http://adailynote.blogspot.com

It was time for something new.

It's December and I'm full swing into the holiday season.

For Thanksgiving, I cooked, visited Sarah Michelle, went to Megan's baby shower, and of course, shopped and waited in line.

I feel like I've been on a bit of a cooking frenzy. Here's an example.

I had leftover cranberries from the Iron Chef Blogger Challenge and Thanksgiving so I tried making these cranberry white chocolate chip cookies. Delicious!

Given that Sarah Michelle and I are doing a cooking blog, and running a weekly cooking challenge, it seems only right that we actually cook when we get together now. We attempted The Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls. It was also a delicious success.


And as I said, I went to Megan's baby shower. Yay babies.


This month is going to fly by in a whirl of cooking, visits, and excitement, I think. It'll be a good way to end the year.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I'm so so so excited about the holidays this year. I think they're going to be full of fun. I'm looking forward to Black Friday adventuring, best friend cooking adventures in Phx, baby shower love for Megan, and then December, which will be a month of out-of-town visitors, weekends in Phx, and holiday awesomeness. This is maybe my favorite time of the year.

In other stuff, have you seen the Iron Chef Blogger Challenge updates? http://twofriendscook.blogspot.com
We're having a ball with secret ingredients, new recipes, and new friends.

I'm a pretty bad updater. I know this, but was reminded of it again today so I thought I'd attempt to update more frequently.

I had a rockin' weekend that involved drinking at Kon Tiki followed by French fries at Denny's, hoping hockey players would fight at the Ice Cats game (which they did, multiple times), and shopping in Scottsdale. It was a lovely, lovely weekend.

And then I did even more shopping tonight that involved some really good rationalizing.

I won't be able to go out at all next week because of it, but I'm pretty sure scheduling my haircut for next Thursday just made my day.

The news is fucking depressing.

There's something amazing in watching history unfold.

I got home tonight and sat on my porch for a good 20 minutes before even going inside. It's a perfect summer night with the air all cool and so quiet.

Sometimes, I wish there were someone to sit outside with me at midnight and just talk.

I'm staying up past the time I said I was going to go to bed, but I suddenly got it into my head to continue organizing my bookshelf and as I was putting books onto the shelves, attempting to put together books by the same author or numerical order for series, I was struck by how my books are like me, just a little bit. Or at least say a little bit about who I am.

The top shelf are a bunch of hardbacks, mostly, or taller paperbacks, the nice paperbacks that publishers seem to be so fond of these days. There are my three Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; I don't own the first because I borrowed my sister's copy, fell in love with it, and proceeded to buy the next three for my collection. (Note to self: Buy first Sisterhood book). Of course, I loved this series. My friendships have meant so much to me. I didn't grow up with a mom and dad who I could talk to about anything; my friends are the ones I confide in.

There's also my copy of Eclipse, which is the third book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight book series. Same story here: borrowed from sister first copy, fell in love. (Note to self: complete this collection). And of course I loved these books because they're about falling in love and is there anything I'd like more than to fall in love again? I love a good love story.

My copy of The Secret Garden which I inhaled on a two-week trip to Vietnam, a gift from my four cousins before boarding the airplane.

The second shelf just has books. There's my Chicken Soup collection, my Gossip Girl collection (Note to self: Buy prequel to complete collection), just paperbacks. It is a random assortment of books that caught my fancy.

And the third shelf. Oh, the third shelf. The third shelf holds my SVH: Senior Year books. I grew up on Sweet Valley High and all of its offshoots. I loved Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and the 48 books that make up SVH: Senior Year was the series finale. I own nearly every single copy. A loan gone wrong resulted in the loss of roughly six of the books. (Note to self: Complete this collection with next paycheck). And what does this say about me? It reminds me of the way I grew up on books. If I read a series like this, is it any wonder to you that today I still have a deep and abiding love for Dawson's Creek or Felicity or that despite the terrible storylines, I look forward to watching One Tree Hill on Tuesday nights? These books, or these shows, aren't always the most realistic. I can't tell you how many times one of the Wakefield sisters nearly died. Or how many times they came into contact with royalty. But there was something about it that just so drew me in. There's something I love about getting to follow a character's life, to somehow emotionally connect with a character.

And there are the books that I have yet to add. The new Elements of Style, complete with illustrations, the rest of my Best of American Magazine Writing books, my QuarkExpress textbook, AP stylebook. The books that tell you a little bit about who I chose to become.

Books don't tell you everything about a person; a person couldn't tell you everything about them, probably. But maybe they say more than I ever realized.

Does anyone else feel like a party? In like two weeks?