This is my song for 2008 - It’s called A Drop Filled With Memories (how appropriate!) and it’s from the movie Paprika.  Feel free to listen to it while you read my long post.  (Megan, don’t listen, it’s that song you don’t like).

2008 was a crazy, crazy year.  Absolutely insane.  Let’s review all I’ve been through.

I rang in New Year’s 2008 at Destare.  I came back from medical leave early so I could work. It was a lot of fun, but I teared up at midnight cause Steve was home alone, and I couldn’t spend it with him.  He spent the night playing World of Warcraft.

January 2nd - I had surgery on December 17th, and went to get my results from the endocrinologist and found out that the tumor on my thyroid was cancerous.  Not only was it cancer, but it was follicular cancer, rather than the more common papillary thyroid cancer.  Follicular is a more extreme of cancer, and tends to spread throughout the body while papillary always stays in the neck.  The reason they couldn’t be 100% sure about the cancer from the needle biopsy was because it was follicular, and that one they can’t tell just from a biopsy.  I needed to have another surgery, and I was only two weeks post-op from the first. Seriously, I find out I have cancer on the second day of the year?  That’s not a good start.

March 3rd - Surgery number 2.  I wasn’t really worried about this one (cause I had already done it once), but this surgery was scheduled in the middle of school.  I had to miss only one class, I think because I was still in the hospital when class met (Surgery was always on Monday, and I stayed over night until Tuesday).  For this surgery, I got out, and they put me in the recovery room, but my room upstairs wasn’t ready, so I had to stay in the recovery room all afternoon.  I got out of the OR at 11, and didn’t go up to my room until 5.  I was on morphine which was awesome, but they wouldn’t give me any water, only ice chips.  People in recovery kept getting X-Rayed, so they kept throwing a lead vest on top of me.  I think it happened about 6 times.  If I didn’t have cancer before, I most definitely had it after that. My parents kept coming in and out of the room, but for privacy reasons, they couldn’t stay.  My mom brought me my book and I was reading.  I was most definitely ready to have my own room.  I finally got upstairs and I had my own private room!  I was also really alert and able to hang out with my parents cause I was doped up.  In the middle of the night when the morphine was worn off was when the pain finally hit. I was awake on and off all night, and Steve spent the night on the floor to keep me company.  He kept having to help me move or adjust, or go to the bathroom (I had an IV in, and had to work around that to go to the bathroom).  Notice the awesome pen marks on my ear and neck in the bottom picture.  That is to say “CUT HERE”  and “THIS SIDE.”

Sometime in March - I was really really stressed out and sad.  I broke up with Steve because I felt like I couldn’t deal with anything anymore.

May - Radioactive Girl!  I had to go on a crazy low iodine diet for three weeks, and then go into Boston and get a mini dose of radiation, and then two days later, a major dose of radiation!  It was mixed with strawberry Kool-Aid. Yum.  Any of you ever been tested with a Geiger counter before?

Senator Kennedy was at Mass General the same day that I had my radiation.  I had two appointments scheduled.  I got my whole body scan (me lying down) at 12, and then didn’t go get my radiation until 2pm.  Between those times, we came downstairs to the lobby of the Wang building at MGH (that’s where all my appointments were).  Senator Kennedy was being released just as we were in the lobby.  We got to see him walk out of the hospital, and everyone in the lobby stood and clapped for him.  Here’s my dad live on CNN that day, his twin brother happened to be watching it live on CNN in Ohio, and hit record on his Tivo.  Then, he called my dad, and said:

“Uh, are you at some hospital in Boston?”
“yeah, Robin has her radiation today.”
“Are you wearing jeans and a blue shirt?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“You were just live on CNN!!!”

My dad was also on the cover of the NY Times the next day.

The reason I was having such a hard time with the diet was because I was just picking at food and not eating real meals.  I finally was able to change that after a few days, but here is what I would have for lunch:

After receiving the radiation at the hospital, I had to then come immediately home and be isolated from my family for three whole days.  It was crazy!  I was having trouble sleeping because I was off my medicine, so I had to hang a blanket over my window so it would get completely dark in my room.  I also had my laptop, my pile of books, and my remotes!  Bill let me borrow 30 Rock, which was awesome because I had never seen it before.  This was the first day I was allowed to be off my diet, so I’m enjoying my first bowl of cereal in 3 weeks.  I was so excited about it, I had to take a picture (on timer mode, cause I had to be alone).

