I just finished taking down all of my outside Christmas lights, but have yet to tackle taking down the tree and my little holiday village. I was just thinking that I haven't blogged in a while and I should write a holiday summary of sorts, so here it goes...

Thanksgiving was uneventful for me; I went to my parents house and Corey went to his dad's house. We usually don't spend Thanksgiving together because we each have our own families to visit with. On the way to his dad's house, Corey hit a deer and it damaged his car pretty good...about $4500 in damages. The deer was still alive after Corey hit it, and the cop that showed up had to shoot it in the head to put it out of its misery. I am SO glad I wasn't in the car with him, because I would have majorly freaked out.

Christmas was really nice this year. My uncle Tom and his wife, Sue, and two kids, Nathan (7) and Emily (5), came to visit from the UK. I haven't seen Tom in years and I have never met Emily before. I've only met Nathan when my mom and I went to the UK about five years ago. They were here for a week and they stayed at my parents house. My mom has two other brothers and four sisters, so there were lots of visitors during the week they were in town. It was great to see everyone and to spend time with my two little British cousins. I brought my Wii over to my parents house for the week and it was a BIG hit... everyone wanted to play! We also played a lot of Rock Band, which Nathan joined in on. And on Friday after Christmas I went bowling with my brother, cousin David, and several aunts and uncles... it was also a lot of fun, even though I sucked big time.  

I got some cool gifts for Christmas this year... Rock Band World Tour (which I was SO excited about!), several other Wii games, a dvd about castles in the UK (I LOVE castles!), a board game called Partini, a few gift certificates, and other small things. Oh, and Corey got me a Magellan GPS for my car and I love it... I get lost very easily, as those who know me well surely know.

For New Years, Corey and I went to dinner with Morgan and Steve at a place by our house called Stonefire. The food was good but we were there for over two hours, which is way too long for me. After that, we came back to our place and played Guitar HeroWorld Tour. Not a very eventful night, but I never do much of anything exciting for NYE.

Now the holidays are over and I'm back to a full work week this week... joy oh joy! Oh... and my New Years resolution is find myself an internship so I can finish my stupid master's degree. And hopefully that will lead me to a real job!

Ok, so I'm a little late with posting this... But I am SO excited that Obama won! I took November 5th off of work because I knew I would be up late on the 4th watching the election results and whatnot. I expected it to be a close election like the 2004 and 2000 elections were. Boy, was I wrong! Obama kicked McCain's ass!

I chatted on Yahoo Messenger with April, Morgan, and Steve all evening/night as we kept up with the results. I was totally not expecting them to announce Obama as the winner at 10pm. We were all watching NBC5, which aired local stuff and MSNBC stuff. At 10pm they just put a graphic up that said "President Elect Barack Obama".. we were like "Wait...what?...is that for real?" And when they came on and announced that he had won, I was jumping for joy! I have NEVER been that excited for anything politically-related.

McCain's speech was very gracious and I give him props for that. It took balls to take on the blame for losing the election. And Obama's speech was just awesome, especially with all of those people at Grant Park cheering him on.

I wore my Obama shirt to work yesterday (Friday) and got a lot of compliments about it, yay! I think Obama really is going to be the "people's president," and I can't wait until he gets into office.

Also... major kudos to South Park for getting out an episode Wednesday night (Nov. 5th) about Obama winning - with actual excerpts from his acceptance speech. Not sure how they did it so fast, but that was a great episode.

To celebrate Obama winning (ok, maybe not, since I planned on it anyways), I went out and bought a hamster that I named Meatwad. My parents had 2 hamster cages and all kinds of tubes and stuff in their basement (from when both of my brothers had hamsters), so all I had to buy was bedding and food. Now I have a soft and furry pet to play with.  Don't worry, I still love my Toby and my froggies.

Today I finally did something that I have wanted to do for a very long time, but never got up the courage to do. But with the push of my co-workers, I did it! What exactly did I do? I donated blood! I have tried twice in the past to donate but was rejected because I was too nervous and my heart rate was too high. This time, however, I calmed myself down enough to do it.

I know it may seem that I am overreacting to it, but I have had two bad experiences with needles in the past. The first time was when I had my outpatient jaw surgery, back in 2001 I believe. When they went to put the IV in, the nurse "hit a good one" as she put it, and blood was literally leaking out of my arm and pooling on the floor. I looked away but could hear my blood dripping on the floor. Even my dad had to turn away at the sight of it. The second bad experience was coincidentally at the same hospital for my major jaw surgery back in 2005. The IV going in was fine, but the day after the surgery (my second day at the hospital) the IV started to burn my hand and I could feel the IV drip doing into my vein. It was very painful and they had to switch the IV to my other hand in order for me to finish getting my antibiotics.

This time, it went pretty well, except that I have very "deep" veins, so it took them a long time to find a good one. Then, they had to move the needle around a bit to get it placed right, which stung. I could feel the needle while I was pumping the blood out. Others said they couldn't feel it after it initially went in, but I felt it the whole time. It was bearable, because I knew it was only temporary. I was done in about 10 minutes.

Overall, I think I will definately do it again. It was uncomfortable, but I feel really great about doing it, which makes up for the needle being jabbed into my arm.