La la la. Long time, no blog.

Ok, first of all, extreme apologies to Tara. After having that treat box for over a year, I have finally mailed it out. I should never ever be allowed anything that has to be mailed again. At the same time, we also mailed Jay's Aunt's and Grandma's Christmas presents from last year. I also have something for Beth that I finished about a year ago to send, but I forgot about that during this round of mailing things.

I don't know why I have such a big problem mailing things. I'm normally a very responsible person, but when it comes to putting things in the mail, I have some weird mental block.

Now for my Christmas goodies list, lest I forget:

• Digital Camera
  
• Cabbage Patch Kid (her name is Catalina, and she matches my room!)
  
• Law and Order boardgame
  
• 40 gb iPod
  
• Ani Difranco Trust DVD
  
• Great Big Sea Live DVD
  
• Leftover Salmon cd
  
• pajamas/houseshoes
  
• money from me dad (I think I bought some clothes?)
  
• chip and dip set
  
• Chloe Narcisse perfume (I smell nummy!)
  
• Planner
  
• Chef's knife
  
• Calendar
  
• Tupperware
  
• Digital kitchen scale (the Alton Brown cookbook that I bought last month has weights in it)
  
• 50 blank cds
  

I started one of those hip and trendy Yahoo! photo albums. You can view it here. I'll upload some more pics later.

I have a new job! I have a new job!

How’s that for serendipity? On the last day of my old job (today), I found out I have a new one. I start on January 3, so I get a week off, too (well, more than week.)

I will be working for the National Early Childhood Transition Center with the Interdisciplinary Human Development Institute. I’m excited. I will be doing various duties. I really should read up on my early childhood stuff over the next few days.

The semester is OVER! I have straight A's. It's all done with now. YAY!

In other news: Our heat pump broke again, and the guy's saying we need an extra air return. Ugh. Just what I wanted. An expensive repair around Christmas.

You know, I always have a million things to say on this blog until I actually start typing.

Yesterday I took Jay to his Mom's in Florence. I took my friend Pei-lun, and we had plans to explore Cincinnati. However, by the time we got done eating dinner, it was almost 9, so we settled on the Florence Mall. We originally planned to go to Uno's. We took two separate cars. Me, Jay's mom, and Pei-lun find it, only to realize: It's closed. Then we can't find Jay and Lizzy (who are oblivious). we finally hunted them down, and went to Friday's. I wanted Uno's. Friday's was no substitute. I'll have to get some Uno's when I go home for WV.

I had an interview with the IHDI at UK yesterday, for another research assistant position . It went pretty well, but I worry that I don't have enough early childhood experience to qualify. However, there are other RA jobs there, so maybe I could have one of those. I think they pay tuition, which would be mighty nice. Mmm. Tuitiony. If I get it, I'd have to work 20 hours a week, so I would have to drop a class. However, since they would be paying tuition, it wouldn't be a problem to go an extra semester or two. There's no way I'm taking 15 hours of classes and working 20 hours a week (again!)

Speaking of, UK tried to charge me out of state tuition recently, which about made my heart stop. It turned out to simply be a problem with the screen it was pulling from, or something, and it was easily rectified. That doesn't mean I wasn't scared, anyhow. It's about $4k more a semester for out of state students. I did my out of state time during undergrad. Dammit, I own a house now in the state of Kentucky. hehe.

I'm really out of stuff to say for now. Maybe I'll think of something more later.

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas! Soon!

Which means I need to get shopping. I've bought but a few presents. I have more to buy.

I have finished with all my assignments for the semester, save one test in research! I have an A going into it, but I want an A coming out of it too. hehe. I like the class alot, and I'll miss my professor. Anyhow, with the exception of the test, I'm very happy to be done with this semester. In some ways it seems like it's dragged on, and in others it seems like it's passed by in a flash. Poof! So far I know for sure that I have one A, and I am pretty sure I got As in all of the other classes, too. YAY!

I have an interview for another research assistant (RA) position soon. It was supposed to be next Monday, but someone had a deaht in the family so they had to reschedule. I've applied for a few more advertised positions, and sent out cover letters and resumes to a bunch more research facilities affiliated with UK.

Other than that, things are going ok. I think Liz jinxed my heat pump. A few days after her post about her heater repairs, we discovered that ours had frozen up and was blowing cold air. Luckily, it wasn't too cold outside, so we could wait to have it fixed (I had finals on Monday and Tuesday.) Wednesday, the guy came and fixed it for about $315. Really, while that is a lot of money, that's not too bad. The heat pump is like 25 years old, and we've not had any problems with it when we remember to change the filter. Our house is all-electric, and the bills have been remarkably low for an 1800 sq. ft. house. So I knock wood that it holds out. It's like a miracle heat pump.

No one is here at work today (in my little cave office), and what I have to do is quite limited. I'm going to campus in a bit to return some books and work on finding an assessment tool. I need to drag that out as loooooong as possible.

I recently found my dear friend and pseudo-brother Jason (via his newspaper's website), and he emailed me back. I've missed him alot. One of my classmates reminds me of him alot in mannerisms and affect, so it compelled me to locate him. Anyhow, Jason and his lovely wife Becky have a baby! Emily Elizabeth (I like the name. I'm partial to both names.) So congratulations!

My dad and his girlfriend are going to stay with me next Thursday night. This does not thrill me, but I am attempting to deal with it. I told him they will be sleeping in separate beds. There's only so much I can deal with at once. I keep having dreams that my mom is still alive, and Dad's put her in a nursing home and is completely ignoring her, and has his girlfriend. Gee, what could that possibly mean? At least my dreams could be a BIT veiled. Instead of just blatantly obvious.

We put up the Christmas tree this week (and when I say "we", I mean "me". :) hehe .Just kidding, Mr. Jay. Mostly.) It's pretty and sparkly. And Murray, our 15 lb. tomcat, decided to climb up through the inside of it. Luckily, it did not crash down. I was worried for a minute, though.

My oh-so-brilliant accident of the week: On Halloween, when I was at Liz and Patrick's, Patrick made this really great pumpkin bread pudding. I thought, "Wow, this is good, I should make it sometime." Patrick recently sent me the recipe. One component of it is a crunchy brown sugar top, wherein you melt brown sugar under the broiler, and it gets hard and crunchy. So I do that, and I bring it out of the oven, and think, "That looks kinda wet, not exactly melt it." So I stick my finger (and evidently, a thumb) in the MOLTEN BROWN SUGAR! And I have second degree burns on my thumb and first finger on my left hand. It hurt alot at first, but then it was kinda numb, and now it's just a little owie. You know, I think I'm seeing why my mom didn't overly encourage more kitchen adventures of my youth. Hmm.

Ok, that's enough for now. Leave fun comments. Recommend a book or two for me to read over break. I need something with some humor in it.