Goodbye, November...

...and thank you.

I'm not going to lie- even though this month rolled around pretty fast, it was probably one of my better months in the whole entire year, so far (we've still got next month, silly!...though, my hopes aren't that high this holiday season, and it's probably better to keep them that way to prevent disappointment five years running...).

Now, onto today's story...

This morning was mostly bittersweet.

Ian took me over to Michael's to find stuff to make holiday gifts with. I was dropped off a good five minutes early, so I watched as employees prepped the store front around me. They were pretty polite, and let me in the store right on time.

Finding all of the stuff I needed was a bust. Feathers were nowhere to be found, so I think that they might have sold out around this area. No wonder there were multiple reminders around the store telling customers that they should order in bulk while they could. By the time I got most of the stuff together, Ian got back from his chiropractic appointment with Evelyn, and basically killed any ideas I had with shipping worries.

My mind was in panic mode, and I was slightly depressed and angry. To make matters worse, I barely checked my bank account before Ian arrived to pick me up to see how much money I had left after Christmas spending just on Ian alone, and I didn't have enough to pay off photography expenses for a client and pay for website fees for my other work (my paycheck from one of my clients was not going to be here until after Brett's birthday, and we can't wait until then with shipping for the holidays being as crazy as it is around here). I was completely SoL. I had to make a choice, so I did...

...I asked Ian if he could foot the bill. He did so, grumbling. He got me the memory box that was on sale outside (we desperately needed one since the box that all of our other cards were in is starting to rip pretty badly), a Crayola airbrush system (the most logical way to ship anything to my relatives was to create artwork on a flat surface. It was either going to be huge fees in ink for the printer [if I was going the digital route], or canvas [for traditional works; which might still happen for mounting later on], and manila envelopes [which is still is, for shipping], and a dinosaur plushie for Evelyn (for Christmas) that she had grabbed on the way in, and refused to part with (there were tears galore when we tried to take it away. Bright side is that we know exactly what else on what to get her for Christmas now!).

The rest of the morning it felt as if he was annoyed with me, and he sure was. It was uncomfortable.

We drove over to Jared to get my rings inspected. It was a good thing that I had checked the paperwork before we left, or else we probably would have done the inspection tomorrow. That would have totally null and voided the insurance we had on the rings... We plan on picking them up tomorrow, since I went on 24 hours of no sleep with how Evelyn was these last couple of days.

Next stop was the mall for the last pickup of my clients' photos. Ian made me run into the mall, claiming that he was exhausted (I think he was to a point, but I think he just wanted a break from me being around him, for the time being). Made a beeline toward Idaho Camera. When I got there, the guy that was usually dealing with my orders wasn't there, so I had to deal with the other two people that was in there constantly. They looked all over searching for my negatives, even claiming that the main store hadn't even sent them over. After a good eight minutes, they finally found my negatives. I didn't realize that the film I was using (that was expired) needed to be in an E-6 format. The regular development only for black and white film for 35mm was only $3.50 plus tax-the E-6 format that was used bumped up the price to $9.99 (yikes)! At least, I know with them I'm getting a good deal for my money, compared to a bunch of competitors around here, so complaining for only momentary.

On my way back, I made a stop over at The Body Shop with my hands being dry due to the weather. After being stopped by an employee, I made my rounds around the store, finally finding lotion. I probably should have used one of the body creams, but my hands were full and I didn't want something that could possibly mess with the negatives. I ended up putting on some of their signature cherry blossom scent. Oldie, but a goodie. That was a small happiness that I had felt the whole morning.

Back to the car, it was. By the time I had gotten back, Ian seemed to be more awake until he saw me. I got in the car to check the slides for the prints. They were pretty decent sized.

With the Mormon Channel playing in the background (they have one of the best selections of holiday music this time of year. I can hardly stand using the regular radio with some of the garbage remixes I've heard in dealing with any sort of holiday music. There's only a couple of radio exceptions to date), we drove over to Hastings so Ian could find a holiday CD in dealing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. As he looked, I checked out the comics section to mostly check up on any of the Witchblade and Artifacts comics. With Witchblade, I mostly knew how far I was behind on the series, with Artifacts, I was completely in the dark. I'm so far behind on that series that it isn't even funny. The worst part was that there were huge gaps in the selection, which meant that store was cleaned out by some of the local Topcow collections I know around here. I was pretty bummed.

I accidentally found Marceline and the Scream Queens. I only found the fourth and fifth issues, but decided on not getting them since Ian pointed out that they were probably going to put out a compendium later (I sure hope to the Gods and Goddesses that he's right, or I'm going to be super bummed out), since it was Adventure Time related (Cartoon Network put out weird groups of episodes together on DVD).

We drove home afterward, with Ian claiming that he could barely keep his eyes open (which I hardly thought that was the case, but whatever). As we pulled up into the driveway, I voiced the thought of him being angry with me. It totally was. After multiple requests, I had a mini breakdown. After making a beeline downstairs, I grabbed the rest of the stuff from upstairs that I thought I had to grab. It hurt hearing Ian seem way more awake as he walked through the doorway, and greeted Logan.

Everything still looked pretty drear on our end, until Steph showed up. I think he presence was welcomed by the both of us. We all watched The Cleveland Show (I can hardly stand that show with how tasteless some of the jokes are, but randomly watched it anyway) together while we found stuff to eat. Ian headed off to bed after watching a couple of the episodes (which also hurt, with him claiming how exhausted he was earlier). Being forced to stay up to watch Evelyn, I hungout with Steph. She cheered me up quite a bit, especially when we talked about Neopets. Good times. On the downside, when I went to go and show her the striped Kacheek plushie that Christina bought me years back, it was completely MIA. I started tearing up pretty badly after that.

This day just kept turning into a downward spiral. Was it ever going to look up?

After getting some sleep, I was feeling better, but not by much. I was still on edge with how Ian treated me earlier. I debated on going over to Jared to pick up my rings since I had asked to have them plated. I held out since Ian plans on taking me over there tomorrow.

Fast forward to when Ian was about to wake up. I had another mini meltdown, and I said things when I wasn't in the right mind. After Ian showered, we kissed and made up after I told Ian what was going on. We both apologized to each other for how we treated one another.

As one of my favorite actors Matthew Davis said recently, "We forget that the preparatory step to peace is always justice."

Apologies are nice.

P.S. See you all tomorrow for the first day of Creepmas! I'm so excited for it to start! ^w^