Halloween: My Fourth Favorite Holiday

I love fall.  And by love, I mean it is my all-time favorite season.  There is just something about cold, crisp mornings and night-time coming at 5:00 that I love!  Not to mention Halloween, Thanksgiving, and football! 

Oh, football.  You were so much more fun when State was 7-0.  This past Saturday, Justin and I had tickets to the Alabama-Mississippi State game and decided at the last minute to sell them and tailgate on the quad at Alabama all day.  During our 13 hours outside (in the bitter cold), we met lots of interesting Alabama fans.  The nicest ones shared their Direct TV with us so we could watch the games, and gave us blankets to hang outside our tents to block the chilly wind. They were awesome. The meanest ones called us every expletive in the book and threw our cowbells on the ground. They were not so awesome. Such is college football.  Anyway, we still had fun tailgating and eating yummy deer meat, Dortitos, and my favorite, Nutter Butter ghosts!

Mom has been making these cookies since I was little- Nutter Butters dipped in white chocolate (with chocolate chip eyes I added!).  Considering I have very limited culinary abilities, this was my contribution to the tailgate, and they were a hit!  Delish.
Football season so far has been a lot of fun!  The day after I met Justin three years ago, we met back up at  a Mississippi State home game where I was selling concessions for my college social club.  Since then, we have always really enjoyed going to games together, and I am learning a lot and really getting into it!  We also have some aweosme friends around us who love State football too and who are always up to go along with us to games.

Excuse the one in the Alabama hoodie.  We still love him.

This Saturday, we are staying in T-town to watch the Mississippi State-Texas A&M game at Buffalo Wild Wings.  Yummm.

Now on to my next topic- my fourth favorite holiday!  At first, I couldn't figure out if Easter or Halloween would take the third spot in my ranking of favorite holidays, but unforunately, Easter won out and Halloween came in fourth.  I think this decision was heavily influenced by my love of new Easter dresses.  Nonetheless, I am a huge holiday enthusiast!  I love EVERY holiday, and decorate way too much for each one (but is there really such a thing as too much decoration?)  Sometimes I just don't understand why more people don't get excited about holidays.  I had lunch with one of our Art Department employees yesterday, and he told the group an awesome piece of life advice- "The more passions you have in life, the more alive you are."  I wholeheartedly agree, and holidays are one of my passions.  Every year, I have a list of Halloween costumes that I want to be, and the hardest decision is always in choosing who to be.  This year the list consisted of Rainbow Brite, Annie Oakley, the tooth fairy, the Black Swan, the Morton Salt girl, and Strawberry Shortcake.  I had originally decided on Rainbow Brite, but because I couldn't find a rainbow belt, the blue sparkly tutu did NOT work out, and I am broke, I pulled an outfit together from my closet this morning.  Since I have a maxi dress, long necklaces, and an abundance of flower headbands, I decided to be a flower child for work!  Not my most creative costume, but it did the job.

Also, I love face paint.

This year, I have compiled a list to help us all understand the importance of having just litte bit of Halloween spirit, and to embrace the childlike joy that comes with it.  I like to call them "Brittany's Rules of Halloween".

Brittany's Rules of Halloween!

Rule #1: Commit to the costume!

Do not halfway do your costume.  If you decide to be Katy Perry, I better see you with a blue wig on.  If you are a black cat, wear a tail!  I do not care if it is hard for you to sit down.  It's Halloween, and we make sacrifices for Halloween!  I wore Jesus sandals in 45 degree weather this morning.  Did I complain?  Yes.  Did I call Justin to bring me some close-toed shoes to work?  Absoutely not!  It's Halloween so I sucked it up!  And I ran fast to get inside buildings.

Rule #2: Do not be a Halloween hater!

Just because someone has more Halloween spirit than you does not give you license to make fun of people in costume. We must always remember that there are some people (adults, mind you) who choose to wear fairy wings on non-Halloween days just for the fun of it, not that I'm judging. On Halloween, you have the license to dress as crazy as you want, ALL DAY LONG (we'll cover this in rule #5).  So, I see you, 20 year old college student who is staring crazily at me.  You walk around campus every day in Nike shorts, even in 40 degree weather.  I do not make fun of you, so give me this one day to not look like the professional young lady I am, okay?

Rule #3: Candy for breakfast!

This rule is pretty self-explanatory.  Candy is acceptable at all times today!  I personally had Sweet Tarts, Laffy Taffy, and a Blow Pop all before 9 A.M.  I am on board for any holiday that makes eating candy for breakfast socially acceptable.  And as everyone knows, diets do not count on October 31st!  So go ahead- eat enough mini Snickers to equate to five regular-sized ones!  It's Halloween!

Rule #4: Pre-game it!

