This post starts with black friday finds and works backwards. Just what is going on with life lately. Working backwards.

• I went to some Black Friday shopping today, but not at an insane hour, at 9:30am. It isn't as much fun by yourself. I have almost all my Xmas shopping done. Well, I've got some of it done, and I know 95% of what I'm going to order online. Since I'm not heading back to Kansas for Christmas holidays, I'm having stuff shipped directly there (or buying it here and shipping back).
  
• I also of course got a few things for myself. A sweater from Old Navy (very pretty, lambswool, bright pink), on sale for $15. A pair of tights, some yarn, a towel rack, and something else even more minor. Just normal household stuff.
  
• I went to REI to look at Ski pants, but they didn't have my size. So I came home and ordered them online, using some coupons. I actually got two pants and I will return whichever one works least well. My ski class starts in just over a week. I'm so excited. (XC ski)
  
• For Thanksgiving itself I went to my church. They have a meal and celebration there for anyone who wants to come. Some families come, a lot of single people, or couples that don't want to cook for just two. Lots of yummy food, lots of good fun.
  
• After dinner, everyone had brought games, puzzles, etc. Everyone hung out, played games, cards, and puzzles. There were even women going through all the ads plotting shopping strategies for the next day (I saw in with them for a while). It felt very much like home.
  
• Of course a couple of weeks ago, I went to Las Vegas for the Professional Bull Riding world finals. I met my old roommate there and we had an amazing time. It was my first trip to Las Vegas and I had a great time. I lost $1.80. (I'm clearly a big gambler.) At one point I got up $0.75, but I got distracted by a Wizard of Oz slot machine.
  
• As an early Christmas present, mom had me buy (and charge to them) a heated mattress pad. It is so amazing, absolutely my favorite thing. I have a fluffy comforter, down blanket, flannel sheets, heated mattress pad, all wonderful. It's like this warm cozy cave that is increasingly difficult to leave in the morning. Jane Austen the cat loves it too. Many nights I try to turn over only to find that she has tunneled her way in and curled up beside me in the warmth. The great thing about the heated mattress pad is it keeps the entire bed warm. Without it, my body heat will warm up the section I'm in, but if I move, I'll hit a cold section and jerk awake. This is vastly better. I turn on the preheat before bed and slip into toasty heaven. Okay that's a lot to say about a heated mattress pad, but it is just fantastic.
  
• I tried to make meringues since they're a fairly good low-cal desert. They failed. They tasted good, just not like they should. Too gooey. I'm determined to keep doing this until I get it right.
  
• My perfectionism amuses my new roommates. I got upset at myself for the meringues and for my cornbread muffins (that I messed up but then fixed) for the Thanksgiving dinner.
  
• For the first time I had both Thanksgiving Thursday and Black Friday off. It was nice. Of course I still have to work on Saturday. Oh well. It was still nice.
  

Now I should go to bed since I have to work in the morning...Good Night All!

As always, my holiday was wonderful and blessed. Sunday (the 23rd) my sister and brother-in-law came in town and I headed to my parents house to spend some time with them, mainly spend playing card games and eating yummy pizza.

Monday (Christmas Eve) we did our whole Christmas celebration so that Susan and hubby could go to his family. We cooked dinner at my house because my parents' kitchen is still a disaster due to renovation. To be more specific, I mainly cooked.
( the meal )
So it was a fairly good meal without too much cooking all things considered.

And then we opened presents. Actually we had opened our first present before dinner. It was a clear acryllic cube with a maze on each side. You roll the little marble around the maze (at various points it drops from side to side) until you get it in the right place and it rolls over the latch and springs open a door to the inside of the cube. Inside the cube is your gift (in this case an iTunes gift card). My sister and brother and get their's open in about 2 and 3 minutes respectively. I'm struggling and continue to fuss occasionally at it during other present opening. (Susan opens her hubby's for him). And we did open the other presents: (in no way does this claim to be a complete list, rather it is a highlight list)
( present opening and loot highlights )
After that the family hung out and played Taboo. And that was my Christmas. Mainly it was just fun to see everyone and be with my family. On actual Christmas, we ate Chinese food. Inspired of course by our Jewish friends and by our favorite holiday movie, The Christmas Story

May God Bless you all in the New Year!

