I've been under the weather for days now, courtesy of a mystery disease that I dare not look up on WebMD. The major symptoms include stomach pain and a lingering queasiness. This has made me quite sensitive to smells and tastes, to the point where all I want to eat is applesauce, plain bagels with peanut butter, and biscotti. This isn't actually far from my regular diet, but it's severely lacking in pizza and chocolate.

(Thankfully, I live in a fairly odor-neutral world, so I'm spared a few tumbly tummies there. Although, this morning, the staff break room smelt of stale cheese fries and church coffee. Grosser than gross.)

Anyway, the point of that slightly incoherent ramble was to highlight how great it was that I was able to: finish editing a 26-page transcription of a 4-hour ordination ceremony, stay awake long enough to not get fired from my job, ship a super belated care package to a friend, sort out some sort of crazy mix-up with my UPS mailbox, enjoy the fabulous tradition of Friday Night Date Night with my mom, and resist dashing home at 11 a.m. to play with my new camera forever and ever and ever.

So high-five, self. This totally makes up for the horribly cliché "self-portrait in the mirror" move you just pulled and almost makes up for the fact that you just drooled all over yourself while reading the user manual.

Tomorrow, my very first dSLR camera will arrive in the mail. It's not the Nikon D80 I've wanted for years or the Nikon D90 I've come to want in the past few months. Instead, it's a Canon Rebel XS, which is roughly one quarter of the cost (for a body plus two lenses). I'm so excited that I could scream, but instead I think I'm going to spend the night coming up with a list of places and things that I most want to photograph. New Zealand, Paris, Rome, every inch of Chicago, a formal tea party with Juan Pedro the Sock Monkey and some of our stuffed animal friends, my cat (ad nauseum), a very specific sunset, and my immediate family and grandparents this Thanksgiving.

What are the things you most wish to capture on film or in your memories?

Dear Santa,

While I would appreciate keeping my two front teeth for Christmas, I would also like to keep the adorable Christmas lights over my bed and the blanket over my feet. If possible, I'd also like round-trip tickets to New Zealand, a Nikon D90, Adobe CS5 (the master collection), a MacBook Pro, a new Dell desktop, an Eclipse Spyder, and a house of my own. Also, this really can't be wrapped (or can it?), but if you could arrange for me to meet and charm Elijah Wood sometime soon, that would be rad.

A mostly good girl, most of the time,
Rachelskirts