what a week

I spent the holiday in St. Louis with the fam and friends. It was a great week for relaxation and catching up. I wish that it would have been a bit longer or not in the middle of sheer madness in my life, but other than that, it was great. We went to the Munson's for Thanksgiving, in good traditional style. I'd have to say, though, that the dogs were probably the most entertaining part. We brought Chance with us, so him plus the Munson's three small white things plus Sarah and Scott's yorkshire terrier plus Emily's boyfriend's yellow lab, made for quite the mix. Howie, the yorkshire terrier, thought that he was "the big dog" and chased all the other dogs around the house barking. It was quite the circus for sure. On the day, I saw TWO movies, yeah that's right, I was there twice. Saw Pride and Prejudice with the fam in the morning (it was long and SUPER chick flicky but good) and Rent that night with Sarah and Heather. Rent was good too but not nearly as good as the stage version. I think they could have done without Roger walking through the dessert near the end...a bit cheesy.
On Friday, we got the Christmas tree. Of course, Chance got to be involved in all of this. He is GRRRREAT. He let me buy him a fleece jacket (after he tried on ALL of the jackets that PetsMart had), he let me dress him up in Christmas tree lights. He's great. He was my buddy. The Christmas tree this year did not fail to live up to Campbell family standards. We went to the same ol lot, picked a GREAT tree and it looks wonderful and smells great too. I think Mom was glad to have "her girls" in town to decorate the tree with her. I'll have to be the first to admit, though, that I have not always been involved in this tree decorating in the past. There was a point in my life where I thought I was way too cool for that kind of thing and had better things to do apparently. I don't know what really but they better have been good.
On Saturday night I went out with Suz and some other folk to a great little wine bar that had an awesome patio out back. Good times to be had by all. And now, it's back to the real world. Three weeks of sheer madness and then I'll get a real break. Hopefully involving some sleep and relaxation minus the tears. That would be a nice change...
Anyway, hope everyone had a great break and got to spend some time with the fam and good friends! I love you guys!

DEEP

I heard a sermon this weekend on Luke 2 and he made an interesting point. The verse goes a bit like this:

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

The point he was trying to make was that even though, the shepherds spent this time learning about Jesus, they still went back to their daily lives. And not only did they go back, the praised God and glorified him. Today was hard to come back to, so I'm trying to remember this verse from this weekend...

Happy Turkey Day!!

Well folks, it's that time again in New York City. The greatest time of year. And it is all kicked off with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Although I will not get to be there this year, I did go last year which was fun. The picture at left is right down the block from where I was standing. This year, I will be in St. Louis with the fam hangin out and watchin the parade on TV (that's going to be weird...first time I've done that since I moved here...). It'll be good to get away for a while though, even if I do have to do work while I'm there. It's been a stressful month or so. ANYWAY, back to the greatest season on earth! When I get back, it will be time for Christmas in New York. I really find it hard to find a season/place that tops this. The lights, the music, the crowds, the smell of sugary nuts on the street, the chill in the air....it's all wonderful. So yeah, this is to wish all a Happy Thanksgiving and an enjoyable Christmas season. If you can, you all should come to NY and see how wonderful it is!!! LOVE :) me

Can you dip?

Happy Birthday NIKKI!!!!

Today was Nikki's 24th birthday!! We had a great time. We woke up late, I made chocolate chip pancakes (after having to call Dad for the recipe), we went shopping (well, looking is more like it), I made dinner (salmon with a dijon mustard glaze, mashed potatoes, mom's salad) then we went to DIP for dessert.
It was a bar/fondue place that was
DELICIOUS! We got chocolate carmel with fruit, rice crispy treats, brownies, and marshmallows. It was quite fun. We were SO full by the end of the night but it was worth it. We got Nikki to BAR, got to eat fondue and were generally silly for an evening. Good times with the girls. On other notes, life is still crazy but I'm gonna get through, I'm sure. Let me just tell you now, save the date of when I get done at the hospital. It is going to be a full out CELEBRATION! MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!!

of note...

When a person spends the greater part of their weekend at Starbucks in Hell's Kitchen, she sees quite a few odd things. A few of the highlights:

Crazy man from the neighborhood comes in with his electic guitar (he ALWAYS has it) clothed in his black jeans and leather jacket complete with black leather arm cover with metal spikes coming out of it. He decides that today was a great day to come into MY starbucks and scream crazy things. About 8 old ladies got up and walked out. Talk about a mood killer.

