25 days of Christmas movies

Well, I opened the window a few minutes ago to let a cool breeze in because, well, I'd left the floor heat on a little long and it had gotten uncomfortably warm in the apartment. When I opened the window, what do you think I found?



SNOW.

Stupid, stupid, cold, wet, gross, SNOW.

Granted, it didn't stick to the sidewalks or the roads, just the air conditioner outside my window. Still. SNOW. Do you have any idea how much I dislike snow? It is horrible. Cold, wet, slippery, causes all sorts of problems for walking and driving. The only good thing about snow is that it is really pretty... when you can be inside with a hot cup of chocolate to watch it.

Or... if the snow is in a really cheesy Christmas movie.

One of my favorite things about Christmas are the movies. That’s right. I love that after Thanksgiving, I can turn on the television and will probably be able to find a cheesy movie about Christmas joy or family togetherness. They are horrifically cheesy and I can name several roommates who hated me for it, but I still love them (both the roommates and the movies).

Well, the t.v. option is out (I have no t.v. and even if I did I don’t think I get Lifetime Family movies out here), but there is always the internet. And the internet has many places I can go to watch some of my favorite holiday movies. So, in honor of the holidays (and the hateful snow sitting outside my window), I have decided to make my own 25 days of Christmas movies list in preparation for the month of December which is quickly approaching.

These are in no particular order, mind you. That would probably take a little more thought and effort than I care to expend. :)

1. Elf
“We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.”



2. A Christmas Story
“You’ll shoot your eye out!”
We have this on every tv in the house (Heaven help us) for the 24 hour marathon on Christmas Eve. Why? Because IT’S AWESOME.

3. Christmas with the Kranks
“You're skipping Christmas! Isn't that against the law?”

4. The Santa Claus
“Can we take a direct flight back to reality, or do we have to change planes in Denver?”
The first two… the third is kind of really dumb… cuz, you know, the first two weren’t… whatever. Two words for you: TIM. ALLEN.

5. Little Women
“Christopher Columbus! “
One of the few movies that I really like Katherine Hepburn in. She’s an amazing Joe (who is my literary hero). Not exactly a Christmas movie but I always watch it around Christmas.

6. Home Alone
*smacks face* “AAAAAAAHHH!!”

7. Jingle All the Way
“We get one day a year to prove we're not screw-ups and what do we do? We screw it up.”

8. A Muppet Christmas Carol
“Mother always taught me: "Never eat singing food."”

9. Die Hard
“Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.”
It totally counts as a Christmas movie.

10. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
“And he even stole the last can of Who-hash!”
The animated and live action are both really good. Though, something must be said for Boris Karlaf narrating the animated version. Love! Also, Glee did a version of the song with Jane Lynch singing. Too cute.


11. Ernest Saves Christmas
“Call it... Uh, a fifth sense. Call it a flash of intermission, but I just got this feeling deep down in the heart of my bottom.”

12. Miracle on 34th Street
“I believe... I believe... It's silly, but I believe.”
The old one and the new one are both good.

13. Nightmare Before Christmas
“Attacked by Christmas toys? That's strange, that's the second toy complaint we've had."

14. Prancer
“What am I, an elf?”

15. The Holiday
“You're supposed to be the leading lady in your own life, for God's sake!”

16. Polar Express
“To the North Pole, of course! This is the Polar Express!”

17. It’s a Wonderful Life
“Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?”

18. A Charlie Brown Christmas
“I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.”

19. Mr. Krueger’s Christmas
“’I love you.’ That's what Christmas is all about... Clarissa said it to Mr. Krueger; Mr. Krueger said it to Jesus; and Jesus in so many ways said it to all of us.”
It’s silly… but Jimmy Stewart is in it so I still kind of love it. :) Except for the dream sequence where he is riding in a sleigh with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir... that part is just strange.

20. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
“Didn't I ever tell you about Bumbles? Bumbles bounce.”

21. Mickey’s Christmas Carol
“Bah humbug!”

22. Santa Clause is Coming to Town
“I hate toys! And toys hate me! Either they are going or I am going and I definitely am not going!”

23. White Christmas
“In some ways, you're far superior to my cocker spaniel.”
I only put this one because Mom is in love with the red velvet dresses. That, and Mindy made me watch it in college. I haven’t seen it since.



