Warm Winter

All the holiday parties are in full effect!!

I had my office Holiday Party on Wednesday. I had my Westside Community Group Christmas Party last night. I have a Westside Leadership Christmas Party tonight. I have Heather J.'s Birthday Party (complete with White Elephant Gift Exchange) on Saturday night. And then I have another Gingerbread House Party going on Sunday afternoon. Monday night I have an Elf Party to go to and I'm reserving Tuesday and Wednesday night to get last minute Seattle gifts for the fam and to pack for my trip home on Thursday morning!

If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I like to party! I don't mean I like to party in the sense that I like getting trashed and doing ridiculous things that I won't remember the next morning. I mean I like to create memories of quality fun times that I, or anyone else in attendance for that matter, can't help but remember it the next morning.

When I was in High School, I took Tech Theater for a year. After doing Theater the previous year, I decided that I wanted to be a part of actual design work as opposed to just getting out on stage and reciting lines. I was more intrigued by the technical aspects: the writing, the sets, and the costumes. I had such a wonderful experience working as the assistant to the Costume Director and spent most of my free time raiding the prop and costume closet, playing dress up! I can see how it's all carried over into my personal life a lot.  I think what makes holiday season parties better is that there are so many of them that you can dress up for each of them with a new level of fun. For instance, here's what I wore to my office Holiday Party:

My co-worker A— kept bowing down and 

hailing me as the "Snowflake Queen." 

It was so funny! 

I got two extra special holiday treats last night at our Community Group Christmas Party: I got an Old Navy gift card from the Irwins (holla what!) and our hostess, KL, made Lil' Smokies just for meeeeeeee!!!! Can I just take a moment to TRY to explain to you how magical Lil' Smokies are? Every great party I ever attended back home served Lil' Smokies as an hors d'oeuvre and they are just SO amazing. KL and I had talked about it a while back and she said, "I'm going to make some for our Christmas party just for you!" It was like Santa had just given me that pony I'd always wanted. Who knew that something so small smothered in barbecue sauce could hold the key to magical hopes and wonders of taste? Well, pretty much anyone who's ever served them knows. ;)

But as an aside, my outfit for that party was this:

When I got to KL's house, I was greeted by these sweet luminaries and lots of hugs from friends in my CG:

We had so much fun hanging out, eating great food, sharing fun memories, and doing our White Elephant Gift Exchange. What's even better is that I got everyone in my Community Group to let me take a picture of them in the snowflake glasses! I'm working to create a postcard & photo collage for each of our CG members and hopefully I'll be able to share it with you guys as well!

Tell Me Something Good

Okay so these past couple of days have been filled with so many verbal highlights!

Here are a few I will share with you.

1. Apparently, my accent is confusing. Let me first state that I don't think I have a "typical" Texas accent (whatever that even means). Also, I've been surrounded by friends from all over, and my vocabular has an incredible ability to adopt different phrases and intonations. This wouldn't seem so weird if most of my friends were from a specific region, but as it stands, they're seriously from all over—Baltimore, Atlanta, East Texas, Louisiana, California, etc. So as I was on the phone with my best friend, Sarah, who I'm going to be flying out to see in 2 weeks, I said something and she just starts laughing. And I was like, "Dude! Are you laughing at me?" and she goes, "Yeah. How close ARE you to Canada? Earlier you said something and you were like, 'I should, eh?' and just now you said, 'I think I'll probably fly in to BWI, yeah?"" Needless to say, I did it subconsciously and we both laughed so much after that.

2. Let this be a warning to you all. So I went out to dinner with some of my small group friends, and we ate dinner at Saffron Grill before heading out to go see a movie. And I gotta admit, I may have had one too many cups of chai. The jokes were seriously just pouring out of my mouth and there were a few moments I was laughing so much that I switched into silent laugh mode! Then towards the end of the meal, my friend Stephanie said something along the lines of, "Amanda, I think our other small group was safer for you. We didn't go out in public as much." This, of course, only made me laugh more . . . cause it's SO true! People, you gotta realize—when you take me out in public with you, you're taking a pretty big risk for a multitude of shenanigans to ensue.

