holidays – Imaginary Sunshine

Life right now

Michelle — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 06:02:56 +0000

Life post-NCLEX is interesting. I’m currently unemployed, but according to the CRNBC[1. College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia] I am licensed as a registered nurse – so that’s something. I’ve put in many, many, many job applications. It does not help that I live in one of the top three most saturated areas when it comes to nursing jobs. Many of my classmates have taken to posting on Facebook when they’ve gotten jobs. Some got them straightaway and I could not be more jealous. Others have been going on extravagant adventures overseas and have gotten jobs. Even more jealous of them, because I have wanderlust right now and would love to go on a trip to Europe.

So there’s me. Unemployed, but an RN. I have a dwindling bank account, I have gone on a pretty strict budget where I spend very little (it helps that I live at home, still rent and board free). And I’ve spent time with the boyfriend, friends, and I’ve gotten to the point where I realize that I should actually embrace the state of unemployment as free time to do things besides mope around at home. And then I also remember that doing fun things does often also involve spending money, which I can’t afford to do. So stay-cation activities it is, but not everyone wants to do activities like that because being a miser is (according to my sisters) boring.

But… that’s my life right now. Struggling to find a job, very broke, and trying to find the bright side of things.

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.

I need a blanket fort

Michelle — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 08:07:32 +0000

Sometimes it makes me sad that I don’t blog more. Blogging used to be my passion and I’d come up with a new theme nearly every month. Pretty sure that this one has been up for forever by now… And yet, I really cannot bring myself to care that I haven’t changed from the pixel girl with the heart-shaped balloon. It’s a bit fitting, since I had modeled the image after my favicon image that I had made much earlier than this theme. But blogging as a whole? I didn’t realize that I had pretty much dropped off the face of the planet in terms of the internet. Or maybe I had, and just didn’t notice?

I, for one, had an alright Christmas. The thing about Christmas is that it is a very family-oriented holiday. The unfortunate thing about Christmas is that it is a very family-oriented holiday. Some gems that I’ve been asked this holiday season by relatives (immediate and extended) include:

Why aren’t you done school yet?

Why didn’t you go to medical school?

How much weight have you gained? (Which was followed by: How much do you weigh now?)

The answers: because I’m not, because I don’t want to become a doctor (medical or otherwise), none of your business, see previous answer.

Oh family. What would I do without them? (Answer: Probably be a lot more sane, and non-existent.)

I’m already looking forward to going back to school – primarily so I won’t need to spend so much time with the members of my family that are driving me crazy with their repetitive questions. That and I want to learn ALL THE THINGS! I’ve been doing a bit of winter break reading and just finished the Hyperbole and a Half book by Allie Brosh. It has delightfully thick pages and full-colour illustrations. What else would a girl want in a book full of fun stories? I still have a few more books in my pile to read. Now that my familial holiday obligations have been met and there are no more family gatherings in the near future (as far as I know, anyways), I’m happy to really get to enjoy my time off and spend time with the people that I choose to spend time with. (A.k.a. not the crazy relatives, or the select individuals that I live with who are driving me crazy.)

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!

Reflections & A New Year

Michelle — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 02:55:04 +0000

2012 was the year that I…

Took classes that I truly enjoyed in university
Took my first distance education course (purely online, even the final!)
Finished off my very last semester in university with high grades (!)
Graduated. Walked across a stage. Have a funny cap and a piece of paper with my name on it that says that I accomplished something (sort of)
Went on vacation for the first time in years (because apparently a 4 day trip where I spent most of it on a bus doesn’t count)
Went spelunking for the first time and had a lot of fun
Got into nursing school
Yet again worked as a customer service rep
Stood up for myself and reported my supervisor to Human Resources (yeah, that did not work out well – still glad I did it)
Started nursing school – met so many people, learned so many things about myself and others – finished with an A average for term 1
Turned 23

And what’s in store for me for 2013?

I start up at school again on Monday, I have a new clinical placement that’s going to be mildly hellish to get to for morning shifts if I start at 6:30am (7:00am won’t be as big of a problem). I’m taking 6 courses (pharmacology [online], pathophysiology, microbiology, clinical skills, group learning, and clinical). I’m going to be on campus three days a week, thank goodness I have a locker in a decent location (already got my schedule – that I still need to print out). Of all the classes, the one that’s new to me is microbiology- so that shall be interesting. The only new textbook that I need to get is the one for microbiology, and the instructor is really pushing for the ebook because we need to do online quizzes (via the publisher’s website) anyways. The website says it’s $70, which isn’t bad at all… But the thing I dislike the most is that I can’t resell it when I’m done! The reason it’s so cheap isn’t actually because it’s an ebook, it’s because we’re not getting all of the content. The ebook of the entire text is the exact same cost as a physical book. Which is ridiculous (in my opinion) because they should have saved some money on not printing and binding the damn thing and made the ebook cheaper. So I’m glad we don’t need the entire book, because it would have been $200 otherwise.

