The Plight of the Earrings.

Jewelry is one of my guilty pleasures.

Oprah and football are the other two.

When it comes time to shop for me, be it Christmas, Easter, my birthday, or just Wednesday, I'm a fairly easy person to shop for. A gift card to Barnes and Noble or Target will fit just fine. So will earrings. I love earrings. Shiny earrings. Loopy earrings. Silver earrings. Gold earrings. Bedazzled earrings. You name it.

If for some reason, you still have a problem finding a present for me, I have 40 Bible Study girls who laugh at my jewelry collection but are very capable of providing more pieces to add to it. Call them up and take them shopping with you.

Anyhow, my mother knows better than anyone how much I love jewelry.

She also was with me when I ventured off to Vegas in August.

As we were walking around the largest whole-sale jewelry sale ever to grace the face of this planet, she mentioned that she had zero ideas for me for Christmas. If there was anything that I saw that was too expensive for my wallet, she'd happily pick up the bill and add it to my stocking.

I knew the exact pair of earrings I wanted.

The trouble was, I saw them at the beginning of the show and we were now at the end of the building. It wasn't exactly like I could walk over and hand them to her--the jewelry show is in a warehouse about the size of three football fields.

I sighed a little sigh and moved on with my life, realizing the earrings were never going to be mine.

A short time later, Hannah, Granny, Mama, and I found a little table at a Starbucks and sat down for refreshments and a rest. As we sat there, us Perry women, I couldn't stop thinking about these earrings. I wanted them so badly. They were perfect, and beautiful, and shiny, and they had diamonds, and I swear Khloe Kardashian had a pair almost exactly like them.

I looked at Hannah and Granny and told them of my desperate need for these bedazzled treasures. I told them that I had seen the earrings at the beginning of the show, and they were laid sideways on a black tablecloth-covered showcase.

We Perry Women are mighty stubborn. We're stubborn, and we're sassy, and there's no getting our focus off of a mission once we've committed to one. You best believe we committed ourselves to this mission. We hauled ourselves back into the jewelry show for one more lap to attempt to find these earrings.

As I was walking down Aisle 6, I knew we had lost hope. The earrings were either gone, or I had imagined them.

And then...

Then...

I heard this noise.

It sounded like...

No...there was no way...

"Rebekah! Are these them?"

There was no way Granny had found my earrings.

I turned a full 180 degrees and saw that she was standing beside a table that had a black tablecloth on it, and this little Korean woman trying to tend to her every need.

I remembered that Korean lady.

My eyes were suddenly caught by a twinkle in in Granny's hand.

MY EARRINGS!!!

I rushed over and inspected them and quickly had Mama thrust some cash into the lady's hand as to make sure that no one else showed up and wanted them. I would have to wrestle said person to the ground as my mom made a run for the taxi.

But no, the earrings were mine.

Now, all I had to do was wait until the morning of December 25th to open my stocking.

December 25th was four days ago. Four days ago I opened my stocking. When I opened my stocking four days ago, the little package whose content twinkled fell gracefully into my lap. I was reunited with them once again.

I was still in love with these earrings.

I was so excited to wear them.

I wore them all Christmas day.

...I currently have no idea where these earrings are.

Seriously.

After all of that, I think that I have lost these earrings. There's no telling where they have ended up.

If you're the praying type, I'd appreciate it if you sent one up to The Big Guy for my earrings. I'll be tearing up my parents house today in one last attempt to find these articles of perfection.

I'm just a girl...sitting in front of her computer...asking for her earrings back.

(name that movie...)

A Catastrophe!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I simply cannot go on.

My very own DNA denies me life.

My entire double helix of deoxyribose nucleic acid is completely wrapped in a double membrane of OCD.

And I have left my apartment without any Post-Its or my Vera Bradley miniature notebook that houses my to-do lists, random thoughts, blog ideas, etc.

This has never happened to me before.

Seriously.
When I was in Lebanon, I brought my Vera Bradley notebook.
When I was in Clearwater, I brought three, count it: 3, pads of Post-Its.
Whenever I am anywhere else, I have one of the two (if not both) in my purse.

I am seriously about to start shaking because I can't make my lists! I can't check things off! I can't use different color markers for different types of activities!

The world as I have known it has ended.

My entire family is in the great state of Florida and I am stuck in North Carolina to work. (By the way, can I please insert how my mother texted me a picture of her and Russell Wilson, the Wolfpack's star quarterback. I am just not okay with this. Jealousy...envy...coveting...ughhh) Therefore, I am about to go crawl into my parents' fabulous Sleep Number bed and bury myself under the covers until it is tomorrow. Tomorrow I am moving my plans that I had for Wednesday up and heading to my apartment for more clothes, books, and Post-Its.

