the peach is the new color.)


My brother's one-man party.


Beverage storage solution. Ingenious, or just lazy?

Sunday.

Cupcakes for my dad's birthday!

Not pictured: delicious sub sandwiches and movie night with my brother; cleaning spree; hang-out with Ash and Cort; football; brainstorming and shopping for Christmas gifts.

So, how was your weekend?

ten on tuesday [vol. 11].

1. Who makes your Thanksgiving dinner?
We alternate which side of the family we see every year and, within each family, we alternate hosts. But, it's always one of three people: my mom, my dad's youngest sister, or my mom's older sister (who gets help from my grandmother).

2. What is your favorite recipe that includes pumpkin? (bonus points for including the recipe)
Pumpkin pie, hands down. But, I've only ever made it once and I don't have the recipe on hand. I just know it's delicious in every possible way. As for something I actually make, I'm also a big fan of pumpkin cupcakes. I've been meaning to try this recipe from Brittney, but if you're looking for a quick and easy recipe, here's what I use:

• 1 package (18.25 oz.) spice cake mix
• 1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
• 3 large eggs
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 container (16 oz.) prepared cream cheese or vanilla frosting

Basically just follow all the directions on the back of the cake mix box. They are actually really yummy without icing as well.

3. What are 5 things you want for Christmas?
I honestly haven't given much thought to what I want for Christmas. Probably because I impulse buy most of the time and don't actually have a "wish list" of things I'd like to own. Here's a list off the top of my head, though.

1. Black skinny jeans
2. GPS
3. the new Professor Layton game for the DS
4. Rock Band for the Wii
5. a new phone
   

4. Does your family draw names or do you buy for everyone?
We don't draw names in any circumstances, but we also don't buy for each and every family member. Within my immediate family (mom, dad, brother, and me), everyone gets something for everyone else. On my mom's side of the family, it's simple: my cousins and I get gifts from our grandparents.

On my dad's side, it's a little more complicated. The rule was supposed to be that once we turned 18, there were no more gifts from aunts and uncles (which is the rule that is in place on my mom's side). However, my aunt (my dad's youngest sister) got in the habit of still buying small gifts for me and each of my cousins, so my mom has been doing the same. Additionally, the girls (me, Lyndsay, and another cousin) started exchanging gifts and then eventually included buying gifts for the boys.

5. How do you feel about motorcycles?
They're okay in my book. I don't really feel passionately about them one way or another, but I think it would be cool to ride on one a few times in my life.

6. What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy Saturday?
Watch whatever's on television, drink tea, and bake.

7. What is the coolest thing to do in your city?
I don't live in a city and my town is infinitely lame. The coolest thing to do is go sit in Dunkin Donuts with some friends or hang out at the mall, though the mall technically isn't even in my town.

8. Do you paint your fingernails?
Sadly, no. I bite them too small to paint them with any sort of precision. But! I do paint my toenails.

9. Who is your favorite actor over the age of 50?
I don't really have too many favorite actors in general and I'm too lazy to go figure out someone over 50 of whom I am a fan. #lameanswer

10. Do you have a high school letter jacket?
No, but I could have! I actually have the patch that would've gone on it for Drill Team, but I didn't want to spend the money (also, I thought girls having a jacket for Drill Team was a bit ridiculous).

These questions are a part of Ten on Tuesday which is run by Roots and Rings.

life choices, weekend edition.

Occasionally I like to define certain things I do as either Poor or Amazing Life Choices. This weekend was filled to the brim with them, which is to say, it was equal parts fabulously awesome and horrifyingly irresponsible.

Poor Life Choices:

• Eating too much candy Friday night
• Staying up after being woken up too early on Saturday morning
• Taking a death nap Saturday afternoon
• Taking too many meds for my stomach in prep for going out
• Not eating anything all day until I came home at 3am
  
• Getting only five hours of sleep Saturday night (despite DST!)
• Having a mozzarella-and-salami sandwich at 1am when I should've been in bed last night
• Staying up until 4am reading through e-mails/gchats between me and my ex

Amazing Life Choices:

• Creating a Disney-centric Pandora station
  
• Spending Friday night in my p'jams with my mom, watching (and mocking) Home Shopping Network
• Attending Hot Mess House (albeit for far too short of a stay) at Melissa's on Saturday night, despite feeling like, well, a hot mess (and not in the good way)
• Getting the chance to hang out with Melissa's hometown besties and thoroughly enjoying myself
  
• Giving in a little bit and having a convo with my cousin via text for the first time in months
• Making plans for the holidays
  
• Watching the Jets and Giants win their games on Sunday
• Planning a last-minute party for next weekend, even though compulsively checking the RSVPs to make sure enough people are coming will give me an ulcer by the end of the week
• Finally de-tagging and deleting the majority of e-mails/gchats between me and my ex

So, there's my weekend for you. I feel like bloated, sinus-headache-y death, but I had fun! And having fun is all that matters. Right? Right.

that time i beat martha stewart to the punch.

Martha Stewart's Gumdrop Pops project, published in the December 2008 issue of her magazine:

Please note, specifically, the Christmas tree:

The Christmas/Hanukkah Gingerbread Fortress, constructed by the members of the Residence Hall Association executive board '07-'08, in December 2007:

Please note, specifically, the gumdrop Christmas tree with sprinkle accents (my personal brain child):

Commence freak-out at the fact that I totally came up with this idea before Martha Stewart (or at least thought of it before she ever published it somewhere... which might then suggest that we share a brain).

