The Long Awaited Christmas Day - Christmas Eve was a bunch of nothing.  It was quite slow at work and going in at 8 made the day seem so slow.  We ended up purging a lot of old files and stuff that is now just taking up space. 

Christmas Day started out a little aggravating for me.  As always, my mom tells me last minute that I have to go pick food up somewhere.  Didn't give me specific information so I ended up trying to get in touch with her for the next 20 minutes.  She tells me to pick up lechon at Brookhaven.  Naturally, since there's a Filipino store there, you'd think it would be from the filipino store.  but no, apparently the grocery next door sells roasted pigs.  The store was named Brookhaven Market and she's telling me it's at a Mexican store so I still wasn't sure if that was the place.  Went inside and sure enough, as I walk towards the customer service desk, there's a roasted pig sitting up there.  She gave me check card to pay with it but didn't give me her pin# so I had to pay with my credit card.  Then she said she reserved 2 pies at Baker's Square.  Headed over there and found out the place was closed on Christmas Day.  So I went back home somewhat pissed and had to calm down so I kind of walked past everyone, went straight to my room, watched a little Elf and passed out for a few minutes.  I don't think I fell asleep until 6am, cuz I was doing my annual last minute wrapping and preparations for the Christmas festivities.  Deza woke me up and everyone was already eating lunch.  

Good food as usual.  Korean chop chae, filipino pancit, lechon, desserts.  Good stuff.  Just about as lunch was done, the Claudio's arrived with a special guest.  Niko's girlfriend, Sarah.  It must have a been a scary deal to spend Christmas with a bunch of people you don't know very well.  The cuz'ns brought over Rock Band which is 20  times better than Guitar Hero.  Unfortunately, it requires a PS3 to play so I'd have to get a PS3 to get the game.  It can play up to 4 players at one time.  If you have an extra guitar you can have someone playing guitar, bass, drums or singing.  I'm sure Tito Edwin has a lot of footage of me on drums, Deza on guitar and Justine singing.  

After pictures, we started opening gifts.  I got a photo album from the Claudio's with old pictures of me and some newer ones of the kids.  I still haven't figured out who had me for the Grab Bag.  So thank you whoever had me!!  I also got another Best Buy gift card from the Treasure Hunters.  Thank you for that.  I think I now have about 267 dollars worth of Best Buy gift certificates to use towards the SLR camera I've been holding out for.  That should take care of about half of a decent camera.  Thank you all for the gifts.  

The gift opening took a while so when that died down, I had to get the Olympics/Treasure hunt started.  It always takes longer than planned and with all the other distractions it's hard to play continuously.  This year, it was less of a treasure hunt and more of a team competition.  I was going to have it individual but that would have taken even longer.  So, I had general rules but I mostly left it up to the Hunters to figure out the fastest way to finish the events.  There were 8 events:

1)Nerf Basketball

2)Nerf Darts

3)Skee-Ball

4)Fishing

5)40 piece puzzle (fastest to piece it together

6)Jeopardy

7)Guitar Hero (which was ousted to save time)

8)Connect 4

The 1st place winners: Justine, Phil, Niko and Sarah  (who all received $25 dollar gift certificates to AMC theaters)

The 2nd place winners: Edeza, Rus and Ryan (who all received $15 dollar Starbucks gift certs)

After the big gift exchange, Niko showed his a video he made from our Family Reunion in Muskoka.  Unfortunately, I was only able to catch glimpses of it as I was busy cooking my version of Pappadeaux's Salmon Alexander.  Costco had some huge Salmon fillets so I bought 3 of those.  2 of them were sufficient for dinner and I cooked one last night since my mom saved some of the sauce.  

