TODAY IS THE DAY...

It has finally come! Since I made my Christmas plans in September, my weeks have been flying by. Somehow I knew this week would slow down and be the slowest in my life!!! Now, I cross my fingers and hope that time continues to go really slow for the next two weeks while I'm on vacation. After that, it can speed up all it wants!

I get to leave work in 5 hours and 51 minutes (I'm not counting down or anything). My flight leaves at 4. Unfortunately I have to stop in Houston. But come 10:45 pm tonight, I should be in Homa Homa!!! It's supposed to snow here again today. Hopefully it won't be bad enough to delay me at all. I can't wait to see my family!! And for Sunday/Monday when I get to see my 4 boys and auntie and uncle!

Oklahoma here I come!!




The Office Quote of the Day:
Michael: "It's simply beyond words. It's incalculacable."

Amendment to "The List"

· the hot-tubbing is best when you're able to have a snowball fight at the same time
· going to the Oklahoma City Zoo

Most of the fam seems to be confused that it was last Christmas that we all went to the zoo, and was wondering why I left it off my original list. Not the case, since I wasn't there last Christmas at the same time as Kenny, Leah, and the boys. The zoo visit was still in the winter when it was freezing, but in February, when we were all there for Alli's birthday/baptism. I have now added it to the list after the response of my family since this Christmas, we are going to start the tradition of going to the zoo in Oklahoma City over the Christmas break.

Because it's pretty cold, most of the animals are housed inside. One building had the big animals like the elephants and rhinos. I couldn't tell you what else was in there, because the foul stench that reached my nose after the first step I took in those doors caused me to run back outside and immediately "toss my cookies", as LeLe likes to put it. I refused to go back in there, so I had to run around other parts of the zoo to find the other end where everyone else was coming out.

I was informed by Dylan, that this time, he would be restraining me with belts and leading me through that building like I'm on a leash, with barf bag in hand. Gotta love my little cousins! I'm sure we will continue with the original event of having to take a picture by every single statue that is there. I wonder what creativity they will come up with this time...









The Office Quote of the Day:
Michael: "I don't want somebody sucking up to me because they think I'm going to help their career. I want them sucking up to me because they genuinely love me."

A Worthy Quote

It's not very often that I post again so soon. I couldn't help not sharing this with everyone though. I love talking to my family. I pretty much call my mom every day, sometimes multiple times a day. I'm not ashamed of it! I'll talk to Dad every now and then as well. And of course, I love to talk to Alli!! I miss being around her. Lately, every time I call home, I've been asking to talk to her. Friday she was a little bugged because I was "disturbing" her from playing with Emma, who she "hadn't played with in over a month!!" I actually had something I was trying to tell her about, but she was just too restless. She kept trying to leave and I said "Alli, just talk to me for a minute!" About 30 seconds later she interrupts and goes "Minute's up. Bye!" and hung up on me. Little booger.

So yesterday, I call and Dad answers. He says they were getting ready for people to come over for Choir. So I knew Mom wouldn't talk to me right then, so I asked what Alli was doing. She was sitting there eating a Pomegranate, so I had Dad pass the phone along. Here are parts of this conversation:

M: "Are you getting excited?"
A: "For Christmas? Yeah!"
M: "And that everyone else is coming soon..."
A: "Especially for that!"
(A little later on, I'm just talking away, wanting to chat with my little sister!)
A: "Can I go now so I can finish my Pomegranate?"
M: "No, I want to talk to you!"
A: "Meredith, you're coming Friday. You've GOT to stop calling me!" (at this point I'm totally cracking up!!)
M: "Alli, I just want to talk to my little sister!"
A: "Ok, what do you need to tell me?"
M: "Am I only allowed to call you when I have something to tell you?"
A: "Yes"
M: "So I can't call you just to chat?"
A: "No. I HATE talking on the phone!"

About 6 hours later I call the house again. Mom was never told to call me back, so I just took matters into my own hand. I'm sitting there as the phone starts to ring. Erika is standing in the kitchen and I go "I hope Alli answers!". Sure enough, the phone picks up with the 8-year-old squealing, "What do you want?!". I just start laughing my head off, it was too funny!! She didn't talk to me, she immediately handed the phone to Mom. I told Mom what had happened earlier and we were just laughing about it. After talking for a few minutes I say, "Mom, tell Alli I want to talk to her. Just to bug her." I hear Alli in the background, "NOOOOOOO!!"

