Thankful Day 24 & 25

November 24: Sweet Potato Casserole (SPC)
I am going to be completely honest with you. The sweet potato (pronounced "patayta") casserole (SPC) is an understudy to the best Thanksgiving dish ever. The best Thanksgiving dish ever is obviously pumpkin cheesecake…a thousand times over. But thanks (but no thanks) to the lactose intolerance that I have recently acquired; pumpkin cheesecake has the tendency to make me puke. And nothing is worse than puking on Thanksgiving. And so unfortunately I have to pull a “don’t mind if I don’t” on the dairy products and a “don’t mind if I do” on 4-5 helpings of sweet potato casserole (SPC).

Lucky for me, my grandmother can cook better than yours and she made the best SPC I have ever tasted in my life - full of brown sugar and pecans and I gained at least a pound just from that casserole alone. (Hips don’t lie.) I demand orange food at Thanksgiving and pumpkin is my favorite flavor of all. (I seriously like pumpkin anything, and even if I don’t, I can trick myself into thinking I do. I am a master of trickery.) Sweet potatoes come in at a close second. I love orange food like I love autumn and Grandmommy hit this one out of the park.

Speaking of orange, the Texas A&M / Texas game is played every year on Thanksgiving and it’s always the most anticipated game of the season for the Aggies. God knows we are obsessed with beating UT, which is usually rare, but we actually have a decently balanced W-L record over the last few years. This year, the Longhorns beat us by a devastating one point in the last few seconds of the game. I have to give Case McCoy credit though, because that kid has heart and he absolutely won that game for them. Well Case, and their very reliable kicker. What is more devastating, though, is that from now on, there will be no more maroon / orange rivalry. No more Lone Star Showdown. It’s the worst idea A&M has had…ever. I mean did y’all watch LSU play Arkansas? They could beat half the teams in the NFL. We are going to be the SEC’s JV team. And moreover…I guess we should think about changing our fight song since like 3 stanzas reference the University of Texas. TRAGIC!

But as far as Thanksgiving dinner goes, I am so very very very thankful for Grandmommy’s sweet potato casserole.

Here are some pics of the Brown-Rice family in Aggie football mode. This is my favorite place to watch football games, and my favorite people to be with:



God love 'em.


November 25: Verbal Processing
I am typing this to you at 30,000ft or something so I cannot be held responsible for any and all idiocy henceforth. I am tapping out on taking responsibility. I have had a lot of sugar and minimal sleep, so lay off. And to the kind overweight sir beside me: you are breathing on my neck while sleeping and as peaceful as you may look, that’s just simply not going to fly (no pun intended). I am about to stick my empty cup into your mouth to plug it up. Please do not take this action personally because I am doing you a favor. So you’re welcome, or I’m sorry. Or both.

With that being said, let’s continue. Some days I feel like my thoughts are a pre-school classroom. There’s paste and glue everywhere and its snack time and the kids are pulling each other’s hair and screaming at the top of their lungs and the shy kid just wet himself. Do you know what I mean?

Those days I feel as though clarity is hiding behind my windshield in a snowstorm and my driver’s side windshield wiper is broken on the driver’s side and the defroster is being unbelievably slow. And to make matters worse, Hoobastank just came on the radio and my fingers are too frozen to change it.

(Honestly…can you imagine better analogies?)

But then…like a light through the cloud: Enter God who is stable who constantly asks me to trust him in my chaos. Enter the faith to believe that God has all things under control and that He loves me. Enter glimpses of rationality. Enter verbal processing. And subsequently, enter close friend or family member to listen and respond.

I have a chronic need to verbalize because like I have said a million times: I am a geyser of emotions. What can I say? I love to emote.

So I talk about it. To God. To Brit. To you. To anyone that knows me and will listen. The verbal processing, it saves me. And I am learning (SLOWLY) to hand things over to God. And then hand them over to Him again later on because let’s be honest, as soon as I feel peace about it, one of the 3yr olds takes his pants off and runs down the hallway.

And the chaos begins again. So I am thankful for people to listen, or in your case – read as I process through this perfectly crazy life that God has so graciously blessed me with.

Thankful Day 23

I have spent the last week in the Lone Star State with family, and therefore have fallen extremely behind on my Thankful Thirty blog series. My sincerest apologies to you faithful readers. In order to catch up, these few thankful blogs are going to be a little shorter than usual. Thanks for loving me through it. Y’all are just absolute dolls.