Other excitements in my life include getting a new laptop, a new bag (purse, not backpack) and a couple new dvds. The non-excitement is learning how to use Windows 8 because it’s a new operating system and I’m not used to it at all. My new laptop is not a touchscreen, so I find the Start Menu a bit tedious, to be honest, and I miss having a Start button. Also, it actually took me a while to find the ‘shut down’ button and I ended up having to read in the book where it is! They’ve completely hidden it (under Settings, FFS), not user friendly at all. One thing I do like about it is the Instant On feature. Takes seconds for my computer to go from black screen to the me being able to log in – which is pretty awesome, if you ask 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.

Finishing term 1 of Nursing School & Winter Holidays!

Michelle — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:50:32 +0000

It’s been so long since I last blogged and I apologize! I’ve been super busy with school and then finals (which ended last Thursday!). Since the last time I blogged, I had:

Written my last pathophysiology midterm
Completed & got my professional portfolio back (93%)
Did my presentation on MRSA[1. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus]
Handed in and got my last paper back (95%)
Completed clinical (and passed – it’s a pass-fail course)
Attended pharmacology seminars (so boring…)
Wrote five finals

I’ve waiting on my final grades to come back, but I had done a little bit of math work and if I had gotten 0% on all my finals, I’d still be sitting at a 65% GPA so… I’m not entirely too worried about passing or not! It’s nice to finally get a decently long break (just over three weeks) of doing nothingness. Or rather, doing nothing related to nursing and nursing school!

My first day off from school, I went to the mall at 9:30am and was out by about 11:00am. I got almost all of my shopping done in one day, didn’t spend as much as I thought I was going to (always a good thing!). The last bit of shopping I needed to do (I needed candy canes) was done at the dollar store near my house. Of course I ended up buying more than a $1 box of candy canes… I also bought holiday-themed cupcake liners, translucent gift bags (for cookie gifting) and Christmas-themed and Angry Birds colouring books (not for myself…). I love the dollar store by my house though, the ladies that work there know me by face now so we chat a bit whenever I’m at the register or poking around the store.

Because it’s the holidays, I’ve been doing a lot of baking, which is both good and bad. I somehow got roped into doing a cookie exchange at my summer work place (where my mom works), so I got to bake 6 dozen cookies and I get 6 dozen cookies back, each dozen is made by someone different. So today I got a bunch of delicious things. Some had chocolates and marshmallows, some you could just smell the ginger. Delicious! I’m quite pleased, although I did notice that I had the best presentation overall. I made dinosaur and dinosaur print sugar cookies:

The recipe is from Betty Crocker’s The Big Book of Cookies that I got for my birthday back in November but I did adjust it a bit (taking out some ingredients because I didn’t have them on hand) and they still turned out pretty good. The icing is just royal icing (alternatively, you can buy premade icing that comes in containers that look like school glue bottles). I was originally going to individually ice the cookies and then flood them to give them the nice icing layer, but I added a wee bit too much water to my powdered sugar, so it was too watery. So instead, I just picked up each cookie, lightly dip the surface into the icing and then let any excess drip off before putting them onto the wax paper to dry. It worked out well and was a lot faster than individually icing and flooding 6 dozen cookies.

In other baking news, I’ve also made 2 dozen shortbread (will make more!) and have also made one and a half dozen chocolate fudge cupcakes. So much baking! I love baking though, and I don’t often get the chance (or have the time!) to do it during the school year. Especially not with nursing school.

I’ve also spent some time this past weekend with a lovely group of ladies who also share a love of dollies. We had fun exchanging Santa Swap presents. I got a new mug and a bunch of lovely miniature ornaments, chocolates and stationary. I gave a box of chocolates, some handmade things for the dolls, a cute toque with a pompom, a miniature art easel and a Littlest Pet Shop Teensies set that was very well received! I just love shopping for other people, it’s a lot more fun (and easier to spend money!) when it’s not for me.

But today Value Village was having a 50% off clothing (and some other departments) sale for those who have membership cards (and of course, I have one). I went with my sister, who was going to look for pants. I went through housewares, crafts and toys before making my way to the clothing section. I ended up getting 4 cardigans (some looked like they’d never been worn – two still had original store price tags) and 1 sweater for $17 before taxes. My sister got a pair of Guess jeans for $3 (remnants of the original paper tag were still on the jeans, they didn’t look worn at all!). There’ll be other 50% off days – last time there was one, I focused only on pants and it’s a good thing too because I find myself getting overwhelmed if I go and really look through more than one clothing section. There’s just too much stuff everywhere!

