Why I hate Christmas

It's shocking to most people when I say I hate Christmas. I go to church and get the whole Jesus thing, everyone loves gifts so it's not unusual for pretty much everyone to think I'm crazy. I hate Christmas so much because of my my Parents make it. The next five-ish weeks will be like pulling teeth for me. It's going to be a never ending stream of fights and pouting that I've witnessed annually for all of my memory. I honestly can't remember one truly happy Christmas season in all of my 23 years.

The official kick off of holiday hell is going on now. The Annual 'let bring up your dead parents fight'. This isn't an unusual fight for my Parents to have. When my Grandparents died my Dad had a lot of stuff he needed to work though. I think it's pretty understandable for the holiday season to be a hard time for him. My Mother in her infinite wisdom(crazy) likes to really poke at it this time of year. The quote from tonight 'What do you think your parents would have to say about that?'. This has been brought on with my mother being let go from her job. She'd upset so she must go an hurt everyone around her. This is also not unusual for her. Like I said this isn't an unusual fight but at holiday time it launches my Dad into a downward spiral of hurt and general grumpiness which I can understand. There's nothing like being depressed at Christmas missing those who have passed away.

I can honestly say much of my childhood and my current adult(ish) life would be much happier if my Parents would have (or would) separate. No child should have to see their parents threatening each other with knives in the kitchen. No kid should have to be a messenger from one room to another mid fight. I shouldn't have had to explain to my younger sister that things were OK when they weren't.

I should clarify that my Parents aren't abusive in a physical way. They like to go for the emotional and mental side of things where no one can see what's going on under the surface. Growing up there was no regulation for this kind of abuse in Ohio for spouses or children, especially when you have food to eat and the heat is on.

So why does all this happen at Christmas? I'm not 100% sure. I think it might have something to do with attempts at buying affection or making up for a whole year of hurting both of which never work out.

This is a bit of a ramble and I'm sorry for the emo. I'll try and let go of it soon and make the best of Christmas this year.

Black Friday + Random

Seriously I never ever want to work retail on black Friday EVER again. True, it wasn't as bad as I anticipated but my cheeks hurt from the fake smiles and grinding my teeth when people were rude, grumpy or were pissed they missed they missed the sale. I honestly didn't leave my resister aside from the tiny break, the unpaid lunch and the 10 mins I helped an old lady look for dinosaurs. Looking for dinosaurs with old people is kinda fun in a manic black Friday kind of way. They call it 'green Friday' at the 'r us' which I find really annoying.

Drake & Josh is one my my favorite 'new nick' shows. I know, I know it isn't exactly new but it's new when compared to the 'Hey Dude' and 'Salute Your Shorts' I grew up on. I some how find Drake and Josh attractive even though they're about 17ish in the show I think. Drake & Josh is marathoning in a thanksgiving 'Bromntic' marathon. ... yes that sentence is awful.

In other news I've started working on the show Manda and I will be doing in our next video. We've come to the conclusion it should be a Trock song. This would be time lord rock like wizard rock fro Harry Potter but Time Lord for Doctor Who. If you look it up on YouTube you'll find out more about it. There's also a forum out there you can find through google (or linked to the YouTube video by nerimon.).

My sister is going to Europe for the next 20 days. Yes, I bitter because my Parents are paying for it for her. I am however slightly pleased that she left her plant in the car over night and it's pretty much dead.

I know, picture Friday... but it would have only been pictures at work which I didn't have time to do.

Random 5: Current Kids tv shows I love
1. Wonder Pets
2. Wizards of Waverly Place
3. Drake and Josh
4. iCarly

And back to the regularly scheduled program

So when I said there would be picture Friday I had intended to do it every Friday. What I didn't anticipate was not taking any pictures till I left work and it was dark and nothing was interesting. I decided to do picture Friday and Saturday... but then I didn't. Monday I took a great picture of the power plant and accidentally deleted it (isn't that always the way). I just decided to go for it today and post what I had... which isn't much.

This would be the traffic from my drive home on Friday night. The car had some 'special' bumper stickers but you can't really see them in the picture or read them. They were really contradictory things about the war in Iraq though. One was support the troops and the other was about killing innocent people. I couldn't help but think those two opinions would make for a complicated marriage.

Once again in the car and in the dark. Yes, it's that dark at 5:30pm in Ohio. It sucks and I hate it.

