Well, my Christmas turned out to be really great this year. I went to my mom’s last night and had dinner and then we opened gifts. Then everyone came out there today. We had tons upon tons of snack food. We gorged ourselves, opened gifts and then played Trivial Pursuit and took turns trying to play Guitar Hero. After three days of playing, I’m actually pretty decent. I’m through over half of the songs on the easy level.

As far gifts go, I got:

- $50 (grandparents)
- black and white top & matching necklace (Allyson, Ryan and Tori)
- “Sisters” pictures frame (Allyson)
- The Goonies (Blaine)
- Juno (Blaine)
- fuzzy socks (Trey)
- $15 iTunes gift card (Trey)
- iLive Music System (mom and Bart)
- cappuccino mix [Hazelnut & French Vanilla) (mom)
- 2 necklaces & ear rings (mom)
- 6 pack of body butter (mom)
- $15 iTunes gift card (Nikki)

I didn’t have much of a wish list this year, but I pretty much got everything I asked for, so I’m happy.

After everyone headed out, I went on Woot.com and discovered they the bag of crap for the day, but, unfortunately, they were sold out. I was kind of bummed, but they had t-shirts on sale for $6.99, and they’re just sending out random ones, so I went ahead and bought one.

The day after Christmas I mostly hung around and snacked and played Guitar Hero. The snacking turned out to be a bad idea because the next morning I woke up uber early and got sick. I wound up back in bed until well past noon. I’ve laid off the junk food since then.

Yesterday, I went shopping with my mom, Allyson and Tori. It was pretty much a bust, though. My mom found a couple of shirts and a wallet and my sister found a shirt. I didn’t find anything. I think Tori came away the happiest. We took her to Build A Bear, and she got a pink monkey - named Banana Bell. We stopped for lunch at Bob Evans, and then stopped by Wal-Mart.

I was on the lookout for a new watch while we were there because yesterday morning as I was about to leave to go to meet everyone at my mom’s, I discovered my watch had stopped working. I was pretty bummed. I really liked my cheap watch. I didn’t find anything I liked though. I might check out some sites and see if I can find any replica watches I like. I’m kind of picky about what I like, but I’ve got to find something. My wrist feels naked without a watch on it.

I feel so icky today. Well, I have for the last couple of days. My throat and eyes are all itchy. I’m not sure what brought this on. I think maybe it’s because it got really hot in here the other night while I was sleeping. I woke up with the dry throat, and when I tried to speak before drinking anything, I basically made a croaking noise. Very attractive, I’m sure.

I’m starting a new job this week. Well, technically, I’ve already started, but I’ve just done some stuff from home. I’m going in either today or tomorrow to look at the programs they use in the office, so that will be interesting. I’m charging up my iPod now just in case. I’m not sure if I’ll be allowed to listen to it there or not, but I want to be prepared just in case. I don’t work that well in silence. I either like to listen to music or an audio book while I’m working. I think it keeps my brain from going numb from staring at the computer screen for so long.

I’m off to take something for the headache I feel coming on, and then I need some eyedrops for my itchy eyes.

Why must the real world suck so much? I feel like every summer I’m just hit with a whole new rash of bills. The main one is my college loans. I’ve had to start repayment, and that’s no fun. It’s not a huge monthly bill, but just enough to put a dent in everything else, and with the price of gas these days, every cent matters. I suppose I should just be glad that I don’t have to worry about stuff like mortgage lenders or car payments.

I also haven’t been feeling so great the last couple of days. As I said yesterday, every time I move, I feel like a bowl of Rice Krispies because something either snaps, crackles or pops. So not cool. I don’t feel as bad today. I think I mostly slept it off, whatever it was. I’m not nearly as tired and achy today, which is a relief. But I guess if I’m going to get sick, now would be the best time since I have the family vacation coming up, and I wouldn’t want to be sick during that.

Ugh, I think my allergies are starting to finally get to me. Yesterday, I started couching and could not stop. I found some cold medicine and it seemed to help. I also had a horrible headache. It was so bad I had to lie down for a while, and I thought I’d just be out for an hour or so. I didn’t wake up until about four hours later. I got up but was back in bed a couple of hours later.

I’ve got some stuff to do for work, but it’s hard with Blaine here because it’s good at distracting me. He always want to watch a movie. We’ve already watched all of my Harry Potter movies. I don’t have a whole lot beyond that, but I’m sure he’ll manage to find something.

I’ve also been trying to get back into writing. I’ve had an idea rolling around in my head to do something with a plot that contains European cruises somehow. I think that’s just a residual effect from watching Ghost Ship a few weeks ago. Sometimes too many movies can be a bad thing for my brain. I get ideas and forget about the stuff I’ve already started. I don’t think that’s too much of a threat right now. I know what I’m supposed to be working on, and I have the ideas. I just haven’t had the time or motivation to get them out of my head yet. Soon, though, I hope to.