gifts – Imaginary Sunshine

Twenty-six

Michelle — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 23:30:36 +0000

I turned 26 yesterday and had a wonderful day! It’s my first birthday since I started school of any sort that I’m not in school, the first birthday in a long time where I’m not juggling studying for midterms and prepping for clinical. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’ve accomplished a lot in my life, but in the last year I successfully completed two preceptorships, graduated from nursing school “with distinction”, wrote and passed the NCLEX, and got my foot into the door with a casual RN position. So I’d say I accomplished something over the last year!

With my family, we went to Denny’s for breakfast. I opted for a breakfast with blueberry pancakes and got my eggs sunny side up. With my friends, we went to afternoon tea at a lovely little tea salon. There was a mix of savoury and sweet food items that were a delight. It was a great atmosphere with beautiful decor and even more wonderful company. It was fun to catch up with friends. Some haven’t seen each other since my last birthday party. Many of the gifts I received were tea relate, as my friends probably could deduce that I must really like tea if I a) wanted to have my birthday celebration at a tea salon and b) have a tea blog.

The day was capped off with a great seafood (prawns!) feast with my family, and cake – because cake is the best!

I’m glad that my schedule worked out the way it did so I could celebrate my birthday on my birthday – and that others weren’t busy too!

This week on Monday & Tuesday, I have orientation (still) – but I will hopefully get my schedule for when I get my mentorship hours/shifts! My hope is that I get my mentorship hours done before too far into December so I can get placed onto the call list for the winter/holiday/flu season.

On nursing & moving

Michelle — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 07:54:51 +0000

The holidays have been busy with shopping, baking (gosh, all the baking!), parties, get-togethers, present wrapping, present unwrapping, more shopping (!), plenty of movie watching, and, finally, packing.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I will be temporarily moving. While it will be a very short (8.5 weeks) move, I still have things that I need to take with me. Primarily all of my nursing things (scrubs, shoes, stethoscope, books, etc.). My textbooks alone fill up one carry-on sized rolling suitcase. I may need to reevaluate this and bring them in small amounts and determine what I absolutely need to bring and what can wait until the next time I go home. I’ve made lists, because that’s what I do. Luckily, my sister has gotten internet hooked up again, and the internet company gave her a wireless router so I won’t be connected to a wall. Netflix in bed with knitting…? Or rather, paper writing[1. Yes, I still have papers to do on top of the full-time clinical hours…] in bed. Or maybe I’ll decide that working at a desk is better. All I know is that I need to bring all the chargers and electronic devices.

Where I’m relocating to is technically long-distance for me when I make calls. I internally cringed, but I determined a way to get a free long-distance package for the month of January, and then I’ll tweak my list of Canada-wide numbers to include the hospital unit number and my mentor’s number for February to further prevent long-distance charges. Student life hacks for the win.

Christmas was really fantastic in that I got quite a bit of consumables. This came in the form of chocolate, candy (primarily Skittles!), gift cards (Superstore – for gas and food! Starbucks! Clothing stores!), and then more candy. I also got yarn (!), some doll things (mostly clothes), as well as hot chocolate mixes, tea (!), stitch markers (!), more yarn, and mugs! I love mugs. I swear, when I move out (for real), the only things I’ll have in my kitchen will be mugs (soup mugs, vintage mugs, travel mugs), tea, and bakeware. Oh, and cookie cutters, I have a lot of cookie cutters… It’s a bit embarrassing, really.

I have a week left before Level 6 begins. I have orientation (at school) on the 5th and then my first 12 hour shift should be on the 6th. Excitement! New scrubs so I can go 4 shifts in a row without doing laundry! I can finally use the nice nursing clogs that I bought in September! But before then, I have to start/finish packing and celebrate New Years. I am very much looking forward to 2015 and what it means for my life & career.

Holidays! Future Thoughts!

