catch-up drill

i have officially given up on the "30 day blogging challenge." life got too busy with a month of house/dog-sitting, and the last few topics were things like "what have you learned in the past 30 days?" or "how do you think you have grown in the past month?" laaaaaame and boring, like college application essays. so onward & upward!

today is christmas day; i've had a wonderful week off from work and spent nearly the entire time (except the required hours poolside coaching the scant numbers of swimmers who show up for practice, or time spent with family) watching grey's anatomy reruns. i started season 1 & part of season 2 while housesitting around thanksgiving, then gave it up for a while because of the housesitting & business, but i picked it up full-steam ahead this week due to no work. nothing like grey's drama & knitting xmas presents! surprisingly, i didn't get season 6 for xmas like i was half-expecting (not to be all spoiled rotten about it, but i'd asked my parents for it months ago), but my aunt coincedentallly gave me an amazon giftcard last night so the highs and lows (like the awful season finale) will be on their way to my eagerly-awaiting dvd player in a few days.

i was very blessed this holiday season by my very generous family, who put a lot of effort into this year. my favorites, however, are a plush olive green snuggie knock-off & my neon orange & pink vibram fivefinger shoes.

the only semi not-so-great part of this break is counteractive to my happiness at being able to hermit-up with yarn & primetime soap operas is my tinge of jealousy at the returning college students and former ktowners who came back for the holidays...everyone is soo excited to see them again and excited about their open-ended possibilities in life...plus the dopamine-filled reunions of old classmates and friends reminds me of my friends who are all down in the lower 48 and who i haven't seen in months. no dopamine-filled reunions for me this year; for the most part i try to avoid my old classmates since i'm not extremely fond of the ones that seem to return to the island each year. i don't have a good reason for it, just have never been a fan. the few people i DO want to run into, i don't have a reason to, just have past memories of them & want to feel acknowledged now that i've grown somewhat.

for now, all that matters is enjoying this next week off from work and celebrating the arrival of 2011...here's to a new year full of side-splitting laughs, loving hugs, and maybe some flirting with the cute guy at work...

merry christmas, everyone!