So, the special olympics had to stop once dinner started, with more dishes, including my salmon, Mel's lasagna and Tito Ed's ribs...plus everything we had from lunch, it was truly a gluttonous feast.  I had bought some take out containers from Costco since everyone is always looking for tupperware to use.  I feel bad buying styrofoam and it probably cancels out all of the recycling I've been doing at work...  But it was a good idea.  After Dinner, we had to clear out the tables again and do the White Elephant.  I got a box of partially eaten chocolate covered macadamia nuts.  I bought William Shatner's spoken word CD, the Transformed Man which Rus got.  The Claudio's had to leave to get Sarah home by 9:30pm.  So the hunt continued without them.  The elders had already finished cleaning up and were just waiting around for them to finish so they suggested that we start earlier.  Frankly, there was no time during the day for a good time to start.  There really was no down time.  So next year, we may have to start half of it on Thanksgiving and finish up on Christmas. 

Christmas as in the past few years, came and went in the blink of an eye.  Now we're looking to the new year.  I'll have to seriously start deciding if I'm going to switch blog hosts.  It's that time of year to start planning Absolut Marky 2008.

Pics from the Ugly Sweater Party and Christmas day are up!! 

Posted by mamorale14 at 12:32 AM CST

Updated: Friday, 28 December 2007 3:08 AM CST

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Friday - I can barely remember what was going on Friday.  I may have gotten out of work early but afterwards, I just headed home.  I skipped out on the get together with the former classmates and the poker games at Rey's.  All I wanted to do was go home and rest.

 Saturday -  I had to go to Costco to pick up some stuff for Christmas Day Dinner and some stuff to make for the Ugly Christmas Sweater Party.  The traffic at 22nd and Route 83 was pretty bad.  It took 4 rotations of the left traffic arrow to finally get onto 22nd street.  The parking lot was packed so I ended up bypassing waiting for a closer spot and parked way over by the gas station at the far end of the parking lot.  I knew what I had to get, so I got it at got out.  Headed back home and had to wrap all the kids presents.  I was glad to finally get all those boxes out of my room.  I headed over to the party about an hour later than I'd be and had to start cooking the wings I bought for the party.  I was the first one there outside of the Marino clan and their significant others.  I think they were all expecting me to be wearing my ugly sweater cuz they all rushed to the door to see who it was.  Unfortunatley all my time was spent wrapping gifts and my idea for the ugly sweater fell through.  We hung out for a while, munched on appetizers, played some guitar hero, found out someone is pregnant...you'll have to ask around if you don't know.  Some of the out of towners were able to make it, Jaymin and Yvonne sans Rania and Eunice.  I think the kids enjoyed the early Christmas they got, as they were allowed to open the gifts from their pseudo aunts and uncles.  The night ended on somewhat of a scary note with Christian having to go to the hospital but Thank God he's ok now. We hung out for a bit until about 1 or 1:30, were able to take a group picture minus, Karl, Amy and Christian and then we headed home.

Sunday - I had to do a bit of last minute grocery shopping so I hit up Dominick's for the rest of the Xmas Day ingredients.  The difference in temperature was horrible from the day before.  Just walking into the store, the low temps and wind was making me tear.  After the store headed over to Kmart and then headed home.  I was about to hit an intersection by my house, there was a cop putting out a stop sign and the traffic light was out so I knew there'd be no power at my house.  Sure enough, driving down my street there was no evidence of lights anywhere and my garage door wasn't working so I ended up taking a short nap before heading out Las Macarenas Tapas for M.analad's birthday.  Art is one of the chefs there and he arranged for us to have dinner party.  I hadn't eaten all day so I was quite hungry so it was a bit of a downer that the tapas were coming out every 10 minutes or so.  I really hadn't any experience with tapas before so it was unfamiliar territory.  Some of the food was good, a few of the tapas were great, but there were also some dishes I did not care for.  If we didn't try so many, I'd probably remember specific dishes and what they consisted.  I know the best 2 was the steak and the shrimp wrapped in bacon.  Bacon wrapped anything is usually good except for waterchestnuts and dates.  Personally I don't care for mixing savory with sweet so the bacon wrapped dates were not my thing, the liquid empanadas as they are properly called were a surprise, as being Filipino, I expected some sort of meat inside, but as I was cutting into it, all this juice squirted out onto the table.  The juice itself had spinach in it.  i like spinach but the juice itself didn't have much taste.  They had chorizo over potatos which was good.  They had the same potatoes with chicken over it which was ok.  They had a bowl of mushrooms which tasted like mushrooms.  The potato salad was good.  In my opinion, overall the restaurant was just mediochre.  Would I go back, maybe, if I saw a menu and saw things that interested me.  Would I recommend, no.  Everything I've told you has already been said to Chef Art so I'm not trying to be a d#ck.  