Michelle — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 07:21:30 +0000

I am currently on holidays – sort of. I don’t have clinical or classes anymore as I’ve officially finished and passed my Level 5 term of nursing school, which makes me happy! I found out my placement already for Level 6 (I will have two 8.5 week placements), but there is a lot of preparation work to be done. Level 6 means that it’s my preceptorship (1 and 2), I’ll have a mentor for each preceptorship who will be a registered nurse who essentially supervises me and teaches me. So exciting. My first placement is well over an hour’s drive away, so I will be temporarily moving to a relative’s place for those 8.5 weeks (although I will be going to and from home as well). I’m very excited, but a bit nervous. Gaining a teeny bit of independence? What do I need to bring? I’m trying to decide how much yarn I’ll need, what food I should convince my parents to purchase for me so I won’t have to be completely independent just yet. Having literally zero income makes me pinch pennies like no tomorrow.

But I am on holidays! Technically. Officially. 25 days of no school, no clinical days. 25 days to do whatever I want, whenever I want – while still doing preparation for Level 6. 25 days. Well, 23 more days now. A few months ago I mused about going away on a trip somewhere, but then that never really took off. I’ve been on holidays since 12pm on December 10th, and I’ve been busy with crafting presents. I’m so happy with the ideas that I’ve had this year, and I’m really glad that I got quite a bit of it done in November. I knit a pair socks for my mom, and a cowl for my sister. The Boy’s gift is done, and the one for his family is almost done. I bought a present for my other sister because she asked for small kitchen gadgets (I wasn’t able to hammer out for a vegetable peeler), and then there’s my dad. I have no clue what I’m going to get him for Christmas. He isn’t very receptive to hand crafted goods, he sometimes makes comment on how ‘cheap’ it seems because it is handmade (which is sad, considering me spending time on a present for his is clearly priceless). So generic father gift is shall be, once I figure out what it is.

I’m really excited for this year’s holidays though, since next year I’ll (fingers crossed) be employed and likely working during the weekends or possibly even over Christmas. I’m very excited for 2015. It means Level 6 (my next and final term of nursing school!), it means graduation (in June), it means writing the most expensive test of my life (NCLEX-RN), it means being done my post-secondary education experience (for now?), and it means becoming a Registered Nurse and doing something that I absolutely love.

Vista and 8

Michelle — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 23:02:12 +0000

For Christmas, I got a lovely gift from my parents. They asked me what I wanted (another Blythe), but they refused to buy me another one as I have “enough” (says them). So instead my parents offered to buy me another laptop as my current laptop (HP Pavilion dv6000-series laptop) is now 5+ years old and it thinks that gifting me a Blue Screen of Death once every week (or so) is funny. So I got this lovely machine as it was on sale for Boxing Week (but the store had the sale start on the 24th, go figure):

My HP runs Windows Vista, I got it in 2007 and that was the available Windows OS at the time. The one the left is my new baby, an Asus ultrabook running Windows 8. For some reason, I was (and still am) the only person in my family with a computer running Vista. Now I’m the only one running Win 8. Everyone else has a different OS than me (one sister has XP, the other sister and my dad run Windows 7 on their laptops, the desktops run XP).

I never had the issues that people had with Windows Vista. I really didn’t. I ran programs that were available for Vista, I had enough memory to handle the resource hog. I just never had the issues that everyone else seemed to have. After all, the most memory intensive thing that I do is run Photoshop. Other programs I run are Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) and then the internet, email and messaging programs. It’s not like I’m running several resources hogs at one go.

And then there’s Windows 8. My new laptop is not a touch screen so I’m not actually that found of their start menu. I’m also not fond of the fact that they hid the shut down options. The start button was removed, they have a weird blocky colourful menu instead and it takes several mouse swipes to get to the shut down options (charm menu > settings > power > shut down). Why it’s under settings, I don’t know. I’m also not fond of the charm menu and I prefer staying on my desktop at all times, which was difficult because it’s hard to actually find programs unless you’re on the stupid start menu.