Apparently 8-year-olds don't want to waste any precious play time sitting on the phone chatting with their older sister!




The Office Quote of the Day:
(While dragging a screaming Meredith into Sunrise Rehabilitation...)
Michael: "I have a deposit. Alcoholic. Um, so...do I sign?"
(To the camera, after being escorted out of the building by a security guard.)
Michael: "As it turns out, you just can't check someone into rehab against their will. They have to do it voluntarily. They have to hit rock bottom. So I think I know what I need to do at this point. I need to find ways to push Meredith to the bottom. Umm, I think I can do it. I did it with Jan."

Counting down...

6 more days to go!! I'm way too excited! I can't wait to be able to hang out with my family. I'm just excited for everything we always do/have over Christmas. It will also be fun to get to play with the puppy, Sam. I've only seen him for a total of 4 days when I was there for my Dad's birthday. He's a crack up, and he's gotten SO much bigger. I'm excited to see him. Here's what I'm looking forward to:

(no particular order, just as I think of them...)
· everyone in my family being there for the full two weeks
· the Christies coming
· watching Elf (especially with Dylan and Derek) over and over again
· watching Polar Express with Kevin and Cade
· going out to eat Indian food
· having unlimited amounts of Blue Bell ice cream
· a completely stocked fridge full of soda/drinks
· mattress surfing (assuming we can solve the problem of not having a twin mattress in the house anymore)
· hot-tubbing
· playing Guitar Hero World Tour with everyone
· Ham
· Nativity Reenactment
· funeral potatoes
· Martinelli's
· corny Christmas crackers with the awesome paper hats inside!
· having fun people to be with for New Years Eve
· fireworks
· spending 12+ hours New Years Day watching the bowl games with Tay
· slumber parties in the upstairs bedroom
· Jungle Uno
· an awesome breakfast Christmas morning
· Mom's cooking!
· Christmas jello
· giving the best present I've probably ever given
· 12 Days of Christmas puzzle that we put together in just a few hours
· watching everyone open their presents and just the joy of Christmas morning

If I sat here long enough, I'm sure I could come up with an even larger list. Needless to say, I'm really excited. I just need to make it through 5 more days of work.



The Office Quote of the Day:
Michael: "Presents are the best way to show someone how much you care. It is like this tangible thing that you can point to and say, 'Hey, man, I love you this many dollars worth.'"

I'm a Private Person

If you're reading this, then you know I've made my blog private and that I've sent you an invite. I just don't want everyone to be able to read my blog anymore (mainly: crazy roommates). So yeah, no big deal. I realize I don't have very many email addresses in my contacts list, so let me know if you know of anyone who can't get in anymore. I think I've already included my main readers anyways. Sorry for the lame post, I just wanted to give an update. For the moment I will continue to contemplate my next post!





The Office Quote of the Day:
Karen: "I've got, like, 15 new clients that I've inherited from Dwight. And each file is password-protected with a different mythical creature."

This One's For You, Kira!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! To one of my oldest, and dearest friends...

Kira has been giving me crap for the last couple of weeks now about never updating my blog. I decided that I might as well give her some sort of a birthday present since I'm not in Chicago to grace her with my presence!!

Sorry Kira, but I guess I'm not really updating. Think of this as more of a birthday card. And hey, at least my blog has changed, right?!

Even though it's a little crazy that my best friend is now prego, I'm very happy and excited for you!! Then again, you have been preparing for this step of motherhood for a very long time!

I already miss you like crazy, and playing intramurals with you throughout the entire year, every year, and our girls nights. And I really am going to see what I can do about visiting you in Houston for a day over Christmas. I love you tons! Have a happy birthday!





Dwight: "I.D. badges are long overdue. Security in this office park is a joke. Last year, I came to work with my spud gun in a duffel bag. I sat at my desk all day, with a rifle that shoots potatoes at 60 pounds per square inch. Can you imagine if I was deranged?"

