So long 2008...

Well, it's been a long and interesting year for me. Yet it flew by so fast.

1. I've been unemployed all year. Sure I've been slacking about finding something new, but thought I'd take advantage of the time off while I could. 2009 is the year of the new job, I hope.

2. I had a very fun 5 day trip to Phoenix in January. I got to meet a handful of people from the Arena that I had only chatted with online. We saw a few games, went to the zoo, and just had a good time.

3. At the end of March, I went to D.C./Virginia for my friend Sahar's wedding. I drug Sarah along on the whirlwind 4 day trip so I didn't have to go alone. And I love D.C., so it was fun to share that with someone who has never been.

4. About 3 days after coming home from that trip, our friend Desiree was in town visiting from Saskatchewan. So she, Sarah and I turned around and road tripped down to L.A.. We saw 2 hockey games, went to Disneyland, Hollywood and Santa Monica. We also met more Arena friends on that trip.

5. There have also been many hockey games and meeting of more Sharks fans in the local area, which has
been a ton of fun.

6. I also became more involved in the hockey forum I belong to. It's basically my unpaid job… seriously. www.thenhlarena.com

7. I became re-acquainted with my Great-Aunt this year. Unfortunately it was because she has Cancer and needed rides to chemo appts. But we now just enjoy hanging out, so it was nice to get to know her better.

8. In August my Step-Brother and I headed up to Alaska again, this time to Ketchikan. We spent a week or so up there with my Mom and Step-Dad, and Merlin. We had another nice family vacation.

9. Just last week I got together with some old high school and college friends and it was so great to see them and catch up.

10. I've also… made candles and Christmas ornaments, gone to the coast a few times, watched 2 new dogs join the family, made my dog wear a jersey, went to Yosemite and Mammoth Lakes, watched my cousin graduate from the police academy, got my debt paid off and just generally had a good time.

I don't really make resolutions so nothing really to list. I believe more in putting your mind to changing everyday and not just a Jan 1st sort of thing. So yes, there are some things that need changing, friends I need to spend more time with, etc. But these aren't new ideas. I'm working on them. Well, I'm off to Anaheim tomorrow with Sarah. Going to Disneyland on Friday, then on Saturday we're meeting 10 other Arena folks for the Kings/Flyers game. Then home Sunday. Looking forward to it, catch you when I return.

A hectic, but very fun few days...

So, on Xmas Eve we all go to my Aunts and do the usual Xmas Eve family gathering. This year all wearing Christmas sweaters. Much fun was had, and pics will come later. And some cool gifts such as more Ticketmaster G.C.'s for Sharks tickets :-D, some DVDs (Girls Next Door, Ghost Whisperer, and another movie I wanted), a few books, a G.C. to a gourmet food place, my Sharks calendar, a few random things and then maybe the coolest item.... a ticket stub diary to keep all my concert, games, exhibit tickets in :-D I can't wait to put it together. My Mom always gave me crap for carrying ticket stubs around in my purse saying, "Your purse is not a scrapbook!" So guess this was a hint ;-) I stayed the night at my Aunt's because I wanted to have a few drinks. And after everyone left, we watched Tombstone, Singing in the Rain and the first 15 mins of Breakfast at Tiffany's before crashing around 4am. And that's my Aunt and I, not just me.

Then yesterday I drove to Claire and Bobby's to spend Christmas Day with them and her family. My 3rd year in a row doing so. We had an amazing turkey feast, salads with pear, walnuts, walnut oil and parmesan and too many desserts. The chocolate/ginger torte was really yummy. Then we all just hung out and stayed up till late chatting.

Today Claire, Bobby and I ran out to Fairfield to the mall. Stopping at some Italian restaurant for lunch. It was just ok... Then just made a few random stops in the mall. Then around 5pm when we got back, I got a phone call from my college friend/roommate Brian. He and his wife Deanna were having over Jen (one of my best friends in high school) and her boyfriend Vance (another college friend and roommate of mine). So I drove on over and had a blast reminiscing and catching up for over 5 hours. I had intended to leave 2 hours before that, but was having too good of a time. I really miss all of them and look forward to getting together soon, I haven't laughed that hard in a while :-D

I also got my hotel booked, via text with a friend tonight for next Saturday night in L.A. when I go see the Kings play the Flyers. Since my friend Sarah got the Friday before off, we'll be heading to L.A. on Thursday and staying 2 nights in Anaheim first and going to Disneyland on that Friday. It'll be a fun few days. So home at last for the first time since Wed afternoon. What a busy and awesome few days.

