Christmas Lights

I guess I've reasonably finished decorating the house for Christmas. Since I promised to post a picture, here's the outside of the house. If you want to see the inside, you'll have to stop by and see it. :)

I thought I was done decorating...

... until I stopped by Lowe's on my way home tonight to pick up some purple Christmas lights, and found that starting today all of their holiday decorations are 50% off!  AND they had purple, gold, green, blue, red AND white lights... all at $1.20/each on sale.  Let's just say, I stocked up big time.  And bought a whole bunch of other Christmas decorations at half off, AND I get to enjoy them before Christmas!  

Excited, excited... AND more excited!!  

Time to put the tree up! 

Holiday Madness

I appear to have been in another of my predictable blog droughts. It's not that there hasn't been enough going on, in this case there's probably been too much going on. As a result, this blog is brought to you by Google Calendar: "The only way to know what all you did the past month!"

• Went to two musicals plus the Seattle Symphony's holiday pops concert. All of which deserve their own reviews, but may or may not get them. We'll see how much time I make for them today.
  
• Lots of curling, culminating with a break from actually curling, only to be the head official for the state junior curling championships this past weekend. Being both competent and willing to volunteer is a dangerous combination. Tiring but a lot of fun.
  
• Started the process of looking for a house. I'm sick of my apartment, and after waiting for a year or so until the market is finally right, it's time to buy a house. Now I just have to find the right place. Once the new year starts, it should be prime time for people to start selling decent places again... I hope.
  
• Christmas came and went, and New Year's is here. I don't think I really realized Christmas was coming until about the Friday before. Things have been a bit hectic.
  
• How can I forget how this all started? The day I got home from vacation in Hawaii (well, actually the day before I got back to work), my company decided to lay off 18 people, including half of my team. I was spared, but half of my friends and coworkers were told their last day was December 12th. It's made for quite the uninspiring holidays around the office. Fortunately a few of us insisted on making things a bit cheerier and helped decorate the office for the holidays. I strung my customarily tacky Christmas, er, Secular Festive Non-Denominational Culturally-Inclusive Wintertime Holiday Lights, throughout my aisle of cubes and from the ceiling and all. It was quite nice. Regardless, unless things drastically change around work, 2008 may become time to look for a new place to work.
  
• And yes, I know I'm behind on Amazing Race episode blogs. Legs 6, 7, and 8 are all on my DVR waiting to be watched, I've just had more important things to do. At least this way I can just sit down and watch them all at once one of these days.

40 days and 40 nights

The date is November 16th, an entire 40 days before Christmas. To put that in perspective, Biblical references use "40 days and 40 nights" as synonymous with "a very, very long time". Why the significance, you might ask? Well, as it seems to happen earlier every year, today it happened again... WARM 106.9 started playing non-stop Christmas music. Truth be told, I wouldn't even had realized it until I stopped in at Subway on my way home from work and as I walk in the door, hear Andy Williams singing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" and had to do an auditory double-take. [Don't ask me how that works, by the way.]

Avid readers of my blog will recall prior references to my long-standing rule regarding holiday music. I am, of course, a huge fan of Christmas music of all types, but have instituted a rule (which admittedly, like the Pirates' Code is more a guideline than an actual rule) that I shall not intentionally listen to Christmas music until Thanksgiving. This was officially amended in 2004 to allow anytime starting the week of Thanksgiving. So in actuality, even according to my guidelines, as soon as Sunday it would be acceptable. But still... I think it's the fact that Thanksgiving this year is so early that it just seems too early for the holiday season to be here already. The whole point of the rule is simply to make sure that I'm not completely sick of Christmas music by the time December 25th actually arrives.

I guess you can't change it. By Monday I'll have the Christmas music ready to play on the radio, and my all-star collection of holiday music cascading from the headphones of my MP3 player.

At least I still have 39 days to start my Christmas shopping.

The Freeloader is GONE!

Well, it's been how long, 3 months off and on since my freeloading sister Amy showed up on my doorstep claiming she'll just be "crashing on my couch" for a few nights. Finally tonight she came and got all of her stuff and took it off to her new townhouse up at Northgate that she and a couple friends are renting. Merry Christmas, I have my apartment back.

But I have to admit, it's a bit different around here now. After 3 months I finally got used to having her around, and now it's a bit quiet around here. (Though I have a ton more space, now that I look around.)

Hmmm... no more hearing her cell phone go off at 6am while I'm trying to sleep. No more hearing her up until who knows how late in the morning before going to bed. No more piles of junk around the apartment that aren't mine. :) Ah... good times.

Now it's time for Christmas excitement. Saturday is a pretty slow day actually, I don't think I have anything of any sort of importance going on. Then Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities are ready for fun. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.