So Clay turned me onto the idea of downloading a start button and it works. I can easily access my regular options (including shutting things down….) and I can get to my programs list a lot easier, as well as the control panel. All in all, ‘reverting’ Windows 8 to look more familiar to me is the good way to go. At least it makes finding things a lot easier for me!

Baking, Christmas, Boxing Day

Michelle — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 02:48:40 +0000

I did some more baking recently (sugar cookies and chocolate chip & oatmeal cookies). I made another batch of sugar cookies, but because I used smaller cookie cutters (the dinosaur ones are about double the size of my Christmas-themed cutters), I got almost 11 dozen cookies out of one batch of dough. The recipe is really for half of that (if you use cutters in the size it calls for). Nom nom, cookies are delicious. Too bad I don’t get to eat as much as I’d like – nobody in my family helps with baking or decorating, but they insist on giving them away. “Oh, Michelle baked cookies. Good, I need to bring cookies for a pot luck” or “Oh good! You baked! I need to give something to someone for Christmas!”.

I also did some knitting. I’ve been spending some time watching some favourite movies that I hadn’t seen in a while (the entire trilogy of The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of Black Pearl, The Princess Bride) and then some tv shows (The Big Bang Theory, Grey’s Anatomy). Good fun all around. I’m getting quite a bit of knitting done – here’s what I did on the 18th:

And here is what I had on December 25th (yesterday):

Christmas was primarily uneventful in my house! My family isn’t the kind to go all out. Yes, we generally have an artificial tree up (this year we didn’t because I was the only one willing to put it up!), and I do a all the baking. Which is fitting as I was the one who received baking goodies for Christmas this year! I got 2 Wilton cookie sheets (or pans, whatever you want to call them) and 2 Wilton mini muffin/cupcake tins (in total I can made 2 dozen mini muffins). I am going to have to buy mini muffin liners, but I’m excited for that. I also got the Wilton 3-in-1 cake caddy. Which was great fun!

There were a lot of great sales today. My personal favourite purchases from today included a Monster High doll (Venus McFlytrap) that was 50% off ($14.99) and some adorable prints ($3.99 for the cupcakes and $2.79 for the castle). Oh! Also the four-pack of Kinder Surprise – $2.67 for the 4 when it was also $0.89/ea. (Did you know there’s pink Kinder Surprise eggs now? Pink because all the toys inside are “Just for girls!”)

My online Boxing “Day” shopping was taken care of on December 24th. My parents paid for a new laptop for me (!) as mine (a 5 year old HP DV6000-series laptop) is currently dying… I’ve experienced Blue Screens lately that haven’t entirely rendered me unable to restart the computer, but still – Blue Screens (of Death) are not good when I haven’t made any hardware or software changes (and my anti-virus isn’t being triggered by anything). I’ll be getting an ASUS S series ultrabook (running Windows 8) – it’s only 2 kg – 4.4lbs. My current laptop is ~7.5lbs (it has an extended battery – 12 cells). I also ordered myself a 16gb micro SD card for my phone as I currently have a 2gb card in there. The great thing about shopping online is that they can send it directly from the warehouse to the closest store and you just go and pick it up! Overall it’s been a good couple of days.

Study Mode: On

Michelle — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 08:22:02 +0000

Not a whole lot to report, but I have the urge to just blog right now. Granted, I’m starting this at 11:57pm on Friday… So yay, this’ll be posted on Saturday, of course. I don’t know why I felt the need to mention that, I mean, you can tell by the date stamp when this post goes up. I may schedule posts over at BlytheLife.com (which is the only reason why posts go up three days a week over there, because I schedule everything like a month in advance, because I’m cool like that), but I don’t do that here. Mostly because it’s my personal blog and it seems weird to schedule posts for that? I mean, I used to do ‘sponsored’ posts here, but I haven’t done that in ages. Mostly because people don’t seem to think that bloggers are worth as much money (for the most part), so all my posts are all just written for me now (yay).

