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...