Lianhua.nu

It’s Dominic the Donkey!

First off, I hope everyone has been having happy holidays. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Yule (that was for my Sarah hehe)… and if you don’t particularly celebrate anything, well… I hope you’re enjoying yourself nonetheless.

Well… I’m in Indiana right now. I got in on Thursday but haven’t really felt like blogging much. I just decided right now that enough stuff has happened that I should probably write up at least something. :P

So let’s start from the beginning.
On Thursday, Sean and I both went in to work for a few hours, and the library staff and ACD all had a little party to celebrate the holidays and end of a relatively successful and progressive semester. After that, we had to leave because I was flying out of JFK, which is the further of the two NY airports from where we live and therefore the more troublesome to fly out of, and because we wanted to take a nap and relax a little bit.
So we went home, I packed up the last few things I needed, and we took a little nap; then we left at about 4pm (my flight was at 7:30pm, but we didn’t know how much traffic there would be because of rush hour). There was a little bit of traffic, but nothing major, and so I got there at like 5:30pm or so. Security wasn’t too bad, but I always get flustered, especially because I have so many things I have to deal with putting in bins and on the belt: my coat, my scarf, my laptop, my camera, my belt, my shoes, my purse, the little ziplock baggy of lotions and stuff, etc. But I got through it, went to my gate, got some Starbucks and sat around to wait.
JFK’s Delta terminal has to be the absolute worse place to fly out of during the holiday travel rush. There were two fights in the terminal! First some guy got sick of waiting for the passengers from the flight before him to get off the plane and for the plane to be cleaned, etc, so he tried to go through the gate and get on the damn plane without waiting! So the security people were yelling at him to come back, and he was cursing at them, and they had to drag him out of the gate, where he threw down his briefcase (I wonder if he broke anything in there) and yelled at them some more. Geez. Then, not even ten minutes later, this guy stands up, yells “you won’t touch me!” and throws another guy in a headlock, and they proceed to fight, not even ten feet away from me. Effing ridiculous.
But the flight pretty much went without any problems, and my dad hadn’t been waiting too long when I got there. At least… that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. :P

The next few days were pretty uneventful… saw Night at the Museum with my sister and her boyfriend on Friday, went to visit my grandmother on Saturday, visited my brother on Sunday and today went to my other grandparents’ house for Christmas dinner.
Giftwise, nothing too special, but that’s to be expected. My parents paid for half of my camera, so I mostly got little things from them, like clothes, etc. My grandparents didn’t know what to get for me, so I got a check from them. Etc, etc, etc.

Sean flew to LA today; I actually need to give him a call in a few minutes… I’ll fly there on the 28th… Yah.

I know I did this to myself, but I have the weirdest song stuck in my head: Dominic the Donkey. It’s about an Italian Christmas donkey.

Hey! Chingedy ching,
(hee-haw, hee-haw)
It’s Dominick the donkey.
Chingedy ching,
(hee-haw, hee-haw)
The Italian Christmas donkey.
(la la la-la la-la la la la la)
(la la la-la la-la la-ee-oh-da)

Children sing, and clap their hands,
And Dominick starts to dance.
They talk Italian to him,
And he even understands.

Yah.

Todaaaaay… I’m at Lauren’s. I spent the night here last night, after we watched a couple movies over at Jenn’s house. Lauren’s taking a shower, and I’ve hijacked her computer, mwahahaha.
After she gets out, we’re going to go shopping at a few stores and hang out a bunch, then at some point head down to my grandparents’ house so I can see them for a little while, since I leave tomorrow morning.

I’m starting to get really ticked off at school… I still don’t know if I’m going to be approved for my independent study, and for some reason I’m still getting charged for 15 credits even though I sent in the letter to the dean telling him I’m only taking 13 next semester. Ridiculous. I know they’re not on campus right now, but this should have all been taken care of before they left.
And my mom wonders why I’m so fed up with this stupid school.

LAUREN I’m stealing some of that lotion I gave you last Christmas.
Yah, I knew you wouldn’t mind, hehe.

More later, probably after I get to LA. :P

winter wonderland

I am so indecisive.
This layout is already bugging the hell out of me and I just put it up like a week or two ago, didn’t I?

Oh well.
I need to go to bed soon, but I wanted to BLORG.