24. Christmas Vacation
“Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?”

25. The Singing Christmas Tree
This isn’t actually a movie. It’s a local choir performance done around the holidays in Portland. We would go see it all the time until it was just the same thing every year, but still fun. :)

Maybe thinking of all the awesome Christmas movies will keep me from crying over the snow.

Oh. And a quick update on the voice thing: it sucks. Not talking is really, really hard. Especially when you go to a singles dinner at church. :/ And what do people ask when you first motion that you can't talk? Ask you "What happened?" What do they expect? At least I brought along a wipe off board to talk with. ;)

Vow of Silence

Today was another exciting adventure in South Korea. I went to the hospital!

Not as serious as it sounds, I promise.

I mentioned before on here that I have been having a sore throat and losing my voice. Well, after two weeks of it just getting WORSE (ugh), I finally asked my boss to try to find me a sub for Friday and made an appointment at an international clinic for Saturday (today).

I decided not to get lost trying to find the hospital from the subway, so I grabbed me a taxi. It took a little bit longer than I had anticipated... almost an hour in the cab! But it was only 15,000 won for the ride (that's less than $15) so it wasn't too bad. I was almost late for my appointment, though. I was kind of worried that I would miss my appointment and have to figure something else out. But I was good.

Once I got there, it was pretty smooth sailing. I found the International Clinic on the 2nd floor and checked in. I brought way more documentation than I needed, but I was PREPARED. I also found out that some of the Korean on my Alien Registration card is my address. Who knew?

Well, the nurse lady at the clinic was very nice and spoke very good English. She took my information and then took me over to the ears, nose and throat specialist. He spoke a little English... mostly words that deal with his profession. So I told him (and I think he could tell from my speaking voice... which is terrible right now) that I hurt my voice. Painful and swollen. He asked "foreign body in esophagus?" No. So that rules out injury by stupid American potato chips.

Then we move up and over to another chair where I can immediately tell this was going to involve something being put down my throat. And sure enough he shows me how to hold my head and open my mouth so he can put a camera down my throat. It was gross but I didn't throw up (came close, though... ugh). It hurt. Ouchies. :(

Then he and the nurse lady from the international clinic (English speaking lady!) explained a little about what was wrong, showing me on my own special home video of my vocal chords. Nice. Even I could tell that one side was more swollen than the other. They explained that I was getting like a callous on one of them. At least, that's what it sounded like. They said a hard spot was developing on one side, causing irritation and the swelling after I was talking for a while. They sent me home with meds and instructions to rest my voice.

Now, "rest your voice" can mean a lot of things. But after going back and forth with them they said no talking unless absolutely necessary. For a teacher, absolutely necessary is a little different than normal people and I asked if it would be okay to teach. The nurse explained "absolutely necessary" as "if there is a FIRE." She also said too much talking could hurt it forever. Ah. Okay. Permanent damage is at risk here. So no talking at all.

Getting the meds was also fun. They gave them to me, not in bottles, but in individual rip off packets!! It's awesome. I have a packet of pills for morning, noon, and evening stuck on the side of my fridge. Morning and evening has me taking 4 pills, but I only have three for noontime. Good times.



That's a lot of pills for a sore throat.

I told work (that was fun...) and it's going to be hard for everyone but they said they will try to get me subs for this week. The reason it's so hard is that it's the FIRST WEEK of a new term! I'll miss out setting up my class for the whole term! I'm so sad that I won't be the one to greet them and welcome them to my class.

If they CAN'T get subs, I'm supposed to teach mute. :/ I hope they find subs.

I'm already finding that not talking is REALLY HARD. And boring. This week will be super boring. BLAARRGGHH!! I have no one to hang with since everyone will be WORKING, I can't talk, and I don't want to just go shopping every day. I'll have to find some things that I can do so I don't go CRAZY with nothing to do this week.

Things that don't involve talking.

I'm going to go crazy...

On the GOOD side, my visit to the hospital is by no means going to break the bank. I have to make a separate insurance claim on my own, but even putting the cash up front isn't too bad.

International clinic registration, specialist consultation, and camera procedure thing: 73,090 won
Medications (4 different medications): 29,610 won

That's only 102,700 won, about $90.55. Not bad at all, and I'll talk to dad about how to make the insurance claim so I'll probably getting back some of that money.

