Tease

Thanksgiving break is always such a tease. You get a handful of days to think about how nice it is not to have to do schoolwork, only to get completely inundated with it for three weeks afterwards. Oh well.

How was your Thanksgiving? Mine was nice. I opted not to go all the way home to be with my parents and siblings, mostly just because it requires an entire day of plane travel and I just didn't think it was really worth it to spend two full days traveling for only three days at home. So I drove to New Jersey instead and hung out with my aunt, uncle, and two cousins there, and I had a good time. My aunt cooked the whole traditional Thanksgiving spread, and even though she claimed many times that she's not confident in the kitchen, everything came out really good. And because my aunt, uncle and I took my dog and their dog for a SIX MILE walk through town and along the river trail while the turkey was cooking, I felt completely okay with stuffing myself. It was a beautiful day for a walk, too. It was so warm that I saw a couple of guys jogging on the trail with no shirts on. I don't actually think it was warm enough to be running around shirtless, but it was definitely pleasant. The crazy thing is that it was warm enough in New Jersey to be out walking without a jacket, but when I called talked to my family back home they said it was snowing this weekend. That's a little backwards. It's freezing again up here today, though so I guess things are back to normal.
I spent the rest of the weekend just hanging out. I watched a bunch of movies. We went to see Bee Movie on Thanksgiving night, and despite being the most over-advertised movie ever, I actually thought it was really funny and cute. It had initially been on my "skip" list, mostly just out of protest because I feel like it's the only movie I've been hearing about for months, but I'm glad my aunt wanted to see it because I ended up really enjoying it. Go watch it if you need a laugh, it delivers much more than I thought it would and I'd definitely see it again (although perhaps I should warn you that I went into it with very low expectations, so maybe that means I now like it a lot more than I would have otherwise). My cousins are on a V for Vendetta kick and have it DVRed right now, so between my wandering into the living room to find the two of them watching it both together and individually at various points throughout the weekend, I managed to finally watch the whole movie (although not in the proper order, so I can't tell you how I really feel about it). Late on Thanksgiving night my uncle and the boys and I also watched Mean Girls, which still surprises me with how entertaining it is every time I watch it. My younger cousin made me watch Lord of War on Friday afternoon, although I was reading some school stuff at the time and he kept flipping back and forth between the movie and various football games, so I can't tell you much about that one, either, except that my 14 year-old cousin recommends it. Oh, and we also watched Ocean's Thirteen last night. It was very similar to the first one, which I liked. Besides all the movie-watching, I walked my dog all over the place and he had a blast snuffling through leave piles and running circles around my aunt and uncle's dog, who is ten years older than him (although my poor guy now has the dog version of blisters, which makes me feel bad for him), we went to a hibachi restaurant, and my aunt and I went to several of the shops in their little town this morning and I did some Christmas shopping. All in all, it was a relaxing weekend.

I'm really glad I got to get away. I needed to do that. The second I walked back into my apartment today I felt my body tensing up with that so-much-to-do feeling. That's the only bad thing about the fact that I do so much of my work at home on my couch: it makes it hard to truly relax at home on my couch. I wish I lived somewhere that would let me have room for a separate office and living space. It's probably not entirely healthy to have the two overlap as much as they do here in my little apartment. But since there's nothing I can do about that, it was good to get away for the weekend and really relax. I didn't even check e-mail. It was nice.

Speaking of my apartment, though, I put up most of my decorations this afternoon. Tomorrow I'm going to put up my Christmas lights outside on the balcony and in my bedroom window, which I think will really make it feel cheerful. I also heard a rumor that they're selling advent calendars for dogs at Target (you open the little door each day and get a biscuit for your dog!) so I'm going to check that out. My hound dog would love that. And maybe I'll find a few more Christmas decorations, because I'm sure you have to draw the line at Christmas decor somewhere, but I'm far, far from the line at this point.