Today is my first full day back home for a week. Literally. We left Christmas Eve around 10:30 p.m. for Arkansas, came back to Texas Tuesday for an overnight stay with the zoo, then left at 6 a.m. Wednesday for San Antonio. It was a lot of fun to see all the various family members, but it was exhausting. I am so glad to be home again… with OUR bed, OUR shower, OUR animals.
Today I’ve been getting some of the Christmas presents put away and sorted. I asked for — and received, in bulk — various things from Bath & Body Works. When it was all said and done, I had 20 things from B&BW sorted out … and this, for the woman who is days away from running out of the shower gel she started last December! Yes, it was a bit of overkill. But, the great thing about B&BW is that they’ll let you do even exchanges without a receipt. I took up everything I knew I wouldn’t be able to use in the next 12-18 months and got about $125 in store credit. Given that I still had enough shower gel, salt scrub, and lotion to get me through a small natural disaster back home, I opted for the more unusual items — things like retired flavors, candles, foot scrubs (my feet are in unpardonable shape — something that must be carefully tended to over the next four months if I’m actually going to get a pedicure in Hawaii), etc. It took some doing, but I managed to use all $125 of the store credit, plus $3.16 of my own money. Not too shabby, eh? 🙂
We got lots of good stuff from our week o’ Christmas. Daniel has a small fleet of power tools (cliched, I know, but SO true — he got a circular saw, reciprocating saw, Dremel, sander, mechanics tool set, and probably other stuff I’m forgetting). I got one of those groovy iPod alarm clock thingies, which will go very nicely with the new 60 GB video iPod Daniel got me. (He’s going to use my old one.)
Thursday night in San Antonio we dragged all of Daniel’s family there out to see the Asylum Street Spankers, in town for the night at a bizarre little place called Casbeer’s. Ever since I first began listening to the Spankers lo those many years ago, I have continued to delight in their live performances, and this was no different. I’m not sure Daniel and I had seen them since last February’s pre-V-day appearance in Denton, so this was especially wonderful. Daniel’s family seemed to like them (particularly Lisa, as I knew she would), and it was a great night out.
After the last week of traveling, it will be good to get back to normal… except, wait! There is no more “normal” for me, is there? I have three days of work left before my status at TWU changes dramatically, then two days of TA orientation at UTD before beginning what promises to be a tumultuous, difficult, and bizarre semester. Cash flow remains a concern, but I remain optimistic. My classes are really gonna kick my ass, that I know for sure.
We got our deposit check (minus about $600) back from the fascists at KW Property Management. I hate them. In fact, I’m thinking about sending the new tenants a letter of warning. And I’m really thinking about buying and setting up a Web site: www.SonjaBolesSucks.com or www.AvoidSonjaBoles.com or something. Probably it’s more work than it’s worth, but I will continue to rant about them for the next few posts just for the Google spam effect. Those people are absolute assholes.
I had a fantastic dream last night that was set in Cabo San Lucas (thanks, I’m sure, to the movie Rumor Has It) and involved one of my best friends from my days working in Mountain Home after college. It was of such a madcap (yet epic) nature that I’m hoping to get the rough details sketched out today so I won’t forget. I can totally see a piece of fiction emerging from that dream. It was great!
And that’s about all I’ve got to tell today. Oh, except (for those Mountain Homies reading) that I did get to see Eric, Phillip (& wife, child, and in-laws), and Kim (& child) last week while back home. They are all doing really well and it was SO WONDERFUL to catch up a bit. Some — particularly Phillip — I hadn’t seen in at least 6-8 years!