loveactually

love this movie...especially this part.

party on, Garth

OHMIGOSH!

i'm so excited for tonight! why, you ask? because tonight i get to combine 5 of my favorite things of ALL TIME:

1. wrapping presents
2. spending time with friends
3. eating comfort food admit it, you like it just as much as i do.
4. watching christmas movies

and.....

5. drinking embarrassing amounts of wine

YAY! it's going to be catie's first annual holiday wrapping party...aka that's a wrap. get it...movies...wrapping...that's a wrap...shut up, i know i'm lame.

i cleaned last night while watching biggest loser ps - loved the results... and running to walgreens for a last minute christmas present and set out my turkey loin.

just a few things to cook and we're all good to go!

pictures to come later...

catie needs...

i saw this on Wonder Woman's blog and thought it looked fun!

google your name with "needs" at the end, then copy the first ten things that pop up.

Catie needs to be compressed, but not in a glorious emerald future where irenes populate the land and kittens are for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

Catie needs surgery!

Catie needs to diminish her penguin.

The message was that CATIE needs to continue.

An organization like CATIE needs to be a learning organization… …with the willingness and capacity to change and adapt.

Catie needs to work on school this week.

CATIE needs the assistance of those who wish to foster a legacy of regional peace and enhanced human dignity, through the conservation and wise use of the natural heritage of this wonderful Region.

okay...just so you know, i could only find seven that were even close to Catie needs...

what can i say, i tried...it's not my fault that my mom named me a weird name!

WARNING...WARNING...WARNING...

Dear Rear Admiral Steven K. Galson, M.D., M.P.H.,

As the acting Surgeon General, I believe that you need to put a warning label on these treats. They are sold at World Market, and they are my new favorite snack. Unfortunately.

I mean, I don't even really like chocolate all that much (yes, I AM a woman, but honestly, I'm not a huge fan). But combine chocolate, heath AND macadamia nuts? No one can resist these. Seriously, they must contain some level of crack cocaine or something.

Therefore, I have made you a new label for the back. Please consider this:

Sincerely,

Catie Joy Carpenter

Dear Santa,

Here's a list of what I REALLY want for Christmas, even though I know better than to ask for it from any of my loved ones...

1. a dyson pet hair eraser. supposedly the best vacuum ever.
2. an eames chair. i love them all, but the lounge chair is number one on the list!
3. an imac G5...drool...and i'd have my brother get me the adobe CS4, too.
4. a 1920s bungalow style home. don't get me wrong, i love kyle's house, but if we could find one of these puppies, i'd be set for life.5. a mastercraft boat.6. a voyager phone. i'm hoping to get one in march when i switch to verizon, so i'm keeping my fingers crossed!7. now you know i'm wishing! if i were to get engaged, i would wish it would be this ring...a tiffany's novo. not going to happen (the ring...) i might get a copy cat though, so we'll see.8. this coach purse. i'm not a huge fan of the ones with the letters all over it, but this is very classic.Love,

Catie Joy Carpenter

PS - Don't forget I moved this year...

perfect timing!

thanks to wonder woman, i have something to post today! i was all out of ideas and i thought i would take a break from the christmas decorations so everyone can have a breather...

egg nog or hot chocolate?
sick. i hate egg nog. i usually love hot chocolate, but we have a machine of it at work now and i'm kind of getting tired of it! i do love tea though, and it's the perfect weather for tea and coffee!

does santa wrap presents or set them under the tree?
well, no kiddos yet, but i will FOR SURE wrap them. for one because i love to wrap and for two because i really, really, really love to wrap. in fact, i think it would be so awesome to start designing my own wrapping paper and gift cards. seriously.

colored lights on tree or white?
up until this year i've always had white, but i put red and green on there this year!

when do you put your decorations up?
usually i put them up right after thanksgiving. this year i put my up at kyle's house the weekend before, and i put mine up right afterwards!

what is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
uh...we didn't really ever have a set christmas dinner, it was whatever mom felt like making that night. probably the best we had was apple cider and popcorn, one of my fav meals ever!

