A Year Older

This will be the first year I will be unable to do any Christmas shopping :-(. Work has been fairly busy lately. I’m steadily getting 35+ hours, and I’m the unofficial assistant manager.

The weather has been absolutely crazy lately! We had a high in the upper 60’s yesterday! We haven’t had cold weather in two weeks. Even this weekend, the weather is supposed to be in the 50’s.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I’ll turn 29. This year has been a memorable year for the good and bad.

I booked my first airplane trip in April where Kelly and I metfor the first time after knowing each other for a decade.

I went to New York with my family and spent the day in the Big Apple.

I sat on a jury bench in mid June and listened to my first trial.

I found my current job on Craigslist.

I did an internship at a radio station for about two months.

Being able to hang out with Ana a few times over this past year including our trip to Six Flags. Riding Goliath was the first roller coaster I had been on in years.

The Bad.

Having my lights turned off due to non-payment, but my sister was able to help us out.

Letting my Sprint service go.

Nearly driving off the car lot with the Chevy HHR only to be told there were complications. Then having my brother-in-law completely changing my mom’s mind about trading the Suburban in for the vehicle.

Here’s what I want to accomplish next year.

1) I want to continue travelling

2) Actually work on improving my credit/financial situation

3) Go back to living on my own

4) Figure out what I want to do for a career

5) Branch out to new friends instead of always hanging out with Trey

6) Find new social activities to do on the weekends

For those on my facebook, I posted that I booked my trip to Chicago. I have never been to Chicago before, and I’ve wanted to go the last two years. When I noticed a round trip ticket was under $300, I had to jump on it. I thought about waiting until January to purchase the tickets, but I had a feeling the prices might go up the longer I wait.

I went on Orbitz earlier this morning to purchase a ticket. The lowest price ran about $209. The early departure was at 6:10 a.m. I wanted to leave later in the morning, but every time I went to purchase a ticket, I kept receiving an error message. If I wanted to have my ideal departure/arrival, the ticket price would be $50 higher. I finally decided on leaving Atlanta on 5/7/12 at 5:50 p.m. and flying back that Thursday at 9:10 CDT.

I figure 2 1/2 days in Chicago would be plenty no? I decided on that week because the Braves are playing the Cubs at Wrigley Field. I’ll go to the Tuesday game (8:20) and maybe Wednesday (2:20). I probably won’t need to rent a vehicle, but I’ll have more than enough time to do research on Chicago :-).

Anyway, I have no particular plans for my birthday. I do have to work from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. I won’t do any shopping for my nieces; what I will probably wind up doing is a belated Christmas somewhere down the road. I know the malls will be PACKED tomorrow. I’ll probably come home and watch football or take my mom out for some O’Charley’s. We’ll see.

Hope everyone will have a Merry Christmas!