I was also very impressed at how fast this all moved. I got there at ten after ten in the morning and was out of the hospital before 10:45. Also, I went across the street to the pharmacy and they had my prescription ready to go in less than five minutes. Super fast.

The really bad part of all this? I probably shouldn't sing in the Messiah. I am SUPER SAD about that. Messiah was really going to make my Christmas. Now I have to e-mail the director and say I can't. Also, I had a WAY better chance of getting a solo here since there are, you know, only about 12 people in the whole freaking choir. I REALLY wanted to try to swing for my favorite solo right before "Glory to God." Back home, we have actual trained opera singers who get the solos (you know... cuz they are AMAZING). I totally would have gotten to do one here. Suck. I'll just have to try out next time we do Messiah at home and hope for the best.

Well, you might get a few extra fluff posts this week since I'll be home all week with not much to do but hang out in my tiny, tiny apartment.

And, just because I can, here's a video about my vow of silence.



Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. Wish me luck that these meds work and the doctor will tell me my throat is fine when I go back next week! *crosses fingers*

Loves!!

Decorating for Christmas!!

The holiday season has BEGUN!

Christmas is my favorite holiday ever. Yeah, part of that is the presents (I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t), but really, my favorite parts of the holiday season are four fold: movies, music, decorations, and food. That’s right. And, at my house, all four can be found in abundance.

For us, the holiday season officially gets kicked off on Thanksgiving. If I’m home on Thanksgiving, I make Dad drag out the tree and I set it up in the piano room. The one in the piano room gets all the Radco ornaments and the one in the living room is the “ribbons-birds-and-fruit” tree. Then there’s the pink tree on the entry way table, the goose-feather (or something) tree with more Radco in the hall, the small gold wire tree in the living room, the specialty Radco tree, the assorted trees in the downstairs bathroom, and maybe a family ornament tree upstairs in the bonus room.

That’s just the trees.

Then there’s the garland on the banister and over the doorways downstairs, porch lights, the herd of Christmas light deer on the front lawn, the giant nutcrackers by the front door, and my (and some Jesi’s and the parents’) nutcracker collection that goes all the way down both sides of the stairs. I also have a collection of toll painted Santa’s that my Grandma Kullberg made me.

I wish I had pictures of all this to show you. But, Dad posted a video on Youtube of the outside lights last year, so here’s a quick taste.

They favor the white icicle lights. Personally, I like the “make the house look like a gum drop covered gingerbread house.” In college, I always had a little tree with lights and ornaments of some kind. We’d decorate our apartment with snowflakes and ribbon, maybe even stockings. It was kind of pathetic, but I still got my Christmas fix when I went home for break. And last year I got to decorate the entire BYU bookstore, including designing and setting up a Christmas present train with a penguin snowball fight in one of the display windows with Natalie. It was AWESOME, if I do say so myself.

Well, this year, I won’t be going home for Christmas. Sad day! So, I need to make up for this by decorating the HECK out of my baby apartment. So far I’ve got a little tree and paper chain garland along my banister.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Cranes on my wall

I've been in Korea for a while now and the little apartment is finally starting to feel like a home instead of just the place I go to in between teaching. That might have something to do with the fact that the dishes are done and the floor is currently clean... but I digress.

One thing I love (but am, admittedly, not as good at as I'd like to be) is interior design. I read lovely blogs that show beautiful homes with pretty furniture, white walls, splashes of bright colors, and just overall gorgeous photography showing off gorgeously designed living spaces. Unfortunately, I am currently limited by money, lack of a car, and the fact that I'll only be living here a year so I don't want to get a bunch of stuff that I really love in order to decorate my apartment.

For example, there's this couch at the local second hand furniture store. It sits outside all the time so it probably isn't in the best of condition. It is also probably made out of really cheap materials. But... it's so pretty! It has a really cool shape, kind of a "swishy" curved back. Also, it is this awesome shade of purple fake velvet with brass upholstery button things on it. It would look so cute in my apartment!

But, for better or worse, I'm stuck with the ugly brown futon. It's not the most comfortable thing, but it serves its function as a couch and possible sleeping place for guests.

So, like I said, my apartment isn't as cute as it possibly could be. But, I was able to put up one thing that makes it look much nicer than it would with just blank walls.

Meet my flock.

