i kinda freaked out a couple months ago when it cost fifty-fucking-two dollars to fill up the celica (you remember my decepticon), but six weeks later when i still had a quarter of a tank left i decided to calculate what i was getting again. 35 mpg in town – sweet! then we went on a short road trip for july 4th, across colorado and back, and on the highway.,.. 40 !! i know right?! who needs a hybrid?!

in the meantime, the crv hit 100K miles. but it still gets 25+mpg in town, and we took it in for a check up since the odometer rolled and it got an a+. and all our friends who have hondas, which we realized is literally ALL our friends pretty much, say at a hundred thousand miles it’s just getting broken in! and they’re right, my civic had 284,000 and i still sold it for $1000!

japanese cars, much like japanese tv shows, rule!

then between people soft and pet portraits (don’t ask) it was fairly miserable. we didn’t even put up our whoville-ish xmas trees until dec 21st.

but none of that matters because WE got a Wii for christmas!! thank you, santa (aka, melissa)!! it’s awesome!

plus we got a WHITE xmas!! like really white! it snowed alllll day! yay snow!! yay, Wii!

click the thumbnails below to see some holiday highlights!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS !!

anywhooozer, enough about that, here’s more of my cool stuff.. my suitcase! clearly it’s not new, but it is a new acquisition. here’s what happened, ok before we went to seattle we were shopping for a hard-sided suitcase because we were planning to buy these specific, affordable frames at ikea and we thought that would be a good way to get them home without breaking the glass. but if you’ll recall while we were out shopping for a suitcase i bought a car instead (and there’s a bit of a follow-up story about the car – but it’s a doozie and i’m not prepared to blog about it just yet), and thus could not afford the suitcase. so we posted on freecycle.com, and if i haven’t explained about freecycle.com you’re going to have to look into it yourself, but basically you sign up for your area and then instead of just throwing your old stuff away you post that it’s available for free for anybody who wants to come get it on a first-come-first-served basis, and you can also post what you need and if anybody has it and doesn’t need it they’ll let you know – pretty cool.

so m posted that we were looking for a hard sided suitcase no matter how old or ugly and we actually ended up with a couple unfortunately they weren’t big enough for the frames we had in mind, but i decided one of them was big enough for me to use instead of taking one of the giant ones i usually take and totally over-packing like i usually do.

but this suitcase needed a face-lift, or some personality, or something. i mean if you’re going to travel with a suitcase that’s as old as you are you should try to at least make it look interesting (like you are). so without spending a dime, we fixed her up a bit:

it’s so awesome! and yes, we had that many stickers (and so many more) just laying around the house, which is why it didn’t cost a dime. it was so exciting to see it come down the chute onto the baggage carousel! everyone was jealous!! btw, that’s kylie’s album cover that we made into a giant sticker on one side. also btw, these pics were taken after the trip, after the airline had their way with it. oh, and you’re missing the best part.. the giant rainbow colored strap that we had to secure around it because you’re not allowed to lock your suitcases any more and these babies really need to be locked or they can come open too easy.

isn’t it way better than all the blah, blah, black nylon luggage? now, i think i need a whole set like this, but i’m a moron and didn’t buy any new stickers for it when i was in seattle or vancouver. oooh, but i did get one new smashed penny and a smashed quarter!!

oooooh, i just figured out what my next installment of “my cool stuff” will be about..

my first installment features a purchase i made during the most recent woot off, and no it’s not a screaming monkey (damn elusive screaming monkeys!)..

it’s sake! which in and of itself is cool but it’s of course the “g” that made this two-fer a must have. i obviously have a bit of a thing for a good lower case “g,” and a good sake is not a bad thing either.

i also like the haiku:

Men can’t find it.
Forces can’t make it.
Time can never change it.

joy

cool, huh?