I so don’t feel like working.  I’m still in holiday/vacation mode.  And I won’t be snapping out of it till after the New Years.  I don’t feel like doing much except maybe lounging around or maybe going shopping.  I’m in desperate need of new work clothes, maybe a couple pairs of new jeans.  Oh, and some winter tops.  I also want to find something new to wear for New Year’s Eve party.  I was thinking of going to Fashion Island on Saturday as well.

 

Now on to more pictures from the past weekend….

 

 

Getting ready to head over to Hearst Castle.  Irvine Boy had pre-ordered tickets for tour #1 and #2...

 

 

 

 

 

Hearst Castle parking lot...

 

 

 

 

 

Irvine Boy getting our tickets...

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting to get on the bus...

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting to get on the bus with a bigger smile...

 

 

 

 

 

Taking self pics again...

 

 

 

 

 

Irvine Boy completely doesn't get it, why I like to take self pics...

 

 

 

 

 

More....

 

 

 

 

 

More of him...

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, he wants me to stop...

 

 

 

 

 

I'll just take more of myself...

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, last one...

 

 

 

 

 

One of the bus...

 

 

 

 

 

Next to the drained pool...

 

 

 

 

 

Inside the Hearst Castle.  They had all the Christmas decorations out.  Loved it!

 

 

 

 

Here's my boy snapping away...

 

 

 

 

Onto the what were in the presents!  The first one I opened was my anniversary gift.  Our anniversary is on 12/24.  I'm so glad I get separate presents and not just one since Christmas and anniversary are practically on the same day.  That way there's more to open.  He made me a photo book of our 2006 together...

 

 

 

 

I gave him a goose down jacket that matched mine.  Same color, same style, just a different size...... just the way he likes it.             .....NOT.

 

 

 

 

 

One of my Christmas gift was a FM tuner for my new iPod Nano.  I love it... now I can listen to all my fobby Chinese music in my car while I'm driving around going on my appointments.

 

 

 

 

 

His next gift was a PS3 controller.  I told him that's for his future PS3...   And he said, he has a controller but NO PS3 to play it on!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

He also got me starcraft cause I lost my old copy and I've been wanting it...

 

 

 

 

I kept taking videos that I didn't get his next gift.. but it was the ps3 game Resistance:  Fall of Man.  I told him that's also for his future PS3...               For my next gift, and this was my FAVORITE.  He got me a collection flute from my flute teacher.  He had contacted my flute teacher a month in advance to secure me a flute.  It was the most thoughtful gift I received this Christmas.  I was so touched my eyes got all red.

 

 

 

 

 

And now........ his future PS3!!!

 

 

 

 

 

The aftermath...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas was awesome!  I had a great time.  Irvine Boy took me away on a surprise trip to Hearst Castle for the weekend.  I had been bugging him for that past year about going there.  And the request has been ignored up to this point that I even forgot about it.  So it was a really cool surprise.  We stayed in a hotel suite about 4 miles away from the Hearst Castle from Saturday to Monday morning.  We sent to doggies to the dog hotel, loaded our car with presents and off we went.

 

But first Friday night we had Irvine Boy’s annual Christmas get together with a bunch of friends at Hermosa.  Good thing we didn’t party too hard cause the next day we had a long drive to our little get away.

 

Some pictures:

 

From Friday night at the Christmas dinner in Hermosa.  We were just sitting around waiting for our food so I started taking pics of myself again.

 

 

 

One with my boyfriend...  his hair looks funny in this one.

 

 

 

 

 

For the secret santa gift exchange, we got matching t-shirts with our pics on 'em.  I love it!  Going to make Irvine Boy wear it with me while we walk the dogs....

 

 

 

 

After dinner we went to a local bar to have some drinks...

 

 

 

 

Karen getting crazy...

 

 

 

 

The lovely ladies...

 

 

 

 

I don't know what's going on here, but I got cut off...

 

 

 

 

More...

 

 

 

 

Inside the bar on the dance floor...