November 23: Carry-On Luggage
Yes and AMEN for carry-ons. You better believe that I am the girl who straps like as many bags as I can onto my body, ties bags together and stuffs an inordinate amount of things into a very small space in order to get out of checking a bag. Checking your bags is ASKING for your trip to end in catastrophe. I like to tell myself that I am an under-packer but that is far from the truth. Especially when I had to fit not only the normal visit home items in my carry-on luggage, but also a bear blanket, loin cloth and all of the things I needed for the Brown-Rice Family Thanksgiving Extravaganza complete with Pilgrim and Indian costumes (as pictured here):

God knows the Brown-Rices all needed a little break from reality and I am just the person to give it to us! We had a Pilgrims vs. Indians party and Grandmommy was the big old (cute as hell) turkey - obviously because she is the most important part that brings all of us together. She was the greatest turkey you have ever seen and at one point was laughing too hard to hold her orange construction paper beak in her mouth. She was such a sport and we laughed until our stomachs hurt at her tail feathers. Kaleb was also a riot with his suicidal pilgrim class act. We thought it was funnier for no one to smile because that’s how old-timey pictures looked. He played a very convincing role, and any activity that allows my clone of a broskie, Carson, to go shirtless is A-OKAY with him. He made an adorable Indian chief and it ended up being the greatest idea I have had since moving to Colorado.

Anyways back to being thankful for carry-ons. I love to get off the plane and mock the people waiting on checked baggage. I laugh at them in their waiting game misery of hoping their bag comes spinning around that moving tram. I laugh mostly because in previous flights, (when I naively checked my bags) mine never came through. It’s like they put a special, different colored bagtag on it that says “This bag doesn’t really need to go to the right place. Just throw it in a pile and hope for the best.” Seriously though, checked bags are for morons and I love living life in the fast lane with my roller bag and backpack. (And purse, and pillow, and blanket, etc.) I was out of the airport at DFW before those other plane riders even knew what hit ‘em.

So in the spirit of mile-long holiday security lines and randomly selected passenger pat downs and inevitable lack of overhead space, I am thankful for carry-on luggage.

Thankful Day 21 & 22

November 21: Make-up
Because God knows I need it.

And Edwin, the guy who sits next to me at work, also knows that I need it because he just asked me if I was sick. Which I am not. I am just wearing what could be considered pajamas to work and I have no make-up on. Why? Because it’s my life and I do what I want. Also because I left my make-up in Behnke’s car. More emphasis on not having access to my make-up. Usually I am totes profesh like 24-7. (I am highly regretting the use of that abbreviation.) And color me pissed when I realized I didn’t have it this morning.

Some would say that I am the type of person who does not like to wear make-up. Others, that are closest to me, would strongly agree. I hate it. Now, I would LOVE make-up if its application was something easy and less time consuming. Like for example, if you could take a gummy vitamin and be make-up ready….I mean, I think that’s something I could get behind.

But as it stands, it is too much dang effort, but man it does wonders for my face and complexion. Doesn’t it!? I mean despite the fact that I am pleasant as hell, sometimes I need to look presentable and a little make-up can radically transform my pale winter skin into lush bronze with pink cheeks. And obviously concealer is my best friend, seeing that for some reason, my low-life-middle-schooler hormones are still blessing me with acne breakouts on a weekly basis.

Anyways so I am rocking the natural look today, and rocking it well. And I don’t hate it, because despite the fact that I look like am battling mono, I know that God made me beautiful on the inside. Sign me up to design Hallmark cards with gems like that. And thank the good Lord for make-up so that I don’t look jank-as-hell all the time. Only most of the time.


November 22: The “Girl" Card
Okay, honestly there are many things that I would change about being of the female gender. But despite its downfalls, there are also things that I love about girly-hood, one of which is being able to throw the “girl card”. Anytime. Anywhere. So today, I am choosing to be thankful about being a girl.

