a peek into my brain right now

I was really in the mood to blog, but when I sat down to blog I could not come up with anything to blog about. Doesn't seem like a whole lot has happened recently that is blog worthy. So instead of getting a post about something in particular, you get one of my posts that is just full of random Marci thoughts.

1. Thanksgiving is over. That means it is now fine for me to listen to Christmas music. Or at least to admit that I've been listening to it since Halloween. Yes. On Halloween I was listening to The Forgotten Carols. I love The Forgotten Carols. I waited til after Thanksgiving to whip the piano book out and start playing it myself. Chris didn't know The Forgotten Carols before. He certainly is going to be getting to know them. It hurt to just listen to it last year, it feels so much better to be able to sit at my piano, and play and sing. I love it. If you don't know The Forgotten Carols you need to get to know it.

2. Today I watched an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition as I was working on a Christmas gift. The family receiving the home makeover had kids that were deaf, kids that were blind, a dad that was blind, and their grandma who was blind. Their home makeover included a device that would make it possible for the blind dad, and deaf son to be able to communicate. I had never thought of it before. That would be a really hard circumstance to be in, to not be able to communicate with your dad because he can't see you sign and you can't hear him speak. What a blessing to this family. I may or may not have cried during this episode. Also, I regret not taking more ASL classes at BYU.

3. My parents and brother are coming to visit on Saturday. We're excited to see them and to show them around town! We've got some plans to go to The Riverwalk, The Alamo, take them for some classic Texas BBQ at Rudy's. We'll also watch The First Presidency Christmas Devotional at home, and probably watch the BYU vs. Hawaii football game. I went to clean the bathtub in the guest bathroom (which has never been used) and the water wouldn't turn on. We called our landlord and he knew exactly what the problem was, so he's coming over tomorrow to fix it.

4. It is colder here at night. Like, it actually goes into the 30s. May not sound bad to y'all, but down here in Texas that is mighty cold! We bought flannel sheets a few weeks ago and that helps. It also presents a problem. With regular sheets, I can wear my sweatpants and be able to move/adjust myself just fine. With flannel sheets I could hardly roll over to my side from my back. I keep thinking that someone has to have designed pajamas that are warm, but allow you to move on flannel sheets. If you know of a place I can find those, without making my own pajamas with cotton/fleece inside and silk on the outside, let me know.

5. I love Amazon. A lot. Over the next week I will get to interact with the UPS and USPS man several, several times. I think Chris and I did almost all of our Christmas shopping in the last week, and just about all from Amazon. Some of the items we bought we could have gotten for the same price at a local store, but at the store we would've had to pay tax and we would've spent time going there, finding it, waiting in line, and it would've used gas. With Amazon we could sit on our couch, we don't have to pay tax, and we got free shipping. The other thing I love about Amazon is the ease of Amazon Wishlists. We've always had Wishlists, and links to each others wishlists which makes shopping so simple. Whenever I see anything online that I want (on Amazon or elsewhere) I just click a button at the top of my web browser and it adds the item to my wishlist. I can then go to my wishlist, add a comment, rank things by priority (highest, high, medium, low) so that Chris knows that while I would like a particular movie, I would absolutely LOVE a certain cookbook, or other movie, or wii game, or kitchen utensil. It is a beautiful thing.

6. Related to Amazon, I love www.camelcamelcamel.com . I can go there, paste the url from a specific amazon item, and I can see how the current price compares to past prices. I can see if something is the lowest it has ever been. I can also set it up so that they send me an email if it gets below a price that I can set. This helped me find some good deals. For example: I decided there was a movie I wanted to get Chris, but I didn't want to pay over $12 for it. I set up for camelcamelcamel to send me an email when/if the item went below $11.99. I got an email one day when the price went down to $8.49, bought the movie, and then by the next day it was back up to $14.99. This has allowed me to take my chunk of Christmas spending money and make it go further.

7. A few months ago (I don't remember the occasion, was there even a specific reason?) two of my friends and I went to The Gourmet Cupcake Shop and bought cupcakes. Now that I think about it, I think it was someones wedding anniversary and they wanted cupcakes for dessert. I bought a Red Velvet one. Ever since I have been obsessed with Red Velvet. I have the stuff to make these Red Velvet Cake Balls but have been putting it off a little. I think I'm making them Thursday or Friday so that maybe my parents will eat some. I've been thinking about these cake balls for a while now.

8. My favorite tv show right now is The Next Iron Chef: Super Stars. Some of my favorite chefs from The Food Network and The Cooking Channel are competing against each other. So far my two favorite chefs are still in, and I love it. Chris and I watch it each week. It is on at like 8:00 on Sundays. We record it and watch it later so we don't have to watch commercials. It is the perfect ending for Sundays. I'm routing for Chef Geoffrey Zakarian and Chef Alex Guarnaschelli. They both are judges on my other favorite tv show, Chopped. It's really fun to watch these chefs cook incredible things with really strange ingredients.

I think 8 is a good amount of my random thoughts. There you go. Random thoughts from Marci.

well, just one more now. When I order something from Amazon I have them send me a text message the day that it is being delivered so that I know to watch for the FedEx/UPS/USPS man. I had a package delivered yesterday morning. Just 2 minutes ago I got a text message saying that my package was delivered the day before. That totally defeats the whole point of them texting me. I don't think USPS is really equipped to track packages that well. It normally works a whole lot better with the FedEx man, since they scan the package when they hand it to me.