Once I am reunited with my beautiful Post-Its or notebook, I will soon make a list. This list will include many ideas for future blogs. Eventually, that list of blog ideas will become an actual blog, and I will entertain you once again.

Until then...

a picture is worth a thousand words.

It is a known fact that I have the world's most beautiful niece.

This picture, once again, proves that fact.

I feel like this picture also sums up my Snow Day 2010. You can be on the look out for a few fantastic posts about my snow day and other things, but this certain post sums up a good bit of my day.

My sister had a handful of friends show up to the house so they could leave early this morning for the Wolfpack Bowl Game down in Orlando, Florida. I don't mind our house being full of people, but I was very much looking forward to them leaving so I could spend the day with the books, movies, and puzzles that Santa brought me for Christmas (Cousin Hannah, you may now insert a comment about me being a Black Sheep).

However, when I woke up, I found about a half a foot of snow glittering in the yard.

My sister soon got an email saying that the trip to Florida had been delayed, and she announced that many, many other band kids were showing up at the house to play and stay.

My beautiful, quiet day with music, literature, and entertainment? Yeah. Effectively down the drain.

That's where my beautiful niece, E, comes in.

I know she enjoyed her day. My cousin's blog told me so. So do the cute pictures of her smiling.

On the other hand, Eden loves to shop! Loves the lights and the people and getting out of the house. She makes me proud.

Eden's mama had promised her a great day of After-Christmas-Deals Shopping.

The snow effectively ruined that day for her too.

However, Eden, like Aunt Rebekah, sucked it up, made the twist of plans into something good, and enjoyed herself.

Is she smiling? Or is she unhappy? I can't really tell...

I feel like she's just kind of shrugging her shoulders and saying, "Oh well, we might as well have fun..."

Good girl, E. Aunt Rebekah loves you a lot.

Happy Snow Day, one and all!

I am in NEED!

I am in NEED!

My creative juices are running dry and I don't know what to post about! Help!

A friend of mine did an "Ask Me Anything" type of deal and she has been able to get some cute posts out of it, answering people's questions and taking pictures of different things.

That being said, I'm stealing from Laura (and a bit from Christin too):

HELP ME, sweet blog readers! Give me ideas, ask me anything, instruct me on how to entertain you!

Unfortunately, I have no cute children to blog about all the live long day. I also have no cute boyfriend to brag about, and so much of my life is going out to dinner or the movies that I'm sure you're tired of that spill all ready!

So, for Christmas, from the sixty of you that read this every now and again, tell me what you want to know. I'm looking forward to delivering in 2011 :)

words cannot describe my family.

I write books.

I've mentioned this before.

Well, let me clarify: I have begun to many, many books in the past. I've only completed three. I no longer have any of these because I wrote them in third grade and they were horrible and somewhere around seventh grade, I trashed them. Part of me still wishes I had them (even though I'm quite certain that I could recite them to you) but another part of me is really, really glad that no one will ever know those jokers came from me.

Anyhow, I've got about four that I have the first few chapters written currently. I've got a good feeling about these. In other words, I think they'll make it past the first few chapters and I don't think they'll end up in the trash. Writing is a release for me; I will start to think about a plot line and eventually I will get so distracted that I have dreams about it and can hardly carry on a conversation until I get it written down. If we've ever been at dinner and I started writing on napkins, I apologize.

To write these books, I normally take a general story in my life and either make it more interesting, or make it turn out the way that I wish it had. One of them that I'm writing is about this guy that used to live in the building beside mine who was cuuuuuute and it's about how we met and fell in love and blah, blah, blah. Did I forget to mention that the majority of the stuff that I write is chick lit fluff? Yeah. You write what you read, and I'm up to my eye balls in chick lit.

Cute Boy Next Door is beside the point.
The point of this is to put some stories out into the void and hopefully make my four readers giggle a bit.
One of the plot lines that I have whirling up in my head is about a week at the lake with my dad's side of the family.
We did lake weeks for about a five summers straight and then quit until this past year. I'm already looking forward to Sanderson Extravaganza 2011. Y'all, these jokers are epic. It's a miracle the earth doesn't implode when you get that many Sandersons into such a small vicinity. And we're talking about expanding the week into extended parts of the family and renting houses near one another. That's when the world is going to implode...

My best memories of my childhood involve these lake weeks. My most cherished thoughts of my cousins come from the time we spent together on the water.

One of my favorite memories involves a younger cousin and a telephone.

