The Mario Kart Love Song

This is GREAT!!

Holidays

Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming!

I love Christmas. It is, hands down,my favorite holiday of the whole year. I even like it better than my birthday which is saying something because I prefer to celebrate birthday week instead of just one day. But anyway...

By my count, it is only 40 days until Christmas. I started making lists for the people who are getting presents and I think I have it finally figured out, all except my mom. She's not hard to buy for I just never know what to get her right off the bat. Any ideas for that internet? I'm also seeking birthday present ideas for my mother in law as her birthday is on New Year's Eve. I would tell you what I have decided but just in case there are people on the list who happen to read the blog, I will refrain. =)

In other news, it's finally gotten cold in Big-D. And I LOVE IT! I am such a cold weather girl. I would prefer jeans and sweaters and coats and scarves and gloves and boots much more than I do tank tops, shorts and flip fxlops. I just love the gorgeous crisp fall days and the crunchy leaves. I'm not sure I could handle snow 6 months out of the year which is why we are still in Texas but I do love the colder temperatures. Now I just have to acclimate myself back to keeping the house around 68 degrees! If I can't do that, then maybe I can keep myself warm with this coat I want for Christmas...




Nothing else too exciting to report here at Team Porterfield. We're just working along ready for Thanksgiving (yes, I do realize this holiday still exists) and Christmas. I think we'll both be ready for a break!

History is Made

Stolen from She Likes Purple because she said it better than I ever could have...

"Alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga.

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper — that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. 'E pluribus unum.' Out of many, one.

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill worker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

The audacity of hope!"

—Barack Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention

*************

"I've always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too.

But we both recognize that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation's reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer him my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day. Though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

Tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Senator Obama.

I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here."

—Senator John McCain, concession speech, November 4, 2008

*************

Let us be one, America.

Moving

This is what my world has looked like for the last two weeks...








Hopefully, regular (and consistent) blogging will resume after the move next week.

Let's hope we make it out of this alive. =P

RBOC

Hello blog world!

I've had several blog post swirling in my head for the last week but just haven't had the time (or to be honest, made the time) to sit down and write it all out. I think I'm still getting over my intial fear of putting myself (and Daniel, too) out there for the world to see but I also think it will be fun so here we go. Rather than give you detailed information on everything that has been going on, I'll just give you the highlights:

We found a new place to live! It's in this apartment complex and I really am excited about it. It's only 7 miles from my office so my commute is going from 2 hours to 30 minutes and that's with traffic. WHOOP!! We're downsizing from a 2 bedroom/2 bath/900 sq. feet to a 1 bedroom/1bath/770 sq. feet place. Moving to a smaller place was not really what I was hoping for but it's going to save us about $200 a month in rent which will be $2400 over the course of a year and hopefully all of that money will go to our house, which we're hoping to buy in about 9 month. Keep your fingers crossed that that works out...

Because we've found a new smaller place, we have been cleaning, sorting, etc for the last few weeks. In fact, as I type this, Daniel is sitting on the couch behind me going through one of his 5 million boxes of books trying to decide which ones to keep, which ones to sell at Half Price Books and which ones can maybe make some money by selling on Half.com (mostly textbooks - let's hope they sell quickly since school starts in 3 weeks and they're mostly engineering books). The cleaning out has not always been fun but it's necessary and it will be awesome when we get everything packed up.

Speaking of packing, my mom is coming this weekend and we are going to pack every non-essential item in our house. It will be so nice to have that done and to only have to worry about packing just a few more boxes before the movers come on the 23rd. Seeing as how school starts 2 days before we move, I think it will be in the best interest of all involved to already be as packed as possible.

Before all the cleaning started, we went to Austin for my great-uncle's 70th birthday party and to visit my friend Lauren. It was a SUPER-FUN weekend!! Here is a picture of my favorite people:

Lauren, Carly, Jeff, Ashley, Daniel

We spent most of our time hanging out and chillin'. There was a trip to 6 St. and it was fun but I don't think the internet needs to know all about that now. =)

Wow, this post is turning out to be much longer than I thought. Anyway, that's what Team Porterfield has been up to for the past few weeks. I'll try to check back in this weekend once the packing has begun (and hopefully ended!).

Happy almost Friday!

The Blog

So I decided to start a blog.

I read several (and by that I mean, ALOT) online everyday about various topics so I thought I would add my two cents to the internet world.

There are some sorta big changes coming to the world of Team Porterfield and hopefully our family and friends can keep up with us this way. I just have to convince Daniel that he can be a contributor too. =)

I'm not sure how often I (or Daniel) will post or what we will post about but hopefully, it will be interesting, entertaining or at least informative.