I am so glad 2009 is almost over! It’s been a year filled with downs, the occasional up tossed in for good measure.  The single best thing I can say about 2009 is that I graduated college, finally, but my favorite part of the year hands-down will be 11:59pm on December 31st.  Good ridden to 2009, let’s hope 2010 is better.  Sadly, I find that I’ve been saying the same every year.  I was happy to see 2008 go, and though I couldn’t find a blog post for 2007, I’m sure I was happy to see that year go too.

I spent the morning looking around the net to see what I’d written over the past year, feeling a bit nostalgic.  After that, I spent some time looking over what I’d written in general.  What I realized is, since I started blogging in April 2003, I’ve been spread all over the net.  I began blogging at blogger.com with ‘ya don’t say…,” then I moved to wordpress.com with the same title, after that I moved to my own domain at kristynmarie.com.  I was being web-stalked by a crazy, so I moved my blog back to wordpress.com under the title “Retold,” and when the stalker disappeared, I put my site back on kristynmarie.com, but kept the title “Retold.”  That blog is still there, and I still write on it from time to time, but not generally personal entries anymore.  Then, this September, I opened this blog for my personal site, where I’ve been ever since.  Let’s see if I can get through more than a year without putting my blog somewhere new.

As a sort of end of the year farewell to all of that, I closed every single remaining personal blog.  Earlier in the year I deleted princessdrow.blogspot.com (my first blog), which was not easy for me but was something I felt that I really needed to do.  Today, I shut down four more blogs, two at wordpress, one at blogger, and my writing blog that I never used.  I made sure to export and back-up all the stuff written on all those blogs, but they blogs themselves are gone now.  They were just stragglers, I didn’t need them, they were wasting space.  So, now, unless I missed something,  my only personal blogs are Retold and Pretty Pessimist.  It might be that at some point I’ll upload all the export files onto kristynmarie.com so that all my blogs are in the same place, but I don’t know when that might be.  It’s more important that I have the back-ups, anyway.

I’m ready now to move onto the 2010 (which I cannot seem to type to save my life) with an almost clean slate.  I’m ready to see what tomorrow brings, and forget the troubles of yesterday… 365 yesterdays… 3,650 yesterdays.  I hope you have a safe and Happy New Year wherever you are.  If you’re going out, be careful.  If you drink, don’t drive.  If you’re close to someone you love, kiss them on New Years eve, I know I plan to.  I’m going out to get some food today, then I’ll spend tomorrow with my husband.  See y’all next year.

It’s snowing again, for the second time in five days.  The Weather Channel said it was supposed to do this today, but it’s not always 100% reliable and I’m a skeptic.  I never believe it’s going to snow in central Texas until it does.  Well, today it is.  I woke up to a gray sky, which I always love, and little bit of icy rain.  When I say a little bit, I mean a very little bit, a few minutes and it stopped.  Then, several minutes ago, it started snowing and the whole world around my house looks like one of those amazing snow globes.  That’s the thing about Texas weather, just like the snow globes, the weather comes and goes in the blink of an eye and you’re left thinking, “Well that was pretty.”  Pretty, but whimsical, that’s snow in central Texas.  I think it allows us to appreciate it more than we would if we lived somewhere like Wisconsin or Colorado where it snows all the time and it’s more of an annoyance than a treasure.

I’d offer you a picture, but the batteries in my camera are dead (the old girl uses AA batteries, and not the rechargeable kind either).  Terrible time to run out of batteries!  When I was at the backdoor trying to take pictures, I noticed that my neighbors have left their dogs chained up outside in freezing weather.  I’m thinking about calling the humane society.  This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve considered it, but this time they could be in danger of freezing.  I feel a bit bad for the dogs, with owners who don’t take care of them.  They tear things up, which makes a huge mess in the yard, they have worms which I know because they’re doing their business all over my yard.  They represent a risk to my animals, what if I track something in on my shoes!  I just don’t know.  I think I’m going to talk to management first and see what they can do before I do something as drastic as calling the humane society.  I mean, the dogs aren’t starving to death, they’re just without shelter.

Anyway, the snow is beautiful and I can enjoy it when I watch it through the front storm door, rather than the back door where I can see the neighbors dogs.  It’s more like one expects snow to be than it was on Christmas eve, as it’s sort of floating to the ground, rather than riding a harsh wind at a 45 degree angle.  I hope it keeps up!  The Weather Channel says we’re under a winter weather advisory until 9am tomorrow, so we’ll see.  Unlike with Christmas, we have no where we have to be, so as the old song says: let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Speaking of Christmas.  Matt and I ended up staying home on Christmas day because the roads were a mess.  We had been supposed to go see my in-laws on Christmas, but with so much ice on the ground, we decided it’d be better to stay in and reschedule.  So, we stayed home and spent Christmas together.   We had a good morning opening the gifts my folks sent us, something we both very much enjoyed — they sent me a pair of slippers (which I love), pajamas, a couple sets of really pretty combs for my hair, and a beautiful set of glass nail files; Matt got a Guinness World Book and a pair of awesome gloves that he’s gotten quite a bit of use from already thanks to the frigid weather — thanks, mom, we love you!!  For the two of us, we won’t buy one another a gift until school starts in January, but we did do a few things for one another for Christmas, which I’m going to pass on going into because it has to do with World of Warcraft, which I’m fairly certain most people who might read this don’t play.  It turned out to be a nice day, overall.

