Stories of Airports and Snow

yeah yeah, so Shawn and I didn't go anywhere this year (which isn't true, we went over to the Lima Bean's house...she's so much cuter now that she can hold her own damn head up). BUT that doesn't mean that we haven't heard endless stories of travel travails.

My dad was stuck in North Carolina (?) because he couldn't get back to Colorado...but hey, Carolina is better than Jersey.

Everyone in Colorado was stuck in their house.

One of my coworkers was stuck at the Austin Airport for 10 hours because she missed her first flight to Chicago...the flight didn't even have to go through Denver...just straight through to Chicago...but I guess Chicago was on a 4 hour flight delay because of fog.

And we...why we weren't stuck at all! yay for mild climates!

As far as Christmas presents go, we got quite a few nifty things...things like a 750 piece "solve the mystery" puzzle, which we solved the puzzle, and managed to solve the mystery without the "key evidence"...but then, I think the clues and the lab reports and what other crap they gave you really gave the whole thing away...not nearly as hard as the puzzles Mom used to buy us. We also got like $125 in movie gift certificates...so, we's goin' to the movies! And I got a nice outfit from Mom. She had Dani help her, but it's all good, the clothes fit and everyone at work said they looked nice. I got a nifty iHome...it's for my iPod...which I've taken to calling my ip-odd instead of my "na-new, na-new." That's all for now...I'll post a pic of the puzzle later so that the fam can use it to make their version of said puzzle.

Good God, there's something in the water!

So then, the Lima Bean was born in September...and Mrs. Poochie is going to have a baby in May...and now Miss Sarah is going to have a baby in July! I swear, there's something in the water...I think I'd better switch to bottled, just to be safe.

The Baby Name Wizard

No, we're not having a baby. Ross got me hooked on a website a while back, and so I started reading more about the actual book and then had the stupid, stupid thought "wow, that's pretty cool, I should get the book." And thus, I have bought the book...I also got a "how to make stuffed animals" book too so that I can make something for Baby Colison. The book is such a let down...maybe it's a let down because it really is just another baby name book and it doesn't explain the science of what research went into it, or it doesn't explain why people sometimes choose mates that begin with the same letters...or even why parents that have twins always seem to name the kids with names that all begin with the same letter. But anyhow, I'm disappointed. They don't even have my name in it. :(

Names that go with Danielle: Nicole, Erica, Amanda, Rachel, Stephanie, Derek, Jeremy, Sean, Travis, Adam

Names that go with Mary: Margaret, Catherine, Martha, Rosa, Anne, John, Charles, George, Edward, Paul

Names that go with James: Mary, Elizabeth, Anne, Camilla, Charlotte, Robert, William, Thomas, Phillip, John

Europe or Central America?

So then, as I said earlier, this is a picture of our shower wall...apparently I take really long showers or something because I swear to God that this looks like Spain, Italy and a messed up Greece...but then one day I thought it looked a little more like Central America...but you can't have Spain, Italy and Central America all connected...or can you? Dur, and after I uploaded it I realized that there are little red lines acting like messed up little arrows when really they point to nothing, so look ABOVE the titles--except for Spain, which is in the middle of where Spain is in my Shower Wall World.

Chrismakuh

Ah Chrismakuh...how glorious of a season you are. You get to bring out the best and worse in people. For example: Project Blue Santa--good (not to mention the fact that this organization gets thousands of unwrapped toys which they then go and wrap...that's a lot of wrapping), and psychotic christians--bad. Yes, that's right, psychotic christians. I believe I have found my arch nemeses...Everyone knows of this type of person--the person that is personally offended that someone dare say "happy holidays" instead of "merry christmas". they'll claim that "people have taken the christ out of christmas" which guess what? not everyone is christian. There are tons of other religions, so yes, "Happy Holidays" is what you say to people when you aren't sure if they're christian...but then, at the same time, there isn't a muslim, hindu, or buddhist holiday around christmas, so maybe it would be best if we just didn't say anything to anyone about religious holidays unless you absolutely know without a doubt what religion the person is...hmm, that could work nicely, though i'm sure the psychotic christians would still be upset because they need to be recognized...stupid attention seeking whores.

Religious Holidays in December (via earthcalendar.net):
12/3--Beginning of Advent (christian)
12/8--Immaculate Conception (christian)
--Martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji (sikhism)
12/10--Ganga Bua (voudon)
12/12--Agu Arroyo (voudon)
12/16--Beginning of Chanukkah (judaism)
12/21--Alban Arthuan/Heruin (celticism)
--Litha/Yule (paganism)
12/24--Christmas Eve (christian)
12/25--Christmas Day (christian)
--Bain de Noel (voudon)
12/26--Zartusht-No-Diso (zoroastrian)
12/31--Asara B'tevet (judaism)
--Omisoka (shinto)

Non-Religious days of note (via earthcalendar.net):
12/23--Festivus
12/26--beginning of Kwanzaa

So choose a holiday and enjoy, just remember that not everyone you meet celebrates the same one. And on that note, Happy Holidays!

