Good morning. I hope this New Year’s Eve finds you well. It finds me…snowy. Which is fine, because it’s a work-free day for me, and there’s something about waking up on a day off and looking out a window as humongous snowflakes fall gently from the sky while you’re warm in bed that makes a person feel all sorts of fuzztastic inside.

Because it’s New Year’s Eve, and I live in Philly, and everybody knows Jersey Shore is a complete and utter trainwreck that you either love, love to hate, or hate and still have to watch anyway because you can’t help yourself, I thought I’d share this from the always highlarious 2birds1blog.  It’s the Ultimate Jersey Shore Drinking Game, and relevant today because 80% or more of you reading will be partaking in getting effed up this evening, or at the very least in the presence of those who will be.  Enjoy, but be safe also and don’t be like Snookie/Snickers/Moron-Who-Is-A-Poor-Excuse-For-A-Female and be all gross and trashed like homegirl was on the first night in the Joysie Shaw Haaaas.  Fistpump!

The Ultimate Jersey Shore Drinking Game

Rules:
Drink When:
- Someone says “juicehead”
- Pauly is drying his hair
- Snookers alienates herself from the housemates
- You can see more than 3/4’s of J-Woww’s boobs
- Vinny openly mocks someone else in the house
- A Guido says “honestly bro” or “pound it out”
- Angelina cockblocks someone
- For every person in the hot tub
- Someone uses the word “Guidette”
- Angelina acts like simple retail tasks are really, really hard
- Someone talks about hair gel or tanning
- A muscular dude drinks a shockingly feminine drink
- Mike talks about The Situation
- There’s something blatantly sexist
- Someone says either “Jersey” or “Shore”
- Sammi “Sweetheart” refers to herself as Sammi “Sweetheart”
- Anytime someone feels betrayed
- There’s a guy with his shirt off
- There’s a can of light beer in view
- The Situation sells a t-shirt or pair of hot pants
- Someone responds to someone else’s comment with the exact same or coequal comment, eg:
J-Woww: “You don’t understand how bad I want you.”
Pauly: “You don’t understand how bad I want you.”

One of the best videos I’ve seen in awhile. It’s been all over the internet, but I had to share it anyway. I can’t handle the outrageousness is this kid right now.

Having something of a heart attack as my team score points.  Look at those dark circles.  Yech.

So hey, guess what?  I won 1st place in my Fantasy Football league!!  Craziness!  I’m so outrageously happy right now, I can barely see straight.  Along with pride, I win $450.  I never win things!!!

I’ve said it all before, but I really had nothing to do with NFL before joining this league.  But I read every piece of information about football I could get my hands on and started watching games, and look at me now.  A champion.  I can wear that Fantasy Football Legend (courtesy of my brother-in-law) with absolute pride.

Look at how close the score was thought.  Let me tell you, if I had lost the championship, Jim Caldwell and I would be in a BIG fight right now.  In case you haven’t heard, that buttface of a coach took out the Indianapolis Colts’ starters (INCLUDING Dallas Clark, MY tight end) when they only had a 5-point lead over the Jets on Sunday.  Thus, the 14-0 Colts became the 14-1 Colts.  Stupid stupid.  Dallas Clark is like the best tight end in the NFL right now, and he always scored megapoints for me, but not this week.

PS, they totally could have had the perfect record.  And I know the point was to make sure the starters didn’t get hurt before the playoffs blah blah.  But really?  Really?!?!  So Jim Caldwell, YOU’RE LUCKY I won.  Call it a Christmas blessing for yourself or whatever.  And get a hobby.

For now, I’m still really happy that eating, sleeping, and breathing Fantasy Football for the past 4+ months has paid off.  I’ll stop talking now, but before I do, it’s important to note that in our league of 12 team managers, three of them were girls.  All three of us girls retain the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd positions in the league championship.  Just sayin.’  Girls can be Fantasy Football Legends.  Trust.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while.  Like BEFORE Christmas.  But better late than never, right?

Something else I’ve pilfered from Kaleena Porter | EVERYDAY (I must stop, but I can’t): Merry Newsinator from Plaid Creative.  With it, you can customize your own holiday newsletter wrapping up this last year of your life and share it with your homies.

I had lots of fun with my own, but got a little particular with the “play” option after you input your info.  I doubt it will take you as long as it took me to put together.  Try to disregard the clearly cut/copied/pasted effect on it, as I had some serious issues in regards to screenshots.  It did come out pretty cute though.

If you make one, link it up here because I’d love to see it.  Better yet, link it up to EVERYDAY because I think there might be a sort of contest in the works over there, and as you know the prizes are pretty damn great!