Then, Sunday, we went to Waco to see my in-laws which was nice — they got me a little white ceramic sand-dollar note cube with sand dollar note cards, Matt got popcorn, we both got calendars.   After that, we dropped in for an unannounced visit to Amanda and Karen’s house and ended up holding their couch down for a good 7 hours!  Once we get to chatting, it’s impossible to shut us up and by us, I mean Amanda, Karen, and me, Matt slept almost the whole time we were there, which he needed.  They had goodies, which they shared with us, and it was great to see them.  I’m planning a trip to see them in January or February, they invited me to come and stay for a weekend, which I cannot wait to do!

When we got home, around 1am, we were invited to Melanie & Joey’s for cupcakes and coffee.  We went, of course, we’re all such night owls when school’s not in.  We spent several hours with them, had some amazing chocolate cupcakes, and exchanged gifts.  I gave them some brandied fruit, because they seemed to really like the bread when I took them some at Thanksgiving.  They gave Matt a collection of Christmas coffee’s, which is always a good choice for him because he’s such a coffeeaholic!  They gave me a long string of numbers which turned into an awesome Pandren Monk pet for World of Warcraft.   If you’re interested to see what he looks like, or what the heck I’m taking about, you can see him here.  I’m an avid in-game pet collector and Blizzard recently introduced two in-game pets that can be purchased.  I hadn’t had the chance to get them yet, but will likely get the other one soon.  What’s awesome about that particular gift is that it both made me happy and helped out a good cause.  Until December 31st, when you buy one of the two new pets from the Blizzard Store, they donate 50% of the proceeds to the Make-a-Wish foundation!

Well, the snow is starting to accumulate out there, and I think I want a cup of cocoa.  The mail-lady just came to get my package — did you know that you can print packing labels and get the USPS to come and pick up your packages?!  I sold my Nintendo DS Lite on eBay yesterday, which was really exciting.  I put it up and it sold in like three hours!  I’ve never sold anything on eBay before, so it was pretty thrilling for me.  I sold it with all it’s accessories and games.  I wasn’t getting any use out of it, it was just sitting there collecting dust, so I decided that someone else might as well get some use of it.  I also learned something new in the process; while it only cost me about $.60 to make the eBay listing, PayPal charged me $4.61 to make the transaction and they’re holding the funds because my seller rating on eBay is low.  So, hopefully the purchaser will leave me good feedback as soon as they get the package so they’ll release the funds.  I may look around and see what else I have that I’m just keeping because I’m a total pack-rat.  It may be time for a virtual yard sale!

Time for me to say farewell for now and put the kettle on the stove.  I also need to make sure it’s not getting super hot in the bedroom, because I’ve been running the heater for the last hour and a half since I got up.  The bedroom is always the first room to get really hot and really cold, and Matt’s sleeping in there right now and will wake up extra grumpy if he’s boiling hot.   Might go steal the batteries out of the remote and take some more snow pictures, too!  See y’all in a few days!

I had a really rough day yesterday, but I’m going to skip regaling you with the whole tale until another day.  Today I come with something much more exciting: It’s snowing!  It’s snowing in central Texas!  The weather said it was supposed to be 65 degrees and sunny today, but when I woke up, it was snowing like crazy.  Not a few flurries here and there, but a full fledged snow storm.  It’s even gathering on the ground!    When I saw it, I expected that it might do this for a half an hour or so and just stop and melt away, but it’s been steadily snowing for the past few hours.  It’s nearly to the point where we can’t see the grass beneath the snow.

I’m just so excited, and maybe even more so because it’s Christmas eve and it’s snowing.  Weather is saying it’s supposed to be sunny and 45 degrees tomorrow, but if the snow doesn’t melt away we could have a semi-white Christmas.  I’ve never had a white Christmas, ever.  Even when I lived at home and it snowed, it never snowed on Christmas.  Matt, of course, hasn’t either.  Until a few years ago, he had only seen snow once ever when he was like 8 years old.

I took a few pictures when I first woke up, but none of them came out very good.  I also took a few videos, but they don’t seem to want to upload with any clarity… boo!  So, I tried one more time and here’s what I’ve come up with.  It’s a pretty good pic, if I do say so myself.  My sad little 3.1 megapix, 3x optical zoom digital camera needs to be replaced in the worst way!

The snow has almost stopped, but it’s still flurrying.  I hope it starts up again and that the wind dies down.  It’s my only regret about this, the wind, if it keeps up like this, it’ll blow the clouds away and it just might be sunny tomorrow.  Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen.  I’d really like to have more than one day of snow, though I’m also grateful for what we’re getting.  It’s been steadily getting colder for the last few hours, it was 29 degrees when I got up, it’s now 26 degrees.  Today, even Matt’s consenting to running the heater!

I asked him to put something Christmas-y on the TV and he came up with “White Christmas” on AMC.  I generally hate Christmas movies, but this time the jokes on him, it’s a musical!  So we’re watching it, but when it’s over I may just put in “Love Actually” which is one of the only Christmas movies I like.  It would seem that AMC is playing “White Christmas” all day and all night today and tomorrow, so if you enjoy Christmas movies and want to see it, there’s still plenty of time to check it out!

Wherever you are, whatever your doing, I hope you have an amazing Christmas!  A very Happy Holidays to your and yours, from me and mine!

**UPDATE:  It’s blizzarding again!!!  Yay!!

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