 

 

 

 

With my Boy Toy...

 

 

 

 

Boy Toy pic #2

 

 

 

 

Group pic...

 

 

 

 

Pizza after the bar....New York style.

 

 

 

 

Irvine Boy sharing my pizza...

 

 

 

 

The back of our trunk on the way to Hearst Castle.  We packed all

8 presents into his little trunk.  I insisted we open presents ON

Christmas.  But we only made it to Christmas Eve.

 

 

 

 

The view of the presents from inside the car...

 

 

 

 

The presents on our hotel bed....

 

 

 

 

Irvine Boy next to the presents...

 

 

 

 

Presents on the sofa...

 

 

 

 

 

 

More later...

 

 

 

 

 

Irvine Boy's graduation...

 

 

Dry ice martini at Mastro's...

 

 

Seafood tower at Mastro's...

 

 

Group pic at Mastro's...

 

 

Group pic at La Boheme...

 

 

 

I finally got my Christmas shopping done.  Every year when it gets close to the end of the year, I get all excited and so look forward to Christmas.  But man(!) Christmas is stressful!  Now I just have to wrap everything.  I think I still have wrapping paper from last year, now I just need to find the time to get to it.

 

My neck has been acting up again.  So far I’ve been to the Chiropractor four times in the past couple weeks.  Yesterday I had an appointment at 6 o’clock.  But by 3 p.m. the pain was so unbearable I had to go in right then.  I think it’s the constant rushing around and all the work I have crammed in one day, my whole body just gets tense.  My doctor told me with the long hours I put in everyday, I need to take 3 to 5 minutes every hour to do some stretching exercises.  But looking back on this entire year, every bit of hard work has been worth it.  And I realize now I had so much room for improvement.  When I thought I couldn't do it but still pushed myself, I went far and beyond what I thought I could do. 

 

Time for bed again… Another long day tomorrow.  Going to start the day with hitting the gym. 

---

"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip."
– Will Rogers

I’m not feeling much like working today.  Actually I think I feel sleepy.  And I also feel like shopping.  I haven’t been able to get any shopping done for the past few weeks, and I’m also running out of time.  Yesterday I went to the Beverly Center after my work appointments, but by the time I got there the mall was about to close in an hour.  So I ended up eating at the Grand Lux Café and went home after that.

 

I’m debating if I should move my flute lesson to another day and just go to the mall instead.  It’s just that I really don’t like to change the time on my teacher on such short notice…  So I’ll have to see.

 

Man I’m feeling so tired I think I need to just put my head down on my desk and take a 15 minute nap.  Can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

 

I have a headache from last night.  Five of us girl’s went drinking after our dinner at Mastro’s.  Well, it started out with five and ended with me and one other girlfriend.  I just wanted to drown myself in alcohol last night.  And that I did.  But I’m not feeling too good today. This morning I woke up completely dehydrated with a pounding headache on my friend’s couch.  I still had my make up on, I was in my dress and coat, and my cell phone had died.  The worst part was I still had to drive home.

 

I was supposed to take my dad out during the day today for an early birthday celebration, but I’m not really in the mood for that.  So I’m just going to dinner with him and my mom tonight.  Irvine Boy was supposed to go with me, but I haven’t heard anything from him today so I guess he’s not going.  Don’t really feel like telling my parents we were arguing so I’ll have to make up an excuse to why he didn’t come when I said he was.  Which reminds me, I have to cancel the reservation to the restaurant we were going to go to tonight, which is also the restaurant Irvine Boy and I started our argument at.  Fuck that restaurant.  Never going back there again.

 

SO, I’m not too sure what I feel like doing right now.  But whatever it is, I’m doing it alone. 

 

….I think I need to do something that’ll cheer me up, or just make me feel even more alone.  Or whatever.  After dinner tonight with my parents, I’m going to go watch a movie at the theater.

 

I'm not cut out for relationships and I'm not cut out to be dependent on anyone.

I hate myself today.

