Okaay, could it possibly have been any longer since I've updated?

I do have darn good reasons.  Let's just say they involve Siberia, a can of sardines, Ewan McGregor, and some ice cream.  Wow, the memories.

Okay, no, I really do have reasons!  See, first was NaNoWriMo, in which any words I was typing had darn well better been going towards my word count, so all of my efforts went towards the Little Novel That Never Was (Although I did end up with about 30,000 words, so not awful.)  Then I went to Florida for like 11 days, which was all sorts of fun and exciting and exhausting, so I couldn't post then, either.  Then I got home on the 5th, and I have been sick ever since!  Public Service Announcement: Coming home from vacation is bad for your health!  Especially when you leave a state where it is 78 degrees that day for one in which it is 15.  Baaad!

At first I thought my body was just kind of shutting down because I freaked it out with the climate change and the abrupt switch from running around 14 hours a day to just sitting for 12 hours straight.  I thought I'd bounce right back after a few days of good sleep, but nope!  Instead I went through Every Symptom of Sickness Ever in about a week.  The first few days I just felt flu-like, but only the weak, icky, fevery feeling parts, none of the coughing or sneezing or whatnot.  Then came the sore throat, which lasted about three days, and then the coughing phase, and today was the upset stomach phase (although I think that came from eating birthday cake for breakfast.  Which, by the way, happy late birthday, me!  Y'll better have already sent cards, but late is better than not at all.)  So, now that I have had every possible symptom short of limbs dropping off of my body, I'm pretty sure I'll be well soon.  (That and the nice antibiotics the doctor gave me.) 

I have an awful lot of vacation stories to tell, including classics like being there for the filming of the Christmas parade, random conversation joining man, making new foreign friends, and more!  I also have approximately one zillion photos to share.  It's a good thing work is going to be slow the rest of the year, eeh?

Between it being the end of the year and my birthday, I've been in one of those introspective funks where I think a lot about who I am and where I'm going and where I've been.  It's been interesting, to say the least.  I'll probably post about all of the things that have been swimming around in my head soon. 

I'm actually getting laid off work this winter, for the first time in years!  Remember the last few years when I had to work as a courier all winter, and I felt robbed of my winter break?  (Everything shuts down where I live in January and February, so the idea that you'll be out of work those months is both expected and looked forward to.)  Well, now that I'm going to be off all winter, I'm getting a little freaked out about it.  What am I going to DO for two months?  I've grown so accustomed to not even having two *days* off, it's going to be awfully odd to find myself at home again.  I did sign up for a couple of classes spring semester, so I'll have that, but what else will I do?  Repaint the bathroom, do some house cleaning, knit some stuff, and who knows what else, I guess.