Merry Christmas!

Okay so this is a little late but I haven't felt like sitting down on the computer to type it out for a while.  So anyway, I hope you all had a great Christmas.

We spent Christmas Eve having dinner with my family.  That was really nice.  My mom is an amazing cook and I just love the warm comfort of a family dinner.  That is one of my favorite things in the world.  We got out of there rather late, for us anyway (Jake has transformed me into an old person who wants to go to bed at nine).  While we drove home I just kept thinking about how all the kids were warm in their beds waiting with such excitement for what Santa was bringing them.  That was one of my favorite memories of childhood.

Christmas morning we packed up all the presents and headed back to my parents' house for Christmas morning.  Coffee, breakfast, family and presents.  You really can't complain about that.  We did stockings and Jake has his own stocking now.  My parents also got him quite a few presents.  I don't think he realizes it but it really warms my heart to see him coming into the fold of my family and accepting the fact that we're close and do things that he probably hasn't done before.  He's such a good sport and I love him all the more for it.  I also love that my family has accepted him.  He's my  heart and I so wanted him to be a part of my family.

I have to brag more on what I got for other people than what I got from them.  I got my mom little bird Christmas figurines to add to her bird theme.  I got my dad a Broncos blanket and coffee mug.  I got my sister two books of needlework she wanted for the baby's room.  She has a lot of work to do!  I got Jak a shirt that says "Keep Calm and Nerf On" for his obsession with Dart Warz.  I got my older brother a really nice handmade wooden coin holder for his military coins with the Air Force insignia and his name on it.  Though that was the package that the post office lost/stole.  Jerks.  So it didn't get here until after Christmas.  I got my younger brother a bag of coffee which is supposed to be the strongest coffee in the world.  I got Jake a coin holder for his military coins too only with United States Army on it.  One of his presents is still coming so I can't say anything about it.

Amongst many things I got a paw washer for the dogs, a tablet, a sonic toothbrush (which sounds weird but I would have never bought it for myself and I actually love it), some books from my brother, money for office furniture, a fitbit to track fitness, and other bits and pieces.  It was really great.  Jake got me a penguin onesie and seat warmers for my car.  Awesome!

After Christmas with my family we went home and Jake got Samuel.  We had a small present opening with him and that was a lot of fun.  Kids on Christmas are SO much fun.  The excitement is infectious.  I got him Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone and a customized ornament for his aikido orange belt.  I want him to get an ornament every year like my mom did for me.  I also want to read to him so hence the book.  Sure, he wasn't thrilled with them but at least they weren't a video game or something.  We went out to play with two of his presents, a pogo stick and a little jump rocket launcher thing.  I'm telling you, kids on Christmas.

We finished up with dinner, peppermint ice cream and watching the Muppets Christmas Carol.  I read Samuel Harry Potter until he fell alseep and it was just a wonderful Christmas.  I couldn't have asked for more.

I am more and more in love with my life day by day.  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Give Thanks - Everything!

I have spent the month looking into my life and finding things that I am grateful for.  It comes down to the fact that I am just so thankful for everything I have in my life.  I am so lucky and I hope that everyone I love and makes me happy knows just how much I am grateful and how much I value them.

I am so thankful to be living with Jake and be so in love with him.  I never knew what this would feel like and it is amazing.  In the quiet moments when it is just him and I all snuggled up, I finally understand the word love.  It's wonderful and I hope we have a long life together.

I am so thankful for my family.  I haven't always been thankful for them and have taken for granted that I had them in my life.  But, through everything, I know I am so lucky to have a strong support system behind me that love me for who I am and will celebrate with me when I win and pick me up when I fall.  Dad, you are a rock.  Mom, you have always fought for me.  Caitlin, I have never felt like someone was completely in my corner and loving me as you have.  Jak, you bring fun and warmth to this family.  Geoff, I look up to you and I know you are a quiet strength that I can lean on.  Riley, I see most of myself in you and I have so loved seeing the person you have become.

