oh, happy day

I have just found the most wonderful website of any that I can possibly think of at the moment. talk about eye candy.

http://jcrewing.tumblr.com/

enjoy.

eight days until christmas, twenty one days until I turn twenty one.

Christmas break thus far:
-freezing, freezing, FREEZING in Dawsonville, GA, yet taking advantage of the MOST INCREDIBLE SALES EVER at the J.Crew, Banana Republic, Kate Spade, Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma outlets. 50% off sweaters? and an additional 20% off of everything in the store? Sprinkles cupcake mixes for $4.99!? don't mind if I do.
-SNOW!
-work. and more work. at both the office I worked at this summer and a couple of hours here and there at the store I worked at in high school. the office job is surprisingly wonderful this time - no more stressing over my public speaking class, or counting down an intimidatingly high number of days until I move back to Auburn. It's pretty relaxing, actually.
-and tomorrow, my family is going to visit family in Georgia for the weekend. our family trips are usually either cut-throat or hilarious. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for hilarity... I have pretty high hopes.

It should also be noted that today is my best friend Katherine's negative 1st anniversary. One year from today, she will be getting married and having the time of her life while I and most of the rest of her bridesmaids shed tears of pure joy and nostalgia; and have so SO much fun because she is the first one of us to get married, and it will be a very new and exciting experience. I can't wait.

Also, the current inter-cubicle discussion is about pillow pets, and which ones we like the best. Never a dull moment in the office.

I just need to point this out

I was looking over my blog archives a couple of minutes ago (since it's almost been a year since I created this thing - you know me, all nostalgic), and noticed this:

who the heck was I in February?? 15 POSTS? that's practically one life update every other day. what in the world. maybe that's why I escaped last spring with the grades I had by the skin of my teeth.

edit: In my defense, a lot did happen that month. I had complaining about valentine's day / dappeling in vegetarianism to do, and it snowed. but sheesh. #bloghappy*

*as the months progress, I feel an increasing need to use hashtags outside of twitter. sometimes I even hashtag moments of everyday life in my head as they occur. good grief, WHO AM I?

a treat for finals week

DM Stith was Sufjan Steven's opener when I saw him live in November - definitely one of the more incredible opening acts I've seen. I mean - he records his voice and harmonizes with himself. live. totes impressed.

things I did around/during Thanksgiving break:

the wednesday before the break, we celebrated my friend Hillary's 21st! she is the first of my close Auburn friends to turn 21, and she was gracious/crazy/risky enough to let me try some of her Hurricane. what a champ. our waiter definitely made some interesting comments about what he assumed was going to go down later that night... we didn't have the heart to tell him we were going to church right after dinner. ha.

And then came the break, and my annual trip to Jackson, TN to visit my lovely best friend who goes to Union University. if I could share but a fraction of the creative genius that comes from this friend and all of her fellow art major friends, this blog would explode with incredibleness. Sadly, I only have six pictures from the trip, so maybe next year you lovely blog readers will have more to awe over... but until then, I leave you with one of their funny refrigerator sentences, and a glimpse of their neighbor's christmas decor.

The weekend I visit every year happens to be the weekend they have their big Christmas party. paper snowflakes are cut out, hot chocolate is made, and a plethora of Christmas cookies crowd the table. It's so wonderful, I can't even stand it. The weekend was also jam packed with local eateries, the discovery of Andrew Peterson, and a little bit of wedding planning :)

So once I arrived home in Birmingham, I worked my high school retail job for a day (Christmas shoppers are psychotic), helped decorate my parent's house for Christmas, and spent Thanksgiving Day at my grandparent's house. I can't even describe how much I love spending Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family. There is only one year that I can remember not doing it, and it almost didn't happen this year - we almost went to Georgia to spend the weekend with my Dad's side. I would be lying if I said I didn't cry when I heard that piece of news. I know, major immaturity points for Jana. But I am so stubborn and set on tradition and have no clue what I am going to do when I get married and have to choose which families to spend holidays with.

so that was Thanksgiving break.