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 am so tired. I went shopping yesterday with Blaine and Cody. Then I went again today with my mom. But I think I’ve got all of my Christmas shopping finished. At least I hope so. Shopping is exhausting. And it’s gross outside. Windy and snowing. The roads were starting to drift. It wasn’t cool.

My mom and I went to Panera Bread for lunch after we finished with our shopping. Their broccoli cheddar soup is so good. It’s my fave, and I really needed it to warm up. I tried a different kind of sandwich this time. I usually get the frontega chicken, but I got the chicken bacon dijon or something like that. It was pretty good, but I think I like the frontega better.

Naturally, my mom was complaining about needing to lose weight. That’s like the mantra of my life. I think it’s worse in the winter, though, because it’s so cold and I just want to curl up inside all the time. I’d really like to try something like Phentermine, but I always nervous about taking pills because I’m never really sure if they work. Of course, I also need to get to a place in my life where I can start eating right and exercising because I’m sure that plays a significant role in it’s effectiveness. I should probably stop putting things off, but I guess that’s just my way. I’m really good at procrastinating.

I started a new story last night. I’m delving into a new realm of fan fiction. I’m trying my hand at Twilight. I just started writing and managed to write the first chapter last night. I’ve been trying to sort out the ideas in my head ever since, and I think I’m going to write some more tonight. Either after a nap or a steaming cup of coffee. I need something to help my stay coherent, but I’m excited. I think once I’ve written a little more I might post it on fanfiction.net and put my account to some use. We’ll see. I’m kind of nervous about it. This is a new fandom, and I feel self-conscious, even online, about putting myself out there for criticism, but it’s for fun, anyway, so I guess it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot. Besides, fanfiction.net was what sort of propelled me into writing back in 2002, and then got me into web design, which let to graphic design. It’s sort of like coming full circle.

Oh, man, I’m still on the mend from yesterday’s shopping excursion. I am just so tired. I really threw myself of kilter by barely getting any sleep Thursday night, and then getting up extremely early Friday morning. I was dead on my feet all day yesterday, but I did sleep pretty soundly last night.

I have a big job ahead of me this weekend. I need to upgrade the script I use for my fanlistings. Unfortunately, it’s not one of those deals where you can just upgrade from whatever version you’re at to the latest one, so I have about five levels of upgrades to go through. I’m going to shower and eat before I get into working on that. I’ll probably listen to Twilight on audiobook once I get in the rhythm of what I need to do. Maybe I’ll even get into New Moon since I’m about done with Twilight. Blaine wanted to go see the movie again. I might call him later and see if he and Trey still want to go. Like I would give up a chance to see the movie again.

I haven’t worked in almost two weeks now. I don’t know how I’ll do once I get called in again. I could see this week with the holiday coming up and all that. I don’t know how things are around Christmas. I’d kind of assume that maybe they’d be a bit busier with people getting shirts for their loved ones as gifts, but I really don’t know.

I’m thinking of trying to find another job. Of course I’d still keep my current one, but I really don’t work there a whole lot. Usually 15 hours a week at the max. I think the only problem would be with conflicting schedules. I think I’d be fit for jobs in logistics. I’m organized, good at planning and pretty detailed oriented. Who knows if I’m actually qualified, though? I’d just really love to have some extra money so I could start saving up to move out into my own place. I know my sister is wanting to do the same thing, and I’ve entertained the idea of asking her if she’d want to get an apartment together, but I’m not totally sure I’d want to live with her. We used to always get on each other’s nerves when we shared a room, but we are older now, so who knows? But all of that is pretty dependent on me finding a decent, stable job and saving up money.

I am absolutely nuts. I got up at 2:30 this morning to go shopping with my mom. Kohl’s was a completely madhouse. People just act so, so stupid, but it didn’t take long to get through the line. They are very organized in that manner. We went in at about 4:05 - we stopped at Speedway to get some coffee first - and then we went in. My grandma sent me with money to get my grandpa a GPS system for his car. My mom got one for Bart too, and she bought my present as well. I told her I wanted the iLive audio system. It plays both CDs and my iPod and haws an AM/FM tuner, so she just went ahead and bought it since I was there to point out what I wanted from her. I’ll just have to figure out where on earth I’m going to put it.

Then we went to the mall, and I picked up some stuff. I got my grandma and mom’s gifts. Then we went to Target, which was really where I wanted to go. It was crazy too. They had their DVDs on sale, and I got a bunch of those. I got all of my sister’s shopping done and Tori’s. I’m going in with my mom on Bart’s GPS system because she wasn’t actually supposed to get him anything, so I’ve got his out of the way too. I still need to get something else for Blaine and Trey, but it needs to be something fairly cheap. I was thinking maybe I could find them funny t shirts or something like that if they’re on sale. Then I’ll have theirs finished. I need to buy something else for my mom - something small - and my grandpa. But I’m fairly close to having my Christmas shopping done, which is a great feeling. I hated the idea of stressing out about it for the next month.

Wow, I think this is the longest I’ve gone without updating for quite a while now. Things have been a bit crazy since November began. I’ve been working on my story for NaNoWriMo. As I mentioned in my last post, it’s called Absolution, and things are going really well. I’m currently at 29,587 words. I’ve finished eleven chapters, and I have fourteen left to go. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and it’s so much fun to be writing original fiction again. I’ve been into fan fiction for far too long. So this project is really refreshing.

I think it’s been so easy going because I spent so much time preparing for it. My outline was fourteen pages, and I spent a little time looking at commercial real estate jsut for reference material. I didn’t end up using too much of it, but I tend to over research at time. I suppose that’s better than being unprepared for things. Either way, it’s just been awesome to finally let loose and start writing. I’ve done more writing in the last nine days than I probably have in the last year.

I went to vote last week, and I had to stand in line for over an hour. I hate to think of what it might have been like if so many people hadn’t voted early. I went when my grandparents did, and that was around a quarter after nine, and it just got busier after that, so I guess we picked about as good a time as any to go.

I also bought tickets for the midnight showing of Twilight. My sister agreed to go with me, and I bought our tickets straight away. I’m quite excited about it, and for the next couple of weeks, I’ll probably be bouncing around like an idiot waiting to see it. There have been so many clips popping up online lately, and everything just looks really great. I have a good feeling about the movie, and I’m really hoping it’s as good as it seems.

I didn’t work much last week. I just went in one day, and then I did a project from home the next day. The week before that I had some freelance stuff I had to go over, so I have a check coming for that, and it’s going straight into savings with the rest of my holiday shopping money. I still can’t get over the fact that it’s November, and there’s just over a month until Christmas. It’s insane. I’d very much like to know where this year went.