After Christmas

Well, Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus everyone. It's late, I know, but I've been busy/tired.

How the kings and queens celebrated a full 12 days of Christmas, I will never know. We celebrated for roughly 5 days. By the 4th, fatigue had set in. Each of us took a 4-6 hour nap Saturday and fell asleep relatively early... wait... no... 3am doesn't count as early does it? Well... we slept anyway. And today just the idea of working makes my eyes close on their own.

But I have to say, tiring or no, this Christmas season was better than I expected. I'd never spent a Christmas away from my family before - and admittedly I was a little teary eyed and homesick Christmas morning - but all in all I feel like Christmas was full of cheer and joy and livers now a little worse for wear. This nerdy group I call my friends has grown on me quite a bit over the course of the past three months. I love them like family. Playing Wii with the Moores was like being around my own siblings, with the added bonus of cussing. And Ray and Nicole took care of those of us who are vegetarians. The veggie sausage was delicious. Ray's stories were very good. I'll treasure that piece of paper for a long time yet. Cade STILL needs to come play Clue with us so we can open that Scotch, but I'm just glad he came and liked his ship in a bottle kit. This holiday was truly a success. I seriously wish Olivia could have been there, but at least she'll be home soon!

My Christmas gifts this year were spot on. My favorite gift from John-Ross was definitely the Michael Jackson music videos. Klaus Kinsky the gold fish is pretty awesome too though, I must say. My dad's family sent me TimTams and some other junk food (they know me too well). I'm still waiting for our fussy mailman to bring the package my mom sent.

I'm excited for New Years' Eve. We're going to two dance parties I think. Mainly I'm excited for 2008 to be over already. It's been a seriously tumultuous year. Far from what I expected. Hopefully 2009 will be better. Or a little calmer at least.

Sometimes, you just make me soooo happy.

I really want to make a post about all the friends I love and am thankful for lately. There are more than this, but I want to mention these people specifically just for being there and chatting with me and being so all around lovely, particularly this past week. In case they weren't sure. In no particular order, they are:

Celia
John-Ross
Elisa
Amalia
Ray
Ryan
Olivia
Bob
Ben
Dane
Andrew
Avery
Toby*
Sego*



*I know, they're dogs. But I love them just the same. They're so nice to me when I'm sad haha. I'm really glad we have them.

That's all. Just a who I'm thankful for list.

some ranting, some raving

I haven't been updating this as much lately. I was talking to Elisa the other day and I admitted I've stopped writing in here because it stopped being mine a while ago. The fear of who was reading it, the idea of writing to and for other people frightened me and so I began to feel myself unworthy of writing in my own meager little blog.

So, if you don't like it, bugger off. I'm going to try to write more anyway. Because honestly, I need it. I bottle too much up when I don't write regularly.

I'm feeling pretty weird tonight. I think it's stemming from a few things:

1) I hate my job. A lot. So much so that I've started a work day count down until I can go back to school. 98 days left. When I do go back to school, I'm going to have to find a part time job somewhere else, and I'm ok with that. I want to be able to afford school though, so I've got to save up as much money as possible. I've decided to start donating plasma twice a week. It's good money and I'll be helping people (who work for the big bad pharmaceutical companies... but still). I hate needles, so I'm really hoping I can go through with this. It'll pay rent each month if I can.

2) Our house is a mess and it's driving me crazy. I'm not always the neatest person. My family knows this. I can be messy as all get out. But I'm also a germ-o-phobe. This may sound weird, but let me explain. There's a difference between my germs and other people's germs (to me obviously. I don't mean that in a neurotic, "my germs are better than your germs" kind of way). There's a difference between living in my "mess" which is more an assortment of piles that I've strategically placed and know the contents of in depth; and living in someone else's mess, unable to find my other shoe or that tank top I just got last week or the hat I took the tag off this morning. And our carpets are disgusting.

I've called a cleaning company to have them come help us clean deep since none of us seem to know how to really scrub a shower or a kitchen floor or a toilet. And I've called a Chem Dry down here to come clean our carpets right after Christmas. I'm hoping this will make me feel better about where I live. Because as is, it's stressing me out so much that I can barely think about anything else when I'm home, but it's so overwhelming I can't seem to start on it in any direction.

3) I just want to learn to sew but the mess we have everywhere and the fact that I can't bring myself to do anything at home but obsess over how messy it is or watch movies or sleep means I haven't been focusing on it like I'd like to be. I want to get my skills up to at least intermediate so that I can take the intermediate and advanced classes as BYU this Spring and Summer, but if we don't get this place under control and my desk cleaned off and my little craft area set up, I'm not going to be able to get it done. I've started sewing lessons but the past two weeks just haven't worked out and I'm starting to get frustrated with it.

4) I'm not spending nearly enough time reading or finding new music. Two things I love and used to do regularly but these days just don't seem to make time for. It's driving me nuts. Every time I scroll through my Ipod I get annoyed.

So, those are the things bothering me in order of importance. The job thing is 98 work days away from being solved. The clean thing is hopefully 21 regular days away from being solved, or at least taken care of for a little while. The sewing thing will hopefully work itself out once the messiness does. And I'll just have to take more time for reading and music surfing now and then.

Ok.

Problems identified, plans made.

In good news: I like John-Ross. I like my friends. I love my roommates. Elisa's almost convinced me to join 24 hour fitness because they have a pool that's open 24 hours a day (!!!). I love weekends. I love discussing projects with Olivia - we're going to have a booth at a hip craft fair in the spring. I'm off of accutane and glad for it! (just a few more months and I can start getting my eyebrows waxed again. yessssss). I'm nearly done with my year of depression meds then I can go back to being an N instead of an S. Or maybe my full S will come out, who knows. Crappily great and greatly crappy 2008 is nearly finished. And Christmas is almost here!

All very good things.

That's life for now I guess. A little yin, a little yang.