The Christmas Song

Just thought I'd share a favorite Christmas song with you...

The Christmas Song

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,

Jack Frost nipping on your nose,

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,

And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe,

Help to make the season bright.

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,

Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know that Santa's on his way;

He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.

And every mother's child is going to spy,

To see if reindeer really know how to fly.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase,

To kids from one to ninety-two,

Although its been said many times, many ways,

Merry Christmas to you.

Go here to hear it!

Christmas Prep Work!

It's hard to believe how much work goes into preparing for Christmas! I thought this would give me a chance to show you all the baking, wrapping, and decorating that has been going on at my house!

Christmas Candy and wrapped presents!

Phil's grandma's Christmas tree shown with all kinds of presents!

My family Christmas tree in our dining room

White and Red Poinsettias

Our Christmas Mantle

The decorated table next to our front door

The Christmas tree in our kitchen, along with some stairwell stockings!

Mine and Phil's little Christmas tree down at my place

Some ornaments on the tree includes the ice cream cone that I stole from my family tree this year!

The newest additions to the little tree are these 2 Incredible Hulk ornaments Phil found!

The old Santa of my grandparents that plays music, walks around, and shakes his bell!

My huge candy cane and stocking!

You can see last year's decorating along with some more of my favorite ornaments in last year's Christmas post!

My Blog's 1st Birthday!

Today marks 1 year of my blog's exsistence! I really can't believe that it has gone by so fast and so many things have happened in this year.

• My very first post.
• I've shared with you some of my quirks.
• I passed my Dental Hygiene National Boards and [finally] passed my DH Regional Boards.
• I got a couple of bloggy awards!
• I graduated from Dental Hygiene School.
• I've been planning my wedding.
• Phil and I celebrated our 5th Anniversary of being together.
• I've started my Pictures, Poetry, and Quotes (PPQ) Posts, my "The Day..." Posts, and my Pic-A-Day Challenge Posts!
• And so much more!

I want to thank all my faithful followers who have lifted my spirits with kind words and encouragement this past year, and also to those silent followers I know I have that mean so much to me! You all make me smile so often!

The Day I Loved Hamburgers

In sixth grade, I came home from school one day and told my parents "I don't want to eat beef.". And ever since that day, I have never really missed eating it and haven't eaten it again until recently when I felt like I needed to.

Before that day back in 6th grade, my favorite place to have a hamburger was Dwight's Drive-In on 8th Street in Huntington, WV. It was a drive-in and restaurant, so you could go inside to eat or you could stay in your car to order and someone would bring your meal out to you. My mom and I would pull in the drive-in to order and I would get just a single hamburger (no cheese) and it would come with mayo and shredded lettuce. It was the best hamburger ever! I would gladly eat that beef right now if it was possible!

Dwight's opened in 1963. It was a great place which relied heavily upon the nearby college crowd for late night/early morning feedings. Unfortunately, Dwight's closed in 1995 when I was in seventh grade. This little piece of history was demolished and a bank was built in it's place.

Week #13

Welcome to Week 13 of my Pic-A-Day challenge! You can see weeks before this one here.

Day 85: This Sunday marked the 40 year anniversary of the tragic Marshall plane crash (11/14/70). Ironically enough, because I wasn't even thinking about it, I bought this kelly green Marshall shirt (one I have been looking for for a long time!) at the Marshall's department store! We will always remember... We Are... Marshall!

Day 86: I continued to clean out my childhood closet this day and found some of my old New Kids On The Block items! I loved Donny, so I have a couple of big buttons of him along with a framed poster and a hat. I seriously want to see NKOTB in concert with Backstreet Boys! My two favorite boy bands together at last!

Day 87: Since I've been doing a lot of planning for my own wedding, mom decided to bring out her veil (which I may use for my own) and I took a picture of my parents china and crystal they received for their wedding.

Day 88: The Japanese maple out front of my house looked very brilliant today, I guess since it had rained pretty hard the previous day.

Day 89: I went to the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie with my friends Lee & Heather! But first we went to this restaurant right next to the movie theatre which was serving a feast in honor of the movie. I got this huge turkey leg which I couldn't even eat half of, and unfortunately they ran out of butterbeer by the time we were seated.

Day 90: Phil and I continued our Christmas shopping this evening. We got these Singamajigs for his nephews and my little cousin. I actually think he and I will play with them more though!

Day 91: Phil and I went ahead and made some more Oreo Truffles for Thanksgiving! We made some that were pumpkin with butterscotch, pumpkin with chocolate, and regular chocolate with chocolate! We tasted a few while we were at it!

Have a great Thanksgiving week everyone!!!

Week #12

Welcome to Week 12 of my Pic-A-Day challenge! This week I got better with the help of the antibiotics I'm taking so there is a little more variety in the pictures I took this week! Enjoy!

Day 78: Still feeling sick when I wake up in the morning since that is when my nose is crusty and my throat is dry. In the afternoons I feel better and on this Sunday Phil and I got some Christmas shopping done! This evening I started losing my voice though.

Day 79: My voice was partially gone today, but I felt better. So it made for a good day for mom and I to clean out my old closet from when I was little and I sort through clothes I wanted to keep and ones I wanted to give away. In this closet I found my Lite Brite and got a little too into playing with it again. This is my creation I present to you!