I Want It To Be Christmas!

Sorry for the hiatus in posting. Thank you Bre, for motivating me to get with it and update the blog. I haven't done a whole lot since the last time I posted, I've just been lazy and wasn't motivated to add anything. For most of last week, I worked from "home" at Ron and Cal's to house/pet sit while they went on vacation. Probably one of the laziest weeks of my life!!! I worked for 8 hours of the day, and pretty much watched movies and baseball games the rest of the time. I went through Ron and Cal's DVD collection and watched anything that I hadn't seen yet, that I had been wanting to. And I watched a couple of movies that I just hadn't seen in a really long time. I also bonded with the new kitten, Gracie. She actually drove me nuts sometimes!! She was very hyper in the mornings when I wasn't quite awake and trying to get started with my work. She would attack my legs, so then I would pick her up and put her on the couch with me. But then she would just jump onto the table and walk all over my computer, and attack my computer mouse, and any other sort of wire. I enjoyed her most when she would fall asleep and just be a cute and cuddly kitten.


I'm one of those people that gets way too excited for Christmas to come, that I don't even really care about the holidays before it. I've never been a big Halloween person. Maybe as a kid, when I could get tons of candy, but that's about it. I don't like to dress up. I don't like scary things, so I find no excitement in watching a scary movie or going to a haunted house. I usually spend my Halloween nights at Cal's house. I hang out with Cal and help hand out candy to the cute neighborhood kids that come around. I absolutely love that they start playing Christmas songs on the radio the day after Halloween. That is one of my most favorite parts. Come November 1st, my radio in my car will be on the same station for the next two months, until they quit playing Christmas songs. Don't get me wrong, I don't completely blow off Thanksgiving. It's a fun holiday, but seeing as I don't usually get to go home to be with my parents for it, it's not as exciting to me as Christmas is. Especially since we get to spend our Christmases with the Christies!


This Christmas is going to be a blast for me. I convinced my managers to give me a full two weeks off from work! Before I was only able to be home for part of the Christmas vacation, and then had to come back to Utah for work, and I would totally sulk that I was here while everyone else was at home having fun. I'm so excited that I will be there the whole time everyone else is this year, and won't miss out on all the fun that we always have:

Getting in the hot tub, no matter how cold it is outside.

Making Gingerbread houses.

Our family's lovely portrayal of the Nativity Scene.

Watching Elf (over and over).



And of course, a Nuttall/Christie get together is not complete without a little mattress surfing!

The Office Quote of the Day:
Michael: "Hey, that was really fun last night. I'm actually thinking about getting my own set of putt-putt golf clubs."

Oh No!!

Wow! I totally forgot to add an Office quote at the end of my last post! How could I?!?! Sorry to disappoint....



Michael: "Yes. it is true. I, Michael Scott, am signing up with an online dating service. Thousands of people have done it, and I am going to do it. I need a username, and... I have a great one. 'Little Kid Lover'. That way people will know exactly where my priorities are at."

A post Auntie Cathy will appreciate!

After hearing the praise from Aunt Cathy and countless others, I decided that I would give Heroes a shot at capturing my attention. I refused to watch it when it first came on, because it ran at the same time as 24. And my loyalties definitely lie with 24. So two months ago, when nothing really good was on TV at the time, I spent my free time after work watching Heroes. I was definitely impressed! I was a little shocked to see how gory it was. It kinda surprised me, Cathy, that you liked it so much. I've gotten used to that little tidbit now. As of today, I am all caught up to the most recent episode that aired last night. I'm kind of confused with what's going on, but I think that everyone is! The downside of being all caught up is that I have to wait a week in between each episode now. I liked it better when I could watch at my own pace and start the next episode whenever I wanted to. But oh well, sometimes it's worth it to wait!

I love all the connections between my favorite TV shows (Heroes, Lost, 24). There's so many actors/actresses that make an appearance in more than one of those shows. And even The Office! The kid that played Claire's boyfriend with the ability to fly in Heroes, is the actor that played Hunter in The Office...Jan Levinson's secretary when she was at Corporate. In 24, the actor Zachary Quinto plays a mild, computer geek, analyist at CTU, while in Heroes, he plays the main psycho killer badguy. It's weird to think of the two different characters that he plays. Greg Grunberg is another main character in Heroes, who plays a small part in Lost. He's the pilot, Seth Norris, who gets ripped out of the cockpit by the island monster. There are many more connections between minor characters in these TV shows. I love all these little connections!!