I am so thankful for the furry, four-legged members of my family.  Whitman is my dog through and through and I love that.  Theo makes me laugh and when he snuggles it is a delight in my life.  Jeanine is the biggest goof and she always cheers me up.  And I would not be who I am or where I am without the dogs in my past.  Vallie and Gerani are the angels on my shoulder that I miss everyday.

I am thankful for the friends I've made and kept over the years.  Friendships are not something I'm stellar at but I am so grateful for the ones I have in my life.  Caitlin, from cradle to grave forever.  No matter where we are and what we are doing, you are my best friend.  Kathleen, we've had to figure things out but I know you'll always be in my heart as a lifelong friend.  Sarah, I never forget where I've come from and you were there.  Sean, my fun time friend; move back so we can hang out again!  Ryan, I am so happy you came into my life like a ray of kick ass sunshine.  Amanda, you are weird and we are weird together; priceless.  Shay, dog geek and regular geek, enough said.  Astrid, brave enough to take a chance with me and also sharing in my geekdom.  And to all other friends who have come and gone, I am so thankful for every moment.

I am thankful for the experiences I've had in my life.  Traveling, learning, and just experiencing the wild things.  I've backpacked Europe.  I've been to Thailand in a 5 star resort, petted tigers and rode elephants.  I've been on a cruise and tasted some of the finer things in life.  I've been to college and had the chance to better myself.  I've studied something that I love and explored my creative side with writing.  I can't even name every moment that I've loved in my life.  I wish I could but I've valued all of them.  I'm also thankful for the painful experiences in life.  They've been an even bigger influence in molding me into who I am.  Everyone struggles but you take that and make it into a positive influence. Everyone gets knocked down.  The trick is to get up and dust yourself off.  That's a great thing.

So this is the end of November, the month of thanks.  Even if I'm not posting about it, I'm still going to keep in mind that I have so much to be thankful for.  It's a healthy outlook on life.

Give Thanks - Close Family

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The most important thing to be thankful for is the closeness of my family.  We've had our differences but we love each other and we will always be there for each other.  There is also no one else in the world that quite understands me the way my family does.  They are where I have come from after all.

Wedding

My cousin, Kayla, got married this weekend.  I wish it hadn't been this weekend purely for selfish reasons because we had to fly out to St. Louis on Halloween and kind of wiped out any Halloween fun, but I am very happy for her.  Jake, my brothers and my mom and I all flew out.

I always enjoy seeing the Hastings family because they are such great people.  I was a little disappointed that it didn't seem like we made much of a show of it like a normal family reunion but I am used to HUGE reunions where everyone is there and there is always something going on.  So this was a tame one in the broad term, which means it was a good one to bring Jake to.  He survived just fine and I hope they all liked him.

It was fun to see the aunts but I really wish we had more time.  I haven't been there in forever and actually had time to sit down and visit with everyone.  I feel like all I get to do is drive by visits.  "Hey how are you?  Love you!" and I'm gone.  It gets harder and harder to do those big visits when you're an adult and have to factor in time off from jobs and money.  I miss them though.

Anyway, we flew in on Friday afternoon and spent the rest of the day around St. Louis.  I took Jake up the Arch, which was fun to do again.  I always loved that as a kid and since he had never been before we journeyed up.

That night, my phone died of course.  So annoying.  So the next morning before the wedding I got Jake to take me to Verizon so I could see about getting a replacement.  Of course they had to try all the stupid things that I told them I already tried to get my phone working again... like resetting it and charging it.  Seriously, the people that go in there must be stupid.  Either that or the people that work there are stupid.  I was irritated with them so after we left we crossed the street and went to AT&T.  They bought me off of Verizon and I joined Jake's plan.  It will save me a lot of money in the long run but it actually took a lot more time to do than I thought so we only ended up having about 5 minutes to get ready for the wedding.

That was irritating but we made it there with plenty of time.  The church was very pretty and the ceremony was well done.  Kayla and her husband looked so happy.  That was great.  The reception was downstairs and a little to drawn out for my liking but it was all fun.  Weddings are a great time.

