fiesta bowl parade was today. i had a hard time getting into work. they had central blocked off from bethany home to thomas. it was such a disaster. i almost got into a traffic accident because of this parade. i work right off of central in the heart of downtown and well....it took me freaking an hour to get into the parking garage. this cop that i had to pass by had such a nasty ass attitude. all i wanted to do was just get to work and he was trying to give me a hard time. they had most of the roads blocked off around the area i worked. most of the afternoon i popped in and out of the office to go see the parade. i'm sure the office manager here doesn't mind and wouldn't tell the boss man in texas that i wasn't working today. he isn't that evil, i don't think.

Well, i want to wish you all a happy new year. you might find me in tempe being a retard tonight.....drive safely and don't drink and drive tonight :).

i'm actually here at work. it feels weird being here during the day. usually i'm at school around this time. this is probably the last day i can come in for work during the day this week. next week i will have to go back to my regular schedule of school and work. blah. i dread it, but i know i have to do it.

awwwww.....i had such a wonderful time during my visit at my dad's house. we left from phoenix on monday, december 23. i slept in that morning and we didn't leave until 1pm. it was such a boring drive. flagstaff was actually clear. i was surprised, but as i passed flagstaff to go into leupp i ran into the most horrific weather. i was panicing for a bit. there was so much snow! the roads were snow packed. i made my way through bird spring, indian wells, dilcon, greasewood, ganado, and st. michaels. dang. it was crazy. i was just about to make a turn back to winslow and get on the free way. i didn't know that it was snowing that bad that way. i should have looked at the weather report for those areas. my dad was so worried. brian and i had turned our cell phones off because we were on roaming, i guess all that time my dad was trying to figure out where we were and if we were alright. i'm so happy we made it through all that snow!

on christmas day every one woke up and we were ready to open all the packages that were under the tree. i got a turquoise bracelet, a pendelton blanket, turquoise earrings and matching necklace, a fondue set, bath and body works stuff, and of course candy. i also cooked our christmas dinner. i cooked for a family of 10! i started around 10 am and was finished by 4:30 pm. this was my menu for my christmas dinner:

baked 3 pies
turkey
ham
green been casserole
fruit salad
candied yams
mashed potatoes
potato salad
turkey gravy
stuffing
biscuits
salad
mutton stew
fry bread
cranberry sauce

and i did this all by myself. i was a cooking fool. i was so tired by the time we were ready to eat. I actually had the energy to go tubing at my grandma and grandpa's house in coalmine. it was the best. i felt like i was a little kid again. i flipped off that inner tube so many times because my sister's boyfriend had made a huge jump at the end of the hill we were sliding on. it was cold but that didn't mattter because i was with my family.....i can't wait until next christmas...

yes, it was a good day today. i got up this morning. i was actually excited to get up today. i had two christmas parties to look for forward to. i went to school and took my test. i got a B. my first B. i was dissapointed at first, but then i thought about it and now i don't think it's bad at all. it's better than a C, D, or F. Oh well, i wasn't really into taking a test today any way. after the test we decided to set the table for the christmas party at school. we did the mug and christmas gift exchange. i got a beautiful turquoise necklace. i am actually wearing it right now. the gift exchange took quite a long time because i remember thinking that i wanted them to hurry up and get on with it because the smell of the food was making me hungry. i pigged out.

i got to work around 11:45 today and the festivities were getting started. i made it just in the nick of time. the smell of food lingered throughout the office. every thing went smoothly today. no stress at all. when every one was about to finish up eating they started to pass out the presents. i got perfume. it's called 'miracle' by lancome. it smells good. then our sales guy each gave us (4 girls, including me) 40 bucks. that just topped the day off. that was so wonderful for him to just hand over 40 bucks. so now i am 40 bucks richer today....wooo hoo.

last night i didn't get a chance to thank the arresting officer for his heroism. sheez.......he heard my cries for help. since, i didn't get to thank the officer in person i called the police department, gave them my case number and asked who the arresting officer was. they gave me his name and his badge number and the address to the police department. after i got the name of the officer and the address, i went down stairs to the gift shop and bought him a thank you card. i thanked him tons. i will never forget what happened to me yesterday. i know now that i will be more cautious when i am out by my self. a great learning experiencing......i never thought any thing like this would ever happen to me.....

