01 January 2008

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! 2008 -- Wow. I'm coming up on 20 years old this year. I do feel old, relatively.

I went to the Sturgeon's last night because I had no New Year's Eve plans and felt loserish staying home with my mom and Mark, and getting drunk with my peers didn't sound too appealing either. Anyway, it was awkward. Half of these kids I didn't even know except for the seniors. No one there was my age, so yeah. It was awkward and I felt out of place. I spent the afternoon making snickerdoodles, which would have disappeared had it been the group there I was used to. They appreciated my baking skills and couldn't resist delicious sugariness. But this year my tin of cookies was buried beneath a plastic coffin of store-bought frosted sugar cookies and bags of potato chips. Sigh.

I played a board game for like an hour and a half and then casually observed, trying to stay out of the way and slightly invisible, not drawing attention to the college kid in the corner. I slipped out shortly after midnight (and I mean slipped out...Dave was the only one who saw me leave) and went home to sleep in my own bed.

Today my mom and I went to Wichita to visit my grandma. We were going to go before Christmas, but the bad weather prevented us from traveling. My mom makes her homemade caramel and cinnamon popcorn every year. My grandma gave me money for Christmas so I can buy what I want, but I'll admit it's still in my savings account. She wanted mom and I to go shopping so I could spend some of it. I just went to Wal-Mart to pick up some stuff I need for my dorm. We checked out in the self-checkout, which Mom hates, but I insist it's faster. I ran my items through, paid, and then rang Mom up. We planned on stopping by Arby's on the way back to Grandma's to pick up lunch for her and ourselves. I had Grandma's order written on a piece of paper tucked in my wallet. All the way across Wichita, and I realize I don't have my wallet. Ah! I can picture exactly where I left it: on top of the self-checkout stand so I could have both hands free to checkout Mom's stuff. I didn't panic. I told Mom I didn't have my wallet and pulled her receipt out of her purse and got the store's phone number. She called. Some girl answered and said she'd go look for it. She returned a few minutes later to say they'd have it at customer service. So, we drove all the way back. The customer service line was incredibly long with people returning Christmas stuff, probably. So I found a worker and told him I left my wallet, so he went right back there and got it for me. Nothing was missing (thankfully). Let's see if I can avoid doing stupid things like that anymore in 2008.

Grandma sent me home with eight books by Lilian Jackson Braun. The titles all start out "The Cat Who..." and she said she really likes them. She owns nearly every one in the series. They look like quick reads, and she said she wants them back when I'm done....like I have time to read between Moby Dick and the other books I want to get through sooner than later. She said I didn't have to read them if I didn't want to, though. If only I had more time! :-)

We stopped by Wal-Mart again but in El Dorado on our way home because Mom needs a snow shovel. They were fresh out. (That area had 6" of snow recently.) We stopped at the Christmas clearance section and everything was 75% off! Talk about a bargain. I picked up a pack of Christmas cards for 75 cents and a sweet plastic candy dish (clear with red and green polka-dots) for just 50 cents. A nice addition to my dorm room desk.

Here's hoping 2008 is the best one yet.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

if i were there, i would have eaten every single cookie! i appreciate home-baked goodies. i'm not a chip person and i find store bought cookies repulsive. i can't believe people passed them up. and i'm so glad you found your wallet all right! tyrel had to dig in a trashcan at a sandwich place in lawrence when he lost his :S


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