 

I’m still not done with my Christmas shopping, which means I only have one week left to shop and fight my way through the mall with the rest of the Christmas laggers.  Not looking forward to it at all.  And I still don’t have plans for New Year’s Eve.  I want to be somewhere exciting, packed with people and doing the countdown together!  Eh…. Anyway, I don’t think I have time to worry about that.  I need to straighten out my gift situation first.

 

Taking Irvine Boy out to dinner in Pasadena tonight to celebrate his graduation.  I’m so so proud of him.  Graduating is exciting!  And I’m excited for him.  Can’t wait till dinner tonight.  It’s going to be good.

 

On the food note, my company is having our Christmas thing as a lunch this year.  I bust my ass all year and they couldn’t have at least made it a dinner so I can bring my significant other.  Cheap.  At least the lunch at the Pacific Palms resort…      Do I sound a little ungrateful?  Well, we make A LOT of money for the company and a lunch is like $50 a head… That’s nothing compared to the blood and sweat I’ve put in this year.  Okay, I should stop.  I don’t sound very jolly.  Hahah..    Okay, it doesn’t really bother me that much.  Actually I don’t really care.  But I just wanted to complain for fun.  So now I’m done.  Going to go wrap my $20 gift for gift exchange that I think is totally lame.

 

Oh, and as I was getting dressed this morning, I turned on the TV is this was showing,

 

“GREEEEEEEEEEEEEN acres is the place to be…”                 haha…. I used to love watching that show when I was little.

 

 

Irvine Boy’s graduation is tomorrow.  So we’re both at our own places tonight getting some rest and preparing for tomorrow.  After work I didn’t want to go straight home, I wanted to spend money…   SO, I went to Costco.  Got a lot of frozen stuff to stock my fridge with.  For the past few weeks I’ve just been eating cereal for dinner, it’s starting to feel pathetic.  I got myself a bunch of healthy foods like tilapia and different kinds of vegetables.  I also got some organic eggs and milk.  And then I got some unhealthy stuff like frozen fish sticks and hot pockets.  I also got some plain waffles to make breakfast sandwiches, and those are just kind of in limbo between good foods and bad; not really sure WHAT it counts as.

 

Before heading to Costco I was almost about to head over to target to pick myself up a fake Christmas tree, and then changed my mind.  Cause I’m really just getting myself into more problems.  First of all, my place is too small to have any kind of a tree.  And even if I do figure out a way to nicely display a tree in my place… there’s really no one enjoying it with me except my dogs.  So forget it.

 

I’m jumping all over the place.  But anyway, I finished with Costco just as it was about to close and I had planned on going home to eat something I had bought.  But I was so hungry, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer so I got a hot dog combo for $1.62 and just ate it by myself sitting on the benches outside.  While I was sitting there I wondered for a while if I’d actually run into someone and look completely pitiful eating alone outside of Costco on a late Friday night.  But later decided against that ever happening because everyone else is probably on their way out to do something fun.

 

So for the rest of the night, I think I’ll catch up on some shows I have recorded on my cable DVR and then just turn in early.  Gotta be up early tomorrow…   It’s my sweetheart’s graduation!

 

Boy it’s REALLY windy tonight.  I can hear the wind blowing really hard outside right now.  It’s been windy for a few days and I wonder when it’s going to stop.  The air has been really dry so I feel like it’s really drying my skin out.  I need to get a humidifier for my place.  Either that or I should just have a pot of water burning on the stove.

 

It’s TTOTM; it should start some time next week.  So I’ve been really sleepy for the past few days which make me cranky.  I’ve also been really snacky, especially today.  I came home around 5 p.m. from Irvine Boy’s place and I’ve been eating non-stop.  First, I made myself soup, then I had a string cheese, ate a bowl of cereal with milk, had some tortilla chips, and then made myself a fried egg.  I still feel hungry.

 

Going to sleep now.  Starting a new week tomorrow and that means I’m hitting the gym at in the morning.