July 2 - Turned 24.  Pretty uneventful.  But I went out with friends! (Jeanne, Bill, and Paul)

July 6th - I went to the Boulder with Amy cause her friend Kyle was playing in the band.  It was the last night of the Longsjo, and I met Emiliano! (he’s the one in the yellow and green all the way to the left)

I was sitting on the curb with Amy (the band was playing in the blocked off street), and these guys come walking up to the bar.  One of the Lonsjo volunteers says “Oh, these are guys who raced today!  They’re on one of the best teams”.  I looked up, and I noticed one of the guys had bright yellow socks with weird red suns on them.  I recognized the socks as the state flag of New Mexico, because I used to live there.  I jumped up from my seat, and ran up to him and the convo went like this:

“I’m sorry… are your socks the state flag of New Mexico?”
“Yeah, that’s where our racing team is from!”
“I used to live there!”

“what part?”
“Santa Fe”
“That’s where I’m from!”
“No way!”
“Ok, I’m going to go grab a beer, and I’ll catch up with you later.”

So then I went to sit down, and the older gentlemen who were sitting near us said to me, “Wow, you don’t waste any time, huh?”  He found me later, and we hung out all night, and I just knew that he was this cool guy that I HAD to get a picture taken with, so I ran to my car and grabbed my camera to get some pictures before I left.  He had busted up his hand pretty badly in the race earlier in the day (notice the awesome wrap job).  Emiliano and I have become great friends, and he does my blog for me.  He doesn’t write it, but he does everything else.  Check out his awesome web design site, Pushing Buttons.  Go to him for all your web design needs!

July 25th - X-Files: I Want To Believe came out.  I had waited 6 years for this movie, and Bill and I went down to a midnight showing in Marlborough (a 45 minute drive). I brought my action figures with me.  I was so excited, that we kept having to re-take this picture because my smile was so big I looked like an idiot.

July 27th - Dad and I get caught in the rain while running.  We knew there was a huge storm coming, but I wanted to go for a run anyway.  We were almost done when it started down pouring.  I had my mom take the picture, because I think it shows our dedication.

July 28th - Megan and Mac came home to prepare for their wedding!  They didn’t do so much preparing, as much as they did lollygagging around and picking berries with me.  I love picking berries.

August 3rd -  Megan gets married! Mac and his parents fly in from England, and we have a great time!

At the wedding (and during the receptions) Sally and I went a little crazy, and took hundreds (literally, hundreds) of pictures of us goofing around.

August 13 - 26 - I fly out to New Mexico and hang out with Emiliano for two weeks.  We went hiking, hung out in Santa Fe, cooked a lot, took artsy photographs, watched a LOT of Weeds, and I got Strep throat, and had to go to the ER.  It was an all around great trip.  I got a little really homesick for Megan, and felt bad that she was in the US, but I wasn’t with her.  I think I got a little cranky and sad because of that, but Emiliano put up with me!  To apologize, I will include this picture (on the left), because it is his favorite, and it makes me look like an idiot.  He kept scratching this one spot on my back (scratching it in just one place, so the spot would get raw), and it was driving me insane.  I was still getting over being sick (I spent about 2 full days in bed), and I was very irritable.  This is him driving me insane on purpose so he could take a funny picture.  He looks very pleased with himself.  But seriously, Emiliano, tell them how sick I was!!!  I was incredibly sick.  His step mom was giving me Vicodin to make me feel better.  It rocked.

Emiliano was also kind enough to go on a horribly long car ride with me to Roswell, NM, home of the infamous 1946 UFO crash!  Everything was UFO themed, it was awesome.  We even went to the International UFO Museum and Research Center.  Pretty interesting stuff, definitely worth the 3 hour long ride.  This was also my very first blog post!!!  (I had backdated other cancer related stuff - but the Roswell post was the first, cause that’s when Emiliano set up my blog!)

