A shopping we shall go!

In a little less than an hour, I'll be travelling with my brother and our friends to the mall for our annual Christmas shopping trek. I'm kind of excited, but not by the prospect of dumping tons of money on toys and gifts. What I'm most excited about is just the time I'll be spending with my family and friends. We always have a good time when we go out and end up laughing for hours on end, usually to the point where our faces hurt from all of the giggling.

Anyway, it's going to be a fun time and, with any luck, I'll knock out all of my shopping in one day.

Time's running out

There's two weeks left until Christmas and I still have no idea what to get for my kids. I keep asking my son what he wants and I get the same thing answer...

"I don't know."

My daughter, on the other hand, is only 1 and still too young to have an idea about Christmas at all.

So, I've made some plans with my brother and our friends to go to the mall tomorrow after work and, hopefully, I'll be able to finish in one fell swoop. In the meantime, I think I'll curl up with a book and take it easy tonight.

More to follow.

Choices, choices...

Well, I called the girl from the other night, but there was no answer. I'm not really surprised. In fact, I'm rather relieved, since there's another girl that I'm more interested in. The only problem is that I don't think she knows that, first of all, and secondly, I don't think she'd even want to have a relationship with me. Add that to the fact that she lives a good distance away and it seems like there's no chance of me dating this woman.

So, I can either wait and hope things work out, or, I can just plod along and keep trying the local dating scene, which really isn't that great. The only local activities at a shore community during the winter are drinking and, well, drinking. There's no other kind of nightlife, aside from the casinos in Atlantic City, but most of the time, the only women that go there are in the company of their husbands or boyfriends. Not to mention that it's an hour or so to get there.

I guess it's going to be a lonely Christmas again.

All things considered...

Last night, I had my first date since my breakup with my ex. The girl I'd been trying to catch up with since the spring (even before I started seeing my ex) finally got back into town the day before yesterday. Nothing big, we just went out for drinks, but it was a good time. The conversation ranged from family, to schooling, friends and hobbies. The whole gamut of topics. All in all, I think we hit it off rather well.

I'm going to play it cool and call her tomorrow.

So, this morning, it's cold, rainy and rather gray outside, but all things considered, it's a pretty good day.

Keeping busy

I spent most of the day getting stuff done around here, even though I swore to myself that I was going to take it easy. What got me started was the need for clean clothes. That started, I figured I'd sit back, relax, possibly pop in a DVD or three and just chill.

Yeah, right.

I got as far as cuing up the flick, when I looked over and spotted a hole in the wall that I needed to patch and that I'd put off for far too long. So, while the movie was playing, I played Mr. Fix-it and patched the hole.

Okay, that didn't take too long. Let me finish this movie. Yeah, right. The washing machine just buzzed and I found myself taking the next load down. Twenty minutes later, I was back in front of the TV. Fifteen minutes later, my brother showed up with his kids, so I went downstairs and socialized for a few, then beat a hasty retreat and let the folks entertain them.

The movie ended and I found myself folding and putting away the first load of laundry when I was asked if I was going to paint the bathroom today. I thought about it for a bit and then trundled across the hall to start my next project.

Two and a half hours later, the bathroom was a nice shade of seafoam blue/green. In between breaks, I folded the last load of laundry and put it away. That all done, I cleaned up the painting stuff and stopped briefly to jot down my thoughts here.

Now it's off to do a little light reading and then to bed. Maybe I might even stay up to watch some Adult Swim.

Tomorrow, it's back to the grind.