Overall it was a good shopping day at VV. The only sweater I bought today is a fairly thin one (100% cotton, probably more meant for spring or summer) that’s light green and from Banana Republic – I generally don’t find Banana Republic at low prices at VV or in good condition, but this one fit the bill as it was originally $4.99 (so down to $2.50) and it was in great condition with no pilling whatsoever. One of my cardigans is 100% cream-coloured lambswool from Great Britain and it was my most expensive buy today at $5 (down from $9.99). I love cardigans, but I’ve had to get rid of some recently due to them being too threadbare and really well-loved. I’ll have photos of what I bought after everything’s gone through the wash!

Lastly that’s new is that I actually redeemed some points! I think most credit cards attached to banks have this, but whenever I use my credit card, I got a point for every dollar that I spend. I’ve had my credit card since I was 19 (and could have my own), but I hadn’t used any points at all. There were bonus points for the first month that I had it, bonus for my first transaction, etc. I ended up redeeming for gift cards (none of the merchandise options seemed good). I ended up redeeming for a $100 gift card for Sears (as my half of my joint present to my mom for Christmas – my sister is chipping in $100 cash as my mom wants to buy a new vacuum cleaner) and a $50 gift card for La Vie en Rose (for me!) and I still have points left over. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up redeeming more points late for more gift cards for myself (I really want to get an e-reader and I’ve been eyeing the Kobo Glo but I don’t have enough in gift cards just yet), alternatively I’d redeem for “financial rewards” and just get it in cash for general shopping purposes. It’s kind of like getting “free money” – which is nice considering I never leave a balance on my card so they’ve never gotten any interest from me. Always very nice to be responsible!

Oh, and I did my nails for the first time since August (when I started school). It’s nice being able to keep nail polish on for more than 5 days (seeing as how I can’t have polish on my nails at the hospital). Very nice indeed!

A sitting duck, Christmas and other thoughts

Michelle — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:00:04 +0000

Hello, hello. *wave* I don’t blog very much, do I?

Since the 10th, I had: completed all of my finals (I’ve received final grades for 3 of 4 courses so far), baked (a lot: a dozen dozen cookies!), slept in (mmm) and I did something absolutely horrid to my left foot. From the moment I woke up Friday morning until today (and still continuing), my foot hurts whenever I put weight on it. Which means that walking more than five steps is pretty much out of the question. It has gotten better (so I can walk more than five steps!) and it’s gone from a sharp pain of my foot trying to go “WTF are you doing, woman? SIT DOWN NOW before I make you sit down!” to a dull ache. I got new shoes during Boxing Day sales (the only day since last Thursday/22nd) that I had left my house and those have actually really helped. I was overdue for a new pair of shoes and having new shoes with very cushy arch support has helped a lot. But I was home from the 23rd-25th and did absolutely nothing beyond leaving my room to go and sit at the dinner table and such things like that. I also laid on the couch a lot, because my foot hated me immensely. I don’t know what I did to my foot to make it hate me so, but not putting weight on it has helped. Whatever happened, it has gotten a little bit better.

I’ve been doing a lot of sitting, laying down and just resting in general. The unfortunate thing is that the nerves decide at times that it doesn’t like all the rest and I get the feeling of pins and needles on the bottom of my foot. I can’t win, I swear.

Christmas was lovely with my family. My sisters and I got my mom a designer handbag that she was wistful over in the store but then set aside when she saw how much money it cost (my sister went back later to buy it, we went in 3-ways on it because it was so pricey). For sister J, I got her Sock Innovation by Cookie A and a skein of deliciously squishy alpaca sock-weight yarn. For sister D, J and I got her a floor lamp for her condo along with a box of energy saving lightbulbs (no sense in buying her a lamp without them as the box said, in big bold letters, No Lightbulbs Included. My dad finally told me two days before Christmas what he wanted, but I hadn’t been able to go shopping, so he got a fancy I.O.U. (and a tin of cookies that was just for him that he didn’t have to share with anyone in the family!) for 2 photo frames that he wanted for these odd-sized photos of his parents (I never met them, both of them died by the time he was in his early teens). I had never seen larger photos of my paternal grandmother (most of the photos my dad has of her are fairly small or not that clear) and she looks just like one of my aunts, and I have the same cheekbones as her! It’s kind of cool to see that in a photo, just the family resemblance and what of me I can see that I got from her.