I haven't been doing much else with my life. I've kinda been glued to my TV now that it is the Playoffs for baseball. The Rays and Red Sox are advancing, which makes me happy. There's a break until Thursday, when the NLCS starts. So I can resurface and try to do something productive for the next few days. I've spent many, many, many hours the last few weeks beginning work on my Christmas present that I will be giving to my family this year. Family (including the Christie Chrew) - you should be getting excited, because I think this will be one of the best Christmas presents EVER!! (Even if it is a "home-made" thing). I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!!



PS - Taylor, Lauren, Adrianne, (and Kenny, please relay to Dylan). You all better be practicing up on your Guitar Hero skills for Christmas. I need some competition this time! :)

The Office is back!!

I'm sorry, Kira, that you've spent the last week and a half constantly checking to see if my blog had been updated yet to get your daily fix of The Office. I've been a little bit of a slacker as of late. The Office is back, and it makes me immensely happy!! The season premiere was decent. I didn't feel that it was up to par with the normal Office humor. But it still gave me a lot to laugh about. Michael now has someone as weird as him, in Holly. And Jim finally proposed to Pam. I'm happy to see what the new season has in store for us.

You gotta love Dwight:





Angela: "Listen dummy, it's not that hard! All you have to do is take the numbers from the sales report and type them into a master spreadsheet. A monkey could do it. I do not understand why you can't do it!!"
Holly: "NO!! You do NOT talk to him like that!"
Angela: "But he's an idiot"
Kevin: "Hey..."
Holly: "He is not an idiot." ["Thank you Holly"] "He is mentally challenged, but he's doing a super job here!"
Kevin: "Back up. Do you think that I'm retarded?"
Holly: "Well...no, uh...Dwight..."
Angela smirking and shaking her head: "Oh Holly that is very offensive."
Holly quietly walking away: "I'm sorry."

(Gotta love that Dwight had the new HR person convinced that Kevin was mentally handicapped since she showed up on the show at the end of the last season.)

Painting

I told Cal that I would help her try to finish with her painting of the house. You can see how much of a help I was. This one's for you, Tay:

The Office Quote of the Day:

Dwight: "The purse girl hits everything on my checklist: creamy skin, straight teeth, curly hair, amazing breasts. Not for me... for my children. The Schrutes produce very thirsty babies."

Scranton, the Electric City...

So I finally did something today. Yes, I still watched some more Office, but at least I was productive and multi-tasked. I finally got all of my pictures onto discs. I will now be safe if my computer ever crashes. (Cross my fingers that that will not be anytime in the near future!) It was fun to look at old pictures and video clips. I've come up with some great ideas of what I'm going to do with them. For sure I will be making additional posts with lots and lots of pictures!!

I've got another great video from The Office. I know that there are a select few of you who really appreciate my dedication to this wonderful TV show at this point in time. I love when I go through random phases where I'm addicted to something. Anyways, this is the whole video to the brief clip that was seen in the episode when the Scranton and Stamford branches merged. Michael's way of doing Orientation for the newbies.








The Office Quote of the Day:

Dwight: "In the wild, there is no health care. In the wild, health care is, 'Ow, I hurt my leg. I can't run. A lion eats me and I'm dead.' Well, I'm not dead. I'm the lion, you're dead.

New Apartment

Now that we've finally pieced together random furniture for our apartment, I've finally taken pictures of this place. I guess this post is mainly for the mother and aunties.

Here's pictures of my bedroom, taken from each corner:



Here's my closet:


And the living space:



Laundry room/Pantry:


I have thoroughly enjoyed the new place. Especially compared to the housing monopoly in Provo. I only pay $20 more a month in rent then I did at the last apartment, and this one is SO much better.




The Office Quote of the Day:

Michael: "Alright, since I am the boss I will drive as well. Who wants shot gun?"

Stanley: "You can't be serious?! You ran a woman over this morning."

