OK....been on and off cleaning my room. Here's a little thing I found on a message board...Feel free to answer 'em if you want. I think that they're pretty interesting questions... 1. If someone tripped over chairs in a public place staring at you, what would be your first assumption for the reason for their actions? They tripped because they were staring at me. Do I have a booger? 2. If you got clothes you hated for Christmas, do you ask where they got them so you can exchange or ask for a receipt or throw it in the back of a drawer or wear them cause you don't care what you look like? No, there's many occasions that I don't really care about where heinous clothes are OK to wear. 3. What do you think of that West Virginia guy that just won 314.9 million? Man! When's it my turn!? Too bad after taking the lump sum it's only 100 million something...;) 4. If a picture of you wearing nothing but a red sheet was up in a public place and you had to be there one evening and people stared at you: how would you handle the admiration/fame? I would avoid the location where the poster is, and if anyone mentioned it, I would just smile and say 'Thank You' 5. If you had a mother-in-law and you hated her, but she bought you a ton of great Christmas presents: would you try to like her or is it that you cannot be bought? I always try to like people, but if I didn't like her already, good presents aren't going to do anything for her. Oh, but I'm not giving back the presents! 6. If you had to take care of someone's house and pets while they were gone and you couldn't get a door open, would you try to kick it in? I'd look for a window first. Trying to kick in doors hurts. 7. Does it bug you that people stare at you in public while you're eating? No. It would bother me if they were counting my chews, though. 8. If you had to take care of someone's house, and they left you more than a page of things to do while they are gone for TWO full DAYS, like water their plants that look like they haven't been watered in a month...etc. Would you do it? (Hypothethically, they are really nice people) Yeah. I'm a sucker for that stuff. That's a good idea, though, I'm thinking of maybe going on a trip and finding some sucker to clean my room while I'm gone. 9. How long could you work at a high paying job that you were totally bored with? Forever. You can find many things to do when you're bored at work. 10. How many days late did you return your last video rental or library book? What's your personal record for late returns? 4 days. Luckily, Blockbuster doesn't charge per day. It just renews the rental. My personal record is 25 days. I was away on Christmas break and I forgot about the movie. 11. If a belly-dancer was scheduled to be at your work for a birthday surprise, would you react? I'd make sure I had batteries in my camera. And a notebook to take notes. That could be a good skill to have. - Yano, 6:09 PM |

Must....Clean....Room Must....Clean....Room Must....Clean....Room It seems that I have lost the floor of my room. Have you seen it? I think it's come to the point where I really must tidy up around here. It's getting even a little too messy for me! And I like having a clean room for the new year. You know, starting the new year right. Yesterday, I totally fell asleep. I was supposed to go out and hang out with 'Alki-Man' and his amazing friends, but I put my head down for a little nap at 9 and have a fuzzy recollection of Fatima trying to wake me up at 11, and then next thing I know, its 3 in the morning. Sorry guys, I'll have to come out and play next time. So today, I'm on a mission. Find the floor of my room. Wish me luck! BTW - Bought Christina Aguilera's latest CD, Stripped. As much as I don't like her new image, the latest CD is REALLY good. I thought the whole thing might be Christina trying too had to be a ghetto RNB queen, but she touches on a lot of genres of music. I'm liking it. Especially track 12. Very Monkees/James Bond/Sheryl Crow-esque. - Yano, 11:53 AM |

Friday, December 27 Friday, December 27

Going to My Happy Place Going to My Happy Place Going to My Happy Place Hmm, you would have thought that I would have posted something since I called in sick yesterday. But I was really busy, last minute Christmas shopping and catching up on everyone else's blogs. I was also working a bit on the 'New Improved Yano What I Mean dot com' site. It's looking good. Well, it's actually looking rather plain, but it'll change. So anyway, I'm back at work today, and since everyone else in the universe is on vacation, it's pretty slow today. So we took liberties with our lunch time. It was an excellent lunch today at Su Casa, with good conversation, good people, and best of all, good margaritas. So right now, my senses are a bit, um, enhanced. I kinda feel like I'm typing super fast, and I'm laughing at everything. Yes, the stupid buzzed smile. Oh, there's nothing better than having a couple drinks during your lunch break. And why not!?!? I've been given a second lease on life. I'm going to enjoy it! Well, I'm going to enjoy drinking. Just kidding. - Yano, 1:13 PM |

The Friday Five! 1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year? Getting engaged and picking a date and reception hall without killing anyone. 2. What was your biggest disappointment? Realizing that I haven't been saving money like I should have been. SAVE YOUR MONEY PEOPLE! WEDDINGS ARE EXPENSIVE! 3. Will you be making any New Year's resolutions? I always do, and I never stick to them. 4. Where will you be at midnight? Do you wish you could be somewhere else? Probably at my family party. We celebrate New Year's every year together. I'll wish I was in a million other places, but a part of me will be happy where I am - with family 5. Aside from (possibly) staying up late, do you have any other New Year's traditions? We always take a cousin picture before midnight, then at midnight, an aunt or uncle always throws a bunch of change into the air that we scramble to catch to get good luck for the next year. Then again, maybe they just find it funny that we're crawling around on the floor looking for change... - Yano, 1:11 PM |

