Vacation, continued

Friday
Biscuits and gravy/jelly/honey for breakfast, more crocheting (two dishclothes/potholders and half a scarf), a quick snack for lunch, shopping with Kim for a dress and a coat, spaghetti dinner, watching HP5 (one of my birthday presents), watching "A Hiding Place" with Kim while working on the scarf, and typing this note. :-)

Tomorrow we are heading back to my dad's house. The plan is to watch disc two of LotR3, and then head home on Sunday...

Vacation, continued

Wednesday and Thursday
Hanging out at Dan and Dorcas' house. I ate a lot, played some DDR, went to Walmart, bought yarn, and started some more crocheting since I left my current crochet project at home. We also played a lot of Dutch Blitz, Take Two, etc. Fun, relaxing times. Dan and Dorcas and their kids left on Thursday morning, so now only the Reeves and the Indiana/MN Cromers remain...

Vacation, continued...

Monday
After sleeping in, we watched some Lord of the Rings, and got ready for Christmas Eve dinner at Dad's house. We made pepper steak, and my Aunt Carol and Uncle Jason (Mom's brother and sister-in-law) came over, in addition to Diana, one of my dad's really good friends. After dinner, we went to a 9 PM service at the Methodist church where Diana went while growing up. The service was very structured - it reminded me more of a Catholic service than what we have at GCR...

Tuesday
We woke up early in order to try to finish LotR, but alas, we only got through disc 1. We had present opening with Dad, and we made some side dishes in preparation for Christmas day lunch at Uncle Dave and Aunt Martha's (my dad's brother and sister-in-law). We were on a mission to finish lunch before 2 PM so we would be able to make it to Matt's aunt and uncle's before 6 PM. At 2 PM, we remembered the time change. Oops. So we were on the road by 2:30/3:30 and were able to make it to Dan and Dorcas' by 7 PM. :-) We had called ahead to say we'd be late, but everyone waited for us anyway. We had dinner, read the Christmas story from Luke, opened presents, played some DDR, and watched Elf (which was part of my present). We went to sleep late. :-)

FYI regarding the "real" enneagram

There is a version of the enneagram, called Wagner Enneagram Personality Style Scales (WEPSS) which happens to be a much longer instrument which also tries to help one determine which of 9 types best suits them. There were some studies that showed some link between the WEPSS and the MBTI, but a couple of reviews I read said that while it is useful, there are other, more commonly used instruments that can also help. This one, one reviewer felt, was most useful in a clinical setting, providing some structure for a counselor working with a client. :-) Just a bit of info, although as my friends know, I still find this stuff totally fun even when taking the shortened, estimating versions. :-)

Taking the "quick version" enneagram per Ali's blog

Your Score: 8 - the Asserter

you chose AY - your Enneagram type is EIGHT (aka "The Challenger").

"I must be strong"

Asserters are direct, self-reliant, self-confident, and protective.

How to Get Along with Me

• Stand up for yourself... and me.
  
• Be confident, strong, and direct.
  
• Don't gossip about me or betray my trust.
  
• Be vulnerable and share your feelings. See and acknowledge my tender, vulnerable side.
  
• Give me space to be alone.
  
• Acknowledge the contributions I make, but don't flatter me.
  
• I often speak in an assertive way. Don't automatically assume it's a personal attack.
  
• When I scream, curse, and stomp around, try to remember that's just the way I am.

What I Like About Being a EIGHT

• being independent and self-reliant
  
• being able to take charge and meet challenges head on
  
• being courageous, straightforward, and honest
  
• getting all the enjoyment I can out of life
  
• supporting, empowering, and protecting those close to me
  
• upholding just causes

What's Hard About Being a EIGHT

• overwhelming people with my bluntness; scaring them away when I don't intend to
  
• being restless and impatient with others' incompetence
  
• sticking my neck out for people and receiving no appreciation for it
  
• never forgetting injuries or injustices
  
• putting too much pressure on myself
  
• getting high blood pressure when people don't obey the rules or when things don't go right

EIGHTs as Children Often

• are independent; have an inner strength and a fighting spirit
  
• are sometimes loners
  
• seize control so they won't be controlled
  
• fugure out others' weaknesses
  
• attack verbally or physically when provoked
  
• take charge in the family because they perceive themselves as the strongest, or grow up in difficult or abusive surroundings

EIGHTs as Parents

• are often loyal, caring, involved, and devoted
  
• are sometimes overprotective
  
• can be demanding, controlling, and rigid

Link: The Quick & Painless ENNEAGRAM Test

Vacation so far

Friday
I said goodbye to my kitties, and we left the house a little after 7 PM. We got to mom's around 12:30 AM on Friday. Mom and I stayed up and talked for a while. Kevin wasn't there b/c he had some sort of a virus that he didn't want to pass along. I finally went to bed - late again.

