The Pumpkin Journal: December 24, 2013

Okay, seeing as it's almost Christmas, I should probably update this.

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote way back in November. Finals happened and the semester is finally over. I passed all my classes, hooray! It was a really hard semester actually. The hardest I've probably had my whole college career. It's funny because I spent the first four years of my college life wondering when the real college classes would begin. When I was little I had romanticized college a great deal. I imagined me taking classes with really long complicated names that when people heard about them they'd say 'oooooh' and be impressed. College also meant eternal autumn and walking around with scarves up and down impressive stone steps with a coffee cup in hand. That's just what college students did. I kept waiting for those classes though, those impressive big kid classes. Suddenly this semester, I looked around myself and wow, I was in them. I'm graduating in a semester. One semester. April 2014 is four months away and now it's time to start panicking about that. I'm not really prepared at all. I'm more in the attitude of hiding under the covers and sobbing slightly as I watch horrible anime.

But it's Christmas so let's keep it light and happy! Pancake is only 18.5 pounds! He had his first visit to the vet since he's been in my care and he's lost 4 pounds and happy as ever even though he has a small ear infection which by now is pretty much treated. He and Ellie are getting along a lot better, sharing beds and maybe they'll begin cuddling together soon. They did cuddle a little in the car on the ride home. Yup, they're home with me for Christmas.

If there is anything that should be learned through this blog about me, it's that when I'm considering something, if even just one single person agrees with me I'll go through with it. I say that because I'd been considering taking my kitties home from college for Christmas even though they could survive the three days I had off work just fine on their own. But I'm a sap and even though they have no idea what day of the year it is and it makes no difference to them, I can not let them be alone for Christmas. So, when my sister jokingly said "you should bring Pancake and Ellie home since no-one has met Pancake yet!" I registered it as "DO IT LISA DO IT DO IT DO IT OKAY YES". I don't think my parents were as happy about it as they try to let on even though they totally said it was okay before. I know it was the kind of 'yes' you give your children when you're just trying to not break their heart but you hope with all your might that they don't make good of your promise. Well, I'm a bit thick in the emotional part of the brain. Maybe next year will be the relaxing holiday that I thought this holiday would be. They did great in the car though, they were both out of their boxes and just cuddled up, Ellie on my lap and Pancake in the backseat.

Cindy and Michael WHO ARE ENGAGED as of return from their trip to New Zealand (seriously, Michael, gotta set the bar that high, don't you?) were here for a few days but left this morning so they could spend Christmas eve and day with his family. Last night, Lorie, Adam, and Evette got in. I haven't seen Evette since she was much smaller. She can talk now. She can do a lot of stuff now. She's quite big and likes to chase the poor cats around (Cats who are already traumatized by Adam's drumming). But we've got cookies and fruit cake out for Santa and of course some milk and now it's time to go to sleep and let him do his thing.

This year I'm probably feeling more Christmas-y than I have in the past. Doesn't help that we've been getting hit with tons and tons of snow the past few weeks and had over a foot until about three days ago when warm rain made it all melt away. I'm hoping for a magic snow storm tonight though and maybe we'll still have a white Christmas. It also helps that Robbie and I decorated our whole apartment. I have some of my nutcrackers up, we made snowflakes and got a bobbly wreath for our door and of course my friend donated her old Christmas tree for us to have and it looks stellar. I don't want to see our power bill from finally turning on the heat on Dec. 1 (although we did hold out until the first of December!!)

Sarah helped me pick out this awesome wreath.