Aqua Regia

I finally ordered some Simba Winx Club dolls. I ordered Believix Tecna, Layla, and Roxy, and Concert Stella from Muscara.com to the tune of about $200. When I found that Muscara had them in stock, I just ordered from there - dealing with the hassle of German ebay sellers is really not my cup of tea. By being so slow in responding to messages they missed out on my sale!

I'm just a little afraid that I shouldn't have ordered so many, especially after Black Friday today. Because I also bought a new digital camera. >_< I've been meaning to upgrade my 3.1 megapixel camera (that I've had for at least 8 years now!) for quite some time, but vacillated between several Canon models (as they are the last holdout company that still puts viewfinders on their point-and-shoot models, a feature that I like). So whenever my Amazon order gets here, a new camera shall be among its treasures! I'm psyched. :)

So we went out around sixish this morning for Black Friday, but honestly I just wasn't in the mood. There were no must-have deals, and I pretty much just came away with a few DVDs (Gossip Girl Season 2! Mulan! Coraline!) for cheap and a couple of books for gifts. Most of my Christmas shopping was done online this year. I even went into Best Buy and came out with NOTHING. Heh. I didn't want anything enough to stand in that line!

Mostly though, my money concerns come from job issues that I'll get into at a later time (after I know exactly what's going to happen I'll give an update). Though surprisingly I got a letter from the City (my old employer when I worked at the library) saying I have a retirement account there worth about the amount of the camera! So I'm going to go cash that out and deposit the money in a few weeks. Random windfalls are so nice. Still, the Winx probably put me over-budget for the holidays, but if there's a possibility that I won't have a job later I might as well spend more now! Kids, never take financial advice from me.

Thanksgiving was nice, though. Especially the four days off (well, really only two if you don't count the weekend). We had some friends over for the meal, then after they left we watched Up, which I really enjoyed! It was a touching, heartwarming film, but not cloying. Perfect for reminding us to be thankful of our loved ones. So I wanted to say how thankful I am to have met all of you! And welcome to the Christmas season, my favorite time of the year! Expect some new fun holiday pictures of stuff when my camera arrives. :)

This last Thursday I started back to school after 1.5 blessed weeks off. Unfortunately, I am surprisingly tired for having only been back in school for two days. XD Oh well...time to start the coffee flowing again!

Spring Break was wonderful. Totally relaxing, which is what I really needed. I was able to not only catch up on my piano practicing and go back to choir (both neglected for the week prior to and the week of finals), but to catch up on some books, DVDs, and even start a fic!

Of course, I also had to go to Jury Duty for a day, which wasn't fun. It was actually pretty interesting though, which surprised me. I think I might be willing to do it if I had MUCH more time (the trial I was assigned to was going through JUNE).

The book of the break was Tamora Pierce's Trickster's Queen, which was an excellent addition to the Tortall universe (and had been lying around unfinished for about a month). I also snuck in Silvermist and the Ladybug Curse (another excellent Disney Fairies chapter book), and in the manga realm, I read xxxHolic #11 (so GOOD), NANA #8 and #9 (this series just keeps getting better and better), and the first two volumes of MeruPuri: Marchen Prince. It's a cute fantasy so far, and I'm looking forward to hopefully finishing up the last two volumes this weekend.

But yeah, most of this break was really spent on the couch with a fat stack of DVDs. The complete list includes: The Mists of Avalon, A Room With a View, Merlin, Dune, 300, He-Man Season 1, Part 1, and Batman: The Animated Series (I finally finished the third box set and also watched the fourth set - yes, I did OD on Batman a little).

I even started writing a Jewel Riders fic - I only have about 1500 words down so far, but that's not bad for me (who has the hardest time actually sitting down and WRITING the stories - thinking them up is the easy part). I hope to post up the first chapter on Fanfiction.net by the end of the weekend, but we'll see.

So overall, a very nice and relaxing break.

Oh, I also discovered the pure joy of McDonald's Iced Coffee!