This past year I took a few days off from work and summer school and headed to the lake. A friend of mine texted me saying that he was coming into Raleigh the following weekend and would love to meet up. We also arranged to have a little phone date (nothing serious, we just hadn't talked in a while) the following evening.
The house we rented was in the middle of no where. Actually, find the edge of nowhere, go five more miles, and you'll hit the lake house. Time Warner Cable refuses to drive a truck out there, so the house is without cable or internet. There were about 4 pockets of cell service that we found that week; one of them was sitting on the steps leading from the screened in porch down to the water. About 9 pm, I sat out there and talked to Friend. The younger boys (I have five younger cousins currently ranging from the ages of 11 to 7) were shipped off to bed about that time and so while I was on the phone, I had to excuse myself from the conversation to pass out kisses. Friend thought it was cute and he enjoyed hearing my stories about the boys after they went to bed.

About ten minutes later, my youngest cousin managed to sneak out of his bedroom and came to curl up in my lap. Youngest didn't speak much while I was still on the phone with Friend, but the minute I hung up, Youngest asked me,

"Bekah, when are you going to marry him?"

I then explained to Youngest that just because boys are girls are friends doesn't mean they love each other that way and I had no intention of marrying Friend. Youngest asked some more questions along those lines and eventually I just put him to bed instead of divulging the 411 on what it's like to grow up.

About 24 hours later, my phone rang again. Ironically, the friend that I had spoken to yesterday is one of two males that share a name in my contacts list. I hadn't put a last name with them because their area codes are different and that was how I differentiated between them.

Youngest Cousin, however, didn't know my little trick.

He got to my phone before I did, read the same name of the friend that I had spoken to last night, and figured he would answer it for me.

"Hi. Bekah doesn't want to marry you and Mama said that you only can talk to people on the phone that you want to marry. Good bye."

Needless to say, Friend #2 was quite confused.

I wish I was kidding.
I'm pretty sure this one is going to end up in the book.

Words cannot describe my family.

two of my faves.

After I published my last blog from earlier today, I sat down and wrote out my do-before-Christmas list.

I have let my apartment go to pieces over the last few months while I was student teaching because I had so little time and what time I did have didn't come with any energy. I wrote out every piece of this house that needs cleaning and what type of cleaning it needs.

Besides cleaning, I also needed to cook up a storm so I could have some meals in the frig for me to take to work over the next few days.

I realized I had some chicken that needed to be cooked so I cleaned the kitchen (clean the kitchen to just dirty it up again...hmph) and set to work.

But first, I hooked up the laptop in the kitchen to set the mood.

What better to set the mood for an afternoon of cooking than my CBSP playlist? Tenth Avenue North, Jesse McCartney, Relient K, and, of course, Usher.

...

What? Your favorite playlist doesn't have that type of variety? Well, I've always said we're a special family.

Yes, it was the most spiritually uplifting summer of my life and our theme song was "Love in this Club." It's a long story...

Anywho, I made my two favorite dishes: Chicken & Broccoli Alfredo and Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake! Both are Campbell's recipes and are so quick, simple, and cheap to make!

You can find the recipe for the Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake by going to the Campbell's Kitchen website and searching.

Note from my kitchen: Don't hold back on the cheese. Seriously. The recipe calls for half a cup of Parmesan---nah uh. I put at least a cup, if not more, of shredded Four Cheese Mexican Mix from Harris Teeter when it comes out of the oven. I also typically add a bit more when I put it on the plate.

Another note from my kitchen: The recipe suggests to put in veggies. Please do! Whatever I have frozen or canned I stick in there. Today I added some french cut green beans and some peas. I've added squash, carrots, and corn on different occasions before. Yum yum!

One last note on this recipe: If you pull it out of the oven and it's too watery, grab some Special K (personal favorite) or some other plain, flaky cereal and apply liberally. Stir it in and stick it back in the oven for five minutes. It gives it a bit more crunch and helps soak up the liquid.

For the Chicken & Broccoli Alfredo recipe, I'm going to walk you through it!

Oh my goodness, I feel like Paula Deen! So exciting!

Here's all you need:

1/2 of a 16 ounce package linguine
1 cup of fresh or frozen broccoli flowerets
2 tablespoons of butter
1 pound boneless, skinless, chicken breasts cut into cubes
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 can of Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup--you can use any variety. you can also sub with Cream of Chicken, but I prefer Mushroom in this recipe.

What Rebekah actually used today:
1/2 package of angel hair pasta--didn't have linguine
0 cups of broccoli--I was working on the fly here people. I went strictly carnivore today.
A generous spray of Pam.
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into cubes--yes, cut them up. it just tastes weird with the solid breast
1/2 cup of milk
Sprinkled pepper on top of soup when added. Didn't really measure
Generous portions of Four Cheese Mexican Mix shredded cheese from Harris Teeter (anyone sensing a pattern here?)