favorite holiday memory as a child:
hmm...well, i think it would probably be the only christmas i've spent with my whole family. we were at my grandparents house and all my cousins were there (i have 11 first cousins...) i remember we all had a chair with our stocking on it and our parents put our gifts under them that night. i couldn't imagine how santa knew i was there...

when and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
my best friend from when i was little, amber loney, told me. that wasn't too bad. i didn't believe her, but when i got home and asked my mom, she told me it was true. i think i was 10.

do you open a gift on christmas eve?
yes, we've always opened the family gifts to each other the night before and then the santa ones in the morning.

how do you decorate your christmas tree?
i guess you'll just have to read my post!

snow! love it or dread it?
i love it for a while, then it gets all dirty and gross and then i hate it. and i hate driving in it. gross.

can you ice skate?
heck yes! good times were always had at the ice sports center!

do you remember your favorite gift?
as a kid, my favorite gift was a panda exactly like my cousin sue's...it's name: panda. i'm so creative! if i had to choose a favorite overall, it would be the journey necklace kyle got me two christmases ago.

what's the most important thing about the holidays for you?
family, tradition and food!

what is your favorite holiday dessert?
great-grandma sylvie's orange cookies! i'm making them for our cookie swap at work, too! delish.

what is your favorite tradition?
wrapping the presents. my mom hates to wrap, so i get to do it for everyone except mine! and i LOVE wrapping!!

which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
uhhh...wrapping! just kidding! i love to give. and, i have to say, i'm a pretty good gift giver. what can i say...it's a gift (pun intended)!

what is your favorite christmas song?
carol of the bells! i played it at my christmas piano recital ages ago and will forever love it!

candy canes! yuck or yum?
not a fan of the peppermint candy canes, wouldn't say i HATE them, just don't love them. mom always gets me the starburst ones.

ever recycled a christmas present?
uhh...i don't think so!

Don't Be A Scrooge! Tag 7 friends to Deck the Halls... if you read this and haven't done it, consider yourself tagged!

ranting and raving

ok, i have to do a rant and rave post about this IDIOT guy that works at my office. i can't stand this guy, he annoys the living crap out of me. i would even venture to say that i hate this guy. at that's a strong word for me. i usually don't say i hate people. in fact, the only other person i hate is my ex-boyfriend, but that's a story for another day and another post...maybe.

anyway, in order to keep this guy's privacy, i'm going to call him NG. actually, i don't give a flying poop about his privacy, but he's totally the kind of guy that would google himself, and i just know if i post it, he'll find it and sue me for harassment. yes, he would do that. not. kidding.

he sits one cubicle quad over...here's a picture to illustrate.

1. is where NG sits. by himself, no one else in his quad.

2. this is part of my quad, the desk in between us is empty.

3. this is where i sit.

mind you my office does not have near this cool of systems furniture. ours is grey. and plastic laminate, but you get the point. he's not close enough i should be able to hear all these things.

you guys should realize by now that i love to make lists, so i'm listing the reasons why NG annoys the living poop outta me.

1. he crunches ice. all day. there is no end to the ice crunching. OH, AND when he takes a drink of this "iced latte" that he makes himself, he slurps it with his mouth open and then proceeds to crunch the ice. sick.

2. this "latte" he makes...and tells everyone is worth 4 dollars...is a mixture of coffee, hot chocolate, a butt load of sugar and creamer. poured over ice. sick. it looks like chocolate milk and makes me want to vomit when i smell it. no thanks, i'll stick to my tea and diet coke.

3. he uses phrases such as "i got blowed up in iraq" and "the core (of engineers) side of things is they way i know it" and "i just don't know about the private sector, it's all different" and "i'm a military man myself!" and "you're only an old dog if you stop learning new tricks!" i hear all of these at least twice a day.

4. he has no volume control. at all. everything is said at a loud volume. now, my dad has hearing problems, he's deaf in one ear and has very poor hearing in the other. he speaks loudly and this guy puts him to shame. in fact, i should put all of his quotes IN CAPS LIKE THIS to illustrate him yelling on the phone.

