O Christmas bike, O Christmas bike...

Since Tony Soprano (my bike, duh) moved in, I've had less space for other things in my 460 square foot apartment.  Like, for instance, my 4 foot Christmas tree.  I put up my Swedish welcome lights, my nesting Santas from Prague, the sock snowman I made in high school with the 3rd grade class I TAed for, and hung my stocking from my dresser with care.  And then this happened:

Wishing you a very special(ized) Christmas

I wanted the old school big bulb lights (you know, with the opaque red/orange/white/green/blue bulbs... I LOVE those) but Target only carries newfangled LED lights.  I think these are still lovely though.  And please note my tree skirt and gifts placed lovingly below.

I've got my decor up (albeit a bit limited since Tony moved in), received my 1st Christmas card (shout-out to the Harsilas!), am seeing the Nutcracker ballet this weekend, went to my 1st holiday party of the year on Saturday, and am excited for all of the season's festivities!

Merry Christmas from Teddi, Amy-lia, and Estefani

Feliz Navidad, amigos!

A heart-warming (err, cookie-burning) holiday story

Let me tell you a little holiday story.  I was feeling festive today, and have heard a lot of my friends talk about their holiday baking, so I decided I wanted to make some cookie gun spritz cookies.  We used to make these as kids, using the cookie gun my mom has had since SHE was a kid.  So my heart was warming at the thought.

I walked to the store, picked up the ingredients I was missing, and got ready once arriving home.  I turned on the Christmas music, made sure my tree was lit up, and got it alllll going.  I made the dough and squeezed out 1 tube's worth of cookies onto the 1st sheet.  As I got about halfway done with the 2nd sheet, my cookie gun broke.  Yes, that'd be the nice cookie gun from Crate & Barrel that had been used approximately once before.  And it broke in a way that makes it totally and forever toast, not recoverable.  Crap.

I decide this isn't going to stop me, so I roll up some balls of dough, smash 'em flat, and put them on the sheet.  I add some ADORABLE blue and white snowflake sprinkles, plus some lovely sparkly rainbow sprinkles on others, and pop them in.  After about 6 minutes, I decide to check on them.  I peek through the oven window and see the edges looking way too dark.  I open the oven to get a closer look and smoke pours out.  Double crap!

All of a sudden, my smoke detectors are going off, my apartment is filling with smoke (it's a small apartment, so that isn't totally unimaginable), and it smells like burnt cookie.  I put the pans out on the balcony to air out and start fanning the air under my smoke detectors to try and get them to stop.  UGH.

So, I ended up with 2 sheets of burnt cookies (I may have eaten the only 3 cookies that weren't totally black on the bottom), a big bowl of uncooked dough, and a irreparably broken cookie gun.  Allow me illustrate with photos.

My kitchen, as they're cooking.  The flour all over is evidence of my effort, obviously.

The poor cookies, smoking out on my balcony

A LOT of leftover dough

Sad, sad, very sad cookies

The final resting place of the cookies, the dough, and the devilish Crate & Barrel cookie gun... before I took it all to the trash drop

So, if anyone has any leftover holiday treats, feel free to pass them my way!  I'm not sure I should try THIS again anytime soon...  :)

(P.S.  I've always known that my oven cooks a little hot, so I tend to set the oven 5 or 10 degrees below what the recipe calls for.  Perhaps I should start cutting it by 20 degrees...?)

My missing internal compass strikes again

Friends have asked me if my directional issues are getting better with time.  No, they are not...  I am relearning the ways to get places (so that I can remember them at a time when I'm not actually on my way there), but it takes repetition and I can still get disoriented easily enough.  Yesterday I had an instance that is typical of my new always-lost lifestyle.

I was in a department store doing a little Christmas shopping, grabbed a few things, and went to the checkout line.  Of course, one of the items I grabbed was missing a tag.  Typical.  The checkout lady asked if I would go grab another one real quick or if she should.  Trying to be helpful, I said I'd go get one.  There were a few people in line behind me, so I hurried off to keep them waiting as little as possible.  Well,  I wandered around for about a minute and couldn't find the table with the items.  At all.  Not even close.  I barely found my way back to the checkout stand.  I apologized, told the lady I get lost really easily and couldn't find the table, and asked if she would go grab one instead.  (I apologized to the people in line behind me too, but they just seemed annoyed.)  She walks off, goes about 30 feet in clear sight, and grabs a replacement item with a tag.  And I proceed to feel like an idiot...

