SURPRISE!

My sister and my best friend from high school arranged a surprise birthday party for me after work on Friday. Although less than half of the invited people showed, it was really great fun. My sister paid for the food and kept it on the sly.

There was Rockband II and lots of girl talk, which was rather unfortunate for the two boys in attendance.

I'm here at the toy shop again and given the amount of wind and apparent flooding in the area, I figure today will be kind of slow. Tuesday is my travel day, 8+ hours on a bus all the way to NYC. At least there won't be any bus exchanges. I'm going to hopefully get to the station early and claim my seat.

For some reason the CD player isn't working at the store so I may just have to break out into song myself.

Much like last time, it is to be a long empty-ish day so I may post again with tidbits of all-important knowledge.

Some Blog-worthy Things. . .

My extended family is expanding by leaps and bounds. All the cousins are now getting married and having families of there own. As described in the last post, holidays are formulaic. This holiday the "adults" broke off and had a conversation about what to do now that families are growing and the "adults" are now becoming grandparents. The "kids" or better described as "the people getting married and having children" had a meeting of their own, discussing what is to be done. The young families are opting to attempt a bi-annual reunion rather than the hectic Christmases where they have to choose between family and in-laws. My father, and his sisters, on the other hand, who really have no say in the situation, were going to have their back-room discussion. When they came back out and we said we feel like Christmas should be done differently my dad got all up in arms about it. As my mother says, "to your father, 'change' is a four-letter word."

If my father has a hard time dealing with the extended family changing the way they do things, I can't WAIT to see how he is going to handle the next few years when it comes to me. I have to go to grad school. I don't plan on living at home after college. I don't plan on living near home either. These will be some rather fantastic hurdles for my father to overcome. Not to mention my continuing relationship with Edwin. Daddy's little girl is going to be somewhat of a headache for him. I love my father, don't get me wrong. It just can be so incredibly frustrating sometimes.

Considering I'm here 'til 4pm, I'm sure I will post again with some interesting links or something :-)

Christmas and the Like

OK, So today is my 20th birthday! YAY!

I am currently at the toy shop where I opened for the first time by myself. It's just me, the stuffed animals and a little Rockabye Baby U2. First customer of the day was a woman and her daughter returning a rather expensive present that the girl did not want. The woman in general was in a cranky mood and rather nasty. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU TOO! The customers after that were nice so that fixed my put-outedness.

Onto Christmas:
I got a lot of nice things from my family. My family break Christmas up into 3 distinct sections. Christmas Eve = Grandma's house from my mom's side of the family. We open those presents then, then have a mini birthday thing for me. The next morning we open our presents at home then head over to my aunt's house form my dad's side of the family. Everyone at our house knows the best extended family presents come from my grandma's house. This year did not disappoint. I received a balloon animal making kit and some magic books. For my birthday I got a REALLY cool knife from my uncle (He's prepping my armory that I plan on having in my house when I move out on my own). On my dad's side of the family, excluding a beautiful earring and necklace set I got from my one aunt, I got sheets. 2 whole sheet sets. Granted they are nice sheets, but it still felt much like opening your package and finding socks. Pleasant, functional, and lackluster of that holiday enthusiasm.

So today is my birthday and now to decide where I will go with my family for dinner and a movie. I've narrowed it down to The Day the Earth Stood Still or The Tale of Despereaux. As far as dinner is concerned, I think I might say Red Robin because I know Amanda likes to go there.

I think I'm going to add a separate post about some other stories/ things going on. This appears to be a strictly holiday post. That being said:

MERRY CHRISTMAS
HAPPY FESTIVUS
HAPPY SOLSTICE
and
HOPE YOU HAD A ROCKIN" SATURNALIA!

I have come to the conclusion that...

I just don't have a life full of blog worthy things.

Perhaps it is related to the fact that I don't speak on the phone very well. It's not that I stammer or anything, I simply seem to run out of conversation. Now in person, that is another story entirely.

In reference to the video I last posted about, I ended up making a blooper reel in addition to the actual piece. Both are linked here:

The Actual Assignment

The Blooper Reel

Anywho, Christmas is literally upon us. That means my birthday is as well! I turn 20 on the 26th. I head to NYC on the 30th for a couple days with my boyfriend (who told me all I have to do is blog about how amazing he is. I countered with the fact that his awesomeness is common knowledge the world- over. He conceded to this).

Have I ever mentioned on here that I am hopelessly, unbelievably in love? I mean it's truly terrible. You suddenly have these gooey feelings and your brain tends to go all to mush when that certain person smiles. These gooey feelings have persisted for more than a year and i see no sign of a cure.

I wonder if it's terminal...

The Here and Now

Things have been admittedly hectic this semester. Therefor I am going to basically start fresh, just injecting little side notes and points of interest.

1) Has anyone out there heard of or read the children's book titled "The Wump World"?

• I freaking loved this story as a child and recently had it purchased for me
• I'm in an Apocalyptic Fiction class and while discussing Earth Abides, the story of the wumps came to mind. Ah kid lit!

2) Another question: Has anyone seen Twice Upon a Time?

• It's a fantastically fun movie
  
• You can find it on YouTube, granted it's in bits, but it's all there

3) Thanksgiving? Already? When did that happen?

• Ah well, good food cometh

4) I am currently working on a mini film for my creative writing class. I will post it as soon as it is completed.

Soon

Only 6 days remain here at home. That's 144 hours. 8,640 minutes. 518,400 seconds. But who is counting?

Honestly I seem to have finally gotten back into the swing of being home and now I have to leave again. I kept anticipating my return to campus, but now that it's almost here, I'm torn. Going back to school means school work, and my job on campus. It also means freedom. so i guess it all balances out.

