break

i went out to the barn last night for the first time in a couple of weeks. i was showing off my camera to the other lady there and she took my picture with one of the horses. it was so cold out. i'd gone out to the king william barn earlier in the day and took pics of the horses out there. i'm glad to be helping again. i also finally got around to bringing my pets to the vets. kitt's annual exam was half a year overdue. and budd's eggs were months overdue. they ended up costing four hundred dollars. budd still has two eggs and they're going to get back to me about what we should do about it. kitt got her senior labs done and i'll hear back soon if anything more needs to be done with her. so they may end up costing even more. good thing i'm getting holiday pay tonight working new year's eve. i had a second christmas this week going shopping with all the gift cards i got for christmas. i got us a much needed vacuum cleaner from kohls. a massage mat for our chair from wal mart. and an indoor/outdoor digital thermometer from home depot. there were such great sales after christmas too. i got some stuff up to half off. dad's retirement party is this weekend. he's worked so hard to support five kids for almost forty years. he deserves the big break.

settled

this past week has been pretty crazy. it started out pretty terrible last weekend. we got about a foot of snow. and i had to work through all of it. i closed friday night and had six inches on my car already even closing an hour early. i was the only one able to get there saturday. gareth had to drive me. it continued snowing all day. i was only there from noon until five and i was busy the entire time. so mad at everyone risking their safety to go out and get a movie. i almost didn't go in sunday when everything iced over. but i was told i had to by my manager who's boss told him someone had to. he actually went out that night to close so that made me a little less angry about the whole situation. but all in all it was pretty terrible. and my family's plans for my bday on sunday were cancelled because of all the snow too. we finally celebrated on christmas day. i was too late to see anyone on christmas eve after working that morning. i'd ended up working seven days in a row before getting christmas off. i was pretty happy about that. it was a really nice day with everyone. i posted some videos of everyone opening the presents i got them. and pics after. i love my new camera. i had today off and spent the day cleaning up the apartment and doing some catch up shopping. finally feel like i'm all settled after all the madness. can't wait for gareth to come home tomorrow. i always miss him when he's gone.

bday

i had a pretty good bday yesterday. even though it started out at the doctors. my ears had started hurting at work the day before so i figured the nurses were right. the doctor said i had some fluid in them but that it wasn't a full blown infection. she said to take sudafed gave me something for the dizziness. but on the prescription it says it may cause dizziness and drowsiness. so that won't really help at work. or in general if it really makes me dizzy. they did some labs on my bloodwork though so i know there's not anything else seriously wrong with me. i also got my cholesterol checked. it's been a few years and growing up i always had really high cholesterol from my mom. seeing both my parents have heart issues over the years i know i really should be doing something about it. after the doctors i finished my christmas shopping. that one sentence took about five hours. while we were shopping though gareth bought me a magic bullet food processor. and a car wash. he'd already gotten me the national geographic series on disc. every issue ever made. it looks pretty cool. and it was very thoughtful of him. we went by petsmart yesterday and there was a rat that looked just like pete there. i really wanted to get him. gareth put his foot down though and said it was a bad idea. he's probably right. i don't really want to replace him. i just really miss him. my family called me from florida to wish me a happy bday. mom wanted them to sing but that's just what mom does every year. leaves me a voicemail of her singing happy bday. gareth took me to maggianos last night. i got the eggplant parmesan and he got the giant lasagna. i brought home chocolate cake. and most of the lasagna. it was nice. i'd say i had a happy bday. thanks everyone.

dizzy

i'm just finishing up editing photos for albums for christmas. i started last week and really didn't think it would take this long. i'm excited to get them printed and put them in order. that's my favorite part. i still haven't found presents for half my family. i have today off though so i'll be out shopping until i drop. and that may be literally. i've been experiencing vertigo lately. this is going on three days now. it's happened before but always went away pretty quickly. there are a few nurses who come through bbuster that i always get diagnoses from when i have something wrong. the inner ear was the unanimous culprit. they all said i should go to the doctors if it continues much longer. so i may be spending my bday on thursday at the doctors. that's the other day i got off this week. i need to email my family and tell them i didn't get off sunday to celebrate with them. after i made a big deal about wanting to celebrate apart from christmas. and it turns out i'll probably be working christmas eve and christmas. the manager and i both worked on thanksgiving thinking that then the other two shift leaders would take a shift on christmas and christmas eve. apparently that was just a thought though because neither of them can work either. i just hope i get my original request of christmas eve night and christmas day morning off. mom will cry if i don't. and i just might too. my grandma was in the hospital this past weekend. she'd fallen and broke a vertebrae. i called and wasn't sure she knew who i was at first. but once she said she'd started reading the book i sent her i was pretty sure she knew it was me. she said she hadn't had any visitors and seemed happy i'd called. poor grandma. gareth and i saw some movies this weekend. he reviewed invictus and really liked it. i went to see the princess and the frog with him and we both really enjoyed that. glad disney's got their animation studio up and going again. my family will have to thank them for me. they're at disney world this week.

accidents

my car got towed this morning. they've been doing leaf cleanup on our streets and i thought it was over but apparently today was the last day. i'm waiting for gareth to get ready to go so we can pick it up. that's sixty dollars less to spend on christmas presents this year. gareth's offered to pay for half. i'd been budgeting to actually get nice presents for everyone this year so that'll help. it's been a pretty hectic week. our store flooded for the third time this week. the first time i've opened though. i did everything i thought i was supposed to but when i called the manager to let him know what was going on he told me to pull out the shop vac from the back and start cleaning it up myself. i was not happy about this. he hadn't done that the two times before. and i was very unhappy when someone else got there and said i shouldn't be touching anything that was wet because it was close to an electric outlet and i could get shocked. more things are adding up on the negative side with him lately. i just read on here about a friend who had an accident driving this past weekend when it snowed. that's the day gareth and i drove back home to decorate. it was a good time but pretty scary driving my car in the snow for the first time. i'm glad i didn't have the same thing happen to me. we had a cat follow gareth home last night. i took some food and warm milk out for him. he was so sweet. i wished i could bring him in from the cold. i hope he had a nice warm home of his own.

lucky

i really thought i was opening today. luckily when i was writing down my schedule last night for next week i noticed that i'm actually closing. i'd been waiting to watch the hangover with gareth tonight. oh well. we both have tomorrow off but i've already made plans to go home and help with the christmas decorations. not even sure gareth will be able to accompany me. he's been sick all week. some days he feels better. some days he feels worse. i just hope i don't catch it from him this time. my wrist got better. i don't really know what was wrong with it. i was going to make an appointment on monday morning when suddenly it just popped back into place. glad i didn't have to deal with all that. i went out to the new barn for the first time this week. there's only two horses there and there were three of us. so they both got lots of attention after being out in the rain all day. i talked to someone there about taking riding lessons. that would be good for me. i watched a really good french documentary last night. called the gleaners and i. about people who scavenge fields after harvest as well as people in the city who go dumpster diving. opened my eyes a little. there's a guy who's sometimes on the corner of bbuster's shopping center. if i have any leftovers after work i give them to him. but it makes me sad to see.