Christmas survey

This seems like a fun survey!!! So I’m going to do it!!!

• Eggnog or hot chocolate?  Hot chocolate.  But I don’t like it sweet because I have a bitter tooth.  So I make my own with milk or soy milk and cocoa powder.  For some reason I’ve always been weirded out by the name eggnog.  I’ve actually never had it.  Fun fact.
• Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?  WRAPS them! My sister and I have made it very clear that Santa will be wrapping presents… forever
• Colored lights on tree/house or white?  Hmm I could go either way on this one.
• Do you hang mistletoe?  Nope.  Don’t know what it looks like even.  I googled it – now I know what to look for.

• When do you hang your decorations up?  My mom puts it off until a couple days before (I just talked to her and they are buying their tree this weekend) but I put mine up the day after Thanksgiving.
• What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?  Salmon! And my grandma’s cooked carrots and sugar cookies (she’s passed away in June…sad)
• Favorite holiday memory as a child?  Opening presents on Christmas eve!!! And getting a new holiday dress every year!  I sorta loved the church plays when I was little too.
• What is on your Christmas wish list?  Hmmm… good question.  I just want to be with my family please.
• Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve?  Yes.  Presents with my mom’s side Christmas eve.  Just my mom, dad and sister on Christmas morning with Santa presents and presents with my dad’s side on Christmas day.
• How do you decorate your Christmas tree?  Colored lights and lots of trashy homemade orniments.  There are some nice ones too : )  The pic below is really old!!! 

• Snow? Love it or dread it?  LOVE IT.  NEED IT. Why, oh why, won’t there be snow in Minneapolis when I get there??
• Real tree or fake tree?  real! never ever fake.
• Do you remember your favorite gift?  Oh so many.  A trip to England when I was 18 with my friend’s family.  Oh, my American Girl Doll.
• What’s the most important thing about Christmas for you?  GOING HOME!!!!!
• What is your favorite holiday dessert?  I don’t really love dessert.  Here are some of the usual Christmas cookies we have

• What is your favorite tradition?  Opening Christmas presents on Christmas morning! I’m naturally always the first one up… so I wait and wait and wait and then wake everyone up.
• What tops your tree?  Oh survey, you’ve stumped me!!! I think we have both an angel and a star so I guess one of those two.  The above picture of our tree a couple years ago had an angel.
• Do you prefer giving or receiving?  Both!!! I like surprises… both giving them and receiving them
• What is your favorite Christmas song?  I love them all!!
• Candy canes, yuck or yum?  yuk
• Favorite Christmas movie?  Home Alone (I might be watching it right now), Love Actually, Christmas Vacation

• What do you leave for Santa?  Cookies and milk and carrots for the raindeer!
• Do you have a Christmas morning tradition?  I wake everyone up… my sister gets mad (she gets over it quickly… she’s not a morning person), my dad stumbles around really tired for about an hour and my mom still gets really excited! We open presents from each other and santa presents
• Do you prefer to shop on-line or at the mall?  At the mall but it’s hard because I have to fly home and don’t have a car in Seattle and I’m so busy during this time with school.  On-line is a great option but I usually can’t get my self together to plan that far ahead.  So stressful trips to the mall the day before Christmas Eve is what it is.
• Christmas letter or Christmas card?  My mom sent Christmas pictures of my and my sister (and the pets) every year for years.  I loved it!

That’s all for now!!! Your turn!

Emily

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Friday 5 – the what I’ve lovin edition

It’s AMAZING how much time you have when you are a full time graduate student and finals are done.  Okay, I guess that’s not amazing… really.  I’ve had a pretty great 24 hours.  I worry about downtown, especially before going home, because I get bored and antsy.  But I’ve stayed pretty busy : ) Ha.  So here are five things I’m loving.