To further prove my point, these are the Snowman Guards of our fortress that my friend constructed compared to Martha's:

It is, however, completely clear that I trumped Martha Stewart on gumdrop figurines with regards to fortress-moat-inhabiting alligators.

Boo-freaking-YAH.

ten on tuesday [vol. 10].

{via}

1. Do you color? If you do, is it with markers, crayons, colored pencils, etc.?
Oh goodness, I love coloring but I haven't done it in such a long time. I'm definitely a crayon girl.

2. What’s the most organized part (or system) in your house?
My clothes are, far and away, the most organized part of my room. No, wait, I take that back - my DVDs are the most organized because they're in alphabetical order and I always make sure to put them back in order when I finish watching a movie. But my clothes are a close second. My closet is organized first by whether the clothes are casual or dressy, then by color, and my drawers are filled with neatly folded piles of tanks, tees, shorts and jeans.

3. What’s the most unorganized part (or system) in your house?
To be honest, there's nothing that unorganized in my room. Everything has its place. I guess I could say my bookshelf is slightly disorganized mainly because I have yet to perfect the balance between storage and display items.

4. If you had unlimited amounts of time and money, what museum would you want to see and why?
I'm going to make myself seem really uncultured and unintelligent, but I really don't have a specific museum I would love to see. I actually couldn't name more than one or two museums off the top of my head. If there's a dance-related museum somewhere, that would be my choice.

5. What is your favorite part of the fall season?
Pumpkin. Spice. Lattes. Or pumpkin spice anything, really. And scarves.

6. Did you dress up for Halloween?
Sure did, but I've already talked that to death.

7. Have you started Christmas shopping?
Yes, because there was a ridiculously amazing sale at Yankee Candle. I've also started brainstorming other gifts, though.

8. Do you crack your knuckles?
Sometimes. I can only crack a few of them on my own unless it's by accident, or if my brother is being mean and does it for me.

9. If you had to live in another city for a year (all expenses paid), which city would you choose?
Well, considering I live in a tiny town that nobody's heard of, I wouldn't mind living in any city. New York would be wonderful.

10. Do you have any reoccurring dreams?
Not necessarily ones that are exactly the same, but yes, I have dreams about the same things. The weirdest ones started after college where I dream that I'm back at school (which doesn't look like my real campus, but always looks the same in each of the dreams). It's always the very end of the semester, which I only know because there is a feeling of impending doom because there's one class that I apparently haven't attended at all and I have none of the work done. It's ridiculously stressful, up until I wake up and realize that I did, in fact, graduate already. I'm also always looking for my cousin's dorm room, since she goes to the same school I did.

Before that, I had dreams about being unprepared for dance events on the regular. Usually it was something like I didn't realize it was recital day and somehow showed up without any of my costumes. Clearly I like to stress myself out in my dreams.

These questions are a part of Ten on Tuesday which is run by Roots and Rings.

halloweekend.

Oh, Monday. I'm sad to see you after such a fun holiday weekend. But! I'm glad it's the start of a new month and time to start preparing for yet another holiday. Before I go all gung-ho about Thanksgiving, though, let's recap my weekend.

Friday. On Thursday night, my bestest, Natalie, called to let me know she’d be in the area to support her friend who was in a local production of The Crucible, and that Danielle (our other bestest) was also (shockingly!) free. It doesn’t happen often that we’re all available at the same time, so I immediately said yes.

The play was really fantastic – Nat’s friend played John Proctor and was amazing – and the small assembly room we were in was low-lit and decorated in a Halloween-ish fashion. Of course, the best part was that I got to play catch up with my girls and see Nat’s engagement ring in person.

Saturday. I ended up sleeping in late by accident, so I spent the afternoon setting out the pieces of my costume and cleaning my room. After dinner I got down to baking, starting with Halloween-themed brownies and following up with cinnamon apples. Unfortunately, the apples didn’t turn out right because I didn’t add enough brown sugar, so I’ll have to try the recipe again next week sometime. The brownies, however, were delicious as always and were quickly consumed.

I guess I was in a movie-watching mood, because not only did I catch Beetlejuice on TV but I watched Zombieland on Netflix Instant Watch with my mom and brother. Beetlejuice is my favorite Halloween movie – my favorite part is the dinner scene when they all start dancing. We watched Zombieland on a whim and it was fantastic. It was so funny and well-done, and being the girly girl that I am, I loved the little romantic storyline. At the end when he finally got to brush a girl’s hair behind her ear (and kiss her, of course), I swooned a little bit.

Sunday. As I posted yesterday, I dressed up as Katy Perry to answer the door and hand out candy. With the exception of one small group of teens, the entirety of our trick-or-treaters were here in the afternoon, before dinnertime. I was surprised people weren’t out later, but I guess it was easier to go out in daylight.

Some of the better costumes included a girl dressed as Blossom (of the Powerpuff Girls, of course) and a teenage boy dressed in my high school’s uniform. I was taken off-guard because I didn’t see the costumes before I handed the candy out, but then I recognized the sweater immediately and realized he was in full uniform. It was great!

We ended up with a lot of extra candy because my mom thought we’d have tons more trick-or-treaters. It’s totally past an acceptable amount of leftovers, which means we’ll be eating it for weeks (or we’ll eat it all really fast and get sick and fat). I lounged around for the remainder of the evening and watched The Walking Dead mainly because there was nothing else on. It was pretty good – I’m not a zombie fan in particular, but I enjoyed it. I don’t watch anything else on Sunday nights, so I may tune in regularly.

Now I'm pretty much just recovering from sugar overload and trying to figure out how I'm going to stop myself from binging on chocolate for the next week. This isn't going to be pretty.