well, anyway, i have two christmas parties tomorrow. one is at school around 11am and the other at 1pm at work. i don't know if i should eat at school because i want to save my appetite for the food at work. i guess we will see about that tomorrow. i might just end up pigging out by the time tomorrow rolls around. i'll be sure to drink some pepto bismal tomorrow night.

gawd.....guess what happened to me tonight.......shit it was like scenes from a movie. i had just got off work and I stopped at this gas station to get some sodas for brian and i. for some reason it was unusually busy there that night. i usually park in front of the store, but for some god forsaken reason i parked on the side of the gas station where it was dimly lit. i walked in, grabbed the sodas, and paid for my things. I weaved in and out of croud as i made my way out to the door. as i was walking out the door i noticed that there were two guys standing by the telephone. one was black and the other was a spanish guy. the black guy was talking on the phone. i could feel at the corner of my eye that the spanish guy was watching my every move. it felt a little eerie so i walked a little faster to my car. as i got to my car i noticed the black guy was walking beside me and then i stopped a bit to see what he wanted and then right as i was going to turn he grabbed my purse. at first i was thinking it was just a joke and that he was going to give it back to me, but as i watched him walk away i started to yell that he had my purse. i think i must of screamed at the top of my lungs. i was in shock. i actually started to chase after him into the darkness. i remember we were running on the sidewalk by the main road and then i found myself exhausted, huffing and puffing, and still yelling at the top of my lungs in a dark alley with walls surrounding me. i remember looking at a dumpster wondering if he was in there. i can't believe i had the guts to actually chase this asshole. i had so much adrenaline running through my body. i wanted to chase him some more, but then i realized that he had jumped over the massive walls that were surrounding me. i was so sad, disgusted, and just so fucking mad all at the same time. i ran back to the gas station where i had my purse stolen and told the attendant that was inside that a man had stolen my purse outside the gas station. he asked me if i wanted to call 911. i told him no, only because i thought i wouldn't get my purse back. the gas attendant calmed me down and ran to the back of the store and grabbed a dasani bottled water for me to drink so i could catch my breath. that calmed me down a bit. i asked him if i could use the phone and he dialed the number to my house. i called brian, frantically told him the situation and then got off the phone. i didn't know what to do at that point. i felt lost. all these things were running in my head. i was thinking gawd...i have to cancel my bank cards, credit cards, checks, and then i was thinking i had to get my driver's license....social security card.... when i was thinking about all this a lady comes running in shouting to call 911. she shouts that there is a guy a couple of streets down holding another guy at gun point on the ground. right then i knew that must be the fucking bastard that stole my purse. i asked her if the guy was black and if he had a beenie on his head. she said yes. gawd, i was so relieved to hear that. once i heard her say that i ran to my car and took off in the direction she told me to go. i found the place with no problem. i waited in my car and turned my high beams on. i was too afraid to get out, but as i was sitting there and my eyes were getting adjusted i saw that the guy that was holding the gun was an off duty cop. he had a bullet proof vest on but was in civilian clothes. he had the guy face down on the ground with his gun pointed to the back of his head. i tell you, it was like scenes from a cop movie. i got out of my car. i stood there for a moment and then i spotted my purse a few feet away from them. i was going to go get it, but the cop told me to stand back and wait. i obeyed his orders and stood by my car. i heard sirens all around me. they were coming closer. then i heard a helicopter above me. the ghetto bird was on top with it's spot light on us. geez, i counted how many cop cars that surrounded us. there was a total of 7. simutaneously the cops all got out of their cars and went to assist the cop with the gun. they got the guy up and put him in handcuffs and escorted him to the back of one of the cars. during all that....i said a little prayer and thanked god for watching over me tonight. i was relieved, happy, and felt really good inside. one of the cops wrote of up the incident report. he asked me how it all happened and wrote every thing i said down. he asked me if i wanted to prosecute. i said yes. i want to prosecute this fucker. for one, he stole my purse, two he made me run and three he messed with the wrong person. i will be in the court room when the court date is set. he deserves it. anyway, i hope you all be careful now. people are that desparate and since it's the holidays theres no telling what a person might do. i am glad that i'm still alive and nothing bad came out of this whole fiasco.

i'm so tired. i have two christmas parties to go to and they are all within this week. at school were are doing some stupid mug exchange and potluck christmas dinner. i had to run to walmart and spend some money. money that i was trying to save for the drive back home to see my family. yes, i'm going home. fuck it. if it means that i have to sacrifice some stuff then fuck it. i will go home. i need to any way. i need to get out of this place and be around my family. on friday we have our christmas party here at work. i have to bring the fruit salad. i'm going to make this yummy fruit salad. it's called pistachio fluff fruit salad. here are the ingredients.