Who says we should only celebrate Halloween on October 31st?  ABC Family makes it easy to get into the Halloween spirit before Halloween!  This year, I've watched Hocus Pocus twice, Beetlejuice (favorite!), and half of the Scooby Doo movie before Justin made me turn the channel (he is obviously NOT a holiday enthusiast).  Browse Pinterest for sweet treats to bake!  Make all the funfetti cupcakes you and your neighbors will eat!  Decorate your house in early October, even.  This year, we have two scarecrows, pumpkins, black cats, and glitter leaves lining our porch.  The most important thing to remember is that you don't care what anyone else thinks.  If they think you're crazy, just know that you have more holiday spirit than they do, and you are a happier and more cool person than they could ever wish to be.  Just give a funfetti cupcake to these Halloween haters.

Rule #5: Halloween lasts 24 hours!

So don't just celebrate at night!  I listened to the Halloween Party Pandora station this morning when I got up, and Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits on my way to work (because he's kind of a creepy dude).  Halloween candy has been eaten, and I've already been to a costume contest!  Tonight, I'll give little kids candy (Lord, please let there be trick-or-treaters), dress my dogs up in their costumes, and pester Justin until he decides to throw a costume together.  And maybe we'll watch another Halloween movie?  The possibilities are endless!

Even if you don't celebrate Halloween, today is a fun day to dress up, eat candy, and act a little silly while you're on your sugar high.  Embrace it!  And just remember- the second-best holiday (Turkey Day) and the BEST HOLIDAY IN THE HISTORY OF EVER (Christmas, duh!) are coming up!  So that's reason enough to celebrate, right?

Also be checking Facebook for pictures of my super cute pups.  Hopefully they'll stay in costume for at least five mintues so Mom can get a good picture.

Embracing my Inner Mee-Maw

I know I haven't updated this blog in a very long time.  This is mostly due to the fact that I don't have anything too entirely exciting to post about.  And honestly, that is just fine with me.  I have come to some important life realizations these past few months, so I'm going to take this post to share a little about my self-discovery.

In August, my baby sister went to college, at my alma mater in fact!  Since she is just an hour away now, I got to help her move in, see her during recruitment, and go to her bid day when she joined her social club.

So of course, now I think that since Kate is only sixty miles away, she can come over whenever she wants, do laundry, have a home-cooked meal (by Justin, of course), and have her own room to sleep in.  I obviously have forgotten what it is like being a college freshman, because the only time she has had a chance to come see me was this past weekend, during her fall break.  On Saturday, I got up at 7:30, turned on a marathon of America's Next Top Model (my guilty pleasure), and hardcore house-cleaned.  Dishes were done, laundry was washed, dried, and folded, rooms were cleaned, and the puppies' toys were put up.  I even went to Hobby Lobby to get two small scarecrows (on clearance!) to finish my autumn centerpiece, and grocery shopped at Publix and picked up snacks for Kate and Sam, who was also coming to visit.  I got home, unloaded groceries, fixed a sandwich, and sat on the couch, and took a look around at my clean house, happy puppies, and Pinterest centerpiece.  I literally have never felt so content and at peace- alone on my couch and knowing that Kate was about to visit and that Justin would come home soon from his LSAT. 

I feel like if someone would have told me five years ago that I would be happiest washing dishes, grocery shopping, and hanging out at my house with my family, that I would have thought they were crazy.  I spent the majority of my college years NEVER slowing down.  I was involved in as many extra-curriculars as time would allow and was always thinking about different things I could do to add to my resume.  Once I got to the W, I was surrounded by people constantly, from 7:00 at breakfast with my sisters, til late at night when we would all pile up in the dorm and get homework done or watch movies.  On the weekends, I was going back and forth to Starkville or some other town.  After graduation as a recruiter, I was all over the state, usually leaving town on Sunday night and coming back on Friday afternoon.  I had gotten so used to being busy, that I literally did not know what to do by myself anymore. 

Maybe this happens to everyone at some point in their 20s, but I am learning to embrace my inner homebody, and becoming more comfortable with being alone.  I think about the things that made me happy at 20, which are not at all the things that I look forward to at 24.  My single most favorite thing to do is to come home after work, curl up with my pups, and watch tv with Justin.  That's it.  That is literally my favorite thing to do.  I value spending time with the people I love more than I ever have.  I also have never realized how much I miss my mom and wish she were closer. 

At 24, instead of online shopping at Target, I am looking at real estate sites to see what kind of houses Justin and I can afford.  I am staying in to watch Breaking Bad instead of going out every weekend.  I am attending and throwing bridal and baby showers and loving every minute of it. 

Its crazy how my priorities have changed in just four years.  I used to get panicked whenever I thought of committing myself to one person for the rest of my life.  How would I choose the right one?  I was a child of divorce, and I could not wrap my head around having a man who would be faithful to me and want to be with me until the end of my life.  I had never known a marriage like that.  Now, I have found the one I want to marry, and have never been so sure of the vows that we are about to take with one another.  To know that I have found him gives me so much peace.  I also never thought I wanted children.  I had no desire to raise kids in a world like this.  Now, I can't imagine not having or adopting children, and showing them a love in a world where there sometimes feels like there is none. 

To the world, I may be boring, but to me, I have never been more comfortable in my own skin.  I'm not 20 anymore, and that is MORE than fine by me.  I like being a mee-maw, and I won't apologize for it. 

And to end this post, a few things that have made me a happy girl lately: