Wednesday after work I drove up to CSU to meet Steve for dinner before we went to go see Johnny Cupcakes speak. I don’t actually own any JC t-shirts, because, well, $40 for a shirt is a lot of money. But I love his designs (cupcakes, obviously) and I especially love his story, which is why I wanted to hear him speak. His presentation was very good - I wasn’t bored once. Steve even ended up enjoying it more than he thought he would.
On my way up, however, the roads started getting really icy, which always terrifies me. I even slipped and fell on the sidewalk on my way back to my car, so I decided to just stay the night in Fort Collins. Steve rooms with Brian, both of which are my old roommates, and luckily Brian was working the night shift, so I even had a bed to sleep on. Even luckier is the fact that I had a pair of Helly Kitty PJ bottoms that Kristy let me borrow when she was dying my hair. So it all worked out great. It was not great to wake up 5 inches of snow, though. It took me about 50 minutes to get to work when it should have taken half that time. The drive HOME from work was even worse - an hour and 20 minutes. Ugh. I do love snow, but not when I have to drive in it. The mountains look really pretty, though, but that will probably be gone soon since it’s supposed to be 60° F tomorrow.
As I did not make good on my New Years resolution to donate time and/or money to a charity/non-profit each month, I've decided that all purchases made at my Etsy shop during the month of December will be donated to a charity of your choice (minus shipping costs). If anyone does purchase something, please be sure to send me a message with your full name, e-mail address, and a link to the charity you would like your purchase to be donated to. If you do not have a charity in mind, I will be donating to United Way. Thanks, and happy shopping!
Not much happening here lately. Today is the last day of a short 3-day workweek, which I'm grateful for. Work has started to finally pick up again, so I was uber busy yesterday. I even worked through lunch in hopes that I could leave early today. Unfortunately, my boss left for lunch right as I was finishing everything up, so now I need to wait until he gets back to see if there is anything else that needs to be done. So... blog time!
Tomorrow is Turkey Day which is going to be a sad day this year, as it will be the first Thanksgiving without my sister (Vegas) and my grandma (Hawaii). I'll have to keep my mom preoccupied so she doesn't tear up. Due to my already unusually small family, it will only be my parents, my brother, and myself. But I sure am looking forward to the food. I will probably be in a turkey coma all day long.
Friday I have plans to clean out the old condo and finish moving the last few things that are still there. Then I'm going out for margaritas with Kristy since her pseudo-boyfriend is DJing. Saturday is going to be a fun-filled day of being a girl... I'm going up to Fort Collins to hang with Karina, and we're going to go get pedicures, and then I made a hair appointment as well. It's been well over a year since I've had my hair cut, and it's definitely time for a trim. I always have grand plans to go in and ask for a cute new cut that involves cutting tons of hair off, but I always chicken out at the last moment. So yeah, I should be safe with saying I'm only getting a trim.
In other news, I've been trying to put the new Killers album on my iPod, but iTunes doesn't want to import it. I've tried adding the album as a folder, and I've tried adding the songs individually. I've tried clicking and dragging them into the library, and I've tried updating the ID3 tags. No luck. Has anyone else had this problem before? And I wanted to listen to it on the way to work this morning... :(
Yesterday I was having a conversation with my dad regarding his genetic gift to me.
Me: I need to dye my hair tonight, I'm getting too many gray hairs. Why oh why did you have to go full gray in your 20's?
Dad: And just think, with all the medical advances, you may live to be 120. That's another 100 years of dying your hair!
Thanks, dad.
This is the ad I posted on Craigslist yesterday:
I am selling a 1999 Honda Civic in silver. It has 77,800 miles on it. The car still runs but I was told it was NOT SAFE to drive due to a 48 inch crack in the frame (front passenger side). I do not know how much this would cost to repair, but this car would be great for parts. Has 4 new tires, a new battery, new front windshield, and a new timing belt. The title is salvaged, and I have it in hand. It was in an accident by it's previous owner. The AC does not work, nor does the cruise control. Everything else runs great. I am asking $1500.
