Gentlemen prefer blondes? Oh, I'm putting that to the test.

All right, I know that everyone has exciting lives, and they blog quite often about their exciting adventures, but I have none of these. But instead of taking my things and making them separate entries, (which would take time and energy...) I have decided to just shove it all together, and do the highlights.
I have before lamented about hair stylists. I know that they have a very tough job, and that they have to do what people tell them, but holy crap why can't they just do what I tell them?! I tell my gal over the weekend to just cut off like a little bit, to get rid of the dead, and she ends up cutting off a bunch, then decides (of her own free will) to just cut the right side of hair all willy-nilly. Like I'm doing nothing with that hair? It's fine if that side is just bald? And for those of you who haven't seen me yet (is there such a person reading this?) I have gone back to blonde! It's a slow process, going from dark to blonde, but I'm in the middle. I'm still getting used to it, and so far, it's a fun, cute color, but I'm just getting used to it being light up there. But it'll be better! Pretty soon, I won't do the double take when I look at it.
This past Sunday, we had a family fiesta. After the fiesta, (I'm using fiesta because we made Mexican food. Delicioso!) we were cleaning up the kitchen when I hopped off the counter. I placed my hand on the oven...well, I thought it was the oven. Turns out, it was the oven handle, and when I put my hand on it and (simultaneously jumped down) the oven door opened, and I slammed into that with my leg. I now have a bruise the size of my cell phone on my leg, and it hurts when I walk. And bump into it. And lay on it. Or sit slightly wrong. To make the point clear, it just hurts. But I'm pretty sure I didn't break the oven door, so that's a victory in itself.
I have done something I didn't think I'd ever do. I have canceled my Netflix account. I love Netflix, don't get me wrong, but I just don't have time for it anymore! I have my 100 hours of Tivo that I do every week (ok, it's not that much...almost) and I have the movies that I (inexplicably!) keep borrowing from people. I have 2 Netflix movies that I've had for a month, just sitting here, unwatched, so I sent them back and just canceled it out. This makes me feel a whirl of emotions. I'm happy to get rid of the pressure of 2 movies always sitting there (yes, I feel a pressure from inanimate objects) and them taunting me every day I don't watch them. There is a load lifted from my shoulders. But I'm also sad-I love Netflix. Getting a surprise DVD in the mail every few days (when I actually have time) was so great! A little gift for me in the mail-and I do love surprises in the mail. But as soon as I get through TV season, I might try reactivating it, to see if I have the time to watch now. But even if I don't, I'll still hold my Tivo close to my heart.
In retrospect, I totally could have made three entries out of these things, but whatevs. I'm good with combining these all-and who knows, maybe I'll have more stuff happen, and actually write a few blog entries in a week!

I speak six languages...

Ok, maybe not six. But I am learning many right now. Of course, I speak English, which I consider my "mother tongue". I can conjugate verbs, I can speak the slang, I'm pretty sure I've got the language down pat. I can do Spanish, not fluent, but I can hold my own. I can understand it and read it pretty well, but speaking it isn't my strong point.
My new languages I'm doing are Polish and German. I'm not professionally learning those though. (is that how you would describe it?) I got a German phrase of the day calender for 2009, and I'm using that to learn the language. You'd think that having my lil' German mama would have made me learn it sooner, but no dice. So far, I can say about three phrases in German. If you see me in the street, I'll happily say them for you! I'm sure my accent isn't the best ever, but I don't care. At least you can get the feel of what I'm trying to say. Plus, these phrases will really come in handy should I ever visit Germany and not have anybody there to translate for me. Of course, if someone answers me back in a phrase I don't know, I'm stuck, but at least I did half of the work!
The Polish isn't really coming along all that well. I know about six words, which I always forget until I speak to a friend of mine. He always laughs at me because I announce that I learned a new word over the weekend (from PJ, who learns it from a gal at work), but then I can't repeat or even remember what the word is until he repeats it for me. It's a hard language, I can't remember it all! But the words I'm working on remembering are ones that I would use a lot. But he helps me with the pronounciation, which he always does, no matter how many times I've "learned" it before!
I'm going to work really hard on all this stuff until I can hold a conversation with someone. But if I can't at some point, at least I know some of the languages, which will make me seem so learned!

Give em alcohol, and see what happens

I love awards shows. I have before professed my love for them, even though of late, they drive me a little crazy. I love watching for the superficiality of it, the dresses, etc, but I'm so over the movies that win. I get that it's the "movie snobs" who are in charge of picking the nominees, and it's always the serious movies that win, but come on! Pick a good movie for once to have it win the Oscar. But even if they throw in a movie that you're not expecting, for example, last years Juno, you know it won't win, because there are too many "artsy" movies that are nominated, crushing the chances of the good one. There seems to be an exception this year-The Dark Knight is nominated, but is it nominated because it's so awesome, or it is nominated because Heath Ledger was in it, and he died? I can argue both points of this, so I don't know the answer myself.
Last night was the Golden Globes, which is, I think, my favorite awards show. It's my fav because they give them food and loads of alcohol. I love so much that someone will get up to get their award, and they're buzzed, so their speech is just that much more funny. Most of the movies that won (and were nominated) last night I hadn't seen, which takes away some of the fun, but for the most part, people that won were great. There were some great acceptance speeches, a lot of fawning over dresses (even dresses that should not have been fawned over!) and just good times all around. Now that the Globes are over, it means the Oscars are just around the corner. I will of course be watching, and then the awards season is over for another year. And in that time, I'll try to watch all the winning movies, and see if they were deserving of the wins.