Let’s go over some examples of when it would be appropriate to throw the girl card:

1. Unprecedented and Unforgivable Giddy-ness:

Scene: Having a crush. When was the last time you had a crush on somebody?? Isn’t a crush the most innocent, lovesick thing you can possibly partake in? Its precious I tell you! Every girl responds to a crush in the same way with this childlike sense of excitement and wonder and giddyness…and obviously anxiety. Seriously, you can be 65 and wrinkly and still feel a smile develop when you’re listening to “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” because you get it and it gets you. (I don’t know this from personal experience, but my grandmother definitely still smiles every time she hears Conway Twitty play my grandfather’s favorite song. She also will tell the story of how they met (while she was jumping rope on the playground) to anyone willing to listen. Isn’t that just darling!!?)

Let’s be honest, there are very few things in life that can make me skip down the road and twirl around and giggle incessantly and smile relentlessly. And let me tell you, that kind of crap is beyond my control. Having a crush on a cute adventurous boy who loves Jesus with reckless abandon is one of those things. Cue: giddy/moronic behavior. And if anyone says: “you are acting like an idiot” then I will look in my wallet, find my girl card and throw it in their face and shriek: “I don’t care! I am a GIRL!” And then giggle louder.

2. Daydreaming unrealistically:

I especially appreciate anything that allows me to run wild with my imagination. THAT is what girls are known for! It’s our God given RIGHT to do things like plan our wedding before knowing our future spouse’s last name. Or plan a trip around the world and tell people that we are going long before we have ever considered that it could/might cost money. And I like it that way, damnit! Screw being rational! I like the big ideas and the not knowing and creating a pretty picture in my head of some boy and I having picnics, kissing under streetlights, making dinner together and slow dancing in the living room…or a more likely case—watching a football game wearing fuzzy socks and drinking a holiday beer. And then road tripping in a VW van all over the world. So much possibility lies in my imagination.

Imagination actually represents possibility, endless possibilities of change and happiness and success and romance and happily ever afters. Sometimes daydreams just serve as avenues to make me feel alive and happier and silly and to be the highlight of my day. Whatever the case, GIRL CARD, you can’t judge me.

3. Rationalizing and excusing anything I do wrong based on being “hormonal”:

There is not a week in the month that I cannot write off my craziness on being hormonal. Not a single week. And when I am being unforgivably ridiculous, I can just say “Look, I think I am hormonal (READ: girl card)” and that is your cue to nod your head in silent understanding. And back the hell off. And that is my cue to deny responsibility for any and all of my actions. Some things that I can write off by throwing the girl card include: binge eating, crying, maniacal laughter, rollercoaster emotions, bitch-mode, dressing like a homeless person (although I do this all the time), double desserts, acne, being late to anything, not responding to your texts, or any mistake I make EVER..etc.


So maybe I have had Ingrid Michaelson on repeat for too long now, or maybe today I just like being how God created me. But it’s probably the Ingrid Michaelson disease because she is always singing about being “breakable, breakable, breakable girls” who can have their fragile hearts broken easily seeing that the only thing protecting them is a cage of rib bones. And about girls’ being galleries of broken hearts who just want to know that they will be okay. And about being in love with some boy who is cute and funny and getting rich and buying our parents’ homes in the south of France, and buying everybody nice sweaters and teaching them how to dance, and building a house on the mountain making everybody look like ants. And dad gum it, she swirls you up into a fairytale where being a girl is the best thing ever.

So I am thankful, despite all of the idiocy that comes with being a girl that I have a “get-out-of-jail-free” card that I can throw anytime. And honestly, I think being a girl is fun. I think God made girls fun and funny and sometimes cute and fragile and fierce and crazy and loving and motherly (some more than others) and special and perfectly equipped for the life that He has written for us. And so I am so very thankful to a God who is so very creative.

Thankful Day 19 & 20

November 19: Modern Day Medicine
Thank you God for Advil, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Acetaminophen, and all things (legal) painkillers. I say this with the utmost seriousness as I would need them desperately on November 19. Saturday came, and as per our weekly weekend schedule, we woke up before the sun and packed the car for the mountains. 5 girls and 5 pairs of equipment later, with Lindsay Behnke squished between two snowboards in a seat made for a toddler, we were off!

Snowboarding lasted for 8 hours and for some reason I had more confidence than usual and decided that Saturday was the day to start training for the x-games. Karla showed me a little jump that she thought would serve as a good “beginner trick-park.” After pumping myself up with music and staring down the jump for approximately 12 minutes, I pointed my board towards it and jumped. I landed in the snowbank on my face laughing. So off came the board, and I hiked back up the mountain to try again. The second attempt I landed on my butt and slid down the mountain. The third time really is a charm because I jumped, picked my feet up and landed back on them on the other side, shrieking with joy. Seriously, a child fell down beside me because I screamed so loud. Sorry, small child, but I just landed a jump! From that point, I was on a high for the next hour or two. I was chatty Cathy about it and was laughing incessantly and did probably one or a hundred too many fist pumps and/or high fives.