August 27th - I flew back from New Mexico on the 26th, and the very next day, we flew out to England for Megan’s wedding party over there.  It wasn’t too bad, cause all my luggage was already packed!  I just had to grab fancy stuff for her party.  We had a lot of fun, but we weren’t there for long enough!

September- I got a pedometer, and went a little crazy.  Such as the time when I jogged in place for 2.5 miles to get to 10,000 steps.  I still wear it religiously every day, but I’m only at 4388 now (at 8:45pm), and there’s no way I’m jogging in place for 2.5 miles tonight.

October 1 - 31 - Buy Nothing Month!  It was awesome, and I’m going to do it again this month. (I bought a new laptop September 28th, only days before BNM started)

October 4th - I ran my first 5k!  (I haven’t seen that recycling shirt in a few months.  Uh oh.  That’s why I have to clean my room!!!)

October - I started picking up trash around Fitchburg.  I did this many more times, but I had to stop cause it’s too cold out and there’s snow everywhere.  Niles and I will commence in the spring.  I will try to get more people involved, and to expand the area where we work.  I think we should have T-Shirts made.  Here’s me and Niles celebrating our trash accomplishments:

November - Started to get fed up with Destare.  Started back at Macy*s for the holidays.  Thanksgiving with family friends.  I met with the Brew Year’s Eve crew twice a week to plan BYE.  We decided on our production company name, Beers For Good, and started our own website.  From August through November, I get sick for one week every single month.  It started with Strep in Santa Fe, and continued.  I am immuno-compromised.

December -  More planning of BYE.

Quit Destare.

Huge ice storm hit North Central Mass, and we lost power and heat for 11 days.

I got a 4.0 in my class this semester, leaving me with a cumulative GPA of 3.93.  I have only one class left.  w00t!  (this portion added for Megan).

Megan came home for Christmas.  We got walloped with two ice storms - 18 inches total in 72 hours.  She loved it.

Dec. 31st - Brew Year’s Eve!  It went great, and we had tons of fun.

That’s it.  2008 in a nutshell.

I clearly lost steam after October.  I figured that because I started blogging in September, I only needed to update peeps on the things that happened before then.  Plus, that’s when all the important stuff happened.  But if you want to learn more, read my friggen blog.

I am done.  This post took me 3 hours to write!  It was all the pictures that were slowing me down… but I think they’re great!

I realize this wasn’t a review.  It was a synopsis.  Here’s my review of 2008:  it sucked. Too many bad things happened.  Sure, there were good parts, but there were also not good parts, and I think the effect the bad parts had on me out weighs the good parts.  Disagree?  Too bad.

Questions?  Comments?  Leave ‘em.

I came down to the senior center at 11 this morning. We had a lot to do to get things ready. We set up big signs on A frames at two prime locations in Fitchburg. It was freezing out, and very very windy. Trevor and Liz drove by an hour later and they had to jump out and fix it. It had fallen over from the wind.
I went around to the places selling tickets and I picked up $300 from the local bookstore, and $170 from the liquor store. I was really surprised at how much money they had! The liquor store only had two tickets left! I delivered everyone 30 more tickets to give them a final 24 hours to push them. Even the library had sold out by 6pm. I ran 30 more to them too, cause they’re open all day tomorrow.

After a full day, Joel made us all dinner. He made a great shrimp and sausage pasta dish. We all sat down and relaxed after a full day at work. After dinner, Joel found a cake in the fridge that had been there a few days that said “Happy Birthday Barbara. ” He said “Sorry Barbara” as he opened it and then grabbed ice cream, cool whip (said in the Stewie Griffin way), and frozen strawberries.

It’s 10pm, and I’m still here. It’s been 11 long hours of preparing. But the hall looks great, and we’re coming back at 9am to help Joel cook. Then, I’m heading to the gym, and will be back to help around noon. It’ll be another super long day tomorrow.

I bought a new deodorant when I was in Boston with Megan.  We went to Lush, and bought one of my mom’s co-workers a shampoo bar.  She got diagnosed with breast cancer about 2 years ago (RIGHT after her husband left her.  That’s the way it works with us… God kicks us when we’re already down. [For those who don't know, I got my diagnosis a month after Steve cheated on me]) and she wants to start using all natural products (organic, no pesticides, cause I know the word natural means jack shit).