After my time at the toy shop, I REALLY don't want to deal with food service. Ah well, we shall see what happens next...

It's been a while...

So, I haven't posted recently because there simply isn't anything going on in my life except work and the recent preparation for returning to school.

I just found out from my boyfriend that The Binghamton University Circus Arts Association is going to performing in the city of Binghamton on September 19th! It's so cool that a club that is only a year old has already done so much. I really hope that the circus that started in 2007 will become a staple at the university. So, it sounds like I will have many more posts in the future with cool circus pictures and everything. The club may even start a blog of their own and then we could get everyone to post about their experiences or whatnot!

I have a family party at my house this Saturday. After that, I really just have the move back to Binghamton on the 22nd, everything is packed, it's just a matter of the drive!

Today is not a good mood day, but, that will change, it always does :-)

OOPS!

OK, OK, so I haven't been posting. Bad Catherine!

Things have been ho hum kind of dull here, but given my large span of time for which I wasn't blogging, I have a tad more information to share than usual! This past weekend my sister and I took our parents out for an overnight on the town in celebration of their 26th wedding anniversary. We reserved a one night stay at a four star hotel for 2 and got family reservations at a fancy restaurant and everything. When we arrived at the hotel to check in, the hostess said, "Oops, we don't have any more available rooms in the same style that you reserved." All I could think was "oh crud, now what?" But after speaking with her manager she said that she was sorry for the inconvenience and that they were going to give my parents a 2-story loft room instead. THIS TURNED OUT TO BE A ROOM 3 TIMES THE VALUE OF THE ONE MY SISTER AND I HAD BOOKED!

Needless to say, that went over quite well! On a more unfortunate note, I was scheduled to be in NYC for my boyfriend's birthday this upcoming Monday, but he was hired to work longer in Florida. So no NYC trip for me this summer! Although that was kind of disappointing, i had far too much fun packing his birthday presents in a box for UPS to deliver lovingly on the weekend before his actual birthday. I am really going to make him work for his gifts. It's a box, within a box, within a box. Each layer is surrounded by streamers, confetti, and little "on this day in history" messages. I really wish I could see his face when he's unwrapping it all! hopefully that will bring a bit of a party to him since he's so far away from his friends.

Yesterday I had a bit of an adventure. I had the day off of work, and almost no gas in my tank. But, I needed to drop off the wonderful birthday package at the UPS store. It's not too far from my house so I decided to walk. Upon my arrival home, I google mapped the walk I had taken. It turns out that I walked 8 miles roundtrip. I think that's pretty cool.

Other than that, nothing to report except that there are only 30 days until college move in day, and 2 paychecks left to receive!

The Sleep-over

Andrea has been holding a summer tent-out sleepover for as long as I have known her. Once again, it was a great success. She really is my closest of my "bests". Lately I have been concerned for her health and happiness. Her boyfriend is a very hot and cold type person. One day he is the sweet loving kid she started dating in junior year of high school. Other days he's moody and kind of controlling.

Just like my concern for all people, I just want her to be happy. I know she is happy sometimes, but definitely not others. I am not able to "fix" people. I can only watch and offer advice when it is asked for. It's not my life, I have no right to tell her what to do with it. It's always easier to comment on things when you are not directly involved with them. I know that if the same thing was happening to me right now, I most likely would not be taking my own advice.

Eric took some amusing videos/pictures of the party people in the pool. They are not the least bit flattering, but they are certainly worth a laugh. Hopefully I will get a copy so I can post it here.

I'm at work for most of this week, bringing home the money :-). I'm just trying to work as much as possible now so I don't have to over the semester. I will still be working in catering and dishwashing on campus, but I want to limit my hours to about 12 or 16 a week. I'm really glad that I will have this job on all my breaks. It's so much better than a simply seasonal job.

My grandparents are coming over today for a cook-out. That will be nice to come home to, family and food!

Weird Summer

Okay, so I'm sure everyone remembers what it's like to get out of school and have the entire summer ahead of them. This is usually a time that is anticipated for months. For the first time in my life, I did not look forward to this summer. I went from dorming at school and being able to live however I wanted, to coming home and feeling like a child once again. In all honesty the only things that make this summer somewhat salvageable are my friends and my job. I really think I could not have gotten any luckier with my summer employment. I had unfortunately lost contact with some of my friends over the past academic year, so playing catch-up is fun.
My compliant with this summer has to do with not being able to see my friends from college because they are mostly from NYC. The hardest thing is having my boyfriend work in California. His time scale is different from mine which makes communication more difficult. It ends up with him calling me after work around 12:30am our time. He's exhausted from his long day and I'm tired from mine. It ends up with both of us being grouchy and turning our anticipated conversation into something disappointing/distressing.

In conclusion, I have exceedingly mixed feelings about this summer. 7 weeks and 3 days until move-in day for the start of my sophomore year. I'm pretty excited about this 4th of July weekend though, I'm heading over to my friends house for fireworks on the 4th and then I'm sleeping over on the 5th in celebration of her birthday.

Let It Be Said...

That I started this, my first blog, today due to Jerry, the store owner of The Good Toy Shop where I work! I was having far too much fun writing posts about the store that I decided to create my own account. It's a good thing I have someone who knows about blogging to help me figure out some of the finer points of how this all works.

There's a lot of cool things I'm hoping to post here and discuss and what not. It'll be good to get it all out one time instead of having to reiterate stories. Here I'll have the whole thing in type...

Here is the post that I just wrote for The Good Toy Shop (I'm in it, so I'm linking it to here)! I always have fun at work, no matter what is going on!

http://thegoodtoyshop.blogspot.com