Christmas Craziness

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. This year was a bit different than years past though....

For starters, I got ALL my shopping done in one trip!! It only took me 5 hrs including travel time!! : ) That's very exciting for me. And this year, we didn't go on a family vacation as we have the past 5 years. We had been doing this since with 3 of us kids in university, in 3 different provinces at times, Christmas was really the only time when all 6 of us were together... usually one or two of the family members were missing the rest of the year. Also, this year my grandparents (on my mom's side) came over to our house on Christmas Eve and stayed overnight to share Christmas with us so that they didn't have to be alone this year. Our family has never done this before, but it turned out to be very nice to have them with us. Then we rushed off to be in Burlington for my dad's family Christmas at noon, and my grandparents joined us. It seemed kinda weird having both sides of my family Christmas together this year (my mom's side of the family is clearly very small!), but we all had lots of fun. We did a "re-gifting" gift exchange, which was lots of fun... a pretty loud and physical auction type game as it turns out. It's surprising how much everybody gets into it when all we're doing is trading each others junk. Also, now that all my younger cousins are growing up, it's been nice hanging out with them more and getting to know them better. When they were younger, they were just as annoying as little brothers and sisters, but now they're cool and i love them! This year, we also had the addition of 2 fiances to the family... 2 of my female cousins got engaged (yay)! They found some great guys and we had lots of fun together, so I'm very happy for them : ) Anyways, my brother got a Futureshop gift certificate for Christmas this year and had to spend it immediately, so he made me get up with him at 4:30 a.m. Boxing Day morning to be in Kitchener when the store opened at 6 a.m. Uuuugggh! My university life sleeping habits are not going away! I was soooo tired. But anyways, we were back home again by 8 a.m.... just in time for my parents to tell me that we're were leaving at 8:30 a.m. to go Boxing Day shopping in the States (Port Huron). We were pretty disappointed though... apparently the Americans don't make such a big deal out of Boxing Day shopping and sales like we do in Canada. We didn't find many bargains, so it was kinda a waste of a day.... oh well.

On a different note, I finally got a new laptop!!! My desktop computer was infected, ancient, completely out of hard drive space, and therefore, unbelievably slow. This upgrade has been in the waiting for like 3 years! So I'm very happy, however, it has been kinda overwhelming trying to figure everything out on this new beast... where are all my IT friends??!!

That was the gift I bought for myself, but other than that, this year I recieved a pile of kitchen utensils, 4 books (including a World Atlas... pretty cool for a Geographer!), lounge pants, a sweater, a CD carrying case, money and gift certificates, and a number other small things like stocking stuffers.

I wanna hear everybody elses Christmas stories now! : )

nothing new...

Well, this has been a pretty uneventful week and I don't have much to say, but I thought I'd post anyways just to pass the time. Sorry for the randomness!

Sunday was a great night! A bunch of us went out to retro night at Phil's to celebrate Eric's birthday. I learned that I LOOOVE retro night and it was really nice to get to see my people again. With having so many essays and what not at the end of the term, it had been a while (~6 weeks) since the last time I had the chance to hang out with everybody.

Also, I finally got to go to the Embassy this week! I haven't been there all term because I've had a night class on Monday's. I was hoping Dom was going to be speaking because I haven't heard him yet, but it was Brandon. That's ok though, cause I like Brandon and it was good. It just means that I'm going to have to make an effort to make to drive and come back every week starting in January if I want to hear Dom. It was really great to get to see some old friends on Monday night too.

Last night Graham came over to visit me and I showed him my pictures from my summer trip. That was cool, but I realized that even though I've been back for months now, not very many people have seen my pics yet... sorry guys!

I was also pretty upset that the all-Canadian hockey game was not on TV at all last night, so I followed game scoreboard on the internet instead. It's stupid that just because I live in Leafs territory, the other Canadian games aren't shown. The Colorado/Nashville game was on instead... !?! Some of you may think I'm obsessive over hockey, but you should know by now that this is pretty common for me. Anyways, the Habs made a strong come-back with Kovalev to beat the Sens in the shootout. Many of you will not care at all, but those of you who like hockey can understand why this is so exciting for me!! I'm also not impressed by today's announcement that Spezza is ONLY on reserve for Team Canada.... bad decision... bye-bye Olympic Gold (j/k... i hope).

I also learned a little bit about HTML this week so that I could make some customizations on my blog... yay : ) hehe

So, tomorrow I think it's time for me to start my Christmas shopping. I hope I can get it done quickly cause I don't like all the busyness and stress of trying to figure out what to get people. I can't believe how fast Christmas has creeped up on me this year. Christmas is going to be very different this year I think.... I'll let you know later how it goes.

Let me know you're here!

hey guys... i saw this done on another blog once before and i liked the idea...

If you are reading this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want to say, either good or bad. Prehaps it could be a first impression, a special moment, or a certain way in which I've impacted your life.

thanks : )

i became a blogger!

Yes, that's right... i'm aboard the bandwagon, for better or worse. Clearly my life is in transition, which is good!

For those of you who haven't seen me smile or heard me talk about it yet, i'm finished school! FOR LIFE!! This is quite an accomplishment, definitely a day to remember for a girl that never felt like this was the kind of life she was cut out for in the first place and hated every minute of it but stuck with it anyways. My dad pointed out to me that I have been in school for 10 years longer than him.... zikes!! (that was a steveism... sorry) I hope it pays off for me in the end... ie. i hope i find a job and start making some money soon. Unfortunately, i broke my hole puncher on the last day of classes, but fortunately i found a 50 on the last day of exams... so it all works out in the end (or better)!!! :-D Can you believe it?! Some poor person (no pun intended) dropped $50 on the ground, and I found it! Just in time for me to start my Christmas shopping! All this equals crazy happiness... YIPPEEE! HOORAH!! HOORAY!! PAR-TAY!!

So in celebration for myself, i spent all day today watching the finale of Survivor, the finale of Amazing Race, and the finale of The Apprentice (not to mention the prank calls i left on Steve's answering machine... hehehe). The temptation to watch them earlier this week was SOOO hard to resist, but i had to tape them in order to get my work done. As much as i love my reality shows, it was painfully difficult to sit in front of a TV for that many hours in one day.... i don't think i'll do that again.

Anyways, that's all for now.... something more significant may be said at a later date. Come back soon!