HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Happy Thanksgiving. I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. This year I made dinner all by my lonesome for my family. It really wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. The last time I cooked a turkey, I was on my mission and it was like a 30 pound turkey. The turkey came with it's neck still attached(gross) and it was so big that it wouldn't fit in our sink. My companion and I had to wash it in the shower.
So we had our little miniature family Thanksgiving. Jason and Michelle came over. We had our whole family together for 2 hours and nobody got in a fight and nobody cried....it doesn't even feel like a real holiday :) Later we went over to Molly's house for their Thanksgiving. Molly's table was beautiful!. She had place setting and all these candles. It was awesome! I love the Holidays! Here's a few pictures.

Notice the difference in Christy in these two pictures.

Count your blessings instead of your crosses;

Count your gains instead of your losses.

Count your joys instead of your woes;

Count your friends instead of your foes.

Count your smiles instead of your tears;

Count your courage instead of your fears.

Count your full years instead of your lean;

Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.

Count your health instead of your wealth;

Count on God instead of yourself.

I think sometimes in life we get so wrapped up in the things we want that we forget about all the things we already have.

50 things I'm thankful for in 2008.....

1. Family- as crazy and dysfunctional as they are, they're mine and I am fortunate to have them.

2. Good Friends- you know who you are.
3. My dogs- they are family but they deserve a number of their own
4. A secure job in a successful company during hard economic times.
5. God- even if I question a million other things, I believe in God and his love for me.
6. Rainy days
7. Listening to Josh Groban and letting it take me back to a little town called Klaipeda.
8. Finally buying my own place.
9. Gas under $2.00
10. Christmas music
11. Pedicures
12. My dad- he deserves his own number because he's my hero.
13. Chinese food from my favorite hole in the wall restaurant in Henderson.
15. Quiet times like when the power goes out and it forces you to slow down and think about life.
16. Reading and a love of books.
17. Naps
18. Gossip Girl Nights
19. Shoes
20. Freedom
21. People with open minds and open hearts
22. Music- all sorts
23. Movies- all sorts
24. Julie Andrews
25. Internet
26. My car
27. Struggles and trials that have helped me learn.
28. Percocet
29. My country
30. Laughter
31. Light fluffy snow that falls really lightly and slowly so that you feel like you're in a snow globe.
32. Dirty dishes- Thank God for dirty dishes, for they have a story to tell. While others go without, we're eating very well.
33. Lilac trees
34. Rainbows
35. Cute little chipmunks
36. Pretty sunsets
37. All my gay friends who have taught me so much about what it means to be a good person.
38. Aunt Kaye
39. My camera
40. Good health
41. Sitting by the fireplace during the winter.
42. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
43. Health insurance
44. puppy cuddles
45. ASPCA
46. The Twilight Series
47. Valour blankets
48. Flip Flops
49. Chap stick
50. Popcorn & M&M's

May your troubles be less,

your blessings be more,

and may nothing but happiness

come through your door.

Official Property Owner

In August I decided that I wanted to buy my own place. Lucky me I found my condo on the first day. The whole process after that point was a huge pain in the butt. All the approvals and documents ect ect. The timing was horrible on my part. This was during the time that I had a lot of pain from kidney stones and I actually ended up closing on the condo the same day as my surgery. Then all the real work began. The previous owner had the ceiling, walls and baseboards painted the same color. You can't tell in these pictures, but it was the color a wedding dress turns when it's really old and rotted. It was not cute. There was a lot of work to be done. My Dad is amazing. He has helped me every step of the way, and he was there working on my condo more than I was. He has helped me with everything from picking paint colors to the really big project that I couldn't begin to understand. It feels like we have been working on the condo for forever, and we are almost done!!! We've come a long way and it's been fun, but we're both ready to be done. Sometimes I think my dad is going to kill me. Every time we're close to being done, I give him another project. He always says he will do whatever projects I want, that he just wants me to be happy, but I know he just wants to be done. The latest project I added was that I decided I wanted to paint the kitchen cabinets. And then I decided that the kitchen was kind of boring with the cabinets all white and I want a little bit of spunk and and sassiness. So I decided that I wanted to paint the insides of the cabinets a different color. This time I went on my own to pick the color. I got the color and went home and started painting. This is what I ended up with. When my dad walked in and saw what I was doing, he said "what did you do that for?" like I didn't realize I was painting in a different color. I'm sure he was thinking "Gosh I leave you a lone for an hour and you go and screw everything up!" At first I was really excited and I loved it. Then the more I looked at it, I started to second guess myself and I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't really like it, but I didn't want to add more work for my dad. But, luckily it has stared to grow on me, and I am happy with it now. It was just too much turquoise for a minute. So anyway- we are now officially nearing the end. I have no plans to add anymore projects and hopefully I will be all moved in next weekend. I am just so excited to have something that is mine. I enjoy spending a fair amount of time by myself doing my own thing. And now I can do that all I want. No more wasting money on renting, no more roommates to be annoyed with and clean up after. It's just my own place. I'm super excited! Thanks for all your hard work Dad, you're my hero!