I think my Grandma Kullberg would really like this. :)

Pretty much all I did was rip up some pieces of paper and color them with crayons before putting them in a colorific frame from the "dollar" store. Then I folded a bunch of paper cranes and taped them to the wall. Pretty cool, no?

The flock is starting to wrap around the apartment. They've already made it partly around the corner and onto the next wall. I am, however, limited by my height as to how far these birds will fly.


That's it for wall decorations, aside from a few sticky notes around my desk. But I think it looks pretty nice, don't you?

Also, on the artsy note, I got my first real art request on my online gallery this week! A girl asked me to draw her character for her and, well, I was bored and kind of sick so I got it done this weekend. I like how the colors turned out.

My Kids :)

Thus ends week 12 of my first term at Chungdahm. The kids are going crazy because these are the last two weeks of the term so it doesn't really "count." I've been pretty easy on them this week, though, especially on speaking English during their class project time. Usually I go around during project time saying, "English!" "English only!" "What's rule number one?" This keeps some measure of English going on. This week, though, they have a different kind of project that has them working for 40 instead of 25 minutes so I go around and ask them questions about it and they speak English when I'm around, but I'm not taking points off for speaking Korean at this point. It's the end of the term. I'll give them a break. :)

The faculty manager asked teachers to take pictures of the kids working on projects for promotional stuff. Well, my old boss at BYU Creative Services will agree when I say I am not the most amazing photographer (no matter how many times he tried to teach me... poor guy... they probably just finished putting up Christmas decorations at the store), but I did get a few pictures of my kids working and now I can post them here for you all to see how adorable my kids are.







The week before, we had a different project for them to do as well called the "Book Polo Competition." I think that's a strange name, whoever came up with that. Kids were given a prompt and then had to write a 200 word story finishing the prompt. After that, they drew a picture illustrating their story. My kids got, "If I had a magic carpet, could go anywhere in the world and do anything, I would..." It was pretty fun. I had kids going to America to visit Teacher (that's me!), kids going to space and meeting aliens, video games, dinosaur times, one kid even decided to go to Hell.



All of the teachers got together and voted on the best story for each level. One of my kids won! I am so excited. Go, Lily! There was a little bit of confusion where they weren't sure which class "Lily" was in (the papers got all shuffled up after being turned in), but I was able to confirm that it was, in fact, MY Lily that won. MY Lily. Not Rachel's Lily. MY Lily. MY student. ;)

So that's school. Yep. It's going pretty good except for kids going crazy because what they do in class doesn't really "count." I'll be happy when the term is done and I can have another fresh start with a new group of students. I should be getting my schedule for next term tomorrow. Exciting!

Oh, remember how in my last post I mentioned that I had strained my voice. Well, I never really had a chance to rest it this week what with being a TEACHER and all. My throat hurt pretty bad on Thursday. On the way home from work on Wednesday, I stopped and bought some herbal tea to help with the throat. It's not too bad, either. I usually really don't like tea (bleck), but this pomegranate tea is pretty good.

I even went prepared with vocabulary to make sure I got herbal tea instead of black tea (I can't drink black tea):

Herbal tea: 초본 차 Chobon cha

Black tea: 홍차 Hong cha

It was fun playing charades and pointing to a box I knew was black tea (it said so in English) and saying "hong cha... ahnday" (black tea... no) then pointing to another box and asking, "chobon cha?" And that is the story of how I came to drink copious amounts of herbal pomegranate tea.



And today I woke up and HEY! I can't talk! D:

Other than a sore throat, I'm doing pretty good. New term starting soon, laundry is done and drying, and the apartment is *pretty much* clean right now. Good times. Today, I plan on not talking at all (please let me be able to talk comfortably tomorrow!!) and laying down in bed to watch "Cape Fear" with Robert De Niro. We'll have to see which is better: the old one with Gregory Peck *swoon* or the awesomely scary Robert De Niro.

Birthday Weekend

Sorry this update is late. I've been kind of putting off writing about the birthday weekend. Mostly because it kind of sucked as far as birthday weekends go. Yeah. Sad day. Oh well. Such is life.

