Home Sweet...Disaster Area.

Well, I'm finally moved back home. It doesn't really feel all that weird. I guess because I lived in this house and in this bedroom for two years before I went off to college. My room is a maze, quite literally. I have every single Rubbermaid bin from my apartment belongings stacked all over my bedroom. Plus laundry baskets and another random items and furniture pieces. It's quite the disaster area. I've been hoping to sleep in for just one morning since I've moved back and have nothing to do for a month, but in the five days I have been home, I've woken up at 8am each time. That's not that early, but it is when you go to sleep at 2am every morning because you can't sleep, and then are up for an hour sometime in between 3am and 4am when your husband calls from Afghanistan. So needless to say, I have yet to really feel rested. If I could just go to bed earlier, it would be awesome. Which is why it's 8:36pm and I am in bed for the night. Now lets hope this works.
My students' grades are due on the 16th, so tomorrow I think I'm going to stay home and finish grading papers. Then, tomorrow evening, I'm going to pick up all of our furniture from the furniture store. We are now renting a 10'x10' storage unit here in town, so that way when the movers come for the Army, I can just take them to the unit. Plus, my little bedroom--and this little house--has zero room for a whole 'nother set of furniture.
My brother gets home on Friday late afternoon. He's stationed at Ft. Lewis, and this is his Christmas/deployment leave, because he leaves for Afghanistan the same time my husband comes home. I'm glad he's going to be able to spend Christmas with us before he goes.
Speaking of Christmas shopping, I'm about half done with our list! It seems parents are the hardest people to buy for. Well not my Dad--I got his, but the rest of the parents. Do you do a joint present? Separate? David said he ordered my present and that it should be here in a week or two. I'm forbidden from looking at the bank account until after Christmas, which I don't think I will. I never liked surprises before; I would have totally looked. But with him, I love them. I guess it's just another one of those things that you only happen with "the one."
Even though my birthday isn't for another month, I found my birthday present today. Well, I've wanted one for like a year, but I happened across the store (that I didn't know existed) today while shopping at the fashion park. I went in the store with my aunt to get my cousin charms for her bracelet (which is her Christmas present), and I thought to myself "This is what I want for my birthday from David! I'll have to tell him about it and get it later." Well, he conveniently got back from outside the wire and called me about 30 minutes later. I told him about my present, and he told me to go ahead and get it, which worked out considering this "fashion park" (an upscale word for an outdoor mall) is 40 minutes from my home and I never go there. So, I got my bracelet and it looks like this:

My bracelet!

How I created it on the website before. I didn't get all of the charms because it would have been more expensive. I did try to get the "H" charm but they were out :(

Brighton is like Pandora of course, but some of their charms are even cuter, and did I mention it's a heck of a lot cheaper? By a landslide, we're talking. I can't wait to add to it in the future, whether it be the charms above I didn't get, or with my kids' birthstone charms. Love it :D

I've got a new addiction, too. Every Christmas, Bath & Body Works has their holiday scents that they only keep out for like a month. One of those scents is called Twisted Peppermint, and since I got it, I have been furiously smelling my arms and hands all of the time. People probably think I have issues. About a year ago, I got Tigi Catwalk shampoo and condition called Headshot. A single bottle of shampoo runs about $30, so when you add conditioner, you're looking at a crazy price tag. I found it on sale, and haven't been able to find it on sale since. Well, it smells like cotton candy and peppermint all in one--amazing. And you guessed it, the Twisted Peppermint scent at Bath & Body is identical! My aunt bought me the lotion and spray for babysitting, and I got the hand sanitizer. I just can't help it!

The shampoo & conditioner

The Twisted Peppermint line

And another fun thing I did today was try tofu for the first time! My aunt and I went to PF Chang's for lunch, not really considering the fact that she's highly allergic to oysters until we got there. Of course, almost all Asian cuisine is cooking with an oyster sauce. I wanted her to try their amazing Chicken Lettuce Wraps, but when we asked the chef, the chicken was cooked in the oyster sauce. So, the chef recommended the vegetarian lettuce wraps, which simply had tofu instead of chicken, and were cooking without oyster sauce. We figured, what the heck, might as well try it. It turns out, it was amazing. Tasted just like the chicken ones. The texture wasn't funny. I totally shocked myself on that one!

So, that's all just a really long update on how life has been going the last week. There's so much more I could talk about, but then I would get boring, or maybe more boring. Happy Holidays!