1.  The message I just returned from.  I got it on Livingsocial like a year ago and haven’t been able to use it.  Hmmm.  According to the message lady I have very healthy tissue and muscles.  Well, that is just great to hear! She got some knots out of my legs and back.  Hmmm.  Runner’s World says that messages are a must for runners.  Here’s the article if you are interested.  Too bad I get one ooo about every 5 years.

2.  Another FAST run!! I gushed about my Tuesday run on a previous most.  Oh and about that run – 8:08 minute/mile average – the fastest I’ve EVER done 7 miles!!! Today I ran 7 miles in 58 minutes!!! LOVE IT!!!

3.  My dad is home from Peru.  He was visiting my sister for two weeks.  I haven’t talked to him yet since he’s been sleeping for about 24 hours but I love knowing he’s home.  Best part is that I’ll SEE him in four days!!

4.  I ate breakfast before my run IN BED while watching the Today Show.  The Today Show (Ann Curry) is my favorite thing.  Ever. I particularly got a kick out of the segment reliving best Today Show moments of 2011.  I was cracking up!! I love the gang.

5.  I am going HOME in FOUR days.  Enough said!!! That’s the puppers Macintosh.  He’ll answer to Mac : )

What are YOU loving??

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THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU

First of all, I want to thank Colleen at 
http://jimmychoosonthetreadmill.com/
 for the awesome (!!) bloggie secret santa gift!!!  

Earrings and Larabars! Somehow, I don’t think I’ve tried the coconut one!!! Larabars are one of my favorite foods… my mom can back me up on that.  When the new flavors came out last year, my mom got really frustrated with my obsession to find them : )  Oh and the earrings!!! Let me talk about earrings.  They are my thing.  Earrings and scraves.  People notice if I’m not wearing a scarf or earrings.  Plus, after doing a little blog stalking, I completely trust Colleen’s fashion sense! Look at the picture closely… where is the third pair???  Ooh that’s right… already in my ear!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you Colleen!!!

 

On to my post finals activities.

First and foremost, can someone please explain to me how I’ve missed Pinterest?  I’m not sure I really understand it… but do know my life will never me the same again.  Seriously, there are so many pretty things out there!! My favorites are the pictures of rooms and houses.

Second, I finally figured out what an infinity scarf is.  After my earlier declaration for ‘always wearing a scarf’ I am ashamed to say I do not own one of these bad boys.  I need to fix this.  My relatives usually give me money for Christmas… so Merry Christmas to me.

Third, I had an AWESOME run that was not at 5:15 am!! It was light out!! Well, not light as in with sun.  Light as in dark and cloudy.  I ran seven miles in 58 mins!!! AWESOME! To be honest, I was sooo frustrated the last couple weeks.  I actually had a run (yes, a 5:15 am run) where I stopped running and might have pouted. It was dark out… no one really saw me.  But my legs CAN run fast!!! YES!! That awesome run happened yesterday and today I decided to have a major sweat fest at the gym on the stairmill.  I did some Tabata intervals and HOW was I sweating!!! ++ some ski machine and lunges! It’s amazing how much better workouts are when getting 8 + hours of sleep!

Fourth, yesterday I couldn’t sleep (I just don’t sleep in) so I wrote all 14 of my Christmas cards by 7 am.

So lets talk fashion.  What else have I missed during my ‘I’m-a-graduate-student-so-all-I-care-about-is-school’ haze of the last four months???

Emily

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Confessions of a graduate student

So… I’M DONE WITH FINALS!!! Epidemiology final DUNZO.  My goal was not to cry during the exam (I may have cried a little during the midterm) and guess what… no tears.  It was REALLY REALLY HARD!!! Why, oh why, do professors trick you with questions???  Can’t they just focus on testing the concepts of class NOT present you with questions of logic?  I also had a take home exam that I turned in this morning!!! YES, YES, YES!!! But it wasn’t just the last couple days that were crazy, it was actually the last couple weeks.  I had a huge epidemiology final paper that was due last week and, seeing how I failed the midterm, I started studying for this final a couple weeks ago.