When I was about 6 or 7, I was playing hide and go seek in my grandparents' smallish house with my cousins and siblings. Due to limited space we were actually hiding a small toy and finding that rather than hiding ourselves. One of my cousins hid the toy in a bag in the room my parents were using. I found the toy sitting on top of a Barbie Town House. The next day I received that house from "Santa". Santa presents were always distinguised in our house by their lack of wrapping paper. I didn't say anything to my parents about it for months. Then I finally asked Mom and she fessed up. Well I think it was months, but this is a six year-old's sense of time. I do know that I was home by that time and not at my grandparents because I remember we were sitting in the driveway of our house. It was just Mom and me and she asked me to please keep the secret and not spoil it for my siblings. I had lots of fun with that Barbie town house for years and years. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Though I still claim belief in Santa. If you don't, he doesn't bring you presents. And he still brings me stuff! (At least those are my families rules.)

This is the first time I've answered one of those questions on the front page of livejournal.

It's unbelievably slow at work, so I'm being bad and posting from here. Only for the last teeny little bit.

I had a very nice Christmas. My sister (Susan) and her husband (Jonathan) and my brother (John) were all in town. We didn't have a lot of time together but it was nice. We spent most of Christmas Eve cooking, playing games, and hanging out. We did the big dinner on Christmas Eve since everyone was leaving on Christmas day (basically). I got very nice presents from everyone and that was quite exciting. One of my highlights was my silverware. It is quite shiny and pretty and nice. I'm very excited about it. There weren't too many surprises for me, but I loved and appreciated everything I got. My parents got me an itunes gift card. They've given them to various other people in years past, but never me. Despite having owned an ipod for nearly a year, I've not purchased songs from the itune store. While songs are only a dollar, I know that that can add up quickly. But I am excited about choosing some out with my giftcard. I also got a new cell phone. My mom and I had taken our phones in to be fixed and since they're more than two years old, we were elgible for free or cheap(er) replacements. There were some very cool phones (similair to the Razr) on sale, but you needed to buy two to get the good price. Mom wasn't sure she wanted a new phone, and really didn't want to learn to use a new phone. I guess she went back later to get them as a surprise to me. (And actually the buy back on our phones was more than the price of the new ones so Sprint actually paid us to take new phones.) Many other fun gifts were received and greatly appreciated. I gave people what they asked for so no one was super surprised, but all seemed pleased.

One of the funniest things about this Christmas is this is the year we decided to drag Daddy (kicking and screaming) into the modern era. Dad loves music, especially classic rock. He's got a pretty decent CD collection and a huge vinyl collection. Mom got him an ipod. He is always complaining about the rap music playing at the gym so this should help. And we got him a new record player. (He got a new stereo as an anniversary gift from his work.) The new record player is digital, it plays records regulary, hooks up to the stereo, etc. However, and this is unbelievably cool, it also has a USB port. It will convert the records into mp3s and other types of digital files. So he can go straight from vinyl to ipod (or we can burn them onto CDs, whatever). I love it. Dad was wary at first, but I think once he gets going, he'll like it. Welcome to the 21st Century Daddy!

The tree went up right after Christmas and it is decorated. The house has various decorations around. Lots of fun. There are even presents purchased and wrapped underneath the tree (but no ribbon as the cat thinks it is the best food ever and it hurts her). I'm very close to being done with xmas shopping.

Every year in my family we email each other wish lists (usually with prices, stores, links, etc., we've learned the hard way that you need to be very specific). I sent mine out just before Thanksgiving as we do. Recently I was told that with other people buying me some of the stuff, there wasn't enough on it for my parents to buy and to make it even with my siblings and brother-in-law, so I should ask for more stuff.* (My parents like to be even to the penny if possible, when we were kids there would be even money wise and with the number of packages, it was fairly impressive.) The problem is I make decent money and I don't need tons of stuff. I have enough stuff to fit my space. I purchase clothes as I need them or find something just unresistable. I didn't have much more to ask for (and my suggestion of a check for the difference was shot down). Partially I hadn't asked for more because I didn't want to be greedy and also partially because I didn't want/need more. And then the truth came out.

I hate my flat/silverware. Hate it. HATE IT. I got it for (literally) $12 for an 8 place (five or six pieces each) setting at Wal-Mart when I was going to college. It was cheap, it seved it's purpose, it's fine. But it is ugly (green, I hate green), and cheap, and bends, and has some small stains/rust spots. But I always figured that I'd just register for better stuff when I got married. But I've been reading articles lately about how single women do that to themselves, they deny themselves things that they want, could use, and can afford, because they feel on some level that they should wait until marriage or they don't deserve it or what not. So I started looking about five months ago at silverware and thinking about buying myself flatware. My parents found this out and really want to buy me flatware for Christmas.

