I’m Expecting!!

Yeah, I’m expecting a giant turkey with some awesome sides, but that’s it!

This year it’s been a little bit weird as my family has to change our normal Thanksgiving plans. My mom would rather work on Thanksgiving than Christmas and I’d like it if she was home for Christmas too. So she and my Uncle Dave and Aunt Katt have decided to push our Thanksgiving dinner a day after the actual day. So while everybody is getting the Black Friday deals at their favorite stores, my family and I will be stuffing our faces and enjoying each other’s company. I wouldn’t want anything more than that. I think we’re at our most wild selves while we’re waiting for food and then eating it. I’m not going to lie, at least this year I might actually get to watch the Macy’s parade in peace in my bedroom.

I saw this picture floating around on Facebook and was completely in love with it. Us Americans use to celebrate Thanksgiving. Apparently, everybody is just forgetting to be thankful for the things they have. So they’re just rushing the holidays along. I’ve seen so many people post pictures of their Christmas trees being put together, making cookies, watching different Christmas movies. It’s all gotten me confused! Nobody wants to wait until Thanksgiving is over to do everything. In my family, we have the tradition of waiting a good two weeks until Thanksgiving is over and it’s December to put up our tree. We wait that long because our bellies are still swollen from the feast we had at my nana’s. We all put the blame on my dad since he always does the turkey every year. Seeing the early pictures of the trees just drives me crazy, apparently I’m not the only one in my family who agrees with me. My sister posted a status on her Facebook, the best comment was my cousin Chris who put “if Thanksgiving isn’t fun, you’re doing it wrong.” You can’t be bitter about Thanksgiving, it can be fun and with my family that’s the best type of fun of expected happenings.

We thought Black Friday deals at department stores were bad, and people tramping over each other when the stores open, but I think we should be ashamed of ourselves that we can’t be thankful for what we already have and be able to eat with one another, enjoy a few laughs about old memories and make some new memories in the process. Have you noticed the sudden change of losing Thanksgiving to Christmas? What are your favorite sides to go along with your feast? I like the green bean casserole the most. Sometimes my Uncle Dave (most of the time it’s really Aunt Katt) makes their specialty mac and cheese. I’m hoping I have enough ice cream for dessert, since I’m one of the odd balls and doesn’t like pies. Everybody has their pumpkin and apple pies, just give me my carton of ice cream and that will make me a very happy camper! Once it’s all over, my nana and I can get our plans established to make our Christmas cookies and figure out who’s going to put up her Christmas tree for her. I’m just thankful we have the smarts to wait.

Album Review: Nickelback’s “No Fixed Address”

There is not very many times were music ever comes out on Monday’s, but when it does happen you shut up and let it happen. This week, three albums that I’ve been looking forward to hearing came out all on the same day. Everybody should know by now that I am a pretty big Nickelback fan. I’ve supported them for years and always has a few chose words for their haters. I saw the first announcement of their new album being released on Nov. 4th. I was stoked because my birthday was the weekend before that date. I thought it would be the perfect birthday present to myself. Well, when that week started, another announcement was made on their Facebook about pre-ordering the album and automatically getting a new track once you pay for the album and a little bit after that, they had changed the release date to the seventeenth. I was sad. I had gotten myself all worked up about getting it for my birthday and found out I had to wait a couple more weeks. Luckily, I’m a very patient person so I’ve been able to get through the long wait in one piece.

The first song off the album is called “Million Miles An Hour” and it’s got the dramatic intro and leads into this full on rock tune that just makes you want to jump and down like it’s your own private concert. I always love those types of songs starting out the new album. The band released the tracks “Edge of Revolution” and “What Are You Waiting For?” were released first in August and September. When Spotify first put “EOR” on I was really hooked to it. It sounded like a true NB song. I didn’t hear “WAYWF” until mid-October, and I understood why. I wasn’t really into it at first. It sounded like a NB song too, but much slower. Never been quite the fan of their ballads. Only a selected few have I ever liked, but the rest I usually skip through them. The fourth track is called, “She Keeps Me Up” and honestly I don’t really like it. It sounds very pop-y and but the lyrics are what you would expect from NB, but I don’t know what to really think of the tone of it. The next is “Make Me Believe Again” and once it started, I knew I’d like it. It’s got a slower tempo but it’s not bad. I might actually attempt to learn the lyrics to it.

As for the next track “Satellite” is another slower song, I’d consider this on a ballad. I love how you can really hear the drums in this song. This could be a good song to play on the radio. I always love looking at the tracklist of a new album and wondering what would be the next single. Sometimes I’m right and the rest of the time I’m not. I’m REALLY hoping I’m right about this one! The next one as soon as it started playing, I actually noticed myself dancing uncontrollable, always a good sign! This one is called, “Get ‘Em Up” apparently this came out on Nov. 4th and I love this one! I haven’t heard it until right now and I feel like going crazy. After that, a song called “Hammer’s Coming Down” and it starts off slow and then it leads into this loud and rocky chorus. This album has quite a few slower tracks, now with this title “Miss You” you know it’s going to be a slow one. Surprisingly, it’s not that bad! I think I’m eating my words of saying I don’t like their ballads a little. So far I’ve said that I’ve liked three of the slower ones. This next one is a bit weird, I saw it and went, Oh my god! 

The second to last song is called, “Got Me Runnin ‘Round” and it kind of sounds a bit like a country-rock song in the intro. It is a low tempo song, but what really got me was who is featured in the actual song. I am actually a fan of mixing two genres into one song. Whether it’s the actual sound of the song or if they add a featured artist on the track. Well, who knew of adding hip hop artist Flo Rida to a Nickeback song would actually be a good mix. It kind of feels like a good summertime song honestly, got a good vibe to it. It’s different and I love it. So the last one of the whole thing is called, “Sister Sin” and it sounds a true rock song, one of those feel good songs. You can headbang and/or dance to it. It’s also got a country-rock vibe to it too! It’s a good one to end the album with honestly. As their first album being signed to a new label, Republic Records, I honestly don’t like it as much as I was expecting to. It’s always a bummer when that happens. Who knows though, I could go back to it later on in the day and realize it’s better the second time around.