Some photos of the tree at my sister’s house.  My parents have a fake tree (bleh) so it was fun to have Christmas with a real one this year, and the ornaments are super neat too.

The photos might look strange, because I played around with different settings on my camera.  I’m still trying to improve my picture-taking skills (or lack thereof) so I figure the best way to do it is to take about a million of them.

Hope everyone has enjoyed/is enjoying their holiday.  Wanted to share this fun picture of my family from Christmas Eve.

We switched things up this year and spent the holiday in Fall River, MA (where my sister and her husband live, and where I still am right now).  My sister is a metal smith and jeweler, and my brother-in-law does ceramics.  They thought it would be fun to bring us to their shared studio for some Christmas Eve arts and crafts, and it was!  More to come later…

It has been quite a while, I know.  Lots going on, other than your standard holiday happenings that often force you to leave some of your favorites on the back burner.  But here’s the greatest news:  I got a MacBook Pro!  It was the single gift I got this year from my parents, and sort of a combo Christmas and birthday (which is coming up in January) gift.  Big deal, because for the past 6 years or so, I’ve been plagued by computer woes like you wouldn’t believe.  It’s crazy to me that I have one that’s fast, and actually works!  So, I’m hoping that once life starts to calm down a bit I’ll be back to my good ol’ daily blogging self.

Anyone else experiencing this Northeastern blizzard craziness?  I can’t believe how much snow is falling at this very moment.

It’s actually really beautiful around here and Christmasy-feeling, with all the snow.  I plan on taking a bunch of pictures this evening if I can, and sharing them with you tomorrow.

So for now, enjoy Matt Pond Pa’s “Snow Day” on Heavy Rotation.  It’s a bit of an oldie (circa 2005), but always a goodie, especially on a day like today.  If you’re struggling with this snow now, hopefully this can make you feel just a tad better.  Be safe, and have fun!

The “Boomerang Generation” phenomena is apparently not limited to the United States.  Here’s what they’re dealing with on the subject over in the United Kingdom:

One in five of ‘boomerang generation’ graduates now living at home

John Bingham, Telegraph.co.uk

By contrast, only one in eight university graduates had failed to fly the nest by the same age 20 years ago, research from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows.

It also found that grown-up sons are twice as likely as their sisters to still be living with their parents in their late 20s.

With nearly a quarter of men approaching 30 still living at home, the findings are bound to lead to claims of a “generation of mummy’s boys”.

Rising property prices, mounting student debts and the effects of recession on the job market have forced a wave of young people to move back into the family home at an age when they would normally be moving out.

Young professionals in their late 20s or early 30s have been nicknamed the “boomerang generation” because of the trend toward returning to the family home having initially left to study.

Recent research has suggested that young people in Britain are twice as likely to chose to live with their parents in their late 20s than their counterparts elsewhere in Europe.

But commentators warned that the phenomenon may have more to do with young people facing “dire” prospects than simply a desire to save money.

While the proportion of those of university or college age moving out from the family home has continued to rise in the last 20 years, among those in their mid and late 20s the trend has been reversed.

Overall 1.7 million people aged from 22 to 29 now share a roof with their parents, including more than 760,000 in their late 20s, the ONS figures suggest.

In 1988 22.7 per cent of men aged 25 to 29 were still living with their parents but last year the proportion was 24.5 per cent, according to the ONS.

Among women the same age the proportion rose from 11.6 per cent to 12.8 per cent.

But among graduates the rise was more marked, increasing almost a third to 22.3 per cent among men and from 9.3 per cent of women to 14.8 per cent.

Among possible reasons cited to explain the trend are mounting student debts, the effects of the recession and the long housing boom which saw average property prices rise from three to five times a typical income over two decades.

“It is unclear the extent to which remaining in – or returning to – the parental home is an outcome of choice rather than a constraint for these emerging adults,” the report comments.

“The results suggest that the transition to residential independence is becoming increasingly protracted and reversible for all groups.”

Anastasia de Waal, director of family and education at Civitas, the think tank, warned that the onset of recession was likely to force thousands more young people to postpone moving into their own home.

“In the past we had a fair number of graduates who would make a positive decision to try to save some money because they had a lot of student debt and perhaps living at home for a while,” she said.

“But increasingly the graduates who are moving home are doing so because they can’t find work, they are in debt but also not earning.

“We are seeing massive increases in the numbers of people going to university in the first instance but also a large increase in graduate unemployment.

“Graduates have also been tending toward taking up non-graduate work.

“In an awful lot of cases graduates would prefer to do something below their skill set rather than move back home, but this suggests that they are not even able to find that kid of work.”