Thanksgiving Break

First off, I am an incredibly lucky person. Oshkosh only had school Monday and Tuesday last week, and I don't have Tuesday classes this semester, so I got to go home Monday night. I had almost an entire week off, which is why this is only now being updated.

Monday
My Aunt Debbie and her two boys stayed at our house a couple of nights during break. Of course, the boys are too old now to be excited when Sophie or I come home. I was greeted by this:


Hey, at least they could look away from the computer screens for a minute, right?

Tuesday
I was going to get a picture at lunch, since Aunt Debbie, my cousins and I met Grandma Joyce, but I was smart and forgot my camera at home.


This is not my grandma. Or any of my relatives. Or even lunch. This is Trooper, making weird dog eyes at me.

Wednesday
Pie! Glorious apple pie! Aunt Debbie made both an apple and a blueberry pie for Thanksgiving. I helped make the apple pie.


And by helped, I mean I ate pie crust dough, pie crust cookies, and cinnamon apples before they got stuck in the pie. Here's the apple pie, right before it got popped in the oven.

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving lunch was at my Aunt Anne and Uncle Chris' house, and was absolutely delicious. Of course, I took a TON of pictures, but since I don't want this to be a longer post than it already will be...


The grown-up (and W) table, where I was not seated. Oh well. I got to sit by W later, when we had pie :)


And then my camera battery died. Lovely. Skipping ahead to Saturday...

Saturday
I am not a Black Friday shopper. I think people are crazy. (You don't? Check out this crazy Menards lady and tell me otherwise. Just a heads up, there are quite a few profanities.) I do, however, enjoy a good sale. Like when the shiny 8GB SD card I want for my camera is on sale for $15, AND I happen to have a $15 Best Buy Rewards card.


$1.77 for a card that usually costs $39.99? Heck yeah! 4x the storage space as the card I have now? Even better!

Sunday
Sunday? Not as exciting as Saturday. I opened the fridge to put my just opened and snacked on salsa in, and guess what I found?


Food! My roommate's leftovers from before break! Do you have any idea how nasty those buffalo wings probably are by now? Ew!

Monday
Ok, I promise this is the last picture of Philip's new leaf thing. But look at how much bigger it got while I was gone!


Personally, I'm still in shock that it's still alive, let alone growing.

What a great weekend!

This weekend was full of awesome things: handmade goodies, Christmas shopping, Harry Potter, adorable kittens, and awesome friends :)

Thursday
Ok, I know I posted about Philip's new leaf thing on Wednesday, BUT! after I had done so, it was suggested that I take a picture of it with a penny for scale, so here's that:


Pretty tiny, huh?

Friday
I was in bed by 10:30 on Friday. Possibly this is strange for a college student, but I wanted to get a good night's rest before Saturday. Not only did I have plans with my friends to see the new Harry Potter movie, but Jonathan and I were planning on going to Handmade for the Holidays.


Sound like fun?

Saturday
The best day of the weekend, by far. First Jonathan and I got up early for breakfast, then we hopped on the bus and rode downtown to get to Handmade for the Holidays.


It was quite lovely :) I managed to snag a cute headband, and I picked up a couple little things to stick in with my sister's Christmas presents.

Sunday
Kittens!


This one did NOT want people to hold her. She was quite squirmy, but she did enjoy playing with us.

Happy Christmas Cactus!

Apparently, Philip is doing quite well for a dorm plant- I noticed a tiny little new leaf/section thing sprouting out.


Ok, so it's only like the size of my pinky nail (if that), but it has to start somewhere, right? I'm glad it's perked up since I picked it up earlier in the fall- maybe I'll see some flowers later? That would be really exciting :)

Yesterday
Every year on campus, we have a program called the Tunnel of Oppression, which, yeah, is kind of depressing, but also fairly educational (though some sections are presented far better than others). Anyway, as part of their marketing campaign, they hand out buttons reminding everyone to be nice, respect each other, etc.


I got Plato-buttoned. Cool, cause that one was my favorite, but they were all pretty awesome.

Monday
Mondays are busy, as I believe I've mentioned before. I have a once a week, 3 hour long class that focuses on literary criticism and The Tome. Anyway, every week, we have different articles we're assigned to read, and then depending on the article, 1-2 people present on it. Last week, I presented on Cixous' "The Laugh of the Medusa." French feminism. Cool? Anyway, Christine and I were really worried we were off on it, but then I got this back:


A particularly good job trying to capture her tone, you say? Awesome! That's one of the best compliments I've heard from this professor all semester! And, if was apparently the difference between an A- and a B. Extra cool.

Free stuff!

Remember how much I like free stuff? These last few days have been pretty nice: yesterday, I got a free pen.


Pretty boring, right?


Wrong! This sheet pulls out like a tape measure and lists all of the events going on in the student union this semester! Well, except for Homecoming week- they direct you to a website for that, because there's so much going on then. Other than that, though, it's pretty informative. For example, I now know that there's Halloween Carnival on the 28th, and that Dec. 7-8 they're making stuffed animals. Pretty sweet!

Today, I was walking around campus with Jacey, and one of the campus ministries was giving out free plants. That was cool, because I've kind of wanted to get a plant for awhile, since they help brighten up the room and are supposed to make you happier.


I named this guy Philip. We're pretty sure he's a Christmas Cactus, but since neither Jacey nor I know a whole lot about plants, we're probably wrong. (None of the plants had info stick things.) Then, because I could and because no one else seemed to want the plants, I grabbed another one.


We have no idea what this is. It's got little pink flowers, and the leaves are shiny, but that's about all we have to go on. So... back to Whatsit Wednesday! Can anyone name the Whatsit?