I have now been home for exactly ten days.  It's still a little weird, but the weird is getting more normal with each passing day.

Number of oranges consumed: 5

Number of trips to the beach: 1

Number of books read: 1

Number of roaches/lizards seen: don't wanna talk about it

I have spent my days working at my mom's office and working through the crap-ton of boxes I left here when I moved to Utah.  This is always embarrassing for me to admit, but I was once a hoarder.  That composition notebook from Ms. Byrd's second grade class?  Got it.  That unfortunate self-portrait from fifth grade art class?  Check.  That book full of love songs and angst from sixth grade?  I wish I had burned it.

I thought I had downsized a worthy amount once I left for school.  Oh contrary-wise.

I'm only half-way through these boxes of memories and I just want to throw it all out.  After a year of living with a minimalistic perspective, it physically pains me to look at all this crap.  So, I have made a couple rules:

1. If I have not thought about this item in the past six months, it goes.

2.  If I am not for sure going to use this item in the future, it goes.

3. If there is no story worth telling with this item, it goes.

4. If my children will not get any use out of this item if it survives to meet them, it goes.

The little nostalgic pack-rat still lives inside of my head and gives her input every now and then, but for the most part, I have done well in ignoring her. We'll see which of us ends up winning with these next few boxes...

6 Weeks, 3 Days

I love holidays in general by an abnormal amount.  You can usually find me on Valentine's Day wearing blinding amounts of red; my Halloween costume is usually planned about eleven months in advance; and I may not pinch you on St. Patty's day when you're not wearing green, but be prepared for some traumatizing scolding.  Of all the holidays, though, Christmas is my absolute favorite.   I just feel this sense of magic once December roles around and the world is alighted, literally and figuratively.  It's also a celebration of one of my favorite people to ever exist, the Savior of the World.

However, Christmas takes on a whole new meaning this year.  I will have been away from home for six months (HALF A YEAR) almost to the date as I fly in to Jacksonville's airport.  I will be reunited with my childhood, and the best part of my childhood: my best friend, my mom.  I will be reunited with the wonderfully awful humidity and the sounds of the city.  I will be able, for a brief moment in time, to escape from the realities of "growing up" and become the me that I was for seventeen of my eighteen years.  I will be able to see friends and family that I haven't seen for an eternity.  I will be able to hear terrible grammar and be fond of it. I will be able to walk into a real WalMart where I fear for my life.  The street crossing buttons won't be weird and I will have the smell of the sea just a few miles away.

I am living for that day, six weeks and 3 days away, where I will be reunited with home.  My home.

Things

Things I miss about Florida:

1) My mommy
2) My family
3) My dog
4) My high school and church friends
6) Chamblin's Bookmine (!!!!!)
5) The beach (I never thought I'd say that.)
6) Streets that do not have streaks of tar that my shoe slips on and my heels get caught in
7) The warm rain
8) The Scottish Highland Games
9) The Sarasota Medieval Faire

Things I'm loving about Utah:

1) The way the sun sets over the mountains outside my window
2) The mountains themselves
3) The lack of humidity
4) The fact that everyone here is friendly
5) The history
6) The amazing friends I have made
7) The deeper doctrine that I've been learning in my classes
8) The fact that prayers are said before my classes :DDD
9) The vast amount of things there are to do (if only I had a car!)
10) The fact that my little Mormon quirks are acceptable and mutual here (not just the standards I uphold, but things such as bursting into song and dance, Mormon jokes, etc.)