Great. Good solution. Right? Nope, problem. I have found flatware I like, but nothing I love. I want to fall head over heels in love with flatware. And I want it to happen at first sight. (I've apparently taken all my squashed romantic inclinations and channeled them to flatware). And nothing I've seen (and I've been looking for a while now) has just jumped out of me. I have seen stuff that I liked, but nothing that is ooh-la-la-love. But it is flatware, maybe I'm not meant to fall in love with flatware. My parents and I went and looked again, and tested all the flatware (hefted them to feel the weight, can't have it too lightweight or insubstantial), tried to bend it to feel the strength**, etc. I've found one very good option, the best I've seen yet. I'm going to look one or two more places and make up my mind. But I refuse to be pressured into a decision. I'm going to be using this for years and I want it to be (if not perfect) something that I can over time fall in love with. I think the problem is that I'm not a fall in love at first sight type of girl, not with men, not with flatware (sweaters however are a different matter). In case you're curious, my "style" is (and my mom kept grilling me on this) a mix of the burnished and shiny metals, curvy lines (curls and swirls that are simple are okay), no straight boxy stuff, no flowers/rosebuds/etc, and overall simplistic, not too ornate.

And because I am my mother's daughter (and this is what she kept saying when we spent six months looking for a set of salt and pepper shakers), it can't look like I stole it from a diner.

*I'm firmly aware that this problem and this whole post is bordering on being poor little privliged white suburban girl, forgive me.
**Bending it to feel the strength is especially important. What we're looking for is a regular teaspoon that can go into a frozen chunk of ice cream, scoop some out, and not bend. Yes I should use a bigger spoon, a scoop, etc., but time is going to come when I need that ice cream and that's the only spoon that is available.

Two things I forgot to mention about the holidays.

I went to my mother's church for Christmas Eve service which is traditional. It was nice because it is where I grew up, I get to see a ton of people and it is a beautiful service (aside from the aforementioned Mad Magazine sermon). There I ran into an old friend (as in elementary and middle school). She invited me to her "kegger" on New Year's Eve. I'm thinking about going or at least making an appearance for curiousity sake. Plus there are supposed to be many more men than women there. I'll have to call her up... It's that or the group thrown by a member of the church I currently attend (my dad's church) single group. Both could be fun. I don't know.

Also, like I said I got some wonderful presents. I neglected to mention the gift from my sister and brother-in-law. I wear this scent made my Lancome (a very common company) called Oui (and yes I'm too lazy to do the accents on either of those names). I fell in love with it when I went to Paris in high school. I bought another bottle a year or two later in this country. I bought a bigger bottle when I went back to Paris in college (when talesofthecity also discovered it). This is my scent, I wear it almost every day if I didn't use a scented bodywash, I love this stuff. I can no longer buy it in stores in the US. I check every perfume store I go past. I like having a scent no one else wears, but I had switched to Victoria's Secret scents because I can find those and I had started saving wearing that perfume for special days. I don't go through perfume that fast so I still had some of the last Paris bottle left. My sister got me a new bottle on ebay. I'm so excited. I can go back to smelling like me.

And I am at work; it's slow, and I'm bored.

I haven't an update of any signifigance in 13 days, almost a fortnight or two weeks. Let's do this briefly and in list format.

• The weekend of the 16th, weekend before Christmas, there was a Junior League holiday social with my small group. We had a gift exchange. I took a plug-a-mug (a mug you plug into your car to keep your coffee warm) and received a very pretty ornament shaped like a shoe. We had lunch at the Fairmont with yummy mimosas. Very fun.
  
• I passed progress review! Some of you may remember that that was this huge portfolio and essays thing I did. Basically, it is to justify my staying in my masters program. I passed it and not only get to stay in school, no remediation so I don't have to redo it. All of this is a huge big deal and a great relief to me.
  
• For some reason, our microwave is behaving odd. When you push the button to open the door, it starts running with the door opening. We're all a bit concerned about the radiation leaking into the house and bombarding our bodies. So you push the open door button and shove food in as quick as possible. Same when the food is done.
  