Honestly, I didn't really let it get to me, but I just felt silly.  I've accepted my new shortcoming and am pretty much fine with it, but I wish that I could somehow get random people that don't know me to be fine with it too.  Once people know about my tumor, they are so much nicer to me, I can tell (and trust me, I don't tell people about my sitch unless I actually want them to know).  But I'm NOT going to advertise to random strangers in line at a department store that I have it, so instead I just ignore the annoyed looks and let it roll off my back.  Everyone's brain works differently (seriously... I cannot emphasize this enough) and people cannot help the way theirs functions (or doesn't function, like my missing compass).

At least I have a really cute haircut covering up that dysfunctional brain of mine!  :)

An infomercial, brain tumor style

I love shopping, and tis the season for shopping.  Well, and family and love and celebrating holidays and recognizing what we have to be thankful for, but let's put all that aside for the moment.  ;)  I recently stumbled across a couple wonderful things for sale whose proceeds (or a portion of proceeds) go towards brain tumor and brain cancer research and support.  Plus, they're items that you'd actually want to buy!  I can't think of much I'd rather spend my money on.  (Well, maybe a trip around the world, but let's start slowly.)

Bracelets For A Cause by EvelynJay on Etsy sells really beautiful beaded leather bracelets, and a portion of the proceeds are donated to the National Brain Tumor Society.  You know, the organization that my team helped raise over $8,500 for earlier this year?  I'd love to help them out even a little bit more.  Plus you get a super cute bracelet!  She even takes special orders.

Triple-wrap loveliness

Darren Tieste, photographer extraordinaire, very recently published a coffee table book of celebrity photography called The Beauty Book for Brain Cancer.  It is over 300 pages of photos he's taken of some little-known celebrities like Justin Timberlake, Jessica Alba, Ryan Phillippe, and (my personal favorite) Jojo.  They're no big deal.  Proceeds from this book go to brain cancer organizations Sydney Neuro-Oncology Group (SNOG) and Headrush.

She kind of looks like Badass Brain Tumor-Kicking Barbie, don't you think?

I have the triple-wrap gray and silver bracelet and this book on my wish list this year, and will be making purchases shortly.  In all seriousness, if you have someone on your list to buy for that would like one of these products, please consider making a purchase.  Your money will go even farther than at the shopping mall!

Big week. Big. HUGE.

(Picture me saying that all like Julia Roberts, my celebrity doppelganger, in Pretty Woman, when she goes back to the Rodeo Drive saleswoman that didn't help her the day before.  "Big mistake.  Big.  HUGE.")

This is a grande one, folks.  One of the biggest of my year.  Allow me to break it down:

• Monday (tomorrow): Happy hour with #1 Chili Dawwwg (AKA my former Expedia coworker Sosena).
• Tuesday: Holiday cooking class with Sydnie at The Pantry at Delancey, where we will be making individual jars of bourbon butterscotch sauce, black pepper and sharp cheddar cheese straws, peanut butter sesame meringue cookies, and spicy dark chocolate cocoa nib bark with dried apricots.  Hallelujah.  Also, the new Black Keys album comes out.  :)
• Wednesday: My day of rest.  I am VERY reluctantly passing up on Deck the Hall Ball and it's ridiculously kickass lineup (Mumford & Sons, Death Cab for Cutie, Foster the People, Grouplove, etc.) to be well rested and prepared for....
• THURSDAY: My next MRI.  Check-in at 7:30am, scan at 8am, results with Dr. M at 9:30am.  Once I get my positive results (fingers are nearly permanently crossed at this point), the day will only get better with the Florence & the Machine tickets that I have for that night (with opener The Head and the Heart) with my seester Amy.
• Friday: Sleep clinic appointment with a neurologist at Harborview.  And that night, sold out Jingle Bell Bingo Karaoke at the Greenwood Senior Center.  Jealous?  No?!  You should be!!!
• SATURDAY: My haircut.  That is, assuming I get a clean bill of health at my MRI appointment.  Amy will be there to document the experience in photographs.  And perhaps to hand me tissues.  I think I may not cry since I feel pretty ready but Amy says she'd bet just about anything that I will.  Get your own bets in, folks.  That night, I'll be sporting a new pixie 'do, lovely sequined Christmas tree headband, and my favorite "ugly" (really, it's more gorgeous) holiday sweater at the annual Tacoma Ugly Sweater Pub Crawl.
• Sunday: I get to start breathing again.