So anyway, while we were there, Megan and I both looked at their deodorants. We both use Tom’s of Maine, and I like it…. but I still get stinky. I want to use a regular deodorant (not an anti-prespirant, cause it has aluminum in it), and so I figured I’d try Lush’s Aromaco bar.  It’s this weird little bar that you rub on your under arm.  It’s kind of like bar soap that costs $9, but they say it will last for months and months and months.  So far, so good, and I think it keeps me smelling nicer than Tom’s did.  With Tom’s, I would be standing around doing something, and would kinda smell myself, and say “What the crap?  I have deodorant on, why do I smell???”  It was very annoying, and I was just hoping “well, I have a couple layers on, so maybe the smell won’t radiate out from me.”

Brew Year’s Eve is tomorrow.  I’m going down to the Armory today to wash the pint glasses.  521 of them. Eek!  I’m also bringing my laptop with me, so I have tunes.  And Trevor and Liz will be there, so it’ll be fun.

And on a sadder note, I think I lost a pair of my iPod headphones.  After I left the gym yesterday, I took them out of my phone so I could use my phone… and now I can’t find them.  I don’t know if they fell out of my car, or what… but I’m bummed.

UPDATE:  I found my headphones!  They were in between the passenger door and the seat.  Weird place for them since I sit in the driver’s seat!

You know how I know that I made a good decision to leave Destare?  It’s Wednesday night, and I’m already dreading having to go to work tomorrow night.  Then, Friday night, my dad’s office friends are having a big party at Larry’s.  For anyone who has ever hung out with my dad, Larry and Trevor knows that’s going to be an awesome time.  Happily, I had already asked Jessica for the night off, because I didn’t want to work Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  And I asked before I even knew about the party!  Sweet!!!  But then, now I’m dreading working on Saturday!  And that’s not for a couple more days!!!  It will, however, be my last Saturday working at Destare.  Alysha said she has some friends coming in for a party, so hopefully I’ll get to wait on them!  That will make it a fun night.

I was driving to Hannaford Sunday night to buy some fruit, and I wanted to stop at Walmart to buy yarn.  I haven’t knit in a long time, and I was thinking “Wow, without working at night, I could spend my nights watching movies and knitting.”  I don’t know about you, but that seems like a fantastic idea to me.  I really want to knit a blanket.  I love blankets, and am under one on the couch all the time, even in the middle of August when its 90 degrees out.  I think it would be awesome to be able to use the blanket that I made myself!!

We had a Brew Year’s Eve meeting tonight at Hooligans after our two meetings, and we got a lot done.  At each meeting we all leave with “to do” lists.  It’s a good way of getting stuff done, but now I have a list of things to do!  Luckily, I passed in my paper for school today, so I don’t have to worry about any more school stuff.  Yay!  Now I don’t have to feel bad about spending my free time reading or blogging.  Cause what else am I suppose to do with it?  I will happily take suggestions for books, especially from Paul who said that Twilight was “written for tweens.”  I’ll admit, I’m still a little bitter about that comment.  Perhaps it wasn’t that comment specifically, but here’s how I feel: “If your comment isn’t helpful to me, or nice, I don’t want to read it.  If you’re trying to be funny, include a smiley face, or ‘lol’ so I know.  Otherwise, don’t leave me something bitter and mean for no reason.  That’s not a nice thing to do.”  If you can’t say something nice, please don’t say anything at all (but I didn’t mind your “douche” comment… that was a good one).   But in all seriousness, Paul, send me books suggestions.  I’ll look into them.  I just read Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) and it was really good!!!

So anyway, we printed up labels for our B.Y.E. postcards, but somehow, the labels printed randomly, and we don’t know which ones printed!  So I’m going through our 150 postcards and marking down which ones we already printed.  I have to go through the postcards, find the name on our mailing list, and check it off.  Then, I need to print out labels for the ones we didn’t already.  I am sitting on the couch with a blanket on top of me, laptop on my lap, and watching TV.

Time to get back to work!

Like SNL, but not really.

