More Christmas progression

I promised to post pictures of my tree as I went along and I never got around to it! Hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas Eve. I am cooking and cooking and snacking as I go along tonight!

So here is the tree completed during the day.

Then at night with the new strand of lights. I'm so use to the old one's that were a little faded, so these seem really bright!

Some more of our special Christmas decor. Combo of Nativity Display and Christmas workshop!
I am finally in the Christmas spirit! Hope you are too!

Christmas in progress

I remember starting my first blog on a night similar to this at about the same time of night too! I was baking chocolate chip cookies in the middle of the night, while watching late night tv and figured it was good of a time as any to start a blog!
I meant to start the chocolate chip cookies much earlier today, but I watched a movie with my husband instead "Love in the Afternoon" with Audrey Hepburn. Then I kept interrupting that by checking my email after my hubby fell asleep. I guess we'll have to watch it again so he can see the ending! So I'm baking the cookies now while watching "White Christmas" and trying to stay up later than the noisy neighbor who is back in town. If I fall asleep after her then she won't wake me up and make me mad! Crazy logic I know.
I've been trying to do something each day during my break from school that I didn't feel like I had the brain capacity to do while school was in session. So far the last three days I've done pretty well. Cooking, watching movies and going through drawers and organizing pictures. It was so nice to watch a couple of movies yesterday without feeling guilty!

My husband brought home a Christmas tree yesterday from a local nursery. I still miss cutting down a pine from a Christmas tree farm. It was my favorite part of Christmas. This year was the first year I purposely didn't go with my husband to pick out a tree. It's not the same buying one at the store. I started to put the lights on tonight and realized the two of the strands had broken bulbs and I had no replacements. That put a halt on decorating until I can get new bulbs tomorrow! Here's a fuzzy pic of what we have so far. I'll take photos as it progresses! So far this Christmas season has had it's ups and downs. It just feels weird to me. It just occurred to me that we should visit the last local tree farm just for the experience anyway. Their trees are much too large and expensive for us right now, but we could at least go walk around!

Now that I don't have studying hanging over my head constantly, it's allowing me to think about things in life that I don't particularly like. I don't want to spend my break dwelling on them, but I don't want to ignore them by keeping busy with little things either. Not sure if I feel like tackling them head on either! Maybe I'll take a week to decide what to do. For now, I'm just trying to stay happy. Sometimes it's tough.

Rain!

It's been raining all day and it's been nice. I feel for those in the rest of the country who this storm will hit next though, because it probably won't be so nice!

My first semester at the university is coming to a close. Just 2 more days with 2 1/2 finals left to go. I am procrastinating studying as I write this! I think the middle of the night was made for studying though! haha
It looks as if I am on the right path to my desired career. I have a teacher who has taken a special interest in me (which is common when a teacher sees that a student has potential to go further) and has asked that I sign up for independent study/research next semester and then an internship the following semester. I guess it all looks good on a Grad School application. I am very grateful, but I know that it is not by chance because I have worked really hard.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the Christmas break. I was going to spend it looking for a new place to live, and I still will but of course it doesn't seem so pressing now since the loud, late night neighbor is gone for the Christmas break as well! Funny how it works like that sometimes.
I know I want to take lots of walks, cook some good food (since I won't be too distracted to cook) and try to finish all the books I've started reading over the last year! I had the goal of reading Atlas Shrugged this next month, but maybe I should give myself a break for awhile! I am hoping to go to Disneyland with my family this month to see it all decked out for Christmas, maybe that will get me in the mood.

It doesn't seem like Christmas time to me, probably because I just can't think about it right now. This may be one of those years where it comes and goes and I won't even realize it. I haven't had that happen since I was a teenager. At least that is better than the few years there when I dreaded it's coming and didn't want to think about it.

I've had my fun, so now it's time to get back to reading for awhile. Hopefully more exciting posts will come later!

Hi Gram! :)