Hodge-Podge

Do you know that tomorrow is December 15th? And do you realize that means Christmas is only 10 days away?

Huh. I'd better get cracken and get some of my Christmas gifts bought. Usually, I make a list in August/September of all of the people in my life I give presents to and what I'm going to give them. I think quite a bit about it and put tons of thought and consideration into it. However, this year, I have not done that. Oh-I take that back! I have done that -I did that on Friday...but I have absolutely no desire to do anymore with it. I am half way done. I know in my head pretty much what gifts I am giving...however, I just haven't had the urge to go shopping for them. Maybe it's because I'm so busy with this job or maybe because I just don't feel...I don't know..."right". For some reason, I just don't want to think about Christmas. At all. I want it to come and go very quickly. I'm not sure what that means, but it hasn't really bothered me. I do wonder, though, if it has to do with the fact that I am pretty busy with work and don't have the energy to put towards that. Plus the fact that I'm pretty much by myself up here and alone and maybe that makes me not want to think about Christmas this year. Who knows! :-) It is what it is, I guess.

I have a huge list of "to do's" for Christmas break -and I'm talkin HUGE. Mostly, it's stuff for work that I have to get finished before January that I never have time to work on when I'm at work because I'm either running here or there, on the phone, addressing emails, or talking with whoever comes into my office to chat. I don't mind all of that stuff -it's my administrative style to be present, visible and accessible...it just means that I have to spend extra time on my own getting office stuff done. I guess that's ok though, right now because what else do I have to do!!?? Nada. So...I just hope I can get all this stuff finished. I'm kind of worried about that because I usually bite off more than I can chew -or plan more than I can actually accomplish.

So anyway...nothing profound today. I've got some stuff swimming in my head about a lot of stuff but I'm not ready to purge that yet. I've been thinking lately that I need to really take a good look at what I'm going to do next year. I'll have to start negotiating my contract in February/March. I'm really divided on staying or not. There are so many things I could do and accomplish in one more year...but I'm still not sure this is the right "fit" for me. So, I've got some soul-searching to do between now and then.

On a funner note, I've started taking an online class through community ed on digital photography. It's just an intro class where you learn about camera features, an intro to digital editing, and the history and application of digital photography. This has always been an interest of mine but I've always been too intimidated to delve into it -either because I thought the equipment needed was too expensive or it was just too complicated. It's a little more reachable for me now I think and in just one week via two lessons, I've already learned quite a bit. I don't have my camera yet...I'm putting off buying one until after next week's lesson -PLUS, Amazon keeps dropping the price of the one I want, so I'm just gonna let it ride and see how far I will go before I get too nervous and have to buy it! I'm looking at a Canon Rebel xsi. It's a 12.2mp, dslr, and it comes with a 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 EF lens. It should be a pretty good camera and not too expensive either. I can "collect" different lenses later on, which would be a very good addition. So maybe I'm glad that I wasn't able to take photography in high school...that was completely film based and although I probably would have learned some of the technical stuff in general related to photography, I can easily do that now with a digital. I remember one of my friends was in photography and I would stay after sometimes and help her develop some of her pictures. I always thought that was fun and I actually had plans in my head of creating a little dark room in my bedroom or some other area in the basement so I could develop my stuff "when I came home from college". Then I tried getting into photography classes in college, but they were always all filled up. :-( guess that wasn't meant to be, but now it is. :-) I don't know if I have ever told anyone that -my plans for a dark room and my desire to take classes in that when I went to college. Huh. Well, it's true. So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

WHICH REMINDS me...I spent the weekend catching up on housework and office work and watched 4 movies. The Proposal (which I liked...cuz Ryan Renyolds is yummy anytime and Sandra Bullock is super pretty and I want her hair), 4 Christmases which was very funny...funnier than I thought it would be, The Ugly Truth which was surprisingly VERY good and Catherine Heigel didn't bug me too much and wow, never realized Gerard Butler would be good in a role like that-but he was and I very much enjoyed the entire movie, and finally, GI Joe, which I was pleasantly surprised at because I actually liked it. When I was a kid, in junior high-high school, I watched the GI Joe cartoons after school mainly because my brothers just HAD to. Well, secretly, I LOVED them too. Loved them. It was interesting to me as I was watching this movie that I completely remember all of the characters from the cartoon...but where was Lady Jay?? She was my favorite cuz I wanted to be just like her. Scarlet was too pretty for me, but Lady J was pretty but more kick ass in my mind-she was more of a leader than Scarlet and I liked that kind of role better.

But anyway...that's what's on my mind today. There's lots of stuff swimming around in there, but this is the stuff I wanted to skim off the surface.

So, thanks for reading, thanks for checking out my blog. I appreciate it and appreciate your passive listening to my thoughts. :-)