Anyways, we saw some more out of towners, Jeph, Nerissa and baby Naya for the first time since she was born.  It was good to hang out with them.  Unfortunately, because of the power outage, I didn't see my camera which I was planning on bringing so by the time I remembered I was already half way to Aurora.  Also on the way there, Marsha had texted and said they'd be going to Antipasto for her birthday.  On my way to the restaurant, my ears popped for the first time in 3 weeks.  So I feel that I am slowly on the way to recovery from this sinus infection.  The ear still gets clogged but at least they're popping, The left ear more than the right.  I decided to pass on Antipasto, since drinking makes my cough worse and after 2 beers at the restaurant the cough was already bad.  Plus I had work at 8am on Christmas Eve.  Alot of the guys headed out there. 

Happy Birthday to Mark M.analad and Marsha M.anuel!!

Posted by mamorale14 at 11:17 PM CST

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Oh yeah!  All the kids gifts have been bought, and should be on their way.  This may be the last year to buy all the kids gifts.  It was fine when it was just my nephew, Niko,  Christian and Alex.  But in the past 5 years there have been 10 new kids (family/friends) in the picture, 9 just in the past 3 years.  I'm scared to tally up what I've spent just on gifts.  That doesn't include what I have to pay for in ingredients for Christmas lunch/dinner or the prizes for our Family Fun activities or cash gifts to Niko or the older cousins.  Next year, I'll have to keep it to immediate nieces and nephews and god children.  All in all this year, I've bought gifts for 12 children.   Although, I love all of them just like my own nephews and nieces,  it really is getting expensive.

There's so much to do, besides work.  So many people, wanting to get together before the holiday for drinks and parties.  It really sucks being sick and on medication.  Not that I mind not drinking, but when everyone else is, it's nice to have that option.  I don't want to risk any side effects from mixing alcohol with the meds I'm on.  So far, my co-workers want to go out on Thursday, my former classmates wanna meet up on Friday, we've got an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party on Saturday, Manalad's birthday on Sunday, unfortunately, I'm working on Christmas Eve and I'm hoping it will be slow but it being the end of the month, it maybe somewhat busy.  Then the chaos of Christmas Day and then working the rest of the week.  

At least, I have New Year's Eve off.  I was in my bosses office discussing an issue and then we just started yapping and I just mentioned how it was wierd that nobody asked for NYE off just as a comment.  He ended up giving me the day off.  I didn't ask for it but I'll take it.  That's a four day weekend for me, albeit a wierd Saturday-Tuesday weekend, not a Friday-Monday thing that we're used to.  

Today happens to me my Dad's birthday.  If he were still with us he'd be 77 years old. Anyways, I'll have to find some time to stop by the cemetery either today or tomorrow (the 11th anniversary of his death).  I can't believe it's been that long already.

I've got to by some decorations for one of the teammates birthdays and get a secret santa gift for our office deal.  There's so much to do, it's kind of overwhelming.  I had a glimmer of hope that we'd won the Mega Millions since there were 2 winners of the 163,000,000 pot.  One was in Illinois.  It wasn't us (office pool), so check your tickets people!!  