Anyways. The week was just one of those weeks where everything kind of seems like it sucks. I think my hormones might have had a hand in that. I was super mood swingy. I hate that because you notice it. Once second everything feels great and happy and then all of a sudden you're kind of depressed for NO REASON AT ALL. Ugh. So that was the main reason for me looking back and saying that last week sucked. All in all, it wasn't a particularly bad week. Just a moody one. :)

Thursday was an interesting day. A girl came in to class and gave me a box of pepero (Korean Pocky). How sweet! So I thanked her and continued working on the report cards. Then two more students came in and gave me boxes of pepero. Turns out, November 11 is Pepero Day in Korea! It's kind of like Valentine's Day in that you give it to people you like, but mostly just a day to promote Pepero. Want to know why? The date: 11/11 looks like the Pepero sticks. How cute. Whatever. I got tons of pepero to cheer up my moody day.

The actual birthday day was uneventful. I got a call from the family over Skype and we talked and I opened presents from them that Dad had left here for me: a PRETTY PRETTY purse, the "Golden Compass" trilogy, and "Iron Man 2" movie from my aunt. Yay! There was also supposed to be two of my favorite Muppet movies (Treasure Island and Christmas Carol!) but they somehow got lost in crossing the Pacific. Sad. But, it's the thought that counts! Mom was really bummed (I think pissed is more like it) that they were missing.

Saturday started out fairly well. I got dressed and set out with the conviction to FINALLY get a haircut (accomplish #5 on The List). My friend Tera had told me about this salon by her subway exit that had some American stylists. I found the place and discovered that either the American workers quit or just weren't there that day. Luckily, I had my handy dandy phrasebook and somehow got an appointment for 3pm.

After some grocery shopping, I came back armed with a picture, a few Korean phrases, and an attitude of forgiveness in case anything went horribly, horribly wrong. Here are the phrases that were most helpful:

I'd like a haircut, please: muhri challah chuseyo

Thin my hair out, please: syahkikkut kkahka chuseyo

I'd like layers, please: chuhngji keh-heh chuseyo

Bangs: behng (that one was easy to remember)

What I looked like before the stylist:

Layers are gone and bangs are too long to really be called "bangs" anymore.

Aaand AFTER!


Well, crappy picture, but the haircut is cute. It is very, VERY Korean. The bangs? Yeah. 6 out of ten girls in my class has the same bangs. I've wanted them for a while, but have been too scared to try them. I'm still not sure if I like them. It depends on the moment and if I have straightened them yet or not. Curly bangs = frightening.

The rest of Saturday kind of blahhed. We were supposed to go to dinner and noraebong (take care of #3 on The List). Just really going to be Tera, Kendra, and me. Well, it ended up kind of flopping. A guy from church (that I'm only briefly acquainted with) and two of his friends (whom I met that night) saw Tera in the subway and ended up tagging along. Ok. That's not too bad. So we went to a fried chicken place (not a big fan of fried chicken, by the way; I much prefer baked with delicious sauce of some kind... like bbq) and it was fun sitting and talking.

Then Tera got a call from her neighbor with a stalker crisis (some creepy guy kept trying to come see her and was not taking no for an answer) so Tera had to go calm down her hysterical friend. Understandable. But that left Kendra and me with the peoples we didn't know. Their other friend (whom I didn't know) wanted to come find them and go clubbing. We were invited but, well, as you know clubbing really isn't my thing and so while I might force myself to go do something like that with people who I like, I wasn't going to go so that with people I don't know, especially not for my birthday party.

So, the birthday party ended up with just me and Kendra heading back to my apartment for cake, present, and Iron Man 2 on my laptop. I understand why the evening fell apart, but I am still kind of bummed that we didn't go to the noraebong. Sad. Oh well.

But we did have delicious cake. A cranberry roll... thing. It was super yummy.


And the present from Kendra was BUNNY SLIPPERS! I love them so much. They are really warm and, well, BUNNY SLIPPERS!


And that was the birthday weekend. Back at school, now. We're in the last two weeks of the term and the kids are kind of going nuts. They are SOOO done and it is hell trying to keep them going right now. I completely understand; I'd love to cancel lessons and just play pictionary and hangman for three hours (actually NOT), but, unfortunately we cannot do that. Sad story.

Also, I think I pulled a voice muscle or something on Sunday (is that even POSSIBLE?!). We were singing Messiah and in "Glory to God" (my favorite song!!) the sopranos hit a high A. Well, having not sung in a while I probably should have done a better job warming up because I felt something, like, "pop" is I guess the best word for it. Whatever. It still hurts and talking for class is only making it worse. Bugger. Drinking tons of water and hoping it's better for Sunday when we have our two hour rehearsal. Have I mentioned how much I love Messiah? Choir makes my week a little happier.