A nice evening with old friends.

So, a few old high school friends and I made plans to go to Cato's tonight, which is a great pub near where we all went to high school. So Lisa, Christie, Mike, his girlfriend Rachel, Darren and I all met up for drinks. Then we kept eyeing this guy at the next table because he looked so familiar. Then realized it was Ben Fendel and he was there with Dylan Kersh (and other friends) so we said Hi. Then we saw Lisa Horner (another high school friend) come in, so she came and hung out with us too. It was a very random evening of unexpected reacquainting with people we weren't planning too. But it was a lot of fun. So, other friends hadn't yet gotten into town tonight, so there is talk of another gathering there Friday night. So will be fun if it happens.

Another nice few days...

On Wednesday I made plans to go hang out with my Great Aunt. The night before, I thought to print out a bunch of pictures on regular paper for her to look at. Some from my day at the coast, some from Thanksgiving, some of the family dogs, some from Sharks games, etc. I also thought to print out the Sharks current player stats and all the league standings. She doesn't watch the games, but she makes a mental note of how they are doing when she hears the short blurb on the nightly news. I think it's kind of our "thing". The one thing she talks about with me and no one else. It's cute when she calls me and says " I heard the Sharks do.... last night." So after we cut out some pictures and put them on her fridge, and I explained to her what goals, assists, points, +/-, etc meant, she took me to dinner for my birthday. We went to Elephant Bar and it was yummy!!!

Then Thursday I went to my Aunts to go bum around. We went to the mall and she picked up a few gifts. Then we went to Michaels where I picked up a green tinsel Christmas Tree with lights for $5.99, which was way cheap. I thought a pink one may be over the top My place is so small that I haven't had a tree in years so thought this would be festive. Then my Aunt and Uncle gave me my Bday gift... another Ticketmaster gift certificate. WooHoo!! I have enough for 2 games now

Then a friend on The Arena had 2 extra tickets to the Sharks/Kings game in L.A. on Monday that she needed to sell. And if Sarah didn't have finals next week, we may have spontaneously drove down there for an overnighter to go see the game and meet the L.A. area Sharks fans. Bummer!! Not like I'm going to drive all the way down there by myself. So maybe we'll plan a L.A. road trip or another trip to Phoenix in the Spring, if we can afford it.

Well, that's it for now. Off to Claire and Bobby's Friday until Sunday to partake in great food, drinks and visiting with a lot of people I haven't seen in a while. So have a great weekend.

How cool is this??

My Bday

So, I had a nice and mellow Bday today. Did a lot of nothing during the day, then went out to dinner with my Mom and Step-Dad. I was having a hard time deciding between 2 restaurants last night, but picked one. Of course we arrive and they are closed for a private party. So we walked around the corner to my Plan B. And honestly, I had been craving dishes at both places, so was happy with either one. But ended up with my Della Casa and Gnocchi Bergamasca (I think the only thing I have ever ordered there because I love it). YUM!!!! I had a few nice texts this AM, many wells wishes on MySpace and Facebook (you guys rock!!!), and some phone calls from a few friends tonight. Including Abby and Nicky calling me from their beds around 9:45pm… long after they should be in bed ;-) But very sweet to hear them say Happy Birthday to me and tell me what they were up to. ....

I also received some nice gifts from a few people… a beautiful green amethyst necklace and matching earrings, a few DVDs, a book, a Ticketmaster gift certificate (yay Sharks game), financial dept paid off (more owed to me than a gift, but happened on my Bday, so I'll count it) and the most surprising…. After I got home tonight, I had a knock on the door and it was one of my Dad’s friends. He is one the ones that had been staying next door for many years now kind of mooching off of us (me). Nice guy,
but you know. Well, he wished me a Happy Birthday and handed me a card. I thanked him and he went back inside. Once I was back inside I opened the card, and he enclosed $100. It was a very nice gesture on his part and I will have to thank him tomorrow.....