I got some fun gifts this year. My parents got me (another) Blythe doll, she’s #9. Has fantastic blue hair and I’ve named her Mollie (short for Molybdenum, which is element #42 on the periodic table). I also got chocolates! My favourite: hazelnut hedgehogs. Noms. One sister crocheted a doll hat for me and also gave me a lot of knee-high socks (store bought, not hand knit). I’d been lamenting the fact that I hadn’t gotten around to shopping for socks, so it’s nice that she did that for me! She got all argyle patterns because most of my knee highs are in argyle. My other sister got me a gift certificate to a spa, which I’ve never been to before. It’s a certificate for a pedicure session, which I’ve never gotten one before. So fancy. I need to book my appointment!

In other news, I’ve been working on applications for nursing programs. I’ve also been doing a lot of knitting. Pictured above – I finally finished my first pair of handknit socks! Unfortunately they were a little bit too short in the heel for me but they fit my mom perfectly, so she got another present for Christmas and she loves them!

Plans in the near future include finishing application essays and whatnot, getting things ready to hand into the schools in January. I’ve also got a few textbooks to buy (least number of classes ever for a term for me but yet this may be my most expensive term yet when it comes to books!). I’m also working on being a lot more positive about things in my life, and that will be including the removal of the negative people, because I really don’t need that. Like that quote from Eleanor Roosevelt says, no one can make me feel inferior without my consent. (I mostly wish I could cut my aunt out of my life, but I really can’t, seeing as how she’s married to my uncle and my parents wouldn’t go with it.)

Happy holidays!

An Obligatory Post-Christmas Entry

Michelle — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 04:10:13 +0000

Work last week went well. I may have enjoyed the fact that people were bringing in cookies and chocolates and the fact that there was a steady supply of decent hot chocolate right there a little bit too much. But, well, it’s just a little sugar? I did do some Christmas baking last week – shortbread and sugar cookies. I’d brought the shortbread into work to share with people, and they seemed to like it (I went home with an empty box) and some people came by my desk for seconds (or thirds, for some people). What’s interesting about going to work during the winter (as opposed to the summer) is that people have a very different dynamic that what I’m used to. They honestly act differently during winter than they do in the summer. It was very difficult to put my finger on it at first, and then I figured out that people act differently. I don’t know, it was just some weird observation that I had. But what was really nice was actually being able to go in and say Merry Christmas to people and get to bring in the cookies I made for people at work myself (I generally send a plate or box with my mom and she’ll relay the comments to me later).

Overall, Christmas was the same as always. My parents spent hours arguing (normal), my father gave me an I.O.U. (expected) and we changed boxes of chocolate with our neighbours (oddly enough, we gave them a box of hedgehogs, they gave us a box of hedgehogs – first year we’ve ever given the same thing, right down to the brand!). I don’t know why I expect things to change (mainly referring to the arguing part of my Christmas), but I do.

And what post-Christmas blog post would this be if I didn’t talk about what kind of loot I got?

Chocolates (hedgehogs and Lindt – the double-milk chocolate bar)
Cookies
Beads
Glass tank (as a new enclosure for my pet)
Cash (always useful)
An I.O.U. that stated that I was owed one Christmas gift (I also got a similarly worded piece of paper for my birthday)

For Boxing Day, I ventured out to go shopping. Oddly enough, one of the malls I went to wasn’t particularly crowded at all. And there was actual parking spots available, many of them! My Boxing Day loot is as follows:

Cosmetics, 4 nail polishes, 1 lipstick – $0.99/each
Bear plush, wearing a scarf (approx. 9″ in height, maybe?) – $1
Clothes, 4 shirts – there was a buy one, get one free promotion (1 that could essentially double as a bustier or just a fancy top, one that’s super pretty with a little flower print and works well as a work/office or formal-setting shirt) and 2 were on clearance (a tank top and a V-neck tee) – $30 (BOGO portion was $20 by itself)
Santa Hat ($3.50)
Chocolate, discounted because it came in a clear tree-shaped box – deliciousness at only $3
Tall snowflake mug/cup/thing – $0.50 (I’m going to use it to hold yarn needles)

Overall, Boxing Day was a win because I was a) out of the house, b) did a little retail therapy, c) got a gorgeous top on sale and d) got discounted holiday-themed chocolate. It tastes just the same as non-holiday-themed chocolate, honest. And it doesn’t even expire until 2012… Not that it would last that long anyways!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas weekend! I, for one, a looking forward to a bit nicer weather so I can set up my glass tank. I also have 2 days of work this week (Wednesday and Thursday) and then another four-day weekend before I start school again on the Tuesday of next week. I’m mostly looking forward to spending some time with my boyfriend than spending time at home, hehe.