Sadly we didn't get much time past that and flew back out the next morning.  Quick in and out but it was good to see everyone I did and it was good to celebrate Kayla's wedding.  I know she has wanted to be married for so long and she looked so over the moon.  It is always great to see that much happiness in someone's face.  Many blessings to her!

Give Thanks- Family

I've been at a family wedding in St. Louis this weekend so today I am thankful for family.  Although I've always lived far away from my extended family, I never felt like an outsider when visiting them.  Being back for a wedding is a great experience!  Seeing the love and support a family can give is an amazing thing, especially when you think about the fact that not everyone has that.  I am so thankful that, although I live far away, there are people out there that love and support me.

National Sibling Day!

Today is National Sibling Day!  Happy National Sibling Day to my lovely siblings!

As much as I think siblings are an awesome thing to celebrate and I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't have them, it makes me wonder who comes up with these dedications.  Tomorrow is National Pet Day, which I can fully support.  However, yesterday was National Cherish an Antic Day... who came up with that one?  This month we will also be celebrating National Blah Blah Blah Day (April 17th), National Pigs in a Blanket Day (April 24th) and National Cubicle Day (April 28th).  Wonder if this is actually someone's job?  How did this catch on?  Who said May 12th will be National Otometer Day?  Come on now...

Anyway, that was off topic.  National Sibling Day!

I have always said that I am so glad that I have siblings.  Siblings teach you important things like the support of family and always having someone to play with.  They also teach you how to share mostly because they take things from you, how to handle bullying and the fine art of snitching or working together to outsmart the parental unit, depending on how the day goes.  I'm very glad to have grown up with two bothers and a sister.  Who else will completely understand the game Swamp or Oompa Loompas?  Who else will remember the sheer agony of the four way time out in the dining room?  Or the suspense of creeping around a dark house during Monster?

I would be hard pressed to find three other people in this word that I love more than my siblings.  I'd do anything for them.  Love!

The Hastings Clan Tradition

Another crazy day and it's not even over...

Started the day waking up to creepily silent house.  I got up and crept downstairs.  Normally when we stay with my aunt and uncle there is ALWAYS something going on.  It is rarely quiet.  I crept around... nothing.  No one.  I was actually starting to get worried that here I was creeping around the house finding some breakfast and coffee while everyone in the house had been murdered in their beds.  Yes, those thoughts to tend to go through my head.  Thanks crime shows.  With that happy thought in my head I crept over to the room where my brothers were sleeping and peeked in.  Neither of them moved but they were breathing.  So with the fact that my family hadn't been murdered in their beds, I enjoyed two cups of coffee in the quiet house.  Turns out everyone else was at church and they came back to cook breakfast.  Through no fault of my own I actually missed church completely.  I've sworn that I won't go back to mass because I don't believe in it but I was actually going to go. I just didn't understand the schedule and missed it.  Oops.

Anyway, we got all dressed up and made it to church to meet up with the whole crazy Hastings clan.  Let me tell you there are a shit ton of us.  Sometime when I have more time I'll count for you but for now just know there are a lot of us.  Usually it is like herding cats but we actually made it into some sort of organized group and got a family photo done.  I'm excited to see that.  I think it went fairly well but there is always someone not looking or not smiling.  It wasn't me!  It will be nice to have a picture of all of us.  Maybe the last one.  Missing my Uncle Don who just recently passed away though.

After the picture we all traipsed across the parking lot to the gym where we were going  to have the play.  Honestly the play has always been kind of a silly thing that we do because we love Grandma... or because we're all terrified of Grandma's wrath, you take your pick.  This year, I knew they were planning on it being more like a play play with people watching but I did not count on this:

That is pretty serious.  I had no idea it was going to be like on a stage with cameras and lights and THAT MANY CHAIRS.  Seriously a gulp moment.

There were A LOT of parts in this play but I was lucky enough to get one that is actually in the story of the birth of Christ, a shepherd.  Oh yeah!  So I got ushered back to wardrobe and got all shepherded up.  End result was pretty good I think.