So anyway, it was a chill day. Off tomorrow to spend the day with my Great Aunt… going to do some laundry at her place, go out to dinner and just hang out in between. Thursday I’m not sure what the game plan is yet. Either go see ‘Australia’ with my Dad, or hang with my Aunt. Then Friday off to Claire and Bobby’s to watch (and help) them prep food for their annual Christmas party on Saturday, which is always a blast. So the weekend will be fun filled too. Good week :-)....

It's been a fun week

On Tuesday my Aunt and I went to Half Moon Bay for lunch, then on to Pescadero, Pigeon Point Lighthouse and Davenport. Just to take in the views of the ocean, the nice weather and to get out of the house. Then yesterday had to send off my Secret Santa gift to my person on my forum, then did a little shopping. I got a cute grey jacket... but can't find the picture of it online. And today I went to see Australia. LOVED IT!!! I highly recommend it. Think I'm going to go see it again next week, along with The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas. See Trailers in links below, for Australia, if you haven't seen them.

TRAILER 1

TRAILER 2

WTF?!?!?!?!

So, I've been watching CNN off and on about this hostage situation, bombings, explosions, the blood... in India tonight and in recent days.

(Excuse forth coming language...)

What the fuck is up with these assholes?!?!?!?!?! I just can't fathom the mind that it takes to come up with these horrific acts of violence. Of course we don't know the outcome yet and what their "mission" is. But who the hell cares. Not saying this is any worse than all the Embassy attacks around the globe or any other act of violence. But it's been a while since such an act had taken over the media in such a way. It just pisses me off to no end... which then just results in sadness. And it's horrible that it comes on such a day such as Thanksgiving for us. It just angers me so much and I just had to vent that.

*Stating the obvious here*

There are some fucking psychos out there in the world between this, all the civil wars in Africa, and everywhere else. I think of all those psychos in the U.S., and although they are 100% horrific as well... how would our lives be different today if we had bombings of hotels, massive hostage situations, suicide bombings of anywhere and everywhere??? I just can't even imagine. It's just a very sad and scary thought. I just need to turn off the news.

Don’t you hate it when....

You go to a store with one specific item you need to buy, they don't have it, and you still walk out of the store $35 later? LOL. Oh well

Well today my Mom, Aunt and I ran to Longs because my Aunt wanted to buy this new foundation make-up (that got earlier today at a different Longs). But they didn't have it. So we were browsing all the Xmas stuff in the store. We spotted these reindeer antler headbands in all different colors that were cute. We didn't really give them much of a thought until we saw they were 40% off $3.99 which means of course we had to buy some. We ended up buying one for everyone in the family for Christmas Eve. Then had the idea to have an ugly/tacky Christmas sweater theme to Xmas this year. We never theme anything, and it's just same 'ole. So this is going to be fun. I can just imagine how excited the guys will be about this... or if they even participate in the sweater idea. But we will at least have to get pictures of them in their antlers

So I'm excited, this will be fun.

A few videos for your laughing pleasure :-)

Courtesy of:
http://engrishfunny.com
http://failblog.org

We made the votive holders

It was a mess, but I think they turned out really pretty. We (my Mom, Aunt and I) only made 2 of the 4 today just to see if it would work the way we wanted. We improvised as we went along, and we discovered that sucking up gel in a baster and ever hoping to use it again, was a bad idea, lol. We lit a tealight in one of the finished wine glass votive holders, and the glow was what I was hoping it would look like.

Anyway, 2 of the pics are below, a side and above view of the finished product. I have a handful more in my MISC album.

Nice Day in S.F.

So today was a nice day in the city. My Mom and I headed over there around 10am, because we had a 10:45am entrance time to the exhibit. My Step-Dad wasn't feeling well, so he didn't come. And because of that, we had a pre-paid entrance ticket we couldn't use. So my Mom gave it to the next lady in line and said Merry Christmas and wouldn't let her pay. She thanked my Mom profusely. Once in the exhibit, she approached my Mom again, and said that tomorrow was her Birthday, and thanked her again. It was very sweet.