This is just a quick update because I have a paper that is kind of due tomorrow.  The professor said we could pass it in tomorrow if we wanted to get it back by our last class since we don’t have class next Monday.  Or, we could pass it in next class and not get it back.  I’m having a hard time cause I don’t really understand it completely.  I emailed three people from class to get help, and haven’t heard back from any of them.  I’m thinking if I can’t finish it, I’ll see if I can mail it out to the professor, or drop it off to him when he’s teaching another class.  I’m just having a hard time understanding it.

It’s going to be December in Massachusetts in two hours, and I am completely shocked that it hasn’t snowed yet.  I can’t believe it.  I have seen snow fall from the sky, but it hasn’t stuck to the ground.  There hasn’t been a snow fall where you’d suddenly find yourself looking outside and saying “Oh wow, it snowed!”   Currently, it’s raining outside. Gross, cold rain.

I started reading Twilight after seeing the movie on Tuesday afternoon.  That’s another reason I want to finish this paper, so I can spend all my spare time reading.  I will think of it as a reward.

We had a Brew Year’s Eve meeting tonight.  It’s a constant Wednesday and Sunday night thing.  Liz made us Sweet Potato Tarts (I think they were sweet potatoes) to try as a possible appetizer for that night.  It was delicious even though it got to us cold (I think it’s suppose to be served hot).  It was nice and filling, even thought it was really little.  Great bite size food.

Ok, off to do my paper.  It’s about family therapy, and my family and how I would do family therapy on us.  Or something.  Not really positive.   But it’s only about 5-7 pages long, and that includes a one page genogram, and a two page “chronological chart” that includes all big events in our family and how it impacted us.  So, the actual paper part is pretty short, but I figure it needs to be short and GREAT.

Off to write!  I’ll reward myself with Twilight a little later tonight, cause I want to read it very badly.

Fruit salad (cause it is delicious)

Wonderful friends at both of my jobs

Jenny at Macy*s for bringing me to see Twilight (I give it a 93 out of a possible 100).  We’re going to try to hang out more and watch sci-fi/fantasy movies together.

Trevor, Liz, and my dad for letting me be a part of Beers For Good, even though I’m not a beer enthusiast.

Being the healthiest and most fit I’ve ever been in my entire life (minus having cancer).

Being almost done with my degree.  One more class, and then my internship!

A mom and dad who understand that I’m trying to save money, and let me live at home rent free, and they even buy me groceries.  I try to cook for them, but I’m terrible at cleaning up after myself.

My friend Jay who introduced me to the TV show How I Met Your Mother.  It’s fantastic.

My friend Niles who always makes me smile at Destare, and who goes and picks up trash with me. (He’s the only one, you environment hating dead-beats).

Honey Bunches of Oats.  I couldn’t start my day without it!

Emiliano for hosting this blog free of charge.  (I didn’t even know that until last week, but I’m very thankful)

Fruit salad  (I just got a second serving!!!)

Diet Pepsi Max (Megan will kill me, but I LOVE it)

That Barack Obama won the election

Niles was the one who put the fruit on my car!  He also placed several pieces in the driveway, too.  I guess kids are throwing it at other kids or something — he said he almost got hit by an orange one day.  And he had read my posts about it, and thought “Oh, I bet Robin would like an orange on her car!” (and boy did I!)  He stopped by this afternoon to say Hello, and he told me about his shenanigans.

Macy*s is going well.  I enjoy it.  There’s a GSM position opening up (full time, General Sales Manager) because Kaleena is leaving to be Assistant Manager at New York and Company in Auburn.  It’s much closer to her home, and just makes more sense for her.  I’m debating about applying for it, but I’m not sure if they’d let me do it only temporarily.  Or, I don’t know if I even WANT to do it.  I start my internship in September of 2009, and would probably be interested in doing it until then.  But, should I instead look for a job in my field that would be only part time (or, I guess it could be full time)?  Next semester, I have only one class on Mondays nights, from 5-10pm.  It is a six credit class, Case Methods, and we have a mini internship (a practicum) of 35 hours.  With Macy*s, I know I could get days during the week off for school and for my practicum. My regular internship is 600 hours!   But, I’d also like to have a Monday through Friday job where I don’t have to worry about working weekends.  But I should find out how often the managers at Macy*s have to work weekends.  I’m not really sure what to do.  My friend from class, Heather, says there might be a part time position available with her counseling place, You, Inc.  Should I apply and inquire about both?  I wouldn’t want to start at You, Inc until January, once I’m done with Macy*s for the season.