Anyways. That's last week! Hopefully this next weekend will have some more fun stuff to tell. Loves!!

Messiah and Technical Difficulties

Not much has happened since I posted about this week. I did find out one cool thing: we'll be doing Handel's Messiah in choir this year! I am SO excited! That show for one means a lot to me, and two it is just so much fun to sing. I forgot how much I love to sing (and how... operatic I can sometimes sound... oops) until choir practice today at church. I kind of hope that we get more people in choir within the month. We only had 8 people there: 6 sopranos and 2 altos. A few of the sopranos have offered to sing alto but that doesn't solve our problem of NO GUYS. I'm not sure which songs we'll be singing (not the whole thing, of course), but I'd really like to know which ones. I think we'll hear next week.

One song I know we'll sing (because we were going to practice it today until the director saw it hadn't been put into our binders yet) is probably my favorite song from the whole piece: Glory to God. It's so much fun to sing, and I love the solo right before it. Listen to this wonderful recording by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.



I'm very excited to be singing again, especially such an amazing show as Messiah. So wonderful. :)

In other news, I found the funniest video on youtube again. It's this priest having troubles learning how to use this crazy new technology called a "book." SOOO much different from using a scroll. ;) Seems funny, but, sometimes this is how I feel when I'm trying to explain to some people how to do something on a computer(Jesi is WAY worse than my mom with this kind of stuff!).

Anyways, it made me crack up. A must share kind of thing. :)

Week ten of teaching (and a little bit about dahlias)

Well, this week has gone by super quick for me. I have done absolutely nothing productive at home besides run a load of laundry that I haven't put away. Saturday is cleaning day, peoples! I will not let myself go shopping with Tera until my apartment is all spic and span again.

Pinky swear.

The only thing exciting at work this week was that there wasn't as much work! It's week ten and time for achievement tests. So, Tuesday through Friday I was only doing half of my normal work. Well, same hours but not as much stand up and try to keep student's attention. With my Memory (lower level) classes, we did a practice test on Tuesday and Wednesday before the REAL test on Thursday and Friday. Now, this test is really important because it is a major part of deciding whether or not they move on to the next level in Chung Dahm. Needless to say, I spent most of my time trying to keep them confident, tell them how good they are at speaking, how even if they don't level up it doesn't mean they are terrible people, etc. They are so cute and studious. :)

Today I was really tired during class so I had to work extra hard to stay upbeat for them. I think I might have come across as a kindergarten teacher on a sugar high with my forced level of enthusiasm. The kids responded though and with our last 15 minutes of class we played some vocabulary review games that made them super happy. Go, Teacher. :)

Also, I had several students say it would be okay if they didn't level up because that would mean that they could stay in my class. When I told them I might not teach the same level next term they asked if I would be teaching the next level up. They were really sad when they found out I wouldn't know until next term. I felt so special that they wanted to stay in my class.

It probably didn't hurt that I totally bribed all my classes with choco-pies (they had to do some token activity to "earn" it... but everyone got one) in anticipation of instructor evaluations next week. My goal is to be the first teacher to get level one on my first term working for Chung Dahm. I'll find out in five weeks if my teaching skills (and bribery... hey! All the teachers are doing it) have gotten me there. Wish me luck! ;)

I actually probably won't since I think PART of getting level 1 is based on seniority. But we'll see, right? *crosses fingers*

Sadly, that's all there is to say about Korea right now. It's been pretty uneventful this week. Except, well, I just discovered what might be my new favorite flower.

My favorite flower has, for a long time, been gerbera daisies. I love the bright colors and over sized heads of these beautiful flowers. They make me happy every time I see them.


Image from http://mgonline.com/Home.aspx

Well, today I was reading one of my favorite blogs of all time, Design Sponge, and they had a post about what I think are now my new favorite flowers: dahlias.



Isn't that the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen? For one: the COLOR! So beautiful! And then the fact that they come in various sizes from smaller than my fist to bigger than my face and all look like lion heads with fly away manes! I can't get over how pretty these flowers are. Especially with the bouquets.

Here. Have some eye candy of the flower variety.




Dahlia images from Design Sponge

Oh, how I love flowers. I wish I wasn't so allergic to them... oh well. :)