Since posting it yesterday at 3:30pm, I've received nearly 20 calls on it. The first guy who came to see it last night asked if I'd take $1000 for it. I told him no. Did he not read the damn ad? He therefore wasted my time and his. I called the next guy, who said he would buy it with certainty and to hold it for him, but couldn't come to see it until today. He even asked me to take the ad down off Craigslist. I met him at the Borders bookstore near my house this morning, and after taking a look at it, he said he was sorry and that he knew he told me he would buy it, but he would only offer $1200 due to the damage of the car. Again, did he not read the fucking ad? I'm not selling it as a drivable car, just for PARTS.
So this afternoon I arranged to meet a third guy at 2pm. I waited and waited, and he never came, so I called him and he said he was still waiting for his friend to get home to drive him up. He finally arrived here at 4pm, and after taking it for a test drive, asked if I would take $1300 because that was all he had on him and he thought that I would take his best offer. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? He said his mom only gave him $2000 to buy a new car and that since it would have to have work done on it, he wanted to pay less than what I was asking. I told him no, and he began whining, saying he needed a car for school and that he couldn't drive up again because his friend couldn't drive him, like it was my problem. DO PEOPLE NOT KNOW HOW TO READ? What part of "NOT SAFE" do they not understand? What part of "PARTS ONLY" do they not understand? I just called the fourth guy and he is on his way down now.
God help me...
[EDIT: The last guy bought it. FINALLY!]
The last week or so has been really strange. Those who know me in real life know that I'm a girl who loves to sleep and eat, but I haven't been doing much of either as of late. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the shock of living with my parents again, but I'm guessing it has more to do with saying goodbye to what has been a part of my life for the last 4 years: Matt. I haven't been consciously thinking about him, the breakup, or the past. Mostly I've been thinking about the future and how excited I am about things to come. Maybe my sub conscience is trying to tell me something? Either way, I've been sleeping very little and eating even less.
I keep waiting to feel something about this breakup. Right now I'm feeling numb, or maybe I won't feel anything at all. You would think that spending 3 years with someone would induce a small twinge of sadness, but it hasn't hit me yet. If anything, right now I'm just feeling bitter. Maybe sadness comes after bitterness?
And of course, since my TV is not yet hooked up at my parents', I've had plenty of time to myself to think, as well as jump back into my internet life that I have neglected over the last year. Hello Twitter, hello Facebook! Hello Vox, hello Photoshop! How I've missed you all.
Anyways, the point of this is to tell everyone I am still alive, and will hopefully be posting more frequently. Hope everyone has a great weekend!
With all the car mess last week, going to Vegas, and packing, I totally forgot to mention that my mom and I had a baking day a few weekends ago. I baked two huge batches of sugar cookies the night before, and I was inspired by my new book, Cookie Craft, to try using royal icing to decorate them instead of the cream cheese frosting I usually use (although I made some of that too, hehe). Since it was the beginning of fall I used my fall cookie cutters and made the appropriate colors... red (well, pink), orange, yellow, and brown. My mom came over the next afternoon and we spent a few hours decorating them, and eating a few too. It was really fun, and they all turned out really well. I brought most of them into work the next day, but saved a few for me as well. ^__^
Argh, I'm really slacking in terms of my internet life. I'm so behind on blogging and reading/commenting on other blogs. I'm sorry to all my neighborhood friends, I will try to catch up soon! No excuse for me, really. I've just not been on the internet lately, as I've been finding lots of other things to do... catching up on my reading and movies, visiting family and friends, and trying to figure out what my plans are going to be next year.
Last week I housesat for my parents while they were in Vegas visiting my sister and helping her move in. It gave me a taste of what living alone is going to be like, and I actually enjoyed it very much. I've never lived alone before, and the thought of it is exciting and scary at the same time. I think I'll manage just fine, especially in my own place and with all my things nearby. However, that won't be happening for awhile, as I'll be moving back in with my parents in November for a few months, until I either A) Go to Korea, or B) Save up enough money for a down payment on a house. Kristy just accepted a position in Korea starting in January, so that certainly tips the scale in favor of Korea. If I'm ever going to do it, it should be when she is there. But at the same time, now is a great time to buy a house as the housing market is down, and I'm so impatient that I just want a home of my own so I can fix it up and make it mine. *sigh* So much to think about!