I did win something today: A 250 dollar gift certificate.  It's an employee recognition thing for achievement that has different tiers.  I was on there with about 15-20 other names on the lowest Tier from our office.  I guess a manager has to nominate you and the manager who hired us, who went to the West Coast and who now has been laid off due to his entire center closing, had nominated us before he left.  It's so unfortunate and I hope he comes back here but i don't think that can happen, unless we boot someone out.

It's finally hump day.  Time to do the Humpty Dance.  

Posted by mamorale14 at 3:12 AM CST

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Re-reading my previous entry it sounded like I was kind of non-chalant about the findings from my doctor and all.  I guess it's kind of wierd for me to divulge my medical history on a blog but there's not much for me to hide.  Anyways, I am taking the findings seriously and don't plan on ignoring this blood pressure situation or taking action to prevent diabetes.  The examples I was talking about that I thought he was exaggerating on were stories about alcohol. 

I know that my lifestyle has to change.  Talking to Dedok during our Thanksgiving Dinner, about how he lost all that weight was pretty inspiring. Although, I've heard that dropping that much weight it the amount of time he did it wasn't healthy, but nonetheless he did it.  However, everything we talked about were things that I knew.  It's just a matter of me taking those steps to do it.  It's just a coincidence that me having to go to the doctor  came right around New Year's so it may look like I'm just making another set of resolutions that I'll break but this time I know what's up with myself healthwise and I know what needs to be done. 

My co-workers and I plan on quitting smoking in January.  That's going to be the toughest part.  I know smoking is not helping my sinus infection at all or my overall health. After 13 years of smoking, I look forward to not feeling so anxious when i do not have cigarettes available, the smell,  or the cost. The fact that we won't be able to smoke anywhere starting January will definitely help. 

The lifestyle change will be pretty hard as well.  My schedule will have to change to allow for more physical activities.  Working out at work was fine, but then I come home eat, be on the computer and watch TV until 5 or 6am, get 4 or 5 hours of sleep and then go to work.  That's how it's been for the last 2 years.  A lot of that is being in this house so there is a need for me to get out (move out).  Which is another story.  A scary financial story.    With the company being uncertain about it's future, that doesn't make me feel very secure about even beginning to research my options.  But I'm on my way.  

So, with that said, out with the old, in with the new.  Sparta 2008!   

Posted by mamorale14 at 12:40 AM CST

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Doctor's appointment went fine.  The Blood Pressure is almost normal after more than a week of the meds.  Still have the sinus infection and the clogged ear, which is very annoying since I have to ask people to repeat themselves all the time.  The eardrops worked for little bit but that started to prove ineffective after 2 days.  The blood tests came back fine, blood sugar a little high.  He was talking a lot so some of the results got lost in some of his dialogue.  Of course he wants me to lose weight so he referred me to a dietician.  A lot of his talk was about diabetes and what effects it would have on me should I become diabetic.  It was like a college lecture, the way he was explaining stuff.  Some of the examples he used I'm sure may have been a little exaggerated.  He asked me how much I drink in a week and I told him not even once in 2 weeks but then he asked how many drinks I have and I told 5 or 6 beers which he considered on the verge of binge drinking.  I thought that was kind of extreme. 

Anyways, switching topics, I can't believe that it's only a week til Christmas.  This sinus infection has sapped all the Christmas spirit out of me.  I've got most of my Christmas shopping done online.  All the immediate family is done.  The other kids gifts can arrive after Christmas since new year's is when they'll get theirs.  

I have no idea what I'll be making for Christmas yet.  I have to work Christmas Eve, although it will probably be 1st shift.  The annual treasure hunt which I think may no longer be a treasure hunt may be completely reformatted so it's not so time consuming for me to plan. I've just got to get through this week first. 