Directions:
1. Cook the pasta as called for. Add the broccoli for the last 3-4 minutes of cooking.

2. Brown the cubed chicken in a large skillet at medium-high heat. When almost ready (nice golden brown color), add can of soup, milk, and pepper for about two minutes alone.

3. After those two minutes, add in the pasta and broccoli. Stir and allow to settle for about another two minutes. Finally, dump with cheese! Stir and serve. Then add more cheese to taste ;-)

Yummy! One of my favorites!

A few tips from my experiences today:
1. As much love as Usher is due, it's probably not a good idea to make love in the club (XL) while cooking...because then you forget to set timers and just have to guestimate with your many, many dishes you have heating at the moment.

2. One should probably not tell their shawty they're leaving (no matter how many times Jesse McCartney tells you to) while beginning to make their third dish of the day. You'll forget that more ingredients must go in the skillet and you'll pick the wrong skillet...

See? The combination barely fits.
As I was feeling sunny with a high of 75 with Relient K, I was praying to Jesus that I wouldn't spill this mess all over everywhere while I was stirring.

Also, one small request: To those of you that haven't gotten me a Christmas present yet, here's an idea...POT HOLDERS! I don't have any! I'm using a (rather thin) towel.
My favorite color is purple and I also like pink and polka dots. And of course, anything Wolfpack. Thanks!

Oh, and where was Milley while I was jamming to The Summer Of My Life Soundtrack and cooking my faves?

She was keeping post by the back door. There's some birds that enjoy to torment her with their frolicking and she has to make sure they don't step one little claw onto the deck. She forbids it.

Good doggie.

Now, I have to go cross some things off of my to-do list! Ta-ta dahlings!

fifty two degrees.

It's currently 52 (read it: fifty two) degrees in my house. I'm a broke college student that won't splurge on the luxury of heat.

Yes, I am sitting in my chair with a sweatshirt and sweater on. Yes, I have my dog strategically spread across my feet to keep my toesies in tact.

But enough complaining, let's talk about the good life!

Yesterday was glorious and full of great friends.

I woke up to go to DH Hill library on campus so I could print my portfolio for Student Teaching.

Drama of the Day: Apparently the wireless network in DH Hill decided to crap out on us and none of the printers worked for about twenty minutes. And I only had given myself ten! It was stressful and even reduced a friend of mine to tears. But hallelujah, praise the Jesus, eventually it booted back up and I was able to run to class. Don't worry, I was only 25 minutes late.

Dr. Johnson took our entire LTN program out to lunch after class to celebrate a job well done. It was a great hour and a half. You put twenty girls in a room with food and you've got yourself a party! It was bittersweet because although we are all so glad to be done teaching, it was also the last time we were going to be together. Very few of us have a solid plan as to where to go from here so heaven only knows the next time we'll be seeing each other.

Ladies, it's been fun. Thanks for the laughs and lesson plans. Thanks for being a shoulder to cry on and joke to tell to get me smiling again. This experience would have been so different without any of you. I love you all.

I headed home afterwards to attempt to be domestic. I feel like everything is nothing but an "attempt" these days. My to-do list is too long! Anyhow, as I was folding clothes and there was a knock on my door. I knew I was supposed to be meeting my girls at their apartment to go see a movie, but what else had I planned for today?

It turns out, I hadn't forgotten plans, two of my girls decided to come surprise me!

Barn Party 2009 with My Kaitlyn and My Erika.

Kaitlyn and Erika were riding around and decided to stop by my place. I only had a second, but it truly made my day!

I ran out the door as soon as hugs were passed out to go see Tangled with My Lauren and My Kelsey and their Madison and their Morgan. Super duper fun time with my girls and their girls and Tangled is such a cute movie! It's stinkin' hiii-larious and precious to boot.

After the movie and some snuggling on the couch with my girls post-Disney, I headed off to RDU airport with some friends to go pick up the one and only Kimberly H. Spence! She's been in Ecuador studying abroad and I have missed her oh so much. She was the fifth roommate last year and she's another leader on West Campus. As many adventures as I knew she was enjoying in Ecuador, I'm glad she's home.

Today has been spent with more attempts at domesticity (new word. go use it.) and a lunch date with my daddy! You all know how much I adore my dad and he took me to Mellow Mushroom. Whoop whoop!

It's been a good thirty six hours, and starting in less than twenty four, I'm about to become a work-a-holic until Christmas Eve so I might not be around much, but I have plenty in store for you after the holidays I'm sure.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!