Dreaming of a White Christmas

For the first time in my life I had a white Christmas. It started snowing Christmas Eve about 7 PM. It didn't stop until about 8 AM the next morning. The entire world was covered in white glittery powder. It was so pretty! Christmas morning I got up and made dessert, it was a Yule log. Then I started a fire and read, until Carolyn woke up. Then I made orange rolls as all Erickson Christmas' should include. We opened our stockings and our gifts as we watched a Muppet Christmas Carol. For the early afternoon we went to Marshall and Polly's . The girls and I went sledding. It was a Tons fun and now I need to invest in some snow gear and a sled! For dinner we went Joyce's house where I finally met Korbin, Derek and Amy's new baby boy. It was very strange being away from my family. But it was still a good Christmas.

Hello world! this is my...

Blog. I know. You were hoping it would be something more exciting. But it is what it is.


My mom recently asked me when I would be updating & I decided to give a brief update.


Basically all I've been doing since I got home from Arizona is working. It's been a lot of work making sure all of the candy areas are full during the Christmas season. Did you know I sold over $5000 worth of candy today alone? That's a lot of sugar.

I've been doing a fair amount of baking when I am home. I baked several boxes of cookies and shipped them out to my dearest family and friends. I've baked cookies for work and bread and English muffins and I've been asked to do the desserts for Christmas dinner. I've been Christmas shopping and making things for for Christmas. None of which are mention here, at this time,because someone I'm making them for, may be reading this.


We did have a nice snowfall earlier in the week. It's the first big winter storm that we had although I feel like we had more snow for the one day that it snowed in October. Luckily after the snow in October I went out and got some gray snow boots. Unluckily the snowboots broke on me, well the zipper on it anyways. This morning I took them back to exchange but of course they didn't have anymore in my size. So I ended up exchanging it for two pairs of different boots. One pair Are brown snowboots to replace the snow boots part. The others are cute little gray boots to replace the gray part. Oddly enough they were both on clearance so to exchange one paraboots for two I only had to pay $3.41. It's the little things, you know? Another little thing that makes me smile almost on a daily basis is the geese.


All around town gaggles of geese gather at little resting points while heading south. There are just droves of them hanging out by the side of the road near any body of water and sometimes just a big open fields. For some reason it always makes me smile.



Sunday I will be hosting my annual Lord of the Rings viewing party, which I will probably end up writing a whole other post about. I also went and saw The Hobbit last weekend and it was just as good as it was to be expected. I'm also very much looking forward to Les Miz. Because I'm working so much I probably won't see it until after the new year but it's definitely on my list. I guess that's about it for now. Like I said not a whole lot going on. Now I'm sleepy and it's time for bed.

My Thanksgiving

Today it was my first Thanksgiving away from home. While I was still with family I got a large bout homesickness today. I miss my mom's simple stovetop stuffing and all of desserts that me and my sisters come up with. I miss my dad's amazing turkeys. I missed playing games with people who make me laugh out loud. But at the same time I got to try amazing new foods and ate myself sick. I successfully made my first pumpkin pie and it was quite gorgeous despite the small burn on the surface. And while I didn't play games with the same people I usually do, I still got to play some games and had some good laughs. Even though I miss my family and things have changed a lot this year I am still grateful for the new. By the new I mean things like:
New TV shows that I've come to love like Doctor Who, Sherlock and Once upon a time. Also new events, like mud runs which is something that I get to do with my sisters. A new roommate Carolyn who is absolutely and positively amazing. A
new place to live,which is giving me all kinds of new experiences. New job, one that helps me keep my head above water and I really enjoy. A new boyfriend who makes me feel special and wanted every day.

I hope everybody enjoyed their Thanksgiving. I am very much looking forward to coming home next week and seeing my AZ friends and family!

Just a touch of snow.

So yesterday there was an 80% chance of snow. We did end up getting a little bit but mostly It just got really cold. In fact right now it's only 17° outside werf! It is freezing, literally. The problem with getting a little bit of snow in a little bit of rain and then it dropping down to 17° is ice. I think this is the reason people don't like living in cold states. I did okay but Carolyn had a little tumble and Eko , ha ha, oh my goodness, Eko looked like Bambi walking on ice for the first time. It was hilarious! There's a little patch of ice right at the base of our stairs and he stepped on it and legs went flying, it was pretty funny to watch actually. Another bummer part is the fact that we really didn't get a ton of snow. It's just enough to cover the ground. I'll post some pictures of what we got this time and what we got back in October. You'll see the difference, can't wait until it actually starts snowing.

The treacherous patch of snow at the base of the stairs.

View from the front door. View from the patio.

So this one below is from my bedroom window this morning.(Sorry about the screen)

And this one is from the smae place last month.

This is from the patio:

Eko leaping and frolicking through the snow :)

I Finally Fixed It!