Pistachio Fluff Fruit Salad

Ingredients
1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice
1 (3 ounce) package instant pistachio pudding mix
1 (12 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
2 large bananas, sliced
2 cups miniature marshmallows
1 (15.25 ounce) can fruit cocktail, drained
1 (11 ounce) can mandarin oranges, drained


Directions
Dump instant pudding into a large mixing bowl. Add pineapple, and mix well. Mix in nondairy whipped topping. Stir in bananas, marshmallows, fruit cocktail, and mandarin oranges. Cover, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

i decided i will take that for the christmas party at work. this year we are having a pot luck christmas party because our the boss gave us a choice. he asked us if we wanted to have it at a restaruant or would we rather have a pot lock and have really nice gifts. of course, we are ghetto, we asked for the potluck and really good gifts. last year we had our christmas dinner at a restaraunt called sports city grill in downtown phoenix. the year before that we had the christmas party at machayos. that was the year our boss was actually nice to us. he let us order any thing off the menu and plus it was open bar all night. sheez, back then i was such a wino and so that night i took advantage of the open bar that they had. those were some good christmas parties. hopefully this year isn't going to be too bad since we are bringing in some good food to munch. i hope the christmas presents we are expecting are good. i say this because i feel the company owes it to us. that could be one good explanation. anyway i better get back to work. i have been goofing off far too long. i think it has been 2 hours since i last touched my work...i better get....nite y'all....

geez, there is some major partying in the restaraunt across from my office. a company is having their christmas party tonight. they have a dj and every thing. when i was making my rounds down stairs i over heard this bimbo sounding chick saying that they had an open bar. oh whoopdeedoo. bah hum bug. earlier i heard from the loud speaker system that they were drawing for 4 vacation packages. i heard only two trips though. one was for cancun and the other las vegas. i thought what a fantastic thing a company can do for their employees. they actually reward their employees. unlike mine, my company sucks. no employee incentives. not a freaking gift certificate, blah

tonight brian is actually going to make me some homemade tortillas. i wonder how they are going to turn out. if it looks and tastes bad i will still eat it anyway. i don't want to hurt brian's feelings. i know he is probably going to put in a lot of effort trying to make it so i will eat every bit of it. tonight's menu is going to be baked seasoned pork chops, fried potatoes, corn on the cob, and brian's homemade tortillas. i am so fortunate that he is cooking tonight. If it weren't for brian's cooking, i would have probably had me a bologna sandwich and some chips for dinner. oh i came home last night from work and i discovered that he also rearranged the whole living room. he is so damn good. i have to reward him this weekend after i get off of work on saturday......

dang tomorrow is gonna be the oral report thingy that i will be dreading. i hate standing in front of an audience. the last time i had to do an oral report i thought i was gonna pass out. i'm not kidding. it's like, i had the courage to go up there and speak up, but once i got to that podium and saw all eyes on me, my body froze. i could actually hear my heart beat and as i was holding my paper i noticed my hands were shaking. i was trying to tell my self, slow down, don't stumble over your words, and just think that after this you will be fine. it didn't work. i felt my heart pounding all through my report. i hate it and wished that i didn't have to get up there tomorrow.

anyway, as always i'm here at work.....brian called me a little while ago. he asked me what i wanted to eat for dinner. i told him to take the steak out of the freezer and defrost it. dang, brian is gonna make me dinner. just cute. the other day i told him that he is the wife now, since he hasn't been working for the past few days. i told him you have to cook, do laundry, wash dishes, and vacuum, and when i get home he would have to do a deep body massage on me. it's nice though that some one is actually at the house. my poor kitty stays by her self all the time when we are away at work or school.

i slipped out of class early today. i feel so guilty. i wonder if my instructor found out. i hate for him to confront me tomorrow if he did. i had to take brian to this job site today so he can fill out their application. i also faxed his cover letter and resume to this one particular company. i really hope he gets hired there. it sounds like the company is really good. if he gets hired there, and brian gets called back to his job that layed him off, i will tell brian to stay at the new job because they pay a hell of a lot more at the place i faxed his resume to.