3. Movie watching is a commentator sport where I'm concerned. After dinner, we went to The Crest to go see CLASH OF THE TITANS (which I will forever lovingly refer to as "Clash of the Titians") And me and Laura McGreggor just kept making ALLLLLL sorts of commentary throughout the movie. Okay to be honest, it wasn't great, so it warranted some Mystery Science Theater interruptions. But I think I realized just how prevalent it was during a scene where Perseus is sent a Pegasus down from Mount Olympus as a gift, and I couldn't restrain myself as I belted out loud, "Wait! How come he gets a pony?!? For crying out loud! I want a pony!"

I realize that my little quirks may dwindle down my relationship pool, but let it be known, that no matter what happens or where I go in life, I will never cease to be entertained. And I'm okay with that.

Osmosis Land

Wow. I just realized I haven't blogged since Wednesday. Life just seems to have picked up at ridiculous speeds. So I figure the best way to catch everyone up on my latest shenanigans is to do a little recap post.

It's kind of like when you watch a TV Show and they say,
"PREVIOUSLY ON _____"

Well, here you go . . . PREVIOUSLY IN AMANDA'S LIFE:

Thursday:


I got to hang out with Alisa and her kiddos! After eating dinner and running around the house, we got to go have ice cream at one of my new favorite places: PEAK'S FROZEN CUSTARD. It's a frozen custard shop that also has awesome coffee and free wi-fi. I mean, really, what's NOT to love about all that? The kids loved it and Sophia was introduced to her first Troll doll. Man, I hadn't seen one of those in years, but the toy shelf at Peak's had a bunch of them all lined up. It was great. I got to have some great conversation and just chill time with Alisa, who is one of the most amazing women I know. I think back to the short amount of time I've known Alisa and I just smile because being her friend is just one huge gift!

Friday:


I spent the evening with Cindy J. and her kiddos! Well, mostly with her and Juliana, but it was still wonderful! I had my first ever Bruin Burger, which is a fried burger, found mainly at fairs. It was something new and fun! We also ate some brownies with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Afterwards, we went to KENYA NIGHT at Westside. One thing I absolutely LOVE about my home church is their involvement with a church/organization in Kenya that is dedicated to feeding children and providing micro-financing resources for women to be able to make money necessary to feed their families, as well as providing help and hope for those living with AIDS. We got to see some pictures and hear stories from one of the teams that recently got back from Kenya and got to learn more about the ministry going on over there. It was hopeful, inspiring, and gave me a greater passion for people. I will say though, the highlight of my night was when Cindy dropped me off at home and the kids requested that I have THEM all over to my house for a playday! Gotta make that happen!

Saturday:

Saturday was by far my busiest day, but it was just as fun as it was busy!

The first thing I did was enjoy a wonderful brunch with Amanda Stubbert and her daughters. I can't even understand why her kiddos love me so much, but I'm incredibly honored by it. I feel that I'm especially close to Hannah. Every Sunday morning she runs up to me and gives me the biggest hug and doesn't want to leave my side. It really blesses me.

In fact, side story: One Sunday morning, I was INCREDIBLY tired and had gotten to the church early, so I decided to catch a nap downstairs in the Kingdom Kids room. Hannah decided to join me:


So it's always a highlight to hang out with Hannah. But I rarely get to actually hang out with Amanda, so it was really a TREAT to enjoy her homemade Dutch Apple Pancakes and great conversation as Simon & Garfunkel played in the background.


After brunch, I headed home to get ready for my softball game.


Great news: WE WON!! It was a good game, but it was tough cause we were down a player, so we had to take an automatic out. But it was still nice to come out on top!

THEN, I capped off the night at Karli's performance with her A Capella crew at the University of Washington: UNLEASHED! A CAPELLA. They did sooooo good! My favorites that they sang were "Killing Me Softly," "I'm Yours," and "Proud Mary."


Afterwards, I got to join them for dinner at The Ram in U Village. We enjoyed burgers, fun conversations, and a rousing rendition of The Proclaimer's 500 MILES song as we all sang along to the overhead speakers.