Quite sometime ago I lost the power adapter for my external hard drive. Being the smarty that I am I tried to use a different power adapter which apparently had the wrong voltage and I shorted out my power supply port for my drive. I finally went in to a computer repair place and fixed it all up. So last night I had the pleasure of going to several old pictures.

Baby Umlaut, so cute :)

My Chocolate painting I free-handed for school.

My little bear cub Eko :)

Camden making friends with Elphaba :)

Halloweenie!!

While I probably won't write a ton for this Halloween expedition, I will post several pictures. My original costume was Celia Bowen from The Night Circus, but not many people knew what that was, so I decided to change it at the last minute to a skeleton. I found some cheap paint and went at and it turned out to be really cool actually. I also carved three separate pumpkins two of which I combined to make one glorious one. I'll post all those pictures. I also bleached a black shirt into a skeleton for Eko to wear. For the actual night of Halloween i went out trick-or-treating with my cousins. I also went to my aunt and uncles house for dinner, my aunt Polly made split pea soup in honor of the exorcist. All in all it was a pretty good time.

Jumping in, hands first.

About 24 hours ago the weather was in the high 70s, low 80s, I was actually kind of warm, sweating, because Carolyn and I just moved a couch and now it is 40° and has been all day.

We both had the day off yesterday. Actually had a pretty productive day not only did we get our couch, finally, we also got some light
bulbs. We went downtown and had lunch with my aunts and Joyce. We went to the grocery store. Plus we got the couch upstairs all by ourselves.

Today we had to go back to work. The 6 AM shift. By the time we left the house it was maybe 36° when we left work eight hours later it was only 40. it's been a good day , plus possibility of snow on Saturday.

Now that we're at home, we've just been kind of lounging around and think we might watch a movie later. However we're taking it easy for the rest of the day.

A few Good things

Typically with a few good things there are also a few bad things, the bad things are Eko got sick again and in a fight at the dog park.

A few good things are:
• Luckily it wasn't as bad as it was last time.
• I had a wonderful bike ride home.
• It's Monday night movie, so that means Phil, Carolyn and I will be watching Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix and having pizza.
• Kristen found a huge spider for my collection.
• There's a nice little rainshower.
• Eko will finally get the training that he's been needing his entire life.

• Finally, most importantly,I can get blood out of carpet.

Fall finally, Atumn last

Heading into October I kind of look back on my life last year and think how much has changed. I'm extremely happy where I'm at and it's hard to believe that I'm here. This week in particular has been very good I got a new iPhone five, did some organization work at the cupboard, and it spent a lot of time in my new hobby, collecting bugs. Having the iphone 5 is really fun because I can just talk to it and it types for me! It's like having a audio blog!
I'm very much enjoying Fort Collins. The weather here is beautiful. It's been around the 70s which makes it really nice for bike rides and spending time outside. This is the first time I've experienced actual fall. The leaves on the tree outside my bedroom window are changing from green to a nice orangey red.

A bird I saw on one of my longer Bike rides.

Not much else is going on. Eko still chases squirrels around like a maniac. I'm working on a new cake project for the cupboard next week, I'm pretty excited about that. But other than that life goes on as normal nothing much to report.

Lazy Thursday

Phil was feeling under the weather today so it looks like its' going to be a lazy afternoon with just us girls. Carolyn and I just returned home from target with provisions in tow. These consisted of:

Waffle Supplies and Spinach and Artichoke dip stuff. Included in the Artichoke dip stuff is also 5 boxes of crackers. I will note that when we put that on the list Carolyn nearly died laughing....still not sure why. I'll try to remember to take pictures in a few hours when all of our evening activities are in full swing :)

Wet Dog Kinda Day.

It's been gloriously raining for the last 12 hours here in good ole Fort Collins! It's not supposed to let up til tomorrow. What makes it super fantastic is I don't work today or tomorrow so I can really enjoy it! And by enjoy I mean sit around the house lazily and eat copious amounts of "comfort food". I have a big tree just outside my bedroom window and through out the night as I woke up I knew it was still raining because I could hear the rain drops falling down through the leaves.

Eko of course took his own sweet time this morning the rain not fazing him at all. He was a little unsure of why I was taking his picture so he was a bit nervous.

I also took a few of him before his walk in the kitchen with his new collar. It's called a walk with me collar. It's working like magic! I had to get one because Eko has just discovered squirrels and let me tell you he is soooo sad he cant climb trees. He certainly tries though, nearly ripped my arm off a few times, hence the new collar. He hates it :) Yesterday I got my bug kit! I can officially start an insect collection now, rather than just have dead bugs in containers around my room! The website I ordered it from sent me one of their catalouges too in case I wanted a fetal pig to dissect or anything of that nature. The whole thing made me think of Kasey, maybe I'll send it on to him for his mad scientist adventures. Of course I cant start collecting today because of the rain. That just means I can focus on Legos I suppose. Speaking of Legos: I give you Hogwarts! Ron and Hermione in the Chamber of Secrets "Why do you live?" " Because I have something worth living for."