i have a couple of minutes left here for work so i better start getting ready to put stuff away. i need to go into one of the back offices and grab me a handful of the wonderful chocolate candy they have stashed back there......Mmmmmm.

sheez....every body i know is sick, including me. i ache all over. i keep hearing this monotonous ringing in my head. it's driving me nuts. i didn't expect to get sick at all. not right now. i need to be in school and i especially need to be at work. so far i've been doing great about showing up at work every day. usually i will just trickle into work here and there, but due to the fucked up circumstances i now fully understand what the consequences will be if i don't show up to work. brian has been doing okay. he's been out and about with a buddy of his from work. poor things, they both got layed off. every day they go out and job hunt. it's required that you look for a job while you are on unemployment any way. i have been getting after him about keeping accurate records of places he's been to because the last couple of times he didn't write down the names of the companies he applied to. i outta kick him in the butt for that. he should know better.

gosh, some people are so damn lucky......some people at my school have so much money left over from their grants. i know of this one chick that is getting 3,000 and some odd dollars after she graduates. now how come i didn't get something like that. why do i feel like i am just so unlucky. for me...it's seems as though things could be going so damn good and then it could just get so fucked up in a second. is everybody's lives like this or is it just me?

just about to leave from work. i have to get home and do some homework for my law and ethics class. i have so many things to do. i just don't have the time to do any thing anymore. i've been worrying constantly for the past few days. mainly, on how we are going to manage for the next couple of weeks. i really don't know what to do at this point. i will just have to see what the end result will be. it just sucks to even think about what can happen. a person can only go through so much shit and eventually they will just crumble. i have been doing okay so far. i just don't want to get to that point yet. not now. i need to just stay positive. i don't really know if i will get to visit my family this christmas. i will probably have to mail their gifts to them at a later date because right now that is the least of my worries.....i hope y'all are doing better than me...have a good night......

here at work on a saturday. i have not worked on a saturday in a very long time. i'm the only one here too. the other girls should be coming in a while. i got out of school early yesterday. i came right to work afterwards. it felt so good seeing my coworkers again. it was like the good ole' times. i was laughing all day. it took away all my worries away for the moment. gosh, i really miss my dad. i called him the day that we found out the bad news. he sounded like he was going to cry for us. my dad is a very religious person he prays for brian and I every day. i can just see my dad right now....brewing the coffee, listening to the christian station, and reading the bible at his desk. i miss him and wished he was here during our troubled times.

anyway, on the bright side...brian qualified for unemployment. the person he spoke to told him that he will be getting about $280 bucks a week. That is $350 less than what he used to get every week though. I have to really watch what we are buying for the next couple months. no more splurge spending and I will have to get my ass to work. I take a day off here and there, but now i realize i have to get my ass in gear and be a model employee at work. lol. yeah right.

I have been through so much shit in my life and this is not the worse i've been through. i know i will make it through this. brian and i are together. we love each other very much and we will make it. i have to keep a positive outlook every day and that will work with the help of brian by my side. we will get through this....sooner or later.

bah fucking bug. i have been worrying my self to death since yesterday. a black cloud is hovering over my head. i feel so awful. yesterday i found out that brian and 53 other people got layed off from work. they say that work completely ran out. this is so confusing. they tell brian that they are waiting on the cardinals stadium and coyote stadium contracts. they told brian and the other unfortunate people that got layed off to just stand by for the next 1-3 months. i really don't know what to do at this point. brian and i have accumulated an enormous amount of bills that my income alone will not cover what bills that we have. this will probably be the worst christmas i will ever have. so far we have this months bills covered, but i don't know about next month and the next couple of months after that. brian has been job hunting all day. poor thing. shit, out of all months why do they have to do this before christmas? for now i just told brian to keep looking for another job or to apply for unemployment for the time being. they say that they will call him once the contracts go through, i say yeah fucking right. they probably sugar coated every thing to make it sound so good before they left work that day. what was also unfair is that they let go of people who worked less than 2 years for that company. his own boss told brian that it was unfair that the big honchos made that decision. his boss told him that most of the people that worked there for 2 years or more either suck or are just plain lazy. he said brian was a good worker and they should over look how many years a person worked for the company and look at how the employees work performance is. i really don't know what to do at this point. so far the job hunting doesn't look that good for brian. i searched the internet and the newspaper yesterday and today. the want ads in the paper was only a page long. work is slow i guess....i pray that the lord will get brian and i through these challenging times....

