Jan 11: Presents!

Accessory Tree by bunni711 featuring citrine stud earrings

This is what I spent a good portion of the day making!  It's the second day in a row where I got on Polyvore and went nuts for a couple (a few?) hours.  It was a lot of fun though and I'm very happy with my little tree up there.  It's also given me a few more ideas for other art to make.  You shall have to wait and see...

So, in other news, last night I finished Persuasion and started this book:

Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire







I am really very on the fence about it.  It has come off overly sexual so far, which is very strange.  I'll read some more before I decide if I will finish it or not.  I hate not finishing books - I try to avoid it (sometimes at all costs; I mean, c'mon, I muddled through Moby Dick for crying out loud!).

I had to call the cell company AGAIN today because I realized that I no longer have the minutes I had before this whole debacle started!  I have the new ones, but now the old ones are gone.  I was told that they will call me in 24-48 hours.  Hopefully it will be fixed finally!

I headed back home today and found out that Teddy got hurt again on Sunday.  : (  My poor baby!  This is the third or fourth time that he has hurt his back/legs from jumping on and off the furniture.  He's on pain meds and muscle relaxers, but he is trembling sometimes and not able to step over very short things (I mean, even shorter than usual, seeing as he is a dachshund).  He is also making a terrible little whiny noise that breaks my heart.  We have to watch him so that he doesn't jump on/off the furniture and we're going to train him to use stairs now.  I feel so bad for ever letting him jump up and down in the first place.  : (  He is doing alright, though, and I don't think he is suffering.  We're all taking really good care of him.

In happier news, Jamie's surprise came today!  I ordered him a late Christmas present back in December, and snuck around a little in order to keep it a secret from him.  The reason it was so late was that the seller on ebay was away until a few days ago, so it actually got here in good time.

I had arranged a little scavenger hunt for him that would give him clues to what the present was, but he wasn't feeling well today and, to be honest, I kind of chickened out about it.  It started seeming really silly once I knew the package was coming today.  Well, he read through it afterward and the clues weren't written that well, but he enjoyed going through them at least!

But yes, what is this mystery Christmas present?  James is a big fan of hockey, and especially the Penguins.  He was also in need of a new wallet.  So, this is what I got him!

He had no idea I got him anything, so it was a really fun surprise.  I think I did a good job.  I had felt so bad because I had no money to get him anything for Christmas, but I got some Christmas money and was able to get him something I think he really likes.  Good day.

Love,

Christen

Jan 8 and 9: A Long Time Waiting

First of all, I'm going to add one thing that happened last Friday which I forgot to add in my last post.  James and I were going to make chocolate chip pancakes for lunch.  I switched on the burner and we started getting stuff out to make them when we started smelling something burning.  Well, I had switched on the wrong burner and James had happened to set the pan on it while we were making the batter.  The whole burner caught on fire, which is very weird because it is an electric stove.  The fire went out when we switched off the burner, too, and there wasn't any residue left behind.  It was very strange and I like to think it is a problem with the stove and not my silliness that caused it.  We ended up buying sandwiches at the market, though.  Mmmm...

Jan 8: Not much happened today, just trying to enjoy my last day of vacation and not get too stressed about the new semester.  James and I watched some Warehouse 13 on Netflix and hung out.  He played God of War III until it went kaput on him for no good reason.  The disc looks fine but it keeps freezing up at this one part, which is actually pretty late in the game, I think.  He's in the Labyrinth part with Pandora.  I spent most of the day online - blogging, surfing, and playing around with this new site, Pinterest, which my friend Amber introduced me to. You pretty much pin up pictures of anything and everything you find online to some virtual bulletin boards of your choosing, and you can look at what other people have pinned up and add it to your collection, too.  It's pretty fun and addicting.

I am still working on Persuasion, but I'm getting near the end.  I'm really liking it and I just read a very interesting part, so I'm happy on that front.  The only thing really worth noting about the day was that I had to call customer service for my cell phone because the code for my prepay minutes wasn't working.  I was on hold for pretty much ever.  I think they may be based in India, just from their accents.  They aren't too hard to understand, but the connection seemed bad.  : P  The first guy almost immediately transferred me to his supervisor and I was on hold again for a while.  The next lady I think I have spoken to before, actually.  I think I actually recognized her voice.  Well, they were having all kinds of trouble with it and couldn't get it to work.  I was on hold a lot and waiting around while she worked on the computer with it.  They finally ended up telling me that they would be working on it and to call them back in 24 hours if I still didn't receive any minutes.  I was promised "compensation" for my trouble.  All in all, I spent about an hour on the phone.  It wasn't fun, needless to say.

Jan 9: Even though classes officially started today, I didn't have anything to do for them.  I need to get all of my assignments written down on my big calendar, but my first assignment isn't due until Thursday.  I have to write a letter of introduction for my technical writing class, which, from what I can tell, is a really basic-level writing class.  I mean, we are going to do resumes and that kind of stuff, which I learned long ago in high school and have no need of relearning, except that the class is required for this degree.  Ugh!

I ordered my books today and was pleasantly surprised to have saved money on two of my books and didn't have a bad deal on the third.  James is buying the books for the classes we share; he's such a great guy!  <3  I looked up coupons for them, too, and actually found one that saved me $5!  I know it's not a lot, but you can really get some good deals if you just look up coupons online.  I saved 30% on my HP laptop (which I am happily typing away on right now!).  If you're curious, I blogged about it before.  Oh, one note for those earlier posts, though:  the Design Destination blog has been discontinued, so the links to it will not work.  Anyway, I hope my books are here in enough time.  I do have some homework due on Sunday for which I will need my books.

It's been a pretty good day, overall.  Since Jamie's game broke yesterday, I got to spend a lot more time with him today than usual.  We cuddled a bunch on the couch and watched some Pawn Stars.  It was quite an enjoyable evening.  : )  Well, that's all for now, I think.  I guess I should try not to be afraid of saying more about how I felt throughout the day or what I thought of rather than just events - I always used to do that whenever I kept a diary.  This is a double post though, so I wanted to keep it shorter.

Other than that, I'm feeling excited about my new website classes; hopefully they will teach me a lot about web design and will be lots of fun.  I have the same teacher for my two web design classes and she seems really nice.  I tried to pick good teachers this semester, but I do have a word of caution:  do not use ratemyprofessors.com!  That site has tried to give me viruses several times before.  It's very useful, but there are many other sites to find info about profs, which are much safer!  Just google prof ratings or something, and you should be able to find some good ones.  I installed a little thing on Chrome which shows safety ratings for every link I come across on the Internet -  it's called WOT and it is very useful.  If you have Chrome, you should give WOT a try.

I almost forgot!  I never did get my minutes for my phone, so I have to call customer service once again.  I was supposed to do it today, but got caught up doing other things.  I will update you further tomorrow!

I think I shall leave my faithful readers for now.  Adieu, adieu!  (I am really reading too much period literature right now!)

Love,
Christen