Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from all the Decadox girls!

We hope your holidays were full of family, good food, great memories and joyful remembrance of the birth of our Messiah.

All Hail! Lord, we greet Thee,
Born this happy morning,
O Jesus! for evermore be Thy name adored.
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing;
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

Our first grad

Melissa graduated last week! Congrats, girl! Some of the Decadox girls were able to be there to celebrate with you, but on behalf of those who couldn't, "YAY MELISSA!"

Ok, actually, Amanda graduated, too, but she is walking in May with most of the house, so there will be a ton of pictures and celebrating for her comin' later.

No worries on the home front, though. Even though she's graduated, Melissa will be here this semester.

Ode to the Decadox, the friendliest house on the block

This poem was submitted by the venerable bard, James Browning, this morning when he came over to cook us breakfast.

There is a house in Buena Park,

Or is it La Mirada?

Wher the welcome light is never dark

And they're quick with a "de nada"

They call their home the Decadox

Full of the loveliest ladies in town

And their doors are never locked

Unless you're some dude whose car has broke down

One of the friendliest places in the world,

Some might say that 10 is too many

But when you get to know these girls

You just couldn't subtract any

Hot tubs, lattes and parties galore

So much food I feel like a hog

Who could ask for anything more

You might even wind up on the blog

So regardless of who the judges choose

This coming February 7

I don't see how anyone could lose

Out of this house so close to heaven.

Michelle, Jessica Oh and Amanda Zook are official contestants for the 2009 Miss Fullerton Pageant!
Take a look at the Miss Fullerton website to see our girls pictures, platforms and talents.

http://www.missfullerton.com/contestants09.php?y=2009

The pageant is on February 7 or 8 (sorry, we're not really sure yet) so please come show your support for our girls. We're planning to have a pizza/in-n-out party afterwards while watching Miss Congeniality, so yea. We'll update you with that event later.

Airing Our Ugly Furniture

As much as we love our house, we would be dishonest if we didn't disclose its one flaw: some ugly furniture. We all showed up in August to take stock of what we had collectively--it wasn't much. As we are all operating on minimal college budgets, we had to be creative with the decorating. We stalked neighborhood yard sales, kept a constant eye on free furniture listings and begged all the boys we knew to use their trucks for transportation. The results turned out OK, but we had some adventures along the way. For example, Amanda and Gail found a beautiful mustard yellow pleather couch in a dumpster and managed to get it out before anyone else did. It was missing a leg, but they implemented a few bricks from the back yard and you can hardly tell!

Despite all our efforts at cheap ingenuity, we still have a few "oh well" pieces haunting the house. Here are just a few of the "winners. " Please help us decide which one is the least deserving of our house.


Amanda and Gail picked this oak baby up at a garage sale and managed to wrestle it into Amanda's little Corolla. They planned to add a few more shelves, but alas, this lonesome shelf remains happily single like most of the girls in the house.

This is the homemade stenciled step-stool that graces our kitchen for the shorter residents that can't reach their food cupboards. There's no doubt whose it is with Amanda's name scrawled four times in pink paint on the top.

This white wicker table has seen better days with its previous owner, but unfortunately that person is dead now. Gail and Michelle happened to hear about a man who didn't want to see his late wife's belongings around the house, so they offered to take them off his hands. It was a little awkward when they arrived to go through her stuff and they're still not sure if it was worth it.

This five-headed lamp (with only two functioning heads) has been a joke since day one. Our brazen Medusa has made a grand tour of the house, moving from one room to another as different people have tried to find a less conspicuous place for it. This beaut was Melissa's prized possession as a freshman.

This baby screams mod 80s, and while the color goes with our couch covers, it just can't do our entertainment nook the credit it's due. I'm sure the "one-piece simplicity" was one of its greatest assets at one point, but now it just makes the house look like a dentist's waiting room.

Gail says she feels dejected when she sits in this butterfly chair. Whoever settles there ends up involuntarily slouching and feeling half as big as they are as their body kinda gets folded in two. Additionally, it's necessary to launch out of it in one quick movement when rising, otherwise a series of hesitating jerks result. House note: Keep away from obese guests. Besides its impracticality and strong church picnic chair vibe, c'mon now--it's just ugly.

But you decide. Which piece is worse? Oh, and boys, we want to solve our furniture problem, so if you don't need your truck for a few hours over interterm ... we might just have a few extra man points to give away.

Cottage cheese and Christmas traditions

Our readers have spoken -- and apparently the most disgusting thing to find in the Decadox fridge would be Michelle's cottage cheese. Wait till they see the same cottage cheese after Christmas break ...

New on the Decablogue is a fresh poll. Although we've already decked the halls with evergreen and thrown a Christmas party, there's always more Christmas traditions on tap. Help us decide which one to incorporate.

Pageant Practice, Session #1

Hi, this is Cheryl and I LOVE THIS BLOG!!!!

That's exactly why I created a video especially for the blog.  Some of my housemates are participating in a pageant and know I'm an expert at such things, having witnessed a Mr. Downey competition and being best friends with a former Mr. Downey himself.  Also to my credit, I have seen and studied Miss Congeniality on more than one occasion.

So I decided to coach my housemates on their pageant walking skills.  I also doubled as a DJ and videographer.  What can I say?  I'm multitalented.

International Traipsing

Goodness gracious. We've been all over the place! Michelle and Gail went up to Grass Valley for Thanksgiving, while Cheryl traipsed all over London town. If you know Cheryl, you know it definitely wasn't a boring trip. She came back with tons of stories, photos, and a video she is especially proud of. View it here. Now that she's back, she's been rockin' British styles and leggings.

So today, I called Janelle to see if she wanted to go to lunch at the cafeteria with me. I didn't think much of it when the call went straight to her voicemail. Stupid me. I forgot she was going to NYC!Why? Just because she' s awesome like that. Yep. She got a sweet airline deal and decided to go with her attr.., er, amiable cousin Brett, who currently has 2 man points. Unfortunately, this means neither of them will be able to come to the party we're having on Saturday. That doesn't mean you can't come, though. Have fun, J! We'll miss you.

Meanwhile, Julie is preparing to go to KOSOVO on a missions trip with Biola over Christmas break. She is quite the world traveler and this trip will just add one more album on her facebook of which to be jealous.

Julie is co-leading the team of four and is just wrapping up

fundraising right now. It sounds like her group is fantastic and everything is falling into place--no surprises there. Go in peace, Julie!

This spate of traveling isn't really new, I guess. We're all splitting up across the country over Christmas. Amanda is visiting Gail to milk cows in good ol' Pennsylvania and Melissa is dropping in on Claire in New Hampshire. Cheryl heads up to Seattle and Kate east to Arizona. James Browning, our good Ohio friend, may even tag along with some Decadox members on an NYC trip.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We still have to plod through the last 2 weeks of the semester. Lord, grant us mercy.