Day 80: I found a new gum I love! Extra's Dessert Delights is amazing! Although it does not have Xylitol in it, it is still sugar-free! The Key Lime Pie flavor is definately my favorite with the Mint Chocolate Chip coming in as a close second! I thought I would like the Strawberry Shortcake flavor the best, but it tastes a little weird to me so it is in last.

Day 81: Cut my nails and painted them black today. This is kinda a strange shot of my hand.

Day 82: Mom and I went shopping today and I wore my new ankle boots for the first time! They were really comfortable, but I would like to where them with something besides jeans where you could see them a little better!

Day 83: Went to see Phil this Friday and got some little tin candy cups to put the Oreo Truffles we are going to make for Thanksgiving (and Christmas)! Mmmmm... I cannot wait!

Day 84: Got a new Brides magazine to read, along with the next book in my Sweet Magnolia series by Sherryl Woods. I got the book at the flea market for only $3!

Hope everyone had a great week! And I wanted to give a birthday shout-out to one of my BFFs, Jeffs! I don't think he's ever read this blog, but Happy Birthday to him anyway!

The Day I Just Said No

My mom found some old pictures the other day and I just had to share this one with you guys. It looks like I am the D.A.R.E. poster child! See all those kids in the background? They do drugs, but I don't with my smug-looking face... hahahahaha

This photo was courtesy of 1994.

The Day We Made An Alligator

One of my fondest memories was when my family would go to the beach when I was little and we'd make a sand alligator! I think we did this same thing multiple years in a row! I love this picture because it captures that memory PLUS it shows off all the lovely NEON of the early nineties!

I wish I could show you the other pic I have of my mom's bathing suit, but I know she'd kill me even though she doesn't know about this blog. It was a beautiful black one piece with neon green polkadots!

Have an awesome day!

The Day I Got A Note

Okay, I'm sure everyone here most likely sent notes and received notes when they were younger, it's something really nostalgic for me and I have a bunch in a shoebox somewhere that I kept. They were mostly from middle school which was the height of note passing for me and were usually folded into houses and triangle footballs.

Anyway, I was in 8th grade the day I got this particular note and was walking to the band room. One of my friends gave me this note and said they want me to read it by myself. So I walked down the hall a little ways and unfolded the note shaped like an envelope. On the outside it said: "Mariah Private". The note began with a "Dear Mariah" then went to talking how we'd been friends now for a while and how he'd really given this some thought. It said that in the beginning he liked me but then other people swooped in there and started dating me first. Then last night he had a dream where we were dating and it brought it all back. It ended with, and I quote: "So now I'll pop the question: Mariah, will you date me? Cause honey you must be tired you been running through my mind all day long." And it was signed with his name which will not be disclosed since many people reading this blog may know who he is! I randomly think of this note and it always makes me laugh! It's like a guy in a bar throwing out pickup lines, but so innocent since we were so young!

Isn't that note so middle school?
Did you ever pass notes?
Were you ever asked out in a note?

The Day I Turned My Lucky Number

Back in the day I used to say that my favorite number was how old I was, but after I turned 9 it just stuck. This is what I did on my birthday 19 years ago in good ole 1991...

Well, I don't know what I'm doing in the picture above but I do know what that balloon "animal" that is in my hand looks like! Eek!

We hit on a piñata that looks like a flying fish and everyone is pretty excited about it! Let me point out a couple more things to be excited about:

And here we are sitting on my mom's old car!

Yay #9! What's your favorite number?

I ♥ Fairies!

Last week I discovered another blog on my quest to find the perfect new background! You must go see Karen at *The Graphics Fairy*! She offers tons of free vintage graphics that are to die for! She also has free backgrounds, as you can tell by new one! I picked my background all around what I was going to do with my new header that I made using one of her graphics. Do you think my "Mariah Smile" header turned out okay?

Here are 4 of my favorite graphics I found:

Aren't they lovely? I spent FOREVER on her site looking through so many! And if you can't find something, Karen has a Request Day every Thursday where you can comment on that day's post and she will try to find an image for you! Make sure you try out her search option first! I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did!

My Story (of the last couple years) Condensed - Part 2

Going to school again after being out for 2 ½ years was scary. That first year was all about remembering how to study, going through the anxiety of getting good grades (cause I didn’t know what to do if I didn’t do good at this!), making friends with people who already knew each other, and feeling OLD compared to the other girls in my class. Fortunately I was living with my newlywed friends to keep me sane! The summer after this year, I cleaned teeth on my first patients. This confirmed that I actually enjoyed what I was doing although it is stressful being graded on it.

Junior year was hard. We had a lot of classes with a lot of finals and a lot of activities to do in between. I became closer to some of the friends I had made in my class, found out a couple were a little closer to my age (they still call me grandma though!), and realized it was hard to have class with the same 21 girls everyday. I got engaged in February to Phil, who I’ve been dating now for just over 4 years. During the summer we had our rural rotation where we worked with a dentist in the state for 6 weeks. This reconfirmed that I wanted to be a dental hygienist.

So that leads me to the present. Boards in less than 4 days! I packed up today, cleaned, and tomorrow I am driving home and hopefully I will not unpack my computer until my boards are over because everything online is too tempting! I am spending the night in Charleston on Sunday with Rachel who is taking the boards there with me. I am not studying at all Sunday and going try not to get stressed out!

Okay, better go! Have a great weekend everyone!