• We neglected to tell my brother-in-law about this little problem. His reaction is hilarious.
  
• We got a new microwave today before we were entirely irradiated.
  
• My brother came home for a few days. That was nice, but he doesn't like the puppy.
  
• The same day my brother flew out, my sister and brother-in-law flew in. So we picked up the married two from the airport, went to a nearby restaurant, had lunch, and exchanged some of our presents. Kinda weird, but fun.
  
• We had half of our presents on Christmas day with my brother and the other half on Tuesday with my sister and brother-in-law.
  
• I got neat stuff for Christmas. Some new clothes, jewelry, a nice jewelry box, a new DVD player. I picked out most of the stuff, but there were a few suprises in there, like the DVD player. I'm a happy girl.
  
• I have this old padlock, but I couldn't remember the combination. However in cleaning out some old papers, I found my planner from high school and there it was in the notes section.
  
• How many years ago exactly did Kirstie Alley abandon any sense of personal dignity?
  
• I worked at the public library on Christmas Eve, it was slow.
  
• My community college library that I work at also is closed for a couple of weeks for holidays. It is nice. I'm catching up on some projects, reading, watching DVDs, sleeping.
  
• Christmas Eve we went to my mom's Methodist Church as is tradition. The service and music was nice, but the majority of the nine minute sermon was the minister reading verbatim from Mad Magazine. My chin was practically hitting the floor in horror. One of my mother's friends looked over at me from the choir quizzically, so I had to put a more normal expression.
  
• The next day, Christmas, was Sunday and dad and I went to our church and the sermon was much better.
  
• Jane Austen cat loves to climb the Christmas tree.
  

Here is some fun from the twelve days of Christmas from the man at work whose job seems to be to send out long emails about county happenings and a little bit of trivia...

The "Twelve Days of Christmas" was originally written to help Catholic children, in England, remember different articles of faith during the persecution by Protestant Monarchs. The “true love” represented God, and the gifts all different ideas:
The "Partridge in a pear tree" was Christ.
2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity-- the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings = The first Five Books of the Old Testament, the "Pentateuch", which relays the history of man's fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying = the six days of Creation
7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping = the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed

Remember Catholic theology is what is being represented.

My last post (of any substanance) was on last tuesday of the pictures of the new puppy. Lots has happened since then, so this will be a long entry. Starting with the puppy's arrival. Well, to tell you more about this and how the cat reacted... ( pet stuff )

Thursday Thanksgiving was nice. Friday my mom and I did our usually mad shopping day blitz. We got some great deals. We weren't at Wal-mart at 5am because just no. But they still had a lot of their doorbusters and they were still on sale when we were there at 7pm, so I got a 23 inch television for $88. It is nicer than my little 13 inch one. It isn't the best brand or quality, but it is so cheap that if I use it for 2 years, I feel I will have more than gotten my money for it. My Christmas shopping is 95% done. I need one more little thing and some gift bags and I'm good. Except I need to make all my Christmas cards, and some people are getting packs of homemade cards for Christmas and I need to make those. I have all the supplies, just need to make them.

Saturday and Sunday I spent at the library doing research for a project. When I say I spent the weekend at the library, I mean I got there when they opened and left when they closed give or take fifteen minutes. I'm going insane with school stuff, but this semester will be done on Dec. 11th. Yay! I had to leave for a couple of hours on Saturday because Jane Austen cat was sick. She just kept throwing up. We went to vet, and much grossness later but thankfully not too much money, she is better. I think not being sick and grandma leaving have helped her to accept the puppy. The poor cat, she was sick, there was a new puppy that was bigger than her, there was a brand new person living there, we moved her food/water/litter box (so the dog wouldn't get them and we gated off the upstairs and made it her territory). It was probably the worst week of her short little life. Poor thing, but she seems happier now.

Monday grandma left (much to Jane Austen's relief) and Heather came in town! Yay! I haven't seen her in over a year and I've really missed her. She had a job interview in town, and I am hoping she will take the job here, but I know she needs to go where is best for her. But we had fun hanging out Monday night and Tuesday after her interview since she stayed an extra day to hang out with me. She left this morning which puts us back at the present. Of course she brought Montanna weather with her and it has been cold and snowy.

Congrats if you made it through this mammoth of an entry! Even more congrats if you clicked and read the stuff under the cut!