Mid-week Thinks

1. I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert last night. Robert took me last year for my first time and I knew it needed to become a tradition. It's an amazing show, worth every penny. It's a great way to officially start the holiday season.

2. I'm going to Ukraine a week from today for work. I'll be there til Jan. 1st. I found out on Monday that I might be going to China on Jan. 2nd. This created a bit of a problem because I need a Visa for China. So, I had to hurry to VisAbility to get a rush Visa before I leave for Ukraine. Turns out my passport expires in June of '08 and because a Visa is good for 6 months and mine was suppose to start in Jan. of '08 they said I needed to renew my passport first. Long story short- I had to do the fastest passport renewal rush (3 days) and a same day Visa rush. So, 2 pictures, 2 applications, $717.00 for rush/renewal fees, $3.00 for parking, and an hour and a half later, I might have my passport back 15 hours before I'm suppose to be on the plane to Ukraine. The guy who was helping me (bless his heart) was really starting to bug me. He had so many dumb questions. The one that put me over the edge was, "Can you push your travel date to Ukraine back a day or 2 if you don't have your passport?" In my head I thought, "Sure I guess I wouldn't have a choice." But what came out of my mouth was, "NO. I'm leaving this country on Dec. 5th. With or without a passport!" He just kindof looked at me like he was thinking he should call security. I forget that people who don't know me well sometimes have a hard time sensing the tone. I just smiled and thanked him for all his help. Let's all hold our breath for 6 days...

3. Chris gave me a friendship bracelet from Key West. He's so cute. He and The Diz (Randi) are so perfect for each other...they almost make me wanna believe in soul mates. I'm bummed that I'll probably be in China when they get married...sad...

4. I went Christmas shopping yesterday. I miss the days when Santa did most of the work and my shoppong was complete in about a 20 minute trip to All-A-Dollar, and about $5.25 later I had presents for everyone. Chrismas is too commercialized. We lost Thanksgiving to it years ago and now Halloween is being taken over too. Maybe I'm thinking about it so much this year because I'll be like a bajillion miles from my family on Christmas.

5. I went to Target today with Melaine. Why are there like 9 versions of UNO, and like 380 kinds of toothbrushes. I needed both, and it's so exhosting. Isn't life complicated enough? Why can't there be one UNO and one toothbrush??

6. I don't like snow. In my mind I've been on the beach in Hawaii for a few weeks and now everything has changed. The snow made me realize that I'd be happy sitting on the beach in my flip flops eating a mango for the holidays. But bitter cold Ukraine will be good too.

7. I love "Friends" reruns on TV, even though I own all 10 seasons, the 4 best ofs, and the party DVD. I don't think I'll ever get sick of 'em.

Hawaii is beautiful this time of year...so I've heard.

Yeah, so I'm not in Hawaii. I'm taking a slight detour, so stay tuned for more details about that in the next couple weeks...

Last night I went with the whole family (and a couple extras) to hear my Mom sing in a Christmas concert at Temple square. She's a member of The Salt Lake Choral Artists. It was so good! I have a talented Mom.

I love it when the whole family is together. It seems to happen less and less these days cuz we're all kinda scattered but when it does happen it's like we've never been apart...and like we've never grown up. ;)

It's dumb that I don't have a picture of my mom cuz she's the reason we were there. Sorry Mom.

Pictures: #1 Me. #2 David, Neally, Taylor, Scott, Me, Zhenya. #3 My Dad. #4 My 3 crazy brothers, Taylor, Scott and David.

My life is far from ordinary.

So, I started this blog thing a couple months ago, and by "started" I mean, I created a blogspot account and never went back to it after that day, until today. I've had a few people tell me I should have a blog cuz I'm not good at keeping people updated about what's going on in my life (which is true, Thanksgiving was interesting) and if I'd just blog about it, it would save everyone time, and people could stop wondering if I'm in or out of the country, on or off the mainland, dead or alive, married or single, jobless, homeless (I prefer the term "displaced") happy, healthy, etc. etc.

I've had alot of ideas of things I should blog about, and I've even come up with cool titles, but then I wonder if they're really blog worthy, and if they are, how do I made 'em interesting to read?

I've also had the times where I thought, "I'll start blogging when I start my new job." or "I'll blog when I move to Hawaii." or "I'll see how things work out with this or that situation or person and maybe in a month or so it'll be a good/sad/funny thing to blog about." But with all the new changes and developments that have been pretty regular in my life the past few weeks, I could go on forever with all kinds of stuff happening and never tell anyone about it.

And the last pre-blog thought I've had, (and this one kindof makes me look like a bad person) is that with almost every topic or event I've thought to blog about, I can generally think of at least one person who I hope wouldn't read it. Not that it's about them, or that I'm lying about something to someone, but there's just maybe some things that I wouldn't mind most people knowing, but I'd like a couple people to...not know. Does that make me bad? I'm sure most of the blog world has had a story or two they wanted to write about and hoped someone would never see it...I guess I'll just have to filter my thoughts a bit for the world-wide-web and for the millions of people who I'm sure will frequent this page once the word gets out that ANDREA is BLOGGING!

Having said all that, I think I'm still going to give it a try.

So there you have it, it's me, andrea -and I'm blogging.