Free Day!

After being at our soon to be new home for 5 days straight it is finally Monday! Monday means Mom and Dad have work, Tia has school, but Tori still has two days free. Hooray! My plans for today are as follows:

1. Blogging
2. Finish making X-Mas cards
3. Sew pillow cases for myself and Tia
4. Clean the house up
5. Prep for dinner
6. Go to Walmart for the millionth time this week because my dad needs cough syrup
7. Finish re-reading Twilight
*8. Watch Phantom of the Opera and Aladdin with Tia

Is it sad that this is a fun day for me? That this is how I am choosing to spend my day? I don't care. I take joy in the small things in life. Like last night; watching cartoons with Tia until we were both tired and then still sitting up together laughing and ogling Johnny Depp in the new People. Yes, I bought it just for the pictures of Johnny Depp. It is well worth the five bucks I spent on it. But, anyway, that was a good night. It is what I miss most while I'm at school.

One thing I will not miss while at school is working on the new house. I'm sick of painting walls. I'm sick of cleaning up after the gross people who lived there before. I'm so glad this is the last time we're moving! My parents have always rented, and we've moved around town a lot. Like every 2-3 years. Now that they're buying a house it's the end of it. My room is still not completely painted, so you'll have to wait a while longer for pictures. I picked bright colors! My room is orange and blue. I needed to contrast the dull boring colors my parents picked for the rest of the house. Tia's room is my favorite, though. We splatter painted her room! It looks awesome.

I am going to turn on CMT and work on the Christmas cards. Oh, they've been playing Christmas music on my favorite radio station all weekend, and now it's on CMT too! That actually makes me happy. I love X-Mas music. One of my favorites that they played on the radio this weekend was 'Leroy the Redneck Reindeer'. It just makes me laugh every time I hear it!

* Number 8 is my favorite and what I'm looking forward to the most. I've been wanting to watch POTO for a while now. And watching it with Tia is even better. It took me more than a year to get her to watch it for the first time! And we have both had the Arabian Nights song stuck in our heads since last night so we want to watch Aladdin. I love watching movies with Tia. <3

Thanksgiving Week Schedule

Hello from New Hampshire! I skipped out on the knowledge bowl, awards ceremony and whatever other fun stuff they had planned for us today up at NECI. I'm home now and I have a busy schedule. My parents gave me money and I need to go grocery shopping today to get food for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow I am going to be doing some pre-Thanksgiving cooking. (The rolls and desserts.) Then Thursday is actually Thanksgiving and I'll be helping my mom cook while watching movies and playing games with my sister and my friend who's coming over. I like the running around. I love the fact that I'm going to be with the people I care about. There's just something about this time of the year that makes me want to be home, cooking, eating, and hanging out.

My computer does not connect to the internet when I'm at home. My only comment about that is "WTH?!" I don't get it... Whatever, I am using my mom's laptop. I don't think I'll be on much at all with everything I'm going to be doing anyway. So I'm just going to say early Happy Thanksgiving! Plan on my next post being the day after Thanksgiving with pictures of what we end up eating. Plan on that being later in the day because I finally get to go shopping with my mom on Black Friday! I've been begging her to let me go with her for years.

"Don't Let The Bedbugs Bite!"

I am going to be cleaning my dorm room up this afternoon. Mostly because it's horribly dirty and needs to be cleaned, but also sort of in preparation for the Night of Hecate which I am deciding to participate in last minute. Using a flashlight. Yeah, we aren't allowed candles in dorms. We have uber-sensitive smoke detectors and I can guarantee that if I set it off they would fine me.

Part of my cleaning this afternoon will be looking for bedbugs. The dorm building next door had them, now someone on the floor above me has them. I'm really creeped out and if I find them in my room I am probably going to scream. I can tell you I won't be sleeping in my bed, either! Someone I know back home is an exterminator and he lent me a 16X magnifying glass to look for them, and even gave me a picture of the little nasty things. Which grossed me out even more. When "Don't let the bedbugs bite!" becomes a real warning I start to worry. I didn't think bedbugs were real when I was a kid. I thought they were something my grandma made up to joke with us. Like her pink skippawampus that lived in the woods behind the house.

Oh, and did I ever mention how much I absolutely LOVE lists? To-do lists save my butt. I would forget so many things lately if I didn't write them down on my brightly colored sticky notes.

SO, today I am thankful for to-do lists.

Yikes!