I’m thinking about switching to Expression Engine. I’m getting kind of fed up with how WordPress handles some things, and how… difficult it is to change things. I have so many plugins installed right now, it’s not even funny anymore.
EE looks so much easier to use… like the whole system looks really simple and all-inclusive, straight out of the virtual box.
Plus, we all know how much I want to follow in my Sarah’s footsteps, right? ;)

OH!
I sent out my holiday cards today… Or, rather, at around 2:45pm I put them in the mailbox, but they won’t really go out until 10am tomorrow, apparently. Stupid early collection times. Surprisingly, we only have one empty one left (out of 25), and I think it’s going to be for our super from our building.
I completely forgot to blog about my holiday cards. I ordered them through VistaPrint, as they were insanely cheap and they looked really really cute. I wasn’t expecting anything fancy, just some cute cards; I made some off of one of their caricature templates. When they came, though, they were absolutely gorgeous! The printing is flawless, the colors are bright and vivid, and the paper is really nice quality! I was so excited to get them, I wanted to send them out the night we got them — but it was still November, haha.
See how cute they are?!

Of course, a few of you will be getting them very very soon, so I don’t need to tell you how cute they are — you’ll see them soon enough!

We’ve finished almost all of our Christmas shopping, I think… We put gift baskets together for our parents and for my sister, I’ve got something cute to put together for my grandparents, we bought Emily’s and Nehemiah & Mike’s presents already… Not too many other people to buy for. Oh! I also ordered my brother’s present, which should actually get to him on Friday, and I got a big thing for everyone at work for when they get back from vacation. And we took care of Kelly’s gifts too, and we know what to get for Sarah in LA.
I kind of want to get something for my Sarah in IL too, but… I haven’t decided what to get yet. :P I’ll have to study her wishlist a bit.

I leave for Indiana on Thursday. Bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh bleh. I’m not ready to travel. I have to pack up all my stuff for the next… three weeks, geez… BLEH BLEH BLEH BLEH. Airport security is going to suck, too; just my luck for FORGETTING THAT EVERYONE FRIGGEN TRAVELS THIS WEEKEND when I booked my reservations.
Thank goodness the liquid restrictions are letting up a little. I can deal with what they are now… I just have to find a ziplock bag…

Anyway, it’s 2:30am. I need to go to sleep. I have to work tomorrow, geez!

the tune she hums…

Okay!
So the redesign is done, finally, as you can see, and as I posted about last night. Huge weight off my shoulders — I’d been working on it off and on for almost 2 weeks. There are still a few things I want to tweak a bit, but for the most part it’s finished.

My Sarah and I started a Flickr group called onelotus. It’s doing very well so far — it’s been open about 24 hours and already has almost 30 members!
Basically, what happens is every week Sarah or I will post a challenge, in the form of a word or phrase. It could be something fairly specific (e.g. ‘water droplets’), a concept (e.g. ‘vibrant’ — this week’s challenge!), or based on a phrase (‘cute as a button’). Throughout the week, group members can post their representations of the theme in the group pool, and discuss their photos in the discussion (as well as anything else that strikes their fancy!).
onelotus is designed to motivate and inspire, as well as create a lovely little community. So… if you have a Flickr account, go JOIN!

Tomorrow (well, today I guess, it’s almost 3am) Sean’s mom and Miana are arriving. Sean says I can borrow his camera bag to carry my camera, which is good because I can take my camera and I don’t have to shell out an obscene amount to buy a bag just yet. We’re going to take the subway down to Penn Station to meet them, so I should be able to get some really great photos. And then we’re going to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, so I’m hoping to get my photo for the onelotus challenge there. I figure that’s a great place to capture ‘vibrant!’ And if they don’t allow cameras… I’ll just try to get some photos somewhere else! NYC is the perfect place to find ‘vibrant,’ especially around Christmastime.

Sean is trying to play Pachelbel’s Canon in D on his guitar. It sounds so pretty. :) When I played viola, Pachelbel’s Canon was my absolute favorite song to play (after I figured out it wasn’t as hard as I thought), and I still love listening to it. A really, really good version can almost move me to tears.
Speaking of loving various songs… Sarah and I were talking tonight about how songs can foretell relationships — she believes that the first song you hear together in a relationship is a foreshadowing of how the relationship is going to turn out. How weird is it, then, that the first song Sean and I remember hearing together is Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’?

Blue jean baby
L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man.
Ballerina, You must have seen her, dancing in the sand.
And now she’s in me, always with me, Tiny Dancer in my hand.

How weird is it, also, that Sean wrote a song about me, before we were together, which talked about me wearing blue jeans (which he always actually complains about me doing :P), and that he just happens to be a ‘music man’ himself?
Leave me to my fantasies, I don’t care if it’s just coincidence! ;)
Hehe. I put the TV on mute while Sean was playing, and he thought something was wrong with the surround sound. He’s cute.

I know exactly what I’m going to get him for Christmas, too. I’ve been saving up my Surnaturelle earnings to pay for it, and now I have enough. And he’s going to love it. I’d mention it here, but I know he reads my entries from time to time… and he’s not figuring this one out! :P

Well… It’s 3:15am now… so I’m off to pack (I’m spending tomorrow night and Wednesday night in the city with Sean’s mom and Miana) and then off to bed! N’night!