Snow belongs in its proper places: mountain tops, poetry and songs by Bing Crosby!

You know how in Finding Nemo, Nemo has that gimpy fin, smaller than the other? My car is like a Nemo right now. Yesterday, on my way to work, I turned on the windshield wipers, no big deal, but as it was going up, it broke! The bigger wiper, the one directly over what I see, just snapped right off! Of course, I'm freaking out, and thank goodness it wasn't snowing yesterday morning. I spent the drive willing nothing to happen, that it would stay where it was, and nothing would flip up onto my windshield, causing me to die. Luckily, nothing did, and I made it work safely.
When I got to work, luckily, I work with Pops, who grabbed the broken wiper and just snapped it back on. I left that night, worried about how it would do, seeing as how it had been snowing all day long. It worked! No problems, things were good. And also, an amigo from work scraped all the snow off of my car before I got out there, so shout out to him. Although, he doesn't read this, so he doesn't know about the shout out, but I'm sure he's picking up the vibes I'm putting out there.
Today, as everyone knows, it snowed all day again! I made my way out to the car after work, only to find another amigo at work scraping off my car! I have some fabulous guys working with me who are nice enough to do this stuff for us. A shout out to him, also.
I'm trying to take all this goodness that people are doing to me and pass it on to others, (A la Pay it Forward) but so far, I haven't had any good opportunities. I'm going to keep looking, and if you can see any opportunities come your way, take them. You can make someone's day just by the littlest thing!

I'm back!

Well, it's been a bit of a hiatus since the last post, but I am back! The vacation was fab, but I am glad to be home. At Disneyland, we partied in Fantasyland for New Years Eve, and by the end of the night, I was definitely dragging. Dancing for 5 hours straight definitely takes it out of you! We rode a bunch of the rides, even though lines were crazy long. That's what we get for going over a holiday weekend, though. It was a lot colder than I was anticipating, I was wearing two sweatshirts pretty much the entire time. I was doing pretty good, I was pretty injury-free, until the last day or so, when my calf muscles started to hurt when I took steps, and by the end of the day, my feet were feeling it too. But I am not complaining-I loved the weekend. I'm just going to nurse my injuries right now, and take it sorta easy.
Sorry to make the "I'm back" post short, but I am feeling pretty beat. Who knew that being in a car for about 10 hours could take it out of you like this? All I want to do is lie down! I'll do more details and stories later, most likely.

The manner of giving is worth more than the gift

Merry Christmas, readers!
Ok, now that that's out of the way, we can continue. Christmas is a funny time. Months of stressing and planning for one (maybe two, if you count Christmas Eve) day of joy. And I don't know about you, but I stress. From the beginning of November until Christmas, I stress about what to get people, and I hope I get them enough, and I hope that they like what I get them, and that everything works out. Why do we worry so? We're giving someone a gift! Something, for free, that they otherwise wouldn't have, or would have to buy it for themselves. Just the fact that someone took time out of their lives to buy you something should be happiness enough, but oh, no. Some people hate what they get (I'll admit, I have been in this position before, I am ashamed to say) So because of this, I always panic that they'll hate the gift.
This Christmas was the same. I might have even overdone the gifts this year, trying to get people what they wanted, but you know, I don't care. Even though this time of year isn't supposed to be about presents, I love to give them. When someone opens the present you gave them, and you can see in their face that it's something they love, I love the feeling I get from that. It's such a relief, like all my hard work was good, and I did a good thing.
I think this year was a good one. I loved everything I got, and I think I picked good things for people to have. And if I didn't, meh. I always have next year to correct this. One of my favorite holiday quotes is: "As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December's bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same." And its true-I had no issues battling lines this year, to give those closest to me a smile on Christmas. And I hope I did!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

Not really! Holy crap what is up with all this snow?! Just a few weeks ago, I remember commenting on how it was unseasonably warm for this time of year. Then all of a sudden, bam! We were hit, like a snowball, unexpectedly, like with a punch in the face, the way a real snowball hits. Today's snow fall was the worst-coming out from work, there was so much freaking snow on my car! Getting it all off was fun, dancing around it, and dodging snowballs from a co-worker was just another adventure.
With all the craziness of today, I thought of several things I'm thankful for, so I'm sharing it with everyone.

I'm thankful for the UPS guy who kept making his rounds, delivering my packages to me at 8 o'clock at night, in the gross weather and traffic.

I'm thankful for my dad getting me new windshield wipers, so I could deal with all this snow properly.

I'm thankful for mama, shoveling off the driveway so's I could drive my car in and out of there without getting stuck.

I'm thankful that my car has a heater, and I can travel in warmth.

I know there's loads more things to be grateful for, but these are the things that are in the front of my brain. I know the weather sucks, but you can find all sorts of things to be glad for. Give it a try!