True Love

I have a lot of love for my favorite day of the year, Black Friday. The rush I get when I score an awesome deal, the holiday music, the crowds, the race to grab a limited item. The quality time i get to spend with my mom, who passed down all of her Black Friday wisdom to me. Finding the perfect gift for everyone. I got my brother a donut maker, I seriously hope he practices that thing on his family. :)

Normally I do splurge a bit on myself. But this year, due to my self-imposed punishment of being a crappy ring owner, I humbled myself and said no gifts for me. Nothing, nada, zip.

Except for those freakin' fantastic boots pictured here.

I have an ongoing love affair with boots. I'm not the kind of person who spends a ton of money on labels or expensive clothes, or even purses. Im not really even a shoe kind of girl. But show me an adorable boot, and my knees go weak. I live in Las Vegas, which means my boot wearing is kind of limited. So I live in them during the cold seasons, and look for excuses to break them out in the summer.

So when I saw these Ugg Bailey Button Triplets, I knew it was true love, and they were meant to be. Even if it's pretty much guaranteed they'll probably never go on sale this season anywhere. Judd tried talking me into a knock off pair at first. I can do knock off with most things like purses or jewelry. But not these. Too pretty.

So I grabbed them this morning, and they're safely hidden away. It's actually kind of nice restricting myself to one present. I can now really focus on the season itself and true meaning, and forget all the consumerism. Christmas comes just once a year, why waste it on silly material needs?

Her Diamonds

I can't sleep in today, even though it's Sunday morning. My mind is frazzled, so I'm up watching Sister Wives on Netflix and blogging.

Yesterday, I lost one of the diamonds in my engagement ring. We were out running errands all day, but I'm pretty positive it popped out somewhere in Costco. We were loading up the car, when I looked down and kind of screamed. It was kind of fruitless to go back and look for it. Costco on a the weekend before a major holiday involving food is worse than the I-15 on a Friday afternoon. Carts and shoppers extreme.

So, trying really hard not to cry, I asked if we could go to a jeweler. We headed over to the Galleria Mall, where we went to the place that has originally tightened it. My jaw dropped when they told me what the damages were going to be. Just under a thousand. I asked what would happen if we stuck a CZ in there, at least until after the holidays. Since a good portion of the price was the labor, Judd decided it wasn't worth it, so we coughed up a deposit.

I'm so mad at myself. I know it's just a ring, but I feel like this wouldn't have happened if I had taken better care of it. I haven't had it serviced in three years. Cleaned, but not taken care of. I have noticed the diamonds rattle sometimes, and the thought did cross my mind to get it looked at. I'm disappointed I let this happen to my husband's gift he spent so much on. He's been so sweet, which I appreciate.

I'm also kicking myself for not getting insurance on the ring. We looked into it when we first got married and setting up car and rental insurance. It was going to be an extra $30 a year. At the time, we were cash-strapped broke college students, so it seemed like a bill we could avoid. Now I'm thinking, 30 bucks? That's like the cost of eating out at Claim Jumpers. Ugh. That's changing Monday!

So I just learned a very expensive lesson in taking care of things of value. I know it's just a "thing" and I could have had something more serious break like my car, but this was a special gift Judd saved up for a long time to get for me. I need to treat it better. I'm going to be the best ring owner after this, trust me!

Success

I've dropped the "associate" from my title. Now I'm a Producer. Of my own news show.

Granted, it's the 4:30 a.m. Not the audience or ratings that the 10 p.m. gets... but people actually get up and watch my show. I get some airtime myself whenever I run the "Question of the Day" segment where I share what viewers are thinking on air. I'm given four and a half hours to come up with the best show possible. Then I have to sit in the booth, direct the anchors, and pray it all goes well.

It's the most overwhelming job I've ever had. It's the busiest I've ever been, and maybe the most stressed out. There's days I want to throw my computer against the wall, and sometimes I swear like a sailor when a technical glitch happens on-air. Usually not out loud though.

But I love it. This is what I've fought for years for, and what I think I'm meant to do, at least for the time being.

I talked to one of my oldest friends this morning that's known me since freshman year of high school. She told me that I'm the most successful out of our group of mutual friends. I quickly told her in no way was that true. Everyone has been successful in their own way. Others have gone on to great jobs, bought houses, graduated, and so on. She's about to be a mom. I think that is a huge accomplishment and something far better than what I'm doing.

But I was thinking about it, and I feel like everything has kind of come full circle. I used to look at my group of friends from high school and get so insanely jealous... because each and everyone of them had been cast in a show except for me. For the longest time, I considered it my biggest failure that I was part of the ten percent of students to get into LVA, and couldn't get myself cast to save my life.

But now I realize I just hadn't realized what my niche was. I thought I was meant to be an actress. I was really good at tech work, and I could write really well. I liked these things, but kind of ignored them as talents, because I was so focused on why I wasn't getting cast. But I look back now, and realize that the tech and writing experience I gained there was a big stepping stone to where I am now. I gained invaluable knowledge that I still use every day, both in high school and in college.