This would be the yummy cheese and blueberry danish I got a Tim Horton's the other day. Manda and I had lunch talking of Justin Timberlake and the crazy that is holiday time with y family. There's one quote (not by Manda) that a friend told me that will forever stay with me. "Considering your up bringing and family life it's a wonder you're a normal as you are." So yes, that sums up my family.

And because I suck I added a bonus picture of myself making several bad fashion choices.

I know I've also forgotten the random 5 lately so that's back today too.

Random 5 Favorite Thanksgiving foods:

1. Sweet Potatoes (which I made this year)

2. Mashed Potatoes

3. Turkey

4. Pudding Pie

5. .... I don't really have a fifth. I actually don't care for thanksgiving that much.

Accidental Thursday

UGH. On my way home from work I was hit by a car. Well my car was hit by a car. Thankfully no one was hurt but this still sucks like woah. My car was just fixed YESTERDAY and was running all nice and awesome like.. Now there's a big dent and broken light up front and lots of red paint on my purple car. It cracked my purple paint and everything. At least it still runs and I can use it to go to work and everything. It just sucks really bad. I know I complained about it on twitter already but it really sucks.

Love The Office. Toby is back which is amazing. Toby is one of my favorites with his morose attitude. Jim and Pam are love though. I know it's weird/stupid but I honestly feel like Pam is someone I would know and be friends with all normal like.


I had more to write but I can't remember now. I'm sure it had to do with work but maybe it'll come back to me tomorrow.

Cheddar Dogs & Vlogs

Today was an interesting day. I didn't really do much till about 2ish. I finally got my Secret Diaries of a London Call Girl book in the mail! I know I'm way behind the times but I got it for $4 by holding out this long... and I won't have known about it if there hadn't been a show. So I have that book lined up t read next after I finish Pillars of the Earth. Speaking of Pillars I'm a bit irked with it at the moment but I won't say why since I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I'll just say if you've read it I'm 3/4 of the way though.

Then I got called for an interview for another job! This isn't just part time seasonal retail oh no it's a real job! I don't want to get to excited about it but from what I understand it's something I would really love to do. Again though, I don't want to get to excited. More on that after Monday.

Finally it was down to EL where my car is being fixed. I hope the serious vibrations in the front end are going to be fixed and the brakes are getting done and an oil change. Thankfully this is all getting done now so I don't have to worry about it to much this winter. Please don't let me have jinxed myself saying that.

My first ever vlog went up on YouTube last night. It's not all that special but I had fun making it. If you want to check it out I use the same name as on here for my channel just takeout the '.' . The really great news about the vlog though is I've already started on my next one. I convinced or conned my best friend into doing it with me. She also 'forced' me to eat a cheddar dog and a chocolate malt. We taped 25 mins. of hilarity so lets hope I can find 3 mins or so of it that's usable and not just us laughing or making no sense at all. I can't wait to get working on editing this one!

I think that's about it. Dancing with the stars is completely useless even if Lance is on it and I had my first ever celeb. crush on him.

Random: My alarm went off meaning I set it for 10pm not 10am I'm obviously a genius.

Not so manic monday

Honestly not much has happened today. I stayed up really late last night and then slept in till about ten am which is unusual for me. I like to be up by nine and functioning on a normal schedule. Alas the Sunday nap I usually take got delayed till late so I was just out of sync from the norm.

So a few things I wanted to brig up.

WTF snow. I know it's November in Ohio and snow is not something shocking for this time of the year. However I wasn't expecting it... well I was since I saw the weather but I didn't want it to happen. I hate the snow. What I hate the most about it is that people put down salt. I'm quite short so my pants generally hit the ground even when I get them in 'short' size. When people put down salt you can see it when the water dries! It's such a pain in the ass because it looks gross and I can't get two wears out of them and need to do laundry more frequently. Which I don't like because it's in the basement and it's scary down there with all the locked storage. That picture was at about ... five hours ago. The ground is now completely covered and I'm not happy.

In weekend randomness I got new shoes! I got new sneakers this summer because camp murders shoes and I needed new ones while I was there. Then I went to Scotland and came home and... lost them. How does one lose shoes? I'm not exactly sure all I know is when we got home from Scotland I took them off in the living room of my parents house and then never saw them again. This happen to a lot of stuff at my parents house. Usually they'll put something in my old bedroom in some place I would never put them like in the closet. But I looked in all these places they might put shoes and they weren't there or in any of the places I would put shoes (like lined up at the end of my bed). I have a theory on them having ended up with my sister's stuff and she took them back to school with her. However she hasn't mentioned finding any shoes that are to small for her.

