it's been awhile...

sad that's been over a month since i last updated, and i feel like i haven't made much progress since my last entry. still working on the condo, although it's getting sooo close to being cleaned up finally. i finished the last of the filing a couple of days ago (combining our files was definitely not as fun as it sounds), so the christmas tree was able to go up, and is now mostly blocking the filing cabinet. and now, of course, i'm back to my never-ending struggle to make christmas ornaments. last year it was such a big deal, because it took me absolutely forever to finish any, and while i started out planning to finish the whole kit of six by christmas, i lowered my standards pretty drastically... and met my adjusted-goal of one ornament by the new year, but barely.

so i'm starting to get into the christmas spirit, which was marked by putting up the christmas tree and asking glen to download some christmas music by me first and the gimme gimmes (there has to be some out there, right?!)... but that's as much as i'm feeling it for now, at least until new york!! i personally think there's nowhere better to be at christmas-time than nyc, so i aim to test that theory when we head back up there for glen's birthday in a couple of weeks. this will be the first time we've been back since the blackout in 2003, and since that was the first time i had ever been there, i'm definitely looking forward to actually seeing nyc as it normally is... so excited :)

i went for my bi-annual haircut today, which turned out well (so far). my hair looks really cool right now, since it's all layered, textured, and flat-ironed into amazing straightness. i've never seen it this flat or smooth. i can just hear my mom's voice in my head telling me that i need "more volume!" ack. my hair is bouffant enough on it's own usually without trying to tease more volume into it. anyway, so it'll be interesting to see what happens when i take my shower tonight - will my hair be twice as curly and unmanageable in the morning? probably. so, in more embarrassingly news, i managed to fall asleep at the salon. not full-on sleeping, mind you, but a little bit of head-jerkiness and lots of convincing myself that i was only taking loooong blinks (which is one of the first signs that my body would really like to take a nap in an inappropriate place, such as a hair salon or work meetings :). just as i was congratulating myself on keeping myself awake (by pinching my legs*) without the stylist noticing, she busted me. doh. i guess the, um, closed eyes gave me away a little bit. but at least i made it all the way to the hair-drying stage! glen can get me in a catatonic state by just touching my hair, so i think i lasted pretty well, all things considering...

*now that i think about it, i used to employ similar methods of staying awake during all the classes i almost slept through in college.  the worst, by far, was my honors english class with prof. wilkins.  the class was tiny (<10 people), we all sat in a circle, and i sat about two seats away from wilkins.  ever heard of him?  yeah, he's pretty effing brilliant and high up there (i even noticed his dad's name on a plaque in the museum under the lincoln memorial for civil rights issues).  i still cringe thinking about how sleeeepy i always was in there, and how wretched it was to be sitting there pinching my hands until they almost bled just so i could stay awake, take some notes, and not be so disrespectful :(