Michael: "Everybody inside the car was fine, Stanley! [To camera:] Guess what? I have flaws. What are they? Oh, I don't know, I sing in the shower. Sometimes I spend too much time volunteering. Occasionally I'll hit somebody with my car. So sue me......no, don't sue me. That's the opposite of the point I'm trying to make."

At some point I'll update.

I've had a little bit too much fun rewatching the seasons of The Office. As a result, I haven't done things that I should be doing. My room is starting to get messy, my desk is unorganized at the moment. I didn't do laundry this weekend when I probably should have. And I've been a complete slacker about getting all the pictures from my trip home onto discs to send out to everyone (Sorry LeLe).

Soon I will be back to normal life. But right now I'm having fun! I've discovered that the Bonus Features on the DVDs are totally worth watching. The deleted scenes is like watching an additional 10 minutes of an episode. It's great, i never realized how much I was missing out on. Here's a music video about Dwight that I saw on the season 3 DVDs:

(***Disclaimer*** - There's a naughty word in it. So tune out at about 1:30 to 1:32)





Michael: "You'll notice, I didn't have anybody being Arab. I thought that would be too explosive, uh, no pun intended. But I just thought, "too soon" for Arabs, maybe next year. You know, the ball's in their court. "

I ♥ The Office

Don't worry, I'm not professing my love to my actual job. You would probably have to be worried about me if I got to that point. One of my most favorite TV shows is "The Office". It totally cracks me up. At first I wasn't the biggest fan, but I finally got used to the humor in it and now I think it is absolutely hilarious! Definitely, my most favorite part of the series is Jim and his constant pranks on Dwight:



I can watch this show over and over again, and still find it so funny. I love watching it with Auntie Cal, cause she cracks up about as much as I do when we watch it. The latest season just came out on DVD, and the new season starts in almost 2 weeks. I couldn't be more excited!! I've been rewatching the previous seasons to catch up for the premiere of Season 5. Yay!! My only wish is that AD, Lauren, Tay, Scott and I were all in the same place so that we could watch it together, because I know they appreciate it as much as I do!

This is How...

Only my immediate family, or really close friends, know where "Moggy" came from. It's a name I've lovingly been called in my family (mostly by Taylor and Lauren) for about 7 years now. When Alli was a baby, finally stringing her first words together, and already able to say "mom" and "dad", we (the rest of the Nuttall kids) decided it was time for her to be able to say our names too. I vividly remember being in the hot tube of our pool in the Houston house, with Alli floating around, trying to get her to say all of our names. "Say 'mommy'..." and down the list I would go. I'd leave my name for last. She just quite couldn't get the hang of it. "Meredith" became "Moggy". I tried so hard. I even broke it down. "Say 'Mere'...", and she'd say 'mere' just fine. Then, "Say 'dith'...", and again, she'd say that part just right. I thought she would get it. So I combined it together for her again. "Moggy!!", is all that would come out. I tried and tried, but to no avail. The rest of my family thought it was hilarious. Taylor started calling me it nonstop. In the beginning, I was not a fan at all. I mean, come on, it sounded like "Soggy". Who would want to be called something that could be confused with that. But eventually (thanks to Taylor) I started to get used to it and decided maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all. To this day, I'm Moggy. With Lauren it's usually "Mogs" and with Taylor it's usually "Mogster". So there you have it.

I gave into the blog craze. I don't know how well I will actually keep up with it, so we'll see. Hopefully it won't be like Mom's (a once in a lifetime thing). Mom - I challenge you to prove me wrong and post more! Hopefully I will be able to document the happenings of my life and you can see "How I Became(/Become) Moggy". I've enjoyed reading my siblings blogs. (AD - you're the last one holding out...the 8-year-old doesn't count!) I hope they continue on with theirs and make it so that I will want to post more myself.

For now the main picture of my blog is a picture with Sam, the newest addition in our family. I tend to not have many pictures of myself, because I pretty much hate them. This is one of the few that I like, and I absolutely adore this dog! So, maybe I am forcing him a little bit in this picture, but he honestly loves me, I swear! There you have it, I am now a "blogger". Any comments would be greatly appreciated. I'm sure they would be a motivation to post more!