Tidbits

• My mom is exceptionally environmentally friendly and resource-savvy. She uses every drop of toothpaste; I throw away products after they get too close to empty and thereby a little difficult to use. She looked almost horrified when, over Thanksgiving, my cousin explained that she threw away a Fresca can because she didn't think we recycled. My mother, a teacher, taught an Environmental Issues summer school class for third graders. Our yard is equipped with a rain catcher and a compost pile. You get the idea, right? My mother's pretty green. So, the other day I was emptying the dishwasher and I found a bunch of plastic utensils. You know, the sort that are supposedly disposable?

• Renee (AKA the love of my life) is an extremely talented individual. Any of you have followed along with my moping the past seven months may already be hip to this fact, but: after graduating, Renee moved back to Australia with her family. I miss her a lot. Anyway, over the summer, Renee sent me pretty much the best birthday present ever. It's a wall ornament that has three, handmade fish. On Halloween, Nash was stabbing things with his hipster!Link sword, and he stabbed it, knocking it down a little bit, so now they hang a little lower than they used to. Anyway, they're pretty cute, right? (That's obviously just one of them. But. Still.)

• Last year, I lived in a town house with three of my friends. Near the end of our lease, I so desperately needed time and space to myself that I ended up moving back in with my parents about three months before our lease was actually up. One day, after I started moving back in with my parents, I was at the town house, hanging out and picking up some stuff. One of my roommates, T-Kupp (an adorable, cheerful woman who I barely saw last year since she had SO MUCH going on. Now she's graduated and I haven't seen her in ages. *sigh*) found me and gave me this awesome candle that's shaped like a cupcake with sparkling frosting on top. It was so beautiful I just paired it with a ceramic cupcake my other roommate, Kelly (who is basically the sweetest-kindest-MamaBear I've ever known), gave me for Christmas. Anyway, I didn't even light the T-Kupp cupcake candle until about a week ago because it was just so beautiful. BUT LOOK HOW COOL IT LOOKED ALL LIT AND SUCH: 

• If you watched my Vlogmas video from yesterday, you've already heard this story--and if you haven't, you can watch it here, I'll give you a minute, go do that. Okay, so, when I was a kid, I asked my parents pretty point-blank whether or not Santa was real when I was pretty young. Now, I am not sure whether or not this story takes place before or after that, but, regardless, I'm pretty sure I didn't believe the real Santa and Mrs. C showed up at malls and restaurants. So, anyway, my whole family (this is another one of those fabulous McKie Family memories... just, one I didn't include in that one blog post...) was at this festive brunch thing. For whatever reason (cough-Chirstmas-cough) Mrs. Claus was there (although, again, I'm pretty sure I didn't think she was the real Mrs. C). Recently, my pet mouse had died. It was a very sad occasion. I don't know what prompted me to tell the not-real-Mrs.-Claus that my mouse had died, but I did. She looked at me sadly and said, "Oh, I'm so sorry!" And then she reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a small, play mouse and whispered, "That's why Santa sent me with this." (Okay, I don't know if that's actually what she said.) So, anyway, she gave me a little toy mouse and it was pretty much the most legit Christmas moment I've ever experienced. 

• My mom loves nativity sets. She has a huge collection of them. There's one that we've had as long as I can remember. It came from her grandmother and it's my absolute favorite. That was a tidbit, just not a tidbit about the intended tidbit, I guess. Right, so: we own one nativity set that's kind of a nontraditional nativity set. It's stable-less. There are no wise men. No shepherds. It's comprised of two pieces only: Joseph, and a donkey carrying Mary and baby-Jesus. It stays on our bookshelf year round, I guess, because it was already out the other day when my mother brought the big box of nativity sets up from the basement. She and my father were re-arranging the living room, increasing the nativity-set-ready surface-area when my father scooted the bookshelf and baby Jesus, Mary, and the donkey took a tumble. They landed on the hardwood floor with a shatter. My father, in a voice of sorrow, said, "I shouldn't have been moving this by myself..." and my mother, assuming it had shattered into hundreds of pieces, refrained from looking at it. So, I quickly crossed the living room, gathered up the pieces, and said, "I can fix this!" (I'm so like Gus in that one Shia LaBeouf movie.) With that, I brought it back to my room, and went to sleep. I'm just kidding, probably more stuff happened between confiscating the broken figurine and sleeping, but I guarantee it's not important. The next day, I got out the hot glue gun, and put the figurine back together. It wasn't too hard, all that broke off were the donkey's two hind legs, and the broke off in two, solid pieces. Then, I returned donkey, Mother, and Child to the lone Joseph figurine. Anyway, as I was fixing the donkey, I realized it had already been broken twice: its two front legs had also, sometime, been reattached.

So. Anyway. That's some stuff.