And now I’m all rambling…

So I’ve been working on study notes for the last week. I actually got up early enough to head out to school on Tuesday to study in the library. All the other days I either woke up around 8am (when I wanted to be at school already) so I just stayed at home to study. Which worked well, because I love the fact that I can just stay in my room in my pjs and comfy fleecy robe (which is warm!) and just work away on my laptop. I’ve also been watching podcasts during my study breaks (and listening to them as well). Mostly knitting related, because I’ve suddenly fallen back into knitting (I did take a loooong break without knitting a darn thing). I haven’t been able to find any crocheting podcasts that I like. I’m a big fan of the ones with video, not just audio, because I like getting to see the projects. I also caught up on the Savage Love podcast. Because who doesn’t like to listen to Dan Savage answer his caller’s questions about sex? (The answer: prudes.)

I’m actually ahead of my studying schedule. I finished all my study notes for zoogeography & paleogeology. I’m almost done going through learning goals for my climate change class (whoot). I finished the notes for my parasitology take-home final, which is another essay. I did a little bit of outline for that paper, not as much as I would have liked to have done, but I did most of it. I’m hoping to finish the climate change study notes & parasitology paper outlining Saturday morning, because I’ll be going out for lunch with the family and then listening to my sister’s choir sing Christmas carols in the mall (horrible acoustics there, just got to say…).

I got an email from an offlinefriend asking me why I never blog about Clay anymore… Not sure if she was more concerned or if she was just being nosy. I’m going to go with concerned, because being nosy is never cool. There’s not really a whole lot to report on the boyfriend front. We are still together, we had our third anniversary in September of this year. He works a stupid amount of hours (like seriously stupid amount of hours) and I spend a lot of time studying. Well, I always have an abundance of free time to spend with him, but he works what feels like 24/7. It’s probably closer to like 12-16/7, but that’s still a lot of hours in a week and he does need to sleep. I’ve also been using my sadly boyfriend-free time to work on his Christmas present. It’s going to be awesome. And he’s going to love it. Mostly because I say that he will… I’m really trying to put together something thoughtful and practical and useful and all those things. But I always end up coming up with something impractical, but still super awesome. So we’ll see how that goes… Wow, rambling. We also don’t live in the same city (maybe ~30-45min drive, depending on the the traffic, so it does make things difficult at times. But I don’t know, I haven’t been all gushy about the time that we do spend together, because if I did, my blog posts would be like “So, I saw the boyfriend and we did A and he made me B for dinner.” and I would also have to totally censor my blog posts from some of the activities that occur, for obvious reasons… And with that… Change of topics!

This didn’t really get mentioned on the blog, but my dad went away on vacation/trip/whatever for three months. He went to visit relatives and whatnot. Came back with a lot of gifts, which is always appreciated. He was away during my birthday so he brought me back this:

Yes, it is another Blythe doll. (He also got me another one, but she’s under the tree for Christmas.) The doll’s stock name is Simply Bubble Boom. She’s a limited edition doll, at 1500 dolls in this model. She was actually part of a trio of crime-fighting skaters. Yes, I said skaters. She came with some super cute orange skates, not pictured. The other doll that my dad got me for my Christmas present was Simply Sparkly Spark (who has blue hair!) and the last of the trio (that I’m not getting) is Simply Thumpty Thump (who has a bright purple hair colour). I’m really happy with her. Her hair is a neon reddish-orange, so it looks rather pink in some lights and rather orange in others. Which is kind of really awesome. I decided name her Moxie, and she is my 8th Blythe doll and first in the FBL mold.

(For those who don’t really like Blythes or just dolls in general; sorry about the photo and the blurb… But I like ’em! And I do try to restrict dolly talk to the designated blog when I can. But I was just super pleased at getting a new doll for my birthday… and there will probably be photos of my Christmas doll too.)

Better late than never!

