Mikachu · nu

Well, I’ve slept away most of my day away, the only one I have this week, other than Monday. But that’s okay, since I don’t have much else to do and need rest to get rid of this sickness I have. I do think I’m feeling better. The mucous is definitely loosened and easier to cough out and I’m not dying so much overall.

As promised, I would provide a retelling of my week up in L.A. with my friends & family that was more positive then the last two posts I provided.

Tuesday was one of my best friend’s 25th birthday. Her boyfriend planned a wonderful surprise party for her at a sushi bar. I was late, unfortunately, and she was already wasted, but the night was fun nonetheless. After that was over, her older sister and I went to the bar I frequent up there to finish up with Porn Star Karaoke and she was a hoot. She loved it.

The next day, my friends from the Marinara group got together to do our Secret Santa gift exchange and make a Hanukkah dinner. We called it Chrismukkah, of course. Our out of town Vanessa was in town from DC and she, along with the other Vanessa, Ryan and Alissa, provided quite a delicious dinner of tri-tip, latkes and matzo ball soup! The rest of us just stayed out the kitchen since we wouldn’t know what we were doing. We lit the menorah for the 3rd night of Hanukkah and exchanged gifts. Of course, we finished up with some highly offensive and questionable rounds of Telestrations.

Christmas with the family was different. We celebrated with all the extended family on the 25th, instead of the 24th like we have done for forever. So, for Christmas eve dinner, it was just the parents, brother and I and we enjoyed tri-tip¹, homemade mashed potatoes ², Yorkshire pudding³, and baked asparagus. The brother and I watched most of Forrest Gump before receiving our traditional Christmas Eve presents of PJs from mom & dad. He got a set of Angry Bird PJs and my mom got me a 3-piece set of pink ones with pants, shorts and a long-sleeved top. I tried trading my brother for his, but he wouldn’t go for it

For Christmas day, my brother woke me up around 8:30 in the morning after he started making coffee. I started the day with some coffee & Bailey’s, followed by champagne. After opening presents and finally drinking the Civet coffee I bought my dad for Father’s day⁴, we got ready and head over to my uncle & aunt’s house. We were the first there in regards to those who weren’t already staying there. Over the course of several hours, my grandma counted at least 37 people in the end, who’d gathered to share Christmas in that house. We had our usual tamales, refried beans, salad & ambrosia dinner and a lot of wine. Nobody suffered from any accidents, there weren’t any fights, everything was very nice as usual. That’s why I love my family. Although, I do wish I still got presents from everyone like I did when I was little lol! That’s okay, I was able to give most of my close extended family something and that made me happy

Now, here’s my Christmas haul:

• Navy scarf (from Sandra)
• Lindt Lindor chocolates (from Sandra)
• Handmade necklace & earrings (from Vanessa, my Marinara secret santa)
• Handmade bookmarks (from Vanessa, my Marinara secret santa)
• Tiltpod (from Jenn, my Lavish secret santa)
• Box of liqueur filled chocolates (from Jenn, my Lavish secret santa)
• USAF sweatshirt with the Hap Arnold on it (from dad)
• Pink PJs (from mom & dad)
• $15 iTunes giftcard (from brother)
• Burt’s Bees lip balm, tic tacs, coffee mug, lotto scratchers, nail files (from santa)
• Check for $$$ (from mom & dad)
• $30 cash (from grandma)

The end

I spent the last week up in L.A. with friends & family. As much as I love being up there, it was so bittersweet with what I’ve been going through. Christmas just didn’t feel so much like Christmas, not only because of that, but because my extended family get-together was to happen on Christmas day as opposed to eve. It’s not necessarily a bad change, but it just made for things to feel less like it had in previous years. The gatherings are definitely getting larger, though. I think my grandma counted 37 people! There were a lot of people I didn’t even know their names! Thankfully there’s no drama with our gatherings. No fights, no animosity, etc. I’ve always been grateful for that and still am!

I’ll talk about my gatherings with friends in another post, but for now I just want to whine about how I’m feeling sick now. I started feeling it on Monday, but I just figured it was due to my getting drunk on Christmas. Nope, it was the start of the all too familiar settling of mucous in my lungs, and with that comes the labored coughing, trying to get it out and burning from trying to do THAT. Ugh. Monday, my sinuses just felt raw. I presumed it was from the dry air¹ and maybe smoking more than I thought I did. I slept with my humidifier on last night, but that didn’t seem to help much. Either way, it’s time to load up on the Mucinex and Theraflu, as well as continual sleeping with the humidifier.

The one thing that made me feel better was Gunny missed me enough that she slept with me for quite a while last night, at various points. She doesn’t do that on an everyday basis, so yay! haha

I’ll post more positive things later, I’m sure. I said I wanted to whine, and I did, so now it’s time for bed. Thankfully I get to sleep in, as I don’t work until the evening tomorrow!

I’m overdue for the Thanksgiving post. What can I say? I just haven’t felt like posting. I’m lazy. I would’ve actually posted last night, but my host decided to go down for who knows what reason. So here we go…

I spent the long weekend up in Los Angeles with my friends and family. I actually got to celebrate Thanksgiving two days in a row since we had a small gathering for dinner on Thursday with just my mom, dad and grandma. Following that on Friday was the big gathering at my uncle-in-law’s house¹ which included at least 30 immediate & extended family members. The spread was delicious in both cases and I have to admit, my dad’s smoked turkey beat out Kevin’s². It was SO dang juicy! Apparently my parents brined it the day prior.

For the small dinner, my mom did a lot for just us four people. Mashed potatoes³, sweet potatoes, salad, green bean casserole, stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce and the turkey. Everything was pretty much from scratch except for the can of cranberry sauce, rolls and technically my dad took care of the turkey as it smoked. I’m surprised I didn’t go for seconds!

