A Box of Chocolates

So little miss Emily turned 2 today. She is so funny. I took a few pictures, but here are two of them to represent :). I gave her this toy camera. It makes plenty of noise, which is the kind of gift parents love to have their children receive :)).

And here's the face of a kid who doesn't like to be told no. Or don't. Hahaha. Poor thing. Actually, I was feeding her cake (her own piece, mind you) and then her daddy sat down on the couch and she wanted his, so I said, "No baby girl, this one is yours." This face was the result. She got over it in a jiffy when Christina pointed to the bite I had on her spoon for her and said, "Bite!" She ate her bite and was happy again. But I do love her facial expressions!

As for the rest of life... It's been an interesting week. There has been a lot of rain falling. And I mean that totally literally. No metaphors this time ;). In fact, there are flood warnings for all the rivers in Western Washington tonight and tomorrow. And generally speaking, I'd prefer to have the rain than the snow. Of course, this also brings the flooded floorboard in my ghetto car. Oh my poor car. It's so old. And it's now costing me a lot of money. Today I took it in and got the brakes done. And that was expensive. Very. When they called and gave me the estimate, I was so frustrated. And wanted to cry. But the good news is that I do have the money saved up. And financially, this is the best time in my life for it to happen. I'm out of debt, and I have the money to pay for it. It's just frustrating to save up money for other things and then have to spend it on "necessary" things... But, oh well. At least I'm driving around safe now. And then, when I got home from my day of shopping, I had a check in the mail for participating in healthy living habits stuff through my library job. So the insurance pool pays people who participate $125. Woohoo! So I kind of got back some of the money from the brakes! And since I had won $50 in gift certificates last night at the Christmas party for the funeral home... Well, I didn't spend any money today except on my car. The Christmas party at the funeral home was really fun. We had awesome food. We did a potluck, except the location bought a ham and roast. We had a great turnout and just enjoyed phenomenal food (scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, punch, apple crisp, pumpkin pie, apple pie, jello, cheesecake, baked beans, cole slaw, rice, spring rolls, deer sausage with cheese and crackers, rolls, green bean casserole...). We played a couple of games at the end. One of them was called Noah's Ark where everyone got a slip of paper that had an animal written on it. We had to go around and act like that animal and find our match and be the first in line with Noah. Hahaha... I got pig! My mom got ape. Other funny ones were monkey and chicken. We laughed so hard! We also played a game where you pass a quarter from hand to hand with the people next to you. The people on the other side of the table say when to stop and then guess who has the coin. It was pretty hilarious. Then a few of us stayed and cleaned up and visited for about an hour afterwards, and we told stories and laughed even more. So all in all, it was a great time!

Today I took the day off work from the library. Because I wanted to. Just needed a break. Plus I needed to take my car in, because it needed a brake (or three ;)). okay, okay, bad joke. So sue me. So after taking my car in, my mom and I went to a sports compound here where my friend's daughter works concessions and we bought smoothies (cold drinks on cold days... weird, but yummy). We went by the funeral home to pick up something I forgot last night. We went to the bank and stood in line for what seemed like forever. We went to Costco, which was a madhouse... And I didn't even end up buying anything, because I wasn't impressed with their selection of "select Disney DVDs" that I could get for $6 off. And then we went into Best Buy to see my sister and say hi. Then to Fred Meyer to do some grocery shopping (mostly for Marvelous Monday Meals). Then home for a bit until my car was ready.

I finished another book last night. It's called An American Summer. I loved it. The language in it was rough, and there was a pretty horrible scene in it. Not graphic in description that much, but definitely a horrible thing. But the book was really great. It had some very poignant moments and I think one of my favorite lines from the book is when Christy (a 14 year old boy) realizes through his friendship with Kathryn (a 23 year old woman who got polio and was now in an iron lung), "I was amazed at how wonderful I felt because I really hadn't understood, until that moment, how I had it in my power to make happy another person on the face of this Earth." In spite of the rougher parts of this novel, this was a feel-good story, and I'm so glad I read it.

Anyway, it's been a good week. Good, but interesting. My life is looking like it's going to take some interesting turns. And so I will agree with Forrest Gump: "Life is like a box of chocolates... You never know what you're gonna get." Stay tuned...