whew

well. it's over. i can BREATHE again. i graduated....wow. that sounds so fake lol. I'm REALLY AN ENGINEER. i think i grew about six inches taller after i turned in my last paper (note: i did manage to refrain from skipping up the steps and into the history building to turn it in...BUT JUST BARELY). the weight on my shoulders is finally gone.

graduation weekend was AWESOME. lots of family, caleb....good times. (however, i am not getting that drunk again for another seven years).

i feel so loved, by so many people. that makes me smile. and now i can focus on christmas--shopping, cookies, christmas lights, but most of all an excuse to spend an exorbitant amount of time with the people i love the most eating junk food, talking, playing, and hanging out.

christmas, to me, is a lot of things:
-extra days off to spend with family
-an excuse to eat a lot
-an excuse to spend a lot of time with the people who love you most
-a time to get all excited about the gifts you give people and (hopefully) how much they're gonna LOVE them
-a time to watch the ORIGINAL grinch, charlie brown christmas, garfield christmas, muppet christmas, claymation christmas, etc...while snuggling. grin.
-the only time of year there's egg nog widely available for frogs (a wonderful frozen drink made up by me, cindy, and angela--complete with green sugar-rimmed glass and little semi sweet chocolates for eyes)
-sweaters and blankets and snuggling and cocoa (or frogs, or hot chocolate) and chocolate and cookies by the light of the christmas tree and fire
-infectious christmas cheer (ok, well, I'M cheerful. whether it's infectious or not to other people is irrelevant).
-mostly, christmas, to me, is about the rest of the world backing off and allowing for time to show how much you love people by spending time with them (and it's even better that it involves lots of dessert food, beautiful christmas lights and christmas trees, and gifts)...i wish we had more than just summer vacation and christmas to see our families for nearly a week straight.

i still don't think i came close to the depth and breadth of what christmas means to me...it's my favorite holiday, but not because of presents. I think because it's like thanksgiving, but the world lets it last a little longer.

my goal is to make this the best christmas ever--i have so much to be happy about. mom's got a kidney and she's doing better every day; i get to see caleb a lot for the next ten days; and i finally graduated and can start making real money and not having a job, school and homework to worry about.

gonna go recipe-crazy on y'all soon. peanut butter balls, christmas cookies, frogs, oh yeah. you just wait.