Sorry, sorry: the catch-up blog.

Ok, so here was Mike and I's holiday season:

Wednesday, December 19th: last day of work for a few weeks. Whoohoo!

Thursday, December 20th: My first day off! (warning, long rambling story about the oldest cat) Took Turkish to the vet to get him checked out because he was pooping bloodiness on our bed...twice in nine hours. Poor guy wasn't feeling well. So I take him into the vet, he sees the resident orange kitty "Pumpkin," and freaks out. We actually had to muzzle him, which didn't really work since his face is shaped oddly (the vet assistant's words, not mine), and eventually the poor vet had to use leather gloves. Anyway, once the vet was actually able to do the exam, turns out he had a random tummy upset. We paid an exorbitant amount os money for that conclusion, of course, and he is now doing better, since we changed his litter back to clay. We were going environmental with "wheat litter," but he evidently did not take kindly to it. Now: less blood, no poo on bed. That was the high point of the day, really.

Friday, December 21st: Christmas party! Got to see Leah & Danny (and Abby!), Mica & Neil, and "the Rochenbach," on vacation from her work in Malawi. So good to see them all! Succesfully put up two strands of Christmas lights and redecorated the tree the kitties had succesfully un-decorated.

Saturday, December 22nd: Relaxed. Cleaned a bit. Read A Hundred Years of Solitude for school. Here's an example of the last twenty pages: people having an affair who turned out to be closely related had a baby with a pig's tail who was eaten by ants, after the childbirth death of the mother and shortly before the death of the father. I kid you not, the entire book is like that. I really hate Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Grrrr. But at least it's read.

Sunday, December 23rd: Drove down to San Diego and went to the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art (SDMCA. Catchy, huh?). Good space, but small. Mostly installation pieces by a single artist. And the museum people act like you're going to rip the 20-foot installation panel from the ceiling and smuggle it out in your purse. Long story short: not the best art experience. Went back to Oceanside, chilled with my family.

Monday, December 24th: Sea World! Our passes expired the 26th, so Mike, my parents, and I all went. Good times.

Tuesday, December 25th: Christmas!!!! Mom and Dad's in the morning, Papa & Grandma in the afternoon, and the Lake's in the evening. Played really old complicated board game called "Dungeons" that my six-year-old nephew is oddly adept at. failed miserably.

Wednesday: December 26th: Little to no activity. Lots of pajamas, reading, RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, and movies.

Thursday: December 27th: Laundry, groceries, and household stuff. Bought storage for our ornaments (because we actually have them this year). Ditto on the above.

Friday: December 28th: Went out to the Bookman in Orange and tried to pick up a few more texts for school. Ended up picking up a great book on Hiroshima. Read it Friday night/ Saturday morning. Popped over to IKEA for filials and ended up also purchasing a couple of large red velvet pillows. Awesome in a non-porno way, I swear! Clio has claimed any unoccupied pillow for her own. Then went to Don Jose's with my grandparents and Mom and Dad.

Saturday: December 29th: More laziness. In-N-Out for dinner. Various house-stuff. Finished taking down Christmas lights that were actually lit only twice, and not at all on Christmas. Failure.

Sunday: December 30th: Went to Little Tokyo for chocolate mushrooms (insert drool here). Picked up extra to ship to Steve and Sarah and to prove to my boss that they do indeed exist. Tried to go to the Getty, but was foiled by crazy numbers of people trying to go. Gave up and headed home. Dropped by BJ's (avocado egg rolls), Target (trashcan for paper recycle), and Borders (the last couple of books for school). Read Sex God by Rob Bell. Awesome.

And I'm spent! Now that I feel less guilty about the large time lapse between blogs I'll be able to write more often. Maybe.

Happy New Year!

I'm starting to see a trend...

I'm on antibiotics again. Not for a UTI; we got rid of that. Nope, my sinus infection returned.

Sorry. I'm not the funnest (yes, I said funnest) person to be around right now. On the bright side, I have only two days before my Christmas break from work. I'm hoping a slightly slower pace and more sleep will help.

There's tons going on as usual, so I'll try and feel better in the next couple of days and catch ya'all up.

Good night!

They should seasonally candy-coat antibiotics

So I have taken more antibiotics in the past year than the other 23 years of my life combined. Serious. Four UTI's and a sinus infection.

So, the fourth UTI struck kindly on a Sunday morning. Mike and I drag ourselves over to Kaiser that afternoon for the wonderful antibiotics, where the doctor looks at my tests and starts asking me all sorts of interesting questions, like "does it hurt when I do this?" Evidently the original test came out with crazy high protein levels, indicating a) bone cancer, b) kidney failure, or c) a false reading. In the end it was a falsely high reading, but I'll admit, I was a little freaked out. Mike said he wasn't. Hah.

Anyway, back on antibiotics, feeling better, enjoying the Christmas season. Yay!

White and Silver and Blue all over...

We bought and put up a tree this morning. It is fabulous in an utterly tricked out, themed fashion.

And we spent all afternoon and evening doing the 4-year-old birthday/family dinner thing. Good times.

Lastly, ran into the Caitlings at Target. Great to see them! We're going to try and pull an evening together. We'll see how it goes...

Happy December, everybody!

I am 1/3 of the way there!!!!

That's right, I just turned in my final papers (I finished up three 5 page papers today...and worked 8 hours. How friggin cool am I?), which means that my second semester of grad school is complete! I have three more semesters of regular classes, and planned for Spring 09 is my thesis.

Yay for me!

And yes, I am way tired slap-happy right now. Give me a break!

Thanksgiving (and then some)

It's been awhile!

Still on antibiotics...boo.

Thanksgiving was fun...yay! A bunch of the girls (Mom, Connie, Monica, and our newby this year, Ashley) go shopping at 5 a.m. on Black Friday. We never get any great deals and we all refuse to wait in line (and I whine like a pain in the butt for the first three hours), but we do it anyway. Why? Couldn't even begin to tell you. But at least I got a start on the Christmas shopping.

I'm not allowed to decorate or do anything fun/Christmas-y until Saturday, since my semester ends Friday, but I'm looking forward to it! We're theming white, silver, and small red accents this year. Gonna look awesome!!!!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Sinuses and Nickel Creek

So, last night a slew of us ventured out to LA's house of Blues to see the very last touring performance of Nickel Creek. Granted, the venue was really bad, but Nickel Creek was awesome as usual.

First, the tickets said 8, but it turned out that the concert didn't actually start until 9. So we stood outside for an hour, got in to the venue, waited for another 45 minutes, listened to a two + hour concert... all standing. My back was KILLING me. The, all they provide is valet parking, so you know have 9/10 of the indoor audience standing outside at almost midnight waiting for their vehicle to show. Bad plan, people. Bad plan. Got home at 1 am. I am so old!

So, given that we didn't know about the real concert start time or the "standing only genuine admission" policy, it was a pretty hard night. But, again, the music was utterly fantastic; so sad they're taking a break!

So, anyway, last night I joked, "Hey, if I'm too tired or my back hurts too much, I can call in sick." Seriously, I was kidding.

Well, I've had a headache for the last week, off and on, which this morning turned into the RAGING MONSTER HEADACHE FROM HELL. No kidding. I'm staying close to my bottle of Motrin. Don't worry, I don't think it's anything too serious, just a sinus infection left to its own devices. I think I secretly hoped it would go away on its own. But this morning I also have chunky mucus that keeps appearing in my mouth.

Yes, I know that was an overshare.

So I'm waiting until Michael is up so I can start being annoying and call my doc. Hurts way too much to sleep right now. And yes, I called in sick.

I didn't mean it! I swear!!!

Geesh.