i have been off work for a total of 7 days. i miss it actually. wow. it's been really nice, but i realize that it is getting closer to christmas and i have yet to buy a few more gifts. the other day brian made me drive him to best buy. he said that he was going to buy my gift. oh goodie. i wonder what my gift will be. lol. i definitely know it is from best buy and more than likely it is something electronic. i wonder if it is the digital camera that i wanted. i will have to wait and see. please oh please tell me that brian bought me a digital camera. i have wanted one for over a year now. the price of digital cameras have dropped dramatically and are now affordable.

i'm hungry. i really don't have anything in the fridge that is snack material. most of the stuff that is in the frig either needs to be cooked or microwaved. i'm so tired of microwave food. i'm tired of pot pies, hot pockets, michelenas, and swanson etc. yuck. i'm craving some dumpling soup. i had some when i was in window rock. i went to this particular food stand at the flea market. i don't remember the whole name but i do remember the word "ed's" was in the title. gosh, that stuff was so good. i ate the whole thing. brian had a mutton sandwich. his sandwich was stuffed with a lot of onions. the drive home was torture. he kept burping and the smell of onions would penetratate what little fresh air we had left in the car. gross. on the drive back to phoenix i had to open my window every now and then because brian was burping uncontrollably. i actually had to stop in dilcon to get brian some mouth wash. i tell ya that onion smell was pretty strong. lol. I'm hungry i'm going to dig in the pantry to look for something to munch on....cup o noodles sounds good.....MMMmmm.

we decided to leave from phoenix thursday (thanksgiving) morning. we found out that brian's sister had rented a room in flagstaff so we decided to meet up with them on thursday afternoon. we finally packed every thing in the car and headed onto the freeway. every thing was fine until i reached speeds up to 70-75 mph. the car was not driving well. i could go as far as 75 mph and it seemed like the whole car was vibrating. geez, i almost started crying because it was very frustrating. i had spent almost two freaking days at sears trying to get my car aligned and balanced, and in the end i bought all 4 tires. you would think that after buying all the tires that they would align and balance the car right. yeah right. anyway, we decided to drive it like that until we got to flagstaff. the drive was so boring. that is probably the first time i drove that slow on the freeway.

so we finally get to flagstaff and we chat and visit with brian's sister at the hotel. i really enjoyed it. i think it was something both brian and i needed, to be around other people, to gossip, joke, and to laugh uncontrollably. we did that for a bit and we decided that we needed to buy some food for the thanksgiving dinner that we planned on friday. we spent about 2 hrs in fry's. walking up and down each aisle throwing in anything we might need. it was really fun. another memorable moment that i will never forget. After all the grocery shopping brian and i agreed that we would stay in flagstaff until friday afternoon because every thing was closed on thursday. we needed to get the car worked on. the sears in flagstaff opened the next day at 8am. we were the first ones in there. i showed them my warranty papers and they were working on my car in no time. we walked around the flagstaff mall. there was an enourmous amount of people there. a lot of natives every where. you know, it's feels weird being on the reservation or being in cities that are close to the reservation because all you see is brown skin. i don't know if it's noticeable to any of y'all, but it's a big difference especially when you live in a place that is racially mixed. i guess when you are away from the rez for so long it's very noticeable. i sometimes feel awkward. sometimes people look at me with an expression like is she indian or what the hell is she? i get very uneasy when i am being stared at. i somewhat got used to it, but it still bugs me a bit.

it's friday morning and we finally get the car fixed. praise the lord! it was driving smoothly. i was reaching speeds of up to 100 mph because it was running so smoothly. i was happy. my car was finally fixed. a warning to all the people who live in phoenix or visit phoenix. do not go to sears auto care by the metro mall. they suck and do such a terrible job. i don't think half of them know what the hell they are doing there. i will never go there again, even if it is the last auto care place on this earth. i would rather walk on foot than to take my car in to those idiots. it's such a waste of money. anyway, we finally get to kayenta and we feast! there was so much food. i think i ate for two people that day. i felt pretty sick afterwards too. i over ate and that is not a good thing. especially, if you are eating at the later part of the day and you are not going to do anything strenuous later on. our day still didn't end though. brian and i decided to visit my dad in fort defiance. we left that night and we were in fort defiance on saturday and sunday. it was really good seeing my dad again. i missed my family very much and wished that i could have stayed longer. i shouldn't be whining. i will be seeing them on christmas again. i can't wait......