I should have called it a day after that. But “should have” is a going theme in my life, so why screw that up now!? The rest of the day I jumped prolly 4 more times, and I only landed on my feet one other time. So it goes with learning. However, as bad as the wipe-outs were, the worst one came much, much later in the night on an icy driveway wearing UGGS which, by the way, have zero traction. $150 and they couldn’t afford some traction? Anyways, I was running down the sloped drive at the boys’ cabin trying to get to my car and slipped, feet in the air landed flat on my back. Thank God no one saw it because it was maybe the most un-graceful fall of my life, which is saying something because I am the least graceful person I know. I got up quickly only because the ice was cold, and moaned in pain.

That was the final straw. I needed drugs. Immediately. And praise the Lord, we live in America and I have access to any type of drug I want. I spent a lot of time in the hot tub after that and popped pills like an addict, hoping to rid myself of a migraine and full body aches. To no avail, I might add, because it’s Monday afternoon and the migraine is still pursuing. Maybe I have a concussion? It’s likely. Worth it? Absolutely.

So on Saturday, and on Sunday and Monday and let’s be honest, probably Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday – I am very thankful for modern day medicine. Because let’s be honest: all week I am gonna be poppin’ pills, takin’ names, and kickin’ ass trying to get rid of the monster headache of self-inflicted pain.


November 20: Naps
I have a love/hate relationship with naps. On the one hand, they are the most glorious things one can do on a cold and/or rainy Sunday afternoon. On the other hand, they make you more tired than you were when you began said nap. Also, naps prevent you from falling asleep at a normal hour later that night… (leaving you no choice but to look through a countless number of Pinterest pages). But don’t get me wrong, I am THANKFUL for them.


Things that I should have done with my Sunday afternoon would include, but are not limited to the following list:

1. Cleaned my room, which is starting to go all “Where the Wild Things Are” on me, and I may or may not be one pizza box away from being featured on the MTV hit show, “Hoarders.”

2. Showered. JK! I showered Sunday morning. (miracle)

3. Found new music to listen to at work, but thanks to Matt Huling (SHOUT OUT), I am currently listening to and perfectly content with William Fitzsimmons.

4. Hung out with Bethany before she leaves forever for India and sends me spiraling into a deep dark depression.

5. Worked out. HA! Just made myself laugh with that one.

6. Gone to the SINGLE On the Border restaurant in Denver and combined two of my loves: overeating and chips/salsa.

7. Blogged. But let’s just take some time to acknowledge how great I have been keeping up with the “Thankful” days! I mean, I guess by now I’ve had enough practice. I have been turning words into sentences since like, 1988.

8. Planned my Thanksgiving Day costume.

9. Drank responsibly.

10. Practiced my Beyonce dance moves. Because we all know if ever there was a standard of excellence to compare ourselves to, it’s Beyonce. (And the Lord Jesus Christ. Probably Him first though.)


Anyways, regardless of all of the productivity that I could have, and didn’t accomplish, I instead took the route of down-comforters and feather pillows and fell asleep for the majority of the afternoon. So I accomplished nothing. Ask me if I care, though? (hint: I don’t) This is my life and my goal is to do what I want. It was blissful and amazing and I drooled all over Bethany’s pillow. SURPRISE! And sorry about that!

So for naps, I am thankful!

Thankful Day 17 & 18

November 17: Podcasts
It is possible that I would not be a Christian today without podcasts. Well, God probably would have still gotten me since he chose me before time began, but podcasts have been the avenue by which He used to woo me to Himself - specifically Matt Chandler podcasts because God uses that man in the most powerful way. Matt speaks truth so passionately that it makes me want to be closer to, and know more fully the God that we both serve.