Michelle — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 01:27:43 +0000

The dentist loves me. Mostly because I go so darn often. Heh, not as often as my sister though! I went today for my regular cleaning. My dentist poked around at the spots where I got my wisdom teeth extracted (by him) and my mouth is sore in the back right now because of it. Apparently he was checking that they were healing well by poking at them. Absolutely stupid logic in my opinion. The hygienist that I got today liked me because I a) got my wisdom teeth pulled (so he didn’t have to clean those) and b) I got 4 adult molars taken out when I was younger (so even less teeth to clean, yay?). Plus, it’s okay, because I ended up with a pretty green toothbrush and I got to watch most of Up while I was getting my teeth cleaned.

Oh! My sister D finally gave me my 2009 Christmas present! I got two silicone cupcake/muffin trays! There’s 6 cupcakes/muffins per tray, so I can bake a full dozen. Love! And they’re even red! I’m still on the lookout for silicone mini muffin trays – I’ve been looking for decently priced ones that have enough spots for a dozen (and then I’d buy 2 so I can use up the majority of one batch of batter). Which would be fabulous, but I do love the fact that I finally got my 2009 Christmas present from my sister! Plus, it is exactly what I asked for and exactly what she said she was going to get for me – she just took a while to get around to it.

I’ve also been working (still!) on a new crochet pattern for an infant/toddler/child hat (three different sizes… you best believe I asked three coworkers with appropriately-aged children if I could borrow their children’s heads briefly just for sizing and to get some feedback!). I plan on making the pattern for sale soon… After I’m done doing my prototype hats and getting them out there and tried on! It’s going to be a paid pattern (first one!) on my crafts site – chelle-chelle.com (which also has a few free crochet patterns too!). I do have a few other crochet patterns that I’m working on for the site – there will be a few more free ones coming out this summer along with a few more ones for sale that I’m going to be working on after the current hat pattern, yay. So excited to be working on so many new things though, keeps me busy (aside from work, yay!).

Questions for you:

What’s something new that’s going on in your life? And on your blog/website(s)?
What is your favourite recipe (baking!)? Any that you would recommend?
What is something that a family member did to you that was hurtful? Did they bother apologizing for it?

Michelle makes a friend, gets mail and worries a lot

Michelle — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:09:24 +0000

So I had my first plants biology lab this week and it went really well. The awkward thing is that I walked into the room and didn’t know a single person (besides of the instructors, because she’s also one of my profs and I had her for my plants biology lab last term as well). And then a girl sits down next to me and introduces herself and guess who’s got a new lab partner? That’s right, me! It turns out that we both took the same plants biology course last term and we figured out where we sort of recognized each other from – we also had the same plants biology lab. Total fail for memory, I know. She’s also in my invertebrates zoology class and she’s in my invertebrates zoology lab as well. I know people! I know people! Oh, also turns out that she is in my biochemistry lecture as well, so hopefully a good resource and will be my friend? I feel so awkward when I say crap like that though.

Makes me sound like a little kid going “Will you let me take a look at your notes? I’ll be your bestest friend forever.”

I also have two TAs in that plants lab – one’s a Masters student, the other is an undergrad (and same age as me o_O). Plus we did a few cross-sectionings today and my slide of my stained yam (yes, I said yam – stained it to look at the starch) got photographed for the class website. Yeah, total dorkish moment there. But it was cool. I got asked if I had taken the plants class last term because I was using tips I had gotten then for making my cross-sections (the answer, of course, was yes).

Ahem, Besides my major biology geekery there ^… I’ve spent money lately, for two lab manuals and custom courseware. What I hate is how my school handles stuff like lab manuals and custom courseware. If it’s lab manuals for science classes or custom course materials for science classes – they’re not available through the school’s bookstore. Instead, they’re available through a somewhat related student club. For instance, I had to track down the biology club in order to buy my invertebrates zoology lab manual, I went to the microbiology club’s room to buy my biochemistry custom courseware and I had to get my plants lab manual directly from my professor (because the botany club doesn’t handle sales?). In previous years, when I had to get (required) custom course materials for classes like chemistry, some biology classes and English, I could get everything through my school’s bookstore – meaning one stop, one line-up, one swipe of the credit card rather than needing exact change in small bills. /rant.