What I didn't bank on was the fact that the shepherds, my sister and I, were in charge of two shepherd children and the star, who was my 5 year old second cousin and a handful.  Yes, I am sure that everyone was pleased to hear that I now have a boyfriend which means I am not a lesbian.  Oh yes, I have heard the whispers and rumors.  But does that really mean I need to be saddled with children during a play in which Grandma would skin me if I let them ruin it.  Keeping kids quiet and entertained for hours in costumes and in a hallway waiting for our couple of minutes on the stage is not easy.  It certainly was good birth control though.

Other fun play prep:

My Grandpa who was the narrator. 

Brothers

Got to have some fun

Thank God I wasn't a camel...

Shepherd Children

Cousins

Cousins

So after one run through we put the play on for an audience of like 60 people.  I've said it before and I'll say it again that being a Hastings in Edwardsville is like being in the mafia.  I only kid...

I think it went as well as we could have hoped.  I'm sure I will be getting a copy of the video and we'll see if I ever let anyone see it.  I'm glad we all got together to do it for my Grandma though.  It was her baby.  To get all of us together and in costume shows you how strong she is.

After that we had to put everything away and then it was dinner time!  Wooo!  If you ever get the chance to eat with the Hastings clan, here's a tip.  Get in line and get the food as soon as you can.  Just file that away.

We did some visiting then we did our traditional present exchange.  Anyone who wants to be a part of it is assigned another person's name.  That way you don't have to get more presents than one.  I had Kara and got her some earrings.  Alexis had me and got me a pretty cool gourmet cookbook.  Can't wait to try that out.  After the exchange, it was only 6pm even though it felt like midnight.

We did some more visiting and I finally got to hold my baby cousin.  He isn't the newest, just got another one three weeks ago but I somehow missed out on holding him.  Babies in this family usually get passed around like no one's business.  Coming from the mind of a dog person, it is like socializing a puppy to as many people as possible.  I remember being a small child in the family.  Sometimes you don't know how you're related to that person, you just take it with faith that you are.

Isn't he darling!?

 So after cleaning up we all packed up and some of us headed off to another house to play games.  Which is where we are now.  I'm exhausted and so ready for bed but I don't want to miss a minute of family time.  I really wish I lived closer to all of them.  It is a blessing to have a such a wonderful and loving family.

Off to play games!  Who knows when I will be bed bound but earlier will be better since I have to leave tomorrow morning for my flight at 5:45am.  Oh man...

Whirlwind day...

This weekend is going to be crazy busy for me. I feel a bit like I've been swept into a hurricane and it will be a miracle if I can keep all my balls in the air.

This has been my day:

• Finished packing and made sure everything was set up for the dogs.  (Whitman and my sister's dogs.  Been at their house)
• Met with Astrid to petsit some cats.
• Went to Geoff's house to pick up a present.
• Off to work for a couple of hours.
• Straight from work to Jake's house.
• Jake took me to the airport.
• Flew from Colorado Springs to Dallas.
• Layover.
• Delay.
• Delay.
• Delay.
• Finally fly from Dallas to St. Louis.
• Wait for my brother.
• Drive from St. Louis to Edwardsville.
• Chat a bit with family.
• Now finally in bed updating my blog.

So why am I in St. Louis?  Well this year is probably the last time we will all come together as the Hastings clan and see each other.  If I didn't come I would be the only one in like 50 that couldn't make it.  Everyone is here and that's quite a feat.  My grandma does this Nativity play every year but since it is getting to be so hard to get people together for Christmas in this huge crazy family, this year, the 25th year, is going to be the last official year that it happens.

It has been a crazy day and I'm already wiped but I'm glad that I could make it here.  I'm kind of irritated that it is going to be so crazy because stupid work wouldn't give me more than ONE day off for this.  So I worked this morning, flew out and I have tomorrow to spend here.  Then Monday I fly back home and go straight to work.  Yay for the crazy holiday season.