Saturday
Matt and I had some brekfast and opened presents with mom. We got her and Kevin a tripod for their camera, and I got her some perfume. She gave Matt a recipe book that he was pretty excited about, and she gave me Willow Tree Nativity set. I also opened my birthday present, since I probably won't get back in time for that. Mom gave me a few pretty necklaces for my birthday, which was extra good b/c I hadn't brought any with me. :-)

We got on the road around 10 AM and headed to Hobart intending to see Dawn, my best friend from high school and maid-of-honor. As we neared Hobart, we gave Dawn a call and found out she was busy preparing for a dinner with her boyfriend's familay for Saturday night - we were running slightly late and didn't want to have limited time, so we all agreed that we would com over on Sunday instead.

So we headed to Dad's. We unpacked and hung out for a while watching some cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies. Dad told us that he had run into one of my friends from the group of friends that knew Kevin, my ex-boyfriend. The whole group was getting together at Kevin's on Sunday night, and I was invited on the spot. Sounds like fun, so I called Kevin to ask if it was okay, and it was. Later on, we went to meet my brother for dinner in Hobart. We ate at Chili's. My brother didn't talk much, but it went okay. My Dad gave him his Christmas present from Grandma, which was some $$, and Dad's present, which was gift certificates for food from a few restaurants. My brother is not exactly doing well right now, so hopefully those presents will give him a chance to get by a few days. He was supposed to take a bus up to see Mom for Christmas. The bus ticket was Mom's present. Hopefully he made it to the bus stop in time. We left him at the restaurant and headed home.

When we got home, we went out to see the Christmas light display in Dad's town. It was a pretty large collection of those "animated" lights. Good times. When we got home, we stayed up for a little while longer, but tried to get to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour.

Sunday
We went to church in Portage, at the church where Matt and I were married. It has been a few years since we were back there, but not much has changed. Afterward, we drove about 5 minutes to visit with my mom's mom, and stayed at her place for about an hour and a half. She showed us around the facility and we sat with her while their informal church sung Christmas carols. It was a nice visit.

Around noon we called Dawn. She was making lunch, so we headed over. She and Nik hung out with us while lunch was being made. We also watched The Simpson's movie while we were there. It was good to catch up a bit.

For dinner, we met Uncle Bill at one of his favorite local restaurants. For those of you that don't know, Uncle Bill is nto really an uncle, but one of my dad's best friends. He has been friends with dad since before I was around, and he's stuck with Dad through everything. He's a great friend. Anyway, we had a nice visit with him over dinner.

Finally, we headed over to Kevin's parents' house. Kevin had just gotten the game "Rock Band" for Christmas, so the intent of the party was to play. I got to try each piece at least once, but there were so many people that that was about all that most people got to try.

People that were there: Kevin & Cassi, Kevin's sisters - Krystal and Kourtney, Kevin's parents - Kim and Ken (although Ken hid in the basement and Kim stayed upstairs most of the time), and friends - Mark, Greg & Rhonda, CJ, Rich & Samantha, and someone named Dave whom I vaguely remember.

Everyone was excited that my dad's old house had a "Sold" sign up. I also found out that they had not forclosed on the house, but that a deal was in the works, to be signed next week. Very good news for my dad, and all these friends had been watching and interested. I felt loved and thought of. I miss these guys so much!

I spent some time with Kim looking at wedding pictures for Kevin's and Greg's weddings. Very fun times. Krystal had designed some awesome centerpieces/necklaces/etc. and the weddings were beautiful. Such a community effort. That is something I really miss about this family...

Anyway, I was again reminded of why I married Matt - he is totally the right guy for me. I am so lucky to have a husband that meshes with me so well. God was definietly leading me to him.

So around 11 PM or so, we headed back to dad's house. We went to bed pretty quickly and were able to sleep in on Monday (a.k.a. today). I had such a good day yesterday, and I was sad to have to leave everyone, especially the big party, but I had to take care of my sweetie and let him get some sleep. :-) I told the guys at the party that if they plan a weekend when they can all hang out, I would be willing to come down and join them. We'll see if the opportunity arises.