The Wall in the Shower

So, I'm going to blog about the wall in the shower. Boring you may say. But, au contraire mon frer. The wall is marble...therefore it's got the funny little feather lines in it. These lines can be imagined to draw things...you know, like how you can see things in clouds. I will post a picture later (I have to figure out how to get my camera all hooked up and downloading pictures while using this crazy new OS called "Vista"---mwah ha ha ha, that's right, Shawn's got a Developer's license for Vista so he gets to play with it at home to try to find bugs and whatnot.). But, back to the issue at hand, I want to know if it's a funky drawing of Spain, Italy, and Greece, or if it's a drawing of California, Baja, and Central America. As I said...later.

Bah Humbug!

On Thursday I had to go to the doctor for a stupid physical. YAY nothing's wrong! they put a rush order on the lab work so I found out 15 minutes later. YAY! But then, the question of the tetanus shot came up..."uh...let's see...we were going to Albuquerque for a band trip...and I had to get it right after that trip because I was turning 15 and that's when I needed the shot...and now I'm...25...damn." so the tetanus shot it is. The shot itself didn't hurt. by that night I was in pain. I woke up at least 4 times because I'd hit my arm, rolled over on it, or just tried to move it. Friday day I couldn't lift my arm at more than a 15 degree angle without seeing stars...That's when I started taking the pain meds. ThenI got the reaction to the vaccine where it feels like you have the flu but not--so I was nauseous, chills (so I was wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and was still under a blanket...and this was AFTER I turned the heat up to 72), achy, low-grade fever and dead tired. I slept in the same outfit as described above and woke up once to take more pain meds...Saturday's been better...but then I've been on a constant Advil high all day, and, since Shawn's starting to get some sore throat type sickness, he hasn't complained about me turning the temp up inside the house.

In other stuff, we went to Shawn's work group's holiday party on Thursday night. There were conversations about Linux, the delicious soup, and a very in-depth conversation about Transformers...I don't know if I should be impressed, or very, very scared.

So, you know how I said

that Shawn had built me a new computer with all the stuff that he bought the day after Thanksgiving? And how I needed a new computer because the only thing I could do on my old one was surf the web? Yeah, well, funny story: Since shawn is obsessed with Linux (what's a linux?) he decided to install Sabayon on my computer (as well as Windows). And now, for some reason, he can't connect to the internet--nevermind the fact that it connected perfectly fine to the internet last night. And this is why I hate computers...

In other news, my in-laws decided that we (us and his parents) should all throw some money in and get my sister-in-law and her husband one big present (combined for their birthdays and Christmas). This is perfectly fine with me...the only problem is that we had already gone out and bought Christina her Christmas presents...which we can keep one of them til next Christmas, but I'm worried about keeping the one that Shawn chose because I think the stuff may not be good if we wait a year...so I guess it will become a birthday present maybe? but then I feel like we should get Nathan something to open as well...oy vey...see the problem with going shopping the day after Thanksgiving?

Let the Christmas shopping begin

So, Thanksgiving. We were home, by ourselves, we had smoked turkey breast, and it was delicious. Then 9pm rolled around and Shawn said "let's go get a hard drive from CompUSA, they have a good deal on a 160 gig drive." so it was off to CompUSA where we waited in line to get out of the store for about an hour and a half, but we had the hard drive. We got home at like 11:45 and then set the alarm to wake up at 4am so we could leave for Fry's to get their computer based deals. We got to Fry's at 4:30 and waited in line to get INTO the store for about 20-25 minutes--they opened a little early because the line had gone from the front doors all the way down to the fire station. Now then, last year we waited in line for about an hour to get out of the store, so this year's goal was to get in and get out as quick as possible--no lollygagging around looking at things we weren't going to buy. We didn't even have to wait in line to leave. We were out of the store by 5:05am. Then it was off to Kohl's for actual Christmas gifts, that was an hour and a half long wait. Then to Linens 'n Things, then to Old Navy (both of which didn't have very long lines--mostly because by this time, both stores had been open for about an hour). And then we went back to Fry's the following Sunday to pick up some more presents for people. And thus we have bought ourselves the stuff to make me a new computer (my computer is so outdated that about the only thing I can do on it anymore is surf the internet) and the stuff for a new media computer (now we can get High Def television), and gotten about half of our Christmas shopping done. WOOO! and it's only December 2nd. Now then, we just got to go wait in line at the post office so we can ship all this stuff out.