The exhibit itself was really great. They had 2 full galleries of artifacts which consisted of a lot of ivory, gold, and glassware. Beautiful stuff… a handful of the items can be seen HERE. After the exhibit we had lunch at the café there. It was a cafeteria setup, but definitely not cafeteria food. I had the chicken kabob and my Mom the Kashmir Lamb Curry, which looked pretty good. After a quick stop in the gift shop, we decided to not further explore the museum today.

We took a quick peek into the San Francisco Library since it is right next door. The building on the outside is a bit boring, but the architecture inside is pretty cool. Then we noticed a Farmer's Market going on in United Nations Plaza, so we took a quick walk through there before heading out of the city.

Random

So I was looking online at the promo video for the Afghanistan Exhibit I'm going to see tomorrow, Wed, which I'll put below. And something made me think of when I read about Zahi Hawass being here in S.F., several years ago, for a lecture. I could have gone, but I didn't know about it until after the fact. I would just love to see him speak. Anyway, that just prompted me to google his name for some reason. Then that lead me to all these news stories about him discovering a new Pyramid 2 months ago, and announcing it yesterday (Tues). How cool!! And I just thought it was so odd that I hadn't thought of Hawass in many months, and the day I do, there were all these articles about the discovery (see article below). I just found the coincidence interesting is all.

Article about the pyramid discovery...
"Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a pyramid buried in the desert and thought to belong to the mother of a pharaoh who ruled more than 4 000 years ago.

Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, said on Tuesday that the pyramid, found in the sand south of Cairo about two months ago, probably housed the remains of Queen Shesheshet, the mother of King Teti, who ruled from 2323 BC to 2291 BC and founded Egypt's Sixth Dynasty.

"The only queen whose pyramid is missing is Shesheshet, which is why I am sure it belonged to her," said Hawass. "This will enrich our knowledge about the Old Kingdom."

The Sixth Dynasty, a time of conflict in Egypt's royal family and erosion of centralised power, is considered to be the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom, after which Egypt descended into famine and social upheaval.

Hawass said the headless, 5m-high pyramid had originally reached about 14m, with sides 22m long.

The pyramid, which is the 118th found in Egypt, was discovered near the oldest pyramid at Saqqara, a burial ground for ancient Egypt's rulers.

Hawass said the monument had originally been covered in a casing of white limestone brought from quarries at nearby Tura. Archaeologists planned to enter the pyramid's burial chamber within two weeks, although most of its contents were likely to have been taken by thieves.

Artefacts, including a wooden statue of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis and funerary figurines dating from a later period, indicated that the cemetery had been re-used through Roman times. - Reuters"

Afghanistan Exhibit Video

Project and Exhibit

So, on Saturday I went to a friend's jewelry party. It was a good time, and broke down and bought a necklace, earrings and bracelet. After jewelry shopping, I was going through her sister's Partylite (candles) catalog because I wanted to get a few things. In there they had these wine glass votive holders that were really cool. The glasses were filled with this candle gel substance that was colored like red or white wine. Then pressed down in the middle of the gel, was a clear class tealight holder. My Aunt and I decided that we could make these instead of pay the $50 a pair that they wanted. So today we bought all the supplies, but ran out of time to make them. We'll do that Thursday.

Then last night I saw an ad on TV for the "Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul" they are having at the Asian Art Museum in S.F. (here through Jan, then going to Houston and N.Y.). Anyway, I was really excited to hear about that and I'll be going on Wednesday to see it. It's been since D.C. in spring that I've been to a museum, so I'm way over due.

Tomorrow I plan to do a lot of nothing.

Movie and Late Lunch

So I'm trying to do things to help myself get back on a regular schedule. So in doing so, I went to bed yesterday evening and woke up at 5am today. So after watching the Sharks game from last night I missed (from about 5-6:45am this morning), I started thinking about what I wanted to do today. Yes, I could have been more productive, but decided to take my Dad to a movie and then Japanese after. So we went and saw 'Changeling', which I thought was a great movie. It was about 2 1/2 hours long, but never once looked at my watch. I'd watch that again. And then overstuffed myself on Island Roll, beef teriyaki, tempura and chicken-katsu. Good thing for To Go boxes, as I have a whole other meal now for later tonight or tomorrow. YUM!!