So here are my confessions of a graduate student during finals:

1.  It is okay to ration sanitary items – a.k.a. hand soap – because you don’t have time to go to the store to buy more.  They are your own germs after all.

2.  It is okay to switch your music between Christmas pandora stations, glee soundtracks and Katy Perry.

3.  It is okay to call your mom several times a day to report things like: headaches, that I don’t care that the incidence in the exposed population is greater than the incidence in the unexposed (any epi people out there?), that I might throw up (nerves), that my calculator is low on batteries and I need new ones (she lives halfway across the country)

4.  It is okay to go to bed at 9:30 on a Saturday night so that you can get up at 6:00 am to start studying (a main benefit of having a studio!)

5.  It is okay to secretly LOVE the fact that the fire alarm at the library malfunctioned and forced everyone to stand outside in the cold for an hour.  Fresh air = good, huddling with other studying fools = good.

6.  It is okay to eat the same thing for lunch every.day.for.a.week.  Thank you Imagine soups.  Oh and beans.  Soup + beans = meal.

7.  It is okay to have NO idea what the weather is outside.  In Seattle it is pretty safe to say it is 1) dark, 2) raining, or 3) cloudy.  I was in the library (there are windows in the library FYI) and I totally thought it was dark out but it was actually only 3 pm and pretty light out.

8.  It is okay that I totally was addicted to kettle corn.  Seriously.  Best study food EVER!!!

Do you have any confessions?

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Productive pants on

Hello and happy monday.

Well finals approaching VERY quickly.  In traditional Emily style, I am well in over my head.  *NOTE: I do not procrastinate… I’m just one of those people who has to work VERY hard at certain things.  So for the next 9 days I will live, breath and become one with classes.  I have a major project, an in class final and a big take home to do.  So I am putting my productive pants ON.

What exactly are productive pants?  While most people do not literally mean they change their pants to be productive, I mean I do change my pants.  I have this theory… you have to dress for success.  So what do I feel most dominating in??  Old running tights…DUH.  And a nasty old Twins sweatshirt and my Seattle half marathon shirt.  And wearing something slightly embarrassing lowers the chances that I will leave the house.  Thus maximizing my productivity.  Oddly enough I don’t have a picture of myself in running tights.  Trust me.  It’s hot.

Other elements of productivity:

1.  My sun lamp.  Perhaps I should talk about this sometime more specifically, but am using a sun lamp because the Seattle weather is REALLY hard for me to deal with.  Not sure if it helps.  Can’t hurt.

2. Eat a LOT of veggies.  And fruit.  And OFTEN!!! Finals = stressing eating!! So I’ll be eating more, why not eat more of the good stuff??  Oh and eat ALOT of peanut butter.  Limit sugar (I’m not supposed to have much sugar anyway because I’m hypoglycemuc and the doc says no, no, no to sugar) and limit coffee.  Drink a LOT of water and holiday tea.  A little carbo loading is also essential –> I LOVE popcorn while studying!

3.  Interact with the outside world.  I call my mom a lot.  I check facebook (NOT a part of productivity!!! but it is a good break) and I read the news.  Reading the news is important to remind myself the world is NOT about me and my problems are soooo minimal.  I also did this new thing – I made a coffee date on Saturday and played trivia on Sunday.  These were only an hour long each but I think it REALLY helped keep me in good spirits.  I’ve also made two study groups to study later this week.

4.  Focus on the FUTURE!!! I’m scheduling a message for when all this crazy stuff is done.  Oh and I’m going home.  And it’s CHRISTMAS time.

5.  Speaking of Christmas… listen ONLY to Christmas music.  And light a lot of Christmas-smelling candles.

6.  Exercise!!! IMPORTANT!!! If maintain my schedule (early morning workouts) I am SO much happier.

Anymore types for productivity???

 

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