Posted by mamorale14 at 12:49 AM CST

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After a week off, things have changed a little bit and several announcements were made today that are impacting about 3,000 employees.  Thankfully, not our floor, but many people in the building will soon be gone.  We have several channels of mortgage business, Retail, Employee Lending, Consumer Direct and Wholesale.  I work in wholesale and they are closing down 4 Wholesale offices across the country.  Our former boss, who moved out to Washington, his office is one of them and again, someone from our office who's moved their position out to the west coast have been screwed.  I don't understand their (corporate's) logic.  They just spent a whole crap load of money to move over 100 people from across the street into our building, and then they lay 80% of them off.  Right before Christmas, mind you.  I'm concerned how long we'll be around because their's no way they can shut down anymore wholesale offices down and run efficiently or effectively.  If they do decide to shut anymore down, then that means they'll be getting rid of our channel all together, but that's still to be seen.

They say the market is cyclical, however they also keep saying this is an unprecedented market.  There's nothing to compare it to.  I think my future here is limited now, so I've got to have a back up plan because if our time is limited, this will be my last stint in the mortgage industry.  

Oh yeah, and besides, going into work barely being able to hear anything, and a crappy printer that the company won't repair or replace , a computer database that was down for 1/2 the day, the company wide lay-off announcements, the announcement that we'd be taking on more business due to the closures, everyone in my department being sick, and having a huge workload, the day was ok, and now I think I've got my ear unclogged.  This is the longest it's been unclogged since last Monday.

I'm hoping tomorrow will be a snow day, the news articles are saying 15 people died from this ice storm that  is heading our way, most of them were highway accidents so I've got to call our emergency hotline to see if there are any delays or closures.  Brings me back to grade school/high school when I'd look for my school to scroll past on the TV if there was a big snowstorm.  I could use a day off.  j/k

Posted by mamorale14 at 12:46 AM CST

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New Pics are uploaded from our 12th Annual Thanksgiving Dinner, Family Thanksgiving, Rania's 1st birthday, Miscellaneous November and December Pics, Ryan's 2nd Birthday,  Marsha's holiday party pics, and Joanna's birthday.  Can't believe 2007 is almost over!!!  

Posted by mamorale14 at 4:46 AM CST

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So, not having been to the doctor for almost 6 years made me a little anxious on what he was going to find.  He did find that I had a sinus infection but he also put me on blood pressure medicine and he wants me to go for some blood tests.  I'm more scared about what he's going to find after that.  But I guess knowing exactly what is going on is better than not knowing at all.  It had already started snowing when I left for my appointment at 2:50.  The appointment was at 3:15 and it's just down the street from me but it was a street I rarely travel unless going to Giordano's. 

So, I noticed that we had a World Gym over there.  Since I haven't been able to work out at work, I've been thinking about getting another gym membership, but not Lifetime.  I don't like the monthly charges and that place is too big for me to utilize everything I'm paying for. 

Anyways, I was the only one in the waiting room when I got there, but then people started filtering in at around 3:30.  They were all old people.  So it made me 2nd think my choice of doctors.  I wasn't sure if he only specialized in old people.  j/k It was fine though.  I got into one of the examination rooms and the nurse, Kathy,  took my vitals and asked me questions about the illness.  Very nice lady, the nurse was.  I waited about 10 minutes before the doctor came in and he was more concerned about my blood pressure than my sinus infection, but he gave me a prescription for antibiotics to take.  Told me I had fluid in my ear, which he said he could see a layer of it after he looked in there.  It's really annoying this ear clog.  It feels like I've been in an airplane and the ear needs popping but no matter what you do, you can't pop it.

Anyways, after the exam, I made another appointment for next week to see if the blood pressure medicine does anything and to check up on the sinus infection.  Then I headed over to Walgreen's to order my prescription.  Waited about 20 minutes and did some shopping in the mean time.  I got my prescription and went back home but when I opened up the bag there was only one bottle in there.  So i went back and told them that there were 2 prescriptions so they found it and filled the other one right away.  The receptionist had told me that I was able to get the generic medicine, but even that was mass expensive.  I had to get sick before my coverage changes in January.  I was oblivious to my insurance package and didn't know that I had to pay a 550 deductible before they would pay for anything so i switched it during open enrollment last month.  Shit cost me almost 200 dollars for both. Headed back home.