I'm not sure where I was going with this, other than getting some jumbled thoughts out, but I guess if anything, I would say to take a look at some things you know you can do, but just take for granted. Is there a talent hiding that you can turn into something awesome? Sometimes I think I'm way to busy to try and learn something new. But thinking about this makes me want to do a self-examination and see if I'm ignoring anything else.

Thoughts on Current Events:

Investigators are re-opening the death investigation of Hollywood starlet Natalie Wood. My anchors saved the "What kind of wood doesn't float" joke for commercial break, thank goodness. Because it was the first thought I had when I got this story. In all seriousness though, even if the case is 30 years old, justice is justice. If that woman was murdered, the truth should get out there.

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are no more. Not a huge surprise. I hoped these two would beat the odds and prove cougars have some game... but I guess not.

21 Occupy Las Vegas protesters were arrested yesterday as they SAT on Las Vegas Boulevard, blocking traffic. One protester we talked to said getting arrested was "fun and exciting", and that they went out there knowing it would happen. Another said he hopes people will now take them seriously. OK, so I could maybe agree partially with their message... but I thought these people were mostly upset because they were out of work. So wouldn't trying to get arrested defeat trying to get a job? I don't know. Too many mixed messages.

UNLV Basketball continues to dominate and give the school something to be proud of. UNLV GO FIGHT WIN!!!!!!

And I'm hosting my first ever major family dinner for a lot of people. I think it's like 14 or something. It's the pre-Thanksgiving Italian Shenanigans Wednesday night. I'm having all these extended family members show up at my house, where I'm supposed to have this fantastic Italian meal prepared. Somewhere in me, a domestic goddess will hopefully make an appearance and I will pull this off. Because that's a lot of food. And a lot of work. Thanks Mom for volunteering me for this. But you're handling actual Thanksgiving, so I can't complain too much!

Arizona Animal Adventures

Ok, so I know it's ridiculously lame to post the second half of vacation pictures like a month after the first. But these were all on Judd's phone, and I just now got them off. Plus... they're animals!! Who doesn't love animals?

We were warned there were skunks in our campground. But we were also told they were friendly, they were just super curious. We didn't see any the first few nights. But Monday night... they were out in full force. A whole bunch of them.

I learned something about my husband I didn't know before. He is absolutely crazy about skunks! I mean, he's fascinated to the point where he wants to get one as a pet. (they're not legal anywhere we want to live though, so probably not happening!). So Judd spent the night following these skunks around, trying to get a great picture. He got a little too close and snapped this awesome image before remembering these things can spray!

Lucky for him, nothing happened. He says we could get one and disguise it as a kitty. Hmmm...

We also checked out the "Out of Africa" zoo/safari while we were in Sedona. It's this cool park in the middle of nowhere. Most of the animals were sleeping, but this one giraffe was starved for attention, so it followed us around as we walked around its enclosure.

The coolest part of this zoo is its Safari tour. They have a bunch of wild animals all living in this huge enclosure. You get in this bus, and a guide takes you through it. He throws out food so the animals will come up close. I loved the antelope with the crazy horns above, and of course, the zebras. But this below was the best part of the day...

You're allowed to feed the giraffes carrot sticks. So the guide dared someone to put it in their mouth, and feed it to the giraffe that way. Guess who volunteered! It wasn't that gross... plus now that giraffes have quickly climbed up my list of favorite animals, I thought it was awesome!

Thoughts on Current Events:

Penn State Scandal... this has dominated my newscasts for the past few weeks. It gets worse and worse every day. Did you check out that Bob Costos interview with Jerry Sandusky? It's seriously one of the creepiest things I've ever heard.

While we're on possible sexual abuse... Herman Cain. I personally think some ladies wanted a fat paycheck, air time, and a book deal. Why would you wait a decade after the fact to go after someone who did something so rotten to you? Oh yeah... because everyone knows his name now!

Speaking of women who may or may not make up stories for attention... Mariah Yeater is kind of a nutcase. Justin Bieber is not her baby daddy. I'm not even going to try and give her any credibility on this one. Some texts of hers got out today where she was telling her friends to delete anything saying who the real baby daddy was. If I'm wrong... that will be absolutely crazy.

Also in entertainment news... Kim Kardashian's divorce... oh, wait, I stopped caring about that, never mind.

But something I do care about... Occupy Protesters. Not because I am mad because I'm in the 99 percent (and really, is that even accurate)... but I'm concerned about the day I'm going to have to write about the big shootout that could occur if this keeps going on. These guys may have started out with a decent message (if you can figure out what it is)... but sleeping in tents and causing health and sanitation issues isn't solving the problem. I'm fine with peaceful marches and protests. But defacing buildings and news vans (including ours at FOX5) isn't cool. Police riots aren't cool either.