5. he's creepy. like really creepy. looks, tone of voice, eye contact, sitting too close to me (and other women), etc...i'll just chalk it up to women's intuition, but i guarantee this guy has sexually harassed or molested someone. i just know it.

6. his last name starts with a G followed by an N, but the G is silent...like his name would normally sound like NN initials. so every time he meets or talks to someone on the phone for the first time, he has to tell him this, "now that's N*** Gn******, THE G IS SILENT." okay...i realize that name spelling is important, and that as someone with a strange spelling for a name, i should be sensitive to that, but he tells people this when it is unnecessary. and i just say it's catie with a c. and my boss who sits next to me says it's krystil with a k. NOT HARD.

7. everytime someone comes to ask him a question, he gives them a friggin' lecture. like they are stupid and didn't go through 5 or 6 years of school to get a degree. so he has to explain everything about the whole process of how something is made or how to document something or some other crap like that when really he could just go, "yeah, i want it to look like that." just because the army paid for your degree, doesn't make you smarter than everyone else.

8. his cell phone has an annoying ringer and it rings all the time. everyone else in the office leaves their phone on vibrate during the day. and i would say he's on his cell phone 4 hours out of the day. and he yells at his wife on the phone and talks about personal things. AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS. in fact, just today i have learned that the contractor that is repainting his house is not getting paid until he finishes, he's drafting a contract for someone to fix his roof and that he has lost $60K in the stock market. in one day. that's twice as much as i make in a year.

9. he will hang up on clients and coworkers to answer his cell phone to talk about stocks or to talk to his contractor. WTF?

10. at our pumpkin carving contest for work, he called the interior design group decorators. there is nothing more horrific to call a designer than a decorator. and everyone in the architecture world knows that...except for NG, i guess. anyway, he comes up to the pumpkin and says, "so is this the interior decorator's pumpkin?" and like out of a movie, the whole room goes silent. and we have 60 employees. they all turn and look at us (there are three of us) and this architect standing next to me goes, "i don't see any decorators around here, it's the ID girls pumpkin." and then there was an uncomfortable silence and he walked out of the room and everyone started talking again. it seriously was like in a movie. weird.

well, i could go on, but i'll stop for now, i'm feeling much better already!

does anyone else have someone like this in their lives? it doesn't have to be at work, could be anywhere.

TADA!

i got the christmas tree up! well, it was up, and lit, but it didn't have the bulbs on it. i went EVERYWHERE trying to find lime green ornaments and ended up at hobby lobby (hell for an interior designer...i'm not kidding) with my friend jules (ironically, also an interior designer, but i really do like that place sometimes, just everyone ASSUMES i'll like it because i'm a designer. annoying.) anyway, we were there and looking at the ornaments and jules found the LAST box of lime green ornaments in the WHOLE STORE! and they are adorable. and perfect, because they are plastic, which sound gross, but when you have a dog and a cat, you need plastic ornaments. pets and ornaments don't mix. especially mine. anyway, i got a 24 pack of lime green and a 24 pack of black (sounds ugly, but don't judge just yet, i love them) and a pack of red that i wasn't crazy about, but got in case i couldn't find any others.

then we went to target and i found some super cute red ones! including polka dotted ones! i LOVE THEM!!! so i went home and decorated (with my best friend from high school over to visit) and i adore it! all i have left to do is make the tree skirt (my mom is going to help me with this tomorrow i think) and i'm planning on making stockings, but if i don't end up doing that, i have a back up plan of some really cute ones i found at world market during our outing tonight!

oh...and those red ones i wasn't crazy about? i replaced the white bulbs in the enamelware bowl with those and put the white ones on the tree! so i have lime green, red, black and white ornaments. fun!

here's my tree all did up with a naked bottom...poor tree, no skirt!

without the lights on. you can see the detail of the bulbs better in this one than the next one. can you see the polka dots!?! there is one on the bottom. i also LOVE the black ones. and the green ones are fun, too, two different kinds of stripes.

here's one with the lights on, not a very good one because the camera was a little shaky...i mixed the red and green lights (the tree is not prelit) because i didn't want it to look "stripy", you know like green lights, red lights, green lights or whatever.

now on to the perfect tree skirt!