Well, I did to a little shopping, but it wasn’t me who was buying anything. BFL and I just helped her mom do “close as can be” matches for yarn for a blanket she’s making. We couldn’t get exact matches, but the matches we made will work fine, and if anyone asks, I say she can tell them she meant it to be that way. It’ll be a pretty blanket regardless.

However, while Hobby Lobby wasn’t as bad as I’m sure Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, etc were, I am immensely glad they were the only places we went. I can’t stand shopping on “Black Friday.” I don’t want or need “deals” on items on my gift list that badly that I’m willing to risk being trampled to death as happened in a Wal-Mart either last year or in 2007. Sorry, it’s just not going to happen. Not to me anyways.

So my shopping will be done online. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc for any books I might buy for Christmas gifts, and probably eBay for anything else. Yes, I am that much of a cheapskate. LOL How do you plan to do your holiday shopping?

My best friend’s mom is trying to decide what she should do for her older daughter for Christmas. She has been making stuff for various people on her list, but her older daughter she’s stumped about. Since they just got a new truck, I suggested truck accessories, but she wasn’t exactly receptive of that one. LOL Then again, I know that money is tight for her so I guess that wouldn’t be the best idea for gift-giving for her.

Myself, if anyone gets a gift from me this year, it’ll be something I made – a blanket or jewelry that I made. LOL I’m not playing around with trying to buy gifts for people this year. I can’t afford it. LOL

You know, I’ve noticed that a few of my friends, Jenn from Jenn.nu and Lady Rose from 2 Witches Blog to start with, have undergone the gastric bypass weight loss surgery. I think it’s great that they’ve taken these steps towards getting healthy. I only wish I could do so. However, I will be relegated to things such as Kettlebell workouts (which actually look kind of interesting to be honest), Pilates (as much as my morbidly obese butt can do them), and trying to start eating right.

Not being able to get the gastric bypass is not a matter of not having insurance or a job right now, although that does not help. The fact of the matter is, I would have to have my hiatal hernia fixed first, which is something that my doctor has stated he is firmly against due to a side effect of that surgery – with gastric bypass, if you overeat (TMI coming, I’m sorry), I’ve heard that you throw up. (At least my boss who had it did.) The fix for the hiatal hernia literally renders you incapable of throwing up. Ummmm, no thank you. I’d need to be able to do that! LOL

Also, frankly, the road to getting it done is a long and arduous one that frankly, if I were working full time, I doubt I’d be able to take the time off to have the surgery done in the first place. So that leaves me with the good old methods of trying to lose the weight. I had a blog where I talked about my weight loss, perhaps I’ll either resurrect it, or I’ll create a new one. We’ll see.

Lately I have been on a jag of taking pictures. Mostly the pictures are of my pets or the jewelry or crocheted items I have made. The only problem with my taking these pictures is that they’re taken with my cell phone. And because my cell phone does not offer the option to connect it to the computer and download the pictures, I have to pay to get the pictures off my phone and onto my computer, to flickr, etc. This is why my roommate and I are looking at digital cameras and trying to decide which one we want to get so we can start saving up for one. We figure that it would be better than paying for message and data charges to send the pictures from our phones, and we’d be able to actually continue to take pictures.

I need to start writing. As in I need to start working on my NaNoWriMo novel. I have 20,041 words of the 50,000 so far, but I haven’t written since Thursday and so I am over 3000 words behind schedule now! However, I am confident I can catch up as I had been ahead of schedule before. I’m actually finding NaNoWriMo relaxing this time around because the novel is flowing from me just was well as diet pill reviews flow from users of diet pills. I am sincerely hoping that I will “win” NaNoWriMo this year. It’s my second year participating and I’ve noted a lot of my friends do not win their first year but do win their second. Now I think my novel may need more than 50,000 words, but 50,000 is the minimum to win NaNoWriMo. We shall see what happens.