I don't like to gripe and moan about money... especially because I consider myself lucky to have so many of the things that I do. But, damn, I can't help but wonder where all my money went? Then that little voice in my head goes "books, clothes, a Tracphone, stuff for school, A CAR!!" Oh, right... a car and college are both expensive. This makes me wonder if I should have just gone without a car while I am in college. Too late now I guess, since I've already bought it.

I've bought a lot of books lately. Both to read for fun, and just yesterday I spent a butt-load of money on textbooks for school. Even though I can look at and hold the things my money has gone to, I can't help but feel that I could have spent it more wisely. I hope that's just because I have no use for half the things until I'm actually in school. I'm sure I'll be thankful for having them once I need them.

Bad news about my computer. My grandpa can't fix it. He can't even figure out what's wrong with it. I bought it only two years ago... fully expecting it to last me beyond college. We may need to spend a couple hundred dollars (ouch!) and buy another warranty on it so I can send it back to the company and have it fixed. That may be cheaper than buying another computer, but I still need one for college. It couldn't have broken at a more inconvenient time. I may be taking my mom's with me...

As for the other stuff on my list-
My car is registered now! Luckily, my parents are taking care of the car insurance. I still need to get it inspected, have the oil changed, get good tires, blah, blah, blah (I don't understand cars).

I'm working on getting all the supplies for school.

I've cleaned the kitchen really well, but haven't started making and freezing meals yet. Thanks to the people who gave me suggestions!

I babysat Keagan for a while yesterday. He's started acting like a typical 3-year-old. I love him, though. And I got a bunch of great pictures! He's growing wicked fast. If you had told me three years ago that Jess and Dan's little boy would mean so much to me I wouldn't have believed it. I'm going to miss him so bad while I'm away.

TTFN! I am going to hang out at the farmer's market with a friend today. Maybe I can get a few more things done before I leave.

Stuff To Do Before College

In the car on the way home yesterday I was making my 'to do' list of everything I need to do before leaving for college.

Get my computer back from Poppa once it's fixed (I need it for school!)

Get my car registered and inspected ASAP

Buy all the books and supplies I'll need for school

Make and freeze meals so my mom, dad, and Tia don't have to resort to frozen pizza & takeout while I'm gone (suggestions on what meals freeze and reheat well would be appreciated!)

Clean the house really well

Vacuum my car out (the previous owner hauled hay in it)

Pack my stuff

Babysit Keagan (I haven't seen him in weeks! I miss him...)

Print pictures to bring to college with me

Get a potted plant for my dorm room (I'll be in a city, want some nature with me)

Make Great Gram's relish

Contact NECI admissions about my questions

Hang out with my friends as much as possible

Orientation is the 3rd of September. I'm flip flopping back and forth between excitement and being so scared I want to throw up. Is college supposed to be like that?

Tackling The To Do List

I am happy to report that my Sunday to do list is shrinking! Sunday is the day I get stuff done since I babysat all day Saturday again. I'm glad that I've gotten so much done, even if I still have stuff to do. Great joy in small victories, right?

I woke up and immediately wanted to go back to bed this morning. I've been sick the past couple days. Friday was the senior class trip to Boston (oh my gods it was fun! Pictures at a later date) and I ended up losing my voice due to a combo of singing/ talking loudly over music and having a cold. I had a wicked sore throat yesterday and I can barely talk at all today.

I got up anyways and made my mental to do list. At first it consisted of three things 1- clean the house 2- use up the zucchini by making muffins and brownies (brownie recipe and more at a later date) 3- study for finals.

Not a bad list for the day. Then it grew. The house was dirtier than I thought, cooking takes forever when my dad starts making spaghetti while I'm making zucchini muffins, I forgot that I also need to make bread for myself for the week, I needed to eat & relax, go on the exercise bike, and I wanted to catch up on blogs.

Once I'm done writing this I only have to make my bread and study for finals.I don't even have to make dinner! Mom got Pizza Hut and there is some left.

The finals for tomorrow are:
AP English (easy exam!)
and Personal Finance (stressing over!)

Then graduation practices also start tomorrow. And I have a NHS meeting and then senior NHS members have dinner with Mr. Sullivan. I don't think I'll even have the chance to get near a computer. Any free time I have will be spent cramming for the French final I have on Tuesday! French is easliy my toughest class- this learning a second language thing is hard.

Off to throw some stuff in a breadmaker and then cram my head full of knowledge about finances.