Blogmas 2016 - December 17-22

There is no in between for me, is there? Either I'm having too much of a lazy day to sit at the computer, or I'm so busy that I can't find the time or energy to write out a post at the end of the day. What's that? I can un-lazify myself? No. Not an option. LOL

In reality I've floated somewhere between "okay" and "eternally nauseous" and my okay days have left me wanting to go out and socialize before eternally nauseous sets in and confines me to the couch. I haven't even played video games for the past week! Okay, I've tried, but today is the first time in a while that I've felt capable of sitting down for the time required to write out the happenings of my life. No, I'm not pregnant. There have been several illnesses floating about the area/country and I'm staying on the edge of actually coming down with something.

Saturday the 17th I tried cleaning/gaming but my cut is rather inconveniently located on my thumb and made cleaning a lot more miserable than it normally is. The gaming, however, just infuriated me. I went back to the couch for most of the day and marathoned more of The Nanny. Yes, we bought a brand new TV so I can watch a TV show that's as old as I am.

I associate The Nanny with Christmas. When I came home for Christmas break after my first semester of college, the show was on the TV a lot. Somewhere in the four months I was gone my sister found and fell in love with the series, passing it on to the rest of the family. Since my desktop was broken -that's what I get for leaving it home while I went off to college!- I found myself spending a lot of time on the couch downstairs consuming these episodes with my sister. In hindsight, I suppose time with family isn't a bad thing, but dang nabbit I was craving playing The Sims 3 all semester and couldn't when I got home! That was the last time I left the computer with anyone but M.


Back on track, Liz.

M, not wanting to be outdone by me, decided to cut his finger while he was at work and returned home that night with a hand that refused to stop bleeding. I told Mom that my plan to one-up him involved a slippery bathtub and my head, but she managed to convince me to let M win this one. ;)

Sunday the 18th M and I went to the Garden 5. We're looking around for some wire mesh and wooden slats so we can put together an Ikea hamster home. We didn't find what we were looking for, but we did have fun walking around.

I love the designs of the pencil cases here. I'm sure they have them in the States, but I've never gone out as often as I do here so I probably associate a lot of stuff with Korea that can be found anywhere.

I've noticed that some stores do, in fact, have Christmas decorations. It's just confined to one or two aisles or sections of the store. I never thought I'd miss the extreme decorating of stores back home. LOL

We did pick up some groceries at the E-mart. I got more dang-myeon (당면) noodles and instant coffee. I've taken to mixing my instant coffee with some hot cocoa, and the end result is super delicious.

Sunday evening C and her husband came over and we hung for for several hours before I went to bed significantly less sober state than I'd woken up in. 

Monday the 19th was the day of our first FRG meeting of 2016. You read that right. It's December and we're having our first FRG meeting. For some unknown reason this one was mandatory, even though it was basically a Christmas dinner complete with silly party games and a chance for everyone to introduce themselves.

While we were driving home from the get together, I commented on the number of people who couldn't attend because they weren't feeling well. M responded with "I'm surprised you haven't gotten sick yet, with everything that's going around." I glared at him and told him he had just jinxed it.

Tuesday the 20th I woke up with a headache. I thought nothing of it and did my normal headache reducing routine - ate, showered, drank lots of water. I tried to sit down at the computer and write up a post. That's when the nausea set in and I realized how exhausted I was. So I decided to set myself up at the couch and throw on some movies while I slept. M was kind enough to check mail for several packages I've been expecting. I was up and about long enough to confirm that each package had the correct contents (stickers and my Silhouette Black Friday order) but I went back to the couch once that was done. M made some chicken, rice, and vegetable soup for me and I turned in early.

Wednesday the 21st I made up for being a house hermit and spent the entire day out.

C came to pick me up right before 10 with A and A's son. Our goal was to shop for Christmas presents.

The first stop was a yarn shop in Pangyo that turned out to be online-only. We tried to find somewhere to eat but all of the restaurants around us were closed.

Next stop - Yatap!

We found a street vendor and bought some gogi-mandu (고기만두, pork dumplings) to hold us over until we found a restaurant we liked. In the meanwhile, we went to the nearby Daiso and stocked up.

C and A got all of their Christmas shopping done and we had fun perusing the aisles. I helped C pick out some mug and saucer combos for her friends and she ended up asking me which one I would want for Christmas. I picked out the one she had already grabbed for me! Methinks she knows me very well.

Once we were done at the Daiso we went to a Korean grill near home and ate. I had a bulgogi and rice plate and shared some yakimandu with C. Once we finished eating, we dropped A and her little one off at their home and I went with C to her house to help her wrap presents. I also had a chance to meet their kitten they adopted earlier in the month and catch up with her two dogs that I haven't seen in a month. They're such cuddly lovebugs I can't help but snuggle with them whenever I'm by them. While there, we made some chicken & cheese quesadillas and watched Family Guy.

Evening rolled around and we packed into C's car and went to pick up some people that wanted to accompany us to a Christmas party our realty company was holding. It was at a kids café but I offered to help watch some of the children we were bringing, making it less weird that I attended. LOL

The party itself was actually really fun. I was expecting to have to vet questions like "where's your little one?", the follow up of "oh, well when will you guys start having little ones?", the indignant "well why don't you want them?", then the declaration that "you just wait, you'll want kids when you get older." I've gotten used to these interactions in large group settings, so it was a great and pleasant surprise that this conversation never occurred while I was socializing. I don't mind this conversation, but it can get tiring when it's a constant thing in your life.

We left shortly before 9pm and I got home right before 10. M said it was weird coming home from work to an empty house, so I made up for it by eating with him and watching some movies together. Yup. I had 5 separate meals on Wednesday.

Thursday the 22nd was an incredibly lazy day, for M and I. He is now off through Christmas so we celebrated by watching more of The Nanny. I needed to mentally prepare for the rest of the weekend. Three separate Christmas get-togethers are planned. Luckily we aren't hosting any of them in our house. I don't have to obsess over whether the house looks immaculate enough for even the sharpest of eyes.

Today we're preparing for this weekend and I'm freaking out, as usual. I did take some time before my freak out to type up this post, though, so at least I've been a little productive today.