Not to get deep on you, but this is deserving of deep. When I was a sophomore in college, I experienced the most rock bottom low point of my life to date. I was really quite depressed and most of the time confined to my bedroom with a PB&J and a movie or an episode of One Tree Hill. I cried all the time and didn’t really know why. Well I knew why, in a big picture sense, but the littlest thing could completely set me off. Like the time I spilled my sonic drink on my carpet. I screamed bloody murder which turned to sobbing and collapsed into the arms of Becca Feagin who was there through it all. It was very upsetting to be so spectacularly sad, because up until that point I had been very happy-go-lucky with minimal encounters with the sad emotion in general. In fact, the only competing trauma that I had previously experienced was when Bethany Lanier told me I had squirrels for eyebrows in the 6th grade. Have I told y’all that story already? She was absolutely right, and it was absolutely devastating.

Anyways, I still remember the day that Alaina Mueller told me about Matt Chandler podcasts and I kind of shrugged her off and stared blankly out her window. She owned a pet snake named Max Mueller and so I kind of assumed that I could not take her advice seriously. Little did I know that this advice would drastically alter the direction of my life. Some time passed before the day came that I was laying in the fetal position in my floor (rock bottom), and decided to put on the “Heart Matters’ sermon series by MC. I listened to all 6 sermons in a row and just cried and scribbled notes in my journal as fast as I could. I had to pause the sermon multiple times so that I didn’t miss anything.

That entire rest of semester, I listened to podcasts during class, after class, before bed, and when I woke up. I would listen to 3 or 4 sermons a day, and made my way through every sermon from like 2001 to 2008. It was the only thing that got me through the days. So I listened to Matt Chandler, and cut down on the PB&J’s. I still cried like, every day, but sometimes I cried happy tears because I realized that the God of the Universe loves me and was with me. I introduced my entire family to podcasting and I like to think it has radically changed each of us. Actually God has radically changed each of us…he just so happened to use podcasts in this instance. But as it stands, here we are today, a bunch of crazy and broken wack-jobs known as the Brown-Rice family, side by side but a million miles away, praising Jesus, the worthy Son of God.

The entire thing is a series of really sweet and awfully painful moments that I pray God will seal in my memory forever. I don’t want to forget how I felt. I don’t want to forget that when EVERYTHING in my life fell to shambles, Jesus was still enough. It was a blessed time of surrender and brokenness that allowed me to experience Christ in a way that I never had before. I believe it was the most loving thing God could have done. And for that I am grateful. And I was different after that. Forever different.

So I know this is very serious and not really funny at all - I am aware, but I cannot and could not be more thankful for podcasting and its eternally weighted impact on my life.


November 18: The Twilight Saga
….To take a drastic turn towards the shallow, we move now to the Twilight Saga. And you know what? I am swallowing a lot of pride posting this post. But I am not ashamed. Today is the day that me and tweenie boppers everywhere have been waiting for for almost a year and a half. Today, Breaking Dawn, Part 1 movie comes out in theatres everywhere. Did I see the trailer on the FIRST DAY it was released? YES. Did I research the little girl who will be playing Reneseme? You mean, Mackenzie Foy? Obviously yes…and she is perfect! Will I be seeing the movie on opening day…as in tonight at 7:00PM?? HECK YES BABY!!!!

This post may or may not be a cry for help. I haven’t always been like this. In fact, when the movie Twilight came out, I scorned my littlest sister Brittney for liking it and then subsequently reading the book. She claimed that she had lost a bet, and that she HAD to read the book as punishment, which was total crap. I laughed and pointed my finger at her and called her names like “idiot” and “sell-out.” And then went on with my day. I mean how good could a movie about vampires and werewolves POSSIBLY be?! I thought she had lost her mind.

Around that time, my clone of a little broskie, Carson (READ: love. of. my. life.) and I went to see the movie. During the previews we made a pinkie promise to not be obsessed with this movie. We made a pact to not act like teenage girls about it, but we WERE curious to know what all of the hype was about.

We watched the movie and the acting was awful, and the lines were cheesy. Can we just talk about the part where Edward says “You better hold on tight, Spider Monkey.” Who the hell didn’t catch that and vocalize how ridiculous it was and OMIT it from the movie? Can I even trust these writers with a line like that?! I left the theatre thinking…what the heck is wrong with America?! Carson and I were both like, “That wasn’t even that good…right!??” And I thought that would be that. Game over.