I had taken the train from San Diego after 3 hours of sleep and waking up at 5:45 in the morning. I didn’t nap at any point during the day, until after dinner. It was served around 3pm and I was pretty much passed out on the couch by 3:45pm, complete with drool. After not seeing my grandma for a while, I felt bad for not actually spending more time with her before my dad took her home. I was still passed out by the time I should’ve driven her. Woops

Saturday was spent with my friends, playing our board games, eating and just talking. We also drew names for our annual secret santa I’m really going to have to concentrate to get just the right thing for the person I drew… While, in the mean time, I’ve been adding stuff to my Elfster wishlist like crazy. I posted it to my Facebook and Twitter just for the record, not that I’m expecting anything from anybody. FOR REAL! I’ve actually had a tough time trying to figure out what I actually want, if someone were to ask. This has helped a little. Just finding random things online and adding them to the list has been fun.

If you hadn’t seen or heard, I chopped my hair off! I’m very happy with it! I took in a picture of Dianna Agron (Quinn from Glee) as a guideline for how I wanted it done. The stylist was very good and I’m very pleased that it came out so well, especially since I wanted something pretty specific. Huzzah! I just have to remember to use less shampoo & conditioner in the shower and practice different style techniques with it

Time for an update on life!

1. Saturday was my grandma’s 80th birthday celebration. I love spending time drinking, eating & talking with my family. They’re awesome!
2. Today, I participated in my company’s annual Southern California bowling tournament for the first time with 4 other of my coworkers. We bowled fairly well, but not well enough to bring home a trophy, unfortunately.
3. There has been a lot of driving back and forth from SD to LA. Sometimes together with the husband, sometimes alone for either of us.
4. Saturday of last week, I played a good game of capture the flag with about 16¹ of my friends from high school. I ruined a new pair of flats, but my team won and it was great fun! I miss and love my high school friends.
5. Wednesday, the husband will be leaving for Costa Rica for a week for his dad’s wedding. I’m not going due to the last minute decision that he WAS going, since it would’ve been double the hassle to try and get both of our passports replaced and costly, because they’d have to be expedited.²
6. Mid March, I’ll be going to the Zinfandel Festival with my parents, specifically the party at Tobin James. It’ll be 3 years since my parents took the husband and me for our first official foray into wine tasting. I’m excited :D
7. My mom is making it her mission to get me down to see Costa Rican, and since I’m not going with the husband this time around, she’s planning on a family trip during December(?) of 2012. I love my mom

There are still two more LA trips due in the next two weeks, primarily to drop the husband off at the airport & pick him up… I’m eager to not go anywhere soon, though. Also, there may be a month in the near future that I’ll be spending up in LA, at my parents’ house, spending more time with friends since it’s pretty damn lonely down here with just the husband and I. There’s a lot of tension and we both need some space, but I’m finally looking at it as a good thing for me as well, and not just the whole giving him space part. I need some too, and there’s no better place to do it than with my awesome parents and family and friends :D

In other news, things have slowed down at Veracity, but I think it’s because it’s a new board and there’s so many things going on and we’re still working out kinks and the growing pains, and all… There are still some great activities and topics to take part in so, come and join! Tell ‘em Mika sent you

My Christmas holiday was enjoyable. I spent it at my parents’ house, spending a lot of time with family this year. My mom’s older brother and his wife were down from Oregon. I hadn’t seen them since New Year’s Eve in 2005, just a few days after the husband and I eloped. There was a mini-family reunion Thursday afternoon for lunch, with my mom’s twin¹, his wife and son, the oldest brother and his wife, my brother and his girlfriend, myself and my parents.

From there, I headed over to my friend’s apartment to meet up with my group of friends known as Marinara². I was a little late so I was only able to participate in one round of Telestrations, but afterwards we headed over to a part of the SFV³ where a bunch of homes in one neighborhood really go all-out with their yard decorations – they call it Candlight Lane. One house had a giant inflatable bear, decked out in Hanukkah garb. We immediately referred to him as Jew Bear. There were people selling light-up toys up & down the streets and it was quite the popular spot that night! I can’t imagine being a homeowner in that neighborhood. It was especially awesome, since one of our friends was in town for the holiday from D.C., where she’s working & going to school right now.

Friday was the usual tradition of going to my uncle’s house for tamales with my dad’s family. Everyone got a baggie of big, chewy chocolate chip cookies, a reindeer ornament and the recipe for the cookies. We sat around the giant fire pit in the backyard they just recently put in for most of the night.

Christmas day was opening of presents, breakfast by my parents and then a visit with some of the husband’s family.

Speaking of the husband, he drove me up to L.A. on Wednesday, drove back down to S.D. Thursday morning, back to L.A. Friday night and we drove home to S.D. together Saturday night. Talk about a lot of driving! I had planned on staying out until Sunday, but I thought I’d give the guy a break.

Wait, what happened to having my wisdom tooth extracted? It got postponed until the end of January. Although I was eager to have it over with, I’m grateful I was able to eat over the holiday. Not to mention, it’s our wedding anniversary on Wednesday, so to be able to for sure eat solids for a decent dinner is something I’m happy for. We’ll be celebrating 5 years of marriage! Wow… Not that the last one has been particularly great⁴, hopefully there will be MANY more, and they’ll be LOTS better.

I made off with:

• A sewing machine
• An IOU of help towards the trip to Costa Rica for the husband’s dad’s wedding.
• Harry Potter behind-the-scenes book (thanks, Tay-Tay!)
• Long john PJs
• Cashmere scarf
• Various bath products
• A decent amount of cash & gift cards
• Chocolates

If you celebrate Christmas, how did it turn out?