Anyways… Things have been going pretty well thus far (then again, only the fourth day of school, so who knows?). I did, however, realize that in my last week of classes before the spring/reading break that I get, I have 3 lecture midterms and 1 lab midterm. Which would be fine if I didn’t have two midterms on the same day (lab and lecture) but the lecture midterm is in the late evening (7-9pm) and the next morning (at 8am), I have another lecture midterm =/ Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? I’m going to ask my prof (for the 7-9pm midterm) if it will be possible to write it at another time, since I do live off campus and I’d be a) getting home at around 11pm and b) needing to wake up at 5:30am. And while I would really love to suffer and go through sleep deprivation for the sake of getting something that resembles a grade, I’m going to see if I can write it on another day, like on Wednesday or something. So I don’t fall asleep during my morning midterm or something.

Gah. I need to stop talking about school.

Umm… I got mail? (Finally?!) I ordered my sister D’s Christmas present back in December. I got a notice that it had shipped (from Hong Kong) on December 8th (the label on the package says December 7th) and it arrived yesterday. So my mom said that it was probably sent via surface mail (chugging along the ocean on a boat or something), but there’s like three different stamps on it that states that it was sent by air mail. So either the postage system in Hong Kong is incredibly slow, or Canadian customs is incredibly slow or Canada Post is incredibly slow. Or some combination of the three (I’m guessing all three). You know those Rubik’s cubes? I found one online (that’s not an “official” Rubik’s product) that is 4x4x4 rather than the traditional 3x3x3 for my sister’s gift. Needless to say, she really likes it – even if it did take forever to arrive. =)

Also, my mom’s been having vision problems lately and she’s had an appointment with the optometrist. He claims that the issues that she’s been having are “normal” though? And only to be worried if it persists or worsens. I’m really concerned since my mom does drive to and from work on Mondays and Tuesdays (she carpools with my sister for the rest of the week)… But my mom doesn’t seem too concerned? So I don’t know if I’m just worrying over nothing right now. I mean, even the doctor said that it was normal and it wasn’t anything to be worried about. =/ Not sure how I feel about that, honestly. I mean, while he does have a medical degree and specializes in eyes, it just seems weird to have a doctor tell someone that the vision problems that they’re experiencing aren’t anything to be worried about.

I hope everyone had a lovely Thursday. I’m looking forward to the weekend already…

Light shows and dinner failures!

Michelle — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:38:34 +0000

Zomg. Last night, I left the house without the sisters or mom with me – hello, freedom! Not that I don’t love my family (I do), it’s just that I don’t like spending that much time with them because they start getting nit picky with me, or start commenting on the clothes that I wear or the food that I eat (which they do often enough at home, they’re always so much louder about it in public, or maybe it’s just me that feels that way). Anyways… I went out last night with a bunch of friends (S, J, B, C, S2 and C’s friend F) for dinner. I took the bus, since it was a restaurant near a bus stop. Which was also when I forgot that I *really* needed to use a tripod when taking night shots with the twilight/night time option on my digital camera, because this is the type of photo that I get:

Neat light effect, done completely without the help of a filter in Photoshop, but I was hoping to get a good shot of the tree that one of my neighbours had strung up lights on (it’s this huge tree that they have in front of their house – they rented a crane in order to get all the lights on and that star, the white blur at the top!).

Dinner was fun. There was an absurd amount of talk revolving around school though, not sure why though. Topics would include what people were taking, how they thought school was going. Cripes people, lol. I have a week before I’m going back to classes, I don’t need to think about school just yet. We went to White Spot, so pretty much all of us got some form of burger (one person did get fish and chips, I believe someone else got a type of sandwich with salmon? Whatever it was, it looked delicious.) S, ohhhhh S, she gave a bunch of us sugar cookies (and included the fact that they weren’t poisoned? I’m not sure what to think of that now…) and she ordered a burger and proceeded to eat it with a fork and knife. Which is fine, it’s not the first time I’ve witnessed one of my friends doing this in a restaurant that does not require that kind of action… But S wasn’t very good at it and had to ‘fix’ her meal on more than one occasion. Here’s her plate, at one point:

It actually looks neater than it really was because she did move the plate around, and her burger’s hiding the mess she made (plus, this was near the end of it and she was trying to put it all onto the fork at once – and failed). J posted another shot of this mishap onto Facebook and entitled it something like ‘eating burger fail’. Poor S. It was funny though, she was so determined to eat her burger from start to finish in what she called a “civilized manner” which was kind of funny, as I was eating my burger with my hands and managed to not get any crumbs on myself or mutilate my burger in any way, shape or form.