But NO. Twilight planted a little obsession time bomb in my head that wouldn’t detonate until later that night. Edward Cullen showed up in my dreams, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Bella and Edward’s love story for like 3 days. It crept up on me like a cat, and I was in over my head before I even knew what happened. I started reading the first book with MUCH ridicule (rightfully so) from my littlest sister, and subsequently read the entire saga in less than a week. I was so caught up in the characters that I didn’t sleep, I lived on coffee and adrenaline as I read frantically. I could not put it down. Page after page I drank up the story. I locked myself in a room and read and read and read until I fell asleep and then I would wake up, make coffee, and read again.

After I closed the final book, Breaking Dawn, a part of me died a little. I didn’t really know how to move on from there. What was I supposed to do with my free time now? What happened to the characters?! I mean yes, the story was concluded, but I wanted to know what happened in their everyday lives…forever (vampires never die, so honestly the story can never end). I walked around like a zombie and just moped throughout the house. I was really lost. It was a dark time.

It took me about 2 weeks and a few more times of seeing the movie for me to really get past it. I want to read the books again, but I know that if I read even one page, it will put me out of commission for an entire week, and at age 23 I just don’t have that kind of time.

But today is a good day, and I have been counting down the hours to see part 1 of Breaking Dawn, which will inevitably piss me off as I already know it will be a cliffhanger. And then the producers or whoever the hell is in charge is making us wait ANOTHER FULL YEAR before releasing part 2. WHAT tha WHAT?!!?

So if you were wondering, I am totally Team Edward. But not team Robert Pattinson. I am definitely more of a Taylor Lautner fan…and it doesn’t hurt that he is incapable of wearing a shirt in the movies. But in the books (which are infinitely better than the movies) Edward is every girl’s dream.

Edward swoons over Bella at the faintest whiff of her hair. (This could be described as lust probably, but he is lusting over her blood so that is better right?) She is his own personal drug that he is extremely addicted to. Edward scoops her up and flies FLIES! through the treetops. Edward’s skin turns into diamonds in the sun. He runs, like, realllllly fast. He plays baseball. He can stop trucks with his hand. He constantly protects Bella who has a chronic case of clumsy and getting herself into dangerous situations. Edward has limitless self-control—he can kiss his girlfriend, get all riled up, and then hurl himself back against the wall to flagellate himself for almost losing control. Oh, and that flagellation: Edward. Is. So. Tortured. Just to speak takes a heroic effort of will. His face contorts and words issue forth slowly. Haltingly. With infinite pain. Then, of course, Edward can totally kick butt when his beloved is in danger.

So you put all of those elements together and you have an unattainable ideal that has been indelibly imprinted on the brain of every pre-adolescent and adolescent girl out there. (AND ADULT GIRLS.) Essentially it has doomed American boys everywhere. No matter how good they are, they will never be a 200-year-old adolescent pretty boy with super powers that can read your thoughts.

And so yes, I probably should be “above this” and probably should be embarrassed of my adoration of the Twilight saga, but I am not. I own it. I love it and I don’t care who knows it. So, I am very thankful for Stephanie Meyers who had a dream about vampires and wrote this exceedingly amazing book series! Bethany and I have done a marathon of all the first Twilight movies and we are pumped and ready and equipped with treats for the 7PM showing of Breaking Dawn!

Thankful Day 16

November 16: Scarves
So as you know, I live in Colorado. And Colorado, as I mentioned yesterday, did not get the memo about my extreme dislike of being cold/shivering/freezing. I love the idea of snow, but I think it should be about 50 outside when the snow is falling. That would be preferable to below 20.

Anyways, so yesterday afternoon, I was finishing up for the day at my full time job that I don’t hate, and going over my latest design proposal with my boss who is adorably 5 months pregnant. (Since you were wondering, she is having a baby girl, and I might be more excited than she is.) Our conversation went something like this:

Boss: Well, Ally, this looks good. I think you are getting really close to being finished. (which was weird….I thought I WAS finished…?)

Ally: Thanks. Well, I think I am going to go ahead and head out.

Then she said: “Okay, I won’t be here tomorrow, but I heard it’s supposed to snow so stay warm!”

What I heard was: “Hey, I am not going to be here tomorrow, you should also not come in because it’s going to snow and that’s miserable. Just stay home instead and drink lattes and watch movies all day. PS. You look really skinny today and your hair is amazing.”

So, you can imagine the rage that I felt this morning when I saw little white flakes falling from the sky and realized that I still had to drive to my job. Luckily, it wasn’t a blizzard, but 18 degrees is freakin’ cold regardless of precipitation. This brings me to my point: scarves. THANK GOD FOR THEM.