Wednesday, December 25 Wednesday, December 25

Miracles Happen On Christmas Miracles Happen On Christmas Miracles Happen On Christmas a.k.a. The Christmas that I Almost Died The Christmas that I Almost Died The Christmas that I Almost Died Well, it was a pretty eventful Christmas this year....so much had happened! To start it off, Christmas Eve, my family headed out to Dave's home to spend dinner with his family. Our families get along really well, which is great. Our parents enjoy each other's company, and Fatima and Justin were already friends from U of I. Dinner was awesome. There were a lot of great meat products to choose from. Then we took a million and one pictures by the Christmas tree. Those pics are in my Dad's camera, but one he gets those developed, I'll post them here. After taking pictures, we headed out to the evening mass. Normally, we're at our other family party and we go to midnight mass with all the cousins (which I mentioned in my previous post). But this time it was just our familes that went to Dave's church (the church that we're going to get married in) for Christmas mass. It was nice and everything, but a little part of my really missed going to mass with my other cousins. I'm a sucker for sentimentality, and midnight mass is one of my favorite traditions. But it was a nice mass, and it was great to share it with Dave's family. Maybe next year we can con them into coming to our midnight mass. Anothing thing I'd love to mention was the snow. The weathercasters had been commenting all week about the fact that we weren't going to have a white Christmas. There's something about snow on Christmas that just makes the whole thing complete, so I was a little bummed that was no expectation of snow. However, lo and behold, it snowed on Christmas Eve, leaving us with 3 inches of snow, enough to stick on the ground to have a true White Christmas. YAY! My dream of a white Christmas came true. *wink* After Dave's, we headed to my aunt's place where the rest of my family was at. We took more family pictures, then the presents were passed out. There weren't as many presents this year for us since we chose to just do a grab bag between the cousins. But I did get a nice amount of presents, so I'm not complaining. Click here to see us open presents I got my little flower girl a really cute Stitch doll (you can see it in an earlier post - it's the one that's in the tree) and I knew it was going to be a hit or miss as to if she would actually like it. She's 2, and she's a shy little thing. As you can see from this video, she was a BIT scared of it. Ahh....once she watches the movie, she'll learn to love him. She better! Watch Nina Run Away from My Present After opening presents, we spent the rest of the night playing Cranium and Trivial Pursuit. I ended up going to sleep at around 6:30am. There was a lot of laughing, shouting and eating taking place before I went to sleep! I eventually ended up waking at around 12 on Christmas day. We ate some more and just hung out talking. So we're talking about funny things that happened the night before, and I'm eating Claudine's cookies. Maui brings up this funny story about me sitting on Melanie's head, and we all bust out laughing. But unfortunately for me, I was swallowing a cookie at the time. So I started coughing, thinking it would come out. And this whole time I'm still laughing. But then I realize that the cookie isn't coming out. By now, my cousin Marian's like 'Christine, are you serious?' and I start nodding my head, and the realize that although I'm making a coughing action, there's no noise, and I'm starting to turn beet red. Maui, who's a nurse, comes around and does the Heimlich on me. This dislodges the offending cookie (and I actually end up puking) and in all actuality, saves my life. But then again, he was the one that told the joke that got me gagging in the first place! So after a lot of coughing after that, we had a good laugh over my near death experience. So Maui gave me three things for Christmas - Near-Death, Life, and a cute sweater. The 'Didja hear? Christine almost died!' story must have been told 30 times today. Miracles DO happen on Christmas! - Yano, 11:57 PM |

Tuesday, December 24 Tuesday, December 24

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Well, Christmas starts for me today. First, my family is going over to Dave's for the very first Feliciano/Estacio Christmas. Weird! But it should be a good time. Our families get along very well. After that, it's time for our family Christmas. It's the best! There's about 30 of us that get together, and we keep one room open for the tree and all the presents (usually you can't see the tree there's so many presents!). We then chow down on tons of food, take family pictures, then head off to midnight mass. We take up about 3 pews there, and an uncle or two always ends up nodding off and snoring (ok, I've been accused of doing that, myself, too!). Once we get home, an uncle puts on the santa hat and passes around the presents. We all open them up at the same time and stay up all night playing video games or board games. Christmas day we end up waking up at about noon, then eat leftovers and play more games. Wishing all of you a wonderful holiday, filled with laughter, love, and GOOD FOOD! - Yano, 4:32 PM |

How do you like the new holiday colors? OK, off for some last minute Christmas shopping! - Yano, 11:32 AM |

Monday, December 23 Monday, December 23

Back to the Funky Buddha Back to the Funky Buddha Back to the Funky Buddha Shopping wasn't too bad on Saturday. I went to an obscure mall that no one thinks is cool anymore, but has enough of a selection of shops to meet my shopping needs. No one was killed in the parking lot that day! I'm still not done with all my shopping yet, but I'll do the rest during lunch today. Saturday night me, Dave, Chetan and Gil went to the Funky Buddha Lounge on Saturday night. I hadn't gone out dancing for a non-birthday event in a while, and it's been a REALLY long time since I've gone to the Funky Buddha. I had almost forgotten why I love going to that place. Although the danceflooer is smaller than my bathroom, the music was great, all night long. The played this AWESOME old house set that got everyone out on the floor. I miss the days of going out dancing all night long. Chetan's friend was friends with the DJs there, so we got the 'We're with the DJ' line at the front door. It was interesting to watch the interactions between people that night. Flirting, avoidance, and rejection. So fun to watch. And I realized that a drunk is more annoying when they're telling everyone repeatedly that they're drunk. I had a good buzz going, so maybe my drunk person tolerance was low, but I don't know. Talking about being drunk is just a cry for attention. Yesterday I watched the Bears lose, once again. That team is just falling to pieces. We then had family movie night, because Claudine and Fatima are both home from school. We ordered pizza and watched 'The Lord of the Rings'. I don't think I can ever get bored of watching that movie. Tonight me and my sisters are going to go and watch the Two Towers. I'm really excited to see it, because I've only heard good reviews about it. I think yaccs (my comments provider) is down. Don't worry, though, I'll be putting up the new site soon! - Yano, 10:15 AM |