Sunday:


Westside celebrated it's 12th birthday as a church by having a fun picnic. Originally it was supposed to be at Salmon Park, but in true Seattle form, it rained and we moved it to inside the church. And I dunno about you, but a bounce house inside a church sanctuary is pretty awesome! I even got to jump in the bounce house!! It was good food, good hangs, and just a fabulous day!

Now I'm primed to watch the MTV Movie Awards and call it a night!

Painting Pictures of Egypt

Tonight was my first ever Seder meal. My small group got together and we made it a potluck/Seder evening. It was a "Christian Seder" actually, not the legit traditional Jewish one . . . we only had 2 hours so we had to shorten it from it's traditional entirety. Though I'm kind of glad we did. I have a really hard time with really traditional things. Here's why:

1. I have a hard time being serious. My brain is seriously like spaghetti. One phrase from someone will trigger a funny thought or a memory and my mind just jumps on that wave and rides it until it meets another. There is pure joy and bliss in being random. Let's just say, my future husband will never cease to be entertained. I am, in fact, 99% random and 1% ridiculous . . . and sometimes they switch sides.

2. I have never been good at doing things "traditionally." In fact, more often than not, I hate doing things traditionally. I don't always like order or set rules and limits. It's something I try to work on, but more often than not, I lean towards nontraditional approaches to things.

3. I am accident prone. I will be honest, for the majority of the night, I sat on my hands. I had to. I get so fidgety and I get easily distracted. Most of the time, this results in spills, broken items, and frequent visits to the first aid kit. Needless to say, when it's a celebration of reflection and spiritual growth, such accidents are kind of distracting.

4. I don't really enjoy trying new foods. In fact, the majority of the time, I'm just fine with my standard comfort foods. So when you ask me to try new sorts of cheese and herbs and things I can't pronounce, something in me tries to find a way out of it. :( PS: I totally ate the horseradish . . . not knowing what it was. And since I didn't know what it was, I spread it on THICK. :| Never. Again. :|

All in all, tonight was pretty good and was a great learning experience for me. I actually had a great time and I was really proud that I caught my glass of grape juice before it spilled all over the table. The only downside was that to symbolize having a lamb shankbone, we just used a stuffed animal as representation. Did I mention that the stuffed animal lamb was sitting in front of me? BAD IDEA. Again, distraction and randomness comes full force and things like this happen:

(get it . . . they lost their shankbones!)

Here are some other photos from the evening :D I love my small group! :D

**to any of my Jewish readers that I may have offended with my stuffed animal lamb shenanigans, I apologize. I'm really working on it.

Better Days

Today was a fun day at work! Every Tuesday, our publications team (4 other people + me) meets to go over details, update everyone on what we're working on, make any necessary announcements, and share artwork that we've done recently. Well, we just got done with a crazy busy publications season producing 2 huge projects in a short amount of time, with another project still needing to be maintained. It was definitely a trying time for us, working together to make sure things got to press successfully.

Well today for our publications meeting, I decided we needed to take some time to relax and celebrate—so I threw us a small fun little party! We had so much fun just reflecting on things and enjoying each others' company. I really am blessed to get to work with the team I get to work with.

One funny thing I will point out, is that on the sign, you'll notice an asterisk and a little lined footnote at the bottom. This is a play on our publication style ;D We have a lot of people that we ship resources to in different countries, and sometimes our English colloquialisms don't translate well. To remedy that, we include footnotes at the bottom of the column that that particular word is in. The majority of the time, we use the phrase, "In this context, _____ means ______." So I figured I would add some fun flair and made a little footnote about our team. :D Also, the RIP stands for Rational Island Publishers, not Rest In Peace. I know, I know, it's a bit confusing. ;) It feels really good to have those big publications done, and it's also relieving knowing that we are back on our steady publications routine.

VIDEO BLOG: Welcome To England

Moodswings and Melodies

One of the perks of my job is that from time to time, I get to take breaks and draw! It's so much fun and very therapeutic. Sometimes when the workload is overwhelming, it's good to get in a bit of a disconnect. Anyway, I thought I would share some of my fun drawings with you guys :D








Now QUICK—take a five minute break and just doodle something for FUN!! :D