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High school, nearly 4 years later...

A Merry Christmas to all! I will post about my holiday soon.

On Monday a bunch of us from high school got together at M's house for a mini-reunion party type thing. I was a little apprehensive about going, as I often am when it comes to some high school related functions. Overall, I had a nice time.

On Tuesday, I met up with N, R, and C. Our plans had been to go to the Academy of Sciences, but when we got there the line was super long. We instead decided to go to the De Young Museum and check out the YSL exhibit, which was fantastic. I love that my friends love museums; we plan on hitting the Exploratorium one day (and attempting to go to the Academy of Sciences again as well). We had planned on Thai food for lunch, but since the place was closed, we went to Park Chow instead. Our waiter was super hot, and I kept prodding R to hit on him. Then C and I kept having wandering dirty minds and laughing as we turned things R and N said into sexual innuendoes. We blame it on hanging out with too many 21 year old guys, right C? It was a good day. N, R, and C: we should hang out more often when you guys are in town.

Obviously, all this time with old high school classmates has let me to reflect on years gone by. As R dropped me off after leaving C's house, she was like "Why didn't we hang out more in high school? We lived so close to one another." I live literally one bus stop away from where she lived in high school. We chalked it up to the fact that high school is hard. We were all going through things...it can be really difficult to sustain strong friendships in the teen years. It isn't anyone's fault; we all know how difficult the teenage years are.

Having touched base with quite a few people from high school, I can see pretty clearly who I actually want to remain in touch with. Perhaps this is something that gets easier to see as you get older. There are the people I will simply say 'hello' to and make small talk with. Then, there are the people who I truly enjoy spending time with.

I had something brilliant to say, and then I got a little distracted, and now I don't remember what it was. Whoops. Anyways, apologies for the long and semi-emotional post. Hugs and love to all of you.

It's that time of year!

A Christmas meme that's been going around...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I usually prefer wrapping paper. I love making gifts pretty, with all the bows and things like that. If I'm in a rush (which I often am), it's a gift bag and pretty paper.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial. We have this huge 9' tall tree. However, my parents decided we weren't gonna put up the tree this year :( which really bummed me out. I was even willing to do it myself, but my mother is a little neurotic with the decorations.

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually Thanksgiving day or the day after.

4. When do you take the tree down? Epiphany...I believe the 1st Sunday after the new year?

5. Do you like eggnog? I've never had it! Can you believe that? I'm Filipino, we don't do eggnog on Christmas.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? My parents were great in the gift department, so every year was a good gift. I think I remember being most excited about an American Girl doll (I got Samantha when I was 8).

7. Hardest person to buy for? My parents.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Myself! Lol, kidding. Usually Steve.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? We do indeed. Again, along with the tree, it isn't up this year.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? I keep meaning to mail them every year, yet never get around to them.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Clothes that were obviously way too small, an NSync CD when I was WAY past the boy band stage.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I'm not sure I have one, to be honest.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Uh....I'm still in the process of shopping. I'm horrible, I usually start like the week before.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I think my mom regifted clothes I got when I was a kid that were too small. I personally haven't regifted things.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? I love all the pepperminty treats. Peppermint Joe's-Joes, peppermint bark, peppermint ice cream (the pink kind)...the list goes on. Honey baked ham is also good.

16. Lights on the tree? Yes! Multicolored!

17. Favorite Christmas song? Oh Holy Night

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We used to travel when we lived in ND. Now the only traveling we do is actually going to the Christmas party, depending on where it is. The farthest we travel is about 2 hrs.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen. Woohoo major pwnage :p

20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Eve

21. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Rude customers!

22. Favorite ornament theme or color? Growing up with my mother and her anal-retentiveness with the decorations, I don't like doing themes. I love what bf's family does: every year each person gets to buy an ornament to add to the tree. Their tree has everything from Spiderman to Star Trek and I love it.

23. What do you want for Christmas this year? Seriously, I'm just happy to be with family and friends. That's the biggest joy for me. Although I will gladly take yarn or fiber (I'm going to learn to spin soon!)

24. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel :)

25. Favorite Christmas dinner? Turkey, ham, mashed taters. We always have Filipino food, which is great, but I'm a traditionalist I suppose.

Wedding musings

So my good friend K is getting married in March. I just received her wedding invite. I'm so excited about it!! I need to save up for a dress and a wedding gift; I have no idea how I will afford either. I know I'll have time, but I want to buy my digital camera and shop at Stitches West. My life is becoming too expensive for just having a retail job. LOL.

Speaking of weddings, I've decided not to go to Lo's wedding in the summer. Yes, we've been best friends since we were 5, but....I don't know. She hardly bothers to keep in touch. And frankly...it would be too expensive, and I'm not going to pay a ton of money to go and be bored and hardly ever get to see her. Round trip airfare for two people, a hotel room for a couple nights, a rental car, a dress, a wedding gift, and the other miscellaneous vacation expenses? No. Too expensive. I'd rather just blow $200 on a REALLY nice wedding gift for her than spend what, over $1000 to go to the wedding and be bored. I hope she won't be too upset. I doubt she will be anyways. She has all her stupid sorority sisters to pay attention to. I'm not bitter, really I'm not. People grow apart. It's just crazy how far apart we've grown.

If you have been waiting for an invite to ideeli.com

Here's your chance! (Link only valid until 5:00pm PST. If you would like an invite after this time, please leave me a comment and I will email you.)

PS: ideeli.com is a shopping website. You can get insane deals on designer merchandise.

Desperately seeking a digital camera...

I've been planning to bust my 1st paycheck or two on a new digital camera. I've been wanting one for a long time. I currently have a Sony Cybershot that my parents bought for me in 2005 as a graduation present. I loved it at first, but I've come to the conclusion that it's not the best camera for low-light or for when I want detail to be really clear (like in photos of my knitting). I need a camera that is easy enough for the photography inept, but I also want to be able to play around with the settings once I learn more about photography (I want to take a class one day). I've been doing some research. Everyone used to tell me to get a Canon or Nikon, but the 3 that I've been looking at are Panasonic.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5S

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3K

What do you guys think?

Quick Daring Bakers Post

I joined The Daring Bakers recently. This month's challenge:

Recipe: Caramel Cake by Shuna Fish Lydon
Hosts: Dolores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex of Blondie and Brownie, Jenny of Foray into Food, Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go

Photo and commentary to follow.