I was really hungry by this time and was debating on whether to make a sandwich or something but decided to just wait until Joanna's birthday dinner at DOC (a new wine bar at Yorktown).  I headed out there around 7:15.  The roads were pretty bad so I didn't there until about 8pm, walking in at the same time as Espo, Joanna and Marsha.  Big Mike was already there sittin' at the bar drinking.  He had suggested Allagash, which is beer from Maine.  It looked like Blue Moon but it wasn't at flowery or fruity.  It was pretty good.  The place is a wine bar, so the food there wasn't that great, at least, the Argentinian skirt steak with chimichurri sauce, was bad.  I sampled some of everyone else's food, pork tenderloin, salmon and the world's greatest grilled cheese were all better than the skirt steak.  My clogged ear and cough were bothering me so I quit drinking.  The cough gets worse after drinking and it's a dry cough usually.  Anyways, a lot of people showed up despite the weather again.  What is it with birthday's and winter storms?... Espo, Joanna, Marsha, Marlyn, Phil, Bigs, Jay, Rey, Tina, Telly and his friend Dave all showed up to honor Joanna on Joanna joining the Dirty Thirty.  We hung out until about 11:30 and then debated on whether to stay there or head out to Antipasto.  I have to admit, I didn't want to drive to Antipasto, cuz it didn't stop snowing the whole time we were there.  But, the only the reason for me not to go was because I wouldn't want to drive in the snow storm. No work tomorrow, nothing really to do tomorrow, so I went.  

I'm glad I did.  Antipasto had 2 large groups in there when we got there, but it was still empty.  No one in the back portion and nobody outside.  I didn't even hear the music playing as I was walking up, but that could've been the sinus infection.  We pretty much were catered to since the regular bouncer and owner, Tony and Tom, respectively were there. (And they always recognize most of us).  It was a good time, had a few more drinks and shots there, took a bunch of pictures which I'll be trying to upload tonight, along with a whole crapload of other pics.  I'm not looking forward to that...  We closed the place out and headed home at around 1:30.  

This snow storm isn't going to help me any with the sinus infection.  My lower back has been sore and the sinus infection seemed to worsen after I spent 4 hours outside putting up the Christmas lights.  So shoveling this crap is going to be hell, although, it doesn't seem to be the wet and heavy kind.  I should be able to just scrape it to the sides of the driveway.

So tomorrow/today, I'm starting the antibiotics, the blood pressure medicine and I'll probaby be just taking it easy.  I just bought the 2nd season of Supernatural, so I'll probably be watching that all day.  

Posted by mamorale14 at 2:05 AM CST

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Friday - My first day off was a tad bit long.  I woke when I usually wake up and then headed out to the bank and then got an oil change.  I've been going to the same place for oil changes for the last couple of years and everytime they bring in the little card and say this is what the transmission fluid looks like and this is what yours looks like.  So, I decided to get a partial tranmission flush or whatever it's called.   It's recommended every 30,000 miles but you're supposed to make sure they change the filter too, which I didn't find out until after the fact. 

After getting the oil change, I headed over to the local BoRics, as much as I was unwilling to do, but there was a male stylist there and there was a younger kid before me waiting for a haircut who asked for a blow-out.  The male stylist, Frank, was like what is that? "Is that some sort of new term?"  It turned out to be just a fade, which I'm was glad to hear him know what the term fade meant.  So luckily, he finished with the kid before the lady stylists were finished with their appointments and I told him to fade with a guard.  He really wanted me to trim the top but I had promised some of the girls at work that I would grow my hair out for them, so I told him to leave it.  After that, I headed back home to chill before I had to get ready for Marsha's office Christmas party.

