What kind of pants does Mario wear? Denimdenimdenim.

Winter break 2008 has been quite a trip thus far. It's the same every year--I flip the script on constant studying and reporting, and make it a priority to never turn down an opportunity to go out and see people I wouldn't have the time to during the semester.

On Christmas Eve eve, one of my roommates, Megan, was crazy busy at work making pies and delectable desserts for the holiday; many of which she was taking to her boyfriend's family Christmas dinner. I was busy helping her lick the stirring utensils clean, as well as eating whipped cream from the container.

Her French silk and pecan pies are ridiculously delicious and they looked fantastic! She also scooped my Hazelnut Terrine with Raspberry Sauce recipe from my blog archive, although she may not have ended up making it. If she had, however, I'm sure it would have turned out looking a lot better than mine...that's what I get for skipping steps (such as "strain the seeds from the raspberry sauce--I won't post pictures of what the seedy rasp pulp looked like. Yikes).


French silk and pecan: heaven in a crust.






Only my immediate family lives here in the midwest, as the rest of my relatives are on the east coast and in Zambia; so we've always been big on coordinating the holidays with family friends. On Christmas day, my fam collaborated with my mom's friend Suzanne for dinner.

My sister and I were busy taking photos of ourselves when we heard "My Name is Jonas" coming from the kids' bedroom. GUITAR HERO. We wasted no time joining in the festivities, only to be told by my brother and his friends that we had to "wait our turn." Whatever happened to respecting elders!?







Suzanne and her daughter, Ariel:


My brother, Zeke, and Suzanne's boys Tyler and (I forget the little one's name):



Their dog, Fluffy:


Ariel and their rabbit (bunny? Sara? What's the difference?):

Chloe and I being dorks again:




And my beautiful mother:



Clearly I was having trouble holding the camera steady here.



Dinner was amazing, and after that I drove to Allie and Tommy's house for late-night gift exchanges, and more vino, food, and video games.


My second family from left: AJ, myself, Allie, Tommy, Valerie, and Davy:

I seriously can't believe how much Allie's little brothers have grown up. I remember AJ to be this adorable little freshman punk kid, wearing the black skin-tight jeans with a mohawk and always getting into trouble. Now he's this funny, but mature, 17-year-old and is such a sweetheart. Davy's always been a really good kid, but he is also so big and tall now! He and AJ dominate us all in size. ;)



My second beautiful mama and her daughters (and Tommy's hand):



Later that evening, Allie showed me the video Tommy made for his proposal, then showed me the video he recorded to capture the entire moment, from when she sat at the desk to watch the video to when he showed her the ring. I laughed at all the great photos, and cried my eyes out as I witnessed that beautiful moment between the two of them. I don't even remember the last time I cried, so the waterworks were running. They are just the perfect couple and I love the heck out of both of them so much. Allie and Tommy are so made for each other. Jeez.

Ridiculous:

THIS IS CLASSIC!


The ghost of TCon, running at full speed up and down the hall with Buddy:






Yum. A dog after my own heart.


Allie and her mother are insanely sweet--one of the gifts they got me was the super classy Sutton purse from my homegirl Gwen's L.A.M.B. line. It is ridiculously hot and I was so surprised!



On Christmas Eve as I was heading from Chicago to Palatine, I was thinking about how I hadn't yet listened to Hanson's Snowed In record from 1998. I always make it a point to spin that disc at least once per year, and I just hadn't yet! When Val handed me the CD I fell on the floor laughing because it was just so perfect. I mean, I own the record; I just have no idea where it was. I had jams to listen to on the drive home!


Gawd I will love those boys forever and always. You know Sara, Natalie and I will still be going to 3+ shows per tour when we're 65; mark my words. It's already been 11 years and counting..

After the gift exchange and eating a second dinner, AJ gave his mother a ride home and Allie, Tommy, Davy and I went to the basement to play some Super Mario Bros. 3; girls vs. boys.




Can I just say that I have never laughed so hard while playing that game? Tommy was making Luigi dance to the music SPOT on, and his sound effects were hilarious. Also, Allie is a bad ass gamer girl who completed the levels flawlessly, winning us keys and flutes and mushrooms and other wonderful things.

"What kind of pants does Mario wear?" Davy asked us, as Tommy was making Luigi dance. "Denim denim denim." It's a classic joke that everybody's heard, but it was funny at the moment.

He told it again about ten minutes later.

So cute.

We played for a couple hours or so, then went upstairs so the boys could play Madden (EW) and Allie and I could have two-hour girl talk about everythang. I truly think that I am the richest woman in the world because I have such incredible friends, and Miz Brewster is one of them. People like her are so rare...total gems.





Later that night after I got back to my mom's house, I pulled out my laptop and signed onto AIM on a whim (I haven't since May!). Scott was online, and we ended up talking for hours about our writing and the future. He's pretty much a blogging master--he's made thousands in revenue over the past year just from his blogs and websites. He's been on me to join him in writing a column and publishing content for www.ReviewChicago.com for the last year, and I've finally joined the team. After taking a bunch of web journalism classes and blogging for dominiNET, it's something I finally feel confident doing.

This startup website, barely a year old, is totally legit, and Scott's gotten to the point where he's getting all-access passes to Smashing Pumpkins shows and sit-down interviews with Sara Bareilles and Blessid Union of Souls. In addition to that, the ReviewChicago brand has the potential to branch out into so many different services, so I think he's going in the right direction.

He is also going to help me create my own websites--a professional portfolio, marketing my multi-faceted writing services, and a personal blog--so I can stop making MySpace money with these blogs and start controlling things for myself and making ad revenue. He obviously knows what he's doing, so I think this is a great time to embark on this endeavor that I've wanted to do for so long, but never really knew quite how.


"RckStrScott: you have just enough sass, you are young enough, and have just enough adventure to make yourself appealing to basically any market.. a black market, a teen market, a music market, a political market.. youve travelled, youve done a lot in your short life.. so its just a matter of branding yourself properlly. you could easliy be someone like Dooce. easy... then you can even use your blogs to promote your products such as books

RckStrScott: i know blogging. thats for sure. i learned a lot. i just am not as intresting to random people as you would be.. i am just a 30 year old boring guy these days.. but i know what it takes to make a personal blog successful.. i can coach you on your blog, help build the traffic and show you the ways you can make income off it.. in return you contribue to reviewchicago and its win win for everyone"

I'm in.

Dooce is Heather B. Armstrong, a blogger who makes over $300K a year simply from her websites. Essentially, she blogs about her life from the comfort of her home, she has a huge following, and now she and her husband clearly don't have to work. Once an aspiring model and a successful web designer in LA, she was fired from her job because she blogged about work (I better watch out...).

Um, yeah, I can do that.

So, I have started compiling my ridiculous body of writing, weeding through the crap and gathering the substantial things I've created to flesh out my new websites. I will be making the move from MySpace to a real website soon, and I am so excited for the prospects, especially since I'll be graduating soon. I'm done making other people money--entrepreneurship is the way to go in this day and age. Also, I'll be whoring out everything I post on ReviewChicago and my new sites here so people won't miss a thing and can directly link to the actual content.





It was a beautiful Christmas...and now the weekend's only begun!