The last week before vacation

I was so busy the last week before vacation that I had absolutely no time to blog. Sorry to everyone who has been anticipating a new post. :-(

So, last week, on Saturday, I wrote a ten page paper and got Christmas cards ready, Sunday we went to Church and lunch with friends, then we went shopping, and I made fudge and reformatted my computer yet again. We hung out at home on Monday night (Jen and I watched the finale of ANTM cycle 9), I had my final class of the semester on Tuesday, we had a cell group Christmas party on Wednesday, I hung out with the ladies on Thursday, and we left for Mom Sharp's on Friday.

In between all of those activities, I was able to get my christmas present wrapping done, packing for the trip, and deliver the house keys to our wonderful cat-sitter, Jen. I don't think I went to be before midnight on any of those days. Acutally, I don't think I've gone to bed before midnight since that Saturday paper-writing frenzy. I am tired., but I finally got to sleep in today to make up for all of the late nights.

And I just found out got an A on the paper. :-)

The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Frustrating

I finished my last paper of the semester and sent it to the instructor this afternoon! Yay! So now I have time to think about other things, like getting ready to leave for the holidays.

The bad news? I still have a lot of "work" that I have to do, so it doesn't look like I'm really going to get any sort of a break before leaving. At least while I'm gone, I will be forced to relax a bit. Then hopefully I can get most of the "work" finished before classes start up again at the end of January.

And now for the reason I am ready to scream at the moment - A while ago, Matt and I hesitantly decided to purchase an *affordable* (read "cheap") anti-virus software, b/c McAfee has gone up in price, we really hate Norton, and I'm not ready to fight any open source programs. Thinking that at least this software would be a straight install-it-and-forget-it kind of deal, we thought it was worth a shot.

I am glad to say that at least we didn't waste very much $$ on this piece of junk software that has brought me almost to the point of tears. I am so amazingly frustrated that there are simply no words to describe what I am feeling. Matt has agreed, although his computer didn't react as badly as mine, and so he purchased a copy of the more pricey McAfee program today. I am now reformatting for the second time in the last month or so, and I am going to be fighting to take the company up on their 100% money-back guarantee. Apparently the other users who hate this program have not had much luck with this, but by golly I will not go down without a fight!

Singing with Allison and Ellie

Today I was in a mood to sing. When I got to Allison's, we ate dinner, and afterwards were still the only people there. So we decided to sing Christmas songs while Allison played the piano. Since Allison's voice is still not totally back, she is having trouble singing in the higher ranges, and I always have trouble singing in the higher ranges, but we had fun anyway. And Ellie enjoyed singing along, too.

And now, I would like to take a moment to say how much I like it when Allison plays the piano. I don't have many friends up here in MN who play, and it's nice to have a friend around who is willing to play while I since and dance around her house like a fool. Yay for Allison!

One Down...

I am done with one class and have only one paper left to write and one more day of class before break! So the best new is that I am finally starting to relax a bit. I'm becoming more of my goofy self again. So happy! I am still overwhelmed with things to do, but I think I can handle them now that I have more free time during the week. On Saturday, I will be spending the morning writing my last paper, and when I'm done, I'll be free! Then I'll have to catch up on all my Christmas shopping and planning. What fun! And even better yet - I have nearly the whole month of January off of school - woohoo!

So "Cah-hold" Outside....

It has been a while since I posted - sorry to anyone who is bummed about this. Anyway, last week was a busy one. I took off work Tuesday through Friday in order to attend MBTI Qualifying training down by the MOA. I braved nasty snow driving nearly every day and left at least 2 hours before training started in order to get there on time. The plus side - I learned so much! And now I want to talk with other people about what I learned, but it seems that practically no one is as interested in this stuff as I am. It's sad but true, and now I will have to keep most of what I know to myself in order not to bore others...

At some point in my life, I hope to be able to use what I know on the job, and therefore have an outlet for talking and sharing with others. Looking forward to that... Or even better, maybe I could use what I know at our church? There were a bunch of people in training with me that wanted to do just that. If ever I have the opportunity, I will pounce on it like a cat on a dangling piece of yarn. :-D

Other news - it is still freezing, but Matt and I are motivated to "get moving" again, so we pulled out DDR yesterday and today. We're going to try to keep ourselves more active this winter than we have been in the last few years. The big difference this time is that we have set up a reward/anti-reward system for ourselves to hopefully help keep us motivated. We'll see how effective our system is in the coming months.

And the best news of all - I am mostly done with one of two 10-page final papers, and I only have two evenings of class left for the year. Woohoo! Then it's time for a break. And boy do I need a break...