I am both exhausted and excited just thinking about it!

In great spirits! 'Tis the season!

I feel a little like a switch has flipped inside of me, and I've been in really great spirits lately!  Not that I was all bummed before, but I just feel different.  Positive.  Perhaps it's the holiday season and all the Christmas lights up and NSync Christmas songs I've been listening to.  I feel optimistic, happy, and it's nice.  (Part of it probably relates to feeling like Jeff is a part of my past, not my present, and being okay with that... but who knows for sure.)

This may be the worst music video of all time.  YOU WILL LOVE IT.

I'm a little bit nervous for my MRI this Thursday, but not too nervous.  I'm feeling confident and optimistic and expect nothing but clean results.  (I hope I'm not setting myself up for failure, knock on wood.)  I'm also ready for my big haircut.  It'll be a nice, fresh start for me.  My friend Sydnie told me last night that she thinks I'll look like a supermodel; how awesome would that be?!  I must remember to exude confidence after I get the chop.  ;)

I spent this weekend enjoying a show (The Kooks at the Showbox at the Market with Sydnie) last night, acupuncture today (getting my qi flowing on all of my brain and eye points), doing a tiny bit of shopping in downtown Seattle (not recommended while the suburban moms in minivans are occupying the area), good Thai food (shout-out to Thai Siam), hanging with my BFF Carl and his wife Maria and eating the super delicious Oreo truffles she made, and even an exciting Saturday night trip to Target.  Love it.  Tomorrow has Urban Craft Uprising, a kickass huge indie craft fair, on the agenda.  YES.

Feeling good!!  And looking forward to a big but good week.

It's never TOO early...

I try to have my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving each year.  It's partially because I love shopping for the holiday and wrapping gifts and planning, and then if I see things in December that I like for me, I don't feel guilty picking them up.  ;)  Plus, when I start planning early, I feel like I get better gifts for my family as I'm not trapped in a last-minute purchase out of necessity.

Love me some curling ribbon

I had a very productive but relaxing weekend.  It include some gift wrapping and online shopping for other gifts.  I simplified some more of my apartment.  I cleaned a bit.  I got through the last couple weeks' worth of Peoples and Us Weeklys.  And I had time to meet my good friends Sydnie and Jeni for brunch at Phinney Market Pub & Eatery and even have an encore catch-up session with Jeni later that day at an early happy hour at the new Cactus location in South Lake Union.

I also went to my first acupuncture session since February.  I filled in Jen, my acupuncturist, on all the happenings with my health and she tailored my session to help with my brain and vision.  She threw some general well-being points in there too, just for good measure.  Besides the normal needles, she stuck some ear BBs (her name, not mine) in my ears.  They're little clear stickers that have a tiny metal BB in them, and they're more pleasant in the ears than needles and they stay put for a few days.  She looked up some specific brain spots and BBed away.  I still have 4 on my left ear and 3 on my right.  Plus 2 small magnets on my legs, meant to help my "marrow" (which in Chinese medicine means your brain).  We won't know if/how the acupuncture is helping very easily, as it won't be obvious (like it was when I went for issues with my feet cramping... which it TOTALLY helped).  But I have my fingers crossed that it can help...  After all, it can't hurt!  My next appointment is in 2 weeks.  It's good to get my qi flowing (or as my Dad said, cheese flowing mmmm).  :)