I left for Joanna and Marsha's at around 6pm so I could get there at 6:30.  I was a few minutes late because there was gaper's delay on the Elgin-O'hare.  I got to their place and it a whole bunch of people were already there: Espo, BJ, Peter, Ed, Jay, Michelle, and of course Marsha and Joanna.  We left for the Seville and Mark C. and the Tortals were already there.  I felt a little bit uneasy walking into someone else's holiday party especially since we walked in all at the same time.  People were just staring at us, but after a bit it didn't matter.  The bar was open and we started off pretty quickly.  I probably had 5 or 6 beers prior to dinner.  Dinner was pretty good.  Dessert was a bit weird.  It was ice cream with some kind of liqour at the bottom which per Jay, (and I agree) tasted like Scope.  It wasn't like our office christmas party where they would have upper management give speeches or even any giveaways or gifts.  It was just a party with no speak of work at all, which was cool.  I wasn't very motivated to dance by the DJ's.  They were playing the songs requested but had no mixing skills whatsoever and the music wasn't loud enough either.  I could hear everyone talking over the music.  It's a shame I let something like that spoil my fun but with the jumping around from one music genre to the other, there was no continuous block of music to dance to.  

I had to leave at 11:30 since my co-worker had planned his party the same night.  The holiday party was in Streamwood and my co-worker lives in Bartlett so I printed out directions from the Seville to his house.  I found it now problem.  I rang the doorbell but nobody answered so I just walked in.  Only 2 other co-workers showed up and the rest were Rock's friends.  I had another beer and was pretty much done by 1am, especially after my other co-worker's girlfriend made me a strong vodka tonic.  Some of the guys were playing poker, including the other co-worker, Joe.  He had gotten pulled over earlier before arriving and got a seatbelt ticket so he was afraid to drive home, so I told him I'd wait for him and drop him off at his friends place.  I didn't feel like playing poker, so I sat in front of the TV while Rock passed out on the couch.   It wasn't until around 4 o'clock that Joe finally finished and I dropped him off at his friend's place and then headed home.  

Saturday - I had been expecting it to be a horrible travel day given the fact that the weather reports had been saying there was going to be rain/sleet/freezing rain/snow so I headed over to Kmart to get Ryan's gift.  I left the house around noon.  None of that had started yet.  I was there for about 1/2 hour and when I walked out, it was snowing already and the ground was white with drifting snow.  I left Kmart at 12:36 exactly.  I had already seen a couple of accidents on Route 83, one in Hinsdale and one by North ave. Everyone was driving slow and it ended up taking me almost til 2pm to get to Gilbert. I was the first of the friends to arrive.  Rey's aunt's and cousins were there already.  And after a while, Raymond, Marie and Rey's mom arrived.  Joanna, Jay, Big Mike and the Solomon's showed up a while later and Tina's co-workers showed up as well.  It was a pretty big turnout given the horrible driving conditions.  Ryan was having a good time.  I'd go outside to get my nicotine fix in my car and that was the only thing that kept the ice on my windshield to a minimum since I'd have the heater on.  The sides had a sheet of ice on it at least a pennies width thick and the trunk was much thicker at about 1/4 inch thick.  Despite the inclement weather, there was an appearance by Santa Claus.  I had seen an ambulance and firetruck trying to get through the road in front of Rey's house.  The probably would have been going faster but people were parked on the side of the street were it was prohibited.  I thought there was a big accident somewhere.  Then about 10 minutes they drove past again and when they opened the door, there was Santa in a Sleigh waving to people.  I thought that was pretty random, in the middle of a winter storm.

People were hanging out til late until most of the bad weather subsided.  Rey and I started a game of Starcraft and as usual I sucked ass.  Rey pretty much won the game by himself as I had to move my Terran base into his sector which didn't give me enough room to build anything but supply depots and barracks so I couldn't help out with any Siege Tanks, Wraiths or even Terran vultures. All I could build were Terran soldiers and Firebats. snort. snort...  We won after an hour or so.  After that we started watching the 2nd 1/2 of Knocked up, which everyone else had started watching. I didn't really find it to be that funny.  The 1st half must have been the funny half. At around 11:00, we all left, it seemed as if the roads would be really bad considering the association there did not touch the roads at all, but once you got out of his subdivision, the roads were just wet. 