J also got me a small Christmas gift (yay!). It’s “Slinky Stick Notes”, I haven’t opened it yet so I’m not quite sure how they’re supposed to act like a Slinky, but it looks pretty neat. I’ll be taking photos of those. On the back, it says “works like a stick note, fun like a Slinky®”, not quite sure how though, but I shall be finding out later when I get a chance to open them!

Hope everyone’s been having a wonderful day. Been pretty chilly where I am, so I shall be trying to keep layers on today. =)

It wouldn’t be Christmas without the backhanded insults!

Michelle — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:38:04 +0000

Oh… Christmas, Christmas, Christmas… What can I say about today?

My family and I had crepes this morning for breakfast. Super organic crepes. If it could, the bag of crepe mix would have had a superhero cape because it was just that full of seeds and other healthy things. It tasted super healthy, even with copious amounts of strawberry jam (yum) and peanut butter (not on the same crepes… but damn, does it ever taste good). Opening presents was kinda fun, my sisters got me a 2g micro SD card (from J, for my Nintendo DS) and pretty cupcake liners (from D, and also a ‘gift certificate’ for bakeware, score!). There was also chocolates from my mom (Lindt… delicious! and some chocolates from the someone at work). Tertiary Jane was a birthday/Christmas present from my parents, so she’s been out for a while… And was not repackaged and put underneath the tree.

I went with my family to my aunt and uncle’s new house for Christmas lunch. And after, I remembered all the reasons why I don’t like family lunches (or dinners… or meals in general). There is nothing like sitting there and eating your lunch and taking a sip of tea and then your aunt commenting on how you’re the only one who’s had seconds of the main dish. Insert coughing/choking on the tea (which was delicious tea, by the way – she did give me a box of it, it’s a type of green tea that she’s never been able to find in Canada, she bought it in Taiwan) and then I politely go “Pardon?” (in Cantonese). And then she repeats herself. “Oh, you’ve had seconds of [insert dish name here]” (I can’t translate things well, lol). Apparently she’d been paying attention to my eating habits? And if she had been paying attention, my first bowl had been only half filled, as opposed to everyone else who had a completely filled first bowl. And then came the whole “So how much weight have you gained over the last few months?” Hello, appropriate extended family Christmas lunch conversation topics? Not really.

I have never been comfortable with the family (extended, or not) talking about my weight. And, for some odd reason, it’s always during a meal. My aunt mentions it. J is always “too skinny”. D looks like she hasn’t been eating much lately. And me? “Oh, Michelle, have you been gaining weight lately?”. My mom just laughs and then talks about how much I eat at home, compared to everyone else. At home, for Christmas dinner (with just the immediate family – we had leftovers), my sisters were talking about my weight, and my mom joined in. I asked them to stop it (because I was eating at the time and because I’m in a ‘normal weight range’ for my height/age/whatever). And they continued. So I left the dinner table and went to my room. Where I have stayed, I only left to go to the kitchen to do some chip swaps for my dolls.

And, as always, odd family gossip gets revealed during holiday meals together. Like so-and-so recently got married, but the new spouse only got divorced a week before the wedding and the new spouse used to be (or is?) her boss (how scandalous) and someone else got a loan from a loan shark…? With daily interest at 30%? Yeeeeeeep, I have awesome relatives, right? In my defense, I didn’t pick them.

Also… My dolls had a good Christmas morning and Sophie and Tertiary Jane got new green chips. =)