We Are Not Friends!

Soon I will have to post some recent pictures of myself to show how incredible pale I am. I have always been pretty fair, but in the last 2 years it has gotten really bad. I am like sickly pale. Part of it is that living in Vegas, I'm not really willing to go outside when it's a 120 degrees. Then I was on some medication that made my skin super sensitive to the sun, then I the kidney stone thing and was basically a lazy bum all the time. Then my doctor ordered some bloodwork to test my vitamin D. A normal level is around 40....my vitamin D level was 7 :( So my Dr. told me to start getting a lot more sun. So I got a tanning membership. I have only been 4 times, and I've burned twice. I started out at 6 minutes, then to 8 and I have now graduated to 10. Me and tanning beds are not on good terms....the end.

TWILIGHT!!!

I am a huge fan of the Twilight Series, so of course I have had ants in pants waiting for the twilight movie to be released. Work has been so crazy lately and Friday was super long and super stressful. I went in to work early because it was my friend Molly's birthday and I wanted to decorate her office. Molly is one of the most giving and generous people I know. For her birthday she invited a group of us to have dinner at LBS @ Red Rock and then we were going to go see twilight at the red rock theater. Molly's friend owns LBS, and they took such good care of us. The food was AMAZING!! Not only did Molly have gift bags for us, but the owner gave us a goodie box of warm cookies to take with us to the movie. Included in our goody bag were fangs to wear to the movie. (if you didn't know, twilight is vampire movie) We all had so much fun. So we headed over to the theater for Twilight. We had already bought our tickets so we thought were ready to go, but apparently people had come early to line up for seats. When we got in the theater, it was packed. We had to sit in the 4th row, but we were still excited to be there. So after all the anticipation and excitement, I have to say that I was disappointed. I thought the movie was such an obvious a low budget movie, it was too short, and the acting wasn't that great. Edward is perfect. He always knows what to say and do, and in the movie it just seemed all wrong. There were also lots of akward moments between Bella & Edward. But, even with all that, i still caught myself smiling and giggling through out the movie. I will probably still buy when it comes out, I just hope that in the sequel they do a lot more with it. Anyway- it was a super fun night. Happy Birthday Mol!!

Boo for Kidney Stones!!

I really hope that everyone who reads this has seen The Princess Bride. If you haven't, add it to your list of things to do before you die. There is a part of the movie where Princess Buttercup is having a dream that she went through with the wedding to Prince Humperdink. (Humperdink, Humperdink, Humperdink!) She is standing in the castle square and this ishy old lady publicly calls her out for marrying another while her true love lives. The old lady boos Princess Buttercup so hardcore that it wakes her up from her dream.... That is how I feel about kidney stones and health issues in general. I boo them with such distain and firey intensity that it could make me sit upright out of a dead to the world deep sleep.
Some of you may know that I have had continuous pain from chronic kidney stones for over four years. I got my first kidney stone in august of 2004. I was living in Kaunas,Lithuania and the pain made me sit straight up at about 3am. I thought I was dying, and if I wasn't dying I was thinking that death would be a better alternative. In my small reality at that time I thought that nothing could be worse than having to go to the doctor or hospital in a foreign country, so I didn't go until 3 months later. The doctors told me that they could go up there with these prong things and pull them out, or I could deal with the pain until they passed. I chose to deal but my next problem was that they never passed, they just kept growing for 4 years. 8 months ago, in my slightly larger but still quite small reality I decided that nothing could be worse than having kidney stones. So after months and months of testing, persciptions, and endless dr appts. I finally figured out why I kept getting kidney stones, and why I had been in so much pain. I started out having weeks between kidney "episodes" to the point that I was in pain everyday. And for the last 5 months I have been on Lortab or Percocet everyday. 5 months!! I know it's horrible, but I finally broke down and had surgery. October 10th was the big day. Somehow I had conviced myself that I was going to be feeling super fantasically awesome after the surgery. I was so so so wrong. I don't think I have ever been so wrong in my whole life. However, I am so so so happy to report that I am finally back to normal. During the surgery, they put in something called stent. I won't go into detail, but I am convinced that a stent is a torture device. If your doctor ever brings it up as a possibility, you should run away! I got the stent removed about 2 weeks ago (i'll spare you those details as well) and I am FINALLY back in action. I feel like a brand new woman, and I am so excited!