Sunday - I woke up pretty late, since I probably only had 3 or 4 hours of sleep the previous day.  The Bears game was about to start in about an hour or so.  I headed over to the Marino's in B-Ridge, I should've stayed home like i did last week maybe that was the key to them winning.  Instead the Giants did what the Bears did last week and came from behind and beat em in the 4th quarter.  Oh well, mathematically, the Bears are still in it, but realistically I doubt they'll be able to win the rest of their games.  Oh well, the loss was offset by a good dinner from Portillo's.  Had an Italian sub and what I will probably get instead of the chocolate cake from now on: The Chocolate Cake Shake.  It was very, very good.  After that, I was sleepy, I fell asleep for a bit over there and then headed over Dominick's to get groceries for the week.  

Monday - I didn't really have any plans.  I woke up a little after my normal time and got a text from Kris asking if I wanted to have lunch at New china Buffet.  I headed over there to meet up with Kris, Vic and Karl and Carter.  They chose a seat next my neighbors across the street, coincidentally. As I was taking off my jacket, I could see out of the corner of my eye that the lady at the table next to me was just staring at me.  Then I heard my name and turned around and it was the Navarro's.  It was a bit early for me to eat and I really wasn't that hungry, but I ate my usual 2 plates.  Vic tried calling up Jeph and Nerissa to see if they were free but no answer, so we all left.  I came home, started making up file folders and labels for my bills, finished that and then started bringing up the Christmas lights.  Since it's expected to snow 2-4 inches on Tuesday, I decided I had to get most of them up today.  So I spent about 4 or 5 hours, testing the lights and getting them up.  I swear every year, I always bring up all the lights and can't believe how I had enough to put on all the trees and bushes and I have to end up buying more. Every year.  That means that 1, there's a box of lights somewhere that I can't find, or someone is stealing my lights.  I should have enough lights to light up my house and the neighbors house with all the lights I've bought in the past few years.  WTF. 

My ears have been getting clogged.  It feels like when you're riding in an airplane and your ears get clogged so you try to yawn or something to pop your ears.  However, that doesn't work.  I called to make an appointment to get it checked out after I got home from NCB and they've got an opening Tuesday at 3 so I hope this cough/congestion/ear clogging goes away soon.  I've never been sick this long before or with this many symptoms.

Posted by mamorale14 at 3:34 PM CST

Updated: Tuesday, 4 December 2007 4:09 AM CST

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The last day before vacation was rough.  Didn't leave work until 1am so I only had to use 3.75 hours of vacation for tomorrow.  I had 4.25 hours of overtime this week.  So that's more than 1/2 a day of vacation I saved.  I had to leave the department with the least amount of work that I could so they're not struggling tomorrow.  I had a large workload plus the interruptions and some extraneous things to clean the place up.  Rock is having a little get together tonight as well at his place since his P's are in India, so I may have to leave Marsha's a little early, maybe 11:30 or 12:00 to make an appearance.  It's not that far from the Seville since he lives in Bartlett.

Today, I've gotta get an oil change.  Prolly get some new wipers since we've got a Winter Storm Watch for Saturday and my wipers aren't working that well.  Gotta get a hair cut since I missed my chance on Sunday at Karl's when my brother borrowed my car during the Bears game.  Prolly hit up Target to get Ryan's bday gift. Not sure what to get the little fella.  He seems older than 2.  He's running around and talking now.  The 2 year old educational toys I was looking at looked kind of rudimentary for him.  2 pretty busy days still ahead but at least I don't have work to worry about....for another 10 days!!!

Posted by mamorale14 at 2:01 AM CST

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