Here’s my ideal life:  I would live in an apartment with two cats, and work a job that I absolutely love during the week.  My hours would be 9-6.  I would have several really good friends, and perhaps a roommate who would stay up and watch movies with me and drink wine.  I would read one book a week, and have time and energy to exercise every day.  I would cook fantastic meals for dinner, and enjoy every bite.  I think I live in the city. I would recycle everything, be really conscious about my trash, and try to do without paper towels and tissues.

I am very frustrated currently, because my life is very, very far from that.  The only thing that I do right now is exercise every day.  But with Thanksgiving and Christmas here, my gym is closing (I use the one at Fitchburg State), and that means I either do cardio outside in the cold, or not at all.  So that is worrying me, too.  I’m not a happy person lately, and I’m going to start going back to therapy.  I don’t really think Erin (my counselor) will be able to help me, but it will probably be good for me to go anyway.  I’m back to the point where I never want to do anything, and I just want to sit and mope on the couch watching TV.

Brew Year’s Eve is one of the only things I’m happy with.  I enjoy the meetings, and I look forward to them.  It is coming along nicely.  We’re averaging about two meetings a week, which last at least two hours a piece.  We’re finally getting stuff done, and the website www.beersforgood.com is up and running, and it’s finally done.  Well, done for now.  There will always be things we need to change, but we’re happy with it.

Here’s Liz and Trevor during Sunday’s meeting.

I was getting ready to meet Liz and Trevor about the Brew Fest, when I looked outside and saw an orange nicely placed on my windshield  (I’m hoping it was nicely placed).  The fruit is back! This orange went straight into the compost because I was right next to it.  Plus, it was about 30 odd degrees out, and this orange was probably too cold to be any good to eat (plus I wouldn’t trust it in the first place).

We met at a local business, Advanced Print Technologies to talk about ordering our pint glasses.  We wanted to see what we could get for our money, and what the label would look like on the glass.  For a regular 16 oz. pint glass, we have 3inX3in of space for our label.  With a 16oz glass with a handle, we would only have 2inX1.5in.  Just the difference in label size alone (plus, the one with the handle was $1 more a glass) made us want to stick with a regular pint glass.  The ones with the handles would be cool because they’re different, but it just didn’t seem that it would work out well with our label.  One of the guys at APT comes in to Destare occasionally, so he knew I had an iPhone.  He’s interested in getting one, so I let him play with mine, and showed him how to use it.  I forgot he had taken this picture until I was scrolling in my photo album and was confused at how I had taken a  picture of myself.

Christmas is almost here, and with it, comes Macy*s BIGGEST ONE DAY SALE OF THE YEAR!!!!

Now, Macy*s has sales ALL the time.  Seriously.  There is maybe one day a week where there isn’t some sort of sale going on.  But, I know from working at Macy’s for so long, that you will find the absolute best prices at Macy*s during a One Day Sale (ODS).  Things are just cheaper then.  It’s the best time to buy.  So obviously, with the BIGGEST ODS of the year, things are going to be cheap.  I got to work an hour early, cause I had done some other shopping at Kohl’s and Target (and by shopping, I exchanged a sweater at Kohl’s.  I had bought a striped one-I love stripes-but hadn’t worn it yet.  I lost my receipt, so I exchanged it for a black one that I can wear to Macy*s).  Then I wandered around Target, but didn’t find anything.  Once I got to Macy*s, I saw all the rediculously priced merchandise.  All of the clearance racks were $4.99 or 75% off.  I just had bought a bunch of sweaters that were $8 for me after discount (they were 50% off at the time), but now they were on sale for $4 (after discount).  I did price adjustments on two of them (so I got $8 back), and bought two more.  I’m not sure if I should keep them (do I need them?), but they’re $4 sweaters!!!!!  I also returned some things that didn’t fit - a wicked awesome sweater in the Misses department that was a Small, but still too big.  This lady obviously has it clipped in the back, because there is no way that is how a small looks on her.   But anyway, things were super cheap, and I went a little crazy.  Well…. I bought two more of the sweaters I had already bought.  One in light grey, and one in grey and blue striped.  They’re long cardigans, so they can be worn on top of other shirts, and light enough to be worn in the summer.  Perhaps I’ll change my mind and return them… but right now, they’re $4 sweaters!  This should motivate me to clean out my closet, and throw away things I don’t wear.