Crazy schizophrenic lady sitting next to me starts talking to the whole place about anything and everything. Mainly Bill Clinton's brain tumor and how it had to be biopsied (is that how you spell that???) and how Hillary Clinton is commiting crimes against humanity. Oh another good one was, "That girl that just walked in with the pink shirt on caused me pain in my right knee!! Pain in my right knee!!!" Very strange. She also liked to sing. One of her favorites is an old Sister's of Mercy tune probably from Catholic high school years...she was definitely an odd duck.

Also crazy but not medically, when you sit by the condiment bar (as I've named it -- you know, the thing with the milk and sugar and all that. If anyone knows the real name for it just let me know) you see some strange things. It is disgusting and rediculous the amount of CRAP people put in their drinks. This one guy stops at the condiment bar with his grande americano, pours about 1/4th of it into the trash (a very common practice, I have seen...who told people it was ok to pour excess hot beverage into a trash can with a plastic liner???), proceed to fill the now empty space with half and half and then dump in SIX packets of Equal. That is repulsive! Any calories saved by using Equal were automatically cancelled out by the horendous amount of half and half anyway....I can't even imagine what that concoction tasted like...cancer is probably what it tasted like. That's what frequently adding SIX packets of Equal to your coffee drink will give you. And the sad part is, I kinda got used to watching people put crazy amounts of milk and sugar/sugar substitues in their drinks. Whatever happened to a splash of milk and one sugar??? Seriously people, think about your health!

On other notes, my bathroom ceiling has started leaking AGAIN. This, of course, is after the maintenace people have come to "fix" it about 3 or 4 times. This last time they actually cut a piece of the ceiling out, got moldy old building sheetrock all over my bathroom, left it for a few days saying they would fix the problem upstairs, came back, patched it up and said it should be fixed. RIGHT. I knew I shouldn't have believed that... Yesterday, I heard a constant drip up in the ceiling (it wasn't coming through yet) and I knew that that was NOT a good sign. So I saw that the ceiling was starting to get wet spots and I went upstairs to talk to weirdo and his partner about their bathroom situation and how they need to actually get it fixed this time for real (novel idea i know). I walk in, step near his bathroom (the whole place is disgusting by the way), look in and he's all like, "well we're having lots of problems with this whole thing but I don't think that it's leaking." Yeah buddy it is. So he asks me if I know what exactly it is. Well if the leaking over my sink as well as my toilet is any indication, I'd say his sink and toilet. And this was the grossest part...he opened up the lid of the toilet and it looked like a public park toilet that hadn't been in working order for quite some time and no one had come out to fix it. Brown water at a very low level...the whole nine yards. He closed that real fast. I'm like, "WELL HELLO! There's the problem" Obviously the thing is not working, or not working properly. I don't want to know where they are actually using the bathroom. Who knows. So I told them to call and have it fixed because I didn't want to have mine "fixed" again without theirs actually being fixed first. Whatever...I have my doubts that they will actually do it. As of this afternoon, there is a crack with sheetrock pulling away, dripping "water." If this dripping continues must longer, I'm gonna go on a rent strike or something.

Welcome to my personal life of NUTS

Yes, my life is truly nutty. And I mean like, NUTTY. I can barely even keep up with my breathing much less with my homework. Yeah, and those grades....yeah they match that sentiment. Oops...oh well. It will all be over soon and I can move on and get a real job. While we're on the topic, I need some suggestions on what I want to do with my life. It's a good time to start thinking that way right? At the ripe old age of 24? It's about time that I figure out what I want to do. Who knows...so yeah, I'm open to suggestions for sure.
On other notes, since I'm not busy enough, I was nominated/volunteered myself to co-lead my fellowship group (aka bible study). It's a really great group of people and most of them talk so it shouldn't be all that difficult or time consuming. A little change from leading high school bible study that's for sure! And we do things like go out for starbucks or drinks or the burger joint afterwards! It's quite a party let me just say. So yeah, tonight is my first night "leading" and we're meeting at my place. We're talking about the gospel and culture. If you wanna listen to the sermon that the study is based on go here. It's a pretty good one. It's ALWAYS a pretty good one. Anyway, gotta get back to what I'm supposed to be doing. Love to all.