I love flying.  I am not such a huge fan of the airport though.  I was pretty pleased with Colorado Springs though because I got to do the TSA precheck thing at security.  They do a chemical test on your hands, for explosives I assume, and if you pass that then all you have to do is walk through the metal detector.  It's amazing.  Usually you have to basically undress and bend over backwards in order to get through security.  I am a huge fan of precheck.  It got me through so fast that I had lots of time to sit at the gate.  I will say that I probably won't fly American again.  Their agents are little power hungry jerks and don't seem to know what is going on.  The lady at the gate in Colorado Springs was a dragon lady wielding her little power over bag size like a Grinch.  This other girl and I were watching her make people repack their bags so they could fit in the carry on cage thing.  I've never seen people actually check that.  And she was being a bitch about that.  Yeesh.  When it was my turn to board, by God she was not stopping me and making me do anything to my bag.  I just brushed on past her.  Take that dragon lady!  At least the flight was good.

Usually I just put on my iPod and either sleep or read/write.  The flight from Colorado Springs to Dallas was different though.  I was sitting next to this cute army guy and he was pretty talkative.  He just got back from Afghanistan and he was making his way to New Orleans to go on a cruise.  We had a great time talking about almost everything and we were actually making each other laugh.  It's rare for me to connect so much with a stranger so that was fun.  That was something new for me and I'm glad I didn't just brush him off and put on my earphones.  I wish him well.  Doubt I'll ever see him again but it was good to share that flight with him.

Dallas wasn't so bad.  I just meandered my way to my next gate and plopped down.  There is a storm out east that was muddling travel though because there were quite a few delays and people RUNNING for their next flight.  Luckily I was only delayed about two hours total so it wasn't so bad.  I got some good people watching in.  That's a good past time.  It was amusing to see so many people just take off as fast as they can run to get to their next flight.  I feel their pain and don't want that to happen to me but it was amusing to watch.  So silver lining if you ever have to run for a flight is that you're probably amusing the people watching you streak by.

Once I landed I trecked on out to my dad waiting to pick me up.  I was about two hours late but it all worked out because my brother who was flying in right behind me was also about two hours late.  We only had to wait about a half hour for him then we drove off to Edwardsville.  Finally having arrived, it was nice to see family but even nicer to climb into bed.

Tomorrow is another busy day so I'll actually try to sleep now.

All the Family

I am thankful for ALL of my family.  I have a huge extended family.  I love them dearly and its sad that I don't get to see them as much as I used to due to time and finances.  However, I still love them dearly.  It's a great feeling that if I ever needed them, the whole group would band together.  They live close to each other so they have a much stronger bond than I do but I know that they love me just as much as I love them.  The beauty of family is that no matter how different you are, you love each other.

Love my family!

Memorial Day

Well life continues to trudge on.  Work continues to kick my ass all over the place but I am hanging in there.  I'm starting to focus on other things.  If I build up other places in my life I should be able to muddle through until I can figure everything out.  I just hope I don't burn out before I can iron out the wrinkles.

So this past weekend was Memorial Day.  Turned out to be a two day weekend for me, which NEVER happens.  That was nice.  I didn't get to sit around on my ass and do nothing though.  My little brother was here   from Ireland where he was studying abroad.  He was only here for two days and it was so good to see him.  I know he is in the stage where hanging out with his family is lame but I really enjoyed it.  He took off back to Washington for his job and his last year of school.  I wish he wasn't so far away.  So it was good to see him and have lots of family time.  I am very blessed to have the family that I do.  I love having them nearby.

It's also important for everyone to remember our troops on Memorial Day.  The whole trend that people don't care about being American's and don't respect the troops that give up everything to fight for what we enjoy in this country really pisses me off.  You don't have to love everything about being an American but guess what, that's a right you have in the USA that soldiers have died to defend.  I respect and appreciate our troops: past, present and future.  Thank you all for serving!

I want to share the video that was posted on Postsecret.com.  For those who don't know who Postsecret is, it is a community project where people send in secrets on postcards to one very lucky guy, Frank.  Frank put together this video of secrets from or about soldiers.

Other than that I've just been existing.  I am trying to catch up on things but it never seems to happen.  Such is life.  I'm always juggling 15 million things at a time.  Inevitably I drop one of the balls and that makes me feel like a failure some of the time.  I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm not Superwoman.  If I was I could manage all of this and get a decent night's sleep.  Can't have everything I guess.

Ciao!