My fabulous and ridiculously cute Aunt (READ: second mom) Trudy makes AWESOME scarves. So just get ready because I will be shamelessly promoting her online store/blog right when it is up and running - which should be sometime next week. Anyways, she made me a purple infinity scarf that I wear on a daily basis. It is my favorite. It is the warmest scarf that I own and EASILY the cutest. She is very talented, and her life’s story of being “shaken, but not destroyed” is one that will bring you directly to the foot of the cross, facing the Lord that is her strength. She makes all kinds of knitted masterpieces including her latest phenomenon: doggie scarves!! Have I told you our family has FIVE weenie dogs? FIVE. (Animal hoarders) Pictured here are: 1.) Bethany wearing her infinity scarf 2.) Our oldest weenie, Oreo, wearing her new doggie scarf, and 3.) The favored pup, Kipper, wearing his SWEATER!







Anyways scarves are my favorite winter accessory. Easy. I think they are marvelous and adorable. And practical. I think they make every outfit look better, and I plan to wear one every day of the winter season.

So thanks to the ridiculously cold weather that serves as my real life right now, I am beyond thankful for scarves.

Thankful Day 15

November 15: Christmas Lights
I love me some Christmas lights. I mean LOVE. And for the twinkling version of joy that they bring me, I am forever thankful.

I cannot decorate my house, or put up a Christmas tree until after Thanksgiving. THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING to be specific, because Thanksgiving is one of the best holidays, like, ever and it’s a shame that it gets overlooked. Okay YES, I agree that the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ far outweighs it and should be more blatently celebrated, but guys let’s not completely forget about Thanksgiving! I mean yes, its kind of a lot of build up for a binge, but honestly don’t we have so much to be thankful for? Yeah, please pass the stuffing…again.

With that being said, Christmas lights can be put up year around in my book. Those little twinkling miracles make everybody happier, and every place homier, and every emotion sappier. Tree lined streets with Christmas lights make me gasp in awe of their beauty. Pictures of children wrapped in twinkle lights are my favorite type of Christmas card regardless of whether or not that is (probably) dangerous. But who cares!? TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY!

When we were little, my family had multi-colored lights on our house against my dad’s will. He wanted all blue. BLUE!? Are you freaking kidding me? That is the most hideous color of lights you could possibly put on your roof. They are never all the same shade of blue and they end up just looking the worst.

Anyways back to the multi-colored lights, they were precious. And despite my dads cursing at how steep our roof was, they ended up looking magical. We lined the roof and the sidewalk and had light-up deer in our front yard, which would have ended up in sexual positions thanks to the Shady T’s favorite past time – “deering”, had we not lived in the middle of nowhere on a lake like a bad horror movie. The ONE pro to living in the boondocks.

Every year all my broskies and littlest sister create the miracle of lighting that goes on at my g-mom’s house which is now all of our home. She has like 15 lighted Christmas trees, and a full front porch display, and red and white lights all over the house and lining the sidewalks. Outside decoration day is always the only cold day of the winter in Texas, but who cares! Let’s spread some Christmas cheer! However, I ALWAYS inevitably get stuck with getting the light trees out of the trashbags from last year and that is the worst job on the planet because my grandmommy likes to save the bags, which is an hassle if I have ever seen one. Last year Kabe and I vetoed that rule and instead just ripped the bags to shreads and it was liberating and amazing. Not to mention, the job was completed at least 7x faster.

Last year we also witnessed a tiny dog get attacked by a German Shepard which was terrifying and still haunts me…but that is neither here nor there. That’s why people shouldn’t get tiny dogs. It’s a liability. Stick with big ones that wrestle you and slobber a lot.

At the end of the day, our house looks like a post card straight from the North Pole. Santa Claus himself would be impressed and probably reward each of us with a high five. The lights make me happy just to think about them. After the house is sufficiently decorated, our entire family then sits around the fire inside and warms our hands. Because God knows if its below 60 degrees in Texas, it’s time for North Face jackets and UGGS. The cold is our enemy and will not be tolerated. Colorado missed that memo.

But I really do love the lights. I love love love them. If you haven’t put up Christmas lights, you aren’t really living. They are one of the most spectacular things about the holiday season! And I am very thankful.