Back to the shoes. I got the sneakers which are uninteresting. What is awesome is I got CROCS. I know crocks have been around for awhile but I've never had real one. Better yet I got pink ones! I've worn sad wal-mart crocs in the rain and in general found my feet didn't get wet. I had the crocs on when I got the mail today and snow doesn't do the same thing. Here's my crocs and my to long jeans because I felt like taking another picture.

In addition to the other candy we made this weekend I baked 7 doz. cookies and helped make two batches of fudge. Yes, it was a productive cooking weekend indeed. I also burned the first batch of cookies so it doesn't count. I guess it was really 8.

I went back to whitening my teeth this week. I took the summer off because it's a pain in the ass to do when you're on a feeding schedule at camp. I didn't have the hour after I take them off to go before eating and avoiding specific foods that are known to stain since we didn't have choices about food at all. So back at it, and I'll do my best not to complain about it making them sensitive.

Last thing really. I got more hours added at work. WOOT.

Picture Friday!

I've been having fun posting pictures so I decided to do a project I've done on a number of past crappy blogs (lj) I've had. So I take my camera (really my black berry because I'm to lazy to carry my real camera it's to big) around and take random photos throughout the day. It's been a pretty chill day and here's the proof.

It was about 65 degrees today with tons of sunshine. This is one of the many sunflowers we have outside my building. This is me looking up at the flower which are all about to the second floor windows. That's 10ft-ish.

Some of the craft ribbon I had on my desk from working on Christmas/birthday presents I'll be giving. If I don't' start now I'll never get them done. Yes, the ribbon says 'smile'.

An apple for lunch. I had a big breakfast so it was a nice choice. It was actually a really great apple. Something it's nice to just crunch into one when that's what you're really craving. The tape there is a new converter for the tape deck in my car so I can listen to my i-pod in all the speakers again!

The view from the drivers seat of my car trying to help my drag queen neighbor jump his car. I'm pretty sure he hooked it up wrong and blew his engine with a big ol' pop and a black puff of smoke. If he had blown mine I would have cried because neither of us have the money to get it fixed.

The i-pod connected and sitting on the passenger seat of my car. I really hate the radio (aside from NPR news) because of all the commercials and generally dislike a lot of the music they play.

Candy making! This would be white chocolate melting in the pot. We made white, yellow, red and gingerbread colored chocolate molds tonight. Renee our pastor's daughter helped out making a big mess but she was enthusiastic and fun and glad I brought music which I always do.

This is Renee's hand print in the hard tack candy we made. I think this was the watermelon batch. We made peppermint, peach, watermelon, root beer and strawberry.

Finished hard tack coated with powdered sugar so it doesn't stick together in the bags. It's pretty cool when it's hard in a flat sheet you hit it with pretty much anything and it shatters like crazy. It always makes me thing of the sugar art people do on the food network.

All the candy we made is going to be sold for the church. Usually most churches have old ladies that do the work but our old ladies are to old so my Mom and Aunt do it. I got roped in yet again this year. I was also signed up to make 10 dozen cookies. That's a crazy amount of cookies and all of one kind. I'm making basic sugar with chocolate drizzle on top. Simple and pretty.

To be filed under random and funny: I changed my face book status the other day to 'Going to Mexico with Manda' (Manda is my best friend since pre-school). I got all kinds of comments from people saying 'to have fun on my trip'. I'm not going to Mexico. We were at the Mexican restaurant in town that we all call 'Mexico'. I in no way have money to go to Mexico and if I had money for a trip I can think of 10 places I would go before Mexico.

Random 5: Places I would go before Mexico.

-Amsterdam. I always thought it looked like an interesting place for relatively obvious reasons.

-Ireland. I've heard lovely things and would love to check it out for myself.

-Egypt. I've never been to the desert so I need to go... and they have Pyramids.

-Greece. Ancient things look so amazing and I've been told the people of the Greek islands are lovely.

-Bar Harbor, Maine. I've been before. It's really beautiful and I would love to visit again. You can see whales from the road!