We finally finished the poster!  We’re hoping the website will be completed by the end of day today.

Worked all weekend at Destare.  I always work every Thursday, Friday and Saturday,  It’s starting to be a bit much because I never have any free on the weekends to do anything fun.  It stinks! (said in the voice of Jay Sherman)  I don’t want to just have random Friday and Saturday nights off, because then I might end up sitting at home not doing anything, when I could be at work making money!  But I’d like to be free to do something.  I would LOVE to have a Monday through Friday job that I love, and then work the occasional Friday or Saturday night, and that will be my fun spending money.

Here’s another message I got on a credit card receipt at work.  This guy left a number AND his name (but I cropped out the number when I took the picture). Most of the doofuses only leave their number, and no name. Geniuses.  It wasn’t even a 20% tip, so he mustn’t have thought I was THAT cute. Plus, he left it on the credit card receipt that I have to pass in at the end of the night. Note to all guys who leave numbers to girls, DON’T put it on the credit card receipt!

Saturday, I worked till 2:30am, then had to wake up and go to Macy*s on Sunday.  After working the full day, we had our Christmas party that night to get ready for the busy holiday season.  We always do it on Sunday nights, cause the store closes at 7.  That way, even people who work can still get to the party. But once we get closer to Christmas, the store is open later on Sundays, which is why we had to have the party so early. Jenny and I got our makeup done by Lori at Clinique.  It was fun, but I don’t like wearing so much makeup.  It made it very obvious that I was wearing makeup.  I like wearing enough that the color in my face is well blended,  but I don’t look made up or anything.  You can’t really tell from the picture, but my eyes were pretty made up.  Notice my thyroid scar?  Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.  Everyone at works keeps asking about it, and they think it’s a scratch!  But then I tell them it’s a scar from surgery. Oh, and I just found out that one of the guys at work was gay (he’s on the right of the picture of Jenny getting her makeup). He was talking about some hot guy he saw at CVS, and I thought “jigga what?!” I had no idea. Then I told everyone that I didn’t know, and they all made fun of me. Kaleena said I had bad gay-dar.

This is Coleen, Jess, and Jenny at our table at the party.  We had a ton of fun, and danced the night away.  We did all the crazy group dances like the macarena, the electric slide (which I don’t know), the song that says “now glide to the left…. cha cha cha”, and of course, the YMCA (as seen in the picture). I got a cute Christmas tree decoration that has my name on it. I also did an awesome 17,000 by working all day and then dancing!

On a final note, I must be seriously stressed out or worried about something, because I am absolutely tearing my nails apart.  This is a picture Nicole took of my hand after she did my nails.  She went to nail school and she did my nails a couple times to practice.  After the nails grew out a bit, I decided to take them off because I didn’t want to have to pay for them.  However, now that they’re off, I can’t keep them out of my mouth.  I’m biting them so much that they’re bleeding, and they HURT.  I think I’ve decided to just get them on again, at least for the holiday season while I might be overly stressed (2 jobs, babysitting, school, and planning the Brew Year’s Eve party).  But I’m going to do a simple thing so they’re cheaper.  However, with babysitting, I pull in $50 a week, so I figure that can be my free money to spend how I please.  I know that fake nails are stupid, and pointless, and a waste of money, but when I have them, I keep my fingers out of my mouth.

Biting my nails was a HUGE deal when I had my radiation.  Because I drank my radiation, my mouth was a major hot spot (it was mixed in with strawberry Kool-Aid - seriously).  I couldn’t kiss anyone, share utensils or cups with anyone because my mouth was considered hot.  When I put my fingers in my mouth, I would get the radiation on my fingers, and then, of course, anything that I touched.  It was a big deal, and a bad way to contaminate things.  I got yelled at by my radiation safety officer for putting them in my mouth right in front of him.  Oops!  Being wary of that has not made me change my habits, though.  And so, the only way I know to keep them out of my mouth, is to put fake nails on them.