Kristy and Steve came over last Thursday to watch the season premiere of The Office. It's always fun hanging out with all my friends at once. :) Matt made everyone hot dogs and Kristy brought brownies, yum! I'm so glad fall TV is back, I've missed all my favorite shows... The Office, 30 Rock, House, Ugly Betty.... yeah that's it. :)
Friday was my last full day in Seattle. We decided to check out the International District, which is basically like a huge Chinatown. We were hungry so we had lunch at a really good Chinese place, and then got some boba at a place across the street. Yum! This place had a gazillion flavors so it was really hard to choose one, although ironically, they didn't have Kelsey's favorite, vanilla. :(
We found a huge Asian bookstore/gift store next door, so we spent quite a bit of time in there. I was in heaven with all the cute things they had there. I ended up getting a Tokidoki notebook and a tiny Skelanimal plushie key chain. ^^ I still need to upload the video I took for my sister, of the walls and walls of anime they had there. I've never seen so much in my life. They also had lots of cute remint items I wanted to buy her, but they were a little pricey. There was a grocery/gift store attached to the bookstore, so we checked that out. I found some more origami paper, but other than that, I didn't buy anything. We did a little more walking around and found a flower shop that sold this really beautiful flower that neither Kelsey or I had ever seen before. I don't remember the name of it... I wish I did because it was gorgeous. Kelsey bought it for only $6, and it now proudly sits in her office. :) Before we left the International District we stopped by this gift store we had walked by on our way to lunch because I had wanted to buy one of the cute plushies I saw in the window, but the place was closed for lunch! Ah well, I guess it was not meant to be.
After the ID, we headed over to Edmonds and did some more shopping. We found a really cute kitchen store where I was able to buy a loose leaf tea strainer, and then right next door was another loose leaf tea place! The two women working at the store were hilarious -- they reminded me of Kelsey and myself. They suggested lots of great teas, and even gave us some samples to try later that night. How nice of them. ^__^ After some shopping we went to a nail salon where I got a much needed pedicure, and Kelsey got a manicure. My feet felt soooo much better after that.
The rest of the evening was spent eating pizza, drinking tea, and working on our shadowboxes. We had bought a frame at IKEA earlier in the week, and had gotten some pictures of us at the cupcake place developed, and we made each other a frame using Kelsey's card making supplies. I'll have to take a photo of it soon to show everyone. <3 And that was my last full day in Seattle. I got to the airport very early the next morning (7:30am), and headed back to Colorado. I can't wait to go back and visit Kelsey again. Next spring break maybe. ^__~
Thursday we decided to try an Ethiopian restaurant for lunch. Unfortunately, Kelsey had to be on the phone with Apple for almost 2 hours due to them charging her credit card for something she didn't buy. I know how that goes. :( However, the food was good, and experiencing the culture was fun. I hadn't ever had Ethiopian food before that. After lunch we checked out another thrift store in the area but didn't find anything, so we headed over to Bellvue again. When we were there on Sunday I had found a cupcake bakery I wanted to try, but they were closed on Sunday, and again on Monday for labor day. This time they were finally open. The place itself was like my own personal heaven. It was decorated really cute, and the cupcakes were delicious. I had a peanut butter chocolate one, and Kelsey had a red velvet. We bought a chocolate and vanilla one for later. ^^
After that we went next door to a really cute shop and looked around, which is right around the time my mom called and gave me the news about my car. :( *sigh* The rest of the night was fun, but slightly ruined for me because I kept thinking about my car and getting angry. *shrug* Oh well. Since it was nearing rush hour, we decided to stay in the Bellvue area and went and saw a movie. We saw House Bunny, which was cute, but not anything I'd watch again. We got some dinner at The Cheesecake Factory which was across the street, and then shared a piece of cheesecake for dessert. :)
Since rush hour had passed, we headed on over to the Space Needle, Seattle's other major tourist attraction. We had wanted to save it for night so we could get the night view. ^^ We were confused at first as to how to get to the top, since we went right inside to the gift shop, but apparently you have to stay outside and walk around to the back to get your tickets. We finally found it, and the view from the top was gorgeous! The weather was just right, too. It was only slightly chilly with a light breeze, and you could see all the lights reflecting off the ocean. I really enjoyed being up there.
